Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and Why It Matters
1/12/20261 hr 18 min
At any given moment, an uncountable number of events are happening, but only some of them matter to us. What does it mean for something to matter, and more importantly, what does it mean for us to matter -- to ourselves as well as to others? The need to matter can be motivation to do great things, but it can also be a reason for people to come into conflict. Philosopher/novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein explores this issue in her new book The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us.
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First 90 secondsSean Carroll· Host0:00
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Bethany Frankel0:21
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Sean Carroll· Host0:53
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Carroll. Some of you might know that back in 2012, I put together a small symposium in Stockbridge, Massachusetts called Moving Naturalism Forward. The idea being that naturalism is as opposed to theism. Naturalism being the view that the universe is just stuff obeying the laws of physics, that there's no extra supernatural deities or demigods or evil spirits or good spirits pushing us around and affecting our lives or giving us guidance or anything like that.