Many view the fact that they are here, experiencing the world, as something insanely improbable… but what if it were instead entirely inevitable? The philosopher Arnold Zuboff walks us through a mind-bending argument, which he calls universalism (aka open individualism), where the improbability of your existence vanishes. It doesn’t matter which sperm met which egg, or how your ancestors got together, or how anything at all in the past unfolded, because wherever there is first-person experience, there is the same “I.” Zuboff’s new book “Finding Myself: Beyond the False Boundaries of Personal Identity” features a foreword by Thomas Nagel (author of “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”), who says that many will view the claim as “incredible, even outrageous” — but says it is too well argued to be ignored and an “important contribution.” We discuss why Zuboff sees universalism as resolving many of the core quandaries of consciousness that are puzzled over, and why he’s entirely certain it’s the right view. Other topics include: how universalism ties into views of a multiverse and the anthropic principle; how it ties into ideas of religion and a higher power, and more. If you’ve ever lain awake at night wrestling with the sheer weirdness of being alive at all, you’ll want to listen to this episode.

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