Who Am I ?

Today Mr. INTP and I talk about the relation between reality and our capacity to grasp it, how our knowledge of the world is based on the scientific method, and how common it is for you and me to base our entire thinking and decision-making on theories that may be internally consistent but are not provably true; they have merely not been falsified... yet.

After failing their last attempt at surviving the frozen Sahara, Steve and William restart the adventure story "Heart of Ice". This time reversing their roles of reader and decider, they follow a differnt path of treachery and peril, this time as an explorer character. Will they achieve their goal of staying alive for an entire episode, or will they have to cheat and undo some of the decisions that led them to unexpected death along their way to the lost city of Du-En?

Homepage: https://whoamipodcast.com

Kade Roundy and I follow up on our previous discussion (Ep. 10) about the principles of libertarian, government, war, ethics and societal values. We approach these topics in the context of humanity's vulnerability to deception. People's beliefs and behaviours can be manipulated by messages of false history, false news-reporting, false scientific publishing, etc. Through various historic examples and personal experiences we reason about ways to rise above the lies and perceive the world in its true form.

For a change, Steve and I are reading from an adventure book in which you can choose your own path: "Heart of Ice" by Dave Morris. Not only are there many ways to die, but there are multiple possible outcomes of the overall story. Follow us on an adventure of travelling through treacherous terrotories including the icy desert of futuristic Northern Africa.

Today we discuss how different approaches to wealth and the accrual of wealth can be a two-edged sword. Are you getting rich by exploiting other people? Or are you building your financial independence by helping others achieve their own as well? We consider how our psychology towards money can have a great effect on our well-being and direction in life.

Craig Irving and I exchange our views on the terrible trends around the world:

It is difficult not to conclude that behind such seemingly random happenings is a global central force with its own ideology and agenda for humanity as a whole.

OCD is often misrepresented in the media. Whath is really behind the ritualistic actions that affected persons feel compelled to do to quell their unease? How does it feel to have unwanted, recurring thoughts? What is the source of this disorder? If you are affected, how can you turn a seeming weakness such as OCD to your own advantage, in order to develop yourself into something greater?

Mr. INTP and I discuss biological and philosophical views of epistemology and personal identity: What can I truly know for certain? How do my beliefs and my biology confine my sense of identity? How can they be changed to expand my view of the world and myself?

We often perceive a plethora of options and choices to be freeing and empowering. But not only is this relative to our cultural expectations, it can even be counter-productive to be confronted with too many things to choose from. Our discussion of realities and illusions concerning freedom of choice is based on the TED talk "The art of choosing" by Sheena Iyengar (see link below).

The PCR method has been abused to test for Covid-19 by exaggerating the method's number of amplification cycles. The degree to which human genetic material is thus magnified leads to the test being overly sensitive and sky-rocketing its false postive rate. Should this cause concern for the centralisation of political power over our economies that has been justified by saving the lives of citizens, or are the lockdowns worth the risk?

Type 1 and type 2 errors: