December 12, 2023 • 17 mins
Ready to challenge your own beliefs and biases? What if we told you that being open to unconventional ideas could transform the way you view the universe? In this episode Chris is all about showing you the power of open-mindedness.
Prepare to question everything. This episode invites you to approach novel theories with a blend of curiosity and skepticism, as Chris discusses the role of evidence in bridging the gap between consideration and belief. How the rejection of a theory can sometimes lead to the birth of a groundbreaking one. Remember, every idea, no matter how unconventional, could be a piece in the puzzle of understanding our mysterious universe.
So, prepare to have your mind blown as we embark on this intellectual adventure.
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Twitter: @NotSoDeepShit
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Email: nsdschrisandsteve@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Looks like ya.
Considering something is notthe same as believing something
(00:38):
or buying into something.
I think somewhere along the waythose two have gotten entangled
with each other to the pointwhen, when discussing these
types of issues, anything wherethere is a segment of the
population who has a beliefoutside of the traditional
(01:01):
mainstream, somewhere outside ofthe mainstream opinion on that
matter, how long thecivilization has been around?
Uaps, ghosts, poltergeists,life after death, all of these
questions.
(01:22):
When you start to talk aboutthem, sometimes people want to
shut the conversation down,dismiss it.
They won't even give you aninch, as if them listening and
considering and pondering, evenimagining for a moment.
(01:44):
Hey, what if this were true?
What if this particular theorythat you're presenting, that I'm
not wholeheartedly in on, I'mnot buying 100%, but you know
what?
It's interesting, it soundsinteresting.
Let's talk it out, let's askwhat if?
Let's take it in.
(02:04):
Let's weigh the merits, thepros, the cons.
You know the history of science.
We all know this is full ofrejected theories that later
turned out to be true.
Copernicus being, you know, themost obvious, you know when he
(02:28):
revealed, postulated that youknow, the sun didn't revolve
around the earth, it was theother way around.
And you know, being threatenedand jailed and possibly executed
.
Hey, eventually we all kind oftake that for granted.
Well, some of us germ theorybeing another scientific notion
(02:50):
that at first the idea thatdoctors should wash their hands
before doing any kind ofinvasive surgery, well, that was
considered ridiculous.
What do you think?
Well, I don't know Littlebeings on there that are going
to jump from the doctor's handto the to one of their patients.
A lot of us are probablywashing our hands and using hand
(03:13):
sanitizer more after the lastfew years.
So that's another somethingthat the, that the mainstream,
the quote unquote mainstream ofscience declared turned out not
to be true.
The asteroid 65 million yearsago.
The only time they ever talkabout asteroids in relation to
(03:37):
the earth.
One of the only times is whenthey make a point of saying 65
million years ago, we're prettysure an asteroid hit the earth
and wiped out the dinosaurs, butthere was a long period of time
when that theory was hotlycontested, practically ruined
(03:58):
the careers of the, the original.
The original scientists whopresented this theory Eventually
turned out to be proven viafinding the creator, but hotly
contested, later admitted yeah,we had it wrong.
(04:18):
Whoops.
And lastly, I think, really themost egregious one and most
connected to this topic.
When I was in school we werealways taught that life on earth
Scientifically, the scientistshad more or less figured it out,
life on earth was very rare.
(04:39):
The universe was mostly deadspace, not any other planets out
there.
We were pretty certain we werealone, and everyone sort of Well
, not sort of everyone reallytook comfort in that.
Over the last bunch of yearsthat position has been backed up
(05:01):
a lot, so much so that now theysay well, not only is there the
potential for life Out there,it's probably present in some
way, shape or form in prettymuch every solar system.
And then when you, you know,add up how many solar systems
(05:21):
there are in our galaxy, howmany galaxies there are, at At
that point the idea that we arethe only life in this universe,
how did we ever think that thatmade any sense?
But sure, whatever.
But now we know that's not true.
But it's out there, it's wayout there, it's too far out
there to ever get here.
(05:42):
But that goalpost, thatDistance, keeps shrinking little
by little.
Life is admitted out in theuniverse a little bit closer.
It's not super close.
Yet they still use words liketheorized and maybe impossible,
that there was ever life in thissolar system.
(06:04):
But they're being more and moreforceful, strong,
straightforward and saying hey,this many light years away,
we're pretty sure there's life,and you know.
Obviously they can't get hereeasily, so don't worry about it.
But notice where that linestarted, where it's moved and
(06:28):
where it's moving to.
It's moved a lot just in thelast few years, which is which
is crazy.
Why do some people instinctivelyreject any new theory without
any consideration?
I mean consideration of an idea, of a notion, of a theory.
The consideration of it costsnothing, cost absolutely nothing
(06:50):
.
No one is being asked to Lockin to an opinion, to a verdict.
No one is getting you on therecord Hopefully they're not.
But to be able to consider aoddball theory, even if
initially the theory soundsreally oddball, but it doesn't
(07:11):
cost anything and the gain ispotentially huge, sometimes,
just as, like I said, a thoughtexercise, an intellectual
exercise, thinking throughsomething like that Exercises
your brain in a way that othertypes of logical, rational
thinking Maybe don't.
(07:33):
So if you go down thatspeculative path, sometimes it
it provokes inspiration.
The real point of all this, ofwhat I'm saying here, is we're
just talking here, it's justtalk, relax.
I think it's.
It's impossible possible toReally get to the bottom of some
(07:57):
of these mysteries around uswhen certain avenues of
speculation, just speculation,but certain avenues of
speculation are forbidden.
Certain avenues of speculationare perfectly okay.
Speculation by itself,disconnected from any, you know,
(08:18):
promise of support or action,costs nothing and should be done
.
It's not that difficult torealize.
We do ourselves a disservicewhen we don't, when we don't yet
at least consider something,consider it before rejecting it.
(08:43):
Too often I see the so-calledself-proclaimed debunkers.
They may say skeptics, butdebunkers they just.
Their first instinct is let meshoot holes in it, let me find a
weak point, let me find somedata point that I can offer up
(09:06):
evidence contrary to and thusinvalidate the entire.
Whatever the theory is,whatever it is, whether it's a
UAP sighting or whatever ispresented, but that's not
debunking it.
I see that on Twitter a lotsomebody will post something.
(09:26):
I have zero opinion on most ofthe UAP UFO videos I see on
Twitter.
I am cognizant of the fact thatit is way.
It is way too easy for someonewho is just moderately technical
to produce a really goodlooking fake.
(09:50):
And people with real skills andcomputing power AI specifically
have the ability to create justvery realistic effects.
We've been seeing them in greatCGI movies for years and years.
So no video that I see postedon any outlet Can I ever 100%
(10:18):
say yes, that's true, I can sayit's interesting, but it looks
kind of fake.
I prefer to say huh,interesting, maybe there's some
problems with it, Maybe therearen't, but there's not enough
there to say it's real, notwithout all the metadata.
(10:40):
But again, there's no need to.
We don't need to immediately goto the verdict when someone
proposes a new theory or an oldtheory.
A lot of the things we talkabout they're not new theories.
They've been around forever.
It's just historically.
Historically, these topics havenot been taken seriously by the
(11:04):
media, and the media influenceshow the public reacts.
So the public doesn't generallytake them seriously and I think
that's a mistake.
Again, costs nothing to consideran idea.
There could be great thingsthat come from it.
And we're just talking.
That's what I think I'm goingto call this segment going
(11:27):
forward.
We're just talking here, relax,we're just talking here.
We don't, we're not locking youin.
So when somebody proposes a newidea, why is it almost always
met with immediate resistance?
Wouldn't it be more fun toentertain the idea, even if just
(11:48):
for a moment.
Let your mind wander into therealm of what if?
The joy of I don't knowintellectual curiosity.
But it's about discovery andpossibilities.
It's about taking theinformation, weighing the words
and making your own call, usingour own discernment on the
(12:12):
information.
We seem to be doing that lessand less, if we ever really did
it at all, I don't know.
A little open-mindedness couldhave saved science a lot of time
.
It could have brought progressearlier.
So what makes us instinctivelyreject any kind of new theory?
Is it fear?
Are we afraid that if theexisting paradigm is brought
(12:36):
down, that it puts us on lesssolid footing for our own
personal philosophy, whateverthat is?
Is it just the need for thecomfort of familiar knowledge,
the way some people like to staywhere it's comfortable, don't
ever like to be in unfamiliarterritory?
Is it just because humans canbe egotistical and really don't
(13:02):
want to admit that we might bewrong?
Even if that wrong notion wasthe result of not having all the
information at the time and asnew information is gleaned, new
theories are considered, itdoesn't seem to work that way.
(13:23):
It seems that once an existingparadigm is put into place in
the scientific community.
Broadly speaking, I'm surethere are exceptions, there are
always exceptions.
But once it's placed there it'sreally hard to unseat.
You almost have to wait for theproponents of those entrenched
(13:43):
theories to get old and die.
I think it was said by someonethat that's how progress in
science happens is those who getold and die.
So this closed-mindedness, itnot only delays progress but it
makes the misinformation worse,because if you accept or reject
(14:07):
some sort of notion without anykind of consideration,
contemplation, debate, it's abreeding ground for
misunderstanding.
Let's delve into this idea ofconsidering something.
It's an intellectual workout.
It's where we chase.
Curiosity goes hand in handwith questioning and skepticism,
(14:30):
both of which are vital.
You must be skeptical, you mustquestion, but considering goes
hand in hand with questioningand skepticism.
It's like the very core ofscience.
The cost of consideringsomething is nothing nil, yet
its potential gains aremonumental, huge.
(14:54):
Then we have the tussle betweenbelieving and considering In the
grand theater of ideas.
To believe some is to conform,but to consider is to explore.
But the power ofopen-mindedness in advancing
knowledge, we can'tunderestimate that.
Plate to tonics, that's anotherone, the idea that land masses,
(15:17):
the plates under the earthshifted, causing earthquakes and
continental drift.
That was ridiculous.
Now it's like the main theoryof geology, quantum mechanics,
which is really big right now,that opened new territory and
(15:38):
that had been hotly debated,contested.
So how should we approach newtheories or hypotheses?
How should we?
We can't just buy them and facevalue, but we shouldn't just
reject them outright.
Can we evaluate them critically?
Understanding that evidence isthe magical bridge that's going
(16:01):
to take us from you know.
The evidence is going to takeus from considering to belief.
Eyewitness testimony is notconcrete evidence in and of
itself, but it is evidence.
Eyewitness testimony is notproof of anything, but it is
evidence.
It's a type of evidence.
(16:22):
Yes, sometimes that type ofevidence can be unreliable.
Sometimes it's unreliable.
Sometimes people don't quiteremember what they saw and
convey it properly and memorieschange and all that it's okay to
question.
I mean it's necessary toquestion a new theory.
(16:42):
It is possible to evaluate atheory, a proposition, a
hypothesis, evaluated critically, asked the questions not in an
adversarial manner, but in acurious manner, a way that weigh
it and maybe ultimately rejectit.
It's the pathway to new ideasand I think, no matter how many
(17:04):
times we see it happen, weforget it on the next lesson.
So that's my appeal, you knowapproach unfamiliar ideas, new
theories, the weird things thatSteve and I love to talk about
on this podcast.
Approach them with an open mind.
You can be armed with curiosityand skepticism at the same time
(17:26):
.
But there's no cost.
There's no cost toconsideration.
Consideration is not believing,or to put it another way, we're
just talking here.
Looks like ya.
Considering something is notthe same as believing something
(00:38):
or buying into something.
I think somewhere along the waythose two have gotten entangled
with each other to the pointwhen, when discussing these
types of issues, anything wherethere is a segment of the
population who has a beliefoutside of the traditional
(01:01):
mainstream, somewhere outside ofthe mainstream opinion on that
matter, how long thecivilization has been around?
Uaps, ghosts, poltergeists,life after death, all of these
questions.
(01:22):
When you start to talk aboutthem, sometimes people want to
shut the conversation down,dismiss it.
They won't even give you aninch, as if them listening and
considering and pondering, evenimagining for a moment.
(01:44):
Hey, what if this were true?
What if this particular theorythat you're presenting, that I'm
not wholeheartedly in on, I'mnot buying 100%, but you know
what?
It's interesting, it soundsinteresting.
Let's talk it out, let's askwhat if?
Let's take it in.
(02:04):
Let's weigh the merits, thepros, the cons.
You know the history of science.
We all know this is full ofrejected theories that later
turned out to be true.
Copernicus being, you know, themost obvious, you know when he
(02:28):
revealed, postulated that youknow, the sun didn't revolve
around the earth, it was theother way around.
And you know, being threatenedand jailed and possibly executed
.
Hey, eventually we all kind oftake that for granted.
Well, some of us germ theorybeing another scientific notion
(02:50):
that at first the idea thatdoctors should wash their hands
before doing any kind ofinvasive surgery, well, that was
considered ridiculous.
What do you think?
Well, I don't know Littlebeings on there that are going
to jump from the doctor's handto the to one of their patients.
A lot of us are probablywashing our hands and using hand
(03:13):
sanitizer more after the lastfew years.
So that's another somethingthat the, that the mainstream,
the quote unquote mainstream ofscience declared turned out not
to be true.
The asteroid 65 million yearsago.
The only time they ever talkabout asteroids in relation to
(03:37):
the earth.
One of the only times is whenthey make a point of saying 65
million years ago, we're prettysure an asteroid hit the earth
and wiped out the dinosaurs, butthere was a long period of time
when that theory was hotlycontested, practically ruined
(03:58):
the careers of the, the original.
The original scientists whopresented this theory Eventually
turned out to be proven viafinding the creator, but hotly
contested, later admitted yeah,we had it wrong.
(04:18):
Whoops.
And lastly, I think, really themost egregious one and most
connected to this topic.
When I was in school we werealways taught that life on earth
Scientifically, the scientistshad more or less figured it out,
life on earth was very rare.
(04:39):
The universe was mostly deadspace, not any other planets out
there.
We were pretty certain we werealone, and everyone sort of Well
, not sort of everyone reallytook comfort in that.
Over the last bunch of yearsthat position has been backed up
(05:01):
a lot, so much so that now theysay well, not only is there the
potential for life Out there,it's probably present in some
way, shape or form in prettymuch every solar system.
And then when you, you know,add up how many solar systems
(05:21):
there are in our galaxy, howmany galaxies there are, at At
that point the idea that we arethe only life in this universe,
how did we ever think that thatmade any sense?
But sure, whatever.
But now we know that's not true.
But it's out there, it's wayout there, it's too far out
there to ever get here.
(05:42):
But that goalpost, thatDistance, keeps shrinking little
by little.
Life is admitted out in theuniverse a little bit closer.
It's not super close.
Yet they still use words liketheorized and maybe impossible,
that there was ever life in thissolar system.
(06:04):
But they're being more and moreforceful, strong,
straightforward and saying hey,this many light years away,
we're pretty sure there's life,and you know.
Obviously they can't get hereeasily, so don't worry about it.
But notice where that linestarted, where it's moved and
(06:28):
where it's moving to.
It's moved a lot just in thelast few years, which is which
is crazy.
Why do some people instinctivelyreject any new theory without
any consideration?
I mean consideration of an idea, of a notion, of a theory.
The consideration of it costsnothing, cost absolutely nothing
(06:50):
.
No one is being asked to Lockin to an opinion, to a verdict.
No one is getting you on therecord Hopefully they're not.
But to be able to consider aoddball theory, even if
initially the theory soundsreally oddball, but it doesn't
(07:11):
cost anything and the gain ispotentially huge, sometimes,
just as, like I said, a thoughtexercise, an intellectual
exercise, thinking throughsomething like that Exercises
your brain in a way that othertypes of logical, rational
thinking Maybe don't.
(07:33):
So if you go down thatspeculative path, sometimes it
it provokes inspiration.
The real point of all this, ofwhat I'm saying here, is we're
just talking here, it's justtalk, relax.
I think it's.
It's impossible possible toReally get to the bottom of some
(07:57):
of these mysteries around uswhen certain avenues of
speculation, just speculation,but certain avenues of
speculation are forbidden.
Certain avenues of speculationare perfectly okay.
Speculation by itself,disconnected from any, you know,
(08:18):
promise of support or action,costs nothing and should be done
.
It's not that difficult torealize.
We do ourselves a disservicewhen we don't, when we don't yet
at least consider something,consider it before rejecting it.
(08:43):
Too often I see the so-calledself-proclaimed debunkers.
They may say skeptics, butdebunkers they just.
Their first instinct is let meshoot holes in it, let me find a
weak point, let me find somedata point that I can offer up
(09:06):
evidence contrary to and thusinvalidate the entire.
Whatever the theory is,whatever it is, whether it's a
UAP sighting or whatever ispresented, but that's not
debunking it.
I see that on Twitter a lotsomebody will post something.
(09:26):
I have zero opinion on most ofthe UAP UFO videos I see on
Twitter.
I am cognizant of the fact thatit is way.
It is way too easy for someonewho is just moderately technical
to produce a really goodlooking fake.
(09:50):
And people with real skills andcomputing power AI specifically
have the ability to create justvery realistic effects.
We've been seeing them in greatCGI movies for years and years.
So no video that I see postedon any outlet Can I ever 100%
(10:18):
say yes, that's true, I can sayit's interesting, but it looks
kind of fake.
I prefer to say huh,interesting, maybe there's some
problems with it, Maybe therearen't, but there's not enough
there to say it's real, notwithout all the metadata.
(10:40):
But again, there's no need to.
We don't need to immediately goto the verdict when someone
proposes a new theory or an oldtheory.
A lot of the things we talkabout they're not new theories.
They've been around forever.
It's just historically.
Historically, these topics havenot been taken seriously by the
(11:04):
media, and the media influenceshow the public reacts.
So the public doesn't generallytake them seriously and I think
that's a mistake.
Again, costs nothing to consideran idea.
There could be great thingsthat come from it.
And we're just talking.
That's what I think I'm goingto call this segment going
(11:27):
forward.
We're just talking here, relax,we're just talking here.
We don't, we're not locking youin.
So when somebody proposes a newidea, why is it almost always
met with immediate resistance?
Wouldn't it be more fun toentertain the idea, even if just
(11:48):
for a moment.
Let your mind wander into therealm of what if?
The joy of I don't knowintellectual curiosity.
But it's about discovery andpossibilities.
It's about taking theinformation, weighing the words
and making your own call, usingour own discernment on the
(12:12):
information.
We seem to be doing that lessand less, if we ever really did
it at all, I don't know.
A little open-mindedness couldhave saved science a lot of time
.
It could have brought progressearlier.
So what makes us instinctivelyreject any kind of new theory?
Is it fear?
Are we afraid that if theexisting paradigm is brought
(12:36):
down, that it puts us on lesssolid footing for our own
personal philosophy, whateverthat is?
Is it just the need for thecomfort of familiar knowledge,
the way some people like to staywhere it's comfortable, don't
ever like to be in unfamiliarterritory?
Is it just because humans canbe egotistical and really don't
(13:02):
want to admit that we might bewrong?
Even if that wrong notion wasthe result of not having all the
information at the time and asnew information is gleaned, new
theories are considered, itdoesn't seem to work that way.
(13:23):
It seems that once an existingparadigm is put into place in
the scientific community.
Broadly speaking, I'm surethere are exceptions, there are
always exceptions.
But once it's placed there it'sreally hard to unseat.
You almost have to wait for theproponents of those entrenched
(13:43):
theories to get old and die.
I think it was said by someonethat that's how progress in
science happens is those who getold and die.
So this closed-mindedness, itnot only delays progress but it
makes the misinformation worse,because if you accept or reject
(14:07):
some sort of notion without anykind of consideration,
contemplation, debate, it's abreeding ground for
misunderstanding.
Let's delve into this idea ofconsidering something.
It's an intellectual workout.
It's where we chase.
Curiosity goes hand in handwith questioning and skepticism,
(14:30):
both of which are vital.
You must be skeptical, you mustquestion, but considering goes
hand in hand with questioningand skepticism.
It's like the very core ofscience.
The cost of consideringsomething is nothing nil, yet
its potential gains aremonumental, huge.
(14:54):
Then we have the tussle betweenbelieving and considering In the
grand theater of ideas.
To believe some is to conform,but to consider is to explore.
But the power ofopen-mindedness in advancing
knowledge, we can'tunderestimate that.
Plate to tonics, that's anotherone, the idea that land masses,
(15:17):
the plates under the earthshifted, causing earthquakes and
continental drift.
That was ridiculous.
Now it's like the main theoryof geology, quantum mechanics,
which is really big right now,that opened new territory and
(15:38):
that had been hotly debated,contested.
So how should we approach newtheories or hypotheses?
How should we?
We can't just buy them and facevalue, but we shouldn't just
reject them outright.
Can we evaluate them critically?
Understanding that evidence isthe magical bridge that's going
(16:01):
to take us from you know.
The evidence is going to takeus from considering to belief.
Eyewitness testimony is notconcrete evidence in and of
itself, but it is evidence.
Eyewitness testimony is notproof of anything, but it is
evidence.
It's a type of evidence.
(16:22):
Yes, sometimes that type ofevidence can be unreliable.
Sometimes it's unreliable.
Sometimes people don't quiteremember what they saw and
convey it properly and memorieschange and all that it's okay to
question.
I mean it's necessary toquestion a new theory.
(16:42):
It is possible to evaluate atheory, a proposition, a
hypothesis, evaluated critically, asked the questions not in an
adversarial manner, but in acurious manner, a way that weigh
it and maybe ultimately rejectit.
It's the pathway to new ideasand I think, no matter how many
(17:04):
times we see it happen, weforget it on the next lesson.
So that's my appeal, you knowapproach unfamiliar ideas, new
theories, the weird things thatSteve and I love to talk about
on this podcast.
Approach them with an open mind.
You can be armed with curiosityand skepticism at the same time
(17:26):
.
But there's no cost.
There's no cost toconsideration.
Consideration is not believing,or to put it another way, we're
just talking here.
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