Heavens on Earth with skeptical Dr. Michael Shermer

Dr. Michael Shermer’s new book Heavens on Earth: Amazon US: Amazon Canada: I recently sat down with Dr. Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic Magazine, Scientific American columnist, and author of the new book Heavens on Earth. We talked about Deepak Chopra; the place of consciousness in the world; the neuroscience, evolutionary biology and metaphysics of Heaven and Hell; the pros and cons of ideas about the afterlife; the idea of “up” as the moral aim and the potential basis for that metaphor in the reality of the social hierarchy; the Kingdom of God as a psychological reality; the reality of transcendent experience; psychedelic experience; the definition of truth; Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity; trans-humanism, the singularity, life extension and the prolongation of youth; the danger of losing our humanity in technological revolution; the malleability of identity; bodily and spiritual resurrection; the nature of the persistent and transforming self; Michael’s personal transformation from areligious to evangelical to skeptic; Sam Harris; the division of the damned from the saved (or the wheat from the chaff); Ayn Rand; Jocko Willink and the utility of striving; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; the truth of fiction; postmodernism and interpretation; dragons, archetypes and intrinsic brain structure; Martin Gardner; responsibility; social ethics; the nature of belief; the collapse of free will into determinism as the future shades into the present; moral accountability and the law; the aim of his new book (Heavens on Earth); a meaningful life and working to make the world a better place… and that’s about that. - Chapters - (0:00) Intro, Shermer’s previous writings (2:44) Dr. Deepak Chopra, clashing ideas (6:32) The ontological primacy of consciousness (9:08) The Weak and Strong Consciousness Principles, Anthropic Consciousness (9:46) Donald Hoffman, Interface Perception Theory (11:05) Natural selection and iconic reality (12:09) Can we remove ourselves from ourselves? (12:47) Low resolution representation (14:34) Metaphors, capturing hard concepts with already understood terms (15:18) We don’t live at the quantum level (16:39) Ivey’s Error, Brooklyn is not expanding (17:12) Spacial and temporal reference points (19:20) The Odyssey Problem, the afterlife for Atheists (21:17) The belief in heaven, and heaven as an aim (23:10) The Moral Arc, incremental improvements (24:14) The kingdom is within (25:04) When the psychological expands to the social realm (27:13) Transcendental experiences and psilocybin (27:58) Near death experiences, false presumption of truth (30:00) Fundamental reality, intimations of altered realities (31:35) The focus on thereafter, comparative afterlives (32:58) Dangers of conceptualization (34:04) Shermer’s message to the cryonics and trans-humanists (34:57) Transcendent Man, obsession over immortality (35:46) To stave off age, or to live life well (37:45) If we were to adjust to immortality, are “we” still human? (38:45) The resurrection of the body and the realness of our identity (41:00) If you were uploaded to a computer… is that upload you or a copy? (44:00) Discounting hormonal importance and impact (45:43) From christianity to skepticism (50:51) A good skeptic is a pursuant of truth, not a debunker of belief (52:09) A good goal: making the world a more rational place (52:50) Ayn Rand, why tens of millions love her books (54:24) Good literature shows conflict within, versus between (56:32) Dragons are meta-predators, an amalgam of predatory forces (59:41) Personal truths and what we cannot argue (1:02:30) Action versus speech (1:03:54) At the end of your philosophical argument, ask yourself: what is the point of the point you are making? (1:04:41) Free will and the necessary assumption that it exists (1:07:18) Ballistic movement, a visual example of a deterministic world (1:08:50) How the law has evolved around these concepts (1:09:50) What Shermer hopes to accomplish with his book “Heavens on Earth” - BOOKS - 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: - LINKS - Website: 12 Rules for Life Tour: Blog: Podcast: Reading List: Twitter: Instagram: Facebook: - PRODUCTS - Personality Course: Self Authoring Suite: Understand Myse