Arthur C. Brooks

Do you remember when we were kids, I'm a little older than you, but when we were kids, you remember Coco the gorilla?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly right.

Exactly right.

So Francine Patterson, Penny Patterson, was her handler.

Coco the Gorilla, for those who are watching, they're not 61 like me.

Kids these days.

Coco the Gorilla was a lowland Ugandan gorilla, female gorilla, born in captivity, lived to a ripe old age of 46.

Yeah.

but did this incredible thing from her handler, Penny Patterson, taught her a thousand words in sign language.

And everybody thought, well, this blurs the line between homo sapiens and non-human primates, but it didn't at all, because there's one thing that Coco the gorilla never did.

She never asked a single question.

The essence of true humanity is not answering questions.

That's why AI is not human.

That's why Google's not human.

It's asking questions.

The asking, the asking, that's what makes us who we are.

So if you want to actually start to get into the meaning of your life, to open up the right hemisphere of your brain into the dark consciousness, the mystery, start asking deep questions that don't have answers.

So why are you alive?

Like who created you and for what reason?