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I want to begin with just a short anecdote about my own first foray into philosophy.

I was a freshman at Caltech, you know, physics major.

And, you know, the required humanities classes that we had to take.

And so I took this philosophy class.

I was excited about it, the idea of diving into deep fundamental thoughts.

And but I was immediately dismayed just because the class just felt very, it didn't feel like a good class for a lot of reasons.

And the strongest memory I have of it is it was a historical survey.

It started with Descartes.

And now, having studied philosophy, I love Descartes.

There's something really amazing about what he's doing.

But the way it was presented to us is, you know, Descartes basically said, ignore everything

you know, be completely skeptical. We don't even know if the real world exists, the physical

world exists. And in the context of what I was an undergraduate, the way the professor presented

this is like, what if we're all just brains and boxes? What if we're all living in the matrix or, I was an undergraduate, the way the professor presented this is like,

what if we're all just brains and boxes? What if we're all living in the matrix where,

you know, these batteries hooked up to a machine? How do we know the real world exists?

And as a physics major, sitting around looking at chemistry majors and engineers and biologists.

I mean, there were some mathematicians there, so who knows what they were thinking.

But most of us were there at Caltech to study the real world, to study the physical world

and understand the physical structure of things.

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