 Welcome to the very first episode of Patterson in Pursuit. I am your host, Steve Patterson, and if you've been following my work, you know that I have been playing up this project for quite a while, and finally it's here. I'm super excited about it, and I know many of you are as well. And so I want to briefly tell you what you are about to listen to. So let's start with the two big questions, who am I, and what is this podcast about? Well I am an independent philosopher working outside of academia. I write books, articles, I produce videos that all cover big ideas, but before you stick your fingers in your ears. Most people, for really good reason, when they hear the term philosophy, they immediately, their eyes glaze over and they stop listening to whoever said the word philosophy. And I am very sympathetic to this because modern philosophy is a bunch of pretentious nonsense that makes virtually no difference in the world. However, not all philosophy needs to be like that. This is why I'm working outside of academia. I try to focus on ideas that I find genuinely important, like, is there such a thing as objective truth? Can we know about it? Can we have certainty? What is the nature of consciousness? Is there a God? What are numbers? Does quantum physics show that our minds fundamentally cannot grasp the nature of reality? I'm also really interested in political questions. So how should we organize our societies? Do we need to have a big government, a small government, or maybe no government? And how important is something like economics for developing our political worldview? And I'm very interested in an area of thought that is pretty much universally derided in the modern intellectual world, and that's religion. What is the big fuss about religion? Is there any truth to the world religions, or is every single religion just a gigantic pile of nonsense? Do we need religion to try to answer questions like, what's the meaning of life? Or can we get answers to those questions without religion? All of these questions, I think, are extremely important, and I am trying to actively discover the answer, and that's precisely what this podcast is about. It's essentially my own Socratic journey, plus a microphone and an internet connection. So I have all these questions in my mind, and I am going to be interviewing intellectuals from around the world to try to find the answer. My wife and I have packed up all of our belongings, we've sold most of our stuff, and we are traveling the world. I'm taking the pursuit of truth seriously, and I'm not ashamed at all to say it. I'll be talking to professors, mathematicians, theologians, philosophers, scientists, anybody that I think I can actually learn something from. Hence the title of the podcast, Patterson in Pursuit. I am in the pursuit of truth. Like I said before, I am an active philosopher, which means I have my own fairly strongly held worldview. I don't have all the answers to all these questions, but I have some answers. I'm pretty convinced, and I'm willing to put these ideas to the test. So if it turns out I'm wrong about these ideas, I have nothing to hide, that's great. I'll get one step closer to truth if I discover that my own worldview is wrong, and I'm sure it will be valuable to everybody listening as well. My wife and I are going to be traveling for up to a couple of years, and I'm hoping that in that time we can build a little community, a little philosophic community around this project. Where you guys can ask me questions to ask other people or ask me questions directly. I really want to try to take advantage of this short window of time before my wife and I settle down and have kids, where I can try to maximize the intellectual value creation possible. So that's enough introduction about me. You'll learn more about my own background, my own philosophy as we get into the series. The journey officially begins Episode 2, which is when I get to talk to a philosopher from my alma mater. I think it would be most appropriate if I began this journey at the place where I got my underwhelming undergraduate education. So thanks for listening. I think you guys are going to really enjoy this series. Make sure to subscribe in iTunes and Stitcher so you can join me every single week on the pursuit of truth.