#117 – Sheldon Solomon: Death and Meaning
Lex Fridman PodcastEpisode mentions
People mentions
Reviews
No reviews yet, be the first!
Transcript
The following is a conversation with Sheldon Solomon, a social psychologist, a philosopher, co developer of terror management theory, and co author of the Warm at the core on the role of death in Life. He further carried the ideas of Ernest Becker that can crudely summarize as the idea that our fear of death is at the core of the human condition and the driver of most of the creations of human civilization. Quick summary of the sponsors Blinkist, ExpressVPN and Cash app. Click the links in the description to get a discount. It really is the best way to support this podcast. Let me say as a side note that Ernest Becker's book Denial of Death had a big impact on my thinking about human cognition, consciousness, and the deep ocean currents of our mind that are behind the surface behaviors we observe. Many people have told me that they think about death or don't think about death, fear death, or don't fear death. But I think not many people think about this topic deeply, rigorously in the way that Nietzsche suggested. This topic, like many that lead to deep personal self reflection, frankly, is dangerous for the mind, as all first principles thinking about the human condition is if you gaze long into the abyss, like Nietzsche said, the abyss will gaze back into you. I've been recently reading a lot about World War II, Stalin, and Hitler. It feels to me that there's some fundamental truth there to be discovered in the moments of history that changed everything, the suffering, the triumphs. If I bring up Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin in these conversations, it is never through a political lens. I'm not left nor right. I think for myself deeply and often question everything changing my mind as often as is needed. I ask for your patience, empathy, and rigorous thinking. If you arrive to this podcast from a place of partisanship, if you hate Trump or love Trump or any other political leader, no matter what he or they do, and see everyone who disagrees with you as delusional. I ask that you unsubscribe and don't listen to these conversations because my hope is to go beyond that kind of divisive thinking. I think we can only make progress toward truth through deep, empathetic thinking and conversation. And as always, love. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars and Apple Podcast. Follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but I give you timestamps so you can skip. But please do check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. This episode is supported by Blinkist, my favorite app for learning new things. Get it@blinkist.com Lex for a seven day free trial and 25% off after Blinkist takes the key ideas from thousands of nonfiction books and condenses them down into just 15 minutes that you can read or listen to. I'm a big believer in reading at least an hour a day. As part of that, I use Blinkist every day, and in general, it's a great way to broaden your view of the ideal landscape out there and find books that you may want to read more deeply. With Blinkist, you get unlimited access to read or listen to a massive library of condensed nonfiction books. Right now, for a limited time, Blinkist has a special offer just for our audience. Go to blinkist.com lex to try it free for seven days and save 25% off your new subscription. That's blinkist.com lex. Blinkist spelled Blinkist. This show is sponsored by expressvpn. Get it@expressvpn.com Slash Lexpod to get a discount and to support this podcast. Have you ever watched the office? If you have, you probably know it's based on a UK series also called the Office. Not to stir up trouble, but I think the british version is actually more brilliant than the american one. But both are pretty amazing. Anyway, there are actually nine other countries with their own version of the office. You can get access to them with no geo restrictions. When you use ExprsVPn, it lets you control where you want sites to think you're located. You can choose from nearly 100 countries, giving you access to content that isn't available in your region. So again, get it on any device@exprsvpn.com logspod to get extra three months free and to support this podcast, this show is presented by the great the powerful Cash app, the number one finance app in the App Store. When you get it, use code Lex podcast Cash app lets you send money to friends, buy bitcoin, and invest in the stock market with as little as $1. Since cash app allows you to send and receive money digitally, let me mention a surprising fact about physical money. It costs 2.4 cents to produce a single penny. In fact, I think it costs $85 million annually to produce them. So again, if you get cash app from the App Store, Google Play and use the code Lex podcast, you get $10. And cash app will also donate $10 to the first, an organization that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education for young people around the world. And now here's my conversation with Sheldon Solomon. Um, what is the role of death and fear of death in life?
Well, from our perspective, the uniquely human awareness of death and our unwillingness to accept that fact, we would argue, is the primary motivational impetus for almost everything that people do, whether they're aware of it or not.
So that's kind of been your life work. Your view of the human condition is that death, you've written the book warm at the core, that death is at the core of our consciousness, of everything, of how we see the world, of what drives us, maybe. Can you elaborate how you see death fitting in? What does it mean to be at the core of our being?
So I think that's a great question. And to be pedantic, I usually start my psychology classes, and I say to the students, okay, let's define our terms. And the ology part they get right away, it's the study of. And then we get to the psyche part. And understandably, the students are like, oh, that means mind. And I'm like, well, no, that's a modern interpretation. But in ancient Greek, it means soul, but not in the cartesian dualistic sense that most of us in the west think when that word comes to mind. And so you hear the word soul, and you're like, well, all right, that's the nonphysical part of me that's potentially detachable from my corporal container when I'm no longer here. But Aristotles, who coined the word psyche, I think he was not a dualist. He was a monist. He thought that the soul was inextricably connected to the body. And he defined soul as the essence of a natural body that is alive. And then he goes on and he says, all right, let me give you an example. If an axe was alive, the soul of an axe would be to chop. And if you can pluck your eyeball out of your head and it was still functioning, then the soul of the eyeball would be to see. And then he's like, all right, the soul of a grasshopper is to hop. The soul of a woodpecker is to peck. Which raises the question, of course, what is the essence of what it means to be human? And here, of course, there is no one universally accepted conception of the essence of our humanity. Aristotle gives us the idea of humans as rational animals. We're homo sapiens. But not the only game in town. Got Joseph Hoisinger, an anthropologist in the 20th century. He called us homo ludents that were basically fundamentally playful creatures. Then I think it was Hana Arendt, homo faber, were tool making creatures. Another woman, Ellen Dizzen Ayake, wrote a book called Homo Aestheticus. And following Aristotle and his poetics, she's like, well, we're not only rational animals. We're also aesthetic creatures that appreciate beauty. There's another take on humans. I think they call us homo narratans. We're storytelling creatures. And I think all of those designations of what it means to be human are quite useful heuristically and certainly worthy of our collective cogitation. But what garnered my attention when I was a young punk was just a single line in an essay by a scottish guy who was Alexander Smith
To see the rest of the transcript, you must sign in