Step forward is reminding yourself that you're on a little island of what we do know, inside an ocean of what we don't know. Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.
We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. This is part two
of our interview with Tim Urban. Tim has become one of the Internet's most popular writers, with rye stick figure illustrations and occasionally epic pros on everything from procrastination to artificial intelligence. Urban's blog Wait But Why has garnered millions of unique page views, thousands of patrons, and many famous fans. His recent TED talk has been watched the most fifteen
million times. Tim's articles have been regularly republished on sites like Courts, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Business Insider, and Gizmodo. Tim was recently invited by Elon Musk to host SpaceX's launch webcast and was granted early access to information about SpaceX's interplanetary transport system. This episode is brought to you by Casper Mattress. Go to Casper dot com slash wolf and use the promo code Wolf to say fifty dollars off your purchase. And here's part two of
our interview with Tim Urban. Hi, Tim, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on again. Yes, I won't ask you to read the Wolf parable because we did that last week. We will just go from there. And I want to talk about another of your posts that was right along with Procrastination was probably my favorite one. And I don't know that I even know the title of it, but you're talking about the Consciousness Staircase, and there's so
many things in this that I love. But you start off by saying that for most of us, we don't have any real plan for self growth. We don't really change in any meaningful ways. You list all the things that we go through and we do in our life and our day, and you ask are we any happier? And your conclusion as well, we're not really getting any happier. And so you looked at your own life and you said, I would like to progress as a human, but I
don't really have a plan for that. So you started coming up with an approach and you said that the goal was to have wisdom, and then you went on to describe something called the consciousness staircase. Can you pick
up from there for me? Yeah? Sure. I kind of got into that post just by thinking about the fact that people who are atheists, you know, or agnostic or whatever they are, but it's not something specific they think of that as well, that that's that's my belief system, that's what I do, you know, But it's not a belief system. You know. Being an atheist, for example, is just not a certain set of belief systems that you're referring to. There's a group of belief systems and you
are not those things, and that's all you are. I mean, that's that's not a thing, right, It's like, it's not a framework for you know, what's right and wrong. It's not a framework for you know, deciding how you're going to be as a thinker. It's not a framework for deciding how you're going to grow. I use the example of saying, UM, I don't like rollerblading as a workout strategy. It's not a workout strategy. What are you doing to
get in shape? So I realized that, you know, I think if someone's a very devout, for example, I think that you know, one thing that advice about that is that it comes along with a lot of you know, baked in strategies for how to live, how to grow, and there's a community that I think can support that. You know a lot of people that don't have kind
of a system that already exists that they subscribe to. UM, it's really important to kind of design your own UH and to think really about what you actually want to change about yourself and what you think is important in people to change, and then to actually design something where you can almost like a track that you can measure where you're on on it and actually see how far you've come on It's something where you can almost measure your growth and compare against yourself in the past and
remind yourself, you know, again, to use Christian example. You see that Jesus fish, the kind of what would Jesus do symbol? I think that's a great symbolic. It's a pull to hang on to. It's something that you can always come back to and say, you know, when you're feeling lost, when you're feeling in doubt, you can say, well, what would happen here? And then that guides you in
a certain direction. Well, you know again, I decided I needed kind of my own so I came up with a a work that kind of gets to what I think is important. And when I was doing my thinking about what is important for humans in general as they try to grow, I thought about what I kind of
call it the consciousness staircase. And it's a reminder to me that, you know, you look at those pictures of evolution and you see kind of the primates and you know, eight progressively growing upright, and then they get to a human that kind of that familiar image where um humans on the far end, and it seems like you're looking at that you're like, we won, you know, we we were at the top. But that's not really true. We're
in the middle of evolution. Um. And uh, you know, we consider you know, people talk about consciousness in different ways, but you know, it's a little bit sometimes it's just semantic semantic arguments happen. But I think we can argue that, like, you know, we are more conscious than a primate. We're more self aware, were more we're more present in that moment somehow. Um, And the primate is more conscious than maybe a chicken. Primate kind of just is awake in
a way more than a chicken is awake. And a chicken is awake. You know, if you're just just looking at a chicken and how they act, they are awake more then maybe a beetle is awake. Uh, And that beetle might be awake more than a bacteria. For so, so you can keep going in. And there's whether it's consciousness exactly or not that I'm talking about. There's some important I'm talking about is kind of just being awake
and aware of what's going on. And for example, a monkey tribe might you know, kind of attack another monkey tribe and there might be a lot of really gruesome scene murders, and I think they're less likely to kind of pause and feel empathy and feel regret and feel you know, remorse for that. They're just they're they're just one notch kind of less aware of how bad they just did as and humans are and in a different way.
But we still murder people. I mean, we're not totally there like we're And it's just kind of going back to what we talked about in part one. There are these two wolves, there's not just one. And I think a future species, uh, you know, a more evolved version of us, could be much more the rational wolf and
much less the primitive animal wolf. And there could be a species that of course would never go to war and never murder, and never feel pettiness or jealousy, and would never be greedy or you know, really selfish or shortsighted, and you would never brag, and we would never You can just go on and on about all these things that make no actual rational sense to do, and we
do it the because you know, it's the bad. It's the worst side of ourselves, all these things, and I believe that's the kind of the animal side of ourselves. And because we're a combo of these things, I think that a species that was just absent of the animal side would look at us the way we look at a monkey. They would kind of want to pas us on ahead and say they're they're doing pretty well, but of course they're not as awake as we are. They do think they're in a bit of a delusion a
lot of the time. They're kind of an animal delusion that makes them out a certain way that maybe on their deathbed they look back and regret they don't see it at the time because they're just not fully awake. And I really think that humans in that regard are It's almost like, no, they would see us as a three year old. You know, we're we're kind of in the blur of emergence too full sentience, and we're not quite there yet, and so knowing that maybe realize that, well,
but we're not all three years old of us. You know. Maybe the human beings are tapped at being you know, seven or something, you know, in terms of how that species review us. But some of us are maybe two or one at the way we act versus seven, and so we don't have all the leeway. We're not going to be able to overcome our animal selves entirely, because that's not possible we are. That's half of who we are.
We're not going to be able to be a totally rational, totally empathetic, completely grown up person, but we can be more or less grown up. We had is still arranged that humans variant, and I think about that. I realized that, you know, yeah, I think that there is a real concept of being a grown up, and it does not correlate with age. It doesn't. I know eleven year olds that I think are just kind of wiser people than
some fifty five year olds. I know, you know, they just seem to be a little bit more self aware. And I certainly know twenty year olds that I think are far wiser than fifty five year olds. But then I know a lot of the five year olds where I think are tremendously wise, who I admire and I try to be more like. So I just think it depends on how much you've grown and how it can control you are kind of your animal side, and how kind of aware you are of your animal side. That's
what makes someone a grown up. And I believe that grown ups achieve a lot more in life. I think they're better people. I think they spread happiness a lot more than they spread misery. I think that they are much much happier people. I think they're better parents, I think they're better friends. I think they have fewer regrets
on their deathbeds. And I think, you know, almost everything that someone could want or want to change about themselves probably is fixed or is helped by becoming more grown up. I designed the mini staircase, which is kind of if humans are on one step of the consciousness staircase, this is kind of the little mini staircase within that step. It's the range humans can kind of manage to go up and down. And to me, that feels like it's being more or less conscious of ourselves and in control
of our inner self. So I think the procrastination discussion, for example, one of many, many, many parts of this battle that goes on in our heads. And I think it's it's it's it's the balance of power in this battle in our heads that determines kind of where we
are on this little mini staircase. And so even just looking at step one versus step two, for example, if there's just say three or four steps total on this mini staircase, step one on the lowest step is where we are a lot of the time, and it's where we are just the animal in us is running the show that we're feeling its emotions. We're short term thinking like the animal. And it's not just procrastination that can make us hate people and that don't look like us
or that don't think like us. It can make us
terrified of what other people think. It can make us want to fit in so badly that we give up our agency, We give up our independent thought, which is the most precticus thing we have, We give up our independent identity, and we just try to conform, and we believe what we're supposed to believe, and and all these things that just make I said, not great people, people that I don't respect and that, and I'm often being like that when someone when I see someone I'm acting
on step one, I respect them a little less. I kind of think that they're not very wise. I don't if I'm on step one myself, I might even dislike them and kind of you know, or you know, really just think something bad about them. If I can get on the step two, where I suddenly have a much bigger awareness of what a human is and that everyone's just going through this struggle and everyone's trying to be happy. Well, first of all, I'm not going to judge that person
that harshly. I'm gonna say, you know, if someone's acting kind of you know, maybe they're being racist, or maybe they're being just nasty to someone, or maybe they're just being a bad friend, I'm going to just see that with them passion. I'm gonna say that this person is struggling, this person does you know, doesn't see what they're doing, and and likewise, I'm less likely to be like that in any of those ways. I'm much more likely to be um tould just be wise. And that's to me.
You know, wisdom and kind of being a grown up are the same concept, and they correlate with how high you can be on this staircase and that little staircase for me, that little drawing idea, but the simple little staircase to me is that's my Jesus fish my what would Jesus do? At any moment in the day. I can look at that and it will help maybe a
better person in that moment. It will help me be a more effective person, a happier person, and more in control person, just because it reminds me that I might be being on step one without realizing it, because part of being on step one is you don't realize you're on step one. You remember that there is a step one when you're there, because you're kind of in the fog, you're the grasp of your animal self, and the animals is not that conscious, and that's who's running your brain
right then, so you can't see what's going on. And only later can you look back. Sometimes only on your deathbed can you look back and see, you know, wow, I really messed up at something. And you know, the earlier you can realize that, of course, the better. Yeah,
you referred to being on step one. You said it there as in the fog, and that when you're in the fog, you don't even usually know it right, and that sometimes all it takes to move to the to the step two, which you refer to step two is thin in the fog to reveal context, is that all you have to do is become conscious of the fog in that sense, or become conscious that you are on
step one. And I find that to be so true, and I think that's why this idea of awareness is something that comes up a lot on the show and I refer to a lot as the idea of like I have to stop and have some ability to see that I'm in the fog. I think this is why this idea of distancing ourselves from our thoughts, being able to observe our brain is so important, because that's what it's doing. It's it's helping to thin that fog exactly. I think I could never put my finger on it.
Just why meditation was so effective for me, even though, of course, because I have a monkey in my head, I never do it. But when I do do it, um, I find that I come out and I'm just like, I don't know, I feel more adult, I feel more in control. And part of that is the fog relies on you basically not pausing to look at it. It just relies on you being totally unseelf aware, unconscious, and meditation just kind of forces I think, some fog to clear and you come out and you can just see
what's going on in your brain a lot better. And when you look at it, you can suddenly say wait a second, and you can kind of take control of what's going on. The thing I refer to as the fog is kind of it's all of this animal feelings and emotions and desires and you know, impulses inside if you kind of you know, there's all different kinds of them. Again, There's there's the animal that wants to fit in. There's
the animal that wants to procrastinate. Uh, there's the animal that is going to sabotage you when you go on to do a public speaking thing. It's going to make you extra nerves in that moment. And there's all these animals that are all in the end just they're not evil.
They just care about animal primitive animal survival. They think you're in fifty BC and they want to survive and they don't understand that you're even in a modern world and they don't understand what that is, and they just want to you know, they get so scared public speaking because embarrassment in fifty BC was the worst thing they could ever happen to a human because you know, you're you're suddenly you're you're you're not as cool in your status is and is high in that tribe, and that's
everything to you because now you're not you know, you're not gonna you know, get the mate you want, and you might not you know, end up in with the chief as well. I mean, and that really dramatically bad for you. I mean, and if your survival and the survival of your genes, so your animals are just trying to help you survive, and they unfortunately we live in a world where they're not that helpful. Right now, they are and most of the time they're actually really hurting
us without realizing it. The influence of those animals, the voices and the emotions of those animals, form this fog that just kind of can ebb and flow in our head. When the animals, when we're when we're feeling a survival instinct because either we're feeling you know, embarrassed, or we're feeling in love, or we're feeling you know, bitter, jealous or scared. Um, the fog is going to get thick. And I mean, it's it's gonna, it's gonna these animals
are going to really start to get going. And when they get going and the fog gets thick in your head, it a takes over your behavior, your thoughts, your emotions, so it actually affects what you do. But then it has this second thing and that it actually makes you unconscious, so you can't see that you're in the fog. You don't realize what you're doing. You don't see how bad
it is until later. And that's why sometimes you do something and you look back and you cringe it yourself later something you said, uh, you know, or a certain way you wore, or you just feel bad, you know. You use the example if you never call your grandparents and then they die and suddenly, boom, the fog disappears. Can you look and you can see reality? And you say, what was I doing? Why did I not spend more
time with them? And it's this tragedy that happened because the fog of your everyday life and procrastination, because I'll just do a depth some other time, and this unconscious animal who didn't think hard enough about what was going on. I took you over and now it's too late. Um. That's why you know, on people's deathbed it clears all the fog. No no, I say that nothing clears fog leg a death bed. And we don't want to have these as deep regrets at the end. You want to
have them as epiphanies, helpful epiphanies. Um. Now, and you know, I just even myself like every day. Even procrastination is it's not just a struggle, it's a fog, and that sometimes you're in the dark playground and you're you're you are aware of what's going on, but a lot of the time in the dark playground. But I don't have the level of like serious like darkness I should about that moment because I'm really really messing my I'm screwing,
just screwing myself over. But at the time, I'm kind of like I should, and I'm just kind of being casual. And then I get in bed at night and I just suddenly anxiety, panic, and I just lying there, can't sleep, and I'm tossing attorney looking at the say what did I do today? I can't believe how little I got done today? Oh my god. And then I I can't sleep and freak out this ones don't wake up and pound three hours of workout or two in the morning
because I'm such that's crazy behavior. But what's happening is because at night I'm lying there in bed and this fog isn't there about at least about my schedule. Um and the day it was, it was just there. I was just kind of puttering around the light was out at having my coffee, chatting with my friend and then looking at social media, and I'm just kind of in a good mood and I know I should be doing it, but it's kind of fine. I mean, this fog, this
totally unconscious fogg. I'm not just looking at reality and stopping and saying what will happen if I continue this? Will I feel tonight? And if I just had that thought, I would suddenly say, oh my god, okay, I need to right now, but you don't, you know so, And then you can have another kind of just speaking at night. You know a lot of people have another kind of fog at night when they suddenly get in that late night zone and bedding. Oh god, I'm the most embarrassing
person in the world. Oh I'm a huge failure. Or what did I do? Why did I say? This is what am I doing with my life? You know, some people get into that zone really hard at night. That's
another kind of fog. It's like the animals all kind of like come in and have like you know, a little fit in your head all at the same time, or a few different fear animal you know, a fear and a and a shame animal, and these other animals come in your head and start going crazy at night, and you wake up in the morning, and now you have a different kind of clarity in the morning when you look back and you say what you kind of in the shower of thinking, I'm fine, this is fine,
nothing is a big deal. I was just just being I was catastrophizing because you were in this fog. But you don't realize at night, you think it's real because you're not conscious enough to see that you're just in some fog, some animal you know, chemical fog. You talk about revealing context, and I think that is so important, like that example of nighttime, right, the reason that gets so bad at night is there's no context. There's just you in this dark room, and and if you can
get some context, things look differently. And I think the same thing with with being in that other fog. And I agree with that we spend so much of our time on what you know. I refer to it as autopilot. I mean I started this show to a large degree
to get myself off of autopilot. I thought, you know what, if I interview people every week, then I'll have to read their stuff and It'll just keep these kind of ideas in the forefront of my brain because left to my own I'm just gonna kind of spiral off into into a bad place. And so just being able to thin the fog, being able to just stop and a
lot of times I'll just stop. I've got this little thing right, like if I can remember, it's like I stop, ask myself, where am I like, literally, pay attention, what am I doing? Literally? And then is it what I want to be doing? And for me every once in a while, that can interrupt solitaire if I can, if I can get that thought. Yeah, right, So let's talk about the other parts of the mini human staircase, which
is step three you call woe moments. Yeah. So Step one is you know you're just you know, small minded, childish, and you're you're in the fog um on self aware and all of those things. Step two is you thinned the fog. You know, you're still in some level of deep, you know fog, but it's it's much thinner and you can actually see context. You can see around and behind. And I use the example of you know, a cashier
is just rude to you. And on step one, you just do your rude back or you hate the person. What a day. On step two, it just makes no sense to be angry. You don't even know this person. It's a ran though in the world, and you're just getting a glimpse of probably a pretty unhappy moment in their lives, like they're going through something. Maybe they had a bad morning, or maybe they had a bad childhood, or maybe someone in their life is sick, or maybe
they're going through a break up. Who No, you have no idea, but you're aware that you have no idea, and you're aware that it's not about you, and so you just it makes no sense to be rude because when you look at the context, you say, oh, well it's not my problem, like I hope they get better, or like I'm just going to ignore them. On step one, you're like, you take it personally, which makes no sense at all, and you think you know a lot about them.
I think this is a bad person. They don't like me, only people like me, and screw them, and this is the problem with the world. And you get and this is like totally you know, irrational zone. Okay, Still on step two, there's still a level of delusion going on and then you kind of just look up the blue sky and you think about life and you think, you know, yeah, I'm just like here in this nice land with the blue sky and and full reality, full clear of fog reality.
Um is actually quite extreme, which is that you're not really in the land or the blue sky, like you are on a tiny rock in the middle of billions of light years of nothingness, floating around a ball of plasma. I mean, it is so bizarre, the actual thing that's
really going on. And so for me, it's the moments when that hits you, when true reality hits you, when it hits you that you're a bunch of atoms, uh, and that you're kind of they formed this complex structure that's like a growth on this almost like mold on
the rock and you know, or moss. It's like this growth on this planet is this you know, life, and and has these little little critters going around that that are that are made of atoms, and you're just one of them, and you're here for a short amount of time, and it's this giant universe. And the times you can
absorb that, sometimes it's a beautiful, exciting moment. Sometimes it's a terrifying moment, but you know, you realize it hits you, really hits you that you're going to die for the rest of eternity, or it hits you that the universe is like so unbelievably large that it's like it's just that the actual scope of it starts to hit you. Or time, how old the planet is, how much time there has been, or the fact that time itself is a construct in our head. It's actually it's an element
of spacetime. It's this fabric in space and time or one thing. And again, you can say these things. Even right now, I'm saying these things, but I'm not having a moll moment. I'm you know, I may be getting closer. But it's there's certain moments when you think about and you're in a certain zone. You fig about it long enough or hard enough, um or you're on some drug that's helpful, or you're the right person in the right conversation or at the right time at night, but it
just it like really hits you for a second. It's an experience versus a thought. Yes, I compare it to you look at pictures of the Grand Canyon forever, and that's but when you're there it's just different. It's just it hits you in a more emotional, deeper way, and the same thing like just talking about these things is like looking at a picture of the Grand Canyon. But on moments like being there for a second. I don't think many humans can hold onto a true woman with
that long which makes sense. Our brains are not wired to absorb that kind of reality. That's not their job. Their job is to survive in a tribe, in the animal world on the earth, and so a lot of this delusion we have is part of what our brains are meant to do. It's what they're wired to do because it's helpful for survival. Knowing the truth about reality is not helpful. If anything, it might be unhelpful. So um are we're not good at it, But we have the capacity to you know that a monkey does not
have because again we're high enough in this staircase. We can touch that stare. We can touch it for a second. Another species that's more advanced might be able to live on it all the time. We can just touch it for a second. But I think it's a very powerful thing in that moment when I touch it for a second, when and maybe it's nice starring night. I look up and it just hits me. When I'm looking at it
hits me. I'm looking at stars that are incredibly huge and far away, and that's just a little piece of this and I can see the band of the milky Way. In those moments, it does something to you, and it can last for a little while and and it puts
you in a very I think wise place. I think a lot of the time, at least just at that moment, I feel personally like in awe of everything in that moment and small and just I feel like I'm lucky to be here and I just want to get on my knees and like, you know, like put my hands to the heavens and it's like wow, I feel like I feel legitimately like spiritual in that moment. And then you know, you go back to the cash your example, upon step one, you're rude back to the cash here,
you hate him. On step two, you have compassion for the cash here. You you you also understand that it's nothing to do with you, and you just let it, let it go, buy or you try to make them feel better or whatever. On step three, you're thinking about the fact that you are a collection of Adam that have formed this center of seemingly consciousness for a brief
moment in vast space and time. You know, here you are, and the cashier is another collection of Adams at the same exact time, in the same exact space, and it forms almost the same exact thing, and you just want to hug them and say, oh my god, you know, like we're here, like wow, hi, you know, and and and and and and you just want to You just want to love everyone, and you know, your ego disappears, and you just want to You don't care about yourself
anymore than you care about other people, and you just want to You just want to help anyone, and you want people to be happy. And it's like you have this moment when you're truly like and I said, if I if I could be there often, I could be like a monk somewhere, you know, but I'm not, which
is why I'm not a monk. But like I feel like it's like, you know, in those moments I'm like you, you really can feel like, you know, I get what it would be like to be a real like enlightened Buddhist for a second, you know, you just feel it. So suddenly everything is so obvious, you have utter clarity. It makes you really it's your You have no choice but to be wise. You would never in that moment when you're feeling that way. You would never be, you know,
petty about something. You just wouldn't. You would never be greedy about something in that moment. You wouldn't. You could never hate anyone at that moment. You couldn't not because you're being nice, because it makes no sense. None of those emotions make any actual sense. They're just there because
the fog is there. So the fog is just wiped away in that moment at one moment, just like puffs it right out of the room and you can just see the animals to what they are, and they're silly, and you realize that they have no power over you in that moment. And then, because you're a human, you will inevitably drift right back down to where you were.
You will. But I do think that one moment it sticks with you somewhere, A little piece of it sticks with you, And you know, every time you have that, I think you become a little bit wiser forever, just a little bit. So I think a little piece sticks with you, and I think it's really good to have
those moments. The goal for me this kind of growth is never is not to end up on step three all the time, because I don't think that's possible for human and I don't think that's almost a desirable, cause I'm not sure you can really connect with humanity or really work on your career or anything you know, on that step because you suddenly wouldn't know, at least right now.
I find that to be not desirable. I'd like to be on step two, like to be in the delusion that this world matters and I'm here with this blue skuy and everything's use some sunny and I'm sitting here getting my work done and I'm being nice to people and whatever. Step two is a great place for me to be. But I like to get on the step three sometimes because it helps me with the step one versus Step two battle that I'm in all the time
that we're all in all the time. And I think the goal is never to be even permanently on step two. That's not possible. The goal is to be on step two more often then you're on step one, and more often than you were on step one last year. And if you're if you're step two to step one, ratio is going up every year, even just a little bit, you're doing great. You know you're growing. And for me, that's my growth framework. That's excellent. Let's finish it up
real quickly with step four. We don't need to spend a ton of time on it, but I do think it's important and a useful concept. Yeah, so, I think. So we keep kind of going to another iteration of clarity of reality. You know, you clear the context around the social context or whatever, and that's one level. It's just been the fog has been cleared and you can see, you know, another kind of another second dimension of reality.
And then then you remember that you're on a rock floating in the sky, or floating in that in the sky, floating in the middle of nothing. You clear away a whole other layer of fog, and you have a whole new layer of clarity. Um step four. For me, If there is a step four, I think it is, you know, if there's another because there is another level of clarity you can clear, which is reminding yourself that even when you think about the universe and spacetime and atoms, and
you know planets and stars. You don't really know what the hell is going on at all. We don't know what the universe is. You don't even know what the universe is. It could be a blit inside of a much larger thing, some kind of multiverse type thing, or it could be the end all and be all of everything. If you don't know that information, you have to remind If you just think about that for a second, you
realize like we're in a total cloud of delusion. If we think we understand reality, we don't know what is going on again. I started this post by saying, I'm I'm an atheist when it comes to the Bible and the Koran and the Torah, because those things are written by people, and those people don't know anything more than I do. In fact, reading those things, you can tell that those people were on Step one a lot when
they wrote those things. And so I'm certainly an atheist about those But when you start thinking about step four, which to me is reminding yourself that everything we do know is a tiny piece of the full picture. Step four is reminding yourself that you're on a little island of what we do know inside an ocean of what we don't know, and that fact is yet another kind of like whoa, Okay, it's like it's the only thing
that makes sense. Is like utter utter humility in that moment, you're just like you're just you're You're just a molecule floating around an ocean you don't understand. And so so that that, I think does a further thing to a human it kind of which is a whole different level of of clarity about how unclear things really are like. And so this is when I realize I'm a total agnostic, not about the books. The books are not true. I'm an agnostic about reality. I mean, how do we get here?
Could it have been a creator? Of course? Could have been some some more intelligent species created us as an experiment, of course? Could it have created not created us, created the first life on Earth? I mean I believe in evolution. Of course, the first life evolved into us. But how did that get here? I don't know. We don't know. Maybe life spontaneously starts, maybe it doesn't, Maybe something else did that. You know, you realize I just don't know what the hell is going on. Could we be in
a simulation? This is this gets to another topic. But I mean, when you start thinking about that for a second, you think, well, if intelligent species make we're super intelligent species exist A and B. If they make simulations, this
is a nick Boss Froom kind of argument. If they sometimes make simulations, well they could make a trillion simulations, then one one hacker, one one computer geek can make us a trillion of them, Meaning there's going to be far more simulation civilizations out there then there are real ones, meanings highly likely we are in a simulation. So you can go down that path where some instant gratification monkey solitaire game exactly exactly. Some is so self loathing right now.
Someone's so self blathing out there because they made us and this is the last thing that I had time to do right now, Like they have to go get their their their tucks ironed and like this is exactly so it's uh when you realize that you just all you could have is humility. And I think again, some people I think will step three and step four will make them feel scared and bad, especially if they currently believe in you know, some more specific good story like
an afterlife or something. Uh, and then then this is gonna you know, make them feel like that might not be true or that probably isn't true, and that's gonna feel really bad for me as a kind of atheist
type person. I think it feels great because I'm like, except three feels great because I don't know, I just feel an awe and I realized, like you know whom I like it, it doesn't make sense to me to care so much about my own life and death, because like, this thing is awesome and huge, and I'm just like,
it's cool that I'm here. And step four really makes me feel okay because I'm like, uh, you know what, I before I thought about step four, I might have said there's a zero percent chance my consciousness has any chance to live on and you know, more than I thought it would. And now suddenly on step for him, Like, I don't know, I don't know what the hell is going on. I really don't. I don't know what is
going on. You know, maybe I'm the only consciousness and every other person is just an illusion in my head, or maybe I'm gonna losion to someone else's head, and I it's just not when you start not knowing even what you are used to, I think you care a little bit less about like it chills me out a little bit, and and it kind of I think and certainly makes me less petty and less step one to
think about step four. And it makes certainty you know of any kind, especially certainty about stuff we don't know and what you know, what's going on other people's heads are certainty about what's right and politics or what's righting and whatever, just makes it seem so ludicrous in that moment. And so yeah, it's kind of the extreme version of beginner's mind that they talk about and zen. But I think when we recognize we don't know everything, it it
opens us up to so many different things. And it's something I have to struggle with because it's I can get very attached to what I think I know and and so remembering like as a species we've got very little of this figured out is comforting to me. Also, I think that when it comes to just like your thinking process, if you think about what you think versus how you think, we placed way too much emphasis on
what we think and what other people think. And you know, people who change their mind a lot and say they don't know, we think of them as wishy washy or flip floppers or wafflers. We have all these bad words and those people you know, your certainty is respected. It makes no sense at all valuing how people think. And when you're thinking really really highly, when you're thinking, well, um,
you're constantly uncertain. You're being a scientist type thinker. You're starting place and ending place or humility, and you're just trying to get a little bit more knowledge than you had before. And um, that's the wise place to be in. Yet because we're step one people, we are very often on step one where we care about what people think. We don't care how they got there. You don't care. They're just repeating what someone else said. They think the
right thing. Good. I like them. They're smart. Yep uh and you know, and and it's as completely illogical way to look at that. I agree. Well, Tim, thank you so much for coming on. I've had a great time with this conversation. I had a great time, like I said, preparing for it. We'll have links to your web page and your ted talking different things in the show notes. But thank you so much, awesome, thank you so much for having me on. Been a pleasure. Okay, bye, all right,
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