Episode 262: Supposing Truth is a Woman (Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil")

Sure, we all feel alive now, but.

How do we know it's not all you know? Just an illusion?

The Great Oz has spoken! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Who are you? Who are you? A very bad man. I'm a very good man. Good man. They think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. Pay no attention to that man. Anybody can have a brain. You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard.

Welcome to very bad wizards. I'm Tamer Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave supposing truth is a woman. What then?

It comes and it goes. I don't know. I don't know. A good punchline. Is this from Nietzsche?

Yeah, from what we were supposed to read today. For today, actually. That's a bad sign.

There was a lot

It's the first line of Beyond Good and Evil. I guess it is. From the preface. In your defense, actually, what do you think he means by that?

You never know with Nietzsche. I actually spent a little bit too much time trying to understand what Nietzsche's relationship to women was, and the answer turns out to be a little complicated. So either he was a virgin or he died of syphilis from visiting too many prostitutes. And either way, it doesn't bode well for him using them as a metaphor for truth.

There is an interesting line that I came across, which is from part three, which we didn't read, where he says about a woman, but she does not want truth. What is truth to woman? From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant and hostile to women than truth. But he actually means a set of compliment. He goes, her art is the lie, and that's why we love them. Her art is the lie in giving me syphilis, I guess.

It'S not bitter at all. Actually. Yeah, you're right. I didn't read the preface preface. No, I'll do that during the break. Well, this is awesome. This is why we have breaks.

This is off to a good start. You would think that one of us just came back today from a trip, but maybe not that person.

That's true. Tamler's a trooper. To be on an airplane on the same day as we record Very Bad Wizards is a feat.

I don't like to use the word hero.

Well, I was thinking it. I'm glad you said

Yeah. Somebody had to.

Before we dive into good and evil, at least the first two parts. Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche, we're first going to talk about a theory that gives me hope. Tamil.

I was thinking you put this in our slack, and I could only

I put it in there to mock it. And then as I read it, I was like, what if this is true? I don't know how I came across this, because it actually turns out to be about a book that was written, like like, in 2010 But it's a new it's a it's a new blog post titled Quantum Theory proves that consciousness Moves to Another universe.

After I, like proves.

There'S no room for pussy footing when it comes to truths like these.

Yeah, I thought you just scroll message boards about dying isn't the end, or something like that. Yeah, your subreddit that you go to death isn't final.

No, I don't remember how I came across a tweet, but it's stunningly well written blog post about this theory, this theory by a guy named Robert Lansa. So apparently this guy is a real scientist, but he wrote a book that, of course, links quantum theory to consciousness, to theories of multiple universes, and he basically argues that when you die, you don't cease to exist. Your consciousness just sort of, like, spiderverses over into, like, a neighboring universe somehow, which isn't as which isn't as I don't know. It's not as optimistic as I may have thought, because.

You want to become back in this universe now.

What if you end up in one of those shitty universes?

You're like a Jewish mother. You'll never be happy. Yes, I'm glad I didn't die forever, but I wanted to go back in the other universe.

I want to give you a flavor for this theory. This is from the blog post, not from the book, which we didn't read. Obviously, the theory implies that the death of consciousness simply does not exist. It only exists as a thought, because people identify themselves with their bodies. They believe that the body is going to perish sooner or later, thinking their consciousness will disappear, too. But if the body generates consciousness, then consciousness dies when the body dies. But if the body receives consciousness in the same way that a cable box receives satellite signals, this is how, you.

Know this is a book that was written, like, 20 years ago.

Also cable and satellite, too. Then, of course, consciousness does not end at the death of the physical vehicle. So I guess this guy's, like, it's actually a brand of idealism. Like, I was reading a little bit about this guy's theory, and he basically says it's one of those since quantum stuff requires observers and consciousness is what has to do the observation, all of which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding, then ideas have to come before the material world. Consciousness must exist before this, like, before the material world. So I looked this up, dude, and this is what's crazy. This book, written in 2010, has thousands of Amazon positive reviews. It's gotten all kinds of press coverage. It's kooky, and I think it's very wrong. But people love this shit. They really, really want to believe it. They really want to believe it.

Yeah. And for reasons that you can probably understand better than I can, I also think a lot of these things there are certain I don't know, like this line. Again, I haven't read the book either. I didn't know of its existence. Pretty much. You just said that. But this idea that the death of consciousness only exists as a thought because people identify themselves with their bodies, that's a very Buddhist idea that we identify ourselves with our physical bodies and also our thoughts. But actually, consciousness is prior to all of that, and the real you is timeless without boundaries. And so it taps into enough of these old spiritual and I think sometimes wise and definitely provocative, fascinating spiritual traditions. I don't know if it does it with any rigor. Maybe it does. We wouldn't know based on this blog post. But this idea that it's the identifying that makes us think that the consciousness will be extinguished after the body dies.

It'S like a real tradition. Okay, let me read a little bit more. So this builds on there are theories of consciousness, like Roger Penroses, that think that the brain creates consciousness, but we're looking at the wrong level. When we look at neurons, brain cells, we need to look at these microtubules because there's quantum shit going on in there. So this is, again from the blog post. It says, consciousness, or at least proto consciousness, is theorized by them to be a fundamental property of the universe, present even at the first moment of the universe during the Big Bang. In one such scheme, proto conscious experience is a basic property of physical reality, accessible to a quantum process associated with brain activity. Our souls are, in fact, constructed from the very fabric of the universe and may have existed since the beginning of time. Our brains are just receivers and amplifiers for the proto consciousness that is intrinsic to the fabric of spacetime.

Do you get that?

Well, it reminded me of our conversation of Panpsychism. To show you what attention this has gotten, I came across a BBC program where they discussed it BBC, I think, and they had just discussed Panpsychism, like, the week before. But it has that same flavor of, like well, if that's what you mean, I'm like I don't fear I don't really think I survive any of that.

Right. Ego Dave to survive and Ego Dave,