The Weirdness of the World

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The Michael Shermer Show # 414
Do we live inside a simulated reality or a pocket universe embedded in a larger structure about which we know virtually nothing? Is consciousness a purely physical matter, or might it require something extra, something nonphysical? According to the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, it’s hard to say. In The Weirdness of the World, Schwitzgebel argues that the answers to these fundamental questions lie beyond our powers of comprehension. We can be certain only that the truth-whatever it is-is weird. Philosophy, he proposes, can aim to open-to reveal possibilities we had not previously appreciated-or to close, to narrow down to the one correct theory of the phenomenon in question. Schwitzgebel argues for a philosophy that opens.
According to Schwitzgebel’s “Universal Bizarreness” thesis, every possible theory of the relation of mind and cosmos defies common sense. According to his complementary “Universal Dubiety” thesis, no general theory of the relationship between mind and cosmos compels rational belief. Might the United States be a conscious organism - a conscious group mind with approximately the intelligence of a rabbit? Might virtually every action we perform cause virtually every possible type of future event, echoing down through the infinite future of an infinite universe? What, if anything, is it like to be a garden snail? Schwitzgebel makes a persuasive case for the thrill of considering the most bizarre philosophical possibilities.
Shermer and Schwitzgebel discuss: bizarreness • skepticism • consciousness • virtual reality • AI, Turing Test, sentience, existential threat • idealism, materialism • ultimate nature of reality • solipsism • evidence for the existence of an external world • computer simulations hypothesis • mind-body problem • truths: external, internal, objective, subjective • mind-altering drugs • entropy • causality • infinity • immortality • multiverses • why there is something rather than nothing.
Eric Schwitzgebel is professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures; Perplexities of Consciousness; and Describing Inner Experience?
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15 мар 2024

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Комментарии : 41

@frankfeldman6657 Месяц назад

Thanks for having such a very wise guest, whose wisdom includes what next to none of your others have displayed, the courage and modesty to say "I (we) don't know".

@fullmatthew 2 месяца назад

Thanks for the great content, Dr. Shermer. I'm enjoying this guest a lot more than the imam guy 🤣

@billscannell93 2 месяца назад

Or how about the Mormon Yale psychiatrist. Haha. Shermer has far more patience than Dawkins, Hitchens or Krauss. Too much patience, even.

@billscannell93 2 месяца назад

Doesn't the simulation idea have the exact same infinite regress problem as the god idea? Eventually you would reach the base-level reality, and where would that have come from?

@homewall744 2 месяца назад

Free will is just the opposite of imposed will, forced will, or a psychotic will that seems to even go against or conflict with the rest of your thinking.

@BigTimeRushFan2112 2 месяца назад

Great guest, great topic!

@righteousrico 2 месяца назад

Moral philosophy: Treat others the way that you would like to be treated. The rest is just commentary.

@aslamtu 2 месяца назад

Would that rule apply to masochists?

@Vadjong 2 месяца назад

Treat others the way THEY would like to be treated. That's called empathy.

@Vadjong 2 месяца назад

@@aslamtu Would NOT hurting the masochist be the greater cruelty they seek?

@frankfeldman6657 Месяц назад

What if you're a masochist.

@roobookaroo 2 месяца назад

I read this sentence: "Might virtually every action we perform cause virtually every possible type of future event, echoing down through the infinite future of an infinite universe?", and I wonder: What does all this exactly mean? And it it does, how and where do we find, or ascribe, or invent this meaning? What is "every action we perform"? And what about "every possible type of future event"? How do we recognize or identify an "event"? And that beautiful "echoing", how is it perceived, or imagined, or what? And the "infinite future", etc...We're playing here with sonorous abstract words to which we cannot give any certain meaning, or even illustrate with visual images in our mental space. What remains is " the thrill of considering the most bizarre philosophical possibilities." (And I would suggest that the word "philosophical" is "de trop", quite unnecessary here). We're playing here with words and nebulous, tentalizing concepts and indescribable images, all in all a mental game that activates our pre-frontal cortex and gives us pleasure by stimulating our dopamine systems. A wonderful brain game for growing undergraduates to push them to exercise their neuronal centers. But, honestly, beyond the intoxicating fun of the back-and-forth, has Michael Shermer - a professional expert at playing with bizarre ideas and abstractions - learnt anything real from this discussion?

@homewall744 2 месяца назад

Government rulers love the idea of telling us we don't have free will. If you have no free will, then you can give up: free trade, free speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of choice, free thinking, etc. Clearly if there's no free will, there's no freedom at all and so government can just act to "protect" and "project its will" and all is good.

@IntelligentProbe 2 месяца назад

You clearly don't understand free will.

@meb3369 2 месяца назад

No, "government rulers" love to tell you that you're on your own and that all your failings in life are entirely your own fault. That's how they avoid accountability to the electorate.

@mike2510 2 месяца назад

A hiker with a heavy backpack? It’s the ‘fat man.’ MIT has a good program for the trolly problem. Character is derived from a word that means to ‘etch.’

@naturalisted1714 2 месяца назад

I think consciousness exists for the same reason theres something, because "nothing" isn't an option. Just as Something is forced into existence due to the impossiblity of "nothing" (because theres no such thing as nothing), consciousness was also forced into existence due to there merely being a would-be void without it. No such hypothetical void can exist forever - there can be a universe without sentience, but only for so long. It will eventually come about.

@naturalisted1714 2 месяца назад

@@g0ne_fishin No.

@TJ-kk5zf 2 месяца назад

viciously circular

@frankfeldman6657 Месяц назад

I've never heard the naturalistic fallacy expressed so concisely, lol.

@ChucksExotics 2 месяца назад

My hypothesis is that in worse environments, where there is more drug use, violence, promiscuity, etc... you also have more people reacting against these behaviors and becoming religious. In that context religion is very useful for those people to separate themselves from more criminal and sinful people. In a nice upper class liberal neighborhood, you don't really feel any need to have this. Everyone around you is nice and functional and responsible and educated.

@politicalfoolishness7491 2 месяца назад

Since you are into religion analysis, I'd find it interesting for you to analyze the religion of Judaism versus the state Zionism because there seems to be much confusion, perhaps done deliberately by people with an agenda. Also an update on your views on Israel and the conflict would be in order since I haven't heard anything for perhaps 4-5 months.

@seandonahue8464 2 месяца назад

I wonder if the answer to the question, how are people unpreturbed by picncing at hangings or the Ordinary Men? Maybe it is that the incidents run counter to our stories we tell ourselves about experience. Our stories don’t quite match reality, though we wish it so. Looking at the cafe wall illusion, I know the lines are straight but I still see them crooked. I want to see our society of humanity straight the repeated stories of how it is not, I’m unwilling and not wanting to accept my story is not true. I like the story.

@Vadjong 2 месяца назад

Feels to me like these talking points have made zero progress since my days of reading Douglas Hofstadter.

@Vadjong 2 месяца назад

Also, supernaturalists/deists/dualists/... have completely run out of ideas a long, long time ago. It's just doubled down personal incredulity and willful ignorance that is keeping up their untenable beliefs for them (fingers in ears, going "LALALAA").

@Pacer... 2 месяца назад

👍

@lexisdw 2 месяца назад

8:35 maybe 'diversity' causes these problems. Is anybody allowed to study that?

@DejanOfRadic Месяц назад

Considering that all we have ever experienced is consciousness, the idea of chance is actually supernatural.

@homewall744 2 месяца назад

You can believe in a universe of mass complexity, but not a meat brain that does thinking/calculations/predictions which is rather obvious.

@larsthorwald3338 2 месяца назад

To understand how ordinary people can turn into moral monsters, you don't have to limit your study to historical cases; you can just interview IDF members in Gaza.

@TJ-kk5zf 2 месяца назад

yes, Hamas is pure evil

@TJ-kk5zf 2 месяца назад

shit! Hamas is evil got censored. fuck!

@wadetisthammer3612 2 месяца назад

5:55 to 6:55 - The actively religious donate more to non-church stuff also. 29:23 to 29:49 - Not completely implausible, but then why is it that protests of this magnitude here seem to only occur when it's Jews in the Middle East doing the bad stuff and not when other Middle Eastern nations have done far worse? 1:31:39 to 1:40:27 - Actually there have been documented cases where the NDE person saw things they couldn't have seen, though one could always chalk these up to lucky guesses.

@frankfeldman6657 Месяц назад

Actually, there has not been one single instance of the latter. Post a link, a reliable link. Good luck with that.

@wadetisthammer3612 Месяц назад

@@frankfeldman6657 Not sure I can post a link, but I can cite a book. See Melvin Morse's _Closer to the Light: Learning the Near-Death Experiences of Children_ (e.g., pp. 50-51 of that book).