Jacob Howland
speaker
188 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Jacob Howland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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That's the reason. Yeah, and the quest for meaning can take many forms. So, for example, we're having our students read Marco Polo. Very interesting. So Marco Polo, his uncle and his father actually journeyed to see Kublai Khan before Marco Polo ever did. Incredibly arduous and dangerous journey from Italy to Mongolia.
And they go all the way out there and they get to the Khan, who's not going anywhere, by the way. But the Khan turns out to be a brilliant guy and he also wants to learn about the world. So this is the spirit of adventure you were talking about. They go there. By the way, the con says to them, oh, this Catholicism you talk about is very interesting.
Go back, talk to the Pope, get some bishops, bring them back to see me. And if I like what they say, we'll all convert to Catholicism. It's very interesting. So we have these two people who are explorers, right? And they're finding meaning. And in the story of Marco Polo, you know, He's just utterly fascinated by this completely different world. It's so fulfilling for him to see these things.
Okay, so we have that kind of example. That's one version. Now, intellectually, you know, think of the great books. Think of the Bible. Think of Shakespeare. Depths beyond depths. You ask the right question, you find these things. But then also, just in everyday life. I mean, one of the good things about getting older is realizing...
The futility of so much that is esteemed and so many things that I myself chased. And then to begin to realize that, you know, the love of one's spouse, of one's children, the opportunity to help them, the, you know... Let's say, sure, people want esteem. But to be esteemed by people that, in your estimation, are truly worthy.
Yeah.
Now, you know what's so interesting about this? To pick up a couple of themes that we mentioned earlier, you talked about humility. Somebody like Abraham, and this is the trick, and we see it in Socrates, we see it in Abraham, we see it in all the greats, is confidence. How do these two things go together? That is to say... What do I mean by Socrates' confidence? I don't have knowledge.
I have some, to the best of my ability, justified beliefs that I take to heart. For example, the soul is more important than the body. Justice is more important than everything else. But at the same time, humility.
Your ignorance is boundless.
And the beautiful thing about humility, it's connected with wonder, because the unhumble don't wonder.
Right? Yeah.
Oh, yeah. And look out. Now we're getting down to a deeper thing because... Um, wonder, you know, when you wonder, you enter into what Socrates calls operia and the Greek word literally means no way out. It's like you're, you're stuck. Um, maybe that's not the right way to put it.
Let's say this, you know, that the more you think and the more you ponder possibilities and the more, you know, you don't know, you feel like you're on this sea. I mean, it can, it can, it can really be overwhelming. Okay. Mm-hmm. There's got to be a prior assumption that makes wonder worthwhile, that allows you to feel that you're going to remain afloat on this sea.
So those are the two. You've anticipated me exactly. Let's go with that good thing, especially, that the world is good, that reality is good. And what do we, now we can even say, well, what do we mean by good? Well, there is some kind of sustaining structure, let's say. And the reason I put it that way, like in other words. Intelligibility? Yeah. But more than that. Yeah, probably more than that.
But let's take intelligibility just for a second here. One of my favorite books, which I'm now listening to, I read it 30 years ago, is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. And what's so great about this book is, I mean, it has many wonderful features. It's a great work of history. It's a great work of sort of explaining physics to educated amateurs.
But what it focuses on is theoretical physics in the first half of the 20th century. which was almost an academic paradise. You had all these great physicists, and they're working together, and they're discovering things. So they have the atomic theory. At the beginning of the 20th century, an atom, this uncuttable thing from the Greek, can't be cut. And they don't know anything about it, right?
And so now they're discovering the nucleus and electrons and protons and neutrons and all this kind of thing. And they're just going around, you know, I mean, the reason I say it's an academic paradise is you go to Cambridge and they say, oh, go to see Rutherford at, you know, this other place. And you go there. Niels Bohr has the, and so they're all collaborating.
But they're convinced that there's a there there, right? And they're convinced that.
And that their quest is worthwhile. And then, of course, all of a sudden it's driven into overdrive because now we're in the war. And now there's possible application, right? But, you know, so there's this kind of faith. There is a faith.
Well, I mean, look, in the case of the harnessing of nuclear energy, you have, let us say, a proof of concept, right? That is to say... This is, to me, probably the most dramatic and persuasive indication that science has the capacity to know something fundamental about reality. So, yeah, you know, I mean, their faith paid off in this instance. And
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