Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith | Spencer Klavan | EP 489

Coming up (0s)

• Newton's work had a profound impact at a deeper level by breaking down the barrier between the sublunar and super lunar spheres, demonstrating an underlying unity in the natural world (4s).
• This unity is reflected in the three rules that govern various phenomena, such as the arc of a comet across the sky and the descent of an apple from a tree (10s).
• Newton's expectations of being able to unify these phenomena were rooted in the assumptions of his time, which held that mathematical concepts are universally valid (25s).
• This assumption implies that mathematical principles not only make sense in human understanding but also accurately describe and predict real-world events, such as sending a rocket ship to Mars (38s).
• The idea that mathematical concepts are universally valid was a driving force behind the work of Newton and his contemporaries, who were trying to solve problems related to the natural world (23s).

Intro (40s)

• Spencer Klavan was a guest for a discussion, and the host met him partly through connections with The Daily Wire and also through filming a documentary together for the Foundations of the West series, which is available on The Daily Wire, along with a series of dinner meetings that expand on the ideas analyzed in the documentary (1m7s).
• The main reason for the discussion was Spencer Klavan's new book, "Light of the Mind, Light of the World", which is set to be released in mid-October 2024, just a couple of weeks after the episode was taped (1m29s).
• The book is an analysis of the development of ideas during the Scientific Revolution and their relationship to the surrounding religious ideas that constitute their metaphysical basis (1m50s).
• The book also examines the dynamic relationship between the systems of ideas, specifically religion versus science, as they progressed through time since the dawn of the Scientific Revolution (2m2s).
• The conversation was engaging, and both the host and Spencer Klavan experienced time flying by rapidly, hoping that the audience would also feel a sense of timelessness while watching the discussion (2m6s).

The lasting impact of filming “Foundations of the West” (2m31s)

• The opportunity to film "Foundations of the West" brought people together in various locations, including Athens, Jerusalem, Rome, and Arizona, with notable guests such as Ben Shapiro, Jonathan Paso, and Bishop Baron (2m33s).
• The documentary series was recently released on The Daily Wire Plus platform, featuring conversations on the foundations of Western civilization (2m47s).
• The release of the series has had a significant impact, with many people appreciating the grounding in history and connection to the past that it provides, especially during turbulent times (3m17s).
• The conversations in the series, although spontaneous, were edited together to produce a coherent narrative, both within each documentary section and across all four parts (5m17s).
• The dinners that followed the filming sessions, held in beautiful locations, also turned out to be very coherent and meaningful (5m37s).
• The series has been a privilege to work on, and its release has been a confirmation that the ideas and issues discussed are vital and under threat in today's world (3m24s).
• The conversations in the series, including discussions on anti-Semitism and the spirit of Cain, have been particularly relevant and sorrowful in light of recent events (3m37s).
• The series has given people a sense of connection to their ancestry and a deeper understanding of the principles of Western civilization, which are often dismissed as outdated or problematic (4m38s).
• The editors did a great job of linking together the conversations and producing a coherent narrative, despite the spontaneous nature of the enterprise (5m20s).

How a small band of literary critics upended the world, postmodernist breakthroughs and folly (5m47s)

• A documentary focused on the meaning of ideas rather than historical facts, reflecting a different conceptualization of the world emerging from the ashes of the Enlightenment (5m49s).
• A small group of literary critics, including Foucault and Derrida, upended the world with their ideas, which is at the bottom of the culture wars (6m47s).
• Postmodernists were correct in their suspicion that we cannot see the world merely by apprehending dead facts, as there are too many facts and they need to be prioritized and organized (7m2s).
• The strict empiricist approach is flawed, as it assumes that sensations and perceptions have self-evident truth, which is not the case (7m53s).
• Perception is physiologically linked to action and cannot be separated from it, making it impossible to have objective truth (8m12s).
• The process of vision is similar to touch for a blind person, where individual perceptions are aggregated to form a whole, and even blind people can perceive shape and orient themselves in the world (8m31s).
• Perception is saturated by value and intent, as even the choice of focus is goal-directed and value-predicated (9m28s).
• Postmodernists figured out that we see the world through a story or a descriptive value structure, but they went wrong by saying there is no uniting story and that power rules everything, slipping into a kind of Marxism (9m43s).
• Multiple disciplines, including robotics engineers, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists, have converged on the idea that perception is not just a matter of objective truth, but is influenced by value and intent (10m13s).

The interpretive framework is narrative, not rational (10m39s)

• A book titled "Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith" is set to be released on October 15th, offering a new history of the scientific enterprise that considers spiritual matters (10m52s).
• The book challenges the idea that one must abandon reason to believe in anything religious, and instead explores the relationship between science and faith (11m20s).
• The scientific method is often seen as antithetical to religion, with a perceived separation between the subjective and objective worlds (11m50s).
• However, this separation is a myth, as there are no bare facts without human interpretation, and the rationalists recognized that we impose an a priori structure on the world (12m6s).
• The interpretive framework is not rational, but rather narrative, and this is evident in the Scientific Revolution, particularly in Galileo's division between primary and secondary qualities (12m47s).
• Primary qualities, such as quantity, mass, and position, are considered quantifiable and independent of human interpretation, while secondary qualities, like color and sound, are seen as more subjective (12m57s).
• The idea that numbers are self-evident and independent of human interpretation is a topic of debate among mathematicians, with some believing in an independent mathematical realm and others seeing it as a subjective construction (14m29s).
• The hope of creating a picture of the world from a non-human standpoint, reducing it to a machine that operates independently of human participation, was an exciting idea at the time, but it neglects the role of human interpretation (15m0s).
• The scientific method's power led to the perception that the primary qualities picture of the world was the only reality, with everything else being reducible to that (15m41s).

How the brain channels perception into action through a hierarchy (15m50s)

• Qualities are foundational elements that everything has in common, and the brain handles them in an interesting way, particularly in the visual system, where primary cortex extracts primary edges from the visual field (15m50s).
• The visual system involves a hierarchy of processing, where information moves from the retina to the first level of visual processing and then up towards perception, with the highest level of perception involving motor movement (16m0s).
• Perception itself is closely tied to motor movement, as demonstrated by the example of looking at a glass and the brain automatically activating the grip needed to hold it, even without conscious thought (16m38s).
• The visual system is not a one-way process, but rather a complex network where different levels feed back to one another, allowing for top-down constraints on primary perceptions (17m22s).
• This complexity makes it difficult to disentangle subjective and objective aspects of perception, as even primary perceptions are influenced by memory and past experiences (17m30s).
• The brain's tendency to substitute memories for direct perceptions can lead to a sense of familiarity, but also obscures the wonder of the world by making it seem less novel and less remarkable (17m47s).
• The overlap between different sensory processing areas in the brain, such as visual and auditory perception, can lead to synesthetic experiences, like hearing words when looking at them (18m14s).
• The problem with the primary and secondary model of perception is that it oversimplifies the complex feedback loops and top-down constraints present in the brain, making it difficult to understand perception as a straightforward process (18m56s).
• The philosopher Francis Bacon worried about the influence of preconceived theories on perception, and sought to establish a more direct and objective experience of reality (19m21s).

You never learn anything without subjecting something previous to a death, sensory data is not enough to ascertain reality (19m41s)

• The mind can be thought of as a notepad where old information cannot be cleared away until new information is written, implying that learning often requires subjecting previous knowledge to a form of "death" (19m50s).
• This concept is related to the idea that revelatory conversations or realizations can be painful due to the need to replace old information with new (20m11s).
• The human body is constituted in a way that skepticism about direct sense data is built-in, as evidenced by the fact that we have multiple senses that provide different types of information (20m29s).
• The data from any single sensory source is not determinative and is sufficiently flawed that relying solely on it could be detrimental, which is why we use multiple senses to triangulate reality (21m6s).
• Even with five qualitatively distinct sources of input, our perception of reality is not always reliable, and we often need to consult other people, tradition, and the scientific method to verify information (21m28s).
• The scientific method, developed in part by Francis Bacon, involves systematically varying a single causal pathway to account for a phenomenon, which is a rigorous approach to understanding reality (22m14s).
• However, this approach has also led to the idea that the world can be exhaustively described in purely objective terms, as proposed by Pierre-Simon Laplace, who applied Newtonian mechanics to astrophysics (23m11s).
• Laplace's idea is that if a mind knew the position and momentum of every particle in the world, past, present, and future, it would have complete knowledge, which is a claim that has had significant implications for our understanding of the world (23m36s).
• The concept of faith is present even in simple claims, as it involves a proclamation of a certain kind of faith, and the problem with Laplace's demon, which is supposed to track the position and momentum of every microparticle, is that it can't, making the fundamental axiom of faith upon which the deterministic model of objective reality is predicated false (24m6s).
• The second law of Thermodynamics, which states that things tend toward entropy, is a rule of the material world that is not strictly speaking a law, as it's not something that must happen by necessity, and this discovery is a precursor to the quantum Revolution (24m33s).
• The work of Boltzmann and Max Planck, who is the namesake of the constant that describes the quantum, led to an explosion of the atomistic deterministic idea of the world, which reduces everything to mere bodies in motion that can be known from a zero standpoint of God's eye view (24m55s).
• This way of thinking about the world is upended by the quantum Revolution, which points us back toward a deeper and more primordial level of understanding, similar to what is described in the Book of Genesis (25m21s).
• In today's increasingly connected world, personal data is more vulnerable than ever, and using a secure VPN like ExpressVPN is essential for protecting one's online data and maintaining peace of mind (25m48s).
• ExpressVPN creates a secure encrypted tunnel between a device and the internet, effectively shielding out potential intruders, and its security is unparalleled, with encryption that would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to crack (26m24s).
• ExpressVPN is also incredibly user-friendly, requiring no technical expertise to safeguard one's data, and it's available with an extra 3 months free at expressvpn.com/Jordan (27m17s).

Shared patterns among disparate creation myths, what consciousness is contending with (27m27s)

• Pseudo-intellectuals often incorporate elements of quantum mechanics, which are sometimes poorly understood, into their discussions, but there is a fundamental concept in the Book of Genesis that is echoed in many mythological traditions, including the Mesopotamian creation myth (27m47s).
• This shared pattern involves an active force of apprehension or conception that interacts with a realm of possibility, casting it into being, which is reminiscent of what consciousness does (28m27s).
• Consciousness operates by exploring the neurological reality, involving the activation of large areas of the brain, and is focused on what isn't deterministic or predictable (28m58s).
• When learning something new, such as a word, a widespread pattern of neurological activation occurs, and repetition helps reduce the number of operations necessary to specify the phenomenon, building a specialized machine in the brain (29m18s).
• Consciousness concentrates on what isn't deterministic or predictable, and if it can, it algorithmizes everything that can be predicted, making predictable things vanish from sight (30m10s).
• Consciousness seems to live on the edge of the transforming horizon of the future, and this is portrayed in the Book of Genesis with the idea of "toou vaboh" or the concept that consciousness apprehends the elements of the world that are not yet revealed but could be (30m46s).
• The concept of toou vaboh suggests that consciousness is contending with the elements of the world that are not yet revealed but have the potential to be (31m1s).

The Bible describes a fundamental pattern of our existence, the deeper meaning of Adam naming the animals (31m5s)

• The Book of Genesis describes a fundamental pattern of existence and an allegorical template that applies to every sphere of life, rather than being proven or disproven by science (31m5s).
• The biblical account of creation, particularly the phrase "let there be light," implies that mind invests matter with implicit structures, as the Hebrew words for "let there be light" and "there was light" are almost identical (31m46s).
• When God says "let there be light," it suggests that light existed and was brought into being through language, implying that the text describes a situation where mind shapes matter (32m14s).
• The story of Adam naming the animals in the Garden of Eden is not just about inventing language, but rather about drawing out implicit structures and categorizing perceptions, as Adam's mind is formed to do so (32m42s).
• The text of Genesis states that God brings the animals to Adam to name, but not as individual entities, rather as categories or classes, such as "cat" as a category (33m27s).
• This process of categorization is reflected in human perception, such as hearing, which is a pattern of change over time, and requires top-down processing to bring individual moments of perception together into a unified whole (34m5s).
• The example of hearing illustrates how the human mind groups individual moments of perception together to form a coherent experience, much like Adam's task of naming the animals (34m12s).
• The biblical account of creation and the story of Adam naming the animals reflect the idea that human beings are made in the image of God, who brings being into reality through language (33m4s).

Monet’s haystack paintings and the question of higher unity (34m59s)

• The postmodern claim that there is no Transcendent Unity or meta narrative is flawed because it is boundless and lacks inevitable order or unity, making it difficult to perceive a unified reality at any level of analysis (34m59s).
• The concept of unity can be observed in everyday objects, such as a glass, which can be perceived as a single entity despite its multitude of molecular positions and manifestations (35m32s).
• The French impressionist painter Claude Monet's series of paintings of haystacks under different conditions of illumination demonstrates how the same object can be perceived differently yet remain unified in its essence (35m59s).
• The postmodern claim that there is no overarching meta narrative implies that there is no ultimate unity, making it challenging to perceive a unified reality and leading to potential conflicts between individual motivations and understandings of the world (36m42s).
• The idea that reality itself is disunified and lacks a fundamental truth raises questions about how individuals can agree on anything if there is no implicit unity in the world (37m21s).
• The postmodernist perspective can be seen as part of a tradition that dates back to Heraclitus and includes thinkers like David Hume and Bishop Berkeley, who reacted against objectivist ideas (38m13s).
• David Hume's problem with induction highlights the challenge of inferring a pathway forward based solely on understanding the terrain, as one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is" (38m30s).
• Hume's scandal of induction suggests that our understanding of the world is based on past experiences, such as the sun rising every day, but this does not guarantee that it will continue to do so in the future (38m50s).
• The problem of induction, as pointed out by Hume, is that we can never be certain when our expectations based on past experiences will be proven wrong, much like a chicken's faith in the farmer's daily food supply is shattered on Thanksgiving (39m6s).
• This uncertainty can be applied to various levels, including the sun, which is generally consistent but can still emit a solar flare that disrupts our electrical systems, highlighting the unpredictability of reality (39m37s).
• There are levels of predictability in reality, related to statistical regularity, which allow us to make predictions about certain entities, such as the sun, due to its immense mass and size, but not with absolute certainty (40m2s).
• The unpredictability of the world is a reason for the evolution of consciousness, as it provides a mechanism to correct for the limitations of induction and adapt to changing circumstances (40m32s).
• Consciousness seems to be necessary because the world is not fundamentally predictable, and it allows us to navigate and respond to the uncertainties and unpredictabilities of reality (40m43s).

Entering the dangerous quantum territory, the end of physics? (40m52s)

• The concept of the field or Spirit of God that rests on the water in the biblical story is compared to the pool of infinite possibility, represented in Mesopotamian stories as a dragon, symbolizing something fearsome, predatory, and containing the possibility of treasure (40m53s).
• This underlying metaphor suggests that human consciousness confronts something infinite in danger and possibility, requiring a heroic endeavor towards fundamental truth (41m35s).
• This heroic interaction with reality is echoed in Genesis, where God is characterized as the victor of the battle over Leviathan, an analog of Tiamat (41m57s).
• The discovery of quantum mechanics has led to debates between scientists, such as Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein, about the nature of reality and the limits of human knowledge (42m25s).
• Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation suggests that the world is made of potential, and that our measurements and observations are always expressed in terms of classical mechanics because they are shaped by our minds (43m55s).
• This idea is compared to Aristotelian potentia, the concept that the world is made of potential and the realization of potential (43m33s).
• Einstein disagreed with Bohr's interpretation, believing that physics should be deterministic and that mathematics should describe a reality independent of human observation (44m25s).
• The dispute between Bohr and Einstein continues to influence scientific debates today, making this a treacherous territory to explore (44m57s).
• The concept of God's mind as the resolver of a fundamentally unresolved possibility, casting order into chaos, is observed in Genesis and the whole Hebrew Bible, which shares similarities with the idea of resolving possibilities in Schrodinger equations, although it's not a direct reference to the scientific concept (45m38s).
• The idea that humans are essentially the image of God implies a connection between God's mind and human understanding (45m50s).
• The radical left stance on abortion has reached alarming levels, supporting free abortions and even advocating for infanticide, which is considered a moral crisis rather than just a political issue (45m58s).
• Pre-born, the nation's largest pro-life organization, is fighting against abortion by strategically positioning themselves in high-abortion areas, offering support to women and their unborn children, and using ultrasound technology to increase a baby's chance at life (46m14s).
• Pre-born has saved over 300,000 babies through their efforts and relies on donations to continue their mission, with options ranging from funding one ultrasound for $28 to sponsoring their entire network for 24 hours for $5,000 (46m31s).
• Donations to Pre-born can be made by dialing pound 250 and saying "baby" or by visiting their website at pre-born.org (47m7s).

The field of possibility, conscious aim and consequences (47m27s)

• There is a field of possibility that surrounds and constitutes all objects, and the probability of certain manifestations of an object occurring can change based on the context and the aims of the people involved (47m27s).
• The way an object is perceived and used can depend on the ethical framework and aims of the people interacting with it, as seen in the example of a candle that can also be used as a knife (47m35s).
• The possibility of an object being used in a certain way can be influenced by the aims and intentions of the people involved, and a change in those aims can change the likelihood of certain possibilities manifesting (48m42s).
• If a conversation or situation deteriorates and people regard each other as enemies, the possibilities for conflict and harm can become more likely to manifest (49m7s).
• The biblical concept of "walking with God" suggests that orienting oneself towards a high and good aim can influence the way the world unfolds and the possibilities that manifest (49m36s).
• When people deviate from a heavenly orientation and prioritize pride and self-interest, the possibilities of the world can tilt towards a more fallen or hellish state (50m2s).
• The story of Adam and Eve's fall from grace is seen as an example of how pride and misaligned aim can lead to a world that is more difficult and obstacle-filled (50m21s).
• The idea that the degree of suffering and injustice in the world is proportional to the misalignment of one's aim is explored in the story of Job and the story of Cain and Abel (51m24s).
• The story of Cain and Abel illustrates how a misaligned aim can lead to difficulties and failures, as seen in Cain's inability to make a successful sacrifice (51m40s).

Leaving aspiration at the door and living for the moment, how emotional pain affects perception (51m50s)

• When approaching work or tasks without external motivations such as fame or money, and instead focusing on the inherent good of the task, one's perception of the world transforms, and this transformation is literally true according to neurophysiology (52m38s).
• The way perceptions work is by establishing an aim, and then the world appears as a pathway toward that aim, with obstacles and facilitators being tagged with negative and positive emotions, respectively (52m54s).
• The phenomena of the world and emotions make themselves manifest in relation to one's aim, raising the question of how much suffering is a consequence of misaligned aim (53m59s).
• Even in a state of attention toward the good for its own sake, negative emotions such as toil, anxiety, and disappointment can still be experienced, but the interpretative framework for them has radically altered (54m39s).
• The experience of emotions can be complex, with multiple levels of analysis occurring simultaneously, as seen in the example of a football player who continues to play despite injury, with the pain being experienced at a local level but overridden by the positive emotion of pursuing a higher-order goal (55m19s).
• The physiological response to pursuing a valuable goal can produce a pharmacological counterposition to pain, similar to the effect of cocaine, which is powerfully analgesic (55m57s).
• The concept of pain and difficulty is discussed, highlighting that while something may be painful or anxiety-provoking in the moment, it can be worth it in the long run, as seen in the phrase "it was difficult, yes painful, but it was certainly worth it" (56m18s).
• The story of Job from the Book of Job is referenced, where Job decides not to let his suffering destroy his faith in himself or the goodness of the spirit that underlies reality, and instead chooses courage (56m31s).
• Job's story is seen as a call to maintain faith and optimism in the essential goodness of oneself and humanity, even in the face of deep suffering, and Job is portrayed as a good man in the text (57m3s).
• The importance of maintaining faith in difficult times is emphasized, as without it, people may become stuck and unable to move forward (57m17s).
• Losing faith in oneself and a higher power can lead to a new, deeper hell, as seen in the example of Job's wife telling him to "curse God and die" (57m40s).
• The loss of faith can also lead to the loss of the sense that difficulties are worth it, leaving only pain and suffering (58m8s).

What “Paradise Lost,” “Dante’s Inferno” and “Cain and Abel” understood about hell (58m14s)

• In Milton's work, Satan's condition is described as a hell deeper than the one he's in, with another hell opening up underneath, symbolizing his pride and unwillingness to change. (58m14s)
• This concept is shared with Marlowe's character Mephistopheles, who says that having turned away from God, everything becomes painful, even things that would normally be considered pleasures. (58m45s)
• Cain's story is also mentioned, where he kills Abel due to resentment and bitterness, leading to his own suffering and becoming a wanderer, destined to seek out new victims due to his reputation. (59m4s)
• Cain's actions are compared to those of psychopaths, who are itinerant and must seek out new victims due to their reputation, and his wandering in the Land of Nod is associated with sleep, unconsciousness, and willful blindness. (59m50s)
• The concept of descending levels of suffering with something ultimately malevolent at the bottom is a vision of hell, reminiscent of Dante's Inferno, where the deepest level is betrayal, which inverts trust and is the foundation of civilization. (1h0m51s)
• Betrayal is identified as the cardinal malevolence of Satan, as it inverts trust, which is essential for love, family, relationships, and even one's relationship with oneself, and can lead to profound trauma. (1h1m6s)
• In clinical practice, encountering people with deep existential problems, such as murderous impulses and brutal situations, often reveals a complex web of lies and suffering, with new and deeper problems emerging as the surface-level issues are addressed. (1h1m46s)
• In relationships, people often avoid communicating with their partner to prevent starting an argument, which can lead to unresolved emotional tension and unaddressed deeper disagreements (1h2m27s).
• When investigating the root cause of a disagreement, it's possible to uncover a profound betrayal in the person's history, which can be a consequence of past abuse or trauma, and this can be a painful and difficult process (1h3m3s).
• The history of betrayal can be passed down through generations, and addressing it requires a journey to the depths of the issue, which can be a challenging and emotional experience (1h3m21s).
• When having a sincere and deep conversation with someone, it's common for one person to break into tears, which can signify a dissolution of their perceptions and a potential restructuring of their understanding (1h3m58s).
• This process of addressing deep-seated issues and emotions can be likened to a descent into the abyss, a concept explored in Dante's work (1h4m11s).

How gravity changes around hell and paradise, symbolic deaths and rebirths (1h4m13s)

• In Dante's Inferno, when one reaches the bottom past Judas in the mouth of Satan, the world flips upside down, and the direction of gravity changes, marking the transition from Inferno to Purgatorio (1h4m21s).
• The journey through Purgatorio involves two stages: the first stage is characterized by the weight of gravity pulling downward, symbolizing the struggle and toil of overcoming past betrayals and mistakes (1h4m40s).
• The second stage represents a symbolic death and rebirth, where one begins to climb upward toward Paradise, marking the start of a new journey (1h5m12s).
• Once reaching the pinnacle of Purgatorio, the journey transitions to Paradise, where Beatrice descends to lift Dante up, and they move upward at light speed toward the heavens (1h5m27s).
• Beatrice explains that their journey is an allegory of spiritual growth, where the same force that carries fire upward is carrying them toward God, symbolizing the unity and benevolence of the universe (1h5m45s).
• This concept is rooted in a monotheistic claim, emphasizing the idea that there is one motive force in the universe, which is love, as expressed in the last line of Dante's poem, "the love that moves the Sun and other stars" (1h6m0s).

What Jordan Peterson hashed out with Richard Dawkins, cosmos and the logos (1h7m32s)

• The metaphysic that made science possible has been demolished, and there is a need to lay out the metaphysics and narrative frame of science itself (1h7m34s).
• Carl Jung tried to figure out the metaphysical narrative of science, and he was interested in alchemy as it represented an unconscious fantasy that emerged in counterposition to the spiritualization of Christianity (1h8m4s).
• Jung's idea was that there was a lurking possibility in the material world that hadn't been explored, which was the call of transmutation, where a material substance could grant health and immortality (1h8m11s).
• This potential in the material world is the treasure, or Prima Materia, which is a thing with no qualities, stripped bare of everything (1h8m52s).
• The proposition is that there had to be a fantasy, widely distributed, that there was something of immense value still lurking in the material world before the Scientific Enterprise could get started (1h9m2s).
• Science needs a motivation, and this motivation is linked to something else, such as the idea that understanding the order of the cosmos makes things better (1h9m27s).
• The cosmos has a logos, which is an order that is intelligible to the mind of man, and understanding it better makes things better (1h9m46s).
• The order is good, and through dedicated submission to the logos, one can explore in a manner that reveals it and is redemptive (1h10m21s).
• These ideas are the metaphysical necessary foundations of science, which were laid down fundamentally in the Judeo-Christian system (1h10m48s).
• The Judeo-Christian system implies that there is a logos to the world, it is apprehensible to man, it is fundamentally good, and approaching it in the proper spirit is redemptive (1h10m50s).
• Richard Dawkins, despite being an atheist, found himself compelled to state that he was a cultural Christian, implying that the Christians got something right (1h11m9s).

“The Three Body Problem,” the unresolvable problem and how the novels explore this (1h11m26s)

• The Chinese science fiction novel "The Three-Body Problem" explores the idea of an unresolvable problem in astrophysics, where three bodies mutually attract each other, making it impossible to create a consistent system that can be reduced to abstract principles comprehended by the human mind (1h11m28s).
• The novel's author, Liu Cixin, uses this concept to peer into the abyss of what science looks like once the principles of Newtonian mechanics are pulled away, revealing the limitations of human understanding (1h12m30s).
• Historically, people believed in two sets of rules for the physical world: the super lunary and the sublunary spheres, with the barrier between them being the Moon's orbit, where a new set of laws was thought to apply (1h13m17s).
• This idea was based on the observation of the regular patterns of the stars and the seemingly different behavior of objects on Earth, leading people to think that the world was divided into two separate realms (1h13m34s).
• Christians believed that the world was a Fallen order, with a pristine Reason or Music of the Spheres operating in the heavens, while the forces of nature governed the Earth (1h13m53s).
• Newton's laws shattered the barrier between the sublunar and super lunar spheres, showing an underlying Unity and providing a set of rules that governed both the motion of celestial bodies and the behavior of objects on Earth (1h14m30s).
• Newton's work was based on the assumption that the world is organized according to a logos, a rational principle that is answerable to the patterns in the human mind, regardless of how those patterns came about (1h14m56s).
• This idea is rooted in the concept of AOS, a Pagan claim that the world is organized according to a rational principle, and that this principle is reflected in the patterns of the human mind (1h14m59s).
• The experience of mathematical principles and the natural world is often described as being based on evolution or other natural processes, but it is more honest to acknowledge that our experience of these principles is rooted in a deeper, rational order (1h15m16s).
• There is a universally valid concept that not only helps humans understand the world but also enables technological advancements, such as sending a rocket ship to Mars, due to a type of faith that resembles a transposed monotheistic faith, which posits an ultimate unity at the foundation or pinnacle of all things (1h15m24s).
• This concept is being challenged by the puzzle of reconciling relativity with quantum mechanics, which are two realms that answer to different and apparently contradictory sets of laws (1h16m0s).
• Scientists are working to resolve this puzzle, with some focusing on string theory and others on quantum gravity, under the presumption that the inability to detect unity is a consequence of their ignorance, not a disjointed reality (1h16m27s).
• The challenge of reconciling relativity and quantum mechanics is similar to the issue of reconciling two different realms that answer to different laws, and it requires convictions that scientists may not openly acknowledge, even if they operate under them (1h16m56s).
• The hypothesis of Jung is mentioned as a possible explanation for the underlying unity of the world, although the details of this hypothesis are not explicitly stated in this context (1h17m2s).

Protecting the true scientific ethos, how well-meaning scientists end up chasing delusions for their entire careers (1h17m6s)

• Many scientists who make genuine discoveries and have successful careers are guided by a deep-seated religious ethos, which influences their approach to research and relationships with students (1h17m48s).
• Statistical analysis can be manipulated to produce desired results, as there are numerous ways to interpret data, and career-driven scientists may be tempted to focus on findings that advance their careers rather than seeking truth (1h18m40s).
• The problem of replicability in science is partly due to the fact that researchers can conduct multiple correlational analyses and report only the statistically significant results, ignoring the rest (1h18m55s).
• The pressure to produce significant results can be intense, particularly for graduate students whose careers may depend on the success of their research, leading some to prioritize self-promotion over scientific integrity (1h19m27s).
• Allowing careerist interests to influence research decisions can have negative consequences, including betraying the spirit of science and convincing oneself of the existence of a delusion that may be pursued for the rest of one's career (1h20m2s).
• Scientists often neglect to consider how to instill a desire for truth-seeking in researchers, rather than career success, at every level of the scientific endeavor (1h20m21s).
• The scientific enterprise may be corrupting rapidly due to its disconnection from its underlying Judeo-Christian narrative, which previously provided a protective ethos (1h20m40s).

A perfect example of a junk study: Ketanji Brown Jackson (1h20m54s)

• Ketanji Brown Jackson cited a study in the Supreme Court, stating that black babies have better health outcomes when treated by black doctors, which she used to defend affirmative action and race-conscious preferences in hiring (1h20m54s).
• The study cited by Ketanji Brown Jackson is considered a "junk study" due to the presence of a hidden variable, specifically birth weight, which affects the health outcomes of babies (1h21m31s).
• Babies with low or dangerous birth weights are more likely to be taken to white doctors, resulting in worse outcomes, which skews the data in the study (1h21m42s).
• The authors of the study and its reviewers were aware of the birth weight variable but discounted it, leading to specious correlations and corrupted medical and social science (1h22m7s).
• This instance illustrates the problem of filtering out data and how science can become corrupted when it serves a specific purpose or agenda, rather than seeking knowledge (1h22m22s).

Why not lie? (1h22m46s)

• A mentor to scientists advises them to accept the truth, even if it means their study is flawed, and be willing to suffer the consequences, including potential damage to their reputation and career (1h22m47s).
• The temptation to falsify data is a constant threat, but the negative consequences of getting caught and the abyss of catastrophe should not be the primary motivators for honesty (1h23m32s).
• Instead, the focus should be on the positive aspect of discovering the concordance between one's soul and the logos of the world, which brings a sense of eternal harmony and raw joy (1h24m14s).
• This harmony is considered the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price, and is worth more than any career advancement or personal gain (1h24m59s).
• A personal anecdote is shared about realizing the importance of honesty in one's career, and deciding to tell the truth, even if it means uncertainty and potential consequences (1h25m21s).
• This act of honesty is compared to the act of faith performed by Abraham, who made sacrifices and followed the divine path of adventure, leading to his transformation and growth (1h25m42s).
• Abraham's story is seen as an example of the idea that forthright adherence to the clarion call of divine adventure is the same pathway that radically increases one's capacity and leads to growth and transformation (1h26m35s).
• The concept of reproductive success can be linked to an individual's deepest instincts, which drive them to develop and become more attractive to others, ultimately leading to a higher likelihood of having numerous descendants (1h26m47s).
• This idea is connected to the concept of "Divine patriarchy," where an individual establishes a strong ethos and teaches their children to handle challenges, leading to a prosperous and successful family (1h27m21s).
• The promise of the Covenant in the Old Testament is that those who follow this path will be rewarded with numerous descendants and success (1h27m30s).
• To achieve this, one must prioritize seeking the Kingdom of Heaven and loving the good for its own sake, rather than pursuing career advancement or material prosperity (1h27m53s).
• This requires sacrifice, including being willing to give up commitments to career, material prosperity, and even relationships with family members (1h28m14s).
• The story of Abraham and Isaac is cited as an example of this principle, where Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son ultimately leads to him being returned to him (1h28m29s).
• This idea is also applied to parenting, where it is suggested that the more parents try to conserve and shelter their children, the more they will struggle to establish a sustainable relationship with them, and that throwing them out into the world can paradoxically increase the probability of a successful relationship (1h28m50s).

Why God allowed Adam and Eve to rebel, rulers and force (1h29m16s)

• God's decision to create humans with the ability to choose to rebel is seen as a mystery, with the Quran portraying the angels as bewildered by this choice, but God's response implies that He knows something they do not, and in the Christian tradition, it is believed that God desires humans so much that He is willing to let them go and put them in a situation where they can fall, as described in Milton's phrase "sufficient to have stood but freed to fall" (1h29m22s).
• The concept of fatherhood is not about exerting power or force over others, but rather about encouraging courage and faith in one's children to contend with challenges, and not shielding them from difficulties, allowing them to grow and expand in the most optimal manner (1h30m22s).
• The postmodernist idea that patriarchy is inherently oppressive and that fatherhood is about exerting force over others is seen as a misconception, with thinkers like Foucault being criticized for reducing all relationships to power dynamics, which is seen as a convenient and flawed perspective (1h31m20s).
• The desire for power is often linked to hedonism, where individuals want to compel others to do their bidding for their own short-term gain, and this is seen as a flawed principle for founding a society, as it leads to instability and rebellion, as observed in chimpanzee patriarchies (1h32m16s).
• The use of force to exert power over others is seen as a form of hell, where the ruler becomes increasingly isolated and narrow-minded, and the ruled become appendages of the ruler's soul, leading to a world that is inherently hellish (1h33m1s).
• The dark triad traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are seen as clustering together, and the addition of sadism, which is the delight in the unnecessary suffering of others, is seen as a natural consequence of instrumentalizing others and using force to exert power over them (1h33m44s).
• The example of Hitler is given as an illustration of how the use of force and the instrumentalization of others can lead to contempt for those who are ruled, and ultimately to a form of hellish existence (1h34m28s).

The self-devouring ethos of total fairness (1h34m45s)

• The concept of wokeness can be seen as a global war on archetypes, where individuals try to tear down the fabric of spiritual reality or absolute truth to escape feelings of inferiority, rather than addressing their own personal issues (1h34m45s).
• This self-devouring behavior stems from the axis of comparison, where the lesser is demolished, and the attractive beauty standard is seen as an ideal and a harsh judge (1h35m20s).
• In an attempt to subvert these standards, individuals may try to eliminate differences, leading to a degeneration into a society where everyone is equal, but with nothing, as seen in Communist societies (1h36m1s).
• CS Lewis's "Screw Tape Letters" beautifully depicts this concept, describing a totalitarian society where demons coach each other on how to confound God, who loves humanity, which is a concept they cannot understand (1h36m12s).
• The letters reveal that in Hell, love is seen as impossible, and everything expands by consuming what is around it, driven by power and a rapacious desire for more (1h37m7s).
• This concept is echoed in the idea that there is no actual dialogue between people, only a competition for power, and that if power is the only game, then it is foolish not to play and win at all costs (1h37m33s).
• This unconscious motivation underlies the claim that the ruler of the Earthly realm is the spirit of power, leading individuals to believe that if they can, they should, which is a characteristic of the possessed psychopath (1h38m8s).
• This mindset views others as nothing but opportunities for personal gain, making it a dangerous and pathological way of thinking (1h38m30s).
• The concept of hell is described as the deepest, darkest, and most fragmented desires, which constitutes the "Legion of Devils" and is led by Satan, the prince of the world (1h38m39s).
• This idea sets up a choice between operating according to one's most base desires, effectively dissolving oneself into raw material power, or positing the existence of a separate principle from the raw mechanical workings of the material world (1h38m48s).
• The Old and New Testaments are seen as investigations into an alternative to power, which can be summed up as the spirit of voluntary self-sacrifice (1h39m26s).
• The biblical stories are an investigation into what sacrifices best please God, and the right sacrificial pattern, which is the same as the right work (1h39m36s).
• The concept of voluntary self-sacrifice is diametrically opposed to the claim of power, and the crucifixion of God is emblematic of this idea, as God sacrifices himself voluntarily to hoist the future and the community onto his shoulders (1h40m0s).
• A healthy community can only be founded on sacrifice, as seen in the example of loving one's wife, where one gives up everything local to oneself for the relationship (1h40m28s).
• The postmodernist realization, although unconscious, is that Christianity is directly opposed to the postmodernist claim that power rules is the ultimate driving force of the culture war (1h40m46s).

Everything is pointing to an underlying unity (1h41m2s)

• The concept of founding a healthy community is linked to the idea of trusting and believing in something beyond immediate desires, which is a fundamental aspect of human development and cortical maturation (1h41m2s).
• Cortical maturation is the process by which the brain integrates competing impulses and develops the ability to share, engage in reciprocal action, and forego immediate gratification, allowing for the stabilization of the future (1h41m31s).
• This process is not about repressing motivations and emotions, but rather integrating them to create a higher-order unity that provides for those motivational systems in the broadest range of places and across the longest span of time (1h42m2s).
• The establishment of perceptual categories and the building of pathways in the brain enable individuals to do things like look at a glass and understand its purpose, which is a result of proper socialization and maturation (1h42m30s).
• As individuals mature, they become what they practice, and their aim should be to enable the reign of something supreme, which is a concept discussed in the Jacob's letter story (1h43m15s).
• The conversation about various topics, including quantum physics and the Book of Genesis, ultimately comes full circle and highlights the idea that there is an underlying unity to reality that is reflected in both the material and psychological spheres (1h43m28s).
• The most ancient stories of mankind, including the Book of Genesis, provide a template for understanding and interpreting various aspects of reality, and their patterns and themes are reflected in modern discoveries about reality (1h43m39s).
• The idea that there is an underlying unity to reality is supported by the fact that stories from different cultures and time periods share common themes and patterns, which is evidence against the postmodern or enlightenment idea that these stories are mere superstition (1h44m3s).
• There is a psychological analysis of the motivations that drive human actions, and it's essential to understand these motivations to move forward properly (1h44m51s).
• The world is at a crossroads, and it's either going to devolve into a society ruled by the spirit of power, like the Chinese system, or revaluate its wisdom and move forward (1h45m11s).
• The Chinese system is characterized by the all-seeing eye of surveillance everywhere, which is a symbol of a society ruled by the spirit of power (1h45m19s).
• There is a battle between these two opposing forces, but there is reason to be optimistic, and people can pray for a positive outcome (1h45m35s).
• The Tower of Babel story is relevant to this discussion, as it describes a society that is similar to the Chinese system, with a focus on power and control (1h45m50s).
• Despite the apparent darkness, there are signs of a revival or awakening happening in different locations, with individuals like Ivan Illich, Neil Ferguson, and Russell Brand contributing to this movement (1h46m7s).
• This revival is something that many people have been praying for, and it's essential to understand that it must happen organically from the ground up, rather than being imposed from above (1h46m25s).
• It's also important to recognize that you can't force people to adopt a particular way of thinking or being, and that this kind of change must come from within (1h46m33s).