Lex Fridman PodcastIan Hutchinson: Nuclear Fusion, Plasma Physics, and Religion | Lex Fridman Podcast #112
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,303 words- 0:00 – 5:32
Introduction
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Ian Hutchinson, a nuclear engineer and plasma physicist at MIT. He has made a number of important contributions in plasma physics, including the magnetic confinement of plasmas, seeking to enable fusion reactions, which happens to be the energy source of the stars, to be used for practical energy production. Current nuclear reactors, by the way, are based on fission, as we discuss. Ian has also written on the philosophy of science and the relationship between science and religion, arguing in particular against scientism, which is a negative description of the overreach of the scientific method to questions not amenable to it. On this latter topic, I recommend two of his books, his new one, Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles?, where he answers more than 200 questions on all aspects of God and science, and his earlier book on scientism called Monopolizing Knowledge. As you may have seen already, I work hard on having an open mind, always questioning my assumptions, and in general, marvel at the immense mystery of everything around us and the limitations of at least my mind. I'm not religious myself in that I don't go to the synagogue, a church or mosque, but I see the beautiful bond in the community that religion at its best can create. I also see both in scientists and religious leaders signs of arrogance, hypocrisy, greed, and a will to power. We're human, whether Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, or atheist. This podcast is my humble attempt to explore a complicated human nature, what Stanislaw Lem in his book Solaris called "our own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers." I ask that you try to keep an open mind as well and be patient with the limitations of mine. Quick summary of the ads. Two new amazing sponsors, Sun Basket and PowerDot. Please consider supporting this podcast by going to sunbasket.com/lex and use code LEX at checkout, and going to powerdot.com/lex and use code LEX at checkout as well. Click the links, buy the stuff if you like. Just visiting the site and considering the purchase is really the best way to support this podcast. It's how they know I sent you, and based on that, they might sponsor the podcast in the future. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcasts, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @LexFridman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and never any ads in the middle that can break the flow of the conversation. This show, sponsored by Sun Basket. Visit sunbasket.com/lex and use code LEX to get 35 bucks off your order and to support this podcast. Sun Basket delivers fresh, healthy, delicious meals straight to your door. As you may know, my diet is pretty minimalist, so it's nice to get some healthy variety into the mix. They make it super easy with, uh, everything pre-portioned and ready to prep and cook. You can enjoy a delicious healthy dinner in as little as 15 minutes. I just ordered my first set of meals. Haven't gotten them yet, but I can't wait. I just finished the, uh, six-mile run and 1,000 body weight reps, and I'm starving, but let me risk listing the actual menu items that I ordered 'cause they sound delicious. Italian sausages and vegetable skewers with two Romescos. I don't actually know what Romescos are, but the pictures looked awesome. And pork fried cauliflower rice with carrots and peas. By the way, cauliflower rice is one of my favorite things ever. Right now Sun Basket is offering $35 off your order when you go right now to sunbasket.com/lex. They told me to say right now with urgency, so pause this podcast and go to the website and make the purchase, or just go to the website and check it out, and enter promo code LEX at checkout. This show is also sponsored by PowerDot. Get it at powerdot.com/lex and use code LEX at checkout to get 20% off and to support this podcast. This thing is amazing. It's an e-stim, electrical stimulation device, that I've been using a lot for muscle recovery recently, mostly for my shoulders and legs as I've been doing the 1,000 body weight reps and six miles every day, as I just finished. They call it the smart muscle stimulator, which is true since the app that goes with it is amazing. It has 15 programs for different body parts and guides you through everything you need to do. I take recovery really seriously these days, and PowerDot has been a powerful addition to the whole regime of stretching, ice, massage, and sleep and diet that I do. It's used by professional athletes and by slightly insane, but mostly normal people like me. It's portable, so you can throw it in a bag and bring it anywhere. Get it at powerdot.com/lex and use code LEX at checkout to get 20% off on top of the 30-day free trial and to support this podcast. And now here's my conversation with Ian Hutchinson.
- 5:32 – 8:00
Nuclear physics and plasma physics
- LFLex Fridman
Maybe it'd be nice to draw a distinction between nuclear physics and plasma physics. What is the distinction?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Nuclear physics is about the physics of the nucleus, and my department, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, is very concerned about all the interactions and, uh, reactions and, and consequences of things that go on in the nucleus, including nuclear energy, fission energy, which is the nuclear energy that we have already, and f- fusion energy, which is the energy source of the sun and stars, which we don't quite know how to turn into practical energy.... uh, for, for humankind at the moment. That's what, uh, my research has mostly been aimed at. But plasmas are essentially the fourth state of matter. So if you think about solid, liquid, gas, plasma is the fourth of those states of matter, and it's actually the state of matter which one reaches if one raises the temperature. Um, so cold things, you know, like ice are solid. Um, liquids are hotter... water. Uh, and if you heat water beyond 100 degrees Celsius, it becomes gas. Uh, well, that's true of most substances, and, um, plasma is a s- is a state of matter in which the electrons are unbound from the nuclei, so they become separated from the nuclei and can move s- separately. So we have positively charged nuclei, and we have negatively charged electrons. The, the net is, is, um, uh, still neutral, electrically neutral, but a plasma conducts electricity, has all sorts of important properties that are associated with that separation, and that's what plasmas are all about. And the reason why my department is interested in plasma physics very strongly is because most things... well, for one thing, most things in the universe are plasma. The vast majority of matter in the universe is plasma. But, but, but most particularly, stars and the sun are plasmas because they're very hot, and it's only in very hot states that nuclear fusion reactions take place, and we want to understand how to implement those kind of phenomena on earth.
- 8:00 – 35:22
Fusion energy
- IHIan Hutchinson
- LFLex Fridman
Maybe another distinction we wanna try to get at is the difference between fission and fusion. So you mentioned-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
... fusion is the kind of reaction happening in the sun. So what's fission and what's fusion?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Sure. Well, fission is taking heavy elements, like uranium, and breaking them up, and it turns out that that process of breaking up heavy elements releases energy.
- LFLex Fridman
What does it mean to be a heavy element?
- IHIan Hutchinson
It means that there are many nuclear particles in the nucleus itself, neutrons and protons, um, in the, in the nucleus itself, so that in the case of, um, uranium, there are 92 protons in each nucleus, and even more neutrons, so that the total number of nucleons in the nucleus... nucleons is short for, for either a proton or a neutron. Um, the total number, you know, might be 235, that's U-235, or it might be 238, that's U-238. So those are heavy elements. Light elements, by contrast, have very few nucleons, protons or neutrons, in the nucleus. Hydrogen is the lightest nucleus. It has one proton. There are actually slightly heavier forms of hydrogen, isotopes. Deuterium has a proton and a neutron, and tritium has a proton and two neutrons, so it has a total of three nucleons in the nu- in the nucleus. Well, taking light elements, like isotopes of hydrogen, and in... and not breaking them up, but actually fusing them together, reacting them together to produce heavier elements, typically helium, okay, which is... Helium is a nucleus which has, has two protons and two neutrons, that also releases energy, and that, and that, or reactions like that, making heavier elements from lighter elements, is what mostly powers the sun and stars. Both fusion and fission release ap- approximately a million times more energy per unit mass than chemical reactions. So a chemical reaction means take hydrogen, take oxygen, react them together, let's say, and get water. That releases energy. The energy released in a chemical reaction like that or the burning of coal or, or an oil or whatever else is about a million times less per unit mass than what is released in nuclear reactions.
- LFLex Fridman
So but it's hard to do?
- IHIan Hutchinson
It requires very high energy of impact, and actually it's very easy to understand why, and that is that those two nuclei, if they're both, let's say, hydrogen nuclei, one is, let's say, deuterium and the other is, let's say, tritium, they're both electrically charged, and so the... and they're positively charged, so they're, th- they... like charges repel. Everyone knows that, right? So basically to get them close enough together to react, you have to overcome the repulsion, the electric repulsion of the two, um, nuclei from one another, and you have to get them extremely close to one another in order for the nuclear forces to overtake the electrical forces and, and actually form a new nucleus. And so one requires very high energies of impact in order for reactions to take place, and those high energies of impact correspond to very high temperatures of random motion.
- LFLex Fridman
So that's why you can do stuff like that i- in the sun. So we can build the sun, that's one way to do it, but, uh, o- on earth, how do you create a fusion (laughs) reaction-
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs) . Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... as-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well nature-
- LFLex Fridman
... engineering-wise?
- IHIan Hutchinson
... nature's fusion, um, reactors are indeed the stars, and, uh, they are very hot in the ce- in the center, and re- and they reach the point where they release more energy from those reactions than they lose by radiation and transport to the surface and so forth, and that's a state of ignition.And, and that's what we have to achieve to, to give net energy. It's like lighting a fire.
- LFLex Fridman
Got it.
- IHIan Hutchinson
If you, if you have a, if you have a bundle of sticks and you hold a match up to it and you see smoke coming from the sticks, but you take the match away and the f- and the, and the sticks just fizzle out, that's not... The reason they did fizzled out is that, yes, they were burning, they were, there was smoke coming from them, but they were not ignited. But if you are able to take the match away and they keep burning and they are generating enough heat to keep themselves hot and hence keep the reactions going, that's chemical ignition. But what we need to do, what the stars do, in order to generate nuclear fusion energy, is they are ignited, they are generated enough energy to keep themselves hot. And that's what we've got to do on earth if we're going to make fusion work on earth. But it's much harder to do on earth than it is, you know, in a star because, you know, we need temperatures of order tens of millions of degrees Celsius in order for the reactions to go fast enough to generate enough electricity to keep it, or e- enough energy to keep it going. And, um, and so, um, if you've got something that's tens of millions of degrees Celsius and you want to keep it all together and keep the heat in long enough s- for it to have enough reactions taking place, you can't just put it in a bottle, you know, plastic or glass, it would be gone, you know, in s- in milliseconds.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, so, um, you have to have some non-material mechanism of confining the plasma. In the case of stars, that non-material force is gravity. So gravity is what holds the star together, it's what holds the plasma in long enough for it to react and, and, and sustain itself by the, the fusion reactions. But on earth, gravity is extremely weak. I mean, I don't mean to say we don't fall. Yes, we fall. But the, the mutual gravitational at- attraction of small objects is very weak compared with the electrical repulsion or any other force that you can think about on earth. And so we need a stronger force to keep the plasma together to confine it. And the predominant attempt are at making fusion work on earth is to use magnetic fields to confine the plasma. And that's what I've worked on for much, essentially most of my career, is to understand how we can and how best we can confine these incredibly hot gases, plasmas, using magnetic fields with the ultimate objective of releasing fusion energy on earth and g- you know, generating electricity with it and powering our society with it.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, dumb question. So on top of the magnetic fields, do you also need the plastic water bottle walls-
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... or is it purely magnetic fields?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, actually what, we do need walls. Um, th- they, those walls must be kept away from the plasma because otherwise they'd be melted. Well, the plasma must be kept away from them, inside, inside of them. But the m- but the main purpose of the walls is not to keep the plasma in, it's to keep the atmosphere out.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh.
- IHIan Hutchinson
So if we want to do it on earth where there's air, um, we want the plasma to consist of hydrogen isotopes or other things, the things we're trying to react.
- LFLex Fridman
Got it.
- IHIan Hutchinson
And by the way, the density (clears throat) of those plasmas, at least in magnetic confinement fusion, is very low. It's maybe a million times less than the density of air in this room. So in order for a fusion reactor like that to work, you have to keep all of the air out and just keep the plasma in. So yes, there are other things, but those are things that are relatively easy. I mean, making a vacuum these days is technologically quite s- quite straightforward. We know how to do that, okay? Uh, what we don't quite know how to do is to make a confinement, uh, device that's, uh, isolates the plasma well enough so that it'll, so that it's able to keep itself burning with its own reaction.
- LFLex Fridman
So maybe can you talk about what a, a tokamak is?
- IHIan Hutchinson
The Russian acronym from which the word tokamak is built just means toroidal magnetic chamber. So it's a toroidal chamber. Tor- a torus is a, is a geometric shape, which is like a donut with a hole down the middle, okay? And so it's the, i- so it's the meat of the donut, okay? That's the torus. Um, and it's, and it's got a magnetic field. So that's really all tokamak, uh, means. But the particular configuration, um, that we're, the, that is very widespread and is the sort of best prospect in the least in the near term for making fusion energy work is one in which there's a very strong magnetic field the, the long way around the donut, around the torus.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- 35:22 – 42:06
Nuclear weapons
- IHIan Hutchinson
- LFLex Fridman
Can we talk about nuclear weapons just for a little bit? Uh, so fission is the kind of reaction that's central to the nuclear weapons we have today?
- IHIan Hutchinson
That's what sets them off.
- LFLex Fridman
That's what sets them off. So if we look at the hydrogen bomb, maybe you can say how these-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... different weapons work.
- IHIan Hutchinson
So the earliest nuclear weapons, the w- the, the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Japan, et cetera, et cetera, were pure fission weapons. They used, uh, enriched uranium or plutonium, and their energy is essentially entirely derived from fission reactions. But, um, it was early realized that more energy was available if one could somehow combine a fission bomb with, um, fusion reactions, um, because y- though fusion reactions give more energy per unit mass than, uh, than fission reactions, and these w- this was called the super. You might have heard of the expression, the super, or more simply, hydrogen bombs.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Okay? Um, bombs which use isotopes of hydrogen and the fusion reactions associated with them.
- LFLex Fridman
But like you said, it's hard to turn on.
- IHIan Hutchinson
It's hard to turn on because you need very high temperatures, and you need-... confinement (clears throat) of that long enough for the reactions to take place. And so a bomb, actually, a th- a thermonuclear bomb or a hydrogen bomb, um, has essentially a chemical implosion which then sets off a fission explosion, which then sets off and compresses hydrogen isotopes and other things, which I don't know because I don't, I've never had a security clearance, okay? So I-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
... so I can't betray any secrets-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
... about weapons 'cause I've never been party to them but- 'cause I know a lot about this problem, I can guess, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, and, and sets off fusion reactions in the middle, okay? So that's basically, it's that sequence of things which produce these enormous, you know, multi-megaton, uh, bombs that y- have very large yields. Um, and so fusion alone can't get, can't get you there. The- it is actually possible to set off or to try to set off little fusion bombs alone without the surrounding, um, fission explosion, and that is what is called laser fusion. So another approach to fusion, which actually is mostly, uh, researched in the weapons complex, the national labs and so forth, because it's more associated with the technologies of, of weapons, is inertial fusion. So if in- if you decide instead of ha- trying to make your plasma just sit there in this torus, in the, in the tokamak, and be controlled steady state with a magnetic field, if you, if you're willing to accept that... I'll just set off an explosion, okay? And then I'll gather the energy from that somehow, I don't quite know how but let's not a- ask that question too much, um, then, uh, it is possible to imagine generating fusion alone explosions. And, and the way you do it is you take some small amount of deuterium tritium fuel, you bombard it with, uh, energy from all sides, and this is what the lasers are used for, extremely powerful lasers, which compresses the pe- the pellet of fusion and heats it. It compresses it to such a high density and temperature that the reactions take place very, very quickly and, in fact, they can take place so quickly that they're- it's all over with before the thing flies apart, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Wow.
- IHIan Hutchinson
And that is-
- LFLex Fridman
So heat it up really fast.
- IHIan Hutchinson
That is inertial fusion, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Is that useful for energy generation for-
- IHIan Hutchinson
No.
- LFLex Fridman
... outside (laughs) ?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Not yet. I mean, there are those people who think it will be, but you may have heard of the big experiment called the National Ignition Facility which was built at Livermore starting in the late 1990s and has been o- in operation since, mm, roundabout 2010. It was designed in- with the claim that it would reach ignition, fusion ignition, in this pulsed form where the reactions have got over with so quickly before the thing, whole thing flies apart. It didn't actually reach ignition and I- doesn't look as if it will, although, you know, we never know. Maybe people figure out how to make it work better. Um, but the answer is, in principle, it seems possible to reach ignition, uh, in this way. Maybe not with that particular laser facility.
- LFLex Fridman
Are you surprised that, uh, we humans haven't destroyed ourselves-
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... given that we've invented such powerful tools of destruction? Like, what do you make of the, the fact that for many decades we've had nuclear weapons now? Speaking about estimating risk, at least to me it's exceptionally surprising, I was born in the Soviet Union, that, um, that big egos of the big leaders when, uh, rubbing up against each other have not created, uh, the kind of destruction one was af- everybody was afraid of for decades?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, I must say I'm extremely thankful that it hasn't. I don't know whether I'm surprised about it. Um, I've never thought about it in f- from the point of view of is it surprising that we've, we've avoided it. I'm just very thankful that we have. I think that there is a sense in which cooler heads have prevailed at crucial moments. I think there is also a sense in which, you know, mutually assured destruction, um, has in fact worked, um, as a policy to restrain the great powers from going to war. And in fact, you know, the, the, the fact that we haven't had a world war, you know, since the 1940s is m- perhaps even attributable to nuclear weapons in a kind of strange and peculiar way. But I think humans are deeply, uh, flawed, uh, and sinful people, and I certainly don't feel guar- that we're guaranteed that it's gonna go on like this.
- 42:06 – 50:29
Existential risks
- IHIan Hutchinson
- LFLex Fridman
And we'll talk about the, sort of the biggest picture view of it all, uh, but let me just ask in terms of your worries of if we look 100 years from now, we're in the middle of what is now a natural pandemic that from the looks of it, it fortunately is not as bad as it could have possibly been. If we look at the Spanish flu, if you look at the history of pandemics, if you look at all the possible pandemics that could've been that, that, uh, folks like Bill Gates are exceptionally terrified about, we've, uh, uh... I know many people are suffering, uh, but it's, it's, it's better than it could've been. Uh, so and now, now we're talking about nuclear weapons. In terms of existential threats to us as sinful humans, uh, what worries you the most?Is it nuclear weapons? Is, is it, uh, natural pandemics? Engineered pandemics? Nanotechnology? In my field of artificial intelligence-
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... some people are, are afraid of, uh, killer robots and-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Robots, yeah. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Is there... Do you think in those existential terms, uh, and in, do any aspect, do any of those things worry you?
- IHIan Hutchinson
I am certainly not confident that my children and grandchildren will experience the benefits of civilization that I have enjoyed. I think it's possible for our civilizations to break down catastrophically. Um, I also think that it's possible for our civilizations to break down progressively, and I think they will if we continue to have the explosion of population on the planet that we currently have. I mean, (sighs) it's qu- it's quite... it's quite wrong to think of our problems as mostly being CO2. If we can just solve CO2, then we can go on having this, you know, continually expanding economy everywhere in the world. Of course you (laughs) can't do that, okay? I mean, there is a finite, you know, bearing capacity of our planet.
- LFLex Fridman
And the resources of our planet, yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
And the resources of our planet. And, and we can't continue to do that. So, I think there are lots of technical reasons why, um, a continually expanding economy and, and, uh, and civilization is impossible, and that therefore, um, actually I'm as much nervous about the fact that our population is eight billion or something, uh, right now worldwide a- as I am about, um, the fact that, you know, a few million people would be k- would be killed by COVID-19. I mean, I don't want to be (laughs) callous about this, but from the big picture, it seems like that's much more of a problem, overpopulation. People not dying is ultimately more of a problem, uh, than people dying. Um, so, you know, and that probably sounds incredibly callous to your, to your listeners, but I think it's simply, you know, a sober assessment of the, of the situation.
- LFLex Fridman
Is there... Is there ways from the way those eight billion or seven billion or whatever the number is live that could make it sustainable? Uh, you know. 'Cause you've kind of implied there's a kind of, uh... We have, especially in the West, this kind of capitalist view of, um, really consuming a lot of resources. Is there a way to... Like, h- if you could change, uh, one thing or a few things, what would you change to make this life, um... Make it lo- more likely that your grandchildren have, uh, a better life than you?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, okay. So let, let's talk a bit about energy, because that's something I know a lo- a lot about, having thought about it most of my career. In order to reach steady state CO2 level, okay, that's acceptable in terms of global climate change and so on and so forth, we need to reduce our carbon emissions by at least a factor of 10 worldwide, okay? What's more, you know, um, the average energy consumption, and hence CO2 emission, of people in the world is less than a 10th of what we... per capita of than what we have in the West in America and Europe and so forth. So if you have in mind some utopia in the future where we've c- where, where we've reached a sustainable use of energy, and we've also reached a, a situation in which there's far less inequity in the world in the sense that people have... share the energy resources more uniformly, then what w- what that is equivalent to would be to reduce the CO2 emissions in Western economies not by a factor of 10, but by a factor of a hundred. In other words, has to go down to 1% of what it is now, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
So, you know, when people talk about, uh, you know, "Let's use natural gas 'cause, you know, maybe it only uses 60% of the energy of coal," it's complete nonsense. We... That's not, not even scratching the surface of what we w- would need to do. So, (sighs) you know, is that going to be feasible? I, I, I very much doubt it. And therefore, I actually doubt that we can reach, um, a level of energy, um, of c- of fossil energy use that is 1% of the current use in the West without totally dramatic changes either in, you know, our society, our use of ele- of energy and so forth-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
... which actually, of course, as much of that energy is used for producing food and so on and so forth, so it's actually not so obvious that we can w- we can get... we can cut down our energy usage by that factor. Or we've got to reduce the human population on the planet.
- LFLex Fridman
Population. So you run up against that number, that's increasing still. (sighs) And you don't think there could be a-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Sorry if that's depressing but I just the way I see it.
- LFLex Fridman
No, it's, it's not, uh, it's not de- it's none... it's not depressing, it's, um, it's difficult-
- IHIan Hutchinson
It's very difficult.
- LFLex Fridman
... like many truths are. (laughs) Uh, uh, do, do you have a hope, uh, that there could be a technological solution? What-
- IHIan Hutchinson
In short, no. There is no technological solution to, for example, for population control. I mean, we, we have the technology just, you know, to prevent ourselves bearing children, that's not a problem. Technology's in, okay? Solved. The challenge is society, the challenge is ch- human choices, the ch- the challenge is p- almost entirely human and sociological, not technology. N- not technology. And when people thought- talk about energy they su- they think that there's some kind of technological magic bullet for this, but there isn't, okay? And, and there isn't for the reasons I just mentioned. Not because it's obvious there isn't, but actually there isn't. A- and, and in, in any case, um......that it's true of energy, it's true of pollution, it's true of human population, it's true of most of the big challenges in our society, are not scientific or technological challenges. They're human sociological challenges. And that's why I think it's a terrible mistake, um, even for folks like me who work at, you know, well, the high temple of science and technology-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
...in, in America and maybe in the galaxy.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
I mean, you know, it's-
- LFLex Fridman
MIT.
- IHIan Hutchinson
It's... MIT.
- LFLex Fridman
Best university in the world.
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs) It's, it's a terrible mistake if we give the impression that technology is going to solve it all. Technology will make tre- tremendous contributions and I think it's, it's worth working on it, but it's a disaster if you think it's going to solve all of our problems. And, and actually, um, you know, I've written a whole book about the question of, uh, of scientism and the, and the overemphasis on science both as a way of, of solving problems through technology, but also as a way of gaining knowledge. I think it's not all of the knowledge there is either.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I think that book and, uh, your journey there is fascinating, so maybe we can
- 50:29 – 56:27
Personal journey in religion
- LFLex Fridman
go there. Can, can you tell me about your, on a personal side, your, the personal journey of your faith, of Christianity and your relationship with, uh, with God, with religion in general?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Yeah. In my, in my latest book, uh, Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles?, I, I, I give, uh, first ch... I devote most of the first chapter to telling how, how I became a Christian, uh, why I became a Christian. I, I, I didn't grow up as a Christian.
- LFLex Fridman
Which is fascinating. I mean, you didn't grow up as a Christian, so you, you've discovered the beauty of, uh, God and physics at the same time (laughs) con- concurrently.
- IHIan Hutchinson
That's an... That's a very poetic way of putting it.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
But yes, I would accept that. Um, I became a Christian when I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University. Um, I, I had, uh, you know, I had gone to a school in which there was religion kind of was part of the s- society. There were prayers and, and at the, at the, uh, at the daily, you know, gathering of the s- of the students, uh, the assembly of the students. Um, but I, but I didn't really believe it. I just sort of went along with it and it wasn't particularly, you know, aggressive or benin- you know, benign. It just sort of was there. Um, but I didn't believe it. Um, I... Didn't m- didn't make much sense to me. But when I... But I came across Christians from time to time, and when I went to U... Cambridge University, um, two of my closest friends w- it turned out were Christians. And I think it was that was the most important influence on me, um, that, that here were, uh, two people who were really smart, like me, you know.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
I, I'm giving you my-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, yeah. The-
- IHIan Hutchinson
... my impressions. Okay?
- LFLex Fridman
The way you felt at the time, yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
The way I f- the way I felt at the time. Um, and, a- and they thought Christianity made sense and, and, you know, testified to its significance in their lives. And so that was an m- very important influence on me. And I... And ultimately, I mean, the reason I, I, I hadn't, I hadn't... I didn't see Christianity as some kind of great evil the way it's sometimes portrayed by the, by the radical atheists of this century. I mean, I think that's nonsense. But, uh, but, uh, but I... Uh, so I think there were certain attractive things. If you go to a university like Cambridge, you know, you're surrounded by, by, by Western culture, you know, from, from about, you know, the, the 15th century onwards, and that's saturated with Christian, uh, art and architecture and so forth. And so it's hard n- it's hard not to recognize that Christianity is in fact the foundation of Western society and Western culture and West- We- Western civilization. Um, so, uh, so I, I mean, maybe I was in that sense favorably de- disposed towards Christianity as a religion, but as a personal faith, it didn't mean anything to me. But I became convinced really of two things. One is that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is actually rather good. I mean, I mean, it's not a proof. It's not kind of some, some kind of scientific demonstra- or mathematical demonstration, but it's actually extremely good. It's not scientific evidence by and large, it's historical evidence.
- LFLex Fridman
Historical evidence, yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, so that was one thing, and the other thing that c- came to me when I was, uh, at Cambridge, it became clear that Christianity ultimately is not, you know, some kind of moral theory or philosophy or something like that. It is, or at lea- or at least it claims to be, um, a personal relationship with God which is made possible, you know, by, um, what Jesus did and on the cross and, and his life and s- and his teaching and, and it's a personal call to a relationship with God. And that had... I'd never really thought of it in those terms when I was, you know, as... when I was younger, and that, that n- that thought became, um, a- attractive to me. I mean, I, I think most people find the person of Christ and his teachings, you know, compelling in c- in a certain sense.
- LFLex Fridman
What do you mean by personal? Do you mean personal f- for you like a relationship like it's a meditative like you specifically, you, Ian, have a connection, uh, with God. Uh, and, and then the other side you say personal, um, with the actual body, the person of Jesus Christ. So all of those things, what do you mean by personal connection and why that was meaningful?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, Chri- so a- as a Chris-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) I'm sorry for the stupid questions
I asked.
- IHIan Hutchinson
No, it's okay. No problem. (laughs) As a Christian, I believe that I have a relationship with God which is best expressed by saying that it's personal, and that comes about because j- you know, Jesus through his acts has-...reconciled me with God, me a sinner, me someone full of, of, of, of sins, of, of failings, of ways in which I don't live up to even my own ideals let, let alone the ideals of a holy God, um, have been reconciled to the creator of everything. Um, and, and so Christians, myself included, believe that prayer is, in a certain sense, a connection with God. And there are times when I have felt, you know, that God spoke to me. I don't mean in, necessarily orally in words, but showed me things or enlightened me or inspired me in ways, um, that, um, I, I attribute to Him. So I see it as a, as a two-way, you know, relationship in a certain sense. Of course, it's a very (laughs) asymmetrical relationship-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
...but nevertheless, Christians think that it's a two-way, it's two-way street. We're not just talking into the air when we say we want, are going to pray for someone.
- 56:27 – 1:01:34
What is God like?
- IHIan Hutchinson
- LFLex Fridman
In this two-way communication, uh, is there a way for, that you could try to describe on a podcast (laughs) wh- what is God-
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
What is God like, uh, in your view? Um, uh, if, if you, if you try to describe, is it a force? Um, is it a set, is it a, for you int- intellectually is a set of metaphors that you use to reason about the world? Is it, um, is it a, is it, is it kind of a computer that does some computation, that's, uh, infinitely powerful computer? Uh, or is it, uh, like Santa Claus, a guy with a, with a beard, uh, on the cloud? Like, uh, I don't mean, um, I don't mean what God actually is. I mean in your limited, uh, cognitive capacity as a human, (laughs) what do you actually, uh, what do you find helpful for thinking of what God actually looks like? What is God?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, let me start by saying none of the above, okay? (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
I mean clearly God in, in, the Christian God, um, uh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, et cetera, um, i- i- is, is not any of those things because all of those things you just mentioned are phenomena or, or, or entities in the created world.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- IHIan Hutchinson
And the most fundamental thing about monotheism as, you know, Abraham and Moses and so forth handed it down, is that God is not an entity within the, the creation, within the universe. That God is the creator of it all. And that's what Genesis, first two chapters of Genesis is really about, is, it's not, it's not about telling us, you know, how God created the world. It's about telling us and telling the early Hebrews that God (laughs) created the world, okay? And that therefore he is not, you know, simply an entity within it. On the other hand, you know, our finite minds have a pretty hard time encompassing that.
- LFLex Fridman
Right. Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
So y- so one has to therefore work in terms of metaphors and images and, and so forth. And, um, I think we would know very little about who God is, um, if we, if it was simply, uh, if we were simply left to our own devices, you know? If, if we were just, you know, here you are, you're in the universe, try to figure out who ma- who made it and, uh, and so forth. Well, you know, philosophers think they can do a little bit of that maybe. Uh, and theologians think that they can do a little bit more. But, um, but Christians think, uh, that God has actually helped us along a lot by revealing Himself. And, and we say that he's revealed himself supremely in the person of Jesus Christ. Um, and so, you know, when Jesus says to his disciples, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father," um, then that is in a certain sense a watchword for answering this question for Christians. It, it is that supremely if we want to help ourselves understand who God really is, we look to Jesus, we look to what he did, we look to what he said, uh, uh, and so forth. Um, and, uh, we believe that he is one with the Father and that's why we believe, you know, in the Trinity. I mean it's basically because, um, that revelation is extremely, um, central to Christian belief and teaching.
- LFLex Fridman
So i- in that, in that sense th- through Jesus there was, um, that's kind of a historical moment that's profound and that's really powerful, but do you also think that God m- makes himself seen in less obvious ways in our w- world today?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean it's h- it's certainly been the outlook of, um, Jews and Christians throughout, uh, history that God is seen in the creation. That we, when we look at the creation we see s- to some extent the wonder, the majesty, the might of the person or the entity, but the person who created it. And, uh, and that's a way in which scientists particularly, uh, have over, over the ages and, uh, certainly over most of the last five centuries since the Scientific Revolution, scientists have seen in a certain sense the hand of God in creation. I mean this leads us perhaps to a different discussion but I mean it's, it's remarkable to me how influential, um, Christianity and religion in generally has been in science.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Mo- most of the scientists through history as y- as you described, I mean God has been a very big part of their life and their work and their thinking.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Yeah. Certainly up until-... the twen- at the beginning of the 20th century, that was the case.
- LFLex Fridman
So maybe this is a good time to,
- 1:01:34 – 1:04:21
Scientism
- LFLex Fridman
can you tell me what scientism is?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Yeah. I mean, the short answer is that s- by scientism we mely- we mean the belief that science is all the real knowledge there is. Um, and that's a shorthand, there are lots of different facets of it and one- which one can explore. And, and the book in which I explored it mo- most, most pr- thoroughly was actually an earlier book called Monopolizing Knowledge. And, and the r- the purpose of that title is to, is to draw attention to the fact that in our society as a whole, in, particularly in the West today, we, we have grown so reliant on science that we s- that we tend to put aside other ways of getting to know things. And so, um, of course at MIT we are focused on science and we do, um, focus on it very much, but the truth is that there are many ways of getting to know things in our world, know things reliably in our world, and a lot of them are not science. So, scientism, in my view, is a terrible intellectual error. It's the bel- it's the belief that somehow the methods of science as we've developed them with ex- you know, experiments, and, and in the end they, it relies m- m- particularly upon reproducibility in the world and on, on a kind of clarity that comes from measurements and mathematics and, and related types of, of skills. Those, powerful though they are for finding out about the world, are not all the knowledge, do not give us all the knowledge we, we have, and there's many other forms of knowledge. And the illustration that I usually use, um, to, to try to help people to think about this is to say, "Well look, let's think about human history." I mean, to what extent can human history be discovered scientifically? The answer is essentially it can't bec- and the reason is because human history is not reproducible. You can't do reproducible experiments or observations and, and go back and, you know, try it over again. Uh, it's, it's a one-off thing, th- you know, the history is full of unique events. And, and so you, you know, you, you, you can't hope to do history using the methods of science.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I mean, in, in, in some sense, history is a story of miracles. I mean, they don't have to have to do with God, but it's just what, what-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Uniqueness is anyway, unique events, that's for sure.
- LFLex Fridman
Unique events, and, uh, that science doesn't like that because it's, uh, uni- (laughs) unique events by their very definition are not, uh, reproducible. Um, can I ask sort of a tricky question? I don't even know what atheist or atheism is,
- 1:04:21 – 1:06:39
Atheism
- LFLex Fridman
but is it possible for somebody to be an atheist and avoid, um, slipping into scientism?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean the, I mean, there, the, the, these are two separate things, okay? I'm quite sure there are many people who don't believe in God and yet recognize that there are many different ways of we get knowledge, you know, some is history, some is sociology, economics, politics, um, philosophy, art history, uh, language, literature, et cetera, et cetera. There are many people who recognize those disciplines as having their own approaches to epistemology and to g- how we get knowledge, and valuing them very highly. I don't mean to say that everyone, um, you know, who's an atheist n- automatically, y- you know, subscribes to scientistic viewpoint, that's not true. But it's certainly the case that many of the arguments, in fact most of the arguments of the aggressive atheists of this century, people who're sometimes called new atheists, although they're actually rather old, most of their arguments are rather old, um, you know, are drawing heavily on scientism. So when they say things like, "There's no evidence f- to support Christianity," okay, what they are really focusing on is to say, is saying that Christianity isn't proved or i- the evidence for Christianity is not science, okay? Science doesn't prove it. And, and, you, you know, if you read their books that's what you find they really mean, is science doesn't lead you necessarily to believe in a creator God or into a, in any particular in, um, r- religion. I accept that, that's not a problem to me, because I don't think that science is all the knowledge there is and I think there are other important ways of getting to know things, and one of them is historical, for example, and I mentioned earlier that I th- I became persuaded and I w- and I still am persuaded that the historical evidence for the resurrection is very, is very persuasive. Again, it's not proof or anything like that but it's, but it's pretty good evidence, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I've,
- 1:06:39 – 1:09:57
Not knowing
- LFLex Fridman
um, I talked to Richard Dawkins on this podcast and, um, uh, and, uh, I saw your debate with Sean Carroll, so I, I, I, I understand this world and it makes, it makes me very curious. Uh, maybe, uh, let me ask sort of another way, uh, my own kind of, um, worldview maybe you can help (laughs) a- as by way of therapy, uh, under-
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs) .
- LFLex Fridman
... understand, um, you know, 'cause you've kind of said that there's other ways of knowing, what about if we ki- if, if I kind of sit here and am cognizant of the fact that I almost don't know anything (laughs) . So sort of I'm sitting here almost paralyzed by the, the mystery of it all. And, and it's not even, when you say there's other ways of knowing, it, um, it feels almost too confident to me because, uh, yeah, when I, when I listen to beautiful music or, uh, see art, there's something there that's an- that's, uh, that's beyond the reach of scientism he would say, so b- beyond the reach of, uh, uh, the, the tools of science.... uh, but I don't even feel like that could be an, as an actual tool of knowing. It, um, yeah, I just don't even know where to begin then because it just feels like we know so little. Like, uh, if we look even 100 years from now when people look back to this time, humans look back to this time, they'll probably laugh at how little we knew. Even 100 years from now. And if we look at 1,000 years from now, hopefully, we're still alive or some version of our... or A.I. version of ourselves is still alive.
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Um, you know, they, they'll certainly laugh at the absurdity of our beliefs. So, what do you... (laughs) Uh, so you don't seem to be as paralyzed by how little we know (laughs) . You confidently push on forward, but what do you make of that sense of, uh-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well-
- LFLex Fridman
... of just not knowing of the mystery, but-
- IHIan Hutchinson
First of all, we, we need to be, um, modest or, or h- humble, if even, about what we know. I, I accept that and I, I certainly think that's true. Not, not simply because in the future we'll know more science and, and, and there will be more powerful ways of finding out about things, but simply because, you know, sometimes we're not right (laughs) . We're wrong (laughs) , okay? In what we think we know. Um, uh, so that's crucial, but it's also a very Christian outlook. That kind of humility, uh, is what Jesus taught, so I... Uh, so I don't know whether this was in the back of your mind when you were thinking about this, but it's often the case that, um, um, people of religious faith are, are accused of being dogmatists, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
And there is a sense in which dogma teaching, accepted teaching, is, is part of religions, okay? But I don't think that necessarily, uh, uh, that leads one to blind dogmatism, and I don't, I certainly don't think that faith, and we can talk about this later if you'd like, but I, I certainly don't th- think that faith means n- thinking you know something and n- not listening to counterarguments, for example. Um, so I, I think
- 1:09:57 – 1:13:46
Faith
- IHIan Hutchinson
that's crucial.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, what does, um, what does faith mean to you? What does it, uh, feel like? What does it actually sort of... How do you carry your faith in terms of the way you see the world?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, I think faith is very often misunderstood in our society at the moment, um, because, uh, it's often portrayed as being nothing other than, uh, believing things you know ain't true, you know (laughs) ?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, or, or believing things that aren't, aren't, are not proven, okay? Um, and, um, and this... A- and faith does have a strand which is to do with, you know, basically believing in, uh, in concepts or, um, propositions, but actually the, the word faith is much broader than that. Faith also means, um, you know, trusting in something. Trusting in a person or trusting in a thing, uh, the reliability of some technology, for example. Um, that's equally part of the meaning of the word faith. And there, and there's a third strand to the, to the meaning of the word as well and that is loyalty. Um, so, you know, I have faith in my wife and s- and I try to act in faith towards her, and that's a kind of loyalty. And so those three strands are the, are the most important strands of the meaning of faith. Yes, belief in, uh, in propositions that we might not have, you know, full proof a- about or maybe we have very little proof about, but it's also trust and, and loyalty. And actually wha- in, in terms of the Christian faith, Christians are far more, uh, called to trust and loyalty than they are to belief in things they don't, you know, don't have proof of, okay? Um, but, but the critics of religion generally, um, tend to emphasize the first one and say, "Well, you know, you believe things for which you have no evidence." Okay? That's what-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
... the, what, that's what they think faith is. Well, yeah, there, there is a sense in which everybody has to live their lives, uh, believing or, or, or making decisions in situations when they don't have all the proof or evidence or knowledge that enables you to make a completely, um, rational or well-informed or prudent decision. We have... You know, we do this all the time, you know? My drive down here, I nearly took a wrong turning and I thought, "Which, which, which way do I go? Do I keep going straight on?" And so my, uh, voice came out and I'm thinking, "Go straight, okay?" (laughs) .
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
So-
- LFLex Fridman
Uh-
- IHIan Hutchinson
... so you have to make decisions and sometimes, you know, you don't have a navigation system telling you what to do.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
You just have to make that decision with no... with insufficient evidence, and you're doing it all the time as a human and that's part of being sentient. Um, and so that kind of, um, action and belief on the basis of incomplete evidence is not something that I feel uncomfortable doing or I feel... that I feel un... that somehow my Christian commitments have forced me to do when I d- wouldn't have had to have done it otherwise. I would've had to do it anyway.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) .
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, and, and so, you know, there's a sense in which, um, I think it's important to see the breadth of meaning of faith. And, and, and to recognize that in... certainly in the case of Christianity, um, it's trust and loyalty that the, uh, the key themes that we're called to.
- LFLex Fridman
And, I mean, another ex- interesting extension, uh, of that that you speak to
- 1:13:46 – 1:23:26
The value of loyalty and love
- LFLex Fridman
is kind of loyalty is referring to, uh, a connection with something outside of yourself-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Um, so I think you've spoken about like existentialism or even just atheism in general as, um, as leading naturally to an individualism, as a focus on the, on the self. And, uh, ideas that maybe the Christian faith that can, um, instill in you is, um, allowing you to sort of look outside of yourself. So connection, I mean, loyalty fundamentally is about other beings, um, and yeah, o-other beings. And I think, I don't know what it is in me, but I'm very much drawn to that idea, and, um, I think humans in general are drawn to that idea. You can make all kinds of evolutionary arguments, all that kind of stuff, but, uh, people always kind of tease me, uh, 'cause I talk about love a lot. (laughs) And I mean, there's a lot of, um, non-scientific things about love, right? Like w-what the heck is that thing? Why do we even need that thing? It, uh, it seems to be an annoying burden that, uh, (laughs) that we, we get so much joy in, in life from a connection with other human beings, deep, uh, lasting connections with human beings. Same thing with loyalty. Why, why do we get so much value and pleasure and strength and meaning from loyalty, from a connection with somebody else, uh, going through thick and thin with somebody else, going through some hard times? I mean, some of the, you know, closest friends I have is going through some, some rough times together, and that seems to make life deeply meaningful. Uh, what is that? So th-
- IHIan Hutchinson
Yeah, um, uh, that's, that resonates with me and I, obviously I would, I would affirm it. Um, uh, I think just to, just to correct on the implication that you made, I don't think it's necessarily the con- the consequence of atheism, uh, that we, that we lose track of those kinds of things. I, I mean I think that atheists can be loyal, okay, if you like.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, the question more often comes up in the context of, you know, where does morality come from?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
And loyalty I think and duty are related to one another, you know? If we have loyalty to someone then we have a duty to them, okay, as well. And I think that in so far as we see ourselves as having some kinds, any kinds of duties or moral compulsions with respect to our relationships to other people, it's, I think it's a question that always arises, well, where does these, where do these come from? And there are various approaches that people have towards deciding what makes ethics or m- or morality moral, okay? But I do think it's the case that, um, it's very hard to ground morality, um, in a, in any kind of absolute way or persuasive way, um, in mere human relationships. And so it's certainly the case that in Christianity, um, there is a sense in which, um, morality and, you know, the morality of morals comes from a transcendent place, from a s- a transcendent deity, and that we, um, that we ground our, the compelling force of, of morals on God, uh, more than we do on individuals. Because after all, you know, if i- if it, if you, if you've got nothing but, you know, other people, why should you, you know, treat your neighbor well? Why shouldn't you defraud your neighbor if it's good for you? Well, you know, you can construct all kinds of arguments and some of them are, you know, obviously arguments that are commonplace in religion too. You should do as you would be done by and all this kind of thing.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- IHIan Hutchinson
But none of that seems any, any more than mere pragmatism to most people, okay? And so that's what, that's one of the things if, if you, that nature amongst others, you know, really identified, you know? If God is dead, if, if the idea of God is grounding our moral behavior is no longer viable in the West, which Nietzsche thought that it wasn't, okay, then what does ground it? And, and he had no good answer for it. In fact, he claimed there was no answer, but then he couldn't live with that, and so he invented the idea of the Ubermensch-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- IHIan Hutchinson
... you know, this, this superior human being, okay? And this was, uh, a different way of trying to ground morality, not a very successful one. You know, you could argue that it's a forerunner of the sort of, uh, racism of Hitler's regime and, and, and so forth, um, that, you know, we've in the West thankfully shied away from, uh, in the, in the past, uh, uh, 1/2 or 3/4 of a century. But, um, you know, I think it is the case that, uh, Christianity gives me a basis for my moral beliefs that is more than mere pragmatism.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, but there, there is, um, so stepping outside of all of that, there does seem to be a powerful stabilizing... Like we humans are able to hold ideas together like in a distributed way, uh, outside of whether God exists or not or any of that. Just our ability to kind of converge together towards a set of beliefs, uh, into, sometimes into tribes.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
It's kind of, um-...I don't know if it's in- inherent to being human beings, and I hope not because now if I look on Twitter, uh, and there's, uh, there's the red team and the blue team, right?
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
It's- it's almost like a, it's a charac- it's some kind of TV show that we're living in, uh, that people get into these tribes and they hold a set of beliefs that sometimes don't, um... I mean, they- they are beliefs for the sake of holding those beliefs, and we get this intimate connection between each other for sharing those beliefs. And we spoke to the things about loyalty and love, and that's the thing that people feel inside the tribe. And it seems very human that within that tribe, those beliefs don't necessarily always have to be connected to anything. It's just the fact that, uh, you know, I've, uh, did sports, uh, uh, my whole life. Whenever you're on a team, the bond you get with- with other people on the team is incredible, and the actual sport is- is often the silliest. I mean, I don't play ball sports anymore, but the ball... When I played like soccer or tennis, I mean, all those sports are silly, right?
- IHIan Hutchinson
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
You're- you're playing with a little ball, but there's the bond you get is so deeply meaningful. So I- I just... It's interesting to me on a- on a sociological level that, um, it's- it's possible to be whatever the beliefs of religion is, um... Whatever they're actually grounded in, they- they might be, uh, they might have a power in themselves.
- IHIan Hutchinson
I think there is tribalism everywhere, and- and I think tribalism in the US at the moment is rather difficult to bear, from my point of view.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, and- and it's, I think, fed by the internet and social media and so forth. But- but it's... But historically, tribalism is- has been a trait and remains a trait in humans. The genius of Christianity is that it supersedes tribalism. I mean, yes, when the- the Hebrews, um, thought about Yahweh, initially, they thought about him as their tribal deity, just like the tribal deities round about- about them. And so... But... And- and yet from, you know, early on in Hebrew history, the crucial thing that Yahweh came to mean, or I would say revealed of himself to them, was that he wasn't just a tribal deity. He was the God that created the whole thing. And if he is the God of the whole thing, then he's not just the God of the Hebrews, or in the case of, you know, uh, Americans, God is not just the God of Americans. He's the God of everybody, okay? And that is a way, in a way, the most amazing, um, transcending of tribal loyalties. And, uh, one of the crucial, you know, occasions in the New Testament, um, you know, when- when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, um, you know, the- the- the apostles and the- and the disciples speak in other tongues and there are people from all cou- all the countries, you know, round about hear them in their own languages. And so, you know, whether- whether you take that as factual or not, that is the... A statement of the transcendent, um, aspects of Christianity, or the claimed transcendent aspects of Christianity, that it transcends culture, and that's certainly something which I find appealing.
- LFLex Fridman
When I kind of, um, touch on this topic in my own mind, uh,
- 1:23:26 – 1:35:08
Why is there suffering in the world
- LFLex Fridman
one of the hardest questions is, uh, is, uh, is why is there suffering in the world? Do you have a good answer?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, I have- I have some answers, um, but you're right that it is one of the toughest questions. The problem of pain or the problem of suffering, um, or the problem of, uh, theodicy, as- as theologians call it, is- is- is probably one of the toughest. I think it's important to, um, say that there are certain types of answers to this question, but there are aspects of this question to which there is no intellectual answer that is going to satisfy. Um, and- and the- the fact of the matter is, you know, when I'm speaking to an audience, uh, let's say, um, at a- at a- at some kind of lecture, I can be sure that there're pe- there're people in that audience who are either personally suffering, they've got illness, they've got pains, they're... Maybe they're facing death, or someone in their family is in similar sorts of situations. So, suffering is a reality and- and- and there is nothing that I can say that is gonna solve their feeling of agony and angst and- and, uh, maybe despair, um, in those types of situations. There is really only one thing that I think humans can do for one another in those kinds of situations, and that is simply to be there. To be there alongside your friend or your- or your colleague or- or- or whoever, you know, family member or whoever it might be. Um, and that's the only really sense in which we can give comfort. If we try to give intellectual solutions to these problems, we're going to be like- like the comforters that were in the Book of Job in the- in the Bible, um, who- who brought no comfort to Job himself, um, i- with their intellectual answers. But if they had been there, and some of them were there, they sat alongside, um, that is some level of comfort. Um, and- and after all, that's the meaning of the word compassion. It means to suffer alongside of somebody.And I would say, first off, you know, what does a Christian say about suffering? The, the first thing a Christian should say is compassion is all that really counts. And what's more, we say that God has acted in compassion towards us. That is to say, He has suffered with us in the person of Jesus Christ. And when we see the passion of Jesus, we recognize that God takes suffering deadly seriously, has taken it so seriously that He's been willing to come and be a part of His creation in the person of H- of Jesus Christ and suffer death, the most horrible death on the cross, um, e- for our benefit. So that's one side of, of suffering. But... the, the question, you know, the philosophical question remains, you know, surely if God is good, you know, and God is omnipotent, um, benevolent, um, you know, why doesn't He, uh, take away all the suffering? Why doesn't He cause miracles to occur that will take away all the suffering? Um, I think there are some good answers to that question, um, in the, in the following sense. That, um, you know, we live in a world where the consistency of the world is an absolutely crucial part of it. You know, the fact that our world behaves reproducibly o- in the main, is absolutely essential for the integrity of our lives. Without it, we wouldn't exist, okay? And so there is a sense in which the integrity of creation, um, calls for there being consistent behavior, which, you know, these days we think of as being the laws of nature, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, and so the consistent behavior of nature is very, very important, and it's what enables us to be what we are. Um, and if you're calling upon God in, in, in, in your critique of why isn't this benevolent creator, you know, fixing things, um, one answer is, He's fixed things in a certain sense, um, to have an integrity in them. Um, and that integrity is the best thing. It's the way we have our existence. It's the way we live and move and have our being. And y- you know, if you want something different, you've got to show that there is a way in which you could invent a world that is better, that it has the integrity that we need to exist, okay? And, and, and to be able to think, and, and, and love, and, and be, um, but, but you were gonna do it better, you know? And the atheists think that maybe they have got a better idea, but if they thought about it a bit more carefully, they'd realize no one has put forward a better idea, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
So, so the... So another way of... to say that, uh, I mean, is that suffering is an integral part of this... of, um, of a, of a consistent existence. So-
- IHIan Hutchinson
I think-
- LFLex Fridman
... so, so sort of a... in a, in a philosophical... in a philosophical sense, um, the full richness and the beauty of our experience would not be as beautiful, would not be as rich, uh, if there was no suffering in the world. Is that, is that possible?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, I think you said two different things that aren't exact... at least that aren't exactly-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
... the same.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
One is that suffering is an integral part of, of our experience. You know, that might be considered a challenge to certain types of Christian theology or, or even, uh, Jewish theology. In other words, um, Christians talk about the fall and talk about, uh, Adam and Eve in the garden and, and have the... have a vision of there being some kind of per- perception from... or, or, or perfection from which we have fallen and I think there is a perfection from which we've fallen. But I don't think that perfection is some kind of physical com- perfection. In other words, I don't subscribe personally to the view that some, some Christians do that there was some state, um, prior to the fall in which n- death did not occur. I don't think that that's consistent with science as we know it. And I, and I think that, um, death, for example, has been part of the biological world and the, and the universe as a whole, um, from, from billions of years ago, so... So just to be clear about that, um, you know, I- I... On the other hand, I do th- ... So if that's the case, then certainly in that sense at the very least, um, suffering or at least death, okay? Is part of the biological existence. And that probably seems so completely obvious to somebody who, you know, is au fait with science whether they- wh- you know, whether they're a scientist or not.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, uh, so, I... And I apologize if I'm interrupting, but it's the obvious reality of, of, uh, our life today, but there's a lot of people, uh, I think it's currently in vogue. I- I talked to quite a few folks who kind of see as the goal of many of our pursuits is to en- e- extend life indefinitely. A sort of, uh, you know, a dream for many people is to live forever. Uh, but i- in the, in this, in the technological world, in the engineering world, in the scientific world, I mean, that's, that's the big dream. To me, it feels like that's not a dream. It's... I certainly would like to live forever, uh, like that- that's the initial feeling, the instinctual feeling 'cause, you know, life is so amazing, but then if you actually kind of like you've presented it, if you actually, uh-... lived that kind of life, you would realize that that's actually a step, uh, backwards, that's a step down from the experience of this life. It, in my sense, that death is an essential part of life, uh, about, e- essential part of this experience, death of all things. So the, uh, thing, the, the fact that things end somehow, and the scarcity of things, somehow create the beauty of this experience that we have.
- IHIan Hutchinson
Yeah. Transhumanism doesn't look very attractive to me either, but it also doesn't look very feasible. Um, (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Yeah.
- IHIan Hutchinson
But that's a whole big topic that I'm not an, exactly an expert.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
But I'll say, but I, but, you know, I've, I'm of a certain age where my mortality is more pressing or more-
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- IHIan Hutchinson
... obvious to me than it once was, okay? Um, and, um, and I don't dread that. I don't see that as, in a certain sense, even the enemy, okay?
- LFLex Fridman
You're not afraid of death?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Well, I'm afraid of lots of things in a, in a, in a conceptual way, but it doesn't keep me a- awake at night, okay? Um, (clears throat) I, I'm, I'm, I think m- like most people, I'm more afraid of pain than I am of death. So I, I don't wanna put myself forward as some kind of hero that doesn't worry about these things. (laughs) I-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- IHIan Hutchinson
That's not true. But I, I do think and, and, and maybe this is part of my Christian outlook, um, that there is life beyond the grave, um, but I don't think that, uh, that it's life in this universe or in this, um, certainly not in this body and maybe not in a certain sense in this mind. I mean, you know, Christian, Christian belief in the afterlife is, is that we'll, uh, we will be resurrected, we will be, in a certain sense, be with God. I don't know what that means and I don't think anybody else really quite knows what that means. But there are lots of ways that over history people, artists and, and, and, and writers and so forth have pictured it, um, and these are all perhaps some of them helpful ways of thinking about it.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think it's possible to know what happens after we die?
- IHIan Hutchinson
Um, I, I don't think we find out by near death experiences or those kinds of things-
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- IHIan Hutchinson
... but, but I, but I think that, um, you know, that the, we have sufficient, uh, I feel I have sufficient information if you like, um, in terms of God's revelation to be confident that, that I will go somewhere else, okay? But it won't be here and I, to me, the aspirations of transhumanism are horrific. I mean, I think it would be a nightmare, not a dream, a nightmare, you know, to be somehow downloaded into a computer and live one's life like that. I, uh, because it, it, it completely discounts the in- integrity of our bodies as well as our minds. I mean, we aren't just disembodied minds. It would not be me that was in the computer. It would be something else if, if that kind of download were possible. Of course it isn't possible and it's very long way from being possible. But, you know, amazing things happen so we shouldn't-
Episode duration: 2:01:15
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