#1266 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): The Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lops, and today I'm joined by a fellow YouTuber, Robert Pantano. He's the writer and creator behind the YouTube channel and production house Pursuit of Wonder. He's also the author of several books, and today we're going to talk about his latest one. The terrible paradox of self-awareness, how awareness is the beginning and end of suffering. So Robert, welcome to the show. It's a big pleasure to everyone. And as I said off record, I've been following your channel for several years now. I'm a big fan. So thank you so much for doing this.

00:38 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Of course, and thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

00:41 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so I mean, your book is about self-awareness. I would like to ask you first, what is self-awareness and how do you come at such a question? I mean, do you apply more of a philosophical approach? To it, more of a psychological approach, both. How do you approach it?

01:02 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): I suppose there would be a little bit of a Venn diagram overlap between the two philos philosophical and psychological approach, but I, I'm definitely skewing towards the philosophical end of the spectrum. I'm really, if I try to boil it down as simply as I can, uh, in philosophical terms, I'm really referring to the conceptual awareness of a self. So it's not merely, um, an animal seeing its reflection and, and You know, potentially grasping the idea that it is its body. It's all of the actual additional conceptual and, um, you know, the conceptual terminology we attach to selfhood, uh, that we are not only aware of a body and a mind, but we start to attach concepts to the body and mind that we exist within, and that awareness starts to tighten and tighten and tighten deeper and deeper into, um, oftentimes sort of illusory conditions, but nonetheless, um, it, what it outputs in my mind is a sort of philosophical kind of self-awareness.

02:03 Ricardo Lopes: Are you interested in sort of the evolutionary origins of self-awareness? I mean, the reasons why we have it from an evolutionary perspective. Why is it that we evolved such a psychological trait, or is that something that doesn't interest you? Much you're just interested in, OK, so we have this psychological feature. It has certain kinds of consequences for our psychology more broadly, particularly the existential side of things, and I want to see what we can do with it.

02:38 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Yeah, so, I start from the position of my, my biggest interest is in what are the implications of that degree of self-awareness, that complexity of self-awareness and the attachment that we have to ourselves and our idea of ourselves, and the idea of our preferences. That's the most interesting to me. Um. But you inevitably once you start digging into that, you go a little bit beneath the surface and a little further, and you find your, your way to sort of the evolutionary origins of our degree of awareness and consciousness. So, they're all interconnected. You can't be interested in the top of the. Without being interested in the bottom, inevitably you find your way to both, whether you start at the bottom or the top. But I really start, my biggest interest has been in the implications, and in order to better understand the implications, you have to start to figure out what the evolutionary origins are. And unfortunately, Figuring exploring the evolutionary origins, uh, even though they're intertwined, don't necessarily lend themselves to alleviations of the implications. Sometimes they just, uh, And, you know, entwine you further into some sort of fatalistic understanding of the entire process, and, and that's part of what I try to grapple with is if we are inevitably born into a system that produces a kind of consciousness and self-awareness that may or may not be, um, designed with our qualitative experience in mind as individuals. What do we do when we are born into this world and have to figure out how to exist through our lifetime in a brain and body that was evolved for a system whose whose main objectives may not always be our own in terms of our experience.

04:23 Ricardo Lopes: So earlier you've already talked a little bit about the self and of course self is included in self awareness. How seriously do you take our understanding of the self? I mean, do you have sort of a more Buddhist approach to it where Basically self is pretty much an illusion, or do you think it's a little bit more, or do you think it's a little bit more concrete, let's say than that? Yeah,

04:50 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): I, I would skew towards the Buddhist side of, of that binary where Um, I don't live as if I don't have a concrete self. I don't, I don't feel in every moment as if I'm not a self, but I, I also know, particularly in moments of reflection, or when I'm engaging in these ideas more thoroughly, whether it's through my work or conversations like this, um, I do arrive at the high likelihood that the self is, is definitely A, an extremely malleable, if not entirely illusory concept that is basically strung together through a process of, um, you know, our ego and our, and our conscious orientation for, you know, as a matter of function, not a matter of truth. And, um, yeah, I would say that the self is really more of a process. As long as we are existing and as long as we have. We have awareness of our existence. We are continually interacting with the external world and the internal sort of mechanisms of our bio biology and psychologies. All of those things are unfolding in different ways. They're interacting in different ways, giving every moment of time in every position in space, and that is always creating a different orientation and a different sense of that orientation. And so, we string them all together and form a sense of self, but there's no moment where you could say this, now, here is me. It's never conclusive, and in my mind, the only moment where you can be conclusively an authentic final self is after you are no longer in existence, if that is a moment that is, is the case, where once we part ways with life, if there is nothing beyond life and after death, then only the sum of our total experiences and total interactions with our experiences internally. Um, COULD you actually have like a conclusive self? At which point there is no self to be experienced. So, it's sort of a paradox in terms of there actually ever being a conclusive, uh, final full self.

06:39 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I don't know if you agree with what I'm about to say, but I mean, in recent years I've been getting more and more into dynamical systems theory applied to psychology, and I'm, uh, I mean, I'm inching more and more toward having a sort of process ontology approach instead of a substance ontology approach to. PSYCHOLOGY and I would include the self in that and so I'm more and more convinced that it's sort of a dynamic system that is always interacting with internal and external influences and transforming over time. And I also think, and this is the point where I would like to I, I would like to get your comment on, uh, because I, I think that it's also pretty much contingent and it's contingent in the sense that also has existential implications. So I'm going to explain what I mean here. It's contingent in the sense that, OK, so I have this sort of identity, Ricardo Lopes, but it's contingent in the sense that I, I was born in Portugal. I live in a. Particular culture, this identity was attributed to me and perhaps I live also in circumstances or because of my experiences in life. Uh, I, for example, right now I'm a podcaster, so I have this podcaster identity also associated with myself, but that is all very much contingent. If I was born in a traditional hunter-gatherer society, podcaster wouldn't even. BE an identity that would be available there. I mean that wouldn't make any sense at all, but I mean, I'm talking, I'm saying all of this because it seems to me that the way we conceptualize ourselves is very much socio-culturally contingent and then the kinds of things that we attach to it are the ones that can have a very powerful impact in how we deal with. Life existentially because let's say that for example, I start identifying as a podcaster and then one day for some reason this doesn't work anymore and that has a huge impact on me because that sort of extirpates that part of my identity and I sort of sense that I lost something when I lost it. I mean, does that, does that make sense?

09:16 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Perfect sense.

09:18 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and, and I, I, I mean, I mean, but would you have anything to that, or do you think that all of what I said, I

09:26 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): mean, I, I largely agree and I largely think it makes sense. I think the implications of that are, are significant though, because the, the idea that, I mean, we often feel as though we We have this freedom around who we become, who we are, what we like, what we choose to do. But when you, you know, based on what you just laid out, it's entirely contingent. If we just, if we don't even narrow it in all the way to where I could or or might in a moment narrow it in. Just the implications of the particular generation you are born into and a part of, all of the options. That are available to you, given the cultural and economic and technological conditions of that generation in that particular place. Uh, THEY lay out the sort of, um, it's, it's not an, it's not an essay prompt on a test. It's a filler, it's, it's a a bubble choice, you know, there's a selection that you can choose from that you fill in one. You don't, you know, manufacture or manifest options out of your, your own being. You have a multiple choice question in front of you that you can pick from a select options, and that's just in time. Then you add space, you add the particular country, and uh economy and culture that overlays on top of that, that also deeply influences you. And then you can add all sorts of additional things like what your family is like, what your brain is like, your skin color, your height, your gender, your sex, your everything. You could start adding all these overlays. All of a sudden the multiple choice questions start to Not inherently or necessarily reduced, but they, they definitely seem to reduce in a way that matters. You know, you could be You could be small or tall and still see if basketball is for you, but largely the odds of being a basketball player, if you're 5'5, dramatically decrease. So that's an obvious example, but the point is, it's not like you can't be a basketball player if you're short, but your odds of being one are are extraordinarily low. And so, the point is, as all of those Those overlays of circumstances and contingencies start to encroach on your being, and as you grow up into your contingencies, your, your options for what you might be and what you could be, uh, dramatically reduced. And so, your, your sense of freedom in your selection and your sense of freedom in becoming who you become and who you will become, are, are in that sense. Extraordinarily constrained, and so the illusion of selfhood becomes even more illusory in my mind because you really were narrowed into a funnel of your being and your orientation and sense of self, as opposed to having selected it from the sort of ether of possible selfhoods. You are really basically handed a very small deck of cards and you picked one, and then the magician said, see, I knew you were gonna be a 2 of spades. It's the trick. The the trick was in the deck the whole time. It was a part of the process.

12:19 Ricardo Lopes: But do you think that knowing about this can be mostly freeing, or it can be like infuriating or frustrating, because for example, I come at things more from a scientific perspective because my background is in science and for example, I've been learning about a lot about anthropology and uh I mean by learning more and more anthropology. Uh, I, it's easier for me to free myself from things that are normative in my society, in my context, the context where I was brought up in, but at the same time it's very frustrating because I mean, I still have to inhabit this society and it's very, very hard for people to not treat. Uh, NORMS and conventions from that are just accidents they were born into in their own society as, uh, I mean, ultimate truths and questionable truths, and I am trying to live life in a society which treats contingencies, accidents, and so on as unquestionable truths can be very frustrating, right?

13:37 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Yeah. I mean, uh, it, it depends on who you are. I always try to caveat my answers when it comes to these kinds of questions. It, it, it really does depend on who you are, because I know plenty of people for whom these kinds of questions, and the dissection and inspection of the contingencies of their existence is extraordinarily frustrating, and something that is so frustrating that the mere prospect of it, uh, and the engagement of the ideas is enough to, to basically anger them so that they don't want to continue. Any further, and I don't blame them. I, I totally understand that. For me personally, however, it's sort of where I find my meaning and my wonder in, in life. And, and I obviously have, uh, you know, made a career out of it, and it's been how I've always, I've found myself asking these sorts of questions and trying to inspect the sort of normative qualities of the world that I was born into, and the environment that I lived in as a child and an adolescent, and so on. So, I always was finding myself asking the questions and just dissecting the norms, and um every time I open it up, some people might find something that's grotesque. For me, I find something that's deeply interesting and riveting, and that makes the entire process of being an existing worthwhile. I like to see what's inside things. I like to sort of Shake the system, if you will, which itself is something that I inherited and was contingent on a number of other factors that narrowed me into my being, and I recognize that. So, for, for the people for whom that is, Interesting and engaging, they're no less um susceptible to the entire process. I am myself a a product of a sequence of environmental and psychological and biological conditions in my mind that basically narrowed me into being that kind of person. But nonetheless, I'm here I am, and if you are that kind of person, I always suggest that you, you don't. Uh, FEAR, fear it. You don't, uh, sway away from it. You, you really engage in it fully. Because once you already start asking the questions, and start questioning the norms, and engaging in, you know, what's the contingency of my existence, there's something worse, I find, by repressing it, and denying it, and pretending like everything's fine. It's actually far more, uh, rewarding and riveting, and perhaps functional to pursue those threads of thought. To their ends, and just let them pull you until the bitter end, because there's something, like I said, that's invoking of wonder and intrigue, that if you're the kind of person who's already doing that, you kind of need to find your wonder and intrigue somewhere. And so, dissection of of everything might be part of your process that's unique to you. Um, BUT if you're not that kind of person, it's just, yeah, it's totally understandable that it might just be frustrating. And you might just find it pointless, useless. Why, why do I need to know the contingencies of, of, you know, who I am and my existence? Why do I need to dissect underneath the surface of, you know, the surface of, of, of being itself? It's, and, and I would, if you're that kind of person who doesn't understand or doesn't care to understand why you'd be appeal, you know, why that would be appealing, Then don't do it. I, I mean, that's totally fair. So, there's definitely, uh, you know, a, a sufficiently divorced Venn diagrams of kind of kinds of people who find it either frustrating, wondrous, or somewhere in between. And it just sort of depends on your ability to, you know, recognize who you are within that Venn diagram and, and pursue your, your questions and interests accordingly.

17:13 Ricardo Lopes: How do you approach individuation and perhaps what Schopenhauer called the principi individuation is, I mean, basically our process of individuation because, uh, I mean at the same time that perhaps you can, um, I mean, be creative in the sense that you individuate yourself, it can also be a very, a very violent process of, I mean, basically, uh, separating yourself from the rest of existence and I mean, as far as Schopenhauer was concerned, at least if I understood him correctly. Um, THIS individuation process is also the source or the ultimate source of all, uh, suffering for humans and perhaps other sentient life.

18:03 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Yeah, so, if I understand your question correctly, it's something something along the lines of You know, when we become more proximal to our individual selves, the level of suffering increases. Is, is that a fair summary, or did I misunderstand?

18:20 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of that, and also, I mean, just the broader process of, uh, I mean us as uh biological organisms as organisms with sentience, with consciousness, uh, I mean, uh, sort of, um. Uh, uh, THINKING of ourselves and approaching things as individuals separated from the rest of existence, at least if I understood him correctly, for Schopenhauer was, um, the ultimate source of or the adulttimate origin of, uh, suffering.

18:59 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Yeah, well, for starters, I, I largely agree with Schopenhauer's conclusion there. Not all of his conclusions everywhere, but that conclusion there and several of his other sort of adjacent conclusions, um, and the reason for that is. First of all, we are not separate from everything in my mind. We, we, everything that we are and depend on, everything we're made of and subsist upon is not a, a choice. It's not, uh, we could take or leave it. It's entirely Integral. It's, it's a, a webbing that without one component, the rest separates. And so, we are not separate from everything. We feel as though we are separate from everything. We feel as though we are individuals experiencing the plurality of reality separate from us as a product of our self-awareness. And that's where I would agree with Schopenhauer and people like him, you know, thinkers like him who, uh, basically conclude that that is. That that creates the tension between us and everything of which we are a part of, where in which we try to control the, the world that we are a part of, the reality that we are part of. We try to understand, we try to grasp, we try to conceptualize, we try to overlay language and concepts and everything else, and all of that. It comes from the perspective of an individuated perspective and process in which we think we can be separate and map that separateness onto everything else. And, uh, that's a, in my mind, futile would perhaps be a, a, a like a kind way of putting it, but more than that, it's, it's, it's. Uh, CREATES the, the tension through which we, you know, turn the pain of existence into suffering. The constant desire to make sense from our perspective of the rest of the plurality of reality is an impossibility that we depend so much of our quality of experience in life on that, uh, it. Exacerbates that the the inherent pains of, of, of life already that exist as just any biological individual being, and then to try to map conceptual terms from an individual perspective onto a plurality of reality in which you are not separate from, but yet you feel separate from by virtue of your self-awareness absolutely does in my mind, um, exacerbate, if not entirely create the sort of origins of suffering, but it's a very natural process because that's why. I find that, um, you know, our self-awareness to be not only a paradox, but a terrible paradox because it, it really, it, it makes us try to understand. And control and separate from that which we cannot control, understand, or be separate from. And so that's an inherently futile and suffering induced process. However, on the flip side of it, there does seem to be this interesting, as far as I can tell, human phenomenon where In that process, even in the futility and the suffering of that process, we can, can make art, and we can find wonder, and we can create love, and we can create all these really incredibly interesting conceptual systems, and To me, it's, it's unclear whether it's, you know, one's worth the other, but it's, we, here we are, and I do find it to be paradoxical in the sense that it can be so horrific and so terrible that we strive to do what is basically we're, you know, putting our pedal to the metal into a brick wall. In a sense, but yet we along the way, we're laughing and listening to great music and talking about interesting things.

22:47 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think if that was possible? Actually, let me ask you this before I ask the following question. Have you ever watched Neon Genesis Evangelion?

22:57 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): No.

22:58 Ricardo Lopes: Ah, that's a shame because they have the perfect plot where they explore this kind of question, but I mean, just very, very, very briefly and with, with avoiding spoilers as much as possible. I mean, basically they have what they call the human instrumentality, instrumentality. The project and there are certain characters whose goal is to basically reverse individuation and annihilate individuation and basically for people to just come together into one unified consciousness and there would no longer be any individual. Individuals, everyone would share everyone's thoughts with everyone else, and no one would be able to distinguish themselves from the others. I mean, do you think that if something like that would be possible for us to merge collectively our individual consciousnesses and eliminate individuation, that, that, that could be better than the existence we're living.

24:07 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): It's a really interesting question because it sort of presupposes the, you know, we have to work toward the answer based on our current frame of reference, our current perspective, and our current experience. And that makes it a very difficult question because part of me wants to say, yeah, that would be a much more Congenial, pleasant experience for beings. In the, in the particular universe that we inhabit. And, but the other part of me would say, based on my experience, that would, you know, divorce me from everything that I have derived meaning and wonder, and intrigue and love from. So, it's, it's I'm sort of split fifty-fifty on whether or not the uh circumstances of awareness and self-awareness that we've found ourselves inhabiting are a curse or a gift. It's really right down the middle for me, and that's what makes it so interesting. But I would say that if you were to find yourself being born into the condition that you just described, uh, I think you'd be better off.

25:11 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and look, if you haven't watched it, then I really recommend it, and I bet that after you see it, after you watch it, you will probably want to make a video about it because it's a really fascinating anime.

25:25 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): So, and so it was something Genesis, what was the name of it

25:29 Ricardo Lopes: again? Neon Genesis Evangelion. Got it.

25:33 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): I'll definitely watch it.

25:34 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yeah, because I mean there's always this contention, and that's very well explored in that anime as well, uh, by the way, because I mean, as individuals and as human individuals particularly, and I guess there's also to a lesser extent this kind of tension. In other species, but there's also this thing of there's also kind of a barrier. Some of it, I guess, is linguistic, some of it is because of our own individual psychological personality traits and so on, but there's always these. Frustration when it comes to communicating with other people because it seems that there's always room for misunderstanding and there's always something that perhaps the way we use language or even I mean It's, there's limitations that are just intrinsic to language. I mean, there's nothing we can do about that, but there, there's always limits to communication, and it's very easy for people to feel like they are not. Really understood by other people and that can also be a source of great existential frustration.

27:00 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, if you think about what we're always trying to do in, in any moment, even with ourselves, let alone others, let alone a plurality of others. Um, LIKE right now in this conversation, there are electric firings of neurons taking place in the, the sort of pace, the meaty paste of our brains, going at obscene speeds and obscene measures that, uh, we wouldn't even be able to comprehend the, the numerical values of. And those are all outputting into various components in sections of our brain that can turn those Those firings and brain activity into language and concepts, which in real time, in moments, fractions of seconds, we're trying to translate into words so that you or I can understand the other in ways that make sense. And so the fact that we can do that at all, I mean, it's, it's beyond wondrous, but trying to, when you start inspecting it, and you start to feel First of all, I, I, I think it's an important aside. I think maybe the origins of a lot of people's sense of being alone or misunderstood or feeling alienated from the world and other people, is maybe not acknowledging just how insane and absurd what we're trying to do as far as connection and understanding goes. I mean, that that's, I'm not saying understanding it is always going to make you feel better about it, but for me, like, if there's a moment where I can experience a, a great conversation. There's a moment where I can experience love with a partner or understanding with a family member. Uh, THE fact that we could map all of the neurological activity in one brain onto another sufficiently enough for that brain to map it back onto the former and understand each other, it's, it's really miraculous. And so, we are really up against an extraordinarily miraculous and, and unlikely system of, of understanding, and language really doesn't It, it's a proxy. It's, it's a two-dimensional map onto the multi-dimensional experience of what it means to, to be a person and to exist in this world. And so, we're always going to come up short in our understanding of others and others' understanding of us, but you, you know, you do your best to follow the map through, you know, that, you know, people give you, and you follow it through its destiny, you know, it's routes and arrive at its destination as best you can. Um. But you're absolutely right. I mean, it's, it's really absurd. And there's one thing that I think it's, you know, kind of an interesting side dish of all of that is, you know, there's so, you know, so many of our experiences that are beyond language and beyond something that is purely accessible in concrete terms or anything otherwise, are going to live and die with us, you know, each person. Experiences countless types of abstract feelings and thoughts that are non-transcribable, that will never find their way into the world of others, and people will never fully understand that. So, that's existentially unsettling on some on some level, but also, it's kind of beautiful because each of us possess things that are unique to us that nobody else in the universe in perpetuity, as far as we're aware, will ever Know or be able to to fully grasp. And so, yeah, we, we live and die with things that nobody else will ever, you know, understand. And it's, there's a loneliness aspect to it, but it's also quite wondrous. Um, Yeah, but I think there's There's something to be said about how we can also utilize that. Of course, art. And perhaps other disciplines, but art would certainly be the one that I would lean on the most here, is a very interesting. Expression of the yearning to be understood in the realms of experience in the mind that are otherwise impossible to understand. So, it's, you know, a, a piece of music or or a painting or anything of that sort that tries to Abstractly express certain, you know, patterns or experiences. Is is a really interesting. PHENOMENON of human experience where we know we won't be understood, but we still strive to express that lack of understanding in a way that maybe other people will, will recognize themselves in and will nonetheless maybe be, you know, feel a mirror of themselves in, in the particular art piece. And so, art is at the same time, a representation of the inherent loneliness of human beings. Of human beings while also being an expression of the inherent desire to nonetheless try to connect with other human beings. And so, you know, I'm, I know Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, there's so many philosophers always end up saying, um, you know, art or music or both, or, or, you know, one of the ways that you can kind of supersede the suffering of existence and, um. I don't fully subscribe to that, but I think there's absolutely something there to be, you know, to put your flag in, you know, art and the creative, the creative act and the creative expression is something that is something along the lines of a sort of vaccine or or antidote to suffering and self-awareness.

32:24 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that that it is possible at all for humans to live without any delusions at all, like, for example, delusions related to a delusion, I mean delusions of meaning, delusions of continuity, for example, attributing any kind of meaning to whatever we're doing in our lives, any kind of meaning to our jobs, any kind of meaning to our relationships, or I, I mean, if not. Day to day meaning and ultimate meaning and delusions of continuity in the sense that, oh, OK, so we'll reproduce, I will have children, they will perpetuate my name into the future and all of that. Do you think that, I mean, first of all, do you think or do you agree that all of those things are at least to some extent delusional, and if so, do you think that it's possible for us to do away with them?

33:24 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Uh, THE first answer would be yes. I do think at least most of what you listed there would be some amount, if not large amounts, or totally, uh, delusional, uh, in respect to sort of what we, you know, we, we are inspired to feel a certain way and to do a certain thing, and to express a certain pattern of existence and evolution. Um, WITHOUT regard for what the actual, maybe logic or experience of all of those things might be. So, there's, there's a disconnect there that results in a sort of delusion. And then, do I think we can do away with, with them? No, probably not, because I think that, um, being delusional and Experiencing the illusory nature of things is inherent to the dichotomy of our self-awareness in relation to biological systems. So, our self-awareness is not top-down, it's bottom up. We really arrived with self-awareness as a product of an evolutionary and biological process that is concerned. With a few select things, the perpetuation and survival of itself and the and reproduction of what, what works. And so, our self-awareness emerged out of that. Our self-awareness did not create that. So, it's bottom up, and so, we really, the idea of separating from the illusions of all the things that we've arrived with as a as a product of our consciousness and. Self-awareness, uh, seems largely incoherent to me and, and likely impossible because even though we feel like we have logic, we feel like we have concepts and terms, the idea that we can sort of dig, we can stick our hand back down the entire system and rewire everything in which our logic and, and perception in terms emerge from seems, um, Sort of like a non sequitur to me. I think we're probably going to, uh, be stricken too and driven by most of our delusions. Um, BUT what we can still do, nonetheless, is recognize certain aspects of them as being interestingly delusional or illusory. We can explore. SORT of the the fringes of those concepts and those realizations, and the, the, the sort of more practical functional outcome of that is softening the edges of what we've inherited. And so, that's one thing that I always try to do with my work and my thought process is, how can I Soften the edges of the implications of the sort of illusions and delusions that I inhabit and exist through, so that I'm not always being sort of poked by the corners. Um, IT'S, it's much better when it's a rounded edge, and you know it's an illusion, but it's still, you can inhabit it, but it doesn't pierce through you and totally paralyze or, or incapacitate you, um, when there's an outcome that, you know, may, may or may not be preferential.

36:17 Ricardo Lopes: Have you, it's interesting, have you ever read Stuart Weiser's book The Users of Delusion? Why it's not always rational to be rational?

36:28 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): No, I've heard of the title, but I have not read that book. Uh,

36:31 Ricardo Lopes: YEAH, uh, by, by the way, for you and for the audience, if you're interested, I also have an interview with him about that book on the show. So, uh, but it's interesting because the entire book, he spends the entire book talking about how actually sometimes for People to for things to work out in people's lives, they have to start off from an irrational standpoint. So one example would be if you're in a romantic relationship and you profess your undying love to the other person. I mean, statistically speaking, it's irrational that you will be together forever, right, but, but if you do that, actually it it, what happens er what happens statistically is that you will, it will be more likely for that to happen because actually when you get into that. That relationship with that framework in mind, you're more committed and you and you instill more commitment into your relationship and actually if you just take a second to think about it, if you get into a relationship and instead of saying something like that, you say, oh yeah, today we are together, but maybe. Tomorrow we won't be anymore. I mean, there's really not, um, a lot, lots of reasons there to commit yourself to that, right? So you start from what we could call a delusion, uh, and, uh, the rest, you could even call a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it ends up working.

38:16 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): I love that analogy. I don't know if I've heard that analogy before, but there's something that's so simple and obvious, and it, yeah, I mean, when you bring up the idea of sort of love, a love between a couple sustaining throughout the entirety of the rest of their lives, whether it's through marriage or even without marriage, statistically, it's you you're up against, uh, lesser odds. However, Nobody that's ever found a partnership, a romantic partnership, um, a life partnership in which love is a part of it, has ever done that, I would think, without expressing love, uh, as a fundamental tenet initially. So, you have to commit to the absurdity as a starting point, in spite of the sort of rationality or the, you know, the odds of it, because your odds. Or, or maybe not entirely zero, but nearing zero. If you're in a romantic relationship, and you refuse to ever tell that person that you love them and you want to love them forever, or that you will love them forever. Even if you know in the back of your head. I know what the statistics are, and nobody ever says they they love or love somebody or want to love somebody forever, ever, and will love somebody forever. And, and then Never meant it, and turns out they get divorced. Like, people don't get married knowing that they're going to get divorced, and so, everybody is really up against the same protocol of, I'm assuming this marriage or this relationship is going to work long term, and yet the the the odds and statistics tell us that at least uh, you know, 50% or more don't. I don't know what the exact numbers are. So, the irony is, in order to be in the minority of successes, you have to commit to the, the, the fact that there's a certain absurdity in committing at all to anything. In this case, uh, a loving relationship, but, um, I would argue it's worth it because you only find out which bucket you're in by by committing to the to the one that is, you know, assuming it's, it's gonna work out and things are gonna work out. And, um, yeah, I mean, it always kind of boils down to, I guess it's a very cliche thing. You could just say, is it better to, you know, have loved or lost or to never have loved at all. You could apply that to so many things. Is it better to care? At all. Um, IS it, you know, care and lose than to never have cared at all? Is it better to strive towards success or meaning, uh, and fail than it is to have never strived or, or, or cared about meaning at all? There's so many different things you could blanket that over. But yeah, it's, it's a very interesting analogy that you have to start from a point of essentially what would be, uh, clearly defined as irrationality to arrive at something that ultimately might be the preferable and maybe even more rational outcome. Um, SO, you have to really, the tightrope walk, the balancing act of, of irrationality, feeling, sentimentality, logic. It's really absurd and it's really difficult, and, and that makes it even more like when you try to do calculuses about these sorts of decision making processes in life, the obscurity of the balance of all of those sorts of things makes it Even more challenging to make sense of and can make it even more overwhelming. And, um, I think the best you could do is try to follow your, your own authentic line of reasoning, whether it's reasonable or not by by common standards, or by logic and your own intuition, and then, um, Accept the fact that no matter what you do, you're always gonna kind of end up in a position where life is challenging and devoid of certain aspects of resolution and meaning and all that, and you, you, you can just embrace your circumstance in life as long as you're authentic to your own line of reasoning and decision making in every opportunity that you can.

42:04 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that there's wisdom to be found in a more Buddhist approach to life where you try the best you can to perhaps eliminate er as much desire as possible and to detach yourself from the things and from other people?

42:27 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Yeah, there's absolutely wisdom in it, and I absolutely think this, this kind of mirrors, I think, your question about, uh, neon Genesis, where I would say that if you could be born into the world that you described, or the system that you described, uh, in Neon Genesis, that would be preferable. However, If you're not, and you're deciding about that from the perspective of a of a person who's lived through many years and formed their sense of self and orientation through the world outside of that world, um, the neon Genesis world, then it would be really that transition is, is, is not gonna work. And so, in the same sense, I would say, when it comes to, uh, the sort of Buddhist, uh, you know, s like the elimination of desire and aesthetic approach to life, I, I think there's There's something that is wise there that I think would probably Alleviate some of the tension of selfhood and self-awareness, but only insofar as that's your, that's your normative experience starting from a fairly early age and your understanding of the world. I, I won't speak for you, but for me, for, from my perspective, trying to recontort my entirety of my life and my life experiences into an ascetic Buddhist, you know, devoid of, of selfhood, devoid of uh desire and attachment to things. That is going to be something that's gonna cause more problems for me than than resolve, I would think. Now, I haven't tried full on. Uh, I try in in sort of various subtle ways. Um, I try to live in a, in a way that is, um, Respectful of desire and interest and selfhood, but not um attached to it in in in in insofar as I am capable of doing that, and so far as I'm capable of detaching from the constant need to placate a certain continuous need to make sense of things, or to have things, or to prove things, and all of that, um, But if I could, the idea of bringing that all the way to its, you know, sort of Buddhist aesthetic conclusion, uh, seems highly unlikely to me and seems highly problematic. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's really, is there wisdom in it? Yes. Is there wisdom that's applicable to a large majority of the modern world's, you know, human experience? Hard to, hard to say, but I would, I, I would think it would be almost an impossibility to sort of adhere to that wisdom.

45:02 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, but I think that at least when it comes to the most extreme side of things with things like, for example, consumerism, that people could get some very important wisdom from Buddhism because I mean, I'm not saying. Yeah, just try to eat and drink as little as possible. Try to extricate yourself from worldly pleasures and even your biological needs and stuff like that. But when it comes to the more extreme side of things, actually, I think that I mean, I'm not necessarily saying everyone, I'm not sure about everyone, but many people perhaps would be, would have more peace of mind and would find themselves happier if they just let go of wanting more and more and more and more things to accumulate things to, and if they get really unhappy and angry and so on just because, oh, I don't have enough money to go on that vacation or I don't have enough money to buy that luxury car and so on and so forth. I guess that if people just, of course I understand perfectly well that in the sort of capitalist system that we do there's we're all constantly bombarded by advertising and you have to. THIS you have to buy that and to, to be someone you have to own this or that. But at the same time, I think that if people put a little bit more effort into trying to overcome those desire, those artificial desires that at a certain point sort of become needs in their minds, that could be very liberating.

46:54 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): I agree completely. So, to be clear, I think there is a a spectrum, and I was referring my previous answer was more a binary answer in terms of whether or not the, the sort of average modern westernized person could benefit or would benefit from, uh, a pure, a purist Buddhist ascetic kind of lifestyle. Now, that is slightly different than what I am understanding what you just described, wherein you're utilizing Ideas and frameworks of something like Buddhism or something like Buddhism to soften the edges of your tendencies that you've absorbed through the contingencies of your culture and place in the world and time and history, which I would absolutely agree with. And so, that's, that's like I mentioned, a, a, a few moments ago, the softening of the edges of whether it's delusions and their consequences, or Your tendencies and preferences and desires, uh, sort of all across the board here. I would say when you can find philosophical tools to shave off edges, it's highly advisable and highly useful in a, in a kind of wisdom. And in the case of Buddhism, In the way that you're referring to it as, I would, I would agree that when you can recognize the, the ceiling of your, the quality of experience, and how many of your desires are serving you or not, and restricting your continual pursuance and, and sort of haywiring towards those desires, um, if you can mitigate that. Soften that, bring it down, find the ceiling, the relative ceiling for you personally, and, and let it hit that, and then not bounce against it, and, and just constantly be vibrating against your being. There's absolutely value in that. There's absolutely wisdom. And that's the realm that I try to inhabit, and that's the, that's the realm I try to articulate and express with my work, particularly is, you know, let's recognize the extreme. OF, you know, uh the, the, the downsides of desire in certain forms. Recognize the inevitability of our desire in certain forms and figure out what the equilibrium is. Where is it? Where can we kind of start to recognize it's, it's being problematic, being, um, deficient toward our quality of experience, and try to rein it in as best we can. And, and there it's particularly easy, and one thing that despite all the things happening in the world and with new generations that may be, you know, may or may not be questionable or or concerning, there does seem to be a tendency, at least maybe this is from my unique perspective. I'm not sure if this is true for everybody, from, but from my perspective, there does seem to be a tendency in which people are starting to recognize the futility and the insufficiency of consumerism and The way in which the sort of material satisfaction and placation of our desires doesn't result into anything meaningful, and so, I don't know culturally or collectively if that'll that'll take form in a meaningful way, but I individually, I would say it's absolutely the case that the further you can get from your desires overtaking you and being Sort of absorbed or consumed by the particular. You know, culture that you're a part of, the society that you're part of, which is functioning off of your, you know, you're there a, a culture, an economy is basically functioning off its ability to convince enough people to buy enough stuff and subsist off enough desire. Um, THAT'S how capitalistic societies work. And so, Recognizing where your limit is and where, you know, your lifestyle is more than satiated, your preference and quality of experience is more than satiated. Uh, IT'S incredibly wise, and even on a practical level, it allows you to sort of engage or disengage with the society or culture you're a part of, and the economy and your career that you're a part of in a way that is, uh, materially different from maybe the norm in which it's just like, you're supposed to do this this amount of time and make This amount of money, but you can actually recognize what your preferences are, what your quality of experience is derived from, and you can make different decisions based off that understanding by actually inspecting where your limit of desire sort of expires, and where your quality of experience maximizes, and then make all sorts of different evaluations and decisions based on that.

51:36 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that people should aim at being good people, and if so, what do you think it means to be a good person?

51:47 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Hm. Well, of course, I believe people should aim to be a good person. Um, GOOD is an interesting term to use there because it's so nebulous, um, but Kindness is often a word that I think is best suited as their proper proxy for what I like to um think about and consider in this kind of question and these kinds of contexts. But, um, There's something interesting about I'm not sure if you're familiar with with game theory. I'm not, I'm, I'm by no means an expert, but my understanding of game theory is, it has, has, uh, enlightened me in a number of ways as it pertains to this sort of question where, uh, it's actually, it's strategically sensible to be not a pushover, but, but, uh, trustworthy and forgiving. And so, Just on the level, if you just boil it down to the level of, well, what's in it for me, or what's functional, it's actually the most functional to be kind and and trustworthy initially, and then forgiving post hoc, um, as long as, so long as you're not just, you know, willing to be taken advantage all the time. So, it's, it's functional to be a good person in the world. That's, it seems to be, uh, uh. An equation of reality that's built into the mechanisms through which we, you know, inhabit and, and participate. And so, just on that level of practicality and functionality, it's important to be a good person because that seems to be, it's been proven through a number of different studies and really Interesting research that being a good person, a kind person, a forgiving person, somebody that doesn't try to screw people over just because you can, is actually the most functional way in which, um, systems work in which evolution and species function and, and, and thrive. So, just on that level alone. And then beyond that, there, you know, I don't know. People, people live and die sociopathically and psychopathically or something adjacent to it where they don't feel the emotions or consequences of having been a bad person, but individually, Uh, you know, I have to live with myself every day, whether it's an illusion or not, selfhood, uh, I still have to live with myself. I have to know what I've done and know what I want to do. And do I want to inhabit a being in a life, an illusion of self in which I'm feeling like I'm being a worse person, uh, than, than the norm, than then what's good and functional, than what's been established as good and kind. That seems to me to be, um, a terrible existence. Um. So, it's important to be good in the way that I'm assuming you mean it, both from a functional, practical perspective for the purposes of your own self-interest, and from the purposes of, you know, what, what philosophically, what kind of person do you want to, uh, you know, inhabit? What kind of being do you want to inhabit? And if there's anything worth the suffering of our consciousness and our self-awareness, I think it's a reflective, it's partly the reflective ability to recognize the inherent flaws in the gruesomeness of what it means to exist and be alive. We are, when we watch, when we observe nature, and we see something that's so gruesome between animals. We think Well, that's I mean, it's, it's the way of nature, but we, we, uh, you know, wanna turn away. Maybe some people wanna watch it, but you wanna psychologically you recognize that there is something. Obscene and horrible about it, and you're deterred from participating. And so there's something interesting about the conceptual framework we have about life and existence by virtue of our consciousness that Allows us to be self-reflective about whether or not being gruesome and, and, and, you know, violent is, is the right way of, of being and existing, and it seems to be the answer is no. And so, for whatever reason, like I mentioned, there's a couple different reasons from just an interpersonal, from a functional, and a practical. There are so many good reasons to be self-reflective about what it means to be a good person, what it means to be moral. And to strive continually toward the sort of North Star or whatever that might be, even if it's a subjective orientation, even if that's a matter of purely, you know, human perspective or or sentient life perspective, it is nonetheless something that is worthwhile and beautiful to to pursue and and follow through, and we've done so much over the history of humanity. I mean, when you consider the Sort of tranches of human history and the gruesomeness and violence that we seem to have been, I mean, we're still a ways away, but we seem to have, uh, reduced significantly and changed significantly and evolved significantly through our, you know, what, what moral standards are, should be norms and what levels of violence should be or shouldn't be norms. I mean, these are incredible progressions that we've done over relatively short spans of time relative to, you know, the history of life.

57:13 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and I mean, there are several things that could fall under the rubric of what we call being a good person. I mean, apart from the, I think something that is very obvious like being a compassionate person just because we are all in the same kind of predicament as humans. I mean, just recently I released my 5th interview with David Bennettar where we talked about his book, The Human Predicament. That it's a very interesting book, for example, and, but I mean just because we are in the same predicament, being compassionate in principle is a proper attitude to have. But also, I mean, there are many examples I could talk about here, but there are two particular examples that I think if you apply in your life, it's good for you and good for other people as well. Like for example, Approaching new relationships, assuming goodness in the other person. I mean, of course you don't need to be naive nor anything like that. Actually, you shouldn't be naive, naive, because if the other person shows clear signs that she shouldn't be trusted or something like that, of course you should treat her accordingly, but at least from a starting. Point, you should assume that she is a good person, otherwise you would be condemning them just from a a a a a priori. You would be condemning them and you would probably be missing out on good relationships just because, for example, you've been betrayed before and now you always walk into new relationships with this mindset that there's always the risk of that. Happening again and of course there there always is, but that's why I say that you shouldn't be naive, but you also shouldn't start from a standpoint where you assume that you are going to be mistreated by the other person. Otherwise, I mean, either you're going to ruin the relationship or you yourself, and that's also a form of ruining the relationship, but you're going to mistreat. Other person just because you assume that's going to happen. And another thing then there, there's a very also very interesting recent book, The Science of Revenge. I can't recall the name of the author off the top of my head now, but, uh, where it talks about the importance of forgiveness and actually forgiveness is, uh, good, very good. Also for the person herself, because if you are unable to forgive someone who wronged you, then you will take that baggage with you for the rest of your life, and it's going to actually poison your mind, your psyche. I mean, you just at a certain point have to be able to let things go because it can. Just ruin yourself. So what do you think about that? I, I mean that I, I mentioned that because I think that those are the two diff two different ways, particularly for people who have been damaged by other people, uh, that if they apply them to their own lives, it can be good for them, even if they don't care that much about being good for other people.

1:00:45 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): You're right, fair point. Yeah, I mean. Just for, again, there's a couple different layers. There's the practical level, and then there's sort of this, I don't know what the best way of framing it in terms of, you know, particular umbrella term would be, but there's practical, and then there's just the it's sort of ethereality of wanting to be good in whatever context you might exist. Um, AND so, when it comes to both the cases that you brought up, They're very interesting because they're very, they're difficult, and they're difficult in the way that you uh referred to earlier when it's, you have to commit to somebody. You have to commit to love and commit to somebody for there to even be the possibility of a loving relationship forming out of it, even in spite of the odds being slightly out of your favor that a long-term loving relationship is actually gonna work long term. And so, in the same way when it comes to like trusting somebody. There's something to be said about how untrustworthy people can be over a long enough span of time. And yet, if you assume that The people that you're trying to form friendships, relationships, or partnerships with are untrustworthy, then you're going to potentially be the person that is acting untrustworthy, and you're going to create the very problem that you're hoping to avoid, which is a lack of closeness and proximity and trustworthiness between multiple parties. And so, you have to kind of lead with a kind of goodness. Despite the rationality of that goodness, knowing that there is nonetheless a kind of practicality to that that function system. And same goes with um the, the, the second. Uh, uh, LAYER that you brought up, which was forgiveness, it's slightly different because that's post hoc, you know, that's after the fact.

1:02:49 Ricardo Lopes: But yeah, I, I was basically giving, uh, the both ends of a relationship, the, the start of a relationship and the end of a, yeah,

1:02:59 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): yeah, and it's very interesting because, because that's the right binary is like you gotta trust somebody to begin with for it to possibly work. And still, whether you do or don't, you could end up in a situation where you could be done seriously wrong in whatever capacity, whatever kind of relationship it might be, or or just life in general, where you encounter random people throughout your life and things, things happen, and you have to decide if the things that happen when they're when they're terrible for you are worthy of, uh, uh, forgiving. Uh, TOWARDS, towards the individuals through which they, they arrived and were caused and um. I, I am somebody who Genuinely tries to to be as forgiving as possible. And that doesn't mean I don't experience moments where if somebody has done something wrong to me that's affected me negatively, and I could tell it was sort of a, it wasn't an accident. It was, it was on purpose. It was thought out, doesn't mean that doesn't infuriate me. Doesn't mean it doesn't make me want. Uh, TO sort of incite revenge, but I recognize and I try, this is a case where this sort of philosophical tool of softening the edges can be very useful, where I try to soften the edges of that natural reaction of venge. NESS and and trying to reciprocate when it's no longer, the reciprocation is not going to prove, like, it's not going to help the relationship further. It's not going to communicate to the person or group that this, the thing you did is not OK. We have to recalibrate our understanding of what's OK. It's not, if it's not that situation anymore, it's just like, it's, there's no, there's nothing to be had amongst us anymore. Vengefulness and reciprocation, it's just essentially just scratching your own itch, and, um, I get it. I get the impulse. I get the desire to do that, but I, I try to Um, recognize the lack of usefulness, and more than that, the actual counterproductivity it often seems to, to result in. Now, granted, I haven't had, there are people who have had, you know, such tragic, terrible things occur in their lives as a result of other humans that I have not had or experienced. So, I have not experienced this sort of vengefulness tick. To the degree in which one certainly could. And I can't imagine what that might be like, and I don't want to speak as if I know how I would respond to that kind of experience. Like, if a, you know, a, a, a mother, father, son, daughter, girlfriend, wife, whatever got, um, killed or hurt, uh, by somebody. I don't know, you know, my reaction to that would, would probably be very different than all the things that I've experienced that were wrongdoings from other people up until this point in my life. But nonetheless, objectively speaking and philosophically speaking, Um, the tendency towards reciprocation, I think, is philosophically incoherent at that point. Um, I tend to be somebody who sees The contingencies of being as um Producing the outcomes of kinds of behavior that people are largely victims of, as opposed to um perpetrators of. I see, I see just about everybody and every being in existence as a victim of existence universally, uh, including whatever things they've found them, whatever problematic situations or behaviors they've found themselves in or carrying out, makes them to a victim to the sort of substrate of existence that they found themselves in, and I try to remind myself that whenever I can, when I'm dealing with people or things that are, are upsetting or frustrating.

1:06:52 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and of course if we're talking about self-awareness and we're talking about existential questions here, we can't avoid talking about death, right, and our fear of death and of course, I mean as biological entities and with the degree of sentience and consciousness and the degree of uh and the cognitive abilities that we have as humans, the degree of understanding of our own. Predicament that we have, uh, I mean, it would be silly to not to think that it's not normal for people to be afraid of death, but that's one aspect of it. But if we try to detach ourselves as best as possible from our sort of biological evolved instincts, do you think that ultimately we should be afraid of that?

1:07:51 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Oh, that's a good framing of that question, cause I, I know we are, whether or not we should be. I, I personally strive to be as unafraid of death as possible, and so that's going to be fighting against the very nature of what it means to be a living thing, because, um, for the most part, obviously there are some beings, some living things, some humans who are born with maybe a different relationship with what, you know, sort of survival instincts there are discrepancies and Um, deviancies across that spectrum, but for the most part, we are all born with the desire to survive. They sort of inbuilt yearning to survive and avoid death and reproduce. And so, the hardest one I find is not whether or not you want to reproduce, though that's very, very hard. The harder one is whether or not you're, you can find comfort in, um, in death, and whether or not you can Sort of divorce yourself from the fear of death, and that's something that I think that sits at the crux at the foundation of a lot of philosophy, art, poetry. I think we're all trying to In various ways, justify existence in the face of death or really reduce the intensity, um, of the implications of death. Um, I'm not sure if it's, that's something we'll ever be able to do easily as a species, but as individuals, I think gaining a certain degree of comfort. With death based on maybe an understanding of what death provides and why it's necessary, which could be a rationalization, and I'm well, well aware, well, well aware of that. Um, BUT utilizing sort of thought processes that help you detach from, you know, pure attachment to your being in your existence, and also recognize that through your mortality and The temporality of your time, the time that you have, and everything that you could and can't experience. If you recognize it's up against the backstop of death, then It, it inspires a kind of meaning that may not, that perhaps wouldn't exist if we didn't have a finality, if we didn't have a point at which everything dissolved away and disappeared, or at least the potential thereof. I do question whether or not the kinds of meaning we derive from life would have the depth and poignancy and wonder and intensity that we currently experience by virtue of our awareness of our mortality.

1:10:48 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I mean, I'm going to talk about my own approach to death and why at this point in life I am as close as not being afraid at all of death as I personally can. I mean, I'm not sure if, but there's probably other people out there that are even closer to not being afraid of death at all than I am, but There are, I mean, there's a philosophical aspect to it, and there's also three different experiences in my life that basically molded that in a sense. So the philosophical end of things was when I read Plato's Apology of Socrates, I mean when he's condemned to death and he has to drink the hemlock, but then he's reunited with basically his disciples and they're all sad because he's going to die and so on. He tells them, oh, you know, you don't need to be sad because death can be one of two things. Either there's life after death, and I'm going to meet with some of the people from history that I admire the most, and so that would be, that will be great. Or it can be just a sleepless, just a dreamless sleep, and I mean, and he says, and have you ever experienced anything better in life than Uh, dreamless sleep. So I, I, I mean, I mean, and, and when I read that, I was like, yeah, I mean, that's, this sounds very comforting actually. There are many philosophers out there that think that that is one of his weakest arguments in the apology, but I, I quite like it. But then, I mean, in terms of my experiences, 33 things that happened. So there was this one time, it was just this one time, it never happened again, but there was this one night where I had a completely dreamless sleep, and I know this for sure because I don't quite remember the content of my dreams, but I always remember that I had a dream, and that night I didn't dream at all, and I woke up in. The exact same position I lied down the, the previous night, so I had, I experienced no dreaming at all, and it was fantastic. And then, and, and then I mean, when I was 18 years old, I, I had to undergo a surgery because I had a cyst on my back and so on, and I was put under. General anesthesia and then they asked me to count down from 10 and uh I just blacked out completely and there was nothing at all to be experienced at that time I was under anesthesia. And I mean, I don't have any complaints about it. And then even, even when it comes to the process of Dying itself. I mean, I have a, I mean, it's, it was close to a near death experience when I was 9. Um, I was having a swimming. I was at a swimming lesson and I had an accident. I fell into the swimming pool and I was there drowning, and I'm not sure exactly the degree of consciousness I still had, but I knew I was there. I was still there in some way, but I was drowning. And I was completely at peace. I mean, I, I wasn't struggling anything, so, I mean, nowadays with all of that, uh, it's just Very hard for me to be afraid of death, but again, maybe that's the, on the one hand, it's the way I interpreted Socrates' words, and on the other hand, it's just my own personal experiences and also how I dealt with them. So I don't know what you think about that.

1:14:52 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): No, I think that's beautiful. I mean, there is the fact that So Kind of digging a little bit deeper, uh, from my last answer, you know, part of what we started this conversation on is around how the individuation process, the awareness of a self, the conceptual attachment to that self, and all of the aspects that, you know, all of the things in the sort of chaotic relationship we experience with reality as a result of that. IS a virt by virtue of being a living, being conscious entity that is feels separate from everything. And so, um, whether it's a dreamless sleep or a surgery or death, it is the ultimate alleviation of that, uh, individuation, uh, oriented suffering that we might experience. So, I, I tend to be reluctant to maybe share this side of, of the coin just because I don't, you know, I don't know, it's, it's can be heavy, but yeah, there's the, the another way you could think about death is being sort of a, a Tron, Emile Tron-esque interpretation where it's sort of the final alleviation of every, every aspect of the bullshit and chaos that you've been forced into experiencing as being born into a human. And so death is something that you're biologically wired to resist, and when you're in your waking state, you, you know, you're awake and you don't, you know, you're not sleepy yet, but once you fall asleep and, and, and you dip into that realm, it's, it's, it's maybe not so bad. Maybe it's, it's, it's a deeply alleviating, um, process of, of the whole

1:16:36 Ricardo Lopes: So one last topic because I'm also saying that we're running out of time, but, yeah, and also since you mentioned before we started recording that you quite liked my interviews with David Benatar, uh, what do you, what is your position on anti-Nalism? I mean, do you think, uh, taking into account all of the existential dread. We explored here today and uh things related to self-awareness, consciousness, and all of that. Do you think that it would just be better for us to try to stop procreating and uh consciously and intentionally putting, uh, gradually, of course, putting an end to self-awareness, at least on the human level.

1:17:25 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Yeah, so, for starters, I see the antenatalist, specifically Benatar's argument, his asymmetry argument, uh, very logically convincing. I, I, I understand the through line of logic there, and it makes a lot of sense. Um. I don't want to pick a position here, but I will say that, um, given the cadence of a lot of the questions and topics we talked about, there's something about the maybe clash or incoherence between logic and lived experience that might be applicable to such an argument, where the logic of Continuing the human experience, the logic of continuing self-aware experience seems to be Poor a lot. Like, that's, that's on the, the, the, the side of the argument that is maybe deficient, at least based on Benatar's asymmetry argument, which I would, I would say is, is sound. However, There's something about committing first in spite of the probability or the logic of a situation that can somehow equate to a a more functional, um, overarching experience or system of existence. And so, Uh, it's a, it's a bit of a convoluted answer, but I, I think that despite the logic of something like antenatalism, there is, there is something interesting to be said in the face of it, against it, that nonetheless provides, um, a lot of intrigue to me. Um, YOU gotta commit to loving and trusting somebody, including maybe a phenomenon like existence and self-awareness first. In order to derive a a functional relationship with it over the long haul.

1:19:16 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. Great. So, look, uh, it's been great to talk with you and just to, just to tell people that the book is again the terrible paradox of self-awareness, how awareness is the beginning and end of suffering. I will be leaving a link to it in the description. And by the way, apart from your YouTube channel, which I will be leaving a link to Wendy if you agree, I will send you a link to Wendy as a collaborator there as well. Um, WHERE can people find you on the internet?

1:19:45 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Yeah, Pursuit of Wonder on on all socials, and YouTube is, is primarily where I make most of my work. Um, AND then also, I write books. So, if you search Robert Pantano, whether that's on Google, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever you get books, you can find, uh, you can find my books there as well.

1:20:03 Ricardo Lopes: Great. So, thanks so much for the great talk. It's been great to everyone and it's been really fun and uh and informative to talk with you.

1:20:13 Robert Pantano (Pursuit of Wonder): Likewise, I really appreciate you having me, Ricardo.

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