Nine in 10 young people in the UK

believe that their life is lacking

purpose. And a lot of people are turning

back to religion. There is something

going on.

>> This is about the most important thing

that anyone could ever find out about

their life. And God has made us for a

purpose. And the purpose flows from that

meaning.

>> I kind of reject that cuz this is a

perfect example of a solution being

provided without explaining exactly why

it provides a solution. And that's what

people are doing in religious

traditions.

>> I hard disagree. For me, finding meaning

and purpose is like a very practical

thing.

>> And that's what I want to talk about

today.

>> We are joined by an atheist, Christian,

and spiritual thinker

>> to find an answer to the purpose crisis

millions are facing today.

>> One of the reasons that I'm a Christian

is because it's the best explanation for

the way things are.

>> But if Christianity were true, we would

not expect the kind of suffering that is

present in the world.

>> So, I'm very curious. What if I died of

from cancer at 1 years old?

>> So, someone violated God's commands, and

that had an impact on the world.

>> children get cancer because a few

million years ago someone ate a fruit.

>> If you want religion to provide

existential comfort for people who are

suffering, you have to do more in the

face of children dying of cancer than

some reference to mythical human beings.

>> But if your worldview does not have a

way of making sense of our moral

intuitions about suffering, it's not an

adequate worldview.

>> What I would say that science and

spirituality can really add is it's

effective in terms of reducing

suicidality, improving resilience,

giving them a reason to wake up in the

morning.

>> And we'll get into that.

>> And Alex, if someone's listening now and

they feel lost in their life, is there

any advice that you could give them?

>> So, as an atheist, I'm offering a

psychological explanation. So, I would

recommend that they

>> You're spot on, Alex. So, the first

thing to understand is it is an internal

feeling. And we found in our study that

if you

your sense of purpose increases by 68%.

>> Olec.

>> Greg.

>> Alex.

>> The reason I wanted to speak to all

three of you today is to discuss meaning

and purpose. And there's some stats that

I wanted to share that kind of frame the

discussion.

Three in five young Americans believe

that their life lacks purpose. Nine in

10 young people in the UK believe that

their life is lacking purpose.

And when I look across other stats as it

relates to things like mental health,

59% of Brits said they lived a

meaningful life compared to just 25% who

said they did not.

In an October 21 survey, 34% of men in

the UK said life had no meaning compared

to 18% of women.

And 50% of the same group who said that

their lives lack purpose and meaning

said that their poor mental health was

linked to not knowing what to do with

their life.

>> Mhm.

>> And to give some further stats which I

found really interesting around the rise

of religiosity in the UK, a belief in

God amongst 18 to 24 year-olds has risen

from 18% in 2021 to 37% in 2025

according to YouGov.

And in the UK, monthly church attendance

has risen from 4% up to 15% in 2025.

There is something going on.

>> Mhm.

>> And that's what I want to talk about

today.

But before we do that, I'd love to

understand the perspective that all of

you bring to this conversation. So if I

start with yourself, Alok.

>> You know, it's it's interesting you

mentioned a lot about mental health. I'm

a psychiatrist. So for me, finding

meaning and purpose is like a very

practical thing. So literally a patient

will come into my office, they'll say,

"I have no reason to live. There's

There's not nothing worth it in life. I

am suicidal. I want to kill myself."

So I have a job as a clinician to like

fix that problem in a very like

practical way. So I've got, you know, a

couple of weeks, hopefully 15, 20 weeks

to teach them how to find purpose.

And so usually the way that I approach

that is there's there's a lot of sort of

evidence-based scientific approaches to

finding purpose.

I think those tend to work really well,

but I'm I'm sure as my philosopher

colleagues will will point out and tear

me apart, You know, science has a lot of

shortcomings.

And so then what I I tend to find works

incredibly well is adding a certain

degree of spiritual practice to that.

And usually when we put those two things

together, things work.

And the real proof point for me was when

I started streaming, 10,000 people

reached out to me in one month asking,

"Hey, like do you have room in your

private practice?"

And so I started to think about, "Okay,

if this is a methodology,

then can it be taught?" So I started

this coaching program and what we found

in our pilot study of 1,453

people is that if you stick with the

program for about 20 weeks, your sense

of purpose increases by 68%.

I'd love to hear from my colleagues, but

I I think you know, if if someone asks

me, "What is the meaning of life?" I

don't know. But if someone says, "I have

no meaning, can you help me with that?"

the answer is absolutely yes.

>> And I want to attempt to just define

two terms that you said there. One is

purpose, and it doesn't have to be a

perfect definition, but roughly what you

mean by that. And then you said you

introduced spiritual practice. What did

you mean by that?

>> So what I think about is purpose is

using something called factor analysis.

So if you ask someone, "Do you have

direction in life?

Do you have purpose in life? Is there

meaning in life?" All three of those

things cluster together to something.

Even being in control correlates with

that. So if you are in control of your

life, your sense of purpose will

increase. So there are a lot of these

like words that we use, but all of these

words tie back to some internal sense of

what is happening in your life. So

that's how I would

describe purpose.

In terms of spiritual practices, what my

experience is is that if you look at

human beings who say they have purpose

and human beings who don't have purpose,

their lived experiences in life are

different.

So when I work with survivors of trauma,

they have certain experiences. Like

literally we can scientifically sort of

measure this. You have a particular

experience which it destroys your sense

of meaning in the world. I had a patient

once who was attacked in a bathroom for

about 5 minutes.

And in 5 minutes this person had a sense

of what they were doing in life, was

dating, was doing well in college, had

loving parents, and in 5 minutes

their compass for navigating the world

was shattered.

So, if we sort of think about experience

can lead to a loss of purpose.

Experience can also lead to a gain in

purpose.

Now, the spiritual tradition that I come

from is all about particular practices

that evoke

certain subjective experiences. And as

people have those experiences,

their sense of purpose increases.

And this is where I think there's a

major shortcoming of science.

So, science can tell you what you should

do,

but it doesn't create experiences in and

of itself. Right? So, we can

scientifically understand that the

highest risk factor for pornography

addiction is having no meaning in life.

But even if we know that, that doesn't

help us like fix the problem. Then

there's always a question of how. Like

so, we can discover something with

science, but then there's a question of

how do we actually like move from point

A to point B? And that's where I find

spiritual practice is incredibly

helpful.

>> Mhm.

>> Would you classify yourself as

religious?

Was always

>> Yes. I think so.

>> Greg.

>> Yeah.

>> What is the perspective you bring into

this conversation? And what's the the

lived experience, the academia

that um lends itself to that

perspective?

>> Yeah, there's a whole bunch of that

fitting in and I relate to a lot what

you're saying and uh

I'll talk about people's challenges.

Now, what's interesting to me about this

whole discussion,

since I'm a Christian,

uh and I understand the world from a

theistic perspective because I think

it's the best explanation for the way

things are.

>> Just to give a definition to that. Um

theistic, what does that mean?

>> A personal God.

>> A God.

>> There is a personal God who is involved

with the world. He made the world and he

still maintains activity, as opposed to

deistic which just wound up the clock

and let it go, okay? So, my view is God

is still involved. In fact, so involved

that he actually came to Earth in the

person of Jesus of Nazareth to create a

rescue plan. Now, what's interesting to

me about this broader question, we can

get in more details, too, is that it's

not If there is a God who made the world

for a purpose with meaning, people can

participate in that meaning and purpose

even if they don't know God. They're not

They won't be experiencing what they

were made for, which is to be in

friendship with him

with the plan that he's made for their

flourishing, but they still can flourish

in some measure in so far as they touch

on these objective features. But in so

far as we are able, even without

believing God, to kind of

get in that groove that things that God

made us for, the purposes that he

intends in light of being made like him

in some way in his image, there's going

to be a measure of satisfaction. But

what they'll be missing is

is the ultimate, and that is that

friendship with God and being restored

in that.

>> Alex.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Same question for you. About you, what

you bring to this

conversation in terms of your

perspective, your experience, and maybe

some of your sort of personal journey.

>> Well, for

for my own part,

I was quite swept up in the new atheism

movement, uh which was a mid-2000s

publishing phenomenon with the likes of

the Dawkinses and the Hitchenses of the

world

saying that religion is evil and

terrible, and I think promising an

alternative, a kind of secular humanist

utopia that if you'll only throw off

these oppressive religious systems, you

will regain your spiritual autonomy and

be able to assert yourself and the

intrinsic meaning that you have within

yourself.

People tried that, and it didn't seem to

work.

And I think that's because the new

atheist movement was quite

philosophically shallow. It didn't

seriously engage with the existential

component

of religious belief, and why it exists

in the first place. And I think that is

why it exists. I think humans are in a

strange predicament due to the mystery

of consciousness.

We find ourselves, possibly uniquely

amongst other animals, in the position

of being mortal, being

physically embodied, being in a world,

but also knowing those things. It's one

thing to experience the world. It's one

thing to be It's another thing to be

aware that you're experiencing it. Uh

Josh Rasmussen once said, "There's a

difference between noticing a tree and

noticing that you've noticed a tree." We

have this sort of second-order

abstraction that we can do. So, we know

that

death is coming, for example. And death

makes a mockery of everything that we

do. Seems to just obliterate any sense

of purpose or meaning, because anything

that we're building will ultimately, as

far as we're concerned, be gone. And

that may well be unique to human beings.

And so, I'm not the first to suggest

that the

principal motivating factor behind

meaning-infused

activities that humans do

is an engagement in death denial, or

some kind of immortality project. People

literally,

for fear of

as a result of the knowledge that this

will all come to an end, engage in what

we might call immortality projects. They

engage in things which will outlast

themselves, which give them a sense of

escaping this death. The most obvious

example is in religious traditions,

which literally promise immortality for

your own soul. But if you look just

practically at where people subjectively

report finding meaning, they find it in

their children. They might find it in

their job, but they're unlikely to find

it in their job if they're doing

something they don't really care about.

They'll find it in their job. Maybe

they're a Maybe they're like a

barrister, and they find a lot of

meaning in bringing justice into the

world because they're participating in a

system which they believe will outlast

them and is bigger than them. So, when

people talk about meaning, we talk about

transcendence, you know, something being

above and beyond

their own sort of material

situation.

And I think religion is the is is the

the archetypal example of this, and I

think it's why it evolves in the first

place. There is this idea that we are

living in a meaning crisis that has

cropped up maybe in the past 100 years

or so, or maybe in the last few hundred

years or so as a response to the

Enlightenment and the decline of

religion. I think that's far too easy. I

think that's way too easy. I think that

if there is such thing as a meaning

crisis, it is literally the human

condition and the reason why these

projects were invented in the first

place. I think literally speaking, what

people are doing in religious traditions

is

realizing the finitude of their

existence and therefore trying to

commune with something

>> Can I add a

>> less finite. Of course.

>> We have this hunger. Um I have no reason

to believe that any naturalistic

explanation can explain the

consciousness's

hunger for meaning and significance cuz

that's all propositional. It's not

molecules in motion.

>> What's naturalistic mean?

>> Naturalistic just means nature

and that's all there is, basically. So,

you have molecules in motion largely

governed by natural law. There is no

outside transcendent anything. There's

no immaterial anything. Certainly not an

immaterial god that has started the

process, that sustains the process, and

gives life meaning. There either is

meaning

objectively or not. Okay? If not, then

it's up to us.

>> For example, a minute ago you said that

if there is a creator god who brings us

into existence, then you are designed

and you are given purpose by god.

And I think we need to investigate this

a bit further.

>> Mhm. Because

for example, the a quite sort of boring

and overdone debate at the moment is the

extent to which we are engaged in the

production of potentially artificially

conscious agents with artificial

intelligence technologies. And there's

all this discussion about whether or not

these things can become conscious. Like,

you know, whatever. Let's just suppose

for a moment that they were. Let's

suppose that I created an artificially

intelligent machine and I gave it a

purpose and that purpose was to produce

paper clips.

And because of the development of

artificial intelligence technology, it

became conscious in a

recognizable sense. It had an interior

sense of self. It sort of had, say,

feelings or emotions about the world.

But it is just an AI robot whose entire

purpose in life is to make paper clips.

Now, I could say that because that AI

was designed by a creator with a purpose

that was explicitly given to it, that

that life is meaningful.

But I think it would seem to most people

that a life whose meaning consists in

creating paper clips

is not sufficient. It's not enough to

address what people really want. It's

not just some kind of purpose. It's not

just even some kind of purpose which is

given to you by an authoritative

creative source. It's something which is

further than that. Yeah, but if I can

just relate this to the God question,

the problem that arises is that you have

to answer the question of why God

infuses life with the meaning that he

gives it.

It's either something which he has sort

of arbitrarily plucked up and and chosen

to create, in which case we have this

problem of arbitrariness. Or no, or in

fact, there is some reason why God had

to give us a particular kind of meaning

that's endemic

to the human condition, that he had no

choice but for that meaning, that more

important kind of meaning to be given to

human life. But if he was beholden to

that, if he had to give us a particular

kind of meaning, it seems like there's a

standard of meaning which exists outside

Right, right. I get it. Outside of God.

So, I'm not sure, in other words, the

mechanism by which being created

by someone who says this is your purpose

would be fulfilling in the way that

people want it to be.

>> The reason the paper clip

illustration doesn't match is because it

seems to me that

you're suddenly taking the thing that's

conscious that makes paper clips and

comparing it to a human being. And for

human beings

who seem to have a different purpose, I

would argue,

be consigned to make paper clips, well,

that's dehumanizing to them.

But if you have, just to follow your

illustration, if you have a creator that

makes something for a reason

that the creator has in mind, then it's

fulfilling its purpose perfectly, you

know? For a human being, that's not

going to be satisfying making paper

clips. And a lot of people who are

making paper clips are not satisfied

with it, okay? I don't think it's

arbitrary if God is making something for

a purpose. If God decides that he wants

to make creatures to be in friendship

with him

because this reflects his loving

character,

and that purpose is to be in friendship

with him, I don't see how that is

somehow negligible or arbitrary at all.

I guess you could have said that God

could have done otherwise, but his love

and desire for communion

is seeming an adequate explanation for

that.

>> This is fascinating.

Um so, my first question is

what's the point of this conversation?

>> Yeah, so I think that the ultimate

answer that we're looking for is it it

appears that the numbers around purpose

and meaning are fluctuating at this

moment in time. A lot of people are

turning back to religion as as Alex is

we were just chatting about a second

ago.

And I guess there's two questions, which

is one, understanding why that's

happening, why there's this fluctuation,

why we're seeing a mental health crisis

around purpose and meaning. And the

second is to try and figure out if

there's a truth one can arrive at.

If there's an objective truth that

exists.

>> Yeah.

>> So, for y'all, I'm curious when y'all

show up here, like what is the purpose

for y'all showing up?

>> Literally trying to discover.

Like it's the stated purpose, right?

It's literally just artificially given

purpose by being designed in in a

particular way. We're going to get

together and we're going to have a

conversation and see if we can figure

out this this meaning stuff, right?

>> Awesome.

>> And by the way, like we're not going to

solve that problem. I think it's worth

pointing out that like these

conversations have to be exploratory and

subjective. If anybody thinks that the

four of us sat at this table are going

to solve the meaning crisis and give

people a five-step guide finding meaning

in their life and that will be the sort

of case closed, then they're delusional.

>> I I don't know if I I agree that

we can't find an answer, but we'll talk

to you.

>> Well, this is what I wanted to speak to

it. It if

um obviously we're talking about this

broader issue of meaning and purpose,

all right? And as I mentioned earlier,

there either is an objective one or it's

only subjective, okay? If it is an

objective one, this is about the most

important thing that anyone can ever

find out about their life. If they were

created for a reason.

In my view, the reason I'm here is

because I'm convinced that that's the

case and willing to give reasons why,

okay? But I don't think I I'm

sympathetic to the concern that you

can't sit around a table and in two or

three hours solve the problem for any

individual because people

going through the process of trying to

figure these things out, it takes a long

time as they put the pieces together.

But I think there's a lot of people in

the world that think how they have put

it together and they've come to

conclusions about ultimate meaning and

purpose and they don't come to my own

conclusions. But many have. So, what I

would hate to do is leave people with a

feeling like we can all search and the

glory is in the search, but if you think

you found the answer, then you haven't.

Of course, this to me is a nihilistic

enterprise then. I think it's possible

to come to conclusions.

>> Yes.

>> so, too, to be clear, but I think what

I'm what I'm trying to say is this will

be something that one will experience

for themselves and will discover for

themselves in their own life. It's not

going to be something that you know

there's that old um

is it Linji the the the sort of the

Buddhist koan that says, "If you meet

the Buddha, kill him."

The idea being that, you know, if you

think that the kind of enlightenment

which is necessary to spiritual

fulfillment can be found through some

kind of guru, um you're missing the

mark. It's something that you need to do

for yourself.

>> But isn't that statement itself meant to

be a truth about spirituality that you

can actually count on? Can I jump in? I

just want to make sure I understand

y'all's point. So so you're saying that

the search for purp- purpose first of

all is never going to go away. Like is a

human condition, right?

>> Yes.

>> Like like so as humanity humanity will

never find its purpose.

>> tell you why if you like.

>> No no I I don't need to know why. Yet.

>> I think I think individuals can, but

humanity

>> that's that's what I was get- Yeah I I'm

just making sure I understand, right? So

an individual can find their purpose,

but as humanity

it's never going to be solved. And then

you said something about purpose being

tied to

opposing to death in some way. So

transcending death that human beings

basically look for purpose because death

is inevitable, and if we can find

purpose, then we can give our life

meaning, but if death if we die

and I don't leave something behind. Can

you talk a little bit about that?

>> This is essentially a version of Ernest

Becker's denial of death

>> Okay.

>> hypothesis, which famously suggests that

the motivation for a great deal of human

behavior is

at least human behavior outside of

immediate sensory concerns like eating

and stuff like that. Anything that

humans engage in on a societal level, on

an abstract level, is ultimately

motivated by an apprehension of death. I

think that's probably too simple, but

it's

definitely a contributing factor.

I I think that for example, put it this

way, right? Here's an example that comes

from I think his name is Scheffler, and

he has this interesting thought

experiment. Suppose, I don't know, maybe

you're engaged in in writing a book.

Suppose you discovered, and this

probably won't be the case for you

because you believe in an afterlife, but

suppose that you're an atheist for a

moment. Suppose it were the case

that you discovered that after you die,

a meteor is going to come and wipe out

all life on Earth. Everybody's going to

die almost instantly after you do, but

you'll be dead. So, you will live your

entire life as it was anyway, and

suppose the rest of the world doesn't

even know this is going to happen.

But you're told this is going to be the

case. Would that motivate you to write

your book more or less? Most people say

that it would seem a bit pointless now.

I mean, what's the point now in writing

this book? What's the point in in having

children if they're going to die 30 days

after I'm after I'm gone? What what's

the point in in doing any of these

things? What will they still do? They'll

still do the sensory stuff. They'll

still eat, they'll still have sex,

they'll still sleep, this kind of stuff.

But the the typically meaning uh laden

activities of life, they would certainly

be demotivated to do. And it's an

interesting thought experiment to give

us some insight

as to the fact that well, maybe this

means that at least in part, the

motivation for these actions in the

first place is that they will extend

beyond our death.

>> I agree with so much of what you're

saying, and I also like hard disagree

with some of the fundamentals.

So,

let's say you have this example of like,

I'mma write a book, and then the world

is going to end 30 days later.

>> Yes.

>> And and so you say, cuz a lot of what

you're talking about is like what people

say, right?

>> Yep.

>> So, you'll say like, okay, so like

people would say

that this is a waste of time, and I'm

not going to do it if the world ends in

30 days.

>> Mhm.

>> And you're also saying people

is a is an ever lasting thing or

struggling with purpose, right? You're

saying both of these things. So, here's

my question to you. If you tell someone,

you know, you're writing this book,

let's say you you you write it, and then

you die, cuz we'll simplify the example,

and then 30 days later the world ends.

Let's take two people. One who says,

I'mma write it anyway,

>> Mhm.

>> and one who says, there's no point.

>> Mhm.

>> Which one of those two people do you

think has a greater sense of purpose?

>> Probably the former.

>> Absolutely. So, this is the key thing.

Purpose is absolutely cuz I I I love

that you're asking about mechanisms, and

I think maybe that's what I can provide.

I I think that's that's actually the

answer, right? So, it's not that people

believe and I think you're right that

the reason that this is a perennial

problem is because most people do not

live a life where they understand how

purpose works.

>> Mhm.

>> And And what I think is really

fascinating about sort of like this

scientific clinical approach, like if

you ask me,

"Can I help people find meaning and

purpose?" I don't know.

But if you ask me, "Can I help a

person?" The answer is absolutely. And

we have like particular scientific

things, and this is where it's it's

really counterintuitive. So, a big part

of like finding purpose is doing

particular things, and if you do those

things, the likelihood that you will

increase your sense of purpose in life,

which is another thing that's very

counterintuitive people. Purpose is not

binary. It's quantifiable. It's like a

scale. So, if I were to ask the three of

y'all, right? Like maybe let's like

let's do this not thought experiment,

but this practical experiment.

Do you know your purpose in life?

Like how confident are you that you're

doing what you're supposed to be doing

in life?

>> How confident am I about the God part or

that I'm doing the things that are

appropriate?

>> That How confident are you that you're

doing what God wants you to do?

>> Well, in that general sense, extremely

confident or else I wouldn't be doing

it.

>> Perfect, right? So, Steven, what about

you, bro?

>> About five out of 10.

>> I knew it. Okay, right. So,

Alex?

>> I don't want to be difficult, but I kind

of reject the grammar of the question.

>> Awesome. Reject away, bro.

>> I think it's what a logician would call

an exponible statement, something which

needs to be broken down. You asked, "Do

I know my own purpose?" That assumes

that there is a purpose to know. It It's

a bit like that The comparison I would

give is if I asked you the question, the

classic example in logic is

is Is the king of France bald, yes or

no?

>> can rephrase my if you're problems with

my question.

>> So

do you have a lived experience of

something called purpose?

>> Oh, well, look, I think purpose is

having some kind of reason to act or be.

And I certainly subjectively I'm

motivated to do things. I think

everybody is, otherwise you literally

wouldn't be able to do anything.

But it's a bit foggy to me what

psychologically speaking on a personal

level that fundamental motivation

actually is.

>> Wouldn't purpose be more the the goal

rather than the reason to act? What

you're trying to accomplish?

>> It's a semantic thing, but that's why it

depends what you mean by the way but

>> I'm I'm with you. I'm I'm with you. So

so so then I I don't know what I mean

with the word purpose, which is part of

this challenge. But okay, so so like I'm

just wondering so like when you So a lot

of people are motivated to act. Everyone

is motivated to act every day, right? I

get out of bed, I need to take a dump,

like but my guess is that if we were to

administer

a

scientifically validated instrument that

measures your subjective sense of

purpose direction in life that that

would be north of five out of 10.

>> Okay.

>> Do you think that's fair or is is that

something that you don't

>> Maybe, yeah. I don't know what I mean.

>> like do you do you when you wake up, do

you feel like you're know you know what

you want to do and what's going on and

you're like doing good work? Like I'm

asking about the subjective thing.

>> Not on a grand sense. I'm quite

agnostic. I mean, I'm I'm sort of

>> I'm not talking about it. Okay, maybe a

bit.

>> I I really don't know what you mean.

>> Perfect. Okay, so so So not on a grand

sense, but on some other sense.

>> Sure.

>> Okay, great. So I think that this is

like this is I think this is beautiful

because I think what we have here is

like not on a grand sense. So I think on

a grand sense you're there, right? But

you're absolutely motivated by

particular things. So I think this is

the first thing about purpose.

>> Can I a clarification real quickly?

Yeah, on a grand sense, yes, but there

are distinctions that you were referring

to a few moments ago. There are a lot of

things that are dissatisfying in my

life, but in terms of being on the right

course, that's part of what life is.

Being on the right course, lots of crazy

stuff that's happening in in between.

>> Cool. So, like like the first thing that

I've kind of noticed in my work

is that I don't know whether a grander

purpose exists or not. I I think that's

a lovely discussion that I want to

continue to have with you, but I I'm

sort of Here's where I'm sort of coming

from in this discussion. Stephen started

this out with some really scary

statistics that we're seeing, right?

There's a mental health crisis. I think

a lot of what we're seeing is is while

it may be perennial, I think it's like

seems more acute right now.

>> Yes.

>> Maybe that's because of the atheist

materialism, whatever. I'm I'm not quite

sure, but this is a problem. So, just

sharing where I'm coming from, my hope

is that someone who is watching this

will have moved forward some vague

percentage points. I'm shooting for

about 20% in their personal quest for

purpose.

>> Mhm.

>> And I think a big part of what I'm going

to try to contribute here today is my

understanding of like how to do that.

That this is a quantifiable thing that

we can sort of see at this table

people are sort of like at different

places.

And so, the first thing that I kind of

want to point out is I don't know

whether there's purpose or not,

but as a human condition,

there is something that each of us feel

or experience that gives us an answer.

>> Right.

>> like at 10, but what that means is that

something is going on in your mind,

something is going on in your heart,

something is going on in your body where

you wake up and you feel like you have

purpose. Stephen wakes up and he's like

at a five out of 10. So, he's getting

some signals in that area, some signals

in other areas. You have some signals in

that direction, too. You know why you're

showing up at this podcast. You're

You've got a book that you're working

on. Awesome. Can't wait to read it. And

but on a grander sense, you're like, "I

don't know about this like objective

stuff or whatever." So, this is sort of

like this quantifiable thing.

>> And you?

>> Um

I'm going to let y'all guess.

Where would you put me out of 10?

>> like to psychologize people.

>> It's okay if you don't like to.

Will you?

>> I mean I do I just met you. I don't I

don't know I have no idea what what

sense of meaning you you have in your

life.

>> Okay.

>> I mean for me I I'm just motivated to

try and find out how I feel.

>> I think the audience can guess too.

>> Yeah, I would say you're pretty high.

That's why you're here. That's why

you're articulating your ideas.

>> Probably probably closer to 10 than 5.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. So so it's like it's okay if you

don't want to do that because

I'm guessing that there are certain

things in your intellect that tell you

So do you have a subjective instinct?

>> No, I just don't know you that well. I I

mean I don't know. And also it depends

what you mean, right? Because you'll say

that you have a If you say that you're a

10, like you have this this there's this

you use the phrase earlier sense a sense

of meaning in life. Because you're

talking about this from an empirical

standpoint of whether people report

having a sense of meaning. Whereas I

think that Greg is probably talking

about

literally speaking whether there is

actually in fact a real meaning whether

or not people sense it or not. You could

say that you have a 10 out of 10 and

Greg could say well that's it's great

that you feel that way, but it's

misguided because the purpose that you

have identified in your life is the

wrong one. And so to me the important

question

is not so much whether you subjectively

report feeling like you have purpose in

life but whether that purpose is

grounded in something real and true.

>> Yeah, so I think that your answer right

now is the reason why you think some of

these questions are unanswerable.

>> Mhm.

>> So I think if you adopt that frame,

you'll never know. But

>> But I don't think they're unanswerable.

>> Okay, let let me let me just finish.

Okay. So

my first experience of this, right? Is

that first of all there is a subjective

barometer, like how do we know whether

we have purpose?

Maybe we listen to other people, but

there is some sort of internal sense of

this. And this is where the science

becomes really important because if you

look at people who have like a history

of trauma or something, what you tend to

find is that there's certain like

neurobiological things that can happen

to you that will literally affect the

parts of your brain that are able to

detect purpose.

So this is sort of like a subjective

experience, and I think the way that and

I love your emphasis on mechanism, and I

think this is what in my opinion science

and spirituality can really add is they

add the how, right? They they add like

why is it that one person has purpose

and another person doesn't have purpose.

So first thing is that in my experience

and the way that I operate, I'm not

saying it's correct, it's just it's

effective in terms of helping people

move the needle on

reducing suicidality,

improving resilience, giving them a

reason to wake up in the morning. Like

it tends to work.

Um and it's not just me, it's that

there's a bunch of, you know,

methodologies that we have in

psychotherapy and stuff like that that

accomplish these kinds of things. That

there's some internal sense of purpose.

Now what I think

surprises a lot of people is that there

are two ways that you increase that

sense of purpose.

The first is a bucket of things that are

kind of counter counterintuitive, and

this is where we also have to understand

that purpose

correlates with certain other things in

life. So if I feel like I am in control

of my life,

then my sense of purpose will increase.

Those two things are correlated. It's

not clear whether it's one thing that

manifests in two ways or it's probably

two discrete things cuz there's some

subtlety there. But just as a very

simple example, if you take someone who

feels out of control in life and you

help them get control of their life, and

there's a really great example of this

which is something called passive

challenges versus active challenges. So

there's a fascinating research on

anxiety that shows that if you're

someone in life whose life is happening

to you, like you wake up one day and

then like your your boss wants you to

come in for work and you have to pay

rent at the end of the month and like

your your logging on to Tinder and

people aren't responding to you,

life is controlling the direction that

you move.

And people feel overwhelmed by this and

they want freedom. They want control.

What they end up doing is they they they

wish that they didn't have these things.

So, they run away from these problems.

So, passive challenges are challenges

that life imposes upon you that you

didn't sign up for.

Then there's something really

fascinating, which is your sense of

control in life does not correlate just

with the passive challenges. It

correlates with the ratio

of passive challenges to active

challenges.

Active challenges are things that you

choose to do that are difficult.

So, this is really fascinating, but if

if you're getting bodied by life in

three different directions, the solution

to that is not run away from those

problems. It's actually to wake up and

start to

push yourself in a particular direction.

I want to do this instead. If you want

to learn how to like read you know,

learn philosophy, you know, start

studying philosophical texts. You know,

like as you start to take on more, which

is very counterintuitive because when

most people feel feel overwhelmed, they

don't feel like they can do more. The

exact solution is to take on more active

challenges. Then you have some sense of

control in life and once your ratio of

active challenges to passive challenges

is more evened out, this does something

really cool. It gives you a sense that

I'm no longer out of control.

Once you feel like you're no longer out

of control, this is the really cool

thing, then your capacity

to deal with the stuff that life throws

at you actually improves.

So, there's this

this is just one example of like one

scientific

neurobiological principle that has some

psychology associated with where you can

do particular things to give yourself a

sense of direction in life.

>> Mhm.

>> Now, some of the stuff around worship

and spiritual practice, that can do it,

too.

Um but I think that usually what I tend

to see is that

you know, if someone is lost in life,

you can sort of answer it by these big

questions.

You can sort of think about this sort of

transcendental purpose, which I'm I'm

happy to talk about. But I think there's

a lot of like little stuff that you can

do.

>> Yeah.

>> And as you implement these things, the

sense of purpose in your life, your

internal lived experience of feeling out

of control, will change.

>> Let Let me offer a few thoughts if I

could. One, I want to speak to something

that you've said, Alex, um

that I just want to offer a caution

about. When we talk about motivation,

the motivation for something, we

sometimes confuse that with

justification. So, someone might say to

me, it's an atheist, for example, well,

you're a Christian because you were born

in America. If you were born in Saudi

Arabia, you wouldn't be a Christian,

you'd be a Muslim.

Of course, that's irrelevant to the

question of whether Islam or

Christianity or some other religion is

true. It doesn't speak to that. It

speaks to psychology, okay? And the fact

is that if the atheist was born in Saudi

Arabia, he wouldn't be an atheist,

either, likely. The key question is what

motivates people, for example, to think

about purpose. Death, maybe a fear of

death. That might be a motivation. The

question is whether the place they land

in answering the question has any

objective truth to it or not. It could

be that there is a God and that there is

an afterlife. And facing death does give

comfort to that uh I should say, when

facing death, you have comfort because

there is a God and there's something

that you're going to. Closer communion

with him. Okay. Just because you're

motivated by death doesn't mean that

your belief about the afterlife is

somehow in error.

>> I just wanted to add something in here.

So, I I think part of the reason I've

also convened um you guys to have this

conversation today is because

I've got several people in my life that

are

I can I can literally lay out the

personas, but I've got one particular

friend who's 35 between 35 and 40 years

old, living in Dubai, living in a glass

box, freelancer. So, he wakes up in the

morning, his bed is there, he then works

there, then goes back to bed. He's

single, no kids. In his life at the

moment, he said to me that he can't get

out of bed anymore.

He feels stuck. And then about 6 months

after, out of the blue,

it turns out, without telling any of us,

and we're his best friends, he's flown

to America, he's been baptized, he's a

Christian. Suddenly, his life has

purpose and meaning again. He's a

completely different person. And this

individual never ever He would be the

last person that you'd think would be

religious. Got another friend, female,

just over 30 years old, doesn't have

kids, freelance, works at home. Um when

I asked her what her meaning and purpose

in life, she said to me she wants to get

to having 200 plants, plants she can

water. She names all of them. She then

told me a week after she's in therapy

because she feels lost and stuck in

life. And so, much of the central point

why I've been motivated to have this

conversation is

it appears to me, and I haven't nailed

this hypothesis yet, that freedom,

independence, be your own boss, the

decline in people having children,

the glamorization of um as you said at

the very beginning, like, you know, do

it yourself, do it your way, is failing

people in some way. And that actually

the push for independence

was in some way some kind of lie. I

actually also went through the same new

atheist

baptism that you went through. And I

read all those books 18 years old and 2

years I was I was debating dog walkers

on the street about God. I was so such a

staunch atheist. But I now find myself

in a position where

I'm almost back to being curious again.

Because it feels like independence

wasn't the answer. Yeah. Just wanted to

reframe.

>> I think Yeah, I mean, I think people

need tasks. I think the purpose is

intimately tied up with the idea of of

task to fulfill. It's why people tend to

find meaning in projects which are not

completed yet. In fact, Pascal writes

quite compellingly about this when he

writes about boredom and he imagines a a

gambler, someone who who enjoys gambling

and says, "Well, why is this person

gambling? Cuz they're doing this thing

with the with the chance of winning some

money. Okay, so why don't you just give

them the money?

Just take the gambler and give him all

the money that he could possibly receive

without playing the game."

And he won't be very fulfilled.

Even though he's getting ostensibly what

he was trying to get. No, no, that

wouldn't be fulfilling cuz he enjoys the

the gambling.

"Okay," says Pascal, "then let him play

the game

but make it such that he'll never

actually win the money, but he he gets

to keep playing the game."

And he's not going to be very fulfilled

by that, either. That's also going to be

completely pointless. And so Pascal

noticed that what you kind of need to

avoid boredom and I suppose to to imbue

your life with with purpose,

at least in this analogy, is

some kind of task to fulfill

that you haven't fulfilled yet, that you

don't know if you're going to fulfill,

that you believe will bring you

fulfillment when you get it.

But you haven't got it yet. So why I

think religion does it really well

because it's the definition of something

which you don't have now, which you can

strive for, which when you get, you

believe will be

uh will be fulfilling. Will you not?

>> so so I I I love these examples because

actually we know exactly what's going on

in that thought experiment, right? So

now there have been there are so many

advances in neuroscience that we

understand why people gamble, right? So

we understand that giving someone money

will satisfy a gambler in one of two

cases and I've seen this. I've worked

with people who are professional poker

players. Some people their what what we

describe motivation is actually like a

dozen different things going on in your

brain. So if you were a professional

poker player in poker and I've literally

worked with professional poker players

who had no meaning in life. It's so

funny, I'm thinking about a particular

person and then, you know, achieved a

certain financial goal, that's why they

play poker. So, if your motivation is

that I'm playing poker because I'm I

have a skill that I'm using to get

money.

>> Yeah.

>> If that is your internal motivation,

that is going to come from certain

circuits in your brain. It's going to

come from places like your frontal lobe.

Now, as Pascal pointed out, if you give

the average person who gambles money,

what are they going to do with it?

They're going to gamble more, right? So,

that means that their motivation is

coming from something more closer to the

nucleus accumbens or random

reinforcement schedule. Maybe they're

trying to suppress amygdala emotions.

So, we actually can like look at that

example and we can understand why each

of those things happens.

And then the most beautiful thing is

that there is absolutely

a scenario where someone can gamble and

never win. And they can absolutely have

purpose.

So, this is where I know that sounds

insane, but if you look at some of these

things from the Zen tradition,

right? So, these are practices that have

no purpose, to act with no meaning

whatsoever. And the beautiful thing

about that is as you explore that sort

of angle and there's sort of a

neuroscience

perspective to this as well,

is that if you really think about it,

you're saying, "Okay, so people invest

in this purpose or in this

purpose-seeking thing like religion with

the idea that I'll find payoff at the

end." Is that what you were saying

earlier?

>> I'm saying something a bit different. I

what I was going to go on to say is to

is to point out

that and bear in mind this comes from a

part of the Pascal's Pensées which is

titled Man Without God. You know, he

goes on to discuss man with God. Um

But I look at the development of the

human species and our particular

proclivities. Lewis makes this argument

from desire that you mentioned. Why do

we have a desire for food? Well, because

there is actually food to have. The

evolutionary biologist says the reason

that we develop hunger is because those

who didn't

died.

And if you don't have some sense of

hunger, you're not going to seek out

food and you will die. And so, it just

so happens that those who develop this

feeling of hunger will be more likely to

survive and therefore hunger is a part

of our human condition. Well,

such is meaning. If you have two

isolated communities, one of whom says,

"I just

don't care. Whatever, man. No interest

in having children, no interest in

building societies, legal systems,

constitutions, whatever the case, moral

systems, none of they just don't care.

Nihilists."

They're not even going to have children.

That society will die out. Another

society which just so happens to perhaps

delusion like in a in an exercise of

delusion, just develop this inexplicable

feeling.

And of course this evolves over time and

starts with essentially the kind of

random

mutation of ideas that works on the

genetic level in evolution. They call it

memetics when it's ideas rather than

genes.

The society which just ends up

developing this idea that actually I

can't quite explain why, but I I just

have this drive towards building a

society and engaging in legal justice

and moral systems and kind of stuff.

They're just more likely to survive. So

we end up with this

with this

sense, this this drive within us that we

can't explain and yet we have. So

imagine for the majority of our

evolutionary history what it was like.

Every single day you woke up and you did

not know if you were going to have a

roof over your head. You didn't know if

you were going to have food to eat. You

had to go out and you had to hunt it.

You had to go and find it every single

day.

The game reset. And so I would imagine

that those lives were probably quite

meaningful at least in the sense that I

don't think there will have been many

existential crisis on a day-to-day

because the purpose was quite clear. And

like Pascal's gambler, they had a task

that they think will fulfill them when

they get it and they don't know whether

it's going to be fulfilled. So what's

happened today?

Well, now we've been given the money

without the game.

We've got houses, we've got food, we can

go next door

and get some water, get some food from

all over the all over the planet, you

know. Like that's that's it. That you've

got the money without the game. So what

do people do in the modern situation

when they find that their life is a bit

meaningless. They start intentionally

doing things which are difficult. They

start doing ice baths. They start

exercising. They start going into a room

just to physically exert themselves in

order to sort of build muscle and

whatnot, like on purpose for its own

sake. Why? Because today we've got

the money without the game. So, people

are going out and seeking the game

without the money. They're going and

doing the ice baths and the gym. Whereas

the truly meaningful life is one in

which you are playing the game

in the service of getting the goal. That

is why I think that, you know,

literally just seeking out those things.

I think that there's a reason why they

have a psychological impact. It's not as

simple as just like, oh well, if you go

to the gym, you know, it it releases

endorphins and and makes you feel good.

It's like, let's think a bit deeper than

that. What's actually going on? People

are seeking out the game without without

the money. Crucially,

I've talked about this as as a

death-denying pursuit, right? The idea

that the things that you engage in here,

at least in terms of grand projects like

religion and society, are even if you're

subconsciously an exercise in the denial

of death. What would that mean?

It means that if you encounter other

communities,

if you encounter other traditions, who

just just by their mere existence

threatens the truth of your claims,

those traditions subconsciously

represent death. They represent

nihilism. So, what happens in a society

that develops the kind of

telecommunication technology whereby

every single day you open your phone and

you are addicted to a process of

scrolling through every 7 seconds a new

person with new ideas, with different

beliefs from all over the world. Do you

think that might have something to do

with the meaning crisis that we find

ourselves in? We're told that what's

happened is that people stop believing

in God and now they're all depressed,

upset, and nihilistic. That's far too

simple. You don't think it might have

something to do with the fundamentally

revolutionary

change to our society that has been

brought about specifically by

telecommunication, by the ability to

often times unintentionally and

non-consensually be confronted with

traditions and people from halfway

across the world that just remind you

every single day, zing, zing, zing,

every single day that your truth is not

the only truth, that the transcendence

that you've placed your trust in is

completely subjective and personal and

that someone over there

believes something totally different and

seems to be living just the same kind of

happy life.

That, I think, is why people are

struggling so much. It's not just

because they're atheists.

>> I have a lot to say about this. I'll try

to keep it compact. By the way, just we

are aware of all kinds of different

options for us spiritually.

>> Yes.

>> Um that doesn't necessarily suggest that

none of the options are actually

accurate or that are okay. So

>> I'm making a psychological

>> implication there and this is what

creates kind of the angst because all we

have is our own personal subjective

point of view.

>> I think that's why people experience

that. Now, of course, as a matter of

truth, you could say, for example,

yourself, you could say, "Yes, I'm

constantly confronted by different

religious traditions, but I believe that

Christianity is true. I think it has the

best evidence and and what not."

>> This is even true in even in the

scientific realm. You're all kinds of

different ideas, but no one wants to

say, "Just because there are so many

different ideas to explain things that

nobody can be correct."

>> why what I'm saying is is insensitive to

the truth or falsity of any of the

traditions. What I'm saying is

>> Okay, that's good cuz I want to go to

that that one.

>> as an explanation is for the the

psychological

phenomenon.

>> Right.

>> The the literal feeling that people

have. Because likewise, you would say

that there is a meaning crisis, maybe.

You would say that lots of people you

hear the statistics we just heard, you

would say lots of people, you know,

don't feel meaning in their life. And

you'd want to offer an explanation for

why that's the case. You think their

lives are meaningful, right? You think

that all of those people who say, "My

life has no meaning," they're wrong.

Their lives actually do have meaning.

>> Is that what you think?

>> Well, this was the subject of response.

They feel like they don't have meaning.

>> Exactly.

>> But they were made for a purpose. If

they're not in in touch with that

meaning and purpose, then they're going

to feel bereft and adrift.

>> Exactly. So, you believe there really is

a purpose for their life, but

subjectively they haven't either found

it or they don't feel it. What I'm doing

is I'm offering a psychological

explanation for why they don't feel it,

which is completely insensitive to

whether or not there's a truth of the

matter, right?

>> I'm so glad you put it that way because

this is exactly my point. I don't want

anybody to miss it. We're really

offering two different pictures of

reality here, okay? People have to ask

themselves two questions, I think. One

is they reflect on their own personal

awareness

of the need for meaning and

significance.

Does it seem to them that this is just a

psychological thing that people can

satisfy in all kinds of different ways

depending on the individual, or does it

seem to them I'm asking these questions

because I suspect there is a truth about

life that might be discovered, okay?

That's the first question. And And I

think most people's awareness of this is

that there's something transcendent,

something bigger than them, okay? And

any kind of naturalistic explanation is

not going to ultimately satisfy that.

The other thing is, is there any reason

to believe that there is a transcendent

reality, that God exists, that souls

exist, that that there is an objective

morality that guides our life, and if

we're living virtuously, that's going to

be satisfying even if we don't believe

in God or not. Those are the two things

at stake here, you know? And now, this

description, the story of reality I just

described that I hold to, it seems to me

completely coherent. Maybe not true, but

it certainly is coherent that if there

is a God who made us for themselves and

places eternity in our hearts, that

we're going to yearn for that and made

the way for us to live and they're going

to find good ways to live as opposed to

unsatisfying ways to live. That makes

sense. Doesn't make any sense to me at

all to say that my molecules are moving

in a certain way to create in my

conscious mind which Darwinist would

cannot offer an explanation for. It

hasn't. That's why Daniel Dennett said,

"Consciousness is an illusion." you

know, because he couldn't do anything

with it. Thomas Nagel wrote his book

Mind and the Cosmos. You're familiar

with this, I'm sure. You know, why the

neo-Darwinian materialistic view of the

world is almost certainly false. And

he's an atheist, for goodness sake,

because he can't explain consciousness,

not in a Darwinian way. So, how is it

that this mystery of consciousness which

contains propositional thought, ideas,

and purposes?

If consciousness can't be explained the

Darwinian way, how can some

characterization of molecules in motion

accomplish that same end? That's my

concern. This is why I'm not convinced

about at all about the naturalistic one.

And this one seems so much more

plausible.

>> What you're raising is the is the

problem of consciousness, which is, I

think, a new question, but an important

one. I wanted to point out earlier that

that when I gave an explanation as to

why people

feel a lack of meaning. And you said

that has no bearing on truth. I think

that's

>> You admitted that too at the younger

age. I appreciate that.

>> I don't admit it. I I asserted it. Of

course that's the case. In the In the

same way that if somebody says that like

>> You affirmed you weren't making the

case.

>> same way that if somebody says that like

if you're a Christian and you say the

reason everyone is so depressed is

because

society has become atheistic, somebody

could say, "Well, yeah, I mean that

might be the case, but that doesn't mean

atheism is false. It might be that it is

true and just depressing, right?"

>> There are alternate

>> the question if we're discussing They

want to a particular way

psychologically, you can offer an

explanation which has absolutely nothing

to do with the truth or falsity of a

worldview. You can then separately

discuss the truth or falsity of a

worldview, which you've then gone on to

do with specific reference to the

problem of consciousness.

>> thinks it has absolutely nothing or it

can be experienced apart from the issue

of worldview.

>> I'm saying that if you if you're

literally just try I mean if the

question I'm asked is why do people

perceive

a lack of meaning in their life, That's

just a question about their

psychological constitution. That's just

That's literally a question about why

they feel a particular way.

>> a person was a total nihilist, didn't

believe in anything

was important, and then they were

depressed and even suicidal, would you

say there wasn't a link between that

worldview and their feelings?

>> Yes, there is, but what I'm saying is

that the link between that worldview and

their feeling has nothing to do with the

truth of the worldview.

>> Okay.

>> You see what I'm saying? Like it it

doesn't Nihilism can be true, nihilism

can be false, nihilism can be an

unintelligible concept. It can still be

the case that that person's conviction

is making them depressed. Right? In the

same way that somebody could be a be a

Christian and that makes them really

happy, that doesn't mean Christianity is

true. Someone can become a Christian and

become really depressed, that doesn't

mean that Christianity is false. What

I'm trying to point out it is it is just

trivially true.

>> So So, I still want to try to understand

a little bit about

what you're saying.

>> Okay.

>> Cuz I don't fully follow.

>> Fine.

>> Um and I think that the reason I'm I

feel way more confident in what you're

saying is because

>> Christ is pulling your leg.

>> 100% Yeah. So So, I think Christ We both

talked to Christ, so like we're good on

that. Like I I know where he's coming

from. So, couple of things that I'm

>> I talked to Christ, too, you know.

>> Awesome. Does he talk back?

>> not talk back, unfortunately.

>> that's tricky. We can talk about how to

how to get you there.

>> One person said just read the Gospels

aloud.

So So, couple of things

>> few times.

>> So couple of things that I'm I'm curious

about. One is So, I'm noticing that

you're I'm trying to understand where

So, I I love the way you're sallying

forth to

to grapple with this problem of purpose.

You do a beautiful job of sort of

talking about like, okay, what's the

truth?

>> Mhm.

>> And then there's this psychological

perspective.

And I I want to just try to understand

this. So,

are you of the mind that from a

psychological perspective you can wake

up one day and feel like you have

purpose, but that doesn't necessarily

talk about purpose

transcendentally?

>> Capital P.

>> I'm saying that doesn't talk about the

truth of your belief.

>> The Okay.

>> So, for example, you could you could you

could believe that your children are

about to die

and that suddenly your life feels really

meaningless and and really purposeless.

It could be completely false. You could

have been like misled, someone could lie

to you, but like what I'm saying is is

the psychological explanation for why

you feel a particular way has nothing to

do with the truth of the thing that you

believe that's making you feel that way.

>> Got you. Okay. So, what I'm curious

about is when you are exploring purpose,

>> Mhm.

>> are you exploring it from Are you trying

to find the answer at the top? Like,

what is the truth of purpose? Or are you

focused on the subjective

experience of purpose?

>> Depends on the context. If you're asking

I mean, we were talking literally about

a psychological explanation for why

people feel a particular way. You know,

is it due to a decline in religion, that

kind of stuff. In that case, it's

subjective, it's individuals, yeah.

>> Yeah, so so

do you think that the top one can be

answered?

>> What The top one is in like there being

>> there being purpose, right? So, that's

not subjective at all.

>> what does that mean, there there being

purpose? Cuz for me, that looks like

some kind of

reason to act or to be that is not

contingent on some other fact.

Just to be clear, to make clear for the

listener, I I think you hear what I'm

saying, but like suppose you woke up

and you were a Christian and that

brought you meaning. What I'm saying is

that subjective sense of meaning that

you get from Christianity has no bearing

on the truth or falsity of Christianity.

>> Got you.

>> Right?

>> Right. So, so what I'm curious about is

in your opinion, and if you don't have

one, that's totally fine. Um

you know, do you think that

So, sure there's a subjective experience

which doesn't speak to truth, right?

It's just a subjective experience. Do

you think that there is some way to

grapple with that truth?

>> Well, the truth of Christianity or

something?

>> Yeah, the truth the truth of of purpose.

>> Right, but

we're shifting here, right? Because what

I'm saying is

>> Let let me shift that but I want to do

that. So then I'm going to go back.

>> So I maybe I'm not understanding your

question. What all I am saying is that

if you feel if you feel a subjective

sense of purpose from proposition P

like the fact that you feel purpose from

that does not have any bearing on the

truth of P. And then you just ask but

but is there a way to discuss whether P

is true? Well, yeah, like so if

proposition is Christianity, then yeah,

we can talk about the historical

argument for the resurrection of Jesus

or something.

>> Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay.

>> I'm not I'm not trying to reach into

some mystical capital P purpose realm.

>> Gotcha. So right so I I think that's so

helpful. Thank you so much.

Okay. Okay. So

that's really helpful for me because

then you I want to go back to something

you said earlier about, you know, cell

phones and we're scrolling on cell

phones and things like that and we have

this like like this worldview and then

if we encounter a worldview that is

different from ours, that could put us

into some form of crisis or difficulty

and we're getting bombarded by all of

these things. And so what that means is

that the individual when they wake up in

the morning and they scroll through

their phone, right? We're not talking

about whether the proposition P is true

or not, their subjective experience is

like I have no meaning and I have no

purpose in life, right? And and so you

posited one mechanism which I think is a

completely valid mechanism, is a

philosophical mechanism, but we have a

lot of neuroscience mechanisms that

support what you're saying. So

and this is where I I I think that we

kind of I'm going to sort of restate

that what my experience of this stuff

has been cuz I'm I'm not a philosopher

is I don't really know too well how to

contend with whether proposition P is

true or not. That's why I was asking.

And and it's not that you weren't being

clear, it's that I'm just ignorant of

how philosophy works.

Um and so that's why I was kind of

asking like, you know, can you do that?

So, that's where it's also where like

I'm kind of coming from is that we have

this crisis that has a high suicidality,

high addiction rates, people left the

church in big ways, and then we're sort

of left with like, okay, how do we

navigate this? And that's where I think

if we look at a lot of this the

influences

on society, we see that there is

profound neurological influences. And

what I sort of found is when I was

working, especially with like patients

with trauma, that there is a set of

things that is happening in the world

around them that induce certain changes

to their how they experience the world.

So, a really good example of this is

if you want to find your purpose in

life, you should reduce your level of

alexithymia. So, alexithymia is the

inability to tell what you you're

emotionally feeling. And if we look at

the influence of things like cell

phones, what they're doing is they're

suppressing the parts of our brain that

have that experience negative emotions.

Sometimes they provoke negative

emotions, sometimes they suppress

negative emotions. And so, if you start

to

be able to feel more,

right? So, this this this is literally

shutting down the parts of our brain

that have that give us an internal sense

of what we feel.

And so, as you shut down your ability to

detect what you are feeling on the

inside, that correlates with your not

having a detection of purpose on the

inside.

So, I think that you know, this is you

you asked the question, why is this

happening? I think we're disabling, and

I was working with people with trauma

and and sort of sort of figured out a

sequence of things that is based on the

literature that involves things like

reducing your alexithymia. Another big

part is managing your ego. So, I think

this relationship with God thing is a

really really really great example of

like, if you ask, what is the mechanism

of a relationship with God? So, we as

human beings tend to be like, I'm here,

but then as you relate to other people

around you, your sense of identity

changes. And when you relate to

something that is transcendent, I know

that that's a scary word, and I don't

know exactly what that word means, but

as you relate to something that is

really big up here, that has noticeable

effects on your default mode network,

your sense of self. And as your default

mode network no longer becomes

hyperactive, the more hyperactive your

default mode network is, the more likely

I think you are to nihilistic, to have a

pessimistic worldview. As we start to

make those changes, then people start to

feel a sense of purpose. They start to

feel a sense of connection. And then the

last kind of really interesting data

which we can go into is if psychedelics,

which is really, really fascinating

because this allows us to test

subjective experience and the effect of

subject subjective experience on a

person.

>> Is this opportunity for please?

>> I'm just concerned that you might have

overstated something, maybe reflecting

back something you thought I was saying

and I was making the case about the

genetic fallacy and just because a

person has a motivation to believe

something doesn't necessarily mean that

that thing is true or have a subjective

experience. I think it goes a little

further than that though. Uh if you went

to the doctor and you weren't feeling

well and doctor gave you a pill and then

you went home and you took the pill then

you felt better. I think it would be

appropriate for you to say, well that

pill, taking that pill, going to that