In his book, The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers, award-winning journalist Eric Weiner describes how to live well. He argues that our technologically advanced societies have mistaken knowledge for wisdom. In this episode, we discuss how philosophy affects our every action, whether we recognize it or not. Philosophy allows us to make sense of our lives, to find our place in world, and to see the beauty within it. Listen in to this wonderful conversation about this overlooked art.
Topics:
- Our Wisdom-hungry Society - Mistaking Knowledge for Wisdom.
- How Philosophy Teaches Us How to Live
- The Philosophy of the Modern World
- The Metaverse and Plato
- The Hidden Influence of Philosophy on Our Daily Lives
- Happiness - Ancient Greeks vs Us
- "What books have had an impact on you?"
- "What advice do you have for teenagers?"
Bio:
Eric Weiner is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. His books include The Geography of Bliss, The Geography of Genius, Man Seeks God, and The Socrates Express. His latest book, Ben & Me, will be published by Avid Reader Press in June 2024. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Eric is a former foreign correspondent for NPR, and reporter for The New York Times. He is a regular contributor to The Washington Post, BBC Travel, and AFAR, among other publications. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
In his book the Socrates Express In Search of
Life Lessons from DeadPhilosophers, award-winning
journalist Eric Weiner describeshow to live well.
He argues that the modern worldhas mistaken knowledge for
wisdom.
Knowing a lot of facts aboutlife doesn't mean we know how to
live life.
This is the Aiming for the Moonpodcast and I'm your host,
taylor Bledsoe.
(00:31):
On this podcast, I interviewinteresting people from a
teenage perspective.
In this episode, we discuss howphilosophy affects our every
action, whether we recognize itor not.
If you enjoy this episode,please rate the podcast and
subscribe.
Whether we recognize it or not,if you enjoy this episode,
please rate the podcast andsubscribe.
You can follow us at aimingnumber four moon on all the
socials to stay up to date onpodcast news and episodes.
Check out the episode notes forEric Weiner's full bio.
(00:54):
Links to our website,aimingforthemooncom and our
podcast sub stack.
Lessons from interesting people.
All right, with that, sit back,relax and listen in.
Thanks again to Paxton Page forthis incredible music.
Well, welcome, mr Eric, toAiming for the Moon.
(01:14):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Happy to be here, Taylor.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So you wrote a book called the Socrates Express.
Could you just kind of give thethesis of it to our audience?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
the Socrates Express.
Could you just kind of give thethesis of it to our audience?
The thesis is basically thatwe're all hungry, not for food
per se, but for wisdom, and wereally often confuse wisdom with
knowledge or information.
I mean, I've got a smartphonein my hand right now and with
(01:44):
one swipe I can get access toall of human knowledge, from the
ancient Egyptians up to thefootball scores from yesterday
or whatever it is.
And I think I've come torealize that having more data
and more information doesn'tmean you're living a better life
.
And so I started to think ofwhat are the sources for wisdom
(02:07):
out there?
A big one is religion Somepeople that works.
For other people it doesn't.
Another one is science.
I'm all for science, butscience can't really tell you
what to do with your life andhow to live.
And then it dawned on me thatphilosophy, from the ancient
Greeks onward, is really aboutnot just living the examined
(02:28):
life, but living a good life.
I mean being a good person andbeing happy, in effect.
And so I tried to write a bookabout philosophy that would not
turn people off, that would beaccessible to anyone who has an
interest in leading a betterlife.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So you go through and talk about several different
philosophers.
Could you list some of them?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, I'll tell you how I arranged the book.
So I decided I want eachchapter to be a simple how-to
question.
Not anything fancy like how todo differential calculus which I
cannot do, by the way but howto get out of bed in the morning
, how to wonder, how to walk,how to listen really listen how
(03:12):
to see, how to cope withdifficulties.
So each of the 14 chapters is asimple how-to question, but
it's answered by one of myphilosophers, who I sort of
channel them because they're alldead.
The book is subtitled In Searchof Life Lessons from Dead
Philosophers.
They're dead, I'm not so I tryto give you the essence of how
(03:36):
their philosophy will help youget out of bed in the morning or
see more beauty in the world,or cope with difficulties in
your life, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Because the thing I find interesting is philosophy
while we have this idea of it assuper abstract, super kind of
out there in some of the stuffand it's things you wouldn't
always encounter every day it'sall seemed to be built around.
The purpose of philosophy seemsto be, though, to be built
around making sense of the worldaround us and also encouraging
(04:07):
us in the pursuit of our lives.
You quote someone who ends upsaying, basically, that the
pursuit of philosophy is to makeus okay with dying.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, I would say to make us okay with everything,
the living part too.
But yeah, there's onephilosopher who believed the
purpose of philosophy is toteach you how to die.
I think that was Montaigne.
But really I think heultimately concludes that really
it's to teach you how to liveand death is part of that.
But you're right, it's viewedas this abstract subject.
(04:40):
The comedian Steve Martinmajored in philosophy when he
was in college and he once saidthat you know, whatever else you
major in, whether it's likegeology or physics, you just you
forget it the day you graduate,he said.
But with philosophy, you retainjust enough to mess you up for
the rest of your life.
So there's this feeling that,like that, if you have all these
abstract ideas in your head,you're not going to be able to
(05:02):
put one foot in front of theother.
And that's not philosophy,that's bad philosophy.
Just as there's bad art andgood art, there's bad music and
good music.
There's bad philosophy and goodphilosophy.
And, as you said, I think goodphilosophy helps you A make
sense of the world and, b tofind your place in the world as
well.
And to find, you know, I talkedabout beauty to see the beauty
(05:26):
in the world and to have a senseof awe.
A philosopher really is aseven-year-old, only with a
bigger brain.
So retaining that sense ofwonder about the world that
seven-year-old has, but withsome of the intellectual rigor
that an adult would have.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
It's very interesting .
Some of the most famousphilosophers, such as Plato and
Socrates, would discuss indialogues which is just
questions, and you make thecomparison to little kids who
are just like why, why, why?
That's like Socrates' entiremethod, almost.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yes, he was an annoying five-year-old or
seven-year-old.
You know, when you say we can'thave ice cream for breakfast,
why?
Because sugar's bad for you.
Why?
Well, because you know.
You could go on and on.
And Socrates did somethingsimilar where he would ask
people in the streets of Athens.
He'd go up to someone and say,you know what is courage?
(06:18):
And he wouldn't just chooseanyone, he would choose, like a
general in the army who shouldknow about courage.
Or he'd ask a poet what isbeauty?
And he would just sort ofinterrogate them in a friendly
way but a kind of persistent way, like a five-year-old keep
asking that why or how do weknow that question?
And you know, after like 30minutes the general just had no
(06:38):
idea what courage was.
The poet couldn't define beauty.
And so you know, socrates was,you know, was called the wisest
man in Athens.
The oracle said, and he thoughtwell, I'm not really, I don't
know that much, other peopleknow more than me.
But he concluded maybe he wasthe wisest man in Athens because
at least he knew what he didnot know.
(07:00):
And you know we, you know ourpoliticians, teachers you might
have in school.
If you ask them a question, howoften will they say I don't
know.
I'd like to hear more peoplesay I don't know, and I think we
all might be better off,whether it's in the classroom or
on the campaign trail, whereverwhere people will admit that
(07:22):
they don't know, and that's okayyeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So I'm curious.
You read a bunch aboutphilosophy and different
philosophers over the centuries.
Have you thought about what aremodern world's philosophies,
like the West and America?
Have you identified at all acommon theme of?
Do we think like one of thesephilosophers more than some of
the others, or is it acombination?
Speaker 2 (07:53):
That's a really good question.
No one's asked me that before.
To be honest, the role thatconscious philosophy plays in
our world is not very great,right?
I mean, can you name some rockstar philosophers?
No, but you can name, you know.
You think about Steve Jobs,elon Musk these are names we
know.
And I'm reminded of somethingthat Plato said.
He said what's honored in acountry is cultivated there.
(08:14):
So we don't really honorphilosophy, we honor technology.
So a lot of our philosophy isbound up in technology.
We imbue technology with a lotof power, magical power really.
We think that technology cansolve all problems.
And you know, I'm all fortechnology.
(08:37):
Much of it's great, not all ofit.
But this belief in the power oftechnology to make us happier,
to make us smarter and wiser, Ithink the ancient Greeks, for
instance, would find that veryodd.
They would say, like, whyaren't you working on your
character?
Why aren't you working onbecoming a more ethical person
(08:59):
Instead?
You know, we try to build anapp for whatever it is, and so,
in a way, we've kind ofabdicated our philosophy and
just sort of delegated it to oursmartphones and our Tesla cars,
and so it's kind of aphilosophy of technology, in a
way.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
The other interesting thing is you can see these
parallels to certain Greekphilosophies, such as Plato, and
almost like the good, the ideaof these forms.
And then you see things likethe metaverse, where we have to
go beyond our physical naturesin order to reach, basically,
where we need to go, like theidea of moving our consciousness
into the cloud, and stuff likethat goes beyond, into the good
(09:39):
of the forms.
I mean, that's what it seemssimilar, to me at least.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, and I wonder what Plato would think of Mark
Zuckerberg's metaverse.
Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse?
I don't think he'd be all forit because I don't think we're.
Can you find an ideal versionof love in the metaverse, or of
(10:03):
courage or of beauty?
Probably not, and I think hewould see that.
He played over famously aboutwatching shadows on the wall.
John Lennon used it in a songtoo.
The idea is that we're in thecave and you've only been in the
cave, You've never left.
It's the only world you know,and you see these figures on the
wall and you mistake them forreal figures, real people
walking around.
(10:24):
You don't know their shadowsbecause you don't see the source
of these shadows, these figuresthe light and philosophy.
Plato thought enabled you tosee the light.
I think the metaverse is justmore shadows, more expensive,
fancier shadows, but stillshadows nonetheless.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I mean, you can even think possibly.
So we have this idea in thenormal experience of emotions
and feelings and stuff like that.
We don't know, you might beable to replicate those same
emotions on the metaverse.
But how well can binary numbersinterpret emotions?
And like, if we all, if wemoved your consciousness, for
example, onto the cloud, howwell would that simulate the
(11:08):
same experience as a human?
It's kind of an interestingquestion.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, and the question is also I always think
about it this way With a newtechnology, the question to ask
is not does it work?
The question to ask is whatproblem does it solve?
And I'm not sure what problemthe metaverse solves.
I mean, I guess we've solvedthe problem on this podcast of
distance that you're in LittleRock and I'm in Silver Spring,
(11:32):
maryland, and yet we're able totalk like this.
So it's sort of solved thatproblem.
But, frankly, I'd rather meetin person.
We probably, you know, evenhave a better conversation.
It would feel more real.
Or look at books and Kindles.
I don't know if you're a paperbook person or a Kindle person.
(11:52):
Yeah, which one are you?
I prefer books, yeah so do I,and you look that the e-books
have not replaced books.
In fact, paper books areselling better than e-books, and
that's because the paper bookis a technology too, and it does
some things very well.
And the Kindle comes along andit says well, we've solved this
(12:14):
problem of now you can carry 500books around with you.
Well, maybe that wasn't aproblem I had, maybe I can only
read one or two at a time.
And I think what we're doingnow is philosophy, because we're
looking at these problems andwe're thinking about them
philosophically, we're steppingback, and I mean, that's what
philosophy is.
(12:37):
You can learn the history ofphilosophy, you can learn about
all these philosophers.
I try to give you a taste oftheir quirkiness, their
eccentricities in my book, butthat's not philosophy.
Philosophy is actually doing itand that's not really taught in
school.
They teach the history ofphilosophy, they teach about the
ideas, but, you know, do yousit down and actually
(12:59):
philosophize?
So yeah, unfortunatelyphilosophy has fallen out of
favor, but hopefully it'll enjoya bit of a resurgence.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It's interesting because, as we kind of talked
about before, philosophybasically influences you to do
things that you do every day,such as your first chapter,
getting Out of Bed in theMorning with Marcus Aurelius.
Even if you don't necessarilyrealize it, you have reasons for
things that you do.
You might just say you're goingon your instinct, but those
instincts are based on maybeyour cultural philosophy, maybe
(13:32):
your personal philosophy.
It would seem that a lot of theactions, every action that you
make, is in some way has aphilosophy in its own, whether
you recognize it or not, right?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And we may just do things because we think it's
just the way things are, but myfeeling is, well, it's the way
things are at a particular timeand place in the year 2022 in
Little Rock, arkansas.
It wasn't just the way thingsare in Athens.
It's not the way things arenecessarily in Shanghai, china.
So a lot of it, as you suggest,is cultural, and then we
(14:02):
internalize it and we think it'sjust the way it is.
It's always been this way thatI have to get a job out of
college and make lots of money.
Why?
Again, the five-year-oldquestion why?
Well, so I could be successful.
Well, why do you want to besuccessful?
Well, successful, well.
(14:22):
Why do you want to besuccessful?
Well, so I can buy lots ofthings.
Oh, so why do you want to buylots of things?
And it's really only happiness,and I've written another book
about happiness called theGeography of Bliss.
Happiness is the only thingthat we really want for its own
sake.
We get money to buy things orto take trips because we think
it'll make us happy.
But why do you want to be happy?
That's sort of the end resultand it's funny, the Greeks had a
(14:45):
different word for happiness.
It's eudaimonia is the ancientGreek word, but it meant a lot
more than happiness.
It meant like flourishing, likea full life.
Like our word, happiness reallymeans kind of pleasure and
having fun, and the Greeks sawit as much more than that.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, they seem to have.
Happiness wasn't just pleasure,and the meaning of life wasn't
just pleasure.
It had richness to it, as youwere saying, yeah exactly, and
it was, you know, like todaycould.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
If you ask someone, could you be like a bank robber
and be happy?
And we'd probably say, well,yeah, I guess you could.
But someone like Aristotlewould say no, because if you're
robbing banks, you're stealingfrom people, you're not leading
an ethical life, you cannot behappy.
So it was much more tied intoan ethical existence than it is
today.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well, unfortunately we have to wrap up with our last
two questions.
We ask all of our guests.
The first one is what bookshave had an impact on you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
You know I would say my favorite book is an odd
little book called InvisibleCities by Italo Calvino, and
it's fiction but it's notexactly a novel.
I mean there's no realstoryline.
It is an imaginary Marco Poloexploring the world as he really
(16:03):
did.
But instead of going to realplaces he goes to these 57
imaginary cities and there arecities where all the normal laws
are suspended, like instead ofgoing through air they're going
through dirt, or the day repeatsitself every 24 hours.
So it's a wonderful thoughtexperiment and it's wonderfully
(16:27):
written and it really sparks myimagination.
I dip into that book when I'mstuck in my writing and Italo
Cavino's Invisible Cities.
It's a slim book but it's oneyou just want to keep dipping
into.
I love that one.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
That sounds really fascinating.
I'm definitely going to have tocheck that out.
The next question I have iswhat advice do you have for
teenagers?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Just chill out.
You know my daughter's 17 andshe's, you know, stressing out
about colleges now and I getthat.
But you know, being a teenageris a time to make mistakes, it's
a time to experiment, it's atime to like not know who you
are, what you want to do, andthat's OK.
And so I would say, you know,live with some uncertainty of OK
(17:16):
, you don't know what your exactcareer track is going to be,
what you'll be doing 10 yearsfrom now, and just enjoy that
moment of wonderful uncertainty.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Well, Mr Eric, thank you so much for coming on the
podcast.
I really enjoyed ourconversation about all the
philosophical discussion.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Thank you, Taylor.
One question for you when didyou get the name for your
podcast from?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So we were kind of brainstorming the name behind it
and actually a lot of the ideasthat we had were taken.
So we thought, well, we want tobe shooting for the stars, but
that had been taken.
So I guess what's the nextthing?
Closest to that?
It was the moon, but I kind ofit's shooting for the aiming for
the moon.
So we haven't launched yet, butwe're we're trying to get there
(17:59):
.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
You know the expression.
You know aim for the stars andyou'll land on the moon.
And that's not so bad.
So I like it.
I like it.
It's been a real pleasure.
You asked some excellentquestions really.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Thank you.
In his book the Socrates Express In Search of
Life Lessons from DeadPhilosophers, award-winning
journalist Eric Weiner describeshow to live well.
He argues that the modern worldhas mistaken knowledge for
wisdom.
Knowing a lot of facts aboutlife doesn't mean we know how to
live life.
This is the Aiming for the Moonpodcast and I'm your host,
taylor Bledsoe.
(00:31):
On this podcast, I interviewinteresting people from a
teenage perspective.
In this episode, we discuss howphilosophy affects our every
action, whether we recognize itor not.
If you enjoy this episode,please rate the podcast and
subscribe.
Whether we recognize it or not,if you enjoy this episode,
please rate the podcast andsubscribe.
You can follow us at aimingnumber four moon on all the
socials to stay up to date onpodcast news and episodes.
Check out the episode notes forEric Weiner's full bio.
(00:54):
Links to our website,aimingforthemooncom and our
podcast sub stack.
Lessons from interesting people.
All right, with that, sit back,relax and listen in.
Thanks again to Paxton Page forthis incredible music.
Well, welcome, mr Eric, toAiming for the Moon.
(01:14):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Happy to be here, Taylor.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So you wrote a book called the Socrates Express.
Could you just kind of give thethesis of it to our audience?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
the Socrates Express.
Could you just kind of give thethesis of it to our audience?
The thesis is basically thatwe're all hungry, not for food
per se, but for wisdom, and wereally often confuse wisdom with
knowledge or information.
I mean, I've got a smartphonein my hand right now and with
(01:44):
one swipe I can get access toall of human knowledge, from the
ancient Egyptians up to thefootball scores from yesterday
or whatever it is.
And I think I've come torealize that having more data
and more information doesn'tmean you're living a better life
.
And so I started to think ofwhat are the sources for wisdom
(02:07):
out there?
A big one is religion Somepeople that works.
For other people it doesn't.
Another one is science.
I'm all for science, butscience can't really tell you
what to do with your life andhow to live.
And then it dawned on me thatphilosophy, from the ancient
Greeks onward, is really aboutnot just living the examined
(02:28):
life, but living a good life.
I mean being a good person andbeing happy, in effect.
And so I tried to write a bookabout philosophy that would not
turn people off, that would beaccessible to anyone who has an
interest in leading a betterlife.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So you go through and talk about several different
philosophers.
Could you list some of them?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, I'll tell you how I arranged the book.
So I decided I want eachchapter to be a simple how-to
question.
Not anything fancy like how todo differential calculus which I
cannot do, by the way but howto get out of bed in the morning
, how to wonder, how to walk,how to listen really listen how
(03:12):
to see, how to cope withdifficulties.
So each of the 14 chapters is asimple how-to question, but
it's answered by one of myphilosophers, who I sort of
channel them because they're alldead.
The book is subtitled In Searchof Life Lessons from Dead
Philosophers.
They're dead, I'm not so I tryto give you the essence of how
(03:36):
their philosophy will help youget out of bed in the morning or
see more beauty in the world,or cope with difficulties in
your life, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Because the thing I find interesting is philosophy
while we have this idea of it assuper abstract, super kind of
out there in some of the stuffand it's things you wouldn't
always encounter every day it'sall seemed to be built around.
The purpose of philosophy seemsto be, though, to be built
around making sense of the worldaround us and also encouraging
(04:07):
us in the pursuit of our lives.
You quote someone who ends upsaying, basically, that the
pursuit of philosophy is to makeus okay with dying.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, I would say to make us okay with everything,
the living part too.
But yeah, there's onephilosopher who believed the
purpose of philosophy is toteach you how to die.
I think that was Montaigne.
But really I think heultimately concludes that really
it's to teach you how to liveand death is part of that.
But you're right, it's viewedas this abstract subject.
(04:40):
The comedian Steve Martinmajored in philosophy when he
was in college and he once saidthat you know, whatever else you
major in, whether it's likegeology or physics, you just you
forget it the day you graduate,he said.
But with philosophy, you retainjust enough to mess you up for
the rest of your life.
So there's this feeling that,like that, if you have all these
abstract ideas in your head,you're not going to be able to
(05:02):
put one foot in front of theother.
And that's not philosophy,that's bad philosophy.
Just as there's bad art andgood art, there's bad music and
good music.
There's bad philosophy and goodphilosophy.
And, as you said, I think goodphilosophy helps you A make
sense of the world and, b tofind your place in the world as
well.
And to find, you know, I talkedabout beauty to see the beauty
(05:26):
in the world and to have a senseof awe.
A philosopher really is aseven-year-old, only with a
bigger brain.
So retaining that sense ofwonder about the world that
seven-year-old has, but withsome of the intellectual rigor
that an adult would have.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
It's very interesting .
Some of the most famousphilosophers, such as Plato and
Socrates, would discuss indialogues which is just
questions, and you make thecomparison to little kids who
are just like why, why, why?
That's like Socrates' entiremethod, almost.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yes, he was an annoying five-year-old or
seven-year-old.
You know, when you say we can'thave ice cream for breakfast,
why?
Because sugar's bad for you.
Why?
Well, because you know.
You could go on and on.
And Socrates did somethingsimilar where he would ask
people in the streets of Athens.
He'd go up to someone and say,you know what is courage?
(06:18):
And he wouldn't just chooseanyone, he would choose, like a
general in the army who shouldknow about courage.
Or he'd ask a poet what isbeauty?
And he would just sort ofinterrogate them in a friendly
way but a kind of persistent way, like a five-year-old keep
asking that why or how do weknow that question?
And you know, after like 30minutes the general just had no
(06:38):
idea what courage was.
The poet couldn't define beauty.
And so you know, socrates was,you know, was called the wisest
man in Athens.
The oracle said, and he thoughtwell, I'm not really, I don't
know that much, other peopleknow more than me.
But he concluded maybe he wasthe wisest man in Athens because
at least he knew what he didnot know.
(07:00):
And you know we, you know ourpoliticians, teachers you might
have in school.
If you ask them a question, howoften will they say I don't
know.
I'd like to hear more peoplesay I don't know, and I think we
all might be better off,whether it's in the classroom or
on the campaign trail, whereverwhere people will admit that
(07:22):
they don't know, and that's okayyeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So I'm curious.
You read a bunch aboutphilosophy and different
philosophers over the centuries.
Have you thought about what aremodern world's philosophies,
like the West and America?
Have you identified at all acommon theme of?
Do we think like one of thesephilosophers more than some of
the others, or is it acombination?
Speaker 2 (07:53):
That's a really good question.
No one's asked me that before.
To be honest, the role thatconscious philosophy plays in
our world is not very great,right?
I mean, can you name some rockstar philosophers?
No, but you can name, you know.
You think about Steve Jobs,elon Musk these are names we
know.
And I'm reminded of somethingthat Plato said.
He said what's honored in acountry is cultivated there.
(08:14):
So we don't really honorphilosophy, we honor technology.
So a lot of our philosophy isbound up in technology.
We imbue technology with a lotof power, magical power really.
We think that technology cansolve all problems.
And you know, I'm all fortechnology.
(08:37):
Much of it's great, not all ofit.
But this belief in the power oftechnology to make us happier,
to make us smarter and wiser, Ithink the ancient Greeks, for
instance, would find that veryodd.
They would say, like, whyaren't you working on your
character?
Why aren't you working onbecoming a more ethical person
(08:59):
Instead?
You know, we try to build anapp for whatever it is, and so,
in a way, we've kind ofabdicated our philosophy and
just sort of delegated it to oursmartphones and our Tesla cars,
and so it's kind of aphilosophy of technology, in a
way.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
The other interesting thing is you can see these
parallels to certain Greekphilosophies, such as Plato, and
almost like the good, the ideaof these forms.
And then you see things likethe metaverse, where we have to
go beyond our physical naturesin order to reach, basically,
where we need to go, like theidea of moving our consciousness
into the cloud, and stuff likethat goes beyond, into the good
(09:39):
of the forms.
I mean, that's what it seemssimilar, to me at least.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, and I wonder what Plato would think of Mark
Zuckerberg's metaverse.
Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse?
I don't think he'd be all forit because I don't think we're.
Can you find an ideal versionof love in the metaverse, or of
(10:03):
courage or of beauty?
Probably not, and I think hewould see that.
He played over famously aboutwatching shadows on the wall.
John Lennon used it in a songtoo.
The idea is that we're in thecave and you've only been in the
cave, You've never left.
It's the only world you know,and you see these figures on the
wall and you mistake them forreal figures, real people
walking around.
(10:24):
You don't know their shadowsbecause you don't see the source
of these shadows, these figuresthe light and philosophy.
Plato thought enabled you tosee the light.
I think the metaverse is justmore shadows, more expensive,
fancier shadows, but stillshadows nonetheless.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I mean, you can even think possibly.
So we have this idea in thenormal experience of emotions
and feelings and stuff like that.
We don't know, you might beable to replicate those same
emotions on the metaverse.
But how well can binary numbersinterpret emotions?
And like, if we all, if wemoved your consciousness, for
example, onto the cloud, howwell would that simulate the
(11:08):
same experience as a human?
It's kind of an interestingquestion.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, and the question is also I always think
about it this way With a newtechnology, the question to ask
is not does it work?
The question to ask is whatproblem does it solve?
And I'm not sure what problemthe metaverse solves.
I mean, I guess we've solvedthe problem on this podcast of
distance that you're in LittleRock and I'm in Silver Spring,
(11:32):
maryland, and yet we're able totalk like this.
So it's sort of solved thatproblem.
But, frankly, I'd rather meetin person.
We probably, you know, evenhave a better conversation.
It would feel more real.
Or look at books and Kindles.
I don't know if you're a paperbook person or a Kindle person.
(11:52):
Yeah, which one are you?
I prefer books, yeah so do I,and you look that the e-books
have not replaced books.
In fact, paper books areselling better than e-books, and
that's because the paper bookis a technology too, and it does
some things very well.
And the Kindle comes along andit says well, we've solved this
(12:14):
problem of now you can carry 500books around with you.
Well, maybe that wasn't aproblem I had, maybe I can only
read one or two at a time.
And I think what we're doingnow is philosophy, because we're
looking at these problems andwe're thinking about them
philosophically, we're steppingback, and I mean, that's what
philosophy is.
(12:37):
You can learn the history ofphilosophy, you can learn about
all these philosophers.
I try to give you a taste oftheir quirkiness, their
eccentricities in my book, butthat's not philosophy.
Philosophy is actually doing itand that's not really taught in
school.
They teach the history ofphilosophy, they teach about the
ideas, but, you know, do yousit down and actually
(12:59):
philosophize?
So yeah, unfortunatelyphilosophy has fallen out of
favor, but hopefully it'll enjoya bit of a resurgence.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It's interesting because, as we kind of talked
about before, philosophybasically influences you to do
things that you do every day,such as your first chapter,
getting Out of Bed in theMorning with Marcus Aurelius.
Even if you don't necessarilyrealize it, you have reasons for
things that you do.
You might just say you're goingon your instinct, but those
instincts are based on maybeyour cultural philosophy, maybe
(13:32):
your personal philosophy.
It would seem that a lot of theactions, every action that you
make, is in some way has aphilosophy in its own, whether
you recognize it or not, right?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And we may just do things because we think it's
just the way things are, but myfeeling is, well, it's the way
things are at a particular timeand place in the year 2022 in
Little Rock, arkansas.
It wasn't just the way thingsare in Athens.
It's not the way things arenecessarily in Shanghai, china.
So a lot of it, as you suggest,is cultural, and then we
(14:02):
internalize it and we think it'sjust the way it is.
It's always been this way thatI have to get a job out of
college and make lots of money.
Why?
Again, the five-year-oldquestion why?
Well, so I could be successful.
Well, why do you want to besuccessful?
Well, successful, well.
(14:22):
Why do you want to besuccessful?
Well, so I can buy lots ofthings.
Oh, so why do you want to buylots of things?
And it's really only happiness,and I've written another book
about happiness called theGeography of Bliss.
Happiness is the only thingthat we really want for its own
sake.
We get money to buy things orto take trips because we think
it'll make us happy.
But why do you want to be happy?
That's sort of the end resultand it's funny, the Greeks had a
(14:45):
different word for happiness.
It's eudaimonia is the ancientGreek word, but it meant a lot
more than happiness.
It meant like flourishing, likea full life.
Like our word, happiness reallymeans kind of pleasure and
having fun, and the Greeks sawit as much more than that.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, they seem to have.
Happiness wasn't just pleasure,and the meaning of life wasn't
just pleasure.
It had richness to it, as youwere saying, yeah exactly, and
it was, you know, like todaycould.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
If you ask someone, could you be like a bank robber
and be happy?
And we'd probably say, well,yeah, I guess you could.
But someone like Aristotlewould say no, because if you're
robbing banks, you're stealingfrom people, you're not leading
an ethical life, you cannot behappy.
So it was much more tied intoan ethical existence than it is
today.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well, unfortunately we have to wrap up with our last
two questions.
We ask all of our guests.
The first one is what bookshave had an impact on you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
You know I would say my favorite book is an odd
little book called InvisibleCities by Italo Calvino, and
it's fiction but it's notexactly a novel.
I mean there's no realstoryline.
It is an imaginary Marco Poloexploring the world as he really
(16:03):
did.
But instead of going to realplaces he goes to these 57
imaginary cities and there arecities where all the normal laws
are suspended, like instead ofgoing through air they're going
through dirt, or the day repeatsitself every 24 hours.
So it's a wonderful thoughtexperiment and it's wonderfully
(16:27):
written and it really sparks myimagination.
I dip into that book when I'mstuck in my writing and Italo
Cavino's Invisible Cities.
It's a slim book but it's oneyou just want to keep dipping
into.
I love that one.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
That sounds really fascinating.
I'm definitely going to have tocheck that out.
The next question I have iswhat advice do you have for
teenagers?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Just chill out.
You know my daughter's 17 andshe's, you know, stressing out
about colleges now and I getthat.
But you know, being a teenageris a time to make mistakes, it's
a time to experiment, it's atime to like not know who you
are, what you want to do, andthat's OK.
And so I would say, you know,live with some uncertainty of OK
(17:16):
, you don't know what your exactcareer track is going to be,
what you'll be doing 10 yearsfrom now, and just enjoy that
moment of wonderful uncertainty.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Well, Mr Eric, thank you so much for coming on the
podcast.
I really enjoyed ourconversation about all the
philosophical discussion.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Thank you, Taylor.
One question for you when didyou get the name for your
podcast from?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So we were kind of brainstorming the name behind it
and actually a lot of the ideasthat we had were taken.
So we thought, well, we want tobe shooting for the stars, but
that had been taken.
So I guess what's the nextthing?
Closest to that?
It was the moon, but I kind ofit's shooting for the aiming for
the moon.
So we haven't launched yet, butwe're we're trying to get there
(17:59):
.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
You know the expression.
You know aim for the stars andyou'll land on the moon.
And that's not so bad.
So I like it.
I like it.
It's been a real pleasure.
You asked some excellentquestions really.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Thank you.
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