I was very hesitant to create and release this episode. What I’m talking about today is bleak, to put it mildly. The bleakest outlook imaginable, as far as I can tell. Philosophical pessimism. The mere act of mentioning it and sharing the ideas with others is something I’m very conflicted about. Because, even if the outlook described by philosophical pessimism is a glimpse into the truth of the universe, it probably doesn’t do anyone any good to have that view. Let me be clear: the views expressed by the following writers and thinkers are not views I share. They were one part of my philosophical journey, and through the passage of pessimism I think I gained useful wisdom. Do me a favor, and don’t listen to this episode halfway. If you start it, listen to the end. I mention the darkness, but also the light…

Philosophy. I’ve said that word a lot on this show.

What...is it? Why do I care so much about it? Why does anyone care?

Firstly, I don’t think my life experience is anything approximating a universal standard. I’m sure there are cultural traditions where philosophy is the absolute first subject taught to anyone. For someone coming from that kind of culture, what I’m about to talk about could be the most obvious of things, as if I were explaining in detail the ABCs and 1,2,3s of the universe.

But I can say a philosophical background is definitely not how I grew up. I had no idea it was even a thing until I got to college, where I happened to stumble on it and fell into it, really, as my major and primary objective. I was in academia for a long time, where philosophy is held in fairly high regard at least in my experience. But it’s still pretty common even now in my life for me to be asked “What do you do with a degree in philosophy?”…

Death and taxes. The two certainties we know in life, right? Though one of the certainties gets mentioned much, much more than the other, particularly around this time of the tax year.

So let’s talk about death. What is it, why is it, and perhaps most importantly, what does it mean? 

It’s actually pretty hard to pinpoint when death occurs. Hospital soap operas often use it as a trope: time of death - 4:12 p.m., as the patient’s ekg flatlines. But is death specifically when the heart stops beating? That doesn’t seem right - hearts can be restarted, not always, but sometimes with electrical shocks and whatnot. Is death rather when brain function ceases? The brain is complicated. Very complicated. It seems in some way to contain us - whatever we are. But cells and brain cells specifically can carry on working for minutes or longer after all our critical organs shut down. These cells will die eventually, but not at that moment…

What do you know? If you’re a normal, well-adjusted human being, I’m sure you think you know a good number of things. What you learned in school, what you learned at work, what seems so obvious to you on a daily basis. The sky is blue. Rain is wet. Puppies are adorable.

There’s a great mystery that comes from asking too many questions. Children do this all the time. Adults by and large lose their sense of wonder in the process of growing up, but children will ask “why” until you can’t give an answer. “Why do fish live in the water?” “because they have gills, which let them breathe water”. “Oh. Why do fish have gills?” “Um, because fish adapted gills over looooong long periods of time to survive”. “Oh. Why did fish adapt?” “*sigh* because life adapts to survive.” “Aaaaahh. *pause* Why does life survive?” “Because that’s what life does. It exists, so it survives.” “Oh. Why does life exist?”

And at this point, you really can’t give an answer to that little nuisance…

Good morning/afternoon/night...

If you’re wondering, consciousness is still a mystery. No recent nobel prize winners for a solution to it. Let’s talk further about what it is to be a body and mind with consciousness, which at first glance is what we seem to be. 

Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body? -Morrissey, that melancholy and somewhat controversial English singer-songwriter is fond of that question.

To clarify and hopefully address any confusion in the last episode, let’s define as best we can the terms mind, body, and consciousness…

Question: What is a mind?

Answer: I am? You are? Or am I a body? Are you an embodied mind or a body with a mind?

What in the name of God is going on here? What is all this nonsense of existence?

That was seven questions in a row. This is going to be a fun episode, dear listener…

In the last episode, we talked about existentialism and the idea that “existence precedes essence.” In this way of looking at the world, we are born prior to having an essential character: there is no purpose necessarily assigned to our lives, no meaning, no fundamental part to our being or soul at all, except for that which we give to them ourselves.

It seems like a rather bold anti-religious attitude to take. Friedrich Nietzsche certainly took that direction, as we discussed, in his conflict with the church. Nietzsche believed we should focus on matters of fact of what we know to be reality rather than the religious teachings and promises of other men in the supernatural. His concept of the Ubermensch is someone who has risen beyond the search for meaning in the afterlife and has instead chosen to find meaning in the world…

What is consciousness? What is this experience I'm having of being myself, recording audio and sipping scotch whisky? Why are you aware of yourself listening to my voice right now?

It's kind of spooky, isn't it? What are you, some kind of little person inside your own head looking out at the world? That you or I are experiencing the world at all is inexplicable when you start to examine what exactly that experience is. Why, for example, couldn't we live out our lives as happy little creatures completely lacking in subjective experience? Is there a deeper meaning to consciousness, and life in general?…