Searching For It

"Happiness lies always in the future, or else in the past, and the present may be compared to a small, dark cloud driven by the wind over the sunny plain; in front of and behind the cloud everything is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow. Consequently, the present is always inadequate, but the future uncertain, and the past irrecoverable.”

Schopenhauer paints a bleak, unforgiving picture of the human condition. Yet, Schopenhauer identifies a path away from the relentless suffering that consumes us all, and towards salvation. In this episode, we'll explore why Schopenhauer is so disillusioned by our very existence, and whether a better life is within our grasp.

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Meditation is sometimes thought to be a relaxation or an anti-stress technique - a get-out-of-jail-free card to play when you're not feeling your best. But that's just one small part of what meditation can do.

Last month, we saw how following the Buddhist path can lead us to Nirvana: a state beyond suffering and of pure contentment. In this episode, we'll explore how Vipassana meditation can be used to radically alter our worldview and discover the kinds of insights necessary for attaining Nirvana.

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Relative to our ancestors, we live in a very strange world. Food, sex, a holiday for 2 to Timbuktu - our every desire is available at the click of a button. But are we any happier than we were before?

Right at the other end of the spectrum, Buddhism offers us a path away from desire and towards contentment and tranquility. This episode will try to answer: how do Buddhists understand human nature? What is their alternative to the hedonic treadmill? And how can we attain Nirvana?

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Searching For It explores philosophies, ideas, and ways of life that can provide our lives with an overarching sense of purpose. But if anti-natalists had their way, we'd euthanize the human race as soon as possible because life is simply not worth living. In this episode, we'll investigate this provocative philosophy and try to understand why anti-natalists think it would be better never to have been born at all.

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Communist, womanizer, and intellectual rebel: Jean-Paul Sartre wasn't just another grey, ageing philosopher, trudging his way through the academic establishment. Sartre was an existentialist, a fierce political campaigner, and he lived the philosophy he preached. In this episode, we'll be getting to grips with Sartre's brand of existentialism and discovering what it means to live as an authentic, radically free being.

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In today's bonus October episode, Liam Ward joins Searching For It to discuss the philosophy of Albert Camus. Today's episode will see us revisiting the first episode of Searching For It and exploring Camus' notion of the absurd in more depth. Liam has a long-standing interest in Camus and all things existentialist, and brings to the table his thoughts on Camus' novel The Outsider and how we can apply Camus' philosophy to our day-to-day lives.

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This episode brings the second instalment of the 2-part series on altruism. After having looked into why we should be so concerned about doing good in the last episode, today we'll be trying to figure out how we can do good the most effectively.

We'll be looking at a group of people called Effective Altruists who have spent a lot of time thinking about this question. We'll uncover the interesting and surprising conclusions that Effective Altruists have reached regarding which causes deserve our attention, and how we can go about supporting them the most effectively.

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This episode brings the first instalment of a 2-part series on altruism. Today we’ll be asking: what reasons do I have to be a good person? From a moral point of view, do I face any obligations to spend my time helping those in need? And from a self-interested point of view, can I find a sense of meaning and fulfilment in doing so?

In this episode you’ll find provocative thought experiments, interesting ways of making a positive difference to the world, and a lot of Peter Singer! Tune in, and Searching For It will be back on Monday 7 October with an episode on Effective Altruism and the most effective ways of doing good.

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Aldous Huxley wrote a novel Brave New World, set in a futuristic society in which the citizens have everything they could ever want handed to them on a silver platter by the government. Although, the people don't have a choice but to accept this one-size-fits-all perfect life - they might be happy but they're not free to choose otherwise. In 2019, in a world in which insights from the behavioural sciences and big data are beginning to allow the government to exert more control over our lives, but in ways that might make our lives go better, how should we approach this trade-off between our freedom and our happiness?

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This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

In today's episode, we'll finish off the two-part mini-series on the psychedelic experience. This 'cross-over episode' will see many of the characters from the last 4 episodes of this podcast come together on a legendary bus trip, wild parties, and sharing mind-bending properties of LSD-laced Kool Aid. Join us to learn why they did this, and what they discovered.

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