Purpose in the Eyes of a Psychiatrist.
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
- The Michael Shermer Show # 411
Generations have been taught that evolution implies there is no overarching purpose to our existence, that life has no fundamental meaning. We are merely the accumulation of tens of thousands of intricate molecular accidents. Some scientists take this logic one step further, suggesting that evolution is intrinsically atheistic and goes against the concept of God.
With respect to our evolution, nature seems to have endowed us with competing dispositions, what Wilkinson calls the dual potential of human nature. We are pulled in different directions: selfishness and altruism, aggression and cooperation, lust and love.
By using principles from a variety of scientific disciplines, Yale Professor Samuel Wilkinson provides a framework for human evolution that reveals an overarching purpose to our existence.
Wilkinson claims that this purpose, at least one of them, is to choose between the good and evil impulses that nature has created within us. Our life is a test. This is a truth, as old as history it seems, that has been espoused by so many of the world’s religions. From a certain framework, Wilkinson believes that these aspects of human nature-including how evolution shaped us-are evidence for the existence of a God, not against it.
Closely related to this is meaning. What is the meaning of life? Based on the scientific data, it would seem that one such meaning is to develop deep and abiding relationships. At least that is what most people report are the most meaningful aspects of their lives. This is a function of our evolution. It is how we were created.
Shermer and Wilkinson discuss: • evolution: random chance or guided process? • selfishness and altruism • aggression and cooperation • inner demons and better angels • love and lust • free will and determinism • the good life and the good society • empirical truths, mythic truths, religious truths, pragmatic truths • Is there a cosmic courthouse where evil will be corrected in the next life? • theodicy and the problem of evil: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Samuel T. Wilkinson is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Yale Depression Research Program. He received his MD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His articles have been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He has been the recipient of many awards, including Top Advancements & Breakthroughs from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation; Top Ten Psychiatry Papers by the New England Journal of Medicine, the Samuel Novey Writing Prize in Psychological Medicine (Johns Hopkins); the Thomas Detre Award (Yale University); and the Seymour Lustman Award (Yale University). His new book is Purpose: What Evolution and Human Nature Imply About the Meaning of our Existence.
SUPPORT THE PODCAST
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.
www.skeptic.com/donate/
#michaelshermer
#skeptic
Listen to The Michael Shermer Show or subscribe directly on TH-cam, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.
www.skeptic.com/michael-sherm... - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
How do, otherwise, intelligent people permit themselves to be hoodwinked by the irrational, illogical elements of religion? Identify an individual's personal trauma, and you'll most likely reveal the fear inducing impetus for their non-evidentiary, compulsive beliefs.
1:31:05
The delight of viewing the gift of skepticism indelibly expressed on Dr. Shermer's face?.....Precious!
1:23:20
Dr. Wilkinson made multiple references to his "personal experiences" but failed to provide any specific details.
He had nothing.
Comments are being shadowbanned.
No mystery why. This guy is an embarrassment. Every response an intellectual desert.
It is much easier to join a cult than to leave a cult.
materialism and atheism are cults too ....
@@francesco5581
How so?
@@jeffersonianideal because they believe on something while knowing just a little part of what is around us. If you hear people like Dawkins or Hitchens or Harris or Dennett ...arent they sound exactly as cult people preaching ? They built their credo and they support it no matter what.
@@francesco5581
What is your definition of a cult?
@@jeffersonianideal a veneration for a system of reasoning, usually religious. but for example "scientism" and "atheism" are to me two cults too. I would say is something that remove your free thinking forcing you to follow very precise boundaries placed by others.
For example i consider myself 55% deist 20% religious and 25% agnostic ...those boundaries shift with time... who is 100% something is basically part of a cult.
When I was part of the religious community, i ‘heard’ things through that particular teaching (i partook of several different religious denominations), after I became an atheist, I see things through the eyes of an atheist…I often have intuitive help…but all my experiences seem to manifest out of my particular talents and skills and where I have applied my attention …over my lifetime…wouldn’t this in the end…be my purpose?
Religions may provide certain people that are rudderless…a purpose…but that may not be the only avenue to developing a purpose…our individual purpose? The thing with religion…if a person starts wondering outside that particular teaching, you will be brought back and rebranded back into that particular dogma. Studying the same scripture over and over, just makes the same groves in the brain deeper. I can’t see how any person can expand fully following the same script (one already prepared thousands of years ago) to live by our whole life long?
Incoherent psychobabble. Shermer politely destroys this guy’s childish arguments.
Tell me you don't understand Sam Harris' Free Will argument, without telling me you don't understand his Free Will argument.
Bro out here lookin like Douglas Murray's stuntman.
I am not religious in any sense, nor do I have any disdain for it. But a religion that just comes along out of nowhere in 1839? You've got to be kidding me, people.
That's called "a miracle"
1830*
Once an atheist, always an atheist. I respect non-spiritual people who take the position that there is no God or higher power. They made their choice, and they will stick with it forever. If you believe you came from nothing, you will be nothing.
Epicurus. Which is he?
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
There is no god. God is a man imagined concept. An illogical imagined concept.
that bro, Epicurus, believed in Gods. gods that didn't give a shit about humans.
fear of The Gods prevents humans from attaining ataraxia. the Epicurean Paradox is an argument against Divine Intervention.
the "Problem of Evil" was attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius... and later popularized by Hume and other skeptics to refute Monotheism.
So there's only purpose for human life, but not all other life in the world that doesn't deal with moral questions of good vs bad.
1:09:59 That got a laugh out of me.
Frankly, a Yale psychiatrist should do a little more thinking before diagnosing someone as a prophet, like this guy would Joseph Smith.
What a disaster.
If this is an indication of the man's cognitive abilities, I wouldn't want him messing around with my psychology.
Every response an intellectual desert.
It is a peculiarly human question. This need by humans to find or have a meaning in their lives. I think this a consequence of consciousness and self awareness.
Humans need to get over themselves and consider themselves lucky that evolution has resulted in them personally having the ability to contemplate sub-atomic particles and the cosmic background radiation.
There is no need to imagine god or an afterlife. Make the best of the one life you are aware of now.
For the record, I contemplated this as a teenager and I concluded that the best purpose I could find for my life was to have and raise my children to be happy and well adjusted adults.
To spend your life looking for a higher purpose is to waste your life looking for the non-existent. I would love to spend time with Dawkins as he is a hero of mine. But circumstances deny.
what is the deal of raising kids if , in your philosophy, they will disappear relatively soon and forever ?
@francesco5581
It's all about eternal natural selection, the God of evolution.
@debbanation
How lucky we are to be alive. As Darwim said in his letter to Joseph Hooker, life began in eternal darkness, the void of nothing but then, the oxygen, carbon, and other chemical elements dispersed out of the rocks to form the first gas clouds. From then, miraculously,..oxygen decided to mix with hydrogen and, from the union of the two, created water the source of all life. Water fell onto the warm rock, and eventually, over time, the first soup formed. Nature has decided to create the first amino acids, which then form into the first protein the molecular basis for life. Natural selection made it lucky for us to be here today 😌 and it is our duty now that we have evolved into rational beings...to procreate and spread our protein expressions from offspring and to their offspring forever and ever, amen.
@@JulianH-co7qg evolution that is here by chance right ? also evolution should not exist for a materialist ..is all determined by the first set of the universe (here by chance of course). If you remove an intelligence/consciousness at play then, due to determinism, the "evolution" was embedded in the first thing that was here. Even me and you talking right now. On a physical level, starting with one set of thing, always lead to one result.
@francesco5581
Yes, natural selection? Well, you do bring up a good point. If the universe is determining, there is no selection per se. But I obviously don't believe that, I was joking 🙃 😅
It should be society's and the state's driving goal (purpose) to keep families intact, not fractured.
keep yourself and your wish gov't out of my home and business pal.
I agree that should be one of the essential goals.
@@BigTimeRushFan2112 That's one way of success as well.
@@debbanation Tell the state that.
In capitalism , family is not important.
_To procreate mindlessly_ is the purpose (or not even that).
David Benatar - The Meaning of Life:
th-cam.com/video/wQUhSbzoAfk/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the link.
Eventually, as gay marriage becomes more accepted by everyone, God will send out a revelation condoning it. Strange how God is always 20 years or so behind the times.
To the contrary, that family relations is an ultimate example of the better angels of our nature. Family relationships can be the ultimate example of devils of our nature. The amount of suffering and abuse within families is horrendous.
A human can have no arms(born without or lost). Does that mean 'humans don't have arms'? Nonsense logic. Where there is potential for great joy there is potential for great sadness sometimes. Just ask any one who got a divorce. Does that mean falling in love is really just sadness. Your argument makes no sense. And you missed the point of the line anyway. I haven't even listened to that part yet but it's very obvious that the line is referring to the fact that family members OFTEN have an unending love for each other. And if we treated all humans like family members the world might be a better place.
That was a whole lot of nothing... sorry but I wish I could get that time back and do something else
Yep. There was nothing to learn from this guest.
Why? Are you religious?
Agreed. I quit after 20 mins.
At least as I was out walking ... so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
Very interesting, Universe and reality are too "teachy" to be the product of chance.
Is that a fact?
@@realbigugly Is the opposite a fact?
I didn't make any assertions.
There is no evidence of ape to human evolution.
@@debbanation
Bobo found someone funny. Picka boo 🤗
Sadly the world abounds with examples of humans making monkeys of themselves however.
Do you believe in creationism?
@Seekthetruth3000
Of course, I believe things were created.
Who is the Creator? Do you believe in Adam and Eve?@@JulianH-co7qg