Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")

Very Bad Wizards

Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro

Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2018

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the famous words of the idealist philosopher George Berkeley, "To exist is to be perceived." Our ideas and perceptions are the fundamental objects in the universe; there is no real world beyond them. Hume wrote (I think) that Berkeley's arguments don't admit of the slightest refutation, and they don't inspire the slightest conviction. On Earth, that may be true. On Tlön, it's false – the people there are "congenital idealists." Their language, philosophy, literature, and religion presuppose idealism. It's their common sense. And their philosophy starts to encroach on their reality. But what happens when we read and hear about Tlön – can their idealism invade our "real" world? Will we start to lose our metaphysical bearings? David and Tamler talk about Borges's invasive, unsettling story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." Please listen so we can exist!

(And speaking of things that may or may not exist, we also discuss the metaphysics of holes.)

This episode is brought to you by GiveWell and the generous support of our listeners.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Very bad wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro,
0:06.1	having an informal discussion about issues and signs and ethics.
0:09.5	Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm out of allow to say,
0:13.8	and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.
0:17.1	From the widest galley to the deepest trench,
0:20.3	holds to find who we are and where we are going.
0:24.3	The lady on his phone,
0:30.7	a new artist, and tonight, man behind the curtain.
0:35.0	Who are you?
0:42.2	Who are you?
0:44.2	I'm very bad man.
0:45.2	I'm a very good man.
0:47.2	Good man.
0:48.2	Welcome to very bad wizards.
1:14.6	I'm Tamler Summers from the University of Houston.
1:18.2	Dave, today we're going to start out talking about the existence of holes.
1:24.6	Can you please try to keep your mind out of the gutter for this one?
1:28.8	You know I'm Dave Pizarro from Cornell University.
1:31.0	In my defense, I genuinely had not even thought about that.
1:35.6	I was sure you had.
1:37.2	I really had until you texted it.
1:40.2	And now it's like, oh, that's why you were so excited.
	...

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