 Forgive the longer than normal opening clip, but sometimes a little snail-piercer-nostecyn is therapeutic. When a frozen solid 18 years ago today, but suckled the generous titty of Wilpert, ever since, for food and shelter. And now, in front of our hallowed water supply section, no less, you repair his kindness with violent whologism you scum. Today, philosophy with the very excellent James Ellis from Hermetics. Precisely 74% of you shall die. Not the zero I talk of a lot, but level zero for what the people online call normies. Because I don't think most people are operating on the level of level one. I'm not saying I'm above them. There's nothing wrong with just living your life and getting on with it. But in terms of every day conversation where people are saying things like, how are you? How is your weekend? Those dead statements, that needs to be level zero. There's just no content. Welcome to Skeptica where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I'm your host Alex Karris. And today, we welcome James Ellis. And that was okay to out you, James, because you've been flying under the radar for a while. Yeah, so I've been under the name Meta Nomad for like, since 2017, I've been blogging and writing under that name. Just because I believe, you know, I remember the, just about remember the old days of the internet where forums were full of anonymous people with like cool sounding names and I really miss that and, you know, anonymity. That was one reason and also it's like, just, just so you don't get the two things crossed. And then I started doing things like courses where I thought, I think just for like legitimization, I need to do the whole real life thing, real life name. So yeah, James Ellis is fine is the short answer to that. I mean, you know, like we're just chatting about just a second ago, there's so many jumping off points for folks like you and I have kind of really are open to thinking kind of in these parallel and non parallel kind of ways, you know, what is reality what is your, what is anonymity anymore and what is identity and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, we should just jump right into this and let people know that we're kind of doing a swapcast here but I'm primarily interviewing you for skeptical and then this may go on on your excellent feed, the Hermitex podcast, which, let me pull it up here for people because we were just chatting about it a minute ago if anyone's watching on YouTube. So really some great stuff here a lot of very, very insightful deep philosophical level three as I like to call them kind of conversations was level was sorry was level three. Okay, level three. First, what's level one. What's level one is like science. Science is is level one is there is their science, you know, and like that's one of the survey questions we're going to go over and what is the meaning of science is science, obsolete it by consciousness, an understanding consciousness that consciousness is fundamental and that maybe idealism is a better way of thinking about what we experienced and is scientific materialism. That's kind of level one, and then level two is conspiracy really, which is, if you get there and you say, wow, it's really an absurd idea to think that consciousness is an illusion that it doesn't exist. I mean, it doesn't it's an absurd philosophical idea it's also an absurd scientific idea because it's been falsified. The idea that you're an epiphenomenon of the brain really doesn't hold up. So that's level two is kind of the controversy of conspiracy that comes in when we think and then level three is shit man. So now that we're there, you know, once we get past those two. Let's chat, you know, but if you can't, if you can't come to grips with those two, then to me you can't begin to have the level three conversation. Yeah, that works. I mean, I would say that you need to introduce a level zero. Not the zero I talk of a lot but level zero for like, for you know what the what the people online called normies because I don't think most people are operating on the level of level one I'm not saying I'm above them there's nothing wrong with just living your life and getting on with it but but in terms of like every I think you know like everyday conversation where people are saying things like, how are you, you know, how is your weekend those dead statements that that needs to be like level zero way there's just there's just no content. And I try to actually veer away from them because I actually find it just an actual waste of time. First of all, my orientation on this stuff which I don't know why but it is the nature of the show is, you know, skeptico inquiry to perpetuate doubt. I'm always thinking, it must be annoying to other people sometimes but I'm always thinking to the counter of that, you know, which, on one hand, I totally totally agree with that and I think you make a great point and I think the way you characterize it is level zero. Obviously, yeah that normies and that is such a progerative term but we get it we all get it immediately. But at the same time. There's something fundamental about where we get at the end in level three that is almost circular and brings us back to level zero. Because it's like, really, what the fuck are we going to talk about. We might as well talk about football and we might as well talk about the weather, because having to suppose that we can have some deep, deep, you know, and really solve these answers to these questions in any other way than just kind of intellectually just kind of stimulating ourselves. I don't know, maybe it is back to there's a certain basic human connection at level zero as well that I think we got to acknowledge that it's just like, hey, I'm a human being you're human being. What the fuck let's talk about the weather and whether it's going to rain today you know what I mean. What do you think about that. Yeah, I agree, but if someone started talking to me about the weather I probably would try shy away from it I think that's a question of method though right so like anything that you anything can be super super interesting to talk about, but it's a question of how you approach the subject in the way you know just saying, oh bad weather we're having today yeah it is like those are the kind of conversations I actually really struggle to do because I don't really see the point in them at all but if someone was saying like, you know, if we actually began a discussion about someone came up to me and said, you know do you believe the astrological movements. You know make it rain or whatever I've never really looked into that but if they said that I'd be like on board straight away. So I get what you're saying that you can actually come back around and it's in terms of everyday reality. There's a certain intuition there which makes things super interesting but then this is like and I know I'm already bringing bringing him in you said we were going to mention him. John Michael Gray his whole sort of approachable conception of occultism where he sources like. Once you once you sort of begin to understand the way these things are working the way you intuit the world things begin to appear to you which you are taught to say a rubbish right so it's like, you know those those weird feelings you gather the time or in a certain room you shouldn't go in there or a certain forest or something strange or, you know, you're in a place and you think something happened here way back in time that was really awful or something along those lines. And, you know that intuition you just you just get taught to to suppress it because it's it's not, you know already jumping into the side thing it's not scientific it's not logical. Level three to level zero connection is you can utilize level three to begin to sort of why I'd say why I'd say is enchant the world again. There's a lot to probably break down a little bit there and I love jumping into the middle of this stuff because if we lose people great you shouldn't have been here anyway. But if you stuck around this long, then maybe it is worthwhile to go back and kind of just tell people where you're coming from in general. And I think this idea of that you talk about so much with it's accelerationism and zero accelerationism. I think capitalism, I think you're going to have an idea that you know certainly is, I gotta say when I first heard you talking about capitalism like what the fuck is he talking about. I mean as compared versus what versus, you know, compared to what there is nothing else other than free people doing what they want to kind of survive anything else to me seems absurd but we talked for an hour on that so good. Okay. Um, so yeah, so I should have sort of done a full intro. So for those who don't know me. I run a host to mythics podcast which is a podcast of philosophy and fringe subjects occultism, parapsychology, weird stuff, you know, I think anyone who's into that stuff sort of knows the kind of topics that will be on that. I mean, I target it primarily from a continental philosophy angle because that's what my education backgrounds in my masters is in continental philosophy. When I was in when I was studying continental philosophy tutors were great. You know, they're great people they taught everything that was on our curriculum they taught well you know so this isn't really anything against them so let's call us to speak to them. And I've had one of them on the show. But in terms of the way academia confronts philosophy in those terms. It's very disheartening because there's a lot going on behind the scenes, which is sort of ignored because we just like it's almost like we don't have time to get into this conversation. We don't want to go there right. And I think there's a huge history of philosophy in general not specifically consensual but I think more continental because those philosophers are more open to it. So one example I'll give just to sort of cut the chase on this is that Schopenhauer who know super super serious philosopher in the canon of Western philosophy. You know, the, the, the, the, the world to life. We're all stuck between suffering and boredom, but also incorporate all this eastern stuff now the eastern stuff is accepted because it's compatible into a system. But not not many people know that actually he said at one point that if any of this is worth anything. It's because telepathy might be existing might exist. So he's sort of taking these things seriously when we say these things. Let's make sure because Schopenhauer is one of those guys who kind of crosses over right so a lot of people in the kind of consciousness. Interested kind of folks reference him but then a lot of people kind of in the philosophy fields reference him as well so what is he. What is he getting at in terms of what's what's he getting at in terms of consciousness since that's a topic that I'm super interested in. In terms of consciousness what I'd say is that for Schopenhauer. I mean, I have you everything like, and I mean everything view the lens of Kant manual can now it's very difficult to get across cancer philosophy in less than an hour, but I'll try just get off the super important bit which is the difference between the manual and the new manual, or what we would understand as representation so in terms of our senses, our perception for camp as a human. The way in which we, the world is presented to us is a re presentation. So when you look at something, you're not looking at the real, because it had to be processed by your brain. So it's represented to you. So Kant's point is that via our senses and no point we dealing with reality. Now, you know, this is sort of reworded by many, many people after camp and there's plenty of spiritualists who come to the same conclusion after camp. I just generally always think actually I really do think camp was the first he was definitely the first to do this rigorously in the critique pure reason, which is an extremely tough book. But if you just accept that premise, and we move to shop and how he then incorporates the veil of Maya, which is this Eastern concept which I believe comes from the, a punishance, believe, not shopping area and expert. But the veil of Maya is something that, as I understand it can be stripped back so I think the point for shopping hours he doesn't he readily admits that we can never, you know, we can never actually truly attend to the real. Because anytime that as a human, even if we're on some amazing drug trip we think we've broken through, you know, to the other side whatever that means. We're always in that canteen doubt that because we're processing it, we can just never be sure it's the real. However, I think for shop and how there's definitely a possibility of communication from that other side. So he's saying that none of this really is important at all, unless telepathy is like this possibility. And I think what he really means by that is, unless there is a possibility of communication between the absolute real and us. We can somehow actually begin to work out what is on this other side this objective. Then, what's the point. Excellent. You know, one of the problems, I guess I struggle with in terms of philosophy the way that it's currently practiced. A lot of the people that I've listened to on your show is the they seem to be swamped by science. So what you just described is really just kind of a reworking of kind of yogic Vedic kind of philosophy, re injected re interpreted in this Western philosophical way, which always to me is is interesting on one hand and on the other hand, like, go reference your sources on that, you know, a little bit because the way that it seems to be swamped is that the fundamental question seems to be the scientific question of consciousness. And that's why I always start with the absurdity of the claim that we live in today, in terms of and we'll get back to john Michael here because I think it circles back in a way and that's that Okay, we live in a science centered culture, a really scientism centered culture, and the idea that consciousness is an illusion that you are an epiphenomenon of your brain is central to that in a way that philosophers haven't processed. And then a lot of times they're just kind of following along blindly and making a lot of a building on that in ways that they don't even understand to go back in question. Well, you know, the basic who am I what why am I here, kind of nature of consciousness So, let's turn that into a question because we did this fun survey thing and I'm really glad that we had a good time doing it and looking at each other's answers there is conscious what is consciousness is consciousness fundamental is consciousness and epiphenomenon of the brain. Can you expand on what you mean by epiphenomenon of the brain. Just so I know just so I know on like I'm coming out at the right angle. Oh, I'm sure you are but you know just for benefit of people because I always emphasize this point over and over really tired I'd say the same over and over. But if you walk into. What university did you go to there. Staffordshire Staffordshire. So if you go there and you go in the neuroscience department. I'm going to tell you exactly what consciousness is pull out all their machines and they'll measure it and they'll say here it is. It's in your brain. So consciousness is 100% a product of brain chemistry brain electrical activity. It's in your brain man there ain't nothing else outside of that. The thing that I don't think people fully grok is the extent and because what people will say when you confront them with that they go well there's a lot of scientists that don't aren't that you know locked into that it's like, no not really I mean that is the dog my that is the doctrine. If you're outside of that then you're you're really playing a different game because at the end of the day. That is the understanding of what consciousness is consciousness is something that you want to get a little bit fancy oh it's an emergent property of the brain but it's still brain based so what do you think about is that your understanding of what I would argue that that isn't an understanding at all and this is the problem of science and scientists for me. I mean, I'd just like to take a minute to just dwell on the scientism thing and that that idea that it's this like, you know, almost Leviathan of culture it's our new God right it's the thing that we go to to make sure that everything we're doing is right. In terms of continental philosophy one of the reasons I actually wanted to study is because one of its sort of cornerstones which is why it's split from analytic is that it has this inherent distrust of of science and scientism as this overarching way to explain the world right because what you've what you how you outlined the phenomenon phenomenon you know consciousness is the phenomenon frame is the same problem that I run into with science all the time, which is, you know, this idea of going into the neuroscience department and they say, you know, x y and z this is this is consciousness or consciousness is in the brain or it's an emergent property. Okay, what the hell does that mean. Well it's an emergent property. I will say, you know, X amount of atoms does this blah blah blah blah blah blah it's okay. That's fine. But what the hell does it mean right. So what my point is with that is it's very easy for them to describe anything or explain anything within this recursive language. So it's like, you know, why does a cancer cell do what it does okay well cancer cell is already your own terminology. It does it because of this certain mixture of chemicals, which is also their same terminology, and the world that the way that they'll justify that doing that is still and you're always within this circle of them explaining things and there's no an original point where you can go there's the objective truth. It's sort of a language game for them, it seems to me, and I don't want to bring everything down to language but what I would say is like I'd give the example of Heidegger Martin Heidegger who is a philosopher wrote being in time I'll try not make this too complicated, but he takes on day car Rena day car, his cogito, you know one of the most probably the most famous saying in philosophy arguably, you know I think that for am now. This is taught in high schools as this like this, this saying which you just say it and it's like, I think the four am right this is sort of the same thing we're talking about with consciousness. Okay, I think the four am and everyone goes, Oh, wow, yeah, like, like, like that means anything. Heidegger sort of steps back and he says, Well, hang on. What the hell is am what the hell is being, right. It's just meaningless. I think the four am okay well you've you've outlined, you know, massive, massive things that which you haven't taken on. What the hell is I, what is it to think, and what is am, what is it to be, and you haven't actually addressed any of them. And Heidegger then goes back and addresses, addresses being and I think he does, does a good job he begins. So I would actually, I would completely disagree with the scientist argument what it says I'd go back to Kant again in that the only the only thing we can assess reality from is what we are given what works, which is this representation we may very well be stuck in something which isn't real, you have you can't just then go, you can't do the scientist thing and just say, This is consciousness like we have it. And they really think, you know, that I just think that's a bit of a lie. You have to begin from, I don't think Kant's proposition has been, you can't just prove the proposition is like, how can you prove that this is reality if we have to process it first. You have to begin from that. I, so I fundamentally agree with you. Right. So, but the part that I think, you know, is tricky there. Is that in a way, Kant is introducing the miracle that we're trying to avoid in the first place. So it's almost like, you know, we are fundamentally this experience that's all we know, right. And even when we get into the, that's how I think the AI stuff and simulation hypothesis stuff is so interesting and my go to guy on that is Eckhart Tolle, you know, the modern kind of spiritual teacher, where he goes, Okay, and someone pushed him on the simulation theory. And he goes, Okay, so let's say we are living in a simulation. You're still there. You'll still the one experiencing that. So your experience is all you can know without invoking miracles. So to a certain extent, the problem I have with Kant is it's in a way, to me, it's backdoor materialism, because it's saying, Okay, you do have this brain, you do have these senses, you are interpreting the outside world as it comes in. So, aha, therefore you're one step away from your experience. It's like, well, you're assuming now all this kind of stuff that we want to strip away and say, we don't want to assume. So if we start with just, we are, we are here, we are aware, we are conscious. It seems to me that that has to be the starting point, not that we are interpreting being here. Do you get what I mean? Yeah, no, no, no, I get what you mean. But I would say that you can't ignore that proposition of the fact that your reality is because we do it. Our understanding is that we do sense it, you know, the way that we apprehend as Kant would say the world vision, sight, hearing touch. These things are things which have to be processed. So this is an argument that you can't deny now with the idea of the materialism that's a super, super interesting idea because Kant has been sort of reformulated by some people to be this sort of radical materialist in the sense that we exist within a materialism of our own sort of self and we're just sort of stuck in this, this prison of materialism. And the way out of that is to do with time in the sense that linear chronic time, it just isn't real, but it still has to be in time, everything is in time. So we have this linear time which is false, but it's still in time, which implies that in some way pure time is getting to us. Now that sounds very, very complicated. But it's not just complicated, but it's kind of self contradictory right. I mean, it's like, you're having like two times is it's really difficult to think about. Yeah. So what do you what do you make of, you know, the go to where we always wind up on this show a lot of times in turn with people who are kind of other science bent, because, you know, the first book that I wrote why science is wrong about almost everything was really about consciousness and centering around the experiments that have been done, like, what do you make of the quantum physics. The early 1900s double slit experiment Schrodinger's cat. That's usually our go to, in terms of pointing to a way that that kind of in a more direct way gets at falsifying the kind of stuff you're talking about. These are these are super, super interesting experiments, but the people who are doing them aren't using them correctly. And what I mean by that is, I'm just going to stay on the camp line because we're there and it's easy to use the way in which we do interpret the world. That's, we are, we are then a subject. Right. So we have a subjectivity. The world is a subjective relation to us. The interesting thing about these experiments, these quantum experiments double slit experiment and one recently which Eric while I mentioned and he didn't seem to what seemed to see what I was trying to get at. He mentioned a quantum computer, which supposedly produces an effect which affects its cause. So it's a retro cause so it's affecting it's affecting something that's beginning right and I said to him I pose this question is, what is the subjectivity of that computer and you know, if we were to go into the mind of that computer in what way is it actually being presented reality because it's clear to us that it isn't beholden to linear time, because it can play around with time and he sort of said oh I don't, he he is assessing it in a completely different way which is completely fine. So I was then thinking well we've got this computer which is now sort of completely out of joint in time because it can play around with what we understand as the future in the past. And that then I think is the easier way to begin to think about time and consciousness is that our consciousness the way that we experience reality if that's how one could define being conscious is completely trapped within the progressive forward mode of time. And if we were to do anything else it just wouldn't make any sense. Our consciousness is completely like just clutching to that idea of the future in the past and present. And so then I think any serious question of consciousness needs to begin to a, especially when you see things about like this quantum future is, or what is, you know, it was very simple question would be is, why is it that our consciousness processes time the way we do. And the answer to that is very difficult and it's very bleak, because I personally you know the the the philosopher that I'm about to release a book on in probably less than a week less than two weeks Nick land calls it the human security system you know it's a system of security for us because it has almost a resource for something larger than us, it gives us this progression. But the past and the present and the future only makes sense in linear time which isn't real so they just do not exist in that way that's not how time works. You know, now we are beginning to play around with things, you know, Eric, you know, why goes great because you've got these things like pre cognitive dreams which are basically this documented proof that time doesn't work how we think it is in this quantum computer is playing around with, you know, the past and the future and putting them, you know, mixing them up it's like, okay, we just need to, and the content, the double slick experiment we just need to accept. It does not work how we think it works. And all it is is, if we were to say that humans are, you know, let's call linear time just linear, and humans are humans, humans interpret time linearly. That is it. Other things might not, we can't prove it any, any other way, because we're stuck in linear linear time. And again, one, I don't know if anyone's gonna be able to follow this conversation or number two, if there are how many people are interested in it. I've spoken about this stuff so much the time stuff and like I will admit, I every time I try to think like how can I make this simple how can I make this simple and it's right. It's something your brain really really struggles with and I think that's actually built in to linear time is that you need to start thinking like, you know the future isn't a thing, but because we're stuck in it and you just cannot comprehend it. Totally. But there's so many tricky points to that. So are you familiar with the work of Dean Raiden and his pre sentiment experiments. I've heard of Dean Dean Raiden, but I haven't, I haven't read anything. Yeah, you'd be really interested because so he's a parapsychologist, right. So these guys, these guys were on this thing, kind of from the beginning just kind of taking it from another angle, and Raiden came up with a great experiment, and he's super smart guy, you know, PhD Bell Labs, University of Illinois, all this kind of stuff. But now at the ions Institute, so he said, look, I'm going to take an old tried and true freshman psychology experiment, sit you down in front of the computer screen, and then show you images. Some of them really horrific. Some of them, you know, bunnies in a prairie kind of thing. And I am going to measure. This is the pre sentiment versus precognition. I'm going to measure your physiological response to those. So these have been done, like, for a long, long time, you know, he said, let's look at that data more carefully. And what he found was a response before the image is presented actually before the images even selected by the computer. So boom, so now we're instantly, you know, precognition pre sentiment time is blown out of the water. The experiment is replicated over and over again in his lab. At this point, it's been, it's been one of the most replicated experiments going because he's really driven that home, seven labs across the world. Over 50 times six Sigma kind of result, you know, from science statistics, it's over the top in terms of repeatable. And it does totally blow away this idea of linear time as you're talking about the interesting thing about that to me, there's a couple of points. One, you know, we're still limited like in the language as you said you said our consciousness. Right. So even that is a question, is it our consciousness. Are we in consciousness or are we separate from consciousness and some philosophers, you know, and Bernardo Castro, Dr. Bernardo Castro is one of our go to guys here. I think he makes a strong case that idealism is a better way of understanding this and that we are in consciousness in some way we can't fully understand. And the other thing I think that that supports that from a data standpoint is we have all these extended consciousness experiences that we have to deal with near death experience science. Hold on Miss cat is insisting to go out here near death experience science. You know you're mentioning hallucinogenic kind of experiences, all those things ET experiences. They one characteristic they all have is they seem to bounces outside of space and time right so what you'll hear from a near death experience person is. I was there for a week. I came back. I had been clinically dead for seven minutes. You know so there's this kind of. I've had one of these experience I'm not a near death experience, but I had one of those sort of with temporal experiences when I was younger someone used to play this game when we were kids probably very British thing I don't know if they do anymore. You can get your elbow around someone's neck and if you if you get the the two I don't know what it is, they'll pass out and we used to do that when we drunk, which is a bad idea. Don't condone it. But you do silly things with kids anyway, you know I vividly remember this. I got knocked out and my memory then was to walk from my house to my friends house where I was which was a 30 minute walk. And all I did when I was knocked out was do this walk. And then when I got to the kitchen in the house I laid down in the position and woke up but I was 100%. But then when I woke up I was like oh God I'm so sorry I was apologizing because I thought they'd be worried because I was passed out for like 30 minutes. And they were like what do you mean what do you mean I said I've been gone ages and they said no no you like, you know five seconds. And that was my first time I said okay time does not work. Time does not work how you think it works. And as you said, we don't really know what to do with that. I mean that's the question where was I what what is it and I mean I think this is what a lot of people are when I had. It's really bad I forgot his name. We were talking about DMT and he's sort of saying that this is I think this is on a practical level. One of the best things to do is find a way to prolong and like stabilize the time in these areas because they're really so fleeting and chaotic. You can only just sort of grasp onto them and then you're, you're drawn back so if you can sort of prolong it. But I think there's another question there as to the, why is it that our brain or consciousness disallows us to retain what it was we learn in that that other time right so most people who have done acid say like they really can't remember anything but something is retained because they learned something from it. So there's a question of memory and retention is that, you know, in terms of senses you just can't remember anything it's protection, but then other people you know report their OCD suddenly gone and they don't want to smoke cigarettes anymore so there is something has been retained. So I think there's something interesting there. Are you familiar with the near death experience science the work that's been done there. You know, there's some of it that again just kind of swapping stories now that I think you'd find interesting along these lines that we're talking about one, particularly jumps to mind I use it all the time but it's from a British researcher PhD in nursing. And she worked in the critical care unit of a hospital for a long time and came up with a rather novel experiment that's been replicated since where she went to people in cardiac arrest board, who had experienced cardiac arrest and had clinically died. And the important thing there is from this back to this hard problem of consciousness, you know, consciousness is an emergent property of the brain physiologically after cardiac arrest we have as good a handle as we're going to get on what goes on. We've studied that for a long time in humans and animals, and we think we understand what's going on so it could change but we think we understand, and we don't think it's your brain is in a state that can create memories or create these kind of radically conscious experiences that people report. So she goes to him and she says, Okay, you just died. Tell me what your and tell me what your resuscitation was like. So she's got a group of patients right so she has 60 patients. 30 of them have had an NDE 30 of them didn't have an NDE. She goes to all of them she goes tell me what your resuscitation is like. And the ones that didn't have an NDE they're like, Lady, what are you talking about. I was dead, right, nothing black. Not I don't know anything. She goes tell me tell me what you think just tell me what you think they go. Okay, well I think this and this and that like out of the TV show. They have 30 that had a near death experience, and they are able to recount it exactly. They go is crazy I was immediately I was shot up and I was on the outside corner of the room, or I was right next to the doctor, or I was two feet under but then I moved above my body. They put a wheel in this cart and they put the paddles on me but the paddles weren't working and then they were frantic and this, they're going into exact detail of what happened to them during resuscitation. This. So we can deal with the time part, which also comes into it because I have all these extraordinary experiences and like you that come back and go, you know, it was five minutes it wasn't, you know what you think it was like two days or whatever. It also kind of challenges us in terms of even the question of what we are processing in that extended realm, and what we can bring back, because here's a point where people are bringing back very vivid memories, but then they're also at times. Kind of echoing exactly what you're saying. Then they go because in very not invariably but sometimes then people transcend to this other, you know, super extended reality and they'll say things like every question before I could even verbalize it in my head or and I felt like I knew everything. And now I can't tell you, I just tell you that I have this internal knowing, like you said, and my life is like this and their life isn't always better. Also, they have integration problems, much higher rate of divorce, much higher rate of physical problems, a lot of times. So there's the people who have really studied the near death experience and the after effects of it. It does provide an interesting lens, but it's not easily kind of chopped and parsed and that. What do you think of that and then we'll talk more about that. It's tough. It's tough. I mean, I always going to assess consciousness from, from what we can use because otherwise, and I don't think that's a scientific thing I think that's a practical practical thing. So I mean this is like going back to Heidegger I think just to give one example of the way I would begin to assess is same things such as like between physiology and consciousness I think these are sort of unhelpful because they're already these conceptions that are made up by us to explain something else external to us so it's like we can sort of bind to our own bias and I think Heidegger is the one one of the few philosophers who really, really, really strives to make sure that he is not falling back upon his own biases. You know I'm beginning from the absolute base of being he's then defines man as Dasein which is just there is or basically sort of it's bad I just can't remember it. I spoke about it just the other day, but the primary point to remember of Dasein is that Heidegger begins by saying okay well one thing that is primary to us which is super super important about you could say being where you could say consciousness is we are beings, which investigate our own being. That is sort of his starting point is we do know this because we already what we're doing when we're doing this is assessing it. So what does that said, you know tell us about things and I think to begin from there and I think my problem with the reason I probably haven't read a lot of the consciousness literature is that I think it just does seem to me that so many people have had these experiences where they've they've gone elsewhere or done this or this or this. They're so deep this just so different. You know the only one I've heard of is that monks who meditate almost all of them end up believing in reincarnation. And I think it's in. We need to pay attention to when there is a pattern. I think that would be the important thing is to try sort of. My problem I think is, I think that our language our scientific language is incompatible with where we go. And I've, you know, in an episode of hands burning he said the absolute can't be known. And I would always take the pessimistic view, some could say it's pessimistic or, you know, individuals who have this these experiences, they get the knowledge they get it, they made the bridge that it's a it's a subjective intuition to them. There's a way where that communication is going to be universally bridged for us. I don't, you know, I just don't think that's that's a thing. I don't know that sort of a cop out answer and a bit depressing but that's where I sort of stand on it is that it's, you know, that's not going to happen I don't think we're ever going to be able to sort of logically explain what's going on over there because we don't have that we don't have that compatibility in a in our minds to be able to do that. See, therein lies the the the problem with I think philosophy to a certain extent. No, really, I mean, I know maybe poking the bear there a little bit but it's like, Ultimately, we do have a need for some grounding. We, we, most of us have a need for some grounding in something that is like science, some kind of organized systematic empirical way of measuring and figuring out what those measurements mean. You know, so I think we like the idea that we can collect 1000 or 2000 like Dr. Jeffrey Long has near death experiences and then catalog them and understand them and say 96% of people that come back from a near death experience no longer fear dying versus in the general population. It's one of the most pronounced fears that they have, or, you know, 76% of people see deceased relatives, you know, so we want to measure almost by our nature and that draws us to science. When the philosopher comes along and says, there's a certain denial of that in a way that I think is hard to is hard to take because we do want to measure, even if we understand the inadequacies of it what what do you what do you think about that James. Um, I mean, I would say that there is philosophers who have actually tackled this problem. Henri Berg's on specifically is a philosopher of specifics, he always wanted to make sure that we're being very great throughout about our assessments and this is one of the things I think committees. My podcast is trying to bridge is that these things are ignored and that they're drawn back into this this sort of suppressive language of philosophy where you do need them a more holistic approach. And the combination between these things is where, where it begins to get interesting because if you remain just in the, you know, like the consciousness sphere I think they get a bit caught up and it's like, well, you know, for instance, young is, you know, I find young so fascinating because that mixture between occultism and someone who's, you know, really understands human psyche is, you know, far more. Progressive in terms of if someone truly wants to, you know, heal themselves as saying, if you want to if you want to heal yourself and you're just stuck within the language of psychology. Well then you're only you're also stuck with, you know, the, the, the cures that they offer, which aren't very good because you're only remaining in sort of one sphere of existence. And what might be happening to you might be happening on a far greater level. And I think that, you know, that's why. But in terms of sort of tackling head on why philosophy is sort of stuck. Yeah, I can't do that. No, and it's not fair to maybe I was but but I'm wait I got to poke you one more time before I let you go here and poke it twice actually. Okay. John Michael Greer. Fascinating guy. And you guys, I don't want to say you guys, but people like him, I so admire in so many ways, and he has taken this whole dialogue about the myth of progress and advanced it in a way that kind of brings an undeniable reality to the situation that that level zero kind of person you're talking about just needs to needs to have it jammed in their face, I guess I feel and maybe that's what you were saying at the beginning is you just want to go and go. Bullshit. I mean, you're just not looking at some of the basic real data that we have on that. And that's what I think to your credit and to, you know, some of the folks you have on the show. John Michael Greer, believe some stuff about global warming that isn't isn't verifiable scientifically and worse yet back to my level to conspiracy thing seems to have been tainted by forces that want to push that narrative in another way. So like when Al Gore 25 years ago stood on that kind of thing where he was in the movie and he raised up and he had a little pointer and he said, This is where temperatures are and this is where CO2 is going and look out. Well, you don't even have to be you can be a level zero kind of person to go out. We're 25 years on the oceans have not risen, which is the only measure we are after look at. I mean, where you live, measured the title rise and the level of the ocean for hundreds of years. It's not that complicated to do. It hasn't risen. They go back and they can look at the ice caps and the ice core things they do they can go back and look hundreds of thousands of years, and they'll tell you long steady levels for a long time but then you know big changes also. So when when John Michael Greer can't get that right. That is a red flag for me he can't course correct he can't say gee I was wrong about global warming, but here's how I here's how I process that now. But the second thing I want him to say is, I was wrong about global warming because I got bullshitted I got played by a globalist force that wants to advance certain issues that can only be solved globally. And that whether you like that or not whether you it is it is definitely a political kind of thing. And the other side of that is not like good you know I'm not saying the fascist kind of nationalist thing is good in any way. I'm just saying, unless we understand those two forces politically and how they're corrupting the data, how they're corrupting our ability to try and understand the data. And that is conspiratorial. And unless we can approach it from a conspiratorial standpoint, we don't have the beginning thing to launch off and make a whole bunch of assumptions about environmentalism and about the myth, even the myth of progress. We have to then step back and go okay. What does that really mean if I'm wrong about global warming. And what does that mean about how I was duped about global warming. Part of that you want to watch out to me specifically with great. I'm not sure he's entirely wrong about global warming because he did come at it he's comes at it, sort of with the angle of truury which is more of a, a respect for nature as opposed to the, you know, I really think a lot of the one of my big problems with the climate change argument is that it's just underneath it's a very selfish argument to the ownership of the globe like we need to stop it because it's our earth and it's like well, even if you don't stop it the earth keeps going you know whether or not it's true I'm not going to get into that debate but let's just play devil's advocate and say that these things are going to happen it's all going to rise up and temperatures, you know, oceans rise up etc etc. We're only doing that for our own benefit. I don't really think it's because we care about the earth because if we care about the earth a lot of the things that we need to do to stop climate change we would already do. So I think Greer is coming at it more more of a like, instead of saying that the people who would say, oh no it's fine to cut down the rainforest but make sure you put up some, some renewable sources of energy there instead of coal mines. I think Greer is more along the lines of, don't cut down the forest, we don't need to, you're caught up in a consumerist game, you know, which, which you don't need to do at all, you know we don't need all this modern tech. So I'd say he's coming at it from that direction. That's where I'm kind of jumping three levels into the conversation I got to quit saying levels because I'm going to confuse people, but it's like, that is the brilliance of the point that he makes and I think the way you articulated what articulated was particularly good. And that's the part that I want to go jam in the face of the level zero people. And I also want to jam the science in their face and say, you think you're driving your Prius and you're saving the earth, even with inside the confines of your own ridiculous. The scientific understanding of it, you're not you're generating more CO2 with your fricking Prius. Yeah, yeah. But so, but the real point behind all that I think that isn't isn't exposed by a lot of people who are in the kind of soft sciences, including philosophy but also including a lot of the other soft sciences is the point that you made that I'm not going to get into the debate about climate change, which is a psi up in and of itself right because it's really about global warming, and they've managed to kind of change the language which we all know was a powerful way of kind of control. This is this is one thing that's one thing I wanted to just put in there before we go further. These are what I call. In linguistic theory, I'm not I don't know I might get this completely wrong. It's maybe a linguist might hear this and go, God, this guy's right off. But in linguistic theory, there's an idea that the thing called a free floating signifier. So signifier is is a word or you signify something you say a tree. We will have an image of a tree in our head. However, you have these things with free floating signifiers which are basically signifiers which then they're just flowing. They don't mean so much to so many so many different things to so many different people that they're basically meaning postmodernism is a great one, or even modernity is getting in there right. But science is a class science right exactly what I was going to say exactly what I was going to say especially with all the corona stuff going on. My point I'm trying to make with this is everything that we're talking about here is really about control and power because in the crown of the crown is a great example because in the news here in the UK you hear things like my favorite one they say and they say every single news cycle without fail. I would actually put mine or all money I have them to say that every single, you know, daily news broadcast features it, which is experts, the experts, the experts agree. Back up 10 steps, which experts, why the experts, why do we need these experts, you know, and they're talking about like coronavirus spreading whatever you think about coronavirus, the statement, the experts have said this is absolutely meaningless. Same with the scientists agree or science says right it's absolutely meaningless and these are basically now like this is power language because people just offload that personal responsibility and individual responsibility onto these words and they understand them as things which will keep them safe. There's sort of, you know, the Ernest Becker argument of civilization is there just to lead us away from the fact that we're going to die. These are also just words to lead us away from the fact that we are still responsible for our own well being and, you know, and no amount, you know, which is why I think people get people are actually becoming quite ill is because they're constantly caught up in the paradox of they they inherited this idea that the scientists are right, but they're consistently wrong. And, you know, same with experts. So you just sort of caught in absolute hypocrisy, but as Delos and Guatari say, you know, God, I forgot my, like my favorite quote. Nothing ever died of contradictions right it just keeps going this sort of absurd madness just keeps going. Nothing dies of contradictions what but what do you end up with this strange oppressive mutation where you just go scientists said it. Wait, so that means we have to do it. Yep. Well, you know, I think we're running out of time you have a time limit. I've got about 10 more 10 more minutes. Okay, well, then let's move towards that. Then I will throw out the question. Because in a way, what we're both trying to do here. And there's so many points that you just made that I could go but how do we find terra firma you know how do we find the ground that we stand on from where we can at least approach some of these topics like when you know, if you're a death thing, in a way, I almost feel like you brushed us brushed that brushed over that too quickly is because it is fundamentally maybe the only thing, you know, that is really at play here. And so we can't go to the next thing and say, and you know this is another you know, no, it's like that's internally that's what it's all about. That's what the from the Eastern perspective. That's how we've built all these are is that constitute our definition of who we are. This is the this is the huge problem of the modern day is that the only reason things can mean anything is when is if they're putting a finite framework, which is which is eventually going to end. What does your family mean. If you know that one day you're going to die, which then makes you think right so I need to, you know, build up something for them. I need to teach these lessons and keep that going and build a great family or you know what does this project mean if one day I'm not going to be here or the project will end. The problem is, it's a schizophrenic problem, because the schizophrenic doesn't adhere to any show of this. So the schizophrenic goes beyond death, because it doesn't have anything that's going to die. This is the problem of the modern day is that everything that we're in all institutions, the media, social media, everything teaches us to live, not in the present in the Eastern sense, but in the what I call the nano present right just the smallest iteration of a new cycle. You know, like what we're talking about today. This, this, this, this, right, you forgot about like, I always list things that people are probably you know like Brexit, we're on about breaks fear and it's gone, or black lives matter before corona, or you know, corona, and now it's the election and it's like all these things are just forgotten in an instant. And this, this really removes the position of purpose and meaning for man, because you don't end up, you completely forget that you're you're you exist on a finite time scale. I remember that I think it's important, super super important to remember that but the modernity hates death and suffering. It sees them as bugs, not features, right, but reality, it wants to get rid of. Don't disagree with you on that. I just wonder if the problem is more fundamental and getting back to the kind of nature of consciousness question you know, one of the spiritual questions to the spiritual kind of little quips that I like is one, the spiritual path is easy for one with no preferences. And the related one to that is, you know, who am I, and who have I become. So we are all making these assessments about what we like, what we don't like, who we are. And that has created this image of who we are. So I almost feel like when we say, you know, modernity, I get it, we all understand it, we all understand the oppressive force, but it's really just a substitute for the experience that particularly I'm drawing to kind of some of the these have kind of pointed out all along. It's like, no man, it's not really modernity, you just created this shit, you've created this shit by being so attached to one, the thoughts that you've created, but to the experiences that you've had that you misinterpreted, right, because, you know, it's the classic you see the stick on the ground on your walk and you think it's a snake and then you recoil because you thought there was a snake on the ground. There's no fucking snake there, but you've processed it now as a snake, and you're going to have to unprocess that if there is some getting clean that is desirable at some point, you know, so is the eastern approach. Does it kind of kind of jump over a lot of these perceived problems with modernity and met the progress kind of issues. I think it does, but I, I agree with the drama Congress is that people should only do drugs from their, their nation, you know, whether they're, whether they're brought up, you know, from their area of the world. So if you're, if you're a European, you should just sort of drink alcohol and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. I think the same is true of spiritual traditions. And I have any Westerner who I've met who's really like, oh, I'm really into Buddhism. So it was a sort of tainted Buddhism. And I think that that spirituality brushes over all that stuff because they're just different. They are actually quite different in a good way in a good way. But I think when Westerners take that on, they usually bastardize it and find a way to have this, you know, this still Western like, oh, I'm a Buddhist, but you're still within modernity and it just turns into this strange thing. So I would say is, if you know, you have a conclusion spiritual conclusion in mind in which you're deconstructing modernity, et cetera. You can do that from the position of the Westerner. And I think you have to do that from the position of the Westerner, because you'll bring you instead of introducing a new language like you are with Buddhism and a new idea. You begin to deconstruct what it is you've built yourself, which I think is more, you know, that's more productive thing to do as opposed to just, right, I've got this problem. Instead of deconstructing the problem itself with what I've built. I'll just throw something on top of it. It's like, no, no, no, you don't need that other thing. You need to work with a, you know, you need to, you know, why did you build up this idea that you need a mortgage or whatever it is. Why do you, you know, feel like you need the super-duper mattress? Why is it, you know, societally weird to sleep on the floor, for instance? You know, and begin there. Again, our guest has been James Ellis, the very, very imaginative and deep, deep thinker host of Hermitix podcast. And let's pull up his blog there that you're going to want to check out, Meta Nomad. So, James, so awesome talk to you. And like I said, let's make this part one of an ongoing dialogue. Super, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks again to James Ellis for joining me today on Skeptico. One question I'd tee up from this interview. Is philosophy swamped by science? Is there inability to dive in, deep dive, the way we've been talking about on this show for a while? Does that undermine some of their strongest positions? I don't know. James makes a strong case for the deep thinking philosopher that he is, and he's pulling together a lot of interesting pieces from a perspective that's quite unique. So, maybe that's the counter punch to that. Let me know your thoughts, of course. The place to do it is the Skeptico forum. Come join me over there. Lots of great shows coming up. Stay with me for all of that. Until next time, take care. Bye for now.