Terrifying Questions

Is lying unavoidable? Should you always tell the truth, no matter what? Even if an axe murderer asks you where your sister is hiding? What if a flounder asks you, “Does this place on the sea floor make me look flat?” This week Eric and Taylor are joined by TV writer and executive producer Tara Hernandez, creator of Mrs. Davis. Together they discuss honesty and deception in life, the universe, and Hollywood.

Can we try to become cool, or is trying to be cool by definition like totally uncool man? Is it like keeping yourself up trying to fall asleep? Maybe it’s impossible, like trying to look at the edge of your visual field. If you make a deliberate effort to be happy, or to be a loving person, are you doomed to fail? Join Eric and Taylor as they (try to) confront these unsettling questions head on. 

Am I a self? Am I myself? Am I yourself? And if there is no such thing as the self, do I not exist? The Buddha and David Hume thought so – were they right? Join Taylor and Eric as they explore the conceptual labyrinth that is ourselves.

Are we prisoners of the past or is radical revolution possible? Revolutionaries say we can get out. Conservatives say we shouldn’t even want to. But maybe both sides get it wrong! Do we need a past to have a future? Join Taylor, Eric, and special guest Professor Bryan Van Norden, an expert in traditional Chinese philosophy, as we take a hard look at tradition. What is it? And what, if anything, is it good for?

Philosopher Helen De Cruz joins Eric and Taylor this week to discuss the unsettling possibility that insight and understanding might not actually make us happier or more at peace with our existence. Maybe they just bum us out. Tune in and hear what the heretical Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza had to say about this three and a half centuries ago. 

Are we our bodies? Do we also have souls? Do we have minds? Do haircuts diminish our true selves? Can our selves be hit by a bus or uploaded onto The Cloud? The French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s body couldn’t be with us for this episode, but he joins us in spirit to tell us why we only meet people in the flesh.

Is God Dead? If He is, did we kill Him?  If God is dead does that mean Humanity is dead too -- or at least that the category of being a human being is in need of some serious re-appraisal?  Taylor and Eric discuss these questions and both theism and atheism get re-evaluated.  Along the way, we discuss Nietzsche and the most famous sponge in the history of philosophy. 

This week Eric and Taylor wonder and worry about what it means to try hard and still feel like you’re falling short. Are there objective standards of excellence or does happiness require just staying in your comfort zone? 

Is free will an illusion? Are we puppets? When we think we are thinking (or acting) freely, are we actually just cogs in a heartless, meaningless, deterministic cosmic machine?

Are we utterly dependent on others or should we look inward and try to be true to ourselves? Can we do both? Or neither? This week Eric and Taylor look to Ralph Waldo Emerson for some help with this deeply unsettling question.