181 The Illusory Self, with Richard Lang

The purported niceness of Sam’s guest notwithstanding, I found this to be among the least interesting podcasts of the past year.

But I do like the meditation app! Don’t get me wrong. I just—well, I have a different agenda, apparently, than the one Sam has preordained for me. Because I don’t really get the point of all this milling about with like-minded souls and nattering on about how you don’t have a head, and how there’s really this reflective bubble of the universe (the “youniverse” as Lang puts it).

It reminds me of the waiting room to get into a nudist colony, with all these happy and enthusiastic people talking about how great it will be to finally free yourself of your artificial and restrictive clothing, and then when it finally happens and you’ve got your clothes off and you’re standing there among a bunch of nudists...

...nothing. Nothing happens.

Your bits get cold, maybe. Or a mosquito bite in a place you wouldn’t normally get one. But by and large, this game-changing experience—that was guaranteed to make you realize you’d been living life all wrong—well, it just hangs there, limp. Maybe it has even shrunk a little.

So Sam and Richard go on and on about how wonderful their perspective is, and how hard it can be for the uninitiated to understand. And I couldn't help but think, "it doesn't sound like it it's getting you anything." Or, as they laugh that the devil would have me say, "so what?"

But really Sam and his guest, neither of whom believe in free will, shouldn't be ascribing my reaction to the devil. In fact they are quite certain I don't have a choice in the matter of my reaction. So, there we have it. Too many notes.

I don't see any benefit from an understanding that we can't see our own faces. The whole thing strikes me as a very Godel-ian corollary to the observation that you can't "see" everything about a system, from the inside. Sam references the blind spot in the eyeball in this podcast, to which I respond, "yes! That blind spot is every bit as real, and every bit as inconsequential!"

It's like saying a shotgun can't shoot itself, so therefore it doesn't have a barrel.

I dunno. Whatever. You can play the podcast if you want to, and you can get all excited about the revelation that no one has a head, if you want to.

Or you can head to Baker's Beach in San Francisco, strip down to your birthday suit, and frolic in the waves with the other naked people. Either way, I say, have a great time!

And don't forget the sunscreen.