David Bull - The Meaning(s) of Life 

Calvin & Hobbes = life

Well, Hobbes was named after a philosopher, so....

Woodblock Warlock

There's nothing Sacred about this.

Hecking amazing story he made; from a foreigner dismissed by old, Japanese masters to the same masters gifting him tools when he had proven himself more than worthy. :)

Your the man Dave!!!

I am constantly enamored by the emergence of simple geometry in physics as well. The Fourier transfer is a great example of how the existence of circles, lines, and their simple intersectionality gives birth to the potentially infinite fractal that comprises our universe. Before the molecule, there was the energy of the universe, and perhaps at the center of this infinite spiral is what some call "God", or the tantra of the universe. The sub atomic particles that comprise all matter are perhaps just harmonic bands of energy, which is perhaps an isometrical visualization of a greater pond. Is a string just an extrusion of a higgs point? I am no physicist. I am simply enamored by the emergence of nature in physics. bhagavad gita is about the kind of "duty" you were struggling to describe. Perhaps

You are the type of person I aspire to be.

@@TheDrew4321 the unified field

@@TheDrew4321 geometry in reality, check out Romanesco broccoli if you haven't 😊

Well said!

I second that!

They could have been newspaper clippings for all I care... one might even argue I dislike the general arrogance and snobbery associated with the Japanese "handcraft" culture. I come here for David... period.

Amen

there is something mesmerizing about him

This is the quote that stuck with me great stuff

Pretty darn eloquent...

It's remarkable how aligned this is with so many religious beliefs.

This actually scary and makes me sad. No after life? The thought of not existing that's scary.

@@JediWebSurf Why? You don't remember the 50s, before you were born. You won't remember the 2050s, after you've died. We are merely a window to the world, and it's on us to do the best with that window as we can. :)

This comment was Nr 42 😅

Toy maker, teacher

and after seeing this video; a philosopher as well.

@@kojote How do you know that, curiously?

I think the second part of the video attends to that quite well

I came just to comment this!

This is a great way to get to know people. I’ll have to give this a try.

Pp⁹ⁿ⁹p⁰

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I agree with you totally. I'm going to make this part of how I interact with people from now on.

I completely agree with that!

100% agree with you

The questions with clear answers like that are a shitty basis for discussion anyway. It's not a "debate" when you argue over what's the wettest city in the world. It's pure speculation, and - I say this with love - ignorance. Which can be fun, but real debates are fun too. And I think the internet made them a lot more accessible to a lot more people.

That's a great idea!

yeah is not necessarily voice chat, could just chat too in case he finds it weird to talk to strangers online

As much as I adore that idea and would not hesitate to join such a server, my only concern is what kind of people may try to find their way into it and cause disturbances.

@@neapanther497 I feel like Dave doesn't really attract those sort of people, and also discord is quite easy to moderate. My thought though is as yes, it may open up more discussion with people, I don't really feel like Discord really facilitates the sort of deep discussion he is looking for. It WOULD be nice to have an actual active Dave Bull Discord though.

@@kandigloss6438 you make a good point

Spiritual Unfoldment is pretty good too, check it out

@@chrisaustin4115 m

Interesting to hear this; my own 'circle' here in Japan admittedly doesn't include a whole lot of 'young people' ... I would love to think that such a change is indeed happening ...

@@seseragistudio yes, its very interesting to hear your conversation on this in the light of also what the new japanese cinema is reflecting. I am referring to films like Happy hour (2015) which a young film student of mine referred to mii, amazed at the conversations unfolding in the very long film. Changing indeed.🍃

@@rajulashah8617 I don't know if a film should be taken as an example of changing Japanese culture, I've watched quite a bit of non-action anime from the 80s and 90s and from much of them you would think that daily life in japan was not that much different from the west in the way people express themselves and such. Though I am an outsider and do not live in Japan, so I do not have any first hand experience just to be clear.

he is like a living “the matrix” character

It'd be special if he carved them himself, so it ties directly to his views, like these thoughts flowing onto the wood to be printed.

That’s what kept me so engaged through the entire thing. There’s hardly any cuts or edits and he just so eloquently unleashes his thoughts without pausing or repeating himself. It’s really quite engaging.

that kind of bothers me about a lot of popular youtubers. they'll mispronounce relatively common words, cut after every sentence or thought, and just generally come across as uneducated in the art of spoken/written word. I know it's a different process making a video than writing an essay, as I myself have struggled making videos, but at least learning how to speak eloquently you'd think would be a prerequisite for like...getting brand deals? idk lol.

Podcast is a great idea

Thank you for sharing this. I myself had a similar experience some years ago when preparing for my print series 'My Solitudes'. I took a light camping outfit to a few different locations in Japan, and had a few 'rules' I followed: I would return to exactly the same spot at different seasons; I would not take any books, phone, etc.; I would not move more than 10 meters from my spot; I would sit and wait ... And so much happened, every day, every time I went back ... _so_ much, and different every time!

That's sad to hear. "A little science leads one away from God, a lot of science leads one back to him."-Sir Francis Drake (inventor of the scientific method). Try Spiritual Unfoldment channel it might help you, or CS Lewis Mere Christianity etc. Would love for you to respond so I can discuss these concepts with you

@@chrisaustin4115 Thanks for the response Chris. C.S Lewis (one of my favorite authors) would be a great springboard to get right to the nitty gritty of the topic. Since he starts Mere Christianity with the argument from morality that might be a good place to start. He talks of objective morality (the standard we all refer to when in the heat of an argument say) as the straight ruler by which we (so often) unconsciously measure the crooked world. If such morality were to be subjective (merely each persons point of view) then they would have no basis to hold others to account, therefore it must be objective and universal (Forgive me if I’m missing some details as I’m trying to be brief) and if universal, located within a Mind. He develops these somewhat Platonic principles further in ‘Miracles’ to show that ‘mind’ concepts such as morality and logic, transcending nature and yet penetrating and subduing it, point us to a Divine Mind that exists in the supernatural. If you are familiar with his works then of course you will follow his reasoning from transcendent principles, to supernatural, supernatural to Divine, Divine to Miracles, Miracles to Christ and hence ipso facto we have arrived at Christianity. I however don’t feel the necessity to render morality and logic as contingent upon the supernatural and my reasons are as follows. 1) Morality and logic (as definitive systems) as far as we can observe exist only in the human mind, and although we hold each other to account by them, I don’t believe they transcend those minds (in the way Lewis meant). Sports are governed by strict rules that are agreed upon by all the players and yet we know that they have no Divine basis. If a soccer player decides he wants to pick up the ball with his hands and run across the field he will promptly be sent off the pitch and ridiculed by his team mates. It seems to me that society is governed by similar rules and when I think of it this way I see that there is no need to go as far as Lewis (and other thinkers) go in bestowing a divine origin on morality. 2) Order from Chaos and reason from unreason has been a hitch for many when contemplating this matter but has recently been cleared up by the concept of ‘emergence’. This is when the sum of the parts becomes greater than the whole. Examples might be seen in ant colonies where individuals operating on merely chemical stimuli manage to construct complex societies in a bottom up fashion. The exact same thing can be said for humans too when an aggregate of people performing relatively simple individual tasks becomes unconsciously and inadvertently a cultural body that we know as a country, defined by art, cuisine, music and industry etc. One final example might be seen in how consciousness emerges from a profusion of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. Humans have more gray matter in this part of the brain than any other creature on the earth and therefore it’s not unusual that we should find ourselves as strangers among the animals. We can observe varying degrees of consciousness in other mammals and this correlates nicely with what we observe in their varying cranial development. In conclusion I’d say that with the evidence that we have there is no need to go beyond the natural realm in seeking to find the causes for things like morality. I’m sure there are many other points you could bring up and I am open to discuss them too. (By the way I loved Lewis’ Cosmic trilogy. If you haven’t read it I’d highly recommend it)

Ok. Your response was very verbose which I appreciate you are putting effort in. But your arguments against 1 and 2 seem incomplete. To sum up, both of them seem like this. "I used to feel there had to be a because, but now that I know the process by which something happens there doesn't need to be a because". If my response doesn't make sense I will lay out when I have time this weekend how I think it applies Furthermor I mentioned Spiritual unfoldment 1st and CS Lewis second because experiencing the divine is more important than logic since if one doesn't feel the presence of the Lord, its hard to believe. Similar to believing in a color one can't see

@@chrisaustin4115 I’m not trying to disprove the arguments per say, I just feel that they are unnecessary in light of the naturalistic explanations available. Why go the extra mile and infer an almighty omniscient God when nature gives us no such reason to infer one. (Obviously I am making an exception in the case of man’s early attempts to understand the world and his place in it). As for experience I will be brief and say that I have had many ‘experiences’ through prayer, worship, Bible reading, evangelism, etc. and at the time that was enough for me. It would take to long to go through the history of how that unraveled so all I will say is that personal experience is good for personal affirmation but carries marginal weight in persuading someone else of the truth of your beliefs. What are we to believe when three people of different faiths get together and all testify their faith to be true based on their experience?

@@marcusfinlayson7215 But those naturalistic explanations dont address the source. It's like saying since you can see the dominos fall, theres no need to ask who set them up and pushed them. As for varying religious beliefs three people can testify that they know who you are. Either none of them know you, Or 1 knows you best. It sounds like you have an evangelical background. Which was invented recently.You might be surprised what you read if you look into true Orthodox Christianity. It has a lot more to offer to the inquiring mind. As for the origin of naturalistic explanations, what makes you think nature gives us no reason to infer one? If you have a divine experience, since you are natural and you are having a divine experience then naturally thats a reason to infer one. If you look outside yourself almost everything ever created was created by a human with a belief in some sort of divine creator. Thats another reason. There's also the fact that almost no scientific discoveries of merit are discovered by atheists. Even in scientific fields with a majority of atheists. A famous recent example is Kurt Godel Lastly I would argue that you might be like the guy in this video claiming to not be believing a main stream religion but if you breakdown his views he's espousing pretty typical religious beliefs A belief in the apocalypse, a belief in us all being connected in a divine way, a belief we are playing our part in something special, a belief that after the apocalypse something greater will happen hopefully. One can follow those basic premises and their logical conclusion is a divine creator whether or not he is claiming to believe in it is irrelevant. Since where theres smoke, theres fire. It's simply a non Christian belief, that you or he might not recognize as a sort of general shintoism/shamanism/informal theism

This is an interesting addition. I myself wouldn't be putting those keystone experiences into the 'meaning' category. I have had a bunch of them, and they have very much shaped me (and pushed me in different directions sometimes). I think I am a different _person_ having had those experiences, so perhaps I would talk about them as having shaped my 'character' ... (not my 'personality', which I think was pretty much set in the DNA ...)

I know what you mean but it is a mixed bag. The Japanese also have an extremely successful economy, extraordinarily low crime rate and strong sense of personal responsibility. Conversely, Japanese office workers are some of the least productive in the world because being seen to be there for a long time is given more weight than what you actually achieve. It’s a fascinating culture but not one I would choose to live in permanently.

It sounds like a nightmare to me too, although I'm unwilling to suggest that it's inherently problematic, as you have done, because I've never been there and experienced it for myself. But the idea that you don't enter friends' homes, and don't express (or even have!) personal opinions on big, important topics ... well, it runs entirely counter to my (western, American) understanding of what friendship and interpersonal connection mean in the first place. Here, we _share our minds_ with one another. That's what it means to grow close with someone, to me. You learn about them, what they really think about things, and, through your interactions, you gradually change yourselves and each other, in myriad ways. I'm absolutely fascinated by the information and perspective Mr. Bull gives in the intro to this video though. I'd love for him to talk about Japanese culture at length from the perspective of a western immigrant. Just because I don't understand it on a personal level doesn't mean I'm not interested - quite the contrary, I'd love to learn more!

@@Jesse__H I guess it's because most people who like japan culture fell in the excessive "it's perfection". It's by no mean perfect, but they achieve something that suit the majority of the people. If you look at small countries you'll find this too, like Switzerland for example. Their country is mostly beautiful mountains and lakes, they have a strong sense of respect for nature and life. They also have an effective society, democracy, backed up by a shared culture which give them consensus. Culture is the keyword : if you have mixed cultures, its harder to make everyone to agree, that's what you find with mass migration. People tend to protect their culture, and fear for their way of life. Japan is a pretty closed country, being an island, and wary about foreigners. It's normal they seem to be less stressed, as they don't have much disturbance and are defending their culture. Future will tell if this hold in an overpopulated world, or if they turn full nationalists and build a wall around the country.

"No wonder why they have one of the highest suicide ratings on this planet" popular misconception. Looks at actual statistics. It may be a problem worth fixing but 2016 numbers put Japan at 30th place near Sweden and US.

@@Jesse__H you should consider watching the abroad in Japan channel. It’s a very different style but he discusses a lot of the intricacies of Japanese culture. For example, he talks about how many Japanese hotel receptionists will go out of their way to avoid telling you they have no room available. Instead, they will keep looking at their computer screen or shuffling papers and giving subtle hints until a Japanese customer would realise what was going on and would quietly leave without the receptionist being shamed by having to admit that they could not fulfil their role. The desire not to contradict someone spills into everyday conversation too and the really unusual responses given to things. So, for example, you may ask ‘do you have a dog’ and you could well be told ‘maybe my dog is dead’. A truly bizarre response by western standards but a reflection of how much they strive for harmony and to avoid the word ‘no’.

He would have had 80,000 people complaining about ‘bee hive’ 🤣

A huge NO! to asmr. No no no no NO!!!! Keep that stuff out of here.

@@orion7741 it’s unintentional. They’re not suggesting the channel changes just that Dave’s audience would grow quickly if he added that tag to his videos.

@Gaby www.asahi-net.or.jp/~xs3d-bull/essays/1994/grandad.html

People will accept that you express ideas they may not agree with but they will definitely disagree with the idea.