Becoming Human

Conflicts with others beckon us to want to change them. Can you change other people? If so, how do you change other people?

This episode explores how to approach changing others. It starts with you, and then you pull them into the future with you. We cover interpersonal relationships, pre-cognition, and the Pygmalion Effect.

Conflicts with others beckon us to want to change them. Can you change other people? If so, how do you change other people?

This episode explores how not to change others including peace and conflict resolution, control, and violence.

Curiosity is a discipline that can be developed and practiced. Between David Hume and the Stoics, we can harness a more curious presence and live better with rich wisdom.

Plus, a bunch of depth on the core emphases of Stoicism and why being curious is important for living well.

Physical exercise is a common idea.

But what about cognitive exercise?

Amathia, often translated as "Intelligent stupidity," is the outcome of having a static perspective. This episode explores how we avoid that through things like empathy and curiosity. Otherwise, you have the banal arguments and debates so rampant in our culture.

Can you change your mind? Absolutely! And you really might want to consider it. This episode explores four reasons our perspectives need to be put in their proper place:

1. They are incomplete
2. They are constructed
3. Entrenching them leads to competition
4. If they are wrong (or just incomplete), they can result in poor decisions.

We also bring up issues like confirmation bias and practical tips for growing and developing your perspective.

Exploring relative, subjective, and objective truth reveals that there is a progressive nature to truth. Truth is not a thing, but a process. 

• Questions of ontology (the nature of existence) — is anything true?
• 3 categories of truth — objective, subjective, and relative.
• Why objective truth is complicated.
• The progressive nature of truth and three ways we ought to approach it.

Can we be certain about anything or is truth subjective? Ontology, epistemology, and the modes and tools of discerning truth(logos, ethos, pathos, epistemological assumptions, superstition, inductive and deductive reasoning). 

How ought limited, finite, myopic human beings use their incomplete knowledge to approach a thing like truth?

• Ontology and epistemology — are we capable of knowing truth? Can we be certain about anything? 
• How we pursue truth — including modes of reasoning/persuasion, epistemological assumptions, and superstition.

Humans have always wondered about how we're able to know stuff. Though we have consciousness, can we have certainty? This episode explores the problem with perspective through rationalism and empiricism; reason and logic versus experience and sensory observation. Certainty is elusive and if we are gonna know anything, rationalism and empiricism might want to work together.

Overview:

• The story of Hiroo Onoda.
• Plato's "Cave Analogy" and the Theory of Forms
• Rationalism - the mind can know things independently of physical reality.
• Empiricism - knowledge is gained from sensory experience.
• Various philosopher's takes on the debate (including pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Skepticism, Stoicism, Al Kindi, Al Ghazali, Montaigne, Descartes, Hume, Kant, & Thomas Aquinas).
• Why you need both and that certainty is elusive - because your perspective is limited, finite, and fragile.

This is how the conflict resolution technique called mapmaking works. 

If you want to stop arguing, you have to be honest about your finite, limited perspective. Since neither person in the conflict is working with all the information, constructive possibilities remain.

Then, there are four concepts and two ground rules: Empathy, humanization, trust and vulnerability, and invitation.

Collaboration through asking questions is the result.

Stop arguing. Do this instead! If you don't know everything, maybe your conflicts and disagreements could be opportunities to see the world more than you currently do. Mapmaking is a conflict resolution technique based on the collaborative approach. In this episode, we explore how mapmaking works and what makes it different from arguing.

Episode Overview:

• "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost
• Arguments in our culture
• What mapmaking isn't (competition)
• What mapmaking is (collaboration)
• Why we resort to competition
• Unity in diversity