1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,500 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We take the sources 2 00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:05,339 you give us and we try to pull out the core insights, 3 00:00:05,519 --> 00:00:07,559 the things you really need to grapple with to 4 00:00:07,559 --> 00:00:11,679 be truly well informed. And today we are tackling 5 00:00:11,679 --> 00:00:14,060 a real philosophical Everest. We really are. 6 00:00:14,199 --> 00:00:17,699 This is Thomas Nagel's seminal 1986 text, The 7 00:00:17,699 --> 00:00:20,719 View from Nowhere. And this is so much more than 8 00:00:20,719 --> 00:00:23,199 just a book. I mean, it's a meticulously constructed 9 00:00:23,199 --> 00:00:27,100 argument about the fundamental, maybe even permanent. 10 00:00:27,780 --> 00:00:30,399 limits of the human mind the title itself the 11 00:00:30,399 --> 00:00:32,600 view from nowhere it just lays it all out doesn't 12 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:35,020 it immediately drops you into the core tension 13 00:00:35,020 --> 00:00:37,079 that's going to define the whole work it does 14 00:00:37,079 --> 00:00:40,000 the entire project is about this unavoidable 15 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,350 juxtaposition of two totally distinct Yet. And 16 00:00:44,350 --> 00:00:47,109 this is the key, equally essential ways of understanding 17 00:00:47,109 --> 00:00:48,850 everything. OK, let's unpack that right away, 18 00:00:48,969 --> 00:00:50,350 because this is the mission statement for the 19 00:00:50,350 --> 00:00:53,090 whole deep dive. We are constantly as human beings 20 00:00:53,090 --> 00:00:56,369 stuck between two incompatible poles. Right. 21 00:00:56,450 --> 00:00:58,929 So on one side, you have the subjective standpoint. 22 00:00:59,049 --> 00:01:02,189 This is the view from here. My immediate personal 23 00:01:02,189 --> 00:01:05,150 lived experience. It's full of feelings, tastes, 24 00:01:05,390 --> 00:01:08,590 sensations, my own private perspective. It's 25 00:01:08,590 --> 00:01:11,569 the raw material of being alive. And then on 26 00:01:11,569 --> 00:01:14,390 the other side, pushing against that. is this 27 00:01:14,390 --> 00:01:17,209 incredibly powerful impulse to the objective 28 00:01:17,209 --> 00:01:19,750 standpoint. The view from nowhere. The view from 29 00:01:19,750 --> 00:01:23,049 nowhere. It's this deep desire to transcend your 30 00:01:23,049 --> 00:01:27,750 own immediate personal perspective, to step outside 31 00:01:27,750 --> 00:01:30,569 yourself and try to form a conception of the 32 00:01:30,569 --> 00:01:33,140 world as it is. you know independently of you 33 00:01:33,140 --> 00:01:35,540 or any other particular observer yeah what i 34 00:01:35,540 --> 00:01:37,340 found so compelling in these sources and really 35 00:01:37,340 --> 00:01:39,579 challenging is that nagel isn't trying to pick 36 00:01:39,579 --> 00:01:41,459 a winner he's not saying one is better than the 37 00:01:41,459 --> 00:01:43,900 other no not at all he's arguing that the entire 38 00:01:43,900 --> 00:01:46,500 human condition is defined by this constant failed 39 00:01:46,500 --> 00:01:49,140 attempt to reconcile these two and when you try 40 00:01:49,140 --> 00:01:53,099 to force a single unified you know highly reductionist 41 00:01:53,099 --> 00:01:54,799 picture of life. You're bound to make mistakes. 42 00:01:55,060 --> 00:01:57,680 Huge philosophical mistakes. He calls them false 43 00:01:57,680 --> 00:02:00,700 reductions or just, you know, a flat out refusal 44 00:02:00,700 --> 00:02:03,099 to recognize that part of reality that you can 45 00:02:03,099 --> 00:02:05,379 only grasp subjectively. And that's the crux 46 00:02:05,379 --> 00:02:07,439 of it. This transcendent impulse. It's incredibly 47 00:02:07,439 --> 00:02:09,620 powerful. I mean, it's the engine that drives 48 00:02:09,620 --> 00:02:13,520 science, morality, all of it. But Nagel shows 49 00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,919 chapter by chapter that it's also deeply destructive. 50 00:02:17,099 --> 00:02:19,400 It generates these paradoxes we just can't seem 51 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:21,400 to solve. So for today, we're going to trace. 52 00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:24,319 this essential internal versus external tension 53 00:02:24,319 --> 00:02:27,180 through the four main philosophical areas where 54 00:02:27,180 --> 00:02:29,479 it just causes the most chaos. That's right. 55 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:31,539 We're going to look at the metaphysics of mind, 56 00:02:31,659 --> 00:02:34,879 then the theory of knowledge, free will, and 57 00:02:34,879 --> 00:02:37,139 finally we'll get into ethics. Okay, so let's 58 00:02:37,139 --> 00:02:39,020 start at the root. We have to properly define 59 00:02:39,020 --> 00:02:41,639 this objectivity. Because when we say objective, 60 00:02:41,819 --> 00:02:44,500 usually we just mean, you know, unbiased or fair. 61 00:02:44,699 --> 00:02:47,800 Right. But Nagel's definition is way more philosophically 62 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:49,680 stringent than that. So what is this external 63 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:52,479 vantage point that we're all chasing? Well, objectivity 64 00:02:52,479 --> 00:02:55,580 for Nagel is a method. It's a way of understanding 65 00:02:55,580 --> 00:02:59,560 things, beliefs, attitudes that are true, completely 66 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:02,060 independent of who holds them or how they got 67 00:03:02,060 --> 00:03:04,340 there. Okay. And the process, the actual move 68 00:03:04,340 --> 00:03:07,319 you make, involves intellectually stepping back 69 00:03:07,319 --> 00:03:10,729 from your initial personal view. to form a more 70 00:03:10,729 --> 00:03:14,449 objective conception. But, and this is critical, 71 00:03:14,629 --> 00:03:18,250 this new, more objective picture has to include 72 00:03:18,250 --> 00:03:20,550 your first subjective view as an object within 73 00:03:20,550 --> 00:03:22,729 its scope. Okay, that's a bit abstract. Give 74 00:03:22,729 --> 00:03:24,849 us a really tangible example of what that kind 75 00:03:24,849 --> 00:03:27,189 of objective advance actually looks like in practice. 76 00:03:27,409 --> 00:03:29,449 Let's take color perception. It's a classic example. 77 00:03:30,129 --> 00:03:32,610 Subjectively from here, I see this coffee cup 78 00:03:32,610 --> 00:03:34,729 is red. That's my immediate personal experience. 79 00:03:34,969 --> 00:03:37,069 Yes. An objective advance isn't just getting 80 00:03:37,069 --> 00:03:38,750 someone else to agree with me that the cup is 81 00:03:38,750 --> 00:03:41,379 red. The advance is realizing that my perception 82 00:03:41,379 --> 00:03:43,300 of the cup being read is what philosophers call 83 00:03:43,300 --> 00:03:45,939 a secondary quality. It's a result of something 84 00:03:45,939 --> 00:03:48,319 else. It's a complex result of the cup's inherent 85 00:03:48,319 --> 00:03:51,319 physical structure, its primary qualities, interacting 86 00:03:51,319 --> 00:03:54,300 with my specific, biologically limited human 87 00:03:54,300 --> 00:03:57,360 visual system. Right. So objectivity expands 88 00:03:57,360 --> 00:04:00,259 your consciousness by taking the observer, the 89 00:04:00,259 --> 00:04:02,919 me, and placing me inside the world that I'm 90 00:04:02,919 --> 00:04:06,050 observing. It's a shift from just... seeing the 91 00:04:06,050 --> 00:04:08,710 cup to understanding the physics and the biology 92 00:04:08,710 --> 00:04:11,789 that makes the cup appear to me in that specific 93 00:04:11,789 --> 00:04:14,840 way. Precisely. And these objective advances, 94 00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:18,379 they propel us toward a new conception of reality 95 00:04:18,379 --> 00:04:21,519 that systematically leaves the personal, the 96 00:04:21,519 --> 00:04:24,139 human, the merely contingent perspective further 97 00:04:24,139 --> 00:04:26,180 and further behind. So the more objective you 98 00:04:26,180 --> 00:04:28,720 get, the more you see yourself as just a tiny 99 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:31,860 functioning piece inside this larger impersonal 100 00:04:31,860 --> 00:04:34,300 universe that's governed by, you know, universal 101 00:04:34,300 --> 00:04:37,180 laws. Exactly. That sounds kind of exhilarating, 102 00:04:37,180 --> 00:04:39,500 this expansion of consciousness. But that's also 103 00:04:39,500 --> 00:04:42,110 where the danger starts, right? The sources really 104 00:04:42,110 --> 00:04:44,470 emphasize that this pursuit of detachment, it 105 00:04:44,470 --> 00:04:46,509 can go too far. It can lead to some really serious 106 00:04:46,509 --> 00:04:48,990 philosophical mistakes. It inevitably runs back 107 00:04:48,990 --> 00:04:51,889 on itself. When you try to define reality purely 108 00:04:51,889 --> 00:04:54,389 through this detached objective physical lens, 109 00:04:54,689 --> 00:04:57,290 you start committing what Nagel calls false reductions. 110 00:04:57,529 --> 00:04:59,189 You're basically getting clarity by throwing 111 00:04:59,189 --> 00:05:01,490 things out. You are. You're achieving a kind 112 00:05:01,490 --> 00:05:05,250 of fake clarity by systematically denying that 113 00:05:05,250 --> 00:05:07,689 which you can't bring into your objective framework. 114 00:05:08,350 --> 00:05:11,050 even if that phenomenon is, you know, patently 115 00:05:11,050 --> 00:05:13,670 real to everyone. It's like saying, because I 116 00:05:13,670 --> 00:05:15,509 can't measure consciousness with a yardstick, 117 00:05:15,689 --> 00:05:18,769 it must not exist. Exactly. And this subjective 118 00:05:18,769 --> 00:05:21,089 blindness is probably most noticeable in the 119 00:05:21,089 --> 00:05:23,170 philosophy of mind, which we'll get to in a minute. 120 00:05:23,670 --> 00:05:26,970 Theories like physicalism or certain kinds of 121 00:05:26,970 --> 00:05:30,110 functionalism, they're trying to narrowly define 122 00:05:30,110 --> 00:05:33,949 reality as only physical reality, the world as 123 00:05:33,949 --> 00:05:36,259 described by physics. But if you do that, you 124 00:05:36,259 --> 00:05:38,819 systematically exclude subjective experience. 125 00:05:38,899 --> 00:05:42,060 You exclude the what it is like, which is arguably 126 00:05:42,060 --> 00:05:44,279 the most real thing any of us ever encounter. 127 00:05:44,459 --> 00:05:47,160 You do. And this reminds me of the Nietzsche 128 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:49,480 reference in the notes, right? His warning against 129 00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:52,079 this false objectification of reality. If you 130 00:05:52,079 --> 00:05:54,300 define reality only by what your objective method 131 00:05:54,300 --> 00:05:56,459 can grasp, you're missing the point that appearance, 132 00:05:56,699 --> 00:05:59,639 perspective, and experience are essential parts 133 00:05:59,639 --> 00:06:01,939 of what reality is. They're not just some illusion 134 00:06:01,939 --> 00:06:04,899 to be explained away. Right. Realism, the belief 135 00:06:04,899 --> 00:06:07,480 that the world exists independently of our minds, 136 00:06:07,639 --> 00:06:11,329 is what drives objectivity. But that impulse 137 00:06:11,329 --> 00:06:14,750 only supports the method up to a point. If you 138 00:06:14,750 --> 00:06:17,170 use objective detachment to disregard the subjective, 139 00:06:17,610 --> 00:06:20,069 you're basically engaging in self -contradiction. 140 00:06:20,129 --> 00:06:22,009 You're denying something fundamental that you 141 00:06:22,009 --> 00:06:24,449 experience every single moment. And Nagel's whole 142 00:06:24,449 --> 00:06:27,470 argument is that the best, the most honest philosophy 143 00:06:27,470 --> 00:06:30,250 has to accommodate both views, the internal and 144 00:06:30,250 --> 00:06:33,300 the external. It has to. OK, so this inherent 145 00:06:33,300 --> 00:06:35,920 limitation, it seems to naturally give rise to 146 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:39,060 philosophical skepticism. How does Nagel handle 147 00:06:39,060 --> 00:06:41,300 skepticism, especially since he's arguing for 148 00:06:41,300 --> 00:06:44,500 this persistent inadequacy of our position? It's 149 00:06:44,500 --> 00:06:46,720 a great question. He treats skepticism not as 150 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:48,939 something we have to refute or, you know, banish 151 00:06:48,939 --> 00:06:50,819 forever. He sees it as something fundamentally 152 00:06:50,819 --> 00:06:53,279 revealing about our intellectual condition. So 153 00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:57,300 it's a feature, not a bug. In a way, yes. Skepticism 154 00:06:57,300 --> 00:06:59,970 isn't some clever parlor trick. It's actually 155 00:06:59,970 --> 00:07:02,769 built right into our ordinary thoughts. Our everyday 156 00:07:02,769 --> 00:07:05,129 assumptions are realist. They pretend to go beyond 157 00:07:05,129 --> 00:07:07,509 our immediate experience to grasp the world directly. 158 00:07:07,870 --> 00:07:10,230 Skepticism just comes along and highlights how 159 00:07:10,230 --> 00:07:12,970 fragile that pretense really is. I love that 160 00:07:12,970 --> 00:07:15,610 phrase from the outline that our beliefs must 161 00:07:15,610 --> 00:07:18,230 remain suspended in a great cavern of skeptical 162 00:07:18,230 --> 00:07:21,930 darkness. It's powerful. But it's also, frankly, 163 00:07:22,170 --> 00:07:24,870 a bit unsettling for anyone who likes tidy answers. 164 00:07:25,129 --> 00:07:26,970 It is unsettling, but it's also deeply honest. 165 00:07:27,529 --> 00:07:30,170 Nagel argues that skepticism doesn't, you know, 166 00:07:30,170 --> 00:07:32,490 vitiate the pursuit of objectivity. It doesn't 167 00:07:32,490 --> 00:07:34,850 destroy the possibility of gaining more objective 168 00:07:34,850 --> 00:07:37,610 knowledge. But it does compel us to recognize 169 00:07:37,610 --> 00:07:40,660 our own limitations. We can strive to bring our 170 00:07:40,660 --> 00:07:42,439 beliefs and our actions under the influence of 171 00:07:42,439 --> 00:07:44,819 an impersonal standpoint, but we always have 172 00:07:44,819 --> 00:07:46,720 to acknowledge that even our most sophisticated 173 00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:49,560 ideas about the world are ultimately the products 174 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,060 of one specific piece of that world, our mind 175 00:07:52,060 --> 00:07:54,160 interacting with the rest of it in ways we just 176 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:57,120 can't fully comprehend. So the mission isn't 177 00:07:57,120 --> 00:07:59,779 the impossible task of actually reaching the 178 00:07:59,779 --> 00:08:02,540 view from nowhere and resolving everything. No. 179 00:08:02,620 --> 00:08:05,319 The mission is realizing that we are creatures 180 00:08:05,319 --> 00:08:07,899 who are permanently suspended between the view 181 00:08:07,899 --> 00:08:09,910 from here. which is full of importance and meaning 182 00:08:09,910 --> 00:08:13,290 to us, and that unachievable, complete, true 183 00:08:13,290 --> 00:08:17,490 view from nowhere. We have to live in that tension. 184 00:08:18,050 --> 00:08:20,410 Precisely. And every subsequent chapter of the 185 00:08:20,410 --> 00:08:23,170 book just details the messy consequences of living 186 00:08:23,170 --> 00:08:25,569 in that suspension. Okay, so that tension really 187 00:08:25,569 --> 00:08:28,029 comes to a head immediately when we apply that 188 00:08:28,029 --> 00:08:31,170 objective lens inward to our own minds. Let's 189 00:08:31,170 --> 00:08:33,590 jump into the metaphysics of mind. The subjective 190 00:08:33,590 --> 00:08:36,419 core here is just... The sheer fact of consciousness. 191 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,440 This is what Nagel famously explored in his earlier 192 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:42,000 work, right? The problem of what it is like to 193 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:44,100 have an experience. Yes, exactly. And that subjective 194 00:08:44,100 --> 00:08:46,120 core is the big sticking point. It's the one 195 00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:48,700 thing that the physical conception of objectivity 196 00:08:48,700 --> 00:08:50,679 just cannot absorb. And this is where he takes 197 00:08:50,679 --> 00:08:53,220 on the reductionist theories. Right. Reductionist 198 00:08:53,220 --> 00:08:55,460 theories, and that includes behavioristic models, 199 00:08:55,700 --> 00:08:57,820 causal identity theories, functionalist accounts 200 00:08:57,820 --> 00:09:00,179 that define mental states by their inputs and 201 00:09:00,179 --> 00:09:02,659 outputs. They're all motivated by what he calls 202 00:09:02,659 --> 00:09:05,340 an epistemological criterion of reality. What 203 00:09:05,340 --> 00:09:07,720 does that mean exactly, an epistemological criterion 204 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:10,580 of reality? It means they define what is real 205 00:09:10,580 --> 00:09:13,679 based on what can be objectively known or understood. 206 00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:17,259 They basically assume that only what can be captured 207 00:09:17,259 --> 00:09:20,600 in objective third -person terms like brain scans 208 00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:23,909 or observed behavior. actually exists. And Angel 209 00:09:23,909 --> 00:09:25,990 just rigorously rejects this. So these theories 210 00:09:25,990 --> 00:09:29,070 fail because they effectively deny that the irreducibly 211 00:09:29,070 --> 00:09:31,610 subjective first person mental stuff is real. 212 00:09:31,769 --> 00:09:33,529 They do. It's the classic difference between 213 00:09:33,529 --> 00:09:36,730 describing the firing of C fibers in my brain 214 00:09:36,730 --> 00:09:39,590 and describing the awful agonizing feeling of 215 00:09:39,590 --> 00:09:42,289 pain. If I only analyze the neurochemistry, I 216 00:09:42,289 --> 00:09:44,389 am completely missing the reality of the sensation 217 00:09:44,389 --> 00:09:47,490 itself. And that sensation is a form of appearance 218 00:09:47,490 --> 00:09:49,710 that is irreducible. And that appearance is real. 219 00:09:49,830 --> 00:09:52,759 That appearance is real. And what's more, if 220 00:09:52,759 --> 00:09:55,399 we restrict ourselves only to these objective 221 00:09:55,399 --> 00:09:58,240 physical criteria when we're trying to understand 222 00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:01,480 other minds, we run smack into the risk of solipsism. 223 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:04,960 Right. The philosophical problem of how you can 224 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:08,039 justify belief in any mind other than your own. 225 00:10:08,059 --> 00:10:10,500 Yes. Because if the only things I accept as real 226 00:10:10,500 --> 00:10:13,659 are things I can verify objectively through my 227 00:10:13,659 --> 00:10:16,740 senses, then my verification of your mind is 228 00:10:16,740 --> 00:10:18,399 really just verification of your body's movements 229 00:10:18,399 --> 00:10:20,860 and sounds. And I'm seeing all of that through 230 00:10:20,860 --> 00:10:23,240 my own subjective filter anyway. I never actually 231 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:26,460 get to experience your what it is like. Exactly. 232 00:10:26,500 --> 00:10:29,159 And so to escape solipsism, Nagel says we have 233 00:10:29,159 --> 00:10:31,220 to perform this crucial philosophical maneuver. 234 00:10:31,799 --> 00:10:34,100 We have to generalize the point of view. We can't 235 00:10:34,100 --> 00:10:36,200 eliminate the perspective, but we have to learn 236 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:38,399 to conceive of our own mind as just a mere instance 237 00:10:38,399 --> 00:10:40,399 of something more general. And what's that more 238 00:10:40,399 --> 00:10:42,679 general thing? The objective reality of mind 239 00:10:42,679 --> 00:10:45,519 itself. So we have to accept that mind is an 240 00:10:45,519 --> 00:10:48,289 objective reality. even if its essential subjective 241 00:10:48,289 --> 00:10:50,669 character can only be understood from within, 242 00:10:50,929 --> 00:10:53,909 either through our own experience or, you know, 243 00:10:53,909 --> 00:10:55,909 through an act of subjective imagination aimed 244 00:10:55,909 --> 00:10:58,549 at another perspective like a bat's. We accept 245 00:10:58,549 --> 00:11:00,590 that there is something perspectival there, even 246 00:11:00,590 --> 00:11:03,669 if we can't fully imagine its contents. We admit 247 00:11:03,669 --> 00:11:06,470 we can conceive of experiences we haven't had 248 00:11:06,470 --> 00:11:09,129 and maybe even experiences we're incapable of 249 00:11:09,129 --> 00:11:12,090 ever imagining. This acceptance is what's necessary 250 00:11:12,090 --> 00:11:14,470 to move past that physicalist reduction. OK, 251 00:11:14,549 --> 00:11:17,820 so if reductionism fails. If mere physical stuff 252 00:11:17,820 --> 00:11:20,580 can't generate subjectivity, then the dual aspect 253 00:11:20,580 --> 00:11:23,840 theory emerges as a plausible alternative. But 254 00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:25,899 the sources note this theory has a, and I quote, 255 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:28,700 faintly sickening odor of something put together 256 00:11:28,700 --> 00:11:31,820 in the metaphysical laboratory. Why such a visceral 257 00:11:31,820 --> 00:11:34,519 reaction? Well, the theory itself posits that 258 00:11:34,519 --> 00:11:37,000 the physical organism can't by itself generate 259 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:39,980 consciousness. Now, to avoid classic Cartesian 260 00:11:39,980 --> 00:11:42,299 dualism, you know, positing a completely separate 261 00:11:42,299 --> 00:11:44,720 non -physical substance like a soul. Right. The 262 00:11:44,720 --> 00:11:47,539 dual aspect theory suggests that reality itself 263 00:11:47,539 --> 00:11:50,100 has two sides. The basic materials that make 264 00:11:50,100 --> 00:11:53,419 up an organism have both objective physical properties 265 00:11:53,419 --> 00:11:57,149 and non -physical. mental or proto -mental properties. 266 00:11:57,350 --> 00:12:00,049 Ah, so the sickening odor comes from the difficulty 267 00:12:00,049 --> 00:12:02,110 of imagining what these proto -mental properties 268 00:12:02,110 --> 00:12:05,529 actually are at the level of, say, a quark. It 269 00:12:05,529 --> 00:12:07,370 feels a bit like metaphysical hand -waving, like 270 00:12:07,370 --> 00:12:09,809 we're just slapping a label on an unknown quality 271 00:12:09,809 --> 00:12:12,889 to solve a problem. It does, because we're being 272 00:12:12,889 --> 00:12:15,250 forced to imagine that reality has these fundamental 273 00:12:15,250 --> 00:12:17,929 aspects that completely resist objective description. 274 00:12:18,370 --> 00:12:21,090 But the logical consequence of this dual -aspect 275 00:12:21,090 --> 00:12:23,889 view is what leads to the truly unsettling notion. 276 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:26,679 Panpsychism. Panpsychism. The idea that consciousness, 277 00:12:26,940 --> 00:12:29,620 or at least some proto -consciousness, is pervasive 278 00:12:29,620 --> 00:12:31,850 throughout the entire universe. How does dual 279 00:12:31,850 --> 00:12:34,049 aspect theory logically lead there? It seems 280 00:12:34,049 --> 00:12:36,690 like a huge leap. Well, it's a necessary logical 281 00:12:36,690 --> 00:12:39,230 step if you reject both physical reductionism 282 00:12:39,230 --> 00:12:41,830 and what's called radical emergence. The idea 283 00:12:41,830 --> 00:12:43,809 that consciousness just springs fully formed 284 00:12:43,809 --> 00:12:46,090 from purely non -conscious matter. So if the 285 00:12:46,090 --> 00:12:48,149 complex mental properties of a highly organized 286 00:12:48,149 --> 00:12:51,230 thing, like a human, result from combining basic 287 00:12:51,230 --> 00:12:53,629 material components, and those basic components 288 00:12:53,629 --> 00:12:55,909 can't be merely physical. Because if they were, 289 00:12:55,990 --> 00:12:58,269 they'd just combine to make more complex physical 290 00:12:58,269 --> 00:13:01,120 things, not subjectivity. Precisely. If they 291 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:03,919 can't be merely physical, then those basic components 292 00:13:03,919 --> 00:13:06,340 must possess some kind of rudimentary mental 293 00:13:06,340 --> 00:13:09,399 properties themselves. So complexity just arranges 294 00:13:09,399 --> 00:13:11,879 pre -existing mental properties into a cohesive 295 00:13:11,879 --> 00:13:14,320 consciousness. It doesn't create them from scratch 296 00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:16,919 out of dead matter. The universe isn't fundamentally 297 00:13:16,919 --> 00:13:19,919 dead. It has mental aspects all the way down. 298 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:23,080 Exactly. And Nagel concludes that any genuine 299 00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:25,559 fundamental discoveries about how we have minds 300 00:13:25,559 --> 00:13:27,960 will necessarily reveal something fundamental 301 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:30,279 about the constituents of the universe as a whole. 302 00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:33,299 The uniqueness of the mental has to be recognized 303 00:13:33,299 --> 00:13:36,299 as part of objective reality before we can even 304 00:13:36,299 --> 00:13:39,240 begin to progress. It's a profound metaphysical 305 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:41,980 claim, and it stems directly from the failure 306 00:13:41,980 --> 00:13:44,639 of objectivity to capture subjectivity. Wow. 307 00:13:45,059 --> 00:13:47,419 Okay, let's pivot from the general problem of 308 00:13:47,419 --> 00:13:50,039 consciousness to the specific problem of the 309 00:13:50,039 --> 00:13:52,960 self -personal identity and reference. Subjectively, 310 00:13:53,100 --> 00:13:56,200 my concept of I seems perfectly clear, unique, 311 00:13:56,379 --> 00:13:58,840 and honestly even detachable from my physical 312 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:01,879 body. And that Cartesian assumption That the 313 00:14:01,879 --> 00:14:04,259 concept of the self is purely subjective and 314 00:14:04,259 --> 00:14:07,240 self -evident is exactly what Nagel wants to 315 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:10,360 challenge. The apparent simplicity and this strict, 316 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:12,980 perfect identity of the self is what motivates 317 00:14:12,980 --> 00:14:16,059 us to postulate a disconnected, immortal soul 318 00:14:16,059 --> 00:14:18,299 in the first place. But he argues the concept 319 00:14:18,299 --> 00:14:21,100 of I is not fully transparent to us. So if the 320 00:14:21,100 --> 00:14:23,200 self isn't purely subjective, how does the concept 321 00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:26,279 of I gain any objectivity, especially since it's 322 00:14:26,279 --> 00:14:28,200 the most personal word we use? He draws this 323 00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:30,519 extremely clever analogy. using the theory of 324 00:14:30,519 --> 00:14:32,580 reference developed by philosophers like Kripke 325 00:14:32,580 --> 00:14:34,740 and Putnam concerning what they call natural 326 00:14:34,740 --> 00:14:37,279 kind terms. Okay, break that down for us. Think 327 00:14:37,279 --> 00:14:39,940 about the word gold. Before scientists discovered 328 00:14:39,940 --> 00:14:43,299 its atomic number is 79, people used the concept 329 00:14:43,299 --> 00:14:46,600 gold based on superficial properties. It's yellow, 330 00:14:46,759 --> 00:14:49,379 it's heavy, it's malleable. But the term was 331 00:14:49,379 --> 00:14:52,100 always referring to something whose true underlying 332 00:14:52,100 --> 00:14:55,549 nature, its essence. O was an empirical blank 333 00:14:55,549 --> 00:14:58,210 space that had to be filled in by future scientific 334 00:14:58,210 --> 00:15:00,750 discovery. So gold refers to something real, 335 00:15:00,970 --> 00:15:03,690 but the full reality of that thing isn't contained 336 00:15:03,690 --> 00:15:06,350 in the concept itself. Correct. And Nagel's big 337 00:15:06,350 --> 00:15:08,610 move is to argue that the subjective concept 338 00:15:08,610 --> 00:15:11,970 of I operates in a similar way. When I use the 339 00:15:11,970 --> 00:15:14,529 word I, I am fixing my reference to something 340 00:15:14,529 --> 00:15:17,250 whose true essence is open to what he calls objective 341 00:15:17,250 --> 00:15:20,080 completion. So the concept refers to something 342 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:22,360 whose essence is determined by facts about my 343 00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:24,100 existence that I don't necessarily know just 344 00:15:24,100 --> 00:15:26,120 by having the subjective feeling of being me. 345 00:15:26,299 --> 00:15:28,360 Yes, which means the subjective self, the I, 346 00:15:28,639 --> 00:15:31,940 that feels like this immutable eternal core is 347 00:15:31,940 --> 00:15:34,840 actually an empirical hypothesis. The concept 348 00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:37,419 of the core self is empirically discoverable. 349 00:15:37,679 --> 00:15:40,120 And while we are, of course, complex entities, 350 00:15:40,639 --> 00:15:43,200 Nagel suggests this core self is fundamentally 351 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:46,059 tied to the functioning brain. he makes a pretty 352 00:15:46,059 --> 00:15:48,340 convincing case that the destruction of the brain 353 00:15:48,340 --> 00:15:50,419 is the only event that would make survival impossible. 354 00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:53,720 All other parts of our body are ultimately contingent. 355 00:15:53,759 --> 00:15:56,200 And this is how he dissolves that common but 356 00:15:56,200 --> 00:15:59,240 kind of baseless feeling that the self is somehow 357 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:01,679 detached and could survive beyond the physical 358 00:16:01,679 --> 00:16:04,700 body? That feeling, that illusion that you could 359 00:16:04,700 --> 00:16:07,039 survive the destruction of your brain, it stems 360 00:16:07,039 --> 00:16:10,120 directly from this gap, this blank space in our 361 00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:13,059 subjective self -concept. The subjective feeling 362 00:16:13,059 --> 00:16:15,440 of existence just projects itself into the future 363 00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:17,980 autonomously. And that makes the self seem like 364 00:16:17,980 --> 00:16:20,639 this, this universe of possibilities that stands 365 00:16:20,639 --> 00:16:23,279 by itself. But it's an illusion. It's an illusion 366 00:16:23,279 --> 00:16:25,139 that has to collide with the plain objective 367 00:16:25,139 --> 00:16:28,389 fact. The individual life of the person will 368 00:16:28,389 --> 00:16:31,690 end, and the mind with it. Because the self is 369 00:16:31,690 --> 00:16:34,370 not some immutable, featureless mental receptacle. 370 00:16:34,409 --> 00:16:36,629 It's something tied to the biological facts of 371 00:16:36,629 --> 00:16:38,870 the brain. The drive for objectivity clearly 372 00:16:38,870 --> 00:16:41,970 pushes philosophy and science forward. So let's 373 00:16:41,970 --> 00:16:44,269 move on to the theory of knowledge. Nagel makes 374 00:16:44,269 --> 00:16:46,570 a really crucial distinction here between just 375 00:16:46,570 --> 00:16:49,470 adding more information and achieving a genuine 376 00:16:49,470 --> 00:16:52,690 advance in objectivity. What separates the two? 377 00:16:52,850 --> 00:16:55,389 It's a key distinction. Simply adding information 378 00:16:55,389 --> 00:16:58,269 is like, you know, discovering a new planet or 379 00:16:58,269 --> 00:17:00,970 sequencing a gene. You're filling in details. 380 00:17:01,649 --> 00:17:03,789 within an existing framework of understanding. 381 00:17:04,069 --> 00:17:06,630 An objective advance, on the other hand, is an 382 00:17:06,630 --> 00:17:09,569 act of self -transcendence in knowledge. It fundamentally 383 00:17:09,569 --> 00:17:12,130 requires that our existing form of understanding, 384 00:17:12,369 --> 00:17:15,170 the very way our minds relate to the world, must 385 00:17:15,170 --> 00:17:17,869 itself become the object of a new external and 386 00:17:17,869 --> 00:17:20,809 superior form of understanding. So it's the move 387 00:17:20,809 --> 00:17:24,009 beyond I see red to... I understand why I see 388 00:17:24,009 --> 00:17:26,490 red. Precisely. The classic illustration is that 389 00:17:26,490 --> 00:17:28,809 historical move from secondary qualities like 390 00:17:28,809 --> 00:17:30,990 redness or sweetness, which are relative to us, 391 00:17:31,009 --> 00:17:34,069 the human observer, to primary qualities like 392 00:17:34,069 --> 00:17:36,789 shape or motion or chemical structure, which 393 00:17:36,789 --> 00:17:39,769 are independent of any observer. Right. The objective 394 00:17:39,769 --> 00:17:42,109 perspective is seeking a conception of reality 395 00:17:42,109 --> 00:17:45,049 described by these primary qualities that, in 396 00:17:45,049 --> 00:17:47,849 turn, explains why we have the subjective experiences 397 00:17:47,849 --> 00:17:50,809 of the secondary qualities. Yes. The advance 398 00:17:50,809 --> 00:17:54,049 is achieved when we can subsume the older, more 399 00:17:54,049 --> 00:17:57,109 immediate understanding like objects are intrinsically 400 00:17:57,109 --> 00:18:00,700 read under a new, more detached account. like 401 00:18:00,700 --> 00:18:03,339 perceived redness is caused by surface reflectance 402 00:18:03,339 --> 00:18:05,380 properties interacting with our sensory apparatus. 403 00:18:05,700 --> 00:18:08,599 It's the incapacity of the earlier view to include 404 00:18:08,599 --> 00:18:11,500 and explain itself that forces us to seek the 405 00:18:11,500 --> 00:18:14,599 new, more objective conception. And this raises 406 00:18:14,599 --> 00:18:16,779 a really fundamental epistemological question, 407 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:19,259 which is how far can this objective leap actually 408 00:18:19,259 --> 00:18:21,480 take us? And this is where Nagel launches his 409 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:24,460 strong counter -argument against idealism. Idealism 410 00:18:24,460 --> 00:18:26,440 being the persistent belief, you know, often 411 00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:28,839 associated with figures like the logical positivists 412 00:18:28,839 --> 00:18:31,740 or even Davidson, that reality cannot possibly 413 00:18:31,740 --> 00:18:34,519 extend beyond what we could, in principle, think 414 00:18:34,519 --> 00:18:36,819 about or conceive of. Yes. The argument that 415 00:18:36,819 --> 00:18:39,460 our general idea of what's real has to be limited 416 00:18:39,460 --> 00:18:41,380 by what we could truly assert to be the case 417 00:18:41,380 --> 00:18:43,819 in the language that we can understand. Nagel 418 00:18:43,819 --> 00:18:46,619 rejects this just wholeheartedly. So what does 419 00:18:46,619 --> 00:18:50,029 he propose instead? He argues for a very strong 420 00:18:50,029 --> 00:18:53,980 form of realism. The notion that reality may 421 00:18:53,980 --> 00:18:56,839 extend vastly beyond the limits of our conceptual 422 00:18:56,839 --> 00:18:59,799 capacity, including things we never could conceive. 423 00:19:00,039 --> 00:19:02,359 Hold on. If we can never conceive of it, how 424 00:19:02,359 --> 00:19:04,819 can we even claim that it exists? Isn't that 425 00:19:04,819 --> 00:19:07,099 just a meaningless statement? Well, this is where 426 00:19:07,099 --> 00:19:10,380 Nagel cleverly uses the concept of the self's 427 00:19:10,380 --> 00:19:13,680 limitation to justify the world's unlimited nature. 428 00:19:14,180 --> 00:19:16,900 We recognize that our ideas are the contingent 429 00:19:16,900 --> 00:19:19,869 products of one small piece of the world. our 430 00:19:19,869 --> 00:19:22,809 brain interacting with the rest of it. That recognition 431 00:19:22,809 --> 00:19:26,130 allows us to logically conceive of, say, higher 432 00:19:26,130 --> 00:19:29,069 beings who would be related to us as we are related 433 00:19:29,069 --> 00:19:31,210 to, I don't know, a primitive worm. So if those 434 00:19:31,210 --> 00:19:33,910 hypothetical higher beings could understand complex 435 00:19:33,910 --> 00:19:36,150 structures of the universe that are just completely 436 00:19:36,150 --> 00:19:38,789 inaccessible to human thought, then those structures 437 00:19:38,789 --> 00:19:41,170 are real, even if we can never grasp them ourselves. 438 00:19:41,650 --> 00:19:44,329 Exactly. The existence of unreachable aspects 439 00:19:44,329 --> 00:19:47,069 of reality is independent of their conceivability 440 00:19:47,069 --> 00:19:50,809 by our specific actual minds our knowledge of 441 00:19:50,809 --> 00:19:53,369 the phenomenal world is partial but the entire 442 00:19:53,369 --> 00:19:56,089 world the world as it is in itself cannot be 443 00:19:56,089 --> 00:19:58,289 identified with the limits of human conceptual 444 00:19:58,289 --> 00:20:02,609 capacity to think otherwise is just it's a radical 445 00:20:02,609 --> 00:20:04,849 form of intellectual hubris okay here's where 446 00:20:04,849 --> 00:20:07,619 it gets really fascinating for me If our objective 447 00:20:07,619 --> 00:20:10,740 capacity, the sort of miraculous ability to form 448 00:20:10,740 --> 00:20:13,220 progressively more detached conceptions of reality, 449 00:20:13,460 --> 00:20:16,440 is so powerful, how did we get it? Nagel calls 450 00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:18,819 this ability a complete mystery. He says it has 451 00:20:18,819 --> 00:20:21,500 no credible explanation in terms of anything 452 00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:23,559 more basic. And this is where he launches his 453 00:20:23,559 --> 00:20:26,220 really powerful critique of evolutionary epistemology, 454 00:20:26,380 --> 00:20:29,460 that tendency to offer these vague sort of hand 455 00:20:29,460 --> 00:20:32,720 -waving explanations for the emergence of complex 456 00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:34,799 objective reasoning based on natural selection. 457 00:20:35,130 --> 00:20:37,710 Why is that explanation so insufficient or even 458 00:20:37,710 --> 00:20:40,710 dangerous? Because natural selection only explains 459 00:20:40,710 --> 00:20:43,630 selection among possibilities. It doesn't explain 460 00:20:43,630 --> 00:20:45,589 the possibility of objective minds themselves 461 00:20:45,589 --> 00:20:48,450 in the first place. But even if we grant that 462 00:20:48,450 --> 00:20:51,750 unexplained possibility, Darwinian theory explains 463 00:20:51,750 --> 00:20:54,670 selection for traits that confer a survival advantage. 464 00:20:54,970 --> 00:20:57,730 Right. And here's the crucial point. Natural 465 00:20:57,730 --> 00:20:59,950 selection provides absolutely no confirmation 466 00:20:59,950 --> 00:21:03,710 of our theorizing faculty's capacity to get at 467 00:21:03,710 --> 00:21:06,289 the truth beyond the very limited range necessary 468 00:21:06,289 --> 00:21:09,630 for survival. Ah, okay. So the paradox is, if 469 00:21:09,630 --> 00:21:12,589 my objective reasoning ability was only selected 470 00:21:12,589 --> 00:21:15,309 because it helped my ancestors find water and 471 00:21:15,309 --> 00:21:18,509 avoid lions, why on earth should I trust it when 472 00:21:18,509 --> 00:21:20,869 it starts talking about general relativity or 473 00:21:20,869 --> 00:21:23,630 quantum mechanics or abstract philosophy? That's 474 00:21:23,630 --> 00:21:25,849 the logical contradiction. Yeah. If we truly 475 00:21:25,849 --> 00:21:27,710 believe that our objective theorizing faculty 476 00:21:27,710 --> 00:21:29,970 was just the contingent byproduct of natural 477 00:21:29,970 --> 00:21:32,450 selection, we would have to be seriously skeptical 478 00:21:32,450 --> 00:21:34,809 about its results when applied to anything outside 479 00:21:34,809 --> 00:21:37,690 that immediate survival -oriented domain. If 480 00:21:37,690 --> 00:21:39,609 objective truth is just a lucky byproduct of 481 00:21:39,609 --> 00:21:42,109 avoiding predators, we shouldn't rely on it to 482 00:21:42,109 --> 00:21:43,809 describe the fundamental nature of the universe. 483 00:21:44,150 --> 00:21:47,369 So we need something more foundational. And this 484 00:21:47,369 --> 00:21:50,009 is what leads Nagel to lean towards a rationalist 485 00:21:50,009 --> 00:21:53,309 basis of knowledge. Yes. Real progress in knowledge, 486 00:21:53,549 --> 00:21:56,549 he argues, has to rely on an a priori basis, 487 00:21:56,789 --> 00:22:00,059 an innate pre -existing capacity. for achieving 488 00:22:00,059 --> 00:22:03,039 harmony with the world that extends far beyond 489 00:22:03,039 --> 00:22:05,500 our immediate particular experiences. So this 490 00:22:05,500 --> 00:22:07,700 is an admission that we are not just, you know, 491 00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:09,700 contingent organisms thrown up by evolution. 492 00:22:09,900 --> 00:22:12,859 We're beings whose minds are fundamentally capable 493 00:22:12,859 --> 00:22:15,180 of more than what's required for mere survival. 494 00:22:15,420 --> 00:22:17,579 We're capable of imagining deforms of hidden 495 00:22:17,579 --> 00:22:20,519 order. Exactly. The rationalist tradition, while 496 00:22:20,519 --> 00:22:22,920 it doesn't guarantee certainty, suggests that 497 00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:25,319 our objective advances are steps along a path 498 00:22:25,319 --> 00:22:28,410 that extends beyond us. Our quest for objectivity 499 00:22:28,410 --> 00:22:31,029 is a process of gradually liberating the dormant, 500 00:22:31,029 --> 00:22:34,069 objective self. The self that is capable of grasping 501 00:22:34,069 --> 00:22:36,190 reality independent of its immediate sensory 502 00:22:36,190 --> 00:22:38,910 input. Alright, if the objective viewpoint challenges 503 00:22:38,910 --> 00:22:41,450 our knowledge, it absolutely threatens our sense 504 00:22:41,450 --> 00:22:44,670 of free will and autonomy. And Nagel frames this 505 00:22:44,670 --> 00:22:47,369 problem so beautifully, not as some sterile linguistic 506 00:22:47,369 --> 00:22:50,670 debate, but as a bafflement of our feelings and 507 00:22:50,670 --> 00:22:54,240 attitudes. It's this profound loss of conviction 508 00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,380 and personal responsibility that's caused by 509 00:22:56,380 --> 00:22:58,680 stepping into the external view. It's a deep 510 00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,599 psychological disruption. When you perform that 511 00:23:01,599 --> 00:23:03,920 act of objective detachment and you see yourself 512 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:06,759 from the outside, as a mere bit of the world, 513 00:23:06,839 --> 00:23:09,059 just a phenomenon generated by the world's prior 514 00:23:09,059 --> 00:23:11,859 causes, two things happen at once. The desire 515 00:23:11,859 --> 00:23:14,720 for genuine autonomy is evoked. You want to be 516 00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:16,980 the true source of your actions, but that very 517 00:23:16,980 --> 00:23:19,960 same objective view instantly reveals that autonomy 518 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:22,230 to be impossible. You want to stand back from 519 00:23:22,230 --> 00:23:24,130 the sources of your own actions and control the 520 00:23:24,130 --> 00:23:26,210 inner conditions of your choices. But the more 521 00:23:26,210 --> 00:23:28,230 you look objectively, the more you just see the 522 00:23:28,230 --> 00:23:30,670 action and the choice itself as a causally determined 523 00:23:30,670 --> 00:23:33,329 event in the world, an inevitable outcome of 524 00:23:33,329 --> 00:23:36,170 brain states, history, physical law. The structure 525 00:23:36,170 --> 00:23:39,750 of the problem is this. For an action to be truly 526 00:23:39,750 --> 00:23:42,829 autonomous, the chain of intentional explanation, 527 00:23:43,190 --> 00:23:46,470 you know, why I did it, has to eventually come 528 00:23:46,470 --> 00:23:49,230 to an end without causal determination taking 529 00:23:49,230 --> 00:23:52,960 over. So the choice itself has to be inexplicable. 530 00:23:52,980 --> 00:23:55,759 In a way, yes. The central element of choice 531 00:23:55,759 --> 00:23:58,420 has to be inexplicable. Neither fully intentional, 532 00:23:58,759 --> 00:24:00,839 which would mean it's driven by compelling reasons, 533 00:24:00,940 --> 00:24:04,380 nor fully causal, which means driven by prior 534 00:24:04,380 --> 00:24:06,940 forces. If the choice is determined by compelling 535 00:24:06,940 --> 00:24:09,660 reasons, we're just being rational conduits. 536 00:24:09,950 --> 00:24:12,309 not truly autonomous agents. And from the radical 537 00:24:12,309 --> 00:24:14,809 external standpoint, the entire scenario just 538 00:24:14,809 --> 00:24:17,329 shifts completely. If I'm choosing between a 539 00:24:17,329 --> 00:24:19,549 hamburger and a salad, that choice is viewed 540 00:24:19,549 --> 00:24:21,509 as merely alternatives for the world that just 541 00:24:21,509 --> 00:24:23,309 happen to involve me as part of the mechanism. 542 00:24:23,609 --> 00:24:25,549 And since the world is not an agent, the world 543 00:24:25,549 --> 00:24:27,769 can't be held responsible. The choice just appears 544 00:24:27,769 --> 00:24:29,890 to be a natural event, like a tectonic plate 545 00:24:29,890 --> 00:24:32,990 shifting. This external perspective is so debilitating 546 00:24:32,990 --> 00:24:34,869 because we lose the ability to project ourselves 547 00:24:34,869 --> 00:24:37,190 into the agent's point of view to compare the 548 00:24:37,190 --> 00:24:39,730 alternatives. From the outside, only one alternative 549 00:24:39,730 --> 00:24:42,329 was ever going to happen anyway. And this threatens 550 00:24:42,329 --> 00:24:45,210 the very foundations of responsibility, blame, 551 00:24:45,549 --> 00:24:48,430 justice. I mean, everything. This is where Nagel 552 00:24:48,430 --> 00:24:51,690 draws a really strong contrast with P .F. Strawson's 553 00:24:51,690 --> 00:24:54,410 famous argument in freedom and resentment. Right. 554 00:24:54,549 --> 00:24:57,130 Strawson essentially argued that our reactive 555 00:24:57,130 --> 00:25:00,730 attitudes, things like blame. resentment, gratitude, 556 00:25:01,130 --> 00:25:04,289 moral responsibility. They are inherent to human 557 00:25:04,289 --> 00:25:06,910 social life. They're internal to our practices. 558 00:25:07,150 --> 00:25:09,829 They're just a given with the fact of human society. 559 00:25:10,109 --> 00:25:12,509 So they don't need some external rational justification. 560 00:25:13,150 --> 00:25:15,509 Exactly. He's saying we don't just abandon the 561 00:25:15,509 --> 00:25:18,089 entire structure of human morality simply because 562 00:25:18,089 --> 00:25:20,210 a determinist points out that we're parts of 563 00:25:20,210 --> 00:25:22,569 the world. We just adjust the conditions under 564 00:25:22,569 --> 00:25:24,170 which we apply these attitudes. For instance, 565 00:25:24,250 --> 00:25:26,529 we don't blame a small child or a mentally ill 566 00:25:26,529 --> 00:25:28,799 person in the same way. But Nagel's rebuttal 567 00:25:28,799 --> 00:25:30,640 is that we can't just close our eyes to the external 568 00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:33,019 view once we're capable of it. We can't unsee 569 00:25:33,019 --> 00:25:35,460 it. The philosophical problem persists precisely 570 00:25:35,460 --> 00:25:38,519 because that objective, transcendent perspective 571 00:25:38,519 --> 00:25:41,900 threatens to dissolve those internal reactive 572 00:25:41,900 --> 00:25:45,259 attitudes, not just adjust them. We can't simply 573 00:25:45,259 --> 00:25:47,099 forget the fact that we are just parts of the 574 00:25:47,099 --> 00:25:49,579 world and that thought fundamentally undercuts 575 00:25:49,579 --> 00:25:52,769 our feelings of autonomy. And this whole dilemma, 576 00:25:52,849 --> 00:25:56,109 this dead end, leads to the recognition of what 577 00:25:56,109 --> 00:25:58,910 he calls the essentially incomplete objective 578 00:25:58,910 --> 00:26:01,190 view. We could call it the self -blind spot. 579 00:26:01,450 --> 00:26:03,670 Why is our objective view of ourselves always 580 00:26:03,670 --> 00:26:06,910 incomplete? Because the knower always has to 581 00:26:06,910 --> 00:26:09,769 remain behind the lens. You cannot fully take 582 00:26:09,769 --> 00:26:12,170 into account the sources of your own actions 583 00:26:12,170 --> 00:26:14,950 while you are acting. The objective picture you 584 00:26:14,950 --> 00:26:17,690 form of yourself includes what you know and can 585 00:26:17,690 --> 00:26:20,089 use, your environment, your history, and what 586 00:26:20,089 --> 00:26:21,890 you know you don't know, like the precise mechanism 587 00:26:21,890 --> 00:26:24,430 of the choice itself. And therefore, what you 588 00:26:24,430 --> 00:26:26,730 know you can't use to guide the current action. 589 00:26:26,829 --> 00:26:28,450 That's the blind spot. It's the point of action, 590 00:26:28,509 --> 00:26:31,390 the agent itself. It is. So we have to act, even 591 00:26:31,390 --> 00:26:33,289 though we know we are operating with an incomplete 592 00:26:33,289 --> 00:26:36,369 and potentially totally inaccurate picture of 593 00:26:36,369 --> 00:26:38,690 the forces that are determining our choice. And 594 00:26:38,690 --> 00:26:40,150 that's where the challenge of limited integration 595 00:26:40,150 --> 00:26:43,529 comes in. Since a truly completed objective view 596 00:26:43,529 --> 00:26:46,430 is forever unattainable, the self can't fully 597 00:26:46,430 --> 00:26:48,670 step out of itself to observe itself acting, 598 00:26:48,910 --> 00:26:52,250 we have to aim for a limited success. We strive 599 00:26:52,250 --> 00:26:55,750 to act in a way that avoids, as he puts it, positive 600 00:26:55,750 --> 00:26:59,329 reasons to detach. Meaning? Meaning we hope that 601 00:26:59,329 --> 00:27:01,390 our chosen action would not prove unacceptable 602 00:27:01,390 --> 00:27:04,849 from a hypothetically complete objective view, 603 00:27:04,990 --> 00:27:07,660 even though we can never have it. We integrate 604 00:27:07,660 --> 00:27:10,660 what we can while recognizing the impossibility 605 00:27:10,660 --> 00:27:12,839 of fully integrating the subjective source of 606 00:27:12,839 --> 00:27:15,039 the action into the objective picture. So the 607 00:27:15,039 --> 00:27:17,119 goal is to make choices that, even if they were 608 00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:18,900 causally determined, we wouldn't look back on 609 00:27:18,900 --> 00:27:20,640 and wish the causal forces had been different. 610 00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:22,519 It's basically acting with a kind of philosophical 611 00:27:22,519 --> 00:27:25,319 humility. Exactly. We have to consciously put 612 00:27:25,319 --> 00:27:37,019 up with the absurdity of it all. We're moving 613 00:27:37,019 --> 00:27:40,059 now into the ultimate application of objectivity, 614 00:27:40,220 --> 00:27:43,259 these practical questions of morality and value. 615 00:27:43,579 --> 00:27:46,380 Nagel is a proponent of normative realism here, 616 00:27:46,460 --> 00:27:49,230 which is... Well, it's the view that propositions 617 00:27:49,230 --> 00:27:52,029 about what gives us reasons for action are objectively 618 00:27:52,029 --> 00:27:55,329 true or false, independent of how they appear 619 00:27:55,329 --> 00:27:57,849 to us or how we feel about them. This is a really 620 00:27:57,849 --> 00:27:59,950 bold claim, and it's essential to understand 621 00:27:59,950 --> 00:28:02,450 how he defends it against ethical skepticism. 622 00:28:02,569 --> 00:28:05,490 He explicitly rejects the philosophical baggage 623 00:28:05,490 --> 00:28:08,170 that anti -realists often claim is necessary 624 00:28:08,170 --> 00:28:10,529 for ethical truth. You're referring to philosophers 625 00:28:10,529 --> 00:28:13,049 like J .L. Mackey, who famously argued that if 626 00:28:13,049 --> 00:28:15,890 normative truths existed, they'd require... entities 627 00:28:15,890 --> 00:28:18,950 or qualities of a very strange sort. People usually 628 00:28:18,950 --> 00:28:21,130 interpret that as these spooky, non -natural 629 00:28:21,130 --> 00:28:23,509 platonic forms just floating around in the universe. 630 00:28:23,670 --> 00:28:25,730 Precisely. And Nagel rejects that assumption 631 00:28:25,730 --> 00:28:27,710 completely. Claiming that pain is objectively 632 00:28:27,710 --> 00:28:30,329 bad is a normative claim. It's not a claim about 633 00:28:30,329 --> 00:28:32,809 causal explanation or physical entities. It's 634 00:28:32,809 --> 00:28:35,109 only by narrowly defining reality as strictly 635 00:28:35,109 --> 00:28:38,109 physical or causal that anti -realists can dismiss 636 00:28:38,109 --> 00:28:40,170 ethical claims as just, you know, subjective 637 00:28:40,170 --> 00:28:43,559 opinions. So for Nagel, Normative realism simply 638 00:28:43,559 --> 00:28:46,500 means we're aiming to reorder our motives in 639 00:28:46,500 --> 00:28:48,420 a direction that would be acceptable from an 640 00:28:48,420 --> 00:28:50,640 external standpoint. We're trying to discover 641 00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:52,960 reasons for action that transcend our existing 642 00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,920 local desires. We search for reasons for action 643 00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,420 in the world, not just in our own personal preferences. 644 00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:02,839 And to structure this objective morality, we 645 00:29:02,839 --> 00:29:05,960 need his taxonomy of practical reasons. It's 646 00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,720 divided into two main and constantly warring 647 00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,900 camps. Agent neutral. and agent relative reasons. 648 00:29:12,079 --> 00:29:14,359 OK, let's start with the first one. Agent neutral 649 00:29:14,359 --> 00:29:17,019 reasons or impersonal reasons are those that 650 00:29:17,019 --> 00:29:19,079 apply to anyone, regardless of who they are. 651 00:29:19,119 --> 00:29:22,019 They're universal. The simplest, clearest case 652 00:29:22,019 --> 00:29:24,380 for an agent neutral value is sensory pleasure. 653 00:29:25,049 --> 00:29:28,150 Right. When the objective self contemplates suffering, 654 00:29:28,309 --> 00:29:31,230 it recognizes the sufferer's reaction. This experience 655 00:29:31,230 --> 00:29:33,849 ought not to go on as an impersonal truth. And 656 00:29:33,849 --> 00:29:35,930 that recognition provides agent -neutral reasons 657 00:29:35,930 --> 00:29:38,309 for anyone, anywhere, to relieve that suffering. 658 00:29:38,630 --> 00:29:41,009 So if a hundred people are drowning, the value 659 00:29:41,009 --> 00:29:42,930 of saving them is objectively higher than the 660 00:29:42,930 --> 00:29:45,269 value of saving one, regardless of whether I 661 00:29:45,269 --> 00:29:48,410 know them personally. That is the core consequentialist 662 00:29:48,410 --> 00:29:51,089 impulse, the pursuit of the overall impersonal 663 00:29:51,089 --> 00:29:55,549 good. But, and this is a huge but, If that were 664 00:29:55,549 --> 00:29:58,630 the only kind of reason that existed, human life 665 00:29:58,630 --> 00:30:00,809 would become impossible. And this brings us to 666 00:30:00,809 --> 00:30:03,470 the other camp. Agent -relative reasons, which 667 00:30:03,470 --> 00:30:05,630 inherently refer back to the person who has them. 668 00:30:05,789 --> 00:30:08,490 And we have two critical types of these. First, 669 00:30:08,650 --> 00:30:10,670 there are the autonomous reasons, which are optional. 670 00:30:10,829 --> 00:30:13,289 These relate to our personal projects. Yes, your 671 00:30:13,289 --> 00:30:16,170 optional ends, your commitment to climb Kilimanjaro, 672 00:30:16,329 --> 00:30:19,329 or pursue a specific career, or dedicate all 673 00:30:19,329 --> 00:30:22,089 your time to a really niche hobby. The value 674 00:30:22,089 --> 00:30:24,369 of these projects is conditional on the agent's 675 00:30:24,369 --> 00:30:26,849 choice and desire. They're only valuable for 676 00:30:26,849 --> 00:30:30,130 that person. And Nagel references Stanlin's point 677 00:30:30,130 --> 00:30:32,349 here, right? That simply satisfying a preference 678 00:30:32,349 --> 00:30:34,690 doesn't automatically create a strong moral claim 679 00:30:34,690 --> 00:30:37,009 on other people. Right. If I choose to spend 680 00:30:37,009 --> 00:30:39,130 all my money building a giant bird feeder, I 681 00:30:39,130 --> 00:30:42,009 don't necessarily have a moral claim on you to 682 00:30:42,009 --> 00:30:44,289 fund my resulting poverty. And the objective 683 00:30:44,289 --> 00:30:47,490 self. has to acknowledge this limitation even 684 00:30:47,490 --> 00:30:50,109 when it's viewing its own life. My objective 685 00:30:50,109 --> 00:30:52,769 self can only acknowledge the value of my personal 686 00:30:52,769 --> 00:30:55,829 project vicariously. It's a value for that specific 687 00:30:55,829 --> 00:30:58,849 individual, Tien, not an impersonal value for 688 00:30:58,849 --> 00:31:02,349 the universe. It's valuable to me, but not universally 689 00:31:02,349 --> 00:31:04,490 valuable in the same way that relieving universal 690 00:31:04,490 --> 00:31:07,789 suffering is. And then we get to the truly destabilizing 691 00:31:07,789 --> 00:31:10,869 element, the deontological constraints. These 692 00:31:10,869 --> 00:31:12,869 are agent -relative reasons that are mandatory, 693 00:31:13,029 --> 00:31:15,700 not optional. There are absolute limits on how 694 00:31:15,700 --> 00:31:18,279 we may act, reasons against breaking a promise 695 00:31:18,279 --> 00:31:21,400 or lying or intentionally harming someone, even 696 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:23,440 if violating that constraint would lead to a 697 00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:25,359 greater impersonal good. OK, this is the core 698 00:31:25,359 --> 00:31:27,799 ethical class. We need a really robust illustration 699 00:31:27,799 --> 00:31:30,500 of the force of the deontological view here. 700 00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,079 OK, let's use the classic dilemma. Imagine I 701 00:31:33,079 --> 00:31:35,539 can twist a child's arm to prevent five greater 702 00:31:35,539 --> 00:31:37,359 harms from occurring elsewhere in the world, 703 00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:39,619 harms I didn't cause and wouldn't be responsible 704 00:31:39,619 --> 00:31:43,549 for. From the purely external agent neutral consequentialist 705 00:31:43,549 --> 00:31:46,869 view, the outcome is objectively better if I 706 00:31:46,869 --> 00:31:50,049 twist the arm. The moral calculation favors the 707 00:31:50,049 --> 00:31:52,029 outcome of minimizing total harm in the world. 708 00:31:52,269 --> 00:31:55,410 But the internal subjective view just screams 709 00:31:55,410 --> 00:31:58,210 that twisting the child's arm is morally unacceptable. 710 00:31:58,490 --> 00:32:01,309 Why? What's the philosophical justification for 711 00:32:01,309 --> 00:32:04,329 that feeling? The deontological constraint derives 712 00:32:04,329 --> 00:32:06,470 its force from the special personal perspective 713 00:32:06,470 --> 00:32:09,329 of the agent. The violation is focused entirely 714 00:32:09,329 --> 00:32:12,150 on your doing something. When you intentionally 715 00:32:12,150 --> 00:32:14,910 twist that child's arm, you incorporate that 716 00:32:14,910 --> 00:32:18,000 evil into what you do. The evil is a deliberate 717 00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,240 creation by you, the agent. The reasons against 718 00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:23,559 that action are magnified exponentially from 719 00:32:23,559 --> 00:32:25,559 your perspective, even if the external perspective 720 00:32:25,559 --> 00:32:27,980 says the outcome is better. The moral weight 721 00:32:27,980 --> 00:32:30,500 is on the act itself, not the consequence. So 722 00:32:30,500 --> 00:32:33,480 the subjective self, the agent, refuses to contaminate 723 00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,819 its own autonomous projection with that deliberate 724 00:32:35,819 --> 00:32:38,279 evil, even for a net gain of good in the world. 725 00:32:38,460 --> 00:32:40,420 And then consider it from the victim's perspective. 726 00:32:41,079 --> 00:32:44,240 The victim of an intentional harm has a special 727 00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,140 right to protest against the agent. If you kill 728 00:32:47,140 --> 00:32:50,559 one innocent person to save five, a pure consequentialist 729 00:32:50,559 --> 00:32:53,140 view would suggest the victim has no real right 730 00:32:53,140 --> 00:32:55,799 to object or resist if the calculation is correct. 731 00:32:56,329 --> 00:32:58,750 But the deontological view confirms the importance 732 00:32:58,750 --> 00:33:01,930 of that internal perspective. It does. The victim 733 00:33:01,930 --> 00:33:04,589 feels outrage when they are deliberately harmed, 734 00:33:04,690 --> 00:33:06,650 not just because of the quantity of the harm, 735 00:33:06,690 --> 00:33:08,910 but because the action is immediately directed 736 00:33:08,910 --> 00:33:11,349 against their good. They can protest against 737 00:33:11,349 --> 00:33:14,130 you, the agent, in a way that the five passive 738 00:33:14,130 --> 00:33:16,630 sufferers cannot protest against your mere refusal 739 00:33:16,630 --> 00:33:19,309 to save them. This sounds like a completely unavoidable 740 00:33:19,309 --> 00:33:21,789 clash. You can't reconcile the personal force 741 00:33:21,789 --> 00:33:24,069 of the deed with the impersonal calculation of 742 00:33:24,069 --> 00:33:26,970 the outcome. So if philosophical unity is just 743 00:33:26,970 --> 00:33:29,710 impossible, what does Nagel suggest as the path 744 00:33:29,710 --> 00:33:32,769 forward? He concludes that a fully agent neutral 745 00:33:32,769 --> 00:33:35,750 morality, one that successfully eliminates the 746 00:33:35,750 --> 00:33:38,509 personal perspective, is an impossible human 747 00:33:38,509 --> 00:33:41,509 goal. It's as futile as trying to eliminate perspective 748 00:33:41,509 --> 00:33:44,109 from the universe entirely. So since we can't 749 00:33:44,109 --> 00:33:45,849 achieve this all -encompassing philosophical 750 00:33:45,849 --> 00:33:49,250 unity, the solution has to be practical and institutional. 751 00:33:49,819 --> 00:33:52,480 The political solution, using the state as a 752 00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:56,720 necessary moral buffer. Exactly. The state or 753 00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,740 other well -designed institutions must externalize 754 00:33:59,740 --> 00:34:02,940 this clash. The state exists to protect personal 755 00:34:02,940 --> 00:34:06,759 life and autonomy against what he calls the ravenous 756 00:34:06,759 --> 00:34:09,599 claims of impersonal good. Right. Because if 757 00:34:09,599 --> 00:34:12,059 an extreme consequentialist calculus dictated 758 00:34:12,059 --> 00:34:13,880 that your personal time, wealth and energy must 759 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,659 be constantly maximized for global good. Individual 760 00:34:16,659 --> 00:34:19,500 life would just collapse. It would. The state's 761 00:34:19,500 --> 00:34:21,780 purpose is to allow individuals the freedom to 762 00:34:21,780 --> 00:34:24,219 pursue those deeply felt agent relative values 763 00:34:24,219 --> 00:34:26,480 that can't be impersonally acknowledged, while 764 00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,719 also ensuring that the necessary impersonal good 765 00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:31,360 like order, security, basic welfare is still 766 00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,559 secured on a collective scale. That seems like 767 00:34:33,559 --> 00:34:35,780 a very pragmatic acknowledgement of philosophical 768 00:34:35,780 --> 00:34:38,940 defeat, but also a necessary one for human flourishing. 769 00:34:39,449 --> 00:34:42,329 We essentially outsource the resolution of the 770 00:34:42,329 --> 00:34:45,170 tension to our bureaucratic and legal structures. 771 00:34:45,769 --> 00:34:47,630 I think that's a good way to put it. We've tracked 772 00:34:47,630 --> 00:34:50,530 this fundamental tension through four major philosophical 773 00:34:50,530 --> 00:34:54,130 areas. Now we arrive at the final and maybe the 774 00:34:54,130 --> 00:34:57,150 most visceral confrontation, the existential 775 00:34:57,150 --> 00:35:00,369 problems of meaning, contingency, and death. 776 00:35:00,809 --> 00:35:03,730 And these are generated precisely because the 777 00:35:03,730 --> 00:35:06,530 objective standpoint forces us to see our lives 778 00:35:06,530 --> 00:35:09,250 as just a part of the world rather than central 779 00:35:09,250 --> 00:35:11,190 to it. This is definitely where the emotional 780 00:35:11,190 --> 00:35:13,909 and psychological toll of objectivity is at its 781 00:35:13,909 --> 00:35:17,530 highest. Take a contingency of birth. Subjectively, 782 00:35:17,530 --> 00:35:19,389 your existence is the most certain foundational 783 00:35:19,389 --> 00:35:22,269 fact there is. But when you view it objectively, 784 00:35:22,449 --> 00:35:24,429 you realize that your birth was a sheer accident, 785 00:35:24,570 --> 00:35:27,269 a cosmic non -necessity dependent on a million 786 00:35:27,269 --> 00:35:30,349 random factors aligning perfectly. The sources 787 00:35:30,349 --> 00:35:33,210 mentioned this resulting giddiness, this retrospective 788 00:35:33,210 --> 00:35:36,690 alarm, and this bizarre sense of survivor's syndrome 789 00:35:36,690 --> 00:35:39,630 towards the vast number of possible non -existent 790 00:35:39,630 --> 00:35:42,469 beings who, objectively speaking, had just as 791 00:35:42,469 --> 00:35:45,329 much chance of being here as we did. That submerged 792 00:35:45,329 --> 00:35:47,829 illusion of subjective inevitability is just 793 00:35:47,829 --> 00:35:50,269 utterly destroyed. And that leads you directly 794 00:35:50,269 --> 00:35:53,889 to the core existential question. Objective unimportance 795 00:35:53,889 --> 00:35:56,889 or the meaning of life. From that transcendent 796 00:35:56,889 --> 00:35:58,969 external view of the universe, our existence 797 00:35:58,969 --> 00:36:01,170 and even the existence of the entire human species 798 00:36:01,170 --> 00:36:04,230 wouldn't objectively matter at all. The universe 799 00:36:04,230 --> 00:36:07,110 simply doesn't care. And this is the source of 800 00:36:07,110 --> 00:36:09,429 that persistent philosophical feeling of absurdity. 801 00:36:09,769 --> 00:36:12,090 The objective self finds our life meaningless, 802 00:36:12,349 --> 00:36:14,769 our worries about a bad haircut, or the relentless 803 00:36:14,769 --> 00:36:16,750 pursuit of more income. They just seem trivial 804 00:36:16,750 --> 00:36:19,440 from a cosmic perspective. But the subjective 805 00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,179 self is internally unable to extricate itself 806 00:36:22,179 --> 00:36:24,880 from an unqualified, deeply felt commitment to 807 00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,760 those very projects. And the clash is highly 808 00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,099 destabilizing because you, the person, occupy 809 00:36:31,099 --> 00:36:34,179 both standpoints at the same time. The internal 810 00:36:34,179 --> 00:36:36,559 view resists being reduced to merely subjective 811 00:36:36,559 --> 00:36:38,719 preferences, which is what the external view 812 00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,260 tries to impose on it. You can't make a third 813 00:36:41,260 --> 00:36:44,559 unified judgment. You are both cosmically insignificant 814 00:36:44,559 --> 00:36:47,809 and fundamentally important all at once. So the 815 00:36:47,809 --> 00:36:49,449 philosopher is telling us that the only way to 816 00:36:49,449 --> 00:36:51,889 win is to consciously accept that the worry about 817 00:36:51,889 --> 00:36:54,230 the bad haircut is both trivial to the universe 818 00:36:54,230 --> 00:36:57,909 and absolutely essential to me as an agent. That 819 00:36:57,909 --> 00:37:00,050 just sounds exhausting. It sounds like a perpetual 820 00:37:00,050 --> 00:37:02,250 state of cognitive dissonance. It is the human 821 00:37:02,250 --> 00:37:04,909 condition. Nagel says we have to find ways to 822 00:37:04,909 --> 00:37:07,489 pursue our subjective values to the extent that's 823 00:37:07,489 --> 00:37:09,610 compatible with the claims of others. We have 824 00:37:09,610 --> 00:37:12,050 to seek a position not so far outside that all 825 00:37:12,050 --> 00:37:14,489 human values vanish in a nihilistic blackout. 826 00:37:14,949 --> 00:37:17,699 The goal is a limited integration. where we recognize 827 00:37:17,699 --> 00:37:19,980 the absurdity, but we don't let it paralyze us. 828 00:37:20,119 --> 00:37:23,400 And finally, death. Nagel notes this profound 829 00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:26,079 asymmetry between our attitudes toward past non 830 00:37:26,079 --> 00:37:28,420 -existence, the time before we were born, and 831 00:37:28,420 --> 00:37:31,320 future non -existence, death. We're generally 832 00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:33,300 indifferent to the time before we existed, yet 833 00:37:33,300 --> 00:37:36,480 we're terrified of the time after. And this asymmetry 834 00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:38,840 makes death feel much worse than it rationally 835 00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,800 should. That asymmetry is a function of the subjective 836 00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,320 view. The prospect of future non -existence just 837 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,340 demolishes the self's autonomous projection into 838 00:37:48,340 --> 00:37:50,920 the future. Dying is not just an external event 839 00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,280 to be observed from the outside. Grasping one's 840 00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,760 own death requires looking forward to the expectation 841 00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,699 of nothingness, which is an unmistakable, startling 842 00:37:58,699 --> 00:38:00,760 subjective experience. Because the subjective 843 00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,619 view projects itself autonomously forward, it 844 00:38:03,619 --> 00:38:06,280 sees itself as the center of a universe of possibilities, 845 00:38:06,460 --> 00:38:09,179 and future non -existence represents the abrupt 846 00:38:09,179 --> 00:38:11,619 cessation of all possibility for the subject. 847 00:38:11,900 --> 00:38:14,159 And when viewed objectively, the vanishing of 848 00:38:14,159 --> 00:38:16,260 this individual from the world is no more remarkable 849 00:38:16,260 --> 00:38:18,860 or important than their highly accidental appearance 850 00:38:18,860 --> 00:38:21,139 in the first place. The objective standpoint 851 00:38:21,139 --> 00:38:23,699 dictates indifference, but that indifference 852 00:38:23,699 --> 00:38:25,780 is often a form of blindness from the internal 853 00:38:25,780 --> 00:38:29,090 perspective. So the final conclusion is that 854 00:38:29,090 --> 00:38:31,610 the objective standpoint just cannot be fully 855 00:38:31,610 --> 00:38:35,250 domesticated. We can't rise above death by occupying 856 00:38:35,250 --> 00:38:37,230 a vantage point that death itself will eventually 857 00:38:37,230 --> 00:38:39,949 destroy. We are stuck with a fundamental tension 858 00:38:39,949 --> 00:38:43,090 between this irresistible push toward objective 859 00:38:43,090 --> 00:38:46,650 truth and the undeniable, unqualified importance 860 00:38:46,650 --> 00:38:48,869 of the subjective life we are actually leading. 861 00:38:49,090 --> 00:38:51,449 That's it. The objective self gives us knowledge. 862 00:38:51,670 --> 00:38:54,769 The subjective self gives us life. And to repress 863 00:38:54,769 --> 00:38:57,250 either one of those impulses, is to lessen ourselves. 864 00:38:57,570 --> 00:39:00,230 This has been a truly rigorous deep dive into 865 00:39:00,230 --> 00:39:02,889 Thomas Nagel's The View from Nowhere. We've tracked 866 00:39:02,889 --> 00:39:04,909 the philosophical consequences of this permanent 867 00:39:04,909 --> 00:39:06,710 tension between the subjective view from here 868 00:39:06,710 --> 00:39:09,969 and the objective, external and ultimately unachievable 869 00:39:09,969 --> 00:39:11,909 view from nowhere across the realms of mind, 870 00:39:12,050 --> 00:39:14,469 knowledge, freedom and ethics. And we've seen 871 00:39:14,469 --> 00:39:17,610 that this irresistible human impulse to transcend 872 00:39:17,610 --> 00:39:20,429 our own particular perspective is what allows 873 00:39:20,429 --> 00:39:22,730 for our greatest intellectual and moral advances. 874 00:39:23,289 --> 00:39:26,070 But that very detachment inevitably leaves an 875 00:39:26,070 --> 00:39:29,050 incomplete picture, a blind spot, that, if you 876 00:39:29,050 --> 00:39:31,530 ignore it, forces you into these philosophical 877 00:39:31,530 --> 00:39:34,530 mistakes and false reductions. The value of this 878 00:39:34,530 --> 00:39:37,329 work is not in finding a resolution, but in honest 879 00:39:37,329 --> 00:39:39,489 recognition of the problem. Okay, so here's where 880 00:39:39,489 --> 00:39:41,170 it gets really interesting for me, the final 881 00:39:41,170 --> 00:39:43,809 takeaway. If we conclude that we can never achieve 882 00:39:43,809 --> 00:39:47,050 true philosophical unity and the objective self 883 00:39:47,050 --> 00:39:49,369 remains trapped behind this incomplete view, 884 00:39:49,630 --> 00:39:52,309 does the only true philosophical freedom we have 885 00:39:52,309 --> 00:39:55,530 lie in the conscious, willed act of just, putting 886 00:39:55,530 --> 00:39:57,889 up with absurdity? Is the highest form of human 887 00:39:57,889 --> 00:40:00,650 agency simply enduring this tension? That is 888 00:40:00,650 --> 00:40:03,110 the essential and I think provocative conclusion 889 00:40:03,110 --> 00:40:05,789 that Nagel presents. We're taught to manage the 890 00:40:05,789 --> 00:40:08,250 conflict, not to eliminate it. He suggests, and 891 00:40:08,250 --> 00:40:10,550 I'm quoting here, absurdity comes with the territory 892 00:40:10,550 --> 00:40:12,610 and what we need is the will to put up with it. 893 00:40:12,750 --> 00:40:16,070 A challenge, not an answer. For you, the listener 894 00:40:16,070 --> 00:40:18,510 who wants to continue exploring the conflicts 895 00:40:18,510 --> 00:40:20,889 we've talked about today, we do have a few suggestions 896 00:40:20,889 --> 00:40:23,969 for next steps. If the problem of personal identity, 897 00:40:24,150 --> 00:40:26,610 the self's relation to the body, and the anxiety 898 00:40:26,610 --> 00:40:29,170 of death really resonated with you, I would highly 899 00:40:29,170 --> 00:40:31,349 recommend exploring the work of Derek Parfit, 900 00:40:31,469 --> 00:40:34,269 specifically his work on personal identity. A 901 00:40:34,269 --> 00:40:37,190 fantastic but also very difficult suggestion. 902 00:40:37,590 --> 00:40:40,250 It is. And for those interested in a radically 903 00:40:40,250 --> 00:40:42,210 different approach to the free will problem, 904 00:40:42,409 --> 00:40:45,289 one that focuses more on social interaction over 905 00:40:45,289 --> 00:40:48,510 metaphysical causality, P .F. Strawson's Freedom 906 00:40:48,510 --> 00:40:50,849 and Resentment provides an absolutely essential 907 00:40:50,849 --> 00:40:54,309 counterpoint to Nagel's externalism. Excellent 908 00:40:54,309 --> 00:40:56,130 suggestions. Thank you so much for guiding us 909 00:40:56,130 --> 00:40:58,010 through the complexities of nasal's dizzying 910 00:40:58,010 --> 00:40:58,550 vision today.