Michael Shearer

And he'll make kind of jokes about the things he's done in the past that are not honorable.

But I think the main takeaway from that for me was this is a person who still very much struggles.

He's not someone who's ever presented himself as being cured from the demons that haunted him during his teen years and 20s.

And I think that is actually something that also explains his actions in other areas as well.

It's what drives him forward.

Matthew Feeney, Jr.

:

and who, as I just described, has been through... I mean, he described his drug addiction as hell.

He's someone who describes himself as having returned from hell.

And as he has returned from hell, that has endowed him with certain perspectives and powers that other people do not have.

And then I think the second part of that, which the story does, and it's hard to get into because it becomes very complicated very quickly, is you can engage him at length on the actual science.

I mean, science is supposed to be a place where...

There is an objective truth, and this is not debatable.

In practice, it's much harder because what science shows you is very pinpoint pixels of light in a very large room.

You don't see everything.

You just see the question you've asked, and then you have to scrutinize that.

And there's a lot that is unproven in science.

There are a lot of assumptions made in science.

And it's really interesting to spend time with him and kind of go down these rabbit holes where,

Where I think, you know, he is making assumptions that end up in some cases not being true, that he is focusing on a vision which the burden of proof of science is flipped from where it's been.