• Scroll down to the AUDIO PLAYER and hear the latest episode!
• This production comes to you FREE each week, however it takes many hours and dollars to make. If you enjoy this work, please help todaywith a gift (of any amount) using PayPal (credit cards are accepted too).
Daniel J. Kirk writes and speaks about the big story of the Bible and how it intersects with life, faith, and culture. He earned a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and taught in a variety of institutions over a ten-year teaching career. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Laura and two school-aged children. His back yard has been overrun by chickens who have no interest in being confined to their designated space, and his refrigerator is regularly stocked with his homebrewed Cursing Reverend beer.
Today, I have a special guest. Eric Zimmer has one of the top podcasts as rated by iTunes. It’s called “The One You Feed” and I have personally gained a lot from listening to it.
(This episode was marked “explicit” because the word other word “rump exit” is used a few times. You can probably handle that, but I can only mark the thing “clean” or “explicit” –ugh!)
Thank you to everyone who has helped with encouragement and gifts to keep the Spark My Muse show going.
If you have never contributed before, but you’ve enjoyed listening, now is a good time to chip in.
MIN 4:00 Eric tells the famous wolf parable that he asks each guest on his show (120 guests so far) and answers what it means for himself.
MIN 12:00 Eric’s spiritual and religious influences.
MIN 14:00 His alcoholism and addition and 12 step program.
MIN 15:00 Spirituality is the recognition that the things on the inside matter too as well as the outside.
MIN 16:30 Bill Wilson of AA interacted with Carl Jung who said alcohol is also known as “spirits” and imbibing is a search for transcendence. A “turning on” of life somehow.
MIN 20:30 Eric answers: What replaces the drugs and alcohol?
“Ask why the pain?”
MIN 22:30 On getting better and getting healthier.
MIN 36:30 On his Meditation and noticing practices
MIN 42:00 Being where you are
MIN 42:30 The waterfall and the rock metaphor – distance from the chattering thinker.
MIN 44:00 Sound meditation and training to focus
MIN 48:47 Dan Harris
MIN 50:00 Question thoughts and have a recognition of the distortions. We are not objective. We symbolize. Interrupt and generalize and seeing things as all or nothing.
MIN 54:00 On assuming others people’s motivations. The fundamental attribution error: Errors are attributed as character-based problems for OTHERS but only as circumstantial errors for ourselves.
MIN 58:00 Learn people’s stories.
MIN 59:00 Assuming that we don’t know a person’s backstory or reason they have done what they have.
MIN 60:00
We are telling ourselves stories over and over about what things mean. Our brains are meaning making machines.
Deconstruction and Reconstruction is a lifelong process.
After a season of growth and rebirth, things CHANGE and that means you will CRAVE stability and a return to “normal”. Today, is about that and what to do about it. I wish I had known this 20 years ago!!
After you listen to PART I (the audio button you can click below) be sure to Watch the video, PART II. It comes with a handout and is part of Varsity Club. It goes into Lesson 25 in a deeper way and has action steps and a specific guide to enact rebirth in your relationships. Find that here.
The quick details about Varsity Club:
This is the way core listeners, like you, support Spark My Muse with a monthly $5–that’s a tiny $1.25 per week. This comes with the option of 15 minutes of exclusive time with me, each month, to ask any questions you’d like from any podcast or Soul School episode. If questions come up, or if you’d like to know more, you get me to yourself.
You can cancel anytime and weekly Video lessons and handouts go back all the way to Lesson 18!
New video classes and resources come each week for Soul School lessons for monthly supporters who love Soul School, like you do. You can cancel anytime.
Matt Hutson has a B.S. in cognitive neuroscience from Brown University and an M.S. in science writing from MIT. He has written for Wired, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Discover, Scientific American Mind, Popular Mechanics, Technology Review, Slate, NewYorker.com, NYMag.com, ScienceMag.org, Aeon, Nautilus, Al Jazeera America, The Boston Globe,The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Psychology Today, where he was the News Editor for four years.
MIN 1:30
Matt’s religious and spiritual background and context for writing about magic and how we think.
A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking
MIN 2:30
Cognitive Neuroscience studies
Meaning is filtered through the mind.
MIN 3:30
What is magical thinking and how does it happen all the time in our lives?
MIN 9:00
Humans are very social creatures and we apply our perspective (like thoughts and desires) onto other things that are not human.
MIN 11:30
Some atheists claim they don’t commit mistakes of magical thinking, but Matthew says, “Not so fast, we all do and it’s not so bad!”
Involuntary Cognitive bias
The experiments the tease out the behavioral repercussion of these basis.
MIN 14:30
Instinct and staying safe
MIN 16:30
How does Matt deal with his own magical thinking?
Realizing the difference between correlation and causation.
MIN 18
Learning Critical Thinking
Is there another explanation?
MIN 20
Transcendent experiences and loss of awareness of ego or a sense of awe.
Astronauts often return from space with a new belief in God or spirituality or ecologically-minded or with a renewed sense of awe.
MIN 23
Matt’s transcendent moment in Alaska.
MIN 25
Matt talks about the “The Soul Lives On” and “Everything Happens for a Reason” chapters of his book.
MIN 29
Up loading our brains to live on after us and artificial intelligence.
MIN 31
symbols: such as, people feel less lonely when they watch tv.
MIN 34
Consciousness as discreet states
MIN 35
Verbs most activate our motor system
MIN 38
The movie HER and brain simulation
MIN 40
The psychology of social status. power, prestige, and class how we achieve it. Why we care about getting it and what’s good about it and how it shows our values.
MIN 42
How upbringing can program us for life.
Thank you so much for your interest in this episode. Dig around and listen to other episode and come back each Wednesday and Friday for new ones, or subscribe and never miss a thing.
![Motivation and 3 Notions of Consciousness [SSL81]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Nested-Selves.jpg)
