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New series of podcasts

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PeterDF
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New series of podcasts

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BIG announcement about the BIG Questions!
A new series of podcasts will be launched on Saturday the 24th of September:

Not 42: The REAL meaning of Life the Universe and Everything.

How does a contemporary understanding of science help answer the BIG questions:
What is Truth?
Where does meaning come from?
Is there a God?
What does it mean to be a human being?
Can our species survive?

These (non-commercial) podcasts have taken more than a year to write, research and produce and are built on more than twenty years of study into science, the nature of truth and what it is to be human.

Listen to them when they launch, but be ready to have some of your deepest, profoundest and most cherished ideas challenged.

See the trailer at: https://youtu.be/ldL0nPrpyIc
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Re: New series of podcasts

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That looks interesting and ambitious. Give us a reminder once it starts.
Best of luck!
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PeterDF
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Re: New series of podcasts

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Hi Landroid,

Ambitious, yes, they have taken a lot of time to research, write and produce. The first episode is available now at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2001904/episodes/11261490
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The second episode is live now.

This one is about evolution and argues that we know evolution happened with the same level of certainty as, for example, we know that heavy things fall downwards.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2001904/11261575
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Re: New series of podcasts

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Why is this important? Well, in his book, with the provocative, but accurate title of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”, the philosopher, Daniel Dennett, described the idea of evolution by natural selection as “the single best idea anyone ever had.” We have known about this for more than a hundred and fifty years, now, but the full implications have not yet filtered into the groupthink of mainstream thought. It’s my belief that our cultural assumptions have not yet been fully updated.
Very interesting. With the hold that fundamentalist christianity has on American cultural assumptions, I doubt they will ever be fully updated, but we can hope... And now I'm curious as to who or what Nova is...
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Re: New series of podcasts

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PeterDF wrote: It’s my belief that our cultural assumptions have not yet been fully updated.
Obviously evolution is not the only cultural disconnect that needs to be updated. Another huge one is the expectation and even yearning for an eminent apocalypse.
Of the poll of 1,000 evangelical pastors, 50 percent “believe Jesus will return in their lifetime.”
https://americanvision.org/22701/50-per ... -lifetime/
This is a sign of extreme arrogance as in "I am critically important, therefore I will witness and be rescued from the ultimate catastrophes that have been predicted for thousands of years." Humans are terrible at long term planning, but this pseudo storm completely eliminates the need for it. Why worry about climate change? Why bother to seek global cooperation on economics or a reduction of military actions? Indeed, why consider anything that won't resolve within my lifetime?
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PeterDF
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Good point. I mention the deeply disturbing, and dangerous need, some have, for an apocalypse in Episode Eight. I seem to remember reading that the Iranian President Ahmadinejad, was a believer in this rubbish. Just as well Iran didn't have the bomb at that time.
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Re: New series of podcasts

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Here's the next episode:

You’ll want to listen to this one!
Where did meaning come from in the universe?
Why am I claiming that the little creature I’ve called Nova, was far and away the most important animal ever to have lived?
Could she really have fundamentally changed our world, and perhaps even the universe itself?

Episode Three of my “Not 42” podcast series, “The Nova Point”, is live now.
If you would prefer to read the episode instead, just click on the transcript tab. If you, understandably, don't want to click on an external link, let me know and I'll post a summary of the episode.
(The Not 42 podcasts are ad free, I have chosen not to be paid for them. They are about the ideas not me.)

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2001904/11261610
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PeterDF
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Could this creature be Nova?
This animal, metaspriggina, lived in the mid-Cambrian. So it could be, but maybe a bit late for Nova. The fossil evidence from before that time is not so good:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _small.jpg

I did warn you in the podcast that Nova wouldn't have looked impressive!!! But, if I'm right, she still changed the world.

(Picture credit: Nobu Tamura email:[email protected] - Own work,)
Last edited by PeterDF on Sat Oct 15, 2022 8:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
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PeterDF
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Re: New series of podcasts

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What is Consciousness?
How does it relate to the physical structure of our brains?
Can science explain - will it ever explain - consciousness?
The next episode in my series of podcasts: “The Consciousness Problem” is live now:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2001904/11261685
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