Idea List Andrew Short

Think out 1,000 or 10,000 years; it’s obvious to everyone that human civilization (if it lasts) will make unimaginable leaps in science and technology in that time. On the other hand, there’s a general sense (judging from the way we imagine the future) that our worldview won’t (or shouldn’t) change in any meaningful way. Is that really true?

This podcast looks at the idea that I think most desperately needs an update, our collective understanding of selfhood. The update I lay out is actually quite an ancient idea; it just needs to be dusted off and re-examined in light of new science and a new era. Here are some places it’s appeared before, most notably in Hinduism and Sikhism:

Upanishads- 2000 or more years old, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads
Advaita Vedanta- 1500 years old, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita...
Guru Granth Sahib- ~500 years old, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Gr...
Alan Watts, “We are God playing Hide and Seek with Itself”, https://youtu.be/tmFxDy8S8Lo?t=194
Bertrand Russell on Heraclitus, ~500 B.C.: “"Mortals are immortals, and immortals
are mortals, the one living the other's death and dying the other's life." There is unity in the
world, but it is a unity formed by the combination of opposites. "All things come out of the one,
and the one out of all things."” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Histo...
Many other traditions in this vein are discussed in Huxley’s “The Perennial Philosophy”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Per...
Bill Hicks: https://youtu.be/VnwFmaLiKl4?t=88
Virginia Woolf: https://www.themarginalian.org/2020/0...
Erwin Schrödinger in "Mind and Matter" https://books.google.com/books/about/...

The Pew Research studies mentioned early in the podcast are:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...
https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/a...

0:00 Introduction
0:51 Reexamining selfhood
5:18 Who am I?
9:33 Why should this all matter to you?

(Excerpt from Schrödinger's "Mind and Matter"):
"The reason why our sentient, percipient and thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can easily be indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture. It is identical with the whole and therefore cannot be contained in it as a part of it. But, of course, here we knock against the arithmetical paradox; there appears to be a great multitude of these conscious egos, the world however is only one...
There are two ways out of the number paradox, both appearing rather lunatic from the point of view of present scientific thought (based on ancient Greek thought and thus thoroughly 'Western'). One way out is the multiplication of the world in Leibniz's fearful doctrine of monads: every monad to be a world by itself, no communication between them; the monad 'has no windows', it is 'incommunicado'. That none the less they all agree with each other is called 'pre- established harmony'. I think there are few to whom this suggestion appeals, nay who would consider it as a mitigation at all of the numerical antinomy.
There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not only of the Upanishads. The mystically experienced union with God regularly entails this attitude unless it is opposed by strong existing prejudices; and this means that it is less easily accepted in the West than in the East."

Do we have free will? What does current science have to say about this question? Are people like Sam Harris right to conclude that free will is an illusion? How could free will work, if it is real, anyway?

These are the questions I cover in this episode. I've been away awhile, and it feels good to be back!

Here's a link to the episode's script:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fZkyexjPaGEMDVDCftI6rgmBNAHRm1JA/view

Here's a link to a video version of this podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h47dzJ1IHxk&feature=youtu.be


Links to the papers discussed:
1983 Libet Study: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article-abstract/106/3/623/271932?redirectedFrom=fulltext

1985 Libet Review: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/unconscious-cerebral-initiative-and-the-role-of-conscious-will-in-voluntary-action/D215D2A77F1140CD0D8DA6AB93DA5499

Haggard: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811919307311?via%3Dihub

Koch: https://elifesciences.org/articles/39787

Link to the "What is Existence" episode:
https://soundcloud.com/idea-list-850849064/episode-2-what-is-existence


ytidealist@gmail.com

Twitter: @idealistyt
https://twitter.com/IdeaListYT

Sensationalist title? You be the judge.

Consciousness! Without it, the Universe might as well not exist, because there wouldn’t be anyone there to experience reality, wouldn’t be anyone there to perceive that there’s such a thing as existence at all.

In this episode, I talk about the fundamental role I believe consciousness plays in reality and why we shouldn't look at it as an impossibly magical thing, but as the most natural thing in existence. I frame this discussion with the observation that consciousness seems to arise from certain types of information processing, and examine what this means for our understanding of reality and our place in the world. I also put forward some ideas about how thinking works, about how consciousness influences physical matter, about why consciousness evolved, and an understanding of the "binding problem" in the philosophy of mind. Some of the amazing possibilities awaiting us in the future in the form of augmented intelligence and AI are also described.

Music:
0:30- Juana Molina, "Sin Dones"
7:03- Charolastra, "Masked Warrior"
14:33- Mouse on the Keys, "Elegie"
21:53- Mild High Club, "Skiptracing (Reprise)"
31:53- Skybison, "A Tool, A Distraction"
34:43- Harumi, "Hello"

Episode 3 on the miraculous beauty of reality, and how we should fight our tendency to get used to everything.

What is reality, really?

It strikes me sometimes just how fortunate it is that this infinitely beautiful Universe gets to exist, that all these complex and diverse phenomena get to happen. We take it for granted (because, after all, it is granted), but how strange it is that we are born into this miraculous reality with no explanation as to who we really are or where we came from. I think it is immensely valuable to be able to take a step back from our day-to-day lives and just stand in awe before the mystery and immensity of it all.

I've spent quite a bit of time in this meditative perspective, trying to glean insights into what it must take for this unimaginable world to exist, and this video series is an attempt to share these ideas. Here we explore many of the most intriguing questions: What is real? Why are we here? What is space? What is time? What is information? What is god? What is consciousness? Who am I? What am I?

After pondering these ideas from the perspective given here, I hope you'll agree that the world is more perfect and beautiful than we could even possibly imagine, and that many of our existential worries are unwarranted.