Weirdness with Eric Schwitzgebel

Overthink

Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Education

4.7 • 549 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All metaphysical theories are…really weird. In episode 134 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with Eric Schwitzgebel about his book Weirdness of the World. They think through the difference between weirdness and bizarreness, the nonsensical nature of philosophical theories, and whether we should all just agree with Occam’s razor that the simplest explanation is always best.Is the recent theory that we’re all living in a simulation really that strange? Is it stranger than the idealist metaphysics of Plato or the atomism of Lucretius? And why are philosophical theories doomed to weirdness? Are we the weird ones, or do we just live in a weird world? In the bonus your hosts talk about the butterfly effect and the infinitude of the universe, and how neurodivergent traits can be rewarded in philosophy.

Works Discussed:
Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy
Eric Schwitzgebel, Weirdness of the World

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, and welcome to Overthink.
0:19.0	The podcast where two weirdos connect philosophy to your
0:22.3	everyday lives. I'm Dr. David Pena Guzman. And I'm Dr. Ellie Anderson. We've talked about
0:29.7	awkwardness before on Overthink, but today we're talking about a related concept, weirdness,
0:36.2	and a related concept to that, which is bizarreness. However,
0:40.6	whereas our awkwardness episode was a lot about our social lives, today's episode is going to be
0:46.4	more about the world around us and how we relate to it. Because it turns out the world is
0:53.0	really weird. And every single theory that we have about the world
0:57.4	from the most well accepted to the most fringe is also weird, at least according to the
1:03.6	guests we're going to be speaking to today. So I'd love for us to start by thinking a little bit
1:08.8	about what weirdness is and setting us up for some
1:12.0	of the weird ideas that we're going to get into later in the episode.
1:16.4	David, when you think of the word weird, I know you've read the book and we'll talk about
1:20.2	our author's definition of it in a moment, but let's keep that to the side for now.
1:24.7	When do you think of the word weird, what do you think of?
1:26.6	I think of something unexpected, somebody who is creepy and bizarre, and especially if it's
1:34.6	about a person, it's somebody that I just don't know how to engage.
1:37.9	Okay.
1:38.6	Okay.
1:39.3	I think about it in maybe initially neutral terms.
1:42.1	Like, I think about it as like a funky hair color, you know, and like a cool nail polish.
1:49.2	And it's like, oh, that person's weird.
	...

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