Latest / Drawn of History / Are Humans Losing a Sense of Purpose_(M4A_128K)

Transcript

Are Humans Losing a Sense of Purpose_(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think love is something that certainly gives us
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a sense of purpose, I think, you know?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like humans these days, we talk a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: lot about purpose on here. Do you feel like humans
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: these days that we're losing a sense of purpose? That's
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: what it feels like sometimes to me.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, certainly there are Fewer and fewer people
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: who are involved in relationships and fewer and fewer people
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: who are living together and more and more people who
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: are living alone. And the people who are living alone
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: aren't always replacing a romantic partner with lots of time
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: with friends. A lot of times they're replacing it with,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: you know, the internet, with watching podcasts like this. Not
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: to disparage podcasts like this, but, you know, what I'm
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: saying is not the same. Right? Yeah. So, you know,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I think there is a crisis of connection that people
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: are feeling right now. And I think it is something
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: to really, really be concerned about.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Why do you think it's so important for the human
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: brain or humans to seek meaning in life?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I think we can't help but do it. I think
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: our brains are hardwired— to take fragments of information and
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: then try to make a story out of them. We
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: are a story-making, story-telling species. We can't help but do it, right?
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It is a deeply human thing. And let me tell
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: you a little bit of what I mean, right? So
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: people say, well, science and faith are somehow in opposition
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I say science and faith are two branches of the
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: same human stream. We're starting with fundamental questions that we
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: can't know. What is our purpose? How did we get here?
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: How should we live our lives? What happens after we're gone, right?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And faith— takes one path. It says, all right, you know,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I've got an explanation for doing that. It involves the divine,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and I will believe that, and that is my way forward.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And so science says, well, I'm going to address those
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: mysteries in a different way. I'm going to do experiments
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: and observations and subject those to falsifications, and I'll take
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: some wrong turns, but I'll fix them, and eventually I'll
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: get closer and closer to the truth. And they are
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: two different ways of getting at it, but they have
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the very same root. We as humans are curious. We
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: want to know what's going on. We want to put
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: it together. We want to make a story. And it
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: happens in the most basic sensory level. Like if you're
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: walking through the woods and you hear– You can't help
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: but imagine that someone's coming up behind you, right? You're
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: making a story in your mind about what those sounds mean.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Our whole brains are built to take fragmentary information and
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: put them together in a story. It's the most fundamental
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: human thing there is.