Sean Kelly: Existentialism, Nihilism, and the Search for Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #227

the following is a conversation with. sean kelly a philosopher at harvard. specializing in existentialism and the. philosophy of mind. this is the lex friedman podcast to. support it please check out our sponsors. in the description. and now here's my conversation with sean. kelly. your interests are in post-content. european philosophy especially. phenomenology and existentialism so let. me ask what to you.

is existentialism. so it's a hard question i'm teaching a. course on existentialism right now you. are i am yeah existentialism in. literature and film which is fun. uh i mean the traditional thing to say. about. what existentialism is is that it's a. movement in mid 20th century. mostly french some german philosophy. and some of the major figures associated. with it are people like jean-paul sartre.

and camus. um simone de beauvoir. maybe martin heidegger. but that's a weird thing to say about it. because most of those people denied that. they were existentialists and um. and in fact i i think of it as a. movement that has a much longer history. so when i try to describe what the core. idea of existentialism is. it's an idea that you find expressed in. different ways in a bunch of these. people one of the ways that it's.

expressed. is that. sartre will say. that existentialism is the view that. there is no god and at least his form of. existentialism he calls it atheistic. existentialism there is no god. and since there's no god there must be. some other being around. who does something like what god does. otherwise there wouldn't be any. possibility for significance in life. and that being is us.

and the feature of us according to sart. and. the other existentialists. that puts us in the position to be able. to play that role is that we're the. beings for whom. assart says it existence precedes. essence. that's that's the catchphrase for. existentialism and then you have to try. to figure out what it means. what is existence what is presence and. what does proceeds mean yeah exactly. what is existence what is essence and. what is proceeds and in fact precedes a.

start way of talking about it and other. people will talk about it differently. but here's a way of here's the way start. thinks about it this is not i think the. most interesting way to think about it. but get you started. sartre says. there's nothing. true about what it is to be you. until you start. existing and still use until you start. living and for sartre the core feature. of what it is to be existing the way we. do. is to be making decisions to be making.

choices in your life to be. sort of taking a stand on what it is to. be you by deciding to do this or that. and the key feature of how to do that. right for sartre. is to do it in the full recognition of. the fact that when you make that choice. nobody is responsible for it other than. you. so you don't make the choice because god. tells you to you don't make the choice. because some.

utilitarian calculus about what what. it's right to do tells you to do you. don't make the choice because some other. philosophical theory tells you to do it. there's literally nothing on the basis. of which you make the choice. other than the fact that in that moment. you're you're the one making it. you are a conscious. thinking being that made a decision so. all the questions about physics and free. will. are out the window yeah that's right if.

you were a determinist about the mind if. you were a physicalist about the mind if. you thought there was nothing to your. choices. other than the activity of the brain. that's governed by physical laws. then there's some sense in which it. would seem at any rate like um you're. not the ground of that choice the ground. of that choice was the physical universe. and the laws that govern it. and then you'd have no responsibility. and so sart's view is that the thing. that's special about us used to be.

special about god. is that we're responsible for. becoming the being that makes the. choices that we do. and sart thinks that that simultaneously. empowering i mean it practically puts us. in the place of god. and also terrifying. because what responsibility how can you. possibly. take on that responsibility and he. thinks it's worse than that he thinks. that. it's always happening. everything that you do.

uh is the result of some choice that. you've made the posture that you sit in. the way you hold someone's gaze when. you're having a conversation with them. or not. the choice to make a note. when someone says something. or not make a note. everything that you do presents you as a. being who makes decisions and you're. responsible for all of them so it's. constantly happening and furthermore. there's no fact about you.

independent of the choices and actions. you've performed so you don't get to say. search example i really am a great. writer i just haven't written my great. book yet. if you haven't written your great book. you're not a great writer. and so it's it's terrifying it puts a. huge burden on us. and um and that's why sart says. on his view of existentialism. human beings are the beings that are. condemned to be free. our freedom consists in our ability and.

our responsibility to to make these. choices and to become someone through. making them and we can't get we can't. get away from that but to him it's. terrifying not liberating. in the positive meaning of the word. liberating well so he he thinks it. should be liberating but he thinks that. it takes a very courageous individual to. be liberated by it. um nietzsche i think thought something. similar i think's artists. really coming out of a nietzschean sort. of tradition. but what's liberating about it if it is.

is also terrifying because it means in a. certain way you're the ground of your. own being you become. what you do through through existing so. that's one form of existentialism that's. a stark atheistic version of it there's. lots of other versions but it's somehow. organized around the idea that it's. through living your life that you become. who you are it's not facts that are. sort of true about you independent of. your living your life.

but then. if there's no god in that view. does any of the decisions matter so how. does existentialism differ from nihilism. good okay great question. there's two different ways that you're. you're asking it. um let me leave nihilism to the side for. just a second and think about mattering. or. is there any. way that you can criticize someone for. me for doing for living the way they do.

if you're in existence including. yourself including yourself yeah start. addresses that and he says um. yes he says there is a criticism that. you can make of yourself or of others. and it's the criticism of living in such. a way as to fail to take responsibility. for your choices he gives these two sort. of amazing examples. one. doesn't i don't know if it reads as well. as for us as it uh as it did in sort of. mid 20th century paris.

but it's about a waiter. he gives this in in his big book being. in nothingness and he says um so waiters. play played still do i think in a. certain way in paris a big role in in. parisian society to be a waiter involved. having a certain kind of identity being. a certain way. uh taking control of in charge of the. experience of the people that you're. you're waiting on but also you know. really being the authority like knowing.

that this is the the way it's supposed. to go. and so sartre imagines a waiter who does. everything that a waiter is supposed to. do. the perfect form of the waiter. except that you can somehow see in the. way he's doing it. that he's doing it because he believes. that's the way a waiter should. act. not. so there's some sense in which he's. passing off the responsibility for his. actions.

onto some idea of what those actions. should be he's not taking responsibility. for it he's sort of playing a role. and the contours of the role are. predetermined by someone other than him. so he starts as acting in bad faith. and that's. criticizable because it's acting in such. a way as to fail to take responsibility. for the kind of being sart thinks you. are. so you're not taking response so that's. one example and i think you know i think. any teenager.

if you've ever met a teenager you've. known someone who who does that. teenagers try on roles they think if i. dressed like this i would be cool so. i'll dress like this or if i spoke like. this or acted like this. and it's natural for a teenager who's. trying to figure out what their you know. what their identity is to go through a. phase like that but if you continue to. do that then you're you're really. passing it so that's one example the. other example he gives. is an example uh not of passing off.

responsibility by. pretending that someone else. is the ground of your choice but passing. off responsibility by pretending that. you might be able to get away with not. making a choice at all. so he says you're always everything you. do is a result of your choices and so he. gives this other example there you are. on the first date. first date. and the date the evening reaches moment.

when. might be appropriate for one person. to. hold the hand of the other. that's the moment in the date where you. are and so you make a choice you decide. i think it's think it's that time and. you hold the hand. and what should happen is that the other. person also makes a choice on sart's. view. either they reject the hand. not that time and i'm taking. responsibility for that. or they grasp the hands back.

that's a choice but there's a thing that. sometimes happens which is that the. other person. leaves the hand there cold dead and. clammy neither rejecting it nor. embracing it. and start says that's also bad faith. that's also acting as if we're a kind of. being that we're not. because it pretends that it's possible. not to make a choice. and we're the beings who are always. making choices that was a choice.

and you're pretending as if it's the. kind of thing that you don't have to. take responsibility for. so both of the examples you've given. there's some sense in which the social. interactions between humans. is the kind of moving away from the full. responsibility. that you as a human. in the view of existentialism should. take on so like isn't all isn't the. basic conversation a delegation or. responsibility just. holding a hand there you're putting the. response some of the responsibility into.

the court of the other person. and for the waiter if you exist in a. society. you are generally trying on a roll. i mean like. all of us are trying on a roll me. wearing clothes yeah it's me trying on a. roll that i was told to try uh as. opposed to walking around naked all the. time like there's there's like standards. of how you operate and that's not. that's a decision that's not my own.

that's me seeing what everyone else is. doing and copying them. yeah exactly so. sart thinks that. in the ideal you should try to resist. that other existentialists think. that. that's actually a clue to how you should. live well yeah so sarge says somewhere. else hell is other people. why is hell other people for start well. because other people are making choices. also.

and when other people make choices. they. put some pressure on me. to think that the choice they made is. one that i should. uh copy or one that i should. sort of promote. but if i do it because they did it then. i'm in bad faith for sorry. so it's it is as if sart's view is like. we would be better if we were all alone. i mean this this is this is really. simplifying starts position and this is.

really just mostly start in a certain. period of his of his formation. but anyhow we can imagine that view and. i think there's something to the idea. that's art is attracted to it at least. in the mid 40s can you dig into hell as. other people is there some obviously. it's kind of a almost like a literary. like you push the point strongly to. really explore that point. but is there some sense in that other. people. ruin the experience of what it means to.

be human. i think for start the phenomenon is this. like it's not just that you wear clothes. because people wear clothes in our. society like you have a particular style. you wear a particular kind of clothes. right and for sartre like to have that. style authentically in good faith rather. than in bad faith. it has to come from you you have to make. the choice. but other people are making choices also. and like you're looking at their choices.

and you're thinking that guy looks good. maybe i could try that one on and. if you try it on because you were. influenced by the fact that you thought. that guy was doing it well. then there's some important sense in. which although that's a resource for a. choice for you it's also acting in bad. faith. so. so god and god wouldn't do that right. god wouldn't be influenced by others. decisions and if that's the model. then that's i think that's the sense in. which he thinks hell is other people.

what do you think parenting is then it's. like what because god doesn't have a. parent yeah so aren't we significantly. influenced first of all in the first few. years of. life um and in the even even the. teenager is resisting again learning. through resistance. so absolutely i mean i think what you're. pushing on. is the intuition. that the ideal that starts aiming at is. a kind of.

inhuman ideal i mean we're we're there's. many ways in which we're not like the. traditional view of what god was. one is that. we're not self-generating we have. parents we. we're raised into. traditions and social norms and we're. raised into an understanding of what's. appropriate and inappropriate to do. and i think that's a deep intuition i. think that's exactly right.

martin heidegger who's the who's the. philosopher that's art thinks he's sort. of taking this from but i think starts a. kind of brilliant french. misinterpretation of eideker's german. phenomenological view. heidegger says. a crucial aspect of what it is to be us. is our throneness we're thrown into a. situation we're thrown into history. we're thrown into. our parental lineage we're and we don't. choose it that's stuff that we don't.

choose we couldn't choose. if we were god and we existed outside of. time maybe. but we're not we're finite in the sense. that we have a beginning that we never. chose we have an end that we're con you. know often trying to. resist or put off for something. and in between there's a whole bunch of. stuff that organizes us without our ever. having. made the choice and without our being. the kind of being that could make the. choice to allow it to organize us.

we have a complicated relationship to. that stuff and i i think we should talk. about that at a certain point but the. the first move is to say zara's just got. a. sort of descriptive problem he's missed. this basic fact that um there's an awful. there has to be an awful lot about us. that's. settled. without our having made the choice to. settle it that way right the throneness. of life yeah you have that's a. fundamental part of life you can't just.

escape it exactly you can't escape it. all together all together yeah exactly. you can't escape it all together but. nevertheless you are riding a wave. and you make a decision of the in the. writing of the way you can't control the. wave but you should be uh. like. as you ride it you should be making. certain kinds of decisions and take. responsibility. for it so. why does this. matter at all the the chain of decisions. you make. good well because they constitute you.

they make you the person that you are so. you here's what's the opposite view. what's what's this view against uh this. view is against most of philosophy from. plato forward plato. plato says in the republic it's a kind. of myth but you know he he says people. will understand. their their condition well if they if we. tell them this myth he says look when. you're born there's just a fact about. you your soul.

is either gold silver or bronze that's. those are the three kinds of people. there are and you're born that way and. if your soul is gold then we should. identify that and make you a philosopher. king yeah and if your soul is silver. well you're not going to be a. philosopher king you're not capable of. it but you could be a good warrior and. we should make you that and if your soul. is bronze then you should be a farmer. laborer or something like that and. that's a fact about you. that. identifies you forever and for always. independent of anything you do about it.

and so that's the alternative view and. you you could have modern versions of it. you could say the thing that identifies. you is your iq. or your genetic makeup or. the percentage of fast twitch muscle. fibers you've got or whatever it could. be something it's totally independent of. any choice that you've made independent. of the kind of thing about which you. could make a choice. and it. and it categorizes you it makes you the.

person that you are that's the that's. the thing that started and the. existentialists are against. uh. so. this idea that something about you is. forever limiting the space of possible. decisions you can make sarcha says. no the space is unlimited start is the. the philosopher of radical freedom. radical freedom yeah radical freedom and. then you could have other. existentialists who say look we are free. but we gotta we gotta understand what. the way in which our freedom is limited.

by certain aspects of the kind of being. that we are if we were radically free we. really would be like god in the. traditional medieval sense. and and not sort of these folks start. with the idea that look whatever we are. that's a kind of limit point that we're. not going to reach. so. what what are the ways in which we're. constrained that. that that being the way the medievals. understood him wasn't constrained so can. you maybe comment on what is nihilism. and is it at all a useful.

other sort of group of ideas that you. resist against in defining. existentialism yes good excellent so. nihilism. the the philosopher who made the term. popular although it was used before him. is nietzsche nietzsche's writing in the. end of the 19th century. in. various places where he he published. things but largely in his unpublished. works. he. identifies the condition of the modern.

world as nihilistic. and that's. a descriptive claim he's looking around. him. trying to figure out what it's like to. be us now. and. he says it's a lot different from what. it was like to be. human in 1300 or in the fifth century. bce. in 1300. like what people. believed what they the the way they. lived their lives.

was in the. understanding that to be human was to be. created in the image and likeness of god. that's the way they understood. themselves. and also to be created sinful. because of you know adam and eve's. transgression in the garden of eden. and to have the project of trying to. understand how as a sinful being you. could nevertheless live a life a. virtuous life how could you do that and. it had to do with for them getting in. the right relation to god he just says.

we we. that doesn't make sense to us anymore in. the end of the 19th century. god is dead says nietzsche famously. and what does that mean well it means. something like. the role that god used to play in our. understanding of ourselves as a culture. isn't a role that. that god can play anymore. and so nietzsche says. the role that god used to play was the. role of grounding our existence he was. what it is in virtue of which we are who.

we are. and nietzsche says. the idea that there is a being that. makes us what we are doesn't make sense. anymore that's like atheism so artists. taking that from nature and so the. question is. what does ground our existence and the. answer is knee hill nothing. and so nihilism is the idea that there's. nothing outside of us that grounds our. existence. and then nietzsche asks the question. well what are we supposed to do about. that how do we live.

and i i you know. i think nietzsche has a different story. than start about that. nietzsche doesn't say. doesn't emphasize. this notion of radical freedom nietzsche. emphasizes something else. he says. we're artists of life. and artists are interesting because. the natural way of thinking about. artists is that they're responding to. something. they find themselves in a situation and.

they say this is what's going to make. sense of the situation this is what i. have to write this is the way i have to. dance this is the way i've got to play. the music. and nietzsche says we should live like. that there are constraints but like. understanding what they are is. complicated. aspect of of living itself and there's a. great story i think uh from music that. maybe. helps to understand this i i think. nietzsche of course jazz didn't exist. when nietzsche was writing.

but i think nietzsche really think is. thinking of something like jazz. improvisation i mean he he he talks. about improvisation there's classical. improvisation nietzsche was by the way a. musician i mean he was a composer and a. pianist not a great one really. to be fair but but he loved music. and. herbie hancock who's a pianist a jazz. pianist. who played with miles davis for quite a. while in the 60s. tells this kind of incredible story.

that i think exemplifies nietzsche's. view. about. the way in which. we bear some responsibility for being. creative. and that gives us a certain kind of. freedom. but we don't have the the radical. response the radical freedom that's art. thinks so what's the story herbie. hancock says. they're they're they i think they were. in stuttgart he says. playing it playing a. show and.

things were great he says i'm pl he's a. young pianist and miles davis is the. master. and he says i'm i'm playing the i'm back. in the. solo and i'm playing these chords and he. says. i played this chord. and. it was the wrong chord. [Laughter]. he's like it just like that's what you. got to say it didn't work right there. and i thought holy mackerel i screwed up. you know i screwed up we were tight.

everything was working and i blew it for. miles who's doing his solo and he said. miles. uh paused for a moment. and then all of a sudden he went on. in a way that. made my cord right. [Laughter]. and i think that idea that like you. could be an artist who responds to. what's thrown at you. in such a way as to.

make it right. by what measure. everyone could hear it is all you can. say right everyone knew wow that really. works. and i think that's not like there are. constraints not anything would have. worked there he couldn't have just. played anything. most of what anyone would have played. would have sounded terrible. but the constraints aren't like. pre-existing they're sort of. what's happening now in the moment for. these listeners and these performers and.

i think that's what nietzsche thinks the. right response to nihilism is we're. involved. but we're not radically free to make any. choice and just stand behind it the way. sart thinks. our choices have to be responsive to our. situation. and they have to make the situation work. they have to make it right. and there's there's something about. music too so you basically have to make. music. of all the moments of life and there is. something about music why is music so.

compelling. and when you listen to it something. about certain kinds of music it connects. with you it doesn't make any sense but. in that same way for nietzsche. you should be a creative force. that creates a musical masterpiece. exactly and i think what's interesting. is the question what does it mean to be. a creative force there there's a. traditional notion of creation. that we associate with with god. god creates ex nihilo out of nothing.

and. you might think that nihilism thinks. that we should do that create ex nihilo. because it's about how there's nothing. at our ground but i think the right way. to read nietzsche is to recognize that. we don't create out of nothing miles. davis wasn't nothing that situation. pre-existed him it was given to him. maybe by accident maybe it was a mistake. whatever but he was responding to that. situation in a way that made it right he. wasn't just creating out of nothing he. was creating out of what was already.

there so that makes that first date with. the climbing hand even more complicated. because. you're giving a climbing hand you're. gonna have to make art and music out of. that exactly and that's the. responsibility for both for both of them. wow that's a lot of responsibility for a. first date because you have to. create it's just the emphasis isn't just. on making decisions. it's on um. creating and but also on listening right. i mean miles davis was listening he.

heard that he knew it was wrong and the. question was what do i play that makes. it right. so let me ask about nietzsche. [Music]. is god dead. what did he mean by that statement yeah. what's in your sons the truth behind the. question. and the possible set of answers that our. world today provides. good so i i mean i i think that. there's something super perceptive about. nietzsche's diagnosis of the condition.

at the end of the 19th century. so not so far from the condition that i. think we're currently in. and i think there's an interesting. question what we're supposed to respond. what we're supposed to do in response. but what what is the condition that. we're currently in when nietzsche says. god is dead. i think like i was saying before he he. means something like the role that god. used to play in grounding our existence. is not a role that works for us anymore. as a culture. and when people talk about a view like.

that nowadays they use a different. terminology but i think it's roughly. what nietzsche was aiming at. they say we live in a secular age. our age is a secular age and so what. what do people mean when they say that. i think. first of all it's a descriptive claim it. could be wrong. the question is does this really. describe the way we experience ourselves. as a culture or as a culture in the west. or wherever it is that we are. so what does it mean to say that we live. in a secular age an age in which god is.

dead well it first thing is it doesn't. mean there are no religious believers. because there are plenty there are lots. of people who. go to church or synagogue or mosque you. know every week or more and there are. people who. really find that to be an important. aspect of the way they live their lives. but. it does mean. that for those people. the role of their religion the role that. the religious their religious belief. plays in their life isn't the same as it.

used to be in previous ages so what's. that role. we'll go back to the high middle ages. that was clearly not a secular age. that was a religious age. and so there we are in 1300 dante is. writing the divine comedy or something. and what did it what did it mean then to. live in a sacred age well it meant. not just that. the default was that you were were a. christian in the west. but that your christianity your.

religious belief your religious. affiliation. justified certain. assumptions about people who didn't. share that religious belief. so you're a christian. in the west in 1300 and you meet someone. who's a muslim. and the fact that they don't share your. religious belief. justifies the conclusion. that they're less than human. and that's that was the ground of the. you know the crusades that was the.

religious wars of the high middle ages. we live in it to say that we live in a. secular age is to say that. not that we don't have there aren't a. lot of people who have religious belief. there are but it's to say that their. religious belief ju doesn't justify that. conclusion. if. you're a religious believer. and you meet me and suppose i'm not a. religious believer. learning that about me doesn't justify. your concluding that i'm less than human.

right and that's the kind of liberalism. of the of the modern age most of the. time we think that's a good thing we let. a thousand flowers bloom there are lots. of ways to live a good life. and there's some way in which that that. is a nice progressive kind of liberal. thought. but it's also true that it's an. undermining thought because. it means. if you're a religious believer now. your belief can't ground your. understanding of what you ought to be.

aiming at in the life. in the way it used to be able to you. can't say. as a religious believer i know it's. right to do this because you also know. that if you meet someone who doesn't. share that religious belief and so. doesn't think it's right to do that. necessarily or does but for different. reasons. you you can't conclude that they've got. it wrong. so there's this sort of unsettling. aspect to it well isn't it true that uh. you you can't conclude as a as a public.

statement to others but within your own. mind. it's almost like an existentialist. version of uh belief which is like it's. you create the world and. around you like it doesn't matter what. others believe you don't. there's not it's actually almost like um. empowering thought so as opposed to the. more. traditional view of religion. where it's like a tribal idea like where.

you share that idea together here you. have the full. back disartry a full responsibility of. your beliefs as well. good good but what you're describing. is not a religious believer right you're. describing someone who's. found in themselves the ground of their. existence rather than in something. outside of themselves so the religious. belief i mean if you go full sartrean. then. uh well you're not in a position to. criticize others for the choices that.

they make. but you are in a position to criticize. them for the way in which they make them. either taking responsibility or not. taking responsibility but the but the. religious believer used to be able to. say look the choices that i make are. right because god demands that i make. them. and nowadays. like. and so it would be wrong to make any. others. and nowadays. are kind of. to say that we live in a secular age say.

well you you can't quite can't quite do. that and be a religious believer your. religious belief can't can't justify. that move and so it can't ground. your life in the way it does so it's. sort of unsettling i think that's one of. the interpretations of what nietzsche. might have meant when he said god is. dead god can't play the role for. religious believers in our world that he. used to. but we nevertheless find meaning i mean. you don't see. nihilism as a prevalent set of ideas. that are overtaken modern culture so a.

secular world is still full of meaning. good well i think that's the interesting. question i i think i think it's. certainly possible for a secular world. to be a world in which we live. meaningful lives worthwhile lives lives. that uh are. sort of um worthy of respect and that we. can be proud of of aiming to live. but but i think it is a hard question. what we're doing when we do that and. that's the that is the question of. existence sort of what does it mean.

to exist in a way that brings us out at. our best as the beings that we are. that's the question for existentialism. so besides sartre who do you is the. most important existentialist to. understand for others what ideas in. particular of theirs do you like. maybe. other existential it's not just one yeah. so sartre is the grounding strong. atheistic existentialism statement who.

else is. uh there so in i'm teaching an. existentialism course now and i think. the tradition goes back at least to the. 17th century. um and i'll just tell you some of the. figures that that i'm teaching there we. could talk about any of them that you. like. the the figure i start with is pascal. pascal. french. mathematician. uh from the 17th century he died i'm. terrible with dates but i think 1661 or. something like that middle of the 17th. century brilliant polymath sort of we.

have computer languages named after him. he built the first mechanical. calculating machine he's but he he was. also. deeply invested in his understanding of. what christianity was. and he thought that. everyone before him. had really misunderstood what. christianity was that they'd really um. attempted to think about it not as a way. of living a life.

but as a set of beliefs. that you can have. and which you can justify. and i think that's the first. move that's kind that's really pretty. interesting and then figures like. kierkegaard and dostoyevsky. um developed that move and and they're. all of those are. take themselves to be defending an. interpretation of a certain kind of. christianity. an existential interpretation of. christianity. and then i think there are other figures. other theistic figures uh figures like.

um camus and uh fanon who. mid 20th century figures and then i'll. just mention the figure who i think is. the most interesting is martin heidegger. he's a complicated figure uh because by. the way when you said uh sorry to. interrupt that when you said camus. you meant atheistic i think that camus. is an atheistic existentialist yeah i'm. happy to talk about that so okay so we. got it's like sports cards yeah yeah the. different exercises so maybe let's go to.

uh. you know what let's go to dusty yes all. right okay let's do it so my favorite. novel of his is uh the idiot first of. all. i see myself as the idiot and an idiot. and i love the optimism and the love the. main character has for the world. so that just deeply connects with me as. a novel. uh notes from underground as well but. what. ideas of this yes do you think are.

existentialists what ideas are formative. to the whole existentialist movement. excellent so. let me talk about the brothers karamazov. yes partly because. that's the last novel that dostoevsky. wrote i think it's certainly one of the. greatest novels of the 19th century. uh maybe the best and i'm about to teach. it in a few weeks so i'm super excited. about it. but what's what is the brothers. karamazov about i mean without. you know without spoiling the ending for. anyone spoiler alert yeah i mean look.

it's it's a murder mystery right i mean. the father gets murdered. and the question is who did it who's. responsible for it so there's a notion. of responsibility here like consort but. it's responsibility for a murder that's. what we're talking about. and there's a bunch of brothers. each of whom. has. pretty good motivation for having. murdered the father the father's a jerk. i mean he's you know if anybody is.

worthy of being murdered he's the guy. he's he's he's a force of chaos and he's. nasty in all sorts of ways. but still it's not not good to murder. people. so so what's the what's the view of. dostoevsky i mean it's this intense. exploration. of what it means to be involved in. various ways. with an activity. that everyone can recognize is atrocious. and what the right way is to take.

responsibility for that. what the right way is to. relate to others in the face of it and. how even through this kind of action. you can achieve some kind of salvation. that's dostoyevsky's word for it you can. le and but salvation. here and now not like you live some. afterlife where you're you know paradise. for eternity. who cares about that says one of the. characters.

that doesn't make my life now any good. and it doesn't justify any of the bad. things that happen in my life now what. matters is can we live well. in the face of these things that we do. and have to take responsibility for so. it's this intense exploration. of. notions and gradations of guilt and. responsibility and the possibility of. love. and salvation in the face of those it is. incredibly human work. and hit but i think dostoevsky is the.

opposite of sartre. and let me just i think it's so. fascinating i don't know anybody else. who notices this but sart in sard. actually quotes a passage from. dostoevsky when he's developing his view. it's close to a passage it doesn't. appear quite in this way but the passage. that sartre quotes is is this. it's it's in the form of an argument. sorry puts it in the form of an argument. he says. um look there's a a conditional. statement is true. if there is no god then everything is.

permitted. and then there's a second premise. there is no god. that's sart's view i mean he's an. atheist there is no god. conclusion. everything is permitted. and that starts radical freedom. and if you think about the structure of. the brothers karamazov i think. dostoevsky though he never says it this. way would run the argument differently. it's a modus tollens instead of a modus. ponens the argument for dostoevsky would.

go like this yeah conditional statement. if there is no god then everything is. permitted. but look at your life. not everything is permitted. you do horrible atrocious things. like. be involved in the death of your father. and there is a price to pay that's not a. livable moment. you to take to have to take. responsibility. to have to recognize that you're at. fault or you're somehow guilty for.

having been involved in whatever way you. were and letting that happen or bringing. it about that it does happen. is to pay a price. so we're not beings that are constituted. in such a way. that everything is permitted. look at the facts of your existence. so not everything is permitted. therefore. there is a god. and and and the and the presence of a. god for dostoevsky i think it's just. found in this fact that when we do bad.

things we feel guilty for them with that. we find ourselves to be responsible for. things even when we didn't intend to do. them but we just allowed ourselves to be. involved in them and the nature of god. for just the yeski is i mean unclear. i mean it's a very complex exploration. in itself and he. basically god speaks through several of. his characters in in complicated ways. yeah so it's not like a trivial. it's totally not trivial and it's not a. a being that exists outside of time and.

none of that is sort of relevant for. dostoevsky for him it's a question about. how we live our lives do we live our. lives in the mood that christianity says. it makes available to us which is the. mood of joy. is there um maybe this is a bit of a. tangent but so i'm a russian speaker. and one of the. i kind of listen to my heart and what my. heart says is i need to take on this. project so. there's a couple of famous translators. of dostoyevsky and tolstoy.

that live in paris currently so i'm. going to take the journey. we agreed to have a full conversation. about dostoevsky about tolstoy and like. a series of conversations. and the reason i fell in love with this. idea. is i just realized in translating from. russian to english. how. deep philosophical how much deep. philosophical thinking is required. just to get like single sentences they.

spent like weeks. debating single sentences so uh and all. of that is part of a journey into russia. for several reasons but i just i want to. explore. uh something in me. that uh. longs to understand and to connect with. the roots where i come from. so. maybe can you comment whether it's on. the russian side or the niche of the. german side. or other. french side.

is there something in your own. explorations of these philosophies. that you find that you miss because you. don't. deeply know the language or like how. important is it to understand the. language good i think it's super. important and i'm always embarrassed. that i don't know more languages and. don't know the languages i know as as. well as i would like to. but there's um but there's a way in so i. i do think different languages allow you. to think in different ways and that.

there's a sort of a mode of exist a way. of being that's captured by a language. that it makes certain ways of thinking. about yourself or others more natural. and it closes off other ways of thinking. about yourself and others and so i think. languages are fascinating in that way. the heidegger who who is this. philosopher that i'm i'm interested in. says at one point language is the house. of being. and i think that means something like.

um. it's by. living in a language. that you come to understand or that. possibilities for understanding what it. is to be you and others and anything are. opened up and different languages open. up different possibilities and we had. that discussion offline about james. joyce how i took a course in james joyce. and how i don't think i understood. anything besides the dead and the short. stories and you suggested that. it might be helpful to actually visit.

ireland visit dublin. to truly to help you understand maybe. fall in love with the words. and so that. presumably is not. purely about the understanding of the. actual words of the language it's. understanding something much deeper. the music of the language or something. music of the ideas. absolutely something like that it's very. hard to say exactly what that is but. when you hear an irish person who really. understands joyce read some sentences.

they have a different cadence they have. a different tonality they have different. music to use your word and all of a. sudden you think about them differently. and the sentences sort of draw different. thoughts out of you when they're read in. certain ways that's what great actors. can can do but i i think language is is. rich like that and and the idea which. philosophers tend to have. that we're really studying the crucial. aspects of language when we think about.

its logical form. when we think about the sort of claims. of philosophical logic that you can make. or how do you translate this proposition. into some symbolic form. i think that's part of what goes on in. language but i think that when language. affects us. in the deep way that it can. when great poets or great writers or. great thinkers. use it to great effect. it's way more than that and and that's. the interesting form of language that. i'm interested in it's kind of a.

challenge i'm hoping to take on is i. feel like some of the ideas. that are conveyed to language are. actually can be put outside of language. so one of the challenges i have to do is. to have a conversation with people in. russian. but for an english audience. and not rely purely on translators there. would of course be translators there. that help. me. dance through this mess. of language but also.

like my goal my hope is to dance from. russian to english back and forth. for an english-speaking audience and for. a russian speaking audience so not this. pure this is russian it's going to be. translated to english or this is english. it's going to be translated to russian. but dance back and forth and try to. share with people who don't speak one of. the languages. the music that they're missing and sort. of almost hear that music as if you're. sitting in another room and you hear the. music through the wall like get a sense.

of it i think that would be a waste if i. don't try to pursue this. being a bilingual human being and i. wonder. whether it's possible to capture some of. the magic of the ideas. in a way that can be conveyed to people. who don't speak that particular language. i think it's a super exciting project i. look forward to following it i'll tell. you one thing that does happen so we. read dostoevsky in translation. occasionally i do have russian speakers. in the room which is super helpful.

but i also encourage my students. um. to you know to. some some of them will have different. translations than others and that can be. really helpful for the non-native. speaker because. by paying attention to. the. places where translators diverge in. their translations of a given word or a. phrase or something like that you can. start to get the idea that somehow the. words that we have in english. they don't have the same contours as the.

word in russian that's being translated. and then you can start to ask about what. those differences are. and i i think it's i think it's there's. a kind of magic to it i mean it's. astonishing how rich and affecting. these languages can be for people who. really who grew up in them especially. who speak them as leaders and that's a. really powerful thing that actually. doesn't exist enough of. is. uh for example for this dayofsky most. novels have been translated by.

uh two or three famous translators and. uh there's a lot of discussions about. who did it better and so on but. i would love to this i'm a computer. science person i would love to do a diff. where. you. automatically detect all the differences. in the translation just as you're saying. and use that like somebody needs to. publish literally just. books describing the differences in fact. i'll probably do a little bit of this i. heard the individual translators and.

interviews and in blog posts and. articles discuss particular phrases that. they differ on. but like to do that for an entire book. that's a fascinating exploration. as an english speaker just read the. differences in the translations yeah you. probably can get some deep understanding. of ideas in those books by seeing the. struggle of the translators to capture. that idea that's a really interesting. idea yeah absolutely and and you you can. do that in for other projects in other.

languages too i mean one of the. i don't know i have this weird huge. range of interests and some some days. i'll find myself reading about something. at one point i was interested in um 14th. century german mysticism okay turns out. there's somebody who's written like. volumes and volumes about this he's. fantastic and i was i was interested in. reading uh meister eckhart i i wanted to. know what was interesting about him and. the and the. the the sort of move that this guy.

bernard mcginn who's the great scholar. of this period made was to say what what. eckhart did and everybody knows this. he translated christianity into the. vernacular he started giving sermons in. german to the people used to be in latin. and nobody could speak latin can you. imagine sitting there for a two-hour. sermon in a language that you don't know. so he translated it into into german but. in doing it the resources of the german. language are different from the. resources of the latin language and.

there's a word in middle high german. grunt. which is like we translate it as ground. and it's got this earthy. feel to it it sort of invokes the notion. of soil and what you stand on and what. things grow out of and. uh sort of what you could run your. fingers through that would have a kind. of honesty to it. and. there's no latin word for that but in. eckart's interpretation of christianity.

that's like the fundamental thing you. don't understand god until you. understand the way in which he is our. ground. and all of a sudden this mysticism gets. a kind of german can't. that makes sense to the people who speak. german. and that reveals something totally. different. about what you could think that form of. existence was that was covered over by. the fact that it always been done in. latin. yeah that's fascinating. so so okay we talked about dostoevsky.

and uh the use of murder to explore. human nature let's go to camus. who is maybe less concerned with murder. and more concerned with suicide as a way. to explore human nature so he is uh. probably my favorite existentialist. probably one of the more. accessible existentialists. and like you said. one of the people who didn't like to. call himself an existentialist so what. are your thoughts about camus what role.

does he play in the story of. existentialism so i find kamu totally. fascinating i really i really do and for. years. i didn't teach camus. because the famous. thing that you're referring to the myth. of sisyphus which is a sort of essay. it's published as a book. super accessible really fascinating he's. a great writer really engaging the. opening line is something like. there is but one truly significant. philosophical question yes and that is.

the question of suicide yeah and i. thought i can't teach my. 18 year olds you know like. yeah i i just thought that's terrible. like how can i i mean it's not wrong. like that's a but do i want to bring. that into the classroom and and so i. read it i read the the essay i avoided. it for a long time because just because. of that line. and i thought i'm not going to be able. to make sense of this in a way that will. be helpful for anyone. but finally one year maybe seven or.

eight years ago i sat down to read it i. thought i've i've gotta really confront. it. and i read it and it's incredibly. engaging i mean it's really really. beautiful and and. kamu is against suicide which just turns. out to be good you know. i was happy about that but he he has a. bit of a bleak understanding of what. human existence amounts to. and so. uh in the end he thinks that human.

existence is absurd. and it's being absurd as a kind of. technical term for him. and it means that. the episodes in your life. and your life as a whole. presents itself to you as if it's got a. meaning. but really it doesn't. so there's this tension between the way. things. seem to be. on their surface. and what really turns out to be true.

about them and and he gives these great. examples like you probably remember. these he says um there you are you're. walking uh along the street and you. there's a plate glass window in a. building and through the window. uh you you see somebody talking on a. telephone i mean i imagined it as a cell. phone but camus. for didn't. uh but you see somebody talking on a. cell phone and and he's animated he's. talking a lot as if things really meant.

something. and yet camus says it's a dumb show. [Laughter]. and it's not dumb in the scent just in. the sense that it's stupid it's dumb in. the sense that it's silent. it presents itself as if it's got some. significance and yet its significance is. withheld from you and he says that's. what our lives are like. everything in our lives presents. themselves to us as if it's got a. significance but it doesn't it's absurd. uh and and then he says really what our. lives are like are like they're like the.

lives of sisyphus. just. day after day. you do the same thing. you know you wake up at a certain time. you get on the bus you go to work you. take your lunch break you get off. my i have a colleague who once said to. me something like this it was about. october or so in the fall semester i. said how's how's it going dick he said. well you know how it is i got on the. conveyor belt at the beginning of the. semester and i'm just going through. and that's that's the way my life is and.

camus thinks that that. experience which you can sometimes have. reveals something true about what human. lives are like our lives really just are. like the life of sisyphus who rolls this. boulder up the hill from morning till. night and then at night he gets to the. top and it rolls back down to the bottom. over the course of the night he walks. back down and then he starts it all over. again. and he says sisyphus is condemned to. this life like we're condemned to our.

lives. but we do have one bit of freedom. and it's the only thing that we can hang. on to. it's the freedom. to stick it to the gods who put us in. this position. by embracing this existence rather than. giving up and committing suicide and i. thought well it's kind of a happy ending. but but but i also thought it it's a dim. view of what our our existence amounts.

to. so i i think there's something. fascinating about that. but what i. came to believe and i tried to write. about this once i know you read the. thing about aliveness that i published. once that's secretly a criticism of. camus i don't think i mentioned camu in. there but i think camus has got the. phenomenon wrong. or he's missed some important aspect of. it because in camus view. when you experience your day as sort of.

going on in this deadening way and. you're just doing the things that you. always do the way you always do them. for camus that reveals the truth about. what our lives are. but i think there's some aspect at least. for me and maybe maybe he just didn't. feel this or didn't have access to it. maybe others don't but for me there's an. extra part to it which is somehow. that yes that's the way things are. and it's inadequate.

and there's something that's missing. from that aspect of our existence. that could be there. and it feels like our lives are not. about just putting up with that and. sticking it to the gods by embracing it. but seeking that absence part of it the. part that's. recognizable in its absence. in your experience of that. and that's that's what i think. i think we do have the experience of the. presence of that in moments when.

you feel truly alive. and that's what you mean by the word. aliveness which is a fascinating and a. powerful word yeah that's what i mean by. it i mean i think. most people can recognize moments in. their lives. when they really felt alive and it could. happen in a moment when. you know i don't know maybe miles davis. felt it in that moment when he was. responding to herbie hancock's cord or. maybe. you feel it in that moment where you. grab for the hand on the first date and.

the gesture is reciprocated. or maybe you feel it in some moment when. you are. doing a kind of peak athletic thing or. watching somebody else do a peak. athletic thing. um but i think there are moments when we. when it feels like it's not like the way. camus is describing things. and it's better because of that so i. think one really powerful way. to uh for me to understand aliveness.

is to think about to go into a darker. territory is to think about suicide and. i've known people in my life who suffer. from clinical depression yeah. and. you know whatever the chemistry is in. our brain. there is. a certain kind of. feeling that is to be depressed. where you look in the mirror. and ask do i. want to kill myself today. this is the question that camus asks.

this question this philosophical. question. and. there is people. who. when they're depressed say. not only do they say i want to kill. myself or i don't they say it doesn't. matter. and that's chemistry that's whatever. that is that's chemistry in our mind. and then on the flip side of that for me. i've had some low points but i've very. been very fortunate to.

not suffer from that kind of depression. i am the opposite which is. not only moments of peak performance in. athletics or. great music or any of that i'm just. deeply joyful often by. mundane things like as you were saying. it i was drinking this thing and it's. cold and for some reason the coldness of. that was uh. like oh great like refrigeration i don't. know there was a joy in that like i.

can't put it into words but i just felt. great and then just so many things you. look out in nature. there's a nice breeze and just like. it's amazing so that. that doesn't feel. like i'm embracing the absurd that seems. like i'm getting some nice like dopamine. hits. in whatever the chemistry is from just. the basics of life and that is the. source of aliveness however my brain is. built. it's gotten. a natural.

sort of mechanism for. for aliveness. and and so the one nice way to see the. absence of aliveness is to look at the. chemical the clinical depression. and so that camus doesn't seem to. contend with that at all in asking the. question of suicide because when you. look in the mirror and ask like if i ask. myself do i want to kill myself today i. ask that question in a different way. more like a stoic way often like. basically every day is you know what if.

i die today it's more like contemplating. your mortality every single day. you know uh that excites me. the possibility that this is my last day. that you know it just reminds me how. amazing life is and that's that's. chemistry i don't know what that is but. that's not that's certainly not. some kind of philosophical decision i. made i am a little bit riding a wave of. the chemistry of the genetics i've been.

given. of the dopamine so that that question of. suicide um. by the way do you find that formulation. of the question of existentialism. i know you didn't want to teach it. because obviously suicide is a very. difficult word especially for young. minds but do you think that's a useful. formulation of the question of. existentialism. like him saying this is the most. important question of suicide i think i. think there is something to it if you.

read the question as the question. what is it in virtue of which it ought. to be. desirable to conti to live the lives. that we're capable of of living that's. that's a deep question yeah that's a. question that gets focused. when someone asks themselves whether. they ought to continue to live that life. who. would the famous line nothing focuses. the mind more than one's impending. execution. i mean i think that's i think there's.

something. important about that that recognizing. the riskiness and the vulnerability of. one's existence is. super important and the idea and i think. that if we didn't have that. our lives. wouldn't be capable of being meaningful. if they weren't risky and vulnerable. there would be nothing to lose. and it's only because they're things to. lose that they can come to have the. significance that they do so yeah i. think.

not against the idea that that's. a deep way of approaching the questions. at the core of of existentialism but as. you say i was worried for a while about. how i was gonna how i was gonna teach it. well i think there's a difference. between suicide and not living i. because suicide is an action yeah so it. feels like to me. like suicide doesn't make sense because. you know imagine you're in like a hotel.

and you're saying the room i'm in sucks. but like there's other rooms so. like maybe explore those other rooms. maybe you'll find. meaning in those other rooms like. basically. embracing the fact that you don't know. everything. and there's uh you need time to explore. everything it's like. once you've explored everything then. maybe you can make a full decision but. it's um. unfair to make. a decision.

it's i would say unethical. to make a decision until you've explored. all the rooms in the hotel yeah and this. gets focused in in the brothers. karamazov of course there's one brother. who. uh is really asking that question is. asking the question of suicide he's. asking the question whether. the world that we live in is a world. that's worth living in. and i think that characters as you say. very ill i mean that and and it's. possible.

um. and often because as you say of you know. brain chemistry physiologies there's. certainly a physical ground to that to. that situation to that condition. but i think it is it is possible for. someone to be in that situation. i think that. ivan karamazov who's the who's the. character who's asking this question. is can you know maybe let's say. chemically depressed or something like.

that but i think there's more to it too. and i think that dostoevsky's real view. is that. the brain chemistry doesn't exist on its. own like the way we interact with one. another the way we care about or isolate. ourselves from others the way we. um. uh care for the lives that we lead. affects the chemistry of our brain which. goes on and changes the mood that we're. in so i think dostoevsky. does think that.

um. ivan's salvation if he's capable of. being saved. is going to come through the love of his. brother alyosha let me spring uh maybe a. bit of a tangent on you do you ever one. of my other favorite authors is herman. hesse. uh does do you ever include him. in our. deck of uh. sport cards that represent. existentialism i haven't maybe i should. what should i read what should i think. about including oh no there's some kind. of.

uh embrace of. absurdism. like there's a. existentialist. kind of ideal. pervading most of his work. uh but there's more of uh like with. siddhartha. there's more almost like a buddhist yeah. sort of like watch the river and like. become the river like this kind of. idea that uh what it means to truly. experience the moment so there is an.

experiential part of existentialism. where you want to not it's not just. about we've been talking about kind of. decisions and actions but also what he. means to listen like you said from. nietzsche like what it means to really. take in the world. and experience the moment so he's very. good at writing about what it means to. experience the moment and experience the. full absurdity of the moment and for him. uh i'm starting to forget steppenwolf i. think. is uh humor.

it's part of the absurdity which i think. modern day internet explores very well. with memes and so on. humor is a fundamental part. of the existentialist ethic that's able. to deal with absurdity you gotta like. laugh at it i think there's something. let me just say something about humor. because i think you're absolutely right. kierkegaard who is danish and you know. most people think deeply depressed and. then. is actually an incredibly funny writer.

and someone who was a classmate of mine. in graduate school who left philosophy. to become a hollywood comedy writer. a very successful guy and then he came. back. 25 years later and wrote finished his. dissertation and i was the the reader on. the dissertation but it may be a. conflict of interest i'm not quite sure. but but uh his dissertation was about. he called it kierkegaard and the funny. which is a. kind of a funny title yeah but but. kierkegaard according to eric kaplan's.

reading um kierkegaard has um. does have this idea that there's. something. destabilizing about humor. that's. crucial. to the sort of the important. possibilities for us and and so he. there's the idea that like there's a. moment when a joke is being set up. when you're sort of proceeding as if. you're on stable ground. and then the punch line comes.

and the rug is pulled out from under you. and for a moment it's like you're. falling you don't. you you there's nothing supporting you. until you're captured by your totally. new understanding of what was going on. and that humor necessarily has that kind. of destabilizing feature to it and. that's like the riskiness that's like. the riskiness that you were you're. pointing to if if there aren't risks in. your life if your life is totally safe.

then there's no possibility of. significance and so i think on eric's. reading kierkegaard sort of wants to. line up. the importance of the riskiness and. vulnerability in your life to its having. meaning. with the experience of destabilization. that you get in jokes and comedy. which then becomes significant right. that when you when you remember having. heard a joke for the first time it's got. a kind of salience for you.

speaking of jokes. and speaking of uh you mentioned film. and literature. so existentialism in film and literature. i think for uh. a lot of uh people especially nihilism. was experienced in the great work of art. modern work of art called big lebowski i. don't know if you've ever seen that film. but there's uh a group of nihilists in. that that film they're just like they. don't care about anything i think they. happen to be german at least they have. german accents.

so maybe can you talk about. notable. appearances of existentialism in film. and if if you at all ever bring out big. lebowski uh if that ever comes into play. so i know that people think about the. big lebowski in this in this context i. and i did actually re-watch it not so. long ago we have kids and i thought. maybe it's time it wasn't really time. for for the 11 year old. so somewhat inappropriate but i but i.

have never taught that film so i'd have. to think more we could talk about it i'd. be happy to try to think on the fly. about it okay so i would love to because. there is a feels like there's a. philosophical depth to that film so. there's uh. there's a person that just uh the main. character the jeff bridges character. jeff bridges character yeah he he kind. of um he drinks like these white. russians and he just kind of walks. around in a very relaxed way. and uh. irradiates.

both. a love for life but also just an. acceptance of like it is what it is. uh. kind of philosophy. and then there's a bunch of characters. that have. are have very busy lives. uh trying to do some big projects. that are dramatic in some way make some. huge amounts of money so it kind of. actually reminds me of the idiot but. that's the esky in a certain kind of. sense and then there's these players i.

mean they're phrased as nihilists but. they kind of don't care. to enjoy life they want to mess with. life in some kind of way and of course. there's. interesting personalities. uh what is it uh. jesus the bo the uh the bowler and then. there's like donny. who is a bit clueless. and then there's the. john goodman character. is talking about vietnam and just takes.

life way too seriously too intensely and. so on so it just paints a full sort of. spectrum of characters that are. operating in this world and perhaps most. importantly for existentialism are. thrown into absurdity yeah and. hence the humor okay all right good well. that's helpful thank you for reminding. me of all that and i i think so one. thing to say. is that the nihilist the group of. nihilists who call themselves nihilists. i think they've got a bad. misinterpretation of what nihilism is.

supposed to be. uh and they're you know this this. happened actually in the 20s there was a. famous case. um of a couple of german students. leopold and loeb who'd read a lot of. nietzsche. nietzsche you know. was a kind of hero for the nazis even. i think based on a pretty bad. misunderstanding of what he was up to. but leopold and loeb had the the bad. understanding first and they were.

students they'd read a lot of nietzsche. and they thought okay nothing means. anything the only way. that um there's any significance in life. is through our will to sort of. powerfully bring something about. and um if we're gonna do that in a way. that reflects the fact that nothing. means anything then what we should do is. take these things. these actions that people always thought. were bad. and do them and show that there's.

nothing wrong with doing them. and so they decided they would murder. someone. not because they were angry at them just. someone they'd never met it was. important that it was someone they'd. never met it was totally unmotivated act. and they thought we'll embrace nihilism. by showing that we can act in such a way. as to do something that you know. morality thinks is bad. uh and through our will. bring it about that we desire to do it. for no reason that has anything to do.

with it's potentially being. interpretable as good and. i think that's a terrible misreading of. what nietzsche thinks the response to. nihilism is i mean i think read that. against the miles davis thing miles. davis aim. is to creatively bring it about that. something works well in a situation. where he is kind of constrained so they. thought two things one there are no. constraints at all. not even the constraints of the. situation that we find ourselves in and.

two we only. become the beings that we really are. when we act in what you know what you. might against what you might have. thought the constraints were and i just. think that's a bad misreading of what. that kind of nihilism is up to and i. think maybe that group in the big. lebowski. has got that kind of that kind of bad. misreading but then the the major. characters are or maybe are much more. interesting go ahead and say something. so there's some kind of apathy to that. their particular nihilism could you. comment on.

whether you see sort of. apathy as a philosophy part of that. nihilism. so like um. from an existentialist perspective. how important is it to care about stuff. like really take on life. what what does existentialism have to. say about just sitting back. uh and just not caring. excellent so apathy is like a really.

important word the greek word is apathe. it means without passions. and the stoics who you mentioned earlier. really thought that. you know passions are what get in the. way of your living. well because to live well you have to. think clearly about what you should do. and you shouldn't let your resentments. and your angers and your petty. animosities. direct your behavior you should release. yourself from those kinds of passions. so stoicism.

you know again huge caricature but you. know it's it's an aim. not to care because caring is bad. and there's certain. forms of existentialism certainly in. pascal and kierkegaard and dostoyevsky. and heidegger. and sartre in his own way. uh so it's not just a theistic or. atheistic thing where what's what's. crucial about us is that we do care. heidegger says. care is the being of dozen dozen is his.

name for us that what it is to be us. is to be the being that already cares. and you can't not do that you can. pretend you're not doing it uh but. you're just carrying in a different way. it's like start saying you can pretend. you're not taking responsibility you you. you could pretend that you don't have to. make a decision that is making a. decision. not caring as a way of caring. and so i think the existentialists that. i'm interested in think that we do care.

that's that's constitutive of what it is. to be us. and so they'll they'll think that the. stoics got it wrong but that that leaves. open. a huge range of moves about. how we inhabit that. existence well. let me ask about. ein rand. okay so it just so happens that i've. gotten. she's entered a few conversations in. this podcast and just looking at.

academic philosophy or just philosophers. in general they seem to ignore ayn rand. do you have a sense of why that is does. she ever come into play. her ideas of. objectivism. come into play of discussions of. a good life. from the perspective of existentialism. in how you teach it how you think about. it is she. somebody who you find it all interesting.

so no i don't think she is. [Laughter]. but it's been a long time since i've. read her stuff i read it in high school. i read the fountainhead in high school. and atlas shrugged but that's at this. point a very long time ago i think i. read something about objective. epistemology or something too. so you know my my view about her could. be based on a total misunderstanding of. of what she's up to. but sort of my my caricature of her and. tell me if i've got it wrong. is that she's.

sort of. motivated by. a kind of i think it's maybe sometimes. you call it libertarianism but. maybe let's in the context of our. discussion um tie it back to sartre a. kind of view according to which we're. the being who has to contend with the. fact that we're radically free to do. stuff and we're just not being. courageous or brave enough when we don't. do that and the people to admire. are the people who make stuff out of.

nothing. um so maybe that's a bad caricature no. no but i i think uh no i think that's. pretty accurate i'm not again very. knowledgeable about the full depth of. her philosophy but i think she takes. a view of the world that's similar to. saturate in. in the conclusions. but. makes stronger statements about. epistemology. that first of all everything is knowable. and there's some you should always.

operate through reason. like reason is very important like uh. it's like uh. you start with a few axioms and you. build on top of that and. the axioms that everybody should operate. on are the same. again reality is objective it's not. subjective. and so from that you can derive the. entirety of how humans should behave at. the individual level. and at the societal level and there's a.

few conclusions. she would talk about virtue of. selfishness. and sort of a lot of people use that to. dismiss her look she's very selfish and. so on she. actually meant something very different. is like it's it's more like the sartre. thing take responsibility for yourself. understand. what uh forces you're operating under. and make the best of this life and. that's how you can be the best member of. societies by making the best. life you can and just focus on yourself. like fix your own problems first and.

then. and that that will make you the best. member of society of your family of. loved ones of friends and so on i think. the reason she's disliked. obviously on the philosophy side she's. disliked because a little bit like. nietzsche she's like she's literary. uh i think and the reason she's publicly. disliked. uh in sort of public conversations is. because of how sure she is of herself so.

that which is some of the philosophers. have been known to do like make very. strong statements like hell is other. people but she was making very strong. statements about basically everything. and. but it is the reason i bring her up is. you know she is an influential. thinker. that is not for some reason often. brought up as such it's not acknowledged. how influential she is. you know i was recently looking at like. a list of.

the most. important women of the 20th century in. terms of thought not science or but like. thought. and she wasn't in that list. and i just i see this time and time. again. and it doesn't make sense to me why. she's so. kind of dismissed because clearly she's. an author of some of the most read books. like ever. and. she clearly had very strong ideas that. should be contended with you know um.

and that that's why it kind of didn't. make sense to me. because she's also a creature of her. time and an important one. she's a creation of the soviet union. somebody who left because of that and so. some of her the strength of her ideas. has to do. with how much she dislikes that. particular uh. philosophy and uh way of life. but also she's a creature of like sartre. and like death whole like nietzsche.

and so on now one of the other. criticisms is she doesn't integrate. herself into this history she keeps. basically kind of implying that. she's purely original in all her. thoughts even though she's kind of. citing. a lot of other people but again many. philosophers do this kind of thing as if. as if they've uh they are truly original. and they're not it is interesting and. also what's interesting about her is she. is a woman she is a strong feminist.

and. it feels like with simone de beauvoir. you know like she seems like she's a. very important. person in this moment of history that. shouldn't be fully forgotten. interesting yeah well so i i mean i. don't have a lot to add i i will just. say. um. this i mean the way. she and beauvoir seem to me from your. description of her and remembering what. i remember from 35 years ago. they seem pretty opposite from one.

another. like one of the things i find. interesting about beauvoir is that she. takes seriously. the thing that. sartre didn't which is our throneness. which is our um the sense in which. we're born into a situation that's. already got a significance for her. i think it was easier for her to to. recognize that than sartre because she. was a woman. and sartre seems to act as if. you know there are no constraints or at.

least there shouldn't be we're pretty. close. as you know privileged white males yeah. exactly if we could just get rid of the. last bits of them we would be god like. we're supposed to be yeah uh and i think. beauvoir sort of sees things differently. i think she reckons one does not one's. not born but becomes a woman she says so. how does that happen well you're thrown. into your culture and your culture. starts treating you in a certain way. because of your gender and that starts. to form your understanding and your. experience of things and by the time.

you're grown up well you're you're. pretty well formed by that. that seems a fact. it's a fact about. too though it was harder for him to. notice it because uh he was formed into. the into his privilege. but the world reminds us of our. throneness. for some more than others yes absolutely. and and for people who have to contend. on a daily basis with the fact that. the social position they're thrown into.

is one that um. negates them or one that oppresses them. or one that sort of pushes them to the. side in some way or another i mean the. black experience is is interesting in. this respect too franz fanon who's a. contemporary of sarton both wars. writes about it and it's very familiar. the things that he's saying now but you. know he he writes back in the 50s about. being a black man in paris and getting. on getting on an elevator with a woman.

alone and how like you know. her reaction to him not knowing him not. having any views about any reason to. have any views about him sort of puts. him in a particular social position with. respect to her. and. that that's um if you if you don't have. that experience it's much harder to. recognize. the um the way in which what we're. thrown into something we might not have. chosen. so the idea that that.

that that's not an aspect of our. existence um which as you'd describe in. rand's views it's she sounds more like. sorry she sounds more like it either. it's not an aspect of our existence or. at least we ought to sort of aim at its. not being and yeah almost act as if it's. not yeah exactly if it's not and so i i. think from my point of view i don't i. don't pretend that i'm explaining the. public reception of her i'm just sort of. trying to trying to say how i understand.

her in this. um intellectual context from my point of. view that's not something big big to. miss and the ambition to think that. really what's happening is that we're. all the same we're all rational beings. we're all beings who if we just got the. axioms of our existence right and made. good judgments and reasoned in an. appropriate way would. optimize ourselves. that feels to me like. a kind of natural.

end point of. the philosophical tradition i mean plato. starts off with a view that helps us in. that direction and the enlightenment. moves us further in that direction. but from my point of view that movement. has led us astray. because it's missed something really. important that's crucial to the kind of. being that that we are. yeah and this is. the music exactly. that's just abuse. let's talk about throneness and i think.

you mentioned that in the context of. heidegger yeah so can we talk about. heidegger okay who is this philosopher. what are some. fascinating ideas that he brought to the. world okay so martin heidegger was a. german philosopher he he i do know when. he was born in 1889. but i don't know that only by accident. it's because it's the same year that. wittgenstein an austrian philosopher was. born and the same year that hitler was. born so if i've remembered my dates. right and someone will call in and. correct me otherwise uh but that's the.

way it it sort of sits in my memory bank. and it's interesting that the three of. them were born at the same time uh. wittgenstein and heidegger share some. similarities. but then it's also interesting that. heidegger was. was a nazi i mean this is a very. disturbing fact about his personal. political background. um and so it's something that anyone who. thinks that things that he said might be. interesting has got to contend with. heidegger was born in germany.

hitler and austria that's right. wittgenstein is. austria also but so you have to when. when you call heidegger nazi you have to. remember. i mean there's millions of nazis too so. like there are parts of their that's the. history of the world. you know there's a lot of communists. marxists and uh. nazis in that part of history absolutely. and you know one of the discussion. points is well was he just a kind of.

social nazi you know. [Laughter]. i mean you know he went to parties with. them and stuff or was he like did he. really believe in the ideology and. that's a choice point and and. you know we could talk about it if you. want he he held a political position. that's one of the relevant parts in 1933. he was made rector of the university of. freiburg that's like the president of. the university. um and that was in germany all the. universities are um are state.

universities and so that's a political. appointment can we just pause on this. point yeah. from an existentialist perspective. what's the role for standing up to evil. so. i mean i think camus probably has. something to say about these things. because he was a bit of a political. figure like do you have a responsibility. not just for your decisions but you know. if the world you see around you.

is um. going against what you believe somewhere. deep inside. is. ethical. do you have. to stand up to that even if it costs you. your life or your well-being. you ask from an existential perspective. and there's lots of different. positions that you could have so let me. tell you something in the area of what i. think i might believe which comes out of. this tradition. um. and it's this uh if you live in a.

community. where. people are being dragged down by the. norms of the community rather than. elevated. then there's two things that you have to. recognize. one is that you bear some responsibility. for that. not necessarily because you chose it. maybe you reviled it maybe you were. against it but there's some way in which. we all act in accordance with the norms. of our culture we all give in to them in.

some way or another and if those norms. are broken. then there's some way in which we've. allowed ourselves to be responsible for. for broken norms. we've become responsible for broken. norms and i i do think you have to face. up to that. i think that um let's just take gender. norms maybe the gender norms are broken. maybe the way men and women treat one. another the way men treat women. is broken you know maybe there's maybe. it is maybe there's. i'm not making a substantive claim i'm.

just saying you know lots of people say. it is. and if. uh you're in a culture where. uh those norms take root. you you don't get to just isolate. yourself and pull yourself out of the. culture and think i don't have any. responsibility. um that's you're already a part of the. culture even. if you're isolating yourself from it. that's a way of rejecting the. sort of part you play in the culture but. it's not a way of getting.

behind it you now you're playing that. role differently you're saying i i don't. i don't i don't want to take. responsibility for what's going on. around me. and that's a way of. taking responsibility by refusing to do. it so i i think we're implicated in. whatever whatever's going on around us. and if we're going to do anything in our. lives we ought to recognize that. recognize that even in situations where. you maybe didn't decide to do it you you.

could be part of bringing other people. down. and then. devote yourself to trying to figure out. how to act differently so that the norms. update themselves. and i and i think this is not a a. criticism of people and the alyosha who. we mentioned in the brothers karamazov. he's a character he's a kind of saintly. character. um in the brothers karamazov but that. one crucial moment in his in in that. story. when he realizes how awful he's been.

being to someone without ever even. intending to do that. it's grushanka who's this sort of. fascinating woman. and she's a very erotic woman she's sort. of sexual and and and alyosha. in my reading of it is kind of attracted. to her. but he's a young kid he's 20 or whatever. and he's kind of embarrassed about it. and he lives in the monastery and he's. thinking maybe he wants to be a priest.

and he's kind of embarrassed by it so. what does he do every time they run. across one another in the street he. averts his gaze. and why is he doing that because he's. kind of embarrassed you know. but how does grishanka experience it. well she knows she's a fallen woman and. she knows that alyosha has this other. position in society so her read on it is. he's passing judgment on me he can see. that he doesn't want to be associated. with me he can see that i'm a fallen. woman he knows that in order to maintain.

his purity he's got to res he's got to. avoid me. that that's not what alliosh intended to. do. but that's the way it's experienced and. so there's this way he comes to. recognize oh my god like what i'm. supposed to do is love people in. dostoevsky's view of things. and what i'm doing instead is dragging. this poor woman down i'm making her life. worse i'm making her feel terrible about. herself and if i actually came to know. her i'd recognize her condition is. difficult. she's living a difficult life she's.

making hard choices and why don't i you. know why don't i see that in her face. instead of this other thing that's. making me want to avoid her and that's a. huge moment so but the idea is that. we're implicated in bringing other. people down. whether we want to be or not. and that's our condition so. the requirement to understand that is to. be almost to a radical degree be. empathetic and to listen. uh to the world.

and i mean you you brought up sort of. gender roles it's not so simple all of. this is messy for example this is me. talking. it's. clear to me that for example the woke. culture. has bullying built into it has some. elements of the same kind of evil built. into it and when you're part of the wave. of wokeness standing up for social. rights. you also have to listen and think are we. going too far.

are we hurting people are we doing the. same. things that others. that we're fighting against that others. were doing in the past so it's not. simple. uh once you see. that there's evil being done. that is easy to fix no in. in our society. it's uh there's something about our. human nature that just. too easily stops listening to the world.

to empathizing with the world. and we label things as evil this is. through human history this is evil you. mentioned tribes this religious belief. is evil and so we have to fight it and. we become certain and dogmatic about it. and then in so doing commit evil onto. the world it seems like. a life that accepts. and. responsibility for the norms we're in. has to constantly be. sort of questioning yourself and.

questioning like listening to the world. fully and richly without being. weighed down by. any one sort of uh realization you just. always constantly have to be thinking. about the world am i wrong am i wrong in. seeing the world this way i mean. the very last thing you said you've. constantly got to be thinking about the. world you've constantly got to be. listening you've constantly got to be. attending and it's not simple. all that sounds exactly right to me and.

the the phrase that rings through my. head is another one from the brothers. karamazov dimitri this passionate sort. of sometimes violent brother. who um who is also. sort of deep deeply cares i mean he's. because he's passionate he's sort of got. care through and through but it's. breaking him apart he says at one point. um god and the devil are fighting and. the battlefield is the heart of man.

and i just think yeah it's not simple. and the idea that there might be a. purely good way of doing things is just. not our condition that where everything. we do is going to be sort of undermined. by some aspect of it there's not going. to be a kind of pure good in in human. existence and so it's it's sort of. required that we're going to have to be. um empathetic that we're going to have. to recognize. that. others are dealing with that just as we.

are. so i apologize for distracting us we. were talking about heidegger okay that. uh. and the reason we were distracted is he. happened to also be a nazi but. he nevertheless has a lot of powerful. ideas what are the ideas he's brought to. the world okay so that's a big huge. question so. let me see how much of it i can get on. the table. i mean the the big picture is that. heidegger thinks and he's not really. wrong to think this.

that the whole history of philosophy. from plato forward maybe even from the. pre-socratics forward from like the 6th. century bc. to now. has. been motivated by a certain kind or has. been grounded on a certain kind of. assumption. that it didn't have the right to make. and that it's led us astray. and that until we understand. the way in which it's led us astray. we're not going to be able to get to.

grips with the condition we now find. ourselves in so let me start with what. he thinks the condition we now find. ourselves in is. lots of periods to heidegger's fuse i'm. not i'm just going to sort of mush it. all together for the purposes of today. uh heidegger thinks that one of the. crucial. things that we need to contend with. when we think about. uh what it is to be us now. is that the right name for our age is a. technological age.

and what does it mean for our age to be. a technological age. well it means that we have an. understanding. of what it is for anything at all to be. at all. that. we never really chose. that's sort of animating the way we live. our lives that's animating our. understanding of ourselves and. everything else. that. is quite limited. and it's organized around the idea. that to be something.

is to be. what's sitting there. as an infinitely flexible. reserve. to be optimized and made efficient. and heidegger thinks that uh that's. that's. not just the way we think of. silicon circuits. or you know the. the river when we put a hydroelectric. power plant on it we're optimizing the.

flow of the river so that it makes. energy which is infinitely flexible and. we can use in any way at all it's the. way we understand ourselves too. we think of ourselves as this reserve. of potential. that needs to be made efficient and. optimized and when i when i talk with my. students about it i ask them you know. like. what's your calendar look like you know. what's the goal of your day. is it to get as many things into it as.

possible is it to feel like i've i've. failed unless i've uh i've made my life. so efficient that i'm doing this and. this and this and this and this that i. can't let things go by. the feeling. uh that i think we all. have. that there's some pressure to do that to. relate to ourselves that way. is a clue to what heidegger thinks the. technological age is about.

and he thinks that's different from. every other age in history. we used to think of ourselves in the. 17th century at the beginning of the eli. of the enlightenment as subjects. who. represent objects descartes thought that. a subject is something some mental sort. of realm. that represents the world in a certain. way and we are closed in on ourselves in. the sense that um we have a special. relation to our representations.

uh and that's that's what the realm of. the subject but others you know in the. middle ages we were created in the image. and likeness of god in in in the. pre-socratic age to be was to be what. whooshes up and lingers for a while and. fades away the paradigm of of what is. where thunderstorms and. the anger of the gods achilles battle. fury and it overtakes everything and. stays for a while and then leaves the. the flowers blooming in spring and.

that's very different from the way we. experience ourselves and so the so the. question is um what are we supposed to. do in the face of that and heidegger. thinks that. the. the presupposition that's motivated. everything. from the pre-socratics forward. is that. there is. some entity that's the ground. of the way we understand everything to. be. for the middle ages it was god that was.

the entity that made things be the. things that they are. for the enlightenment it was us. maybe first heart it's us. and heidegger thinks. um whatever it is that stands at the. ground of what we are is not another. thing it's not another entity and we're. relating to it in the wrong way if we. think of it like that. there's some way and he this is partly. why i was interested in meister eckhart. he says what there is is there's giving.

going on. in the world. and we're. the grateful recipient of it. and the giving is like. whatever it is it's the social norms. that were thrown into we didn't choose. them they were given to us and that's. the ground that is what makes it. possible for anything to be intelligible. at all if we lived outside of. communities if we lived in a world where. there were no social norms at all. nothing would mean anything. nothing would have any significance. nothing would be regular in the way that.

things need to be regular in order for. there to be departures or manifestations. of that regularity uh so so community. norms are crucial. but they're also always updating. we place um we have some responsibility. for. what they are and the way in which. they're updating themselves. and yet we didn't ever choose it to be. that way. so those norms are somehow. giving.

significance to us. in a way that that we're implicated in. we have some relation to and all that. gets covered over if you think of us as. efficient resources to be optimized is. that a conflicting view that we are. resources to be optimized is that is. that somehow. deeply conflicting with the fact that. there's a ground that we stand on. absolutely so what heidegger thinks is. that this is this he calls this the. supreme danger of the technological age.

is that without ever having chosen it. without ever having decided it this is. the way we understand what it is to be. us. but he thinks that um it's also he says. quoting holderly in this 18th century. german poet he says in. in the supreme danger lies the saving. possibility so what does that mean it. means that we this is the this is the. understanding that we've been thrown. into that we've been given it's the gift. that was given to us it's supremely.

dangerous if we let ourselves live that. way we'll destroy ourselves. but it's also the saving possibility. because. if we recognize that we never chose that. that. it was given to us. but also we were implicated in its being. given and we could find a way to. supersede it that it's the ground but. it's also updatable it calls the ground. the groundless ground. it's it's not like an entity which is.

there solid stable. like god who's. eternal and non-changing is always. updating itself and we're always. involved in it's being updated but we're. only involved in it in the right way if. we listen. like miles davis. so optimization. is not a good. way to live life. if you thought that it was obviously. clear that that was.

the relevant value so obviously clear. that it never even occurred to you to. ask whether it was right to think that. then you would be in danger yeah got it. so yeah there is some in this modern. technological age in in the full meaning. of the word technology that's updated to. actual modern age with. a lot more technology going on. it uh it does feel like. like colleagues of mine in tech space. actually are somehow drawn to that. optimization.

as if that's going to save us. as if the thing that truly weighs us. down. is um. the inefficiencies exactly and i think. if you think about other other contexts. like what what are the moments when. i mean we're unique in this respect this. this period in history is unlike any. previous no nobody ever felt that way. right but think about but it's also true. that nobody no previous period in. history was nihilistic. so our condition is tied up that sort of.

thing is meant to be a response to the. felt lack of a ground. and. so no no previous epoch in history felt. that way they didn't have our problem. but think so so they it was much more. natural to them to experience. moments in ways that feel. um unachievable for us what we were. calling moments of aliveness before. think about where the context in which. they felt them they weren't efficient. optimized contexts think about the the.

greeks. if you ever read homer it is a bizarre. world back there but one of the things. that's bizarre. is that they're so unmotivated by. efficiency and optimizing. that. the only thing that seems to run through. all of the different greek cultures it's. the idea. that if some stranger comes by. you better. take care of them.

because zeus is the is the god of. strangers and zeus will be angry that's. what they say right but what is it but. how does it manifest itself. odysseus he's trying to get home and he. gets shipwrecked on an island. and you know he's trying to figure out. he's been at sea for 10 days he's. starving he's bedraggled and he sees uh. now sissa the the princess who's. beautiful and he's like boy i better you. know i don't know guess to get get some. clothes or something like i don't want. them to beat me up and kill me.

and so they so she takes him to the. palace. they have three days of banquets and. festivals before they even ask his name. it's like here's a stranger. our job is to celebrate the presence of. a stranger because this is where. significance lies. now we don't have to feel that way but. but the idea that that's one of the. places where significance could lie is. pretty strongly at odds with the idea. that our salvation is going to come from.

optimization and efficiency now maybe. something about the way we live our. lives will have that integrated into it. um but it's but it's at odds with other. other moments. let me ask you a question about uh. hubert bert dreyfus. he is a. friend. a colleague a mentor of yours. unfortunately no longer with us. you wrote with him the book titled all. things shining reading the western. classics to find meaning in a secular.

age. first. can you maybe speak about who that man. was what you learned from him. and then we could maybe ask. how do we find through the classics. meaning in a secular age okay. so bert dreyfuss was a. very important philosopher. of the. late 20th early 21st century he he died. in um 2017 about a little over four.

years ago. uh he was my teacher i met him in 1989. when i went away to graduate school. in berkeley that's where he taught. he. plays an. interesting and important role in the. history of philosophy in america. because. uh in a period when. most philosophers in america. and in the english-speaking world. were not taking seriously 20th century. french and german philosophy he was.

and he was really. probably the most important. english-speaking interpreter of. heidegger the the german philosopher. that we're talking about we've been. talking about. he. was an incredible teacher a lot of his. influence came through his teaching. and. one of the amazing things about him as a. teacher. was his um. sort of. mix. of. intellectual humility.

with sort of. deep insightful authority and he would. stand up in front of a class of 300. students he taught huge classes because. people love to go see him and i taught. for him for many years. and say you know. i've been reading this text for 40 years. but the question you asked is one i've. never asked and it would be true. like he would he would he would find in. what people said. things that were surprising and new to.

him and that's humility actually that is. listening to the world absolutely. absolutely he was always ready to be. surprised. by. something that someone said yeah and. there's something astonishing about that. so his influence was you know for people. who didn't know him through his. interpretations of these texts he wrote. about a huge range of stuff but for. people who did know him it was through. his presence it was through the way he. carried himself in in his life.

and uh so in any case that that's who he. was we i graduated. after many years as a graduate student i. i didn't start in philosophy i started. in math math and computer science. actually and then i did a lot of work in. computational neuroscience for a few. years it's a fascinating journey we'll. we'll get to it through our friendly. conversation about artificial. intelligence okay i'm sure. because you're you're basically. fascinated with the. philosophy of mind of the human mind but.

rooted in a curiosity of mind through. the it's artificial. through the engineering of mind yeah. yeah that's right so bur so bert i mean. the reason i was attracted to him. actually is is because of his uh to. begin with was because of his criticisms. of what was called traditional symbolic. ai in the 70s and 80s. so i came to berkeley as a graduate. student who'd done a lot of math and a. lot of computer science a lot of. computational neuroscience i.

i noticed that you had you. interview a lot of a lot of people in. this world and i had a teacher at brown. as an undergraduate uh jim anderson who. wrote with jeff hinton a big book on. neural networks um so so i had i was. interested in that. not so interested in traditional ai like. sort of lisp programmings things that. went on in the 80s. because it felt. sort of. you know when you made a system do.

something all of a sudden it was an un. interesting thing to have done. the fact that you'd solved the problem. then made it clear that the problem. wasn't an interesting one to solve. that's right. and i had that experience and and bert. had criticisms of of um symbolic ai what. he called good old-fashioned ai gofi. and um and i was attracted to those. criticisms because. it felt to me that there was something. lacking in in in that project and i. didn't know what it was i i just felt.

its absence. and uh. then i learned that all his arguments. came from his reading of this. phenomenological and existential. tradition and so i had to try to figure. out what those folks were saying and it. was a long road let me tell you. it took me a long time but but it was. because of birth that i was able to do. that so i own that that huge debt of. gratitude and eventually we went on to. write a book together which was a great. experience. and yes we published all things shining.

in 2011. and that was that's a book that. i definitely would not have had the hood. spa to try to write if it weren't for. bert because it was really about. you know great literature in the history. of the west from homer and virgil to and. dante to melville there's a huge chapter. on melville a big chapter on um david. foster wallace who burt didn't care. about it all but i was fascinated by it. and so. learning to think that way while writing. that book with him.

uh was an amazing experience. so i have to admit. it's one of my failings in life one of. many failings is i've never gotten. through moby dick. or. or any of melville's works so. maybe can you comment on before we talk. about dave or david foster wallace who i. have gotten through. um. what are some. of the sources of meaning in these. classics good so. moby dick i think is the other great.

novel of the 19th century. so the brothers karamazov and moby dick. and and they're diametrically opposed. which is one of the really interesting. things so. the brothers karamazov is a kind of in. it's a kind of existential. interpretation of russian orthodox. christianity. how do you live that way and find joy in. your existence. moby dick is not at all about. christianity it's about. it sort of starts with the observation. that that.

that the form of christianity that uh. that ishmael is is familiar with is is. broken it's not gonna it's not gonna. work in his living his life he has to. leave it he has to go to sea. in order to find what needs to happen. and and and ishmael is the the boating. captain the the the whaling boat captain. so now he's not the captain that's ahab. ahab is the captain yeah right let me. back up the famous opening line to the. book is call me ishmael.

and that's ishmael is the is the main. character in the book he's a nobody he's. you and me he's the everyday guy he's. like a nobody on the ship he he's like. you know not the lowest but certainly. not the highest he's right in the middle. he and. and he's named ishmael which is. interesting because ishmael is the. illegitimate son of abraham in the old. testament he is the. the i think if i have it right again. someone will correct me.

i think he's the he's the one he's the. one that islam traces its its um genesis. to. and so islam is. is an abrahamic religion like judaism. and christianity but judaism and. christianity trace their lineage through. isaac the the quote-unquote legitimate. son of abraham and ishmael is the other. son of abraham who he had with a with a. girlfriend. uh and so. so he's he's clearly outside of.

christianity in some way he's named. after the non-christian sort of son of. of abraham. um and and he's the the book starts out. with. this what does he call it something like. a. dark and misty november mood. he's walking along the street and he's. overcome by his i can't remember what. the word is but his hypos that's what he. calls them he's in a mood he's depressed.

he's down things are not going well and. that's where he starts. and he he signs up to go on this whaling. voyage with this captain ahab. who. is this incredibly charismatic. deeply disturbing. character. who is a captain who's got lots of. history and wants to go whaling wants to. get whales that's what they do they. harpoon these whales and bring them back. and sell the blubber and the oil and so.

on um so he's he's kind of rich and he's. and he's famous and he's powerful he's. an authority figure and he is. megalomaniacally obsessed with getting. one particular whale which is called. moby dick and moby dick is like the. largest the whitest the sort of most. terrifying of all the whales and ahab. wants to get him because because a. number of years earlier. he had an encounter with moby dick where. moby dick bit off his leg.

and he survived. but he had this deeply religious. experience in the wake of it. and he needed to find out what the. meaning of that was like what is the. meaning of my suffering who am i such. that the world and moby dick this. leviathan at the center of it should. treat me this way. and so his task is not just to go. whaling is to figure out the meaning of. the universe. through going wailing and having a.

confrontation with his tormentor this. whale moby dick. and the confrontation is so weird. because melville points out that whales. their faces are so huge. their foreheads are so huge. and their eyes are on the side of them. that you can never actually look them in. the eye. and it's kind of a metaphor for god like. you can't ever look god in the face. that's the sort of traditional thing to. say about god you can't find the.

ultimate meaning of the universe by. looking god in the face. and but ahab wants to he says he's got a. pasteboard mask of a face but i'll. strike through the mask and find out. what's behind. and so ishmael is sort of caught up in. this thing and he's like going wailing. because he's in a bad mood. and maybe this will make things better. and he makes friends with this. guy queequeg. and queequeg is a pagan.

he's from an island in the south pacific. and he's got. tattoos all over his body head to toe. he's a party colored like every. different color says says ishmael is. these tattoos and they they are. the the writing on his body. he says of. the immutable mysteries of the universe. as understood through his culture. and so somehow queequeg.

is this character who is like not. christian at all. um and he's powerful in a very different. way than ahab is he's supposed to be the. king he's the son of the king and. probably his father's died by now and if. he went home he'd be the king but he's. off on a voyage too trying to understand. who he is before he goes back and leads. his people and he's a harpooner the. bravest of the people on the ship and um. he's got the mystery of the universe. tattooed on his body but nobody can.

understand it. and. it's through his relation with queequeg. that ishmael comes to get a different. understanding of what we might be about. so that's that's moby dick. in a nutshell. and and uh connected to a book i have. read which is. funny there's probably echoes that. represent the 20th century now. in old man in the sea by hemingway. that. also has. similar i guess themes.

but more. more personal. more focused on the. i mean i guess it's less about god is. almost more like the existentialist. version of moby dick. yeah yeah and hence shorter and a lot. shorter yeah well hemingway was. brilliant that way yeah. but do you see echoes and uh do you do. you find old man in the sea interesting. it's been since ninth grade that i've. been in. even longer ago than the fountain had uh. so i didn't know we were gonna go there.

i mean i find hemingway interesting but. hemingway my general sort of picture of. him is that you know he's he's uh we. have to confront the the dangers and the. difficulties of our life we have to. develop in ourselves a certain kind of. courage and manliness and i think. there's something interesting about that. he's for risk. in a certain way and i think that's. important uh but i but i do i don't now. i i don't have any right to say this.

since it's been so long since i read it. i do feel like there's there's. i don't remember. a sense for the for the quite the. tragedy of it maybe there is is it a. melancholy novel i don't even remember. no it's uh. i mean it has a sense like the stranger. by camus. it has a sense of like this is how life. is. and it like it has more about old age. and. that uh you're not quite the man you.

used to be feeling of like this is how. time passes. and then the the passing of time and how. you get old you get older. and this is one last fish. it's less about this is the fish it's. more like this is one last fish like and. asking. who was i. who was i as a man as a human being in. this world and this one fish helps you. ask that question fully wonderful but.

it's one fish which is just sort of all. the other fish too right and and that is. a big difference because. for. for ahab. no other fish will do than moby dick. it's got to be the biggest the most. powerful the most tormenting it's got to. be the one that you've got history with. that has defiled you. and it is. it's a raucous ride moby dick. what about david foster wallace so why.

is he important to you in the search of. meaning uh in a secular age good so so. i'll just. just to finish the moby dick thing i. think what's interesting about melville. is that he thinks. our salvation comes not if we get in the. right relation to monotheism or. christianity but if we get in the right. relation to polytheism to the idea that. there's not a unity to our existence. but there are lots of little meanings. and they don't cohere. sometimes you know.

uh like in. like in homer sometimes you're in love. helen's in love with paris. and they do crazy things they go off and. run away and the trojan war begins and. sometimes you're in a battle fury that. for the love is aphrodite's realm and. the battle fury that's ares realm and. that's a totally different world and. they're not even i mean they're related. there's a kind of family resemblance but. not much mostly you're just in different. sort of local meaningful worlds and.

melville seems to think that that's. that's a thing that we could aim to. bring back he says we have to. lure back the merry mayday gods of old. and and. lovingly enthroned them in the now. egotistical sky the now unhaunted hill. that's what we live in this world where. hills aren't aren't haunted with. significance anymore and the sky is just. a bunch of stuff that we're studying. with physics and astrophysics and stuff. but but they used to be.

awe-inspiring and we have to figure out. how to get in that relation to them but. not by trying to give a unity to our. existence through. developing habits and practices that get. written on our body. and so his is about the end of. judeo-christianity and the sort of roman. appropriation of it in wallace i what. one of the things i think is so. interesting about him. is that i think he's a great observer of. the contemporary world and he's a very.

funny writer he's really funny but he's. a great observer of the of the. contemporary world and what he thought. uh was at the core of the contemporary. world was this constant temptation to. diversion through entertainment. that's a different story than. heidegger's story about efficiency and. optimization but it's the other side of. it what like what is this tension. temptation sort of diverting us from. the ability to be more efficient. so you know you're tempted to go.

you know watch some stupid film. or television show or something that's. dumb and not really very interesting but. you read that temptation as a temptation. precisely in virtue of it's taking you. away from your optimizing your your. existence and so i think they're two. sides of the same coin i think he's. brilliant at describing it i think he. thought it was a desperate position to. be in that it was it was something that. we needed to confront. and find a way out of. and his characters are trying to do that.

and i think there's two different david. foster wallaces. one. i mean david foster wallace committed. suicide. and when i and it's very sad and he. clearly. did have. you know sort of there was a. physiological basis to his condition he. knew it he was treating it from decades. with medication he had. uh electroshock therapy a number of. times it is just very very sad story. when i decided that we were going to.

write about david foster wallace. the first thing i was worried about is. what can you can you. like obviously. a motivating factor maybe the motivating. factor in his committing suicide was his. physiological condition. um but there was there's there's this. there was a question. could you think i mean he's obsessed. with the condition with what we need to. do to achieve our salvation. to live well to make our lives worth.

living. and he clearly. in the end felt like he couldn't do that. so in addition to the physiological. thing which probably most of it the. question for me was could you find in. his writing. what his. what he was identifying. as the thing we needed to be doing. that he nevertheless felt we couldn't be. doing. and he and he talks as if that's that's. the difficulty for him. uh so so that that's one side of him and.

i i did want to find that. i think there's another side of him. that's very different but you were going. to ask no please what's the other side i. mean what i write about in the. in the chapter mostly. um is what i think. he's got as our. as as our saving possibility. he thinks our saving possibility he says. this in a graduation speech that he gave. to kenyon. is that. we have the freedom to interpret.

situations however we like. so what's the problem case for him. he says look you know the problem case. we have it all the time you get pissed. off into the world you know. some some big suv cuts you off on the. highway. and you're pissed off and you might. express your anger. with one finger or another. directed at that person and he says but. actually. you know.

you're being pissed off as the result of. your having made an assumption. and the assumption is that that action. was directed at you. like the assumption is that you're the. center of the universe. and you shouldn't assume that and the. way to talk yourself out of it he says. is to recognize the possibility that. maybe that wasn't an action directed at. you. like maybe that guy. is racing to the hospital you know to.

take care of his dying. spouse. who's been there suffering you know from. cancer or maybe. he's you know on the way to pick up a. sick child or maybe he's and it's not an. action director that was your assumption. not something that was inherent in the. situation. and i think there's something. interesting about that i think there's. something right about that. at the same time. i don't think he speaks as if.

we can just spin out these stories and. whether they're true or not doesn't. matter. what matters is that they free us from. this assumption yes and i think they. only free us from this assumption if. they're true. like sometimes the guy really did direct. it at you and that's part of the. situation and like you can't pretend. that it's not part of the situation you. have to find the right way of dealing. with that situation so you have to. listen. to what's actually happening. and then you have to figure out how to.

make it right and i think he's he thinks. that we have too much freedom he thinks. that you don't have to listen to the. situation you can just tell whatever. story you like. about it. and i think that's actually too tough. i don't think we have that kind of. freedom. and he and he writes these sort of. incredibly moving letters when he's. trying to write the pale king which is. the end of which is the unfinished novel. that. really sort of drove him to distraction. at the center of the novel is this.

character. who. one of the characters at the center of. the novel is a guy. who's doing the most boring thing you. could possibly imagine he is an irs tax. examiner. he's going over other people's tax. returns. trying to figure out whether they follow. the rules or not. and like just the idea of doing that for. eight hours a day is just terrifying. and and he puts this guy. in a enormous warehouse that extends for.

miles where person after person after. person is in rows of desks. sort of nameless each of them doing this. task. so he's in nowhere doing nothing. and it's got to be intensely boring and. now the main character's trying to. trying to teach himself to do that. and the question is how do you put up. with the boredom. how do you put up with this onslaught of. meaninglessness.

and the main character. is able to confront that. condition. with such. bliss. that he literally levitates from. happiness while he's going over other. people's tax returns and i i that's. that's my metaphor for what i think. wallace must have imagined we have to. try to aspire to. and i think that's unlivable i think. that's not i think that's not an. ambition that we could achieve i think. there's something else we could achieve.

and the other thing that that we can. achieve that i think is. is a is something that he also is on to. but doesn't write about as often. is. something more like achieving. peak moments of significance in a. situation when something great happens. and he writes about this in an article. about roger federer he he loved tennis. are you a tennis lover i'm not a lover. of tennis but i played tennis for 15.

years and so on i don't love it the way. people love baseball for example i see. the beauty in it the artistry i just. liked it as a sport good okay well i. didn't play much tennis but i hit a ball. around every once in a while as a kid. and i always thought it was boring to. watch. but reading reading david foster wallace. on roger federer you're like wow i've. been missing. and the article which appeared in the. new york times magazine was called roger. federer as religious experience oh wow. there you go.

and he says look there's something. astonishing about. watching someone who's got a body like. us. and having a body is a limitation. it's like the sight of sores and pains. and agony and exhaustion and it's this. it's the thing that dies in the end. uh and so it's it's what we have to. confront. i mean there's also joys that go along. with having a body like if you didn't. have a body there'd be no sex if you. didn't have a body there'd be no sort of.

physical. excitement and so on but uh but somehow. having a body is essentially a. limitation. that when you watch someone who's got. one and is extraordinary at the way they. use it. you can recognize how that limitation. can be to some degree transcended. and that that's what we can get when we. watch federer or some other great. athlete sort of doing these things that. transcend the limitations of their. bodies.

and that that's the kind of peak. experience that we're capable of that. could be a kind of salvation that's a. very different story. and i think that's a livable story and i. and i. don't know if it would have saved him. but i feel like i wish. he developed that that side of the story. more can we talk about and first of all. let me just comment that i deeply. appreciate. that you said. uh you were going to say something that. the fact that you're listening to me is.

is amazing like that you care about. other humans i i really appreciate that. um we should be in this way listening to. the world so um. there's there's that's a meta comment. about many of the things we're talking. about but you mentioned something about. levitating and a task that is infinitely. boring. and contrasting that with. essentially levitating on a task that is. great like uh the highest achievement of. uh. this physical limiting body in playing.

tennis now i often say this i don't know. where i heard david foster wallace say. this but he said that the key to life is. to be unborable. that is the embodiment of this. philosophy and i when. people ask me for advice like. young students you know i don't find. this interesting i don't find this. interesting how do i find the thing i'm. passionate for. uh this would be very interesting to. explore because you kind of say that. that may not be a realizable.

thing to do which is to be unborable but. my advice usually is life is amazing. like. you should be able to you should strive. to discover the joy. the levitation in everything. and uh the thing you get stuck on for a. longer period of time that might be the. thing you should stick to but everything. should be full of joy so that kind of. cynicism of saying. life is uh.

boring. is a thing that will prevent you from. discovering the thing. that will give you deep meaning and joy. but you're saying. being unborable. is not actionable. for a human being so okay excellent. question deep question and and. the um you might think. because of the title of that of the book. that bert and i wrote all things shining. that i think all things are shining. [Laughter].

and but actually. i think it's an unachievable goal to be. unborable i i do believe that you're. right. that a lot of times when people are. bored with something it's because they. haven't tried hard enough. and i do think quite a lot of what. makes people bored with something is. that they haven't paid attention well. enough. and that they haven't listened as as you. were saying. um so i i do think there's something to. that i think that's a deep insight.

on the other hand. the. perfection of that insight is that. nothing. is ever anything less than joyful. and i actually think that dostoevsky and. melville both agree but in very. different ways. that. life involves a wide range. of moods. and that all of them are important. it involves grief like i think.

when someone dies it's appropriate to. grieve. and. it's not in the first instance joyful. it's related to joy because it makes the. joys you feel when you feel them. more intense. but it makes them more intense by. putting you in the position of. experiencing the opposite. and it's only because. we're capable of a wide range of. passionate responses to situations.

that i think the significances can be as. meaningful as they are so melville again. has this has this sort of interest i. mean. let's just say the guilt and the grief. in in the brothers karamazov alyosha. loses his mentor father zasima he's. grieving it's super important that he's. grieving. he has a religious conversion on the. basis of grieving where he sees the sort. of deep sort of beauty of everything. that is but it comes through the grief.

not by avoiding the grief uh and and. melville says something like ishmael. says something like he says i'm like a. catskill mountain eagle the catskills. mountains nearby he says who's sort of. flying high above the earth going over. the peaks and down into the valleys i. have these ups and these downs. but they're all invested with a kind of. significance they all happen at an. enormously high height because it's.

through the mountains that i'm flying. and even when i'm down it's a way of. being up. but it's really down. it's just that it's a way of being up. because it makes the ups even upper. well i guess then the perfectionism of. that can be destructive. i mean i i tend to uh see for example. grief a loss. of love as part of love in that it's a. celebration of the richness of feelings. you had when you had the love so it's.

like it's all part of the same. experience but if you turn it into an. optimization problem where everything. can be unboreable then that can in. itself be destructive yeah yeah. i heard this interview with david foster. wallace on the internet. where it's uh it's a video of him and. there is like a a foreign sounding. reporter asking him questions i think. she's. uh there's an accent of some sort of. german i think something like that. and i don't know it just i painted a.

picture such a human person we were. talking about listening. the interviewer if i may say. uh wasn't a very good one in the. beginning. so she. kind of walked in doing the usual. journalistic things of just kind of. generic questions and. and just kind of. asking very basic questions but he. brought out something in her over time. and he was so sensitive and so sensitive. to her and also. sensitive to being.

a thinking and acting human in this. world that's just painted such a. beautiful picture that people should go. definitely check out. they made me really sad that we don't. get this kind of picture. um of of other thinkers. all of the ones we've been talking about. just that almost this little accidental. view of this human being. i don't know it was a beautiful one and. i guess there's not many like that even. of uh him yeah yeah no i think he was. more. than his.

writing ability which was extraordinary. he had developed a style that was i. think unlike you know anyone else's. style and. it was his. sensitivity. to other people and to. sort of what he was there to pay. attention to. he wants in one of his um. essays i think it's the one called an. incredibly fun thing i'll never do again. do you know that one about cruise ships.

i think he describes himself as this. sort of roving eyeball that just sort of. walks around the. walks around the ship. noticing things. and he's incredibly good at that. but i also do but i also worry. that that reflects something that you. find in ivan in in the brothers. karamazov. ivan i don't know if you remember this. part. when he's away at school as a young. ecologist as a young boy he makes money. by.

going around town. to where tragic events have occurred. someone just got run over by a carriage. or someone you know something just. happened. and. being the first one there. he always knows somehow where these. things are going to happen and writing. about it. giving this really good description. and then signing it eyewitness. and. it's as if. ivan's understanding of his life is that. he was supposed to be a witness.

to it he was supposed to see others but. not get involved. he never is interested in trying to keep. the bad things from happening he just. wants to report on them when he sees. them. and i think that he's an incredibly. isolated person character and it's his. isolation. from. others from the love of others and his. inability his desire not. to love others because that attaches him. to someone. that i think is really at the ground of.

his. condition. and and i think that aim to be isolated. which many people have nowadays i mean. you see it in the underground man too. just sort of taking yourself out of the. world because. you don't want to have to take. responsibility for being involved with. others. i think that's a bad move and and i and. i do worry that maybe i mean i never. knew david foster wallace i have no. right to to comment you know on on his.

life but he portrays um himself in that. one. episode as a person who who does that. and i think that's dangerous yeah. there's some sense in which being. sensitive to the world like i find. myself the the source of joy for me is. just being really sensitive to the world. to to experience. there's some way it's quite brilliant. where you're saying that. that could be isolating it's like darwin. studying. uh. a new kind of species on an island you.

don't want to interfere with it you find. it so beautiful that you don't want to. interfere with this beauty. so. there is some sense in which that. isolates you and then you find yourself. deeply alone. yeah uh away from the experiences that. bring you joy yeah. and that could be destructive it's it's. um. that's fascinating how that uh that. works and in his case. of course some of it is um. just chemical chemicals in his brain but.

some of it is the. the the path. his uh philosophy of life let him down. and that's the danger we need you too. and gazing into the abyss. that you can um. your job is a difficult one because uh. doing philosophy. changes you yeah. and. you may not uh know how it changes you. until you you're changed and you look in. the mirror.

you wrote a piece. in mit tech review saying that ai can't. be an artist. creativity is and always will be a human. endeavor. you mentioned burt and criticism of. symbolic ai. can you explain your view. of criticizing the possible the capacity. for artistry and creativity in uh our. robot friends. uh yeah i can try.

so. to make the argument. you have to have in mind. what counts as. art what counts as a creative artistic. act. i take it that. just doing something new. isn't sufficient. i mean we say that good art is original. but not everything that's never been. done before is good art.

so there has to be more than just doing. something. new. it has to be. somehow doing something new in a way. that speaks to. the audience or speaks to. some portion of the audience at least it. has to be doing something new. in such a way. that. some people who see or interact with it. can see themselves anew. in it so i think that art is inherently.

a creative act it it i'm sorry. a kind of um communicative act. that it it involves a relation with. other. people. so. think about the conditions for that. working. someone i talk in that article. i can't remember something about new. music i think i don't talk about. stravinsky but let's say stravinsky. um stravinsky. you know performs the right of spring.

and there's riots. it is. new. and people hate it. people can't sounds like a cacophony it. sounds awful it's it's written according. to principles that are not like the. principles of music composition that. people are familiar with. so in some ways it's a failed. communicative act. but as as nietzsche says about his own. stuff i mean we now can recognize that.

it wasn't it wasn't a failed. communicative act it just it just hadn't. reached its time yet. and and now. that way of composing music is like you. know it's in disney movies you know it's. so part of our musical palette. that we don't we don't have that. response it changed us it changed the. way we understand what counts as good. music. so that's a deep communicative act it. didn't perform its communication.

in that opening moment. but it did ultimately establish a new. understanding for all of us of what. counts as good art and that's the kind. of. deep communication that i think good art. can can do it can change our. understanding. of. ourselves and of what a good. manifestation of something of ourselves. in a certain domain is. and he used the term. socially embedded that art is.

fundamentally socially embedded yeah and. i really like that term because um. i see like my love for artificial. intelligence and the kind of system that. we can bring to the world that could. uh make for an interesting and more. lively world and one that enriches human. beings is one where the ai systems are. deeply socially embedded good yeah so so. that and that actually is in contrast to. the way. artificial intelligence have been talked.

about throughout its history and. certainly now both on the robotic side. and the ai side. it's especially on the uh the tech. sector with. the businesses around ai they kind of. want to create um. systems that are like servants to humans. and then humans do all the beautiful. human messiness of. where art would be part. i i think that. there is no reason why you can't. integrate ai systems.

in the way you integrate new humans to. the picture they're just the full. diversity and the flaws all of that. adds to the thing yeah. like you know some people might say. that alpha zero is this uh system from. deep mind that was able to achieve. uh. you know solve the game it beat the best. people in the world at the game of go. with no supervision from humans. but more interestingly to me on the side. of creativity it was able to surprise a.

lot of grand masters. with the kind of moves they came up with. now to me that's not. the creativity the magic that's socially. embedded that we're talking about that. is merely um. revealing the limitations of humans to. discover. it's it's like uh to solve a particular. aspect of a math problem. i think creativity is. not just um.

not just even socially embedded it's the. way you're saying is it's part of the. communicative act it's the interactive. it's the dance with the culture and so. it has to be like for alpha zero. to be creative truly creative it would. have to be integrated in a way where it. has a twitter account. and it becomes aware. of the impact it has on the other grand. masters with the moves that's coming up.

and. one of the fascinating things about. alpha zero. which i just love so much. is uh i don't know if you're familiar. with chess i am yeah okay so the. it does certain things that most chess. players even at the highest level. uh don't do which is it sacrifices. pieces it gives pieces away and then. waits like. 10 moves before it pays you back so it. does to me that's beautiful that that's. crazy that's art if only alpha 0.

understood the artistry of that which is. uh. i'm going to mess with you. psychologically because i'm going to do. two things. one make you. feel overconfident that you're doing. well but actually also once you realize. you are playing alpha zero that is much. better than you you're going to feel. really nervous about what's on the like. is this is the calm before the storm and. that's. that creates a beautiful psychological. masterpiece of this chess game if only.

alpha zero is. then. messing with you additionally to that. like and be was cognizant of this doing. that then it becomes art and then it's. integrated into society in that way. and i believe it doesn't have to. actually have. an understanding. of uh the world in the way that humans. have it can have a different one it can. be like a child is as clueless about so. many aspects of the world and it's okay. and that's part of the magic of it just.

being flawed being. lacking understanding all interesting. kinds of ways but interacting and so to. me it's it's possible to create art for. ai but. exactly as you're saying in a. deeply socially embedded way. good well i think i i think we agree but. let me just highlight the thing that. makes me think that we agree yeah which. is that i think for people. for community. to allow themselves.

to. recognize in. a certain kind of creative act let's i'm. thinking of stravinsky here but we could. think of a chess thing. to recognize in a certain kind of. creative act. a new and admirable worthy way of. thinking about what's significant in the. situation. you have to believe. that it wasn't random. you have to believe that stravinsky. wrote that way. because he was receptive to what needed.

to be said now. and so you you said if only. alpha zero. could do all this. by virtue of recognizing that this was. the thing that needed to be done. then it would be socially embedded in. the right way and i think i agree with. that first of all. it's possible to do in a constrained. domain. a game-playing domain go or chess. goes more complicated than chess but but.

either one of them because there really. are only a finite range of possibilities. if you you know make the game end at a. certain point there's. there um. it's a combinatorial problem in the end. now obviously. alpha zero doesn't solve the problem in. a combinatorial way that would be. sort of take too much energy you. couldn't do it it's too too. it sort of uh explodes the problem. um so it does it in this other way.

that's interesting this pattern. recognition way roughly. and and in that context it may well be. that it. that it can see. having had lots and lots of experience. on in the training stuff against itself. or against another version of itself it. can see that the sacrifice here is going. to pay dividends down the road. see i put that in in quotation marks. that's to say uh it's got you know a. high weight to this move here.

as a result of experience in the past. where that move. down the line led to this this. improvement so. so in that in that finite context i. think you know the game players can. trust it and they talk that way that. it's got a kind of authority. um they say i've read some people who. said about. alpha zero when i played go. uh it's like it's playing from the. future. it's making these moves that are just.

out. landish. and there's a kind of brilliance to them. that we can't really understand we'll be. catching up to it forever i think in. that context like it's mapped the domain. and the domain is mappable because it's. a combinatorial problem roughly. but in something like music or art of a. of a. non-finite form. it feels to me like. i i it's a little harder for me to.

understand what the analog. of our trusting that stravinsky has. recognized something about us. that demands that he write this way that. doesn't seem like a finite. thing in quite the same way now now we. could ask we could ask the system why. did you do it we could ask stravinsky. why did you do it and maybe it will have. answers. but then it's involved in a kind of. communicative act. and i think lots of times artists will.

often say look i i can't communicate. better than what i've done in the piece. of work and that that is the statement. yeah yeah so the yeah we humans aren't. able to answer the why either yeah. but i do think the the question here is. uh well first of all language is finite. uh certainly when expressed to a tweet. uh so it is also a combinatorial problem. the question is how much more difficult. it is than chess. and.

i think. i think all the same ways that we see. the solutions to chess is deeply. surprising when it was first. addressed with ibm d blue and then with. alpha go and alpha go zero alpha zero. i think in that same way language. can be addressed and communication can. be addressed i don't see having done. this podcast. many reasons why everything i'm doing. especially as a digital being on the.

internet. can't be done by an ai system eventually. so like i think we're being very. uh human-centric and thinking we're. special i think one of the hardest. things is the physical space. actually operating like touch and the. magic of body language and the music of. all of that because it's so deeply. integrated through the. long evolutionary process of what it's. like to be on earth. what is.

fundamentally different and ai has. can catch up on is the way we apply our. evolutionary history on the way we act. on the internet and the way we act. online and as more and more of the world. becomes digital you're now operating in. a space where ai. is is behind much less so. like we're both starting at zero. i think that's super interesting do you. do you know this do you know this author.

brian christian is that someone you've. ever heard of that sounds familiar he. he's a guy. who competed in the what is it called. the loebner competition. yeah the turing test thing. so. and i'll just tell you the story but i. think it's directly related to the last. thing you said about where we're we're. starting in the same place. uh he competed. in this in this competition but not he. didn't enter uh a program that was. supposed to try to uh pass the turing. test.

the turing test you know there's three. people there's the judge there's the. program and then there's there's a. someone who's a human the way they do it. and the judge has got to figure out by. asking questions which is the computer. and which is the human so little known. fact there's two prizes in that. competition there's the most human. computer prize. that's the computer that wins the most. and then there's the most human human. rights. and he competed for the most human human. props. and he wanted he kept one winning it and.

and so he he tried to think about. what it is that um. you have to be able to do in order to. convince judges that you're human. instead of a computer. and that's an interesting question i. think. um and when he came to this my takeaway. from his version of this story. is that it is true. that computers are winning these. contests more and more. you know as technology progresses but. there's two possible explanations for.

that. one is that the computers are becoming. more human. and the other is that the humans are. becoming more like computers. and he says actually. the more. we live our lives in this world where in. this sort of technological world. where. we have to moderate our behavior so that. it's readable. by. something that's effectively you know a.

computer. the more we become like that and he says. it happens even when you're. uh not interacting with a computer he. says have you ever been to the you know. on the phone with the call. you know center. and they're going through their script. and that's what they've got to do. they've got to go through their script. because that's how they keep their job. and they ask you this question you've. got to answer it. and it and it's as if you're no longer. interacting with a person even though. it's a person. because they've so given up everything.

that's involved normally with being able. to. make judgments and decisions and act in. situations and take responsibility and. so i think that's that's the other side. of it it it it is true that technology. is amazing and can solve huge ranges of. problems. and and do fantastic things but it's. also true. that we're changing ourselves in. response to it and the one thing i'm. worried about is that we're changing.

ourselves in such a way that the. norms for what we're aiming at are being. changed. to move in the direction of this sort of. efficiently and up in an optimized way. solving a problem. and move away from this other kind of. thing that we were calling alive and. aliveness or or significance. and and so that's the that's the other. side of the story and that's the worry. but it's very possible that there is uh. for you and i the ancient dinosaurs we.

may not see the aliveness. in tiktok. the aliveness in the digital space. that you see it as us being dragged into. this over optimized world. but that may be. uh this is. in fact. it is a world that opens up. opportunities to truly experience life. and there's interesting to think about. all the people growing up now. who their early.

experience of life is always mediated. through a digital device not always but. more and more often mediated through. that device and how we're both evolving. the technology is evolving and the. humans are evolving to them maybe open a. door to a whole world where the humans. and the technology or ai systems are. interacting as equals. so now i'm going to agree with you you. might be surprised that i'm going to. agree with you but i think that's. exactly right i i don't want to be the. person who's saying our job is to resist.

all of this stuff that i don't want to. be a luddite that's not my goal the goal. is to. point out. that. in the supreme danger lies the saving. power yes. the point is to get in the right. relation to that understanding of what. we are. uh that allows us to find the joy in it. and that's i think that's a hard thing. to do it's hard to understand even what. we're supposed to be doing when we do it.

i'm maybe high more than you i'm not of. the right generation to be able to to do. that but i do think that's got to be the. move the move is not to resist it it's. not a nostalgic move it's an attempt to. push people to get in the relation to it. that's not the relation of it. controlling you and depriving you of. stuff but if you're recognizing some. great joy that can be found in it. when i interact with league of robots. i see there's magic there. and i just feel like the person who.

hears the music when others don't and i. don't know what that is and i'd love to. explore that yeah. and because it seems to it's almost like. a the future talking. and i'm trying to hear what it's saying. is this a dangerous world or is this a. beautiful world hmm. well i can certainly understand your. enthusiasm for that those used to be. things that i found. overwhelmingly exciting. and i'm not sort of closed off from that. anymore.

i mean i'm not now closed off from that. even though my views are are changed and. i don't work in that world. but i i do think i think it's. interesting to figure out what's at the. ground of that of that response. yeah. we talked about meaning quite a bit. throughout. in a secular age but let me ask you the. big ridiculous question almost too big. what is the meaning of this thing we got. going on what is the meaning of life.

you're you're saving the softball for. the end. easy one i i don't know what the meaning. of life is i i think there's something. that characterizes us. that's not the thing that people. normally think characterizes us. the traditional thing to say in the. philosophical tradition even in the ai. tradition which is a kind of. manifestation. of philosophy from plato forward the. traditional thing to say is that what. characterizes us is our.

rationality that we're intelligent. beings that we're the ones that that. think. and i think that's certainly part of of. what characterizes us. but i think there's. more to it too i think we're capable. of. experiencing. simultaneously. the complete and utter ungroundedness of. everything that's meaningful in our. existence. and also the real significance of it.

and that sounds like it that sounds like. a contradiction like how could it really. be significant and not be based on. anything. but i think that's the contradiction. that somehow characterizes us and i. think that. we're the being that sort of has to hold. that weird mystery before us and live. in the light of it that's the thing that. i think is really at our core and so how. do we do that i will say this one thing.

and i learned it from a philosopher from. a guy named albert borgmon who's a. german philosopher lives in montana now. taught in montana for his whole career. and when i i say this to my students at. harvard now he said this is the way that. i think about my life and i hope you'll. think about your life too. he said you should think about your life. hoping. that there will be many moments in it.

about which you can say. there's no place i'd rather be. there's. no thing i'd rather be doing. there's no buddy i'd rather be with. and this i will remember well. and i think if you can aim to fill your. life with moments like that it will be a. meaningful one i don't know if that's. the meaning of life. but i think if you can hold that before. you it'll help to clarify this mystery.

and this sort of bizarre situation in. which we find ourselves. sean this conversation was incredible. and those four requirements have. certainly been fulfilled for me. this was a magical moment. in that way and i will remember it well. thank you so much it's an honor that you. spend your valuable time with me this is. great thank you thank you for having me. lex i really really enjoyed it. thanks for listening to this. conversation with sean kelly to support.

this podcast please check out our. sponsors in the description. and now let me leave you with some words. from albert camus. in the depth of winter i finally learned. that within me. there lay an invincible summer. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time. you.