Alex O'Connor
speaker
2,073 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Sep 2025
last heard 25 May
Alex O'Connor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
want to go to that now as an explanation is for the the psychological phenomenon right the literal feeling that people have because likewise you would say that there is a meaning crisis maybe you would say that lots of people the statistics we just heard you would say lots of people you know don't feel meaning in their life and you'd want to offer an explanation for why that's the case you think their lives are meaningful right you think that all of those people who say my life has no meaning they're wrong their lives actually do have meaning
Is that what you think?
You believe there really is a purpose for their life, but subjectively they haven't either found it or they don't feel it.
What I'm doing is I'm offering a psychological explanation for why they don't feel it, which is completely insensitive to whether or not there's a truth of the matter.
What you're raising is the problem of consciousness, which is, I think, a new question, but an important one.
I wanted to point out earlier that when I gave an explanation as to why people feel a lack of meaning, and you said that has no bearing on truth, I think that's- You admitted that too at the end there.
I appreciate that.
I don't admit it.
I assert it.
Of course, that's the case.
You affirmed you weren't making the case.
In the same way that if somebody says that, like, if you're a Christian and you say the reason everyone's so depressed is because society has become atheistic, somebody could say, well, yeah, I mean, that might be the case, but that doesn't mean atheism is false.
It might be that it is true and just depressing, right?
Of course, like the question, if we're discussing- There are alternate explanations.
If you want to know
why somebody feels a particular way psychologically, you can offer an explanation which has absolutely nothing to do with the truth or falsity of a worldview.
You can then separately discuss the truth or falsity of a worldview, which you've then gone on to do with specific reference to the problem of consciousness.
I'm saying that if you're literally just trying, I mean, if the question I'm asked is why do people perceive
a lack of meaning in their life.
That's just a question about their psychological constitution.
Showing 1481–1500 of 2,073 · page 75 of 104
← Previous
Next →