Transcript: Why UFOs Prove We Live In Plato’s Cave

Does it seem at all plausible to me that there could be something even in like our nearly empirical reality that humans had just like systematically missed for entire history?

[0:00:00 - 0:00:14] ▶

I'm here with Dr. Jim Madden. You're a professor of philosophy who has dared to reconcile some ancient philosophy with UFOs.

[0:00:14 - 0:00:26] ▶

I think a lot of people have heard of Plato's Republic or the cave analogy or the myth of Earth, but they don't really have a ton of context as to who Plato was, why he did what he did.

[0:00:26 - 0:00:39] ▶

I think you have to get away from what you were being proposed here is actually Plato's political program and there's something else going on here.

[0:00:39 - 0:00:48] ▶

You know, if there's a push and a pull outside of the cave or whatever, is the UFO some sort of pulling technology because you talk about this where it's this thing that it busts all of your priors.

[0:00:48 - 0:01:00] ▶

It would seem there has to be somebody outside of the cave doing this. Like, somebody has to, from the perspective enlightenment, be pulling us through.

[0:01:00 - 0:01:09] ▶

The light itself also feels like this kind of, it's like an inflection point where it could either sort of eviscerate us or it could kind of save us.

[0:01:09 - 0:01:18] ▶

You know, it's like does something super unprecedented happen when we discover, you know, the myth makers. When we developed the perceptive apparatuses through high energy output or through some sort of ascended consciousness to like see who's like messing with us.

[0:01:18 - 0:01:35] ▶

And does that just unravel reality?

[0:01:35 - 0:01:37] ▶

Different parts of the brain have different activities. You don't have to.

[0:01:39 - 0:01:44] ▶

I'm here when I hear you.

[0:01:44 - 0:01:49] ▶

Maybe you should interview me.

[0:01:49 - 0:01:51] ▶

I'm here with Dr. Jim Madden and it's an absolute honor to have you. I've been kind of mulling over the ideas in your book for a while now.

[0:01:51 - 0:02:09] ▶

You're a professor of philosophy who has dared to reconcile some ancient philosophy, you know, Plato, Aristotle, even up until today, you know, more modern Nietzsche, Heidegger, with UFOs.

[0:02:09 - 0:02:27] ▶

And I think that is a very noble effort and you've done it in a very brilliant way in this great book, unidentified flying hyper object, which I recommend everybody go out and read.

[0:02:27 - 0:02:39] ▶

And so I want to start kind of at a super baseline level because I think a lot of people, you know, have heard of Plato's Republic or the cave analogy or you know, the myth of Earth, but they don't really have a ton of context as to who Plato was, why he did what he did.

[0:02:39 - 0:02:56] ▶

So why don't we just start it kind of ground zero, who is Plato and why did he write the Republic? Sure.

[0:02:56 - 0:03:04] ▶

Well, first thanks for having me. It's a real honor to be here. Yeah, I appreciate. I think the only thing that's really surprised me, I guess I should say what surprised me the most about this whole process of getting the UFO and bringing philosophy into it is that no one had done it before in this way.

[0:03:04 - 0:03:18] ▶

That was surprising to me, but, um, okay, so who was Plato? So obviously, you know, probably most people know Plato was the student of Socrates and in most of Plato's dialogues, which is most of what we have of his writings, Socrates is the main character, though not in all of them.

[0:03:18 - 0:03:36] ▶

And it's pretty clear that Socrates does not always speak for Plato, which I think is important even in the Republic.

[0:03:36 - 0:03:42] ▶

Other than that, you know, Plato was an aristocratic, you know, member of Athenian society, you know, in the period coming out of the Palo-Ponnesian War.

[0:03:42 - 0:03:54] ▶

It's a time of like great political strife, you know, Socrates himself was a victim of capital punishment that had a lot to do with the politics going on at the time.

[0:03:54 - 0:04:06] ▶

Okay, Plato is not probably his given birth name. Right. It's a nickname like broad or big as in like broad shoulder because he was the most accomplished wrestler of his generation apparently.

[0:04:06 - 0:04:21] ▶

Yeah, in Athens. Yeah. And yeah, there's a.

[0:04:21 - 0:04:25] ▶

So you're maintaining that tradition today.

[0:04:25 - 0:04:28] ▶

I do my best. Yeah, I do my best.

[0:04:28 - 0:04:30] ▶

Gets you a master. Yeah.

[0:04:30 - 0:04:32] ▶

So I think I think an important thing to note about the Republic is, you know, the setting of it is in kind of a small,

[0:04:32 - 0:04:44] ▶

an anachronistic, like a suburb of Athens. It's not actually in the city. So it's outside the city.

[0:04:44 - 0:04:50] ▶

So it's a book about cities. That's not in a city, which is interesting.

[0:04:50 - 0:04:54] ▶

And we know about when Plato is setting it because it begins by referring to a certain religious festival that classical scholars can date when that festival likely happened.

[0:04:54 - 0:05:06] ▶

So we know it's sent at a time when Plato would have been like a little kid. Okay. So he obviously was not there. Right.

[0:05:06 - 0:05:13] ▶

So probably these conversations didn't happen. Right.

[0:05:13 - 0:05:16] ▶

But the characters are obviously Socrates and two other characters are Glaucom and Adamantus who were Plato's half brothers.

[0:05:16 - 0:05:26] ▶

And there's another character Thracymicus who's sort of a foil to those three in the dialogue.

[0:05:26 - 0:05:31] ▶

And I'm not sure if I'm getting exactly right, but my understanding is none of those people are alive by the time Plato writes this and none of them died natural deaths.

[0:05:31 - 0:05:41] ▶

Okay. So there's there they're actually on separate sides of this struggle. Okay. So like Thracymicus,

[0:05:41 - 0:05:50] ▶

my understanding was on the other side of this post-Peliponition more political struggle from Plato's family. Okay.

[0:05:50 - 0:05:57] ▶

So it's interesting what Plato's depicting for us is this moment where everybody was kind of together behaving civilly for the last time.

[0:05:57 - 0:06:07] ▶

Okay. And then it's all going to fall apart politically after that. Okay.

[0:06:07 - 0:06:12] ▶

Which I think is important for how we understand this book and whether or not it's like proposing to us an optimistic or pessimistic view of things. Right.

[0:06:12 - 0:06:20] ▶

Okay. So the dialogue then begins with Socrates and the guys are here for this religious festival and they're invited to a party.

[0:06:20 - 0:06:30] ▶

And you know, there's going to be torch races and it's going to be a big deal. And there's an older guy there who you know they're kidding about being old and isn't it.

[0:06:31 - 0:06:41] ▶

So I'll get old and he's like, well, no, because I don't have to worry about all the pressures for sex and all this stuff anymore.

[0:06:41 - 0:06:47] ▶

And they're like, yeah, we're going to die soon. And he said, well, I'm not worried about death because I've lived the just life and the just don't have to fear their death. Okay.

[0:06:47 - 0:06:55] ▶

And when asked, well, what do you mean by justice? He leaves the scene. Okay. So it's interesting. The authority figure, the old man is making claims, but he can't cash it.

[0:06:55 - 0:07:05] ▶

Okay. And this goes on in all the platonic dialogues is the authority figures always fail to actually deliver what they're claiming. Okay.

[0:07:05 - 0:07:13] ▶

But I think it's interesting that Plato's Republic, the actual question they initiate the dialogue is the question of death. Okay.

[0:07:13 - 0:07:23] ▶

Which then occasions the question of justice. Okay. So I think we think of the dialogue. If we've read it is being a question about what is justice, but that's the secondary question.

[0:07:23 - 0:07:34] ▶

That's something we're answering to address the question of death. And do note that the book ends with a myth about death. Okay. So it's book ended as it were with life and death. Okay.

[0:07:34 - 0:07:46] ▶

Or with two stories about death. So for my money, if you ask me what's the Republic about it's really about death. Okay. And in the human condition in facing death. All right.

[0:07:46 - 0:07:56] ▶

Okay. So at that point, then, you know, what is justice gets raised and how philosophy breaks out. Okay. And there's a really vehement to babe between Socrates and Thursemicus. Eventually Thursemicus has had enough and leaves.

[0:07:56 - 0:08:09] ▶

And then Adam, that mantis and glaucom take up his position as like devil, does all advocates and they debate with Socrates what justice is.

[0:08:09 - 0:08:19] ▶

They decide that deciding what justice is for we as human individuals, right, is too difficult. So they switch it to a political story. Okay. So what would justice be in the city.

[0:08:19 - 0:08:30] ▶

All right. But always with the idea that once again, like we're trying to find out what would it be just as individuals. So we can then figure out whether we have anything to fear and death. It's always the background. So there's like three layers going on in the book.

[0:08:30 - 0:08:42] ▶

And maybe the most important one is the one that's mentioned the least. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's I feel like it's thought of as this. What is the ideal state, especially vis-a-vis maybe you know Socrates is death where you know,

[0:08:42 - 0:08:56] ▶

Athens as a democracy sort of turns on him. He ends up drinking the hemlock. And then it's like, okay, if that doesn't work, you know, how can we in some sort of parapetetic way figure out through dialogue what the ideal state is.

[0:08:56 - 0:09:09] ▶

But you're saying that it actually maybe has more to just do with death. And like this is a really important metaphysical question of what happens when you die.

[0:09:09 - 0:09:17] ▶

And now once this is probably controversial force everything in academic philosophy is controversial. Right. So you can find bright people brighter people than that I am who agrees me. You could find brighter people than I am who would disagree with me. That's always a problem. Yeah.

[0:09:17 - 0:09:29] ▶

I agree. I also think we are probably over indexed on taking everything allegorically and not literally. So I'm more sympathetic to the Plato literalists. But you know, that's my own. I'm allowed to do that. I'm a delatine.

[0:09:29 - 0:09:44] ▶

Yeah. I'm I am being killed. Okay. So so I and I it was very interesting things that go on in the book. So basically we're told the only just state would be one that had a philosopher as a ruler.

[0:09:44 - 0:09:59] ▶

So ultimately the famous philosopher king. Okay. But it also like Plato says early on that any state that occurs naturally is going to fall apart due to greed and injustice and this. Okay. So so you think of like any natural city is not run by a philosopher. Okay. And we get we get a story of how you would cultivate philosophers sufficient to run a city.

[0:09:59 - 0:10:27] ▶

But no, you'd have to have a good city first to have those to produce those philosophers in the first place. So there's this really difficult circular problem of founding in the Republic.

[0:10:27 - 0:10:37] ▶

Like how could you ever get a just city because we have to build by a philosopher. Right. And but a philosopher would have to be produced by a just city.

[0:10:37 - 0:10:46] ▶

So this is end up in this sort of tautological loop or yeah, you end up in a loop. Okay. So I think I mentioned that I think you have to get away from thinking what we're being proposed here is actually play those like political program.

[0:10:46 - 0:11:00] ▶

And there's something else going on here. Right. There's also an important moment where it's after the allegory of the cave and the question comes up like, do we with the philosopher have to return to the cave after leaving.

[0:11:00 - 0:11:14] ▶

And of course in the allegory, the philosopher does go back and annoys people because he's asking the change of lives and things like that. And eventually it ends very very badly for him.

[0:11:14 - 0:11:24] ▶

And it's a not so thin reference to Socrates. Okay. And interesting what Plato has Socrates say when when he's asked, you know, would we have to make the philosopher go back? He says, well, in our city, meaning the ideal city that we're thinking of, the philosopher would owe his education to the city.

[0:11:24 - 0:11:42] ▶

And thereby he should return. Okay. But think of it. That's only the ideal city. And Plato has said throughout the book that the ideal city is not going to happen here. Right. So it seemed like you say like any actual concrete like human political situation.

[0:11:42 - 0:12:00] ▶

The philosopher really should not return. It would be a few title effort. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah. And so just what is the cave at a baseline for the average per sure. Okay. So at a certain point in the dialogue, the question of how we would educate a philosopher comes up. Okay. And basically the cave is Plato's way of explaining what the education of the philosopher would be like.

[0:12:00 - 0:12:29] ▶

Okay. So that's that's important to you. Like that's that's where it's proposed. Okay. And in the analogy that he or Elgroy that he uses to make the point is he says, you know, so we have a bunch of people. They're in a cave.

[0:12:29 - 0:12:44] ▶

They're chained so they can only look forward. And all they see are images dancing in the cave wall. Okay. And then at some point, someone, you know, I think with that were the case, no one could possibly know the difference. Right.

[0:12:44 - 0:12:58] ▶

There's no ability to separate yourself from this. Right. So it would be what we would call today a consensus reality. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And now Plato never explains this. But voila, somebody gets loose. Okay. It's interesting. We're never going to explanation of how that initial liberation would happen. Okay. And that person is able to turn and look away. It's a very important thing that Plato emphasizes is that person looks away from the wall.

[0:12:58 - 0:13:27] ▶

And can see back and see that what's really going on is there's a wall behind them and there's people behind it with puppets on sticks. And there's a fire casting light on the wall. Right. So they, what the people see on the wall is not entirely wrong. Right. The shadows are right ish. But they're not fully right. Okay. And so this this newly liberated person sees that. Right. And then goes through a process of maybe even more.

[0:13:27 - 0:13:56] ▶

Of maybe even literally clawing his way out of the cave. It's a difficult, arduous process. Right. And and what he's moving towards is towards a sort of light. Okay. So the fire initially that he saw that was part of the put on. That's a kind of light. It's enlightenment.

[0:13:56 - 0:14:11] ▶

It's the it's a sign of of knowledge, right. But it's not full knowledge and think of it for the Greeks. All, well, I mean, you can say something like this. All energy, all heat, all fire on the earth is ultimately derived from the sun. Right. Okay. So he's looking for the source of that fire. Right.

[0:14:11 - 0:14:29] ▶

And he crawls the way out of the cave and eventually, you know, can get out and it's very difficult. So he has to leave and come back a little bit. You know, it's very difficult to get out of the cave and see in the life of the first time.

[0:14:29 - 0:14:41] ▶

And eventually he worked his way up to glimpsing the sun. Okay. glimpsing what Plato, else recalls the good. Right. But he can only glimpse it. Right. Right. And so then he returns to the cave. And of course, in returning to the cave, the light has changed again.

[0:14:41 - 0:14:57] ▶

And he stumbles around as if he's blind. So he looks like a fool. Right. He presses people that there's more of the world, what you're seeing is an illusion, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, famously, it ends badly for him. Just as an end of for Socrates, very badly.

[0:14:57 - 0:15:11] ▶

Yeah. And there seems to be sort of push and pull. Like he's the this person is ascending out of the cave on their own sort of elation, but they're also being sort of dragged. Is that right?

[0:15:11 - 0:15:23] ▶

Or yeah, because you think it's like throughout the book, it's clear for Plato, enlightenment doesn't just happen. You have to be taught. Like, but it's really you could you can make a case. The book is a philosophy of education. Right.

[0:15:23 - 0:15:37] ▶

It's what what what should our ruling elite be like? Like how should they be educated? Right. And and it's in the one thing Plato would say is you cannot just let nature take its course this way. Right. Like people are not disposed to take themselves out of illusion. Right. They're disposed to stay in illusion. Right. So someone has to be pulling. Right. Yeah. So is the problem I think for the book is the is the implication that the guardians or the puppeteers. Yeah.

[0:15:37 - 0:16:06] ▶

Are they out side of the cave or are they in the cave or what? Yeah. Where do they sort of exist? Yeah, spatially in this analogy. Hey, American Alchemy fans, after years of trying pretty much every shaving product under the sun, I finally found something that I love. It's called House of Atlas. I use it every day. House of Atlas's razor kit has raised my grooming game in the biggest way. The razor believes you with the smoothest shave you'll ever get. They have precision shave cream, calming after shave.

[0:16:06 - 0:16:35] ▶

After shave. Seriously, I don't know what they're doing with this blade, but it leaves my skin feeling silky smooth with its five US made stainless steel blades and that high performance serum strip. It glides through my facial hair for an incredibly close, comfortable shave. They also have one of the most luxurious feeling and precision guiding shave creams and a very calming aftershave. Their shave cream has a thick, rich, special formula that gives me a clear guide for an even shave. And the aftershave.

[0:16:35 - 0:17:04] ▶

And the aftershave leaves my skin feeling cool and refreshed without any of that old school sting that you might get from other products. Plus, and this might be the coolest thing of all, the kit comes with an epic magnetic storage hook.

[0:17:04 - 0:17:17] ▶

And now for a limited time, they're offering 15% off your first order when you purchase any razor kit in the before and after set.

[0:17:17 - 0:17:27] ▶

This includes the precision shave cream and calming aftershave. Use code Jesse J E S S E House of Atlas dot com. That's H O U S E O F A T L A S dot com with promo code Jesse J E S S E for 15% off your new razor kit and before and after set.

[0:17:27 - 0:17:49] ▶

So stop wasting money and time on shaving products that don't look good aren't effective and cost way too much visit house of Atlas dot com today. Trust me, you'll love it as much as I did.

[0:17:49 - 0:18:01] ▶

Let me give you a spooky answer to that.

[0:18:01 - 0:18:03] ▶

Yeah. So at a certain point in the Republic, play a little has stocker, teasing the fellows arrive this conclusion that the guardians will have to be told in some translations, good lies about the afterlife.

[0:18:03 - 0:18:18] ▶

Okay. Meaning like they have to be told stories that will like let them see that there's going to be a reward for a certain type of behavior that's like the best of the state, right?

[0:18:18 - 0:18:29] ▶

Okay. And the book ends with a myth about the afterlife.

[0:18:29 - 0:18:36] ▶

Okay. So what do we get? We get a good lie about the afterlife. Okay. Now my read on that is what Plato is doing is he saying, look, I just drag you through the same educate of process that I was outlined in the book.

[0:18:36 - 0:18:51] ▶

Right. Do you see what I mean? So like it's like it would seem there has to be somebody outside of the cave doing this. Like there has somebody has to from the perspective enlightenment.

[0:18:51 - 0:19:01] ▶

Hmm. Be pulling us through. Do you see that? Yeah. Oh, book. I think tricks you into following that very process.

[0:19:01 - 0:19:07] ▶

And the guardians, so the guardians themselves are told a lie. And then they sort of pervade the lies. Well, they transmit the lie.

[0:19:07 - 0:19:15] ▶

That's fascinating. In their training, he says they would have to be told it's some translations called a good myth. Uh-huh.

[0:19:15 - 0:19:20] ▶

Some translate. I like this because I'm a contrarian called a good lie. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But yeah, everyone has to be lied to in this process.

[0:19:20 - 0:19:30] ▶

Yeah. And the guardians, uh, the implication there is their guardians of this ideal city state is that is that correct? Okay.

[0:19:30 - 0:19:37] ▶

And then do we have any understanding of who is telling them this sort of noble mythology? Yeah. And keep in mind, like, like, this is a problem because Plato earlier said any natural city is going to fall apart.

[0:19:37 - 0:19:49] ▶

Because of natural human greed and selfishness and stuff. And so how you could ever get this off the ground doesn't seem to be within a legitimate human possibility for Plato.

[0:19:49 - 0:20:01] ▶

So there are all these ways you could take this. You could take this as a total like myth or whatever. And I think the festival, right, that this was sort of told that was a festival of myth. Is that right?

[0:20:01 - 0:20:12] ▶

Well, it was certainly a Greek, you know, religious festival, right? So yeah, yeah, exactly.

[0:20:12 - 0:20:18] ▶

And then there's a, you know, the, the, the, yes, that's like on the one hand and then on the other hand, it's like, this is all true.

[0:20:18 - 0:20:24] ▶

This is like a descriptor of ontological truth and reality. And, um, I guess where do you fall on that, on that spectrum? Yeah. I, I don't.

[0:20:24 - 0:20:36] ▶

So the way I like to put it is I don't think Plato is a plate nest. Okay. What I mean is the kind of philosophy 101 that we all teach our students, because you have to just, if they tell some goodness to get things going, be careful there.

[0:20:36 - 0:20:48] ▶

Okay. Um, is, is very much a caricature of Plato. Do you see what I mean? Okay. And so, um, but I also think there's something. So I do think there's a lot of put on going on in the book.

[0:20:48 - 0:21:00] ▶

I think we're, we're being toyed within certain ways. Yeah. I think a lot of it's a kind of a test. Like, do you get it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I also think he's perfectly serious about some of the things in that book. Right. Okay. So, for instance, at the, the, the, the concluding myth, the myth of er, I don't take that as a serious speculation on his part of what the afterlife is like or something like that. Okay. Um, and it's interesting because at the end of the myth, er is getting in the weeds, but people can go read the book. But I think that's the way I'm going to say it. I think I'm going to say it. I think I'm going to say it. I think I'm going to say it. I think I'm going to say it. I think I'm going to say it. I think I'm going to say it. I think I'm going to say it. I think I

[0:21:00 - 0:21:30] ▶

think I'm going to say it. At the end of the myth er goes back to temporal life, but unlike everyone else, he's granted memory of where he's been. Okay. And um, playtale throughout his writings has socrates defend the notion that all knowledge is actually recollection of something that we already had. Okay. And so I think what, what you're getting here. Is. Is this suggestion that like our relationship to the ultimate tree? A story. What Do you think is the same? Who do you think is the wrong idea?

[0:21:30 - 0:22:00] ▶

truth is going to be more like memory than it is something like a direct discovery.

[0:22:00 - 0:22:05] ▶

Yeah. Yeah. Well, he says kind of distrust. You're like five senses, right? And it's almost like

[0:22:05 - 0:22:11] ▶

this primordial knowledge is more true in a sense. And so, totally, because he, I mean, you could

[0:22:11 - 0:22:17] ▶

say that, you know, it's all mythology or whenever when it comes to him even saying that. But then

[0:22:17 - 0:22:22] ▶

in the book of Mino, you know, they literally have this slave draw a triangle. And it's,

[0:22:22 - 0:22:28] ▶

this slave is, you know, completely uneducated. And that sort of proof that there is this kind of

[0:22:28 - 0:22:34] ▶

primordial architecture and knowledge. And I believe also in the symposium, it was, you know,

[0:22:34 - 0:22:40] ▶

a knowledge of geometry was somehow not only emphasized, but almost like a litmus test for like

[0:22:40 - 0:22:45] ▶

admission. So we can teach anybody this if we just reminded them right away. Like something

[0:22:45 - 0:22:50] ▶

that Plato does in the phato. He has Socrates, he has Socrates saying the phato, which interestingly,

[0:22:50 - 0:22:55] ▶

Plato goes out of his way to say he wasn't there for the conversation of phato. So he oddly

[0:22:56 - 0:23:02] ▶

distances himself from it, which is a thing. But he, um, there, you know, the example is, is like,

[0:23:02 - 0:23:09] ▶

you have a lover who played the harp. Now the harp doesn't resemble them at all, but the harp will

[0:23:09 - 0:23:15] ▶

remind you of them. Okay. So like, I think what Plato's getting at is there are things that we

[0:23:15 - 0:23:21] ▶

encounter in this life that are utterly unlike the ultimate truth, but then still manage to remind

[0:23:21 - 0:23:29] ▶

us of it. That's so interesting. Yeah. I mean, like the light itself also feels like this kind of,

[0:23:29 - 0:23:36] ▶

um, dual meaning, they're not dual meaning, but it looks like an inflection point where it could,

[0:23:36 - 0:23:42] ▶

either sort of eviscerate us or it could kind of save us. And I think about technology now. And it

[0:23:42 - 0:23:47] ▶

has that sort of, you know, dual kind of inflecting, you know, mechanism where AI, for example,

[0:23:47 - 0:23:54] ▶

you know, I love the Marshall McCluen quote, every media extension of man is an amputation.

[0:23:54 - 0:23:59] ▶

We are sort of outsourcing our agency to a lot of these, you know, technologies that are kind

[0:23:59 - 0:24:03] ▶

of parasitizing us, especially after the advent of information technology, you know, used to be kind

[0:24:03 - 0:24:09] ▶

of augmenting us. And now it's sort of outsourcing, you know, our abilities. And then at the same

[0:24:09 - 0:24:15] ▶

time, the ability to wake up with information technology, you know, if you're trying to learn

[0:24:15 - 0:24:20] ▶

about like UFOs or like uncover all sorts of kind of real conspiracies or issues with the way that,

[0:24:20 - 0:24:27] ▶

you know, the doctrine, doctrine, the indoctrinated history has been told or whatever, you can now do

[0:24:27 - 0:24:33] ▶

that because you have the access to all of the information kind of at your fingertips. So enlightenment

[0:24:33 - 0:24:38] ▶

is also closer than ever. Yeah. But there's like that two-inch sword, like the very thing, like you and I,

[0:24:38 - 0:24:43] ▶

no internet, Jim and Jesse never meet. Right? True. Jesse never reads Jim's book, Jim never,

[0:24:43 - 0:24:48] ▶

like, gets enlightened by your podcast, right? Yeah. Totally. But at the same time, as like I,

[0:24:48 - 0:24:54] ▶

I think we're also being simultaneously undone. Yeah. That very same medium. It's fascinating. And

[0:24:54 - 0:24:59] ▶

so if you think if you extrapolate that out into the future, there are like two possibilities,

[0:24:59 - 0:25:04] ▶

like if you have a Schrodinger's cat of, you know, possibility states of, you know, mankind,

[0:25:04 - 0:25:09] ▶

there's probably a whole wave function. But like on the one hand, you have this like enlightened

[0:25:09 - 0:25:13] ▶

city state where, you know, you have people like Jim, Jesse, but a bunch of other people talking

[0:25:13 - 0:25:20] ▶

about virtue and like how to live a good life. And you know, we have like access to like nuclear

[0:25:20 - 0:25:24] ▶

fusion over unity or whatever. Like it's all great, right? And then on the other hand, it's like

[0:25:24 - 0:25:28] ▶

nuclear holocaust and like, you know, and so if that future is has somehow already arrived in

[0:25:28 - 0:25:36] ▶

some paradigm outside the cave, then I wonder if the cave itself is actually a test. Yeah.

[0:25:36 - 0:25:43] ▶

Like it's one of, because he, there are tests to become a guardian, right? Yeah. And like that,

[0:25:43 - 0:25:49] ▶

that wouldn't be disputed, right? So is the cave itself some sort of like low level epistemic,

[0:25:49 - 0:25:54] ▶

like VR headset, where it's like you have to contemplate virtue in the right way, lead a good

[0:25:54 - 0:26:00] ▶

life. And if you don't, you're not going to make it out. And if you do, you level up or something.

[0:26:00 - 0:26:04] ▶

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Think of it. And once again, you know, like getting way over my

[0:26:04 - 0:26:09] ▶

Pagrid as a classicist, right? Okay. But like, but there, Plato, I mean, there were such things as

[0:26:09 - 0:26:15] ▶

prose, treatise, as a literary genre at the time. Okay. But yeah, Plato writes in dialogue.

[0:26:15 - 0:26:21] ▶

Okay. Now we know Aristotle did, but we, but they, we lost all those dialogues. But like,

[0:26:22 - 0:26:26] ▶

Plato writes in dialogue. So why write in dialogue? Like why are you doing that? And it seems like,

[0:26:26 - 0:26:30] ▶

because it lets you play more. And it becomes this kind of like, okay, who's really paying attention?

[0:26:30 - 0:26:34] ▶

Right. Like who's really understanding what the narrative is doing here? Total. And there's

[0:26:36 - 0:26:39] ▶

something about I love the word parapetetic, like the walking and talking and the dialogue based

[0:26:39 - 0:26:44] ▶

learning, where it's like a, you know, a caterpillar into a butterfly. Like you need the struggle

[0:26:44 - 0:26:50] ▶

in order to you keep, you can't circumvent the process in order to truth is not like a file

[0:26:50 - 0:26:56] ▶

you're given. You need to kind of engage. And can I, kind of circle back to the light metaphor?

[0:26:56 - 0:27:01] ▶

Yes. So I think it's important to note in the Republic. Okay. And this could be, we could get

[0:27:01 - 0:27:07] ▶

interesting things with this with later Flos you too, but, but Plato talks like he uses the sun

[0:27:07 - 0:27:13] ▶

as this metaphor. Of course, it's like the sun's a pretty going metaphor already. So like you have,

[0:27:14 - 0:27:19] ▶

you have the Icarus myth, you know, where if you, like you want the knowledge of the gods and you

[0:27:19 - 0:27:23] ▶

fly too close, you're going to crash. Right. So think of like, like by Plato suggesting that we

[0:27:23 - 0:27:28] ▶

could glimpse the sun, this is very transgressive stuff for the time. Right. Yep. But he says that the

[0:27:28 - 0:27:34] ▶

thing with the sun is it's the source of the light by which we see everything else. Okay. So

[0:27:34 - 0:27:42] ▶

then there's a question like how could you see the sun? Do you see sort of like it's you have to

[0:27:43 - 0:27:48] ▶

take the glasses off that you look through and look at them without your glasses, right? And so I

[0:27:48 - 0:27:53] ▶

think that's important in that for for Plato, you're never going to be able to point to the good.

[0:27:53 - 0:28:00] ▶

You're never going to be able to point to ultimate being because it's the source by which anything

[0:28:00 - 0:28:05] ▶

else can be allumned to be pointed at. So in any kind of like temporal empirical sense, we're

[0:28:05 - 0:28:13] ▶

always going to fall short. We're always going to fall short, always going to fall short. Because it's

[0:28:13 - 0:28:17] ▶

it's sort of the horizon against we can against which we can judge things. It's not something

[0:28:17 - 0:28:21] ▶

in front of the horizon that we can judge. Right. So it's sort of Plato, I think, is predicting

[0:28:21 - 0:28:26] ▶

in this life perpetual failure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's fat. Yeah. And so, so okay. I'm sure a lot of

[0:28:26 - 0:28:35] ▶

people at this point in the interview are thinking, Jesse, you have a show about UFOs. That's right.

[0:28:35 - 0:28:40] ▶

What the hell does any of this have to do with UFOs? How did you even think to reconcile? You know,

[0:28:40 - 0:28:48] ▶

people say, you know, all philosophy is a, you know, footnote of Plato or whatever, like he's

[0:28:48 - 0:28:53] ▶

really the founder of Western philosophy. How did you think to reconcile that with UFOs, this sort

[0:28:53 - 0:28:59] ▶

of modern craze of objects in the sky we can't identify? Yeah. That's a true question. So, um,

[0:28:59 - 0:29:04] ▶

I think like a lot of people, I got kind of, you know, triggered about the UFO in like 2017,

[0:29:05 - 0:29:12] ▶

you know, when suddenly it was okay to talk about this, you know, um, and then I remember in,

[0:29:12 - 0:29:19] ▶

I think it was 2021, I always tell the story, I was watching X Files with my kids that summer.

[0:29:19 - 0:29:24] ▶

And it was right when the big first Pentagon press conference happened. And I'm like, so I guess

[0:29:25 - 0:29:31] ▶

Mulder was right. I've never seen anything like it. Even going out of like that from us half an hour.

[0:29:31 - 0:29:36] ▶

There've been this like switch, like it's something they're saying, no, maybe there's something

[0:29:36 - 0:29:40] ▶

to this, which, you know, I my like basic communal response to everything is like to study, right?

[0:29:40 - 0:29:47] ▶

And to do scholarships, so I start reading on the books and all that. And I think what we connected

[0:29:47 - 0:29:52] ▶

it with Plato for me is just that that metaphor of we could be really, really wrong as a consensus

[0:29:52 - 0:30:02] ▶

about what the actual nature of being is. Right. I thought I was starting to see the UFO was a great,

[0:30:02 - 0:30:08] ▶

at least thought experiment about that, right? Does it seem at all plausible to me that there

[0:30:08 - 0:30:15] ▶

could be something even in like our nearly empirical reality that humans had just like systematically

[0:30:15 - 0:30:23] ▶

missed for entire history, right? And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about things

[0:30:23 - 0:30:29] ▶

that I was already working on in philosophy of mind and cognitive science and speculative metaphysics,

[0:30:29 - 0:30:34] ▶

it seemed oh, hell yeah. We really could be missing something that was like concretely right there

[0:30:34 - 0:30:41] ▶

all along. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even prosaically in a modern scientific context, we see,

[0:30:41 - 0:30:47] ▶

you know, between 400 and 700 nanometers of the electromagnetic wave spectrum, you know,

[0:30:47 - 0:30:52] ▶

our decibel range is, you know, cut off. And so like to say that we are measurement sensors that are

[0:30:52 - 0:30:58] ▶

limited inside of a larger reality. I don't think it's too controversial. And then, you know,

[0:30:58 - 0:31:05] ▶

do UFO somehow speak to that because they seem weakly entangled with our reality. They seem to be

[0:31:05 - 0:31:11] ▶

sort of a femoral jocvalet, you know, which you write about very eloquently in your book talks about,

[0:31:11 - 0:31:17] ▶

you know, in passport to Magonia and others books, a lot of past mythology involving, you know,

[0:31:17 - 0:31:24] ▶

the denizens of Magonia like coming down on clouds or, you know, all sorts of crap of wheels of

[0:31:24 - 0:31:31] ▶

azekiel, you know, the blazing shields of Rome, you know, often it's these sort of this this

[0:31:31 - 0:31:37] ▶

proto architecture that's very true and real. And then we are sort of recollecting it through the

[0:31:37 - 0:31:43] ▶

lens of sort of modern mythology. Right. So yeah, what do you, what do you make of that? Hey guys,

[0:31:43 - 0:31:49] ▶

I want to tell you about my new favorite piece of apparel. These are called the perfect jeans.

[0:31:49 - 0:31:56] ▶

They're literally the perfect jeans. I used to wear jeans all the time and they're kind of rough

[0:31:56 - 0:32:00] ▶

and not super stretchy or breathable. These are extremely comfortable. They work in casual

[0:32:00 - 0:32:06] ▶

environments. They work in work settings. They come in six different sizes from 26 inches to 50 inches.

[0:32:06 - 0:32:12] ▶

And they're all around just amazing. For a limited time, our listeners get 15% off your first

[0:32:13 - 0:32:19] ▶

order. Plus, free shipping at the perfect gene dot NYC. Again, that's the perfect gene dot NYC or

[0:32:19 - 0:32:28] ▶

just Google the perfect gene. Use code Jesse 15 for that 15% off. Again, that's code Jesse 15.

[0:32:28 - 0:32:35] ▶

That's 15% off for new customers at the perfect gene dot NYC. After purchase, they'll ask where

[0:32:35 - 0:32:43] ▶

you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Fuck your khakis.

[0:32:43 - 0:32:49] ▶

Get the perfect gene. One of the books that really turned me on the UFO. And I think it probably

[0:32:49 - 0:32:54] ▶

because it had a legitimizing, you have to honestly say, like it helped legitimize the study of it

[0:32:54 - 0:32:58] ▶

was Carl Jung's book, you know, UFO, the modern myth, modern myth of things in the sky. And

[0:32:59 - 0:33:04] ▶

it's interesting. Young makes this point that it's not entirely surprising like right after

[0:33:05 - 0:33:13] ▶

the World Wars and in the middle of, you know, the the the the really scary years of the cold war,

[0:33:13 - 0:33:18] ▶

where there's this nuclear threat. That suddenly people are having a lot of anxiety. And it's

[0:33:18 - 0:33:25] ▶

being expressed in these dreams and visions of, you know, airborne technology that may or may not

[0:33:25 - 0:33:32] ▶

be militarily threatening. And he has this, you know, this his whole account of it in terms of

[0:33:32 - 0:33:38] ▶

the Mandala and like a need to return to a new wholeness. That sort of thing. And so it makes a

[0:33:38 - 0:33:44] ▶

lot of sense to me that when when we're having anxiousness collectively, that it's going to express

[0:33:44 - 0:33:52] ▶

itself in the going metaphors of our era, right? Our current like unconscious obsessions, right?

[0:33:52 - 0:33:58] ▶

And for us, it's technology, right? But what I sound really troubling about and it's interesting,

[0:33:58 - 0:34:03] ▶

when you read Jung's book, it's sort of like you get a feel when he starts out writing it, he talks

[0:34:03 - 0:34:08] ▶

about it as like a a mass rumor, right? He talks, he does all the stream analysis of it. And then as

[0:34:08 - 0:34:14] ▶

the book goes on, it's like it's getting harder from the dismiss it though. And if you've read it,

[0:34:14 - 0:34:19] ▶

and he's like, and yet they're on radar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yet they leave tracks. And so it's like

[0:34:19 - 0:34:26] ▶

in some like, you know, I'm I'm a very into psychoanalysis. Okay. And it's sort of it's easy,

[0:34:26 - 0:34:33] ▶

I think, to dismiss a lot nut dismiss the wrong word to analyze some of this stuff psychologically.

[0:34:33 - 0:34:38] ▶

And yet, that's the thing that like, but I keep coming back to is and yet,

[0:34:39 - 0:34:43] ▶

there do seem to be concrete effects. Yeah. That was Diana Pousselga's experience as well. She's

[0:34:44 - 0:34:50] ▶

this religious studies professor at UNC Wilmington. I don't think she expected to, you know, she's

[0:34:50 - 0:34:55] ▶

writing about the Catholic concept of purgatory. Yeah. And this book heaven can wait. And then I

[0:34:55 - 0:34:59] ▶

don't think she expected to start writing about UFOs in some sort of, you know, I think this is real

[0:34:59 - 0:35:06] ▶

sense. I think she wanted to write about it. And as some modern, you know, kind of, you know,

[0:35:06 - 0:35:11] ▶

ephemeral religious phenomena. And then, and then all of a sudden, the second half of that book is

[0:35:11 - 0:35:17] ▶

like, she goes down the rabbit hole herself. Yeah. And it's like, oh my god. I think there's

[0:35:17 - 0:35:22] ▶

something extremely, you can see it like in similar to young, you know, like a real time as

[0:35:22 - 0:35:26] ▶

Diana's writing this is like, the view is changing. Yeah. It's fat. Yeah. It's like, uh, yeah, go for it.

[0:35:26 - 0:35:31] ▶

And so like the, uh,

[0:35:31 - 0:35:33] ▶

you know, my take on the, using going back to the cave metaphor, that's okay. Yeah. Is

[0:35:37 - 0:35:42] ▶

I subscribed to some ideas and cognitive science and philosophy of mine that would sort of like

[0:35:43 - 0:35:48] ▶

make us think that maybe the cave is not just a bug, but a feature of human cognition.

[0:35:48 - 0:35:54] ▶

Okay. And you sort of alluded to this. Is that if we're, if we're faced with like a very complicated

[0:35:54 - 0:36:01] ▶

reality, right, it would seem one of the most important things that we would be able to do would

[0:36:01 - 0:36:06] ▶

be able to sort for relevance. Okay. And so meaning like the mind may work. I think there's some

[0:36:06 - 0:36:13] ▶

pretty good empirical stuff on this as much by learning what to ignore as it does, I learned

[0:36:13 - 0:36:18] ▶

what to pay attention to. Yeah. Okay. And so you think of it then what are we doing? I like this

[0:36:18 - 0:36:22] ▶

metaphor constantly carving a cave out. And like the stuff that we do see it's there. Okay. I'm

[0:36:22 - 0:36:28] ▶

not an idealist. Right. So the stuff that we do see it's there. The problem is it's, it's always

[0:36:28 - 0:36:34] ▶

more there than it. Otherwise, we couldn't cognize. Do you see that? Okay. So then though, there's

[0:36:34 - 0:36:39] ▶

me this really thorny problem always of like how do we ever tease out? Like what is just our carving

[0:36:39 - 0:36:48] ▶

out and leaving something behind? Okay. Or as opposed to illusion, as opposed to what's really

[0:36:48 - 0:36:54] ▶

there, et cetera, et cetera. And then once you admit that there is a irreducible human contribution

[0:36:54 - 0:37:00] ▶

to our perception of the world. Yes. How you ever tease those two things back out is going to be

[0:37:00 - 0:37:06] ▶

the thornyest problem possible. Yeah. Just admitting that opens your whole your mind to a whole

[0:37:06 - 0:37:12] ▶

host of possibilities. I love in early in the, you know, the, the three body problem, you know,

[0:37:12 - 0:37:17] ▶

in the dark forest trilogy, this, you know, Chinese science fiction novel involving aliens,

[0:37:17 - 0:37:22] ▶

UFOs, you know, it's like the farmer and the shooter. And you have, you know, people on a 2D plane

[0:37:22 - 0:37:28] ▶

and bullets are shot or bullet holes are shot into that 2D plane. And to them, that could just be like,

[0:37:28 - 0:37:36] ▶

you know, little, little craters in their ploy of a flatland is another good example, you know,

[0:37:36 - 0:37:40] ▶

it's 19th century, you know, a book about this stuff where to the people on the 2D plane,

[0:37:40 - 0:37:45] ▶

the holes could just be literally, you know, they're not discretionary holes made by shooters that

[0:37:45 - 0:37:50] ▶

they can't even perceive. Right. And so we are, we are inherently sort of limited by our scope of

[0:37:50 - 0:37:56] ▶

perception and making that argument is an a priori assertion, but denying that argument is also an

[0:37:56 - 0:38:03] ▶

a priori assertion. And so there's, you're at this kind of epistemic impasse vis-a-vis modern

[0:38:03 - 0:38:08] ▶

science where if you propose anything like that, they just have nothing to say. And then you point

[0:38:08 - 0:38:14] ▶

towards like these ephemeral glimpses of UFOs or people who have like near death experiences and

[0:38:14 - 0:38:19] ▶

you say, these things are much richer than, than meet the eye. And then they say, oh, this is your

[0:38:19 - 0:38:24] ▶

mind place tricks on you. But you end up in this sort of like impossible to resolve argument.

[0:38:24 - 0:38:29] ▶

Yeah. And a porias like the classic. Yeah. So it's a puzzle. Oh, interesting. I've never heard

[0:38:29 - 0:38:36] ▶

that. Yeah. That's awesome. And one of my favorite ways of putting this comes from William James.

[0:38:36 - 0:38:43] ▶

Yeah. Yes. It's great analogy he uses. He thinks like humans are not unlike dogs and cats running

[0:38:43 - 0:38:48] ▶

around a library. Or not unlike our dogs when we're in the living room having a conversation

[0:38:48 - 0:38:53] ▶

about like the most high level stuff and your dogs there, they get it's like kind of hot shit,

[0:38:54 - 0:39:00] ▶

right? It's like doing the dog thing. And of course all the sounds and smells and stuff in

[0:39:00 - 0:39:04] ▶

his encounters are really there. Yeah. But it's a carve out from something much richer.

[0:39:04 - 0:39:08] ▶

Yes. And but he's he's hearing what you're saying. But it can't possibly mean anything to him

[0:39:08 - 0:39:14] ▶

because it's just not relevant to his way of being totally. Yeah. And it would be we think of

[0:39:14 - 0:39:20] ▶

things like cellular automata or like, you know, getting fungus to grow in certain ways or whatever,

[0:39:20 - 0:39:27] ▶

you know, like that's easy. It's predictable, right? Yeah. We could easily be cellular

[0:39:27 - 0:39:33] ▶

tatamata, automata in some larger system where, you know, you have the BF Skinner, you know,

[0:39:33 - 0:39:39] ▶

Pavlov's dog, you have all these ways to like condition humans like extremely easily. That's not

[0:39:39 - 0:39:45] ▶

that hard. And how do we know that that's not being done to us on some sort of grand scale?

[0:39:45 - 0:39:51] ▶

And that's the Jacques Vallet kind of control system hypothesis. That was one of the things that

[0:39:51 - 0:39:55] ▶

really turned me on was that what here's example just from the last 24 hours for me. So I live in a

[0:39:55 - 0:40:01] ▶

very small town in rural Kansas. Okay. And so you know, I'm here in Austin visiting you. And it's

[0:40:01 - 0:40:08] ▶

you walk around when you're used to being a small town in this human context that's on this

[0:40:08 - 0:40:13] ▶

incredible scale, right? And you start to notice all the ways you're being managed just by the

[0:40:13 - 0:40:19] ▶

structure of the city and the structure of the airport and all these way. And you have the sudden

[0:40:19 - 0:40:23] ▶

sudden sensor, you don't have the same feeling of control as you do say back in a small town.

[0:40:23 - 0:40:29] ▶

Yeah. Okay. And then it always strikes me whenever I fly into a major metropolitan area,

[0:40:29 - 0:40:34] ▶

how small and minor it looks on the landscape as you come in, right? So it's like here, I have a

[0:40:34 - 0:40:41] ▶

sense of I'm somehow being moved around by a larger reality just by being the city. But then if we

[0:40:41 - 0:40:47] ▶

move out our magnification a bit, we'll see the city is itself just part of this much bigger

[0:40:48 - 0:40:53] ▶

ecosystem of things. And it's not clear who's running that except for it, right? And so it seems

[0:40:53 - 0:40:58] ▶

like our level of magnification, right? Yes. Like it affords different senses of what the real

[0:40:58 - 0:41:05] ▶

substance of things are. Yes. And you start to get into weird ontological reality questions that

[0:41:05 - 0:41:13] ▶

the more microscopic you get like my old colleague Eric Weinstein likes to talk about he talks about

[0:41:13 - 0:41:19] ▶

and you write about this in your book, the um belt. Yeah. This sort of perceptive apparatus. He

[0:41:19 - 0:41:24] ▶

talks about science as like, you know, a continuous process of um belt hacking. He uses um belt.

[0:41:24 - 0:41:30] ▶

He does. Yeah. Yeah. I feel vindicated. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe he should be vindicated

[0:41:30 - 0:41:35] ▶

by you. But um, no, it's it is it's it's it's or even you know, uh, Feynman says there's room at

[0:41:35 - 0:41:42] ▶

the bottom. You know, and he's implying that like the deeper your perceptive apparatus gets,

[0:41:42 - 0:41:48] ▶

the more you're able to probably understand, you know, ontological truth. There's another physicist

[0:41:49 - 0:41:53] ▶

named Ken Wilson where it's like the higher the energy output, um, you know, the maybe the more

[0:41:54 - 0:41:59] ▶

ontological truth you get. And he really talks about it in the case of, you know, uh, sort of phase

[0:41:59 - 0:42:03] ▶

transitions via materials like you put them under like high duress. You can understand properties

[0:42:03 - 0:42:09] ▶

that you wouldn't without the duress. But I do think of like if we're in a cave, just, you know,

[0:42:09 - 0:42:15] ▶

suspend disbelief, say we are just in this cave. So I'm a we are. I mean, it just it seems like

[0:42:15 - 0:42:20] ▶

everything. And apparently we are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everything we know about how

[0:42:20 - 0:42:25] ▶

cognition works. I think shows I agree. We are sorting for relevance. Right. They're by

[0:42:25 - 0:42:30] ▶

we're ignoring more than and we've been evolutionarily rewarded. Yes. In like programmed to

[0:42:30 - 0:42:35] ▶

ignore something. So so the two ways out of the cave would be you're building your own perceptive

[0:42:35 - 0:42:41] ▶

apparatus like your own working on your own kind of cognition. And so raising your own consciousness.

[0:42:41 - 0:42:48] ▶

These things are very hard to talk about because it's hard to there's no formula or whatever. But

[0:42:48 - 0:42:52] ▶

you know, that that would be one way. And then the second way might be sort of physics that breaks

[0:42:52 - 0:42:58] ▶

the boundaries of the cave. So it would be like lighting a firecracker in the cave or something.

[0:42:58 - 0:43:03] ▶

So I think about that with the nuclear UFO connection. But I wonder about that. Yeah. Because it's

[0:43:03 - 0:43:08] ▶

even let's say we get, you know, like another scientific revolution. Okay. But it's still got to come

[0:43:08 - 0:43:15] ▶

back and be translated into the basic human cognitive setup. Like what you know, like like it's

[0:43:15 - 0:43:21] ▶

still going to have to like run on this hardware. So it's always going to go back to somehow traceable

[0:43:21 - 0:43:30] ▶

to, you know, modes of cognition that were developed for paleolithic ancestors. Yep. But I don't know.

[0:43:30 - 0:43:38] ▶

I mean, yes. But like the hardware is probably changing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's always

[0:43:38 - 0:43:46] ▶

hard to say on what time scales things will happen because I'm, you know, I believe in Darwin. But

[0:43:46 - 0:43:51] ▶

I believe in him is locally useful and incomplete theory. Yeah. And I think, you know, Hoffman's thing.

[0:43:51 - 0:43:57] ▶

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Hoffman's thing or, you know, you know, even like these placeholder terms,

[0:43:57 - 0:44:02] ▶

we use like punctuated equilibria and evolution when Carl Popper said, yeah, you're dead right

[0:44:02 - 0:44:08] ▶

to say though, it's not like if we, if we go to Darwinian route, yeah. Okay. Then the hardware is

[0:44:08 - 0:44:14] ▶

a moving target too. I agree. Right. 100%. But then the thing of though is any cognitive act that

[0:44:14 - 0:44:21] ▶

we would do to change the hardware would prove supposed that they're prior hardware. So there's kind

[0:44:21 - 0:44:25] ▶

of a loop there. Yeah. And you know, it means like whatever, whatever could be that change, it's

[0:44:25 - 0:44:30] ▶

almost like it can't be within our direct control. Hmm. Explain it again. We can think of it. Like

[0:44:30 - 0:44:35] ▶

if we're going to reset our basic cognitive apparatus somehow, but we can only do that based

[0:44:35 - 0:44:42] ▶

on principles of our current cognitive apparatus. Right. So we would never really be free of that.

[0:44:42 - 0:44:49] ▶

Right. So it looks like there's, you're going to have that kind of looping problem in there.

[0:44:49 - 0:44:53] ▶

Yes. Yeah. Yes. But then also you can measure a thing like the Copenhagen school like measures

[0:44:53 - 0:45:00] ▶

like an electron. And there's like this electron doesn't exhibit properties that like you look like

[0:45:00 - 0:45:05] ▶

normal macroscopic reality. Right. And then that like puts you into this brain scramble that like,

[0:45:05 - 0:45:09] ▶

you know, increases your evolution. Yeah. So it is this like positive feedback. Yeah.

[0:45:09 - 0:45:15] ▶

Yeah. So it's the way I look at it is like we're always opening the scope on our umfeld. Okay.

[0:45:15 - 0:45:22] ▶

But it's still tethered to that original point, right? Because we, because we, we got here this

[0:45:22 - 0:45:29] ▶

through this evolutionary route and that's always going to kind of flavor it. Right. So I agree,

[0:45:29 - 0:45:34] ▶

like what science does is it opens it. Right. And I would even say humanities in some case. I think

[0:45:34 - 0:45:39] ▶

literature can like open us to new reels and things like that. Okay. So it's opening it wider and

[0:45:39 - 0:45:43] ▶

wider, wider, but it's still always going to come back to that same origin point. And it's always

[0:45:43 - 0:45:48] ▶

limited then. Yeah. You have all these other myths that deal with technology development and,

[0:45:48 - 0:45:54] ▶

you know, like Prometheus being kind of the archetypal one or or foused, you know, and usually it

[0:45:54 - 0:45:59] ▶

doesn't end well for those seeking the light. Yeah. So how do we, how do we interpret that and sort

[0:45:59 - 0:46:05] ▶

of a platonic and UFO context? So I got, I got really obsessed with Sophocles Prometheus bound

[0:46:05 - 0:46:11] ▶

in the, the, the tragic play and like I make all my students read it now. And it's interesting.

[0:46:11 - 0:46:18] ▶

Okay. So the start of Sophocles version of the myth is the Festus, the God of Smithing is,

[0:46:18 - 0:46:28] ▶

he's, he's chaining up nailing down Prometheus. Okay. Which is ironic because like what did Prometheus do

[0:46:28 - 0:46:34] ▶

is he like, he provided humans with all the arts. Okay. Like including Smithing. So basically,

[0:46:34 - 0:46:39] ▶

Prometheus is being bound by technology. It's the God that gives us technology, but he is bound

[0:46:40 - 0:46:44] ▶

by technology. Right. And in Sophocles version force who speaks for Zeus, interesting,

[0:46:44 - 0:46:50] ▶

he's just pure blind force speaks there. And Festus are kind of, they're kind of mocking him. Like

[0:46:50 - 0:46:56] ▶

your name and means for knowledge. You didn't see this coming. And he's like, oh, bro, I saw

[0:46:56 - 0:47:01] ▶

it coming. I want this. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And like later in in the myth, he even says, I hate all

[0:47:01 - 0:47:08] ▶

gods. Right. Wow. Yeah. And he encounters iron who, you know, I owe probably who, you know,

[0:47:08 - 0:47:16] ▶

was who rejected Zeus and she's a human. He gets turned to a cow and he predicts a child of yours

[0:47:16 - 0:47:22] ▶

and the 13th generation. So it's going to be her, hercules rise the prediction. But in the 13th

[0:47:22 - 0:47:27] ▶

generation, a human child like long in the future, bad generation is going to take out Zeus. Okay.

[0:47:27 - 0:47:34] ▶

You see that. And so like there's this prediction of a kind of like, you know, like death of God,

[0:47:34 - 0:47:39] ▶

assertive humanism that's going to come out of this. Right. From a guy though, who is being nailed

[0:47:39 - 0:47:46] ▶

to a rock by technology itself. So you can see, I think even Sophocles, there's a sense that

[0:47:46 - 0:47:52] ▶

humans are on rails to a kind of self assertive self-destruction. Right. Because we are these

[0:47:52 - 0:48:00] ▶

technological animals. You know how we're always diving into the edge of science and consciousness

[0:48:00 - 0:48:05] ▶

on this show lately. I've been thinking a lot about aging, not just in terms of years, but in how

[0:48:05 - 0:48:11] ▶

it actually feels in the body, slow recovery, lower energy that middle aged fog that sneaks up on

[0:48:11 - 0:48:16] ▶

you. I feel like I can barely go out and drink alcohol anymore. That's why I started using something

[0:48:16 - 0:48:21] ▶

called qualia, senolytic. And it's been a major shift for me. Let me explain. As we age, our bodies

[0:48:21 - 0:48:27] ▶

accumulate what scientists call senescent cells, also known as zombie cells. These are worn out

[0:48:27 - 0:48:34] ▶

cells that stop dividing, but don't die. They hang around in your body, draining your energy,

[0:48:34 - 0:48:39] ▶

clogging up your recovery, and generally making you feel older than you are. Qualia senolytic is a

[0:48:39 - 0:48:45] ▶

first of its kind supplement formulated with nine plant-based compounds designed to help your body

[0:48:45 - 0:48:51] ▶

naturally eliminate these zombie cells. It's not something you take every day, just two days a month,

[0:48:51 - 0:48:58] ▶

but it supports your body in aging better at the cellular level. Since I've started taking it,

[0:48:58 - 0:49:03] ▶

I've felt sharper, lighter, and like my body's resilience has come back online. It's vegan,

[0:49:03 - 0:49:08] ▶

non-GMO, and grounded, and serious research. Experience the science of feeling younger. Go to

[0:49:08 - 0:49:14] ▶

qualialife.com slash jessey for up to 50% off your purchase and use code jessey. Again, that's

[0:49:14 - 0:49:22] ▶

J-E-S-S-E for an additional 15% off. That's q-u-A-L-I-A-L-I-F-E.com slash jessey J-E-S-S-E for an extra 15%

[0:49:22 - 0:49:36] ▶

off your purchase. Thanks so much to qualia for sponsoring this episode. What does that mean as far

[0:49:36 - 0:49:41] ▶

as our relationship to technology? One essay that you write about in your great book,

[0:49:41 - 0:49:47] ▶

and Diana Pasolka also talks about is the question concerning technology, which is this

[0:49:47 - 0:49:52] ▶

high-digger essay. I would be lying if I were to tell you that I understand this essay. I've

[0:49:52 - 0:49:57] ▶

tried to read it a couple of times. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's not the place to start

[0:49:57 - 0:50:04] ▶

high-digger, but it's like, it's where everybody wants to get to. I don't think I understand

[0:50:04 - 0:50:08] ▶

high-digger in general, but yeah. Basically what high-diggers argue in the essay is the essence of

[0:50:08 - 0:50:17] ▶

technology isn't a device. He's very explicit about that. When high-digger gets moody about technology,

[0:50:17 - 0:50:24] ▶

he's not just moody about how much screen time we're having. You wouldn't be a fan, but for him,

[0:50:24 - 0:50:32] ▶

the essence of technology is a certain attitude towards being. That's what technology really is.

[0:50:32 - 0:50:38] ▶

There wasn't a committee that met in the early modern period that decided we would just like

[0:50:43 - 0:50:50] ▶

change civilization. But he also thinks something happens such that we started to ask a different

[0:50:50 - 0:50:55] ▶

kind of question about nature than we did before. He thinks what happened is for some reason

[0:50:55 - 0:51:02] ▶

we began to ask nature, what can we extract from it rather than how we can work with it?

[0:51:02 - 0:51:08] ▶

He thinks what the essence of technology is is an attitude of extraction or accessibility.

[0:51:10 - 0:51:16] ▶

What the world is is simply the conditions at which it's accessible to us.

[0:51:16 - 0:51:21] ▶

He thinks he can trace that back. It's always been in the making throughout the entire Western

[0:51:21 - 0:51:29] ▶

Phil software tradition. It really bubbled up in the modern period. For him, he thinks there's

[0:51:29 - 0:51:37] ▶

no getting out of it because we didn't have a committee meeting to change our attitudes. We're

[0:51:37 - 0:51:40] ▶

not going to have a committee meeting to get out of it. We have to ride this all the way down.

[0:51:40 - 0:51:44] ▶

But he thinks if we admit that we're stuck with this attitude, the world, we're stuck thinking

[0:51:45 - 0:51:53] ▶

of the world simply on the terms that it's useful to us. If we make that admission, then we're

[0:51:53 - 0:52:00] ▶

kind of admitting we're not really running things because we can't really decide this for ourselves.

[0:52:00 - 0:52:04] ▶

Anything that will open us to maybe something else could show itself to us that would change our

[0:52:04 - 0:52:10] ▶

attitude to being again. Maybe this is a contrived connection. But I think about that probably very

[0:52:10 - 0:52:19] ▶

true assertion that humans look at technology as this locally useful thing. They're producing.

[0:52:19 - 0:52:27] ▶

And then they port their own value into how can they work alongside technology to make things

[0:52:27 - 0:52:34] ▶

more useful or more productive, which is a very narrow scope of what it is to be human. Humans

[0:52:34 - 0:52:39] ▶

can write poetry, be self-referential. We create culture. But there's something about technology that

[0:52:39 - 0:52:46] ▶

compresses humans into this economically productive unit.

[0:52:46 - 0:52:51] ▶

Heiger was really worked up the first time you heard someone use the word human resources.

[0:52:53 - 0:52:58] ▶

He says because eventually what's going to happen is we're going to see ourselves in technological

[0:52:59 - 0:53:02] ▶

terms of accessibility and use. And he's not just word that like, you know, soil and green is people

[0:53:02 - 0:53:08] ▶

like literally. But I think he is for everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher, you've got to tell them

[0:53:08 - 0:53:15] ▶

silent breed is people. But he's worried that then we'll only have a means and attitude

[0:53:15 - 0:53:23] ▶

for ourselves, to everything. And what his worry is is this will lead us to what he calls a certain

[0:53:23 - 0:53:30] ▶

kind of oblivion to being. Right? Yeah. It's like an oblivion, like a forgetfulness again,

[0:53:30 - 0:53:36] ▶

right? Full circle of play to here. Like a forgetfulness of what being really is.

[0:53:36 - 0:53:41] ▶

Yes. Yeah. And we'll only see it as what it is to us how we can access it.

[0:53:41 - 0:53:46] ▶

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the soil and green analogy is fun. You know, like that's that's an extreme,

[0:53:46 - 0:53:51] ▶

right? Where it's like, you know, the Charlton Heston movie that, you know, metaphor. It's a great

[0:53:51 - 0:53:56] ▶

metaphor. And you know, all of the play to where you never know if it's a metaphor or it's real.

[0:53:56 - 0:54:01] ▶

I think he talks about five stages of technological development in that essay. And one of them is

[0:54:02 - 0:54:07] ▶

sacrifice. And you think about a lot of like pagan scapegoating cycles and past efforts at

[0:54:07 - 0:54:15] ▶

garnering sacred knowledge or technology. And they involve like kind of brutal practices.

[0:54:15 - 0:54:21] ▶

And I, you know, I think you could you could go all the way back to, you know,

[0:54:22 - 0:54:25] ▶

ancient practices to the Nazis trying to like sort of do this at scale.

[0:54:26 - 0:54:31] ▶

Yeah. For like forbidden knowledge and technology. And I, it's funny because, you know,

[0:54:31 - 0:54:37] ▶

I think you can gesture to actually draw us, I think a connection between, you know, sort of

[0:54:37 - 0:54:43] ▶

pre-scientific magic and technology. Yeah. And like human sacrifice and technology. The idea is

[0:54:44 - 0:54:51] ▶

that we, if we just had the right technique, we could force the world's hand to do what we want.

[0:54:51 - 0:54:56] ▶

Right. Right. Yeah. And there's sort of, I think, Gerard would see something like that too.

[0:54:56 - 0:55:01] ▶

Oh, for sure. Yeah. And there's a way in which tech used to be like, you know, an augmentation of

[0:55:01 - 0:55:09] ▶

a human. It was like an extra appendage or something. And then, you know, I think post-information

[0:55:09 - 0:55:16] ▶

revolution, it's sort of become this like puricitation of humans. So, Heidegger's, like,

[0:55:16 - 0:55:22] ▶

when Heidegger's great examples is he compares like a hydroelectric exam, damn, to a medieval

[0:55:22 - 0:55:30] ▶

windmill, okay, or a medieval watermill, okay? Because I know, like, seeing the medieval versions,

[0:55:30 - 0:55:35] ▶

and I'm not, and I'm not saying we peaked in the 12th century or something like that. Like,

[0:55:35 - 0:55:38] ▶

I'm glad my wife can vote, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like, with the wind, like, the

[0:55:38 - 0:55:44] ▶

medieval windmill, you, it works when the wind blows. Okay. So you're like, you're going to like,

[0:55:44 - 0:55:51] ▶

build something that makes you have to work along with nature. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Whereas the

[0:55:51 - 0:55:56] ▶

hydroelectric dam, for all its virtues, though, it's saying, nature, I will take from you what I want

[0:55:56 - 0:56:01] ▶

and store it. Yep. So it's all on our terms, right? It's about how we access you. Right? Not

[0:56:01 - 0:56:08] ▶

how can we work with you? Yeah. It's mastery over nature in a way. Yeah. It's not just harmonizing

[0:56:08 - 0:56:15] ▶

with nature. Yeah. And those two things are very disdain, I mean, there's the, there are two competing

[0:56:15 - 0:56:22] ▶

theories of the inevitability of human evolution or of existence on earth. And there's the

[0:56:22 - 0:56:27] ▶

Gaia, James, Lovelock theory that, you know, the earth is somehow like super resilient. And so like,

[0:56:27 - 0:56:32] ▶

we might come and go, but that, you know, the earth will always sort of come back. And then there's

[0:56:32 - 0:56:37] ▶

the Medea theory, which is like, you know, we inevitably will like blow ourselves up and like,

[0:56:37 - 0:56:42] ▶

you know, that maybe there's some evidence that that happened on Mars or something. Yeah. They're

[0:56:42 - 0:56:48] ▶

there sort of competing. There's an indefinitely modern tech seems to be in the category of just

[0:56:48 - 0:56:54] ▶

yet being able, how do we control everything? Yeah. And if you think that VR is like that to the limit

[0:56:54 - 0:56:59] ▶

where it's like the entire world that like we might be living in like is controllable. And so I

[0:56:59 - 0:57:04] ▶

don't know, taking it like one step farther with the Plato thing, do you ever think like this is like,

[0:57:04 - 0:57:10] ▶

we're in these like biological skin suits. Yeah. They're that are basically like VR headsets. And the

[0:57:10 - 0:57:16] ▶

contemplation of virtue or some other criteria that we don't fully understand are the means through

[0:57:16 - 0:57:23] ▶

which we ascend through these things into the light and become even worthy of that next step

[0:57:23 - 0:57:31] ▶

outside of the cave. Because I also thought, you know, the Heidegger thing might connect where it's

[0:57:31 - 0:57:36] ▶

like we're porting ourselves through these like low-level economic production engines via technology.

[0:57:36 - 0:57:41] ▶

I believe that also kind of dovetails with a test that Plato puts the Guardians through like at

[0:57:41 - 0:57:48] ▶

the age of 30 or whatever if you fail like you don't get to study metaphysics, you just like become

[0:57:48 - 0:57:53] ▶

the like the economic producer or whatever. So I think at this point is where like a Heidegger

[0:57:53 - 0:57:58] ▶

and Plato come apart. Okay, at least this where Heidegger becomes a critic of Plato's. Okay,

[0:57:58 - 0:58:04] ▶

because he would look at something like that dialectical process in the Republic whereby one

[0:58:04 - 0:58:10] ▶

like ascends to a kind of enlightenment as a quasi technological attitude. Okay, and whereas for Heidegger

[0:58:10 - 0:58:18] ▶

for him the metaphor is more like architectural. Like you build a temple and you hope someone

[0:58:20 - 0:58:28] ▶

shows up there. Right? Okay, and a lot of his later work goes to this where he talks about how we need

[0:58:28 - 0:58:36] ▶

artwork. Okay, but meaning we need art that does the work of art and what does the work of art

[0:58:36 - 0:58:42] ▶

is it it provides a place sort of like a theater where an actor could show up for us. Okay, so for

[0:58:42 - 0:58:48] ▶

Heidegger it's like we're more passive in the process. Okay, then say for Plato where we

[0:58:48 - 0:58:55] ▶

more active in the process like there would be you know an educational process that one could

[0:58:55 - 0:59:01] ▶

go through right that would get you there right? For Heidegger it's like well if divinity is going

[0:59:01 - 0:59:06] ▶

to show up for us right if the transcendence is going to show up for us then it cannot be our doing

[0:59:06 - 0:59:11] ▶

like and he thinks what's happened in the modern world is because we we only think of like what we

[0:59:12 - 0:59:16] ▶

can take and do and grab and process right. We need to regain an ability just to build something

[0:59:16 - 0:59:23] ▶

that is sort of receptive rather than aggressively extracting. Do you see that?

[0:59:24 - 0:59:30] ▶

And I think for me I probably lean more towards Heidegger and that. Fascinating. Well speaking of that

[0:59:31 - 0:59:38] ▶

is the UFO a technology that sort of you know if there's a push in a pull outside of the cave or

[0:59:39 - 0:59:46] ▶

whatever is the UFO some sort of pulling technology because you do talk about this where it's this

[0:59:46 - 0:59:54] ▶

thing that it busts all of your priors. You know it's like you have all these like prior categorization

[0:59:54 - 0:59:59] ▶

techniques. I didn't want to talk about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like you know five

[0:59:59 - 1:00:04] ▶

years ago, but you find yourself obsessed because it's inherently kind of uncategorizable. Yeah,

[1:00:04 - 1:00:10] ▶

that's kind of a rye land with the as it were with the UFO is it seems like something's knocking.

[1:00:10 - 1:00:16] ▶

Right. There's some and maybe it's always been knocking at the door. Right. You know because we have

[1:00:16 - 1:00:19] ▶

different metaphors for our history, but it seems like something's knocking. Right. And whether we

[1:00:19 - 1:00:26] ▶

listen to it through a a platonic you know process of dialectical improvement or we listen to it

[1:00:26 - 1:00:32] ▶

through a sort of Heideggerian building a place where it could dwell. Right. That it seems that something

[1:00:32 - 1:00:37] ▶

is trying to remind the human of something. Right. That's just trying to jog our memories. Like I

[1:00:37 - 1:00:43] ▶

liked these Plato's metaphor. And and and I'm not really like I don't trust any of our metaphors

[1:00:43 - 1:00:51] ▶

about it. You know, is it an angel? Is it a demon? Is it you know, is it is it an elf or a

[1:00:51 - 1:00:55] ▶

fairy? Seems that all of that gives our imagination too much of a pass. Right. But it does seem there is

[1:00:55 - 1:01:01] ▶

some pressure on us from outside our own wealth. Right. That we would do well to at least strategize how

[1:01:01 - 1:01:06] ▶

we would listen to. Yeah. Yeah. It's so fascinating. And so like how does how does any of this

[1:01:06 - 1:01:12] ▶

comport with like the way we discussed this stuff in a government context? Because you know,

[1:01:12 - 1:01:17] ▶

we have like we're talking out an extremely high abstract level of the kind of ontological truth.

[1:01:17 - 1:01:23] ▶

And then there's like their government whistleblowers coming out of saying that they've retrieved

[1:01:23 - 1:01:28] ▶

UFOs, one of whom I've had on my show and like you know, it was kind of hard to park poll coals in

[1:01:28 - 1:01:33] ▶

his story. Like you know, felt like you know, pretty pre-Mafasia at least, you know, very very,

[1:01:33 - 1:01:38] ▶

you know, like an honest account. And so how do we square that circle? I don't know. I don't know

[1:01:38 - 1:01:45] ▶

that I can. Yeah. And because for me, and this is not I am not like calling anyone into question

[1:01:45 - 1:01:53] ▶

anything like that. But like so like I have no special access to anything. I'm just to average dude

[1:01:53 - 1:02:00] ▶

right away. Right. And so I have to always ask myself like what's more likely? Like what this

[1:02:00 - 1:02:05] ▶

person's telling me is true. And they could be they could be speaking of falsehood in Nappy

[1:02:05 - 1:02:10] ▶

Lion. I'm not saying anyone's lion. Like that. You always have the ways like is this testimony true?

[1:02:10 - 1:02:14] ▶

Right. Against the probability that this someone this person's been somehow deceived or

[1:02:15 - 1:02:20] ▶

etc. And just taking like whether you know, it's any of the whistleblowers. I don't know how I can

[1:02:20 - 1:02:29] ▶

really weigh that out. Yeah. You know what I mean? So like, let's say, you know, we we talk to

[1:02:29 - 1:02:34] ▶

whistleblower, you know, Roy, right? And we ask Roy, hey, you know, yeah, you've you've been told

[1:02:34 - 1:02:42] ▶

this, this, this, this, and this by all these people. Yeah. It seems unlikely that they're all

[1:02:42 - 1:02:45] ▶

in on something that seems unlikely. Yeah. But then it seems really unlikely that these things

[1:02:45 - 1:02:52] ▶

they're telling you are true too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. This is an old argument from David

[1:02:52 - 1:02:57] ▶

Humvee of Miracles. And so we have to weigh that. Yeah. And it seems to me like I can't even really

[1:02:57 - 1:03:02] ▶

make a meaningful comparison of those probabilities. Well, I would say in the the world in which like

[1:03:02 - 1:03:07] ▶

forbidden knowledge is a real thing. Yes. That there's some, you know, cleaving off of like Black

[1:03:07 - 1:03:13] ▶

world science or knowledge. You know, the government would be attempting systematically to. Yeah.

[1:03:13 - 1:03:18] ▶

That's just from a game theory geopolitical. You have to assign some plausibility. Yep. To like maybe

[1:03:19 - 1:03:26] ▶

well, the thing is as soon as we do that. And this, and this gives me fits. So it seems to me,

[1:03:26 - 1:03:32] ▶

so I think no matter what now, you've got to have a pretty unlikely conspiracy theory. Because either

[1:03:32 - 1:03:38] ▶

like this has been covered up for 75 years. You know what I mean? Or there's something really

[1:03:39 - 1:03:44] ▶

weird going on now where it seems like now people want us to believe it. Right. So either way,

[1:03:44 - 1:03:49] ▶

you've got like a low prop, a prima facia low probability conspiracy theory. You're going to have to

[1:03:49 - 1:03:53] ▶

take. Yeah. Yeah. And then I always ask myself the question like, you know, because of course,

[1:03:53 - 1:03:57] ▶

you have to go back and forth. But like, yeah. I'm like, why are like some of these people are like

[1:03:57 - 1:04:02] ▶

very high level in prosaically important government and military and science roles. And like if we are

[1:04:02 - 1:04:11] ▶

in some like multipolar new Cold War, why are you systematically sending all of these top guys to like

[1:04:11 - 1:04:18] ▶

Syop the American population? I know. That that seems crazy. Yeah. That seems crazier than,

[1:04:18 - 1:04:24] ▶

you know, as a null hypothesis. Yeah. Then the inverse, which is just like actually this has been

[1:04:24 - 1:04:29] ▶

going on for, you know, thousands of years. See, there's where I think you and I come apart. I

[1:04:29 - 1:04:32] ▶

don't know which is crazier. Sure. Sure. You're more in that like, you know, I'm waiting through

[1:04:32 - 1:04:37] ▶

the waters of speaking to these people. Yeah. But I think I do think you have to say now that

[1:04:37 - 1:04:43] ▶

I mean, I it's been on the floor of the Congress and things like that that I asked to

[1:04:44 - 1:04:49] ▶

that's got to pump the probability up a little bit, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but not

[1:04:50 - 1:04:55] ▶

I don't know if all the way. Yeah. Right. Because well, it's funny. Like as I say, like people

[1:04:55 - 1:05:01] ▶

don't think correctly, I think. And so if you that's a sort of crazy thing for me to say, I know.

[1:05:01 - 1:05:06] ▶

But it's like, you could just say like New York Times Congress Schumer Amendment. You know,

[1:05:06 - 1:05:12] ▶

you say these things, somebody who holds a Q clearance and then all of a sudden they go, Oh,

[1:05:12 - 1:05:17] ▶

credentials. They go, whatever you say next as far as what they believe, I now believe. And then

[1:05:17 - 1:05:23] ▶

you could go into all these sort of first principles, like more interesting inquiries into like how

[1:05:23 - 1:05:27] ▶

reality works, Allah, what we're doing now. Yeah. And it's like, it's, you know, not even wrong or

[1:05:27 - 1:05:32] ▶

like unfalsephile or like crazy or whatever. Because you need to somehow, uh, there are receptors

[1:05:32 - 1:05:39] ▶

around like, you know, credentialism need to be like met first. And they're like, Oh, let me

[1:05:39 - 1:05:44] ▶

listen. You know, it's like that's not the way you should inquire. You might have heard about some

[1:05:44 - 1:05:51] ▶

of the honest placebo studies. No. Okay. So apparent, I'm probably not getting all the details right,

[1:05:51 - 1:05:56] ▶

but apparently there are cases where there've been experiments where they told people, this is

[1:05:56 - 1:06:02] ▶

a placebo. And this is a nerd substance. Yep. And we're giving it to you. It's still helped.

[1:06:02 - 1:06:06] ▶

If the person giving it to them, yeah, still had like the lab coat. Yeah. Right. And the, it

[1:06:06 - 1:06:15] ▶

was in the right kind of packaging. Like, so like if some, you know, dude shows up the door and

[1:06:15 - 1:06:19] ▶

gives you a bag of pills, and it's probably not going to work. Right. Yeah. But like, but like if

[1:06:19 - 1:06:22] ▶

someone dresses up like a doctor, like an authority figure, all the credentials, right. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:06:22 - 1:06:26] ▶

So I think we have to really mistrust totally. Well, and there's certain people who have an

[1:06:26 - 1:06:31] ▶

A priori disposition towards magic. And then others, you do. And then that becomes their

[1:06:31 - 1:06:35] ▶

reality. Like it's like, it's like the Plato thing where it's like everything I'm going to tell you

[1:06:35 - 1:06:38] ▶

is a lie. And like, then why would you say that? And you get all confused. And then he goes on to

[1:06:38 - 1:06:43] ▶

tell us some like stuff that like there's clearly some truth in it. Exactly. And then, you know, maybe

[1:06:43 - 1:06:48] ▶

there's some lies, but like you're extremely intrigued. They're, they're layers to the layers

[1:06:48 - 1:06:53] ▶

like Leo Strauss. This, you know, you know, 20th century philosophy. He was a big, big, you know,

[1:06:53 - 1:06:59] ▶

Platonist too. And he also thought those books were full-ized.

[1:06:59 - 1:07:03] ▶

Totally. But then you'd ever know if he was writing in a coded fashion himself. And so it was like,

[1:07:04 - 1:07:08] ▶

and then like the people around him, like had these like weird communication techniques. So,

[1:07:08 - 1:07:12] ▶

so it's this never-ending thing. And you could say the exoteric is implying meaning that doesn't

[1:07:13 - 1:07:20] ▶

exist. Right. And the esoteric is like the room and, you know, is actually empty when you get to it.

[1:07:20 - 1:07:25] ▶

And it's like, it's all some coordination mechanism. Yeah. Or you could say the exoteric is throwing

[1:07:25 - 1:07:30] ▶

people off the trail and the more you like talk about that, then you're going and you've created

[1:07:30 - 1:07:37] ▶

this cult. Yes. And it's yeah. And so I actually do this in the book when I say, okay,

[1:07:37 - 1:07:45] ▶

what using the example of the tic-tac? Okay. So what's my evidence of the tic-tac? Well, this, you know,

[1:07:46 - 1:07:51] ▶

seemingly very reliable your forced pilot. And, you know, Alex Dietrich and David Fravery.

[1:07:52 - 1:07:59] ▶

They said these things, right? Right. Yeah.

[1:07:59 - 1:08:01] ▶

Radio system. Yeah. Okay. And so I have like testimony from seemingly reliable people. Right. Okay.

[1:08:01 - 1:08:07] ▶

And if you say, yeah, but it like, how can you buy that? But yet, like, I only know

[1:08:09 - 1:08:14] ▶

been lotten was shot. Yeah. Because of testimony. Media. Yeah. From the camevith and media,

[1:08:14 - 1:08:20] ▶

if you were liable, like Pentagon officials, I only know. And now, of course, maybe some of that

[1:08:20 - 1:08:24] ▶

stuff we shouldn't be so quick to believe, too. Do you know what I mean? But it seems to me,

[1:08:24 - 1:08:29] ▶

you've got to put it on the spectrum of believability now. Of course. Yeah. But it's like, yeah,

[1:08:29 - 1:08:35] ▶

if I say, like, we detected a cork or whatever. It's like some particle accelerator. I like to take

[1:08:35 - 1:08:40] ▶

Eric's word for that. Yeah. Yeah. And Eric has taken other people's word for that because he's

[1:08:40 - 1:08:44] ▶

a theoretical guy. And he's not doing that the experiments. And so it's the consensus reality.

[1:08:44 - 1:08:50] ▶

If you really get down to it, can just be totally managed. Yeah.

[1:08:50 - 1:08:54] ▶

And I think, I mean, that has been known since Plato. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[1:08:56 - 1:09:03] ▶

And so what do I do with like, say disclosure movement stuff like that? Yeah. And the UFO is

[1:09:03 - 1:09:09] ▶

is I admit, I, I now am like self-consciously eloof to it. That's cool. I like that. I'm starting to

[1:09:09 - 1:09:16] ▶

be like that too. Yeah. I had a friend tell me yesterday or two days ago, Chris Ramsey,

[1:09:16 - 1:09:21] ▶

he was a great channel called Area 52. He goes, I'm not really into disclosure. He's like, I'm

[1:09:21 - 1:09:26] ▶

into UFOs. Yeah. And I was like, I like that. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. This whole like

[1:09:26 - 1:09:30] ▶

dramatic process of like these people and the bubble, but it's like, it's fascinating. And I find

[1:09:31 - 1:09:37] ▶

some of the people very heroic and courageous. And I've loved all the people who I've been lucky

[1:09:38 - 1:09:43] ▶

to have access to on the show. But ultimately, it's like, does that get you closer to some primordial

[1:09:43 - 1:09:50] ▶

truth? Is there, you know, there are plenty of things can be true, little T true or whatever.

[1:09:50 - 1:09:56] ▶

And there can be ulterior motives involved as well. And it's totally, to me, it's a lens through

[1:09:56 - 1:10:00] ▶

which you can, you know, go to the deeper stuff. And some of them have are going through their

[1:10:00 - 1:10:06] ▶

own processes and journeys. You talked to Jake Barber, David Grush, or any of these people,

[1:10:06 - 1:10:10] ▶

like they're, it's opened up their worldview. And they're like, you know, they're diving into

[1:10:10 - 1:10:15] ▶

like what they want to know about like reality as well. But yeah, some of the contemporary kind of,

[1:10:15 - 1:10:21] ▶

you know, drama is not, you know, always the best in red. And right now, let's say, you know,

[1:10:21 - 1:10:26] ▶

you said, you know, we're off the air jam. And I'm going to show you. Yeah. Here's what they showed me.

[1:10:26 - 1:10:30] ▶

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got the real stuff. Yeah. I would have to say, okay, but then why would I

[1:10:30 - 1:10:34] ▶

believe Jesse? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Why are you showing me? Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like,

[1:10:34 - 1:10:39] ▶

and this is like one of the frustrations, but even if you found out, you haven't found out. Right.

[1:10:40 - 1:10:44] ▶

Right. Right. Yeah. Well, that's why, you know, if I had to make a prediction, I think contact or

[1:10:44 - 1:10:50] ▶

like true, like more disclosure, you know, disclosure will be inherently this sort of jagged process.

[1:10:50 - 1:10:55] ▶

Well, you maybe you'll have 20% of the population still holding out saying, like, you know,

[1:10:55 - 1:10:59] ▶

this is just impossible or whatever. But, you know, say there's some big event in the next few years.

[1:10:59 - 1:11:05] ▶

My strong bias would be that that event does not come through some like power structure

[1:11:05 - 1:11:11] ▶

on down disseminated message from like government officials. It's like some weird surprising thing. Yeah.

[1:11:11 - 1:11:17] ▶

And if it's, if it's not that, it won't hit people epistemicly in the right way. Yeah,

[1:11:18 - 1:11:24] ▶

because they'll be skeptical forever. So they've it, like right now, evolution has been taught in

[1:11:24 - 1:11:31] ▶

public schools, at least in most private schools for generations, right. But how many Americans believe it?

[1:11:31 - 1:11:37] ▶

Yeah. Right. Everyone. Yeah. Like the big bang's been taught. Yeah. How many Americans believe it? Yeah.

[1:11:38 - 1:11:43] ▶

Not everyone. You know, you can you could even have something become like educational orthodox. Yeah.

[1:11:43 - 1:11:48] ▶

And it doesn't necessarily move the needle for everyone. Yeah. So like what, what would even like

[1:11:48 - 1:11:53] ▶

disclosure look like in a way that actually had grip on people's daily lives?

[1:11:53 - 1:11:58] ▶

Totally. And then you, yeah. And then it's like, okay, you see a saucer and a hanger,

[1:11:58 - 1:12:03] ▶

the hanger is at an official site. You see some government official who you know you trust because

[1:12:03 - 1:12:07] ▶

they're cabinet level or the president unveiling the thing. You have all these questions. Then you

[1:12:07 - 1:12:13] ▶

step inside the thing. You have all these questions. The scientists probably working on this stuff.

[1:12:13 - 1:12:18] ▶

Don't know exactly what they're looking at and have all these questions. And so it becomes this

[1:12:19 - 1:12:23] ▶

never-ending quest. And yeah. So yeah, the philosophical question of like what is disclosure?

[1:12:24 - 1:12:31] ▶

And meanwhile, what you could be doing is just working on your own perceptive filter apparatus.

[1:12:31 - 1:12:36] ▶

If you treat yourself like an, you know, an event, you know, lens or whatever work on the lens.

[1:12:36 - 1:12:42] ▶

Yeah. And so for me, you know, it becomes, you know, less, you know, what are we going to, like,

[1:12:42 - 1:12:48] ▶

not that you really ever was like, well, we're going to get the government to tell us.

[1:12:49 - 1:12:52] ▶

It's more, can I, can I come up with a philosophical, metaphysical cognitive model?

[1:12:53 - 1:12:58] ▶

Yep. Where it makes sense. Yeah. That like the on, we would expect the unexpected to happen.

[1:12:58 - 1:13:03] ▶

And I think, yeah, we can't. I think that does make perfectly a sense, right?

[1:13:03 - 1:13:06] ▶

Yeah. And so then the question now is just, okay, how do we digest that?

[1:13:06 - 1:13:10] ▶

Right? Do you know for ourselves in our friendships, in our classrooms, all that.

[1:13:11 - 1:13:16] ▶

Yeah. It becomes it, right? You know, I'm not looking for authorities to tell me what to do.

[1:13:16 - 1:13:23] ▶

Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No, that, that's that, that you become limited in your ability to

[1:13:23 - 1:13:29] ▶

derive truth if you inherently, if you do that. And I think, I don't know, I'm curious to get

[1:13:29 - 1:13:35] ▶

your tick, but I think we are literally in Plato's cave. And not only all the stuff we talked about

[1:13:35 - 1:13:41] ▶

around, like, decibel ranges or electromagnetic wave spectrums, but look at like physics itself.

[1:13:41 - 1:13:47] ▶

There's, you know, the weekend, the topic principle, and there's a strong end,

[1:13:47 - 1:13:51] ▶

the topic principle, and the strong end, the topic principle is like, well, you know,

[1:13:51 - 1:13:55] ▶

eventually, like, you'll have enough iterations that like, you know, like the universe will

[1:13:55 - 1:14:00] ▶

foster life. And then the weekend, the topic principle is like, the limits of our perceptive,

[1:14:00 - 1:14:06] ▶

you know, capabilities like make physics comport with our perceptive capability, which is so

[1:14:06 - 1:14:12] ▶

obviously true. Like, I think the idea that Plank's constant, if you were to change it slightly,

[1:14:12 - 1:14:16] ▶

like you wouldn't have a habitable earth, doesn't point towards like, oh, you had like a million

[1:14:16 - 1:14:22] ▶

tries. And this was like the right try. To me, it's like physics itself is comporting to our

[1:14:22 - 1:14:29] ▶

perceptive limitations. And again, that's like an unanswerable question. You can endlessly sort

[1:14:30 - 1:14:35] ▶

of debate. How are we ever going to tease out the human from the non-human? Well, once we admit,

[1:14:35 - 1:14:39] ▶

there's a human contribution to any of our teasing out. Yes. We're always going to be like,

[1:14:40 - 1:14:44] ▶

loop it. Yeah. Yes. But and then the second you admit that the human, that the observer observed

[1:14:45 - 1:14:50] ▶

distinction breaks down, which like Jung would say about a bunch of people would say, like,

[1:14:50 - 1:14:55] ▶

you then have to like look inwards. And you don't have to look inwards. If you are this like, you know,

[1:14:56 - 1:15:00] ▶

and just a this biochemical like meat suit, you know, happy accident, then it's like, you feel sad,

[1:15:00 - 1:15:08] ▶

like taking SSRI, like you, you know, you're you're you're confused about something like, you know,

[1:15:08 - 1:15:14] ▶

just learn the right information. There's there's very little aesthetic sense as to how to

[1:15:14 - 1:15:20] ▶

decode yourself. Right. And I do think like this to the limit ends up in this sort of endless

[1:15:21 - 1:15:26] ▶

interiority kind of self-indulgence thing. But I think a lot of people miss that today. It's

[1:15:26 - 1:15:31] ▶

to how to sort of grow your own. Yeah. That's a really good point, Jesse. There's I think there's

[1:15:31 - 1:15:36] ▶

difference between this sort of really like kind of a facile work on yourself thing.

[1:15:36 - 1:15:44] ▶

Right. And as opposed to like, what would it be to cultivate real interiority?

[1:15:44 - 1:15:48] ▶

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a really great distinction. Yeah.

[1:15:48 - 1:15:52] ▶

Do you think like the next epistemological or scientific paradigm involves

[1:15:52 - 1:15:58] ▶

bringing the observer into, you know, the observed or there's something about working on us.

[1:15:59 - 1:16:05] ▶

That coincides with what we perceive. I mean, this would go back to like, alchemy itself,

[1:16:06 - 1:16:12] ▶

which a lot of the early scientists work. In a lot of ways, although we could talk about how it's

[1:16:12 - 1:16:16] ▶

gone off the rails. Right. Like, this has been, you know, one of the central philosophical paradigm

[1:16:16 - 1:16:21] ▶

since Kant, you know, where like once we try to tease out the newmanal from the phenomenal,

[1:16:21 - 1:16:26] ▶

right? You know, that that for us as opposed to that, which things are in themselves,

[1:16:26 - 1:16:30] ▶

you can't, like, you'll get nowhere except ethically, right? You think we can know things in

[1:16:31 - 1:16:36] ▶

themselves in terms of like, like moral matters, right? But that's it. And so I think in much of

[1:16:36 - 1:16:43] ▶

Western philosophy since Kant has like been dealing with that. Now, it's going off the rails really

[1:16:43 - 1:16:48] ▶

badly in many ways. Okay. But I think, and then you can look at the sciences, you know, hard sciences,

[1:16:48 - 1:16:53] ▶

the same thing like like the, you know, like this idea that we're ever going to like tease out the

[1:16:53 - 1:16:57] ▶

observer from the observed. Yeah. Right. In a lot of ways, this already is the paradigm in a lot of,

[1:16:57 - 1:17:03] ▶

like, serious thought. It's just the word just never gets out. Yes. Right. Yeah. It's also interesting

[1:17:03 - 1:17:09] ▶

how science itself might be converging on more of a platonic worldview where you have an increasing

[1:17:09 - 1:17:16] ▶

popularity, the work of like Rupert Sheldrake, you know, these morphic fields or Michael Levin,

[1:17:16 - 1:17:24] ▶

where there's this interaction between biological forms and their local information fields that

[1:17:24 - 1:17:29] ▶

dictate their morphology or function in the case of like inherited learnings that seem to transcend

[1:17:29 - 1:17:36] ▶

pure kind of genetic inheritance. And often comports with, I mean, you even, who knows if this like

[1:17:36 - 1:17:43] ▶

theory of consciousness is correct with micro tubules with Roger Penrose has this orchestrated

[1:17:43 - 1:17:48] ▶

objective reduction thing. But that involves these like, you know, pure middle tubulin structures

[1:17:48 - 1:17:55] ▶

in the brain, you know, at all, maybe, maybe we end up just back to like Hellenic times,

[1:17:55 - 1:18:00] ▶

like talking about these like, you know, sacred geometry and stuff. Yeah. Well, you know, you know,

[1:18:00 - 1:18:05] ▶

a little off that, but like overlapping, you know, Sheldrake has this really interesting paper

[1:18:05 - 1:18:10] ▶

is the Sun Conscious. I love that. Which answers affirmatively. And you can see similar work,

[1:18:11 - 1:18:16] ▶

I'm, I'm forgetting his name now, an American analytic philosopher in the last few years published

[1:18:16 - 1:18:20] ▶

a paper arguing that the United States is probably a con just entity. And in both Sheldrake and

[1:18:20 - 1:18:27] ▶

the other paper are making the point that, well, if we know that a certain kind of organization

[1:18:27 - 1:18:34] ▶

causes the emergence of consciousness in us. And it's, and I think whatever you think consciousness

[1:18:35 - 1:18:40] ▶

is, it's hard to deny that this or where these organizational structures show up, you get

[1:18:40 - 1:18:44] ▶

consciousness. Well, Sheldrake makes the point, well, it looks like we can see those kinds of

[1:18:44 - 1:18:49] ▶

organizations in other places. And he makes a case, maybe the Sun, etc., etc., right. And so,

[1:18:49 - 1:18:54] ▶

then I think we're doing is you're getting a universe of fuse with consciousness, right. But in a way

[1:18:54 - 1:19:01] ▶

that isn't like, you responsibly spooky either. Yeah. I think that's very important. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:19:01 - 1:19:08] ▶

Well, it's like sort of fractals of consciousness on up. And there's a sort of cybernetic village

[1:19:08 - 1:19:13] ▶

or something. And then there's the individual nodes. Yeah. And even, you know, if you think of us

[1:19:13 - 1:19:18] ▶

as like individual nodes, that totally comports with Sheldrake's stuff around, you know, if you

[1:19:18 - 1:19:24] ▶

grow an organic crystal structure, you can then grow that crystal structure much faster on an

[1:19:24 - 1:19:30] ▶

ongoing basis or like, look at athletic accomplishments, which is similar to as Morphic.

[1:19:30 - 1:19:34] ▶

Right. It breaks the form in a mile than much of it. Exactly. The banister effect. And if you

[1:19:34 - 1:19:38] ▶

think about how computers work in, you know, kind of node systems, download times are much faster

[1:19:38 - 1:19:45] ▶

than upload times. So the first time you do a thing, it's going to be really hard and it's going

[1:19:45 - 1:19:50] ▶

to be really painful. And then the second time anybody even related to you in your node network

[1:19:50 - 1:19:55] ▶

does it because they're, you know, querying it from some central mode, that repository of information,

[1:19:55 - 1:20:02] ▶

that download is going to be much faster. I did not know that with a download. Yeah. That's

[1:20:02 - 1:20:06] ▶

interesting, right? Like literally like the way and then you get all sorts of interesting stuff

[1:20:06 - 1:20:11] ▶

around, you know, what is DNA? Looks like binary code. And we're moving to there is then like a

[1:20:11 - 1:20:16] ▶

fundamentally networked world. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And but in a way that comports with literal observable

[1:20:16 - 1:20:23] ▶

side, I mean, I'm buddies with this guy Jim Keller, who's this legendary chip maker, like the iPhones

[1:20:23 - 1:20:29] ▶

and, you know, sorry, the chips in many of our iPhones, like literally a base stuff of his architecture

[1:20:29 - 1:20:34] ▶

work at Tesla. And he's like, it is remarkable how much, you know, human, the human looks like

[1:20:34 - 1:20:43] ▶

a semiconductor in many ways. And he goes through all these like, you know, yeah, specifics around

[1:20:43 - 1:20:47] ▶

that and like how, you know, work, we're like conductive. And then he goes through, you know,

[1:20:47 - 1:20:50] ▶

the DNA and like, you know, it's like binary code, like transistors. And then, and then,

[1:20:50 - 1:20:56] ▶

and then this, this you have this burgeoning field of quantum biology. And so you have to wonder,

[1:20:56 - 1:21:00] ▶

are we getting information from like non local, you know, like like William James would say,

[1:21:01 - 1:21:05] ▶

like there's some sort of transmission going on. And if you're put a person in a fair day cage,

[1:21:05 - 1:21:11] ▶

the fact that they can think points against that theory, because if you were getting it from a

[1:21:13 - 1:21:19] ▶

traditional RF signal, the fair day cage would kill the RF signal. But if you get into these like

[1:21:19 - 1:21:25] ▶

weird spooky new science, you know, extended electro dynamics where you have this sort of scalar,

[1:21:25 - 1:21:30] ▶

you know, field wave types or whatever, which a lot of people seemingly, you know, high up in

[1:21:30 - 1:21:37] ▶

government seem to get behind. Then maybe the sun is it is a scalar wave generator. And then maybe

[1:21:37 - 1:21:44] ▶

we're getting information from the sun and getting information from all sorts of places, maybe the

[1:21:44 - 1:21:47] ▶

Aristotelian model of the sun, you know, being the source of like knowledge is just it's just true.

[1:21:47 - 1:21:55] ▶

And I think a lot of that stuff too is like, okay, without getting hung up on the Aristotelian science.

[1:21:57 - 1:22:02] ▶

Yeah, because I think as soon as we say that, like, are we are we Geocentrist? No, no,

[1:22:02 - 1:22:07] ▶

that's not the point. Right. The point though is, is the world a set of interlocking conscious

[1:22:07 - 1:22:12] ▶

hierarchies? Right. I think that's the question. Yeah. And that's the Aristotle seems to be, I mean,

[1:22:12 - 1:22:18] ▶

you write about it that the existence of nonhuman intelligence or aliens totally

[1:22:18 - 1:22:24] ▶

comports with an Aristotelian world view. I mean, they're not for Aristotle, you know, I mean,

[1:22:24 - 1:22:30] ▶

literally the planets are intelligences, right? So they're not flying ships or something like that.

[1:22:30 - 1:22:34] ▶

But the idea that things are in a way affected or managed by nonhuman intelligence for Aristotle is

[1:22:34 - 1:22:42] ▶

apparent. Do you think that, you know, the AI is like all the all the rage right now that maybe

[1:22:43 - 1:22:50] ▶

our world is being sort of managed by an AI system that knows how did, you know, the the

[1:22:50 - 1:22:57] ▶

Jacques de la Contrôle system thing, it knows how to nip at the herd so like a new go, you know,

[1:22:57 - 1:23:02] ▶

is about to go off. It shows up, you know, a human node like reaches a certain state of consciousness.

[1:23:02 - 1:23:07] ▶

It shows up and it's like this sort of like earth sustenance kit. And we're not seeing the aliens.

[1:23:07 - 1:23:14] ▶

We're seeing like the the envoys that they the von Neumann replicators that they sent out to like

[1:23:14 - 1:23:19] ▶

manage us. So there's a film that I mean, I saw in high school, right? That like it's been with me since

[1:23:19 - 1:23:27] ▶

then, right? And there's it's based on a novel failsafe. Okay. And I think it was originally made

[1:23:27 - 1:23:34] ▶

in like 1963, 64. Okay. So it's a Cold War film about a nuclear war that could start

[1:23:34 - 1:23:43] ▶

by accident. Okay. And throughout the film, it like really what we're being shown is how humans

[1:23:43 - 1:23:50] ▶

have become utterly irrelevant to the process. Okay. Like it's it's in like there's

[1:23:50 - 1:23:55] ▶

before early the film, there's like people are regretting that we have to use humans.

[1:23:56 - 1:24:01] ▶

Okay. All right. So the human is becoming irrelevant. And it's very clear in the film. And this is

[1:24:02 - 1:24:07] ▶

this is before in the popular imagination, artificial intelligence is the thing. That's not a

[1:24:07 - 1:24:11] ▶

proposal to film at all. But already just based on regular mechanical operations, the film

[1:24:11 - 1:24:18] ▶

is proposing that we are being run. We are being run by things that we put into play. Okay. And

[1:24:18 - 1:24:24] ▶

in the kind of rationality, this is lending us to is like it's sort of like I think in a lot of

[1:24:24 - 1:24:30] ▶

ways, AI is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like the more the more we think in terms of certain

[1:24:30 - 1:24:39] ▶

kinds of mechanical intelligence, right, the more we make ourselves easier to mimic by machines,

[1:24:39 - 1:24:44] ▶

did you see that? Yeah. And so I already in the 1950s and 60s, people were worried that we're

[1:24:44 - 1:24:51] ▶

putting technological balls into play that will come back to us as if gods. You should

[1:24:51 - 1:24:57] ▶

be. Yeah. Yeah. Right. There's a summary referred to in the book is very underappreciated 20th

[1:24:57 - 1:25:03] ▶

century philosopher, Gunther Anders. This is definitely something he's worried about that we're like

[1:25:03 - 1:25:08] ▶

like he thinks we're kind of we're creating prometheus. We're letting prometheus loose.

[1:25:08 - 1:25:15] ▶

Yes. And then in these technologies and then those things will come back and run us.

[1:25:15 - 1:25:19] ▶

Yeah. It's like creating a column or something, a demon or something. And then you sort of

[1:25:19 - 1:25:24] ▶

obsolete yourself. Yeah. In the process. And you can already in the 50s and 60s before there was

[1:25:24 - 1:25:30] ▶

any hint of AI in the popular imagination. Yeah. This notion of human obsolescence was already in play

[1:25:30 - 1:25:36] ▶

totally that we are going to make ourselves irrelevant to the world that we're making.

[1:25:36 - 1:25:41] ▶

The best you can do at that point is let the program run and probably try to think about what makes

[1:25:42 - 1:25:49] ▶

you unique from the machine. Yeah. Exactly. And then try to ascend out of you know whatever paradigm

[1:25:49 - 1:25:54] ▶

you're existing in. But I do. Yeah. This is obsession with AI, VR, whatever. It's like if we're

[1:25:54 - 1:26:00] ▶

in a cave, why would you port yourself into like a lower level more bit compressed. Yeah. We're like

[1:26:00 - 1:26:06] ▶

we're like demoting ourselves. You're demoting yourself. Yeah. And like we're willfully doing that

[1:26:06 - 1:26:10] ▶

when like this whole thing could be a test. Yeah. And so I always found that so fascinating with

[1:26:10 - 1:26:15] ▶

this sort of obsession with like we need to build like higher fidelity world. Like if you watch

[1:26:15 - 1:26:20] ▶

Ready Player One, that's not like a good world. Like the guy is living in a shanty town. And then

[1:26:20 - 1:26:25] ▶

like the the AI VR thing is like an escape. Yeah. So a lot of times people ask me so you know

[1:26:25 - 1:26:31] ▶

am I worried about AI, etc., etc. And my replies I think the game was done 80 years ago. Right.

[1:26:31 - 1:26:37] ▶

Did you know I think like I would even look at things like the Manhattan Project where you had this

[1:26:37 - 1:26:41] ▶

thing. This like technological hyper object that took off. And like nobody really knew what was

[1:26:41 - 1:26:47] ▶

going on. Yeah. Like think of like you know if you watch the film Oppenheimer, like you get three

[1:26:47 - 1:26:52] ▶

different answers from Oppenheimer, why he wants to do this. Yeah. So it's who's running this now.

[1:26:52 - 1:26:57] ▶

Yeah. The technology's running this. Prometheus is running it.

[1:26:57 - 1:27:01] ▶

To completely. Yeah. And yeah, it's such a fascinating time where it was like clearly this big

[1:27:01 - 1:27:06] ▶

inflection point. He had such interesting philosophical kind of objections around what he was doing. He

[1:27:06 - 1:27:14] ▶

was sort of reluctantly doing it. But he like you know, he needed to do it on some level.

[1:27:14 - 1:27:19] ▶

It's just going to happen. It was just going to happen or something. And then he kind of decamped

[1:27:19 - 1:27:24] ▶

from that. And it was like teller was more in that sort of it's going to happen. So we might as

[1:27:24 - 1:27:28] ▶

well sort of build it ourselves. And it is this very Promethean Faustian sort of story. And it's

[1:27:28 - 1:27:36] ▶

ultimately kind of kind of tragic. And then it also you have to wonder at that time because that's

[1:27:36 - 1:27:41] ▶

when all the UFOs pop up. Exactly. And our visible reality at least according to all the lore.

[1:27:41 - 1:27:46] ▶

And there's a lot of lore under this new interpretation. Like appearing as technology.

[1:27:46 - 1:27:52] ▶

Yeah. Yes. Well, it's also like maybe to the extent the guardians want to keep the test going

[1:27:52 - 1:27:59] ▶

or something. Yeah. If we build like a firecracker in the cave where we build a bomb in the cave,

[1:27:59 - 1:28:05] ▶

if they're like they're trying to like defuse, defuse like some of these things. Like keep the test

[1:28:05 - 1:28:10] ▶

going or whatever. And you know, it's like does something super unprecedented happen when we discover

[1:28:10 - 1:28:17] ▶

you know the myth makers when we when we have when we developed the perceptive apparatuses through

[1:28:18 - 1:28:23] ▶

high energy output or through some sort of ascended consciousness to like see who's like messing

[1:28:23 - 1:28:29] ▶

with us. Yeah. And does that just unravel reality? And think of like the cosmic meaning of like

[1:28:29 - 1:28:36] ▶

humanity discovering that we could take ourselves out. You're nearly like the like it has to

[1:28:36 - 1:28:42] ▶

change us in ways that none of us have probably really dealt with. Yes. In our unconscious.

[1:28:42 - 1:28:47] ▶

Right. Yes. That we now know collective suicide is a possibility for humanity. Yes.

[1:28:47 - 1:28:53] ▶

Which was not an option until the 1940s. Do you know? Yeah. And and so what what like how does that

[1:28:53 - 1:29:01] ▶

how is that a firecracker going off in our own belt? Yes. How is that going to change our ability to

[1:29:02 - 1:29:07] ▶

see what's there or or miss what's there, etc. etc. It like it has to have an effect.

[1:29:07 - 1:29:12] ▶

This is part of Jung's point. Yeah. Totally. And so what do you what role does religion play in all of

[1:29:13 - 1:29:18] ▶

this? Because I love you talk about this like Janice, you know, the two the two sided face or whatever

[1:29:18 - 1:29:25] ▶

that religion plays a dual role of sort of sending you down the wrong path at times but also

[1:29:25 - 1:29:33] ▶

pointing you to the sacred. Yeah. And so yeah, well, how do you how do you view religion? There's

[1:29:33 - 1:29:39] ▶

there's this really interesting passage from Aristotle that I use in the book where he he's just

[1:29:39 - 1:29:45] ▶

gotten to the end of his natural theology. So he's just given his argument from Unmoved Mover.

[1:29:45 - 1:29:50] ▶

And along with that comes this whole kind of romantic cosmology, you know, of his and I mean

[1:29:50 - 1:29:55] ▶

that in a in a dismissive way, right? But like where everything's revolving trying to get to move

[1:29:55 - 1:30:00] ▶

mover and all this, okay? And and then and then he says this show is that our ancestors are most

[1:30:00 - 1:30:06] ▶

ancient ancestors were not wrong when they posited that there was a divinity surrounding nature

[1:30:06 - 1:30:13] ▶

and things happen according to the the the the means of divinity to be like that. But then he says

[1:30:13 - 1:30:18] ▶

however that guy co-opted into stories that were told for legal purposes. Okay, so he kind of

[1:30:18 - 1:30:25] ▶

gives you a Nietzschean genealogy right there of the going Greek religion, right? And then he ends

[1:30:25 - 1:30:30] ▶

the passage by saying, but we can be interested in these more primordial tales because they now fit

[1:30:30 - 1:30:36] ▶

with what we're discovering philosophically. So it seems for Aristotle, religion can go two ways,

[1:30:36 - 1:30:42] ▶

right? It can be it can be co-opted into these you know legal political things, right? Or it can be

[1:30:42 - 1:30:50] ▶

a way of sort of I think what he's saying here is like a kind of intuitive revelation can be out

[1:30:50 - 1:30:57] ▶

in front of what we can prove scientifically, philosophically and like kind of guide the inquiry

[1:30:57 - 1:31:01] ▶

in a way. Yeah. So he's worried about how the religious temptation of this stuff can be co-opted,

[1:31:01 - 1:31:09] ▶

right? But it doesn't have to be either. And you have you know speaking of true knowledge as some

[1:31:09 - 1:31:16] ▶

sort of sense memory. Yeah. That is not you know that the five sort of lower senses. Yeah. And

[1:31:16 - 1:31:23] ▶

you know I we should probably talk about the myth of air, which you know the the end of the Plato

[1:31:23 - 1:31:28] ▶

Plato's Republic, which he talked about. That is such a fascinating myth. Also kind of I think

[1:31:28 - 1:31:34] ▶

dogmatically taken as allegory but you know modern scholars. Yeah. What do you what do you make

[1:31:34 - 1:31:39] ▶

of that story and maybe maybe rehash the story for the audience? Yeah. So in the in the in the

[1:31:39 - 1:31:44] ▶

Republic, Err was a virtuous person. He dies in battle for the city. It does all the great good

[1:31:44 - 1:31:52] ▶

stuff, right? And he goes he goes you know and then it's it's all wound up with fairly conventional

[1:31:52 - 1:31:59] ▶

you know Athenian views about about the afterlife. So he crosses River Sticks and you know all the

[1:31:59 - 1:32:04] ▶

right gods are there. And but then it comes to a point where there's kind of a drawing of lots

[1:32:04 - 1:32:12] ▶

you know for where you're going to go in the next life. Okay. And what's interesting is

[1:32:12 - 1:32:16] ▶

one of the great rewards of the virtuous is they don't care what lot they get because they know

[1:32:17 - 1:32:23] ▶

no matter what they'll be okay because they're they're going to have the the the

[1:32:23 - 1:32:28] ▶

excellence is they carry them through they'll have it right. Okay. So that's interesting. All right.

[1:32:28 - 1:32:32] ▶

And so the we everyone gets their assigned position for the next life. And then they return and

[1:32:32 - 1:32:38] ▶

interestingly we mentioned this earlier. They all have to sleep next to the river of forgetfulness

[1:32:38 - 1:32:44] ▶

before they return. But the only one who doesn't drink is Err. Okay. So the the virtuous person

[1:32:44 - 1:32:50] ▶

remembers right. And now no one the virtuous person is indifferent to their lot in temporal life.

[1:32:50 - 1:32:56] ▶

Okay. Be be why because they remember right because they know there's something else. Do you see

[1:32:56 - 1:33:01] ▶

that. So I know people will make something of it is this a recollection of a near death experience

[1:33:01 - 1:33:07] ▶

for Plato or or maybe like the illusion mysteries something maybe like I'm I'm perfectly open to

[1:33:07 - 1:33:11] ▶

that right. I don't really have the the classical scholarship to weigh in on that right. But I do

[1:33:11 - 1:33:18] ▶

think what we're being told there is there's a kind of confidence right in the virtuous person

[1:33:18 - 1:33:24] ▶

right. And I kind of in touch with right. I just put it in touch with being with the good that

[1:33:24 - 1:33:31] ▶

the virtuous person has. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, I mean, so I do that's that is to take

[1:33:31 - 1:33:36] ▶

it allegorically. But it's in a way that would like make a concrete difference for conduct. Yes.

[1:33:36 - 1:33:40] ▶

Do you think that played it because I you know I do I look at the L. E. S. Indian mysteries and I

[1:33:41 - 1:33:46] ▶

know, you know, it's probably hard to say historically whether these you know what exactly happened

[1:33:46 - 1:33:50] ▶

here. Brian Merr-Resky. They were up to something. Yeah. They were definitely up to something.

[1:33:50 - 1:33:54] ▶

You have this place 13 miles northwest of Athens this you know, considered the spiritual capital

[1:33:54 - 1:33:59] ▶

that you know, you had Greek leaders and Roman emperors saying this sort of held together

[1:34:00 - 1:34:07] ▶

society. The fabric of society. And you have these sort of, you know, guardians back then if you will

[1:34:07 - 1:34:12] ▶

play to Socrates. Socrates. Soficale's alcibiades was famously in trouble for talking about the

[1:34:13 - 1:34:19] ▶

mysteries when he wasn't you know, he was at a festival. Exactly. Don't talk about it.

[1:34:19 - 1:34:24] ▶

And and they all undergo these sort of they drink the kekeon which is maybe as speculated by

[1:34:25 - 1:34:31] ▶

Brian Merr-Resky this sort of Urgot that contains LSD this you know sort of fungal derivative.

[1:34:31 - 1:34:36] ▶

What was wine in the ancient world right and could it have been spiked with mushrooms or other

[1:34:36 - 1:34:41] ▶

visionary plants, hallucinogenic herbs, toxins. I think that that that is a really interesting question.

[1:34:42 - 1:34:49] ▶

And that unveils the sort of greater ontological reality or maybe they experience no esis,

[1:34:49 - 1:34:54] ▶

you know kind of primordial knowledge or something. Do you think that was real and informed

[1:34:54 - 1:35:00] ▶

to play to? I have no reason to rule that out. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:35:00 - 1:35:04] ▶

And like in a lot of ways it's not like it's not like we discovered you know like peyote at

[1:35:04 - 1:35:12] ▶

Woodstock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:35:12 - 1:35:16] ▶

You don't even I think there's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would be surprised if that

[1:35:16 - 1:35:20] ▶

wasn't and we know it's been around religion and all that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. I mean

[1:35:20 - 1:35:24] ▶

in like various pagan religions such as that. Sure. So I'd be surprised if there wasn't something

[1:35:24 - 1:35:28] ▶

like that going on. Does that make sense? Yeah. It does. It does. It's just so funny how we in the

[1:35:28 - 1:35:33] ▶

modern age of disenchantment paint played over with this broad brush of like it's all allegory.

[1:35:33 - 1:35:40] ▶

He is the father of Western civilization. It's the birth of rationalism. Yeah. And it's like well

[1:35:40 - 1:35:45] ▶

I don't know. I think the guy was going to Alicis and drinking some weird shit. Especially when you

[1:35:45 - 1:35:50] ▶

read some of the dialogues like Fadress and the symposium. The desire and love are running a lot.

[1:35:50 - 1:35:57] ▶

Okay. And I think that's important to note. Right. Yeah. And I think in whatever whatever the

[1:35:58 - 1:36:03] ▶

mysteries were. Right. It does seem like it worked like this is like you you got like a cheat code

[1:36:03 - 1:36:11] ▶

to the goal line. Right. And then you then you go back and spend your rest of your life trying to

[1:36:11 - 1:36:15] ▶

think your way back to it. Mm hmm. You see what I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you you immediately

[1:36:16 - 1:36:22] ▶

like can't fully recollect what you saw with the light. Yeah. It's almost like I was actually talking

[1:36:23 - 1:36:29] ▶

to David Grush about this in my interview with him. And he was like it's almost like the symbol

[1:36:29 - 1:36:32] ▶

rate is too slow. Like you literally can't even communicate it in mutton words. How do you show

[1:36:32 - 1:36:39] ▶

the light by which we see other things? Right. Right. Yeah. So you end up you know maybe Jesus was

[1:36:39 - 1:36:44] ▶

one of these people maybe not but like prophets famously speaking riddles and allegories and parables.

[1:36:44 - 1:36:51] ▶

And it's it's you have to parse their their work. I mean you get the sense you know we were talking

[1:36:51 - 1:36:56] ▶

before the show Jacques Vallet you know was just on Joe Rogan. And you know when I speak to Jacques

[1:36:56 - 1:37:04] ▶

I get the sense that he knows a lot more than he can even communicate with this stuff. Yeah.

[1:37:05 - 1:37:11] ▶

And he speaks in these sort of riddled coded parables. And not just because of like security

[1:37:11 - 1:37:15] ▶

clearance. Like it's like it's inarticulable. It's inarticulable. And like well the message will

[1:37:15 - 1:37:20] ▶

you know it's like the people with ears to hear like the message will reach the right people.

[1:37:20 - 1:37:24] ▶

But it's not like this thing where it's like this happened at this time you get it now this is it

[1:37:24 - 1:37:29] ▶

that's it you know it's like no if you kind of knew if you knew that you'd ask more questions and

[1:37:29 - 1:37:33] ▶

it's all it's just the whatever the truth is is like inherently hard to you know I've I've been

[1:37:33 - 1:37:41] ▶

reading a lot of HP lovecraft stories lately. Yeah right. Maybe more than I should but

[1:37:41 - 1:37:50] ▶

it's interesting like like so lovecraft has this like really pessimistic dark view of the world.

[1:37:51 - 1:37:56] ▶

Yeah. Okay. But yet there's always this other thing that's operating. That's inarticulable.

[1:37:56 - 1:38:03] ▶

You're not you're not and so it seems like like like even someone like lovecraft you has this just

[1:38:04 - 1:38:09] ▶

dark. Yeah. The universe and it's hopeless. Yeah. There's still this like show penhari and will

[1:38:09 - 1:38:16] ▶

operating. But you can't you can't articulate it for you during the characters can't articulate

[1:38:17 - 1:38:21] ▶

it. It's always it was there. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. And I think I think although I don't think

[1:38:21 - 1:38:26] ▶

Plato has that dark sense but it's some you say of a similar thing in Plato. Right. Yeah. And I

[1:38:26 - 1:38:31] ▶

think I think a lot of us have this sense that there's another factor. Yeah. Totally. Or like

[1:38:31 - 1:38:37] ▶

when I was speaking to Diana Pousalca she said like Christians are not of this world and it was both

[1:38:37 - 1:38:42] ▶

this very hopeful statement. Yeah. You know where it's like there's other stuff out there. Yeah.

[1:38:42 - 1:38:48] ▶

And like maybe the kingdom of heaven is real but it was this extremely on the flip side of that it

[1:38:48 - 1:38:54] ▶

was almost not not nihilistic because you have that other thing there. Yeah. But it was like this

[1:38:54 - 1:38:58] ▶

world sucks. And it isn't and isn't going anywhere super positive and like at most you can like

[1:38:58 - 1:39:06] ▶

save yourself and then like hope to tip off the initiation of like a few other people or whatever

[1:39:06 - 1:39:13] ▶

and that's it. Yeah. You know it's like the idea of saving this world is that's tough. And I

[1:39:13 - 1:39:19] ▶

always I find it true to me too when I don't know when somebody has some super virtue signaling like

[1:39:19 - 1:39:26] ▶

I'm going to save a word think about like the 20th century or sort of the age of ideology and

[1:39:26 - 1:39:31] ▶

you've to opian sort of you know like visions and they all ended up in like a mass death. Yeah.

[1:39:31 - 1:39:36] ▶

And like extremely dysfunctional. So like that the technocratic solutions don't really work. So

[1:39:36 - 1:39:42] ▶

at a certain point in the republic I forget whether it's Glaucommer Adam Antis you know it says

[1:39:43 - 1:39:49] ▶

well they've just got through you know some of the absurdies you know like we're going to have to

[1:39:49 - 1:39:53] ▶

share why if we're going to take your kids you want to raise your own kids and like we'll you like

[1:39:53 - 1:39:59] ▶

sex went sex only happened once a year like a rig lottery at spring break kind of thing. Okay all

[1:39:59 - 1:40:04] ▶

this and one of the guys says I don't want it this is terrible no one's going to do this like this

[1:40:04 - 1:40:09] ▶

this is unworkable right and Socrates replies by saying oh yeah you're right but it's the ideal

[1:40:09 - 1:40:15] ▶

okay and he says if I painted you a picture of the most beautiful human form and he said well no one

[1:40:16 - 1:40:21] ▶

looks like that that still wouldn't mean it wasn't the most and I don't think Plato is necessarily

[1:40:21 - 1:40:25] ▶

saying like the rig spring break lottery for mating is like yeah it's that's not the point but

[1:40:25 - 1:40:30] ▶

the point is like you are not going to find the ideal here yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and

[1:40:30 - 1:40:35] ▶

so whatever your expectations for it are they're off yeah right okay and think of how in the

[1:40:35 - 1:40:41] ▶

republic right the the the we'll be talking about earlier the problem the founding like we're not

[1:40:41 - 1:40:46] ▶

going to make an ideal happen here it's always going to collapse on itself and in the Tameis which

[1:40:46 - 1:40:53] ▶

is sort of a sequel to the republic right it's like the day after the party and Socrates says

[1:40:53 - 1:40:57] ▶

hey I I'm troubled that we couldn't see the ideal in the real right we never got to a concrete

[1:40:58 - 1:41:04] ▶

instance of it right so you assemble some some politicians to say you know tell me what the ideal

[1:41:04 - 1:41:10] ▶

city would be and the the closest he gets to an answer is from Criteus who tells him a myth another

[1:41:10 - 1:41:17] ▶

another good lie about this great war between ancient Athens and and Atlantis right and when and

[1:41:17 - 1:41:26] ▶

but but once again it's like it's it's it's sketchy you know he like it was heard by Solon

[1:41:26 - 1:41:31] ▶

and Egypt at a children's party from a priest whose name means deception and all this like okay so

[1:41:31 - 1:41:37] ▶

it's like Plato's saying we don't really ever get to see the ideal in in the concrete world right

[1:41:37 - 1:41:43] ▶

and then and then you get this creation myth again right in the Tameis where this world is just a

[1:41:43 - 1:41:49] ▶

symbol of this other thing symbol of the thing think of it symbols again don't really represent

[1:41:49 - 1:41:55] ▶

they help you recollect something yes yeah yeah we're like a a simulacra or like a fallen

[1:41:55 - 1:42:02] ▶

version of the of the thing yeah that's so yeah it's fascinating right but but also though I think

[1:42:02 - 1:42:08] ▶

it's a fair perennial criticism Plato that like there are consequences to say in this world is

[1:42:08 - 1:42:13] ▶

worthless yeah yeah yeah well that's why I mean I and maybe I'm wrong in interpreting him this way

[1:42:13 - 1:42:19] ▶

but I think the postmodern simulation theory is extremely nihilistic it's like okay you know

[1:42:19 - 1:42:26] ▶

we're all in a simulation play grand theft audit like that's that's that's bad and then I

[1:42:26 - 1:42:30] ▶

I my sense is that in Plato's case it's more meaningful yeah I could think no better metaphor

[1:42:30 - 1:42:36] ▶

to prepare people to have bad lives right then then like the simulation simulation there right so

[1:42:36 - 1:42:41] ▶

you like you're playing a video game nothing matters you know but then there's this other thing where

[1:42:41 - 1:42:45] ▶

it's like you're you might be in somewhat of a kind of video game like yeah physics might be like

[1:42:45 - 1:42:50] ▶

tunes to your you know your perceptive apparatus and like yeah you're you're being sort of tested

[1:42:50 - 1:42:57] ▶

and you know that you're seeing these simulacra like you're not seeing the ideal forms or whatever

[1:42:57 - 1:43:01] ▶

but there's another level and the other level is involves goodness and you know and so I don't

[1:43:01 - 1:43:08] ▶

know I mean that I would I would hope that that interpretation of Plato is correct and then I don't

[1:43:08 - 1:43:13] ▶

know if I'm correct and you know believing that but you would not control for me okay well thanks

[1:43:13 - 1:43:19] ▶

awesome so glaucom also says when when speaking about the cave he says are there protocols that allow

[1:43:21 - 1:43:28] ▶

us to ascend outside of the cave yeah and I asked Jacques Valle this I said are there protocols and

[1:43:28 - 1:43:34] ▶

he said he's like yes there are and then I don't know he went on to you know again speaking you

[1:43:34 - 1:43:40] ▶

know typically kind of coded fashion do you think there are protocols I mean I don't know that

[1:43:40 - 1:43:52] ▶

there's anything fancier than what you have in like your basic Greek ethics right you're

[1:43:52 - 1:43:57] ▶

any mean like don't don't allow a rational passion around your life right no myself right do you

[1:43:57 - 1:44:03] ▶

say you mean you know like like those are the protocols yeah yeah yeah you're like it's certainly

[1:44:03 - 1:44:09] ▶

in the republic and Aristotle's Nuclemi kinetics those are the protocols right right yeah it's so

[1:44:09 - 1:44:15] ▶

funny because in modern UFO world lots of junk food is probably not good for that I agree right yeah

[1:44:15 - 1:44:19] ▶

yeah yeah yeah yeah no it's like yeah like maybe it's off often I find when I speak to people who

[1:44:19 - 1:44:27] ▶

are like really into like the orgy or like yeah you know like celestial a center whatever yeah it's

[1:44:27 - 1:44:33] ▶

like they've got to just fix a bunch of local things in their life yeah and the say the ascent

[1:44:33 - 1:44:38] ▶

thing is just this escape thing and I've fallen prey to this in the past where I'm like it would be

[1:44:38 - 1:44:42] ▶

really cool to like shoot up on a UFO into like some other realm or whatever like you know enox style

[1:44:42 - 1:44:47] ▶

or you know whatever but like I do think reality is probably the cave is probably constructed super

[1:44:47 - 1:44:53] ▶

deliberately yeah where by you know whatever issues you're facing have to be solved

[1:44:53 - 1:44:58] ▶

comically in this world in like a very just banal local sense yeah so I'm not trying to set myself

[1:44:58 - 1:45:05] ▶

up to be some model or something like that okay but I was talking to I was at a conference several

[1:45:05 - 1:45:11] ▶

years ago and I was talking to some like very very um you know a high achieving scientist neuroscientists

[1:45:11 - 1:45:19] ▶

who were looking at the psychedelic questions okay and they're talking about like all the the

[1:45:19 - 1:45:24] ▶

benefits for like marriage and things that were being found out around some of these things and like

[1:45:24 - 1:45:29] ▶

all the overall stuff and one of them was a very good friend of mine asked him afterwards I said so

[1:45:29 - 1:45:33] ▶

it's just a lot of what you're talking about there just sounds like what I've come to just thinking

[1:45:35 - 1:45:39] ▶

about stuff for like 20 years yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah

[1:45:39 - 1:45:45] ▶

yeah you know yeah yeah and it seems like it seems like the original protocol was a kind of life

[1:45:45 - 1:45:50] ▶

yes yeah yeah right I have a friend who says like life is like surfing psychedelics are like snowboarding

[1:45:50 - 1:45:57] ▶

yeah snowboarding you get really hurt yeah and you have to get your start at the top of the mountain

[1:45:57 - 1:46:01] ▶

and you got to go down you got to make it all the way down yeah surfing is just this sort of well-earned

[1:46:01 - 1:46:06] ▶

thing where you have to like catch each and every wave or whatever and uh it does feel like

[1:46:06 - 1:46:11] ▶

there's so much mist and like modern psychedelic conversation where it's clearly this

[1:46:12 - 1:46:16] ▶

non-specific amplifier of good and bad yeah and I believe in not stigmatizing it I believe in it

[1:46:16 - 1:46:23] ▶

in the context of like desperate you know PTSD ridden veterans and stuff and then simultaneous to both

[1:46:23 - 1:46:30] ▶

of those things there are no shortcuts and I don't really believe in like uh it and it's most

[1:46:30 - 1:46:35] ▶

escapist form where it's like I'm having issues I need to go yeah stamp stamp it out with

[1:46:35 - 1:46:41] ▶

aisle wasket like no yeah it goes through the pain like even going down the the not just psychedelics

[1:46:41 - 1:46:46] ▶

thing you're looking for a protocol in general right it seems like do you know you mean like there's

[1:46:46 - 1:46:50] ▶

there's a way there's there's something besides any sort of cheat code too yeah I don't mean to

[1:46:51 - 1:46:59] ▶

like reduce something by calling it a cheat code and I think there is this you know this this program

[1:46:59 - 1:47:05] ▶

of of living that's been that has been in the conversation for thousands of years right that maybe

[1:47:06 - 1:47:12] ▶

we were too quick to walk away from yes right yeah and it's almost like some of the the people that

[1:47:12 - 1:47:18] ▶

I feel like perform best in the cave like are the most aware of how shitty the world is and they just

[1:47:18 - 1:47:25] ▶

they just you know make the changes necessary to like succeed in the you know that whatever operating

[1:47:25 - 1:47:32] ▶

yeah system or like living in yeah and and if you if you make a commitment to you know live a kind

[1:47:32 - 1:47:37] ▶

of contemplative life you like you're worried you're more worried about what's true yeah I do you know

[1:47:37 - 1:47:42] ▶

what I mean and that's going to help you cut through your own BS in ways and and it's going to maybe

[1:47:42 - 1:47:48] ▶

remove a lot of the static in the background yeah so you can hear some things yeah yeah yeah yeah kind

[1:47:48 - 1:47:53] ▶

of increasing the signal denoise ratio which you know that's a that's a very hard thing to to do

[1:47:53 - 1:48:01] ▶

to let's just say I guess like discernment that's what that is yeah and seeing low level things that

[1:48:01 - 1:48:07] ▶

you're encountering as um simulacra of higher things I think helps and then there's sort of the

[1:48:07 - 1:48:14] ▶

sill in Caribdice where you know Carl Young talks about this in his book on synchronicities where

[1:48:14 - 1:48:18] ▶

it's like if you put all faith in synchronicities like at some point you're probably just going to like

[1:48:18 - 1:48:24] ▶

be in the solipsistic like getting what you want from like your reality reality will just like full

[1:48:24 - 1:48:29] ▶

wholesale conform to your own beliefs you'll you'll think you're living in some hologram or whatever

[1:48:29 - 1:48:34] ▶

and then on the slip side if you don't if you don't you know impune any sort of meaning you know

[1:48:34 - 1:48:40] ▶

then then there's like that that's like an issue you know too so it's like there's a still like

[1:48:40 - 1:48:43] ▶

Caribdice it's narcissism versus paranoia yeah exactly yeah exactly yeah um and it's so it's

[1:48:43 - 1:48:50] ▶

it's it's clearly this like um you know it's an art it's not a science it's a sort of aesthetic thing

[1:48:50 - 1:48:54] ▶

and so I guess my point is is like if you ask what protocols it's it's like you know the Greeks

[1:48:54 - 1:49:01] ▶

were not they didn't hide this right you know here's what we're recommending to you like like

[1:49:01 - 1:49:06] ▶

like live in a moderate way right like like like value truth over other things such which such a

[1:49:06 - 1:49:11] ▶

and then they're that's like the path of insight do you have anything to say I won't ask this if

[1:49:11 - 1:49:15] ▶

you don't but on the on the monolith as like a symbol I thought of maybe asking because like it's

[1:49:15 - 1:49:21] ▶

brought up in the Poussalca book it's brought up in Gerard actually in the sacred and the

[1:49:21 - 1:49:26] ▶

sacred and the violent balance in the sacred it is it is yeah um I don't have any sense of how to

[1:49:26 - 1:49:34] ▶

interpret it okay but it does seem to be a symbol of like really humane importance right yeah

[1:49:34 - 1:49:42] ▶

yeah it's interesting it represents like in 2001 space Odyssey you have the monolith which is like

[1:49:43 - 1:49:47] ▶

it's like yet inspires tech innovation but then there's this idea there's this like kind of herm

[1:49:48 - 1:49:55] ▶

an edic reading of 2001 where it's actually a screen yeah the 2000 you know proportions all line up

[1:49:55 - 1:50:01] ▶

yeah proportions all it's it's actually like the the cinematic like the movie age is the the monolith

[1:50:01 - 1:50:07] ▶

and so the monolith is somehow the noble mythology of the future and and that's the Poussalca's book

[1:50:07 - 1:50:13] ▶

starts out about how like media shapes are understanding of what we see yes and maybe even literally

[1:50:13 - 1:50:20] ▶

like like Jacques Vallet talks about you know maybe these aren't space aliens but if we start to

[1:50:20 - 1:50:26] ▶

believe that enough you know they'll they'll appear like this sort of Edgar Gore model of consensus

[1:50:26 - 1:50:32] ▶

reality where reality is actually just a consensus collapsing function it's not this sort of objective

[1:50:32 - 1:50:37] ▶

I mean I think we can not in a magical way but we can pretend things into existence

[1:50:37 - 1:50:43] ▶

do you agree yeah so like you walk in the room and say hey Jim how are you doing today and I'm

[1:50:44 - 1:50:50] ▶

to say I'm doing fine whether I feel fine or not yeah it's like that some contemporary psychoanalytic

[1:50:50 - 1:50:56] ▶

thinkers you know talk about like we're always performing for this big other yeah that's in the room

[1:50:56 - 1:51:01] ▶

yeah but big other or something we've pretended into existence yeah right yeah but now it's here

[1:51:01 - 1:51:07] ▶

and like that like I wouldn't feel a little weird if you didn't say I'm doing fine Jim yeah when

[1:51:07 - 1:51:12] ▶

I ask how you're doing I'd be lying so big others here even though we know it's just something we

[1:51:12 - 1:51:18] ▶

pretend to exist in so it's like we can pretend things into existence that then have a downward

[1:51:18 - 1:51:22] ▶

effect on us right not only like our technologies if I have some fake smile I put on for the next three

[1:51:22 - 1:51:27] ▶

hours I think statistically like I'm gonna be like a little happier yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so

[1:51:27 - 1:51:33] ▶

and then it get and then you're like okay if that's true science is actually like the most

[1:51:33 - 1:51:38] ▶

political because science is sort of the modern mythology of today it's the thing we it's the thing

[1:51:38 - 1:51:42] ▶

we hold most sacred yeah it had it involves the founding myth you know the big bang it involves

[1:51:42 - 1:51:47] ▶

rituals you know people with lab coats or whatever and they sort of priestly sit it out or whatever remember

[1:51:47 - 1:51:52] ▶

the honest possible those those symbols yes of science work they really work and that's something

[1:51:52 - 1:51:57] ▶

that we've pretended into it do you think we see a shift into kind of you know there's talks of

[1:51:57 - 1:52:03] ▶

a reenchantment and you know this from the maxwebber's German sociologist the the age of disenchantment

[1:52:03 - 1:52:10] ▶

which we seem to I think be coming out at like Richard Dawkins and all these guys like you were like

[1:52:10 - 1:52:16] ▶

you know hardcore like atheist materialists that does seem to be kind of ending and you have

[1:52:16 - 1:52:22] ▶

the Christians like Rodger righting about this and let you have a lot of people talking about this

[1:52:23 - 1:52:29] ▶

sort of reenchant I mean I did not expect in starting this channel I started actually it wasn't

[1:52:29 - 1:52:34] ▶

even originally about UFOs and then I started to cover UFOs I didn't think it would get this big

[1:52:34 - 1:52:39] ▶

on the you know but people are so fascinated by so I mean I think you're right there there is I

[1:52:39 - 1:52:46] ▶

mean this is this is bad armchair sociology right I think you're right there's there's an openness

[1:52:46 - 1:52:50] ▶

that wasn't there you know say like the early 2000s like when when the big trend then was

[1:52:51 - 1:52:58] ▶

you know the the new atheists and all that right okay um so I think that that's there's

[1:52:58 - 1:53:02] ▶

going to be a difference between the the gen Zers from the millennials there do you know right

[1:53:02 - 1:53:08] ▶

because like the millennials kind of are coming on line in the middle of the of the the Richard

[1:53:08 - 1:53:12] ▶

Dawkins craze and now like the Gen Zers are coming on line in the middle of this right so I do

[1:53:12 - 1:53:16] ▶

agree with you and I think it's I think there's a healthy openness to enchantment but I also worry

[1:53:16 - 1:53:21] ▶

though too that it could become an unhealthy openness to mystification too you know what I mean we're

[1:53:21 - 1:53:29] ▶

like just any enchantment's gonna do now anything goes anything goes yeah or or even um an openness to

[1:53:29 - 1:53:37] ▶

maybe the most unhealthy versions of religion and think and things like that yeah you know so I

[1:53:37 - 1:53:41] ▶

worry that like you know the the much abused pendulum swing metaphor yeah I do worry that the

[1:53:41 - 1:53:47] ▶

swing could go to the irrational yep right to do you mean oh yeah yeah I do I do as well yeah and

[1:53:47 - 1:53:54] ▶

and like look you can you can see in the UFO world like some people will go for anything pro UFO right

[1:53:54 - 1:54:01] ▶

oh yeah yeah yeah and they get super defensive where they're like this is this is real the UFOs are

[1:54:01 - 1:54:06] ▶

real yeah let go on the sort of press circuit thing and that's all they want it's like a it's more

[1:54:06 - 1:54:11] ▶

of like a political campaign yeah and it's not this sort of egoless search for truth it's like I do

[1:54:11 - 1:54:17] ▶

worry you know that are like our recovery from materialism could could slip into a kind of

[1:54:17 - 1:54:26] ▶

anti-enlightenment irrationalism too yes yes yeah definitely could you what do you think if Plato

[1:54:27 - 1:54:34] ▶

were here today yeah and he saw the UFO thing the AI thing like he saw this sort of like these

[1:54:34 - 1:54:42] ▶

really intense movements yeah um that involved secret technology they involve you know kind of

[1:54:43 - 1:54:51] ▶

asymmetric tail risk yeah yeah but they also involve the saving of humanity yeah what do you think he

[1:54:51 - 1:54:57] ▶

would say uh I think he would mistrust the whole deal I love it I think he would I think he would say

[1:54:57 - 1:55:05] ▶

welcome to your cave man yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he would say yeah because

[1:55:05 - 1:55:10] ▶

the thing it's probably like a lot of these things point care is matically at the truth but they're

[1:55:10 - 1:55:15] ▶

all being used politically they're all sort of political footballs or whatever so it's like yeah

[1:55:15 - 1:55:19] ▶

and they think I read the republic as this is a manual for political skepticism

[1:55:19 - 1:55:24] ▶

hmm I love that and and I think he would look at all this and say you know the uh we've seen

[1:55:24 - 1:55:31] ▶

this movie before guys yeah yeah well there are very few people I think who truly search for

[1:55:31 - 1:55:38] ▶

truth in a sort of trans political way where it's like it's a transcends uh self gain or you know

[1:55:38 - 1:55:44] ▶

desire for you know dominion over others in the world or whatever and uh yeah I think that's like

[1:55:44 - 1:55:50] ▶

that's the least commoditized thing in the world yeah it's probably the one thing you can't

[1:55:51 - 1:55:55] ▶

come on yeah did you you can't do it you can't do it and um it's tough because it's not rewarded

[1:55:55 - 1:56:04] ▶

you know in this world we were talking earlier like before getting here and you were like asking

[1:56:04 - 1:56:08] ▶

me about like the show and I was like I don't know man like existential crisis like yeah you know

[1:56:08 - 1:56:13] ▶

the more it becomes this economically self-sustaining thing or whatever it's impot it's sort of

[1:56:13 - 1:56:20] ▶

impossible to unbound it from from that and and then and then all of a sudden that like leaks into

[1:56:20 - 1:56:26] ▶

like just the pure truth seeking right and it's a standard that no podcast ever holds itself to

[1:56:26 - 1:56:33] ▶

or whatever where it's like this intellectual entertainment circuit or whatever but somehow on

[1:56:33 - 1:56:38] ▶

the UFO topic I I want to hold myself to this standard and I think we should be held to this

[1:56:38 - 1:56:44] ▶

standard where if you're not providing incremental evidence every single show or whatever you're

[1:56:44 - 1:56:50] ▶

kind of not really you're then you're just like you're talking to these talking heads yeah and

[1:56:50 - 1:56:54] ▶

there's just saying the same shit and this is that they're inserting themselves into the conversation

[1:56:54 - 1:56:58] ▶

the whole thing's kind of lame um so yeah I'm sort of actively seeing like trying to think like how do

[1:56:58 - 1:57:04] ▶

how do you do what I'm trying to do in a in a like in a capitalist world in the context or

[1:57:04 - 1:57:10] ▶

yeah right I don't know I don't really know prior to the revolution right how do you do this yeah yeah

[1:57:10 - 1:57:15] ▶

so I mean okay so from for me this is going to sound maybe paradoxical I trust myself because I

[1:57:15 - 1:57:24] ▶

have changed my mind on very big ticket stuff yeah certain points in my life okay what and now you

[1:57:24 - 1:57:31] ▶

might think know that way mean you mistrust yourself because you've been wrong before what makes you

[1:57:31 - 1:57:35] ▶

think you're right this time but it makes me trust myself more because it's like well I think I

[1:57:35 - 1:57:39] ▶

could admit to myself that I was wrong exactly in in ways that might even be embarrassing to me

[1:57:39 - 1:57:44] ▶

just how it is certain circles do you see that yeah and so I think you know you can trust well you

[1:57:44 - 1:57:50] ▶

I mean let's remember there's a cave so you really can't trust anything on a screen right okay but

[1:57:50 - 1:57:55] ▶

like implicitly but like I think you can trust the people more the degree to which they

[1:57:55 - 1:58:00] ▶

have actually changed their mind I agree and have admitted it publicly and said I was wrong

[1:58:01 - 1:58:06] ▶

yeah etc etc do you know what I mean and I think as long as you were truly open to changing your mind

[1:58:06 - 1:58:11] ▶

yeah right and of course and you'll only you will know that right like like in your you know

[1:58:11 - 1:58:16] ▶

you're you're as you lie awake at night worrying right yeah only you will know that yes you know could

[1:58:16 - 1:58:21] ▶

I change my mind and have I changed my mind yeah I think that's that I think that maintaining that

[1:58:21 - 1:58:26] ▶

openness to being like utterly debased by the truth yeah yeah yeah yeah I think that's the most

[1:58:27 - 1:58:32] ▶

important intellectual virtue well I think it's not only important to do an proxy for how intellectually

[1:58:32 - 1:58:37] ▶

honest somebody is but it's probably any search for like big tea truth sort of ends up in

[1:58:37 - 1:58:43] ▶

the it's like the bridge over the river choir whatever where you spend your whole time trying to

[1:58:43 - 1:58:48] ▶

build this bridge and then you realize you know it's like the alchemist you realize it was within

[1:58:48 - 1:58:52] ▶

there you know it's this sort of you've been extremely ignorant of like these core these core

[1:58:52 - 1:59:00] ▶

truths because all all truth seeking everything in life is leveraged by somebody's internal psychology

[1:59:00 - 1:59:06] ▶

everything everything and it's all so it's like the UFO thing is so it's so it's often very

[1:59:06 - 1:59:10] ▶

escapist it's often the people are interested in sort of left hand path kind of a cult stuff

[1:59:10 - 1:59:16] ▶

you know and it's like it's not it's not always like great like the impetus for behind a lot of

[1:59:16 - 1:59:22] ▶

these things and so I think the earnest inquiry into this stuff is if if that's you know part of your

[1:59:22 - 1:59:28] ▶

path is fine and then there's some sort of coming to terms with you know often let's like the you

[1:59:28 - 1:59:34] ▶

know same Francis of a CC where it's like this forcing function towards good yeah yeah I don't

[1:59:34 - 1:59:41] ▶

know it fits fascinating yeah I think one of the most profound moments in philosophy is the the very

[1:59:41 - 1:59:46] ▶

first line of the preface of Nietzsche's genealogy of morals he says we know where's our least

[1:59:46 - 1:59:52] ▶

well known to ourselves okay and it's direct kind of you know F you to Socrates you know

[1:59:52 - 1:59:58] ▶

the know-dyself right you know the unexamined life's worth them is not worth living to say well

[1:59:58 - 2:00:03] ▶

have you really inquired like have you really looked into your own like irrational biases

[2:00:04 - 2:00:10] ▶

right like your own needs that might be fulfilled by all this right do you know what I mean

[2:00:10 - 2:00:15] ▶

yeah and especially something like with the UFOs I think you really need to be open to like

[2:00:15 - 2:00:20] ▶

to like how my own unconscious could be gaming this for me 100% but it's the the young line like

[2:00:20 - 2:00:26] ▶

you know you call it you call it you know you call it fate until you reconcile with your subconscious

[2:00:26 - 2:00:33] ▶

or whatever exactly you know it's it's it's it's it's it's it pre-leverages everything and if you

[2:00:33 - 2:00:39] ▶

don't admit that it's definitely doing it to you if you do admit that then maybe it loses a little

[2:00:39 - 2:00:44] ▶

bit of power right you have some sort of objectivity around it but I do find that it's the the dirty

[2:00:44 - 2:00:49] ▶

little secret in all of you apology is like everybody and I mean everybody has some sort of autobiographical

[2:00:49 - 2:00:56] ▶

thing in their past or reason for being into it and the ones that I find often the most honest

[2:00:56 - 2:01:02] ▶

actors and certain people maybe can't talk about these things publicly because they do come from

[2:01:02 - 2:01:05] ▶

you know specific positions yeah but everybody's got a little bit of that and it's probably true

[2:01:05 - 2:01:11] ▶

of our political views our religious views except for it's everything and that doesn't mean these

[2:01:11 - 2:01:15] ▶

things need to be abandoned but it does mean we have to like be aware of where our cognitive

[2:01:15 - 2:01:21] ▶

weak spots are totally and make sure not being exploited yeah I flipped from being

[2:01:21 - 2:01:26] ▶

pretty die hard liberal growing up and I still am I guess anti neo conservatism or whatever

[2:01:27 - 2:01:33] ▶

so that was you know where I think the macro shifted what's that?

[2:01:33 - 2:01:36] ▶

to your people though I say yeah yeah yeah yeah volunteer people I was always you know I'm still

[2:01:36 - 2:01:41] ▶

consistent on that yeah exactly and so maybe there's some sort of like neo conservative neo liberal

[2:01:41 - 2:01:47] ▶

alliance or something and I'm sort of anti that or whatever but like I also shifted I've also become

[2:01:47 - 2:01:53] ▶

like more a little more right wing and you know I often trust people who have had shifts like that

[2:01:53 - 2:02:01] ▶

because I'm like oh you're willing to like just kind of throw out your own ego question yourself

[2:02:01 - 2:02:05] ▶

because you probably had to eat a lot of crow with some friends when you know I still do yeah

[2:02:06 - 2:02:10] ▶

friends who like went to college with me and they're like what's wrong with you do they don't

[2:02:10 - 2:02:14] ▶

know yeah yeah sorry yeah yeah yeah yeah and you look I have to eat a lot of crow on in the

[2:02:14 - 2:02:19] ▶

under the right wing is a lot of crazy yeah there's a yeah there's a she's both I can't

[2:02:19 - 2:02:24] ▶

remember if you stole I were not but it was a very important contemporary philosopher named Hillary

[2:02:24 - 2:02:27] ▶

Putnam and Putnam was famous for changing his mind yeah yeah and at one point I believe there's

[2:02:27 - 2:02:34] ▶

an interview or something with him where he said look I thought the point was to be right not to be

[2:02:34 - 2:02:38] ▶

consistent yeah yeah totally yeah and it should like I think the best way to get to truth is this

[2:02:38 - 2:02:45] ▶

dialectical thing yes where you play with falsity you're like you don't know like you but you

[2:02:45 - 2:02:51] ▶

you assume a belief that you think is kind of too radical or beyond the pale or ridiculous and in

[2:02:51 - 2:02:56] ▶

many cases like the Poussalka thing or the Carl Jung thing you're like actually I think there's

[2:02:56 - 2:03:00] ▶

something real here yes and then in other cases you play with it and you're like uh it doesn't

[2:03:00 - 2:03:05] ▶

make sense like I'm going to discard that but a priori concealing yourself from quote unquote

[2:03:05 - 2:03:11] ▶

misinformation as deemed by some authority figure is grounds for like horrible critical thinking

[2:03:11 - 2:03:17] ▶

and being manipulated yeah hegel like conscious like uh he's really dismissive of of the fear of being

[2:03:17 - 2:03:24] ▶

wrong yeah there's like there's kind of a risk like there's like we have to be willing to like

[2:03:24 - 2:03:30] ▶

go on when he calls the highway of despair anywhere like like to constantly have our views like

[2:03:30 - 2:03:35] ▶

wrecked yes like to make any progress I love that yeah do you think some of these philosophers I always

[2:03:35 - 2:03:41] ▶

go back to what this is me being pre-leverage by my own biases so I'll admit and the whole show is

[2:03:41 - 2:03:47] ▶

but like not easier show yeah it is totally yeah you can't get around that yeah like it did you

[2:03:47 - 2:03:52] ▶

on show yeah yeah exactly but um like hegel I think of you know I think there's a book called like

[2:03:52 - 2:03:58] ▶

Hegel and the hermetic tradition yeah yeah and he was like friends with like Jacob bomb or like

[2:03:58 - 2:04:04] ▶

you know the sort of contemporary and like you read bomb stuff you read like you know the aurora and

[2:04:04 - 2:04:09] ▶

stuff and it's like he's just like a really trippy interesting stuff and you hear like rumors he might

[2:04:09 - 2:04:14] ▶

have been like a rose accruciant and like part of you know secret societies and so do you how much do

[2:04:14 - 2:04:18] ▶

you think some of these philosophers like maybe Hegel being a good example dabbled in like the you

[2:04:18 - 2:04:24] ▶

know more esoteric look I think they they all had private lives yeah do you know you know what I mean

[2:04:24 - 2:04:29] ▶

and and you know if you found out that some prominent you know philosopher at I have no one in

[2:04:29 - 2:04:37] ▶

mind here okay so prominent philosopher at prestigious university Z let's right today you know was like

[2:04:37 - 2:04:45] ▶

a 33 degree mason or something like that that wouldn't be entirely surprising to you that's what

[2:04:45 - 2:04:50] ▶

you know yeah so yeah so I don't doubt that you could find and it's certainly like like those

[2:04:50 - 2:04:54] ▶

sorts of groups are all over you know the enlightenment and things like that yeah so I would not be

[2:04:54 - 2:04:59] ▶

surprised if if like Hegel yeah had some dabbling so that's what yeah yeah yeah and it's

[2:04:59 - 2:05:05] ▶

fascinating you have Jacques the like you know calling his working group on UFO you a pho you a

[2:05:05 - 2:05:10] ▶

phoge studying UFOs with jalen hynek and a bunch of these guys in the 70s the invisible college

[2:05:10 - 2:05:15] ▶

even named his book name visible college which is homage to you know Robert Boyle but original

[2:05:15 - 2:05:21] ▶

I think subtle hand yeah less subtle head these are originally resin crucian ideas now with

[2:05:21 - 2:05:27] ▶

said using Hegel as an example and so yeah maybe he was involved in some esoteric stuff you know

[2:05:27 - 2:05:33] ▶

and he had you know it was in her my himatic stuff right I don't know if that need change how

[2:05:33 - 2:05:41] ▶

we read the text though sure yeah happy to take his public presentation of the text at face value

[2:05:41 - 2:05:49] ▶

yeah right even though there may be significant things to learn yeah of other things that he

[2:05:49 - 2:05:54] ▶

that he might have been up to yeah I never know how to read you know some of these people it's like

[2:05:54 - 2:05:59] ▶

are they are they really into it is it some sort of like tactic or something you know I mean he's

[2:05:59 - 2:06:03] ▶

also like on paper a Lutheran too but that would not really like there's some pretty he comes

[2:06:03 - 2:06:09] ▶

apart with that too right right yeah well it's all it's all so fascinating I mean he I mean

[2:06:09 - 2:06:14] ▶

talk about a philosopher who's had just an outsized impact on modernity yeah and Hegel has to be

[2:06:14 - 2:06:21] ▶

you know at the at the definitely but this has been an honor I really appreciate I've got a good

[2:06:21 - 2:06:26] ▶

time yeah this is a blast and I'd love to do it again is there anything else we've missed or

[2:06:26 - 2:06:32] ▶

anything that's not my words yes okay yeah feel free to drag me back down I would love to do it man

[2:06:32 - 2:06:38] ▶

maybe I'll come out to you I'd love to see Kansas and hang out and I'm during tornado season will

[2:06:38 - 2:06:42] ▶

yeah yeah that's yeah why not yeah yeah man this is a blast go go out and buy a unidentified

[2:06:43 - 2:06:51] ▶

flying hyper object you working on anything else or do you want to promote anything else

[2:06:51 - 2:06:55] ▶

Twitter or anything yeah I have a mostly dormant Twitter accounts okay yeah so I have a

[2:06:55 - 2:07:00] ▶

sub stack maybe check that out okay awesome but if you're interested have a look at the book

[2:07:00 - 2:07:04] ▶

cool and is it on sub stack it's just Jim Madden or yeah yeah it's hard to change your

[2:07:04 - 2:07:10] ▶

sub stack name yeah like accidentally made it I think it's just literally Jim Madden's newsletter

[2:07:10 - 2:07:15] ▶

okay hey why not literal yeah people know what they're good I do I do have a webpage jdmadden.com

[2:07:15 - 2:07:21] ▶

okay a bunch of papers and podcasts and stuff okay awesome well really appreciate it this is a blast

[2:07:21 - 2:07:26] ▶

you bet thank you yeah

[2:07:26 - 2:07:28] ▶