It's more than just a great Rush song! On this one, Adam and Tyrone get into the pernicious issue of, do humans have free will? Or is everything predetermined in advance, cause & effect style?
00:00 — Intro. Adam asks Tyrone some deep questions about the hobo lifestyle.
01:52 — Adam lays out the position of "hard determinism" as versus free will.
05:12 — Before diving into the argument, Adam lays out some observations about which types of people usually land on which sides of this disagreement -- and perhaps why.
08:45 — Tyrone takes a brief detour into the "primacy of consciousness" controversy.
09:50 — Adam takes a stab at steel-manning the determinist position, then argues against it, leaning heavily on concepts like our own ignorance, self-evident truths, and where the burden of proof lies.
15:42 — Adam supplements with an argument he poached from the great Bob Murphy! The concept of determinism seems to contradict the theory of evolution.
17:30 — Tyrone sympathizes with the plight of the secular who seeks to replace God with determinism as a satisfactory answer to the mysteries of our nature. A cool reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation comes up. Also, a few more theories are taken out for a quick spin around the neighborhood. Einstein, quantum entanglement, etc.
20:50 — Adam makes an appeal to proper epistemology and the usefulness of proper frames of reference.
25:13 — What are the societal consequences of holding one or the other of these two beliefs?
28:18 — Outro.
Book mentioned: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
Adam's other show: Natural Order Podcast
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Thanks for listening,
Naturally,
Adam
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