The Meaning Code | Dr. Paula Boddington: How Descartes, Hume & Bentham Ruptured Meaning and Hacked our Reality @TheMeaningCode | Uploaded January 2022 | Updated October 2024, 4 hours ago.
Dr. Paula Boddington is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Healthcare at the University of West London with a special emphasis on AI.

Paula and Karen begin a discussion of D C Schindler's book, Love and the Postmodern Predicament. Paula gives Karen a history of philosophy from Descartes through Bentham, and connections are drawn to the work of Michael Levin on bioelectric signaling:
youtu.be/VcPqzErExqg
--(the possibility of controlling "evolution", the shortening of time scales, the possibility of "miracles", the depth to which the integration of intelligence permeates every aspect of our being).

We also discuss the way in which our necessary grounding in the empirical world can at the same time become a divorce from reality. How the five senses are essential for navigating our world but not sufficient for meaning.

We touch on Hume's path which was an instrumental amount of truth and how that led to Bentham's utilitarianism, a focus on pain, pleasure and maximizing happiness in the world.
The differences between pragmatism and utilitarianism, how homeostasis and immediate value are insufficient for meaning.
Robert Nozick and the experience machine as a real world instantiation of the dilemma posed by Jordan Peterson: "either nothing matters or everything matters".

Quotes from the book, Love and the Postmodern Predicament by
D. C. Schindler