Alex O'Connor and Dr. K: Why a meaning crisis is breaking us

Steven Bartlett 0:00 Nine in ten young people in the UK believe that their life is lacking purpose, and a lot of people are turning back to religion. There is something going on.

Greg Koukl 0:07 This is about the most important thing that anyone could ever find out about their life, and God has made us for a purpose, and the purpose flows from that meaning.

Alex O’Connor 0:15 I kind of reject that 'cause this is a perfect example of a solution being provided without explaining exactly why it provides a solution, and that's what people are doing in religious traditions.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 0:25 I hard disagree. For me, finding meaning and purpose is, like, a very practical thing.

Steven Bartlett 0:29 And that's what I wanna talk about today.

Narrator 0:31 We are joined by an atheist, Christian, and spiritual thinker...

Steven Bartlett 0:34 ... to find an answer to the purpose crisis millions are facing today.

Greg Koukl 0:38 One of the reasons that I'm a Christian is because it's the best explanation for the way things are.

Alex O’Connor 0:42 But if Christianity were true, we would not expect the kind of suffering that is present in the world.

Steven Bartlett 0:47 So, I'm very curious, what if I died f- from cancer at one years old?

Greg Koukl 0:50 So, someone violated God's commands and that had an impact on the world.

Alex O’Connor 0:54 So, children get cancer because a few million years ago-

Greg Koukl 0:56 Yeah, well-

Alex O’Connor 0:56 ... someone ate a fruit. If you want religion to provide existential comfort for people who are suffering, you have to do more in the face of children dying of cancer than some reference to mythical human beings.

Greg Koukl 1:06 But if your worldview does not have a way of making sense or our moral intuitions about suffering, it's not an adequate worldview.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:13 What I would say that science and spirituality can really add is it's effective in terms of reducing suicidality, improving resilience, giving them a reason to wake up in the morning, and we'll get into that.

Steven Bartlett 1:23 And Alok, if someone's listening now and they feel lost in their life, is there any advice that you could give them?

Alex O’Connor 1:27 So, as an atheist, I'm offering a psychological explanation, so I would recommend that they (censored) .

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:32 You're spot on, Alex. So, the first thing to understand is it is an internal feeling. We found in our study that if you (censored) , your sense of purpose increases by 68%.

Steven Bartlett 1:47 Alok, Greg, Alex. The reason I wanted to speak to all three of you today is to discuss meaning and purpose, and there's some stats that I wanted to share that kind of frame the discussion. Three in five young Americans believe that their life lacks purpose. Nine in ten young people in the UK believe that their life is lacking purpose. And when I look across other stats as it relates to things like mental health, 59% of Brits said they lived a meaningful life compared to just 25% who said they did not. In an October 21 survey, 34% of men in the UK said life had no meaning compared to 18% of women, and 50% of the same group who said that their lives lack purpose and meaning said that their

Steven Bartlett 2:32 poor mental health was linked to not knowing what to do with their life.

Greg Koukl 2:35 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 2:36 And to give some further stats, which I found really interesting, around the rise of religiosity, in the UK, a belief in God amongst 18 to 24-year-olds has risen from 18% in 2021 to 37% in 2025, according to YouGov. And in the UK, monthly church attendance has risen from 4% up to 15% in 2025. There is something going on-

Greg Koukl 2:57 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 2:58 ... and that's what I wanna talk about today. But before we do that, I'd love to understand the perspective that all of you bring to this conversation. So, if I start with yourself, Alok.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 3:07 You know, it's, it's interesting, you mentioned a lot about mental health. I'm a psychiatrist. So for me, finding meaning and purpose is, like, a very practical thing, so literally a patient will come into my office, they'll say, "I have no reason to live. There's, there's noth- nothing worth it in life. I am suicidal, I want to kill myself." So, I have a job as a clinician to, like, fix that problem in a very, like, practical way. So I've got, you know, a couple of weeks, hopefully 15, 20 weeks, to teach them how to find purpose. And so usually the way that I approach that is there's, there's a lot of sort of evidence-based scientific approaches to finding purpose. I think those tend to work really well, but I'm, I'm sure as my philosopher colleagues will, will point out and tear me apart, you know, science

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 3:53 has a lot of shortcomings. And so then what I, I tend to find works incredibly well is adding a certain degree of spiritual practice to that, and usually when we put those two things together, things work. And th- the real proof point for me was when I started streaming, 10,000 people reached out to me in one month asking, "Hey, like, do you have room in your private practice?" And so I started to think about, okay, if this is a methodology, then can it be taught? So I started this coaching program and what we found in our pilot study of 1,453 people is that if you stick with the program for about 20 weeks, your sense of purpose increases by 68%. I'd love to hear from my colleagues, but I, I think, you know, if someone asks me, "What is the meaning of life?" I, I don't know. But if someone says, "I have no meaning. Can you help me with that?" The answer is absolutely yes.

Steven Bartlett 4:42 Mm-hmm. And I want to attempt to just define two terms that you said there. One is purpose, and it doesn't have to be a perfect definition, but roughly what you mean by that, and then you said you introduced spiritual practice. What did you mean by that?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 4:54 So, what I think about is purpose is, uh, using something called factor analysis. So if you ask someone, "Do you have direction in life? Do you have purpose in life? Is there meaning in life?" all three of those things cluster together to some thing. Even being in control correlates with that, so if you are in control of your life, your sense of purpose will increase. So there are a lot of these, like, words that we use, but all of these words tie back to some internal sense of what is happening in your life. So, that's how I would des- uh, describe purpose. In

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 5:29 terms of spiritual practices, what my experience is is that if you look at human beings who say they have purpose and human beings who don't have purpose, their lived experiences in life are different. So when I work with survivors of trauma, they have certain experiences, like literally we can scientifically sort of measure this, you have a particular experience which destroys your sense of meaning in the world. I had a patient once who was attacked in a bathroom for about five minutes, and-... in five minutes, this person had a sense of what they were doing in life, was dating, was doing well in college, had loving parents, and in five minutes, their compass for navigating the world was shattered.

Steven Bartlett 6:10 Hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 6:12 So if we sort of think about experience can lead to a loss of purpose, experience can also lead to a gain in purpose. Now, the spiritual tradition that I come from is all about particular practices that evoke certain subjective experiences. And as people have those experiences, their sense of purpose increases. And this is where I think there's a major shortcoming of science. So science can tell you what you should do, but it doesn't create experiences in and of itself, right? So we can scientifically understand that the highest risk factor for pornography addiction is having no meaning in life, but even if we know that, that doesn't help us, like, fix the problem, and there's always a question of how. Like, so we can discover something with science, but then there's a question of how do we actually, like, move from point A to point B? And that's where I find spiritual practice is incredibly helpful.

Steven Bartlett 7:06 Mm-hmm. Would you classify yourself as religious? Or s-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 7:10 Yes, I think so.

Steven Bartlett 7:12 Okay. Gregg.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 7:12 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 7:13 What is the perspective you bring to this conversation and what's the, the lived experience, the academia that, um, lends itself to that perspective?

Greg Koukl 7:21 Yeah, there's a whole bunch of that fitting in and I relate to a lot what you're saying, uh, Alok, about people's challenges. Now, what's interesting to me about this whole discussion, since I'm a Christian, uh, and I understand the world from a theistic perspective because I think it's the best explanation for the way things are-

Steven Bartlett 7:39 Just to give a definition to that, um, theistic, what does that mean?

Greg Koukl 7:43 A personal God.

Steven Bartlett 7:44 A God.

Greg Koukl 7:45 There is a personal God who is involved with the world. He made the world and He still maintains activity, as opposed to deistic which just wound up the clock and let it go, okay? So m- my view is God is still involved. In fact, so involved that He actually came to Earth

Greg Koukl 8:01 in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to create a rescue plan. Now what's interesting to me about this broader question, we can get into more details too, is that it's not, if there is a God who made the world for a purpose with meaning, people can participate in that meaning and purpose even if they don't know God. They're not, they won't be experiencing what they were made for which is to be in friendship with Him, with the plan that He's made for their flourishing, but they still can flourish in some measure insofar as they touch on these objective features. But insofar as we are able, even without belief in God, to kind of get in that groove of the things that God made us for, the purposes that He intends, in light of being made like Him in some way in His image, there's gonna be a measure of satisfaction, but what they'll be missing is, is the ultimate and that is that friendship with God and being restored in that.

Steven Bartlett 8:55 Alex.

Alex O’Connor 8:56 Yes, sir.

Steven Bartlett 8:57 Same question for you about your, what you bring to this, uh, conversation in terms of your perspective, your experience, and s- maybe some of your sort of personal journey.

Alex O’Connor 9:05 Well, for, for my own part, I was quite swept up in the new atheism movement, uh, which was a mid-2000s publishing phenomenon with the likes of the Dawkins and the Hitchens of the world saying that religion is evil and terrible, and I think promising an alternative, a kind of secular humanist utopia that if you'll only throw off these oppressive religious systems, you will regain your spiritual autonomy and be able to assert yourself and the intrinsic meaning that you have within yourself. People tried that and it didn't seem to work, uh, and I think that's because the new atheist movement was quite philosophically shallow. It didn't seriously engage with the existential

Alex O’Connor 9:45 component of religious belief and why it exists in the first place, and I think that is why it exists. I think humans are in a strange predicament. Due to the mystery of consciousness, we find ourselves possibly uniquely amongst other animals in a position of being mortal, being physically embodied, being in a world, but also knowing those things. And it's one thing to experience the world, it's one thing to be, it's another thing to be aware that you're experiencing it. Uh, Josh Rasmussen once said, "There's a difference between noticing a tree and noticing that you've noticed a tree."

Steven Bartlett 10:20 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 10:20 We have this sort of second order of abstraction that we can do. So we know that death is coming, for example, and death makes a mockery of everything that we do, it seems to just obliterate any sense of purpose or meaning because anything that we're building will ultimately, as far as we're concerned, be gone, and that may well be unique to human beings. And so I'm not the first to suggest that the principle motivating factor behind meaning-infused activities that humans do is an engagement in death denial or some kind of immortality project. People literally, for fear of, as a result of the knowledge that this will come to an end, engage in what we might call immortality projects. They engage in things which will outlast themselves which give them a sense of escaping this death. The most obvious example is in religious traditions which literally promise immortality for your own soul, but if you look just practically at where people subjectively report finding meaning, they find it in their children. They might find it in their job, but they're unlikely to find it in their job if they're doing something they don't really care about. They'll find it in their job, maybe they're a, maybe they're like a barrister and they find a lot of meaning in bringing justice into the world because they're participating in a system which they believe will outlast them and is bigger than them. So when people talk about meaning, we talk about transcendence, you know, something being above and beyond their own sort of material, uh, situation, and I think religion is the, is, is the, the archetypal example of this and I think it's why it evolves in the first place.

Steven Bartlett 11:54 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 11:54 There is this idea that we are living in a meaning crisis that has cropped up maybe in the past 100 years or so, or maybe in the la- last few hundred years or so as a response to the Enlightenment and the decline of religion. I think that's far too easy. I think that's way too easy. I think that...... if there is such thing as a meaning crisis, it is literally the human condition-

Greg Koukl 12:13 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 12:13 ... and the reason why these projects were invented in the first place. I think literally speaking, what people are doing in religious traditions is realizing the finitude of their existence, and therefore trying to commune with something-

Greg Koukl 12:25 Can I add a thought to this?

Alex O’Connor 12:25 ... less finite. Of course.

Greg Koukl 12:27 We have this hunger, and I, I have no reason to believe that any naturalistic explanation can explain the consciousness's hunger for meaning and significant, 'cause that's all propositional. It's not molecules in motion.

Steven Bartlett 12:43 What's naturalistic mean?

Greg Koukl 12:44 Naturalistic just means nature, and that's all there is basically. So you have, uh, molecules in motion, largely governed by natural law. There is no outside transcendent anything, there's no immaterial anything, certainly not an immaterial God

Greg Koukl 13:01 that has started the process and sustains the process and gives life meaning. There either is meaning objectively or not, okay? If not, then it's up to us.

Alex O’Connor 13:13 For example, a moment ago you said that if there is a creator God who brings us into existence then you are designed, and you are given purpose by God. And I think we need to investigate this a bit further.

Greg Koukl 13:26 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 13:27 Because, for example, uh, a quite sort of boring and overdone debate at the moment is the extent to which we are engaged in the production of potentially artificially conscious agents-

Greg Koukl 13:38 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 13:38 ... with artificial intelligence technologies. And there's all this discussion about whether or not these things can be conscious-

Greg Koukl 13:44 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 13:44 ... like, you know, whatever. Let's just suppose for a moment that they were. Let's suppose that I created an artificially intelligent machine and I gave it a purpose, and that purpose was to produce paperclips. And because of the development of artificial intelligence technology, it became conscious in a recognizable sense. It had an interior sense of self, it sort of had, say, feelings or emotions about the world, but it is just an AI robot whose entire purpose in life is to make paperclips.

Greg Koukl 14:13 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 14:14 Now, I could say that because that AI was designed by a creator with a purpose that was explicitly given to it that that life is meaningful, but I think it would seem to most people that a life whose meaning consists in creating paperclips is not sufficient-

Greg Koukl 14:30 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 14:31 ... is not enough to address what people really want. It's not just some kind of purpose-

Greg Koukl 14:37 Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 14:37 ... it's not just even some kind of purpose which is given to you by an authoritative creative source-

Greg Koukl 14:42 Yeah, so can I respond?

Alex O’Connor 14:42 ... it's something which is further than that. Yeah, but if I can just relate this to the God question-

Greg Koukl 14:47 Okay.

Alex O’Connor 14:47 ... the problem that arises is that you have to answer the question of why God infuses life with the meaning that he gives it.

Greg Koukl 14:53 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 14:54 It's either something which he has sort of arbitrarily plucked up and, and chosen to create-

Greg Koukl 14:58 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 14:58 ... in which case we have this problem of arbitrariness. Or no, or in fact there is some reason why God had to give us a particular kind of meaning that's endemic to the human condition-

Greg Koukl 15:08 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 15:08 ... that he had no choice but for that meaning, that more important kind of meaning to be given to human life.

Greg Koukl 15:13 Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 15:13 But if he was beholden to that, if he had to give us a particular kind of meaning, it seems like there's a standard of meaning which exists outside of-

Greg Koukl 15:20 Right, right, I get that.

Alex O’Connor 15:20 ... outside of God. So, I'm not sure, in other words, the mechanism by which being created by someone who says, "This is your purpose," would be fulfilling-

Greg Koukl 15:29 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 15:29 ... in the way that people want it to be.

Greg Koukl 15:31 The reason the paperclip illustration doesn't match is because it seems to me that you're subtly taking the thing that's conscious that makes paperclips and comparing it to a human being.

Alex O’Connor 15:42 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 15:42 And for human beings who seem to have a different purpose, I would argue, be consigned to make paperclips, well, that's dehumanizing to them. But if you have, just to follow your illustration, if you have a creator that makes something for a reason that the creator has in mind, then it's fulfilling its purpose perfectly, you know? For a human being, that's not going to be satisfying, making paperclips. And a lot of people who are making paperclips-

Alex O’Connor 16:07 Yes. (laughs)

Greg Koukl 16:07 ... are not satisfied with it, okay? I don't think it's arbitrary if God is making something for a purpose. If God decides that he wants to make creatures to be in friendship with him because this reflects his loving character, and that purpose is to be in friendship with him, I don't see how that is somehow negligible or arbitrary at all. I guess you could have said that God could have done otherwise, but his love and desire for communion is seem to be an adequate explanation for that.

Narrator 16:39 This is fascinating.

Alex O’Connor 16:40 Hmm.

Narrator 16:41 Um, so my first question is, what's the point of this conversation?

Steven Bartlett 16:47 Yeah, so I think that the ultimate answer that we're looking for is, it appears that the numbers around purpose and meaning are fluctuating at this moment in time. A lot of people are turning back to religion as, as Alex was, uh, we were just chatting about a second ago. And I guess there's two questions, which is, one, understanding why that's happening-

Narrator 17:05 Cool.

Steven Bartlett 17:05 ... why there's this fluctuation, why we're seeing a mental health crisis around purpose and meaning. And the second is to try and figure out if there's a truth one can arrive at, if there's an objective truth that exists.

Narrator 17:16 Yeah.

Greg Koukl 17:16 Mm-hmm.

Narrator 17:17 So for y'all, I'm curious, when y'all show up here, like, what is the purpose for y'all showing up?

Alex O’Connor 17:23 Literally trying to discover, like, it's the stated purpose, right?

Narrator 17:27 Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 17:27 It's literally just artificially

Alex O’Connor 17:29 given purpose by being designed in, in a particular way. We're gonna get together and we're gonna have a conversation and see if we can figure out this, this meaning stuff, right?

Narrator 17:37 Awesome.

Alex O’Connor 17:38 And by the way, like, we're not gonna solve that problem. I think it's worth pointing out that, like, these conversations have to be exploratory and subjective. If anybody thinks that the four of us sat at this table are going to solve the meaning crisis and give people a five-step guide finding meaning in their life and that will be the sort of case closed, then they're delusional.

Narrator 17:55 I, I don't know if I, I agree that we can't find an answer, but we'll talk about-

Greg Koukl 18:00 Well, this is what I wanted to speak to. It, it, if, um... Obviously, we're talking about this broader issue of meaning and purpose, all right?

Alex O’Connor 18:07 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 18:07 And as I mentioned earlier, there either is an objective one or it's only subjective, okay? If it is an objective one, this is about the most important thing that anyone could ever find out about their life, if they were created for a reason-In my view, the reason I'm here is because I'm convinced that that's the case and I'm willing to give reasons why. Okay? But I don't think... I, I'm sympathetic to the concern that you can't sit around a table and in two or three hours solve the problem for any individual. Because people going through the process of trying to figure these things out, it takes a long time as they put the pieces together. But I think there's a lot of people in the world that think how they have put it together and they've come to conclusions about ultimate meaning and purpose. And they don't come to my own conclusions, but many have. So what I would hate to do is to leave people with the feeling like we can all search and the glory is in the search, but

Greg Koukl 18:58 if you think you've found the answer, then you haven't.

Narrator 19:00 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 19:00 Of course, this to me is a nihilistic enterprise then.

Narrator 19:03 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 19:04 I think it's possible to come to conclusions.

Narrator 19:06 Yeah. So-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 19:06 I think so too, to be clear. But I think, what I'm, what I'm trying to say is this will be something that one will experience for themselves-

Narrator 19:11 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 19:11 ... and will discover for themselves in their own life. It's not gonna be something that... You know, there's that old, um, was it Linchi, the, the, the sort of the Buddhist koan that says, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." The idea being that, you know, if you think that the kind of enlightenment which is necessary to spiritual fulfillment can be found through some kind of guru, um, you're missing the mark. It's something that you need to do for yourself.

Greg Koukl 19:34 But isn't that statement itself meant to be a truth about spirituality that you can actually count on?

Narrator 19:39 Well-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 19:40 Can I jump in? I just wanted to make sure I understand y'all's points. So, so you're saying that the search for pur- purpose, first of all, is never gonna go away. Like, is a human condition, right? Yes. So, ƒ, e, like, like so as humanity, humanity will never find its purpose. I can tell you why if you like. No, no. I, I don't need to know why yet. I think, I think individuals can.

Narrator 19:58 It's-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 19:58 But humanity can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, that's what was... Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I'm just making sure I understand, right? So an individual can find their purpose, but as humanity it's never gonna be solved? And then you said something about purpose being tied to opposing to death in some way, so transcending death, that human beings basically look for purpose because death is inevitable, and if we can find purpose then we can give our life meaning. But if death, if we die and I don't leave something behind... Can you talk a little bit about that? This is essentially a, a version of Ernest Becker's Denial of Death- Okay. ... Hypothesis, which famously suggests that the motivation for a great deal of human behavior is, at least human behavior outside of immediate sensory concerns like eating and stuff like that, anything that humans engage in on a societal level, on an abstract level, is ultimately motivated by an apprehension of death. I think that's probably too simple, but it's definitely a contributing factor. I, I think that, for example, put it this way, right? Here's an example that comes from, I think his name's Scheffler, and he has this interesting thought experiment. Suppose, I don't know, maybe you're engaged in, in writing a book. Suppose you discovered, and this probably won't be the case for you because you believe in an afterlife, but suppose that you're an atheist for a moment. Suppose it were the case that you discovered that after you die, a meteor is going to come and wipe out all life on Earth. Everybody's going to die almost instantly after you do, but you'll be dead. So you will live your entire life as it was anyway, and suppose the rest of the world doesn't even know this is going to happen, but you're told this is going to be the case. Would that motivate you to write your book more or less? Most people say that it would seem a bit pointless now. Uh, what's the point now in writing this book? What's the point in, in having children if they're gonna die 30 days after I'm, after I'm gone? What, what's the point in, in doing any of these things? What will they still do? They'll still do the sensory stuff. They'll still eat, they'll still have sex, they'll still sleep, this kind of stuff. But the, the typically meaning, uh, laden activities of life, they would suddenly be demotivated to do. And it's an interesting thought experiment to give us some insight as to the fact that, well, maybe this means that at least in part- ... the motivation for these actions in the first place is that they will extend beyond our death. I agree with so much of what y'all say, and I also, like, hard disagree with some of the fundamentals. So let's say you have this example of like, I'm gonna write a book and then the world is gonna end 30 days later. Yes. And, and so you say... 'Cause a lot of what you're talking about is, like, what people say, right? Yep. So you'll say like, "Okay, so like people would say that this is a waste of time and I'm not gonna do it if the world ends in 30 days." Mm-hmm. And you're also saying people is a, is an everlasting thing are struggling with purpose, right? Mm-hmm. You're saying both of these things. So here's my question to you. If you tell someone, you know, you're writing this book. Let's say you, you, you write it and then you die 'cause we'll simplify the example. And then 30 days later the world ends. Let's take two people, one who says, "I'm gonna write it anyway." Mm-hmm. And one who says, "There's no point." Mm. Which one of those two people do you think has a greater sense of purpose? Probably the former. Absolutely. So this is the key thing. Purpose is absolutely... 'Cause I, I love that you're asking about mechanisms, and I think maybe that's what I can provide. Mm-hmm. I, I think that's, that's actually the answer, right? So i- it's not that people believe... And I think you're right, that the reason that this is a perennial problem is because most people do not live a life where they understand how purpose works. Mm-hmm. And, and what I think is really fascinating about sort of, like, this scientific clinical approach, like, if you ask me, "Can I help people find meaning and purpose?" I don't know. But if you ask me, "Can I help a person?" The answer is absolutely. And we have, like, particular scientific things, and this is where it's, it's really counterintuitive. So a, a big part of, like, finding purpose is doing particular things, and if you do those things the likelihood that you will increase your sense of purpose in life, which is another thing that's very counterintuitive to people... Purpose is not binary, it's quantifiable. It's like a scale. So if I were to ask the three of y'all, right, maybe let's, like, let's do this not thought experiment but this practical experiment. Do you know your purpose in life? Like, how confident are you that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing in life?

Greg Koukl 24:12 How confident am I about the God part or that I'm doing the things that are appropriate?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:17 The, the, how confident are you that you're doing what God wants you to do?

Greg Koukl 24:21 Well, in that general sense, extremely confident, or else I wouldn't be doing it.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:24 Perfect, right?

Greg Koukl 24:25 Yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:25 So, Stephen, what about you, bro?

Steven Bartlett 24:28 About 5 out of 10. (laughs)

Greg Koukl 24:30 (laughs)

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:30 I knew it. Okay, right? So, Alex?

Alex O’Connor 24:33 I don't wanna be difficult, but I kind of reject the grammar of the question.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:36 Awesome-

Alex O’Connor 24:36 Um...

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:36 ... reject away, bro.

Alex O’Connor 24:37 I think it's what a logician would call an exponable statement, something which needs to be broken down. You asked do I know my own purpose. That assumes that there is a purpose to know. It, it's a bit like, the, the comparison I would give is if I asked you the question, the classic example in logic is, is, uh, is the King of France bold? Yes or no?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:56 I, I can, I can rephrase my question-

Alex O’Connor 24:57 Please.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 24:57 ... if you have problems with my question. So, do you have a lived experience of something called purpose?

Alex O’Connor 25:05 Oh, well, look, I think purpose is having some kind of reason to act or be.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:09 Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 25:10 And I certainly subjectively am motivated to do things. I think everybody is, otherwise you literally wouldn't be able to do anything. Um, but it's a bit foggy to me what psychologically speaking, on a personal level, that fundamental motivation actually is.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:22 You're j-

Greg Koukl 25:22 Wouldn't purpose be more the, the goal rather than the reason to act? What you're-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:27 Um...

Greg Koukl 25:27 ... trying to accomplish?

Alex O’Connor 25:28 It's a semantic thing-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:29 Cool.

Alex O’Connor 25:29 ... but, that's why it depends what you mean, by the way, but-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:32 No, no, I'm, I'm, I'm with you. I'm, uh, I'm with you.

Alex O’Connor 25:34 All right.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:34 So, so, so, and I, I don't know what I mean with the word purpose, which is part of this challenge.

Alex O’Connor 25:37 Uh-huh.

Steven Bartlett 25:38 (laughs)

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:38 But, okay, so, so, like, I'm just wondering, so, like, when you... So, a lot of people are motivated to act. Everyone is motivated to act every day, right?

Alex O’Connor 25:45 Yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:45 I get out of bed. I need to take a dump. Like, but my guess-

Alex O’Connor 25:49 Mm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 25:50 ... is that if we were to administer a scientifically validated instrument that measures your subjective sense of purpose, direction in life-

Alex O’Connor 26:01 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:02 ... that that would be north of 5 out of 10.

Alex O’Connor 26:04 Okay.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:05 Do you think that's fair? Or is, is that something that you don't-

Alex O’Connor 26:08 Maybe, yeah. I don't know what it mean-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:09 So like, like, do you, do you, when you wake up, do you feel like you know, you know what you wanna do and what's going on and you're, like, doing good work? Like, I'm asking about the subjective feeling.

Alex O’Connor 26:17 Not on a grand sense. I'm quite agnostic.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex O’Connor 26:19 I mean, I'm sort of-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:20 I'm not talking about... Okay, maybe it depends.

Alex O’Connor 26:22 It depend-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:22 Yeah, yeah-

Alex O’Connor 26:22 I, I really don't know what you mean.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:23 Great, great, great, great. Perfect. Okay, so, so, so not on a grand sense, but on some other sense, yes.

Alex O’Connor 26:28 Sure.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:29 Okay, great. So, I think that this is like, this is, I, I think this is beautiful because-

Alex O’Connor 26:33 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:34 ... I think what we have here is, like, not on a grand sense, so I think on a grand sense, you're there.

Greg Koukl 26:38 Right.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:39 Right? But you're absolutely motivated by particular things. So I think this is the first thing about purpose.

Greg Koukl 26:45 Can I, a clarification real quickly-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:47 Sure.

Greg Koukl 26:47 Yeah, on a grand sense, yes, but there are distinctions that you were referring to, to a few moments ago.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:51 Great.

Greg Koukl 26:52 And there are a lot of things that are dissatisfying in my life, but in terms of being on the right course-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 26:56 Yeah.

Greg Koukl 26:56 ... that's part of what life is. Being on the right course, lots of d- crazy stuff that's happening in, in between.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 27:02 Cool. So, like, like the first thing that I, I've kind of noticed in my work is that I don't know whether a grander purpose exists or not, I, I think that's a lovely discussion that I wanna continue to have with you-

Greg Koukl 27:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 27:14 ... but I, I'm sort of, here's where I'm sort of coming from in this discussion. Stephen started this out with some really scary statistics that we're seeing, right? There's a mental health crisis. I think a lot of what we're seeing is, is while it may be perennial, I think it's, like, seems more acute right now.

Alex O’Connor 27:28 Yes.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 27:29 Maybe that's because of the atheist materialism whatever, I'm, I'm not quite sure. But this is a problem, so just sharing where I'm coming from. My hope is that someone who is watching this will have moved forward some vague percentage points, I'm shooting for about 20%, in their personal quest for purpose.

Alex O’Connor 27:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 27:48 And I think a big part of what I'm gonna try to contribute here today is my understanding of, like, how to do that.

Alex O’Connor 27:54 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 27:55 That this is a quantifiable thing that we can sort of see at this table, people are sort of, like, at different places. And so, the first thing that I kinda wanna point out is I don't know whether there's purpose or not, but as a human condition, there is something that each of us feel or experience that gives us an answer, right? So you're like at 10, but what that means is that y- something is going on in your mind, something is going on in your heart, something is going on in your body where you wake up and you feel like you have purpose. Stephen wakes up and he's, like, at a 5 out of 10, so he's getting some signals in that area, some signals are not in that area. You have some signals in that direction too. You know why you're showing up at this podcast. You're, you've got a book that you're working on. Awesome, can't wait to read it. Uh, but on a grander sense, you're like, "I don't know about this, like, objective stuff or whatever."

Alex O’Connor 28:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 28:46 So this is sort of like this quantifiable thing.

Steven Bartlett 28:49 And you?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 28:50 Um, I'm gonna let y'all guess. Where would you put me out of 10?

Alex O’Connor 28:55 Oh, I don't like to, I don't like to psychologize people.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 28:58 It's okay if you don't like to. Will you?

Steven Bartlett 29:00 (laughs)

Alex O’Connor 29:00 I mean, I don't, I just met you. I don't, I don't know, I have no idea what, what sense of meaning you, you have in your life.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 29:07 Mm-hmm. Okay.

Alex O’Connor 29:10 I mean, for me, I, I, I'm just motivated to try and find out-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 29:12 So I think-

Alex O’Connor 29:12 ... find out truth.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 29:13 ... I think the audience can guess too.

Greg Koukl 29:15 Yeah, I would say-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 29:15 Right?

Greg Koukl 29:15 ... you're pretty high, that's why you're here. That's why you're articulating your ideas.

Steven Bartlett 29:20 Well, probably, probably closer to 10 than 5.

Greg Koukl 29:22 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 29:23 Yeah.

Greg Koukl 29:23 Yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 29:23 Right? So, so it's like, it's okay if you don't wanna do that because I'm guessing that there's certain things in your intellect that tell you... So do you have a subjective instinct?

Alex O’Connor 29:33 No, I just don't know you that well. I, I, I mean, I don't know.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 29:36 Okay. That's-

Alex O’Connor 29:36 And a- and also it depends what you mean, right? Because you'll say that you have a... If you say that you're a 10, like, you, you have this, this, there's this, you, you used the phrase earlier sense, a sense of meaning in life, and because you're talking about this from an empirical standpoint of whether people report having a sense of meaning, whereas I think that Greg is probably talking about literally speaking whether there is actually in fact a real meaning, whether or not people sense it or not, you could say that you have a 10 out of 10 and Greg could say, "Well, that's, uh, it's great that you feel that way, but it's misguided because the purpose that you have identified in your life is the wrong one." And so to me the important question is not so much whether you subjectively report feeling like you have purpose in life, but whether that purpose is grounded in something real and true.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 30:18 Yeah, so I think that your answer right now-... is the reason why you think some of these questions are unanswerable.

Steven Bartlett 30:25 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 30:26 So I think if you adopt that frame, you'll never know. But let, let me-

Steven Bartlett 30:30 But I don't think they're unanswerable.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 30:31 Okay. Let, let me just finish, okay? So my first, uh, uh, experience of this, right, is that first of all, there is a subjective barometer, like how do we know whether we have purpose? Maybe we listen to other people, but there is some sort of internal sense of this. And this is where the science becomes really important because if you look at people who have, like, a history of trauma or something, what you tend to find is that there are certain, like, neurobiological things that can happen to you that will literally affect the parts of your brain that are able to detect purpose. So this is sort of like a subjective experience, and I think the way tha- uh, and I, I love your emphasis on mechanism, and I think this is what, in my opinion, science and spirituality can really add is they add the how, right? They, they add, like, why is it that one person has purpose and a- another person doesn't have purpose? So first thing is that in my experience and the way that I operate, I'm not saying it's correct, it's just, it's effective in terms of helping people move the needle on d- uh, uh, reducing suicidality, uh, improving resilience, giving them a reason to wake up in the morning. Like, it tends to work, um, and it's not just me, it's that there's a bunch of, you know, methodologies that we have in psychotherapy and stuff like that that a- accomplish these kinds of things, that there's some internal sense of purpose. Now, what I think, uh, uh, surprises a lot of people is that there are two ways that you increase that sense of purpose. The first is a bucket of things that are kind of counter- counterintuitive, and this is where we also have to understand that purpose correlates with certain other things in life. So if I feel like I am in control of my life, then my sense of purpose will increase. Those two things are correlated. It's not clear whether it's one thing that manifests in two-way- ways, or it's probably two discrete things 'cause there's some subtlety there. But just as a s- very simple example, if you take someone who feels out of control in life and you help them get control of their life, and there's a really great example of this which is something called passive challenges versus active challenges. So there's, uh, fascinating research on anxiety that shows that if you're someone in life whose life is happening to you, like you wake up one day and then, like, your, your boss wants you to come in for work, and you have to pay rent at the end of the month, and, like, you're, you're logging onto Tinder and people aren't responding to you, life is controlling the direction that you move, and people feel overwhelmed by this, and they want freedom. They want control. What they end up doing is they, they, they wish that they didn't have these things, so they run away from these problems. So passive challenges are challenges that life imposes upon you, that you didn't sign up for. Then there's something really fascinating, which is your sense of control in life does not correlate just with the passive challenges. It correlates with the ratio of passive challenges to active challenges. Active challenges are things that you choose to do that are difficult. So this is really fascinating, but if, if you're getting bodied by life in three different directions, the solution to that is not run away from those problems. It's actually to wake up and start to s- push yourself in a particular direction. I want to do this instead. If you wanna learn how to, like, read, uh, you know, learn philosophy, you know, start studying philosophical texts. You know, like, as you start to take on more, which is very counterintuitive because when most people feel, feel overwhelmed, they don't feel like they can do more. The exact solution is to take on more active challenges.

Steven Bartlett 33:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 33:57 Then you have some sense of control in life, and once your ratio of active challenges to passive challenges is more evened out, this does something really cool. It gives you a sense that I'm no longer out of control.

Steven Bartlett 34:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 34:08 Once you feel like you're no longer out of control, this is the really cool thing, then your capacity to deal with the stuff that life throws at you actually improves.

Steven Bartlett 34:18 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 34:19 So there's this, uh, uh, uh, this is just one example of, like, one scientific, uh, ner- neurobiological principle that has some psychology associated with where you can do particular things-

Steven Bartlett 34:29 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 34:29 ... to give yourself a sense of direction in life.

Steven Bartlett 34:32 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 34:33 Now, some of the stuff around worship and spiritual practice, that can do it too, um, but I think that usually what I tend to see is that, you know, if someone is lost in life, you can sort of answer it by these big questions. You can sort of think about this sort of transcendental purpose, which I'm, I'm happy to talk about, but I think there's a lot of, like, little stuff that you can do.

Steven Bartlett 34:54 Yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 34:54 And as you implement these things, the sense of purpose in your life, your internal lived experience of feeling out of, out of control will change.

Greg Koukl 35:02 Let, let me offer a few thoughts if I could. One, I want to speak to something that you've said, Alex, um, that I just want to offer caution about. When we talk about motivation, the motivation for something, we sometimes confuse that with justification. So someone might say to me, so an atheist for example, "Well, you're a Christian because you were born in America. If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you wouldn't be a Christian. You'd be a Muslim." Of course, that's irrelevant to the question of whether Islam or Christianity or some other religion is true. It doesn't speak to that. It speaks to psychology, okay? And the fact is that if the atheist was born in (laughs) Saudi Arabia, he wouldn't be an atheist either, likely. The key question is what motivates people, for example, to think about purpose, death maybe, a fear of death. That might be a motivation. The question is whether the place they land in answering the question has any objective truth to it or not. It could be that there is a God and that there is an afterlife and facing death does give comfort to that, uh, I should say when facing death, you have comfort because there is a God and there's something that you're going to, s- closer communion with him. Okay? Just because you're motivated by death doesn't mean that your belief about the afterlife is somehow in error.

Steven Bartlett 36:13 I just wanted just to add something in here. So I, I think part of the reason I've also convened, um, you guys to have this conversation today is because I've got several people in my life that are...I can, I can literally lay out the personas, but I've got one particular friend who's 35, between 35 and 40 years old, living in Dubai, living in a, a glass box, um, freelancer, so he wakes up in the morning, his bed is there, he then works there, then goes back to bed. He's single, no kids. In his life at the moment, he said to me that he can't get out of bed anymore, he feels stuck. And then about six months after, out of the blue, it turns out, without telling any of us, and we're his best friends, he's flown to America, he's been baptized, he's a Christian. Suddenly, his life has purpose and meaning again. He's a completely different person. And this

Steven Bartlett 36:59 individual never, ever ... He would be the last person that you'd think would be religious. Got another friend, female, just over 30 years old, doesn't have kids, freelance, works at home, um, when I asked her what her meaning and purpose in life, she said to me she wants to get to having 200 plants, plants she can water. She names all of them.

Alex O’Connor 37:15 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 37:16 She then told me a week after, she's in therapy because she feels lost and stuck in life. And so much of the central point why I've been motivated to have this conversation is, it appears to me, and I haven't nailed this hypothesis yet, that freedom, independence, be your own boss, the decline in people having children, the glamorization of, um, as you said at the very beginning, like, you know, do it yourself, do it your way, is failing people in some way.

Alex O’Connor 37:41 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 37:42 And that actually, the push for independence w- was in some way some kind of lie. I actually also went through the same new atheist-

Alex O’Connor 37:49 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 37:50 ... baptism (laughs) -

Alex O’Connor 37:51 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 37:51 ... that you went through. And I read all those books at 18 years old, and two years, I was, I was debating dog walkers on the street about God, I was so-

Alex O’Connor 37:57 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 37:57 ... such a staunch atheist. But I now find myself in a position where I'm almost back to being curious again.

Alex O’Connor 38:04 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:04 Because it feels like independence wasn't the answer.

Alex O’Connor 38:07 Good.

Steven Bartlett 38:07 So just wanted to refrain-

Alex O’Connor 38:08 You should be curious, I think, yeah. I mean, I think people need task. I think that purpose is intimately tied up with the idea of, of task to fulfill. It's why people tend to find meaning in projects which are not completed yet. In fact, Pascal writes quite compellingly about this when he writes about boredom, and he imagines a, a gambler, someone who, who enjoys gambling, and says, "Well, why is this person gambling?" 'Cause they're doing this thing with the, with the chance of winning some money. Okay, so why don't you just give them the money? Just take the gambler and give him all the money that he could possibly receive without playing the game. And he won't be very fulfilled, even though he's getting ostensibly what he was trying to get. No, no, that wouldn't be fulfilling, 'cause he enjoys the, the gambling. "Okay," says Pascal, "Then let him play the game, but make it such that he'll never actually win the money, but he, he gets to keep playing the game. And he's not gonna be very fulfilled by that either. That's also gonna be completely pointless." And so Pascal noticed that what you kind of need to avoid boredom, and I suppose to, to imbue your life with, with purpose, at least in this analogy, is some kind of task to fulfill that you haven't fulfilled yet, that you don't know if you're going to fulfill, that you believe will bring you fulfillment when you get it, but you haven't got it yet.

Steven Bartlett 39:24 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 39:24 That's why I think religion does it really well, because it's the definition of something which you don't have now, which you can strive for, which, when you get, you believe will be, uh, will be fulfilling. Were you going to say something?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 39:35 Yeah, so, so, so I, I love these examples, because a- actually, we know exactly what's going on in that thought experiment, right?

Alex O’Connor 39:42 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 39:42 So now there have been s- there are so many advances in neuroscience that we understand why people gamble, right?

Alex O’Connor 39:49 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 39:49 So we understand that giving someone money will satisfy a gambler in one of two cases, and I've seen this. I've worked with people who are professional poker players. Some people, their, w- what we describe motivation is actually, like, a dozen different things going on in your brain. So if you are a professional poker player, and poker ... And I've literally worked with professional poker players who had no meaning in life. It's so funny, I'm thinking about a particular person. And then, you know, achieved a certain financial goal. That's why they play poker.

Alex O’Connor 40:17 Mm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 40:17 So if your motivation is that, "I'm playing poker because I am, I have a skill that I am using to get money-"

Alex O’Connor 40:24 Yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 40:24 ... if that is your internal motivation, that is going to come from certain circuits in your brain. It's gonna come from places like your frontal lobe. Now, as Pascal pointed out, if you give the average person who gambles-

Alex O’Connor 40:35 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 40:35 ... money, what are they gonna do with it? They're gonna gamble more, right? So that means that th- their motivation is coming from something more closer to the nucleus accumbens-

Alex O’Connor 40:44 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 40:44 ... a random reinforcement schedule. Maybe they're trying to suppress amygdala emotions. So we actually can, like, look at that example, and we can understand why each of those things happens. And then the most beautiful thing is that there is absolutely a scenario where someone w- can gamble and never win, and they can absolutely have purpose. So this is where, I know that sounds insane, but if you look at some of these things from the Zen tradition, right? So these are practices that have no purpose, to act with no meaning whatsoever. And the beautiful thing about that is as you explore that sort of angle, and there's sort of a neuroscience, uh, uh, perspective to this as well, is that if you really think about it, you're saying, okay, so people invest in this purpose, or in this purpose-seeking thing like religion, with the idea that I'll find payoff at the end. Is that what you were saying earlier?

Alex O’Connor 41:36 I'm saying something a bit different. I, what I was gonna go on to say is to, is to point out that, and bear in mind, this comes from a part of the, of Pascal's Pensees, which is titled Man Without God, you know, he goes on to discuss man with God. Um, but I look at the development of the human species and our particular proclivities. Lewis makes this argument from desire that you mentioned. Why do we have a desire for food? Well, because there is actually food to have. The evolutionary biologist says the reason that we develop hunger is because those who didn't died. And if you don't have some sense of hunger, you're not going to seek out food, and you will die, and so it just so happens that those who develop this feeling of hunger will be more likely to survive, and therefore hunger is a part of our human condition. Well,

Alex O’Connor 42:19 such is meaning. If you have two isolated communities, one of whom says, "I just don't care. Whatever, man." No interest in having children, no interest in building societies, legal systems, constitutions, whatever the case, moral systems, none of it. They just don't care. Nihilists.... they're not even gonna have children. That society will die out. Another society which just so happens to perhaps delusion, li- i- in a, in an exercise of delusion, just develop this inexplicable feeling-

Greg Koukl 42:45 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 42:46 And of course, this evolves over time and starts with essentially the kind of random mutation

Alex O’Connor 42:51 of ideas that works on the genetic level in evolution. They call it memetics when it's ideas rather than genes. The society which just ends up developing this idea that, "Actually, I can't quite explain why but I, I just have this drive towards building a-

Greg Koukl 43:04 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 43:04 ... society and engaging in legal justice and moral systems and kinds." They're just more likely to survive. So, we end up with this, with this sense, this, this drive within us that we can't explain and yet we have. So, imagine for the majority of our evolutionary history what it was like. Every single day you woke up and you did not know if you were gonna have a roof over your head. You didn't know if you were gonna have food to eat. You had to go out and you had to hunt it and you had to go and find it. Every single day, the game reset. And so, I would imagine that those lives were probably quite meaningful, at least in the sense that I don't think there will have been many existential crises-

Greg Koukl 43:40 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 43:40 ... on a day-to-day because the purpose was quite clear. And like Pascal's gambler, they had a task that they think will fulfill them when they get it and they don't know whether it's going to be fulfilled. So, what's happened today? Well, now we've been given the money without the game. We've got houses, we've got food, we can go next door and get some water, get some food from all over the, all over the planet, you know. Like, that's, that's it. That you've got the money without the game. So, what do people do in the modern situation when they find out their life is a bit meaningless?

Greg Koukl 44:09 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 44:09 They start intentionally doing things which are difficult. They start doing ice baths. They start exercising. They start going into a room just to physically exert themselves in order to sort of build muscle and whatnot, like, on purpose for its own sake. Why? Because today we've got the money without the game. So, people are going out and seeking the game without the money. They're going and doing the ice baths and the gym. Whereas a truly meaningful life is one in which you are playing the game in the service of getting the goal.

Greg Koukl 44:38 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 44:38 That is why I think that, you know, literally just seeking out those things, I think that there's a reason why they have a psychological impact. It's not as simple as just like, "Oh, well, if you go to the gym, you know, it, it releases endorphins and, and makes you feel good." It's like, let's think a bit deeper than that. What's actually going on? People are seeking out the game without, without the money. Crucially, I've talked about this as, as a death denying pursuit, right? The idea that the things that you engage in here, at least in terms of grand projects like religion and society, are even if just subconsciously an exercise in the denial of death.

Greg Koukl 45:11 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 45:11 What would that mean? It means that if you encounter other communities, if you encounter other traditions who just, just by their mere existence threatens the truth of your claims, those traditions subconsciously represent death. They represent nihilism. So, what happens in a society that develops the kind of telecommunication technology whereby every single day you open your phone and you are addicted to a process of scrolling through every seven seconds a new person with new ideas, with different beliefs from all over the world? Do you think that might have something to do with the meaning crisis that we find ourselves in? We're told that what's happened is that people stopped believing in God and now they're all depressed and upset and nihilistic. That's far too simple. You don't think it might have something to do with the fundamentally revolutionary change to our society that has been brought about-

Greg Koukl 46:02 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 46:02 ... specifically by telecommunication, by the ability to oftentimes unintentionally and non-consensually be confronted with traditions and people from halfway across the world that just remind you every single day, zing, zing, zing, every single day, that your truth is not the only truth.

Greg Koukl 46:21 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 46:21 That the transcendence that you've placed your trust in is completely subjective and personal and that someone over there believes something totally different and seems to be living just the same kind of happy life. That, I think, is why people are struggling so much.

Greg Koukl 46:35 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 46:35 It's not just because they're atheists now.

Greg Koukl 46:38 I, I have a lot to say about this. I'll try to keep it compact. By the way, just we are aware of all kinds of different options for us spiritually.

Alex O’Connor 46:46 Yes.

Greg Koukl 46:46 Um, that doesn't necessarily suggest that none of the options are actually accurate-

Alex O’Connor 46:51 I agree.

Greg Koukl 46:51 ... or that are, okay. So there seem to be an implication there.

Alex O’Connor 46:55 I'm making a psychological case.

Greg Koukl 46:55 And this is what creates kind of the angst because all we have is our own personal subjective point of view.

Alex O’Connor 47:01 I think that's why people experience that. Now, of course, as a matter of truth you could say, for example, yourself you could say, "Yes, I'm constantly confronted by different religious traditions but I believe that Christianity is true. I think it has the best evidence and whatnot."

Greg Koukl 47:12 Yeah. This is, this is even true in, in even in the scientific realm. You have-

Alex O’Connor 47:16 Exactly. That's fine.

Greg Koukl 47:16 ... all kinds of different ideas but no one wants to say just because there are so many different ideas to explain things that-

Alex O’Connor 47:21 Yes.

Greg Koukl 47:22 ... nobody can be correct on it.

Alex O’Connor 47:22 Which is why what I'm saying is, is insensitive to the truth or falsity of any of the traditions. What I'm saying is-

Greg Koukl 47:28 Okay. That's good 'cause I wanna go to th- that next.

Alex O’Connor 47:30 ... as an, as an explanation as for the, the psychological phenomenon-

Greg Koukl 47:35 Right.

Alex O’Connor 47:35 ... the, the, the literal feeling-

Greg Koukl 47:36 Right.

Alex O’Connor 47:36 ... that people have... Because likewise you would say that there is a meaning crisis maybe. You would say that lots of it... The, the statistics we just heard you would say lots of people, you know, don't feel meaning in their life and you'd want to offer an explanation for why that's the case. You think their lives are meaningful, right? You think that all of those people who say, "My life has no meaning," they're wrong. Their lives actually do have meaning.

Greg Koukl 47:54 Is that what you think? Well, this was the subject to response. They feel like they don't have meaning.

Alex O’Connor 47:59 Exactly.

Greg Koukl 48:00 But they were made for a purpose. If they're not in f- in touch with that meaning and purpose, then they're gonna feel bereft and adrift.

Alex O’Connor 48:06 Exactly. So you, you believe there really is a purpose for their life-

Greg Koukl 48:08 Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 48:08 ... but subjectively they haven't either found it or they don't feel it.

Greg Koukl 48:11 Correct. Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 48:11 What I'm doing is I'm offering a psychological explanation-

Greg Koukl 48:14 Exactly.

Alex O’Connor 48:14 ... for why they don't feel it which is completely insensitive to whether or not there's a truth of the matter.

Greg Koukl 48:19 Yeah. I- I'm so glad you put it that way, uh, because this is exactly my point and I don't want anybody to miss it. We're really offering two different pictures of reality here.

Alex O’Connor 48:27 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 48:27 Okay? People have to ask themselves two questions I think.

Alex O’Connor 48:31 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 48:31 One is they reflect on their own personal awareness of the need for meaning and significance. Does it seem to them that this is just a psychological thing that people can satisfy in all kinds of different ways depending on the individual or does it seem to them I'm asking these questions because I suspect there is-... a truth about life that might be discovered, okay? That's the first question. And th- I, and I think most people's awareness of this is that there's something transcendent, something bigger than them, okay? And any kind of naturalistic explanation is not gonna ultimately satisfy that.

Alex O’Connor 49:06 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 49:07 The other thing is, is there any reason to believe that there is a transcendent reality, that God exists, that souls exist, that, that there is an objective morality that, uh, guides our life? And if we're living virtuously, that's going to be satisfying even if we don't believe in God or not. Those are the two things at stake here, you know? And now, this d- description, the story of reality I just described that I hold to, it, it seems to be completely coherent. Maybe not true, but it certainly is coherent that if there is a God who made us for himself and placed his eternity in our hearts, that we're gonna yearn for that, and made the way for us to live, and that we're gonna find good ways to live as opposed to unsatisfying ways to live. That makes sense. Doesn't make any sense to me at all to say that my molecules are moving in a certain way to create in my conscious mind, which Darwinists w- cannot offer an explanation for. It hasn't. This is why Daniel Dennett said consciousness is an illusion, you know, because he couldn't do anything with it. Thomas Nagel wrote his book, Mind and the Cosmos. You're familiar with this, I'm sure. You know, why the neo-Darwinian materialistic view of the world is almost certainly false. And he's an atheist, for goodness' sake, because he can't explain consciousness, not in a Darwinian way. So, how is it that this mystery of consciousness which contains propositional thoughts, ideas-

Alex O’Connor 50:22 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 50:22 ... and purposes, if consciousness can't be explained in a Darwinian way, how can some characterization of molecules in motion accomplish that same end? That's my concern. This is why I'm not convinced about, at all about the naturalistic one.

Alex O’Connor 50:37 Yeah.

Greg Koukl 50:37 And this one seems so much more plausible.

Alex O’Connor 50:39 What you're raising is the, is the problem of consciousness, which is, I think, a new question, but an important one. I wanted to point out earlier that, that when I gave an explanation as to why people feel a lack of meaning-

Greg Koukl 50:50 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 50:50 ... and you said that has no bearing on truth, I think that's-

Greg Koukl 50:53 You admitted that, too, at the end there. I appreciate that.

Alex O’Connor 50:55 W- I, I, I don't admit it. I, I assert it. Of course that's the case. In the, in the s-

Greg Koukl 50:59 You, you affirmed you weren't making the case.

Alex O’Connor 51:00 In the same way that if somebody says that, like, if you're a Christian and you say, "The reason everyone's so depressed is because society has become atheistic," somebody could say, "Well yeah, I mean, that might be the case, but that doesn't mean atheism is false. It might be that it is true and just depressing," right?

Greg Koukl 51:15 Right.

Alex O’Connor 51:16 Of course. Like, the, the question, if we're discussing-

Greg Koukl 51:18 There are alternate explanations of reality.

Alex O’Connor 51:19 If you want to know why somebody feels a particular way psychologically, you can offer an explanation which has absolutely

Alex O’Connor 51:25 nothing to do with the truth or falsity of a worldview. You can then separately discuss the truth or falsity of the worldview, which you've then gone on to do with specific reference to the problem of consciousness.

Greg Koukl 51:33 You really think it has absolutely nothing or it can be experienced apart from the issue of worldview?

Alex O’Connor 51:39 I'm saying that if you're, if you're literally just try... I mean, if the question I'm asked is, "Why do people perceive a lack of meaning in their life?" that's just a question about-

Greg Koukl 51:47 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 51:47 ... their psychological constitution. That's just-

Greg Koukl 51:50 Right.

Alex O’Connor 51:50 That's literally a question about why they should feel a particular way.

Greg Koukl 51:52 So, if a person was a total nihilist-

Alex O’Connor 51:54 Yeah.

Greg Koukl 51:54 ... didn't believe in anything, uh, was important, and then they were depressed and even suicidal, would you say there wasn't a link between that worldview and their feelings?

Alex O’Connor 52:03 Yes, there is, but what I'm saying is that the link between that worldview and their feeling has nothing to do with the truth of the worldview.

Greg Koukl 52:09 Okay.

Alex O’Connor 52:09 You see what I'm saying? Like, it, it doesn't-

Greg Koukl 52:10 Oh, yeah. I follow that.

Alex O’Connor 52:10 Nihilism can be true, nihilism can be false.

Greg Koukl 52:12 Right.

Alex O’Connor 52:13 Nihilism can be an in- unintelligible concept. It can still be the case that that person's conviction is making them depressed.

Greg Koukl 52:19 Mm-hmm. Agreed, yeah.

Alex O’Connor 52:19 Right? In the same way that somebody could be a, be a Christian and that makes them really happy, that doesn't mean Christianity is true. Someone can become a Christian and become really depressed. That doesn't mean that Christianity is false. What I'm trying to point out, it is, it is just trivially true. (laughs)

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 52:31 So, so I, I still wanna try to understand a little bit about what you're saying.

Alex O’Connor 52:35 Okay.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 52:35 (laughs) 'Cause I don't fully follow.

Alex O’Connor 52:37 Fine.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 52:38 Um, and I think that the reason I'm, I feel way more confident in what you're saying is because-

Alex O’Connor 52:44 Christ is pulling at your heartstrings.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 52:46 100%, yeah. So, so I think Chri- we both talk to Christ, so, like, we're good on that. Like, I, I know where He's coming from. So, c- c- couple of things that I'm-

Alex O’Connor 52:55 I talk to Christ too, you know?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 52:56 Awesome. Does he talk back?

Alex O’Connor 52:57 He does not talk back, unfortunately.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 52:58 Yeah, that's, that's tricky. We can talk about how, how to get you there.

Greg Koukl 53:01 As one person said, "Just read the Gospels aloud." (laughs)

Alex O’Connor 53:05 I've done that a few times.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 53:06 So, so couple of things... So couple of things that I'm, I'm curious about.

Alex O’Connor 53:08 Yes.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 53:09 One is, so I'm noticing that you're... I- I'm trying to understand where... So I, I love the way you're sallying forth-

Alex O’Connor 53:16 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 53:17 ... to grapple with this problem of purpose. You do a beautiful job of sort of talking about, like, okay, what's the truth?

Alex O’Connor 53:24 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 53:25 And then there's this psychological perspective. And I, I wanna just try to understand this. So, are you of the mind that from a psychological perspective, you can wake up one day and feel like you have purpose, but that doesn't necessarily talk about purpose transcendentally?

Greg Koukl 53:41 Capital P.

Alex O’Connor 53:42 I'm saying that doesn't talk about the truth of your belief.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 53:44 The t- okay.

Alex O’Connor 53:45 So for example, you could, you could, you could believe that your children are about to die, and that suddenly your life feels really meaningless and, and really purposeless. It could be completely false. You could've been-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 53:56 Right. S- so-

Alex O’Connor 53:57 ... like, misled. Someone could lie to you. But, like, what I'm saying is, is the psychological explanation for why you feel a particular way has nothing to do with the truth of the thing that you believe that's making you feel that way.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 54:06 Gotcha, okay. So, what I'm curious about is when you were exploring purpose-

Alex O’Connor 54:12 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 54:12 ... are you exploring it from... Are you trying to find the answer at the top, like, what is the truth of purpose? Or are you focused on the subjective experience of purpose?

Alex O’Connor 54:25 Depends on the context. If you're asking... I mean, we were talking literally about a psychological explanation for why people feel a particular way, you know?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 54:32 Okay.

Alex O’Connor 54:32 Is it due to a decline in religion? That kind of stuff. In that case, it's subjective. It's individuals, yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 54:37 Yeah, so, so do you think that the top one can be answered?

Alex O’Connor 54:43 What... The top one as in, like, there being-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 54:46 The, there being purpose, right? So that's not subjective at all.

Alex O’Connor 54:49 So, so, so what does that mean, there, there being purpose? 'Cause for me, that looks like some kind of reason to act or to be that is not contingent on some other fact.Just to be clear, to make clear for the listener, I, I think you hear what I'm saying, but, like, suppose you woke up and you were a Christian and that brought you meaning, what I'm saying is that subjective sense of meaning that you get from Christianity has no bearing on the truth or falsity of Christianity.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:14 Gotcha.

Alex O’Connor 55:14 Right?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:15 Right. So, so what I'm curious about is in your opinion, and if you don't have one-

Alex O’Connor 55:19 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:19 ... that's totally fine, um, you know, do you think that, so sure there's a subjective experience which doesn't speak to truth-

Alex O’Connor 55:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:28 ... right? It's just a subjective experience. Do you think that there is some way to grapple with that truth?

Alex O’Connor 55:35 What, the truth of Christianity or something? Absolutely.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:37 Y- y- yeah, the truth, the truth of, of purpose, or like what, what-

Alex O’Connor 55:40 Right. But, th- th- w- we're shifting here, right?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:41 Okay.

Alex O’Connor 55:41 Because what I'm saying is-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:42 Let, let me shift th- th- I don't wanna do that, so then I'm gonna go back.

Alex O’Connor 55:45 This is why I, maybe I'm not understanding your question. What all-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:48 No.

Alex O’Connor 55:48 All I am saying-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:49 Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 55:49 ... is that if you feel, if you feel a subjective sense of purpose from proposition P, like, the fact that you feel purpose from that does not have any-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 55:58 Bearing on whether proposition P is true.

Alex O’Connor 55:59 ... bearing on the truth of P. And then you just asked, but, but is there a way to discuss whether P is true? Well, yeah, like, so if proposition P is Christianity, then yeah, we can talk about the historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus or something.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:09 Gotcha, gotcha. Okay.

Alex O’Connor 56:10 It, it, I'm not, I'm not trying to reach into some-

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:12 Yeah.

Alex O’Connor 56:13 ... mystical, capital P Purpose realm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:16 Gotcha. So, right, so, and I, I think, uh, that's so helpful. Thank you so much.

Alex O’Connor 56:19 (laughs)

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:20 Okay. Okay, so that's really helpful for me because then you, I wanna go back to something you said earlier about, you know, cell phones and we're scrolling on cell phones-

Alex O’Connor 56:30 Yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:30 ... and things like that, and we have this, like, uh, like, this worldview and then if we encounter a worldview that is different from ours, that could put us into some form of crisis or difficulty-

Alex O’Connor 56:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:39 ... and we're getting bo- g- bombarded by all of these things. And so what that means is that the individual, when they wake up in the morning and they scroll through their phone, right?

Alex O’Connor 56:48 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:48 We're not talking about whether the proposition P is true or not, their subjective experiences like, "I have no meaning and I have no purpose in life."

Alex O’Connor 56:56 Mm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 56:57 Right? And, and so you posited one mechanism which I think is a completely valid mechanism, is a philosophical mechanism, but we have a lot of neuroscience mechanisms that support what you're saying. So ju- a- a- an- and this is where I, I, I think that we kinda, uh, I'm gonna sort of restate that what my experience of this stuff has been, 'cause I'm, I'm not a philosopher, is I, I, I don't really know too well how to contend with whether proposition P is true or not, that's why I was asking.

Alex O’Connor 57:23 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 57:24 And, and it's not that you weren't being clear, it's that I'm just ignorant of how philosophy works.

Alex O’Connor 57:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 57:29 Um, a- and so that's why I was kinda asking, like, you know, "Can you do that?"

Alex O’Connor 57:32 Mm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 57:32 So th- that's where s- also where, like, I'm kinda coming from is that we have this crisis that has high suicidality, high addiction rates, people left the church in big ways, and then we're sort of left with, like, "Okay, how do we navigate this?" And that's where I think if we look at a lot of this, the influences on society, we see that there's profound neurological influences, and what I sort of found is when I was working especially with, like, patients with trauma that there is a set of things that is happening in the world around them-

Alex O’Connor 58:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 58:05 ... that induce certain changes to their how they experience the world. So a really good example of this is if you wanna find your purpose in life, you should reduce your level of alexithymia. So alexithymia is the inability to tell what you, you're emotionally feeling.

Alex O’Connor 58:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 58:22 And if we look at the influence of things like cell phones, what they're doing is they're suppressing the parts of our brain that have, that experience negative emotion, sometimes they provoke negative emotion, sometimes they suppress negative emotions, and so if you start to be able to feel more, right, so the- th- this is literally shutting down the parts of our brain that ha- that give us an internal sense of what we feel. And so as you shut down your ability to detect what you are feeling on the inside, that correlates with your not having a detection of purpose on the inside. So I think that th- you know, this is, you, you asked the question, "Why is this happening?" I think we're disabling, and I was working with people with trauma and, and sort of, sort of figured out a sequence of things that is based on the literature that involves things like reducing your alexithymia. Another big part is managing your ego. So I think this relationship with God thing is a really, really, really great example of, like-

Alex O’Connor 59:19 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 59:20 ... if you ask, "What is the mechanism of a relationship with God?" So we as human beings tend to be like, "I'm here," but then as you relate to other people around you, your sense of identity changes, and when you relate to something that is transcendent, uh, I know that that's a w- scary word and I don't know exactly what that word means, but as you relate to something that is really big up here, that has noticeable effects on your default mode network, your sense of self. And as your default mode network no longer becomes hyperactive, the more hyperactive your default mode network is, the more likely I think you are to be, like, nihilistic, to have a pessimistic worldview. As we start to make those changes, then people start to feel a sense of purpose. They start-

Alex O’Connor 1:00:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:00:04 ... to feel a sense of connection. And then the last kind of really interesting data which we can go into is, is psychedelics, which is really, really fascinating because this allows us to test subjective experience and the effect of subjec- subjective experience on a person.

Greg Koukl 1:00:18 Is this an opportunity f-

Alex O’Connor 1:00:19 Please. Oh, yeah.

Greg Koukl 1:00:19 I'm just concerned that you might have overstated something, maybe reflecting back something you thought I was saying, and I was making the case about the genetic fallacy and just because a person has a motivation to believe something doesn't necessarily mean that that thing is true or have a s- subjective experience. I think it goes a little further than that though. Uh, if you went to the doctor and you weren't feeling well and the doctor gave you a pill-

Alex O’Connor 1:00:39 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 1:00:39 ... and then you went home and you took the pill, then you felt better, I think it would be appropriate for you to say, "Well, that pill, taking that pill, going to that doctor, had something to do with my experience that I'm having right now."

Alex O’Connor 1:00:49 Oh, yeah.

Greg Koukl 1:00:50 I th- I think the sa- and this is where I think it might have in- intention- unintentionally been an overstatement on your part because I think just like your friend, Stephen, who in Dubai all of a sudden became a Christian, everything changed, okay?

Alex O’Connor 1:01:03 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 1:01:05 Well, the- you- you- I guess you could say the change of life isn't maybe not down, drag down proof that what he believes now is actually true, big P, big T. But it seems to be-

Alex O’Connor 1:01:17 That, like, Jesus rose from the dead?

Greg Koukl 1:01:17 Pardon me?

Alex O’Connor 1:01:17 That, like, Jesus rose from the dead. It's got no bearing on-

Greg Koukl 1:01:20 Well-

Alex O’Connor 1:01:20 ... whether that's true or not.

Greg Koukl 1:01:21 Well, I'm speaking of a different thing right now. I'm thinking about the experience now with God that he's having.

Alex O’Connor 1:01:27 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 1:01:28 If you, if he's having this changed life, this, this is evidential, this is, this lends credibility to the belief system that he's now adopted, because it created this particular significant change in his life. It may not be proof, and that word is really, uh, an oozy, goozy word, gen- hard to pin down. But nevertheless, it still seems to be evidential. It is, it, it speaks to the legitimacy and accuracy and truthfulness of the belief system that produced this changed life. That's what I'm saying.

Alex O’Connor 1:01:57 It's on- it's, it's only evidence that belief in that thing makes someone feel more fulfilled. That's the only thing it's evidence of.

Greg Koukl 1:02:03 Okay, so this is where we differ. Just like-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:06 I, I'm with him on this one.

Greg Koukl 1:02:07 Okay. Just because, uh, just because a certain... You're saying just because they believe it, this makes them better, it doesn't mean that the belief is actually sound.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:18 Greg, I've got a good way of coming at this then.

Greg Koukl 1:02:19 Right. And that, this is where we differ.

Alex O’Connor 1:02:21 That's right, I-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:21 If, if I had five friends and they all picked five different religions and they all felt the same thing that my friend did in Dubai, where they all felt better for it, does, is that evidential that all five religions are true?

Greg Koukl 1:02:34 Well, see, I don't actually think it works that way. You can speculate and say and offer that illustration, um, but I don't think it actually works that way. I, I think that universally, the experience of Christians is very, very, uh, quantifiable-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:49 So, in that, in that scenario-

Greg Koukl 1:02:49 ... in terms of transformed lives, and this is one of the reasons that these transformed lives lend credibility to the belief system itself.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:57 So, in that scenario where one of my friends turns to Islam, one of my friends turns to Christianity, et cetera, et cetera, the only experience that's evidential of truth is the Christian's?

Greg Koukl 1:03:10 Well, I think you have to look at every individual thing, all right? And, um, here's my suspicion, and I haven't quantified this across the board, all right? Different people have different experiences by engaging different religious, uh, belief, traditions, whatever. But in so far as anybody's life is significantly altered by that thing, this, to me, is evidence that something is going on here than merely the belief. If it's just the belief, you're back to, uh, to Marx again and the opiate of the people, you know? That would be Karl, not Groucho, although that's not clear that anybody knows who those two people are anymore.

Alex O’Connor 1:03:47 It sounds as though... You know, if, if I, if I lied to somebody in a cruel prank and I told them that... Say, say they're really struggling with money and they're really, really suffering for it, and they feel, and they have these psychological effects of feeling that life is meaningless, they, they wanna kill themselves, whatever it is, they just, they cannot keep living, and I tell them, "Good news, um, you've won the lottery. You've won a million pounds," and suddenly the weight is lifted, the joy is brought. Of course money isn't sufficient for bringing about-

Greg Koukl 1:04:16 No, I, I get what you're, I get your point.

Alex O’Connor 1:04:16 ... meaning in life, but this person is... But I've lied to them. Like, the f- the fact that they feel this immense sense of meaning from a belief that they've adopted has, bears absolutely no evidence-

Greg Koukl 1:04:29 No, in that case, you're right.

Alex O’Connor 1:04:29 ... on whether it's true that they've won a million pounds.

Greg Koukl 1:04:31 I, I'm just saying that to divorce all results from belief systems is a mistake.

Alex O’Connor 1:04:37 I don't wanna do that.

Greg Koukl 1:04:38 Because I think there could be a, there can be a connection there.

Alex O’Connor 1:04:39 There could be something about-

Greg Koukl 1:04:40 Just because you can mislead somebody by telling them a lie and they can experience something emotionally doesn't mean that the other person who's experiencing something transcendent in their emotions... And by the way, for Christians, it's not just a high, because Christianity is not a continuous high.

Alex O’Connor 1:04:56 Of course.

Greg Koukl 1:04:56 Even people who are suffering terribly as Christians in persecution, read Fox's Books of Martyrs, Book of Martyrs, still have this strong sense of value, purpose, and security even so. I'm just saying there's an evidential relationship between those. It's not enough to just simply dismiss it because you can tell a lie and someone could have the same kind of feeling.

Alex O’Connor 1:05:16 I'm, I'm even happy to say that, like, I don't know if this is true, but suppose it were just the case that only Christianity brought about this positive effect. Suppose we just discovered that everybody who claimed to feel meaning, it just didn't compare.

Greg Koukl 1:05:28 That's not what I'm saying.

Alex O’Connor 1:05:29 But suppose that were the case. Even if there was something really special about Christianity that gave some evidential credence to something specific about Christianity-

Greg Koukl 1:05:36 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:05:36 ... that's true about Christianity, that it particularly infuses life with meaning, I still think it just has nothing to do with the truth of Christianity as a worldview.

Greg Koukl 1:05:44 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:05:45 I mean, Christianity hinges on the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus, right?

Greg Koukl 1:05:49 That is absolutely correct.

Alex O’Connor 1:05:49 And so the best way of explaining this is to say that if, if your friend from Dubai starts going to church and they start feeling really, like, meaning, like, start experiencing a lot of meaning in their life-

Greg Koukl 1:05:59 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:05:59 ... that has absolutely no evidential bearing on whether Jesus rose from the dead.

Greg Koukl 1:06:03 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:06:03 And if Christianity as a proposition essentially is the resurrection of Jesus and this feeling that your friend had has no evidential bearing on the resurrection of Jesus-

Greg Koukl 1:06:11 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:06:11 ... then the feeling that your friend had had no evidential bearing on Christianity.

Greg Koukl 1:06:14 Well, it turns out that Christianity has multiple factors of, of, uh, support and evidence. Crucial, obviously the crux, one might say, is the resurrection of Christ, the death and resurrection-

Alex O’Connor 1:06:25 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 1:06:25 ... because of the theological significance of that is in the whole system, all right?

Alex O’Connor 1:06:29 Mm-hmm.

Greg Koukl 1:06:29 But there are lots of other things too that have bearing, and, a- actually, I, I think there are people who become, who have become Christians without having a robust understanding even of the resurrection or that.

Alex O’Connor 1:06:39 Yes.

Greg Koukl 1:06:39 So, um, it's, e- even though theologically that is the crux, I agree-

Alex O’Connor 1:06:43 Crucial issue, yeah.

Greg Koukl 1:06:43 ... um, it doesn't mean that for subjectively every person who enters into a relationship with Christ has all of that in place immediately.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:50 There is, I'm, I'm really interested to understand, for my friend in Dubai-

Alex O’Connor 1:06:53 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:53 ... if he came to you and he was your friend in Dubai-

Alex O’Connor 1:06:55 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:56 ... and he said, "My life is lacking meaning."

Alex O’Connor 1:06:58 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:59 "Uh, I can't get out of bed anymore,"

Steven Bartlett 1:07:02 what would you prescribe him? What would you recommend? What would you suggest? A- as he's your friend.

Alex O’Connor 1:07:10 It's hard to know without knowing that friend. But if it seemed to me like going to church or reading the gospels might provide that for him, then I'd probably recommend that he did that. But I think that literally the subjective feeling of meaning is, is usually tied up in the identification of something that transcends your individual self.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:07:29 Okay. W- why would you-

Alex O’Connor 1:07:30 Right. And I think that any, whatever is the most plausible course of action for that person, to engage in something like that would be what I would recommend for them. If they're... Maybe they're, maybe they're not particularly interested in religion, I'd recommend that they read some philosophy of mind and try to understand the nature of consciousness, and they might start... I might recommend, depending on who they are, that they take a psychedelic drug and try to experience something which cannot be put into words, because a lot of the time when you experience something like an ego death, and you might realize that the, the individuated self is an illusion, and that these cliches that keep cropping up when someone does psychedelics... And I- and I actually think that the problem of consciousness is absolutely crucial to this.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:09 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:08:09 Uh, if, if ... I- I mean, I think the most plausible account of consciousness implies that consciousness is something which is sort of received by the biological organism, rather than produced by it. 'Cause I agree with you that you can't just put a bunch of molecules together and get consciousness.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:26 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:08:26 That doesn't make a- any sense whatsoever.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:27 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:08:28 But it's interesting that some of our best scientific evidence is, (laughs) is suggesting the fact not that the brain produces consciousness, but that the brain inhibits, and focuses, and organizes consciousness.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:38 Mm-hmm.

Alex O’Connor 1:08:38 It does not produce it.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:39 Yeah. So, I- I- I love your answer. So, you- you were saying, you know, depending on the person, you can do different things. You can read philosophy of mind.

Alex O’Connor 1:08:45 But I'd recommend them to do that, in other words, you know?

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:47 Yeah. Psychedelics.

Alex O’Connor 1:08:48 To look at, look at that, depending on who they are.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:49 You know, read the gospels. So, I- I think what's, what's interesting is that when you, you know, when, when Steven gives the concrete example of-

Alex O’Connor 1:08:55 Yes.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:08:55 ... like, if my friend comes to you who's had this religious awakening, or prior to a religious awakening, what would you recommend to them? And I think what's really interesting is basically all of the answers that you said, I think, can map onto mechanism.

Alex O’Connor 1:09:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:09:10 And I'd just love to talk about that for a second. So, the first thing is, you know, you asked me at the beginning, "Am I religious?" I- I think here's my understanding of ... And we were talking a little bit about, you know, people can have the subjective feeling of religion. What is the relationship to, to that thing being true? So, here's what I've sort of observed. I don't know if y'all have ever been to, like, a really great cathedral.

Alex O’Connor 1:09:30 Oh, yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:09:31 But, like, you- you know, if you go to a great cathedral, you don't have to be Christian to be awe-inspired by what you see.

Alex O’Connor 1:09:38 Sure.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:09:38 So, when I look at the project of religion, which is a little bit different from spirituality, I- I ... One of the things that I've observed is that religion is a series of structures to evoke a personal experience. So, the whole point of reading the gospels is, fingers crossed, and we'll get to how to optimize that. Fingers crossed, if you read the gospels enough, or you go to church enough, or you pray enough, if you keep on talking to Christ, one day he'll start talking back. But I think the really interesting thing is if you struggle with purpose, you can read the gospels. If you go into religion, and I think what's changed now, is that we have so much science to understand the mechanism through which religious practices evoke subjective experience. So, you- I can go to church until for- my whole life, but until I have that relationship with God, that is a subjective experience that is evoked-

Alex O’Connor 1:10:33 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:10:33 ... by the sort of structure of the religious practice.

Alex O’Connor 1:10:37 Oh, yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:10:37 So, that is absolutely one thing you can do. I think the cool thing is that the problem with reading the gospels, as- as I can clearly see that you've done, and- and, you know, I- I see the striving for religion in you. Like, you're like, you- you wanna have that, right? Like, you wanna know, like, "What are these people actually kinda talking about?" I could be wrong there. But I- I see this beautiful striving that you're, like, you're trying really hard to figure this stuff out, which is just awesome to see. I think though, that if we- we kinda look at it, and you mentioned kind of psychedelics as well, and I think psychedelics is- is really interesting, because we know that ... So, if you take someone who has treatment-refractory depression, or someone who has PTSD, and you give them a psychedelic, the psychedelic is not healing. What is healing is specifically whether they have an ego death experience.

Alex O’Connor 1:11:25 Mm-hmm.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:11:25 So, if I see colors and things like that-

Alex O’Connor 1:11:28 Yes.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:11:28 ... that doesn't solve things. But the ego death experience is what correlates with clinical improvement. So, psychedelics are a good way to evoke, um, a subjective experience, right? So, we- we know that there are a couple of pieces. And when I worked with people ... So, one of the things that we know is that when you experience trauma, it shatters your meaning of life.

Alex O’Connor 1:11:52 Yes.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:11:52 And so, what ... So, working a lot with people with trauma, and- and this is something that I kind of laid out, um, uh, in terms of, like, making a guide about it. But what I realized is that there's a set of things that you can do, relatively sequentially, to get your meaning back. And so I think the cool thing about, like, you know, reading the gospels, or psychedelics, or things like that, is those each have some, fingers crossed, change-

Alex O’Connor 1:12:15 Yeah.

Dr. K (Alok Kanojia) 1:12:16 ... in you. But the cool thing is, like,