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David Eagleman (David Eagleman) interviews Rebecca Newberger Goldstein about her new book: The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: We talk about what matters, and we talk about who matters. And I think its core meaning, deep down, is to be... deserving of attention. David Eagleman: And you argue that this longing to matter is the crux of human motivation. What makes you feel that this longing to matter is more important than the pursuit of pleasure, or truth, or survival? Goldstein: Yeah, I mean, many of us pursue our mattering by hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, of truth, of knowledge, of beauty, of creativity, of power, of fame. But beneath all of these things is this more basic motivation: to prove that we are deserving of all of the attention that we have to give ourselves in order to live a coherently human life. It’s even more powerful than the longing to live, to survive. People will sacrifice their lives if they think that that’s what’s required in order to realize their mattering instinct—or in the very tragic cases where they think they can’t, which is clinically known as depression.show more

Steven Pinker

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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) is interviewed by David Eagleman (David Eagleman) about her new book: The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us Goldstein: We evolve this capacity for self-reflection, and that’s what brings us up into this other sphere—the sphere of values. It’s not enough to just survive and flourish like the other creatures on Earth. We have to justify to ourselves our right to survive and flourish. Eagleman: So, Rebecca, if a listener felt that his or her life didn’t really matter to themselves or to other people, what would you say to them after having written this book? Goldstein: We really do all matter. I think that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about the intrinsic dignity of the human. So people really do need some kind of battery project. Whether they collapse it into their need for connectedness, or they have such a temperament that they need other things, I think that they should, first of all, you know, really think about what it is that would make them feel that they mattered. Is it closer connections with others? Might be. Is it some sort of creative outlet? Might be. Maybe it’s spirituality. It’s hard to be human.

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) is interviewed by David Eagleman (David Eagleman) about her new book: The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us Goldstein: We evolve this capacity for self-reflection, and that’s what brings us up into this other sphere—the sphere of values. It’s not enough to just survive and flourish like the other creatures on Earth. We have to justify to ourselves our right to survive and flourish. Eagleman: So, Rebecca, if a listener felt that his or her life didn’t really matter to themselves or to other people, what would you say to them after having written this book? Goldstein: We really do all matter. I think that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about the intrinsic dignity of the human. So people really do need some kind of battery project. Whether they collapse it into their need for connectedness, or they have such a temperament that they need other things, I think that they should, first of all, you know, really think about what it is that would make them feel that they mattered. Is it closer connections with others? Might be. Is it some sort of creative outlet? Might be. Maybe it’s spirituality. It’s hard to be human.

Steven Pinker

17,505 views • 5 months ago

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein discusses the "Mattering Instinct," the topic and title of her new book, with Armen Shirvanian (Armen). Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein): In this mattering instinct, I’m talking about something else, and it’s ultimately to prove to ourselves in our own lives that we’re living a meaningful life. This is where the notions of meaningfulness and existential crisis and the absurd, and all of these kind of more philosophical ideas, come into play in the kind of mattering that I’m talking about. This mattering comes to us by way of our capacity for self-reflection, when we can step outside of ourselves and think, gee, I spend an awful lot of time paying attention to myself. I automatically feel I’m deserving of my own attention. I automatically feel that I matter. But do I really? That is a very human question, and only we ask it. And that gives rise to the kind of longing to matter that I discuss in the book. It’s different from social mattering, although intertwined with it. They affect each other very much. Full episode:

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein discusses the "Mattering Instinct," the topic and title of her new book, with Armen Shirvanian (Armen). Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein): In this mattering instinct, I’m talking about something else, and it’s ultimately to prove to ourselves in our own lives that we’re living a meaningful life. This is where the notions of meaningfulness and existential crisis and the absurd, and all of these kind of more philosophical ideas, come into play in the kind of mattering that I’m talking about. This mattering comes to us by way of our capacity for self-reflection, when we can step outside of ourselves and think, gee, I spend an awful lot of time paying attention to myself. I automatically feel I’m deserving of my own attention. I automatically feel that I matter. But do I really? That is a very human question, and only we ask it. And that gives rise to the kind of longing to matter that I discuss in the book. It’s different from social mattering, although intertwined with it. They affect each other very much. Full episode:

Steven Pinker

36,560 views • 4 months ago

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein spoke with David Eagleman (David Eagleman) about her new book: The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us Goldstein: Our brains, I don’t have to tell you, are the most complicated thing that has been found yet in this universe. They are extremely complicated. They demand a tremendous amount of water. And so, of course, we pay ourselves a tremendous amount of attention. And you’re thinking about yourself. You’re fantasizing, you’re daydreaming about yourself. You’re remembering with nostalgia. It’s—we are self-centered. And we have to be. It’s biologically determined. But, as I said, we have this capacity for self-reflection. We can step outside of it. And that’s when we become these justificatory creatures. I say, instead of being called Homo sapiens, we should be called Homo justificans, the justifying creatures. That’s what’s really different about us, you know? And it’s not our gregariousness. Other animals are also gregarious. Other animals need deep connections, but everything’s more complicated in us. Not even bonobos, those wonderful cousins of ours—they don’t step outside of themselves and have to justify their way of life, say, “Why am I worth all of this?” We evolve this capacity for self-reflection. That’s what brings us up into this other sphere, the sphere of values. It’s not enough to just survive and flourish like the other creatures on Earth. We have to justify to ourselves our right to survive and flourish. Full podcast:

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein spoke with David Eagleman (David Eagleman) about her new book: The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us Goldstein: Our brains, I don’t have to tell you, are the most complicated thing that has been found yet in this universe. They are extremely complicated. They demand a tremendous amount of water. And so, of course, we pay ourselves a tremendous amount of attention. And you’re thinking about yourself. You’re fantasizing, you’re daydreaming about yourself. You’re remembering with nostalgia. It’s—we are self-centered. And we have to be. It’s biologically determined. But, as I said, we have this capacity for self-reflection. We can step outside of it. And that’s when we become these justificatory creatures. I say, instead of being called Homo sapiens, we should be called Homo justificans, the justifying creatures. That’s what’s really different about us, you know? And it’s not our gregariousness. Other animals are also gregarious. Other animals need deep connections, but everything’s more complicated in us. Not even bonobos, those wonderful cousins of ours—they don’t step outside of themselves and have to justify their way of life, say, “Why am I worth all of this?” We evolve this capacity for self-reflection. That’s what brings us up into this other sphere, the sphere of values. It’s not enough to just survive and flourish like the other creatures on Earth. We have to justify to ourselves our right to survive and flourish. Full podcast:

Steven Pinker

25,738 views • 5 months ago

Brian Keating (Prof. Brian Keating) and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) discuss "The Physics of Mattering: Do AI Agents Have a Soul" Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: God forbid if these AI agents begin to have a longing to matter, we have our non-carbon-based humans. We’re going to have to think about their rights. Brian Keating: She is a philosopher who trained in physics, and she just told me that AI might deserve human rights. Here is her argument. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The other obsession with this verb “matter,” that we are creatures of matter who long to matter — you can only say that in English. But I’m so glad you could say that in English because it’s, again, incredibly poignant. We’re creatures of matter who are subject to the laws of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, but we long to matter. And so much of the book is trying to explain that, how that transformation within us, within our species, happens. That’s a normative transformation, an ethical transformation, and it’s really what distinguishes us: that we, in some sense, want to justify the fact that we matter so much to ourselves, that we pay so much attention to ourselves. We actually can pinpoint the place in human history where this emerged, during the period when all the religions emerged that are still extant, which is so interesting. Also, Western philosophy emerged during the period of history that’s called the Axial Age. Brian Keating: I do think things have changed for the better, as far as, you know, paternity leave. I’ve taken advantage of that. But I guess the ultimate expression — and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it — I mean, I think that women sacrifice a lot more. I think also we have a crisis with men and boys and so forth, and now you have grandsons, and you can appreciate it. You probably appreciated this even before you had daughters. But the book is full of these things ranging, as you said, from Aristotle to the Chinese one-child policy that you talk about at the end of the book. It’s heart-wrenching, Rebecca. But I guess, as we come in for a landing, the fear that a lot of people have nowadays is about artificial intelligence replacing what we derive our sense of mattering from. And you quote Freud in the book. Freud said all of life is work and love. And if AI can replace the work of knowledge workers like you and me, and it can replace the love because of things like Character AI and all these artificial relationships that don’t require me to go out and ask a woman on a date — or nowadays, for men — I want to ask you the question: can AI have a mattering instinct, or is it encoded in this wet supercomputer that we carry on our shoulders? Is it possible that AI is making everyone feel that redundancy is threatening to us? Will AI rob us of our mattering? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Yeah, so there are two different questions there. One is really, I think, already upon us, maybe already here: that some of the most creative ways of appeasing our mattering instinct will be superseded by what AI can do. It can prove math theorems faster, make discoveries in science, write novels, write music, paint pictures. Some of the most creative things that have led to flourishing and led to great achievements that we can all take pride in. I take great pride in our species producing Bach and Shakespeare and Michael Jordan — I’m a big basketball fan. I mean, we mere mortals, and look what we can do. But they’ll be able to do it better. I think this is going to be a real problem. Here’s one thing I would say: heroic strivers — what I call heroic strivers — it’s really going to threaten them. I think the socializers are going to look to AI to some extent, maybe for romantic partners. But mothers are not going to have little AI agents acting like their babies. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But I think heroic strivers are going to be severely threatened. Well, one thing I can say is that one of the ways to be a heroic striver is ethically. And that will still remain to us: these ethical projects of trying to minister to others, to other creatures, to the planet itself. AI will not be able to do that. They can write our novels or our poetry or our music or improve our math theorems, but they’re not going to be able to do that for us. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful turn of events if somehow there were an incredible ethical transformation and that’s how we got our status — from how much good we’re actually doing in the world, how much counter-entropic good we’re doing in the world? This is a big thing that’s upon us, is all I can say. I can’t think of anything else — not the Industrial Revolution, not the Enlightenment — that has the possibility of so changing what we are and what we see our lives as being about as AI. Brian Keating: Even the very name of our species — Homo habilis meant “toolmaker” or “handyman.” Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Yeah. Brian Keating: And Homo sapiens means “man who knows,” right? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Exactly, exactly. We’re not the only things that know. And your other question: God forbid if these AI agents begin to have a longing to matter, wanting to justify their own existence — it would take self-reflection of the sort that we have, being able to step outside themselves and say, “Oh my God, I pay so much attention to myself. Am I worth it? Do I deserve this?” If they do this, then what we have are non-carbon-based humans. These will be humans. And that means we’re going to have to think about their rights, and we’re going to have to have a whole new way of thinking about ethics, because we will have created humans in a new way. So this is big. This is so big. I’ll tell you something: I think this is the moment for philosophers, because these are philosophical problems. Philosophers have been at it for over 2,000 years since the ancient Greeks. So show us what you’ve got, philosophers. You’ve been thinking about this for 2,000 years. Show us what you’ve got. Brian Keating: It’s amazing. You take some matter and shoot some electrons through it, and suddenly you start wondering: is it okay to turn it off? Can I turn off my chat companion? Is it okay to have it answer questions on ethics for my children? Rebecca, this has been such a wonderful conversation. This book is incredible. It reminds me of a famous quote by John Archibald Wheeler. Wheeler said, “Matter tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells matter how to move.” And this book, The Mattering Instinct, was one of the most moving books to me.

Brian Keating (Prof. Brian Keating) and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) discuss "The Physics of Mattering: Do AI Agents Have a Soul" Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: God forbid if these AI agents begin to have a longing to matter, we have our non-carbon-based humans. We’re going to have to think about their rights. Brian Keating: She is a philosopher who trained in physics, and she just told me that AI might deserve human rights. Here is her argument. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The other obsession with this verb “matter,” that we are creatures of matter who long to matter — you can only say that in English. But I’m so glad you could say that in English because it’s, again, incredibly poignant. We’re creatures of matter who are subject to the laws of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, but we long to matter. And so much of the book is trying to explain that, how that transformation within us, within our species, happens. That’s a normative transformation, an ethical transformation, and it’s really what distinguishes us: that we, in some sense, want to justify the fact that we matter so much to ourselves, that we pay so much attention to ourselves. We actually can pinpoint the place in human history where this emerged, during the period when all the religions emerged that are still extant, which is so interesting. Also, Western philosophy emerged during the period of history that’s called the Axial Age. Brian Keating: I do think things have changed for the better, as far as, you know, paternity leave. I’ve taken advantage of that. But I guess the ultimate expression — and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it — I mean, I think that women sacrifice a lot more. I think also we have a crisis with men and boys and so forth, and now you have grandsons, and you can appreciate it. You probably appreciated this even before you had daughters. But the book is full of these things ranging, as you said, from Aristotle to the Chinese one-child policy that you talk about at the end of the book. It’s heart-wrenching, Rebecca. But I guess, as we come in for a landing, the fear that a lot of people have nowadays is about artificial intelligence replacing what we derive our sense of mattering from. And you quote Freud in the book. Freud said all of life is work and love. And if AI can replace the work of knowledge workers like you and me, and it can replace the love because of things like Character AI and all these artificial relationships that don’t require me to go out and ask a woman on a date — or nowadays, for men — I want to ask you the question: can AI have a mattering instinct, or is it encoded in this wet supercomputer that we carry on our shoulders? Is it possible that AI is making everyone feel that redundancy is threatening to us? Will AI rob us of our mattering? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Yeah, so there are two different questions there. One is really, I think, already upon us, maybe already here: that some of the most creative ways of appeasing our mattering instinct will be superseded by what AI can do. It can prove math theorems faster, make discoveries in science, write novels, write music, paint pictures. Some of the most creative things that have led to flourishing and led to great achievements that we can all take pride in. I take great pride in our species producing Bach and Shakespeare and Michael Jordan — I’m a big basketball fan. I mean, we mere mortals, and look what we can do. But they’ll be able to do it better. I think this is going to be a real problem. Here’s one thing I would say: heroic strivers — what I call heroic strivers — it’s really going to threaten them. I think the socializers are going to look to AI to some extent, maybe for romantic partners. But mothers are not going to have little AI agents acting like their babies. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But I think heroic strivers are going to be severely threatened. Well, one thing I can say is that one of the ways to be a heroic striver is ethically. And that will still remain to us: these ethical projects of trying to minister to others, to other creatures, to the planet itself. AI will not be able to do that. They can write our novels or our poetry or our music or improve our math theorems, but they’re not going to be able to do that for us. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful turn of events if somehow there were an incredible ethical transformation and that’s how we got our status — from how much good we’re actually doing in the world, how much counter-entropic good we’re doing in the world? This is a big thing that’s upon us, is all I can say. I can’t think of anything else — not the Industrial Revolution, not the Enlightenment — that has the possibility of so changing what we are and what we see our lives as being about as AI. Brian Keating: Even the very name of our species — Homo habilis meant “toolmaker” or “handyman.” Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Yeah. Brian Keating: And Homo sapiens means “man who knows,” right? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Exactly, exactly. We’re not the only things that know. And your other question: God forbid if these AI agents begin to have a longing to matter, wanting to justify their own existence — it would take self-reflection of the sort that we have, being able to step outside themselves and say, “Oh my God, I pay so much attention to myself. Am I worth it? Do I deserve this?” If they do this, then what we have are non-carbon-based humans. These will be humans. And that means we’re going to have to think about their rights, and we’re going to have to have a whole new way of thinking about ethics, because we will have created humans in a new way. So this is big. This is so big. I’ll tell you something: I think this is the moment for philosophers, because these are philosophical problems. Philosophers have been at it for over 2,000 years since the ancient Greeks. So show us what you’ve got, philosophers. You’ve been thinking about this for 2,000 years. Show us what you’ve got. Brian Keating: It’s amazing. You take some matter and shoot some electrons through it, and suddenly you start wondering: is it okay to turn it off? Can I turn off my chat companion? Is it okay to have it answer questions on ethics for my children? Rebecca, this has been such a wonderful conversation. This book is incredible. It reminds me of a famous quote by John Archibald Wheeler. Wheeler said, “Matter tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells matter how to move.” And this book, The Mattering Instinct, was one of the most moving books to me.

Steven Pinker

51,961 views • 1 month ago

Why does *mattering* matter to us? Join me on Inner Cosmos this week with philosopher Rebecca Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) to discuss her new book "The Mattering Instinct" #brain

Why does mattering matter to us? Join me on Inner Cosmos this week with philosopher Rebecca Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) to discuss her new book "The Mattering Instinct" #brain

David Eagleman

12,510 views • 5 months ago

David Eagleman (David Eagleman): When I was younger, one of the great mentors I got to work with was Francis Crick, who had won the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA. As you may know, in the second half of Crick’s career, he turned from studying genetics to studying the brain—and specifically the question of how the physical stuff of the brain gives rise to consciousness. Now, Crick had a chalkboard that was full of ideas and equations, but the most striking thing to me was that right in the middle of the board, outlined in a big, thick rectangle, was a single word. And this word represented to him one of the central mysteries of biology. The word was meaning. In other words, he had a better understanding than most people on the planet of the vast and intricate biology that makes up the human brain, but he recognized that one of the key questions was: why does anything matter to your brain? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein)-- author of the new book The Mattering Instinct--tackles this very question and more:

David Eagleman (David Eagleman): When I was younger, one of the great mentors I got to work with was Francis Crick, who had won the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA. As you may know, in the second half of Crick’s career, he turned from studying genetics to studying the brain—and specifically the question of how the physical stuff of the brain gives rise to consciousness. Now, Crick had a chalkboard that was full of ideas and equations, but the most striking thing to me was that right in the middle of the board, outlined in a big, thick rectangle, was a single word. And this word represented to him one of the central mysteries of biology. The word was meaning. In other words, he had a better understanding than most people on the planet of the vast and intricate biology that makes up the human brain, but he recognized that one of the key questions was: why does anything matter to your brain? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein)-- author of the new book The Mattering Instinct--tackles this very question and more:

Steven Pinker

27,860 views • 5 months ago

Brian Keating (Prof. Brian Keating) and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) discuss "The Law of Physics Behind Depression." Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The thing that suicidally depressed people feel is that they don’t matter; others do, they don’t. Nothing they can do will ever make them matter. It’s a terrible, terrible feeling. And what this means is they cannot abide their own presence. Brian Keating: What if there is a law of physics that explains why depression feels the way it does? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: When I first learned about the second law of thermodynamics, it seemed—I couldn’t quite conceptualize it. We are subject to the second law of thermodynamics, which, you know, has a tragic dimension. In fact, when I was a graduate student, it occurred to me, oh my gosh, biological systems are really just organized to resist the second law of thermodynamics. In some sense, biology is a response to this supreme law that tells us that, in closed systems, energy never increases; entropy never decreases. Entropy never decreases, and if there’s any way for it to increase, it will. Entropy is the measure of the disorder of a system. The more disorder, the higher the entropy, and the less efficient the work you can get out at the end of the system. And in fact, Rudolf Clausius, the physicist, said that the universe itself will go to thermal equilibrium—what we call the heat death—and so there will be no more energy to be gotten out of it at the end of the system. Rudolf Clausius, the 19th-century physicist who formulated the concept of entropy, which means literally “transformation from within”—there’s poignancy in that. This transformation from within is going to the end of the system. And he said that the universe itself will go to thermal equilibrium, to what we call the heat death, and so there will be no more energy to be gotten out of it. Brian Keating: So let’s start with that story you tell first about Ludwig Boltzmann, who solved one of the great paradoxes of physics, the irreversibility paradox. Talk about that. And then why, in your mind, was he so traumatized, perhaps, or so full of dread of his equation that he took his own life? So talk about that. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: So there was this great paradox, which is that most—probably most—of the processes that we observe are irreversible. If you film them—and tell me if I’m being too elementary, because I’m going to be very—you know, if you film them, like let’s say I crack open an egg and I stir it up and then I fry it, and somebody filmed this and then reversed the film, anybody who sees the reverse of that film is going to know it was reversed. That cannot happen in nature: that the egg is going to uncook itself, unscramble; the yolk is going to separate from the albumen and jump into the shell and seal up. Impossible, right? So almost everything that we see is irreversible. Brian Keating: Yes. I saw that line, Rebecca. It made me think, because you mentioned it in the context of his daughter, Elsa, finding her father’s dead body. And it wasn’t like he showed any sign. I mean, we can’t go into the minds of someone who dies by suicide, right? Yes. But at the same time, you’d think, well, this would be a more common thing. And so, is depression sort of a—you know, they used to think of miasmas and things in the air, you write about that in the book—is depression, at heart, an entropic collapsing process? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: I have spoken to a lot of people who suffer from clinical depression. And I want to say, first of all, that the U.S. hotline for suicide prevention is The thing that suicidally depressed people feel is that they don’t matter. Others do. They don’t. Nothing they can do will ever make them matter. It’s a terrible, terrible feeling. And what this means is they cannot—they can’t abide their own presence. I really think it shows how strong this mattering instinct is in us. If you can’t somehow appease it, you can’t abide your own presence. And so, what the people I’ve spoken to—and one is a very, very good philosopher who has suffered from depression—have told me is that, phenomenologically, this is exactly what it feels like. It feels like psychic disintegration. So, in some sense, yes—happiness is a very ordered state. And I would go even further: everything worth living for is an ordered state. I think knowledge—knowledge, knowledge, knowledge—is better than ignorance. Clarity is better than confusion. Flourishing is better than suffering. Love is better than hatred. Beauty is better than ugliness. These are truisms; these are what we all accept. Look at the thing that’s better: it’s an ordered state. And its negation is a disordered state. So I think—I would argue—this is a very kind of Spinozist argument, trying to get out of the laws of nature some ethical enlightenment, some ethical guidance, because that’s what we want. We want ethical guidance. So we know we want to matter. We know we do all sorts of things to matter. Some people do very bad things in order to matter. Some of the people I’ve spoken to… they do. They want power over others. They want dominance. They want to make other people’s lives miserable. These are bad things, right? They cause an increase in entropy. This is how I judge people now: are you increasing entropy, or are you decreasing it? -- Full video in link below.

Brian Keating (Prof. Brian Keating) and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) discuss "The Law of Physics Behind Depression." Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The thing that suicidally depressed people feel is that they don’t matter; others do, they don’t. Nothing they can do will ever make them matter. It’s a terrible, terrible feeling. And what this means is they cannot abide their own presence. Brian Keating: What if there is a law of physics that explains why depression feels the way it does? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: When I first learned about the second law of thermodynamics, it seemed—I couldn’t quite conceptualize it. We are subject to the second law of thermodynamics, which, you know, has a tragic dimension. In fact, when I was a graduate student, it occurred to me, oh my gosh, biological systems are really just organized to resist the second law of thermodynamics. In some sense, biology is a response to this supreme law that tells us that, in closed systems, energy never increases; entropy never decreases. Entropy never decreases, and if there’s any way for it to increase, it will. Entropy is the measure of the disorder of a system. The more disorder, the higher the entropy, and the less efficient the work you can get out at the end of the system. And in fact, Rudolf Clausius, the physicist, said that the universe itself will go to thermal equilibrium—what we call the heat death—and so there will be no more energy to be gotten out of it at the end of the system. Rudolf Clausius, the 19th-century physicist who formulated the concept of entropy, which means literally “transformation from within”—there’s poignancy in that. This transformation from within is going to the end of the system. And he said that the universe itself will go to thermal equilibrium, to what we call the heat death, and so there will be no more energy to be gotten out of it. Brian Keating: So let’s start with that story you tell first about Ludwig Boltzmann, who solved one of the great paradoxes of physics, the irreversibility paradox. Talk about that. And then why, in your mind, was he so traumatized, perhaps, or so full of dread of his equation that he took his own life? So talk about that. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: So there was this great paradox, which is that most—probably most—of the processes that we observe are irreversible. If you film them—and tell me if I’m being too elementary, because I’m going to be very—you know, if you film them, like let’s say I crack open an egg and I stir it up and then I fry it, and somebody filmed this and then reversed the film, anybody who sees the reverse of that film is going to know it was reversed. That cannot happen in nature: that the egg is going to uncook itself, unscramble; the yolk is going to separate from the albumen and jump into the shell and seal up. Impossible, right? So almost everything that we see is irreversible. Brian Keating: Yes. I saw that line, Rebecca. It made me think, because you mentioned it in the context of his daughter, Elsa, finding her father’s dead body. And it wasn’t like he showed any sign. I mean, we can’t go into the minds of someone who dies by suicide, right? Yes. But at the same time, you’d think, well, this would be a more common thing. And so, is depression sort of a—you know, they used to think of miasmas and things in the air, you write about that in the book—is depression, at heart, an entropic collapsing process? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: I have spoken to a lot of people who suffer from clinical depression. And I want to say, first of all, that the U.S. hotline for suicide prevention is The thing that suicidally depressed people feel is that they don’t matter. Others do. They don’t. Nothing they can do will ever make them matter. It’s a terrible, terrible feeling. And what this means is they cannot—they can’t abide their own presence. I really think it shows how strong this mattering instinct is in us. If you can’t somehow appease it, you can’t abide your own presence. And so, what the people I’ve spoken to—and one is a very, very good philosopher who has suffered from depression—have told me is that, phenomenologically, this is exactly what it feels like. It feels like psychic disintegration. So, in some sense, yes—happiness is a very ordered state. And I would go even further: everything worth living for is an ordered state. I think knowledge—knowledge, knowledge, knowledge—is better than ignorance. Clarity is better than confusion. Flourishing is better than suffering. Love is better than hatred. Beauty is better than ugliness. These are truisms; these are what we all accept. Look at the thing that’s better: it’s an ordered state. And its negation is a disordered state. So I think—I would argue—this is a very kind of Spinozist argument, trying to get out of the laws of nature some ethical enlightenment, some ethical guidance, because that’s what we want. We want ethical guidance. So we know we want to matter. We know we do all sorts of things to matter. Some people do very bad things in order to matter. Some of the people I’ve spoken to… they do. They want power over others. They want dominance. They want to make other people’s lives miserable. These are bad things, right? They cause an increase in entropy. This is how I judge people now: are you increasing entropy, or are you decreasing it? -- Full video in link below.

Steven Pinker

151,126 views • 2 months ago

I first met David Jolly when we served together in Congress. We were part of a small bipartisan group of Floridians who met regularly to talk about how we could work together for our state. That mattered then, and it matters even more now. What I came to know about David is simple: he is a good human being. That should matter in leadership. Decency, honesty, and care for others are not Democratic traits or Republican traits. They are human traits. And that is the kind of leader I believe Florida needs.

I first met David Jolly when we served together in Congress. We were part of a small bipartisan group of Floridians who met regularly to talk about how we could work together for our state. That mattered then, and it matters even more now. What I came to know about David is simple: he is a good human being. That should matter in leadership. Decency, honesty, and care for others are not Democratic traits or Republican traits. They are human traits. And that is the kind of leader I believe Florida needs.

Gwen Graham

15,451 views • 22 days ago

AOC: They wanted to issue this statement as though we’re just going after these 30-year-old men on Medicaid playing video games in their basement, right? This was the narrative that we heard. First of all, I think everyone should have healthcare in America, regardless of who you are and what you’re doing. And the idea that there is anyone who is less deserving because of who they are is the problem to begin with. But that’s what they use to justify this, right? Because they want us to do the work for them. They want us to sort ourselves into the idea of deserving and undeserving, or pointing at our neighbors in terms of deserving and undeserving. And that smokescreen — that idea — is how they tried to pass a trillion dollars in healthcare cuts across the board for all of us.

AOC: They wanted to issue this statement as though we’re just going after these 30-year-old men on Medicaid playing video games in their basement, right? This was the narrative that we heard. First of all, I think everyone should have healthcare in America, regardless of who you are and what you’re doing. And the idea that there is anyone who is less deserving because of who they are is the problem to begin with. But that’s what they use to justify this, right? Because they want us to do the work for them. They want us to sort ourselves into the idea of deserving and undeserving, or pointing at our neighbors in terms of deserving and undeserving. And that smokescreen — that idea — is how they tried to pass a trillion dollars in healthcare cuts across the board for all of us.

Acyn

446,733 views • 3 months ago

The Physics of Mattering: Do AI Agents Have a Soul? Rebecca Goldstein | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

The Physics of Mattering: Do AI Agents Have a Soul? Rebecca Goldstein | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Prof. Brian Keating

19,364 views • 2 months ago

We’re living through a massive crisis of mattering, where everyone is fighting to be seen, yet we’ve never felt more invisible. In this salon, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and Violeta𓅓 look at how this deep, biological hunger to feel significant is actually what’s tearing our culture apart. It’s a wild look at how our will to matter creates the very fault lines of power and identity we’re currently crashing into. If you’ve been feeling the weight of the endless competition for status and belonging lately, you really need to watch this.

We’re living through a massive crisis of mattering, where everyone is fighting to be seen, yet we’ve never felt more invisible. In this salon, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and Violeta𓅓 look at how this deep, biological hunger to feel significant is actually what’s tearing our culture apart. It’s a wild look at how our will to matter creates the very fault lines of power and identity we’re currently crashing into. If you’ve been feeling the weight of the endless competition for status and belonging lately, you really need to watch this.

Interintellect 🧭

10,332 views • 2 months ago

Graham Platner: “This is what everyone wants to make the campaign about so we do not talk about the struggles of working Mainers. We do not talk about the fact I know someone in my hometown here who works three jobs and pays over 60% of her monthly income in rent. I think that matters a lot more than the details of my relationship before I ran for the US Senate. They continue to make this race about me and what they fail to understand is it’s not about me at all. It’s about us, it’s about Maine, it’s about the working people of this state”

Graham Platner: “This is what everyone wants to make the campaign about so we do not talk about the struggles of working Mainers. We do not talk about the fact I know someone in my hometown here who works three jobs and pays over 60% of her monthly income in rent. I think that matters a lot more than the details of my relationship before I ran for the US Senate. They continue to make this race about me and what they fail to understand is it’s not about me at all. It’s about us, it’s about Maine, it’s about the working people of this state”

Marco Foster

45,475 views • 22 days ago

The Physics Law That Guarantees Everything Will Go Wrong Rebecca Newberger Goldstein | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein TIMESTAMPS : 00:00 Why every human being needs to matter — and what happens when they can't 04:25 The second law of thermodynamics and what it has to do with your life 08:00 The 4 types of people: Transcenders, Socializers, Heroic Strivers, and Competitors 17:30 Why fame-seeking millennials will give up everything — including relationships 22:00 Zero-sum mattering: the competitor who was happy for 15 minutes after winning a Nobel Prize 24:15 Ludwig Boltzmann solved one of physics' greatest paradoxes — then despaired 34:50 All tragedies are thermodynamic — and so is depression 40:00 Life as resistance to entropy: what flourishing actually means 54:00 Can AI have a mattering instinct? What that would mean for human rights 57:50 If AI becomes a heroic striver, what's left for us?

The Physics Law That Guarantees Everything Will Go Wrong Rebecca Newberger Goldstein | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein TIMESTAMPS : 00:00 Why every human being needs to matter — and what happens when they can't 04:25 The second law of thermodynamics and what it has to do with your life 08:00 The 4 types of people: Transcenders, Socializers, Heroic Strivers, and Competitors 17:30 Why fame-seeking millennials will give up everything — including relationships 22:00 Zero-sum mattering: the competitor who was happy for 15 minutes after winning a Nobel Prize 24:15 Ludwig Boltzmann solved one of physics' greatest paradoxes — then despaired 34:50 All tragedies are thermodynamic — and so is depression 40:00 Life as resistance to entropy: what flourishing actually means 54:00 Can AI have a mattering instinct? What that would mean for human rights 57:50 If AI becomes a heroic striver, what's left for us?

Prof. Brian Keating

42,920 views • 2 months ago

Peters: You talk about standards, you talk about raising, or that we have a problem of standards in the DOD, and we have to raise standards for the men and women who serve. Do you think that the way to raise the minimum standards of the people who serve us is to lower the standards for the secretary of defense, that we have someone who has never managed an organization more than 100 people?

Peters: You talk about standards, you talk about raising, or that we have a problem of standards in the DOD, and we have to raise standards for the men and women who serve. Do you think that the way to raise the minimum standards of the people who serve us is to lower the standards for the secretary of defense, that we have someone who has never managed an organization more than 100 people?

Acyn

114,513 views • 1 year ago

Elon Musk about the meaning of life and the trap of wishful thinking : “When I was a kid, I was wondering what's the meaning of life? Like, why are we here? What's it all about? And I came to the conclusion that what really matters is trying to understand the right questions to ask. And the more that we can increase the scope and scale of human consciousness, the better we are able to ask these questions. And so I think that there are certain things that are necessary to ensure that the future is good. One of the biggest mistakes people generally make, and I'm guilty of it too, is wishful thinking. You know, like, you want something to be true even if it isn't true. And so you ignore the things that you ignore the real truth because of what you want to be true. This is a very difficult trap to avoid.”

Elon Musk about the meaning of life and the trap of wishful thinking : “When I was a kid, I was wondering what's the meaning of life? Like, why are we here? What's it all about? And I came to the conclusion that what really matters is trying to understand the right questions to ask. And the more that we can increase the scope and scale of human consciousness, the better we are able to ask these questions. And so I think that there are certain things that are necessary to ensure that the future is good. One of the biggest mistakes people generally make, and I'm guilty of it too, is wishful thinking. You know, like, you want something to be true even if it isn't true. And so you ignore the things that you ignore the real truth because of what you want to be true. This is a very difficult trap to avoid.”

Eva Fo𝕏 🦊 Claudius Nero's Legion

75,023 views • 7 months ago

The fact that the universe doesn’t care about you doesn’t mean that other humans don’t care about you, or that we don’t have to care about other humans. That is, there is a purpose, there is a meaning: that is, to make people as well off as possible, to increase flourishing, to increase knowledge and life and health and freedom and safety. These are really, really meaningful. At least, I think they are. I don’t see anything wrong with them. I don’t think that that should leave you empty. And the fact that we live in a cold universe—that is, the laws of physics, the laws of biology, the behavior of viruses and bacteria and parasites and fungi—they don’t care about you. I’m sorry, they don’t care about you. And the sooner you realize that, the more you’ll be able to attend to the things that really do matter. Human Progress

The fact that the universe doesn’t care about you doesn’t mean that other humans don’t care about you, or that we don’t have to care about other humans. That is, there is a purpose, there is a meaning: that is, to make people as well off as possible, to increase flourishing, to increase knowledge and life and health and freedom and safety. These are really, really meaningful. At least, I think they are. I don’t see anything wrong with them. I don’t think that that should leave you empty. And the fact that we live in a cold universe—that is, the laws of physics, the laws of biology, the behavior of viruses and bacteria and parasites and fungi—they don’t care about you. I’m sorry, they don’t care about you. And the sooner you realize that, the more you’ll be able to attend to the things that really do matter. Human Progress

Steven Pinker

70,824 views • 3 months ago

.Naval: You define wealth in a beautiful way. You talk about wealth as a set of physical transformations that we can affect. So as a society it becomes very clear that knowledge leads directly to wealth creation for everybody. A given individual can obviously affect physical transformations proportional to the resources available to them—but much more proportional to the knowledge available to them. Knowledge is a huge force multiplier. You then define resources as the thing that you combine with knowledge to create wealth. New knowledge allows you to use new things as resources and discard old things that maybe we’re running out of. There are lots of examples of how we’ve done that in the past. For example, in energy we’ve gone from wood to coal to oil to nuclear. But then people say, “Now we’re out of ideas. Now we’re caught up. Now we’re done. There aren’t going to be new ideas, and now we have to freeze the frame and conserve what we have.” The counter to that is, “No, we’ll create new knowledge and have new resources. Don’t worry about the old ones.” Well they say, “If you’re going to have new resources, if you can’t think of them now, it’s not real.” This now gets into the realm of people demanding that if you’re going to claim that new knowledge will be created, you have to name that knowledge now. Otherwise it’s not real. But that seems like a Catch-22. David Deutsch: It does, and it’s a bad argument. I don’t want to claim that the knowledge will be created. We’re fallible; we may not create it. We may destroy ourselves. We may miss the solution that’s right under our nose, so that when the snailiens come from another galaxy and look at us, they’ll say, “How can it possibly be that they failed to do so-and-so when it was right in front of them?” That could happen. I can’t prove or argue that it won’t happen. What I always argue, though, is that we have what it takes. We have everything that it takes to achieve that. If we don’t, it’ll be because of bad choices we have made, not because of constraints imposed on us by the planet or the solar system. Naval: It will be by anti-rational memes that restrict the creation of knowledge and the growth of knowledge. David Deutsch: Maybe. Or maybe it’ll be by well-intentioned errors, which nobody could see why they were errors. Again, it doesn’t take malevolence to make mistakes. Mistakes are the normal condition of humans. All we can do is try to find them. Maybe not destroying the means of correcting errors is the heart of morality; because if there is no way of correcting errors, then sooner or later one of those will get us. Naval: Don’t destroy the means of error correction is the base of morality. I love that. I think about places like North Korea where you can’t have elections and a revolution is very difficult because the gang in charge is armed to the teeth and they’ve destroyed the means of political error correction for a long time. That is a case where humanity is trapped in a local minimum, and it’s very hard to climb out of that hole. If too much of the world falls into that mindset, then we as a species may just stagnate because we’ve lost our biggest advantage. We’ve lost our biggest discovery, which was the ability to make new discoveries.

.Naval: You define wealth in a beautiful way. You talk about wealth as a set of physical transformations that we can affect. So as a society it becomes very clear that knowledge leads directly to wealth creation for everybody. A given individual can obviously affect physical transformations proportional to the resources available to them—but much more proportional to the knowledge available to them. Knowledge is a huge force multiplier. You then define resources as the thing that you combine with knowledge to create wealth. New knowledge allows you to use new things as resources and discard old things that maybe we’re running out of. There are lots of examples of how we’ve done that in the past. For example, in energy we’ve gone from wood to coal to oil to nuclear. But then people say, “Now we’re out of ideas. Now we’re caught up. Now we’re done. There aren’t going to be new ideas, and now we have to freeze the frame and conserve what we have.” The counter to that is, “No, we’ll create new knowledge and have new resources. Don’t worry about the old ones.” Well they say, “If you’re going to have new resources, if you can’t think of them now, it’s not real.” This now gets into the realm of people demanding that if you’re going to claim that new knowledge will be created, you have to name that knowledge now. Otherwise it’s not real. But that seems like a Catch-22. David Deutsch: It does, and it’s a bad argument. I don’t want to claim that the knowledge will be created. We’re fallible; we may not create it. We may destroy ourselves. We may miss the solution that’s right under our nose, so that when the snailiens come from another galaxy and look at us, they’ll say, “How can it possibly be that they failed to do so-and-so when it was right in front of them?” That could happen. I can’t prove or argue that it won’t happen. What I always argue, though, is that we have what it takes. We have everything that it takes to achieve that. If we don’t, it’ll be because of bad choices we have made, not because of constraints imposed on us by the planet or the solar system. Naval: It will be by anti-rational memes that restrict the creation of knowledge and the growth of knowledge. David Deutsch: Maybe. Or maybe it’ll be by well-intentioned errors, which nobody could see why they were errors. Again, it doesn’t take malevolence to make mistakes. Mistakes are the normal condition of humans. All we can do is try to find them. Maybe not destroying the means of correcting errors is the heart of morality; because if there is no way of correcting errors, then sooner or later one of those will get us. Naval: Don’t destroy the means of error correction is the base of morality. I love that. I think about places like North Korea where you can’t have elections and a revolution is very difficult because the gang in charge is armed to the teeth and they’ve destroyed the means of political error correction for a long time. That is a case where humanity is trapped in a local minimum, and it’s very hard to climb out of that hole. If too much of the world falls into that mindset, then we as a species may just stagnate because we’ve lost our biggest advantage. We’ve lost our biggest discovery, which was the ability to make new discoveries.

Deutsch Explains

143,913 views • 1 year ago

"One of the things I learned from CBA negations is: They aren't smarter than us...I think we sometimes are victims of having this belief that because these people have made it to the top of their profession that they are as good at what they do as we are at what we do. They aren't....It's a mistake to think that whatever is holding back the union is understanding some complex theories of business or law. That ain't it." – Domonique goes deep on what changes need to be made within the NFLPA.

"One of the things I learned from CBA negations is: They aren't smarter than us...I think we sometimes are victims of having this belief that because these people have made it to the top of their profession that they are as good at what they do as we are at what we do. They aren't....It's a mistake to think that whatever is holding back the union is understanding some complex theories of business or law. That ain't it." – Domonique goes deep on what changes need to be made within the NFLPA.

The Domonique Foxworth Show

159,108 views • 11 months ago

Is this...a theology of glory? P. Devon Brown, Senior Pastor of St. Mark UMC Chicago, preaches on Romans 8:37, taking it to mean that black Americans should not be satisfied only in knowing their history but should focus on attaining wealth and power in the future. "When we hear this scripture, we generally take it to mean: in Christ, we have victory. I believe that with all of my heart. But this morning, we're going to take the long way around and use this text to help us think about black history in a way that, I would argue, may not feel comfortable to everyone. Because I want us to see that, as important as black history is, it loses some of its shine, it loses some of its power, if we can't tie it into what black future will be. It loses its power if we can't relate it to what is yet to come. I don't want to just talk about what we did. I love our history, but I can't be limited to just what we did back then. I want us to talk about what we will do. I want us to talk about what we will do. I'm not satisfied with knowing that we built pyramids. That's powerful. That's a great thing to me. But let's talk about the skyscrapers that we [will] build and own. You ever thought about that? Maybe some black folks owning skyscrapers? Huh? Fortune 500 companies? You ever thought about what the future should be? Let's talk about that. I'd like us to consider a future where we are players in international commerce, where we're players in military power. I want us to dream of being able, indeed, BEING conquerors. Indeed, being more than conquerors. Hold on to those two words: more than."

Is this...a theology of glory? P. Devon Brown, Senior Pastor of St. Mark UMC Chicago, preaches on Romans 8:37, taking it to mean that black Americans should not be satisfied only in knowing their history but should focus on attaining wealth and power in the future. "When we hear this scripture, we generally take it to mean: in Christ, we have victory. I believe that with all of my heart. But this morning, we're going to take the long way around and use this text to help us think about black history in a way that, I would argue, may not feel comfortable to everyone. Because I want us to see that, as important as black history is, it loses some of its shine, it loses some of its power, if we can't tie it into what black future will be. It loses its power if we can't relate it to what is yet to come. I don't want to just talk about what we did. I love our history, but I can't be limited to just what we did back then. I want us to talk about what we will do. I want us to talk about what we will do. I'm not satisfied with knowing that we built pyramids. That's powerful. That's a great thing to me. But let's talk about the skyscrapers that we [will] build and own. You ever thought about that? Maybe some black folks owning skyscrapers? Huh? Fortune 500 companies? You ever thought about what the future should be? Let's talk about that. I'd like us to consider a future where we are players in international commerce, where we're players in military power. I want us to dream of being able, indeed, BEING conquerors. Indeed, being more than conquerors. Hold on to those two words: more than."

Woke Preacher Clips

12,242 views • 1 year ago

This is how I see left wing Scousers - What irritates me more than anything about them is they have the arrogance to tell people on a daily basis “Scousers are left wing” and call everyone a Tory or a wool who disagrees with them. Like they can speak for all of us. Like only they love this city and we don’t. Let me tell you something about these gang of gobshites. If you ever want to at what multiculturalism does to a city. Look at London. I have always wanted multiculturalism to work. But it’s hard to ignore the damage it does. It is ok im small manageable numbers like we have always had. But when it grows out of control you get….. London. These gang of shithouses who love Liverpool more than anyone and who are more Scouse than anyone and speak for all of us are literally advocating for Liverpool to be slowly transformed into a microcosm of the hellhole that is our capital. They are actively pushing for it. Most of them don’t even have children themselves. And that’s the world they want your children to grow up in. A replica of London in every major city. That’s how much they care about Liverpool. They want it to become the next London. If everything was all sweet and rosey down there I could understand their logic. But it isn’t. And over my dead body I will stand silent while these traitors enable our government to destroy the culture snd good harmony of our city. Absolutely disgusting. They do not speak for us. Even though they think that they can and often try to. Im going to start sharing the odd video of what is happening down in our capital so you can see what they are trying to do to our city. So we can all see the world they are pushing for. “Liverpool is a tolerant city” they always say which is true. But at the same time. We aren’t dickheads. And there is a limit to how nice we are. And this is the last city yiu want to piss off. Because if you piss us off, we bite back harder than anyone. When the Revolution begins. It will be this city that starts it. The left wingers think that because they are a gang of pushovers that the rest of us are too. Think again!

This is how I see left wing Scousers - What irritates me more than anything about them is they have the arrogance to tell people on a daily basis “Scousers are left wing” and call everyone a Tory or a wool who disagrees with them. Like they can speak for all of us. Like only they love this city and we don’t. Let me tell you something about these gang of gobshites. If you ever want to at what multiculturalism does to a city. Look at London. I have always wanted multiculturalism to work. But it’s hard to ignore the damage it does. It is ok im small manageable numbers like we have always had. But when it grows out of control you get….. London. These gang of shithouses who love Liverpool more than anyone and who are more Scouse than anyone and speak for all of us are literally advocating for Liverpool to be slowly transformed into a microcosm of the hellhole that is our capital. They are actively pushing for it. Most of them don’t even have children themselves. And that’s the world they want your children to grow up in. A replica of London in every major city. That’s how much they care about Liverpool. They want it to become the next London. If everything was all sweet and rosey down there I could understand their logic. But it isn’t. And over my dead body I will stand silent while these traitors enable our government to destroy the culture snd good harmony of our city. Absolutely disgusting. They do not speak for us. Even though they think that they can and often try to. Im going to start sharing the odd video of what is happening down in our capital so you can see what they are trying to do to our city. So we can all see the world they are pushing for. “Liverpool is a tolerant city” they always say which is true. But at the same time. We aren’t dickheads. And there is a limit to how nice we are. And this is the last city yiu want to piss off. Because if you piss us off, we bite back harder than anyone. When the Revolution begins. It will be this city that starts it. The left wingers think that because they are a gang of pushovers that the rest of us are too. Think again!

Around Liverpool

106,318 views • 3 months ago