Podcasts about wittgenstein

Neues Special! Jens und Christian sprechen über Umberto Ecos Text “Der ewige Faschismus” von 1995, in dem er 14 Merkmale des Faschismus aufzählt, die auch heute noch sehr erhellend sind, wenn man sich anschaut, was gerade so in der Welt passiert. Und was das alles mit Wittgenstein zu tun hat, klären wir auch in der Folge. Die komplette Folge könnt ihr hören, wenn ihr uns auf Steady unterstützt: https://steadyhq.com/geister

This sponsored episode features mathematician Ohad Asor discussing logical approaches to AI, focusing on the limitations of machine learning and introducing the Tau language for software development and blockchain tech. Asor argues that machine learning cannot guarantee correctness. Tau allows logical specification of software requirements, automatically creating provably correct implementations with potential to revolutionize distributed systems. The discussion highlights program synthesis, software updates, and applications in finance and governance.SPONSOR MESSAGES:***Tufa AI Labs is a brand new research lab in Zurich started by Benjamin Crouzier focussed on o-series style reasoning and AGI. They are hiring a Chief Engineer and ML engineers. Events in Zurich. Goto https://tufalabs.ai/***TRANSCRIPT + RESEARCH:https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/t849j6v1juk3gc15g4rsy/TAU.pdf?rlkey=hh11h2mhog3ncdbeapbzpzctc&dl=0Tau:https://tau.net/Tau Language:https://tau.ai/tau-language/Research:https://tau.net/Theories-and-Applications-of-Boolean-Algebras-0.29.pdfTOC:1. Machine Learning Foundations and Limitations [00:00:00] 1.1 Fundamental Limitations of Machine Learning and PAC Learning Theory [00:04:50] 1.2 Transductive Learning and the Three Curses of Machine Learning [00:08:57] 1.3 Language, Reality, and AI System Design [00:12:58] 1.4 Program Synthesis and Formal Verification Approaches2. Logical Programming Architecture [00:31:55] 2.1 Safe AI Development Requirements [00:32:05] 2.2 Self-Referential Language Architecture [00:32:50] 2.3 Boolean Algebra and Logical Foundations [00:37:52] 2.4 SAT Solvers and Complexity Challenges [00:44:30] 2.5 Program Synthesis and Specification [00:47:39] 2.6 Overcoming Tarski's Undefinability with Boolean Algebra [00:56:05] 2.7 Tau Language Implementation and User Control3. Blockchain-Based Software Governance [01:09:10] 3.1 User Control and Software Governance Mechanisms [01:18:27] 3.2 Tau's Blockchain Architecture and Meta-Programming Capabilities [01:21:43] 3.3 Development Status and Token Implementation [01:24:52] 3.4 Consensus Building and Opinion Mapping System [01:35:29] 3.5 Automation and Financial ApplicationsCORE REFS (more in pinned comment):[00:03:45] PAC (Probably Approximately Correct) Learning framework, Leslie Valianthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probably_approximately_correct_learning[00:06:10] Boolean Satisfiability Problem (SAT), Varioushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem[00:13:55] Knowledge as Justified True Belief (JTB), Matthias Steuphttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/[00:17:50] Wittgenstein's concept of the limits of language, Ludwig Wittgensteinhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/[00:21:25] Boolean algebras, Ohad Osorhttps://tau.net/tau-language-research/[00:26:10] The Halting Problemhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/#HaltProb[00:30:25] Alfred Tarski (1901-1983), Mario Gómez-Torrentehttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tarski/[00:41:50] DPLLhttps://www.cs.princeton.edu/~zkincaid/courses/fall18/readings/SATHandbook-CDCL.pdf[00:49:50] Tarski's undefinability theorem (1936), Alfred Tarskihttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tarski-truth/[00:51:45] Boolean Algebra mathematical foundations, J. Donald Monkhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boolalg-math/[01:02:35] Belief Revision Theory and AGM Postulates, Sven Ove Hanssonhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-belief-revision/[01:05:35] Quantifier elimination in atomless boolean algebra, H. Jerome Keislerhttps://people.math.wisc.edu/~hkeisler/random.pdf[01:08:35] Quantifier elimination in Tau language specification, Ohad Asorhttps://tau.ai/Theories-and-Applications-of-Boolean-Algebras-0.29.pdf[01:11:50] Tau Net blockchain platformhttps://tau.net/[01:19:20] Tau blockchain's innovative approach treating blockchain code itself as a contracthttps://tau.net/Whitepaper.pdf

On episode 233, we welcome Constantine Sandis to discuss the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, his lifelong preoccupation with the question of understanding others, the social and clinical consequences of misunderstanding others, Wittgenstein's personal struggles with misunderstanding, criticisms of empathy and how it may lead to further conflict as opposed to resolving it, the problem of mind-reading, understanding culture as opposed to another's inner drives, and the significance of self-reflection. Constantine Sandis is Director of Lex Academic, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His books include The Things We Do and Why We Do Them, Philosophy of Action: An Anthology, and Human Nature, and From Action to Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Reasons and Responsibility. His newest book, available March 11, 2025, is called Wittgenstein on Other Minds: Strangers in a Strange Land. | Constantine Sandis | ► Website | https://www.constantinesandis.com ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/csandis ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/csandis ► Bluesky |  https://bsky.app/profile/csandis.bsky.social ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/csandis ► Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/constantine-sandis-723454a4 ► Wittgenstein on Other Minds Book | https://bit.ly/3Ff6458 Wittgenstein on Other Minds Discount Code for 35% Off: SEWPC35 Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast  ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast  

In this episode, Megan and Frank discuss the philosophical dimensions of prehistory. What and when is the “prehistoric”? How was prehistory "discovered", and what explains our fascination with it? Is ancient archeology safe from our biases? And how did archaic man's meaning-making differ from our own? Thinkers discussed include: Colin Renfrew, Hegel, Charles Taylor, Mircea Eliade, and Wittgenstein.-----------------------Hosts' Websites:Megan J Fritts (google.com)Frank J. Cabrera (google.com)Email: philosophyonthefringes@gmail.com-----------------------Bibliography:Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind - Colin RenfrewHegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of HistoryCave of Forgotten Dreams - Official Trailer | HD | IFC FilmsBewitched by an Elf Dart: Fairy Archaeology, Folk Magic and Traditional Medicine in Ireland - DowdA Secular Age — Harvard University PressTheory and Observation in Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)From things to thinking: Cognitive archaeology - Currie & KillinCognitive Archaeology and the Minimum Necessary Competence Problem - Killin & Pain An Ape's View of the Oldowan - Wynn & McGrewNeuroscience, evolution and the sapient paradox - Colin RenfrewSapient paradox: Why humans got stuck in prehistory -Gossip Trap- Big ThinkThe Myth of the Eternal Return | Princeton University PressEliade_Mircea_The_Sacred_and_The_profane_1963Wittgenstein - Notebooks, 1914 - 1916, 2nd Edition | Wiley-----------------------Cover Artwork by Logan Fritts-------------------------Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/simon-folwar/neon-signsLicense code: AAO0Q7IZMGVTLFJH

Mys utlovas om: Wittgenstein, Hilbert, New Jersey och mirakel!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

******Support the channel****** Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao   ******Follow me on****** Website: https://www.thedissenter.net/ The Dissenter Goodreads list: https://shorturl.at/7BMoB Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT   This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/   Dr. Christopher Hoyt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Western Carolina University. His research interests include Wittgenstein, and the philosophy of film.   In this episode, we talk about Wittgenstein, philosophy of mind, and religion. We start by discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy, how it relates to philosophy of mind, and how he approached religion. We talk about rituals and meaning, language games and belief systems, and religious dogma. Finally, we discuss the cognitive science of religion; evolutionary theory, and religion as an adaptation; naturalizing religion; and whether there would be room for collaboration between the Wittgensteinians and the cognitive scientists of religion. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, BERNARDO SEIXAS, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, PAUL-GEORGE ARNAUD, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ALEX CHAU, AMAURI MARTÍNEZ, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, IGOR N, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, BARNABAS RADICS, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, GEORGE CHORIATIS, VALENTIN STEINMANN, PER KRAULIS, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, BR, MASOUD ALIMOHAMMADI, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, LUCY, MANVIR SINGH, PETRA WEIMANN, CAROLA FEEST, STARRY, MAURO JÚNIOR, 航 豊川, TONY BARRETT, BENJAMIN GELBART, NIKOLAI VISHNEVSKY, STEVEN GANGESTAD, AND TED FARRIS! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, AL NICK ORTIZ, NICK GOLDEN, AND CHRISTINE GLASS! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, BOGDAN KANIVETS, ROSEY, AND GREGORY HASTINGS!

As whores for criticism, we wanted to have Kasra on to discuss his essay The Deutschian Deadend (https://www.bitsofwonder.co/p/the-deutschian-deadend). Kasra claims that Popper and Deutsch are fundamentally wrong in some important ways, and that many of their ideas will forever remain in the "footnotes of the history of philosophy". Does he change our mind or do we change his? Follow Kasra on twitter (https://x.com/kasratweets) and subscribe to his blog, Bits of Wonder (https://www.bitsofwonder.co/p/the-deutschian-deadend). We discuss Has Popper had of a cultural impact? The differences between Popper, Deutsch, and Deutsch's bulldogs. Is observation really theory laden? The hierarchy of reliability: do different disciplines have different methods of criticism? The ladder of abstractions The difference between Popper and Deutsch on truth and abstraction The Deutschian community's reaction to the essay References Bruce Neilson's podcast on verification and falsification: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/episode-61-a-critical-rationalist-defense/id1503194218?i=1000621362624 Popper on certainty: Chapter 22. Analytical Remarks on Certainty in Objective Knowledge Quotes By the nature of Deutsch and Popper's ideas being abstract, this essay will also necessarily be abstract. To combat this, let me ground the whole essay in a concrete empirical bet: Popper's ideas about epistemology, and David Deutsch's extensions of them, will forever remain in the footnotes of the history of philosophy. Popper's falsificationism, which was the main idea that he's widely known for today, will continue to remain the only thing that he's widely known for. The frustrating fact that Wittgenstein is widely regarded as a more influential philosopher than Popper will continue to remain true. Critical rationalism will never be widely recognized as the “one correct epistemology,” as the actual explanation (or even the precursor to an explanation) of knowledge, progress, and creativity. Instead it will be viewed, like many philosophical schools before it, as a useful and ambitious project that ultimately failed. In other words, critical rationalism is a kind of philosophical deadend: the Deutschian deadend. - Kasra in the Deutschian Deadend There are many things you can directly observe, and which are “manifestly true” to you: what you're wearing at the moment, which room of your house you're in, whether the sun has set yet, whether you are running out of breath, whether your parents are alive, whether you feel a piercing pain in your back, whether you feel warmth in your palms—and so on and so forth. These are not perfectly certain absolute truths about reality, and there's always more to know about them—but it is silly to claim that we have absolutely no claim on their truth either. I also think there are even such “obvious truths” in the realm of science—like the claim that the earth is not flat, that your body is made of cells, and that everyday objects follow predictable laws of motion. - Kasra in the Deutschian Deadend Deutsch writes: Some philosophical arguments, including the argument against solipsism, are far more compelling than any scientific argument. Indeed, every scientific argument assumes the falsity not only of solipsism, but also of other philosophical theories including any number of variants of solipsism that might contradict specific parts of the scientific argument. There are two different mistakes happening here. First, what Deutsch is doing is assuming a strict logical dependency between any one piece of our knowledge and every other piece of it. He says that our knowledge of science (say, of astrophysics) implicitly relies on other philosophical arguments about solipsism, epistemology, and metaphysics. But anyone who has thought about the difference between philosophy and science recognizes that in practice they can be studied and argued about independently. We can make progress on our understanding of celestial mechanics without making any crucial assumption about metaphysics. We can make progress studying neurons without solving the hard problem of consciousness or the question of free will. - Kasra in the Deutschian Deadend, quoting Deutsch on Solipsism At that time I learnt from Popper that it was not scientifically disgraceful to have one's hypothesis falsified. That was the best news I had had for a long time. I was persuaded by Popper, in fact, to formulate my electrical hypotheses of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission so precisely and rigorously that they invited falsification - and, in fact, that is what happened to them a few years later, very largely by my colleagues and myself, when in 1951 we started to do intra- cellular recording from motoneurones. Thanks to my tutelage by Popper, I was able to accept joyfully this death of the brain-child which I had nurtured for nearly two decades and was immediately able to contribute as much as I could to the chemical transmission story which was the Dale and Loewi brain-child. - John C. Eccles on Popper, All Life is Problem Solving, p.12 In order to state the problem more clearly, I should like to reformulate it as follows. We may distinguish here between three types of theory. First, logical and mathematical theories. Second, empirical and scientific theories. Third, philosophical or metaphysical theories. -Popper on the "hierarchy of reliability", C&R p.266 Socials Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link Become a patreon subscriber here (https://www.patreon.com/Increments). Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations here (https://ko-fi.com/increments). Click dem like buttons on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ) Are you a solipsist? If so, send yourself an email over to incrementspodcast@gmail.com. Special Guest: Kasra.

Roedig, Andrea www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Sein und Streit

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." Knowing the context of his work, my view of the infamous quote attributed to John Wanamaker is that advertising measurement is fundamentally and necessarily uncertain, even in success. This surfaces another, in my view, invalid interpretation of the quote: that advertising is only effective when it can be measured perfectly, absolutely, and with total precision. To my mind, this has been the prevailing view within digital advertising sector: that advertising measurement is inherently defined by total, deterministic precision. This is the measurement myth. In this podcast, I'll unpack the measurement myth and why I believe the digital advertising ecosystem is abandoning it in favor of more holistic, statistically sophisticated, and scalable approaches to advertising attribution and measurement. I'll discuss some of the methodologies at the frontier of advertising attribution that are alleviating the need for deterministic identity in advertising measurement and how their use allows advertisers to materially expand the reach of their messaging, and what the implications of that are for the digital economy. Resources referenced / cited in this podcast: CapitalOne Mobile e-Commerce Statistics Sensor Tower 5 Year Market Forecast IAB 2025 Outlook Study Meta's Renaissance Everything is an ad network Netflix and Disney+ advertising, two years in Flying blind Last-click attribution, deterministic measurement, and Wittgenstein's ruler A Comprehensive Guide to Bayesian Marketing Mix Modeling Podcast: Understanding Interoperable Private Attribution (with Ben Savage) What is Federated Learning in digital advertising? Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast: Vibe. Vibe is the leading Streaming TV ad platform for small and medium-sized businesses looking for actionable advertising campaign performance. INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on. Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠. The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts

Haben Sie schon mal erlebt, wie die Augen eines Kindes erlöschen, wenn es auf dem Gipfel seiner phantastischen Lebenspläne gesagt bekommt: „Das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert“? Zum Erbarmen. „Bedeutungen entstehen aus der Kraft des Wünschens“, schrieb der Literaturwissenschaftler Axel Hecker. Er meint – mit Wittgenstein - wenn wir unsere Wünsche in Worte fassen, verdinglichen wir unser Phantasieprodukt. Und damit gestalten wir unser Leben. Ende letzten Jahres baten wir deshalb unsere Hörer, uns ihre persönlichen Wünsche für's neue Jahr zu schildern. Wenn schon Rede- und Meinungsfreiheit in Frage stehen, kümmern wir uns hier um die Freiheit, zu wollen und zu wünschen was man eben will. Denn das, so Hecker, stellt eine besondere Fähigkeit des Lebendigen dar, das über Sprache verfügt: nämlich, Zitat: „die Fähigkeit, anstelle von Dingen auch Wörter und Sätze mit Wünschen zu belegen – insbesondere Sätze darüber, wie man selber sein will“. Also fragten wir außerdem, was unsere Hörer der Welt gedenken, in diesem Jahr zu schenken. Dazwischen, um eine Schnaufpause im noch Fiktionalen zu gewähren, baten wir sie, in ihren Empfindungen für die Geschehnisse des letzten Jahres zu kramen und uns mitzuteilen, was sie am meisten erstaunte. Ein paar unter Ihnen getrauten sich, ein Audio-File zu schicken, andere schrieben Mails oder Kommentare unter unseren Beiträgen. Die haben unsere Sprecher zum Anhören erweckt. Sabrina Khalil, Ulrich Allroggen, Karsten Troyke

Laura Ruis, a PhD student at University College London and researcher at Cohere, explains her groundbreaking research into how large language models (LLMs) perform reasoning tasks, the fundamental mechanisms underlying LLM reasoning capabilities, and whether these models primarily rely on retrieval or develop procedural knowledge. SPONSOR MESSAGES: *** CentML offers competitive pricing for GenAI model deployment, with flexible options to suit a wide range of models, from small to large-scale deployments. https://centml.ai/pricing/ Tufa AI Labs is a brand new research lab in Zurich started by Benjamin Crouzier focussed on o-series style reasoning and AGI. Are you interested in working on reasoning, or getting involved in their events? Goto https://tufalabs.ai/ *** TOC 1. LLM Foundations and Learning 1.1 Scale and Learning in Language Models [00:00:00] 1.2 Procedural Knowledge vs Fact Retrieval [00:03:40] 1.3 Influence Functions and Model Analysis [00:07:40] 1.4 Role of Code in LLM Reasoning [00:11:10] 1.5 Semantic Understanding and Physical Grounding [00:19:30] 2. Reasoning Architectures and Measurement 2.1 Measuring Understanding and Reasoning in Language Models [00:23:10] 2.2 Formal vs Approximate Reasoning and Model Creativity [00:26:40] 2.3 Symbolic vs Subsymbolic Computation Debate [00:34:10] 2.4 Neural Network Architectures and Tensor Product Representations [00:40:50] 3. AI Agency and Risk Assessment 3.1 Agency and Goal-Directed Behavior in Language Models [00:45:10] 3.2 Defining and Measuring Agency in AI Systems [00:49:50] 3.3 Core Knowledge Systems and Agency Detection [00:54:40] 3.4 Language Models as Agent Models and Simulator Theory [01:03:20] 3.5 AI Safety and Societal Control Mechanisms [01:07:10] 3.6 Evolution of AI Capabilities and Emergent Risks [01:14:20] REFS: [00:01:10] Procedural Knowledge in Pretraining & LLM Reasoning Ruis et al., 2024 https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.12580 [00:03:50] EK-FAC Influence Functions in Large LMs Grosse et al., 2023 https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03296 [00:13:05] Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Core of Cognition Hofstadter & Sander https://www.amazon.com/Surfaces-Essences-Analogy-Fuel-Thinking/dp/0465018475 [00:13:45] Wittgenstein on Language Games https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ [00:14:30] Montague Semantics for Natural Language https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montague-semantics/ [00:19:35] The Chinese Room Argument David Cole https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/ [00:19:55] ARC: Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus François Chollet https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.01547 [00:24:20] Systematic Generalization in Neural Nets Lake & Baroni, 2023 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06668-3 [00:27:40] Open-Endedness & Creativity in AI Tim Rocktäschel https://arxiv.org/html/2406.04268v1 [00:30:50] Fodor & Pylyshyn on Connectionism https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0010027788900315 [00:31:30] Tensor Product Representations Smolensky, 1990 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000437029090007M [00:35:50] DreamCoder: Wake-Sleep Program Synthesis Kevin Ellis et al. https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse599j1/22sp/papers/dreamcoder.pdf [00:36:30] Compositional Generalization Benchmarks Ruis, Lake et al., 2022 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.10745 [00:40:30] RNNs & Tensor Products McCoy et al., 2018 https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.08718 [00:46:10] Formal Causal Definition of Agency Kenton et al. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.08345v2 [00:48:40] Agency in Language Models Sumers et al. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.02427 [00:55:20] Heider & Simmel's Moving Shapes Experiment https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-65532-0 [01:00:40] Language Models as Agent Models Jacob Andreas, 2022 https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.01681 [01:13:35] Pragmatic Understanding in LLMs Ruis et al. https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.14986

His earlier episodes on this show have been huge hits, and as he completes a trilogy of books, he returns to complete a trilogy of episodes. Amitava Kumar joins Amit Varma in episode 408 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about writing, noticing, painting, travelling, trees, and unfulfilled train journeys. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out 1. Amitava Kumar on Instagram, Substack, Twitter, Amazon, Vassar, Granta and his own website. 2. The Green Book: An Observer's Notebook -- Amitava Kumar. 3. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen. 4. Amitava Kumar Finds His Kashmiri Rain -- Episode 364 of The Seen and the Unseen. 5. The Blue Book: A Writer's Journal — Amitava Kumar. 6. The Yellow Book: A Traveller's Diary — Amitava Kumar. 7. My Beloved Life: A Novel -- Amitava Kumar. 8. A Million Mutinies Now -- VS Naipaul. 9. The Trees — Philip Larkin. 10. Before the Storm -- Amitava Kumar. 11. Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages — Peggy Mohan. 12. Understanding India Through Its Languages — Episode 232 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Peggy Mohan). 13. A Suitable Boy -- Vikram Seth. 14. Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen. 15. ‘Indian languages carry the legacy of caste' — Chandra Bhan Prasad interviewed by Sheela Bhatt. 16. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen. 17. Stage.in. 18. Laapataa Ladies -- Kiran Rao. 19. Kanthapura -- Raja Rao. 20. All About H Hatterr -- GV Desani. 21. From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada -- Sudha Bharadwaj. 22. India is Broken -- Ashoka Mody. 23. Being Mortal -- Atul Gawande. 24. Earwitness to Place -- Bernie Krause interviewed by Erin Robinsong. 25. All That Breathes -- Shaunak Sen. 26. Frog: 1 Poetry: 0 -- Amitava Kumar. 27. The Heat Will Kill You First -- Jeff Goodell. 28. Danish Husain and the Multiverse of Culture — Episode 359 of The Seen and the Unseen. 29. The Artist's Way -- Julia Cameron. 30. An excerpt from Wittgenstein's diary — Parul Sehgal on Twitter. 31. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus — Ludwig Wittgenstein. 32. Burdock -- Janet Malcolm. 33. Hermit in Paris — Italo Calvino. 34. Objects From Our Past -- Episode 77 of Everything is Everything. 35. The Wisden Book of Test Cricket (1877-1977) — Compiled & edited by Bill Frindall. 36. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 37. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 38. The Ferment of Our Founders — Episode 272 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Kapila). 39. Private Truths, Public Lies — Timur Kuran. 40. The Incredible Insights of Timur Kuran — Episode 349 of The Seen and the Unseen. 41. Bhavni Bhavai -- Ketan Mehta. 42. All We Imagine as Light -- Payal Kapadia. 43. Secondhand Time -- Svetlana Alexievich. 44. Amitava Kumar's post with Danish Husain's postcard. 45. Fire Weather -- John Vaillant. 46. Ill Nature -- Joy Williams. 47. Hawk -- Joy Williams. This episode is sponsored by Rang De, a platform that enables individuals to invest in farmers, rural entrepreneurs and artisans. Amit Varma and Ajay Shah have launched a new course called Life Lessons, which aims to be a launchpad towards learning essential life skills all of you need. For more details, and to sign up, click here. Amit and Ajay also bring out a weekly YouTube show, Everything is Everything. Have you watched it yet? You must! And have you read Amit's newsletter? Subscribe right away to The India Uncut Newsletter! It's free! Also check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. Episode art: ‘Gulmohar' by Simahina.

Wittgenstein, Stefanie www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Fazit

durée : 00:59:04 - Avec philosophie - par : Géraldine Mosna-Savoye, Antoine Ravon - En 1970, Iris Murdoch publie "La souveraineté du Bien", ouvrage marqué par ses lectures de Platon, de Wittgenstein ou encore de Simone Weil. Comment la conception du Bien d'Iris Murdoch nous donne-t-elle les clés afin de nous rendre (moralement) meilleurs ? - réalisation : Nicolas Berger - invités : Emmanuel Halais

durée : 00:59:44 - Avec philosophie - par : Géraldine Mosna-Savoye, Antoine Ravon - L'itinéraire philosophique d'Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) est marqué par les enseignements de Wittgenstein sur le langage, ainsi que par l'existentialisme sartrien. Comment découvrir la vérité si le langage peut mentir ? Peut-on percer le mystère de la vie humaine, en dépit de son opacité ? - réalisation : Nicolas Berger - invités : Frédéric Worms Philosophe

Tähenduse teejuhtide juubelisaate liikumalükkav teema oli paus muusikas, filmis ja elus üldse. Pealkirjas osundatud aineseni jõudsime jutuajamise lõpupoole. "Vaikus on mitmete religioonide lähtekoht," arutles filmikriitik Karlo Funk (99. minut), "et jõuda sügavama kogemuseni – ükskõik, kuidas me seda siis ka ei nimetaks. See on koht, kuhu loomingulised inimesed tahavad kasvõi korraks tagasi jõuda. Vaikusele saab vastandada väga mitmesuguseid helimaailmu. Wittgenstein pidas vaikuse vastandiks näiteks masinamüra [1]. See oli see, mille eest ta tahtis igal juhul minema pääseda. Samuti on kõik mägierakud ja pühakud tõmbunud ühel hetkel eemale, et jõuda millegi muuni.""Eelmine kord [2] me rääkisime ka põgusalt Pythagorasest ja ülemhelidest ning muusikalise heli ja müra erinevusest. " sekundeeris Karlole helilooja Ardo Ran Varres, "Müras on puhtfüüsikaliselt esindatud erinevad sagedusalad ja -ribad. Muusikalises helis on seevastu väga selge korrapära. Pythagoras näitas, et seal valitsevad ilusad sümmeetriad ja suhtarvud. See arusaam moodustabki lääne kunstmuusika vundamendi. Mina olen sealt omakorda tuletanud sellise tunnetuse, et kui ei mingis filmis – olgu see näiteks tunnine dokfilm – ei mängita mitte ühtegi muusikalist heli, siis selles filmis puudub igasugune vertikaalne mõõde."Viimasel pooltunnil palusin ma oma vestluskaaslatel soovitada jõuluajaks filme, kus vertikaalne mõõde on silmapaistvalt esindatud. Kirja said sellised linateosed: Andrei Tarkovski "Andrei Rubljov" [3], Pier Paolo Pasolini "Matteuse evangeelium" [4], Wim Wendersi "Taevas Berliini kohal", Bruno Dumonti "Jeanne d'Arc", Asghar Farhadi "Lahutus", Jessica Hausneri "Lourdes", Paweł Pawlikowski "Ida" jt.Head uudistamist!H.——————————————[1] • Paul Kingsnorth, "Huxley and the Mach... [2] https://www.youtube.com/live/54JhoAfl...[3] • Andrei Rublev | DRAMA | FULL MOVIE | ... [4] • The Gospel According to St Matthew (1... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anand Vaidya is Professor of Business Ethics and the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence at San Jose State University, and Visiting Professor of Indian Philosophy of Mind and Knowledge at University of California, Los Angeles. He graduated from UCLA in 1998. He studied logic, language, metaphysics, Kant and Wittgenstein. He then went on to UCSB to study epistemology and philosophy of mind, writing a dissertation on knowledge of possibility and necessity via two-dimensional modal logic. Since his graduation he has expanded his research out to the cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary study of mind and epistemology. He now does work in Indian philosophy as well as the philosophy of artificial intelligence and teaches courses in business ethics and critical thinking. Lecture Title: "Vedanta and the Hard Problem of Consciousness" Special thanks to Anand for allowing me to share this lecture with the MBS audience. EPISODE LINKS: - Anand's Website: https://anandvaidya.weebly.com/ - Anand's Work: https://tinyurl.com/bdzm87x9 - Anand's Publications: https://tinyurl.com/3e3h7uum - Anand's Round 1: https://youtu.be/dpMoGXCJxUY CONNECT: - Website: https://tevinnaidu.com - Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/drtevinnaidu - Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtevinnaidu - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu ============================= Disclaimer: The information provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. The content is shared in the spirit of open discourse and does not constitute, nor does it substitute, professional or medical advice. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of listening/watching any of our contents. You acknowledge that you use the information provided at your own risk. Listeners/viewers are advised to conduct their own research and consult with their own experts in the respective fields.

There are records today for pre-Cymru Connection heads in hands as Britain's clumsiest Welsh language comic gets all sorts of muck over himself. Amidst such mess there's only one thing that can carry Elis James through: A songwriting talent to rival Lennon & McCartney at their peak.This brings the return of the classic 'Dorking, Leatherhead, Ryegate' - one for the purists. And speaking of stuff for the purists - and defenders of terrestrial radio's most divisive feature - DI Robbyns also makes a surprise appearance for one courtroom session only in a game which slightly baffles its participants.Want to get in touch with the show with everything from ditties to deep introspective reflections to rival de Beauvoir and Wittgenstein? Well elisandjohn@bbc.co.uk or 07974 293 022 on WhatsApp are the relevant destinations.

In this episode we discuss the absurdity of the taboo against cultural appropriation. Introducing specific examples like which Halloween costumes to wear, or which recipes you can and cannot cook, the Tossers argue that culture is itself appropriation, and thus the taboo attempts to inhibit something that can never be inhibited.To emphasize this universal necessity of cultural appropriation, we introduce theories of language.Jack introduces Wittgenstein's theory of language games and the impossibility of a private language.Jake introduces Derrida's theory of language in Monolingualism of the Other and the Prosthesis of Origin.Sagi makes sure that we do not simply define the ubiquity of cultural appropriation but study exactly why there is an attempt at re-appropriation that then bans certain people (always the original colonizer) from taking back again. By now, we hope you know what would Sagi do.We read some gorgeous passages by Jacques Derrida, and discuss why the N-word and blackness are limit cases, especially in America, for thinking about cultural appropriation.

Wittgenstein famously wrote about games in a book called Philosophical Investigations, one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. To contextualize his thoughts, Part 1 of this series provides an introduction to Wittgenstein's life and philosophy. Part two will discuss the most famous passages from the Philosophical Investigations where he discusses games. These passages form part of a much wider critique of the philosophy of language and meaning. A future third episode will examine subsequent philosophical criticism of Wittgenstein's remarks on games from the point of view of games and sport.Watch the video version on YouTube here.CreditsWritten and presented by James CartlidgeProduced by Greta RauleacOriginal Music by James CartlidgeBreaking the Game is a YouTube channel and podcast series about philosophy and video game studies. It aims to facilitate discussions about games, the games industry and philosophy with wider audiences. It mainly (though not exclusively) focusses on the indie games sphere, and current and future philosophical topics include phenomenology, existentialism, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind/consciousness, cognitive science, psychoanalysis and psychology. It is based on the postdoctoral research of James Cartlidge.Check out and subscribe to Breaking the Game here.

This episode continues our exploration of Wittgenstein's philosophy, moving on to his famous remarks on games in his Philosophical Investigations, which have become one of the most famous pieces of philosophical writing in video game studies.  Watch the video version on YouTube here.CreditsWritten and presented by James CartlidgeProduced by Greta RauleacOriginal Music by James CartlidgeBreaking the Game is a YouTube channel and podcast series about philosophy and video game studies. It aims to facilitate discussions about games, the games industry and philosophy with wider audiences. It mainly (though not exclusively) focusses on the indie games sphere, and current and future philosophical topics include phenomenology, existentialism, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind/consciousness, cognitive science, psychoanalysis and psychology. It is based on the postdoctoral research of James Cartlidge.Check out and subscribe to Breaking the Game here.

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever seems to.Joining Tim this time for a suitably spooky chat is writer Steve Berry, who's hoping to dazzle the crowds at the village hall Halloween Disco with his knowledge of Words And Pictures' Witches Of Halloween, Smiths Horror Bags and Vincent Price's ill-fittingly horror-themed adverts for MB Games. Along the way we'll be questioning Richard Herring's historical sources for the story of St. Ian, asking Wittgenstein if he'd like a Dracula's Deadly Secret, pitching a combined biography of Henry Woolf, Wolfe Morris and Gabriel Woolf, estimating how many copies of MB Games' Voice Of The Mummy were piled up at Neverland Ranch and trying to work out exactly where a 'VHS Fonz' fits in to the Classic Horror tradition.You can find more editions of Looks Unfamiliar at timworthington.org. You can also find Steve on Looks Unfamiliar talking about Single Versions Of Pop Songs That Never Get Played Any More, Elastoplast Heroes, United States Of Television, Skoal Bandits, Starblazer Electronic Space Command Belt and Morning Has Broken here.If you enjoy Looks Unfamiliar, you can help to support the show by buying us a coffee here. They never did find a way of making it Dracula-themed. But you can bet they tried.

I have put here some useful tips together…. 1.) To sound smartWe all want to be smart, whether we are or not. Wittgenstein said: the greatest fool can become wise if he does what he feels…We express our idea with our own language, don't polish anything. And through that, you are in the flow with your wisdom, instead of pretending to be somebody else. 2.) Use the criticism from the others…If we are controversial, then we give information that is new or not appreciate from the other people. In this case, we can receive intense criticism. Don't take it personally. Hear what the people say and ask them to explain further their criticism… Relax and hear. Look where both of you had been on the same page… Acknowledge that so the tension will diffuse. Look for common ground.Apply the Strategy of  Aikido… You first follow the attacker and then you use his energy to bring him down.  Instead of beating him up like the stupid Karate guys. Appreciate his opinion. Say thank you for telling me your opinionLook where his or your opinion is wrong. And then bring the solution for both.3.) Look that he could verbal understand you. Have you spoken your opinion loud and clear enough? Repeat what you have said in different words and loud enough! 4.) Good posture will tell much better!Look that your spine and neck are straight and your breast is open and forward… The knees should not be locked, should be relaxed and bend a little bit. As you have seen on TV, don't lean backward, sit straight without support for your spine. This will give you much more confidence. 5.) Be physically fit and drink enough water… Easy to do… 6.) Serve the people  If we try to serve the people instead to polish our ego, we will have confidence. All these ego trips make it so hard to find the best solution for everybody. Always remember that you like to help the people and to be a vehicle for the best of everybody.My Video: How to speak with confidence? https://youtu.be/xJ7G08z7ZfIMy Audio on Podcast: RELAX WITH MEDITATION or see link in the end. My Audio: https://divinesuccess.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/Podcast.A/how-to-speak-with-confidence.mp3

En este episodio, exploramos las perspectivas contrastantes de Karl Popper y Ludwig Wittgenstein sobre la naturaleza del conocimiento. Popper aboga por la falsabilidad como criterio científico, mientras que Wittgenstein se centra en el uso contextual del lenguaje. Analizaremos cómo estas visiones impactan la filosofía y la psicología contemporáneas.

   Oxford philosopher, teacher and authour Stephen joins me to talk about bullshitting his way into university, Plato, AI, theory of mind, the chasm between people, Wittgenstein, trans, how words work, Kripke, Frankfurtian BS, the epistemological crisis, belief investment and what not to believe. A deep one to think about.    Find out more about Stephen here: http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/  -----------------------------------------------------------------    Stephen Law is an Oxford-based philosopher and author, including many introductory philosophy books. Before becoming an academic, he worked as a postman. He was asked to leave school and has no "A" Levels. -----------------------------------------------------------------     Get a free copy of Mark's latest eBook at this link: https://bit.ly/Top12Embodiment      Subscribe to Mark's new Feral Philosophy You Tube channel here: https://youtube.com/@feralphilosophy_mw?si=PHJcNwK4GYpRSflK    Join Mark for in-person workshops – https://embodimentunlimited.com/events-calendar/?utm_source=TEP&utm_medium=Description&utm_campaign=Events    Join free coaching demos sessions with Mark – https://embodimentunlimited.com/free-coaching-with-mark/?utm_source=TEP&utm_medium=Description&utm_campaign=Demo    Find Mark Walsh on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/warkmalsh/

Identity in Times of Crisis, Part IV: Identity, Language and Culture Summary In this episode, we dive into the relationship between identity, language, and culture, ‎exploring how language shapes and constructs our understanding of the world rather ‎than merely reflecting it. Drawing on thinkers like Wittgenstein, Derrida, etc, we unpack ‎the idea that identity is a discursive construct, brought into being through the ‎processes of language and thought. We challenge traditional concepts, such as ‎Descartes' "I think, therefore I am," and discuss how meaning is inherently unstable, ‎constantly shifting through language. Critical Discourse Analysis helps us explore these ‎linguistic structures and their influence on society. Join me as we delve into these ‎thought-provoking ideas, and don't forget to share your thoughts in the comments ‎below! Keywords #IdentityFormation; #CulturalStudies; #LanguageAndIdentity; #Wittgenstein; #RortyPhilosophy; #Derrida; #Deconstruction; #CriticalDiscourseAnalysis; #Antirepresentationalism; #PhilosophyOfLanguage; #Subjectivity; #PostStructuralism; #CulturalConstruct; #PowerOfLanguage; #IdentityInLanguage; #DiscourseAndMeaning; #LanguageAsTool; #PodcastDiscussion

Nabeel Qureshi discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Nabeel S. Qureshi is an entrepreneur and researcher specializing in artificial intelligence and healthcare. He is the CEO of a new startup company and a Visiting Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Nabeel is based in New York and grew up in Manchester, England. The filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-metaphysical-world-of-apichatpong-weerasethakuls-movies Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/01/23/incomparable-empson/ Wittgenstein's late notebooks, Culture and Value https://prismatically.blog/2020/08/30/wittgenstein-culture-and-value-whereof-one-cannot-speak-thereof-one-must-be-silent/ The pianist Grigory Sokolov, especially his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations https://open.spotify.com/track/0iD6SmRyOj23fCKyG4x8zj?si=decbea5bd38f4515&nd=1&dlsi=ce22c9bdf87a4ba4 The essay Art as Technique by Viktor Shklovsky https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/first/en122/lecturelist-2015-16-2/shklovsky.pdf A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n08/john-lanchester/indian-summa This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Cinquième épisode d'une série sur l'histoire de la connaissance et de l'épistémologie de l'antiquité à nos jours.19è et début 20è siècle : Comment la science et la philosophie ont chamboulé notre perception de la réalité ?

Podcast 416 Ask David is it reckless to question the existence of the "soul?"' How can I make myself accountable? Do we have a "personality," or is that just another illusion?  Do questions about the "self" and "free will" involve All-or-Nothing thinking? The answers below were prepared prior to the podcast, and simply based on email exchanges. Be sure to listen to the live podcast discussion to get a variety of opinions and comments! Questions for today's podcast. #1: Weren't your comments on the self a bit reckless, given that the existence of / or belief in the “soul” is a prerequisite for most religions? #2: How can I make myself accountable for doing the exercises in your books? #3. Holy asks if the concept of having “a personality” is the same as the question of having “a self?” #4. Could questions about the “self” and “free will” involve All-or-Nothing Thinking?   Question #1. (not question, just a comment worthy of a response) Your comments on the “self” were shallow, mocking and restless. The recent episode on ‘Do I have a self?' (Episode 406) was very shallow and mocking of people who thought there was a soul/self. Given a soul is a prerequisite for most religions, dismissing it out of hand without meaningful discussion seems reckless. David's response Thanks, there's a lot of truth in your comment and we'll definitely include this on an upcoming Ask David! To give a brief response prior to the show, I would say that I am not trying to defend or attack any religion, but don't want to give up my right to freedom of thought. I, David, am not saying that the “soul” does not exist, but what I am saying is hard to convey, and I probably won't be successful now, either. But, when you talk about a “soul,” I do not have any idea what you mean by that word, or what you are referring to, if anything. To me, words like “self” or “soul” are simply language that is “out of gear,” as Wittgenstein might say. Meaning can only occur in a specific concept. It is not the case that there are “pure meanings” for abstract concepts. Thinking along those lines was the huge error that Plato and Aristotle made. Now, let's say I go to YouTube and listen to some really kick-ass music that I totally love. I might say, “Wow, that guy (like James Brown, for example) really has soul!” What I'm saying is that I tremendously admire and appreciate his talent, his energy, and so forth. I am not referring to something metaphysical. My concern about your comment is that it sounds scolding, at least to my ear, like the “morality police,” perhaps. Personally, I have seen a great deal of evil done in the name of this or that religion, and I have no doubt that you have, too! Still, I am sure you have strong religious beliefs, which I respect, and apologize for having offended you. But I admit I am ambivalent, and partially happy that you are offended, and speaking out, because I believe that critical thinking is also tremendously precious, just as your religious beliefs are precious to you. In a selfish way, I have to confess I am also happy for the criticism, because controversy stirs up interest, and I am trying to interest people in our podcasts, which are ultimately dedicated to healing and relief of suffering. Still, I cannot deny the truth in your comment, that my “critical thinking” can be a disguise for a put down. When I wrote Feeling Good, I was very aware already (in the 1970s) that the chemicals categorized as “antidepressants” had few or no clinically significant effects above and beyond their placebo effects, and subsequent research has validated this. But I did not emphasize this in that book because I did not want to pull the rug out from anybody, and hurt anybody's feelings. After all, if you are getting a nice “placebo effect,” that's a good thing, at lest to some extent. Now, I'm older, so I'm more willing to speak my mind, and let the chips fall where they may. And you have bravely spoken your mind, too. Kudos to you! And that's the end of my prayer! Keep those good thoughts rolling along. Amen Best, david (PS I'm sure you'll get way better answers from the others on the podcast tomorrow!)   Question #2. How can I make myself accountable for doing the exercises in your books? Good to have Fabrice back. Regarding your books I have a question. I have trouble holding myself accountable doing the exercises in the book. Do you have any advice on how to prioritize doing the homework and being disciplined with it? How did other depressed people get better using your books? I already filled out multiple notebooks but appear to be stuck. Any help appreciated! David's Response Thanks, we will address your question on a future Ask David podcast, if that's ok.   Question #3. Holy asks if the concept of having “a personality” is the same as the question of having “a self?” @HolyLoveQuest  • 1 day ago Thank you for this video on this topic, it was very clear to me! It's a shame that this chapter of your Feeling Great book was removed, because to me this philosophical point is one important tool (among the many techniques that you propose) to get read of negative thinking, and to heal. What you said about the DSM is refreshing, and I agree with it. So, you said schizophrenia and bipolar1 are mental disorders, and you explained why, but what would be the third: psychopathy? It would be nice if you do another video where you dig on this. Your voice on it is really important. What the APA is doing is really concerning. Other psychiatrists disagree with this business of labelling people. And you're right, it's detrimental to human beings. There is another psychological concept that you didn't talk about, but who looks similar to the "self", which is the "personality". What is your take on it, the same or different? Lastly, now in the spiritual domain, is the notion of the soul the same for you than the "self"? Or, in your opinion, could it be a possibility of an essential part of us which links us all to the Spirit, to spirituality? Looking forward to watching the other philosophical videos! David's Response Will include in next Ask David Podcast!   Question 4. Could questions about the “self” and “free will” involve All-or-Nothing Thinking? Matt send me the following email he received and asked if we could include it in our next podcast, and my answer was “of course!” Hi, I'd like to tell you about my experience with my son. He is 14 years old and despite our honest attempts not to label, he has always been the problem child: selfish, disobedient etc. Recently we started him on Prozac and the changes have been incredible. Things that have been way beyond his best times are now simple, like going to sleep on time or having a good time with his brother. Every night my wife and I tell each other about some new miracle. So, I wonder what you can say about this from the lens of free will. An obvious conclusion would be that the choices he made until now were not "free" because his brain was not presenting him with the same set of choices that other kids experience. On the other hand, if he is acting better now, we could say that it is not his choice, just a pill making the decision for him. I feel like that would be insulting and degrading. I wonder if a lot of resistance to therapy and especially pharmacotherapy is related to anxiety about the question: "If I can be changed by a pill, then who am I?" I had another thought after listening to the episode on "self". The position that self doesn't exist seems extreme to me, maybe like "all or nothing thinking". Maybe we could answer that question with a "magic dial". How much do we agree that there are selves and free wills? I agree that there are problems associated with having a self and free will, but I think there are practical and theoretical reasons on the other side as well. Maybe the golden path is in the middle? David's Response:  Will include your excellent question in the next Ask David Podcast! I am so happy to hear the good news about your son! At this point I will briefly say that concerns about “free will” might definitely include all-or-nothing thinking in the following sense. There is an awful lot of our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, behaviors, preferences, and so forth that is kind of hard-wired by evolution, genetics, and who knows what. For example, I really love blueberry pie that way my mother made it, but I never cared for pumpkin pie. I cannot “will” myself to like pumpkin pie! So I don't have free will in that sense. Similarly, I can't “will” myself to want to stop breathing permanently, or to stop feeling hungry when I haven't eaten, and I can't “will” myself to levitate when mediating or being able to high jump over something five feet high. The list goes on and on. And even when I freely chose something, like what type of new shirt to purchase, I have no doubt by genes and innate preferences, and possibly my upbringing, will strongly influence my choices. We all have biases, preferences, and desires that we do not choose, at least not consciously, Like sexual preferences, for example. We're kind of stuck with what we've got. Now we can make free choices, of course, but we cannot be “totally free,” because we exist and are human. A cat can't “not” get excited by a wiggly piece of string or a mouse that's running away. But we CAN make conscious choices, obviously, just as I made the decision to print your excellent question and type out this brief response! Warmly, david

"Wat heb je aan al die filosofie als het je niet in staat stelt een beter mens te worden?" - Stine laat theatermaker Bo Tarenskeen aan het woord over Ludwig Wittgenstein.

******Support the channel****** Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao   ******Follow me on****** Website: https://www.thedissenter.net/ The Dissenter Goodreads list: https://shorturl.at/7BMoB Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT   This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/   Dr. Robert Vinten is a postdoctoral research fellow within a project on epistemic injustice and previously a postdoctoral research fellow within a project on the epistemology of religious belief at the NOVA University of Lisbon. He is the author of Wittgenstein and the Social Sciences (2020) and of numerous journal articles about Wittgenstein's philosophy. He is also the editor of Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion: Interpreting Human Nature and the Mind.   In this episode, we focus on Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion. We first discuss Wittgenstein's ideas about religion, the cognitive science of religion, and critiques of it by Wittgensiteinians. We discuss whether religion is a natural phenomenon, and issues regarding reductionism, scientism, and the cognitive science of religion as a reaction to cultural relativism. We talk about Dr. Vinten's criticisms of Pascal Boyer's approach to religion, and theory of mind. Finally, we talk about a new project on epistemic injustice that Dr. Vinten is involved in. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, BERNARDO SEIXAS, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, PAUL-GEORGE ARNAUD, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ANTON ERIKSSON, ALEX CHAU, AMAURI MARTÍNEZ, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, IGOR N, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, BARNABAS RADICS, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, NIKLAS CARLSSON, GEORGE CHORIATIS, VALENTIN STEINMANN, PER KRAULIS, KATE VON GOELER, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, BR, MASOUD ALIMOHAMMADI, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, ERIK ENGMAN, LUCY, MANVIR SINGH, PETRA WEIMANN, CAROLA FEEST, STARRY, MAURO JÚNIOR, 航 豊川, TONY BARRETT, BENJAMIN GELBART, AND NIKOLAI VISHNEVSKY! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, AL NICK ORTIZ, NICK GOLDEN, CHRISTINE GLASS, AND KOMOMO! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, BOGDAN KANIVETS, ROSEY, AND GREGORY HASTINGS!

Cada día un pequeño apunte de Alberto Mayol por YouTube en http://apuntes.cl

Feeling Down? Try the Feeling Great App for Free! The Feeling Great App is now available in both app stores (IOS and Android) and is for therapists and the general public, and you can take a ride for free! Check it  out at FeelingGreat.com! Is the Universe One? Is the Universe Real? Is the Universe Real? These two philosophical problems used to seem nonsensical to me, and certainly not relevant to much of anything in my life—or anyone's! But now the picture has changed a bit! When I was a student at Amherst College, I majored in the philosophy of science. On this show, I've often talked about my hero, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who attempted (successfully in my opinion) to “solve” all the problems of philosophy. He wanted to help those of us who were “afflicted” by an attraction to philosophical problems to see through them and understand precisely how and why they were nonsensical. He hoped to provide a “treatment” for philosophers so we could give up the need to obsess about nonsensical philosophical problems. Once you see through the these problems, they become kind of like a joke, and you can use jokes to help other people see through them. For example, here's a kind of lame joke about the question of whether or not the universe is “real.” Wittgenstein said that before we try to answer questions like that, we might want to ask ourselves if these questions even makes sense! And if it a philosophical problem doesn't make sense, it isn't a real question, so we won't need to deal with it. In other words, questions that don't make sense don't need to be answered because they're not real questions. Take the question, "Is the universe real?" You could ask, “Well, what would it be like if the universe weren't real? What would that look like? How would things be different?” If you can't answer that question, the question might not make sense. To most of us, philosophical questions wound nonsensical because we are taking words, like “real,” out of the contexts in which it DOES make sense. For example, we can ask : “Is this painting real? Or is it a fake?” That question does make sense. It has an obvious meaning, since many valuable paintings are copied and are fakes, and they try to pass them off as the “real” thing. But what would a "real" or "fake" universe look like? How would it differ from our universe? Now let's think about another example that is mildly humorous. Let's imagine you're driving through Iowa in the summer, and you spot a farmer working in his corn field. You're interested in speaking to him because you are writing a story about your travels in Iowa, and want to talk about the lives of farmers. So, you pull your car over to the side of the road and shout, “Howdy! What are you doing in the field?” The farmer seems pleased and grabs a gorgeous stalk of corn and holds it up and proudly shouts, “I'm growing corn, and it is real!” Well, that's great that he's happily growing corn, but what does the tag-on, “and it is real” mean? It doesn't actually mean anything, because farmers don't grow “unreal corn.” So, in this context, the word has no meaning. Now, if you were on a movie set, they might actually be using artificial corn as a prop, so now the contrast between real and unreal corn becomes meaningful. This is a very humble point, but it's the very heart of what Wittgenstein was trying to make us aware of. Philosophical problems kind of sound meaningful and puzzling, but most of the time, they are simply a kind of nonsensical use of language. Now, in personal relationships, we might also have a notion of when people are being “real” or fake. And we often act fake because we don't think we're good enough just the way we really are. So, for example, you may hide your shyness in social situations because you're ashamed, and telling yourself that your shyness is incredibly weird and abnormal, and makes you “less than” other people. One method of helping people overcome shyness is simply to disclose it to others. This TEAM-CBT  technique is called "Self-Disclosure." Instead of hiding your shyness and feeling awkward and ashamed in social situations, you share your feelings openly. Shame depends on hiding, so when you open up, the feelings of shame will often disappear. For example, in a recent podcast of a dramatic, live therapy session, a man named Chris revealed many troubling things about his teenage years that he'd been hiding for years. When he opened up, he began sobbing intensely, thinking he'd let his father down with his wild behavior when he was a high school student. His grief, he was incredibly compelling, and his courageous self-disclosure was appealing to most of us who were privileged to witness that session. Showing us his “real” self became his path to enlightenment, joy, and deeply meaningful relationships with himself and with all of us who witnessed that amazing session. So, although the question, “is the universe real” is silly and nonsensical, the question, “are we being real with each other,” is definitely NOT silly or nonsensical. Being real and vulnerable is an important key to connecting with ourselves as well as other human beings. Is the Universe One? How about “Is the universe one?” This philosophical question also seemed nonsensical to me for years, although I was intellectually aware that some Buddhists make claims that the universe IS one and that the failure to “see” this is the basic of all evil. That's because if you see other humans, for example, as being "external" to yourself, you may feel you have the right to abuse and exploit them. However, for years I thought the idea that the universe is "one" seemed like sheer nonsense. For example, I am sitting in a chair typing, and there is a cup on the desk. People have never call that cup “David,” and no one has ever called me a coffee cup (although lots of people have sad some pretty bad things about me!) So, I concluded that the cup and I are not “one,” and so the whole thing about the universe being one seemed nonsensical and silly. But when I began to think about it in the context of my work with patients, my thinking suddenly changed. For example, the TEAM interpersonal model I've developed was based on research I did early in my career that suggested that Blame was one of the main causes of troubled relationships, and perhaps the most important and powerful cause. And this is certainly true in my personal life and in my work with individuals with troubled relationships who are unhappy in their marriages or people who are angry with their neighbors, or family members, or anyone. We almost always see ourselves as victims, and the other person as the one who is to blame for the problem. This triggers feelings of frustration, anger, and moral superiority, and can easily and often lead to arguments, mistrust, divorce, hostility, and violence, murder, and even war. Now, I'm beginning to see that the idea that we are separate from others, who are doing something TO us, does, in fact, lead to hostility, and arguably to evil. And once you “get it,” the same insight applies to our relationships, not just with loved ones, friends, and other people in general, but also our relationships with animals, with the environment, and with the planet earth. If we think of them as “other,” then we may conclude that it is okay to exploit or use them for our own advantage. In the interpersonal TEAM model, we focus more on circular causality, or interpersonal connectedness and ask the question, how do we actually shape and cause the very behavior in the other person that we complain about so vigorously? I have developed a fast, powerful tool that allows any to pinpoint their own role in a relationship problem very quickly and with reasonable accuracy. It's called the Relationship Journal (RJ), and we've talked about it often on this show. Essentially, it's simple to use the RJ, but it can be startling and illuminating but incredibly painful. All you have to do is write down ONE thing another person said to you that you found upsetting, and EXACTLY what you said next. Choose an interaction that did not go well; otherwise, it's a waste of time. Then, the RJ will take you through a step by step analysis of your response, and it's implications. When you discover how you are actually forcing the other person to treat you shabbily, it can hurt. This is one of the four ‘Great Deaths” of the self, and it's the most painful of all, in my experience. This is the "Great Death" of the angry, blaming "self." I hate this great death! But if you have the courage to use it and take a look, it can be incredibly illuminating and liberating, and can put you on the path to far more loving relationships. As an exercise, I will list a number of common complaints that people have about loved ones, friends, or family that they find irritating. Your job will be to show how you could FORCE them to do the exact thing you are complaining about. The other person could be your partner, friend, son or daughter, etc. Your complaint about that person might be that they Refuse to talk to me. Can't (or won't) open up and express their feelings Constantly whine and complain, and ignore and resist my good advice. Constantly argue, and always have to be right. Won't listen. Are relentlessly critical. Always have to get their way. Doesn't treat me with respect. In each case, see if you can figure out how you could FORCE the other person to do that exact thing. We will discuss a couple of these on the show and lustrate solutions to give you a feel for how this works. Rhonda's and Matt shared their wise and interesting thoughts on both of these philosophical questions, and how you can understand them in the context of your own lives, and, if you're a shrink, how you can use them in your work with patients. Thanks for listening today! Matt, Rhonda, and David

Special Announcement #1 The Legendary Summer Intensive Starts on Thursday of this week! Featuring Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt August 8 - 11, 2024 Click for registration / more information! This workshop is a training program which will be limited to therapists and mental health professionals and graduate students in a mental health field  Apologies, but therapists have complained when non-therapists have attended our continuing education training programs. This is partly because of the intimate nature of the small group exercises and the personal work the therapists may do during the workshop. Certified coaches and counselors are welcome to attend. Special Announcement #2 Here's some GREAT news! The Feeling Great App is now available in both app stores (IOS and Android) and is for therapists and the general public, and you can take a ride for free! Check it Today's Podcast #408-- Does God exist? We started today's podcast with a beautiful testimonial and a shout out for the intensive from August 8 to 11, 2024 at the South San Francisco Intensive in person or virtually if you prefer. To learn more, contact www.CBTintensive.com. Act fast because the intensive is on Thursday of this week when today's podcast will be published. Today, we tackle another popular and intensely debated philosophical / religious puzzle: Does God exist? People have very heated views, one way or the other. I (David) will start with a brief explanation of a Wittgenstein answer to this question, and then for the most part, we will focus instead on the question of how we all incorporate spirituality into TEAM-CBT. Wittgenstein emphasized that philosophical problem exist when we debate about the meanings of words or terms that are vague, or poorly defined. Traditionally, we think there are three positions one could take: Theism: You believe that God exists. Atheism: You do not believe in God. Agnosticism: You say that you do no know whether or not God exists. My own thinking, which is strongly influenced by Wittgenstein, would be that I don't understand any of those three stances because I have no idea what you mean by your use of the word, “God.” What is it, exactly, that I'm supposed to believe in, or not believe in? To me, the question, “Do you believe in God,” is nonsensical, so I simply do not deal with it. All of the three positions listed above are based on the idea that the word, “God,” has some kind of clear meaning that we can all agree upon. But it clearly does not. You might define “God” as the “creator of the universe.” Well, there is certainly something magical and mysterious about the existence and creation of the universe (assuming it did begin with some kind of “big bang.”) Some questions might include “Where did all the energy come from all of a sudden?” Or “Are there many universes?” These are valid questions, and physicists are pursuing the answers, which is very exciting and fantastic. But they are generally not invoking the concept of a “God,” although some undoubtedly would say that they do “believe in Gad.” Regardless, I cheer them on and find every new discovery about the nature of the universe, and how the universe works, endlessly fascinating! For today, we will ask a much simpler question of whether and how we include some kind of spiritual dimension into our work as shrinks. This is a topic that is equally exciting, and definitely meaningful. Rhonda got us started by explain that she sees the belief in God as a matter of faith, and is not something that can be tested empirically, which is certainly true. She says she does believe in God, or some “higher power,” but does not believe in a God who “rules over things.” She was raised in the Jewish religion, and says that many Jews believe that God exists in everyone . This sounds a little like Hinduism, which traces back at least 2500 years ago, and possibly as early as 5000 years ago. I believe that the Hindus believe that God exists in everything. The practical impact of the belief that God exists in all of us, is that we will treat each other with love and respect, since we are all an expression of God. She also said that we can “create God among us as a community.” Matt said that he was raised as a Christian and that when he was growing up he had heard about miracles, like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in the New Testament on the Gospel according to John. He said that he views our work with individuals who are severely depressed as a kind of spiritual healing, even though we are working with purely secular methods. This is especially true when we are working with individuals who appear to be paralyzed by depression, claiming they are unable even to get out of bed, people who bombard themselves with harsh criticisms, and feel hopeless and ashamed. Matt said that self-acceptance (accepting ourselves exactly as we are) is one of the many tools we use, and that he (Matt) loves to think about the ripple effects of our work, which not only transforms the lives of individuals who awaken from their depressive trance, but this also has enormous positive effects on their friends and family as well. He asks, “How do we achieve this?” I (David) loved hearing from Rhonda and Matt on spirituality in TEAM, and pointed out many areas of overlap between TEAM and the Christian theology I was raised on, since my dad was a Lutheran minister. For example, The TEAM concept that you do not, and cannot, earn genuine feelings of worthwhileness or self-esteem through achievement. In other words, your worth is not your work, but something you give yourself unconditionally. In Christianity, we are sometimes taught that you cannot get to “heaven” through your good works. Enlightenment is a gift, a decision, and not something you have to earn. We also teach that humans are not purely good, but have a mixture of positive and negative motives, and that many people suffer because of guilt and regret about past errors or sins. When we are teaching the Acceptance Paradox, we are teaching a “letting go” of the inner abuse we endure from that relentless, critical voice in our brains, labeling us and telling us that we aren't good enough, we're “bad,” we're “losers,” and so forth, using powerful tools like the Externalization of Voices. In Christianity, this message is delivered in my ritualized ways, including the act of communion, confessing your sins and accepting the blood and body of Christ who “died for your sins.” This is just another way of sending the message that it is okay to accept the fact that you are flawed and fallen, and yet still worthy of God's love—and your own love! In the interpersonal TEAM model for troubled relationships, the entire emphasis on pinpointing your own role in a problem with a friend, colleague, loved one, or stranger, instead of casting blame on the other person and feeling angry and morally superior. My Relationship Journal is a tool designed to facilitate this process very rapidly. In Christianity there are many messages about taking out the moat in your own eye, as well as the idea that when you blame others, and cast judgment, you condemn yourself. There is a strong emphasis on humility and accountability in TEAM-CBT. This often comes up during positive reframing; we talk about how the patient's self-criticisms are often an expression of high standards, honesty, and humility, and that these are beautiful qualities that are real, important, and powerful. And this similar, it seems to me, to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus talked about “blessed are the meek, for they shall be called the Children of God.” There are many, many additional areas of overlap, and many books have been written on this subject. During the podcast I provided examples of how the spiritual and psychological realms can meet and reinforce each other at the moment the patient recovers and discovers their own enlightenment. I am proud to have developed TEAM-CBT, and it is clearly infused with many spiritual dimensions, even though it is entirely secular. I mentioned that I was born on a Sunday morning, and my dad said it was the only time he was unable to preach his sermon. He was too excited, especially since my parents had become reconciled to the notion that they could not have children. He called me David Dean Burns, and hoped that someday I would become D.D. Burns, D.D. DD is an honorary degree in theology, and he (and everyone) assumed that I would one day be a minister, like was. He was L.C. Burns, DD. (Lyle Charles Burns) I went in a different direction, but have kind of returned to my original calling, though threw an unexpected route, and hope you have all enjoyed our “sermons” this morning. I would add that I would never impose my beliefs or spiritual orientation on any patient, and only ask about the integration of their successful recovery with their own religious beliefs AFTER they have recovered, so as to add a deeper level of meaning to the work and transformation that they experienced. We only emphasized the Jewish and Christian approaches to spirituality because that was our upbringing, but the spiritual “discoveries” during TEAM treatment are actually compatible with nearly all, if not all, religions and spiritual paths. Warmly, Rhonda, Matt, and David

When Wittgenstein published his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1921, he claimed to have solved all philosophical problems. One problem that hasn't been solved though is how best to translate this notoriously difficult work. The expiry of the book's copyright in 2021 has brought three new English translations in less than a year, each grappling with the difficulties posed by a philosopher who frequently undermined his own use of language to demonstrate the limitations of what can be represented. Adrian Moore joins Malin Hay to discuss what Wittgenstein hoped to achieve with the only work he published in his lifetime and to consider how much we should trust his assertion that everything it contains is nonsensical.Find further reading and listening on the episode page: https://lrb.me/tractatuspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Special Announcement #1 Attend the Legendary Summer Intensive Featuring Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt August 8 - 11. 2024 Learn Advanced TEAM-CBT skills Heal yourself, heal your patients First Intensive in 5 years! It will knock your socks off! Limited Seating--Act Fast Click for registration / more information! Sadly, this workshop is a training program which will be limited to therapists and mental health professionals and graduate students in a mental health field  Apologies, but therapists have complained when non-therapists have attended our continuing education training programs. This is partly because of the intimate nature of the small group exercises and the personal work the therapists may do during the workshop. Certified coaches and counselors are welcome to attend. Special Announcement #2 Here's some GREAT news! The Feeling Great App is now available in both app stores (IOS and Android) and is for therapists and the general public, and you can take a ride for free! Check it Today's Podcast Practical Philosophy Month Part 2, Do Humans have “Selves”? This is our second podcast in our Practical Philosophy Month. Last week, in our first episode, we focused on the “free will” question. As humans, we all feel like we have “free will,” but is it just an illusion, especially if all our actions are the result of the physical processes in our brains and the laws of the universe? The Bible certainly dealt with this in the book of Genesis, where we learn that the first humans, Adam and Eve, were given a wonderful Garden of Eden to live in, but they had to choose whether or not to obey God's rule NOT to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They chose to eat the fruit, implying that humans have free choice. But the philosophical arguments rage on. In today's podcast, we are joined by two beloved and brilliant colleagues, Drs. Matthew May and Fabrice Nye, as we explore the question of whether or not the “self” exists. We all feel like we have a “self,” but is this real or just an illusion? When you try to define your “self,” you may run into problems. For example, you might think that the “self” has to be the part of us that does not change from moment to moment, and is always ‘the same.” For example, I might think back on my childhood and feel convinced that I was the “same David Burns” then that I am now. And, if you are religious, you might also be comforted by the idea that your “self” is the same as your “soul,” and that you will therefore live on after you die. This concept of a “soul” is a core belief in many religions. But are we fooling ourselves? And what was the Buddha thinking about 2,500 years ago when we talked about enlightenment as resulting from the “Great Death” of the “self.” He seemed to be hinting that something wonderful can happen when you give up the idea that you have a “self.” In the original draft of my book, Feeling Great, I had a chapter on entitled, “Do you need a “self?” Join the Grateful Dead.” I tried to persuade readers that the existence of a “self” is nonsense, based on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein in his famous book, Philosophical Investigations. But readers found the chapter so upsetting that I decided, on their urging, to delete it from the manuscript, which I did. My goal is not to disturb people, but to provide a path to joy and to loving connections with others. But to this day, I still get emails from people asking me to offer that chapter, or to deal more deeply with this concept of the “self” vs “no self” in a podcast. So, here is my attempt today. I will start with my own take, and then summarize some of the views about the self that were expressed by Fabrice, Matt, and Rhonda during the show. Here's my thinking. There are many key questions you could ask about the concept of the “self?” including: Do we have a “self?” And if so, what is it? Does the first question even make sense? I'm sure you would agree that if a question doesn't make sense, then it isn't a “real” question, and there really isn't anything to talk about. Then we can just stop feeling frustrated and perplexed, and move on with our lives. That is the precise position that the late Wittgenstein would probably have taken. He stated that words have no ultimate or “true” meaning outside of the various contexts in which we use them in daily life. Most words have many meanings, because they are used in different ways, and you can find most of the meanings in any dictionary. So, if you think of the word, “game,” you will quickly realize that it does not have one “true” or essential meaning. It can mean a sports competition, with two teams competing against each, like soccer. But you can have two teams competing in some way other than a sport. And you don't even need two teams to have a “game.” For example, some games are played by one individual, like solitaire with a deck of cards. Or you can think about the “dating game,” or refer to “game birds,” or a “game boxer.” In short, there is not some single “correct” meaning to the word, “game.” Some uses have overlapping meanings, and some uses do not overlap at all with other uses. So, there is no point in trying to figure out if “games exist,” or what the ultimate or essential meaning is of the word, “game.” Now, how do we use the word, “self,” and what does it mean in each context? You might tell your child to behave themself. This simply means that they are misbehaving and will be punished if they don't behave more politely. You do not have to tell the child that their “self” also has to behave better, because that would be meaningless. We already told the child to change their behavior. You could ask friends, as I did this morning, if they are planning to join me on the Sunday hike. Two of them confirmed and said that “they” would join me today on our hike. I did have to ask them if they would be bringing their “selves,” because I just do not know what that would mean! They already told me they're coming to the hike. (They did come and we had a lot of fun.) In my extremely challenging freshman English class at Amherst College, we had to write two or three papers per week on odd topics. The teachers were relentlessly critical in their feedback, and would nearly always point out that we sounded incredibly phony and need to find our true voices, which came from our real selves, as opposed to the false fronts we often used to try to impress people. Almost every student got dumped on constantly! The professors weren't referring to some metaphysical “true selves.” They were just referring to the fact that our writing didn't sound natural, compelling, or vulnerable, and so forth. Our writing was, for the most part, an enormous turn-off. Most of us never could figure out quite what that class was all about, but it was useful as I became more sensitive to the “tone” or “voice” in any writing. I would have to concede that it was a sobering but helpful class. But they were not referring to some mystical “true self” we had to find. They just wanted us to stop writing in such a sucky way! So here is my point, which you might “not get.” When you keep the word, “self,” in the context of everyday life, it is obvious what it means, and it never refers to some metaphysical “thing” that we could “have” or “not have.” It is just a vague, abstract concept that is devoid of meaning when it's all by itself. A “self,” just like “free will,” is not some “thing” that we might, or might not, have. The question, “Does the self exist,” according to Wittgenstein (or his big fan David) has no meaning and so we can just ignore it. It's not a real question. It is, as Wittgenstein was fond of saying, “language that's out of gear.” Now, does this discussion have anything to do with emotional problems, or TEAM therapy? It absolutely does. That's because nearly all depression results from some version of “I'm not good enough,” including: I'm inferior. I'm a loser. I'm a “hopeless case.” I'm a failure. I'm unlovable. I'm a bad parent. I'm defective. And so forth. If you buy into these “self” condemning proclamations, thinking that they mean something, you'll probably feel depressed, ashamed, inadequate, hopeless, and more. As you can probably see, all these self-critical thoughts contain tons of cognitive distortions, like All-or-Nothing Thinking, Overgeneralization, Labeling, Mental Filtering, Emotional Reasoning, Self-Blame, Hidden Shoulds, and more And to put it in a nutshell, they ALL involve the belief that you have a “self” that's broken, or simply not “good enough.” And all of those statements are meaningless. My goal in therapy is NOT to persuade you that you ARE worthwhile, or “a winner,” or a “good” parent, but rather to show you how to let go of these meaningless but painful ways of belittling yourself. I might use techniques like Empathy, Positive Reframing, Explain the Distortions, Let's Define Terms, Be Specific, the Double Standard Technique, the Externalization of Voices, the Downward Arrow, and many more. That's because the VERY moment you suddenly “see” that these kinds of statements are both untrue and unfair, and you stop believing them, your feelings will instantly change. So, you could say that TEAM really IS a “Wittgensteinian” therapy. And when people ask me how to develop better self-esteem, I would not try to get them to discover how to have some magical and wonderful “thing” called self-esteem, because that concept is just as nonsensical as the concept of a “self.” You might say that “self-esteem,” if you want to use the term, is more about what you DO. And there are two things you can do if you want to change the way you feel. First, you can stop beating up on yourself with hostile criticisms like the bulleted statements listed above, and talk to yourself in the same encouraging way you might talk to a dear friend or loved one who was hurting. And second, you can treat yourself in a loving way, in just the same way you might treat your best friend who was coming for a visit. In other words, you can do nice things for yourself. The day my first book, “Feeling Good,” was finally published, my editor called me with some bad news. She told me that the publisher, William Morrow and Company, loses money on 9 out of 10 of the books they publish, so they decide which ones are most likely to sell, and those are the only ones they'll promote. The rest of the books go on a “loser list,” and the company does little or nothing to promote them. She said my book was #1 on their “loser list,” since the president of the company felt it had no commercial potential, and that very few people would be interest in a long book on depression. She added that the one thing they did do was to send my book to ten popular magazines for first serial rights. That means they get to publish an excerpt from your book as an article, so that stirs up some media interest in your book. Sadly, she said that all ten had turned them down. She said that I'd have to be in charge of any further marketing of my book, so I asked what I should do. She said to call all ten magazines right away and persuade them to change their minds. In a panic, I called them all, including Ladies' Home Journal, Reader's Digest, and on and on. Every magazine said the same thing—they did not want my book, had turned it down, had zero interest in it, and to please top calling since authors shouldn't call them and they considered it a form of phone harassment since they'd already made a decision. Yikes! No fun! When I jogged home from the train station that night, I shouted, “You're a loser, you're a failure.” That didn't sound so good so then I shouted, “No, you're not! You'll figure out how to make it happen! Just keep plugging away.” That sounded a lot more loving, so when I got home, I told my wife that the book at just been published and that I'd been turned down by all ten magazines for serial rights, and the publisher decided not to spend any money on marketing or advertising, so we needed to go out and celebrate. She why we would celebrate? I said, “You don't need to celebrate when you win, because you already feel great. But when you lose, that's when you need to celebrate, because you're feeling down. So, tonight we'll celebrate!” We went out for a fancy dinner and celebrated and had fun. And the rest, they say, is history. I just kept trying and getting turned down by newspapers, radio stations, television programs, and more. But eventually, the tide started to turn. To date, Feeling Good has sold more than 5 million copies and it achieved best-seller status. And the reason was that researchers discovered that the book actually had antidepressant properties, so excitement about it spread by word of mouth. I am hopeful that the new Feeling Great App will help even more people. Fabrice made some interesting and wise comments on the notion of the “self.” He said that the idea that we have a “self” is a sense that we nearly all have. Some people feel like the “self” that is located somewhere behind the eyes or in the middle of the head. But, he emphasizes, there is no such “thing” as a “self.” He has quoted someone who has “said it all,” but the statement only makes sense IF you “get it!” Here's the quote: “No Self? No Problem!” This is actually the title of a book by Chris Niebauer, PhD, and the subtitle is How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism. If you want to check it out, here's a link to it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/No-Self-Problem-Neuropsychology-Catching/dp/1938289978 Fabrice emphasized that the concept of “self” is “nebulous.” He asked, “Is there a ‘David'?” He explained: You wouldn't be able to prove this in court. Well, you could show ID, but that would not be proof. Where does the information on the ID come from? Birth certificate? Who wrote the information on the birth certificate? Probably some doctor back in 1942. And where did he get that information from? Probably some caregiver said “Write ‘David' here.” Was that from a credible source? Not at all. That info was made up on the spot! Now, you can say that there's a “sense” of a David going around, and that there are some patterns that show signs of “David-ness,” but there is no “David.” Matt added that your body is not your “self.” When you break your arm, you don't say that you have broken a part of your “self.” You just say, “I broke my arm.” Rhonda raised the question of whether the “self” is just the same as “consciousness” or “awareness.” Someone in our group added that the “self” is what we DO, and not what we ARE. And, of course, what we are doing is constantly changing from moment to moment. My understanding of all of this is that once you let go of the notion that you have a “self,” you will no longer worry about whether or not you are “good enough” or “special,” or whoever. You can focus instead on living your life and solving the problems of daily living and appreciating the world around you. If you screw up, you can focus on what specific error you made, rather than obsessing about your inferior or defective “self.” You can actually welcome failure as just another teacher, so you can grow and learn, and simply accept your screw ups, or both. In fact, two of the most popular TEAM techniques for challenging the distorted thoughts in bullets above are called “Let's Define Terms” and “Be Specific.” These techniques are right out of Wittgenstein's playbook, and they are prominently featured in the “Learn” section of the new Feeling Great App. If you're feeling depressed, and thinking of yourself as a “loser” or as being “inferior” or even “worthless,” the goal is NOT to “become a ‘winner,” or more ‘worthwhile,' but rather to give up these notions as nonsensical. But once again, many people cannot “get it,” or “see it,” and that's where a caring and skillful therapist can help. Some people wrongly think that letting go of the notion that you could be “worthwhile” would mean a huge loss of something precious. Many people who don't yet “see” what we're trying to say are terrified of the “Great Death” because they think that giving up the notion that you have a “self” means giving up all hope for improvement, for joy, for intimacy, and so forth. But to my way of thinking, the truth is just the opposite. When your “self” dies, you and your world suddenly wake up and come to life. When you accept yourself and your world, exactly as they are right now, everything suddenly changes. Of course, that's a paradox. I believe that leading our patients to the “Great Death” of the “self” is like giving them the understanding and courage they need to throw some garbage in the trash instead of carrying the garbage around with them all the time! I hope some of this makes a little sense, but if not, don't worry about. Sometimes, it takes a little time before you suddenly “see it!” Thanks for listening today. We love all of you! Rhonda, Fabrice, Matt, and David

Hi friends, we're on a brief summer break at the moment. We'll have a new episode for you in August. In the meanwhile, enjoy this pick from our archives! ---- [originally aired January 25, 2023] By now you've probably heard about the new chatbot called ChatGPT. There's no question it's something of a marvel. It distills complex information into clear prose; it offers instructions and suggestions; it reasons its way through problems. With the right prompting, it can even mimic famous writers. And it does all this with an air of cool competence, of intelligence. But, if you're like me, you've probably also been wondering: What's really going on here? What are ChatGPT—and other large language models like it—actually doing? How much of their apparent competence is just smoke and mirrors? In what sense, if any, do they have human-like capacities? My guest today is Dr. Murray Shanahan. Murray is Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London and Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind. He's the author of numerous articles and several books at the lively intersections of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and philosophy. Very recently, Murray put out a paper titled 'Talking about Large Language Models', and it's the focus of our conversation today. In the paper, Murray argues that—tempting as may be—it's not appropriate to talk about large language models in anthropomorphic terms. Not yet, anyway. Here, we chat about the rapid rise of large language models and the basics of how they work. We discuss how a model that—at its base—simply does “next-word prediction" can be engineered into a savvy chatbot like ChatGPT. We talk about why ChatGPT lacks genuine “knowledge” and “understanding”—at least as we currently use those terms. And we discuss what it might take for these models to eventually possess richer, more human-like capacities. Along the way, we touch on: emergence, prompt engineering, embodiment and grounding, image generation models, Wittgenstein, the intentional stance, soft robots, and "exotic mind-like entities." Before we get to it, just a friendly reminder: applications are now open for the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (or DISI). DISI will be held this June/July in St Andrews Scotland—the program consists of three weeks of intense interdisciplinary engagement with exactly the kinds of ideas and questions we like to wrestle with here on this show. If you're intrigued—and I hope you are!—check out disi.org for more info. Alright friends, on to my decidedly human chat, with Dr. Murray Shanahan. Enjoy!   The paper we discuss is here. A transcript of this episode is here.   Notes and links 6:30 – The 2017 “breakthrough” article by Vaswani and colleagues. 8:00 – A popular article about GPT-3. 10:00 – A popular article about some of the impressive—and not so impressive—behaviors of ChatGPT. For more discussion of ChatGPT and other large language models, see another interview with Dr. Shanahan, as well as interviews with Emily Bender and Margaret Mitchell, with Gary Marcus, and with Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT). 14:00 – A widely discussed paper by Emily Bender and colleagues on the “dangers of stochastic parrots.” 19:00 – A blog post about “prompt engineering”. Another blog post about the concept of Reinforcement Learning through Human Feedback, in the context of ChatGPT. 30:00 – One of Dr. Shanahan's books is titled, Embodiment and the Inner Life. 39:00 – An example of a robotic agent, SayCan, which is connected to a language model. 40:30 – On the notion of embodiment in the cognitive sciences, see the classic book by Francisco Varela and colleagues, The Embodied Mind. 44:00 – For a detailed primer on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, see here. 45:00 – See Dr. Shanahan's general audience essay on “conscious exotica" and the space of possible minds. 49:00 – See Dennett's book, The Intentional Stance.   Dr. Shanahan recommends: Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, by Melanie Mitchell (see also our earlier episode with Dr. Mitchell) ‘Abstraction for Deep Reinforcement Learning', by M. Shanahan and M. Mitchell   You can read more about Murray's work on his website and follow him on Twitter.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. **You can now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here!** We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Special Announcement #1 Attend the Legendary Summer Intensive Featuring Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt August 8 - 11. 2024 Learn Advanced TEAM-CBT skills Heal yourself, heal your patients First Intensive in 5 years! It will knock your socks off! Limited Seating--Act Fast Click for registration / more information! Sadly, this workshop is a training program which will be limited to therapists and mental health professionals and graduate students in a mental health field  Apologies, but therapists have complained when non-therapists have attended our continuing education training programs. This is partly because of the intimate nature of the small group exercises and the personal work the therapists may do during the workshop. Certified coaches and counselors are welcome to attend. Special Announcement #2 Here's some GREAT news! The Feeling Great App is now available in both app stores (IOS and Android) and is for therapists and the general public, and you can take a ride for free! Check it Today's Podcast Practical Philosophy Month Part 1, The Free Will Problem Welcome to Practical Philosophy month. For the next five weeks, we will discuss some of the most popular and challenging problems in philosophy, such as these: Do human beings have free will? Or is free will just an illusion? Do human beings have a “self?” Or is the “self” just another illusion? Is it possible to be more or less “worthwhile?” Are some humans “better” or “worse” than others? Does God exist? Is the universe “real” or “one”? What's the meaning of life? What is “self-esteem”? How does it differ from self-confidence? What's the difference between conditional and unconditional self-esteem? What's the difference between self-esteem and self-acceptance? What do you have to do to experience joy and feelings of worthwhileness? We will try to complete the list in five weeks, so some weeks we may include more than one topic, since many of these topics are related to one another. Rhonda and David will be joined by our beloved Dr. Matt May, a regular on our Ask David episodes, and for the first and second sessions we will be joined by our beloved Dr. Fabrice Nye, who created and hosted the Feeling Good Podcasts several years ago. Each week, you will also hear about the linkage between these philosophical dilemmas, and emotional problems, like depression, anxiety, and relationship conflicts. For example, nearly all depressed individuals believe that they aren't sufficiently “worthwhile.” I see my goal as a psychiatrist not as helping people feel “more worthwhile,” but rather showing people, if interested, how to give up this notion entirely and become free of certain kinds of damaging judgments of the “self” and others. You will also learn how these types of philosophical problems continue to play a large role in psychiatry and psychology, including the DSM5 diagnostic system. For example, is the diagnosis of “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” a true “mental disorder” that you could “have” or “not have?” And might some or most of the so-called “mental disorders” listed in the DSM be based on faulty philosophical / logical thinking? And if many or most of the “mental disorders” are based on goofy, faulty thinking, is there a more productive and effective way to think about most emotional problems? And how did we get into this mess in the first place? Worrying certainly exists, and we all worry at times. But how much or how often do you have to worry before you develop or have a “mental disorder” called “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” that can be diagnosed like any medical illness and treated with drugs? Or is “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” (and hundreds of other “mental disorders in the DSM” based on a certain kind of nonsensical thinking? And if so, why? What is the goofy, faulty thinking in the DSM? And are there some “mental disorders” that are valid and real? We HAVE touched on all of these themes in previous podcasts, but I thought it would be nice to put them all in one place and bring in a variety of “solutions,” controversies, and experts. I David, will often represent (hopefully, and to the best of my ability) the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as expressed in his famous book, Philosophical Investigation, published in 1950 following his death. That book consists of a series of numbered brief essays (a few paragraphs each) that were based on notes found in a metal box under his dormitory room at Cambridge University. He'd written these in preparation for his weekly seminars in his dormitory room. Wittgenstein, although now widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of all time, did not think he knew enough to teach in a classroom. In fact, because of his feelings of depression and self-doubt, he sadly never tried to publish anything when he was alive. Wittgenstein's philosophy also played an indirect but significant role in the evolution of several modern psychotherapies. His philosophy created new ways of thinking that gave rise to the work of Dr. Albert Ellis, the famous New York psychologist who created Rational Emotive Therapy during the 1950s. Ellis emphasized that the “Should Statements” that trigger so much guilt, shame, depression, anxiety, and rage are based on illogical thinking. He might often say, “Where is it written that people or the world “should” be the way you want them to be?” Of course, this idea actually traces back to the Greek Stoic philosophers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Wittgenstein's thinking also seems to have played a role in the thinking of Dr. Aaron Beck, who adapted the work of Ellis and called his version of the “Cognitive Therapy.” Beck emphasized many thinking errors, like All-or-Nothing Thinking, and Overgeneralization, that trigger depression, anxiety, and more. Sadly, Wittgenstein struggled with severe depression and loneliness throughout his life, and three of his four brothers tragically died by suicide. Wittgenstein also had prolonged periods of time when he considered suicide. It is also sad that he did not know how to apply his brilliant philosophical breakthroughs to his own negative thinking, but that application of his work did not develop at the time he was still alive. Part of Wittgenstein's depression was related, I believe, to the fact that very few people, including the most famous philosophers of Europe, could understand his thinking when he was alive. From time to time, I think he glimpsed the enormous importance of his work; but I believe that he also had prolonged moments of self-doubt when he thought his work was of little value at best. To be as correct as possible, Wittgenstein did write a manuscript called Tractatus Logico Philosophicus as a young man, although he never tried to publish it. He wrote it when he was a prisoner of war. He thought this book solved all the problems of philosophy, which had plagued him since he was a child, and he felt great relief. He sent a copy of his manuscript to Bertrand Russell, who was a famous British philosopher. Bertrand Russell was incredibly impressed with the Tractatus and distributed it to many European philosophers. Bertrand Russell thought it might be the greatest book in the history of philosophy, and a number of the 20th century philosophical movements including Logical Positivism, were inspired by that book. However, Wittgenstein left the field of philosophy, thinking that his work was done, and that he'd found the solutions he was looking for. He tried teaching grammar school for a while, but was fired because he became frustrated and violent toward some of his students. He also tried to survive as a fisher in a Norwegian fishing town, but was not successful at that, either, because he didn't know much about fishing, much less supporting yourself through fishing. One day, he learned that a brilliant Swedish economics student had found a flaw in his Tractatus, and his inner turmoil about the puzzling problems of philosophy flared up again. He decided to return to the study of philosophy. He applied to be an advanced undergraduate at Cambridge University, but when someone in the admissions office spotted his application, they recognized his name and showed his application to Bertrand Russell, who had been wondering what had become of the young man who once sent him such a brilliant manuscript. Russell, who was the chair of the department of philosophy, said to being Wittgenstein to his office immediately for an interview. Russell explained that he would have to reject Wittgenstein's application to be an undergraduate at Cambridge University. Deeply disappointed, Wittgenstein asked why. Russell told him it was because he was already recognized as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Bertrand proposed that if Wittgenstein would agree to skip college and graduate school, they would immediately award him a PhD for the manuscript he'd sent to Russell years earlier. Russell also offered him a full professor ship in the department of philosophy. Wittgenstein protested and said he needed to study philosophy again, because of the error in Tractatus, and that he didn't know anything, and definitely could not teach in a classroom. Bertrand Russell insisted, and they finally struck a deal where Wittgenstein would agree to be a professor of philosophy but all he would have to do was to have a conversation session with anybody who wanted to talk to him at his dormitory room once a week. Wittgenstein accepted and met for years with students and famous philosophers who came from around Europe to crowd into his dormitory room for his weekly seminars, and he began to shape a radically different philosophical approach from the one he'd described earlier in his Tractatus. He was determined to find a new way to solve all the problems of philosophy. And, to my way of thinking, along with those few who really understand him, he was successful. But he was often frustrated because, so few understood him. This was unfortunate, because what he was saying was incredibly simple and basic, and it was pretty similar to, if not identical to, the thinking of the Buddha 2500 years earlier. The Buddha apparently had the same problem—almost nobody could understand what he was trying to say when he was still alive. They couldn't “get it” when he was talking about the so-called “Great Death” of the “self,” or talking about the path to enlightenment. The Buddha's frustration resulted from the exact same problem Wittgenstein encountered 2500 years later. The Buddha was saying something that was extremely simple, obvious, and basic—and yet, it was rumored that of his more than 100,000 followers when he was alive, only three actually “got it” and experienced enlightenment. When I read Philosophical Investigations my senior year in college, it was rumored that only seven people in the world understood what Wittgenstein was trying to say. Wittgenstein's dream was that philosophy students would “get” his thinking and give up philosophy when they realized that most if not all philosophical problems are sheer nonsense. He wanted them to do something practical and real in the world instead of studying philosophy. He was verry disappointed when his favorite student, Norman Malcolm (one of the seven who “got it,”) pursued an illustrious career teaching philosophy in America at Cornell University. I always wished I could have known Wittgenstein when he was alive, so I could have told him this: I loved you, too, and I got it after several months of confusion, trying to understand your Philosophical Investigations, but eventually understood it with the help of your student, Norman Malcolm. His book about you was very inspiring. And that's why I left philosophy for something more practical in the world. I decided at the last minute to go to medical school to become a psychiatrist instead of philosophy graduate school. Hopefully, I am doing something that you might be proud of! But oddly enough, your thinking has also influenced my approach to people who feel depressed and worthless. They are also under a kind of destructive “enchantment,” thinking that there is some such “thing” as a more or less worthwhile human being! And this is a major cause of depression and anxiety and feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. I wonder if you, Wittgenstein, ever felt that you weren't “good enough” when you were feeling down. hopeless and suicidal? I sure wish I could have helped you with that! If you want to understand Wittgenstein's work, the best book in my opinion is Norman Malcolm's moving and affectionate tribute to his beloved teacher, entitled “Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir.” It's a short moving tribute to his beloved teacher, and tears go down my cheeks every time I read it, or even think about it. If you ever visit my office here at home, you'll find that memoir proudly sitting on my bookshelf, with a handsome photo of Wittgenstein on the cover. Toward the end of his life, Wittgenstein appears to have become more or less homeless, and he died from prostate cancer. His doctor said he could live in his home, where he was befriended by the doctor's wife in his final days. His dying words were, “Tell them that I had a wonderful life.” He died on April 29, 1951, just a few hours before my wife was born in Palo Alto, California. Surprisingly, she is the only person I've ever met who understood Wittgenstein's thinking entirely the first time I explained it to her. She “already knew” what Wittgenstein, the greatest philosophical genius of the 20th century, spent a lifetime figuring out! Reincarnation is pretty “out there,” and fairly silly, to my way of thinking, but sometimes it can be fun to think about it! Here is my understanding of how the thinking of the “later Wittgenstein” actually developed. His first book, which is nearly impossible to understand, was called the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. It is a series of numbered propositions, which he compared to climbing up a ladder, rung by rung, as you read the book until you got to the roof at the top of the ladder. Then you could throw your ladder away and give up philosophical thinking, since he thought his book contained the solution to all the problems of philosophy that had tormented him since childhood, as mentioned previously. The philosophy of language in the Tractatus is based on the thinking of Aristotle and Plato, who thought that the function of language was to name things that exist in the real world. Plato's idea was that our real world consists of imperfect examples of a “Platonic Reality” which consisted of “perfect” representations of everything. So, for example, Plato believed there could be a perfect “table,” a perfect “lamp,” and so forth. In other words, he thought there was an ideal essence to the concept of a “table.” And, I suppose, there might also be a “perfect” version of you! The early Wittgenstein also thought that the logic inherent in our sentences reflected the logic inherent in an external reality. If that doesn't make much sense to you, join the club! But that's kind of what Plato and Aristotle were promoting, at least in my (David's) understanding. When Wittgenstein's Tractatus was debunked, he was devastated, and desperately wanted to find another way to solve the problems of philosophy, since they started tormenting him again. It was much like a relapse of OCD or some other emotional problem. In fact, he thought of philosophy as a kind of mental illness that needed treatment. Here's an example of the types of philosophical problems that tormented him. Do human beings have free will? Do we have a “self?” Is the universal “real?” Of course, we THINK we have free will, and it SEEMS like we make “free decisions” all day long, but is this just an illusion? For example, some people would argue that we cannot have “free will” because we “have to” follow the laws of science that govern everything, including how the brain works. So, since we “have to” do what we are doing at every moment of every day, we must not have free will! Here is an argument that we do NOT have “free will.” When a powerful storm or hurricane destroys a portion of a city, and people die, we see this as a tragedy, but we don't get angry at the hurricane because it does have “free will.” It is just obeying the laws of physics that govern the forces of wind, air pressure, heat and cooling, and so forth. A storm cannot behave in any other way. So, the argument goes, we are also following the laws that govern the functioning of our bodies and brains, and so we cannot do other than what we do, so we, too, have no “free will.” We THINK we are acting freely but it is an illusion, so our brains are obeying the laws of the universe at every moment! For hundreds of years philosophers have struggled with this puzzle, and many people still wrestle with this problem today. It was one of the problems that drew me to philosophy. Impractical for sure, but still tantalizing. Another way to express the free will puzzle is via religious thinking. I was taught when I was growing up that God is omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere) and omniscient (all knowing.) So, God knows the past, present, and future. And if God knows the future, then God knows what we will do at every moment of every day, and we are helpless to do otherwise. Therefore, we have no “free will,” even though we “think” we do! This free will problem can definitely be unsettling, with troubling moral consequences. If we do not “free will,” then are serial killers really responsible for, or guilty, or accountable for their actions? If we do not have free will, then wouldn't that give us license to do whatever we want whenever we want? Clever arguments for sure! We may “feel” like we have the freedom to do whatever we want at almost any moment of any day, but are we fooling ourselves and living in some gigantic hoax, or illusion? Are we total slaves with the delusion that we are actually acting “freely?” How do we resolve this problem? Well, one day Wittgenstein was walking past a soccer game at the park, and the soccer ball hit him on the head. He wasn't hurt, but had the thought, “What if the function of language is NOT to name things (like trees, or lamps, etc.) that exist in some “external reality,” like Plato and Aristotle thought? What if language actually functions as a series of “language games,” with rules, just like the game of soccer? Then the meaning of any words would simply be the many ways the word is used in different real world situations. In fact, that's what you find in the dictionary when you look up the meaning of a word. The dictionary doesn't ever give you some “correct” or ”pure” meaning, since most words have many meanings. This would be the opposite of the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato who argued that there were “true” meanings for every word, noun, or concept. What if, instead, words had NO true or essential meanings, and their meanings were simply embedded in the context in which they are used in ordinary, everyday language? If so, this might mean that philosophical problems emerge when we try to pull words out of their ordinary meanings, which are always obvious, and put them into some metaphysical realm where philosophers argue about “ultimate truth.” Let's say we wanted to find out if humans have “free will.” Well, not being sure if there is such a “thing” as “free will,” we could look up “free” and “will” in the dictionary. (I know this sounds incredibly obvious and almost ridiculous.) What does “free” mean? Well, we could talk about the many ways we use “free.” Political freedom means that in some countries you cannot contradict the leader (the dictator) without the danger of being thrown in prison or even murdered. But in other countries, you are, In fact, free to express your own ideas and opinions, without fear of punishment. Free also means getting something without having to pay for it, like a seventh bottle of soda is free at the local grocery store if you purchase a six pack. Free can also mean “available.” I am starting up my Sunday hikes again, and I might say, “If you are free this Sunday morning, meet at my front door at 9 and we'll go for a hike and have a dim sum feast afterwards at a Chinese restaurant on Castro Street in Mountain View, California, Now notice that when you talk about “free will” you have taken this word, “free,” out of the familiar contexts in which we find it, and given it some type of metaphysical “meaning.” But in this metaphysical, philosophical arena, it has no meaning. So, instead of trying to “solve” the so-called “free will” problem, we can dismiss it as nonsensical, and ignore it as having no practical meaning, and move on with our lives. We can say, “I just don't understand that problem! I don't know what you're talking about when you ask the general question of whether we have something called ‘free will.'” That either works for you, or it doesn't work for you! Your choice. It does work for me, but it took me months of thinking until I suddenly “got it.” My way of describing this philosophical error is “nounism.” You think that nouns always refer to things that could “exist” or “not-exist,” just like Plato and Aristotle thought. So, you ponder and try to figure out if this notion of “free will” exists or does not exist. But it's arguably a meaningless question. That's why I say, and Wittgenstein might say, I have no idea what you're talking about. Today we'll discuss the free will problem and how it might relate to our field of psychotherapy. Next week, we'll deal with another thorny problem: Do we have a “self?” Or is that also just some kind of illusion? I (David) wrote these show notes before the show, and we have had fairly extensive email exchanges, with a variety of points of view on whether or not we have something we can call “free will.” First, I'll put a great email by Matt, followed by a comment by Fabrice. Here's Matt's email first: Subject: Re: question Yes, that's getting very close to what I'm trying to communicate. I don't believe you are 'slow' or 'super lame', either. In fact, quite the opposite. I suspect I'm failing to do an adequate job of disarming your claims that 'free will' and 'self' are words taken out-of-context and, therefore, can't be shown to exist or not-exist. I apologize, as I am pretty excited about the potential to help people, suffering with self-blame and other-blame, by realizing that we and others don't have a 'self' or 'free will'. I believe we have a brain that makes decisions and creates experiences, including the experience of having a 'self' and 'free will'. I believe that the experience of 'making' a decision is an illusion, as is the idea of a static, unchanging 'self' that controls decision-making. I asked you to pick a movie and you said, 'Green Mile'. You acknowledged that this movie title simply 'popped into my head'. That's correct. Your 'self' didn't control what you selected, using 'free will'. Your brain just came up with that movie title. There was no 'self' that made a decision to choose that word. I agree that we have a brain which is incredibly powerful. I'm claiming that we don't have an auxiliary 'self', with extra super powers, controlling our brain. We can make decisions, but we don't have 'free will', meaning, the ability to control those decisions. I do think you have some resistance to seeing through the illusions of 'self' and 'free will', all of which say awesome things about you, e.g. morality and justice. I'm not trying to convince you, one way or another, and I don't expect to. I'm more interested in the listening audience, as many people are significantly relieved when they realize that we are more the victims of our biology and circumstance rather than defective 'selves' lacking 'willpower'. To put a slightly finer point on the subject, when people say they have 'free will', they don't mean that 'decisions are made'. Obviously, decisions are made. You decided to keep reading this email, for example. Or you didn't. I'm not sure. Either way, a decision was made. When people say they have 'free will', they are saying that they (really, their 'self') are/is free to decide whether to continue reading this email, and that this power goes above and beyond what their brain is doing, according to the laws of physics. I am claiming that this is a ridiculous and dangerous thought, for which there is no evidence. You're saying these terms haven't been defined. I'm pointing out that they already have been, intuitively, by anyone who thinks, 'I shouldn't have done that', or 'they shouldn't have done that'. These thoughts require a belief that they 'could have' done something different, that they had free will. Aside from rage and guilt, let's examine the narcissism and excessive sense of confidence a patient might have, if they believe that they can simply 'decide', through sheer 'willpower', not to beat up on themselves anymore. Or a patient who believes they can simply 'decide' to always use the 5-Secrets, rather than criticize and blame. Can they? I've never seen that happen. That's why I assign homework. I know that the goal is to rewire the brain so they can feel and perform better, later. We can't simply decide to feel good all the time. We all drift in-and-out of enlightenment. If we want to increase the likelihood that we will be able to set aside self-criticism or communicate more effectively, we have to practice new thoughts and behaviors. If we do, we will develop greater skills at defeating negative thoughts and communicating effectively. Otherwise, our brains will do, in the future, what they are programmed to do, now. It's because we lack 'free will', that we must do homework. Similarly, you couldn't simply 'decide' to be the world's best ping-pong player. You realized you would have to work hard to re-wire your brain, if you wanted to have a chance at that. Let's use the murderer/cat example: A cat tortures and kills mice for the same reasons that a murderer does: their brains are programmed to do so. Murderers don't have a defective 'self' that is failing to express 'free will' adequately, when they murder. They're doing precisely what the atomic structure of their brain caused them to do, according to the laws of physics, in that moment, when presented with those precise stimuli. We don't have to judge or punish the cat or the murderer's 'self' and insist they should have used their 'free will'. We can accept that neither creature had the ability to decide differently from what their brain decided, in that moment. That is where the therapeutic element of this realization comes into play. I think it's important on a lot of levels, to stop blaming cats for being cats and murderers for being murderers. Similarly, if a patient doesn't want to do homework, will it do any good to blame them and think they're bad and should decide differently? No, it helps to accept them where they are, and to accept ourselves where we are, with open hands. Realizing nobody has a 'self' operating their brain and making decisions that are better than their brains' decisions doesn't mean we have to let all the murderers go or trust our cat with a new mouse companion. We can still be aware that their brains are programmed to murder. We would still be motivated to do whatever is necessary to protect society and mice. The difference is the attitude towards the murderer. We aren't trying to 'punish' or 'get vengeance' but to protect and, instead of 'labeling' them as having a 'bad self' or even being a 'murderer', but someone who has murdered and, left to their own devices, likely to do so again.  Instead of judging and demanding vengeance, we would see a murderer as the victim of their biology and environment. Instead of condemning them as permanently evil and bad, we could recognize that their brain is currently wired to do bad things and they might still learn new ways to interact with others. Perhaps they're not hopeless cases, after all. From the other side, if I ever committed murder, and sentenced to death, I wouldn't want to be feeling defective, thinking what a bad self I have and guilty/ashamed for not flexing my 'free will' in the heat of the moment. Instead, I might feel a sense of relief, purpose and meaning, that I was protecting others by being put to death. Alright, enough out of me! Thanks, Matt And now, the response from Fabrice: Matt's thinking is exactly in line with mine. I don't know if the topic came up in your discussion, but some people argue that actually someone could have done something differently than they did, because there is some randomness in Nature. But that argument doesn't hold water because even if the decision “made” by their brain is different, it has nothing to do with their will but only with the Heisenberg principle. Cheers! Fabrice Nye fabrice@life.net David's wrap up comment. Matt and Fabrice have quite a different view of “free will” and the “self.” They are arguing, very thoughtfully and persuasive, that we do not “have” a “self” or “free will.” People have been involved in this debate, as I've mentioned, for hundreds of years, taking one side or another. My own thinking is different, and reflects my understanding of Wittgenstein's thinking. They have take these words out of the contexts in which they exist in everyday language, (which is a huge temptation) and involved in a debate about abstract concepts which have no meaning. Very few people, it seems, were able to grasp this idea when Wittgenstein was alive, or even today. So, if what I'm saying makes no sense to you, be comforted, since it seems likely that 99% of the people reading this, or listening to the show, will agree with you! And that's still a puzzle to me. It is not clear to me why so many people still cannot “see” or “get” this idea that words do not have any pure or essential “meaning” outside of the context of everyday use of language. The best psychotherapy example I can use is the fact that nearly all depressed individuals are trying to figure out, on some abstract or philosophical level, whether they are “worthwhile” or “good enough,” or whatever. This seems to be a “real” problem, and so they believe that they are not sufficiently worthwhile. This belief can be so convincing that many people commit suicide, out of a sense of hopelessness and self-hatred. But there is not such thing as a human being who is more or less “worthwhile.” Of course, your actions can be more or less worthwhile at any moment, and we can evaluate or judge our specific behaviors. Yesterday, we had our first recording session in a video studio we have set up for our Feeling Great App. We had a lot of fun and recorded some (hopefully) interesting stories we'll publish on our two new YouTube channels. I really appreciated the colleagues who made this possible. It was a relief for me because I tend to have performance anxiety, which impairs my ability to speak naturally and with emotion. But this time, there was no anxiety at all, so it was fun. Did this make me or my colleagues more worthwhile human beings? No! But it did show that we'd become a bit more effective and communicating messages that will trigger healing and understanding in our fans, and hope that includes you! When you “see” this, perhaps for the first time, it can be incredibly liberating, since you no longer have the need to have a “self” that's “special” or worthwhile. And, as some of you know, my beloved teacher and cat, Obie, taught me that when you no longer need to be “special,” life becomes special. When your “self” dies, you inherit the world! There's no funeral, only a celebration! Feel free to contact us with your thoughts, ideas and questions! Thank you for listening today! Rhonda, Matt, Fabrice, and David

Analytic Philosophy is a branch of philosophy that emphasizes clarity and logical analysis. Key figures include Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, who contributed to the development of symbolic logic and the philosophy of language. Logical Positivism, emerging from the Vienna Circle, focused on empirical verification and logical necessity. The philosophy of language explores theories of meaning, such as the referential theory, use theory, and speech act theory. Semantic externalism, proposed by Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke, argues that meaning is influenced by external factors. Ordinary language philosophy, associated with J.L. Austin and later Wittgenstein, analyzes everyday language to resolve philosophical problems. The philosophy of science, with contributions from Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, examines the nature of scientific knowledge and methods. W.V.O. Quine's critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction emphasizes the holistic nature of knowledge. Metaphysics in analytic philosophy addresses questions about reality, including the realism vs. anti-realism debate and the nature of properties and universals. Key concepts include propositional logic, predicate logic, and the theory of descriptions.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/library-of-philosophy--5939304/support.

Murray Shanahan is a professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London and a senior research scientist at DeepMind. He challenges our assumptions about AI consciousness and urges us to rethink how we talk about machine intelligence. We explore the dangers of anthropomorphizing AI, the limitations of current language in describing AI capabilities, and the fascinating intersection of philosophy and artificial intelligence. Show notes and full references: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ICtBI574W-xGi8Z2ZtUNeKWiOiGZ_DRsp9EnyYAISws/edit?usp=sharing Prof Murray Shanahan: https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpsha/ (look at his selected publications) https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=00bnGpAAAAAJ&hl=en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Shanahan https://x.com/mpshanahan Interviewer: Dr. Tim Scarfe Refs (links in the Google doc linked above): Role play with large language models Waluigi effect "Conscious Exotica" - Paper by Murray Shanahan (2016) "Simulators" - Article by Janis from LessWrong "Embodiment and the Inner Life" - Book by Murray Shanahan (2010) "The Technological Singularity" - Book by Murray Shanahan (2015) "Simulacra as Conscious Exotica" - Paper by Murray Shanahan (newer paper of the original focussed on LLMs) A recent paper by Anthropic on using autoencoders to find features in language models (referring to the "Scaling Monosemanticity" paper) Work by Peter Godfrey-Smith on octopus consciousness "Metaphors We Live By" - Book by George Lakoff (1980s) Work by Aaron Sloman on the concept of "space of possible minds" (1984 article mentioned) Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" (posthumously published) Daniel Dennett's work on the "intentional stance" Alan Turing's original paper on the Turing Test (1950) Thomas Nagel's paper "What is it like to be a bat?" (1974) John Searle's Chinese Room Argument (mentioned but not detailed) Work by Richard Evans on tackling reasoning problems Claude Shannon's quote on knowledge and control "Are We Bodies or Souls?" - Book by Richard Swinburne Reference to work by Ethan Perez and others at Anthropic on potential deceptive behavior in language models Reference to a paper by Murray Shanahan and Antonia Creswell on the "selection inference framework" Mention of work by Francois Chollet, particularly the ARC (Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus) challenge Reference to Elizabeth Spelke's work on core knowledge in infants Mention of Karl Friston's work on planning as inference (active inference) The film "Ex Machina" - Murray Shanahan was the scientific advisor "The Waluigi Effect" Anthropic's constitutional AI approach Loom system by Lara Reynolds and Kyle McDonald for visualizing conversation trees DeepMind's AlphaGo (mentioned multiple times as an example) Mention of the "Golden Gate Claude" experiment Reference to an interview Tim Scarfe conducted with University of Toronto students about self-attention controllability theorem Mention of an interview with Irina Rish Reference to an interview Tim Scarfe conducted with Daniel Dennett Reference to an interview with Maria Santa Caterina Mention of an interview with Philip Goff Nick Chater and Martin Christianson's book ("The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World") Peter Singer's work from 1975 on ascribing moral status to conscious beings Demis Hassabis' discussion on the "ladder of creativity" Reference to B.F. Skinner and behaviorism

En el programa de hoy, se aborda una reflexión sobre la memoria y el olvido, destacando su importancia en la vida humana y cómo el equilibrio entre ambos es esencial para nuestro bienestar. A través del análisis del cuento "Funes el memorioso" de Jorge Luis Borges, se ilustra cómo una memoria infalible puede convertirse en una carga insoportable. Además, se explora la función de los clichés en el lenguaje cotidiano, señalando cómo estos simplifican la comunicación pero también limitan el pensamiento profundo. Se discuten las ideas del filósofo Wittgenstein sobre los problemas filosóficos como construcciones verbales sin sentido, y se critica la superficialidad de muchas conversaciones diarias. Finalmente, se recomiendan los libros "Montes Guerra, Tragedia y destino" de Pablo Errázuriz y "La casa lúgubre" de Charles Dickens, resaltando su valor literario. Para acceder al programa sin interrupción de comerciales, suscríbete a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/elvillegas DEBUT & DESPEDIDA (2024) https://elvillegas.cl/producto/debut-despedida/ MOMENTOS MUSICALES EN YO MENOR (2023) https://elvillegas.cl/producto/momentos-musicales/ REVOLUCIÓN (2023) https://www.elvillegas.cl/producto/revolucion TSUNAMI (2016) https://www.elvillegas.cl/producto/tsunami LA TORRE DE PAPEL (2022) https://www.elvillegas.cl/producto/la-torre-de-papel ENVEJEZCA O MUÉRASE (2022) https://www.elvillegas.cl/producto/envejezca/ INSURRECCIÓN (2020) Chile https://www.elvillegas.cl/producto/insurreccion/ Internacional por Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WZ29DTQ JULIO CÉSAR PARA JÓVENES Y NO TANTO (2011) https://elvillegas.cl/producto/julio-cesar-para-jovenes-y-no-tanto/ TAMBIÉN APÓYANOS EN FLOW: https://www.flow.cl/app/web/pagarBtnPago.php?token=0yq6qal Grandes Invitados en Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X1LN5GH Encuentra a El Villegas en: Web: http://www.elvillegas.cl Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elvillegaschile Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/elvillegaschile Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/elvillegaspodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7zQ3np197HvCmLF95wx99K Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elvillegaschile 00:00:00 - Introducción y anécdota personal sobre la memoria 00:03:35 - Reflexión sobre la memoria y el olvido 00:14:01 - Análisis del cuento "Funes el memorioso" de Jorge Luis Borges 00:17:34 - Importancia del olvido en la vida humana 00:24:22 - Los clichés y su función en el lenguaje y la vida cotidiana 00:35:31 - Filosofía de Wittgenstein sobre los problemas verbales 00:38:09 - Reflexión sobre los problemas filosóficos y los clichés 00:42:04 - Crítica a las conversaciones cotidianas y su superficialidad 00:44:21 - Recomendación de libros: "Montes Guerra, Tragedia y destino" de Pablo Errázuriz y "La casa lúgubre" de Charles Dickens 00:46:31 - Despedida y comentarios finales

In this second episode of the Sophia Lectures, Professor Douglas Hedley from the University of Cambridge embarks on a deep exploration into the theme of "play" and its relationship to consciousness, language, and poetic expression. Drawing upon the intellectual legacies of Owen Barfield and Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hedley explores the philosophical and theological dimensions of language, highlighting its role in shaping our understanding of existence. He discusses the concept of the "inner word" as described by Augustine and how poetry serves as a bridge between the tangible and the abstract, allowing for playful exploration of meaning. Hedley critiques modern perspectives on consciousness, suggesting that they often overlook the importance of play in human experience. Through discussions on the significance of metaphor, the societal role of poetry, and the collective versus individual nature of consciousness, Hedley offers a comprehensive examination of how language and poetry are fundamental to our comprehension of the world and how play is a vital aspect of this process.  This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersections of language, consciousness, and the human condition, providing a rich tapestry of philosophical inquiry and reflection.   Douglas Hedley is a distinguished philosopher at the University of Cambridge, celebrated for his extensive research in the philosophy of religion and Platonism. He is the author of multiple influential works on imagination and religious experience.   Glossary of Terms   Language games: A concept introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein that highlights the importance of usage and practice in shaping meaning   Resources   Ralston College  Website: https://www.ralston.ac/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RalstonCollegeSavannah X: https://twitter.com/RalstonCollege Douglas Hedley https://www.ralston.ac/people/douglas-hedley   Philosophical Investigations - Ludwig Wittgenstein  https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Investigations-Ludwig-Wittgenstein/dp/0631205691   The Trinity (Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century) - Saint Augustine  https://www.amazon.com/Trinity-2nd-Works-Saint-Augustine/dp/1565484460   Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry - Owen Barfield https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Appearances-Idolatry-Owen-Barfield/dp/081956205X   Truth and Method - Hans-Georg Gadamer https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Method-Hans-Georg-Gadamer/dp/0826405851   Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature - Richard Rorty https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mirror-Nature-Richard-Rorty/dp/0691020167   Augustine-Confessions-vol-1.pdf - Augustine. (n.d.). Confessions, Vol. 1. https://wesleyscholar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Augustine-Confessions-vol-1.pdf   Plato. (n.d.). Alcibiades 1. https://www.platonicfoundation.org/platos-alcibiades-1/   Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture - Johan Huizinga  https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Ludens-Study-Play-Element-Culture/dp/1621389995   Quotes   "The great archetypal activities of human society are all permeated with play from the start." - Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens [00:02:30]   “I think consciousness is fundamental to existence. In fact, it's the great philosophical question of our age.” - Douglas Hedley [01:01:24]   Chapters    [00:00:00] - Introduction to Sophia Lectures: Overview and Introduction of Professor Douglas Hedley   [00:02:00] - Exploring Play and Language: Merging Huizinga's Play Concept with Wittgenstein's Language Games and Investigations to Reveal Language's Essence in Shaping Human Culture and Thought.   [00:20:00] - The Inner Word and the Play of Meaning: Exploring Augustine's Inner Word and Poetry's Power to Unveil Transcendent Truths.   [00:26:00] - Tradition, Interpretation, and the Essence of Language: Exploring the Intellectual Legacies of Barfield and Gadamer, Their Critique of Modernism, and the Philosophical Significance of Language's Transcendental Source.   [00:52:00] - Participation, Aesthetics, and the Divine Word: Navigating Gadamer's Concept of Participation through Platonic Light, Aesthetic Experience, and the Theological Depths of Language.   [01:00:00] - Audience Q&A and Concluding Reflections

To listen to the complete episode with Adam Henry as well as all past Bonus episodes, please become a Patreon supporter of the podcast here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod New York-based artist Adam Henry talks about: His recently ended show at Candice Madey gallery, and how he defines a ‘successful show' (a mix of sales, critical dialogue generated, and future opportunities); the advantages of having a fellow artist as a partner, but how it's also necessary to get alone time when you need it, including time for processing after you've had a show, which has included the fact that this is the first time he's shown work whose meaning he doesn't fully understand, and the first time he's comfortable saying that; how one of the most powerful experiences you can have with art, is to have your mind changed; how important the process of perception is to him and his work, and how his journey through perception started with color theory and Josef Albers and wound up with Wittgenstein, and eventually he wound up in psychedelics; how his making abstract work during the rise of process-based abstraction (aka zombie formalism) was challenging in that he had far fewer opportunities because of the market shift; how important it is to put the emphasis on the intention of the artwork when viewing work, as opposed to the person who made it or the value; how his partner, who is also a painter – a figurative painter, in fact – has at times been the breadwinner of the two, and vice versa, which has served them both well; the great exchanges he and his wife have about the exhibitions they view together.

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with David Edmonds. They speak about David's book The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle Amazon.com: The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle: 9780691164908: Edmonds, David: Books David Edmonds is a multi-award winning presenter/producer at the BBC and the host of The Big Idea. He is the author of many books, including Would You Kill the Fat Man? and (with John Eidinow) the international best-seller Wittgenstein's Poker.  His latest book (co-written with Hugh Fraser), is a children's book Undercover Robot. He's a Distinguished Research Fellow at Oxford University's Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and a columnist for the Jewish Chronicle. With Nigel Warburton he produces the popular podcast series Philosophy Bites which has had over 40 million downloads.  He also runs Philososphy247 and presents Social Science Bites. *** The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle Amazon.com: The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle: 9780691164908: Edmonds, David: Books   Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Shop – https://shop.spreadshirt.com.au/JLH-shop/ Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

Stephen Law is a Philosopher and Author. Currently director of Philosophy and Course Director of the Certificate of Higher Education at the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University, he was formerly Reader in Philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London. He attained his BSc in Philosophy at City University in London, a BPhil at Trinity College, Oxford, and was for three years Junior Research Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford, where he obtained his PhD. He researches primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and essentialism. His popular books include The Philosophy Gym (2003), The Complete Philosophy Files (2000), and Believing Bullshit (2011). He is also editor of Think, the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal. TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) - Introduction (0:22) - The Mind-Body Problem & Consciousness (6:13) - Free Will (10:34) - Belief in the Supernatural (15:56) - Arguments for and against God's existence (22:57) - The Evil God Challenge explained (32:14) - Skeptical Theism (42:49) - The use of Analogies to counter Cognitive Dissonances (52:00) - What made Stephen question God? (56:10) - Stephen's book recommendations for those questioning God (1:01:11) - Philosophy of Science & Armchair Philosophy (1:07:13) - What is currently on Stephen's mind? (Wittgenstein & Illusionism) (1:18:04) - Conclusion EPISODE LINKS: - Stephen's Work: https://tinyurl.com/4ukc9xut - Stephen's Blog: https://tinyurl.com/4zvw852b - Stephen's Twitter: https://x.com/stephenlaw60 - Stephen's Books: https://tinyurl.com/yc7xy7vw - Stephen's Publications: https://tinyurl.com/y73cf5am CONNECT: - Website: https://tevinnaidu.com/ - Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/drtevinnaidu - Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtevinnaidu/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu/ ============================= Disclaimer: The information provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. The content is shared in the spirit of open discourse and does not constitute, nor does it substitute, professional or medical advice. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of listening/watching any of our contents. You acknowledge that you use the information provided at your own risk. Listeners/viewers are advised to conduct their own research and consult with their own experts in the respective fields.

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa Questions include: How do you manage conducting deep/long-term innovation with short-term commercial and funding necessities to keep the lights on? - How well would you say your current understanding of business and academics is today in comparison to when you first started your career? - What is your perspective on AI's omnipresence and ability to introduce a universal basic income into the strata of societies/economies on Earth? What rules will be applicable? - Do you think that with the disappearance of physical labor due to AI automation, it will make a comeback as a healthy hobby? - ​​How do you anticipate AI-to-AI conversations? What sort of information and insights are likely to emerge from these conversations? - ​​Do you ever take time off? - Would you say that a person whose job is also their hobby is a happy person, or a person lacking in both the job and the hobby? - ​Is game theory useful for running a business? - Not necessarily business, but fun... ​Have you ever been to a magic show? - How have interview processes changed since you began your career? - Are there ways to improve application screening and potential candidates? - Could VR/AR environments be a way to test candidates in the work environment? - Should there be an AI system that does computational language design? - The computational language could then be used to tackle problems of any kind and feed back to the language-design AI. - Do ever worry you'll end up like Wittgenstein, solving philosophy and the boundaries of science with an innovative math-related system, then a couple years later decide you're wrong?

From the late-nineteenth century until the mid-1930s, Vienna was Europe's undisputed powerhouse of ideas. But along with the exhilirating achievements of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt, there were also darker forces emerging in parallel which have had their own negative impact on modernity, from organized anti-Semitism to ethnonationalism ideologies. These complex tensions are explored in detail in Richard Cockett's excellent new book, "Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World." In this discussion with Robert Amsterdam, Cockett explains how the Habsburg emperor, Franz Joseph, permitted such intellectual flourishing to occur, as the rapid influx of Jews and other groups and their assimilation into the Austrian middle class via commercial and educational success augmented intellectual curiosity, discovery, and experimentation throughout the city.  Viennese café and salon culture also helped to foster schools of thought, as students and professors would furiously debate disputed major questions of the day into the wee hours. The conditions for this fervent intellectual incubation of course was not to last, and we're all aware of what followed. Cockett's thoughtful history of the city in this period highlights what we can learn about encouraging greater intellectual vitality, pluralism, and civilizational development.

BONUS: Agile Coaching With a Philosophical Twist, Exploring Michel Foucault's Work, The Panopticon, and Other Systems of Control With Michelle Pauk In this episode, with Michelle Pauk - an Agile Coach - we explore what we can learn from philosophy, and Michel Foucault's work on systems of power and discourse. Learn more about the systems we need to adapt to, and even transform. From the Panopticon, to the systems that drive compliance, and remove creative thought! A must listen for those interested in changing the world of work! Michelle's Journey into Agile Coaching "It's not about predicting; it's about responding." Michelle's journey into becoming an Agile coach was as unpredictable as volcanos can be, literally! Inspired initially by Michel Foucault during her studies, she found herself intrigued by the intricacies of thought and its impact on behavior. This intellectual curiosity led her to a company specializing in language learning software, where her role in project management opened her eyes to the stress and unpredictability inherent in the field. The realization that many of her challenges could be mitigated by Agile methodologies was a turning point. Agile, with its emphasis on adaptation over prediction, offered a solution to the guilt and responsibility she felt over uncontrollable factors, like a volcano disrupting her project. This journey not only transformed her approach to work but also challenged inherited industrial revolution-era notions of work processes. Foucault's Influence "The panopticon and Agile: Visibility without the constraint." Michelle's admiration for Michel Foucault's work, particularly his book Discipline and Punish, provides a unique lens through which she views her role as an Agile coach. The book's exploration of the panopticon—a system for observing without being seen—parallels the modern open office plan and contrasts with Agile's emphasis on transparency and collaboration. Foucault's historical analysis of justice systems and control mechanisms resonates with the systemic changes Agile coaching aims to implement in the workplace. Systems of Control and Culture "Pay attention to what is *NOT* being said; it speaks volumes about your team's culture." One of the core aspects of Agile coaching for Michelle is the focus on discourse and culture within teams—what is being talked about, and perhaps more importantly, what isn't. Drawing on Foucault and Wittgenstein, she emphasizes the power of unspoken norms and assumptions in shaping work environments. By encouraging teams to challenge these silent boundaries, Agile coaching not only aims to improve workflow but also to humanize the workplace, making it more receptive to change and innovation. Awareness of Culture in Agile Practices "Can we even think outside our language?" The challenge for Agile coaches and Scrum Masters lies in becoming deeply aware of the surrounding culture and its influence on thought and action. By critically examining workplace norms and practices, Agile professionals can identify and challenge the limitations imposed by current systems of work. This awareness is crucial in fostering an environment where innovation thrives and work is humanized, reflecting the core goals of Agile methodology. Philosophical Inspirations "I'm curious on what I learn from literature. It helps to understand, and develop empathy." Michelle's coaching philosophy is enriched by a broad spectrum of historical and literary insights, demonstrating a deep-seated belief in the value of diverse perspectives. Beyond Foucault, she draws inspiration from literature and other historical accounts of thought, believing that understanding different mental frameworks can enhance empathy and effectiveness in her coaching practice. Books like Edgar Schein's explorations of organizational culture further contribute to her holistic approach. Exploring Systems of Control "Understanding 'coercive persuasion' sheds light on resistance to change." For those interested in delving deeper into the concepts of systems of control and their implications for learning and adaptation, Michelle recommends an article from the Harvard Business Review by Edgar Schein. This resource provides insights into 'coercive persuasion' and the natural resistance to change, topics that are crucial for Agile coaches aiming to navigate and mitigate these challenges in their organizations. About Michelle Pauk Michelle Pauk is the founder of Streamside Coaching, where she helps leaders and organizations thrive with change. She has over 15 years of experience working in diverse agile environments as a Product Owner, Scrum Master, project manager, and Agile coach. She is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation and has a master's degree in leadership and organizational development. You can link with Michelle Pauk on LinkedIn.

Do we have a "Self"? Or "Personality"? What's the best way to combat Should Statements?  Is TEAM effective without a therapist?  What's the Difference between Positive Reframing and Positive Thoughts?  Note: The answers below were written by David prior to the podcast, just to give some structure to the discussion. Keep in mind that the actual live discussion by Rhonda, Matt and David will often go in different directions with different information and opinions. So, please listen to the podcast for the more complete answers! Questions for today's Ask David Podcast: Stefan asks if we have a “self” or a “personality.” Slash wants to know how to combat a “Should Statement.” Magellan asks about the effectiveness of TEAM without the guidance of a therapist. Werner asks about the differences between Positive Reframing and the Positive Thoughts you record on the Daily Mood Log.   1. Stefan asks if we have a “self” or a “personality.” What is the so-called “Great Death” of the “self,” referred to in Buddhism? Hi David, I really love your work, both the books and the podcast you've created. Lots of great tools there. I think your down-to-earth approach is effective and great in de-mythologizing mental health care. Still, one thing has been bugging me about your approach: the fact that you quite casually seem to discount the existence of the self. As a theologian I understand this position. In discounting the self as a construct, you'll open the way to less resistance and more acceptance. I studied both Christianity and some Buddhism, and in that tradition the self is essentially something to let go of as an illusion. I think you called this the death of the ego, and it's common in many mystical currents both within and without the major religious traditions. However, by embracing this tradition in a therapeutic setting, I think there's a great risk to gloss over long-held implicit beliefs or patterns in the construction of a personality that might hold people back from reaching their full potential. More specifically, I'm talking about schemas or Lifetraps (in the terminology of Jeffrey E. Young and Janet S. Klosko). I know Aaron Beck supports their work to address these “chronic self-defeating personality patterns” that are usually considered the be part of the self. What's your take on their work? Kind regards, Stefan David's reply Hi Stefan, Personality, like "self" is not a "thing," but just the observations that different people have different behavioral patterns. So, some are more outgoing, for example, while others are more introverted and shy and insecure. The only meaning of "self" is the context in which the word appears. So, "behave yourself" simply means that you are misbehaving and need to stop! Can you come to the Sunday hike is a question. It does not need the add on, "and do you plan to bring you 'self.'" The only meaning of any word is the context, and many uses in the English language, or any language. Nouns do not always refer to "things." Words are just sounds that come out of our mouths. I don't go into this much because few people "get it." Thanks so much, Stefan. Warmly, david PS The above is my take on Wittgenstein's Philosophical investigations, published after he died in 1950. . Second PS I had a random and fairly weak thought, but here it is. When doing my daily “slogging” a while back, I was going through a pleasant and familiar path and noticing how beautiful everything was, and had the thought, “This land is so valuable and expensive, and I'm SO GLAD I don't have to own it. It would involve a nightmare of paper work, taxes and all kinds of worries. But I can just enjoy it without any of those burdens of ownership. Then I thought of the “self,” and what a heavy burden it is to “have one,” and worry about whether or not it is “good enough,” or “inferior,” and so forth. Selves tend to be a bit overweight, and heavy to carry around. And how much more fun, beautiful, and rewarding life is without having to have a “self” to worry about. Rhonda found this helpful after a time feeling confused about the "self," and Matt added this: "Right, and if we own the 'land' one day, and it changes, the next moment, is it the same 'land'?  Do we still own it?" Matt's "Self" Thoughts Wittgenstein is one of my favorite philosophers due to the elegance of his solution to philosophical problems, which is to recognize that they are not, in fact, ‘problems'.  Instead of trying to answer the question, ‘is there a self', ‘do I have a self', he would point out that these questions are meaningless and can't be answered. One way to bring these questions into a form that could be useful and answerable, is to define the terms.  What is the ‘self', and what can it do?  How would I know, if I had a ‘self'?  If the definition was in the form of a testable hypothesis, we'd be a step closer to arriving at a meaningful answer. In some cases, this answer is incredibly meaningful, in terms of our mental state and relationships.  Let's try on a few possible definitions of ‘self' and consider some experiments that could be done to test whether these hold water. ‘Self':  (from Meriam Webster):  one's essential being, which separates them from others.  (I don't find this definition useful, because now I just have to define what is an ‘essential being'?  What are we talking about? ‘Self':  The subject of our experience; the thing that is thinking our thoughts, and feeling our feelings.  (This is also problematic for many reasons.  First, it's based on an unproven assumption that experience requires an experiencer.  Descartes believed this but Nietsche retorted that this logic was highly flawed as it smuggles the ‘self' into the equation without any justification.  Further, there are many ‘nondualistic' philosophies that challenge the ‘separateness' of ‘self' and experience.  Meaning, the presence of thought doesn't mean anything other than the presence of thought.  We ought to be skeptical of introducing additional complexity into the situation according to the principle of ‘Occam's Razor', that the simplest hypothesis that explains all the observations is more likely to be correct). ‘Self':  The ‘CEO' of your mind, the aspec of yourself that is directing your body, attention and decision-making.  (This is problematic in many of the same ways as the above definition.  It's also the most readily falsifiable definition.  We can experiment with our ability to control our decision-making in a variety of ways, one of which is to see if you can ‘choose', with your ‘self' not to understand the words on this page.  Or to sit quietly and not think.  If our ‘self' can't use its ‘free will' to control the brain's activities in such simple ways, why would we imagine that we have a self, controlling our brain, at all? In fact, most of us believe in a ‘self', which, if we attempt to define it carefully, it can be proven NOT to exist.  However, this is an unacceptable conclusion for many people, even though it results in a form of enlightenment.  This form of enlightenement is slightly different from ‘self acceptance'.  It's more like ‘waking up from a dream of a self' than ‘acceping a flawed self'. All that said, yes, it's often incredibly useful to inspect our assumptions about our ‘self', in terms of our ‘roles' and ‘rules' in our relationships.  David offers the ‘Interpersonal Downward Arrow' to do this in a single session.  There, we might discover we are stuck in a belief system that is counterproductive, like, ‘we must be perfect', ‘we should never have conflict', etc.  There are countless ways people think about their ‘self' which can be productive or a ‘trap'.  Obviously, if we had no sense of our identity, purpose, role, etc., it would be hard to know what to do with our ‘selves' on a day-to-day basis!   2. Slash asks how she can combat her “Should Statement.” Hi David I did some exercises and found I a believe that I should play guitar effortlessly or else I should enjoy the process of learning. My disadvantages are greater in CBA. Now what thought should I replace with so that I could have the advantages too. Slash David's reply Thanks, Slash! It is a should statement. Essentially, your “should” doesn't make sense since there is no rule that says you should, must, or ought to enjoy something you don't enjoy right now, so you are just putting pressure on yourself unnecessarily. I once had a patient who had previously been treated briefly by Dr. Albert Ellis when he was in New York. He was on vacation, and was feeling depressed and telling himself that he SHOULDN'T be unhappy since he was on vacation. He thought he SHOULD be enjoying himself. He said that the thing that helped the most was when Dr. Ellis said, “Where the F__K is it written that you are obligated to enjoy being on vacation?” (Ellis used that word a lot!) He said he immediately gave himself permission to feel miserable on vacation, and instantly felt better! This is an example of what I call the Acceptance Paradox. When he accepted his unhappiness, instead of struggling in shame to make it go away, it disappeared. I have a similar story. I used to have a keen interest in collecting coins from around the world, and when I was an intern at Highland Hospital in Oakland, I used to enjoy going to the local coin stores to see if I could find some interesting foreign coin to purchase for a few dollars. This was always exciting, but one day I was in the S & D Coin store just a few miles from our apartment, realized I was totally bored and had lost my interest in collecting foreign coins. I told the friendly dealer, and he said, “Oh, don't worry about it. Just do something else in your free time for a few weeks and your interest in collecting will probably come back.” So, I did that, and that's just what happened. Essentially, he was also giving me “permission” to feel the way I was feeling, and not the way I thought I “should” feel! And when I accepted my negative feelings, they ran their course and disappeared. That worked for me, but there are a lot of methods in TEAM, and you sometimes have to try quite a few before you find the one that works for you, since we're all different. The “go to” method for Should Statements is called the Semantic Technique. Using this method, you could tell yourself, “Right now I seem to have lost interest in music. It would be great if it comes back again, and probably will. But it's natural not to feel excited about music all the time.” Notice that I used “it would be great if” in place of the “Shoulds.” As an aside, we just completed a new class for the Feeling Great App entitled “Your PhD in Shoulds.” You might want to check it out. There's also a lesson on perfectionism at the end of the class. Best, david Cost-Benefit Analysis If I make mistakes, then I am not talented enough to play guitar.(associating my self worth with talent of playing guitar.) Advantages of Believing This Disadvantages of Believing This 1.It will push me to work harder. 1.There is lot of internal pressure. 2.It will motivate me to try different things until I find any solution. 2.It makes me depressed. 3.It can help me to be perfect/achive skills like my idol guitarist. 3.It ruins my currently playing technique I want to master. 4.People will admire me. 4.It makes me stuck at particular point from where I am not able to move forward. 5.It shows that I am one cut above others. 5.It hinders my progress with respect to guitar playing skills. 6.People who think I am not enough I can prove it to them. 6.It makes me frustrated irritated. 7.It can help me to be confident. 7.Endless cycle which I feel I am stuck in the moment and cant get out of it.   8.The quest to achieve will take forever which will make me hopeless and which further decreases my tolerance to make mistakes/which will further make me vigilant to see my mistakes as fault which cannot be corrected.   9.My moral goes down.   3. Magellan asks: Can you do TEAM-CBT without a shrink? Dear David, Could you tell us about studies of the effectiveness of any written TEAM or other therapy materials offered without therapist guidance (for example when people are on a waitlist to see a therapist)? I think I heard of one done with Feeling Good. I wonder if one may be done with Feeling Great. Thanks, Magellan David's response: We have impressive results with our app, which I can describe. It is completely automated without therapist guidance. It is kind of like my first book, Feeling Good, on steroids! I also have precise data on waiting list controls. The waiting list do not improve until they start the Feeling Great App and then they experience rapid and dramatic changes with a couple days. There's no doubt about the effectiveness of the app. Also, there's extensive research proving the effectiveness' o my first book, Feeling Good. There's no question about the effectiveness of these self-help tools. I have many questions about the effectiveness of human shrinks, however!   4. From Werner Spitzfaden: Positive Reframing vs Positive Thoughts I periodically come across clients who get confused by the concept of the Positive Reframing vs Positive Thoughts on the DML. The question they pose is if the Positive Reframe is similar to the Positive Thoughts on the DML? After some explanation I focus on Positive Reframing as a way of seeing that even the most difficult and painful thoughts and feelings reveal something powerful and awesome about us and then ask if that's true about them. This focuses on Outcome Resistance. The positive thoughts on the DML focus on defeating their negative thinking with 2 conditions needing to be present: their new positive thought needs to be believable and it has to drastically reduce the distress resulting from your negative thought. This focuses on the early stages of Methods coming after looking at Distortions followed by the Straight Forward Technique. I would love to hear David's take on this. David's Response Yes, Werner, you are right! The goal of Positive Reframing is not to “Cheerlead” or to persuade the patient that their negative thoughts are not correct, but rather to help them see why they may fight to hang on to their negative thoughts and feelings, because they are beneficial and helpful in many ways. This is the latest list of questions you can ask when doing PR with a negative thought. Most will also apply to a negative feeling. What is the truth in this negative thought? (This is essentially the Disarming Technique applied to your own self-criticism) Why might this negative thought or feeling be healthy and appropriate, given my circumstances. Why might this negative thought or feeling be helpful to me? What does it show about me and my core values that's positive and awesome? What might be some negative consequences of giving up this negative thought or feeling? You were spot on about Positive Thoughts. To be helpful, they must fulfill two conditions. They must be 100% true. Half-truths and rationalizations are rarely or never helpful/ They must drastically reduce your belief in the distorted negative thought. Hey, Werner, we miss you like crazy in the Tuesday group and in our (now small and humble) Sunday hikes. Hope you're doing well.  

In this episode James Klagge discusses the life and times of Ludwig Wittgenstein with David Edmonds. This is part of our mini series on the biographies of philosophers, Bio Bites.