0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Stephen West. This

0:02

is Philosophize This. So what's

0:04

an example of one of these ideologies we were talking

0:06

about through Zizek last episode? What's an

0:08

example of an ideology where the people

0:10

immersed in it see themselves as seekers of

0:12

the truth, that we're the intellectually honest ones,

0:15

and that our opposite, the other, these

0:17

are the people that are truly lost in an ideology

0:19

that they don't see? What's an example of that? Well,

0:22

there's dozens we could use here to get this

0:24

point across, but given that this is a philosophy

0:26

show, we really want to use this opportunity to

0:28

give a non-trivial example of an ideology that's likely

0:30

to be one people listening to this can relate

0:33

to, whether that's because it's a position you used

0:35

to hold, you currently hold, whether you

0:37

just see it in people around you. What

0:39

I mean is I want to give an

0:41

example of an ideology that isn't obviously an

0:43

ideology, because Zizek, the most powerful form of

0:45

ideology, is one that operates in the background,

0:47

where the contradictions that are at the bottom

0:49

of it are things that the people using

0:51

it don't even notice, despite the fact they form

0:53

big parts of their worldview around them. This

0:56

episode will hopefully be a nice visual

0:58

example of two competing ideologies in today's

1:00

world. Hopefully this can be an

1:02

example where you can practice detecting the ideology I'm trying

1:04

to bring in, as I'm steelmanning all sides of this,

1:06

as we do on this show. Anyway,

1:09

if you're Zizek, it could be said that

1:11

some modern philosophers out there, like Philip Goff,

1:14

are trying to find a way to preserve the best

1:16

parts of both of these two different ideological approaches,

1:18

and find a way to move these conversations forward in

1:20

a productive way. And on that note,

1:23

we also promise to talk about the new book

1:25

from the philosopher Philip Goff on this episode, and

1:27

we will, we'll use it in this investigation of

1:29

different ideologies. But I guess it's important to

1:31

say this. In that book, we're going to

1:33

talk about a little later, Philip Goff is building off

1:35

of the work of a philosopher named Thomas Nagel. Thomas

1:38

Nagel wrote a book in 2012 called Mind

1:40

and Cosmos, and when he wrote that book,

1:42

Mind and Cosmos, he was responding to an

1:45

ideology that he thought was exploding in popularity

1:47

at the time. It's an ideology

1:49

popular among fans of the new atheist movement

1:51

that was going on at the time, and

1:53

it's a position that he thought was also

1:55

an overall attitude that's taken hold of academia

1:57

more generally. What he's fighting against is what's

1:59

often been... referred to as material reductionism,

2:01

or the idea that the truth about

2:03

anything that's worth knowing about the universe

2:06

can and should be understood by studying

2:08

the materials that things are made out

2:10

of and the fundamental forces that govern

2:12

them. That is where the truth lies.

2:15

You want to know anything about the universe, don't sit around

2:17

speculating about what the purpose is or the meanings of things

2:19

are, like we've done in the past. We got to stay

2:21

focused. We got to break things

2:24

down into their component parts, study them empirically. That's

2:26

where you got to look if you want to get

2:28

to the truth about the sum total or the whole

2:30

of those component parts. The truth of the universe can

2:32

be arrived at through a purely material explanation. Now

2:35

somebody can hear that and think, what's so wrong with

2:37

that? How is that an ideology? I

2:40

mean, to be real, that just sounds like someone who's a fan of

2:42

science. But again, take the negative

2:44

connotation off the word ideology for a second when we're

2:46

trying to see the world through the eyes of Zizek.

2:49

Like we talked about last time, instead of seeing

2:51

ideology as a bad thing, try to

2:53

see it instead as a deeply embedded

2:55

network of tactics and symbols that are

2:57

used by people to simplify reality into

3:00

something coherent, where it's a process that

3:02

literally everybody is engaging in no matter

3:04

who you are. Again, the

3:06

point to Zizek is not to hate on

3:08

people for having an ideology. The point is

3:10

to examine ours more closely, to have more

3:13

self-awareness about the ideologies we're using, how they

3:15

operate, how exactly they work their way into

3:17

people's heads. And since we're coming

3:19

at this from a place of zero hate, a

3:21

very humanizing activity, I think when it comes to

3:24

trying to understand any ideology people have, is

3:26

to try to put yourself in their

3:28

shoes, try to understand why it makes

3:30

total sense from their perspective that somebody

3:32

would internalize a particular ideology given the

3:35

specific culture they live in. For

3:37

example, take a pretty common one. We all

3:39

know someone who fits this profile. Imagine

3:41

someone who's born at the end of the

3:43

20th century, 1970s onward, and

3:45

imagine this is the type of person who

3:47

is an atheist, they are a very rational

3:49

person at heart, they are a big fan

3:51

of science and the scientific method. And

3:54

because of these three things, when it comes to

3:56

what they're going to believe in about the truth

3:58

of the universe, they generally leave in a positivist

4:01

direction, which is to say that I'll believe in

4:03

something as long as it's something that science can

4:05

prove to me. If science can

4:07

prove it, I'll believe it. If it can't,

4:09

no offense, but when we start getting into

4:11

that kind of territory, I don't even know

4:13

what we're talking about. I mean beyond a

4:15

certain point with no evidence, you can say

4:18

anything. And it's all just unverifiable speculation if

4:20

we can't empirically prove it. Imagine

4:22

what it's like to be this person. Born

4:24

into the world, you look around you, it's the end of the

4:26

20th century, and science is the way

4:28

that we're making sense of all the mysteries of

4:30

the universe. I mean when it comes to

4:32

other explanations for how the universe might be the way that it

4:34

is, they can hear about religion.

4:37

They can hear about the miracles of the Bible.

4:39

Some guy walking on water, levitating, you

4:42

know, shaking hands with the lepers, rubbing

4:44

Jesus lotion all over their back, moisturizing

4:46

them. They can hear about 2,000 years

4:48

ago and some miracles that may or may not have happened.

4:51

But on the other hand, being born when they

4:53

were, they can also just look around them and

4:55

see the miracles of science going on. In

4:57

the world they live in, when it comes to science and technology,

5:00

look, there's sequence in the genome right now. This

5:02

podcast is being delivered to you by invisible

5:05

waves flying through the sky. I mean this

5:07

stuff to people just a couple generations ago

5:09

would have seemed borderline magical. Just

5:11

saying it's understandable why it's something to believe in. And

5:14

then you got all the great communicators of

5:16

this way of making sense of things. The

5:18

Carl Sagan's, the Richard Dawkins's, all

5:21

the horsemen of the atheist apocalypse, the Neil

5:23

Tyson's. And then imagine as this

5:25

person gets a little bit older, maybe they were

5:27

born into a religious home, maybe they were just

5:29

forced to go to church a couple times, but

5:31

they hear this message every Sunday being delivered to

5:33

them, a fundamental guilt and redemption

5:35

through this invisible man sitting up in

5:38

the sky somewhere. And they

5:40

say, look, this thing, religion, doesn't

5:42

have a monopoly on the truth. Clearly

5:45

this is a story that's been designed in some

5:47

ways to just control people and it's led to

5:49

crusades and it's led to religious violence. It's just

5:51

not a good look for me as a thinking

5:53

person. They decide I'm gonna set

5:55

the bar higher for myself when it comes to

5:58

why I believe what I believe. And these creationists.

6:00

These are the people out there that are

6:02

believing in stories. Okay? I'm

6:04

not. I'm only proportioning my belief

6:06

to the empirical evidence that's in front of

6:08

me. I'm a truth seeker, not an ideologue.

6:11

I mean honestly, what could be wrong with the position that

6:13

I'm not gonna believe in something unless if there's evidence to

6:16

prove that it exists? How could you ever go wrong with

6:18

that? And because of this

6:20

commitment they have to material explanations for things,

6:23

there's predictable common lanes that this type

6:25

of person will fall into when it

6:27

comes to their views about non-material things.

6:29

For example, consciousness. We

6:31

don't know exactly how our subjective experience

6:33

of phenomenal consciousness emerges out of the

6:35

brain, or if it even does. It's

6:38

a mystery we still gotta solve. It's kind of exciting,

6:40

actually. But this person might say,

6:42

understandably, given the culture that they're in,

6:44

look I'm a materialist. Yeah, it's a

6:46

mystery. How does something that seems non-material

6:49

come out of something that's entirely material?

6:51

But look, I've seen science solve plenty of other

6:53

mysteries before in my day. You know,

6:56

any mystery that may still be there with consciousness

6:58

is just because we haven't had enough time to

7:00

study how the brain works long enough, or we

7:02

don't have the technology yet. And while

7:04

obviously I don't know for sure, have a little

7:06

faith in science. Just give us a few more

7:08

years and is it crazy to think science will

7:10

eventually solve this mystery too? No. Another

7:13

common lane this person will fall into is hard

7:15

determinism. Because if ultimately you think that

7:18

everything can be understood by having a deeper

7:20

and deeper understanding of the atoms that make

7:22

everything up in prior events, then

7:24

what may seem to someone like it's just

7:26

reality, you know, that you're making free choices

7:28

every day of your life, that's

7:30

actually an illusion to this person. That's gonna be

7:32

explained by science one day as well. Just again,

7:35

give us some more time. This stuff isn't done

7:37

overnight. See, again, this person might say,

7:39

I'm a truth seeker, okay? Like a real

7:41

truth seeker. Because I value only the truth

7:44

that science can directly verify to me one

7:46

to one about the world. And because I

7:48

don't waste my time on any unverifiable speculation

7:50

that's outside of that, being

7:52

a hard determinist, materialist, this

7:55

may seem counter intuitive when it comes to some

7:57

explanations about our direct experience of the world. But

8:00

to me, these are just the kind

8:02

of positions that naturally blossom out of

8:04

this intellectual honesty that I have. When

8:06

you actually seek the truth, you sometimes

8:08

gotta take counterintuitive positions like these. See,

8:11

I'm not like one of these creationists out there that

8:13

are a bunch of ideologues, easy to spot the contradictions

8:15

and weigh those morons. Look at the world. Look at

8:17

them. Cherry pick their scientific data. They're

8:20

shameless about it. They'll say, look

8:22

at all the evidence for God's existence when

8:24

they can bend the science to fit their

8:26

narrative. But the second the science doesn't fit

8:28

the narrative, they conveniently ignore it. That's a

8:30

contradiction. They even do this in

8:32

their personal lives. Sam Harris gives a great example. They'll

8:34

say, oh, look, look, isn't God wonderful for making sure

8:37

my mom got the bank loan for our house right

8:39

when we thought all hope was lost? God is

8:41

great, they'll say. But then

8:43

when a natural disaster takes out 10,000 people

8:45

in a matter of minutes, they'll say God

8:47

is mysterious. How can a creationist

8:49

not see the contradictions that are grounding

8:52

their entire worldview? Now from

8:54

the perspective of Slavoj Žižek listening to all

8:56

this, this take on creationist ideology, there's

8:58

a sense in which this person in their

9:01

critique is right. He would say

9:03

there are contradictions at the core of a

9:05

creationist ideology. And like we talked

9:07

about last episode, those contradictions are the fingerprints

9:09

of them using ideology to make sense of

9:11

the complexity of the universe. And yes, the

9:13

creationist would probably do well, he thinks, to

9:15

pay attention to the structures of the ideology

9:17

they're immersed in. But here's the thing. So

9:20

would that fan of science that's doing all the critiquing.

9:23

He'd say this common materialist

9:25

style of ideology is not

9:27

harnessing the truth without using

9:29

contradictions. It just feels like

9:31

they are to them because they lack a

9:33

level of self-awareness about the ideology that mediates

9:35

their thinking. For example, what could he possibly

9:38

be talking about here? Well, as it's

9:40

been pointed out in the history of philosophy, in order

9:42

to even get to that place where you make the

9:44

statement, I'm only going to believe in something if it's

9:46

empirically In order

9:49

to do that, you have to smuggle

9:51

in philosophical assumptions at the bottom that

9:53

are themselves not empirically verifiable. For example,

9:55

that the universe is something that is

9:58

rationally coherent, to the point and

10:00

rationality can be used to study and

10:02

understand it. That's a philosophical

10:04

assumption, not something proven by a science

10:06

experiment. Or how about the one

10:08

from Hume, the problem of induction, that you

10:11

have to assume there's a continuity to existence

10:13

where someone can study individual examples of things

10:15

using science and then derive general conclusions from

10:17

them. Again, another philosophical

10:19

assumption. Or how about the principles

10:21

of causality you need to conduct science, or the

10:23

existence of universal laws? None of

10:25

these are empirically verifiable. There's a sense

10:28

in which if you told a material

10:30

reductionist that there may be a rational

10:32

ordering to things, a teleology, a goal-directed

10:34

nature to the universe that aims towards

10:36

rationality, they would tell you, I'm

10:39

sorry, but that's unverifiable speculation. We can't prove

10:41

it. It's dangerous to speculate about those kind

10:43

of things. But again, to Zizek and

10:45

to Quine and to so many other philosophers who have

10:47

looked at this problem, verifiability,

10:49

science, is always

10:52

value-laden. No matter how much

10:54

it seems like it, you are not

10:56

starting from zero and then receiving a

10:58

one-to-one depiction of reality. See,

11:00

because on another level, the conceptual frameworks

11:02

we use to make sense of scientific

11:04

data matter. You want proof of this?

11:06

Just consider the fact that the same empirical

11:08

data can be looked at through different conceptual

11:10

frameworks and it changes what your whole view

11:12

of reality is. Take light as

11:15

an example. At one point in the

11:17

history of science, we thought that light was a

11:19

collection of photons and that photons are particles, core

11:21

puzzles as they used to call them. A

11:24

little later on, it was believed that light was in fact

11:26

a wave instead of a particle. Changed the whole

11:28

way we thought about what light is. A

11:30

little later than that, as a quantum physicist

11:32

in today's world, depending on what

11:34

kind of operations you want to do, you would

11:36

view light as either a particle or as a

11:38

wave. And thinking of light as some sort of

11:40

wave-particle duality is probably the best description we got

11:43

right now. Now, this is just

11:45

one example of many from the history of science,

11:47

but it illustrates how science is

11:49

far from this totally neutral, valueless

11:51

enterprise. The conceptual frameworks, the philosophical

11:54

assumptions, the ideology that we filter

11:56

the data through has to be

11:58

something that we're aware of.

12:00

And there's a type of person out there

12:03

who romanticizes science. Funny enough, usually

12:05

people who are not scientists, and these people

12:07

position themselves as the opposite to this ideology

12:09

of creationism while they view themselves as truth

12:12

seekers and live in ignorance to the contradictions

12:14

that ground the ideology they're immersed in. Now

12:17

here's the thing, does this mean

12:19

that every ideology is equally valid? No.

12:22

Does this mean we throw out science? No.

12:24

Does this mean we all invest in Jesus'

12:27

luncheon? No. Am I interviewing

12:29

myself right now? Well, yes, yes I am

12:31

actually. In all seriousness, does this

12:33

mean that because we found contradictions at the bottom

12:35

of this one, that now the whole thing, everything

12:37

about it was false, and now it all goes

12:40

up in smoke? No. And again, to Zizek, get

12:42

rid of this idea you're carrying around that you're

12:44

ever gonna have a worldview that doesn't have contradictions

12:46

at the bottom of it. There's not a reason

12:48

to throw everything out. There's just a greater level

12:50

of self awareness about the game we're actually playing.

12:53

It's actually very freeing once you get past the

12:56

initial feelings of discomfort. There's this initial stage where

12:58

you may try to use ideology to find all

13:00

the ways you're not actually in contradiction, but to

13:02

Zizek, we have to be in contradiction at some

13:04

level. That said, it also helps to

13:06

understand the philosophical origins of this type of thinking, and

13:09

this is where Thomas Nagel and his book Mind and Cosmos

13:11

can help us. He would start by saying

13:13

that if we just go back far enough, back during

13:15

the time of Aristotle, for example, assuming

13:18

the teleologies of things, or the goals

13:20

or the purposes of things, was

13:22

not a controversial position to take at the time. People

13:25

would look at the eyes or the teeth of

13:27

an animal, for example, and they would look at

13:29

how something like the eye, with all of its

13:31

intricate parts, in our scientific language, we'd say you

13:33

have the retina and the cornea and the optic

13:35

nerves, and these people would look at all the

13:37

parts of the eye working together in unison, and

13:39

they would see the eye as something that

13:42

obviously has a clear purpose for a creature.

13:44

It's obviously part of a larger system where

13:46

these things allow the creature to see and

13:48

navigate its environment. And if you were living at

13:50

that time, and you wanted to doubt that there was some

13:52

sort of teleology or goal intrinsic to these sorts of things,

13:54

if you wanted to doubt that, much like

13:56

the atheist who makes fun of the religious person in

13:58

today's world, People back then might be like,

14:01

look, go ahead and doubt all you want. But

14:03

at a certain point, I don't even know what it is we're

14:05

talking about. Clearly there's a purpose

14:08

at work here, and that purpose may

14:10

extend to the overall creatures themselves. That

14:12

purpose may extend into human life. It's

14:15

not crazy to think this may extend to the way

14:17

we structure our societies. What's the purpose

14:19

or the function of a society, and how do we

14:21

design one that will fulfill that purpose for us? And

14:24

as we know, looking at history, people

14:26

took this obvious purpose that must be

14:28

embedded into everything, and they ran

14:30

with it. They ran so far

14:32

with it. Forrest Gump's got

14:35

nothing on these people. Turns out as narrative creatures, we

14:37

can get a little carried away with the assumptions we're

14:39

making about what the obvious purpose of all this stuff

14:41

is. And as Nagel says, a

14:44

couple thousand years later, right around the beginning of the

14:46

modern scientific revolution, there were some thinkers at the time

14:48

that had enough of it and came up with a

14:50

great idea. There were several of them.

14:52

Francis Bacon building off of the work of

14:54

Descartes, Galileo, Isaac Newton, many others at the

14:56

time. These great thinkers looked around

14:58

them, and they saw a bunch of people

15:00

who were pretty distracted, all things considered. They

15:03

were doing science with an Aristotelian scientific

15:05

method, assuming the purposes to things.

15:08

They saw people around them studying alchemy, believing

15:10

that certain metals had spiritual properties that we

15:12

just couldn't see. They look at all this

15:14

stuff. Themselves embedded into it,

15:16

by the way. I mean, Newton spent a lot

15:18

of his life on alchemy. But they look at

15:21

it, and eventually there's this idea like, okay, all

15:23

this non-material stuff out there, this has become a

15:25

distraction, people. We're not making as much

15:27

progress as we could be making on the quantifiable side

15:29

of things, because we're too busy

15:31

focusing on all this stuff that we can't

15:34

measure. So how about this? How about we

15:36

take all this other non-material stuff that today

15:38

we'd call consciousness, cognition, qualities, purposes, value, and

15:40

all the rest of it, and let's bracket

15:42

that stuff off as the domain that science

15:45

doesn't try to study, and let's instead see

15:47

what happens if we stay in the realm

15:49

of the three dimensions, material reality. Let's do

15:51

that and see if anything changes. Well,

15:54

that happened, and now we're sequencing

15:56

the genome, and this podcast is being delivered to

15:58

you by invisible waves that are flowing. flying through

16:00

the sky. Yeah, turned out to be a pretty good thing

16:02

on the quantifiable side of things. But

16:04

the point is, what started with these thinkers

16:06

as a very conscious choice to bracket off

16:08

certain aspects of reality to clear the way

16:10

for studying the physical side of things better,

16:13

meaning they knew good and well that they

16:15

weren't harnessing all of reality. What started as

16:17

that, with all the progress being made in

16:19

the sciences, to Thomas Nagel, over the years

16:22

this turned into an overall attitude in academia,

16:24

not just that material explanations are what we

16:26

should be aiming for, but instead

16:28

further, that if something can't be explained

16:31

by studying the materials that it's made out of,

16:33

it's either an illusion, it doesn't really exist,

16:36

or it's a delusion, or it's scientific ignorance

16:38

where there must be some kind of material

16:41

explanation that's possible, but we're just essentially a

16:43

bunch of monkeys rattling their cages, frustrated we

16:45

haven't done enough science yet to fully understand

16:47

it. As Philip Goss says, over the

16:50

years, you can see this attitude start to crop

16:52

up in different places, Nietzsche famously declaring God is

16:54

dead, Marx saying that religion's the

16:56

opiate of the masses, Freud saying that

16:59

a belief in God is ultimately a longing for daddy. And

17:01

what all this leads to is a more

17:03

common ideological attitude amongst people living at the

17:05

beginning of the 20th century, that science is

17:08

the way that we arrive at the truth,

17:10

and that anything that isn't understandable by studying

17:12

the materials that something's made out of is

17:14

likely to be religious nonsense. And

17:17

what this leads to is an

17:19

overall skepticism in people of non-material

17:21

explanations for things overall, hence

17:23

the views on consciousness, where no matter how

17:25

non-material it may seem, it's

17:27

gotta be in the brain somewhere, hidden from us,

17:29

we just need more time, or

17:31

with hard determinism, no matter how much it seems

17:33

like we make free choices, gotta

17:36

ultimately be predictable with the atoms and the prior

17:38

events in some way, or that

17:40

morality is at best something that's completely

17:42

subjective, we'll argue about it forever, and

17:45

at worst it's a total delusion, purely

17:47

relative, just monkeys rattling their cage. These

17:50

positions are logical conclusions if you're

17:52

starting from the ideology of material

17:54

reductionism, as well as the conclusions

17:56

that life is completely meaningless, that it's obvious we

17:58

live in a totally dis... interested, absurd universe

18:00

and that nothing really matters. That's a hallmark

18:03

of the times as well. But

18:05

I want to paint a picture of a what-if scenario that

18:07

Thomas Nagel and Philip Goff would want us to consider. Philosophize

18:10

this everybody. I can't believe I ever used to

18:12

do that. What if in 500 years

18:14

people look back on the time we're living in right now

18:17

and they see the ways that we were thinking

18:19

about science and materialism and they say look

18:21

I think I get it. I think I get where they were coming from.

18:24

These people knew their religious history. They knew how they

18:26

used to project meanings on the things that were fake.

18:28

They didn't want to do that again. These

18:30

people saw the miracles of science going on all

18:32

around them. You know they were living in the

18:34

wake of some of the greatest scientific discoveries the

18:37

world had ever seen at the time. They had

18:39

mad respect for science. But because

18:41

they were living in this precise

18:43

historical moment, because it was

18:45

understandable to commit yourself to materialism in

18:47

this extreme of a way, these

18:49

people ignored the obvious purpose and order to

18:51

the universe that was staring them in the

18:53

face the whole time. That anybody

18:55

500 years before or after

18:58

just assumes is obvious as one of

19:00

those necessary philosophical assumptions we have to

19:02

smuggle in to be capable of doing

19:04

good science. Something on the level of

19:06

induction or rational coherence. What if

19:09

that's how this time ends up being seen? Well

19:11

let's consider it for a second. Is there

19:13

any guarantee that the current scientific theoretical model

19:15

is the model that's going to be able

19:18

to explain everything? The people

19:20

that created it knew they were bracketing off large

19:22

sections of reality. Is it time

19:24

we start talking about parsimonious assumptions we could

19:26

additionally bring in to fill in some of

19:28

these gaps? And just so

19:31

we don't kind of interrupt the show at any point beyond

19:33

this, I want to thank everyone out there who supports the

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our podcast. The link is in the

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podcast episode description box. And now,

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back to the podcast. Is there any

22:09

guarantee that the current scientific theoretical model is

22:11

the model that's going to be able to

22:13

explain everything? The people that created

22:15

it knew they were bracketing off large sections of

22:18

reality. Is it time we start

22:20

talking about parsimonious assumptions we could additionally bring

22:22

in to fill in some of these gaps?

22:25

What gaps though? There are no gaps. Well, see,

22:27

that's the thing to somebody like Thomas Nagel. A

22:29

fan of the New Atheist movement will be quick

22:31

to attack a creationist for using what they call

22:33

a God of the gaps argument. We've

22:36

all heard this one before. To bring back our example

22:38

of the eye, the creationist will say, look, you scientists

22:40

out there may be able to explain all the parts

22:42

of the eye and how it was naturally selected to

22:44

refract light and produce vision. But

22:47

none of you can explain how that eye was

22:49

created in the first place. And

22:51

where you guys can't explain things with your science,

22:53

I'm going to say that God did it. Again,

22:55

wherever there's a gap in scientific explanation so

22:58

far, God must have done it. The God

23:00

of the gaps. But Nagel says there's

23:02

another type of trap you can fall into on the other side of

23:04

that as well. When someone is so

23:06

committed to materialism that they won't see outside

23:08

the borders of it for any alternative explanation

23:10

of reality, they can start to

23:12

give what he calls the evolution of the gaps

23:14

argument. That if something isn't

23:16

explained by the current theoretical model fully,

23:19

well, it couldn't be that maybe the model itself

23:21

needs some work. Any gap in our understanding of

23:23

things will eventually be filled by science. We just

23:25

need a couple more thousand years of doing science

23:27

the exact same way we are right now. But

23:30

history is filled with changes to the

23:32

theoretical models that we use to understand

23:34

reality. Maybe you've heard of Aristotle's Four

23:37

Causes from back when he was doing his work. Aristotle

23:39

lived during a time where he obviously didn't have

23:41

all the access to scientific knowledge we do. And

23:44

partially because of that, he was interested

23:46

in a much larger question that's interesting

23:48

to think about. He wondered, what is

23:50

it to have a full understanding of

23:52

something? Like, Of course, there's having a

23:55

partial understanding of something, and there's all different

23:57

kinds of knowledge about any one particular thing.

24:00

Wanted to say that we understood something fully.

24:02

What would that require? An example

24:04

of a chair. Modern science primarily focus is

24:07

on understanding the materials that the tears made

24:09

out of and the process or the sequence

24:11

of events that led to that chair being

24:13

the way that it is. But is this

24:16

having a full understanding of all things? Chair.

24:18

Aristotle. Would say no. Having a full

24:21

understanding of any one particular thing requires

24:23

knowing it's for different causes or explanations.

24:25

There's the material cause, what it's made

24:27

out of, There's the efficient cars be

24:29

maker or process, the creed in that

24:31

chair. But then there's the formal cause,

24:33

the form or design of the chair,

24:35

and the final cost be purpose or

24:37

function of the chair. And. Aristotle. Until

24:39

you have all four of these, you

24:41

don't have a full understanding of what

24:43

that terrorists or whatever it is. Whether

24:45

it's a chair, the human brain, or

24:47

the universe. Will. Thomas Nagel gives an

24:50

example of this and his book Mind and

24:52

Cosmos. He says picture a pocket calculator. Now

24:54

you can type in the keys five plus

24:56

three equals and there will be a little

24:58

pixel ized eight the comes up on the

25:00

calculator tell you the answer to the problem.

25:02

Now. In terms of what just went on

25:04

there, there's one type of explanation. You can

25:07

give a purely material account of what just

25:09

went on by describing the plastic that the

25:11

buttons are made out of, the solar powered

25:13

the electricity go into all the different microchips

25:16

and circuits and if you did that what

25:18

you would have as a great material explanation.

25:20

But. What you would also have is an incomplete

25:22

explanation of what it was. The just went on.

25:25

Because. Outside of anything material that's going

25:27

on, there's also this non material understanding

25:29

of a mathematical system that you need

25:31

to even be able to grasp the

25:33

relevance of the problem that was just

25:36

sauce or whether it was the right

25:38

answer is a teleological understanding that's needed

25:40

or else we're always potentially cutting our

25:42

own legs off with our own theoretical

25:44

model. So. Take Neo Darwinian

25:46

evolution as a theory. As.

25:48

A fan of science, you may see this

25:50

as an incredible explanation for the efficient cars

25:52

are for house. Something like the I have

25:54

a Creature came about because of certain environmental

25:57

conditions. But. No matter how much you

25:59

think, that explains the. it does

26:01

nothing to explain the why. There's

26:03

a difference between a cause and

26:05

an explanation. There's a difference between

26:07

having a sequence of events that led to something

26:10

and an explanation. There's a sense

26:12

in which we need more holistic explanations for

26:14

the purposes of these things within a larger

26:16

system to be able to get a full

26:18

understanding of them. But it also

26:20

seems to be true to Nagel that at

26:22

a certain point, a purely materialist neo-Darwinian account

26:24

of reality cannot get us there, at the

26:26

very least when it comes to consciousness, cognition,

26:29

and value. As Nagel says,

26:31

if life forms that have rich experiences

26:33

of mental life are not anomalies, but

26:35

are as they seem to be just

26:37

normal parts of nature, then if

26:39

that's the case, biology as a field

26:41

cannot be a purely physical science. What

26:44

are we missing in our understanding of these life forms?

26:47

Aristotle would definitely think it's something important.

26:49

The goal again is not to destroy

26:51

the sciences here, but to ask how

26:53

can we incorporate all the great science

26:55

that we've done into a more broad,

26:57

meaningful picture of what reality is. And

27:00

to be clear here, neither Thomas Nagel

27:02

or Philip Goff are saying that because

27:04

a materialist neo-Darwinian account of reality doesn't

27:06

have all the answers, that there must

27:08

be some guy sitting up in the clouds

27:10

with a plan for everybody. Again, an ideology

27:12

doesn't always have to be replaced by its

27:14

opposite. In fact, quick aside here, in

27:17

many ways, what these two modern philosophers

27:19

are trying to do here, from the

27:21

perspective of someone like Slabaszicek, is that

27:23

they're trying to find a resolution between

27:25

these two sides that supposedly are opposites.

27:28

This is Hegel's dialectic inaction to

27:30

Zizek. This is how social progress

27:32

is made. There's two

27:34

ideologies positioned on either side of an

27:36

argument, and both these positions are necessary

27:39

and inevitable, and both of them contain

27:41

partial truths about reality as well as

27:43

containing their own contradictions. And

27:45

it's through battling it out in this

27:47

forum of ideas that both sides end

27:49

up resolving the contradictions that are at

27:51

the bottom of their worldview. To Hegel,

27:54

this is the dialectical way that ideas

27:56

progress. And it's not just ideas to

27:58

him, it's material reality, it's ideas. It's

28:00

so many other things that we talked about on the Hegel

28:02

series. Now, Zizek slightly disagrees

28:04

with Hegel here. He doesn't think

28:06

that we're resolving contradictions through this

28:08

process, but really just understanding our

28:10

own contradictions better and getting more

28:12

clarity about the issue overall. We'll

28:15

talk more about that next episode when we talk

28:17

about Zizek and ideological progress. But again,

28:19

this debate between material reductionists on the

28:21

one hand and creationists on the other,

28:23

with Thomas Nagel and Philip Goff sitting

28:25

somewhere in the middle trying to preserve

28:27

the best of both worlds, this can

28:30

serve as a pretty good visual for the

28:32

type of ideological battle that Zizek thinks is

28:34

going on everywhere. And that's what

28:36

matters to a philosopher like Philip Goff. How

28:38

do we answer these fundamental questions about

28:40

the purposes of things and value in

28:43

the universe without sacrificing anything that's great

28:45

about science as it's currently done? The

28:47

title of Philip Goff's new book where he tries

28:50

to explore some answers to this is called Why,

28:52

the Purpose of the Universe. And

28:54

before we talk about how purpose in the universe may

28:56

make sense without there being some sort of supernatural man

28:58

with a staff, I want to follow up

29:00

on that what if scenario that we gave before. If

29:03

we are living in a particular moment in history

29:05

where we're obsessed with materialism in more ways than

29:07

one, then that must mean that

29:09

there's evidence that the universe has a purpose all

29:11

around me, and I'm just either not

29:14

seeing it or I'm reframing it through my own

29:16

biases in a way where I just can't see

29:18

it. Where is that evidence if it's there? Chapter

29:21

2 of Philip Goff's book is called Why Science

29:23

Points to Purpose. He starts by saying that for

29:25

a long time there wasn't good evidence to point

29:27

to if you wanted to believe in purpose, over

29:30

a hundred years without good evidence. But

29:32

all that has changed to him in just the last

29:35

few decades. What he's referring to is,

29:37

I mean as he may already be aware of,

29:39

scientists that study the nature of reality look at

29:42

reality through what's known as the standard model. And

29:44

among other things, this standard model includes certain

29:47

constants, certain fixed numbers that we got to

29:49

plug into the equations about reality in order

29:51

for the equations to work. These

29:53

constants include things like the masses of

29:55

fundamental particles and the exact strength of

29:58

the forces that are governing them. Well,

30:00

as Goss says, once we figured out

30:02

what these fixed values were, people got

30:04

a little curious and started running computer simulations wondering

30:06

what the universe would be like if these fixed

30:08

values were just a little different. And

30:11

what they found was that the overwhelming majority

30:13

of the possible universes that are out

30:15

there were completely incompatible with the existence

30:17

of life. And not

30:19

just carbon-based life like we know about,

30:22

but any kind of chemical complexity whatsoever.

30:24

The periodic table of elements as we

30:26

know it doesn't exist in most of

30:28

these worlds. For example, the strong

30:30

nuclear force, the force that binds together the

30:32

elements in a nucleus of an atom, the

30:35

fixed value of that can be represented, Goss

30:37

says, by the number point zero zero seven.

30:40

Now, just as an example here, if

30:42

that number had been point zero zero

30:44

six or less, the universe would

30:46

have contained nothing but hydrogen. If

30:48

it had been point zero zero eight or higher,

30:51

almost all the hydrogen would have burned off in the

30:53

Big Bang and water would have never existed. Chemical

30:55

complexity would have never existed. And

30:58

this extends to the physical properties of things, he

31:00

says. If the mass of a down quark had

31:02

been greater by a factor of three, the universe

31:04

would have contained only hydrogen. If

31:06

electrons had been bigger by a factor of

31:08

2.5, the universe would contain only neutrons. Contrast

31:12

that with the more than 60 million chemical compounds

31:14

we know about in our universe, he says. Now,

31:16

combine all this with the discovery of the

31:18

value of the cosmological constant or the amount

31:21

of dark energy that's in empty space. And

31:24

consider the fact that this number is so small and

31:26

so precise that if I even wanted to read you

31:28

the number of trillions here that it is precise to

31:30

tell you about it, even that would be

31:32

a chore. And then know that if

31:34

the cosmological constant were even slightly bigger, things would

31:36

have shot apart too quickly in the universe for

31:38

gravity to clump them together into stars and planets.

31:41

And if it was slightly smaller, then the universe would

31:43

have collapsed back in on itself. When

31:45

you consider all of this and the very specific

31:47

way that our universe is, to Philip

31:50

Gough, you're left with a choice. You

31:52

can accept all this as a wild coincidence,

31:54

which you may, or you can consider what

31:56

he calls the value selection hypothesis or the

31:58

idea that the The numbers we see

32:00

in the fine-tuning of physics like this are

32:03

the way they are because they allow for

32:05

a universe containing great value. As

32:07

he says, quote, a universe where there

32:09

is life in all its richness, including

32:11

people who can fall in love, experience

32:13

great beauty, and contemplate their own existence,

32:15

end quote. Now the value

32:17

selection hypothesis is just one position of many

32:20

that Philip Gath explores in the book. But

32:22

it doesn't just have to be value selection.

32:25

To him, this is one subcomponent of a

32:27

much larger discussion that's neglected in his eyes,

32:29

of the possibility of cosmic purpose in the

32:31

universe that exists without some sort of omnigod

32:34

that must have created it. Much

32:36

more on that in a second. But it would be

32:38

important to Philip Gath here to pause and speak to

32:40

some of the people out there that would be perfectly

32:42

fine seeing what he calls overwhelming evidence for purpose as

32:45

just a coincidence. Like common response

32:47

back to hearing this from Philip Gath could be, okay,

32:50

I'm not against it, but

32:52

how about the fact that coincidences happen,

32:54

Philip Gath? It's not

32:56

that I can't see how this could

32:59

be possible. What I'm saying is, in

33:01

my world, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

33:04

Or how about the multiverse theory? Haven't

33:06

quantum physicists already explained how all this is

33:08

possible and it ultimately doesn't mean anything? Well,

33:11

he gets responses to all these questions and even

33:13

more in the book. I want to be respectful

33:15

and not cannibalize too much of it here on

33:17

my podcast. But I will say this,

33:19

that when it comes to the multiverse and this

33:21

other conversation we're having right now about ideology with

33:23

Zizek, notice how the theory of

33:25

the multiverse could easily be a point that a

33:27

materialist has popping up in their head instantly when

33:29

they start to hear all this from Philip Gath.

33:32

Like yeah, it's highly unlikely we'd get a universe

33:34

fine-tuned for life, one in ten to the hundred

33:36

and thirty-six in fact. But

33:38

with the multiverse theory, there's ten to the hundred

33:41

and thirty-six universes, far more universes than that, and

33:43

this is just the one we landed on. It

33:45

makes total sense. In light

33:47

of the other conversation, notice how

33:49

this is an entirely non-material theoretical

33:51

explanation to ground their worldview that

33:53

ironically needs to always be grounded

33:56

in material evidence. Again,

33:58

ideology can be something that's so powerful. This

34:01

type of person who is otherwise rational,

34:03

a thinking person, but someone who's romanticizing

34:06

science. They will say these kinds of

34:08

things, not even thinking about the contradiction

34:10

that may be there to Gtx. It's

34:12

almost like it lies in the subconscious

34:14

of people. Again, some more food for

34:16

thought in preparation for next episode. About

34:19

the more general question, some of my nashville

34:21

of gauthier: what if this is just a

34:24

coincidence? I mean, forget ideology. Am I trying

34:26

to defend a worldview here? Couldn't to

34:28

just be a coincidence. Philip Gas. And

34:30

he say it's possible I guess. But again

34:33

look part of way we model our understanding

34:35

of the world around us in the sciences

34:37

and otherwise is by using probabilities and just

34:39

given the evidence we have no filter through

34:42

a very standard base in probability equation that

34:44

we used to model lot of other ways

34:46

we see reality to fill of gas. it

34:48

is just far more likely that the value

34:51

selection hypothesis is true or that it's far

34:53

less likely that it's false. And.

34:55

He goes into this in the book he

34:57

says look, people can say a are like

34:59

that guy that's making breakfast in the morning

35:01

and he looks, it is toast and he

35:04

sees the face of Jesus and his toes

35:06

staring at me like asked god try to

35:08

communicate with me, what are the odds Man,

35:10

it's Jesus But he says look, Jesus showing

35:12

up in your toast is unlikely but it's

35:15

not that unlikely all things considered. Planet being

35:17

in the Goldilocks zone where it supports life

35:19

existing on it, it's unlikely. But it's not

35:21

that unlikely. Were talking about a conservative estimate

35:23

here. Have one intend to. The Hundred and

35:26

Thirty six. That's the equivalent of sitting at a

35:28

table rolling the dice and having a come up

35:30

six or one hundred and seventy four times in

35:32

a row. As Garces at a certain point you

35:35

wouldn't be sitting there saying well it's six against

35:37

How's that for a coincidence not be thinking the

35:39

dice is loaded so that it always comes up

35:41

a sex or that the some explanation for what's

35:43

going on. he understands the

35:46

skepticism though he says in the book

35:48

quote scientists in the sixteenth century struggled

35:50

to accept the mounting evidence of the

35:52

earth was not contrary to what had

35:54

been assume for thousands of years in

35:56

the center of the universe popular science

35:58

discussion often involves scoffing this inability of

36:00

our ancestors to follow the evidence where

36:02

it leads. But every generation

36:04

absorbs a worldview that it can't see

36:07

beyond. In our own time,

36:09

we're so used to the idea that

36:11

science has done away with cosmic purpose

36:13

that we're incapable of dispassionately considering the

36:15

overwhelming evidence that's emerged in support of

36:17

the value selection hypothesis. It

36:19

may take time for the culture to catch up with

36:21

the evidence." There's a sense

36:23

in which if you're a skeptic, good on

36:26

you for being a skeptic. We need skeptics in

36:28

this world. Which is one

36:30

of these days when no one's around you,

36:32

try doing it in the shower when no

36:34

one's looking, just allow yourself to temporarily release

36:36

the skepticism for a second. That

36:38

with this one in 10 to the 136

36:41

probability of it being structured this way, just

36:43

allow yourself to entertain that we're part of

36:45

something that has a greater purpose to it.

36:48

Not Jesus' lotion, not one given by a

36:50

God that cares about you personally, but

36:52

an impersonal, teleological law to

36:54

the universe, something imminent in nature

36:57

where the laws of gravity, thermodynamics,

36:59

motion, these are maybe subcomponents

37:01

of a higher-level teleological law

37:03

that selects for chemical complexity or

37:06

rationality or value. This

37:08

is not explicitly goth what I just said, but

37:10

this is very much along the line of thinking

37:13

where we consider other conceptual frameworks to be the

37:15

same empirical data through and it changes our view

37:17

of what reality is. Remember our

37:19

example of light from before. Again, the goal

37:21

here is not to undermine the sciences, but

37:23

to find a way to incorporate all the

37:25

great science we've done so far and explore

37:27

how it connects to a landscape of meaning.

37:30

So, in the book, to build one of

37:32

its cases for the possibility of purpose existing

37:34

in the universe without the existence of a

37:36

personal God, Philip Goss cites the work of

37:38

Thomas Nagel in his book Mind and Cosmos,

37:40

who himself was building off of a version

37:42

of teleological laws given by John Hawthorne and

37:45

Daniel Nolan. Goss says, quote,

37:47

What Nagel had realized is that there's

37:49

no incoherence in the idea of cosmic

37:51

purpose without God, provided we can expand

37:53

our conception of the laws that govern

37:55

the universe. The laws of nature we've been

37:57

used to for the past 500 years move from past

38:00

to future, ensuring that what happens

38:02

at earlier times determines what happens at later

38:04

times. Nagel's proposal is that there

38:07

may also be laws that move from future

38:09

to past, ensuring that the present is shaped

38:11

by the need to get closer to certain

38:13

goals in the future, such as the emergence

38:15

of life. In other words,

38:17

there may be laws of nature with

38:19

goals built into them, and we call

38:22

these teleological laws." There

38:24

are certain things to God that just don't make

38:26

sense, or seem highly unlikely if we truly live

38:28

in a universe without any sort of goal-directedness about

38:31

it. Not just fine-tuning or

38:33

the cosmological constant, but how about the emergence

38:35

of consciousness, or us being the sort of

38:37

creatures that have experiences that are full of

38:40

meaning and value. If we

38:42

take a purely neo-Darwinian approach to explaining

38:44

this, natural selection just cares

38:46

about behavior. There's absolutely no reason,

38:48

he says, that we needed to evolve with

38:51

rich, subjective experiences of the world like this.

38:53

It makes little sense that we did with our current

38:56

theories, but it makes total sense that

38:58

the universe is goal-driven towards selecting for value. More

39:01

than that, considering the value-selection hypothesis also opens

39:03

up the possibility of exploring theories that account

39:05

for free will. Take another

39:07

example that Philip Goff explains in the

39:09

book, the theory of pan-agentialism, where

39:12

if you consider a teleology of rationality in

39:14

the universe, particles, as he

39:16

says, could be disposed from their very

39:19

own nature to respond rationally to their

39:21

experience. Part of the

39:23

thinking here is, look, we as human

39:25

beings have an understanding of rationality and

39:27

what it is to be rational that's

39:29

been highly shaped by millions of years

39:31

of our survival-oriented existence, running from lions

39:33

back in the day, running

39:35

from door-to-door solar panel salespeople in today's

39:38

world. But what if rationality is actually

39:40

something far more layered than that, something

39:42

that orders reality itself in an unseen

39:44

way, almost like gravity, where

39:47

the stuff that's all around us in

39:49

the world is rational stuff, he says,

39:51

that there's a very simple kind of

39:53

rational impulse going on that explains a

39:55

very simple kind of behavior of particles

39:57

and non-conscious objects, but that

39:59

when this Grodo Agency gets coupled with

40:01

Experiential Understanding and Consciousness at higher

40:03

levels, well, it starts to have some

40:05

big implications on the possibility of free will. Again,

40:08

the conceptual frameworks we view reality

40:11

through change our view of reality.

40:14

If the universe is meaningless, then

40:16

the logical conclusion is absurdity. But

40:19

if it's not meaningless, then what does that

40:21

make the logical conclusion for the person born

40:23

into it? What does that make the logical

40:25

way we should be setting up our societies? The

40:27

book is a fun, interesting exploration of

40:30

a resolution between some common disagreements in

40:32

philosophy and the hope from Philip Goff

40:34

is that this book can help the conversation move

40:36

forward in a productive way. It's called Why the

40:38

Purpose of the Universe. Now that said,

40:41

hopefully this was all very thought-provoking today, not just

40:43

when it comes to the details of the scientific

40:45

theoretical model and our responsibility there if we want

40:47

to have better and better conversations, but

40:50

also when it comes to the role of ideology in all

40:52

this, if you're Slavoj Žižek. I just

40:54

picture Žižek waiting for the ideas we're going to

40:56

talk about next episode. I see him sitting on

40:58

the sidelines in a field at a soccer game,

41:01

sitting on one of those fold-out chairs, eating a hot

41:03

dog, watching this game being played

41:06

that we're talking about on this episode, clapping

41:08

at what he's seeing, some kind of Roman

41:10

emperor, just waiting, ready to pounce,

41:12

ready to get us thinking about the real game

41:14

he thinks we're all playing. Thanks

41:17

for sharing the podcast with a friend if it's something you

41:19

enjoy. Patreon shout-outs this week,

41:21

Kat Clark, Stanford De Silva,

41:24

James Trob, Sergio Felipe, and

41:26

Yesterday's Rice. That's both

41:28

someone's name and, you know, I'd

41:31

just like to thank Rice in general. It really

41:33

has developed into a fine,

41:35

respectable carbohydrate option. Thank

41:38

you for listening. I'll talk to you next time.