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  • EF49 (S2-E10): The Domino Effect: The Momentum of an Unstoppable Future

    EF49 (S2-E10): The Domino Effect: The Momentum of an Unstoppable Future
    May 26 2020
    PLAY EF49 (S2-E10): The Domino Effect: The Momentum of an Unstoppable FuturePLAY | DOWNLOAD Humanity’s relationship to the future is like falling dominoes, where the momentum of the present surges forward to create what’s next. But since our actions enact this cause-effect chain, does this mean the future is knowable? Or do humans not even matter in this cosmic cycle? More... The big question driving episode EF49 is … Is the future unknowable? And do humans even matter? In the year 2045, a physicist named Sam Payne is creating increasingly large black holes on demand using an advanced particle accelerator. At the end of a 30-yr quest to understand the nature of reality and our existence, she is convinced the answer lies on the other side of these dark portals. As she rips through the fabric of space-time of her world, confidence in her plan crumbles as everything she — and the rest of humanity — holds dear edges towards the abyss. Will she meet her maker? And how far is too far in search of the truth? Although the distant future is unknowable, we try to predict, or rather, create, how the future will look. Unlike philosophical theories that deal with the present and the past, futurism benefits far less from current or previous knowledge. A small, influential, tech-obsessed class is focusing the evolutionary trajectory of humanity towards an artificial intelligence-based, transhuman existence. But will this solve our problems and lead to a superior existence, or just exacerbate and reframe our issues into a more high-tech box? And does our obsession of what’s to come blind us of the point of being alive — and being human — in the present? Into The Rabbit Hole SHOW NOTES: This episode is dedicated to Ray Kurzweil. See the EF49 Show Notes for details of the dedication, inspirations, references, selected quotes and more. ABOUT THE EVOLVE FASTER PODCAST: Everything is changing, yet the questions that drive us remain the same. Will humanity face the absurdity of our collective existential crisis in time? Join Scott Ely as he takes us deep into the rabbit hole with philosophical tales to reboot your mind, upgrade your life and explore your soul. To Evolve Faster is to see the fact that you will die someday as a formidable challenge, instead of a source of immense fear. Create your reality…before it creates you. Isn’t it time for an upgrade? More episodes… SUBSCRIBE: The Evolve Faster Podcast is written, performed and produced by Scott Ely. Writing and production of each episode of the podcast is a significant undertaking spanning many months—it’s a labor of love, but it needs your help to survive. To help ensure the creation of more episodes, please learn about ways you can support the podcast (register, share, review and subscribe) on the Support Evolve Faster page. Your help is much appreciated. PODCAST |ABOUT | SUBSCRIBE Season One: The journey begins as we embark on 11 episodes on big questions relating to MIND. What is the truth? Can we trust reason? Why do we have emotions? Does happiness define the good? What is identity? What is creativity?(EF1) Trailer: The Evolve Faster Podcast (Extended) Trailer(EF2) Intro: Life is a Near Death Experience: Welcome to The Evolve Faster Podcast(EF3) S1-E1: All Aboard the Experience Machine: Destination…Unknown (Season One, Episode One)(EF4) S1-E2: The Decapitation of Reason: A Skeptic’s Guide (Season One, Episode Two)(EF5) S1-E3: The Truth is Clay in the Hands of a Sculptor (Season One, Episode Three)(EF6) S1-E4: Information Mainlining and the Folly of Modern Wisdom (Season One, Episode Four)(EF7) S1-E5: Sleight of Mind: The Black Magic of Rhetoric (Season One, Episode Five)(EF8) S1-E6: Without a Compass: All Who Sail the Seas of Identity Are Not Lost (Season One, Episode Six)(EF9) S1-E7: I Feel Therefore I am: Capsized by the River Emotion (Season One, Episode Seven)(EF10) S1-E8: The Road to Happiness is Inked in Suffering (Season One, Episode Eight)(EF11) S1-E9: When the Lights Go Out: The Blinding Light of an Artificial Future (Season One, Episode Nine)(EF12) S1-E10: Wired to Fail: Leveling Up in the Game of Life (Season One, Episode Ten)(EF13) S1-E11: The Bloody Fingerprint of Creativity (Season One, Episode Eleven)(EF14) BTP: Behind the Evolve Faster Podcast - The Making of a Speculative Fiction Meets Philosophical Nonfiction Podcast(EF15) AMA: Ask Me Anything: About Scott Ely and Evolving a Philosophy for Life(EF16) BTP: On Creative Writing, Video Games and the Future of the Evolve Faster Podcast (About Antonio Rozich)(EF17) BTP-EF3: What Am I Supposed To Do Free Will and Other Everyday Problems Behind the Podcast of Episode EF3(EF18) AMA-EF3: The Mystical Allure of Converting to Buddhism and Speculating about Quantum Mechanics Ask Me Anything for Episode EF3(EF19) BTP-EF4: Head Transplantation and Finding Inspiration for Speculative Fiction - Behind the Podcast of Episode EF4(EF20) AMA-EF4: The Declining Value of ...
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    38 Min.
  • EF48 (S2-E9): Checkmate: A Child’s Guide to the Good Life

    EF48 (S2-E9): Checkmate: A Child’s Guide to the Good Life
    May 12 2020
    Sam Payne, a physicist, finally discovers the true origin of the universe after sacrificing most of her life to the endeavor. But the discovery has vast repercussions which shake the foundation of Sam’s sanity. In light of the drastic nature of her existential dread, Sam is unsure how to even define what a good life would look like for her now. She finds a glimpse of hope in the curious, enigmatic mindset of her 5-year-old daughter, Maya. The hope and desire to live a good life is ingrained in every human. But the day you’re born is also the day you start to die, so the quicker you can arrive at some reasonable and attainable definition of the good life for yourself, the more fulfilling your life will be. But in an existence without obvious meaning, and a society heavily focused on meaningless goals like wealth and fame, how can you uncover an answer for yourself to such a simple question? Is it possible the mindset of seeing the world through a child’s eyes could provide critical insight to that which is otherwise concealed by the challenges and distractions of adult life?
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    28 Min.
  • EF47 (S2-E8): Infinite Regress: Drawing Back The Veil of Perception

    EF47 (S2-E8): Infinite Regress: Drawing Back The Veil of Perception
    Apr 28 2020
    Sam Payne was a physicist on the verge of discovering the true nature of reality when her project was shut down. But a suspicious gift enables her to go underground to an illegal world of virtual work, in order to try and recruit rogue scientists to restart her research. As the risks pile up, and the heat is on, she realizes what she’s been seeking for the last three decades of her career has been hidden in plain sight all along. But the answer is also far more dangerous than she could have imagined. We perceive our day to day experience as the one-and-only, true reality. But the truth is, our perception of reality is very different than that of a catfish, bat, or dog; which can respectively taste, hear and smell far more acutely than we could possibly imagine. So what is the true reality, beyond this seemingly impenetrable veil of perception that shrouds human sensory capabilities? Is it something we can even comprehend using the limited wetware of the human brain? Or does such a thing as reality even exist?
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    35 Min.
  • EF46 (S2-E7): Empathetic Distortion: Rigging the Scales of Justice

    EF46 (S2-E7): Empathetic Distortion: Rigging the Scales of Justice
    Apr 14 2020
    PLAY EF46 (S2-E7): Empathetic Distortion: Rigging the Scales of JusticePLAY | DOWNLOAD Like a rigged scale of justice, life in society and within cultures is inherently unfair. But what if there were ways to live true to yourself while also being compassionate to everyone? And is a just world even possible? More... The big question driving episode EF49 is … Is a just world even possible? Put in an impossible position early in her career, Mary Payne was forced to make a choice between saving a single identifiable victim or helping an entire community of nameless people. The decision haunts her entire life. Many years later in old age, Mary is faced with another trolley bearing down on her where she will once again be forced to make a difficult decision on which track to send it. But unlike before, this time her life sits in the balance on one of the tracks. In theories about a just society, good deeds are expected to be rewarded and bad deeds punished. But is it really so easy to define what is a good versus bad deed? Can empathy for one human being, and the reward that comes with it, blind you from the same effort being able to help many others instead? Using Paul Bloom’s theory of rational compassion, we will explore what means to be a good person and why genuine good can easily get prosecuted in an unjust society. What would you do with your hand on the switch and a trolley bearing down on two tracks, both with grave consequences? Is there any real possibility for a just world when some decisions have only bad outcomes? Or is life and society just inherently unfair? Into The Rabbit Hole SHOW NOTES: This episode is dedicated to Paul Bloom. See the EF46 Show Notes for details of the dedication, inspirations, references, selected quotes and more. ABOUT THE EVOLVE FASTER PODCAST: Everything is changing, yet the questions that drive us remain the same. Will humanity face the absurdity of our collective existential crisis in time? Join Scott Ely as he takes us deep into the rabbit hole with philosophical tales to reboot your mind, upgrade your life and explore your soul. To Evolve Faster is to see the fact that you will die someday as a formidable challenge, instead of a source of immense fear. Create your reality…before it creates you. Isn’t it time for an upgrade? More episodes… SUBSCRIBE: The Evolve Faster Podcast is written, performed and produced by Scott Ely. Writing and production of each episode of the podcast is a significant undertaking spanning many months—it’s a labor of love, but it needs your help to survive. To help ensure the creation of more episodes, please learn about ways you can support the podcast (register, share, review and subscribe) on the Support Evolve Faster page. Your help is much appreciated. PODCAST |ABOUT | SUBSCRIBE Season One: The journey begins as we embark on 11 episodes on big questions relating to MIND. What is the truth? Can we trust reason? Why do we have emotions? Does happiness define the good? What is identity? What is creativity?(EF1) Trailer: The Evolve Faster Podcast (Extended) Trailer(EF2) Intro: Life is a Near Death Experience: Welcome to The Evolve Faster Podcast(EF3) S1-E1: All Aboard the Experience Machine: Destination…Unknown (Season One, Episode One)(EF4) S1-E2: The Decapitation of Reason: A Skeptic’s Guide (Season One, Episode Two)(EF5) S1-E3: The Truth is Clay in the Hands of a Sculptor (Season One, Episode Three)(EF6) S1-E4: Information Mainlining and the Folly of Modern Wisdom (Season One, Episode Four)(EF7) S1-E5: Sleight of Mind: The Black Magic of Rhetoric (Season One, Episode Five)(EF8) S1-E6: Without a Compass: All Who Sail the Seas of Identity Are Not Lost (Season One, Episode Six)(EF9) S1-E7: I Feel Therefore I am: Capsized by the River Emotion (Season One, Episode Seven)(EF10) S1-E8: The Road to Happiness is Inked in Suffering (Season One, Episode Eight)(EF11) S1-E9: When the Lights Go Out: The Blinding Light of an Artificial Future (Season One, Episode Nine)(EF12) S1-E10: Wired to Fail: Leveling Up in the Game of Life (Season One, Episode Ten)(EF13) S1-E11: The Bloody Fingerprint of Creativity (Season One, Episode Eleven)(EF14) BTP: Behind the Evolve Faster Podcast - The Making of a Speculative Fiction Meets Philosophical Nonfiction Podcast(EF15) AMA: Ask Me Anything: About Scott Ely and Evolving a Philosophy for Life(EF16) BTP: On Creative Writing, Video Games and the Future of the Evolve Faster Podcast (About Antonio Rozich)(EF17) BTP-EF3: What Am I Supposed To Do Free Will and Other Everyday Problems Behind the Podcast of Episode EF3(EF18) AMA-EF3: The Mystical Allure of Converting to Buddhism and Speculating about Quantum Mechanics Ask Me Anything for Episode EF3(EF19) BTP-EF4: Head Transplantation and Finding Inspiration for Speculative Fiction - Behind the Podcast of Episode EF4(EF20) AMA-EF4: The Declining Value of Information and Taking Risks to Determine What is the Truth Ask Me Anything of Episode ...
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    30 Min.
  • EF45 (S2-E6): Weaving Society’s Web: Purpose in a Future Without Work

    EF45 (S2-E6): Weaving Society’s Web: Purpose in a Future Without Work
    Mar 31 2020
    In a post-work society governed by an artificial intelligence corporation, John Weber is the creator of an illegal virtual world called Silk that is cloaked in secrecy. Accused that Silk is causing VR overdoses that leave players in debt or even dead, Weber is forced to negotiate with the government’s representative, Karl Shultz. Although the premise for the meeting is to find a mutually beneficial resolution, it quickly becomes clear that both parties have more nefarious ulterior motives. Although many people wish they didn’t have to work, we rarely think about how important work is to our well being outside of the obvious financial benefits. What if the problem isn’t the work itself, but the way the system is organized? If there was a way to create a perfectly equal society — like the one John Rawls proposed in his brilliant Veil of Ignorance thought experiment — would people pursue careers around the things they loved instead of just chasing money? And would this have the power to reinvent society around an entirely new type of capitalism of shared value, instead of individual gain?
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    41 Min.
  • EF44 (S2-E5): Reality Unchained: Smashing the Icons of Social Delusion

    EF44 (S2-E5): Reality Unchained: Smashing the Icons of Social Delusion
    Mar 17 2020
    Sam Payne is a renowned physicist investigating the nature of reality at an advanced particle accelerator. Immediately after making a groundbreaking discovery, the research mysteriously gets shut down. Without a team or a lab, Sam’s life’s work is at risk of disappearing behind chained doors. But as Sam is forced to decide if willing to break the chains on the ‘stuff’ of this reality, things continue to get even more perplexing. Life in society imposes rules you are expected to follow. Some rules exist to keep society from devolving into anarchy. Yet upon deeper reflection, it’s clear that many other rules are arbitrary and designed to either limit your possibilities or enable a select few to profit. Only the iconoclasts of our civilization command the fearless vision to ask one of the most dangerous questions: ‘Why this stuff and not some other stuff?’ It is a unique quality — possessed and acted upon by rare individuals like Copernicus, Thomas Paine and Charles Darwin — which usually results in the iconoclast burning at the stake during their lifetime, and then, revered in retrospect.
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    33 Min.
  • EF43 (S2-E4): Evil Urges: The Fiery Duality of Human Nature

    EF43 (S2-E4): Evil Urges: The Fiery Duality of Human Nature
    Mar 3 2020
    Michael Fleming, a crestfallen journalist, interviews an infamous euthanasia doctor named Dr. Theodor Payne. Initially, Michael’s goal appears to be proving that Payne’s deeds are pure evil, with the implication that he should be prosecuted for performing over 1,000 assisted deaths. But as the two men collide, the line between good and evil becomes blurry, and hidden agendas become clear. Will the nature of evil be revealed? We’d like to think it should be easy to identify who, or what, is evil. Occasionaly, the distincion is simple; if you commit a violent act of murder without cause and have ill intent, you’re evil. But as we move away from obvious malicious acts, and multiple nuanced perspectives are revealed, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterize such things either pure evil or true good. Friedrich Nietzsche theorized that good and evil aren’t separate entities, but different actions driven by the same needs and impulses. How do we rationally act and override our snap judgements in order to give proper attention to decide what is, or isn’t, actually evil?
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    43 Min.
  • EF42 (S2-E3): Civil Individualism: Loneliness Atop Mount Empowerment

    EF42 (S2-E3): Civil Individualism: Loneliness Atop Mount Empowerment
    Feb 18 2020
    The big question driving Episode EF42 is ... What does it mean to be an individual? Sam Payne is finishing her Ph.D. in physics under the advisement of a professor making a controversial claim as to why the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning of the universe; his new theory of everything posits a universal force which is being interpreted as proof that God exists. Sam gets caught in the crossfire between the professor and the angry mob of protesting college students who believe he is trying to bring Creationism to universities. On a knife’s edge in life and career, the increasing pressure on Sam’s individualism is insisting on a drastic plan. Will Sam have the guts to carry it out? Humanity’s rise to the top of the food chain is due to our success as social creatures, so it can be confusing to sync that reality with our drive to also be individuals. With deep introspection into what got you to this point in life, can you actually define what it means to be a real individual? How would you to prove you have what it takes? Are you capable of creating completely new ideas that aren’t influenced by your predecessors, as Transcendental philosophers like Walden and Thoreau? Or maybe you think you must climb the mountain alone to create a better world, as Ayn Rand believed?
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    33 Min.