Theodore Bolha: Recent Episodes
Theodore Bolha
Welcome to the Theodore Bolha podcast, where I discuss philosophical ideas and topics related to sentient experience, consciousness, life, death, ethics, naturalism, atheism and more.
This is an audio version of philosopher, Tom W. Clark's essay "Death, Nothingness and Subjectivity". This essay was discussed in Sam Harris' Making Sense episode "The Paradox of Death". This version of the audio was done using a text to speech "AI". The speed is very fast. I recommend slowing it down to listen.
The audio quality of this episode is not the best, but you should be able to understand it. As the title says; this is me sorting out my thoughts on consciousness on my handheld recording device. This idea of how consciousness may have occurred was sparked by things I've heard Alan Watts say in some of his talks. It was also sparked by my understanding of what Tom Clark calls Generic Subjective Continuity. The person I was trying to remember his name, but couldn't during this recording is, Donald Hoffman. He says we don't see reality as it really is. He compares our visual interpretation of the world to the display we see on a computer monitor, when infact, the reality of what's going on is nothing like what's displayed on the screen. I suggest looking into his theory. Also - I did burp twice in this episode. I am only human ;)
In this episode I explain what dualism and nondualism are, and explain why Ricky Gervais is actually a dualist, even though he doesn't believe in souls or anything supernatural. I talk about consciousness as a function of the brain (brains do consciousness rather than consciousness being something that can exist as a separate thing outside of the brain). I explain why death is not an escape from conscious experience. You can find more of my content on my YouTube channel, NaturalisTed.
This episode explains why atheists shouldn't expect death to be followed by a black void of nothingness. Sam Harris discussed Generic Subjective Continuity in his Making Sense Podcast Episode called The Paradox Of Death - Here I attempt to explain it in a way that everyone can hopefully understand. I then explain some of the implications (how it relates to David Benatar's Antinatalism, and some other areas). I may do future episodes on GSC.