David Eagleman on Possibilianism
I’ve known for most of my adult life that I’m a Possibilian. But until now, I didn’t know that was the word for what I am.
In this wonderful talk, neuroscientist David Eagleman makes the point that we know too little to firmly commit to atheism – and yet we know too much to commit to any religious story. The argument between theists and atheists – god vs. no god – is too limited. The amount that we don’t know is immense; there are vast landscapes of possible truths.
As Eagleman explains, this doesn’t mean that anything goes. It means that anything goes at first – and then we use science to rule things out.
He urges us to live our lives free of dogma, but full of wonder and awe.
And by the way, David Eagleman has written a marvelous little book called Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives that playfully explores forty possible (not really) scenarios for what might happen to us after we die.