Speaker 1: You could be in the matrix, right, I mean you
Speaker 1: could say, oh, well we can test our senses. Well,
Speaker 1: you can test your senses by using your census. It's
Speaker 1: so secular, you know, but some all knowledge is ultimately based,
Speaker 1: rooted in just a decision to trust experiences.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today, I'd like
Speaker 2: to welcome Philip Goff to the show. Philip is a
Speaker 2: British author, philosopher and professor at Durham University whose research
Speaker 2: focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness. In this episode,
Speaker 2: we discuss his latest book, Why the Purpose of the Universe.
Speaker 2: This is a very deep book and therefore this was
Speaker 2: a pretty deep discussion. In this episode, we discuss topics
Speaker 2: such as evidence for the existence of God, what physics
Speaker 2: says about the probability of there being a God, and
Speaker 2: whether the universe has a purpose. We also discuss the
Speaker 2: function of religion and society, and Philip's own views on
Speaker 2: what form God would take based on the latest evidence.
Speaker 2: And in probably my part of the discussion, we discussed
Speaker 2: peak experiences and whether people are seeing reality most clearly
Speaker 2: when they're in the throes of a peak experience. So
Speaker 2: this is a very juicy topic and a juicy episode.
Speaker 2: So without further ado, I'll bring you Philip Gough. Philip
Speaker 2: Golf is so exciting to welcome you to again to
Speaker 2: the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: Hi, Scott, it's good to be here. It's been a while.
Speaker 2: It has been a while and sit in the intervening period.
Speaker 2: You've solved the mysteries of the universe. So well done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all wrapped up now ready to retire. But
Speaker 1: you know, actually, Scott, you you want. Your podcast was
Speaker 1: one of the first I ever went on years ago.
Speaker 1: I thought I was incredibly nervous because I've never really
Speaker 1: been on a podcast before, and done a few more
Speaker 1: since then, so I'm a bit more used to it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's excited to come back on again. Well,
Speaker 1: it's great to have you back. Last time we discussed
Speaker 1: different theories of consciousness and I've just been absolutely riveted
Speaker 1: to see how you've agree with that and connecting that
Speaker 1: with religion. So we're going to jump into all this
Speaker 1: today what is the point of living?
Speaker 2: But start out with really you start with theasey questions?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean actually, because you know, my recent
Speaker 1: book modestly titled why the Purpose of the universe. You know,
Speaker 1: most of it is doing what I do is the
Speaker 1: sort of cold blooded scientific philosophical argument for something. But
Speaker 1: in the final chapter I do get to these big questions, right,
Speaker 1: what's the point and of it all? Why are we here?
Speaker 1: How does this affect human meaning in purpose? And I suppose,
Speaker 1: you know, quite generally, I take a sort of middleware.
Speaker 1: I'm always the middle way, the middle way guy. So
Speaker 1: you know, you've got some extremes like the Christian philosopher
Speaker 1: William Lane Craig, who say, you know, if there's no God,
Speaker 1: if there's no point to the universe, it's all pointless.
Speaker 1: You know, we might as well might as well just
Speaker 1: kill each other if we want to. And then at
Speaker 1: the other extreme you've got the you know, a familiar
Speaker 1: secular humanist position like there probably is no purpose to
Speaker 1: the universe, but even if there is, it's kind of irrelevant.
Speaker 1: You know, we make our own meaning and purpose. That's
Speaker 1: all there is to it. I guess I take a
Speaker 1: middle way point of view, where you know, if there's
Speaker 1: no God, if there's no purpose to the universe, we
Speaker 1: can still live meaningful lives by doing things that are
Speaker 1: worth doing, you know, pursuing kindness, creativity, the pursuit of knowledge,
Speaker 1: and so on. But maybe if there is a purpose
Speaker 1: to the universe, if we've got some reason to take
Speaker 1: that seriously, maybe there's a hope of a greater purpose,
Speaker 1: or at least a greater sense of meaning and purpose
Speaker 1: in existence. And that's where I eventually get to in
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you really had me thinking a lot, because I
Speaker 2: teach a course on well being at Columbia, and I,
Speaker 2: you know, I teach about purpose, and and I have
Speaker 2: this semester. I actually have a very very very religious
Speaker 2: Christian student who all of her reflections are tied to know.
Speaker 2: We had a thing last week which is like a
Speaker 2: reflection on what is your purpose? And the whole thing
Speaker 2: was to serve God, you know. And and I feel like,
Speaker 2: after reading your book, I'm kind of viewing her reflection.
Speaker 2: Maybe need to give her a better grade, Come and
Speaker 2: think of it, because you know, I think, oh, there's
Speaker 2: something really interesting there where like may like maybe there
Speaker 2: and you're going to explain this to me, but maybe
Speaker 2: there is actually a reasonably scientific support for some version
Speaker 2: of of the purpose I have is one that is
Speaker 2: in line with a cosmic purpose, even though I don't
Speaker 2: know exactly what it is yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the position I've reached, after struggling back
Speaker 1: and forth for many years, is that both sides of
Speaker 1: this never ending debate have something right and something wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, I think so many people in the West
Speaker 1: think I they have to believe in the very traditional
Speaker 1: idea of God as all knowing or for perfectly good,
Speaker 1: or you're a secular atheist, it's like, who sign you on,
Speaker 1: Richard Dawkins or the Pope, you know, make your mind up.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I've just come to think that both sides
Speaker 1: have something right and something wrong. With the traditional belief
Speaker 1: in God. They have the challenge of explaining why there's
Speaker 1: so much suffering. Why would a loving God who can
Speaker 1: do anything allow so much suffering in the world. But
Speaker 1: I think there are also things traditional atheism struggles to explain,
Speaker 1: most notably the fine tuning of physics for life, the
Speaker 1: surprising discovery of recent decades that for life to be possible,
Speaker 1: certain numbers in physics had to fall in a certain,
Speaker 1: incredibly narrow range, in such a way that, on the
Speaker 1: face of it, it's incredibly improbable that a universe like
Speaker 1: ours would get the right numbers for life just by chance.
Speaker 1: So you know, humans get stuck in this dichotomy, don't they.
Speaker 1: You know, are you a sort of US capitalist or
Speaker 1: a Soviet communist? You know, are you a do you
Speaker 1: believe in the soul? Or is it just electrochemical signaling?
Speaker 1: And we ignore the wealth of middle ground options. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm really trying to trying to do in the book.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, you know, this is the answer, this
Speaker 1: is the one true faith. I'm just exploring the wealth
Speaker 1: of interesting positions between God and atheism.
Speaker 2: Look, I hear you, and I would say, from the
Speaker 2: perspective an of an atheist, maybe a militant atheist, your
Speaker 2: position is not in the middle. It's interesting because you
Speaker 2: had to admit like to to you know, Dawkins was
Speaker 2: Richard Dawkins was listening to you right now and hearing
Speaker 2: your position as in the middle. He'd be like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: my like, look, you don't have you don't have evidence.
Speaker 2: Now you're you're but you're I understand that you're putting
Speaker 2: forward the fine tuning of physics. Is that that's your
Speaker 2: main data point?
Speaker 1: Is that really? So?
Speaker 2: Like tell people like UT's impact it all more, that
Speaker 2: seems like a pretty big shining that. I don't think
Speaker 2: a lot of people are on the street really have
Speaker 2: they din't get them women and the memo for that yet? Now,
Speaker 2: when was this discovering? Who are the mean physicists who described?
Speaker 2: Is it really like a consensus now in physics?
Speaker 1: Sure? Well, just it's interesting you say that from your
Speaker 1: atheist perspective, it's it's not a middle way position. Actually
Speaker 1: might just to con say sorry, sorry, from perspective, do
Speaker 1: you know. Actually, in terms of my response from friends
Speaker 1: and colleagues, I found most of my atheist friends have said, oh,
Speaker 1: this is just non standard atheism, whereas most of my
Speaker 1: religious friends have said this is just nonstandard theism. So
Speaker 1: probably probably in the middle is is is the right
Speaker 1: way to put it. But yeah, the fine tuning and
Speaker 1: physics for life, I mean, just to be clear, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of misunderstanding here. People think if you say
Speaker 1: physics is fine tuned for life, that means oh, there's
Speaker 1: a fine tuna, and okay, that that would be controversial
Speaker 1: that some kind of designer. What it actually means, and
Speaker 1: this is a familiar term in physics, is just that
Speaker 1: for life to be possible these numbers had to fall
Speaker 1: in a certain very narrow range. I mean, let's take
Speaker 1: an example, Put an example on the table. One of
Speaker 1: the most discussed cases is the cosmological constant that measures
Speaker 1: the force that propels the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We discovered in nineteen ninety eight. I remember actually as
Speaker 1: a young kid interested in you know, black holes and
Speaker 1: so on. We discovered that our universe is not only expanding,
Speaker 1: but it's accelerating in its expansion. And when you calculate
Speaker 1: what the number is that governs that the force we
Speaker 1: call it dark energy, actually the postulated force that's propelling
Speaker 1: that expansion, it turns out that if that force just
Speaker 1: a little bit stronger, everything would have shot apart so
Speaker 1: quickly that no two particles would have ever met, you know,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have had stars, planets, any kind of structural complexity,
Speaker 1: Whereas if it was a bit weaker, it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: counteracted gravity, and so everything would have collapsed back on
Speaker 1: itself as split second after the Big Bang. So the
Speaker 1: life to be possible, that number to be kind of
Speaker 1: like Goldilocks porridge, right, not too big, not too small,
Speaker 1: kind of exactly right. Or not. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: one number that's that's needed, but it's in a quite
Speaker 1: narrow range. So yeah, I mean, this is fairly uncontroversial physics.
Speaker 1: Just at what I've just said, And do you find
Speaker 1: it surprising not many people know about it. I mean
Speaker 1: I tweeted a big list of very big, high profile
Speaker 1: physicists to accept this. I mean, Stephen Hawking, did Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize winners. Ah, my mind's gone blank on names just now,
Speaker 1: Leonards Suskind and you know, it's it's, it's, it's there's
Speaker 1: always some controversy, but it's it's a fairly broadly accepted fact,
Speaker 1: at least about our current theories. Right, of course, the
Speaker 1: current theories may change. They may change that you'll get
Speaker 1: less fine tuning. They may change that you'll get more
Speaker 1: fine tuning. But I think, you know, we've got to
Speaker 1: work with the evidence we currently have. What follows from
Speaker 1: that is another question. But just let me let me
Speaker 1: say I am inclined honestly to think we're kind of
Speaker 1: sort of in denial about this as a society. I
Speaker 1: think it's a little bit like when we first started
Speaker 1: getting evidence that we were in the center of the universe,
Speaker 1: and people struggled to accept that, sorry, that we weren't.
Speaker 1: What did I say, We started getting evidence that we
Speaker 1: weren't another member, Sorry Freudian slipped there, and people struggle
Speaker 1: to accept that because it didn't fit with the picture
Speaker 1: of the universe they got so used to. And nowadays
Speaker 1: we scoff at those people and think, oh, yeah, stupid
Speaker 1: religious people. What they just follow the evidence. But I
Speaker 1: think every generation absorbs a worldview that they can't see beyond.
Speaker 1: And I think we've got so I think, in our
Speaker 1: normal standard way of thinking about evidence, I think and
Speaker 1: we can maybe debate this. I think this is evidence
Speaker 1: for some kind of goal directedness towards life in the
Speaker 1: early universe. And I think culturally we've just got so
Speaker 1: used to the idea, no, that's not what science says,
Speaker 1: that we're just I think we're just ignoring where the
Speaker 1: evidence is most straightforwardly pointing. I think future historians looking
Speaker 1: back will think, why did they just ignore this for
Speaker 1: so long?
Speaker 2: So that's that's that's where I'm or well, maybe there's
Speaker 2: is a god somewhere just thinking that, you know, like,
Speaker 2: why are they still ignoring?
Speaker 1: They still ignoring me? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess. I guess a lot of people do pray
Speaker 2: to God. But it's just it's it's it's it is
Speaker 2: so interesting because you're you're you're taking you're away coming
Speaker 2: in as a non physicist and you're thinking this through.
Speaker 2: You're like, let's they actually really think this through in
Speaker 2: a way in like a human lot, like what implications
Speaker 2: for humans? You know, And it's so cool, Like I
Speaker 2: feel like physicists should really appreciate you. Do they do
Speaker 2: they appreciate you? Do you do you hang out with physicists?
Speaker 1: I well, yeah, increasingly, I work with a lot of physicists.
Speaker 1: I'm currently working with physicist Graham White at University of Southampton.
Speaker 1: We're going to get in a few physicists and philosophers
Speaker 1: together to put forward a paper on some of the
Speaker 1: recent philosophical discussions in this area. Yeah. I had a
Speaker 1: conference in Durham last week where Luke Barnes and Jeraint
Speaker 1: Lewis came to cosmologists to have written I think one
Speaker 1: of the best recent books on the evidence of fine tuning,
Speaker 1: It's got a Fortunate Universe. And it's interesting that one
Speaker 1: of them, Luke, but is a Christian and takes this
Speaker 1: in a in a theistic direction, whereas Geraint, his co writer,
Speaker 1: is an atheist that thinks the multiverse is the best explanation.
Speaker 1: But so most of the book is just the evidence
Speaker 1: and then they have a sort of dialogue at the end.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what I find a lot of though, to
Speaker 1: be honest, I was talking to parently one of my
Speaker 1: kids recently, who's a very good friend at a physicist,
Speaker 1: and what I find a lot is people say things
Speaker 1: like I don't find many people saying that this is
Speaker 1: not true about the fine tuning. I get that on Twitter,
Speaker 1: but I don't get that from physicists. What they say is, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what they say is what the evidence is
Speaker 1: going to change? Right? You know, physics isn't complete, And
Speaker 1: I think, well, yeah, physics is not complete. We haven't
Speaker 1: bought general relativity and quantum mechanics together. Maybe when we
Speaker 1: do that, this will go away, but it's equally possible
Speaker 1: there'll be more fine tuning. And I think all you
Speaker 1: can ever do is work with the evidence you currently have.
Speaker 1: It's the definition of a bias to say, you know, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to ignore the evidences we currently have it
Speaker 1: and wait until evidence comes along that benefits the theory
Speaker 1: I like, and I honestly think that what's going on.
Speaker 1: Just one more thing. I think we're very well trained
Speaker 1: in intellectual circles in the West to be very alert
Speaker 1: to religious bias, bias from religious upbringing, you know, or
Speaker 1: you just believe that because you want to believe in
Speaker 1: God orthing. But I think we're not well trained to
Speaker 1: be alert to bias from a certain secular worldview. And
Speaker 1: I find like that's a much more powerful influence on me.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel I do feel silly talking about
Speaker 1: this stuff in front of my colleagues, you know, I
Speaker 1: really it took me a long time to build up
Speaker 1: the confidence. So close childhood friend of mine John says, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just your Catholic upbringing. I mean, you know, my
Speaker 1: Catholic up bringing that and rejected when I was fortyected it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like that has hardly any influence over me,
Speaker 1: whereas the secular world, you know, worldview a swim in
Speaker 1: that you know, cosmic purpose is just ridiculous, that has
Speaker 1: much you know, that's really hard to counter. So so anyway, look,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not an argument, but I think what
Speaker 1: I want to press is the we need to be
Speaker 1: alert to biases on both sides.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I agree, I definitely agree that. So let's
Speaker 2: further unpack your argument why science points to a cosmic purpose.
Speaker 2: The second part of your argument is a little more
Speaker 2: of my wheelhouse. The fact that you argue there's psychophysical harmony,
Speaker 2: the improbable alignment between consciousness and behavior that is presupposed
Speaker 2: in any evolutionary story of the character of our conscious experience.
Speaker 2: Can you unpack that one a little more for me,
Speaker 2: because I can maybe wrap my head a little more
Speaker 2: run out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this, now, this is much harder to convey, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest about that. You know, with the find with
Speaker 1: the fine tuning, it's easy to get people to see
Speaker 1: the issue, even if they think it's bullshit or something.
Speaker 1: But with this it is much harder. And well, the
Speaker 1: way I try to set it up in a paper
Speaker 1: I've got in all an article in Scientific American is
Speaker 1: to think about the way David Chalmers famously set up
Speaker 1: the hard problem of consciousness. Right. He distinguishes the easy
Speaker 1: problems so called, and the hard problems. So the easy
Speaker 1: problems are kind of to do with behavior or information processing.
Speaker 1: What stuff does, and science knows how to deal with that.
Speaker 1: You postulate a mechanism to explain the behavior. But Charmers
Speaker 1: thinks those kind of things always leave open the hard problem.
Speaker 1: Why is there experience? Why does it feel like something
Speaker 1: to be in this brain state? So that whole approach
Speaker 1: to consciousness that, by the way, I'm very much on
Speaker 1: the side of distinguishes sort of behavior from experience and
Speaker 1: says there's, of course these go together in the real world,
Speaker 1: but there's at least a conceptual separation now. But once
Speaker 1: you do that, what I think Charmer's never realized is,
Speaker 1: once you do that, you've got another problem. Why do
Speaker 1: they fit together so well? If experience and behavior are
Speaker 1: sort of logically separable, why do they fit together so well?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean the most obvious examples are like
Speaker 1: pleasure and pain. Like when you when something hurts, you
Speaker 1: avoid it, And that's kind of appropriate, right, That's like,
Speaker 1: if something feels bad, that gives you a reason to
Speaker 1: avoid it. If something feels good, you tend to go
Speaker 1: for it, and and that makes sense as well. But
Speaker 1: if if these two things, if behavior and consciousness are separable,
Speaker 1: like why would they go together in this way? That
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense and that's just one example. I mean,
Speaker 1: in general, they fit together. I mean the final the
Speaker 1: Kushler thing I'll say is and this is what the
Speaker 1: first response is, Well, it's evolution, right, And I don't
Speaker 1: think evolution does it because I mean, look, I believe
Speaker 1: in evolution. I think we evolve the consciousness we have.
Speaker 1: But I think any evil lutionary explanation of our consciousness
Speaker 1: presupposes what I'm talking about, presupposes that behavior and consciousness
Speaker 1: go together in a kind of rationally appropriate way. Like
Speaker 1: natural selection is only going to make me feel pain
Speaker 1: when my body's damaged if I'm gonna respond appropriately and
Speaker 1: avoid getting my body damaged. It's only going to make
Speaker 1: me feel pleasure when I eat if I'm going to
Speaker 1: respond appropriately and you know et and and I'm gonna survive. Well,
Speaker 1: so we do have this deep question. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could say, you could say, well, the whole thing's just
Speaker 1: charmers is just wrong. Consciousness just is a behavioral thing.
Speaker 1: That's that's one option we could maybe talk about. But
Speaker 1: as soon as you say, now, there is this separation,
Speaker 1: There is this deep difficulty of why they why they
Speaker 1: fit together so well? And I think it's it's massively
Speaker 1: under exp it doesn't lead you straight to cosmic purpose.
Speaker 1: I've got to like a broad, complicated discussion, but there's
Speaker 1: something deep that the heart the problem. Consciousness is much
Speaker 1: deeper than we've that we've currently envisaged.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, this is really complex stuff, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to lose our audience, but this is really, really,
Speaker 2: this is a really deep stuff.
Speaker 1: Could I put it in a slightly different way that
Speaker 1: that might be a bit more accessible? That it's kind
Speaker 1: of how I start the chapter. Actually, this chapter of
Speaker 1: the book, chapter three, does have a warning on it
Speaker 1: that it's a bit more complicated. But here's a simpler point, Right,
Speaker 1: there's a deep mystery of why consciousness evolved at all
Speaker 1: because natural selection just cares about behavior, right, just cares
Speaker 1: about that that's what matters for survival. But we've found
Speaker 1: with AI now right, that you can have incredibly complex
Speaker 1: behavior and incredibly complex information processing with no kind of
Speaker 1: inner life at all. So why did natural selection just
Speaker 1: make us kind of complicated survival mechanisms? Right? That can
Speaker 1: you know, mechanically track features of the environment and initiate
Speaker 1: survival conducive behavior without having any kind of inner life
Speaker 1: at all? I think there's a deep mystery of why
Speaker 1: natural selection needed to give us an inner life. And again,
Speaker 1: the step to cosmic purpose is a it is is
Speaker 1: a few steps down the line. But this, look, I
Speaker 1: suppose I can put it this way. I think there
Speaker 1: are deep problems, deep challenges with underappreciated in our current
Speaker 1: scientific picture of things consciousness, fine tuning, and these these
Speaker 1: problems to do with how we make sense of the
Speaker 1: evolution of consciousness. And one of them, don't try and
Speaker 1: do the book is just really wrestle with them quite deeply.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know what you're doing, and I am in
Speaker 2: awe of you.
Speaker 1: For doing it. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's just the very various things that I'm
Speaker 2: trying to see how they line up. So help me
Speaker 2: line up something. I mean, you you make this case
Speaker 2: that there is you use the word goddish. I think
Speaker 2: it's funny, but you're like, you know, there is this,
Speaker 2: Like these are the two arguments that there might be
Speaker 2: that there probably is the existence of something goddish, and
Speaker 2: the fine tuning physics for life and the psycho physical harmony,
Speaker 2: and then you have a whole argument why the omni
Speaker 2: god probably doesn't exist. But I guess this helped me
Speaker 2: swear this away. I would have thought maybe I might
Speaker 2: understand it correctly. But since you you're like the guy
Speaker 2: when it comes to the theory of pant psychism, right,
Speaker 2: isn't panpsychism literally an argument for an omnipresent consciousness? And
Speaker 2: if there like something fundamental to the universe, and if
Speaker 2: there is an omnipresent wouldn't wouldn't that actually be some
Speaker 2: suggestion there might be an omniprison God. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: not understanding how the world how you come up with
Speaker 2: there probably isn't an omnipresent God. Considering you're you're you're
Speaker 2: mister pan psychism, that question absolutely that you would have
Speaker 2: come across the other way.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, you know, there is people might be interested
Speaker 1: that there is a big split in the ever growing
Speaker 1: pant psychist research community. You know, so exciting that fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago nobody was punt psychist, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: just been this growing third way position. That's quite exciting.
Speaker 1: But there is a split I think maybe reminiscent of
Speaker 1: the split in the early psychoanalytic community between followers of
Speaker 1: Young and followers of Freud. You know, followers of Young
Speaker 1: took it in a spiritual direction with the collective unconscious
Speaker 1: and spiritual archetypes, whereas people who like Freud thought, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: this is religious, superstitious nonsense. We need serious science. And
Speaker 1: likewise with pant psychism. Some people, I mean David Chalmers
Speaker 1: in so far as he's sympathetic to punt psychism. Luke
Speaker 1: Rolloffs a very good punt psychist philosopher Angela Mendelivici these
Speaker 1: people are totally reductionist, secular atheist. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: believe in some transcendent reality. They just think, look ordinary consciousness,
Speaker 1: seeing color, hearing sound. We need a new way of
Speaker 1: thinking of dealing with these scientifically, whereas others I'm probably
Speaker 1: a bit more on this side. Also head to Hassle
Speaker 1: Merk or Itai Shanny. Do see a certain consonant with
Speaker 1: certain spiritual views. Actually, Joanna LEIDENHG is a very good
Speaker 1: philosopher and theologian who defends a sort of pant psychist Christianity,
Speaker 1: where she thinks, you know, if you've got consciousness pervading
Speaker 1: the universe, this helps us understand how God can have
Speaker 1: an intimate connection with the universe.
Speaker 2: I think that's what I think, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I would say, look, I'd say there's a there's
Speaker 1: a there's a consonance here, and and one of the
Speaker 1: middle way options I consider in the book is cosmopsychism.
Speaker 1: You know, where the universe is a conscious mind, And
Speaker 1: so if you're dealing with fine tuning, why go for
Speaker 1: a sort of supernatural designer if the universe itself can
Speaker 1: be a conscious being with goals in some sense? So
Speaker 1: so look, I'm open to I'm open to a god
Speaker 1: in some sense, I'm open to a conscious universe. I
Speaker 1: just think all I'm objecting to is a god who
Speaker 1: is all knowing or powerful and perfectly good, because I think,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't that be so much? Why would it's such
Speaker 1: a I suppose, I think more positive there's evidence against right,
Speaker 1: Why would such a being choose to create us with
Speaker 1: the horrific process of evolution by natural selection? You know,
Speaker 1: why would they allow these kind of shrew I can't
Speaker 1: remember the name of it now that kills its prey
Speaker 1: by paralyzing it and then slowly eating it alive. You know,
Speaker 1: that just makes no sense to me. So I mean,
Speaker 1: one possibility I take very seriously is a god of
Speaker 1: limited abilities, god who's made the best universe they can, right,
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe God can't just create intelligent life in an instant.
Speaker 1: Maybe the only way they can do it is create
Speaker 1: a universe from a singularity with the right physics to
Speaker 1: eventually evolve life. And God's like, I'm sorry, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be messy and it's best. How was this or nothing?
Speaker 1: So I take that's it. So I'm very up to
Speaker 1: all these possibilities. It's just the very traditional or powerful
Speaker 1: God that I really think this. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's strong evidence against that, but fine tuning a strong
Speaker 1: evidence against classic atheism that we're in a purpose universe.
Speaker 1: So we need hypotheses in my view that can account
Speaker 1: for both, and I think there are such hypothesis on
Speaker 1: the table. I mean, the simulation hypothesis is one that
Speaker 1: atheists tend to like a bit more. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: we're just in a simulation created by some random software
Speaker 1: engineer on the you know, on a spare day. But so, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's one non standard design hypotherism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Charmers has believes we're living in a simulation,
Speaker 2: and he puts it I think gave me a certain
Speaker 2: probability once so it was pretty high, and then he thought, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it seems like the simulation I bought this is
Speaker 2: very consistent with your view.
Speaker 1: That's one of the one of the views I take. Seriously,
Speaker 1: look in this book. I'm not saying, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm very suspicious of certainty in general. You know that
Speaker 1: cleant in the eye when someone is just not open
Speaker 1: to contravening evidence that I think you find as much
Speaker 1: from militant atheists as from religious fundamentalists. But I suppose, well,
Speaker 1: where I eventually come to, and I've got a section
Speaker 1: of this in the book with the simulation, is I
Speaker 1: guess I don't think and this is where I disagree
Speaker 1: with Charmers. I don't think creatures in a simulation would
Speaker 1: be conscious. Ah why not? Because I mean, this is
Speaker 1: this is very difficult questions, And I suppose you're more
Speaker 1: attracted to that. I mean, this is all from Nick
Speaker 1: Bostrom originally the argument for the simulation hypothesis. And if
Speaker 1: you have the kind of view where consciousness is about
Speaker 1: kind of information processing, then you're more likely to think
Speaker 1: something that's simulated a simulation of me if it has
Speaker 1: if the simulation has all of the structure of my brain,
Speaker 1: that's kind of going to be the same information processing
Speaker 1: and so my consciousness. But if you're a panpsychist like myself,
Speaker 1: you kind of think consciousness is kind of the flesh
Speaker 1: and blood of the world. It's the sort of stuff
Speaker 1: of the world, and so just having a simulation of
Speaker 1: something isn't going to give its consciousness in the way
Speaker 1: you know, having a simulation of a hurricane doesn't make
Speaker 1: your computer wet. And but I mean, I mean, there
Speaker 1: are the neuroscientist Daniel Seth, who I've argued about with
Speaker 1: a lot. We've got about four debates on YouTube of
Speaker 1: people are just that I mean, he's got a very
Speaker 1: different position to me, But he's in the kind of
Speaker 1: viewpoint that also thinks consciousness is more biological, it is
Speaker 1: more about a living system. We're more it's more about
Speaker 1: our biology than like the brain as a computer. And
Speaker 1: then what so once you're in that mindset, you're less
Speaker 1: likely to think a simulated brain is going to be
Speaker 1: conscious too. But it's a huge debate and I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit uncertain about it.
Speaker 2: I want to hear less about all the different perspectives
Speaker 2: on the table, and I want to hear. I want
Speaker 2: to hear your perspective. You're very You're very good at
Speaker 2: like giving a million caveats. But I don't want that anymore.
Speaker 2: Let's spend the rest of this podcast. I want to know, like,
Speaker 2: walk me through the way you see the world you are.
Speaker 2: Are you a Catholic?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Have you reclaimed your Catholicism?
Speaker 1: No? No, well this is well what are you now
Speaker 1: after the book? After the book? In the book, I
Speaker 1: was nothing after the book. I've slowly come to embrace
Speaker 1: what I all heretical Christianity. But I haven't returned to
Speaker 1: Catholicism actually because I've returned to the Anglican Church, or
Speaker 1: I've gone to the Anglican Church, which is tends to
Speaker 1: be very a lot more flexible than I think that.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because you know, it was it was brought
Speaker 1: into existence when Henry the eighth wanted a divorce, so
Speaker 1: you know, there's less ideology built into it. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's you go to your average Anglican church, people aren't gonna, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're religious, hussle you with you. But yeah, So
Speaker 1: I mean this started really learning much more about actually
Speaker 1: how the Eastern Orthodox Church thinks about things where there's
Speaker 1: much less of an emphasis on sin, right, and there's
Speaker 1: much more of an emphasis on unity. The purpose is
Speaker 1: it's all about God and the universe coming into a
Speaker 1: state of deep intimate unity. And you know, when I
Speaker 1: was talking and reading about this, I have two reactions.
Speaker 1: First year, it resonates at a deep level, much more
Speaker 1: so than the Christianity I was familiar with. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean this idea of, you know, God's interested in
Speaker 1: punishing someone for our sin, you know, and we all
Speaker 1: deserve to go to Hell, but Jesus takes the hit,
Speaker 1: and so we're going to go to heave. You know,
Speaker 1: that just makes no sense intellectually or spiritually. But this
Speaker 1: idea that you know, it's all about God in the
Speaker 1: universe coming into harmony makes a lot more sense to
Speaker 1: me on both levels. And also I think I think
Speaker 1: it fits quite well with this God of limited powers hypothesis.
Speaker 1: So the way I interpret Christianity, right, God's on the
Speaker 1: way to making a dead good universe. So it was
Speaker 1: a bit of English Englishism, wasn't it. God's on the
Speaker 1: way to make in a fantastic universe. But the only
Speaker 1: way God can do that is kind of in two stages.
Speaker 1: Firstly creating an okay universe right with the right kind
Speaker 1: of physics that will evolve life. And then when it's
Speaker 1: evolved enough, God starts to bring it to perfection by
Speaker 1: becoming more intimately involved with it, sharing in its form
Speaker 1: of existence, so that we can share in God's form
Speaker 1: of existence. So this is something let me just say,
Speaker 1: very finally, I am very uncertain this is true, but
Speaker 1: I've come to think of it as a credible possibility
Speaker 1: because I think it fits well with this God of
Speaker 1: limited powers hypothesis because it kind of resonates spiritually, and
Speaker 1: I think that's really what all you need for faith,
Speaker 1: you know. I think when you think about religion, I
Speaker 1: think you'd be thinking is it definitely true? I think
Speaker 1: you should be thinking is there a reasonable chance it's true?
Speaker 1: And will it bring me happiness? Will it bring me community?
Speaker 1: Will it bring me spiritual practice? A deeper sense of
Speaker 1: meaning and purpose? And I've found it has me all
Speaker 1: those things, And I'm happy to live with the uncertainty
Speaker 1: that it might not be true. That's the it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's cost benefit analysis, right, You're living in hope is
Speaker 1: something that might not be true, But you're getting a
Speaker 1: lot out of it and how you're living your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you talk about spiritual advancement and the community. So
Speaker 2: obviously religion fills a need for humans because it's amazing
Speaker 2: how long it's lasted, you know, like compared to the
Speaker 2: other things that have not lasted nearly as long. So
Speaker 2: there's something really deep there. What I just find so
Speaker 2: fascinating is you're You're like, no, Look, you know, I
Speaker 2: respect science, and I think there's a scientific case that
Speaker 2: can be made for a certain view of Christianity. Now,
Speaker 2: how do the Jews look in this? Is there any
Speaker 2: science evidence the Jews are right at all?
Speaker 1: Well, well, so just let me I'll get to that.
Speaker 1: Let me clarify slightly. So what I'm confident about, I
Speaker 1: suppose is we need this middle way between God and eighties,
Speaker 1: and that there's good evidence that there is some kind
Speaker 1: of purpose or goal directedness going on. There's something going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what it is, I'm much less certain about. This
Speaker 1: form of mildly heretical Christianity. I've come to think is
Speaker 1: an incredible possibility, but I'm very open to the possibility
Speaker 1: that other religions might also be credible possibilities, And you
Speaker 1: mentioned Judaism while in the nineteen eighties, I think it
Speaker 1: was there was a best seller by Rabbi Harold Kushner?
Speaker 1: Was it Harold Kushner who also argued for a god
Speaker 1: of limited powers as the best explanation of suffering. What's
Speaker 1: the book called now, Why Bad Things Happen To Good People?
Speaker 1: I think I haven't actually read it. I probably should.
Speaker 1: I'll probably read it before the next book I'm researching.
Speaker 1: So look, I'm I'm happy. I'm open to the idea
Speaker 1: that a very liberal form of Judaism with a god
Speaker 1: of limited powers is also a credible possibility.
Speaker 2: With Islam.
Speaker 1: I've never heard a Muslim thinker open to the possibility
Speaker 1: of a god of limited powers. If that if there,
Speaker 1: if someone told me about that, I'd be open to
Speaker 1: thinking about that. So yeah, I think, as I say, look,
Speaker 1: I look, let me put it this way. I think
Speaker 1: faith is not about certainty. I think, ultimately faith is
Speaker 1: about trust. It's about trusting a certain view of the
Speaker 1: meaning of existence, trusting it in terms of to shape
Speaker 1: your your fundamental life goals, and trusting it with how
Speaker 1: you interpret your deepest experiences. And you know, certainty would
Speaker 1: be nice, but these matters are inherently uncertain, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a deep need to have a view
Speaker 1: on the meaning of existence and kind of live that out.
Speaker 1: So either we give up on that need, or we
Speaker 1: trust in something where we've thought about it and we
Speaker 1: think there's a reasonable chance this is true, and I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, put a bet on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so the Pascal's wager. That's kind of what
Speaker 2: you're talking about right there. A lot of people are
Speaker 2: always you know, talk about, well, I'd rather bet on
Speaker 2: there being God than not the guy because of them wrong.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to spend eternity in hell,
Speaker 2: but I wanted I'm trying to coin the opposite. No one,
Speaker 2: no one's never talks about the opposite, and I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think of what a cool maybe can help me
Speaker 2: comeup with a cool name for what it would be.
Speaker 2: And that's this what if, like the truth is there
Speaker 2: is no God and you spend your whole life inhibiting
Speaker 2: all your hedonistic things and you know, and all the
Speaker 2: things you really want to do out of your life
Speaker 2: because you're like terrified, you know, you've kind of wasted
Speaker 2: your life. So what is that called? You could have
Speaker 2: lived a full life and you could have had a
Speaker 2: lot more fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I think you're making a very important point.
Speaker 1: I I just to say, I prefer that Pascal has
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting things to say, but I actually
Speaker 1: prefer William James on this. William James is just one
Speaker 1: of my all time intellectual heroes, wonderful nineteenth century psychologist
Speaker 1: and philosopher. He had this wonderful paper, The Will to Believe,
Speaker 1: which he late which he thought should be called The
Speaker 1: Right to Believe, And I think I think that would
Speaker 1: have been a better title. And you know he's just talking.
Speaker 1: He's not saying you should be religious. He's saying, look,
Speaker 1: you got away different things. You could you could end
Speaker 1: up with a false belief if God doesn't exist, but
Speaker 1: you could miss out on a true belief if God
Speaker 1: does exist. And you just got away these different things.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, I'm not here saying, oh, to
Speaker 1: be to live a meaningful life, you've you've got to
Speaker 1: be religious. I suppose I'm interested in getting rid of
Speaker 1: dogmatism and trying out lots of different experiments in living
Speaker 1: and seeing seeing how they turn out, seeing the fruits.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I suppose my version of Christianity
Speaker 1: would be incredibly liberals. So I'm not really going to
Speaker 1: be giving up about you know. I you know, look,
Speaker 1: I think he's an interesting point. Right, Christians used to
Speaker 1: think it was it was a sin to charge interest
Speaker 1: on money. Very few Christians think that now because we've
Speaker 1: we've changed our you know, with our understanding of the
Speaker 1: modern economy. But how come not more Christians have changed
Speaker 1: their view on gay sex, right with our modern understanding
Speaker 1: of you know, like one thing I'm keen to like
Speaker 1: I think, you know, if you look historically, religion has
Speaker 1: always reinvented itself in the light of the science and
Speaker 1: philosophy of the time. You know, Aquinas's philosophy was radically new.
Speaker 1: Now it's the official view of the Catholic Church. I
Speaker 1: think that's become stultified more recently because I think we're
Speaker 1: going through a period of history where liberals and progressives
Speaker 1: kind of think it doesn't make intellectual sense, and so
Speaker 1: then it becomes dominated by conservatives, especially in the US. Now,
Speaker 1: let me just say, actually, before I'm misinterpreted, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't hate conservatives. I think, in fact, I think
Speaker 1: it's good in some ways to have a balance between
Speaker 1: progressives and conservatives, you know, so the conservatives can protect
Speaker 1: our traditions and not sort of throw everything out at once,
Speaker 1: but the progressives can think, well, look, you know, science
Speaker 1: and philosophy and morality is changing. Let's update. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just about to start a new book in the
Speaker 1: new year on reimagining religion, and I would just like
Speaker 1: to encourage, you know, more liberal voices to be in
Speaker 1: the mix and how we're thinking about religion and re understanding.
Speaker 1: Can I say one more thing on a sex stuff.
Speaker 1: I've just talked a little bit too long, but.
Speaker 2: You see my point. I feel like you really get
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, you know. Tom holland wonderful
Speaker 1: book Dominion on the impact of Christianity and History, makes
Speaker 1: an interesting point that like in the early days of Christianity,
Speaker 1: the rules on no sex before marriage were really bloody
Speaker 1: important because they protected women and slaves from getting raped.
Speaker 1: I mean, not entirely, obviously, not entirely at all, but
Speaker 1: to an extent it protected people who have no rights.
Speaker 1: So maybe we need to rethink Christian sexual ethics. As
Speaker 1: Christians now we're in a situation where we don't really
Speaker 1: we don't have slaves or you know, it's not legal
Speaker 1: at least, and women have more rights. So maybe we
Speaker 1: need to rethink these norms that in the way we've
Speaker 1: rethought interest on loans. So yeah, that's this, But you
Speaker 1: make a good point. You make a good point. Look,
Speaker 1: I God, if I was gay and I thought being
Speaker 1: a Christian meant I couldn't have a gay relationship, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a Christian. I wouldn't, you know. But I
Speaker 1: don't think as a liberal, progressive Christian, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's necessary.
Speaker 2: There's just so much deep stuff here and so many implications.
Speaker 2: I think that just a big, a big disappointment for me,
Speaker 2: if you're right, is that, like like praying, an implication
Speaker 2: of what you're saying is that praying is useless, Like
Speaker 2: you know that there really is not a God, or
Speaker 2: there really is not something higher than me that cares
Speaker 2: about me, you know, beyond my parents. And I think
Speaker 2: that that's kind of like I think a lot of
Speaker 2: religious people would be very disappointed with your view because
Speaker 2: to them, there's something about a personal God that is
Speaker 2: so meaning oriented that I can pray to God and
Speaker 2: God's listening to me. There's something very special about that intimacy.
Speaker 2: You're removing that intimacy in a way, right, not a bit,
Speaker 2: not in a way, in a big way.
Speaker 1: You're making a good point. Yeah, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: not ideal, is it. But look, I mean, I I
Speaker 1: do pray every night, I meditate every morning, pray every night.
Speaker 1: So I still think I'm listening to God in the morning,
Speaker 1: talking to God in the evening. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: whether or not you think it's gonna have an impact,
Speaker 1: you know, praying for friends who are suffering or for
Speaker 1: the suffering in the world. I find it's so important
Speaker 1: to connect you up to what's going on. I can
Speaker 1: be a bit thoughtless, I think, not because I don't care.
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of forget about friends who have got
Speaker 1: deep troubles. So then when I kind of pray and
Speaker 1: I or return to thinking about them, and it helps
Speaker 1: to put them in my mind. And yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: just the value of spiritual practice, I think is I've
Speaker 1: found since I've become religious, it's less in my ego, right,
Speaker 1: it's you know, living in hope of some greater purpose.
Speaker 1: Continuously making effort to orientate yourself to that, to conceive
Speaker 1: of what you're doing is contributing in some small way
Speaker 1: to some greater purpose, makes me less bothered about my
Speaker 1: own personal success and failure. You know, not that it's
Speaker 1: not important, but it's it's not what the meaning of
Speaker 1: my life hangs on. And I found that's actually opened
Speaker 1: me up to just enjoying being in the moment a
Speaker 1: lot more with my family and friends. And you know,
Speaker 1: so so you're talking about like what you might be
Speaker 1: missing out on from a rig Like I really want
Speaker 1: to take that seriously, But I've actually found it's it's
Speaker 1: just opened me up to just enjoy enjoy the present
Speaker 1: moment a bit more because I'm less hung up with
Speaker 1: my own ambitions. Is like, that's the only thing that
Speaker 1: makes my life have a point. Yeah, I hear you.
Speaker 2: And and for the remainder of this podcast, I want
Speaker 2: to just jump into some really really new territory.
Speaker 1: And that's this.
Speaker 2: Are people when they're having a h a peak experience
Speaker 2: or a mystical experience, are they seeing reality? That's a
Speaker 2: question that I have been pondering for the seventy eight years.
Speaker 2: You know, wrote the book transcend and I think it's
Speaker 2: a really interesting couching. Let just say they are for
Speaker 2: a second. Can we play that game? That would suggest
Speaker 2: that there really is some level of reality that's very
Speaker 2: hard for an ordinary consciousness to get in touch with,
Speaker 2: but that it's possible for humans to get in touch
Speaker 2: with in certain rare moments. And in those moments, the
Speaker 2: big question I have is what are we getting in
Speaker 2: contact with? And it's such a fun thing to really
Speaker 2: think about and really unpacked, you know, because it does
Speaker 2: because I do think there is something there. There is
Speaker 2: some level of reality. Now I'm not going matrix. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to all matrix, but I'm saying there is
Speaker 2: something that is pointing to a loving unity of a
Speaker 2: universe or of a consciousness. There's something very loving in
Speaker 2: one of humanity that is very hard for humans in
Speaker 2: the ordinary consciousns to access. But I think it's probably true.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're probably of one mind on this.
Speaker 2: That was funny.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was an unintended joke. Maybe that was
Speaker 1: the cosmic consciousness making me funny even though I could
Speaker 1: It was good, isn't it? Yeah? I mean this is
Speaker 1: one thing panpsychism can make a difference. And I said
Speaker 1: that some psychists, not all. It's important to say not all.
Speaker 1: Some panpsychists see a consonance of certain spiritual views, and
Speaker 1: I think it does perhaps open you up to taking
Speaker 1: mystical experiences more seriously. I mean, if you're a physical
Speaker 1: list and you think it's just physics is the complete
Speaker 1: story of the fundamental nature of reality, you've got to
Speaker 1: think a mystical experience is a delusion, it's just something
Speaker 1: funny going on in your brain, because you know, at
Speaker 1: least if you have an experience that there's some greater
Speaker 1: form of consciousness at the rud of things, you know
Speaker 1: that's not really compatible with physics being the complete story.
Speaker 1: But if you're a pan psycho and you already think
Speaker 1: there are forms of consciousness at the fundamental level, then
Speaker 1: it's less of a leap to think this higher form
Speaker 1: of consciousness you seem to be experiencing is part of
Speaker 1: that fundamental story of consciousness. Although but some people might
Speaker 1: still say, you know, okay, but it's just something going
Speaker 1: on in your brain. Why why trust it? And here
Speaker 1: let me let me come back to the great William
Speaker 1: James consciousness.
Speaker 2: Where is consciousness and in your view, it's not just
Speaker 2: in the brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what that Yeah, that's that's a
Speaker 1: good point. Yeah, that's another another good way you could
Speaker 1: be led into that. And it's it's a lot more
Speaker 1: complicated than many people think. But but James had this.
Speaker 1: So you know, one of the great still really good
Speaker 1: text on mysticism is in James's The Varieties of Religious Experience.
Speaker 1: You know, most of this is this is a sort
Speaker 1: of psychological study of mystical experiences. But at the end
Speaker 1: he says, would it be rational for someone who's had
Speaker 1: a mystical experience to trust it? And he says, well,
Speaker 1: if you say no, it's sort of a dumb standard
Speaker 1: because we all think it's okay to trust our ordinary
Speaker 1: perceptual experiences, right, And you know, you could be in
Speaker 1: the matrix, right, I mean you could say, oh, well
Speaker 1: we can test our senses. Well, you can test your
Speaker 1: sensors by using your senses. It's sort of circular, you know,
Speaker 1: but some all knowledge is ultimately based rooted in just
Speaker 1: a decision to trust experiences. But all of our experiences
Speaker 1: could be a delusion. We could be in the matrix.
Speaker 1: But we think it's rational to trust our perceptual experiences
Speaker 1: and to do science and to build on that. So
Speaker 1: why is it okay to trust our ordinary perceptual experiences,
Speaker 1: but it's not okay for a mystic to trust their
Speaker 1: mystical experience? Well, especially when a mystical experience, you know,
Speaker 1: often seems more bloody real than ordinary experiences even after
Speaker 1: you've had it.
Speaker 2: Sorry, carry on, that's true. There's there's a word for that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that no ethic. It feels more real than real. But
Speaker 2: but but okay, so but what about the sizophrenic? Is
Speaker 2: that Can we make a clean Okay, I feel like
Speaker 2: we could. I look, it's somehow different. I feel like
Speaker 2: we can kind of look into what's happening in the
Speaker 2: mind of someone in psychosis and kind of show it
Speaker 2: doesn't align with what like, we can't really trust it
Speaker 2: as much as we can trust our enormous normal senses.
Speaker 1: Or can we.
Speaker 2: Can we really go there? Can we really? Can we
Speaker 2: really question whether or not schizophrenics are really seeing reality?
Speaker 1: What I think this is showing, it's You're making a
Speaker 1: really good point in response to what I'm what I've
Speaker 1: just said, what we're taking seriously, And I think what
Speaker 1: that shows is. This is just very complicated and there
Speaker 1: are very different difficult judgment calls.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: I think so many people think, you know, ah, science
Speaker 1: is wrapped up. You know, there's I mean, we've still
Speaker 1: got gaps. We need to dot size across some te's.
Speaker 1: But the basic picture of the universe is there and
Speaker 1: it rules out anything godish. But look, there there are
Speaker 1: areas of deep uncertainty in science, in in quantum mechanics,
Speaker 1: in consciousness, in this fine tuning stuff. And not just
Speaker 1: areas of uncertainty, but areas where we need philosophical judgment
Speaker 1: calls in how to interpret the data. And this is
Speaker 1: I mean, this is very clear in quantum mechanics, and
Speaker 1: as I just read a wonderful book on quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: by Adam Becker, What is Real and the horrible power
Speaker 1: struggles in early quantum mechanics because people wanted to say,
Speaker 1: what is this theory telling us about reality?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: That's what you need to know about quant mechanics, and
Speaker 1: it's our best scientific theory. All of our technology is
Speaker 1: based on it. But there is no consensus on what
Speaker 1: it is telling us about reality. There are these different
Speaker 1: views and it requires philosophical judgment call in what the
Speaker 1: hell is this telling us? And with the early the
Speaker 1: early quantum mechanics people, people who asked that question, what
Speaker 1: is this theory telling us reality? They couldn't get jobs,
Speaker 1: they were demonized. They still are to it. Sean Carroll
Speaker 1: has talked about this. You know, really that people still are.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get taken seriously if you want to say,
Speaker 1: but what is going on in the world to make
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics work? People? So that's not science, you know,
Speaker 1: just bloody works. Do the experiments, shut up and calculation
Speaker 1: and you know we need we need to we've forgotten
Speaker 1: the We can't do without philosophy. There are these choice
Speaker 1: points where there are judgment calls, like mystical experience, is
Speaker 1: it a genuine insight or is it just something funny
Speaker 1: going on your brain? Very difficult judgment call might depend
Speaker 1: on your worldview. And but yeah, it's not so obvious
Speaker 1: and it's sadly someone who's very, very delusional, it might
Speaker 1: be hard for them. It might seem very rational. It
Speaker 1: might be the rational thing to do to believe these
Speaker 1: wrong things. I mean, we can see from the outside
Speaker 1: relative to everything we take ourselves to know this this
Speaker 1: particular individual might be sadly very delusional, but from the
Speaker 1: inside it's possible that sadly the rational thing for them
Speaker 1: to believe is to trust these hallucinations. It's just very complicated,
Speaker 1: and we need to work together. We need to bring
Speaker 1: scientists and phiostphors together to have the journey.
Speaker 2: Well and me and you philosophers and cognitive scientists. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: we need to work together because I really do think
Speaker 2: there's an evidence for the universe being a fundamentally loving place.
Speaker 2: Now you because you said, I know you talk about consciounce,
Speaker 2: but there's got to be a way of combining your
Speaker 2: theory with what I just said, because and I think
Speaker 2: that like hate, hate just always feels experientially like it's
Speaker 2: a resistance against what's natural and what is what?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: What is fundamental? And look, I have not really fully
Speaker 2: formed my thoughts, but I must thank you for inspiring
Speaker 2: me to think about the farthest reaches of human nature
Speaker 2: as as mas as my hero Abraham maswill would put it,
Speaker 2: you put You said something in your book that has
Speaker 2: kept me up at night ever since I read it.
Speaker 2: You talked about uh, actually William James, and I didn't
Speaker 2: know he said this. But he's like, if you're in
Speaker 2: the in the middle of the precipice between two two things, right,
Speaker 2: and you have to leap and take the chasm, you know,
Speaker 2: you'll you have to take the leap of faith sometimes
Speaker 2: and and but here's.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing.
Speaker 2: Whatever you believe is going to end up increasing the
Speaker 2: probability that it's that it's true if you don't jump, right,
Speaker 2: if you just stay there in the middle of these
Speaker 2: two things on both sides yourself, you're just gonna stay
Speaker 2: there forever. If you would have any hope at all
Speaker 2: of reaching one of the you know, ground on the
Speaker 2: other one of the sides, you have to believe that
Speaker 2: you'll be able to make the jump. And it's just like, wow,
Speaker 2: there's something so freaking profound about that about consciousness and
Speaker 2: and and our lives and how we live our lives.
Speaker 2: And of course it applies to religion, but it really
Speaker 2: applies to everything in our lives that we don't think
Speaker 2: we can do. It applies to self belief. Self belief
Speaker 2: like you know, if I go and I take undertake
Speaker 2: this whole investigation and study of psychology, that I can
Speaker 2: become a psychologist, or if I start ting singing lessons,
Speaker 2: even though there's no evidence right now that I have
Speaker 2: any potential for singing, that maybe I can be a
Speaker 2: singer someday. The ones who really make history are the
Speaker 2: ones that bet on themselves. So there's just something so
Speaker 2: unbelievably profound about this. And if it really does truly
Speaker 2: apply to religion, you know, if Pascal's wage for is right,
Speaker 2: you know, like you know, I can see an argument
Speaker 2: for choosing religion. So look, I just think that you
Speaker 2: know that these questions are so fun to talk about,
Speaker 2: and I really truly appreciate just your open mindedness to
Speaker 2: not call people crazy who even want to just have
Speaker 2: such discussions. So I must thank you for that as well.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks Scott. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean,
Speaker 1: we do make any sense absolutely. I mean, you're just
Speaker 1: making me think we do this in life, don't we,
Speaker 1: that we we take a leap of faith, you know,
Speaker 1: when you know, let's say a loved one is is
Speaker 1: very ill and the prospects are not good, but they're
Speaker 1: not I mean, you know, maybe there's like a forty
Speaker 1: percent chance they'll pull through. It's entirely rational to say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have faith that you're going to pull through.
Speaker 1: I'm going to root for you. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: work with you, and and that can make it more
Speaker 1: likely that they will pull through. Or I mean, take
Speaker 1: another example with you know, I'm very worried about climate change.
Speaker 1: You just think about the evidence. Are we going to
Speaker 1: deal with this? Maybe? Probably not, I don't know, or
Speaker 1: it's very unclear, but you can I can still say
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have faith that we are. That gives me
Speaker 1: meaning and motivation and give me, you know, strength to
Speaker 1: carry on and make it more likely. So that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very much how I see religion. I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in our you know, this is the one true faith.
Speaker 1: You're right, right, I'm right, you're wrong. But you only
Speaker 1: live once, and you could be pursuit believing something false,
Speaker 1: but you could miss out on something true, and you
Speaker 1: could miss out on a richer form of life. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think, I think historically religion has played
Speaker 1: a crucial social role in how it brings the community together,
Speaker 1: marks the seasons and the big moments of life, you know, birth,
Speaker 1: coming of age, marriage, death. I think the secular world
Speaker 1: has not managed to replicate that. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I've got no argument that never could. Some some
Speaker 1: secular thinkers think it could and think we should develop
Speaker 1: such institutions, but at least for the moment, it's never
Speaker 1: seemed to quite manage that. So yeah, that's really really
Speaker 1: the value for me in bringing people together in community
Speaker 1: and so virtual practice and embracing their uncertainty, taking faith,
Speaker 1: taking the lead.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wait, thank you, Philip Golf. I'm glad we were
Speaker 2: finally able to have this chat.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks Scott. Really lots of fun. Let's stay in touch,
Speaker 1: let's carry on talking.
Speaker 2: I love that our mutual friend Anaka Harris says, hi,
Speaker 2: oh hi Annika.
Speaker 1: Annaka is cool. She's done some great stuff, written some
Speaker 1: great stuff on Pansychism.