Bad Philosophy

Imagine yourself in a movie theater. It is the only place you’ve ever known. The smell of popcorn, the sticky floors, and of course the endless projected movies on the screen are your reality. What would you believe about “the real world” if this was all you knew? Would you even believe there was one […]

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allegory of the cave, Anathem, Aristotle, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Bruce Willis, Descartes, District 9, education, geometry, Kant, Keanu Reaves, Kevin, Leibniz, Mac, mathematics, Meno, Occam's Razor, philosophy of mind, Plato, reality, robots, Santa Claus, Stephen, Surrogates, The Matrix, The Republic, Tolkien, truth, virtual reality

Eastern thought has been a curiosity for Western culture ever since Marco Polo made his epic journey to Asia in the 1200s. The legacy of this curiosity lives on, and so Bad Philosophy has decided to undertake the momentous task of reconciling Eastern and Western philosophy in a single episode (because we’re just awesome like that). Joining me for his first episode ever is mechanical engineering graduate student Sean Mullen, alongside an uncharacteristically in-person Kevin Saunders. NUF (Numero Uno Fanboy) Jed Cummins worked the camera (sort of) and despite many technical difficulties we actually managed some good conversation. So grab a fortune cookie, sit down on your tatami, and have a listen…

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4chan, AARP, afterlife, Anathem, Aristotle, Ashton Kutcher, Asian philosophy, atheism, Buddhism, Catholicism, celebrity, China, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, enlightenment, heaven, Hinduism, Jediah, Judaism, Kaballah, karma, Kevin, koans, Madonna, Marco Polo, My Name is Earl, mysticism, NBC, New Age, paradox, Protestantism, proverbs, reciprocity, reincarnation, religion, Rule 34, Sean, Shakespeare, Snopes, Star Wars, Stephen, the Bible, theatre, time, United States, Wikipedia, yin yang, zen, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

In a world, divided by history, separate but equal, teetering on the brink of the cosmos, one podcast dares to defy the axioms and go where no podcast has gone bef… well you get the idea. This week we’re talking Anathem! Neal Stephenson’s latest work of spec-fic awesomery is ripe with headiness, so we decided to bring on couple of powerhouses in the brain department. Former-KTXT and current Llano Idea DJ Benjamin Brown returns to duke it out in a literary smackdown for the ages with veteran Bad Philosopher and aspiring YouTube reviewer Kevin Saunders. If this were a book, it’d be a genuine page-turner. But you read with your ears, right? Of course you do. So have a listen…

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aging, Alan Turing, Amazon, Anathem, anime, apocalypse, Aquinas, Aristotle, Audible, Ben Brown, books, Canticle for Liebowitz, Christian Science, communication, Cory Doctorow, Cryptonomicon, cyberpunk, DRM, Dune, economics, Galileo, history, Isaac Asimov, J. R. R. Tolkien, Kevin, Kindle, KTXT, mathematics, Mendeleev, meta, Neal Stephenson, Occam's Razor, physics, piracy, pirates, Plato, publishing, Pythagorean Theorem, quantum physics, religion, Richard Feynman, Rifftrax, Robert Heinlein, sci-fi, science, scientology, Skype, Snow Crash, Special Relativity, sports, Starship Troopers, Stephen, technology, The Baroque Cycle, The Day After Tomorrow, The Llano Idea, The Long Now Foundation, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The World Without Us, TV, Twilight, Variable Star, WWII, XKCD