Nihilism - The Loss of God, The Loss of Meaning? | Thought Adventure Podcast #9 (2021-05-30) ​

0:00:14 hey
0:00:38 the fourth adventure podcast sorry i
0:00:41 need to put that on mute
0:00:44 uh joining us on the fourth adventure
0:00:46 podcast apologies for the slight delay
0:00:48 uh unfortunately my mic for some reason
0:00:50 wasn't working stream yard wasn't
0:00:52 letting me
0:00:53 uh be heard so today in sha allah we
0:00:56 are joined by our regular panel of
0:00:58 guests we've got jake the muslim
0:00:59 physician assalamu alaikum welcome
0:01:03 we've also got uh yusuf from pondering
0:01:06 souls assalamu alaikum
0:01:09 and we have abdulrahman also
0:01:13 assalamu alaikum
0:01:17 so today in sha allah we've got an
0:01:19 interesting topic
0:01:21 a really fascinating topic actually but
0:01:24 when you hear the title by nihilism
0:01:28 it sounds like uh it's one of those
0:01:30 boring
0:01:31 philosophical you know in-depth
0:01:34 type of topic area but actually when you
0:01:37 really try to understand this topic
0:01:38 aaron hopefully in charlotte
0:01:40 the introduction to this discussion that
0:01:42 we're having about this topic
0:01:43 you'll start to really understand and
0:01:45 appreciate the very importance of this
0:01:47 topic because
0:01:48 meaning and purpose i think is the most
0:01:51 essential
0:01:52 you know innate feature of human beings
0:01:55 we desire meaning
0:01:56 we desire purpose we desire you know
0:01:59 that
0:01:59 our lives have a role to play within a
0:02:02 grand scheme of things so
0:02:04 you know this is really fundamental this
0:02:05 is why we ask questions about does a
0:02:07 creator exist
0:02:09 this is why we ask questions about you
0:02:11 know what is our purpose of life how do
0:02:12 we know what's right or wrong
0:02:14 whether you know you're an atheist or
0:02:16 muslim or a non-muslim
0:02:18 you're going to ask these questions and
0:02:20 this is really about
0:02:22 this idea of purpose and meaning and so
0:02:24 it goes to the heart of the question
0:02:26 uh in terms of you know the idea of
0:02:28 nihilism
0:02:29 and really the topic that we want to
0:02:31 discuss and you know what we want to do
0:02:33 is also bring on as many uh people into
0:02:35 the core sections particularly
0:02:37 non-muslims particularly atheists
0:02:39 on this topic is you know loss of god
0:02:41 loss of meaning question mark
0:02:44 um so that's just a short introduction
0:02:46 from my end um
0:02:48 i want to quickly ask um you know i've
0:02:51 sort of given a short introduction i've
0:02:52 not really gone too much detail
0:02:54 but i wanted to really ask the brothers
0:02:56 here um
0:02:58 why is it an important discussion from
0:03:00 from your end and
0:03:01 try and keep it concise and shallow
0:03:10 obviously joseph just as points of the
0:03:12 guys were watching yourself it's done
0:03:14 like a
0:03:14 was it a 15-hour course or something
0:03:17 like that
0:03:18 uh i've done quite a lot on it so i did
0:03:20 a dissertation for
0:03:21 in uni that was what my ba ended up on
0:03:24 um that's on my website i'll put all the
0:03:26 links all of this in the
0:03:27 description i'm kind of in the middle of
0:03:28 writing out now as i did a dissertation
0:03:31 on it where i took a sort of
0:03:33 um a three-step path uh first talking
0:03:36 about what nihilism is
0:03:37 uh exploring nietzsche and his work on
0:03:39 the mata then moving on to step two
0:03:41 talking about um
0:03:42 leaps of faith so it was like a
0:03:43 comparison between
0:03:45 kirkegaard and uh who's like a christian
0:03:48 um philosopher uh and then
0:03:52 with albert camus who is a famous
0:03:54 existentialist
0:03:55 um who writes a lot on on this as well
0:03:57 nihilism
0:03:58 and so like kind of doing a comparison
0:04:00 between them to show how this leap of
0:04:01 faith is always end up
0:04:02 being a necessary thing and then moving
0:04:05 on from this notion of the leap of faith
0:04:07 um into part three where i end up sort
0:04:09 of really honing in
0:04:10 on the will to meaning and which is uh
0:04:13 something kind of put forward by the um
0:04:16 author called what's his name though
0:04:19 victor frankel frank flank
0:04:21 frankful fang i'm getting it mixed up
0:04:24 with uh dr finkelstein now
0:04:27 victor frankel victory franklin yeah and
0:04:30 uh
0:04:31 and he basically really goes into this
0:04:33 idea of the the will to meaning
0:04:35 and of an optimistic um a tragic
0:04:38 optimism
0:04:39 and he was a survivor of the holocaust
0:04:41 and uh
0:04:42 subhanallah his book um man's search for
0:04:45 meaning is is a very very
0:04:47 profound very short book um and that
0:04:50 along with a couple of other of his
0:04:51 writings alongside of it
0:04:53 um on the will to meaning was like a
0:04:55 huge um
0:04:56 sort of emphasis and a concluding remark
0:04:58 on on that dissertation
0:05:00 uh and then beside that i did a series
0:05:02 with subor where we go through the whole
0:05:04 dissertation which was like
0:05:05 seven episodes of like two hours each on
0:05:07 average uh which is quite large that
0:05:09 might be the one you're referring to
0:05:10 um which was maybe 15 20 hours i think
0:05:13 and then i did a separate essay
0:05:15 uh with sapiens institute which took a
0:05:17 different route um
0:05:19 on the the topic of nihilism that's on
0:05:21 the the safest institute website as well
0:05:22 if you want and
0:05:23 there's going to be a part two of that
0:05:24 that comes out soon in shot alarm in the
0:05:26 process of writing that and trying to
0:05:28 get that finished
0:05:28 uh and then i did a series uh called the
0:05:31 death of meaning islam and nihilism
0:05:33 uh on the sapience institute channel um
0:05:35 i'll put the playlist to that
0:05:37 below as well so that's the work that
0:05:39 i've i've done
0:05:40 on it um this is quite a few hours worth
0:05:43 of video on the thing
0:05:45 so just really quickly so why is this an
0:05:48 important topic
0:05:49 why why have you spent so long talking
0:05:52 about nihilism
0:05:53 um well so for me i've felt
0:05:57 nihilistic in the past and i know a lot
0:05:59 of people who have
0:06:00 i feel like it's a very very common
0:06:02 thing um especially from like
0:06:04 people that come maybe from council
0:06:06 estates but not exclusively
0:06:08 them um council estates basically being
0:06:10 like um
0:06:11 government supported yeah poor areas in
0:06:13 the uk
0:06:14 um and there's a common thing there
0:06:16 there's often not many
0:06:18 um present fathers uh the mothers are
0:06:21 either
0:06:22 on benefit size you know help from the
0:06:25 the the government or their single
0:06:27 parents but they're never home so
0:06:29 they're always working
0:06:30 um and so that you always end up with
0:06:32 someone else sort of raising the kids
0:06:34 um and yeah this is quite like a chaotic
0:06:37 background
0:06:38 and there's just this general sense of
0:06:41 like
0:06:42 meaningless that sort of derives from
0:06:44 this this environment
0:06:46 um again it's not um necessarily the
0:06:49 case you know there are people that come
0:06:50 from these environments that
0:06:52 um maybe you know experience meaning and
0:06:55 never have this issue
0:06:56 um although i i think at some point
0:06:58 people do and they end up just sort of
0:07:00 engaging in
0:07:01 a sort of escapism to try to you know
0:07:04 enter the name of escapism escape this
0:07:06 feeling of nihilism this feeling of um
0:07:08 life being meaningless or pointless um
0:07:11 and i associate it or i consider it an
0:07:14 important thing um
0:07:16 because i associate with the levels of
0:07:19 depression and suicide rates as well
0:07:21 so it obviously not everyone who's
0:07:22 annihilated is going to commit suicide
0:07:24 or necessarily be
0:07:25 depressed you have um quote optimistic
0:07:28 nihilists although i find that to be
0:07:30 quite an oxymoron
0:07:32 um and it doesn't make sense to me
0:07:35 but there are arguments right there are
0:07:36 people who sort of put themselves
0:07:38 forward as
0:07:39 such um but for me it's if you
0:07:42 have committed suicide then you're
0:07:43 necessarily a nihilist in the sense that
0:07:46 if
0:07:46 you know if if you've committed suicide
0:07:49 you've not seen
0:07:50 life as being something worth living um
0:07:53 and this was like a major question that
0:07:55 for example albert kami was trying to to
0:07:57 answer he said this is the most
0:07:58 fundamental philosophical question why
0:08:01 not
0:08:01 just talk to yourself why not just end
0:08:03 your life
0:08:04 um and then so in the myth of sisyphus
0:08:07 he tries to
0:08:08 answer this question and go along there
0:08:10 and i think if anyone has sort of got to
0:08:11 the point where they
0:08:12 feel like they do have to end their own
0:08:14 life they don't see
0:08:15 life is worth living that there is no
0:08:18 point to it
0:08:19 i.e there's no purpose there's no
0:08:20 meaning there's nothing sustaining them
0:08:22 um or keeping them in the world and this
0:08:25 isn't
0:08:26 um limited to poverty uh like i've never
0:08:29 really been in rich cliques uh so
0:08:33 you know i'm not too much savvy in terms
0:08:35 of how they're all dealing with it
0:08:37 but you see it often enough in the news
0:08:39 that you know people that have lots of
0:08:40 wealth a lot
0:08:41 lots of money lots of fame end up
0:08:43 killing themselves
0:08:44 uh robin williams was one example of
0:08:46 that he was someone who you might look
0:08:48 at and think
0:08:49 what a quote happy man you know he's in
0:08:52 all of these
0:08:54 funny films and anytime you sort of see
0:08:56 him he comes across as this extremely
0:08:58 happy person um and yet his life
0:09:02 was so excruciating for him he ended up
0:09:04 having to sort of end it
0:09:06 um just so really quickly so what you're
0:09:09 saying is that
0:09:10 nihilism isn't just some sort of
0:09:12 intellectual discourse
0:09:14 nihilism is what people some a lot of
0:09:17 people in fact
0:09:19 they feel yeah yeah they're trying to
0:09:22 work out
0:09:22 meaning and they feel meaningless yeah
0:09:25 yeah so
0:09:26 they might not be able to articulate in
0:09:27 their head but there is something there
0:09:30 yeah so common thing is is people will
0:09:31 read my work and then they'll say oh
0:09:33 that's what i've been feeling i just
0:09:34 didn't know there was a name for it
0:09:36 although i didn't know that was like a
0:09:37 philosophy that
0:09:38 sort of underpinned it um but yeah it
0:09:41 you can have this sort of esoteric
0:09:44 version of it um you know which is sort
0:09:46 of analytical
0:09:48 reasoned out explicitly you've got these
0:09:50 syllogisms
0:09:52 um on the other hand there's there's a
0:09:55 common sort of layman's approach to
0:09:58 nihilism
0:09:59 um which isn't so much articulated as
0:10:02 it's just experienced
0:10:04 and i make it equivalent to sort of like
0:10:06 an illness people are just
0:10:08 they're they're overcome with it as a
0:10:10 consequence of the conditions that
0:10:11 they're in
0:10:12 of the experiences they're having and
0:10:14 then it just sort of overwhelms them
0:10:17 and then they have to deal with it they
0:10:19 have to figure out how to overcome it
0:10:22 and if especially if they're coming from
0:10:23 say poorer backgrounds
0:10:25 um not many of like the people that come
0:10:27 from council estates
0:10:28 um at least from the people i grew up
0:10:31 around
0:10:32 reading you know like weird philosophy
0:10:35 books like
0:10:36 nature or you know this is not a go-to
0:10:38 thing for them
0:10:39 um you know they're more into going down
0:10:42 watching football and
0:10:44 playing computer games and doing other
0:10:45 things maybe binging on netflix these
0:10:47 are the sort of things
0:10:48 that they utilize to sort of try to
0:10:51 overcome
0:10:51 um partying you know going out on the
0:10:53 weekends um
0:10:55 drinking taking drugs again this isn't
0:10:58 necessarily
0:10:59 everyone and and when i say taking drugs
0:11:01 it doesn't always have to be like the
0:11:02 more extreme
0:11:03 like heroin or anything like that um it
0:11:06 could simply just be
0:11:07 the the quote-unquote the timid ones
0:11:10 like people smoking weed or
0:11:12 doing what they feel is is not really
0:11:14 quote that bad
0:11:15 um but they're engaging in it they live
0:11:18 during the week
0:11:19 they work in order to earn a wage to pay
0:11:22 the bills and give themselves enough
0:11:23 money to be able to go out on the
0:11:24 weekend and
0:11:26 go crazy and um is that any other but
0:11:29 yeah it's a common problem
0:11:30 um and i think it's one that's sort of
0:11:33 um the modern condition is certainly uh
0:11:37 escalating the feeling off and you you
0:11:40 have this
0:11:41 um sort of cloud that's just leering
0:11:44 over
0:11:45 the the western world um in particular
0:11:48 and it's strange because obviously we
0:11:50 live in a very built world everyone's
0:11:51 got a lot of things
0:11:52 they've got everything that they sort of
0:11:53 need they have access to
0:11:56 cold clean warm water um you know
0:12:00 they've got central heating
0:12:01 refrigerators washing machines
0:12:04 the internet you know lights working
0:12:07 electricity
0:12:08 flushing toilets all of this everyone
0:12:10 you know it's very rare you'll find
0:12:12 anyone that doesn't have these things in
0:12:14 places like the uk um in particular or
0:12:17 like many places in europe in america
0:12:20 and yet rates of depression are really
0:12:23 high
0:12:24 people are sad they
0:12:27 a lot of people are sort of still
0:12:28 dealing with and struggling with these
0:12:30 type of things you know antidepressants
0:12:32 uh i can't remember
0:12:34 off the top of my head the statistics
0:12:36 are quite shocking in terms of like the
0:12:38 percentage of the population that
0:12:39 receives antidepressants
0:12:42 and they're quite eagerly given out as
0:12:44 well by doctors
0:12:45 um and it's this is sort of seen as a
0:12:47 way of of
0:12:48 fixing it um and yeah it is a huge
0:12:52 problem and it and it's one that we all
0:12:54 have to deal with either directly or
0:12:55 indirectly either
0:12:56 you yourself you may not feel it now you
0:12:58 may eventually do so
0:13:00 a lot of the population is young and
0:13:01 sometimes these things
0:13:03 start to kick in more as you sort of
0:13:04 reach your 30s
0:13:06 and then you go for a midlife crisis
0:13:08 yeah because you've gotten to the point
0:13:10 where
0:13:10 your youth has just snapped past you
0:13:12 before you've even known it and you're
0:13:13 like what have i been doing i've done
0:13:14 nothing
0:13:15 and you're watching all of these people
0:13:17 on youtube or
0:13:19 the uh the programs like um jersey shore
0:13:22 and that
0:13:23 and they've got everything they want and
0:13:24 what have i got you know i've got
0:13:27 i think most of our viewers might not
0:13:29 know jersey shore
0:13:30 it's in fact i hope you never know it i
0:13:32 hope you never know
0:13:37 perfect time because i live on the
0:13:38 jersey shore
0:13:41 this is a different journey i love it
0:13:43 bro
0:13:45 so in terms of uh you know what is
0:13:49 what would you say is neither if you
0:13:52 want to attract to the sort of the
0:13:53 crooks of what is knight is it
0:13:57 um i mean yusuf could correct me if i'm
0:14:00 wrong but as far as i understand it is
0:14:02 that there's
0:14:02 there's no intrinsic meaning to anything
0:14:05 in the universe
0:14:06 and to even really attempt
0:14:09 at uh trying to construct a meaning
0:14:13 is almost pointless um
0:14:16 that's kind of how i understand it i and
0:14:19 i distinguished that
0:14:20 from uh existentialism which
0:14:24 have something in common that there is
0:14:26 no intrinsic meaning to anything
0:14:29 but existentialism basically says that
0:14:32 you know you construct your own meaning
0:14:34 as you go along and you kind of make
0:14:36 your
0:14:37 your own way so to speak i don't know do
0:14:40 you agree with that distinction or not
0:14:41 really yeah
0:14:42 so existentialism is a reaction to what
0:14:45 they
0:14:45 thought as the fact of nihilism so
0:14:48 basically philosophy had been building
0:14:49 up building up building up and then
0:14:51 eventually
0:14:51 it gets to this crescendo and it's like
0:14:53 oh crap nihilism
0:14:55 and that was the sort of quote the
0:14:57 revelation of the
0:14:59 uh you know of nature and and so then
0:15:03 you you get all of these thinkers post
0:15:05 nature that really start to read it and
0:15:06 start to accept it
0:15:08 and then they start thinking well what
0:15:09 how do we go on
0:15:11 and then that's you know the camus sort
0:15:13 of um
0:15:14 opening statements in his book on the
0:15:16 mythicists why not just kill yourself
0:15:19 and they they talk about this attempt
0:15:21 you know you listen to the scientists
0:15:22 you listen to this you listen to that
0:15:24 everything ends up sort of leading into
0:15:25 what they see is this absurdity
0:15:28 um you've got like this need or this
0:15:31 desire as um
0:15:33 thomas nagel puts it um an innate desire
0:15:36 for meaning
0:15:37 and then you just have the the quote the
0:15:39 unreasonable silence of the world
0:15:41 um to fulfill that so we're in essence
0:15:44 born with a
0:15:45 a thirst that is unquenchable um and we
0:15:48 can never be satisfied and so how do
0:15:52 we as humans deal with this reality
0:15:55 and then so yes and the next
0:15:56 essentialism builds on that yeah so yeah
0:15:58 so i want to just uh just focus on that
0:16:00 point actually
0:16:00 just not the thomas nagel but obviously
0:16:03 you mentioned i think you mentioned
0:16:04 frederick nietzsche
0:16:06 and any time we talk about at night
0:16:09 every time we talk about nihilism dj
0:16:11 always comes up
0:16:12 and egypt from my understanding gave an
0:16:14 example uh
0:16:16 of a person running down the mountain
0:16:19 yeah uh going where is god where is god
0:16:22 and then you had that famous statement
0:16:24 god is dead now that will yeah um
0:16:28 what was that all about was nietzsche
0:16:30 somebody who was arguing
0:16:31 for nihilism was he trying to say yeah
0:16:34 this is how we should be
0:16:35 nihilistic yeah so
0:16:38 nietzsche he wasn't necessarily saying
0:16:40 we should be nihilists
0:16:42 um he he said we should accept it and go
0:16:46 through it
0:16:47 in order to to get to a higher state so
0:16:49 to speak
0:16:50 and it's sort of like uh
0:16:53 and allowing everything to to burn for
0:16:55 the phoenix quote-unquote to
0:16:57 arrive out of the ashes um and he refers
0:17:00 what did he mean by god is dead what was
0:17:02 he was he talking about he didn't he
0:17:03 didn't mean it down from the mountain
0:17:05 because obviously you've got these
0:17:06 intellectuals who are always saying ah
0:17:09 this guy's crazy what's he talking about
0:17:11 yeah evidence for god
0:17:14 okay so he just to kind of preface this
0:17:17 nietzsche himself was agnostic so he
0:17:20 wasn't
0:17:20 an atheist he didn't think god had
0:17:22 actually died
0:17:24 um and for him it was just a case of
0:17:26 like he didn't feel like the
0:17:28 the discourse was satisfactory he felt
0:17:31 that no one had
0:17:32 either proven or completely disapproving
0:17:34 god that it was just going nowhere
0:17:36 um this discourse and so you know he was
0:17:39 open to the fact that god may in fact
0:17:41 exist
0:17:42 it's completely possible but he just
0:17:43 didn't care you know in his work
0:17:46 it seems like he's not really that
0:17:47 bothered and what he's talking about
0:17:49 it's a sort of
0:17:50 uh like a progression of philosophy from
0:17:54 plato throughout um european history
0:17:58 up until the point that he starts to
0:18:00 analyze everything
0:18:01 and what he sees is this progression
0:18:04 of philosophy just sort of undermining
0:18:06 everything and he saw
0:18:08 philosophy as being innately nihilistic
0:18:11 that is it just takes you down these
0:18:13 into this labyrinth that you can never
0:18:14 get out of and
0:18:16 eventually you end up sort of on every
0:18:18 all of the higher values end up
0:18:20 undermining themselves
0:18:21 so truth is like eventually undermined
0:18:24 um
0:18:25 by its own endeavors like truth
0:18:28 so he saw truth for example as ever all
0:18:30 higher values are underpinned by
0:18:32 morality
0:18:33 but then you have truth itself starts to
0:18:36 explore morality
0:18:37 and then sees morality as a fiction and
0:18:40 the moment morality gets noticed or seen
0:18:42 as a fiction
0:18:43 this undermines the value of truth which
0:18:46 was a moral value to begin with
0:18:48 and then it removes the need for it um
0:18:50 or the you know the necessity of truth
0:18:53 and so when he's talking about um god is
0:18:55 dead
0:18:56 so it's this is specifically in the book
0:18:58 called the gay science
0:18:59 and it's atherism 125 the madman and
0:19:02 it's about this madman who runs down and
0:19:04 he's like
0:19:04 he's got a torch but it's the morning
0:19:06 like it's daylight so it's like really
0:19:08 emphasizing his craziness
0:19:09 he's like where is god where is god he's
0:19:10 looking for god and everyone in the
0:19:12 marketplace is laughing at him
0:19:14 like they're none of them take this idea
0:19:17 seriously anymore
0:19:18 um they've trivialized it and they're
0:19:20 like oh is he hiding
0:19:21 has he gone out to play is he ran away
0:19:23 like is he lost
0:19:25 and the the madman he's struck by their
0:19:29 nonchalance about it about how um
0:19:32 silly they they think this thing is and
0:19:34 and it annoys him
0:19:35 and so while they're laughing he smashes
0:19:37 the lantern on the floor
0:19:39 and they go silent they're shocked like
0:19:41 you've you've got this huge
0:19:43 shift from there kind of look mocking
0:19:45 him
0:19:46 um and laughing at him and sort of
0:19:48 enjoying the morning and they're out
0:19:50 buying things and and having a great day
0:19:53 and
0:19:54 and then he breaks it and he's like he's
0:19:57 he's tries his hardest he you know he
0:19:59 shouts to
0:20:00 the top of his voice and he bellows and
0:20:02 he's like um
0:20:04 where is god i will tell you we have
0:20:05 killed him you and i
0:20:07 and then he goes into it in more detail
0:20:09 he says but what
0:20:10 how how did we do this this is like the
0:20:12 greatest deed that has ever happened
0:20:15 like but how many you know how many
0:20:17 sponges will it take to clean the blood
0:20:20 you know like how did we wipe away the
0:20:22 horizon
0:20:23 and then he moves away from like the the
0:20:26 the gravity of the situation that you
0:20:28 know how how
0:20:30 like how unfathomable
0:20:34 this act is that they've killed god um
0:20:38 that is they've lost faith that the
0:20:41 what christianity and this is mainly as
0:20:43 well specifically
0:20:44 his critique is always against
0:20:46 christianity he sees christianity as
0:20:48 this
0:20:49 religion that's um basically like
0:20:51 killing itself
0:20:52 um internally and and so when he's
0:20:55 saying
0:20:56 god is dead he's looking at um
0:20:59 christianity as being no more than a
0:21:01 corpse anymore
0:21:02 like it doesn't have as much of a hold
0:21:04 on the people as it used to
0:21:06 prior to his time um and so he
0:21:09 he's like you know how did we do this
0:21:10 how did we do not only that
0:21:12 the people haven't even seen what
0:21:14 they've done
0:21:16 they don't even realize how grand of an
0:21:17 act this is they don't even realize how
0:21:19 much of a problem they've caused for
0:21:20 themselves
0:21:21 and i'm too early i'm too early and he's
0:21:24 and he basically starts to say well what
0:21:25 you know it's a no oh
0:21:26 is there no down are we not drifting who
0:21:29 unchained the
0:21:30 earth from the sun that is you know we
0:21:32 have no
0:21:33 link to any necessary value anymore
0:21:35 we're going to be going out into the
0:21:37 open space into the abyss
0:21:39 and he always makes these sort of um
0:21:41 analogies between
0:21:43 like the the realization of nihilism and
0:21:45 this open darkness
0:21:47 this abyss this and i the way i sort of
0:21:50 whenever i read his work
0:21:51 i always remember these moments i had
0:21:54 where i had this feeling of an abyss
0:21:56 and one of them was while i was
0:21:57 traveling i went night diving
0:21:59 and so we were in malaysia on in this
0:22:01 island and we went out and my light my
0:22:03 torch was bad
0:22:04 like that it was so bad that it made it
0:22:07 harder to see
0:22:08 because it was so dim that i could only
0:22:11 like basically i don't know why it works
0:22:13 out like that but if you if you
0:22:14 apparently if you've got a really really
0:22:15 bad torch that's quite dim
0:22:17 it's pointless even having one like your
0:22:19 eyes can't adjust well enough
0:22:20 to the dark for you to be able to see
0:22:22 anything at all um and you've just got
0:22:24 to
0:22:24 i just ended up having to stop using it
0:22:26 and like trying to use everyone else's
0:22:27 but then
0:22:28 there was a moment where i was on my own
0:22:29 i was behind the the group
0:22:31 and i was in the ocean and it was pitch
0:22:34 black it was middle of the night
0:22:36 and i just i got distracted because they
0:22:38 had this bioluminescence
0:22:40 so i was moving my hands through the
0:22:41 water and there was this trail of like
0:22:43 blue sparkles that would follow your
0:22:44 hand
0:22:45 and so i was a bit hypnotized by that
0:22:47 and i was just like
0:22:48 tripping and like playing about with
0:22:50 that and then all of a sudden i realized
0:22:52 i was on my own and i was just looking
0:22:54 forward
0:22:55 and there was just nothing but darkness
0:22:57 the ocean was pitch black
0:22:59 i couldn't i couldn't distinguish
0:23:01 distance
0:23:02 all i saw was darkness and i had no idea
0:23:05 what was in that and all that was
0:23:06 running through my head is like a shark
0:23:08 could be five meters away from me now
0:23:09 and i have no idea there's there could
0:23:11 be all sorts of monsters and demons and
0:23:13 everything
0:23:14 beyond this point and i would have no
0:23:16 idea and this
0:23:17 sheer terror just came over me and there
0:23:20 was a part of me that just wanted to
0:23:21 turn around
0:23:22 and swim but there was this other part
0:23:24 of me that was so incredibly like
0:23:26 intrigued by the experience by the
0:23:28 terror
0:23:29 that i was just sort of frozen um and
0:23:32 just experiencing it and i can't
0:23:34 remember how long i was sort of just
0:23:35 there
0:23:36 but it was it was a mad feeling and i i
0:23:39 when i was reading nietzsche i was
0:23:40 getting a similar feeling like he was
0:23:42 invigorating this
0:23:43 really he was making me relive this
0:23:45 moment of be of being confronted with
0:23:47 the abyss
0:23:48 of just being in front of the vast
0:23:51 nothing
0:23:52 and and he he's making this in the
0:23:55 analogy of the the
0:23:56 the atherism of the madman he starts
0:23:58 moving towards this and but he's talking
0:24:00 not just on an individual level but on a
0:24:02 societal level that
0:24:04 the whole of the earth has been
0:24:06 unchained from the sun the whole of the
0:24:07 earth is floating away from that
0:24:09 into an abyss and once it leaves its
0:24:12 its center that which everything was
0:24:14 united upon
0:24:16 um obviously that being in western
0:24:18 europe at the time it was christianity
0:24:20 once that was left there was nothing
0:24:23 to um to give perspective anymore there
0:24:26 was no more up or down there was no left
0:24:28 or right there was no
0:24:29 direction there was no nothing anymore
0:24:31 there's just just
0:24:32 nothing just nihilism um and
0:24:35 he's he's really really trying to hone
0:24:37 in on this and
0:24:39 for him it was a case of overcoming it
0:24:42 with some form of creativity
0:24:44 and so this is how you end up sort of
0:24:46 the you know the influence of the the
0:24:47 existentialists
0:24:48 is is there their attempts to try and be
0:24:51 the
0:24:52 uh the over man the or the ubermensch um
0:24:55 yeah yeah and or to kind of start to at
0:24:57 least move in that direction
0:24:59 of creating a world where this this type
0:25:01 of person can
0:25:02 to come to being but it was never a bit
0:25:04 yeah
0:25:05 i was going to say before we move up
0:25:07 move on to the actual ubermensch
0:25:09 if we do get to that point um i just
0:25:11 wanted to maybe
0:25:12 also bring in jake on this point which
0:25:13 is that
0:25:15 in essence from what i understand from
0:25:16 what you're saying
0:25:18 is the people in the town are
0:25:21 the intellectuals the academics no no
0:25:24 they're like
0:25:25 everyone but but as in that they're
0:25:27 mocking this madman who's saying
0:25:29 where is god because in the same way we
0:25:32 come across a lot of
0:25:33 people out in the society when you start
0:25:35 talking about religion or
0:25:36 you talk about belief in a creative
0:25:37 belief in god they're like oh
0:25:39 you know why you talking about that
0:25:41 that's so stupid that's so silly
0:25:43 just this is important though because
0:25:44 it's not just the academics this is
0:25:46 everyone it's the market yeah the
0:25:48 academic the layman the poor person they
0:25:51 all
0:25:51 go to the marketplace to get their food
0:25:52 yeah they're all there
0:25:54 but what what nietzsche is saying is
0:25:57 that the madman
0:25:59 he actually sees something that they
0:26:02 don't realize
0:26:03 yeah yeah and he says that happens too
0:26:05 early yeah
0:26:06 so he's basically you know as the joker
0:26:09 would say is the head of the curve isn't
0:26:10 he
0:26:11 yeah and so so just to bring jake into
0:26:14 this point
0:26:14 so in essence from what i understand and
0:26:17 maybe you can expand upon this
0:26:18 he's saying that everything is anchored
0:26:21 to sciences
0:26:23 even that's the natural sciences
0:26:24 morality
0:26:26 viewpoint on life epistemology
0:26:29 they're anchored upon belief in a
0:26:31 creator it's not like this
0:26:32 is something that religious people do
0:26:35 but the whole a whole civilized western
0:26:38 civilization or general civilization
0:26:40 but also if we talk about specifically
0:26:41 western civilization is actually born
0:26:44 out
0:26:44 of a quote-unquote religious sort of
0:26:46 belief system or tradition
0:26:48 so this is touching on sorry sorry
0:26:56 [Music]
0:26:57 and as far as i understand it um
0:27:00 i think nietzsche sees himself as the
0:27:03 madman
0:27:04 um to a certain degree because he
0:27:07 i think he sees himself as pointing this
0:27:10 out
0:27:11 to everyone else and saying like
0:27:14 he realizes i think that most people
0:27:17 aren't ready for it they're not
0:27:18 ready to really embrace uh what he's
0:27:21 speaking about
0:27:23 and obviously i mean it seemed like it
0:27:27 was the case
0:27:28 um eventually with people reading more
0:27:31 of his material
0:27:33 and realizing the implications of a sort
0:27:36 of
0:27:36 uh rejection of god i think that more
0:27:39 and more people
0:27:40 wound up uh bringing that on board and
0:27:43 his whole kind of
0:27:44 philosophy but i think that
0:27:48 what yusuf talked about obviously he
0:27:50 didn't believe in god so he didn't
0:27:51 believe that
0:27:52 god literally died or anything but he
0:27:54 was talking about in the metaphorical
0:27:56 sense that
0:27:57 he was trying to say that look he was
0:28:00 uh if we reject god these are the
0:28:03 consequences this is what follows
0:28:06 and so there's no objective truth with a
0:28:08 capital t
0:28:09 you know there's no objective morality
0:28:12 or even objective meaning really to
0:28:14 anything um
0:28:16 and so that's what he was trying to
0:28:18 point out with the
0:28:19 with the story and largely with most of
0:28:22 his writings
0:28:23 uh even after that and i
0:28:26 think that us on the stream we would
0:28:29 probably agree
0:28:30 um and so we think
0:28:33 if you have good reason to think and
0:28:35 this is kind of my point
0:28:36 if you have good reason to think at
0:28:38 least from an intuitive
0:28:40 aspect that there is some kind of
0:28:42 objective meaning to reality
0:28:45 um then you have good reason to
0:28:48 believe in god uh and you have good
0:28:50 reason to reject the idea of
0:28:52 atheism i know that's kind of going much
0:28:55 more forward but
0:28:56 i think that's kind of the whole point
0:28:59 um
0:29:01 i sort of agree with nietzsche's
0:29:03 argument
0:29:04 but i reject the idea that there is no
0:29:07 objective meaning because i think and
0:29:10 this is a point because i had an entire
0:29:12 class in university on existentialism
0:29:16 and it was this weird experience that i
0:29:18 had because i was sitting in the class
0:29:21 and i'm listening to everything that's
0:29:23 being spoken of and my professor was a
0:29:25 nietzsche scholar
0:29:27 um and everybody else in the class
0:29:31 there's like 25 people
0:29:32 are sitting there and they're just
0:29:33 eating this in my opinion crap
0:29:36 up and they're like oh yeah they just
0:29:38 love the
0:29:40 this sort of honestly bro
0:29:44 it was so strange and i'm the only one
0:29:46 sitting there thinking
0:29:47 this is just complete nonsense and so i
0:29:51 would
0:29:51 constantly challenge a professor i
0:29:54 remember it vividly i would constantly
0:29:56 challenge their professor
0:29:57 while the class is going on because
0:29:59 everybody else was like oh yeah this is
0:30:01 awesome
0:30:02 i felt like i was in the twilight zone
0:30:05 and um
0:30:07 so he liked me but the same time he
0:30:10 didn't because he was an existentialist
0:30:13 um but at the same time he liked that i
0:30:16 was sort of challenging him
0:30:18 yeah well that's the philosophy class in
0:30:19 it they need the back and forth it gets
0:30:21 boring all the way
0:30:22 yeah yeah i was bored i was like
0:30:24 everybody's just eating this crap
0:30:25 up and so i don't know
0:30:28 kind of fast forwarding uh i had to
0:30:31 write a
0:30:31 we had several papers to write as you do
0:30:34 normally in a
0:30:35 you know university course and i wrote
0:30:38 this paper
0:30:39 trying to just completely debunk nature
0:30:43 and his whole uh philosophy
0:30:46 and i just was pointing out what i
0:30:48 thought were
0:30:49 all the contradictions in his
0:30:52 thought of when you know saying that
0:30:54 there's no objective truth but in order
0:30:56 to really make that statement you need
0:30:58 to have some
0:30:59 sort of objective truth and objective
0:31:01 meaning all these things
0:31:03 just went through these sort of argument
0:31:05 absurdums
0:31:06 against uh nietzsche's philosophy and
0:31:10 when i handed him
0:31:11 i you know i got an a on the paper and
0:31:13 when he handed it back to me
0:31:15 he just said jake life is absurd
0:31:18 that's kind of the point the whole thing
0:31:20 is a contradiction yes
0:31:22 and i was like i was like yeah
0:31:25 but i don't think it is because
0:31:29 so we we kind of had that moment and
0:31:31 then he told me and this
0:31:32 always stuck to me up until this day and
0:31:35 i i told sharif before
0:31:36 i usually tell people when this topic
0:31:38 gets brought up
0:31:40 he said you know what existentialism is
0:31:42 he said
0:31:43 existentialism is taking an exam
0:31:47 leaving the entire exam blank and
0:31:50 scoring a hundred on the exam
0:31:53 and i and i thought to myself well wow
0:31:56 why in the hell would anyone want to
0:31:57 really believe in
0:31:59 existentialism and this nihilist
0:32:01 philosophy it's just totally
0:32:02 contradictory and absurd and
0:32:05 i up until even the end no matter what i
0:32:08 said all the rest of the kids in the
0:32:11 class seem to just eat it up and they
0:32:13 just were like
0:32:14 sort of punk rockers like leaving the
0:32:16 classroom like
0:32:18 we love nietzsche and um but
0:32:21 sort of on that point i want to ask
0:32:22 yusuf is that the
0:32:24 is that what drove you into nihilism
0:32:26 were you like one of those
0:32:28 kids that were in the class that were
0:32:29 sitting next to me eating it up and that
0:32:31 no no when i was nihilus this was prior
0:32:35 to my like
0:32:36 academia so before so i only started
0:32:43 being quote unquote academic when i went
0:32:45 to college um
0:32:47 and that was i think 2016.
0:32:50 prior to that i didn't really read many
0:32:52 books i'd only really started reading
0:32:54 when i went traveling
0:32:56 um which was like my mid 20s early 20s
0:33:00 um before that i was like naughty in
0:33:02 school
0:33:03 um you know i didn't do too well i
0:33:04 dropped out of college a couple of times
0:33:06 and i was like
0:33:07 i'm just gonna make money and just
0:33:08 started working so
0:33:10 when i ended up in nihilism it was more
0:33:12 because i was trying to like
0:33:15 embed myself in life and
0:33:18 this feeling of the unquenchable first
0:33:20 was always hitting me
0:33:22 so it was like i was trying to
0:33:25 i was drinking i was smoking i was doing
0:33:27 things i'd go to like the full moon
0:33:29 party and go to the mushroom mountain
0:33:31 and do all of this mad stuff um
0:33:35 and it was it was because i had this
0:33:37 thirst i needed
0:33:38 to feel like my life was significant in
0:33:42 some way
0:33:43 um and it just it wasn't working like
0:33:46 everything that i was doing it just
0:33:48 it could never it wasn't lasting
0:33:50 whatever happiness whatever pleasure i
0:33:52 was gaining from it
0:33:53 um it was it was very like i'd get it in
0:33:56 a dose
0:33:57 and then if i ever took or did the same
0:33:59 thing equivalent again
0:34:01 the the um the effects were always
0:34:05 less than the prior time so i'd have to
0:34:07 do it a little bit further
0:34:08 to get either the same and if i wanted a
0:34:10 stronger feeling i'd have to do it a
0:34:11 little bit more
0:34:13 and then like every time you go back to
0:34:15 it your tolerance increases and so the
0:34:17 effects lower
0:34:18 and you've got to kind of like be more
0:34:21 and more and more extreme each time you
0:34:23 go and return to it
0:34:24 but you just it gets all point where
0:34:26 it's like your tolerance is so
0:34:28 low and the doses required are so like
0:34:31 high that you just don't have the means
0:34:33 to be able to do it and that that wasn't
0:34:35 just with like substances like alcohol
0:34:36 and things like that
0:34:37 the same thing with like women so i was
0:34:39 like
0:34:40 there was a point where i was running a
0:34:41 bar on an island and apparently like i
0:34:44 looked
0:34:45 cool i had fire poi and i ran a bar and
0:34:47 i used to just sort of live on this
0:34:49 beach like a proper
0:34:50 a beach bum and had uh long golden hair
0:34:53 at the time because when my hair
0:34:54 hits the sun it uh it bleaches and so
0:34:58 like i was this cool kid and then
0:34:59 it just it did like it sounded good on
0:35:03 paper
0:35:03 and it was always something i like kind
0:35:05 of dreamed of living and then when i was
0:35:06 living it it just
0:35:08 it felt so dead it felt so empty it felt
0:35:11 so like
0:35:12 it just it wasn't what it was painted on
0:35:14 the tin
0:35:15 um and so yeah
0:35:18 i don't know i was just going to bring
0:35:20 in abdul because poor old abdul has been
0:35:21 patient in the background
0:35:23 so and i want to bring you know
0:35:26 the hour here so
0:35:29 and by the way yeah also for the
0:35:31 audience yeah we're gonna have a call in
0:35:32 uh
0:35:33 so you know so don't worry uh but
0:35:35 because it's such a
0:35:36 deep deep topic yeah um
0:35:40 that you know it does require a bit of
0:35:41 an explanation but there was a
0:35:43 uh there was a comment that caught my
0:35:45 eye in the chat uh
0:35:46 by uh amy newman and
0:35:49 she said i'm an atheist and i'm not a
0:35:53 nihilist
0:35:54 and i've also seen that lots of atheists
0:35:58 really don't like this term nihilism
0:36:01 you know they feel offended by it
0:36:03 they're like how
0:36:04 dare you call me a nihilist you know um
0:36:08 they they sort of see i remember one
0:36:09 atheist said to me
0:36:11 he sees it on parts of being racist to
0:36:14 be called an eyelid
0:36:15 why is this such a guttural emotional
0:36:17 reaction
0:36:18 from atheists when you talk about loss
0:36:21 of meaning
0:36:22 for atheism i think i think there's a
0:36:25 lot about nietzsche here obviously
0:36:26 i think this could still take us back to
0:36:28 nietzsche because the idea that
0:36:30 nietzsche was pretty
0:36:31 putting forward was not that you know um
0:36:34 it wasn't a metaphysical idea it was it
0:36:37 was
0:36:38 the fact that you moderns
0:36:41 are getting rid of this greater
0:36:43 meta-narrative about the world and about
0:36:44 creation about meaning
0:36:46 has its implications and you guys aren't
0:36:49 realizing it so it's this inconsistency
0:36:51 that he was even pointing out to his
0:36:53 teacher schopenhauer right that
0:36:55 it seemed like schopenhauer had this
0:36:56 higher uh
0:36:58 you know value of happiness that he
0:37:01 regarded as this transcendent uh
0:37:04 metaphysical goal
0:37:05 right and he he he basically um
0:37:09 built his philosophy on the basis of
0:37:11 like suffering and what it implies and
0:37:13 his pessimism
0:37:14 but still the underlying idea was that
0:37:17 happiness is to be obtained
0:37:19 and and i think nietzsche what he was
0:37:21 trying to do
0:37:22 it's it's difficult to read niche of
0:37:23 course but then
0:37:25 what he was trying to do is he's trying
0:37:26 to say that you guys are inconsistent
0:37:28 right he
0:37:28 he he was trying to tell the
0:37:29 schopenhauer and the moderns that you
0:37:32 guys
0:37:33 you got rid of this judeo-christian
0:37:35 tradition that
0:37:36 served as the basis of basically
0:37:39 everything you stood for in terms of
0:37:41 meaning
0:37:42 and right now you're not you know being
0:37:44 consistent
0:37:45 and realizing the implications of that
0:37:48 right
0:37:48 and and so this relating to this comment
0:37:51 right um
0:37:52 i think that's what nietzsche would
0:37:53 would say to uh to amy was it
0:37:56 that that you know you can think you
0:38:00 have meaning
0:38:01 uh but but uh you know if you think you
0:38:03 have meaning on the basis of some kind
0:38:05 of
0:38:06 meta-narrative that if you don't realize
0:38:08 the implications of the loss of this
0:38:10 meta-narrative about
0:38:11 or this story about the world or about
0:38:14 humanity then that that's
0:38:15 that's an inconsistency and i think
0:38:18 there's a deeper problem with nietzsche
0:38:20 himself the the idea is that
0:38:23 i i don't think nietzsche cared about
0:38:24 metaphysics i don't think he cared about
0:38:26 the question of god's existence
0:38:30 yeah i i think for him like his problem
0:38:32 with christianity wasn't that it's
0:38:34 mythology it was that it's harmful
0:38:36 harmful mythology
0:38:38 he actually viewed christianity as
0:38:39 nihilistic he
0:38:41 he viewed the idea that christianity
0:38:43 makes you
0:38:44 you know struggle with your drives you
0:38:47 know he had this idea of drives and
0:38:49 christianity makes you suppress your
0:38:50 drives
0:38:51 and go to ascent ascentism and stuff
0:38:53 like that and try to
0:38:55 free yourself of these inner drives that
0:38:57 you have as a human
0:38:58 actually uh suppresses your creativity
0:39:00 and that's a form of nihilism for
0:39:02 for for nisha so nietzsche wouldn't have
0:39:04 a problem with some kind of mythology
0:39:06 that actually makes you realize the
0:39:08 creativity within it's it's it's a bit
0:39:11 it's a bit complicated for egypt but i
0:39:13 think there's an inconsistency because
0:39:14 what nietzsche does is he says okay guys
0:39:16 you got rid of the metanarrative we have
0:39:17 to go through this phase of
0:39:19 disorientation
0:39:20 right so there's this realization we're
0:39:22 suddenly gonna have that okay there's
0:39:24 meaninglessness there's this vacuum of
0:39:26 nihilism we're going to deal with
0:39:28 and from there he says that only the
0:39:30 strong
0:39:32 will will be able to create their own
0:39:33 meaning like if you're strong
0:39:35 you can sort of create your own meaning
0:39:38 and for the rest he doesn't even think
0:39:40 that his work is for the weak
0:39:43 because if if he gets a lot of the
0:39:45 weaker people
0:39:46 into this realization it might take them
0:39:48 into this this uh
0:39:50 you know uh uh this this endless
0:39:53 uh train of nihilism that would just uh
0:39:56 damage them and damage society as a
0:39:58 whole but he says for for the strong
0:40:00 for the strong ones among amongst us we
0:40:03 can create our own meaning
0:40:04 but this is the problem with nietzsche
0:40:06 is that he doesn't question the value of
0:40:09 meaning as whole like he he wants for us
0:40:12 to create some kind of
0:40:13 uh meta narrative which is why he talks
0:40:15 about this ideal man or uh
0:40:17 what's it called the um yeah ubermen
0:40:20 right so he wants to create a meta
0:40:21 narrative which is
0:40:22 mythology for him but he says this is
0:40:24 useful mythology right so he
0:40:26 he he basically refuses to question i
0:40:29 think
0:40:30 this idea of like you know but why
0:40:32 should we create this
0:40:33 meta-narrative that moves our culture
0:40:36 forward because he realizes that if he
0:40:37 questions that
0:40:38 he's going to be back into that vacuum
0:40:40 of nihilism right so
0:40:42 it's kind of like he's deceiving himself
0:40:43 it feels for me as if
0:40:45 nietzsche couldn't escape nihilism and
0:40:48 he was like
0:40:49 okay guys we we need some kind of
0:40:51 mythology to take us forward
0:40:52 but let's just make it a mythology that
0:40:54 realizes our desires not one that
0:40:56 suppresses it like christianity
0:40:58 right and then this is where i think
0:41:01 islam can come to the picture where
0:41:02 islam doesn't suppress your desires the
0:41:04 sound doesn't take you to a sentence
0:41:06 attentionism and stuff like that is what
0:41:08 is
0:41:09 is it yeah what islam does is that it
0:41:11 does it actually values this
0:41:14 what niche wanted in the sense of action
0:41:16 you like nietzsche
0:41:17 he didn't like this idea of you know our
0:41:20 ultimate goal should be to reflect on
0:41:21 the world
0:41:22 that's a problem you want to act but
0:41:25 islam has that balance islam says
0:41:26 we want to act we want to realize our
0:41:28 strengths we want to be the best
0:41:31 we could possibly be and there's a
0:41:32 hadith about the prophet salallahu said
0:41:34 that
0:41:35 if the hour is before you if you see the
0:41:38 last hour coming
0:41:39 and it's judgment day and you're about
0:41:41 to plant a tree
0:41:44 plant it that i mean that's that's so
0:41:46 anti-nihilistic right it means that
0:41:48 that's that's like for nietzsche i think
0:41:51 he wouldn't want to plant it right it's
0:41:52 like that it's a
0:41:53 it's the end of the world right but then
0:41:55 for us we have this balance and i think
0:41:57 that's that's uh that's the main issue
0:42:00 here with with with uh with nietzsche
0:42:02 and getting out of that problem i think
0:42:03 is a bigger issue we're gonna i think uh
0:42:05 yusuf is gonna talk about moral nihilism
0:42:07 and and how you actually create meaning
0:42:09 without a
0:42:09 meta-narrative science right why should
0:42:12 we value truth
0:42:13 you have to again create some kind of
0:42:15 mythology that's like hey the truth
0:42:17 matters
0:42:18 you know on materialism how do you how
0:42:20 do you create meaning
0:42:22 well either it's just a useful fiction
0:42:23 in which case there's a bit of
0:42:24 inconsistency because
0:42:26 way as moderns you value truth and you
0:42:29 know
0:42:30 you're against religion because it's a
0:42:31 mythology but then you
0:42:33 create your own mythology that's useful
0:42:35 and you actually believe in it because
0:42:36 people believe the truth matters right
0:42:39 uh or you try to create some kind of uh
0:42:41 i've seen people attempt to create um
0:42:44 uh uh i've read i can't pronounce his
0:42:46 name
0:42:47 uh his name and chaver landau is a
0:42:50 philosopher who wrote a book about
0:42:51 uh uh you know a defense of uh moral
0:42:54 realism
0:42:55 and it kind of like just makes it
0:42:58 circles back to like a problem of heart
0:43:00 consciousness where you just
0:43:01 assert that meaning or moral values just
0:43:04 super being on the physical you just say
0:43:06 i'm not a reductive physicalist and
0:43:09 meaning just somehow is there
0:43:11 right and so i i don't think there's an
0:43:13 escape from this and uh
0:43:15 i think that's the main issue really
0:43:17 yeah so i think from what
0:43:19 for my understanding is that the problem
0:43:21 is that when you turn around and you say
0:43:23 to an atheist
0:43:24 you don't have meaning he will associate
0:43:27 that or she will associate that with
0:43:29 i don't have self-worth i don't have
0:43:31 value
0:43:33 and that's the problem the problem is is
0:43:36 how do you
0:43:36 create value in a form of
0:43:40 matter that was a product of some sort
0:43:42 of accident within the universe
0:43:45 and who whatever that person does
0:43:47 throughout the universe
0:43:49 is ultimately inconsequential
0:43:52 because it's all transient it will just
0:43:54 leave
0:43:55 so how do you create meaning and value
0:43:58 you know
0:43:58 of of human life you know of meaning
0:44:02 and so when you point this out and this
0:44:05 is
0:44:06 going back to nature isn't it when you
0:44:07 point this out to a lot of atheists it's
0:44:09 like ah
0:44:10 you know he's asking you might as well
0:44:11 be calling me at the n-word or whatever
0:44:13 it is yeah and being racist to me
0:44:15 but nietzsche is basically the head of
0:44:17 the curve he said well yeah that's what
0:44:19 you have to accept and then obviously
0:44:21 he tries to get out of it in terms of
0:44:23 creating his own mythology and
0:44:25 existentialism so i think that's how i
0:44:26 see this how i see
0:44:29 and i think uh yourself just to bring
0:44:30 you in again you know
0:44:32 you mentioned this push and pull that
0:44:34 you felt this is obviously before you
0:44:37 became muslim
0:44:38 okay uh this this uh
0:44:41 forces yeah these acting forces this
0:44:44 push away
0:44:46 uh you know from where the way that
0:44:48 you're living you're living on this
0:44:50 tropical island running a bar
0:44:53 alcohol drugs we mean all that type of
0:44:56 thing partying every night
0:44:59 but yet there was a push that moved you
0:45:02 away from that
0:45:03 yeah because i just want to kind of
0:45:04 preface as well that my life wasn't that
0:45:07 24
0:45:07 7 all my life like i'd gone i tried all
0:45:10 of these varying different ways of being
0:45:13 so i had like a group of mosha friends
0:45:14 that we used to just go play warhammer
0:45:16 and just paint models and like be nerdy
0:45:20 and then i had like a group of um like
0:45:22 chevy mates and we used to go out
0:45:24 and we'd be like on the park at night
0:45:26 drinking alcohol and
0:45:28 smoking and i had like a group of older
0:45:31 mates all had cars and they're driving
0:45:33 so like
0:45:34 you know i was dipping in and out of all
0:45:35 these different kind of groups it was a
0:45:37 bit of a
0:45:38 social chameleon um but yeah there was
0:45:42 definitely this like sort of
0:45:43 these forces at play where like i had
0:45:46 one thing sort of
0:45:47 pushing me away from it another thing
0:45:50 calling me towards it
0:45:51 um and it was a very very long process
0:45:53 it wasn't like an overnight thing
0:45:56 um but just sort of touching on so you
0:45:58 mentioned
0:45:59 science being underpinned so the way
0:46:01 nietzsche sort of sees
0:46:02 science he looks at science as the the
0:46:05 corpse of christianity
0:46:06 so science for him isn't the this thing
0:46:09 that sort of
0:46:10 you know like you you see religion like
0:46:12 dawkins puts it as if religion's this
0:46:14 big nasty dragon and it's
0:46:16 trying to kill everything and then
0:46:18 you've got um the
0:46:20 the knight in shining armor that just
0:46:22 rides over the horizon on his
0:46:24 his glorious steed and like and this is
0:46:28 science and then it runs over and it
0:46:29 defeats
0:46:30 the dragon and it's like yes and they
0:46:32 paint you you get it a lot
0:46:34 from these sort of um new atheist types
0:46:38 that science is built up as this sort of
0:46:40 new being
0:46:42 that comes to defeat religion and it and
0:46:44 it's not that
0:46:45 it's not that it's it's quite the
0:46:47 opposite it is
0:46:48 what is left off religion um and they
0:46:51 don't see this and the way
0:46:53 nietzsche describes it he says like
0:46:54 listen the the desire for truth
0:46:57 seeing truth as a higher value is a
0:47:00 moral
0:47:00 judgment you have to see truth as
0:47:04 good you have to see truth as something
0:47:07 that
0:47:07 good people want to attain these are all
0:47:10 moral statements
0:47:11 and this they all he's arguing in terms
0:47:14 of the europeans
0:47:15 they derived this from the bible they
0:47:17 derived this
0:47:18 from the religion and he says this
0:47:20 desire to
0:47:22 achieve to truth to look at the world as
0:47:24 if it's intelligible
0:47:26 this derived from christianity as well
0:47:28 in europe specifically
0:47:30 they saw the world as something that was
0:47:32 ordered
0:47:33 by a wise being and not as chaotic like
0:47:36 the greeks prior to the
0:47:38 you know the christian west and they
0:47:40 didn't see the world in the same way
0:47:42 they saw the world as
0:47:43 a very sort of chaotic place
0:47:46 not necessarily something that was
0:47:47 intelligible um no
0:47:50 it was a country christianity gave rise
0:47:52 to this way of looking
0:47:53 at the world and this moral drive that
0:47:56 pushed them towards wanting to achieve
0:47:58 truth but then it's sort of the the
0:48:01 sting
0:48:02 turns itself against like it's like you
0:48:04 know the bee that stings itself
0:48:06 he says this moral um drive
0:48:09 that gave rise to the obsession with
0:48:12 truth
0:48:12 and reason in the west um
0:48:16 ended up undermining the very system
0:48:18 which gave rise to that moral drive that
0:48:19 is christianity
0:48:20 and so it kills itself um yeah but
0:48:24 people are gonna i can imagine what
0:48:26 people are gonna say or atheists are
0:48:27 gonna say
0:48:28 well yeah obviously you know uh atheists
0:48:31 can value truth
0:48:33 yeah yeah no there's nothing there's
0:48:35 something uh that's because of
0:48:37 christianity so
0:48:38 how is the question here this moral
0:48:40 nihilism
0:48:41 from atheism because the question here
0:48:43 is is it necessary
0:48:45 why do you need to value truth now
0:48:48 within a christian framework
0:48:50 it's like well you know if you don't
0:48:52 value truth you burn for an eternity
0:48:55 like in in terms of the atheist it's
0:48:57 instrumental now
0:48:58 it's like well what is the point of
0:49:00 valuing truth if it's just
0:49:02 detrimental to me and everyone i know it
0:49:05 you know
0:49:05 and there is no necessary drive it's
0:49:08 like
0:49:09 you know it it becomes instrumental
0:49:11 basically and
0:49:12 yes there is still the possibility for
0:49:14 opening up but
0:49:16 there's nothing there's no like fear of
0:49:18 eternal damnation it's like
0:49:19 well if in this world all of
0:49:22 the positives lie in a false
0:49:26 notion or in a false direction
0:49:29 to move towards a lie then there's very
0:49:32 little motivation
0:49:33 if you think of it from a utilitarian
0:49:35 perspective like you move towards the
0:49:37 lie
0:49:38 then there's all of this pleasure that
0:49:39 derives from it if you move towards the
0:49:41 truth there's all of this pain and
0:49:43 there's suffering
0:49:44 like if you're a utilitarian and you're
0:49:46 you're fixed in the dunya you're fixed
0:49:48 in the world at what point would you
0:49:50 want to continue to value truth there
0:49:53 it becomes if you don't believe in
0:49:57 uh sort of any justice in and afterlife
0:50:00 it's like well you know why would you
0:50:03 keep on to this thing
0:50:04 if it's completely detrimental i get and
0:50:06 that's not to say
0:50:07 um obviously there's certain examples
0:50:10 where this might
0:50:11 be the case but there's it's just
0:50:14 it's not necessary it's basically the
0:50:16 point and because there's no fear
0:50:18 yeah so for my understanding is that
0:50:19 when you turn around you ask the
0:50:20 question why should you value
0:50:22 truth uh a lot of people divorced of a
0:50:25 particular
0:50:26 religious belief will turn around and
0:50:27 say well it's beneficial it's beneficial
0:50:29 for human beings
0:50:30 and what are you doing it's not always
0:50:32 yeah that's right well you so what
0:50:34 you're saying is actually
0:50:35 well okay if it wasn't beneficial let's
0:50:37 just say it wasn't beneficial just for
0:50:39 the
0:50:40 sake of the argument would it be still
0:50:42 valuable
0:50:43 and then you're saying well it's not
0:50:44 valuable anymore so then truth
0:50:47 is only valuable based upon various
0:50:49 benefits and then you can give examples
0:50:51 and i think even donald hoffman who's a
0:50:54 professor in uh
0:50:56 neuroscience and philosophy of science
0:50:58 he talks about
0:50:59 this idea that evolution adapts to
0:51:02 survival
0:51:03 not adapts to truth-finding so
0:51:06 you know he gave a particular
0:51:07 mathematical model in which he
0:51:09 demonstrated how
0:51:10 an organism that is able to see reality
0:51:13 as it is
0:51:14 is less likely to survive than an
0:51:16 organism that's more adopted to survival
0:51:18 even if it's less correlated to truth so
0:51:21 true
0:51:22 finding is not necessary for
0:51:25 organisms and human beings in order to
0:51:27 have benefit and so he's basically
0:51:29 his argument is how we see the world is
0:51:32 not really
0:51:32 how the world is it's just how we've
0:51:35 evolved to perceive it
0:51:37 you know as like a user interface of the
0:51:40 world so
0:51:41 truth therefore becomes something that's
0:51:43 not even valued
0:51:44 as a necessary thing as as you mentioned
0:51:47 yourself
0:51:48 and if that i think i think if i could
0:51:50 just
0:51:51 if if i could just add to that shift the
0:51:53 the idea that the truth like the
0:51:56 truth seeking and why we ought to seek
0:51:58 truth right um
0:51:59 is it's it's not that um for
0:52:03 the the nihilist or or or or furniture
0:52:06 it's it's not that it doesn't matter
0:52:09 it's that
0:52:10 it restricts you right so the the idea
0:52:13 is that
0:52:14 the problem when you guys seek truth
0:52:17 it's going to take
0:52:18 you to this conclusion that these
0:52:21 mythologies are false
0:52:22 right that there is no truth there's no
0:52:24 ultimate truth in the world that we
0:52:26 that that you know gives us meaning and
0:52:28 that conclusion if truth does matter
0:52:30 you should follow the implications of
0:52:32 that truth
0:52:33 where it leads you to and you should
0:52:35 become a nihilist and just you know
0:52:37 and it's going to take you to very bad
0:52:38 places that's that's
0:52:40 that i think was nietzsche's idea and
0:52:43 that's why he didn't
0:52:44 truth wasn't the priority for him right
0:52:47 so for him it was like
0:52:48 okay truth matters but in as yousef put
0:52:51 it in like a
0:52:52 instrumentalist manner like as far
0:52:56 as it helps you useful you know achieve
0:52:58 your drives right achieve
0:53:00 your achievement your your desires and
0:53:02 and uh
0:53:03 and but that has serious implications
0:53:05 for
0:53:06 morality for example right and and it is
0:53:09 at the end of the day
0:53:10 like like like there's you know in terms
0:53:13 of cosmic nihilism right
0:53:15 which is which is an extreme version of
0:53:17 existential nihilism
0:53:18 that does have a huge psychological
0:53:20 implication on humans right
0:53:22 the fact that your meat your your
0:53:23 existence is utterly
0:53:25 meaningless on a cosmic scale
0:53:29 so if it's meaningless on a cosmic scale
0:53:31 why would you even
0:53:32 value meaning of truth for morality
0:53:35 on an individual skill yeah yeah the the
0:53:38 idea is that the
0:53:39 existentialist tries to get out of this
0:53:41 by by by saying that what wait you're
0:53:43 you guys are ignoring the subjective
0:53:45 aspect
0:53:46 of meaning it's it's objective why why
0:53:48 why should it be relative to the cosmos
0:53:50 but then the problem is you're going to
0:53:52 be going in circles again you're back
0:53:53 where you started you're trying to
0:53:55 you again get to create this
0:53:56 metanarrative you can't
0:53:58 however you are going to try to create
0:54:00 meaning
0:54:01 you will create this story this
0:54:03 mythology
0:54:04 about why a certain truth matters like
0:54:07 for example why happiness matters
0:54:09 and and you are going to stick to that
0:54:11 as some kind of transcendent truth
0:54:13 and and the issues you're going to face
0:54:16 if you're concerned with metaphysics and
0:54:17 truth
0:54:18 the difficulty of uh you know
0:54:22 validating such meaning on a
0:54:23 materialistic world i mean
0:54:25 a lot of people have attempted to do
0:54:27 that i don't wanna
0:54:28 i don't excuse me i don't wanna like
0:54:31 strawman or oversimplify
0:54:32 their position but in my view i think
0:54:36 it's very difficult to make it work well
0:54:37 i mean
0:54:38 it's one of two options you're either
0:54:39 going to uh
0:54:41 say it's it's a it's a just it's a
0:54:43 useful fiction
0:54:44 or you're going to try to say to just
0:54:47 make some kind of uh you know ad hoc
0:54:49 assertion that it's just
0:54:51 it it's just there just like what what
0:54:54 what some materials do with
0:54:55 consciousness
0:54:56 that it just it's just an emergent
0:54:58 property with with no further
0:54:59 explanation required whatsoever so
0:55:01 morality just
0:55:02 is just super vigilant on the physical
0:55:04 and we can just call ourselves
0:55:05 non-reductive physicalists
0:55:07 and non-naturalists in that sense so
0:55:10 excuse me again
0:55:11 uh so so the problem that's that's i
0:55:14 think the problem it's not that truth
0:55:15 doesn't matter
0:55:16 it's that truth is gonna lead us to this
0:55:19 you know this this
0:55:20 uh skepticism right this this
0:55:23 nihilism about the world right there's
0:55:25 there's no ultimate meaning and i think
0:55:27 that is the fundamental presumption that
0:55:29 nietzsche has
0:55:30 i just want to add on what you said
0:55:32 there so this idea of it being
0:55:34 restrictive is is
0:55:35 a really really important point so it's
0:55:38 like when it comes to someone
0:55:40 because nietzsche's whole process was
0:55:41 basically um there's going to be this
0:55:43 um the destroying of the status quo in
0:55:45 terms of what the values
0:55:46 are in society and then the society
0:55:49 would have to go through this process of
0:55:51 a re-evaluation of values
0:55:53 now in that reevaluation truth doesn't
0:55:55 have to be valued
0:55:57 if you find it something restrictive
0:55:59 then you can
0:56:01 continue to build a new value system
0:56:03 where truth doesn't play a part in it
0:56:05 and and that you don't have to maybe
0:56:07 because you do
0:56:08 you don't like the things that you know
0:56:10 come out of that but people don't
0:56:12 for example this idea that um and we
0:56:15 need to touch on this as well that why
0:56:16 if there's a cosmic nihilism does that
0:56:18 uh necessarily entail
0:56:20 existential nihilism on like a personal
0:56:22 level and and the reason is is like
0:56:25 if you want to feel meaning in a
0:56:28 um an authentic manner it becomes
0:56:31 impossible when you understand
0:56:33 that or you've come to an understanding
0:56:35 where you see the world as nothing but
0:56:38 um being on the foundational level just
0:56:40 empty matter there's no conscious push
0:56:43 it's all random atoms hitting each other
0:56:45 it's all chaos it's all absurd
0:56:47 if you've got this notion off the absurd
0:56:49 at the foundation of
0:56:50 everything any meaning that you build on
0:56:53 top of that
0:56:54 becomes necessarily an act like
0:56:57 child's play like the children on the
0:56:59 playground when they're
0:57:00 playing make-believe you can't that
0:57:02 there's that's always at the back of
0:57:03 your head
0:57:04 and if it's at the back of your head
0:57:06 unless you you
0:57:08 build a wall between you and it then
0:57:10 yeah you can you can you can't play with
0:57:13 meaning in an authentic manner
0:57:15 it becomes more or more useful i don't
0:57:17 know i don't know if you would agree
0:57:18 but or unless you embrace it like i
0:57:21 don't want to
0:57:21 make it seem like i'm saying that an
0:57:23 atheist can't have
0:57:25 meaning in his life what i think what he
0:57:26 can what the metaphysical implications
0:57:29 of this are right
0:57:30 what the implications of this meaning
0:57:32 are what the better explanation
0:57:34 is for this very strong lingering idea
0:57:38 of
0:57:38 meaning in you know or or or moral
0:57:42 values or
0:57:43 you know these higher truths that we're
0:57:45 seeking
0:57:46 what the best explanation for that is i
0:57:49 think that's that's
0:57:50 the question and that's where we go back
0:57:52 to the fundamental worldview
0:57:54 whether it's theism or you know atheism
0:57:56 or
0:57:57 like materialism naturalism all these
0:57:59 categories and subcategories
0:58:00 and we say well is there an
0:58:03 inconsistency here is there a problem is
0:58:05 there a metaphysical problem
0:58:07 and and and again i think it's always
0:58:09 going to go back to
0:58:10 this hyper skepticism about metaphysics
0:58:13 right
0:58:14 if you're not a hyper skeptic about
0:58:16 metaphysics and you're a materialist or
0:58:18 you're a philosophical naturalist
0:58:20 i find it very hard to see how you can
0:58:23 derive
0:58:24 any kind of uh objective meaning uh
0:58:28 uh based based on your experiences and
0:58:31 and
0:58:31 you can derive subjective meaning but
0:58:33 the the the metaphysical question here
0:58:35 is like you know what's the
0:58:37 status of that meaning and and what that
0:58:40 meaning means
0:58:41 really and and what are the implications
0:58:43 of such an existentialist view on
0:58:45 meaning and
0:58:46 in terms of morality and and you know in
0:58:49 terms of every person being limited by
0:58:51 their experience
0:58:52 then how they're going to existentially
0:58:53 react to their surroundings
0:58:55 can we each have our own morality can we
0:58:57 each have make our own meaning and
0:58:58 are we going to survive like that as a
0:59:00 society or is it
0:59:02 as nietzsche put it and as he realized
0:59:04 that no we need to have
0:59:05 some kind of meta-narrative and uh i
0:59:08 don't know if he was an individualist
0:59:10 about this like in the sense that
0:59:12 everybody has to make their own meaning
0:59:15 but uh i think there there was this
0:59:17 question about collective meaning right
0:59:19 or the collective meta-narrative the
0:59:20 correct
0:59:21 collective mythology that you're going
0:59:23 to build your meaning on
0:59:24 you he was an adventist he was an elite
0:59:26 yes so he wasn't bothered about
0:59:28 the the herd man that you know the those
0:59:31 in the herd he's not bothered with
0:59:34 they're going to do whatever they're
0:59:35 going to do
0:59:36 his philosophy was for the few he says
0:59:39 this in the opening
0:59:40 i think it's the preface of uh his last
0:59:42 book the antichrist
0:59:44 um he's only bothered about the the few
0:59:46 people
0:59:47 um that he's writing for who he doesn't
0:59:49 feel were born
0:59:50 at the time he was writing it and that
0:59:52 they're they're they're due in the
0:59:53 future at some point
0:59:55 yeah and also what are the implications
0:59:57 of that uh
1:00:05 amongst ourselves for a long time but we
1:00:06 really want to bring in uh
1:00:08 some of the audience members as well
1:00:09 yeah i think we've got
1:00:11 uh do we have amy yes
1:00:16 if we can bring her on maybe hello amy
1:00:19 hello guys how are you i'm lulu we're
1:00:22 good we're okay how are you how are you
1:00:26 guys
1:00:29 looks like we're talking about i think
1:00:31 consciousness in the channel but we're
1:00:33 talking about nihilism and a whole bunch
1:00:34 of fun stuff
1:00:36 yeah so amy the discussion today
1:00:38 obviously amongst ourselves here
1:00:39 and the show is talking about loss of
1:00:42 god
1:00:42 loss of meaning you know is there a way
1:00:46 to sort of understand meaning
1:00:49 even in an atheistic perspective or
1:00:52 under a materialistic perspective
1:00:53 and by meaning it's primarily about
1:00:56 having you
1:00:57 having an absolute meaning not just
1:00:59 something which is subjective
1:01:01 for me or you but maybe if you want to
1:01:02 bring that in you can bring that in so i
1:01:04 don't know what your thoughts are
1:01:05 regardless of that
1:01:06 and if you've got any questions or
1:01:08 points that you want to push back on as
1:01:09 well please feel free well i kind of
1:01:11 have a middle ground
1:01:12 and it gets all tied together with my
1:01:15 definition of consciousness but i think
1:01:17 we have a
1:01:18 local meaning i think we have local
1:01:21 meaning that we're born with
1:01:22 which is to eat to get rid of waste and
1:01:25 to sometimes mate
1:01:27 i think those three premises are what
1:01:29 give us
1:01:30 life i think that it's the bottom
1:01:33 definition of
1:01:34 all multicellular organisms
1:01:38 do you see a distinction amy between
1:01:42 a multi-cellular organism or even a
1:01:44 bacteria
1:01:45 to human beings yes in fact i would say
1:01:49 the difference
1:01:49 between other melody cellular organisms
1:01:51 and us is we're conscious
1:01:54 okay so in terms of consciousness and
1:01:57 meaning
1:01:58 do you see any sort of relationship
1:02:00 between that we're not just
1:02:02 consciously aware of eating excreting
1:02:04 and
1:02:05 reproducing but you know
1:02:08 we so want to transcend that don't we i
1:02:10 mean do you not think i would
1:02:11 say that i have a model and i would say
1:02:14 to go
1:02:15 all the way down our model it would be
1:02:17 that's what gets us to humanity and i'll
1:02:20 just do it
1:02:20 really quickly which is just brain mind
1:02:24 consciousness sentience introspection
1:02:27 and introspection would be the type of
1:02:30 thing that you're talking about that's
1:02:31 what gets us the man on the moon and
1:02:34 us asking deep questions and
1:02:35 introspection is metadata
1:02:38 it's us having data about data
1:02:44 okay i don't know if any of the other uh
1:02:47 guys want to try so so amy i mean i
1:02:49 think there's the question about
1:02:50 there's the question about valuing truth
1:02:52 right so do you think that
1:02:54 um that we should value truth
1:02:59 i think that we should value truth
1:03:03 the hard thing is that to value truth
1:03:06 and logic you have to make an emotional
1:03:08 decision
1:03:10 and that is the hard leap
1:03:13 and and uh and and are you like an
1:03:15 instrumentalist about truth in the sense
1:03:17 that
1:03:17 truth should matter as far as it is
1:03:19 useful
1:03:22 i believe that we should
1:03:25 know as many true things and as few
1:03:27 false things as possible
1:03:29 so what about for example how many hairs
1:03:32 there are
1:03:33 on uh you know i don't know
1:03:37 my head yeah on outdoor man's head is
1:03:40 do or you know how many stones there are
1:03:44 on um malcolm beach or
1:03:48 you know are these these are truths
1:03:51 you know do they should we still try to
1:03:53 attain these for the sake of
1:03:55 having that information or do you
1:03:57 recognize there are some truths
1:03:58 that are just not instrumental not
1:04:01 valuable
1:04:03 i do believe that the more truths that
1:04:06 we understand
1:04:07 the more accurate of a worldview we have
1:04:10 of reality
1:04:11 so i want to know if possible how many
1:04:14 hairs are on his head how many rocks are
1:04:17 on the planet or whatever
1:04:19 because i do think that it gives us a
1:04:20 more accurate view of reality
1:04:22 now i'm gonna push back against this a
1:04:24 little bit because one of the biggest
1:04:26 problems
1:04:27 that i see um is processing it's not
1:04:30 just having
1:04:31 data or having information it's having
1:04:33 the ability to actually process that
1:04:35 information
1:04:36 as well and one of the problems i see
1:04:38 with this sort of
1:04:40 um desire or this need which is quite
1:04:42 common it's not
1:04:43 that strange or anything it's you know
1:04:45 you see it pop up
1:04:46 quite a lot um with just collecting data
1:04:50 for the sake of collecting data
1:04:51 is that you just end up with piles of
1:04:54 information and no one really knowing
1:04:57 how to connect all the dots no one
1:04:58 really knowing how to process it
1:05:00 just because we don't have the
1:05:02 processing power to be able to do so and
1:05:04 that that can lead to a nihilism to this
1:05:06 being overwhelmed
1:05:07 we have information but we don't know
1:05:08 anything about it we've just got it
1:05:10 it's on a hard drive somewhere and i
1:05:13 would say that's the difference between
1:05:15 data
1:05:15 information and knowledge i would say
1:05:17 the data is just a whole bunch of
1:05:19 symbols and you can get a whole bunch of
1:05:20 data that doesn't mean anything
1:05:22 but then once you have a conscious agent
1:05:25 you can start
1:05:26 transferring that data into information
1:05:30 and once that agent truly understands
1:05:32 the information to its full utilization
1:05:35 they have knowledge okay but then do you
1:05:38 not
1:05:39 see that there's a bit of a like an
1:05:42 endless hill here that where i
1:05:45 because for me i look at the world i see
1:05:47 it as like in and of itself utterly
1:05:50 incomprehensible i i see it as a very
1:05:53 um sort of naive mission i don't mean
1:05:56 that in an offensive way in the sense of
1:05:57 trying to
1:05:59 achieve this knowledge of the world in a
1:06:00 comprehensive manner i think at the
1:06:02 moment already
1:06:03 we already have a lot of information um
1:06:06 and it
1:06:06 for the majority of the populace this
1:06:08 doesn't seem to be making them
1:06:10 wiser per se um just more overwhelmed
1:06:13 if anything by the sheer amount of it
1:06:15 and the lack of time because they're
1:06:17 they're heavily
1:06:18 aware of their own mortality i have x
1:06:20 amount of years to live
1:06:22 and you know if i try to process this
1:06:25 information have i got enough time
1:06:27 or do i have to specialize in a
1:06:29 particular field and then if i do
1:06:30 specialize
1:06:32 am i not like sort of putting a lot of
1:06:35 trust and a lot of faith
1:06:36 in all of the other areas that i'm not
1:06:38 specializing in
1:06:39 um like what does it mean to
1:06:43 you know if you've got these individuals
1:06:44 which do specialize in particular
1:06:46 subjects and maybe they do have a sort
1:06:48 of
1:06:48 general understanding of the very thing
1:06:49 that they've studied but they don't have
1:06:51 enough time to be able to link that into
1:06:53 other parts of
1:06:55 the world or in the other parts of
1:06:56 knowledge then have they ever really
1:07:00 who is it that's experiencing this this
1:07:02 quote-unquote knowledge
1:07:03 in you know in its holistic sense well
1:07:06 we're going through
1:07:08 a little bit of a weird time we have
1:07:10 never had
1:07:12 more information at our fingertips
1:07:15 and yet you are right in that it seems
1:07:18 like people are not exactly looking up
1:07:22 encyclopedias of information they're
1:07:23 more
1:07:24 looking up memes and stuff and so i
1:07:27 think we're kind of at like a little bit
1:07:29 of a wild west of the internet
1:07:31 i think it's going to take maybe dozens
1:07:34 of years if not more
1:07:36 for us to really start understanding
1:07:40 where bad sources of information come
1:07:42 where good sources of information
1:07:44 come and for us to really be
1:07:47 uh to maximize the absorption
1:07:50 of the internet and all this information
1:07:52 that's kind of pouring
1:07:53 out of our orifices can i can i just so
1:07:57 to answer yourself
1:07:59 i think just yeah just just to link us
1:08:02 directly to the topic in as short
1:08:04 time as we possibly could because we
1:08:06 have a guest coming on in a bit
1:08:08 um sure i think the idea is what i what
1:08:10 i asked you is
1:08:11 why why we values truth and i asked you
1:08:13 why whether you're an instrumentalist
1:08:14 about it
1:08:16 whether you know that this truth seeking
1:08:18 is meaningful as
1:08:19 far as it is useful uh and essentially
1:08:23 that's going to take us
1:08:24 from this question to what it is for
1:08:27 something to be useful
1:08:28 what it is to value usefulness and let's
1:08:31 say
1:08:32 happiness what is what what is it
1:08:35 that is so valuable about the stuff the
1:08:37 biological aspects that you mentioned
1:08:39 about us or the evolutionary aspects
1:08:41 that is that transforms from just a
1:08:44 simple
1:08:45 physical process to something that
1:08:48 you say is our purpose and our meaning
1:08:51 and
1:08:52 i i think the issue is that first of all
1:08:55 that's a normative claim it's not
1:08:56 science is descriptive so you're using a
1:08:58 descriptive field that describes
1:09:01 the physical processes in the world and
1:09:03 from that
1:09:04 you're you're adding some kind of
1:09:07 normative
1:09:08 uh aspect to uh to
1:09:11 to the descriptive aspect by saying that
1:09:14 this
1:09:14 is our purpose this is our meaning and i
1:09:18 think the problem with
1:09:19 that is if you are a materialist if you
1:09:22 are
1:09:22 a reductive materialist or if you are an
1:09:26 atheist
1:09:27 uh i want to hear what meta-narrative or
1:09:31 what
1:09:32 you know what story you have to tell me
1:09:36 about the world since you i i don't want
1:09:38 to assume what you are but if you are
1:09:40 if you are an empiricist or if you you
1:09:43 believe that science
1:09:44 is the best way to achieve truth what is
1:09:47 that
1:09:47 fundamental aspect of reality
1:09:51 that gives these normative claims
1:09:55 any worth at all like what is it that
1:09:57 makes these things
1:09:58 meaningful and why should we seek truth
1:10:02 and why should we know these things
1:10:06 so i guess i'll answer why should we
1:10:09 seek
1:10:10 truth first i think
1:10:14 i guess i'll say what i said and then
1:10:16 expand on it because
1:10:18 you're saying why should we seek truth
1:10:21 and there could be
1:10:24 a man or a woman who who has made the
1:10:27 emotional decision
1:10:28 and said i am not going to seek truth i
1:10:31 am just going to believe
1:10:32 falsities and some way or another they
1:10:35 are able to make it through life i don't
1:10:36 know how
1:10:37 but they are able to be successful i
1:10:40 think
1:10:42 and i believe that i could uh go
1:10:45 show statistics to uh follow this up
1:10:47 that when you actually
1:10:49 have a a view that corresponds to
1:10:53 reality when you say i'm going to
1:10:55 i'm not going to put my hand on the
1:10:57 stove
1:10:59 because it's hot i'm not going to burn
1:11:02 my hand
1:11:03 that that person has a higher chance of
1:11:06 survival
1:11:07 and a decent life than the person that
1:11:11 is just going to go
1:11:12 i don't care about truth i don't care
1:11:14 about what corresponds
1:11:16 to reality or really being part of the
1:11:18 universe and i'm just go
1:11:20 i'm not going to look in traffic i'm
1:11:21 just going to i mean sorry i
1:11:23 don't want to pay you off i don't want
1:11:24 to cut you off but i want to stick to
1:11:25 this thought before you move on to the
1:11:27 next point but
1:11:28 aren't you here you're there's a hidden
1:11:29 premise here if that
1:11:31 survivability or you know uh you know uh
1:11:34 uh
1:11:35 avoiding harm matters i mean there's
1:11:36 just that hitting premise where there
1:11:38 is some kind of value you're assigning
1:11:42 to survivability and what is it if
1:11:45 you're going to reduce truth to
1:11:46 descriptive aspects of
1:11:48 life what is it about these descriptive
1:11:51 aspects
1:11:52 that gives value to survivability let's
1:11:55 see i would say it's the fundamental it
1:11:57 is why we are here in the first place
1:12:00 we have no we had no choice but to be
1:12:02 summoned here and our whole goal is to
1:12:04 be a successful organism
1:12:06 like on our cellular level that is our
1:12:10 whole goal
1:12:11 and consciousness is the mechanism
1:12:14 by which that takes place and i guess
1:12:17 our body is just hoping
1:12:19 it does it yeah it just seems to me that
1:12:22 on a cellular cell cellular level that's
1:12:25 just what happens in terms of the
1:12:27 physics when you break it down and the
1:12:28 biology
1:12:29 there's just a bunch of these you know
1:12:31 uh biochemical reactions that we
1:12:33 describe
1:12:34 and and that's that's just the fact of
1:12:36 the matter if you're
1:12:38 if if you are a a um if you
1:12:42 do believe that science is the way to
1:12:44 truth
1:12:45 science is a descriptive enterprise
1:12:48 right
1:12:48 it is a descriptive exercise where it
1:12:49 just describes the world so you
1:12:52 you jumping you making a leap from that
1:12:54 to that's
1:12:55 why we're here that's our goal
1:12:58 that that adds this normative aspect i'm
1:13:01 talking about
1:13:02 what i'm yeah can i push back because i
1:13:05 think
1:13:06 even though so my first premise the most
1:13:10 important premise for consciousness was
1:13:12 that we have to gather
1:13:13 food i don't think that's optional i
1:13:16 think that is descriptive i do
1:13:18 not think that it is prescriptive i
1:13:20 think if we do not
1:13:21 do our main meaning we will die
1:13:25 amy i think what abdullah is trying to
1:13:27 say he's trying to explain this point
1:13:28 which is that
1:13:29 you're saying okay at the base level of
1:13:32 human beings is the need to survival
1:13:34 but we could reduce human beings and
1:13:37 multicellular organisms even further we
1:13:39 could say
1:13:40 the basal level of these multicellular
1:13:43 organisms
1:13:44 is just matter in motion or we could say
1:13:47 that the
1:13:48 fundamental reason why life exists is
1:13:51 because
1:13:52 we just happen to be in the middle
1:13:53 stages of entropy
1:13:55 changing from you know low entropy to a
1:13:57 high entropy state and we're just in a
1:13:59 very complex
1:14:01 entropy and energy environment and that
1:14:04 just happens to give
1:14:06 and uh produce life so we can break it
1:14:09 down even further
1:14:10 so all we are is just simply matter in
1:14:14 motion
1:14:15 you know energy flowing from one form of
1:14:18 entry or one state of entropy to another
1:14:20 state of entropy and that's
1:14:21 it exactly why does that need
1:14:25 preserving exactly why is that
1:14:28 meaningful
1:14:29 exactly why should we be therefore care
1:14:31 about truth
1:14:34 i i feel like you're looking for
1:14:38 something that is i guess you're going
1:14:41 to say
1:14:43 because i don't feel that it is merely
1:14:45 objective or relative i feel like it's
1:14:47 somewhere in between
1:14:49 and so there's not something in the
1:14:51 stars saying
1:14:53 we need to eat we need to be logical we
1:14:56 need to be moral
1:14:58 that i don't think you're going to find
1:15:00 i think you're going to find
1:15:03 logical reasons for why we do what we do
1:15:06 and why we are driven to this
1:15:08 especially with consciousness i don't
1:15:10 think even though
1:15:12 fungi you know they need to gather
1:15:15 energy
1:15:16 they aren't conscious and they have
1:15:18 completely different experiences
1:15:21 and don't need to care about truth or
1:15:23 anything like that
1:15:24 and yet they're still doing the same
1:15:26 thing and they're very successful sorry
1:15:28 i think i think that's that's precisely
1:15:30 the point that's precisely the point
1:15:31 that you're not going to find any of
1:15:32 that in the stars
1:15:33 i mean that's that's kind of the point
1:15:35 so that's kind of inconsistent
1:15:37 with what you're telling us about this
1:15:38 is what we should do this is
1:15:40 why we're here this is our purpose i
1:15:42 don't think what i'm saying is
1:15:43 if if if uh fine so you're just you're
1:15:47 saying it's just instrumental in the
1:15:48 sense that
1:15:49 it's just something that you just
1:15:51 instinctively react to
1:15:54 i feel like if you don't do the it
1:15:57 really is our purpose like it is
1:15:58 descriptive
1:15:59 and i feel like basically our bodies are
1:16:03 allowing us to do whatever we want as
1:16:05 long as we
1:16:06 fulfill our primary missions so is is
1:16:08 morality descriptive
1:16:11 morality is situational
1:16:14 and depends only on conscious creatures
1:16:19 yeah but so so let's say torturing
1:16:21 babies for fun
1:16:22 is wrong is that a an objectively
1:16:25 true statement i would say that's 99.9
1:16:30 until there's that one saw movie where
1:16:32 it's like torture the baby or we destroy
1:16:34 all nine billion people on the planet
1:16:36 yeah but why though so that's the
1:16:37 question right right
1:16:39 so yeah i get that for fun
1:16:45 for fun for fun yeah so so i guess i
1:16:47 guess what i'm asking is right
1:16:49 so so that statement is it descriptive
1:16:51 that
1:16:52 killing babies for fun is wrong is it
1:16:54 descriptive of the physical
1:16:57 it it depends entirely on agents
1:17:00 i i'm not uh when it comes to morality i
1:17:03 am somewhere in between
1:17:04 i know that's a weird position to hold
1:17:06 but i believe
1:17:07 that it it's entirely based on the
1:17:10 agents involved
1:17:11 and the situation so are you saying that
1:17:14 there can be a situation where
1:17:15 torturing babies for fun is okay morally
1:17:18 acceptable well you're saying
1:17:20 torturing baby is that the end of it
1:17:21 torturing babies for fun then no
1:17:24 so there isn't so this isn't a this is
1:17:26 this an objective fact about reality
1:17:28 it couldn't be the case that torturing
1:17:30 babies for fun
1:17:32 is morally acceptable i don't know can
1:17:34 you think of a
1:17:35 method can you think of any scenario at
1:17:38 all
1:17:38 in which torturing a baby would be
1:17:40 beneficial to the human race
1:17:42 there
1:17:46 so there was an author who wrote a
1:17:47 really interesting book and basically
1:17:49 you have this utopia
1:17:51 and in this utopia it's a fictional book
1:17:53 obviously um
1:17:54 but it was an interesting one that sort
1:17:56 of led to some interesting questions
1:17:57 and basically everyone in this utopia
1:17:59 lives this perfect life everyone's happy
1:18:01 no one suffers
1:18:02 um and then there's one person who's
1:18:04 like on an adventure and then ends up
1:18:06 finding out
1:18:07 that the thing that sustains the
1:18:09 happiness of this
1:18:10 um this city is this elaborate machine
1:18:14 in which there is um a constant cycle of
1:18:17 babies being tortured
1:18:19 um in this machine and that this
1:18:21 sustains the city
1:18:22 and it's sustainable yeah yeah so it's
1:18:26 that but um there's like one
1:18:29 baby each time or something and it's for
1:18:32 that the greater happiness of the whole
1:18:34 city and then the question is is like
1:18:36 what do you do there
1:18:38 like and so one i think the person in
1:18:40 the story it's an interesting i need to
1:18:41 find out the author um
1:18:43 and i think the character in the story
1:18:44 just leaves and can't be there anymore
1:18:47 um but they don't necessarily stop it
1:18:51 from happening um or something along
1:18:54 them lines but so
1:18:55 this is like the question i guess if you
1:18:57 move towards utilitarianism
1:18:59 it's like well how do you do that here
1:19:02 as long as you can keep it secret from
1:19:03 the main
1:19:04 you know the um the vast populous
1:19:07 and they don't know about it and it
1:19:08 doesn't affect them um other than
1:19:11 giving or increasing pleasure for the
1:19:12 maximum amount of people
1:19:14 if you can set up a weird i mean
1:19:16 obviously it's very um
1:19:17 unlikely and it's a very extreme example
1:19:20 um but it sort of pushes to the limits
1:19:21 and
1:19:22 certain philosophies in terms of yeah
1:19:24 and i think i think amy
1:19:26 what what what you said just very
1:19:28 quickly i think there are two problems
1:19:29 with your answer right
1:19:30 the first problem is you said is there a
1:19:32 situation where it's for the benefit of
1:19:34 humanity well the first problem is
1:19:35 right now we're moving from is torturing
1:19:38 babies for fun
1:19:39 always wrong to is it is
1:19:42 is the benefit of humanity uh you know a
1:19:45 moral goal that we should we should be
1:19:46 trying to achieve
1:19:47 but at the same time there's a bigger
1:19:48 problem with what you said so what
1:19:50 you're basically
1:19:51 i'm not i don't put your words in your
1:19:52 mouth i'm saying what i'm understanding
1:19:53 from you is that
1:19:55 if you torture a baby for fun and that's
1:19:58 good for the rest of mankind then that's
1:20:00 morally acceptable is
1:20:02 would you say that i would not say that
1:20:05 i would say
1:20:06 that i don't believe in absolutes
1:20:09 i don't think you can get to 100
1:20:11 certainty into almost
1:20:13 anything and that's okay with me you
1:20:15 know uh what's it called
1:20:16 hand sanitizer ninety nine point nine
1:20:19 percent effective
1:20:22 i get you i get you amy but i think you
1:20:24 want to be
1:20:25 you want to make an absolute statement
1:20:26 here that torturing babies for fun
1:20:29 is wrong regardless of what it benefits
1:20:32 or doesn't benefit you want to make the
1:20:33 absolute statement that it is
1:20:35 objectively wrong
1:20:36 to torture babies i'm saying there are
1:20:38 certain implications to that
1:20:39 absolute statement and i
1:20:43 i mean even if i wanted to get there i
1:20:45 just don't think you can
1:20:46 and i if i could push back a little
1:20:50 which i know you guys haven't brought up
1:20:52 i don't believe
1:20:53 in fact any at all i don't think that
1:20:56 theistic morality is objective
1:20:58 i don't i i know you guys believe that
1:21:01 and then they haven't blown it up
1:21:03 but if you ask me amy is torturing
1:21:05 babies for fun wrong i'll tell you yes
1:21:06 100
1:21:07 of the time and i'm certain of that
1:21:08 that's an objective fact i don't have a
1:21:10 problem saying that
1:21:11 i think why yeah uh well that's that's
1:21:15 that's the thing that's what i would ask
1:21:16 you
1:21:17 so i would say that objective morality
1:21:19 has a grounding and i would provide that
1:21:21 grounding
1:21:22 on a theistic worldview i i'm saying
1:21:24 that the problem you're having here in
1:21:26 saying in the reason you're trying to
1:21:28 say that something that is so obviously
1:21:30 absolutely true 100
1:21:32 is not the reason you're providing that
1:21:34 you know that skepticism at the end of
1:21:36 your statement
1:21:37 is because the implications of the
1:21:38 statement is that there is a normative
1:21:40 objective truth about reality and that's
1:21:43 very hard
1:21:44 it's a very hard pill to swallow on
1:21:46 materialism or on naturalism or
1:21:48 if you if if you think that science is
1:21:50 the way primary
1:21:52 method to achieve truth if not then
1:21:54 you're i think you can provide us with a
1:21:56 different method a different theory
1:21:58 i want to sorry
1:22:02 you want to uh but i would say i don't
1:22:04 want to provide 100
1:22:06 certainty anything i don't know anything
1:22:08 in my life
1:22:09 that i can give you to a hundred percent
1:22:11 certainty that doesn't mean i'm a
1:22:13 solipsist or that i'm crazy
1:22:15 or it means i just proportioning the
1:22:18 evidence
1:22:19 what about that one thing that you so
1:22:22 can you say you know with certainty that
1:22:24 there's nothing in life you know with
1:22:25 100 certainty
1:22:26 is that something that you can say is
1:22:29 100
1:22:30 certain i feel like that's almost a loop
1:22:33 because once you say that then it
1:22:34 doesn't become
1:22:35 i would say i'm 99.9 percent certain
1:22:38 that there is nothing 100 certain
1:22:41 okay so there is a possibility that's
1:22:43 not the case i mean you can convince me
1:22:46 otherwise i'm just convinced
1:22:48 just so we can finish off amy i think
1:22:49 the reason you're not 100 certain i
1:22:51 think that's
1:22:52 a just such a byproduct of your
1:22:53 worldview the problem is i think
1:22:56 generally we know that torturing babies
1:23:00 for
1:23:00 for fun is morally uh unacceptable
1:23:04 100 of the time and i think we generally
1:23:06 know that we're 100
1:23:08 sure about that the reason skeptics want
1:23:10 to be 99
1:23:12 sure about that is because of their
1:23:14 epistemology and their world their
1:23:16 their their the the foundational
1:23:18 worldview that basically
1:23:20 uh you know drives these these uh these
1:23:23 these moral values that they have
1:23:25 and i think the implications of the
1:23:27 worldview
1:23:28 really just reflect the problems with
1:23:30 with the fundamental worldview that
1:23:33 you have and and uh i mean of course you
1:23:36 can provide us with with your method
1:23:38 of of of you know how you would how
1:23:41 would you you would you would account
1:23:42 for an objective morality on atheism
1:23:44 but i or or on whatever world you have i
1:23:47 think i know it's complicated
1:23:48 but but i think that uh you don't even
1:23:51 want to commit to that
1:23:52 is actually a testimony or it's actually
1:23:54 it actually
1:23:55 points to the idea that you kind of
1:23:57 realize the implications of the problem
1:24:00 but you're saying a hundred percent but
1:24:02 when i gave
1:24:03 when i asked you there is no examples i
1:24:06 can't formulate
1:24:07 any example in which torturing a baby
1:24:10 would then
1:24:10 actually be for the benefit we started
1:24:12 to go into scenarios i actually think
1:24:15 the example that yusuf gave
1:24:17 i would not give in to if i found out
1:24:19 that a utopia
1:24:20 was killing babies and that was what
1:24:23 sustained it
1:24:29 yeah that's still inconsistent i mean
1:24:31 what you're what what you're saying is
1:24:33 is there a scenario where uh where
1:24:36 torturing babies for fun
1:24:37 is for the benefit of mankind as if that
1:24:40 situation
1:24:40 would suddenly make torturing babies for
1:24:43 fun
1:24:44 in that situation acceptable but then i
1:24:45 have to say in the same breath you're
1:24:47 saying that
1:24:47 i still wouldn't accept that that's that
1:24:50 torturing babies performing that
1:24:51 wouldn't make it moral but it could make
1:24:54 it a more moral situation
1:24:56 so what i'm asking what is there a
1:24:58 situation you can conceive of
1:25:00 at all that would make torturing babies
1:25:02 for fun
1:25:05 we put a million babies we put a million
1:25:07 babies just in
1:25:09 a giant crib and we say if we don't
1:25:11 torture this one baby
1:25:13 at for fun then these million babies are
1:25:16 going to be tortured
1:25:17 for fun okay so and that's
1:25:20 okay so right now so right now you're
1:25:22 saying that in that situation it would
1:25:24 be morally justified to torture
1:25:26 the one baby i would say if
1:25:29 you only have one of the other choices
1:25:31 in other words a baby has to be tortured
1:25:34 in this situation it's one of the other
1:25:36 someone has a gun to your head and is
1:25:38 making the choice
1:25:39 do i 99.9 i think it is
1:25:43 evil to torture babies whoever is in the
1:25:45 scenario that is torturing the baby
1:25:47 is evil we're we're just creating crazy
1:25:50 scenarios to test where our limits
1:25:53 okay so let me let me just let me okay i
1:25:56 just want to deconstruct that
1:25:57 because i think what you're saying and
1:25:59 i'll come back on more episodes
1:26:02 well i want you to understand sorry
1:26:03 about that what are you trying to say
1:26:05 that there's a foundational idea
1:26:07 which transcends materialism which is
1:26:09 true in all possible scenarios
1:26:12 yes and even even on the basis of the
1:26:14 example she just gave the analysis okay
1:26:16 so
1:26:16 the problem is there's right there right
1:26:18 now saying torture one baby
1:26:20 or a hundred babies get tortured right
1:26:22 the the thing in this situation she's
1:26:24 not saying that it's moral
1:26:25 moral to torture the baby she is
1:26:26 actually acting on the basis
1:26:28 of the fact that it's immoral so
1:26:32 it's what she's saying what what she's
1:26:34 saying is moral here is not the
1:26:36 torturing of the baby
1:26:37 but the fact that she is
1:26:41 preventing the torture of babies so
1:26:43 there's a bit of a trick there it's not
1:26:44 that you're saying that in this case
1:26:46 it's morally acceptable to torture the
1:26:48 baby it's still wrong you're talking
1:26:50 about a choice where you're forced to
1:26:51 choose between two evils
1:26:53 the evils are still both evil right so
1:26:56 still
1:26:56 even in that situation you'll have to
1:26:58 say that
1:27:00 torturing babies for fun is evil that
1:27:02 one baby that got tortured
1:27:04 is still evil so you still want to say
1:27:06 that it is objectively wrong to torture
1:27:08 babies
1:27:09 and there is no situation you can
1:27:11 conceive of where it is morally
1:27:13 acceptable
1:27:13 to torture a baby for fun keeping in
1:27:16 mind as well i didn't add to that the
1:27:17 fact that this one this case
1:27:19 it's not for fun really because because
1:27:21 you have a purpose behind it but then
1:27:22 even if i'm going to grant you that it's
1:27:24 still not that you're saying the
1:27:26 torturing of the one baby's okay
1:27:28 it's that you want to prevent the
1:27:28 torture of babies so still my point but
1:27:30 i would also push back it's not
1:27:32 it's not transcendent because of a god
1:27:35 it's true it is because
1:27:37 i don't like babies being killed is
1:27:39 because i
1:27:40 love all humans i love all life and that
1:27:43 i don't want
1:27:44 to see someone in pain and uh and
1:27:47 pointless too
1:27:48 and pointless pain and suffering i i
1:27:50 think i think yeah okay
1:27:51 i think i think we need to move on but i
1:27:53 see what you're saying i respect
1:27:55 this lovely talking to you guys yeah it
1:27:57 was lovely talking to you too
1:27:59 and uh and me please please come on in
1:28:01 future shows to be continued
1:28:03 thank you guys yeah yeah the next show
1:28:05 is going to be on consciousness in two
1:28:06 weeks time so you will
1:28:08 find that interesting uh but yeah thank
1:28:10 you very much for for
1:28:11 coming on uh we'll move on to our next
1:28:13 class thank you guys
1:28:15 okay that's great so yes i think just as
1:28:18 a
1:28:18 just as a quick point as well i think
1:28:22 i think amy gives the example or
1:28:23 demonstrates how
1:28:25 the underlying sort of fitri yeah the
1:28:28 innate nature
1:28:30 presupposes almost like there is certain
1:28:33 religious
1:28:34 transcendental values and meanings but
1:28:36 then when you try to reduce that
1:28:38 to saying about atheism and ground it it
1:28:41 doesn't really have a grounding for it
1:28:43 that that's how i
1:28:44 how i sort of sense this that that we
1:28:46 want to say
1:28:47 there are absolute moral values we want
1:28:49 to say human life
1:28:51 has value we want to say that what we do
1:28:54 has
1:28:54 should have meaningful impact but then
1:28:57 when you reduce that
1:28:58 under a materialistic atheistic paradigm
1:29:01 it sort of loses those
1:29:02 those meanings yeah there's two things i
1:29:04 thought i wanted to add it then it's a
1:29:06 shame
1:29:06 um we've got to sort of move on
1:29:09 obviously for time constraints
1:29:11 um but the the first thing was that like
1:29:13 alhamdulillah
1:29:14 that she believes that this thing is is
1:29:17 morally wrong
1:29:18 but the problem with that sort of
1:29:20 morality is if you get to a person who
1:29:22 doesn't believe you
1:29:23 sort of sits in the same thing and
1:29:26 doesn't have that desire for not want
1:29:28 because
1:29:28 there are people who are um
1:29:31 the only one i know is the german one
1:29:32 that's sharden throat like that you know
1:29:34 they take pleasure in other people's
1:29:36 pain um malicious there are people like
1:29:40 that
1:29:41 now what when you have someone who lacks
1:29:44 that um empathy who lacks that desire
1:29:48 for the
1:29:49 the ceasing of other people's pain and
1:29:51 they continue to live in that sort of
1:29:53 framework then what happens is
1:29:54 you open up the possibility of them
1:29:56 causing that pain
1:29:57 because you know for them it's like you
1:29:59 know i don't care
1:30:00 so what there's there was a video
1:30:02 floating around um
1:30:04 on twitter and obviously these are
1:30:05 extreme cases but they're not
1:30:07 non-existent they are there um there was
1:30:09 a man who set
1:30:10 fire to a kitten covered it in petrol
1:30:13 set fire to it and then he just recorded
1:30:15 and watched it running around
1:30:16 on fire until eventually it died and and
1:30:19 then he uploaded it onto the internet
1:30:21 and then that made rounds on twitter and
1:30:24 there was no remorse in him
1:30:25 like he did not care and it crushed me
1:30:28 watching it
1:30:29 and now the thing is is like you can't
1:30:32 get away with that kind of thing within
1:30:34 like a certain like framework islam for
1:30:37 example the man
1:30:38 the woman who was for all in sense
1:30:40 purposes everyone considered her a pious
1:30:41 woman
1:30:42 but she used to torture her cat and
1:30:45 for that she was sent to hell you don't
1:30:47 get away with these things
1:30:49 like so what if you don't feel like you
1:30:52 care about this animal so what if you
1:30:53 don't have that
1:30:55 um that you know that desire to prevent
1:30:57 the pain
1:30:58 unnecessarily to other beings be that a
1:31:00 baby or a you know a small animal
1:31:02 um like amy has she has that feeling she
1:31:05 has that empathy
1:31:07 um but other people don't and how do you
1:31:10 then
1:31:10 combat this issue obviously this is
1:31:12 separate from the argument of
1:31:13 proving the existence of god etc we're
1:31:15 simply talking here about
1:31:17 the consequences of certain frameworks
1:31:19 yeah and
1:31:20 you know obviously this is not and i
1:31:22 want to make that clear to the viewers
1:31:23 here
1:31:24 um this in and of itself is not an
1:31:26 evidence for god
1:31:27 this is just simply talking about a
1:31:30 problem that's present
1:31:31 in certain um frame of mind and the
1:31:34 other problem that i wanted to hone in
1:31:35 on
1:31:36 um was this notion that truth
1:31:38 necessarily leads to a better life
1:31:41 but that you know as if there's only
1:31:43 truths that bring happiness as if
1:31:44 there's only truths
1:31:46 that bring a you know an improvement to
1:31:48 the quality of life
1:31:49 but there's i think there's enough
1:31:51 evidence to show that it isn't
1:31:53 like all you need to do the more truths
1:31:55 you find out about the condition of the
1:31:56 palestinian people for example
1:31:58 that's not something that improves your
1:32:00 quality of life that's something that
1:32:02 breaks you down something that tears
1:32:04 your heart apart
1:32:05 the more you learn about the condition
1:32:07 of certain people living
1:32:08 in africa you know when you see these
1:32:11 photos these children that are in
1:32:12 droughts or
1:32:13 famine and they're starving this isn't
1:32:16 something that
1:32:17 and that makes them feel better this is
1:32:19 something that
1:32:20 reduces the quality of life it makes you
1:32:22 feel worse
1:32:23 and so it's not this case that only like
1:32:27 truth themselves
1:32:29 and alone will make you feel better or
1:32:31 make your life
1:32:32 better necessarily it can be the
1:32:35 opposite it can be that
1:32:36 it turns out life is suffering that life
1:32:38 is horrible
1:32:39 that life is is hell and you know
1:32:42 and i like being shown on that
1:32:46 can be something that makes the the
1:32:48 quality of life for the person that is
1:32:50 revealed
1:32:51 these facts are revealed to deteriorate
1:32:54 but hello issan sorry hello hi
1:32:58 all right good to see you again oh
1:33:01 you've got a you've got an epic echo
1:33:03 it reminds me of uh yeah like you're in
1:33:06 a cave
1:33:08 a cave of wonder plato's cave
1:33:15 that's that any better yeah you know
1:33:18 what it sounds like
1:33:19 it sounds like uh one of them cheesy
1:33:22 nasheeds where they they add
1:33:24 the reverb
1:33:27 um i don't know what it is but um i mean
1:33:34 yeah yeah but the problem is if i think
1:33:36 when if you're speaking longer sentences
1:33:39 it might be a bit difficult to let's
1:33:41 just see how it goes that's better
1:33:43 that's better
1:33:43 yeah so just tell us what would you
1:33:46 believe
1:33:47 uh and what's your thoughts about this
1:33:49 particular topic
1:33:51 what is it that you you you follow you
1:33:53 believe
1:33:54 um okay um i'm an atheist and um
1:33:58 um i think you talk about nihilism i
1:34:01 would say that um
1:34:04 to be in a uh to be an atheist you have
1:34:05 to accept like a soft degree of nihilism
1:34:08 in that there is no
1:34:09 external meaning to your life there is
1:34:11 no external appointed
1:34:14 goal or direction you have to follow it
1:34:17 is one that you
1:34:18 um you should choose
1:34:21 one you choose yourself so
1:34:24 in that way it's totally subjective
1:34:28 we all have our different goals
1:34:29 different intentions in life
1:34:31 and and but for that purpose
1:34:34 um it made one person's choice of what
1:34:38 they wish to do their life may
1:34:40 seem pointless or meaningless to
1:34:41 somebody else
1:34:43 but it but then the opposite view
1:34:47 could be could seem meaningless and
1:34:50 pointless to somebody else
1:34:52 so you know i would think that um
1:34:54 spending all my
1:34:55 my whole life in religious devotion i
1:34:57 would say would be a waste of my life
1:34:59 and whereas you
1:35:00 would probably see it differently
1:35:03 yeah so okay so essen um so you
1:35:07 there's a number of ways that we can
1:35:09 address this uh one of the ways would be
1:35:11 probably is how do you do do you believe
1:35:14 your life is meaningful yes i do yeah
1:35:17 yeah i think i'm hearing on yourself and
1:35:20 what
1:35:21 in what way do you see your life is
1:35:22 meaningful
1:35:25 meaningful in that um i enjoy life
1:35:28 i enjoy family um i've got a responsible
1:35:32 job that improves people's lives if i do
1:35:34 it well
1:35:35 um so yeah it gives me meaning in that
1:35:38 in that respect
1:35:39 okay so in terms of let's say for
1:35:42 example if you're doing an action
1:35:44 what what job do you do sorry a doctor
1:35:47 right so let's say you've got a patient
1:35:49 and you do something and it helps the
1:35:50 patient out
1:35:52 you you'd probably gather some sort of
1:35:55 meaning from that
1:35:56 you'd you'd feel that's a meaningful
1:35:57 action i've helped this
1:35:59 something beneficial yeah does that mean
1:36:03 uh does that mean go beyond that
1:36:05 person's life
1:36:06 meaning that you've helped that person
1:36:08 then that person dies or is it just
1:36:10 within the time frame of that person's
1:36:12 life
1:36:12 the act is even meaningful so within
1:36:15 that time frame and then if they've got
1:36:16 family and friends then it will
1:36:18 obviously impact on them and yeah if you
1:36:20 know
1:36:21 you know the wider community with people
1:36:23 being
1:36:25 happier if we all help each other in
1:36:28 that regard
1:36:28 yeah so in essence you're saying that
1:36:31 it's me an act is meaningful
1:36:34 when it helps somebody out and even if
1:36:37 that person dies it still maintains
1:36:39 meaning
1:36:40 be i meaningful if it if it affects
1:36:43 other people
1:36:44 yeah yeah not necessarily even beyond
1:36:47 example not necessarily because
1:36:49 um i'd say even if it brings only a
1:36:51 personal
1:36:52 happiness a personal improvement um
1:36:56 like um doing more exercise or something
1:36:58 then that's that that's a meaningful act
1:37:00 it doesn't have to impact on anybody
1:37:02 else
1:37:03 oh yeah but what i'm saying is only
1:37:05 meaningful based on
1:37:07 the person's temporary life isn't it
1:37:10 after that it's not
1:37:11 not me isn't it yeah yeah on the end of
1:37:14 it does it not
1:37:15 so the analogy i would make once the
1:37:17 human race disappears then
1:37:19 there's nothing else um you know
1:37:21 meaningful yeah
1:37:22 and i think that's the that's the issue
1:37:24 it's like an analogy
1:37:25 yeah just really quickly i'll just and
1:37:27 then i'll bring your stuff in so in
1:37:28 essence
1:37:29 what you're saying is that on a on a
1:37:31 fundamental level
1:37:34 the meaning only exists temporarily for
1:37:38 for humanity and then outside of
1:37:40 humanity once humanity ends
1:37:42 you know whatever in distant future then
1:37:45 ultimately
1:37:46 those actions that we did perform on a
1:37:49 foundational level were meaningless
1:37:53 i wouldn't say they were meaningless uh
1:37:54 because they had they had a meaning but
1:37:56 they had a
1:37:56 temporary temporal meaning so what
1:38:00 there is no meaning beyond that point
1:38:01 yeah right yes and i think you're so
1:38:03 pointed
1:38:04 yeah so this is where the analogy really
1:38:06 helps so
1:38:08 do you play games yeah i play some games
1:38:11 yeah
1:38:11 what games do you play flight simulation
1:38:14 games mainly
1:38:16 did you ever play anything like skyrim
1:38:18 or anything like these epic adventure
1:38:19 ones or yeah i played
1:38:21 when i was younger i was playing a lot
1:38:22 more computer games yeah now
1:38:24 for me in surfers you you sort of move
1:38:27 towards
1:38:28 this and again this isn't an argument
1:38:31 either way it's just we're talking about
1:38:33 necessary consequences of a particular
1:38:34 world view here
1:38:35 um now if you move towards an atheistic
1:38:38 one where you sort of
1:38:40 you you lack belief in god you don't
1:38:42 you're more convinced of the idea that
1:38:44 the underpinning of reality is a sort of
1:38:46 uh there's no consciousness at bottom
1:38:49 that it is
1:38:50 fundamentally just dead matter
1:38:53 interacting with each other in whatever
1:38:54 way it does
1:38:55 and this gives rise to the um
1:38:59 the illusion of consciousness or you
1:39:01 know to this
1:39:02 illusion of self within certain parts of
1:39:05 the cosmos and they experience
1:39:07 what we understand as the conscious
1:39:09 experience
1:39:10 and when when you have all of this it
1:39:12 becomes very much like
1:39:13 a computer game um now with skyrim
1:39:18 one thing that i used to see is when i
1:39:20 would play it
1:39:21 i would get this overwhelming sense of
1:39:23 meaning especially when i was younger
1:39:24 when i was a teenager i was much
1:39:26 more naive i was younger and i could
1:39:28 forget the world i could become
1:39:29 ingrained in this and i could become the
1:39:33 you know the dragonborn like i was him i
1:39:35 was out there
1:39:36 battling dragons i had my uh my sick
1:39:39 armor i was a level under this blah blah
1:39:41 blah blah
1:39:42 and it felt so meaningful when i was
1:39:45 going through it it felt
1:39:46 amazing like i can't describe the
1:39:48 experiences i had as as a younger person
1:39:51 playing these games um even like when i
1:39:53 was a lot younger playing sonic and
1:39:55 things like that and these are like
1:39:56 really poor quality games compared to
1:39:58 the things you get now
1:39:59 but i would get this severe sense of
1:40:01 meaning now
1:40:02 now in hindsight that is in as
1:40:05 time has gone on and that that
1:40:07 experience sort of becomes distant
1:40:10 what i end up having is this realization
1:40:13 that i wasn't
1:40:14 that that meaning was an illusion it was
1:40:18 that you know that it was as you say it
1:40:20 was temporal and
1:40:21 and once it loses its meaning in one
1:40:24 that is once you gain
1:40:25 uh consciousness off what it was that
1:40:28 you were actually doing that it was
1:40:30 ultimately pointless
1:40:32 that it robs it of meaning that what it
1:40:35 is is you you come to the realization
1:40:37 that the whole thing was pointless
1:40:39 that it didn't matter no
1:40:42 no necessarily pleasure at the time and
1:40:45 if you brought your pleasure you could
1:40:46 have brought some happiness
1:40:47 but it also brings melancholy after not
1:40:50 all the time it depends
1:40:52 what it is uh you know if you some
1:40:54 people
1:40:55 if you imagine i enjoy a game of darts
1:40:56 and when that game of dance is over
1:40:59 um nothing has changed changed in the
1:41:00 world but i've enjoyed that
1:41:02 half an hour of playing darts and yeah
1:41:04 for afterwards like
1:41:06 that's so much like so i chose skyrim
1:41:08 specifically because it's
1:41:10 you've got this whole narrative this
1:41:12 life you
1:41:13 are the center of this universe almost
1:41:15 you're the dragonborn
1:41:17 you've got this epic thing and in that
1:41:18 moment you're experiencing it's a
1:41:20 distraction
1:41:21 yeah even if it's temporary distraction
1:41:23 if it brings some happiness
1:41:24 even if you know it's going to end then
1:41:27 you know yeah that that
1:41:28 has to be out of our meaning in itself
1:41:31 see i disagree so for me
1:41:32 even that happiness like it was
1:41:34 short-lived
1:41:36 and it was just me being naive
1:41:40 okay it was me being engrossed in a
1:41:42 fantasy
1:41:44 and if i give it examples i think you
1:41:46 know i don't know what your favorite
1:41:47 food is
1:41:48 um but i absolutely love the lasagna and
1:41:51 i
1:41:51 i like chocolate cheesecake as a dessert
1:41:53 so um
1:41:54 i know that's temporary that will
1:41:57 eventually rot
1:41:58 um but i know i say it's temporary i
1:41:59 will enjoy it i know it will you know it
1:42:01 will come out the other end there's
1:42:02 something completely different in a
1:42:03 couple of days time
1:42:05 um but um it will give me that temporary
1:42:09 temporary pleasure and even if even if
1:42:12 we know something will end
1:42:14 so you know i enjoy driving my car i
1:42:16 know my car will end up on the scrap
1:42:17 heat one day
1:42:18 but it's not its purpose in life isn't
1:42:20 to end up in a scrap heat
1:42:22 um and i will enjoy it while i cut it
1:42:25 yeah see even then
1:42:28 i still see it as this illusion like it
1:42:31 and you can live in it and you can enjoy
1:42:33 it for the moment
1:42:34 but any sort of consciousness on the
1:42:36 actual experience of it in hindsight as
1:42:38 well
1:42:39 it for me personally anyway i get this
1:42:41 deep sense of melancholy for it
1:42:43 when when you look at it it's like all
1:42:44 of that time i can't help but feel it
1:42:46 was wasted
1:42:48 what other things could i have done what
1:42:50 better things could i have done what you
1:42:51 know could i have not have
1:42:52 spent my time here doing something more
1:42:54 productive
1:42:56 or this that any other and and i think
1:42:58 when it comes to
1:42:59 to life in general um that this
1:43:03 is something that can always creep up
1:43:05 and often does
1:43:06 regardless of what it is that you chose
1:43:08 to do and especially
1:43:10 when you sort of live with this
1:43:11 understanding of the world being at
1:43:13 foundation
1:43:14 uh just dead matter um life just seems
1:43:17 arbitrary choice becomes random like
1:43:21 it's yeah just driven by pointlessness
1:43:24 and you can't you don't even get to a
1:43:26 point where you understand what's
1:43:27 driving you anymore
1:43:29 um other than these like base desires
1:43:32 i don't know but for me it it becomes
1:43:35 equivalent to the computer game
1:43:37 life becomes meaningless in in its
1:43:40 totality
1:43:41 um and and it robs any pleasure that you
1:43:44 can have
1:43:46 from these um miniature experiences all
1:43:49 these mind you
1:43:50 i mean that goes by what we said earlier
1:43:52 which is where we all have our
1:43:53 subjective opinions that are different
1:43:55 and i i said how living my life accord
1:43:59 to religious devotion would be in my
1:44:01 opinion
1:44:02 pointless and i um and a waste of my
1:44:04 life but
1:44:05 you know you'd see it differently yeah
1:44:07 so we're all you know we're all
1:44:09 different people
1:44:10 but the reason why we see it differently
1:44:12 and i think there is a way we can sort
1:44:13 of
1:44:14 sort of understand this you know in a
1:44:16 way which is you know to a certain
1:44:17 extent
1:44:18 even for a person who's not a muslim can
1:44:20 understand this point
1:44:22 when i gave the example before early
1:44:23 about you doing an action or i'm doing
1:44:25 an action for a patient whatever it is
1:44:28 to help that patient out we feel
1:44:29 meaningful that and then we say well
1:44:31 that meaning can is not just within the
1:44:35 lifespan of that particular individual
1:44:36 but also can be
1:44:37 transported to the next because it may
1:44:39 have an impact upon
1:44:41 the wider human beings but the problem
1:44:43 is that it's transient
1:44:45 now when a muslim does an action whether
1:44:48 that's helping another person out
1:44:50 whether that is uh you know
1:44:53 any relationships that they perform in
1:44:55 their life they believe that it is not
1:44:58 transient it doesn't have an ultimate
1:45:00 foundation of it being meaningless
1:45:02 in the grand scheme of things yeah but
1:45:05 rather because
1:45:06 it is you know we believe in a creator
1:45:10 an eternal being that holds us to
1:45:13 account
1:45:14 for these actions then the grand scheme
1:45:16 of things
1:45:17 is that every action is meaningful
1:45:20 yeah it's not transient i see a point
1:45:22 but that is entirely depend on
1:45:24 believing your faith in the first place
1:45:26 so agreed it is
1:45:28 this is not an argument this is not
1:45:29 necessarily an argument but what
1:45:31 what can be an argument is this is that
1:45:34 within
1:45:34 human beings there is this innate desire
1:45:37 not to look for transient meaning or
1:45:40 transient happiness
1:45:41 yeah or you know temporary but we're
1:45:44 looking for
1:45:45 grounding for our meaning yeah we're
1:45:48 looking for something that's
1:45:50 uh transcends yeah something that's
1:45:53 permanent
1:45:54 rather than something that's transient
1:45:56 now that's something that
1:45:57 atheism can't offer this is probably
1:46:00 where a person would then think well
1:46:01 hold on
1:46:02 if as a human being i have this desire
1:46:05 to look for permanence and this atheism
1:46:08 doesn't offer it
1:46:09 then i've really got to look at this
1:46:10 question about you know
1:46:12 theism and god claims the different
1:46:15 religious beliefs
1:46:16 i totally understand and i can see why
1:46:18 theism and god claims um
1:46:20 are attractive to a lot of people not
1:46:23 that it makes it
1:46:24 true in any way um but it certainly has
1:46:26 an attraction towards humans and it's
1:46:28 why religions have evolved
1:46:30 um you know but many thousands of
1:46:31 religions evolved over thousands of
1:46:33 years because people have had this
1:46:34 yearning for something beyond
1:46:36 their own life um yeah i mean that
1:46:39 meaning
1:46:40 and that mean and this is an interesting
1:46:42 point here is that that attribute that
1:46:44 innate disposition within human beings
1:46:46 is not necessary to human beings
1:46:48 it's not something we don't need to have
1:46:50 it this is not something that
1:46:53 is necessary to the very definition of a
1:46:54 human being that we need to
1:46:56 as an organism have the desire for
1:46:59 permanence and meaning
1:47:01 yeah so there is something regards to
1:47:04 the human condition
1:47:05 that's not necessary for the product of
1:47:07 materialism
1:47:08 which at the same time pushes us to go
1:47:11 and look at things
1:47:12 beyond just the temporary transient
1:47:14 material realm
1:47:16 yeah that's part of you know humanity
1:47:18 people are people
1:47:20 adhere to the thought of immortality and
1:47:22 anything beyond their own life uh but
1:47:24 that's
1:47:24 entirely separate whether it's uh true
1:47:26 or not
1:47:27 just answers i need to go pray
1:47:31 quickly um because we're running out of
1:47:32 time uh so i'm just gonna go do we'll do
1:47:35 and pray and then i'll be back in a
1:47:36 moment
1:47:36 okay so so this is so this is the first
1:47:38 thing first thing is
1:47:39 that atheism leads to this problem of
1:47:43 nihilism yeah the second problem is
1:47:46 regards to the ability to make moral
1:47:49 choices so i assume
1:47:51 as a doctor you did your hippocratic
1:47:52 oath yeah
1:47:54 yeah yeah and can i just say i was just
1:47:55 kind of like you know we talked about
1:47:57 neil is the 30 people
1:47:58 you move on to reality stuff and you
1:48:00 talk about um
1:48:01 atheism i mean when i one of the
1:48:03 description that i
1:48:04 example i gave is if you imagine that
1:48:06 you're lost in a cave
1:48:08 and the theist is somebody who is
1:48:10 absolutely
1:48:11 certain that they will be rescued and
1:48:13 they are part they they are happy and
1:48:15 positive
1:48:16 from that whereas the atheist is
1:48:17 somebody who isn't sure they'll be
1:48:19 rescued
1:48:20 from the cave and they can be a bit
1:48:21 depressed by that um so it
1:48:23 is to be happy but none of that means
1:48:24 that you actually will be
1:48:26 rescued from the cave because that's
1:48:27 entirely separate from your outlook
1:48:29 yeah but i don't think that's
1:48:30 necessarily analogous in this example
1:48:33 i think the analog the analogy would be
1:48:36 is is that
1:48:37 if you as a doctor were going to provide
1:48:39 a particular treatment let's say a
1:48:40 particular diet
1:48:41 you provide a diet that's in accordance
1:48:44 to
1:48:44 the usefulness of the human body yeah
1:48:47 you'd have given the proteins the fiber
1:48:49 the fats the carbohydrates
1:48:51 you know the vitamins and minerals etc
1:48:53 yeah so
1:48:54 in the same way if you're going to have
1:48:56 a system that you're going to live by
1:48:58 you're going to live by a system that's
1:49:00 in accordance to the human nature
1:49:02 now that human nature doesn't want to
1:49:04 seek out transient
1:49:06 you know temporary actions it wants to
1:49:09 have meaningful purpose
1:49:10 so the system has to be meaningful and
1:49:12 purpose purposeful
1:49:14 this is why at the beginning of the show
1:49:16 we will talk about frederick nietzsche
1:49:17 and how frederic nietzsche he was
1:49:19 talking about mythology
1:49:21 the need for a mythology yeah now he's
1:49:24 recognizing this yeah now just be very
1:49:27 clear son
1:49:28 when he's talking about mythology he's
1:49:29 not talking about necessarily fiction
1:49:31 yeah he's talking about something that's
1:49:33 transcendental yeah something that just
1:49:35 goes beyond just simply the mundane or
1:49:37 just simply you know it talks about a
1:49:39 meta narrative meaning the overall
1:49:41 narrative how human beings
1:49:43 are in order to ground meaning so this
1:49:46 is the problem with atheism so if you
1:49:48 it's not just about
1:49:49 it makes a person happy because of
1:49:51 theist it's rather
1:49:52 atheism contradicts human nature
1:49:58 yeah i mean i said this is why um
1:50:01 humanity has
1:50:02 has brought up all these religions and
1:50:05 beliefs over time because they're out of
1:50:07 humanity's goal
1:50:08 to search for that um but obviously
1:50:12 you know it depends whether you would
1:50:14 believe in that um
1:50:15 or not and neither and the yearning for
1:50:18 this kind of
1:50:19 external um meaning yeah external
1:50:23 meaning or anything that's beyond life
1:50:25 um is
1:50:26 is very attractive and i can understand
1:50:27 why you know religions and all these
1:50:29 factors have grown up like that but um
1:50:32 none of that's to do with um any truth
1:50:34 claim and for somebody who isn't
1:50:36 convinced
1:50:37 um then once you are not convinced that
1:50:40 there is an afterlife or then you look
1:50:43 for
1:50:44 uh what meaning you can provide here and
1:50:46 what you can
1:50:47 leave as a legacy for say after you've
1:50:49 died whether it's some
1:50:51 um an invention that people will use
1:50:53 after you
1:50:54 or some you know some legacy that will
1:50:57 leave behind that updates people's lives
1:50:58 better after you've died
1:51:00 but that's on the the problem here is
1:51:02 this is that what you're what you've
1:51:03 given up
1:51:05 and then what you're trying to replace
1:51:06 it with isn't sufficient and i'll tell
1:51:08 you why
1:51:09 because nihilism doesn't just result in
1:51:12 the fact that there's no grand
1:51:13 purpose in life you have something
1:51:15 called moral nihilism
1:51:17 you have epistemic nihilism yeah you're
1:51:20 giving up
1:51:22 not just you know the desire for
1:51:24 permanency
1:51:25 in your actions but you're giving up the
1:51:28 ability to know truth
1:51:30 to be moral to even have that desire
1:51:33 to do something that's uh you know
1:51:36 objectively moral
1:51:38 so that desire to understand anyway
1:51:42 there's no such thing as objectively
1:51:43 moral um in my opinion
1:51:45 do you want to be moral would you like
1:51:47 to do you'd like to see yourself as a
1:51:49 moral agent
1:51:50 i strive to be as moral as i can yes i
1:51:52 definitely do
1:51:53 i mean there's no um outside moral and
1:51:56 you know when you talk about history
1:51:57 morality i think if you're
1:51:58 if you're doing something because you
1:52:00 want to be rewarded in the afterlife
1:52:02 or avoid hell then i wouldn't say that's
1:52:03 tomorrow because you're not
1:52:05 doing it for its intrinsic value you're
1:52:06 doing that for rewards and avoiding it
1:52:08 but yeah but just really quickly what
1:52:10 heaven and hell does
1:52:12 is it creates permanency in terms of the
1:52:15 uh the the nature of your actions has
1:52:18 implications
1:52:19 and it's not just a transient
1:52:20 implication because if it's transient
1:52:22 then you lose that aspect of meaning and
1:52:24 purpose
1:52:25 and the significance of your actions so
1:52:27 that's what heaven and hell gives
1:52:30 it's not control it's about the fact
1:52:33 that it gives us meaning and purpose
1:52:35 that relationship we have when we help a
1:52:37 patient out
1:52:38 yeah no we're not like dr harold shipman
1:52:40 type thing yeah we're not giving out
1:52:42 loads of morphine
1:52:43 because we see a permanence in our
1:52:46 actions
1:52:47 that there is a moral value that's
1:52:49 grounded in
1:52:51 than the the creator of and that's
1:52:54 what's in these things the second thing
1:52:58 is this
1:52:58 is that if you're going to give up
1:53:00 objective
1:53:01 moral values you're going to say well
1:53:03 there is no moral values
1:53:05 but the same time you desire you don't
1:53:07 desire to be
1:53:09 subjectively moral you desire to say
1:53:12 no i believe that this is the more moral
1:53:15 actions to perform isn't it
1:53:17 you're not saying i i'm just gonna you
1:53:19 know not torture babies today because
1:53:22 subjectively i don't feel like doing it
1:53:24 but tomorrow who knows
1:53:26 yeah you're thinking well i have this
1:53:28 desire to be a moral agent
1:53:30 that means that when i perform a moral
1:53:32 action i perceive it as being objective
1:53:34 and again you're giving this up it's not
1:53:36 just like you're giving up
1:53:38 you know general purpose but you're now
1:53:40 giving up morality itself
1:53:42 you fall into moral nihilism there's
1:53:44 enough there's enough um
1:53:46 um without a god there's enough um um
1:53:49 morality um that i can do i mean i'm a
1:53:51 humanist as well so that looks to
1:53:53 that's philosophy to look for improving
1:53:56 the
1:53:57 um maximum well-being of humanity so
1:54:00 that's that's the philosophy in the same
1:54:01 way religious
1:54:02 philosophy is and and you should say
1:54:04 that if you take a religion and the
1:54:05 religion says do this don't
1:54:07 don't do that you can still choose to
1:54:09 ignore that religion
1:54:10 so it's just another moral framework
1:54:12 it's not can i
1:54:14 can i intervene for a second i think the
1:54:16 problem here is not that
1:54:18 we think you're a bad person or that you
1:54:19 don't have morality
1:54:21 the problem is grounding morality on
1:54:22 your worldview that's that's really the
1:54:24 issue yeah so the problem
1:54:25 it's a problem for us of inconsistency
1:54:27 if you're if you're going to say right
1:54:28 now that you know all morality is
1:54:30 subjective
1:54:31 and that you know if you're going to
1:54:33 follow certain implications of your
1:54:35 worldview obviously i don't know what
1:54:36 your worldview is but it seems through
1:54:37 the way you're talking about subjective
1:54:39 morality
1:54:39 about uh um about you know uh objective
1:54:42 meaning and how like existentialism how
1:54:44 we create our own meaning
1:54:45 it seems like that you're you're a kind
1:54:47 of atheist that
1:54:49 that i think would uh these questions
1:54:52 would be applicable to so i think
1:54:54 it's not a question of whether you're a
1:54:55 good person or not it's a question of
1:54:57 how we ground these moral values on a
1:55:00 worldview
1:55:00 that precludes them right so it
1:55:03 precludes the
1:55:04 objectivity of for example what i was
1:55:06 talking to about
1:55:07 with the previous caller that torture
1:55:09 babies for fun is objective
1:55:11 objectively wrong regardless of
1:55:13 situation there's no situation
1:55:14 regardless of circumstance it's always
1:55:16 going to be wrong right so so
1:55:18 uh we all know that and we know that the
1:55:20 atheist along with us is going to act
1:55:22 upon that so this is not a question of
1:55:24 pragmatism here
1:55:25 it is a question of whether that fact is
1:55:28 consistent with
1:55:28 your metaphysics with your view of
1:55:31 reality
1:55:32 that there is this moral fact that
1:55:35 exists
1:55:36 out there so i think i think you want to
1:55:39 say that it's just
1:55:40 more than a subjective opinion that you
1:55:42 have in your mind
1:55:44 that torturing babies for fun is wrong i
1:55:46 think you want to say it's a bit more
1:55:46 than that
1:55:47 yeah i can but um because i can
1:55:50 recognize sentient beings and
1:55:51 uh creatures and i know um
1:55:55 other creatures can feel pain and they
1:55:56 have emotions and so come back
1:55:59 but you know you could have something
1:56:00 you know a serial killer or something
1:56:02 and if you say to them
1:56:03 uh you know he's torturing babies wrong
1:56:05 and they'll say
1:56:06 oh i'm not sure so that's
1:56:09 um you know it doesn't apply to
1:56:11 everybody nobody not everybody will
1:56:12 agree with you
1:56:14 yeah i don't know agree with me and
1:56:16 that's yeah
1:56:17 the issue is despite the fact that not
1:56:19 everybody would agree with you you want
1:56:20 to say
1:56:21 that it's objectively wrong regardless
1:56:22 of circumstance regardless of a person's
1:56:24 objective opinion it's mind
1:56:26 independent regardless of yeah yeah it
1:56:29 is
1:56:31 wrong you know you could talk you can
1:56:32 ask a you know a muslim or a crystal
1:56:35 a american indian aboriginal or whether
1:56:37 they would say
1:56:38 what's you know wrong to torture babies
1:56:40 and i'm sure
1:56:41 all of them would say it's wrong so it
1:56:44 goes so is it objective or is it so
1:56:46 yeah is it objective or is it subjective
1:56:50 it's it depends what you mean uh what
1:56:53 your goal is if your goal is to improve
1:56:55 well-being and
1:56:56 um to um reduce suffering and to improve
1:56:59 uh well-being for other people uh then
1:57:02 it's objectively bad
1:57:04 so that's subjective well that's subject
1:57:06 at the end of the day
1:57:07 in the first place
1:57:11 yeah yeah but that means it's subjective
1:57:13 right because it depends on your
1:57:14 subjective criteria right so that
1:57:15 basically means
1:57:16 objective so what you're saying is that
1:57:18 if you have a different criteria then
1:57:19 all of a sudden
1:57:21 it's it's not more if if you brought on
1:57:23 a serial killer here and said you said
1:57:25 and their objective was to cause the
1:57:28 maximum suffering to other people
1:57:30 and then you said to them is it wrong to
1:57:32 talk to babies they would say
1:57:33 it isn't because they have a completely
1:57:35 different
1:57:37 yeah criteria that's that's it the way
1:57:39 the way you're viewing it
1:57:40 right now what i'm trying to get to is
1:57:41 that the way you're viewing it right now
1:57:44 in that you know you see it this way and
1:57:46 the serial killer sees it another way
1:57:48 and that kind of like gives lends some
1:57:51 kind of credence to subjective morality
1:57:53 that is an implication of subjective
1:57:55 morality what i'm questioning
1:57:57 is whether this subjective difference
1:57:59 has any meaning or any impact on the
1:58:01 fact
1:58:02 that torturing babies for fun is wrong
1:58:04 in my view
1:58:05 it doesn't this difference of opinion
1:58:07 plays no role
1:58:09 and has no influence on the fact that
1:58:11 torturing babies for fun
1:58:14 is wrong right you're saying it does and
1:58:16 that's just an implication of your
1:58:18 subjective morality
1:58:19 and i personally see that as problematic
1:58:21 you're basically saying it's my
1:58:23 independent
1:58:24 we could have evolved in a different way
1:58:26 where torturing babies would have been
1:58:28 okay and i think the issue with that
1:58:31 is like i can't convince you otherwise
1:58:33 the issue with that is that it's just
1:58:35 so counter-intuitive to the the fact of
1:58:38 reality
1:58:39 that regardless of what humans think or
1:58:42 say
1:58:42 there are certain facts normative facts
1:58:46 about reality that we all adhere to
1:58:48 so it's just an inconsistency and you're
1:58:50 just you're accepting this view of
1:58:52 subjective morality and you're
1:58:54 justifying it based on an implication of
1:58:57 your worldview
1:58:58 that shoves you into that corner of
1:59:00 subjective morality that's kind of what
1:59:02 we're saying
1:59:02 so i i don't think it's important yeah
1:59:05 subjective
1:59:05 okay because i mean you could have i
1:59:07 mean i've known people have done
1:59:09 you know terrible things i've known
1:59:10 people who had brain tumors
1:59:12 and from that brain tumor they've
1:59:15 thought their children were devils and
1:59:16 they killed them for that
1:59:17 and um did but they thought they were
1:59:19 doing the right thing because of their
1:59:21 brain was deranged from the brain tumor
1:59:23 so um you know
1:59:25 it's people can think differently in
1:59:27 different circumstances
1:59:29 i understand that some but this is the
1:59:30 problem this is what i'm saying is that
1:59:32 what you're having to give up
1:59:34 on the one hand you're saying that human
1:59:36 beings have this desire
1:59:38 or you have this desire to want to
1:59:39 perform morally good actions
1:59:41 you made the oath on the hypo the
1:59:43 hippocratic oh if you signed the
1:59:45 documents etc the code of ethics
1:59:47 you did all these things and at the same
1:59:50 time what you're saying is though but
1:59:51 ultimately this thing that i want to be
1:59:54 yeah doesn't exist it doesn't
1:59:58 actually exist in an absolute sense in
2:00:00 all possible worlds if you want to use
2:00:02 modal language yeah
2:00:04 it doesn't really exist it's just
2:00:05 something that's in my mind
2:00:07 that's all it is so again one of the
2:00:09 problems with
2:00:10 quote-unquote atheism is this moral
2:00:12 nihilism i would say
2:00:14 why do we value something that's like
2:00:18 morality or truth why does a doctor
2:00:21 value yeah the desire to do good
2:00:25 for a patient if it's all fundamentally
2:00:28 subjective and it just
2:00:29 depends upon his particular brain
2:00:31 chemistry about that moment in time i
2:00:33 mean
2:00:34 see there's loads of um loads of reasons
2:00:37 for that and all that outside if you
2:00:39 imagine that we evolved into
2:00:41 civilizations and the cornerstone of
2:00:42 civilization was to help each other
2:00:46 um and uh you know if you learn to help
2:00:49 others
2:00:50 and they're more likely to help you so
2:00:51 there's a selfish reason for
2:00:53 to do these types of things and that is
2:00:55 that's that's
2:00:57 my point this is my point is that what
2:00:59 you're trying to do
2:01:00 you're trying to say well it would just
2:01:01 evolve that particular way yeah
2:01:04 and if we evolved in another particular
2:01:06 way where you know like for example a
2:01:08 black widow spider eats its mate after
2:01:10 mating with it
2:01:11 yeah uh you know well then that would be
2:01:14 okay that would be moral
2:01:15 that's not really saying anything about
2:01:17 morality because when we talk about
2:01:18 morality we're trying to talk about
2:01:20 something that's mind independent to a
2:01:21 certain extent
2:01:22 deciding something that exists not just
2:01:25 something that is just
2:01:26 a product of the biological makeup of a
2:01:28 human being
2:01:29 or the product of matter in motion
2:01:33 yeah i mean morality comes with um an
2:01:36 advanced mind so something like a black
2:01:37 widow spider eating its mate or
2:01:40 adult male lions killing infant lions
2:01:42 they don't really have the
2:01:44 um you know the consciousness
2:01:48 what's that advanced mind trying to do
2:01:50 is the advanced mind just simply trying
2:01:52 to just
2:01:53 keep you know reproducing the species
2:01:55 that's it
2:01:56 and it just created this complex way of
2:01:58 doing that
2:01:59 or is the advanced mind trying to
2:02:01 understand something that's
2:02:02 objectively moral mind-independent
2:02:06 morality
2:02:07 i i think sharif i think because there's
2:02:09 there's a guess that's waiting but i
2:02:11 think yeah
2:02:12 to simplify things i think fine if
2:02:14 you're going to be consistent the idea
2:02:15 is that
2:02:16 i'm not going to force objective
2:02:17 morality on you the idea is that
2:02:19 the implication of your worldview is
2:02:20 what you're saying that
2:02:22 uh torturing babies for fun is not
2:02:26 objectively immoral that's the
2:02:29 implication of your worldview
2:02:30 yeah yeah fine fine so it's subjective
2:02:33 if you don't find that as problematic
2:02:34 that's fine we could move on but i mean
2:02:35 there
2:02:36 there are other aspects of nihilism as
2:02:38 well that we were talking about
2:02:39 for example your view that you know you
2:02:42 should
2:02:42 uh value life because of the meaning it
2:02:46 gives you that comes with certain
2:02:47 problems as well
2:02:48 and and uh what i think is at the end of
2:02:51 the day you're going to have
2:02:52 to build this sort of meta-narrative for
2:02:54 yourself in life that
2:02:56 that is on the basis of your worldview
2:02:59 delusional and that's kind of
2:03:01 inconsistent with you asking
2:03:03 theists to you know not give in to their
2:03:04 delusions so i think i think
2:03:07 there is a problem but you're falling
2:03:09 yeah
2:03:10 you fall into this contradiction you
2:03:12 fall into this country what
2:03:13 was saying is that you have to have a
2:03:15 meta narrative you have to create
2:03:17 meaning the meaning itself is not
2:03:20 foundational though it's not
2:03:21 built upon anything yeah it's like it's
2:03:24 like building a sand cruise on you in a
2:03:26 way by your
2:03:26 or your religion so you too
2:03:30 you know if you follow religion then you
2:03:31 have the meaning imposed on you
2:03:33 uh whereas um i'm i'm not i don't think
2:03:36 that way
2:03:37 so i i think that's irrelevant yeah i
2:03:40 think what it is is that what tends to
2:03:41 happen with atheists though is that they
2:03:42 tend to turn around and say well
2:03:44 theseus these muslims they've got this
2:03:46 delusion this that the other
2:03:48 but what abdullah is saying abraham is
2:03:50 saying he's actually atheists have to
2:03:52 have
2:03:53 delusions you have to have mythologies
2:03:56 that they create
2:03:57 it just happens to be that they create
2:03:59 it in their own mind
2:04:00 and then they have absurdity then they
2:04:03 have this absurdity of saying
2:04:05 on the one hand life ultimately is
2:04:08 meaningless
2:04:09 yeah on the ground scales things but in
2:04:11 the ten prospects of life i'm going to
2:04:13 say that there is meaning
2:04:15 yeah there is meaning helping this
2:04:17 patient who will
2:04:18 ultimately die yeah and then you create
2:04:22 this type of
2:04:22 absurdity as i said already it's just
2:04:25 like you know how i can
2:04:26 i can enjoy driving my car even though i
2:04:28 know my car will eventually end up in a
2:04:29 scrap heat
2:04:31 uh so um what the fact that so enjoyment
2:04:34 enjoyment
2:04:35 happiness is your narrative at this
2:04:37 point it's like happiness is the
2:04:38 ultimate goal
2:04:40 that's your story that's your story so
2:04:43 that's
2:04:43 that's a normative claim okay so sorry
2:04:46 sorry i want to say that's
2:04:48 not a claim that is descriptive of
2:04:50 physical reality
2:04:51 that's just a description of your
2:04:53 experience what i'm saying is that
2:04:55 is there a way for you to ground
2:04:58 that meta-narrative or that story or
2:05:01 that ultimate goal
2:05:02 in this descriptive reality for so that
2:05:06 you could
2:05:07 like you know justify it in a way that
2:05:09 wouldn't make you inconsistent
2:05:11 when you ask theists to justify their
2:05:13 stories about reality and their ultimate
2:05:15 goals
2:05:18 yeah um i'm just trying to talk you give
2:05:20 the analogy of the person
2:05:22 yeah you gave the analogy of the person
2:05:24 in the cave who's loft and one person he
2:05:26 feels happy
2:05:27 that you know he's god will save him
2:05:30 another person who's saying being
2:05:32 realistic and say well i just been happy
2:05:34 but what you're doing you're doing the
2:05:35 same thing you're being that person in
2:05:37 the cave and saying well because it
2:05:39 makes me happy to drive a nice car
2:05:41 then i'll do that this is what we mean
2:05:43 by the fact that you're both
2:05:45 you're both on the equivalent plane
2:05:47 you're just
2:05:48 you're just holding on to a delusion
2:05:49 that you know is a delusion
2:05:51 theists believe rationally that there is
2:05:54 a creator
2:05:55 you believe there's a difference between
2:05:57 the two that's separate from whether
2:05:58 it's true or not so
2:06:00 yeah yeah that's right but yeah well
2:06:01 well you believe you believe
2:06:03 that happiness matters yeah we believe
2:06:05 it we believe it's interesting somebody
2:06:07 might not
2:06:08 think that as well but yeah you might
2:06:11 have to that's what the point is that
2:06:14 you have to be in this happy delusion
2:06:16 of saying happiness matters to you yeah
2:06:19 yeah but yeah but that's the happy
2:06:22 delusion
2:06:22 and you recognize that's a delusion
2:06:24 whereas for theists
2:06:26 we believe that we need to search out
2:06:28 for meaning
2:06:29 and we need to use rationality in order
2:06:31 to achieve that
2:06:32 yeah and this there's another problem
2:06:33 that's also like if happiness is all
2:06:35 that matters
2:06:36 when it comes to like dire situations so
2:06:39 like viktor frankl
2:06:40 um he was a great example of this was
2:06:43 there wasn't really much to be happy
2:06:45 about in
2:06:45 auschwitz like there weren't many things
2:06:48 going for them
2:06:49 and if happiness is what it's all about
2:06:52 then what you end up as is one of the um
2:06:56 the people in auschwitz basically he
2:06:59 describes this person just gives up
2:07:00 it just lies down and refuses to eat
2:07:04 and he smokes his last cigarette and the
2:07:06 guards come over and they start kicking
2:07:08 him in that and he he just basically
2:07:09 wastes away
2:07:10 on this floor um and and dies he gives
2:07:14 up why
2:07:14 because this notion happiness is what's
2:07:16 matter and if you don't have happiness
2:07:17 then life isn't worth living anymore
2:07:19 whereas he found that this wasn't the
2:07:21 case for everyone
2:07:22 there was you know if you look at people
2:07:23 who are campaigning for euthanasia they
2:07:26 uh
2:07:26 you know they don't want to spend the
2:07:28 rest of their life just
2:07:30 in pain and they would they would rather
2:07:32 die so
2:07:33 um you know that's that's that's a
2:07:35 different discussion when you talk about
2:07:37 um
2:07:38 if you if you see deaf as in you know
2:07:40 escape from
2:07:41 constant pain um i know i can sympathize
2:07:44 with that
2:07:46 so so son you've got was it uh
2:07:49 uh existential nihilism this idea that
2:07:53 ultimately your life doesn't have
2:07:54 meaning under an atheist paradigm
2:07:57 moral nihilism that everything's
2:07:58 subjective in terms of
2:08:00 uh you know it's just about one person
2:08:03 who may differ to another person even
2:08:05 though we
2:08:05 want to ground morality just you know
2:08:08 moralism is more than that moral
2:08:09 nihilism is um
2:08:11 it's not just that it's subjective but
2:08:13 that all moral claims are necessarily
2:08:15 wrong
2:08:16 um so whether you say murdering someone
2:08:18 is yeah if you say murdering someone is
2:08:20 wrong
2:08:22 if you say murdering someone is wrong
2:08:23 that would be factually incorrect and if
2:08:25 you say murdering someone is
2:08:27 right that would also be wrong or
2:08:29 factually incorrect and if they
2:08:31 they compare yeah so they compare um
2:08:35 moral discourse to like discourse like
2:08:37 uh on
2:08:38 like flood just on so you know the
2:08:40 period of time when there was
2:08:41 um scientists meaningfully talking about
2:08:44 flood just on this flood just on that
2:08:46 um and then you know in so far as they
2:08:49 thought it was but it was
2:08:50 a like it was an error hence the
2:08:53 the name that ends up getting given to
2:08:54 his error theory um and so they see
2:08:57 moral discourse in the same way
2:09:01 i just wanted to stress on that point
2:09:02 because i felt like we were kind of
2:09:04 trying to equate between moral
2:09:05 subjectivism and moral nihilism
2:09:06 so it's not they're not synonymous but i
2:09:09 think it's more of a question of whether
2:09:11 moral subjectivism
2:09:12 leads to moral nihilism within a certain
2:09:15 view
2:09:15 what whether whether that's like say
2:09:18 imperialism
2:09:19 or or whatever other world you uh anyone
2:09:22 here wants to discuss so i'm just
2:09:23 so it's not that they're synonymous
2:09:25 we're just trying to see whether it
2:09:27 leads to it
2:09:28 on a certain certain worldview i know so
2:09:30 and i think also the other problem that
2:09:31 you're going to have
2:09:33 under your particular world view is
2:09:34 epistemic nihilism
2:09:36 you you you won't have the ability to
2:09:38 ground truth
2:09:40 that's another problem that you're going
2:09:41 to have
2:09:44 there's no real ultimate truth anyway so
2:09:46 it's uh that that's one thing i
2:09:48 um that's something i you know i think
2:09:52 so you know you can have like truth as
2:09:54 in you know how many
2:09:55 um how many stones are on a beach
2:09:58 something like that uh when you
2:10:00 when you took the deistic ultimate truth
2:10:03 and i
2:10:03 i don't believe there is such a thing
2:10:06 yeah but what i mean
2:10:07 in essence when i when i'm saying that
2:10:09 you won't be able to even ground truth
2:10:11 i'm not talking about the what's the
2:10:13 true purpose of the universe
2:10:15 i'm even saying the fact that you're
2:10:16 gonna have problems even being able to
2:10:18 demonstrate that what your thoughts with
2:10:21 the decisions of your thoughts that you
2:10:22 believe are rational
2:10:24 are actually your thoughts that you're
2:10:26 making a dis decision upon
2:10:28 and rather than just simply that your
2:10:30 thoughts are
2:10:31 uh you know brain chemistry operating in
2:10:34 a particular way
2:10:36 and it just happens to be that you think
2:10:38 you're looking at truth
2:10:39 but you're not just your brain chemistry
2:10:41 creating the illusion
2:10:43 you won't have the ability to
2:10:44 differentiate between the two
2:10:46 there's a obviously you know the culture
2:10:48 consciousness is a you know
2:10:50 a big topic um but that's going on but
2:10:54 i wouldn't say that um you know it's
2:10:57 i don't know whether you're going to
2:10:58 bring up a concept of a soul or not
2:11:00 but um even you know as an atheist i can
2:11:03 see that
2:11:05 i strongly suspect that most brain
2:11:07 activity and what we see is
2:11:08 the um as consciousness is as a result
2:11:11 of brain processes
2:11:14 but this did you see why this would
2:11:16 result in epistemic nihilism
2:11:19 yes just i could see why dialysis would
2:11:21 uh you know
2:11:23 epistemic so you wouldn't know that you
2:11:25 what you're sensing to be true
2:11:27 is true yes so therefore i wouldn't know
2:11:29 but nothing would you know anyway
2:11:31 then that would that would be self
2:11:33 refutation
2:11:34 of even saying that consciousness is
2:11:37 created
2:11:38 by brain states as well because that's
2:11:39 what you're trying to understand is true
2:11:41 and i've got myself so you would even
2:11:42 refuse i can get an idea but i can i can
2:11:44 never be absolutely certain about that
2:11:46 my sense of not absolutely certain no no
2:11:48 no no no we're not saying you're not the
2:11:50 canadian
2:11:50 i'm not i'm not saying you need to be
2:11:53 absolutely certain
2:11:54 i'm saying you can never be you can't
2:11:56 ground rationality
2:11:57 at all as a as an atheist under a
2:12:00 materialistic paradigm that believes
2:12:02 that consciousness is just simply brain
2:12:04 states
2:12:04 and brain states are just unconscious
2:12:07 matter in motion
2:12:08 then you could not ground any rational
2:12:11 truths
2:12:12 even that particular rational truth you
2:12:15 result in an epistemic nihilism
2:12:17 i cannot know truth okay um i can never
2:12:20 be absolutely certain that's true
2:12:22 uh but that's not absolutely certain i'm
2:12:23 not saying you can be lo
2:12:25 somebody can turn around and say well
2:12:26 i'm 99 i'm saying you can't even be 99
2:12:28 percent
2:12:29 you cannot say anything about it can
2:12:31 anybody else
2:12:32 even its probability
2:12:44 [Music]
2:12:46 he's talking about the ability to know
2:12:48 anything at all so we can be
2:12:49 fallibilists about knowledge in the
2:12:50 sense that
2:12:51 we don't have to be certain about
2:12:52 something to know it what sharif is
2:12:54 telling you
2:12:55 is that this physicalist account you
2:12:57 gave of consciousness
2:12:58 leads to the idea of epistemic nihilism
2:13:00 because
2:13:01 you cannot know anything at all uh but i
2:13:04 i think to get into that and break that
2:13:06 down it's it's it's related it's i mean
2:13:08 it's
2:13:08 it's it's called the problem it's called
2:13:10 like arguments from reason there are
2:13:12 series of theistic arguments
2:13:14 that argue against naturalism but i
2:13:16 think to get to break that down is going
2:13:17 to take a lot of time
2:13:18 but what he's he's not saying that that
2:13:20 would apply to us too it's
2:13:21 he's saying it's just an implication of
2:13:22 your worldview so to say that you know
2:13:24 things would be an inconsistency to
2:13:26 argue for that of course
2:13:28 uh
2:13:42 [Music]
2:13:45 even that's a knowledge claim to say
2:13:47 that even on
2:13:48 xyz i believe you cannot know truth
2:13:51 either that's still a knowledge claim
2:13:53 see that's the problem problem is that
2:13:54 epistemic nihilism means that
2:13:56 you can't make any claims yeah you can't
2:13:59 even turn around and say well
2:14:01 these are being x yeah you can't even
2:14:04 say these types of things
2:14:05 because there's no grounding for
2:14:07 anything because all you are you just
2:14:08 simply matter in motion
2:14:10 yeah your thoughts are not making you're
2:14:12 not making choice when you make a
2:14:13 diagnosis do you make a diagnosis
2:14:15 because you
2:14:16 outweigh the evidence or are you making
2:14:18 a diagnosis because
2:14:20 the brain chemistry just happened to be
2:14:22 causative
2:14:23 of a particular thought and that brain
2:14:25 chemistry was result
2:14:27 of the initial conditions that the big
2:14:29 bang
2:14:30 yeah and the laws when i make a
2:14:32 diagnosis i
2:14:33 um i weigh up the knowledge that's in my
2:14:35 head um with the information that's
2:14:37 given to me by my senses
2:14:39 so it's not certain but it goes by
2:14:41 probability
2:14:42 and you could say yes you could have
2:14:44 somebody who's absolutely
2:14:46 100 certain that they speak to trees
2:14:49 and you can't judge them and they they
2:14:52 will say they have absolute truth that
2:14:53 they can talk to trees
2:14:57 we're not saying absolutely true i'm
2:14:59 saying that for you to make a decision
2:15:01 and diagnose this you have to weigh up
2:15:03 yeah evidence that exists out there
2:15:06 exactly what's next
2:15:07 i can never be certain i've i've got
2:15:09 diagnosis wrong not about certainty
2:15:11 not about certain it's not about
2:15:12 certainty i'm saying the ability to make
2:15:14 any weighing up decision process whether
2:15:17 that's an
2:15:18 or probabilistic analysis i'm saying you
2:15:20 can't even do that
2:15:21 under your world view because under your
2:15:24 world view you have to say
2:15:25 that it's not me making a choice between
2:15:28 the evidence
2:15:29 it's because of my brain chemistry my
2:15:32 brain chemistry is because of the
2:15:33 initial conditions and the physical laws
2:15:36 at the moment of the big bang or just
2:15:38 after planck's time at the big bang
2:15:40 that's what caused you to make your
2:15:42 decisions of the diagnosis at that
2:15:44 moment in time
2:15:44 not because you believed it to be true i
2:15:48 can make decisions based on the evidence
2:15:49 that's presented to me
2:15:51 um and that can be without it doesn't
2:15:53 necessarily have
2:15:54 you know it's not certain but it's not
2:15:56 it's not 50 50
2:15:57 i can i can make judgments that go
2:16:00 towards a particular way
2:16:01 or go away from a certain way based on
2:16:03 the overall evidence
2:16:04 so essan in order for you to say that
2:16:07 you have to leave
2:16:08 a materialistic atheistic perspective at
2:16:11 least a materialistic physicalistic
2:16:13 physicalist account of the brain and the
2:16:15 mind you have to leave
2:16:18 yeah i think i don't i think i think
2:16:20 we're going in circles because okay
2:16:21 uh sure first of all i think sharif is
2:16:24 right i think
2:16:25 you're just misunderstanding him or
2:16:27 you're not understanding him because
2:16:28 even someone in the chat said that
2:16:29 sharif is
2:16:30 assuming the correspondence theory of
2:16:32 mind he isn't uh sorry corresponds
2:16:34 theory of truth he isn't this is more
2:16:35 about
2:16:35 the uh you're getting into the the the
2:16:38 metaphysical implications of a certain
2:16:40 ontology it's not
2:16:41 so what we would say is that the
2:16:42 correspondence theory of mind or like
2:16:44 you know even like any
2:16:45 kind of like reliabilist account of
2:16:47 truth uh this
2:16:51 would be applicable to all because you
2:16:52 need you know to to be able to say
2:16:55 that your uh mental states can infer
2:16:58 truth about the world
2:16:59 uh you know uh and on a certain ontology
2:17:02 which is a physicalist ontology
2:17:04 there are problems with that if you deny
2:17:05 mental causation if you allow for mental
2:17:07 causation that's a different story but i
2:17:09 think that that will that this will be
2:17:10 more relevant to our next stream which
2:17:12 is on consciousness
2:17:14 so uh design it was nice having you on
2:17:16 please come again
2:17:17 and thank you thank you very much take
2:17:19 care son bye
2:17:30 so i think we've got somebody else
2:17:31 haven't we yeah we have nathan
2:17:34 oh hey hi nathan i just chilled out i
2:17:37 always say
2:17:38 hi to yusuf you uh you you blocked me
2:17:42 on twitter man i did i did i can give
2:17:44 you a reason why yeah so the first thing
2:17:46 i saw when i went onto your account
2:17:49 was uh basically something along the
2:17:51 lines of you saying
2:17:52 uh the only reason you're gonna read the
2:17:54 quran is to
2:17:56 undermine it and so you came across as
2:17:58 someone that wasn't really
2:18:00 reading it to see if there was anything
2:18:01 genuine to be found in there but rather
2:18:03 you were just wanting to use it as a
2:18:04 sort of
2:18:06 uh beating tool for muslims and i'd
2:18:09 yeah i understand i would say nice chair
2:18:11 though i i think uh
2:18:12 that way oh yeah looks
2:18:16 and also i've apparently been conspiring
2:18:19 with jake
2:18:19 against andrew loke i don't know if he
2:18:22 saw those uh
2:18:24 those screenshots where i've never spoke
2:18:26 to jake before in my life
2:18:27 um but i i and andrew luke said that we
2:18:30 have been conspiring together to
2:18:32 like join forces against um his
2:18:36 combine our like subscribers or
2:18:38 something against his uh reputation or
2:18:40 something
2:18:41 and oh where where where's that
2:18:44 um it was a screenshot he that someone
2:18:47 sent to me
2:18:48 and i ended up taking it down because it
2:18:50 was from cameron batuzi's private group
2:18:53 um so i thought i thought it's best
2:18:55 probably not to have that up
2:18:56 but um it was because you know when you
2:18:59 did your video on him i left a comment
2:19:01 saying look can be very frustrating to
2:19:03 engage with
2:19:04 um i've had like a similar experience or
2:19:05 something and i think he took that
2:19:07 as um to a larger conspiracy
2:19:11 yeah exactly that's what it is uh nathan
2:19:14 if you can tell us about your worldview
2:19:16 and what you think of this stream
2:19:18 i think i think it's interesting like um
2:19:22 i i prefer the atmosphere i was just
2:19:25 watching this
2:19:25 for really for the first time listening
2:19:27 while i was doing the dishes i think i
2:19:28 prefer the atmosphere
2:19:30 in this stream to um like the hamza's
2:19:33 die atmosphere
2:19:34 i think that can feel more combative but
2:19:37 perhaps inevitably whenever people are
2:19:39 discussing
2:19:40 um beliefs that are really important and
2:19:43 there's like these fundamental
2:19:44 clashes and opinion on these things it
2:19:46 can sometimes get a bit heated but i
2:19:48 think i think
2:19:48 this this is a better a better kind of
2:19:50 vibe from my point of view
2:19:52 um i think i've disagreed with even
2:19:55 though
2:19:56 i'm not a muslim so i don't have like
2:19:59 the same metaphysics as you guys i think
2:20:01 i've probably disagreed more with most
2:20:03 of the guests that you've had on
2:20:05 um as far as i've been listening um
2:20:09 though i'd probably i would like i was i
2:20:11 was thinking earlier and
2:20:12 maybe it's just because i don't have
2:20:14 like a a religious
2:20:16 world view behind me anymore where i
2:20:17 sort of feel compelled to
2:20:20 um to bring people over to what i think
2:20:22 but it
2:20:23 but sometimes if i'm speaking to
2:20:25 christians saying they don't have a very
2:20:26 sophisticated
2:20:28 um view of the world i'd probably i i
2:20:30 try and push them towards like
2:20:32 a view of christianity that i view as
2:20:34 more like morally
2:20:35 palatable than a sort of fundamentalist
2:20:38 version rather than trying to
2:20:40 convince them to abandon christianity
2:20:42 completely and maybe i thought
2:20:44 when you were talking to um amy for
2:20:46 example like you guys are well versed in
2:20:48 philosophy you could have
2:20:49 said well here is an alternative natural
2:20:53 story okay you're not convinced of it
2:20:54 like you're not convinced of cornell
2:20:56 realism or something
2:20:57 but that's a story that um the
2:20:59 naturalist could tell but then i was
2:21:00 thinking am i just annoyed because i'm
2:21:02 not on
2:21:02 i like i'm more on their team than i am
2:21:04 on your team when actually they're
2:21:06 giving like bad reasons for
2:21:08 um what they think about morality but
2:21:11 i mean not everyone studied spent time
2:21:13 like looking at philosophy and some of
2:21:15 these distinctions and stuff
2:21:16 nathan just just just about that point i
2:21:18 mean yeah sure i mean
2:21:19 obviously like i'd rather an atheist to
2:21:22 uh
2:21:22 have a story that would uh you know uh
2:21:25 help them avoid nihilism
2:21:27 rather even if it's not a true story
2:21:29 rather than fall into nihilism
2:21:30 um for the good of themselves and the
2:21:32 world as a whole but i think this stream
2:21:34 is a bit different it's it's we're
2:21:35 talking about
2:21:36 the the metaphysical implications of the
2:21:38 worldview so it's it's not yeah of
2:21:40 course i mean
2:21:41 we and and we acknowledge several times
2:21:42 that atheists can be moral people
2:21:44 atheists a lot of atheists are good
2:21:46 people and so even
2:21:48 more experiences and things as well yeah
2:21:50 yeah
2:21:51 so we're more concerned with with the
2:21:52 metaphysical implications of this
2:21:54 and and uh and i think uh again atheists
2:21:57 can
2:21:57 have meaning i don't i don't uh i'm not
2:22:00 one of those people who say that as an
2:22:01 atheist
2:22:01 you have to you know face the fact that
2:22:03 you don't have meaning i think
2:22:04 this is just about you know the
2:22:06 implications of whatever ontology
2:22:08 you uh you you have as a commitment so
2:22:11 uh yeah so i guess a good place to start
2:22:13 would be just to ask
2:22:14 so you you went from christianity to
2:22:17 atheism or agnosticism yeah no i i mean
2:22:20 perhaps
2:22:21 there was i mean there's certainly times
2:22:23 um
2:22:24 where i'd say i'm more convinced of a
2:22:27 sort of reductive
2:22:28 naturalist story than i am of a of a
2:22:30 religious one
2:22:31 but i don't think i don't think i've
2:22:34 ever really been
2:22:35 committed to the proposition that no
2:22:37 gods exist
2:22:38 or something like that i think it's
2:22:39 always been imprinted like i can't i
2:22:41 can't see any contradiction there or
2:22:43 something some reason why it couldn't
2:22:45 it's always been like a creedence thing
2:22:46 i suppose
2:22:47 okay so you're not a atheist proper
2:22:49 you're more
2:22:50 leaning towards agnosticism although
2:22:52 you're still sort of playing with the
2:22:53 idea maybe or
2:22:54 i mean my positions uh
2:22:57 i i mean i don't fully i i i couldn't
2:23:01 fully like categorize what it is that i
2:23:02 believe i
2:23:03 i maybe like local agnosticism if you go
2:23:05 with
2:23:06 the definitions given by paul draper in
2:23:09 uh the stanford
2:23:10 encyclopedia page which is the idea that
2:23:12 with respect to
2:23:14 my own beliefs you know i'm sort of with
2:23:16 withholding ascent because i i'm not
2:23:18 saying like for or against but
2:23:19 that's not really a statement about the
2:23:21 way the world is
2:23:23 um so yeah but i mean agnostic is
2:23:25 probably best
2:23:26 for other people to so we're on like a
2:23:28 yeah okay
2:23:29 and and so can ask how did you
2:23:32 deal or how did you experience that
2:23:34 transition going from say christianity
2:23:36 to this agnosticism
2:23:38 um did you ever feel any sort of
2:23:41 nihilistic tendencies or the
2:23:43 this notion of life being meaningless or
2:23:45 purposeless or that
2:23:47 um any sort of narrative that you try to
2:23:50 replace religion with
2:23:51 being some sort of um
2:23:55 act you know like a that
2:23:58 basically it becomes impossible does it
2:24:00 did what was the experience i don't know
2:24:02 if you
2:24:02 felt that or whether you felt maybe more
2:24:04 authentic or
2:24:05 like how did that transition go down for
2:24:09 you
2:24:09 exactly and what relationship do you
2:24:11 have with nihilism now
2:24:12 i guess is the question sure um so
2:24:15 i suppose my my own psychology is
2:24:18 relatively interesting
2:24:20 um from this point of view because i'm
2:24:21 someone who's always
2:24:23 suffered with depression and so i mean a
2:24:26 lot of
2:24:28 i don't know how heavily i i don't watch
2:24:29 too much um muslim apologetics so i
2:24:31 couldn't say but a lot of christian
2:24:32 apologetics at least focuses on
2:24:34 the idea that if you become a christian
2:24:37 it can
2:24:38 um it'll have answers to a lot of these
2:24:40 questions so that'll
2:24:41 help you deal with um a lot of these
2:24:44 kind of psychological issues
2:24:46 to do with not being able to make sense
2:24:47 of the world and the way reality is and
2:24:48 stuff and
2:24:49 certainly that was the way christianity
2:24:51 was sold to me when i came in
2:24:53 um i think on i think though
2:24:57 i developed an overly simplistic story
2:24:59 about the way reality is that committed
2:25:01 me
2:25:01 to um a kind of story to do with
2:25:05 spiritual warfare and stuff like that
2:25:06 which wasn't actually
2:25:08 able to fully deal with my psychological
2:25:12 reality so when i came out i think i was
2:25:14 able to
2:25:15 engage with some of the causes of some
2:25:18 of my feelings a bit more honestly
2:25:19 but that's not to say it's been a wholly
2:25:21 positive experience
2:25:22 because um i also think
2:25:26 and this is a thought i've been having
2:25:27 more recently
2:25:29 that um the idea of
2:25:33 or certain certain religious beliefs
2:25:35 that i have that would sit in my web of
2:25:36 beliefs
2:25:37 motivated me to act in a way that i
2:25:40 wouldn't act
2:25:41 um without those religious beliefs so
2:25:43 the other day for example
2:25:45 as i was going into asda i was i'd been
2:25:48 watching
2:25:48 uh some documentaries about a guy called
2:25:50 albert schweitzer for example and i was
2:25:51 kind of thinking
2:25:52 well how how would i act if that if if a
2:25:55 god existed and then
2:25:56 there was a homeless guy outside and um
2:26:00 i had like a conversation with him and
2:26:02 then i was like well can i get you any
2:26:03 food
2:26:04 and so i you know i got him uh some
2:26:06 biscuits and
2:26:07 some cans of coke which is what he'd
2:26:09 asked for and i thought
2:26:10 i wouldn't have acted that way normally
2:26:12 there's normally someone begging outside
2:26:14 and i normally go past but i think
2:26:16 the way that i've acted i'd rather be
2:26:18 that kind of person even if i can't
2:26:20 justify those
2:26:21 those sorts of um religious beliefs so i
2:26:24 do think that
2:26:24 um i do think a religious framework
2:26:28 can lead to actions that i would say are
2:26:31 better
2:26:31 or like motivate in that direction but
2:26:34 um i also don't think it guarantees
2:26:37 better
2:26:38 psychological well-being or the ability
2:26:40 to deal with things like anxiety or
2:26:41 depression
2:26:42 but that like i can't generalize from my
2:26:44 experience either to everyone else i
2:26:45 guess
2:26:46 no no well the so you can get for
2:26:49 example
2:26:50 an anxiety that is drawn out of uh
2:26:52 theism as well like
2:26:54 fear of um punishment things like that
2:26:56 or fear of becoming a disbeliever these
2:26:58 these sort of things yeah um
2:27:00 are things that can occur um so it's
2:27:02 understandable so
2:27:04 with them so this notion that like you
2:27:07 said you you went and you gave
2:27:09 someone something you would associating
2:27:11 that to
2:27:12 your web of beliefs that included
2:27:14 religious beliefs and not to your
2:27:15 atheistic ones
2:27:17 so is there a reason you sort of are
2:27:19 willing to say that the reason you gave
2:27:21 him
2:27:22 something rather than nothing and
2:27:24 ignorance yeah
2:27:25 why do you associate that with your
2:27:27 religious belief
2:27:29 or whatever i'm guessing you're
2:27:31 referring to in sort of a remnant way
2:27:33 like it's
2:27:34 what remains there from when you were
2:27:35 religious
2:27:37 yeah i i i don't know i don't know what
2:27:40 maybe what remains from when i'm
2:27:42 religious was uh is accurate
2:27:44 it's sort of like i suppose
2:27:49 a a religious attitude towards life
2:27:53 makes me personally
2:27:56 more considerate of the other and i mean
2:27:59 this is going to be difficult as well i
2:28:00 don't know
2:28:02 a lot about islam but certainly my idea
2:28:04 of religious belief is heavily
2:28:06 influenced by christianity
2:28:07 and in christianity a big and part of
2:28:11 theology is this idea
2:28:12 of kenosis of the the emptying of god to
2:28:15 like suffer with people in the world
2:28:17 and i think that my um
2:28:21 part of what influenced me to make that
2:28:22 decision for example was the idea of
2:28:25 embodying that stance towards other
2:28:28 people
2:28:29 um by
2:28:32 i don't know having having a sorry
2:28:34 pinged a spring
2:28:35 having a kind of reverence for life
2:28:39 and other living beings in a way where i
2:28:41 could sympathize with them and would
2:28:42 want to
2:28:43 um help them in that plight if i can and
2:28:46 it's not too much of an inconvenience to
2:28:47 myself
2:28:48 whereas perhaps without those feelings
2:28:53 without those feelings of of reverence i
2:28:55 would be
2:28:56 happy to just go about my day and get
2:28:59 what i
2:29:00 needed to get for my tea from asda and
2:29:01 come back home and i'm not saying i mean
2:29:04 this isn't the case for everyone though
2:29:05 and that you know there's some people
2:29:07 who
2:29:08 are who are more than happy without
2:29:10 having
2:29:11 these theological sort of beliefs to do
2:29:14 things like that like um i've got a
2:29:16 friend derek who runs myth vision
2:29:17 podcast and he's more than like he helps
2:29:19 people get off heroin for example in his
2:29:21 house and i think i don't think that
2:29:23 there's any aspect of his religious
2:29:24 belief that plays a role in that so
2:29:25 maybe it's a psychology thing
2:29:27 maybe you know i i because i have this
2:29:29 kind of like um
2:29:31 disposition towards depression and stuff
2:29:33 that having those beliefs then helps to
2:29:35 motivate me in a particular way that i
2:29:37 otherwise wouldn't be also i i don't
2:29:38 know what the causal story is then
2:29:41 so have you moved that i guess because
2:29:44 it's quite interesting you're saying
2:29:45 this now because it sounds
2:29:46 kind of like i don't sort of taking
2:29:48 maybe a jordan peterson approach
2:29:50 to religion in a way where you're you're
2:29:53 saying
2:29:54 and i may be misinterpreting your words
2:29:56 but it sounds like you're saying you act
2:29:57 as though
2:29:59 you know that cliche jp thing uh you're
2:30:01 acting as though
2:30:03 god does exist even though you're not
2:30:05 convinced he does in some way and
2:30:06 this motivates your reverence for life
2:30:09 or something
2:30:10 is that the general path you're kind of
2:30:13 taking
2:30:14 so sort of i actually think um
2:30:17 part of it is um
2:30:20 part of it is engaging with the ideas of
2:30:23 a theologian called don cupit
2:30:25 and interestingly enough a lot of his
2:30:27 theology
2:30:28 is motivated by metaphysical
2:30:31 so um and this is a sort of theme that's
2:30:35 worked out
2:30:35 through nietzsche's work as well where
2:30:38 he sort of rejects
2:30:39 essences and says all there is or
2:30:40 appearances but then when you sort of
2:30:43 if if you reach that stage then
2:30:46 all you're kind of doing is imposing
2:30:50 when you reach that stage of
2:30:51 metaphysical nihilism all you're doing
2:30:52 is imposing a particular
2:30:54 um intellectual schema on the
2:30:58 set of appearances that you have in your
2:30:59 experience and then
2:31:01 a religious um a religious schemer is
2:31:04 then just one viable option
2:31:05 amongst many um and that's kind of
2:31:08 kierkegaard
2:31:09 uh kikigore's view as well and the kind
2:31:11 of christian existentialist
2:31:13 again i don't know there's probably
2:31:14 people in the islamic tradition who
2:31:16 have been similar i just don't know
2:31:18 enough about it um
2:31:19 [Music]
2:31:21 so would you say that if you didn't act
2:31:23 this way in the sense that
2:31:25 you didn't just i don't know maybe
2:31:27 there's a sense of nostalgia there
2:31:29 um or something but if you didn't act
2:31:31 that way
2:31:32 do you feel like that nihilism would
2:31:34 maybe be one of the only options or not
2:31:35 or
2:31:36 like how are you again just trying to
2:31:38 draw it back to the main topic of the
2:31:39 stream
2:31:40 what's your relationship with nihilism
2:31:41 are you acting like this in order to
2:31:43 avoid
2:31:44 that um you know lacking the sort of
2:31:50 a an authentic belief in the being
2:31:53 um itself but still seeing value in
2:31:56 certain ways of sort of living like that
2:31:59 as if it is the case um
2:32:02 and you know is that basically
2:32:04 underpinned by an avoidance of this
2:32:06 as a necessary consequence type of thing
2:32:08 again i'd rather you just kind of say
2:32:10 explicitly in your own ways without me
2:32:11 putting words in your mind yeah yeah
2:32:13 absolutely
2:32:13 um i i mean personally
2:32:17 i don't think i could justify the
2:32:19 metaphysics of like classical being
2:32:21 theism and that kind of story whereas
2:32:26 what i think i think it's more honest
2:32:28 for me
2:32:29 to engage in the way that i i'm doing
2:32:32 but i can see how someone from a
2:32:33 different framework would look at that
2:32:34 and say that that's what's going on
2:32:36 and when it comes to i mean i i take
2:32:39 metaphysics to be basically
2:32:40 distinguishing
2:32:41 between appearances and reality so we
2:32:43 have we have these
2:32:45 um appearances of um what was it that
2:32:49 um abdul said earlier something like
2:32:50 normative claims right or
2:32:52 or there seem to be these moral facts
2:32:54 like um it's wrong
2:32:56 everywhere always and everywhere to
2:32:58 torture babies for fun or something like
2:32:59 that
2:33:00 and then various people just try and
2:33:03 construct
2:33:04 a story about why that is the case like
2:33:05 what's the explanation
2:33:07 and then maybe taking someone like
2:33:08 graeme's approach
2:33:10 i think what we what something we can do
2:33:12 there is we can sort of lay these
2:33:14 various theories out side by side
2:33:16 and we can say well what are they
2:33:17 committed to what's their explanatory
2:33:19 scope
2:33:20 um there's other i mean there's debate
2:33:24 again over these like theoretical
2:33:25 virtues so a lot of my catholic friends
2:33:26 are going to say
2:33:27 well agreeing with my intuitions for
2:33:29 example is like also a theoretical
2:33:30 virtue that
2:33:32 maybe that gets more into some of these
2:33:33 more foundational
2:33:35 um foundational way what
2:33:38 and beliefs in the in that web of how we
2:33:40 do this so i i think um
2:33:42 personally i do think that naturalists
2:33:44 can account for all the phenomena
2:33:46 in a way that i'd be more than happy
2:33:48 with i'm not convinced that the story
2:33:50 that they tell
2:33:50 is true but i think um
2:33:54 maybe as a way of maybe as a way of
2:33:57 pushing back against the confidence
2:33:59 that i see some that some religious
2:34:01 people
2:34:02 and putting in their explanation
2:34:06 i would adopt that position just to play
2:34:08 like devil's advocate or something
2:34:10 um yeah i don't know nathan can i ask
2:34:14 you something
2:34:15 are you are you being honest or are you
2:34:17 just building rapport
2:34:19 i'm just building rapport i'm being
2:34:22 honest yeah
2:34:23 yeah i think i think both um i mean i
2:34:26 could i guess i could have come in here
2:34:28 and been like really combative because i
2:34:29 think i disagree with you guys but i
2:34:31 don't see what that would achieve
2:34:32 um so i i am telling you things that are
2:34:35 true
2:34:36 to my experience and i genuinely believe
2:34:39 but i'm also doing it in a way
2:34:41 which i think is more fruitful and
2:34:42 productive rather than just being like
2:34:44 uh
2:34:45 i think you guys are wrong uh
2:34:48 something i don't know yeah i mean it's
2:34:51 just
2:34:51 a little bit troubling because when you
2:34:53 say some of the things you said
2:34:55 it's kind of hard to know when you're
2:34:57 being serious or not
2:35:01 do you mean we're so with respect to um
2:35:05 me reviewing um the video
2:35:08 that doug did i suppose i actually think
2:35:11 i probably
2:35:13 regret having done that now but i think
2:35:14 it was more for my audience and i didn't
2:35:16 think about um how someone
2:35:20 from that other perspective would view
2:35:22 it um and that was
2:35:24 short-sighted i guess from my point of
2:35:26 view yeah
2:35:27 i think the biggest problem was from the
2:35:30 way i sort of when i was looking at what
2:35:32 was going on
2:35:33 was just that there was a lot of sort of
2:35:34 assumptions about what was going on in
2:35:36 the unseen part of people's hearts like
2:35:39 there was a lot of psychoanalysis or
2:35:40 going on of um
2:35:41 [Music]
2:35:43 and the losing project or assad uh he
2:35:46 was the brother that
2:35:47 uh reviewed the video with me and jake
2:35:50 um
2:35:50 and to be honest if that was something
2:35:52 that was going on with me i
2:35:54 could probably say that i'd have been
2:35:55 quite annoyed about that as well
2:35:57 um and so i think his sort of anger with
2:36:00 regards to that or annoyance at least
2:36:02 yeah i get it i definitely get it
2:36:03 because it was like
2:36:05 you were sort of watching him talking
2:36:06 and you were saying oh here he's doing
2:36:08 this because of this and he's
2:36:09 but a lot of this was was guesswork on
2:36:11 your part
2:36:12 you don't have access to that part of
2:36:13 his heart you can't really say that
2:36:15 with the confidence you were doing when
2:36:17 you were going through it
2:36:18 um it's a bit of a sort of side tangent
2:36:21 i guess it was relevant because
2:36:22 obviously now we're talking here
2:36:25 another thing that was sort of an issue
2:36:26 was um the
2:36:28 the way that pine creek came across so
2:36:30 he came across as quite genuine
2:36:33 in the uh if there were video
2:36:36 and it was nice like the muslims were
2:36:39 buzzing with the conversation we all
2:36:41 were like i was watching it i was
2:36:43 familiar with pancreatic prior to that
2:36:44 and i enjoyed watching his videos
2:36:46 obviously i'm fully aware we're on
2:36:47 opposite sides of a fence
2:36:49 uh him being an atheist me being theist
2:36:52 um but like i like the way he engaged
2:36:55 with people
2:36:56 but i wasn't i hadn't watched too many
2:36:57 of his videos i guess like maybe i
2:36:59 wasn't fully aware that this was his
2:37:01 kind of thing street epistemology
2:37:02 whatever you refer to it
2:37:03 and and then obviously that happened he
2:37:06 acted a particular way
2:37:08 and then when it he was doing the video
2:37:09 with you it came across as
2:37:12 completely different and like it was
2:37:14 famed
2:37:16 and as if it wasn't he wasn't being
2:37:18 authentic
2:37:19 and the reason i guess there was a bad
2:37:22 reaction to that
2:37:23 is because it felt authentic and that
2:37:26 was what
2:37:27 sort of led to the the nice uh feeling
2:37:30 of watching that conversation it was
2:37:31 like
2:37:32 the reason this conversation feels nice
2:37:34 is because this feels authentic
2:37:36 and then in that video it he takes away
2:37:39 the authenticity of it
2:37:41 he made it sound like he was just
2:37:42 playing a game it was just a tactic
2:37:44 he's doing this in order to uh you know
2:37:46 cause doubts in people and blah blah
2:37:48 blah
2:37:48 and i guess that's obviously the whole
2:37:50 purpose of his channel he's an atheist
2:37:52 he's pushing a particular kind of view
2:37:53 but it it kicked out any any
2:37:56 authenticity that was experienced
2:37:58 in the watching of that for anyone who
2:38:00 did watch it um
2:38:01 it was removed and not only removed it
2:38:03 was sort of swapped with a
2:38:05 like a deceitfulness um and then on top
2:38:08 of that obviously you've got this sort
2:38:09 of psychoanalysis going on and
2:38:11 it just felt like and one of the
2:38:13 arguments was it's not behind your back
2:38:16 because it's live but like for me
2:38:19 i feel as if even if it's live it can
2:38:23 still be considered somewhat backbiting
2:38:25 if the person isn't present
2:38:27 and they're not a part of that
2:38:28 conversation whether it's live or not is
2:38:31 beyond the point if they're involved in
2:38:33 the conversation and they can have a
2:38:34 back and forth with you
2:38:35 that's one thing when they're not it
2:38:37 becomes somewhat problematic and
2:38:39 i guess so that you know obviously jake
2:38:41 raising it there it
2:38:43 leads us to this point now where we're
2:38:45 having this back and forth obviously the
2:38:46 whole point of the discussion is about
2:38:48 nihilism
2:38:49 your relationship to it now so what the
2:38:51 point to what
2:38:52 degree you can sort of um admit to
2:38:57 nihilism as a sort of necessary
2:38:58 consequence of a particular kind of
2:39:00 atheism specifically
2:39:02 hard atheism for example um rather than
2:39:05 the
2:39:05 agnostic well i guess there's varying
2:39:08 versions of agnosticism so there's the
2:39:09 ones who
2:39:10 are not sure whether it's possible um
2:39:13 that they can come to a belief in god or
2:39:16 not or you know
2:39:17 because of lack of exploration of the
2:39:18 subject or those who
2:39:20 who believe that it's just not possible
2:39:21 to know which is a completely separate
2:39:23 thing
2:39:24 and so i guess you can say those who
2:39:25 believe that it's not possible to know
2:39:27 that there is a degree of nihilism
2:39:28 associated with that
2:39:30 um rather than just a lack of
2:39:32 willingness to sort of explore the
2:39:33 subjects with the second
2:39:34 and that being that they've not explored
2:39:36 such as so they don't know
2:39:38 um so we're trying to establish whether
2:39:40 or not you agree with that as a
2:39:42 conclusion like if
2:39:43 these are true does nihilism follow from
2:39:46 that
2:39:47 um now obviously along with that is this
2:39:50 i guess the notion of to what degree
2:39:52 you're being honest with us um to what
2:39:53 degree
2:39:54 you're doing what uh pancreatic did in
2:39:57 ef tower
2:39:58 um i'm getting a sense of sincerity but
2:40:02 i also got that with
2:40:03 pine creek as well so nathan
2:40:07 are you you've just said that you are
2:40:09 trying to be sincere
2:40:11 what did you think then in terms of how
2:40:13 prank creek came across was it ef tower
2:40:15 show that he was on
2:40:16 yeah uh yeah yeah so what do you think
2:40:19 to that
2:40:20 um personally i think um the way he
2:40:24 engaged
2:40:25 and i think you guys do agree to this
2:40:27 part at least
2:40:28 was a fruitful way of having a
2:40:31 conversation
2:40:32 um as in if you look at
2:40:36 i can't remember how long there is but i
2:40:38 think there's a couple of hours of
2:40:39 discussion beforehand in that
2:40:41 in that show um and if you look at
2:40:43 people when they come in and just say
2:40:45 well there is you know there is no
2:40:47 objective morality or hit
2:40:49 here's here's my story and here's why
2:40:51 you're wrong
2:40:52 um that that approach leads to conflict
2:40:56 um and it's to say this isn't to put it
2:40:58 like on the theistic worldview
2:41:00 and say that that's a consequence of
2:41:01 that it's the exact same on the atheist
2:41:02 experience because that's also their
2:41:04 um that's their um yeah their stick
2:41:07 their
2:41:08 their go to so i think that the method
2:41:10 that doug employed i don't think it was
2:41:12 dishonest of him i think it was just a
2:41:15 tactic it's
2:41:16 it's kind of like in i again i'm sure
2:41:18 there's the equivalent in
2:41:20 islamic apologetics um dean or i don't
2:41:23 know what the right terminology is but
2:41:24 in christian apologetics there's a book
2:41:25 called greg kugel's tactics
2:41:27 where they talk about avoiding um
2:41:30 talking about the specific topics and
2:41:33 just telling people that they're wrong
2:41:34 and more asking questions and leaving a
2:41:37 stone in the non-believer's shoe and
2:41:39 stuff like that and i think
2:41:40 that that's basically doug's approach
2:41:42 because it's more effective
2:41:44 now he also has beliefs that are
2:41:47 contrary to those in the islamic
2:41:49 worldview
2:41:50 and i suppose in the review we could
2:41:52 have been more charitable
2:41:53 right and that's something that i regret
2:41:56 i say
2:41:57 through the process of the last few
2:41:59 weeks i'd hope i'm a slightly better
2:42:00 person now in that
2:42:01 i'm trying to move my channel a bit more
2:42:03 away from doing that kind of thing and
2:42:05 more to just focus on the content
2:42:07 and it was uncharitable of me to do that
2:42:09 um
2:42:10 even regardless of how much i think
2:42:14 what i said was true or not um
2:42:17 and i don't know that everything as you
2:42:19 say i don't i don't know his
2:42:20 psychological states they don't know
2:42:21 everything about his background so
2:42:23 it's speculation on my part um so that's
2:42:26 not the best way of engaging in
2:42:27 discourse and i guess i see that but i
2:42:29 do think
2:42:30 that there is value in the kind of
2:42:32 conversations that look at in the first
2:42:33 place
2:42:34 but we should have perhaps dealt with it
2:42:36 differently after the fact
2:42:37 um and focus less on the psychology of
2:42:41 the people involved
2:42:44 yeah i think what it is is that what the
2:42:45 weight comes across in terms of being
2:42:47 disingenuous is
2:42:48 it's disingenuous in terms of um
2:42:52 you know i don't think anybody has a
2:42:53 problem in terms of asking questions or
2:42:54 even
2:42:55 if you want to come around and ask
2:42:57 questions to create doubts in other
2:42:58 people in terms of their own particular
2:43:00 world do challenge them
2:43:01 i think the disingenuousness was the
2:43:03 fact that he was coming across as though
2:43:05 he was agreeing he was being agreeable
2:43:07 he could understand
2:43:09 and then later on the way he spoke about
2:43:12 it is
2:43:12 it's like haha look at these muslims how
2:43:15 they're like christians and christian
2:43:17 apologetics and how silly they are
2:43:19 that's how it came across so it's like
2:43:21 this is what he had in his heart this
2:43:23 was his intention
2:43:24 and he was just doing it in order to
2:43:26 sort of create some sort of click bait
2:43:28 video later on yeah it sort of it felt
2:43:31 like it moved to mockery rather than to
2:43:34 like
2:43:34 hey i like you guys i like you guys and
2:43:36 then you go behind your back and then
2:43:38 like those guys are stupid kind of thing
2:43:40 yeah and i don't think that that should
2:43:41 be something that we should
2:43:43 you know necessarily defend nathan so
2:43:46 i'm quite surprised that you're saying
2:43:47 dog
2:43:48 doug's doing you know he's being genuine
2:43:50 and this that and the other when that
2:43:51 doesn't come across as genuine
2:43:54 i i think he is um i guess you would
2:43:58 have to get to to know him and have more
2:44:00 conversations um
2:44:02 i mean that like there's aspects of um
2:44:06 doug's character and stuff that i
2:44:07 disagree with but i think in general
2:44:09 he's a pretty honest guy who's trying to
2:44:12 well he's just trying to have fun i
2:44:14 think with his channel really um
2:44:16 now that's not to say i'm always on
2:44:19 board with
2:44:20 with everything he does or anything like
2:44:21 that like i think my channel has a
2:44:23 slightly different design where i enjoy
2:44:25 interviewing philosophers and trying to
2:44:27 um
2:44:29 i suppose i suppose i'll have people on
2:44:31 of different agreements where
2:44:32 i want of different positions where i
2:44:34 want to kind of bring out the best in
2:44:35 them even if i disagree
2:44:37 um and i think doug's channel is more
2:44:39 about these conversations with people
2:44:40 who have quite extreme world views
2:44:43 um to do with theism or um
2:44:46 or other topics and he's trying to
2:44:48 reduce their confidence through having
2:44:50 these conversations but i think building
2:44:51 rapport is a part of that
2:44:53 um i think that's how i mean if you're
2:44:56 in different tribal camps it's how you
2:44:57 get someone in that other camp to
2:44:59 humanize you
2:45:00 without just seeing you as this target
2:45:01 for um
2:45:03 you know like some argument that you've
2:45:05 never heard of or something intimidating
2:45:08 building report i don't think anybody's
2:45:10 going to say building rapport
2:45:12 yeah trying to get people to like use a
2:45:14 normal nice
2:45:15 thing but it's just when it becomes
2:45:17 associated with a sense of mockery of
2:45:19 that person it's
2:45:21 it like i said in the earlier part of it
2:45:23 sort of
2:45:24 removes any authenticity and there was a
2:45:26 similar thing so
2:45:27 one of the things that doug was doing he
2:45:29 mentioned like at the beginning he was
2:45:30 like
2:45:31 oh those pesky christians that you had
2:45:33 on before you don't they're wrong
2:45:34 and you did a very like a little bit
2:45:37 similar the thing you came on and you
2:45:38 said
2:45:39 oh i disagreed with all of the guests
2:45:41 that you came on and said
2:45:43 when it when it becomes a bit like
2:45:45 you're reading from
2:45:46 a book it loses its effect if we can see
2:45:50 it
2:45:50 right and so it undermines the purpose
2:45:53 of
2:45:53 sort of using it at all um i guess from
2:45:56 that perspective
2:45:58 okay and then and then unfortunately
2:45:59 then we have to ask you the question are
2:46:01 you just building
2:46:02 and then what are you doing sincere or
2:46:04 is this just something that you want to
2:46:06 put on your
2:46:07 youtube channel and go ha ha look at
2:46:09 these muslims
2:46:10 and many of your audience probably won't
2:46:12 come back and watch the full stream and
2:46:14 therefore understand the context of the
2:46:15 discussion
2:46:16 that we've been having yeah
2:46:20 he's teaming up with me with andrew luke
2:46:22 so that sounds
2:46:24 like another building rapport approach
2:46:26 yeah
2:46:27 yeah it's basically it it ends up being
2:46:30 counterproductive like
2:46:31 the whole goal of these things was to
2:46:33 sort of draw a closeness but then it
2:46:34 just think it
2:46:35 i guess creates a doubt in the people
2:46:37 you're engaging with um
2:46:39 which and we wouldn't want to doubt you
2:46:41 nathan because like i said you come
2:46:42 across very respectful you come across
2:46:44 really nice on here
2:46:46 you know um and we would want to have
2:46:49 that ability to have that
2:46:50 continued honest discussion where we can
2:46:53 sort of
2:46:54 trust each other's intentions if you
2:46:56 know what i mean
2:46:58 yeah i i i get i get where you guys are
2:47:00 coming from and i guess um
2:47:02 that's why in this context i'm here
2:47:04 having a conversation like this i
2:47:05 suppose rather than
2:47:07 just sort of like live streaming at the
2:47:09 same time and commentating on you guys
2:47:10 psychology or something
2:47:12 um it's not to say i've i've always been
2:47:15 perfect
2:47:16 i mean i i tend to keep things up on my
2:47:18 channel that i disagree with now
2:47:20 um to show that i i'm certainly like
2:47:24 wrong on a lot of occasions or i don't
2:47:25 always
2:47:26 do the best thing um so
2:47:29 which is why i have my like christian
2:47:30 conversion testimony up there or um like
2:47:33 a video i made
2:47:34 about a response between uh joe schmid
2:47:38 and my friend james fodor about the
2:47:40 definition of atheism where i now
2:47:41 probably disagree with the things i said
2:47:43 in that um
2:47:45 and i think that my my audience sort of
2:47:47 appreciates watching
2:47:48 that intellectual development over time
2:47:50 or the character development as i figure
2:47:52 out what my positions are
2:47:54 and and progress and change on them yeah
2:47:56 and i don't think anybody has a problem
2:47:58 in terms of having
2:47:59 you know character development in terms
2:48:01 of your ideas are changing over time and
2:48:03 that would be interesting
2:48:05 but i think the problem is as soon as
2:48:07 people doubt
2:48:08 your honesty on streams
2:48:11 then that really puts into question
2:48:14 everything that you do even though
2:48:16 his earlier videos because like well is
2:48:18 he just doing it for being honest or is
2:48:20 it
2:48:20 just he's trying to say yeah you know i
2:48:22 used to be a christian i converted and
2:48:24 then
2:48:24 ha ha no i'm no longer one that was
2:48:27 cameron batuzi's theory
2:48:28 um without with andrew loke in the in
2:48:31 the screenshot it was that i
2:48:32 liked my deconversion story and i mean
2:48:35 there are there
2:48:35 if people i mean someone could
2:48:36 rationally form that belief i think i i
2:48:39 like i don't think it's true it wouldn't
2:48:40 be rational for me to believe it right i
2:48:42 mean but nathan how do we even know the
2:48:43 screenshot exists you could just be
2:48:45 making it up well
2:48:46 yeah yeah i could message it to you i
2:48:50 could provide it to you if you like
2:48:52 okay yeah i would like to see it maybe
2:48:54 maybe nathan is
2:48:56 what maybe where we're coming from is
2:48:58 maybe a point of advice
2:49:00 yeah yeah which is the point of advice
2:49:02 would be this
2:49:04 is be that sincere and honest person
2:49:06 that i think you want to be
2:49:08 and project that within within the
2:49:11 within the
2:49:12 youtube and on social media so that
2:49:14 people don't doubt
2:49:15 your character don't think oh is he
2:49:17 really being honest or is it just for
2:49:19 clickbait views or you know what is it
2:49:22 so you know be that person
2:49:24 and advise doug i would you know in your
2:49:27 perspective if you know him very well or
2:49:28 you know know him to say actually maybe
2:49:31 that wasn't the best way to do it and
2:49:33 then to try to
2:49:34 you know come across as so actually we
2:49:36 were just having a bit of a laugh
2:49:38 and a joke and mocking them from behind
2:49:40 the scenes
2:49:41 but they just didn't realize at the time
2:49:43 so maybe say look this isn't the best
2:49:44 way to
2:49:45 to approach things because if you want
2:49:47 to
2:49:48 uh encourage and build the discourse
2:49:52 and i think that's really important
2:49:53 because you know hopefully we're all
2:49:54 truth seekers
2:49:56 then you know and you want to do that as
2:49:57 well then the best way is
2:49:59 it has to be through honest characters
2:50:01 isn't it
2:50:02 being open yeah being transparent to a
2:50:04 certain extent
2:50:07 yeah i think i think i brought i'm
2:50:08 broadly in agreement with pretty much
2:50:10 everything you said there you know i
2:50:12 think there's a cut like
2:50:13 i do think there's a bit um of a
2:50:15 complicated um
2:50:17 thing about everything that's going on
2:50:18 in that scenario like you've got to take
2:50:20 it safe from
2:50:21 from my point of view where i'm right i
2:50:24 have like a relatively high credence
2:50:26 that what
2:50:27 your guys position is wrong for example
2:50:29 and then i see that
2:50:30 my uh someone who's like my friend doug
2:50:33 has done this video and then i think i'm
2:50:34 just going to do this stream
2:50:35 and from my the point of view of my
2:50:37 psychology i guess i'm sort of
2:50:40 just thinking i'm talking to my own
2:50:42 audience not thinking the full thing
2:50:43 through but yeah i agree with what
2:50:44 you're saying that in
2:50:45 in future um and and as a result of
2:50:48 going through things like this it's like
2:50:49 well let's try and be a bit less
2:50:51 let's try and make fewer of those
2:50:52 mistakes maybe to to a smaller degree
2:50:55 yeah
2:50:55 so to kind of bring it back to obviously
2:50:57 then i don't want it to go off from too
2:50:59 much of it yeah yeah in this particular
2:51:00 conversation so
2:51:01 so back to the idea of nihilism um
2:51:05 just like a sort of do you do you think
2:51:08 that it's
2:51:09 correct to say that atheism or this um
2:51:12 hard agnosticism lead to nihilism
2:51:16 i i don't think so um i think that
2:51:20 to uh atheism if we if we take it to be
2:51:23 say um the belief that there are no gods
2:51:27 then there's a whole range of uh
2:51:30 metaphysical position someone could take
2:51:32 now you i mean you could always say
2:51:34 well you're not convinced of those but i
2:51:36 suppose the the point isn't to convince
2:51:38 you it's to convince the hypothetical
2:51:39 person who's
2:51:40 an atheist and looking for a way of you
2:51:42 know a way to account for moral facts
2:51:44 like you you know
2:51:45 you can be a a platonist or a
2:51:47 neo-aristotelian of some sort or
2:51:49 um you know you can be a cornell realist
2:51:51 and a reductive naturalist there's
2:51:52 there's
2:51:53 tons of positions out there you could
2:51:54 take yeah another there is so
2:51:56 for me i think i guess the the major
2:51:58 issue is that to sort of get access to
2:52:00 these you you need to be
2:52:02 inclined to a particular type of being
2:52:04 that is like
2:52:05 for example you need to be interested in
2:52:06 reading you need to be interested in
2:52:08 looking into these sort of abstract
2:52:09 arguments and conversations and things
2:52:11 like that
2:52:11 now i think for the majority of lay
2:52:13 people where you know they've got a
2:52:15 nine-to-five job
2:52:16 um they don't read often their thing is
2:52:19 maybe watching youtube videos and this
2:52:21 time the other
2:52:22 that a lot of these sort of complex
2:52:24 philosophies
2:52:25 um that can sort of in a way whether or
2:52:28 not
2:52:29 obviously they're true is a separate
2:52:30 argument um
2:52:32 but you know they don't have access to
2:52:34 that simply because it's just not
2:52:36 something they're into
2:52:37 um so would you say that in order to
2:52:41 overcome
2:52:43 nihilism as an atheist or an agnostic
2:52:45 that you need to be
2:52:46 someone who's sort of into this abstract
2:52:48 philosophy
2:52:49 in order to be equipped to deal with it
2:52:52 and that for example maybe the layman
2:52:54 has to avoid it with other forms of
2:52:56 escapism so we were mentioning things
2:52:58 like
2:52:58 you know like uh alcohol or parties or
2:53:02 whatever computer games
2:53:03 whatever it is um netflix binging
2:53:07 yeah i i think there's i think there's a
2:53:09 couple of things that might be
2:53:11 sort of getting confused in the
2:53:14 discourse here
2:53:15 and that is sort of someone's theory of
2:53:18 why the appearance of the world is the
2:53:21 way it is
2:53:22 which and how someone lives um
2:53:26 and obviously like those two can be
2:53:27 interconnected like your theory of why
2:53:28 the world is the way
2:53:29 it is can like inform the way that you
2:53:31 behave and act but um
2:53:33 you know someone can live their whole
2:53:35 life never caring less about what
2:53:37 accounts for moral facts
2:53:38 yeah and just be content like some
2:53:40 people are just like that and i think
2:53:41 that
2:53:42 um that sort of comes down to just
2:53:45 character differences
2:53:46 um yeah but nathan what you were saying
2:53:50 earlier we need to end this very soon
2:53:52 but what you were saying earlier about
2:53:53 great grand mopey and an explanation
2:53:57 uh sorry i i'm wondering if if if
2:54:00 uh if you know explanatory virtue is
2:54:04 just about you know
2:54:06 saying or or making some kind of
2:54:08 assertion
2:54:09 and you know adding layers to to to your
2:54:12 ontology without some kind of
2:54:14 substantiation and voila we've got the
2:54:16 same explanatory virtue like
2:54:18 like merely saying that i have this
2:54:21 naturalistic picture
2:54:22 plus objective moral facts that
2:54:25 supervene on
2:54:26 natural reality reality somehow and
2:54:29 in terms of explanatory virtue i mean
2:54:31 sure there is
2:54:33 coherence there in terms of like there
2:54:35 there's no inconsistency
2:54:37 but um does that make them on equal
2:54:40 grounding in terms of explanatory virtue
2:54:41 i'm talking about theism versus
2:54:43 this naturalism naturalistic account of
2:54:46 objective morality
2:54:48 um i mean it depends which
2:54:51 you'd have to tell me i suppose which
2:54:54 thing um
2:54:55 you know which particular phenomena say
2:54:58 um
2:54:59 naturalism isn't accounted for or where
2:55:01 it's too ontologically liberal compared
2:55:03 to theism or something
2:55:05 um i think a naturalist story can
2:55:07 account for all these facts and be just
2:55:08 as parsimonious and have
2:55:10 you know just as good a fit to the data
2:55:12 as the theistic one
2:55:13 and so you don't think that's sorry
2:55:16 so you don't think it's it's like
2:55:19 ontologically liberal to
2:55:20 say that we have this uh material world
2:55:25 and we're going to add to our ontology
2:55:27 some
2:55:28 some form of moral facts that supervene
2:55:32 on the material reality
2:55:33 we don't know how but moral facts that
2:55:36 we see from our subjective view as
2:55:38 normative
2:55:39 as requiring to some kind of
2:55:41 consciousness or mind dependency
2:55:44 somehow that isn't necessary they
2:55:46 supervene on the material
2:55:47 and you don't think that's ontologically
2:55:50 liberal
2:55:52 um only as ontologically liberal as the
2:55:56 theist picture is going to be
2:55:57 if you're talking about that
2:55:58 non-realistic sorry non-natural picture
2:56:00 but um a reductive naturalist isn't
2:56:03 gonna um well i mean i suppose they
2:56:04 might use the same language of super
2:56:06 venus
2:56:07 but um that you know there's different
2:56:08 pictures we could be painting here like
2:56:09 my friend james fodor
2:56:11 is a reductive naturalist and he um says
2:56:14 he can account for
2:56:15 um moral facts in this reductive natural
2:56:19 picture you know that
2:56:20 there's nothing beyond the physical in
2:56:21 his worldview um
2:56:23 i've interviewed like russia for lando
2:56:25 lando who takes the position that there
2:56:27 you know these non-natural things that
2:56:29 supervene somehow i but i think the
2:56:31 problem's still there for things yeah
2:56:32 but
2:56:33 orlando just sorry safe orlando just
2:56:35 asserts that i i just don't
2:56:36 what i'm saying is uh and i know shay
2:56:38 ferlando like wrote a book where he
2:56:40 he has an extensive defense of this i
2:56:42 don't want to undermine that or
2:56:42 oversimplify it what i'm saying is
2:56:44 that uh you're saying it's it's on equal
2:56:47 grounding or as
2:56:48 equally ontological liberal as a
2:56:50 theistic picture i'm wondering how that
2:56:52 is the case because remember we're just
2:56:53 comparing
2:56:54 not it's not about the existence of god
2:56:56 here we're comparing a
2:56:57 conscious mind a a a that
2:57:00 grounds the source of objective morality
2:57:05 and morality being this this uh
2:57:07 normative framework we have about you
2:57:09 know
2:57:10 what we ought do is something that we
2:57:13 find
2:57:13 necessarily must be sourced not in some
2:57:15 kind of if it's objective
2:57:17 not in in in matter i mean i think
2:57:19 that's that's
2:57:20 at least you could say that's that you
2:57:22 have to say that's intuitive so i'm
2:57:23 wondering how those are an equal footing
2:57:25 if i'm saying there's a mind
2:57:27 that says you ought to do such and
2:57:29 you're saying no
2:57:30 there's no mind there's material plus
2:57:33 some kind of
2:57:34 i don't know abstract fact uh that super
2:57:37 beans on the material that says you
2:57:39 shouldn't kill babies
2:57:40 i i just don't i don't see how those two
2:57:44 are equally uh you know explanatory
2:57:47 virtuous so um
2:57:51 i suppose the the reductive naturalist
2:57:54 is gonna
2:57:54 tell you some story about physical
2:57:56 states of affairs so in their ontology
2:57:58 they've got one kind of thing
2:58:00 uh physical stuff or whatever you know
2:58:02 the most fundamental kind of particle is
2:58:04 and they're going to tell you some story
2:58:05 about how that accounts for the
2:58:06 phenomena
2:58:07 and the the non-natural moral realist is
2:58:10 going to tell you
2:58:10 uh like you said about these abstractor
2:58:13 that somehow
2:58:14 super venom or have something to do with
2:58:16 it um and then there's you know there's
2:58:17 going to be various kind of theories
2:58:19 within that um and then again
2:58:22 the theist i i don't know too much about
2:58:24 islamic theology so
2:58:26 but i can say at least within christian
2:58:27 theology there's various positions
2:58:28 someone might take so there might be
2:58:30 a neoplatonist for example there might
2:58:32 be a theistic voluntarist where it's
2:58:34 god's commands
2:58:34 and the question is still there about
2:58:36 you know how do these beliefs that god
2:58:38 has in his mind have anything to do with
2:58:40 it being wrong that i do something like
2:58:42 how do they
2:58:43 supervene on the physical states of
2:58:44 affairs how do like all those
2:58:47 i think the problems are there for any
2:58:48 view ultimately um
2:58:50 and then it just comes down to you know
2:58:53 which which one of those are you going
2:58:54 to pick according to
2:58:55 the theoretical virtues that you think
2:58:57 they they achieve or something like that
2:58:58 but i think i think they all hit that
2:59:00 point but on you on your yeah so on your
2:59:03 view
2:59:03 the the um because you see
2:59:08 from from a naturalist perspective from
2:59:09 an atheist perspective generally you
2:59:11 see this idea for example you guys a lot
2:59:13 of times you say that theists have this
2:59:14 you know go-to card of god did it right
2:59:17 right so how did such and such happen
2:59:19 god did it right
2:59:20 that's that's doesn't seem to be a
2:59:22 reasonable approach to take and
2:59:24 when it comes to you know uh asserting
2:59:27 things about reality or
2:59:28 or or forming beliefs about reality
2:59:30 right so
2:59:31 it it seems to me that you're just the
2:59:34 naturalist who
2:59:35 kind of makes this account and says that
2:59:38 there is some kind of actual
2:59:39 ontological account backgrounds uh
2:59:43 objective realism will be doing the same
2:59:44 thing if you're gonna say they're not
2:59:46 and they
2:59:47 are just doing what the theist is doing
2:59:49 then
2:59:50 what you're saying is that the
2:59:51 materialist forming
2:59:54 a meaningful an account of meaning
2:59:57 from a reductive materialist worldview
3:00:01 has an equally simple and easy task as
3:00:04 a theist who believes in a fundamental
3:00:07 mind
3:00:08 that grounds morality and objective
3:00:11 truth i mean
3:00:12 are do do those two seem like they
3:00:15 have a similar kind of burden to bear in
3:00:18 terms of grounding objective morality
3:00:22 um well it depends what you mean like
3:00:23 burden to bear yes i think like both
3:00:26 has to um do their best to sort of
3:00:30 make the case for their position sort of
3:00:32 thing if that's that's what you talk
3:00:33 about the magnitude sorry just to
3:00:34 clarify so you can answer clearly
3:00:36 i'm talking about the magnitude of the
3:00:38 task at hand you know
3:00:39 one compared to another theism and and
3:00:42 uh
3:00:43 reductive materialism you think that the
3:00:45 the magnitude
3:00:46 of the task or the the the the work they
3:00:49 have to do in order to
3:00:50 uh have a grounding for objective
3:00:52 morality or objective meaning
3:00:54 on their worldviews are are those on
3:00:57 equal grounding those two tasks
3:01:00 um for me i think so yeah i do think so
3:01:03 so me telling you that there is a mind
3:01:06 that is telling me it is good to do this
3:01:08 and it is bad to do that is the same
3:01:10 as me telling you there is a particle
3:01:12 out there that
3:01:13 basically grounds the fact that it is
3:01:16 good to do this
3:01:17 and it is bad to do that those two in
3:01:19 terms of explanatory virtue
3:01:21 they are on par with one another
3:01:24 well um so the first thing to say i
3:01:27 suppose is that
3:01:28 the the reductive naturalist isn't
3:01:29 saying there's a particle that tells you
3:01:31 they're saying that some particular
3:01:33 arrangement of physical facts just is
3:01:34 what
3:01:35 good means um now
3:01:38 is there an issue for the theist view i
3:01:42 think so like
3:01:42 i i mean i'd want to know so so there's
3:01:45 this this mind telling you
3:01:47 that it that it's good to do a certain
3:01:49 thing and i guess my question would be
3:01:51 well like in virtue of what is it good
3:01:54 like
3:01:55 how how does it know it's good there's
3:01:57 so many questions and then we're gonna
3:01:59 we're gonna have this question of
3:02:00 um well let's say there is this property
3:02:03 like goodness
3:02:04 well what does it have to do with the
3:02:06 situation of the physical facts like how
3:02:08 is it interacting with those state of
3:02:09 affairs like
3:02:10 there's this isn't to say that theists
3:02:12 can't actually
3:02:13 yeah sorry yeah so that you feel for
3:02:16 dilemma i mean you could you could
3:02:16 simply say that
3:02:17 you know god is the grounding of
3:02:18 morality you know i'm sure
3:02:20 you you're familiar with a um modified
3:02:24 forms of
3:02:24 of the divine command theory where god's
3:02:26 nature grounds
3:02:28 the objective of grounds objective
3:02:30 morality uh
3:02:31 but i i think i still still want to
3:02:33 press you on that point you're saying
3:02:35 that
3:02:36 uh a certain arrange arrangement of
3:02:38 atoms and molecules
3:02:40 uh kinds of ground grounds the meaning
3:02:42 of
3:02:43 good and bad but it's quite obvious to
3:02:45 me that
3:02:46 you know moral uh you know uh
3:02:49 uh values are normative they're not
3:02:53 they're not
3:02:53 they're not descriptive of your reality
3:02:55 you're saying you ought to do something
3:02:57 they're saying something
3:02:58 is uh virtuous or something is morally
3:03:02 uh you know uh reprehensible that's
3:03:04 these are
3:03:05 normative claims that don't seem to be
3:03:08 descriptive of
3:03:09 atoms bumping into each other but
3:03:11 somehow you're telling me that
3:03:13 adam's one atom bumping into another can
3:03:16 explain that
3:03:17 as well as a mind that informs you of
3:03:21 that
3:03:21 as well as a mind that governs it
3:03:24 because you know the fact that it is a
3:03:25 normative
3:03:26 fact kind of uh um
3:03:29 intuitively requires some kind of mind
3:03:33 to to to you know ground it so so it's
3:03:36 it's
3:03:36 it's yeah go on i was just gonna say
3:03:38 just to interject so
3:03:39 i'll let you finish what you're gonna
3:03:40 say and then obviously i'll let um
3:03:42 gnosis nathan respond and i'm just
3:03:46 conscious so it's three hours into it
3:03:47 now yeah um i think it might be good
3:03:49 that we
3:03:50 maybe we try to organize in future um an
3:03:52 episode on morality
3:03:54 in yeah in particular um where we can
3:03:57 maybe get into the
3:03:58 the meat and potatoes of that in a bit
3:03:59 more detail uh because this is
3:04:01 is a very yeah so maybe maybe yeah so
3:04:04 maybe nathan could reply and then sharif
3:04:06 can end it
3:04:07 yeah like just yeah we'll wrap up here
3:04:10 and then we'll
3:04:11 we'll talk maybe about arranging
3:04:12 something in the future where we can go
3:04:14 into morality and then
3:04:15 if obviously we can let nathan know uh
3:04:17 in advance or something maybe he can
3:04:19 jump on early
3:04:20 um and then obviously we won't have
3:04:21 these as
3:04:23 as much of a time restraint in terms of
3:04:25 where the conversation can go
3:04:26 um yeah sorry go ahead uh nathan if you
3:04:28 wanna know nathan you can
3:04:30 give your final thoughts and then and
3:04:31 then we'll end it
3:04:33 yeah i i just think from my point of
3:04:36 view
3:04:37 that um there's still issues
3:04:40 um for the theist in term in terms of
3:04:42 normativity and how they get it
3:04:44 um there's still issues for that
3:04:46 particular response to um response to
3:04:47 the youth
3:04:48 dilemma and god's nature is what it is
3:04:50 in virtue of what or is it just a
3:04:52 tautology
3:04:53 um and then yeah what did i want to say
3:04:57 so so the physicalist
3:04:59 who is saying that who's a moral realist
3:05:01 like a
3:05:02 let's take a reductive naturalist
3:05:03 approach because that's the position
3:05:05 that i suppose seems most
3:05:07 counterintuitive to most theists and
3:05:09 unless you're uh what's his name uh
3:05:12 hobbs the author of leviathan or
3:05:13 something but um
3:05:14 you know it seems the most
3:05:16 counterintuitive because moral facts
3:05:18 seem
3:05:19 uh not like these descriptions of like a
3:05:21 third person view we give on reality but
3:05:23 the people who adopt a reductive
3:05:25 naturalism
3:05:26 um they're just saying that you know
3:05:29 like what what minds are and minds are
3:05:31 the things that
3:05:32 have motivations to do certain things
3:05:34 and these moral facts might be relations
3:05:36 between these kind of minds and things
3:05:37 like that
3:05:38 and they're just going to offer you a
3:05:40 fully reductive story in terms of what
3:05:42 that normative
3:05:43 normativity is and what an account for
3:05:45 it is now you can say
3:05:46 well that doesn't work for me i think it
3:05:48 has to be this kind of explanation where
3:05:51 um a supreme being is telling you
3:05:53 otherwise it's not
3:05:54 real normativity or something like that
3:05:55 but i think that they're able to do it
3:05:57 in just in just the same way um
3:06:00 [Music]
3:06:01 and i i i can appreciate that's not
3:06:03 going to be might not be good enough for
3:06:04 you and that's probably why you're a
3:06:05 theist right in the
3:06:06 or why you know why these reasons
3:06:09 provide you with justification to be a
3:06:10 theist but
3:06:11 i can from where i'm sitting i can see
3:06:13 how that's good enough for the reductive
3:06:15 naturalist atheist as well
3:06:17 cool thank you nathan for coming on uh
3:06:19 hopefully we'll get you back on
3:06:21 uh um
3:06:24 on a future discussion and maybe we can
3:06:26 talk about this in
3:06:27 more detail but do we know which was our
3:06:30 next
3:06:30 what's our next episode consciousness
3:06:34 yeah and that's with yeah so maybe we'll
3:06:36 do the morality after that
3:06:38 um so probably in about four weeks from
3:06:40 now maybe insha'allah
3:06:42 um we'll see what's going on yeah
3:06:45 okay thanks thanks a lot nathan take
3:06:47 care yeah thanks guys yeah you've been
3:06:49 very pleasant and
3:06:50 uh yeah if i'm around i'll see you guys
3:06:52 in a few weeks no problem okay
3:06:54 take care bye
3:06:57 okay um
3:07:00 i don't know if anybody wants to say any
3:07:03 last words particularly upon what nathan
3:07:05 was saying think uh
3:07:07 he was trying to claim that there's some
3:07:09 sort of euthyrone's
3:07:10 euthyphro's euthyphro yeah
3:07:14 yeah i guess the issue is is that when
3:07:17 we say that god's maximally good being
3:07:19 it comes as
3:07:20 as just joshua rasmussen would probably
3:07:22 say
3:07:23 it's part of the definition of a
3:07:25 necessary being that it would have to
3:07:26 have maximal traits
3:07:28 including being maximally moral so yeah
3:07:30 you're suffering i cut you off sorry
3:07:32 yeah no no so for me i didn't really
3:07:34 want to mention too much on the
3:07:36 the ending of the conversation sort of
3:07:38 focusing on to what degree we can
3:07:39 justify morality are not in any
3:07:41 particular world view but just more on
3:07:42 this idea of nihilism
3:07:44 um so for me the point was mainly
3:07:47 um that nihilism is a problem that many
3:07:49 people do suffer from it
3:07:51 um there may be ways of sort of trying
3:07:54 to stem
3:07:54 that with complex philosophies um
3:07:58 but personally i feel that those
3:08:00 philosophies themselves don't really
3:08:02 do a good job at that if anything they
3:08:04 can often for the person that approaches
3:08:07 them
3:08:07 can accentuate the problem or make it
3:08:09 harder especially for people that are
3:08:11 not necessarily equipped
3:08:12 which is the average person um with
3:08:14 being able to sort of dip their toes
3:08:15 into
3:08:16 the complex abstract philosophy um and
3:08:19 so
3:08:19 they don't offer a viable solution to
3:08:22 the problem of
3:08:23 nihilism for the layman um and so what
3:08:26 the layman is left with
3:08:28 um and by layman i'm not talking
3:08:30 specifically theists or atheists but
3:08:31 just globally
3:08:32 what the layman is left with is forms of
3:08:35 escapism
3:08:36 um in the west they do that with um
3:08:39 moving towards uh you know materialism
3:08:42 hedonism um and you know in forms of
3:08:45 that and and it's basically an
3:08:47 it's an escapism they recognize a
3:08:49 problem they feel the problem
3:08:51 the you know the problem is sort of
3:08:53 overwhelming them uh very much like the
3:08:55 bad weather doesn't you know they're
3:08:56 outside and they don't have a house to
3:08:57 go into
3:08:58 um so they distract themselves with
3:09:01 something in order so they don't have to
3:09:03 pay attention to the condition that
3:09:04 they're in
3:09:05 um i and that is the the the aim that i
3:09:08 had for this stream in particular what i
3:09:10 wanted to sort of
3:09:11 show or at least argue and i hope i made
3:09:14 that point clear at the beginning um was
3:09:16 that it is a problem and that you can
3:09:18 see
3:09:18 that there's a correlation with this
3:09:20 idea or this understanding of nihilism
3:09:21 of
3:09:22 the life being meaningless um being
3:09:24 associated with rates of suicide
3:09:27 that if you are committing suicide that
3:09:28 you must by definition also be
3:09:31 nihilist or nihilistic uh and the stats
3:09:34 of suicide are quite
3:09:35 scary as well that is um something like
3:09:38 i think it was
3:09:38 uh who released an article that showed
3:09:41 around 800 000 people
3:09:44 per year end their lives and that's
3:09:46 equivalent to a large city
3:09:49 every year just ending its life and then
3:09:51 even more attempt and fail so there's
3:09:53 like one in four
3:09:55 um attempted sorry
3:09:58 there's like for every one active
3:10:00 suicide that is successful
3:10:02 there is another up to like maybe four
3:10:05 people who have attempted suicide and
3:10:07 failed
3:10:08 so those numbers increase even more and
3:10:10 then you have the people that
3:10:12 don't attempt to as suicide but think
3:10:14 about it because they suffer from
3:10:16 nihilism or they suffer from depression
3:10:18 um severely
3:10:20 and so they have to try to deal with
3:10:22 that and think and you know come up with
3:10:24 coping mechanisms but
3:10:25 all in all i would say that this is
3:10:27 ultimately because of a
3:10:29 a sense of nihilism that people are
3:10:31 currently experiencing and that the
3:10:32 modern condition
3:10:33 really does feed into that and there's a
3:10:35 number of things that it does that with
3:10:37 mainly an overabundance of information
3:10:40 there's just too much out there
3:10:41 people feel incapable of being able to
3:10:44 deal with the amount of information out
3:10:45 there
3:10:46 um and you see this being expressed in
3:10:48 when people apostate they often
3:10:50 bring forward the idea of what the
3:10:52 chances i was born into the right
3:10:53 religion
3:10:54 or you know there's all there's 10 000
3:10:56 gods which one's the right one blah blah
3:10:58 blah
3:10:58 and it's often a very like overly
3:11:01 simplistic
3:11:02 method of um rejection like
3:11:05 like there isn't methods that you can
3:11:07 utilize in order to reduce the amount of
3:11:09 numbers
3:11:10 in the same way the um the positive
3:11:12 atheist or the atheist proper might say
3:11:14 um i've looked into it and the idea of
3:11:17 the supernatural or
3:11:19 a god at all doesn't make sense to me
3:11:21 therefore
3:11:22 all religions must be false what they do
3:11:24 is they they ask a fundamental question
3:11:27 and then they make a category and
3:11:28 anything that falls into that category
3:11:30 um is thrown out the window but the
3:11:32 simple facts of there being a plurality
3:11:34 of
3:11:35 positions on the idea of god isn't
3:11:37 reason enough to reject it
3:11:39 to reject that category of the the
3:11:40 supernatural and
3:11:42 there are methods and obviously we've
3:11:43 gone through a few of them we're going
3:11:44 to go through more in the future as well
3:11:46 but there are methods of coming to the
3:11:48 understanding that there is a necessary
3:11:50 being and then there are arguments that
3:11:51 do move from the argument of a necessary
3:11:53 being
3:11:54 to one that is a god or that has
3:11:56 characteristics
3:11:57 uh that would fit that of being called a
3:11:59 god and
3:12:01 then you can go through this method of
3:12:03 um
3:12:04 elimination where you can say well what
3:12:06 you know if there is a god
3:12:08 uh you know what is the character is it
3:12:11 more likely to be one god or a
3:12:12 multiplicity is it more likely to be a
3:12:14 trinity
3:12:15 um you know does it have x qualities or
3:12:17 not and then through this you can go
3:12:19 through a process of elimination
3:12:20 and you know if for example you can give
3:12:23 a viable argument for the absurdity of
3:12:25 polytheism
3:12:27 or for there to be the necessity of
3:12:29 monotheism underpinning
3:12:30 the development of any sort of
3:12:32 polytheism then you can
3:12:33 write off any polytheistic religion and
3:12:36 what does that
3:12:36 do that just so happens to reduce a very
3:12:40 large number of gods
3:12:41 from the pool of ten thousand um or ten
3:12:44 million however i don't even know how
3:12:46 many
3:12:46 hinduism's got these days but there's a
3:12:48 lot and you by doing that you can
3:12:50 go through this process of elimination
3:12:51 and it makes the process easier to
3:12:53 analyze
3:12:53 it's not a case of just oh there's 10
3:12:55 million um but like i said
3:12:57 the condition of nihilism is just this
3:12:59 over abundance of information
3:13:00 we've become a globally connected world
3:13:02 and all of these religions
3:13:04 are you know on your phone you can just
3:13:07 google it and you'll see and people
3:13:09 become overwhelmed by that they don't
3:13:10 have
3:13:11 uh the tools to be able to sort of deal
3:13:13 with so much information and so they
3:13:14 don't feel that there is enough time in
3:13:16 life
3:13:17 to be able to overcome that problem and
3:13:19 so it's not necessarily a case of
3:13:22 epistemic nihilism as being a fact of
3:13:24 life
3:13:25 so they don't think that you know it
3:13:27 maybe they believe that if i had enough
3:13:29 time in life
3:13:29 i could get knowledge i could figure
3:13:31 these things out but i don't
3:13:33 i'm not guaranteed 20 years maybe i'll
3:13:35 live 80 if i'm lucky
3:13:37 but that i don't see is enough time to
3:13:39 be able to do
3:13:40 what i need to do in order to find what
3:13:41 truth is or to find knowledge
3:13:43 and so they avoid it they see it as like
3:13:45 i don't have the time so what's the
3:13:46 point in doing it
3:13:47 in the same way that maybe someone says
3:13:49 well i don't have the time
3:13:50 to to build a um this
3:13:54 toy like i i don't have the time to do
3:13:56 it so i'm not even going to bother
3:13:57 starting doing it
3:13:58 because i'm never going to get around to
3:14:00 finishing it so why build the toy at all
3:14:02 i'm going to focus on things i do have
3:14:03 time to do
3:14:04 and obviously that ends up kind of
3:14:06 falling into the category of hedonism
3:14:08 etc
3:14:08 um
3:14:14 um so to close there are methods to
3:14:17 overcome this i've done a series on this
3:14:18 um there's a number of my words i was
3:14:20 going to announce that
3:14:21 yeah in the description i've put it in
3:14:23 the description now as well so
3:14:24 it's underneath the title yusuf's work
3:14:26 on nihilism there's a couple of
3:14:28 playlists there there's my dissertation
3:14:30 um that i did for uni for my philosophy
3:14:32 degree
3:14:33 and then there's the article that i
3:14:34 wrote for sapius institute um
3:14:36 those are there do watch them the
3:14:38 specifically the sapience institute
3:14:40 playlist as well um there's methods on
3:14:42 how to overcome these problems and
3:14:43 things like that
3:14:44 and uh in short i'm gonna go into that
3:14:46 in a lot more detail in the future as
3:14:47 well
3:14:48 um so do check that out and i'll leave
3:14:50 it to the next
3:14:51 host sorry for the long rumble
3:14:54 no it's just like her to the brothers i
3:14:56 don't know if anybody was going to say
3:14:58 anything quickly last
3:15:01 year we've said it all yeah
3:15:04 i want to
3:15:07 as you can see i got kicked out of my
3:15:09 house and now i'm sat in the car because
3:15:11 uh it's dark and late at night
3:15:14 but uh just a quick announcement so in
3:15:17 the next two weeks in charlotte we've
3:15:19 got the uh
3:15:20 next stream which will be on part two of
3:15:22 consciousness so
3:15:24 for the uh audience members uh be
3:15:26 excellent so
3:15:27 we're gonna talk about the materialistic
3:15:29 um
3:15:30 explanations on consciousness and how
3:15:32 they fail so this is part two hamza
3:15:35 sauces has agreed to come back on
3:15:37 so we've got iman to discuss this
3:15:38 hamdulillah uh the other thing that
3:15:40 we're gonna
3:15:41 uh announce is the fact that there's a
3:15:43 course that we're releasing
3:15:44 on the thought adventure podcast it's
3:15:46 like a weekly series it's just an
3:15:48 introduction into the
3:15:49 various evidences and proofs for islam
3:15:51 it goes into the discussion about
3:15:54 purpose of life epistemology
3:15:57 the various arguments for the existence
3:16:00 of a creator
3:16:01 need for messengers and for prophethood
3:16:04 of the prophets
3:16:04 uh and the you know the necessity of the
3:16:08 prophet sallallahu alaihi are they with
3:16:09 them as being a prophet so keep your
3:16:12 eyes on that i think that will be
3:16:13 released every wednesday insha allah
3:16:15 there's a few videos there uh jazakallah
3:16:17 to the uh
3:16:18 brothers on the panel uh and for the
3:16:20 audience for watching it
3:16:22 uh and also uh thank you for the guests
3:16:25 for coming on and hopefully
3:16:26 it's giving you some food for for uh to
3:16:29 understand
3:16:30 the necessity and the the desire that we
3:16:33 have
3:16:33 for meaning to ground to make sense of
3:16:37 the world around us
3:16:38 uh there's so much more that we can say
3:16:40 and we'll probably
3:16:42 revisit this discussion uh in a future
3:16:45 case uh uh and
3:16:48 uh we'll go to the outro
3:17:10 ah
3:17:20 you