An interview with scientist and philosopher Garry Nolan

Last week, ATS member cooperton posted this brilliant thread. As time allows, I've been researching the biological world, and found some excellent writings by Garry Nolan, then found this interview on computer scientist Lex Fridman's podcast. Nolan's credentials are impressive. He's that rare mix of hard science and philosophy. In this interview he talks about God, biology, space, aliens, and the meaning of life. It's long, but it's segmented. You can also find shorter clips pulled from the same interview on YT.

It's interesting how he'll make rather vague statements about believing or not believing in God, then mention "the creator". It's like he's telling the atheists that maybe they should re-think things. IDK, I'm just speculating on that. Here's an example:
"The fact that you have this dynamic computer within every cell that is constantly processing its environment...and at the heart of it is DNA, which is a dynamic machine, a dynamic computation process. People think of DNA as a linear code. It's codes, within codes, within codes....
If you ever wanted to believe in God, just look inside the cell."

On alien civilizations:
"When I was about 7 or 8 years old, around 1968, I saw a picture of space in a National Geographic magazine. I remember thinking 'What kinds of empires have risen and fallen across that space, that we'll never know about? Isn't that sad that we know nothing about something so grand?"

Full interview:


Speculation on why aliens might be visiting Earth:


Speculation on aliens wanting to contact humans:

Gary Nolan is interesting but the guy posing the questions sure could use 'something' to animate him a bit!

I listened to this interview. I thought it was really interesting on how he postulated that he thought extraterrestrials essentially planted what they wanted us to find and essentially manipulated our minds to see what they wanted us to see. Like-are they REALLY crashing so often or are they purposefully ‘crashing’ objects in order to provide certain tech to us. Are the aliens really aliens in the craft or are they an AI? Are we really seeing space ships when we see UFOs or is that just easier for our minds to process (a thousand years ago they may have seen angels flying around).

I think this is more plausible than aliens visiting us in ships and they are just aimlessly flying around in our space and sometimes crash (even though they’re super advanced).

It could be like us communicating with an ant colony. The ants couldn’t really communicate with us but if we left bread crumbs and provided them with tech over many years-eventually they might be able to communicate with us.

originally posted by: nugget1
Gary Nolan is interesting but the guy posing the questions sure could use 'something' to animate him a bit!

You should see comedian Tim Dillon make fun of Lex. Dillon really likes Lex, but then again, he makes fun of everyone!

a reply to: AcrobaticDreams

Like-are they REALLY crashing so often or are they purposefully ‘crashing’ objects in order to provide certain tech to us.

Yes, those are some interesting questions. There's so much mystery involved. I've always been interested in UFOlogy, but it's really been rekindled lately.

I'm not opposed to dissecting philosophy through a so called materialist lens or swapping it around to deconstruct science down to its barest components. But I am fairly resistant to what might be called applied metaphysics or even quantum theology that isn't actually useful or even objectively practical in our day to day reality.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
I'm not opposed to dissecting philosophy through a so called materialist lens or swapping it around to deconstruct science down to its barest components. But I am fairly resistant to what might be called applied metaphysics or even quantum theology that isn't actually useful or even objectively practical in our day to day reality.

And to think you thought all that up with something the materialist can't explain with "materials." You know that weightless, massless phenomena that's responsible for all human achievement (for better or worse) that we call "Consciousness."

Somebody once said something along the lines of when the materialist finally climbs the mount of true knowledge he'll find both the mystic & theologian there well before him.

a reply to: ColeYounger

'What kinds of empires have risen and fallen across that space, that we'll never know about? Isn't that sad that we know nothing about something so grand?"

And no one will know at our passing .

originally posted by: The GUT

originally posted by: TzarChasm
I'm not opposed to dissecting philosophy through a so called materialist lens or swapping it around to deconstruct science down to its barest components. But I am fairly resistant to what might be called applied metaphysics or even quantum theology that isn't actually useful or even objectively practical in our day to day reality.

And to think you thought all that up with something the materialist can't explain with "materials." You know that weightless, massless phenomena that's responsible for all human achievement (for better or worse) that we call "Consciousness."

Somebody once said something along the lines of when the materialist finally climbs the mount of true knowledge he'll find both the mystic & theologian there well before him.

Cut off my head and see how much that magical ethereal je nais se quois is worth. I'd imagine the mystic and theologian both figured out that after enough time passes "at the top" the whole enlightenment quest gets a little boring and maybe they should have brought more beer. Meanwhile the materialist only climbed half the mountain because he figured out the top looks pretty much like the bottom. So he went home.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: The GUT

originally posted by: TzarChasm
I'm not opposed to dissecting philosophy through a so called materialist lens or swapping it around to deconstruct science down to its barest components. But I am fairly resistant to what might be called applied metaphysics or even quantum theology that isn't actually useful or even objectively practical in our day to day reality.

And to think you thought all that up with something the materialist can't explain with "materials." You know that weightless, massless phenomena that's responsible for all human achievement (for better or worse) that we call "Consciousness."

Somebody once said something along the lines of when the materialist finally climbs the mount of true knowledge he'll find both the mystic & theologian there well before him.

Cut off my head and see how much that magical ethereal je nais se quois is worth. I'd imagine the mystic and theologian both figured out that after enough time passes "at the top" the whole enlightenment quest gets a little boring and maybe they should have brought more beer. Meanwhile the materialist only climbed half the mountain because he figured out the top looks pretty much like the bottom. So he went home.

The materialist and the mystic and theologian seemed to all become enlightened but used different methods.

a reply to: AcrobaticDreams

If you say so. But enlightenment has nothing to do with science. It's all about the mind being comfortable in its own proverbial skin and that's just psychology under a weird arcane label.

a reply to: TzarChasm

The science delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality in principle, leaving only the details to be filled in.
Bad science, like bad religion, is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. But religious fundamentalists realize that their opinions are based on faith, whereas dogmatic scientists don't realize their opinions are also based in faith. They think they know the truth.
...Rupert Sheldrake

originally posted by: ColeYounger
a reply to: TzarChasm

The science delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality in principle, leaving only the details to be filled in.
Bad science, like bad religion, is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. But religious fundamentalists realize that their opinions are based on faith, whereas dogmatic scientists don't realize their opinions are also based in faith. They think they know the truth.
...Rupert Sheldrake

So your argument is that scientific truth is false? Or that there is no truth?