Joe Rogan Experience #1068 - Michael Shermer

Four, three, two, one. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Shermer. And Heavens on Earth.

Yeah.

The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia. Did you find-

L- ... anything? (laughs)

(laughs)

No. (laughs) Sorry.

(laughs)

Nothing? Well, I found interesting, uh, journeys that people use to try to get there, from both the religious perspective and the scientific perspective. Um, so I do deal with, uh, the monotheism's versions of the afterlife and heaven, you know, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but the core of the book is, you know, the radical life extensionists, the cryonicists, trans-humanists-

Mm-hmm.

... the extropians, the mind uploaders, the people that take all the supplements and all, all the, the whole range there. I find it incredibly interesting. I call it afterlife for atheists, you know?

It is, right?

Yeah.

I mean, when, when you think about some of the people that are really, like, over the top hope... Did you go to that 2045 thing in New York a few years back? There was a futurist convention with all these people that, for whatever reason, they have this arbitrary date of 2045.

Yes.

They decided-

Like you s- It's been getting pushed back. This is the-

(laughs)

... when the singularity come-

Yeah.

... is gonna co... Was 2030, then 2040, now 2045, um-

Yeah.

Y-

Kurzweil is a-

Ray Kurzweil, yeah.

... big... He's like the, the Grand Poobah-

He is. No, a- a- and, uh-

... of the download your brain.

And when he gets on stage, now he's not preternaturally dynamic like a preacher, but he starts talking about, you know, "We're gonna h- You are gonna live forever, you're gonna have your mind uploaded." And people are just like, "Oh my God, we are the generation that's gonna do it."

Hmm.

"This is it, first time." And the moment, you know, I used to be religious when, in my youth, and I thought, "Man, this is like being back in church again."

When did you stop being religious?

Uh, I started in high school and stopped in graduate school, so it was-

Interesting.

... about seven years.

You started being religious in high school?

Yeah.

So it wasn't something that your family introduced you to?

No, my, my parents were, um, pretty secular. They, uh, d- they weren't anti-religious, it wa- that wasn't a thing then. Uh, but this is 1971 when I was in high school when the, in the sort of nascent born again movement was starting. And there was no religious affiliation, it was just like, "It's me and Jesus." That's it. It's just-

Hmm.

... you and, you and the Lord.

There's a lot of these, um, very charismatic, hip, young preachers that are doing sort of a thing like that, where they, they don't even have their own church, they'll like rent time in a church and-