Richard Dawkins Exposes Piers Morgan, Defends JK Rowling | On the Edge podcast 276

something made me think Piers Morgan didn't believe I think Piers Morgan's a fool um so I'm not much interested in what he believes actually [Music] I'm with Richard Dawkins today the preeminent evolutionary biologist Richard how are you doing today I'm doing fine thank you good good I spoke to David Bedell yesterday he's got a new book out called and I I was interviewing him and I accidentally started the podcast by saying David Bedell who wrote the The God Delusion no stop I'll stop you there as the god desire have you come across it I've come across him I think but I with anywhere carry on he's the comedian who wrote uh he wrote football's coming home yes um and several other things yes you know stand-up comedian and I think he said somebody asked for him to sign his book and it was your nephew or they said they were your nephew is that possible possible I don't know yeah I've heard about it but maybe that is possible I think you and him are both uh phenomenal thinkers one of the things I discussed with David is if he was talking about where he differs from you because you're both atheist and he writes about atheism uh and he said that he believes sometimes there's sort of a macho thing going on in atheism where we say we're not scared of certain things Ricky Gervais for example and I've heard you say uh about the afterlife you know I I was not alive for a very long time before I'm not going to be live so it doesn't bother me is that how you really feel or is it something you have to say to yourself for Comfort it's something I feel I I don't think of it as Macho I mean it's just it's just rational actually I mean I think I probably quoted Mark Twain as saying I was dead for billions of years before I was born and never suffered the smallest inconvenience yeah David I think he quoted Bertrand Russell who said a similar thing uh along the line which is what he was saying was much I think um about scorn for people who feared yeah Burton Russell said when I die I shall rot and nothing of my ego shall survive I'm not a young man and I love life but I would scorn to shiver with Terror at the thought of annihilation that's a literally that's an exact quote from Burton Russell how do you have these I don't have many I even looked at it just before and I already forgot half the words so it's just the way different minds work I suppose mine doesn't work quite so well but David was saying you know he well he does Fear the the death the afterlife and uh or no afterlife I should say and the fact that I guess his point was right now I am alive and I do feel things so right now I do fear that there'll be nothing afterwards yes it's I'm very understandable um we have to live in the moment because when we're dead we we don't exist at all and so there's nothing to fear there um there's a lot to miss uh because you um if you love life as Bertrand Russell said he did and I do then it's a very sad to to miss life it's very sad to miss out if you're a scientist on all the things that are going to happen I mean it's things are developing all the time and uh it would be wonderful to know what people will know in 500 years time that would be a supremely interesting thing um and so it is sad to miss that yeah I it actually keeps me up at night so I had this whole existential crisis talking to David bediel yesterday just thinking what can I what can I think of that will comfort me in this and I guess that's what I mean when I say so Ricky Gervais also says that you know I was I was dead for millions of years before I'd be dead for years after it doesn't doesn't work for me to comfort me have you got anything yes yes I I not really no um I just don't think there's any point in being comforted by a lie um so better face up to the truth if you could inject a serum into your mind or something that would make you believe the lie just for comfort's sake would you do that no I don't think so um I I think that's an interesting question and um uh make me believe a lie no um make me not worry about a truth that worries me about it but as I worry about it present yes I think if if say um uh I can't think of an example but but but I I could imagine um being frightened of something or being um upset about something and and a drug that you inject that makes you no longer upset but I don't think I want a drug that made me believe a falsehood hmm I suppose that's a bit Brave New World with the Soma it's a very good parallel yes and and the um this Savage in Brave New World actually had this argument with the world controller Mustafa Monde um where the Savage was saying Shakespeare is good and the Mustafa man will say yes but the downside of that is is you have all the terrible um emotions and sadness and and and things that you get in in Hamilton and Othello and Romeo and Juliet um and the Savage was saying that's what I want and stuff and wanted you're welcome when I read that as a teenager I was on the side of the Savage going yeah Shakespeare is great in all this stuff and I reread it recently and I found myself a little less clear on what I said I thought gosh I do worry a lot and it would be nice to just take a drug yes yes yes I can see that but you wouldn't take that one that makes you believe there's an afterlife I wouldn't want to make me believe in a false thought I might make one take one that makes me not worry about something I do worry about a lot of my viewers and subscribers I do believe in an afterlife they believe in religions and things because this channel primarily at the moment we focus on Cults and things like Scientology often they'll say I can't believe people believe in Lord zinu from Scientology but uh but the real God is our Lord and Jesus and things like that I don't want to alienate those people of course who are watching and might be interested uh but one thing I was wondering and I think you actually there was a recent interview you did with Piers Morgan and you sort of touched on it I think it felt like you didn't really believe that he believed that there's this afterlife and God and things like that and I said that yes yeah how do you do you think they don't deep down believe it I can't speak for them but in the abstract um something made me think Piers Morgan didn't believe I think Piers Morgan's a fool um so I'm not really much interested in what he believes actually oh you said something similar off air and I didn't think you might you would repeat itself [Laughter] well he definitely interrupts a lot doesn't he sure he can say that again okay so you think he doesn't oh I don't know so maybe he's playing to his or some people might play to their Spectators but there's maybe plenty of people who played play to Their audience yes and suggest they have a belief in spirituality yes man I always wondered that I suppose there's so many examples of people who who are religious but when they're about to die again I remember now Piers Morgan was saying doesn't it give you comfort thinking that they're going to the afterlife of friends of yours and things but people don't people are terribly depressed when they're friends if they really did believe it then then they'd be saying things like um oh oh you're gonna die good for you yeah give my love to Uncle Charles when you see him I'll come with yes yeah how fantastic I wonder if belief is sometimes um you've seen my exorcism film and I do work on Cults and things like that do you think belief might be uh of course it's a coping mechanism for the afterlife and not knowing what's happening when we die but is it also for some people an excuse to do terrible things in what way if I believe that there's a God and I'm working for him I can oh of course yes I mean if you really really believe that your God wants you to kill infidels and some do and they really really believe it that is very dangerous of course yeah do you think there's something about the human needs to believe in these things like what is it about us that makes us believe I don't understand why something that you can call a need to believe or getting comfort from belief actually makes you believe you can't will yourself to believe something either you believe it or you don't you can't say I I want to believe so and so therefore I do um if the evidence doesn't support it how can you believe it well people often bring up Pascal's wager don't they and they say ridiculous yes I get told it all the time like you might as well believe because then you can go and it's like do your beliefs work that way that you can just make yourself believe a thing well that's of course one point you can't make yourself believe something and the other thing about plenty of things about Pascal's wager another thing is maybe it's the wrong God when you get up there and discover he's bails Morgan oh well um so no I mean um and also even if it was even if it the god you think you you're sucking up to what kind of a good God would reward you for sucking up in that way rather than actually being rational I often think that as well I I if there's if there's a God he doesn't want me to be on my knees doing all this Pious boring stuff no I don't know at what point in your life did you realize you were an atheist I'm not 15. do you remember what what made that happen well understanding Darwinism well I think that's fair enough at some stage in your past every animal who ever lived belongs to the same species as its parent yet you are descended from a fish yes can you explain that's absolutely true um you are attended from a fish so if you go back and back and back and back and back far enough you'll come to a fish and yet every single generation is the same species as the previous generation the change is so gradual so it's like when you change from a child to a teenager to an adult to a middle age to an old um you there's no one day when you say I've stopped being middle-aged and on my my birthday is coming I'm now old or I've stopped being a teenager I said well that's the one case well legally you you can say that I mean I've reached voting age which is a fiction of course um but actually it's a gradual change all the way through from embryo to Baby to infant to toddler to Etc and um so there's no one moment when you change from one one of these states to another in exactly the same in our ancestry there's no one moment when any species changes into another species it happens all gradually so but if you take that gradual process back and back and back far enough you'll come to a fish that's amazing was there then and I'm being slightly facetious when I asked I don't know enough about it but was there then one fish and then the fish is some had like half a leg and then like a tiny bit of a leg and and so on well [Laughter] kind of uh yes okay I wouldn't put it like that but but sort of yes sort of how how is it how would you put it how did it happen well that there was a group of of fish um which which did which did have fins which which what he kind of like legs and which were evolved into into legs um and their modern relations of those fish are lungfish and um and um coelacans and uh they um were a group of fish on on their own they were once rather widespread and now they're rather rare except that we are descended from them and they were fish who whose fins became became leg like and and they merged onto the land and and their fins turned into legs uh and you couldn't trace the actual bones which became the humerus and the Raiders and the ulna and the femur and and the tibia and the fibula um and um yeah so that's pretty much what what happened but it happened so gradually he would never have had there would never have been a moment when you said oh there's no longer a fish I find that's fascinating and it really it's logically necessary it's not it's not I'm not I'm not revealing to any facts it's just once you accept it well that's that's of course of the fact but once you've once you've accepted that then what I've just said Has to follow and then religion as as we know it and those kinds of beliefs can't then follow well that's a separate issue yeah well going back to that then are there other kinds of magical thinking and thinking particularly of uh what's happened recently with sort of Maori uh New Zealand language is that um another kind of sort of the so-called post-modernism as well I think you're alluding to a controversial which is Arisen in New Zealand recently which I got involved in because I was in New Zealand where the New Zealand government is trying to push the idea that Maori quote ways of knowing should be taught in science classes and it's this sort of bending over backwards to being be nice to an indigenous minority um and um of course you need to you my view is of course you need to teach the mythology of the country in which you live and that's important as mythology but not as science and it's simply confusing and muddling to New Zealand children to teach them on the one hand to teach them what we know about the origin of the universe and the origin of the of the world uh and we know quite a lot and not not everything and at the same time to say that it's it's because of the sky father and the Earth Mother and and stuff like that which is pure mythology yeah I think you were saying that you wrote that there are some bits that we can some good bits we can take from well of course you can when you can take some bits from it from any any cultures folk beliefs and but there's but there's no particular reason why you should take the folk mythology of one people any more than any other I mean scientific knowledge is unique and it's worldwide it's they wrongly categorize it as Western it's not Western at all it belongs to all of humanity science is the way we know about the truth science is equipped with has equipped itself with mechanisms for avoiding self-deception subjective judgment so um the only approach to the truth is the scientific way and that belongs to all humanity and is not not to be regarded as you just mentioned postmodernism that's now um not to be regarded as the property of one particular cultural group it reminds me of I had a professor John mcwhalter who came on to yes linguist to talk about the sapir wharf hypothesis the idea that language can shape um feelings and yes almost give you superpowers to an extent you know there's a tribe in Australia that apparently can use like a GPS in their head a satellite navigation because they use West and north and east instead of left and right it's it's all a bit wishy-washy and a lot of people in linguistics are trying to say that uh look at all these other languages that that's bestow us with superpowers in their better languages and John Walter said the problem with that kind of talk is we have to then say that there are also things in our language that are better clearly than in other languages and nobody wants to do that yeah Academia is that a problem you find in Academia yes I I wasn't aware of that particular I I read some of John what about it but I wasn't aware of that sounds very interesting hmm he's great yeah so do you could you come up against I mean do you have colleagues and professors who you think gosh why are you towing to this kind of I suppose it's woke is a word that no one likes to use these days but that kind of thing I don't have many colleagues who do but but I read about them yeah more fair yeah fair enough does it is it is that something that should be put in the sort of beliefs box alongside I believe in a deity well you'd have to specify what exactly what you mean but I'm inclined to think yes um I don't mean it is a religion in all respects um but there are similarities it's not Supernatural but but but um things like um the well the collective guilt which white people are encouraged to feel about The dark past of slavery and things has a very strong resonance with original sin and Christian doctrine that we're all born in sin the sin of Adam we inherit the sin of Adam um Adam never existed but and they know that but nevertheless still talk about it as as original sin so that there there is that I think John water has actually made that analogy I I believe he has if he hasn't I have anyway um um and um so that that's a powerful analogy to religion um I think all Yes or well also um the the belief that you can become a woman by saying you're a woman as and so even even if you have the anatomy of a man even if you have a penis and a scrotum and things you by simply standing up and saying I am a woman you become a woman that's very likes of the Catholic doctrine that by a priest blessing Bread and Wine it becomes the body and blood of Christ and the the Catholic theological justification with that is the Aristotelian distinction between the essence um of of something the the the the true substance and the accidentals the the the the the fact that wine remains an alcoholic liquid is just its accidentals and the the true substance it becomes the blood of Christ and that's right that's very like saying um the accidentals of my body is male but the truth the true substance is I'm a female because I declare myself to be female so that that's another analogy with in this case Christianity would that suggest that Christianity there's something about Christianity that is innate to our evolutionary psychology that original sin for example I don't know about that do you probably thinking of some sort of jungian archetype I um I suppose it's just it's just possible um I wouldn't want to pursue that too far I don't think I quite like the concept of the status game that by uh will store this writer who I admire very much who he and I think he just sort of popularized this idea that there are three main kinds of status um and we all seek it in tribes as evolutionary psychology and then you might tell me this is this is nonsense I don't know because I I don't know much about this stuff but um one would be uh dominance you seek dominance because if you're the most dominant in the tribe you'll get food um and yeah I think that that sort of thing is plausible and I think that um that's the kind of good thing that we can get out of evolutionary psychology yes uh yeah I find that fascinating success is another one if you invented the wheel they're going to give you some food and shelter yeah and if you're not successful or dominant you resort to the third one which is a virtue and you don't have to be a virtuous person you just have to show the rest of the tribe that you are virtually yes does that ring true to you yes it does yeah I wonder if so if that's just going on but guess when it's so obvious it doesn't work so if somebody's trying to be if someone's too obvious about trying to be virtuous in that tribe you would all just go get out of here you know yeah so I don't know so I wonder if virtue signaling is part of our evolutionary psychology and maybe and maybe magical thinking as well to an extent did that help us survive I think virtue signaling could be a magical thinking um I suppose it it could you could get status by big getting a reputation as a magician who's able to commune with Spirits or something that's true which doctor or how do you get status then because we all have if we all seek it and I don't think you do by virtue would it be success what what is it what is that did that drive you over the years I've heard you mentioned physics Envy I know you're not a physicist well I've never said that I suffer from physics enemy myself I don't think but it it's a witicism which I attribute to Peter Meadow or I'm not sure if that's that's right um biology Envy is there such a thing um I don't know um I mean academics generally I think seek status just like anybody else does but I don't want to go into that too much the reason I thought of it is because you know you had this uh interview last year I think with Jordan Peterson and I noticed he's he spoke differently when he spoke to you to how he normally does he's elevated language and it I wondered like oh I wonder if these guys I see you guys as like very high up you know successful intelligent uh also have that kind of I don't know did you sense that at all oh um say that again I'm not sure I got that you said he spoke differently he used um often he's doing sort of his YouTube and stuff and he's speaking to uh I suppose people like me uh lay people um and he uses shorter words and when he was speaking to you some of the sentences I found a little bit word salady I find it very interesting uh but it was like I don't quite know what he's and I noticed the same when he spoke to Stephen Fry and I thought when he speaks to you and Stephen fryers he elevating his language and maybe there's this sort of competitiveness I wouldn't want to comment on that individual um I noticed that I myself changed my language when I'm speaking to when I'm writing for children when I've written a couple of books for for young people and and then when I'm writing for professional adults let's say um I without really thinking about it if I read those books I notice that my vocabulary does change you you you you you have in your mind I think an audience a sort of hypothetical or the audience and it does change the way you the way you speak the way you uh write it does for me with regards to uh we were talking about you know the binary women and men and the idea that you can think that you're a man and be a man or think you're a woman did you see that coming at all like 10 20 years ago not at all no like it is odd I think it's lunatic actually I mean it's it's it's verging on Insanity um so I did not see that coming I mean I I could have imagined writing a satirical novel about it but that's about it yeah I remember Ricky Gervais makes a joke about that I mean he says uh I think it was just that it was like the one thing nobody said 10 years ago that would be the worst thing you can say on Twitter is women don't have penises now that's that would get you yeah yeah um I mean or the only thing I can think to to top that is identify as a dog I mean I can imagine now there'll be so many angry comments even even not just from this and I just don't I don't know it's a weird thing I want to respect everybody and understand everybody but it just really is something that okay so is there any is if you have to really stretch your mind is it any scientific backing for the concept of somebody's like there's a woman drain and a man brain and so there might be that there might be that but but to go from that to saying because you you have a female outlook on life or something and therefore you are a woman I mean that that is just debauching language um it's one thing it's perfectly legitimate to say I I'm a man but I feel a certain feminine attitude to things I feel perhaps I think like a woman that's fine I mean that that doesn't that doesn't worry me at all but then say therefore I am a woman is just a a betrayal of language of of of of of truth and the under the virtues of of honest communication I find the ideology very conservative because it it tells me that if my son uh wants to play with things that are typically feminine or stereotypically feminine then they have to change to fit in they had to become a woman to fit in with her yes I quite agree ah it's a crazy thing really so okay so if we are just to go out there a bit I mean are there aspects of brains that are male and and typically female probably I don't know much about it I I wouldn't wish to deny that [Music] um but it's it's not a very profound observation I think that you can you can find um aspects of feminine sympathy in some male people and vice versa and and it would be surprising if that were not so but as I said but to go from that to the positive statement I am a woman um is is verdigon insanity is it dangerous well I think that um we didn't people who certain people like um Kathleen stock and JK Rowling have have suffered in their lives and their careers um as a consequence of speaking out and in on behalf of women um and they so far haven't I think actually suffered physical danger but some of them have come close to it the saddest part about JK Rowling is that she was abused by her first husband and left in the street in in a pool of her own blood into Portugal I didn't know that yeah before she wrote Harry Potter um and she had a very difficult time during that time so for her it's a really personal thing yes about women's spaces and changing words and things like I didn't I did not know that it's so sad it's so sad to think that and then she the Harry Potter stuff I mean it's an analogy for the the Nazis I don't know have you read Harry Potter I have yes I enjoy it I didn't well yes I I enjoyed it I I held out against it for a while but then I I discovered that Stephen Fry was reading it to me I can't I can't resist Stephen frying so so sorry I listened to him and um I liked it I mean she quite a lot of what I like is that she's actually sending up the the magical stuff I mean the um it's it's so kind of satirical I didn't know it had anything to do with the Nazis at that that's oh the whole well as it goes further into the whole mythology I think there's like the good and the bad and the pure Bloods uh okay I'll just carry on I've only read the first two or three books I think oh they develop it's funny because it's so pretty I saw I I'm gonna show off now right so I I can speak five languages and each each time I learned a new one I did it through Harry Potter and arrives yeah so there's the seven or I think it's seven books I'm not sure and what's brilliant about it as a language tool is they start very much for children they're like for a reading age of 11 or 12 and the the writing becomes a little bit more complex yes it's not Dostoevsky at any point but it's uh uh it starts to get there by the by the final book you're really in this big epic about uh the the bad people who want everyone to have the pure blood you know like okay yes that sounds very interesting I shall I shall resume yes my my Stephen fryer listening he's great Stephen Fry I didn't talk a little bit about about doing those audio books and there were certain words he was tripping over and yes I heard I heard that he asked JK Rowling can I do different words and she said no yes which fair enough if you're the writer yeah gosh Stephen fight have you done debates with him I'm just remembering now because I know he did Intelligence Squared was that with you or was Christmas yes it was Christopher Hitchens um I I've encountered him from time to time I like him enormously it's wonderful man we should get him get him in I'd love to meet Stephen Fry as well fantastic uh person so yeah the JK Rowling thing I think is really sad do you notice I don't know uh there sometimes seems to be different decades where we're a bit more sense is the word sensorious yes yeah we're a bit more sensorious for sort of a decade and then with then we sort of relax and yeah children rebel against their parents do you think that might be what's really going on possibly yes it could be what does the The Poetry of reality mean that's your sub stack at the moment and podcast coming out yes well I think um reality as understood by science is amazing and wonderful and the fact that we can apprehend it the fact that we can understand it the fact that we uh unlike any of our ancestors up to a century or so ago two centuries Maybe um really hadn't a clue why we existed and where we come from and and we now have a very good understanding of that and it's beautiful I mean the the the beauty of understanding The Poetry of understanding is is what I mean by science as the Poetry of reality I suppose some people could argue because they used to think stars were I think what holes in the heavens or something yes that in some senses that's more beautiful than bubbles of gas no it's not no no and why is it because it's truth that is more beautiful well partly that but also apart from being true the alternative the idea of it being held in the sky is just so pity it's so small so it's so um unromantic it's just parochial I sort of wish it would true sometimes come on because I want to go I want to continue living well that's okay you've gone but but I mean believing this stars are holes poked in the sky not gonna help you continue living well the suggestion would then be like if the heavens were Beyond it and it's Heavenly light pouring through the suggestion would be that I'd then get to ascend to that plane if you want to go on living I wouldn't I wouldn't go and go and live in the in the heaven of any any religion I'm incredibly boring yeah well less boring than the alternative does it really I doubt it I always think of like okay how because I my religion would be because I'm an atheist as well and again all my viewers start messaging no you're not even agnostic because you don't know or something like that but you know I think I mean I would say I'm probably an atheist um but well I definitely am but my religion is is sort of a thing probably at the back of my head that's going but you're never gonna really die so you're gonna be um maybe there'll be virtual reality I was thinking about this some sort of virtual reality that makes you experience time when you're in the virtual reality you know you can spend years and years but you're actually lying there in real life for just seconds if they could slow down your mind or something like that so I'm sort of holding out for that wishful thinking or that they'll discover something in quantum physics is there anything there no I don't think so um no I think you want to face up to reality never yeah time when that happens to angst uh younger about about that reality yes I suppose so yes Professor Paul Bloom said recently um um he was saying that you spend your first half of your life sort of writing your CV and the second half is you're writing your eulogy does that resonate with you no um no I I think I don't make any distinction mean first half and second half I've been doing the same thing all the time he was trying to make me feel better I think about getting older and he was like your yours get used you'll accept more and you'll look at your I see yes um yeah well um I I just carry on thinking I'm about 18 and and and get on getting on with what I do yeah I think that's a that's a that's a good way to do it the Poetry of reality tell me a little bit about what that's I mean it's a sub stack now right and then it's going to be a podcast uh yes um it is uh and I should be into I'm doing much the same as what you're doing I think I mean no I should be interviewing people um and probably doing some contributions of my own um maybe it's writing stuff um directly and putting up things that I've done before putting up um on on the YouTube channel putting up um broadcasts and things that I've done before yeah have you got interviewees in mind yet because I haven't received my invite yet I I haven't given it very much thought but but um yes that sounds a good possibility yeah would you get me on I'd come on you love it would you yeah of course I would yeah okay I'm up for that I think I can offer a layperson perspective to things I mean I think we could talk about your your that your Argentinian Exorcist yes are we very good I would be up for that you've had to say yes because I've cornered you now yeah I won't get an email back later um I was looking at some of the discussions that are on your sub stack because I think these are really interesting and maybe we can go let him in the open for about a day hasn't did I think I think so yes yeah I'm I'm on these you know I'm checking out all the stuff like if you okay what is this scientists in the US and Canada banned the words women mother and father um oh that's not one of yours actually that's just me saying it isn't it there are some words I never said that yes yeah that was just me um my notes all mixed up yes there are some words that I suppose they go into the other side of your brain I'm told again you'll know more about this than I will but I remember against Stephen Fry put his hand in some cold water and if he swore a lot it enabled him to do it for longer and I think the reasoning was that these words were in a sort of they weren't in the language they were sort of on the other does that make sense I don't know so I just assume you'll I assume you'll know all the sciency things but they're all different it's different domains isn't it um and those words apparently go into the other side um swear words sacred words you you might not say uh well I know I'm not allowed to say the N word for example is that reasonable I know nothing about um what we watch it is is what reasonable that that we shouldn't say the N word well I think you have to yes I mean I think it's reasonable yes yeah or there's an f word for for gay people okay a bundle of sticks yes I have to think about that yes okay those are like well that's the interest this is also John Matt water actually yes um he was saying that these sacred words check I love the linguistic stuff and he was saying that sacred words change over time yes so uh it was um bodily functions [ __ ] [ __ ] Hells I don't mind saying these it's not gonna get my YouTube taken down uh on it first was the religious ones hell damn those kinds of things then it was [ __ ] and [ __ ] they became the yeah as we moved on as a society and then it became identity that's been the last 30 40 years as long as that is it okay yeah I think so yeah that's we've moved into that and it's I guess some of us we're trying to come to terms with it but they've become sacred like any other religion yes that's interesting yeah I said like well what will be next and he said you never know but it could be something like related to climate change as that's going to be coming he said imagine calling somebody a windmill yes that's interesting I like that yeah I love thinking about those those that kinds of things but with the Linguistics it might just be a temporary a temporary phase with this identity yes yes it might and there are good reasons as well why some hoes it always comes it often comes from a good place doesn't it yes I think it does there once existed a single individual female who was the most recent ancestor shared by you and a baboon that one individual female had two individual children one of whom is your ancestor the other is the baboon's ancestor discuss yes I'm interested in that it's another of these things that's got to be true but but you can't it's difficult to see why it's quite it's true um since we do have a common ancestor with baboons um you have to go back and back and back and back and sooner or later you're going to hit one individual mother who had these two children uh and um then we're both descended from her mother and her mother and her mother but there has to be one point which was the branch point and um it was a single individual and not just baboon but snail our common answers with a snail which was Way Way Back in the Precambrian um and there has to have been an individual which would have been goodness knows I'm kind of worm I suppose um and and we're descended from one child of that individual and snails are descended from the other while yeah not just nails but but insects and and Crustaceans and spiders and and um and and on on the other side on our side would be starfish and sea urchins and communicates and things the way my childish mind works is I'm seeing like a snail having sex with a starfish well you're wrong I know yes I know my mind creates a cartoon of everything yes so so but I guess it was just all so there's I guess does that mean there's one baboon that all of us have come from no one one individual that that all of us came from and baboons came from I mean then they're modern animals just as much as we are we didn't come from them oh well you know that yes I know that I don't know I don't give it much thought right there's things I know and then many years later I don't know them anymore I need to be reminded of of them um if they're I think this is just oh no this is you as well if there is extraterrestrial life it's nice getting your questions I don't have to come up with questions if there is extraterrestrial life no matter how strange an alien it may be there is one thing it will have in common with Earth life it will be darwinian yes what you're doing is you're quoting I I on my sub stack I put up a sort of Manifesto and I thought I thought of the way to do it was to put up a series of statements like that um just one after another and I think that's about about 20 of them probably yeah everyone blew my mind and and and so that that's that when you you've been reading out a couple of them and very nice too thank you um and that one was yes if there is life elsewhere and there almost certainly is then it will be Darwin in the however strange it is however alien it is however hard it is for us to imagine the details of what it's like I stick my neck out and say that that one thing we can say about it will be darwinian it will have evolved by aversion of darwinian natural selection I think that's the only possible way in which complexity the sort of complexity we associate with life could come into being such a fascinating that's open to to refutation by somebody who think of a better way yeah well that's it I mean we only know that one way yes so we have a confirmation bias yes exactly it's difficult to imagine I suppose one other possibility although it has this is a cheat I suppose would be artificial life that was created by oh yes definitely and and but but that ultimately comes from a darwinian source so yes not just artificial life but but the technology generally which which has many of the attributes of Life the complexity of life um does not evolve itself necessarily you could make a case that it does but I wouldn't want to make a strong case for it but if there is advanced technology on the planet then ultimately that will have to have come from a darwinian life form that designed it it's a really interesting thought do you give much thought to the um is it the Fermi Paradox um where are they yes where is everybody yes um for me the physicist who said who said where is where is everybody um and um he was wondering why they haven't made contact with us why we haven't picked picked them up um you shouldn't you shouldn't wonder why they haven't arrived and we're never going to meet them in person I think the distances are too great but um it's a worthwhile Enterprise to scan the heavens for um messages and it's an active set is the site the stud the search of an extraterrestrial intelligence seti is an active project which is I think well worth financing do you think then that when the Navy I know the last couple of years has been some news about they've spotted UFOs and things like that do you think that might be just uh wishful thinking uh yes I don't believe that uh I I think that that if there is ever a first Contact it will come by radio or by electromagnetic radiation of some sort is that because again I don't know much about radio and electromagnetic is that just the standard that they would use as well well no it's it's it's that it it travels at the speed of light and in broadcast in all directions at the speed of light and therefore um uh this is the such huge distances that are involved you you would not expect that that an actual physical spacecraft would happen to come here at just too many other places to come to and and the the the probability of of of of this this one one place in the universe Earth being the target of a of an actual mission is two is too low but if it's being broadcast outwards from some point source um then yes it would it's not unliked that we would be along with everybody everybody else every other part of the Universe um bathed in this message and so we would pick it up and yet silence so far but then we have another technology to listen to it for very long and um I I think there's quite a lot of hope that we will pick up something do you think that would be the greatest discovery of all time probably yes and suddenly you could make a good case for that would you accept then if they came down and if they actually came here but killed us all quite quickly and painlessly that it might be worth it just for the moment of all well I no I don't think that um but I don't think it would happen either because I don't think I don't think that they would be able to get here I mean if they picked up a a return message from us it would probably take a thousand years to get that to them and and so there's it's not a thing you can worry about actually physically coming here unless they've been planning it for so long uh in secret and they use like wormholes or something well yeah okay I I I I don't know enough physics to talk about that I suppose something that's more imminent and likely is is maybe AI people worry about AI artificial intelligence yes I don't one thing I don't get everyone's talking about okay my we need the problem of alignment we have to align our concerns with theirs or you know so that they want to do good for Humanity which in itself is impossibly difficult because every human wants something slightly different um and then if we get it wrong once and they're able to self-duplicate or whatever it might be self-improved that we're done that's it yes but I don't understand why AI would want to get rid of us or kill us well it would depend upon what sort of aims were built into them I suppose um you could you could say that if you build into them maximize the total happiness and minimize the total suffering in the world well that would kill us it might you could it could make a case for it I think oh my is that what you were going to say when I yeah well just to point that that um uh depending upon what the utility function you build in is uh you could um but but um this is very speculative it's a very it's a really it makes for a really sort of creepy dystopian novel that this idea that we're doing you good oh I suppose that's how is it how three thousand in the hell yeah yeah yes um do you know how Hell got his name by the way no it's it's IBM one one um letter back in there oh no way yes hi I believe you yes IBM we're going back back one to H and then uh um wow did that reflect concerns that IBM building all this computer stuff would be the end of us no I don't think so I think I think it was just as a little little joke that that Arthur C Clarke thought of at the time it's creepy though isn't it I'm afraid I can't let you do that or yes yes yes have you got accents uh no I don't think so do you think an AI can be sentient I think I've got to say Yes um but um but because we are and we are built of physical stuff and so there has to be some way in which uh whatever it is that our brain has that makes us sentient must be simulatable in uh my computer medium so if we built another Richard Dawkins just right here with all exactly the same stuff he could even have your memories that is a fascinating thought I think that's got to be true um and then the question philosophers like that kind of thought experiment and you start to worry about things that wonder about things like um would we be that would we be exactly this I I think would be diverge from that point and I suppose we would initially have exactly the same experiences and feelings um and um would one of us feel the pain of if you stuck a pin in one would the other one feel the pain I think the answer to that is probably no um and as time goes on our experiences would drift apart and we would no longer be the same person these are I think it's quite a good thing that philosophers do this kind of thing it's one of the things they do that I think is is quite worthwhile these sort of thoughts thought experiments impossible thought experiments like that well one of the first things about philosophy I read I must have been about seven years old and I wrote this book and I don't remember what it was maybe someone will write in and tell me but it was pink and I seem to remember there was like an elephant on it but it was four teenagers to read I think or children and it had this thing where the story where people go to Mars to sort of uh mine for whatever they're mining in Mars every day for work they're commuting so they were getting into a machine and it transports them there right away like in Star Trek or whatever it is and then you're on Mars and you come to realize what it's actually doing is destroying you and rebuilding you as a clone I suppose on the other planet and now you can't get home you know and the question is would you then would you then walk into it and and go back home yes as one of a family of thought experiments which I find interesting would you I I need notice of that question yeah I think I would I would I would just have to stay on because I don't think that one of me that's created on Earth I don't think I'd be aware of that existence no but you wouldn't be aware of it no make sure to get the Poetry of reality get it on sub stack now and it's going to be coming out so check that out and you can see Richard's Twitter you're on Twitter yes is Twitter and all the socials and things you'll see announcements of it I'm going to be on his podcast now I'm going to hold on to that and uh keep watching for more things

Channel: Andrew Gold

Views: 876,157

Keywords: andrew gold, on the edge with andrew gold, on the edge, podcast, interviews, richard dawkins, atheism, god delusion, selfish gene, piers morgan, debate, jk rowling, gender theory, aliens, ufos, life, live forever, unherd

Id: XHvzXSIM6cg

Length: 47min 59sec (2879 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023