Episode · Lex Fridman Podcast · 2020-08-20
Books mentioned on #117 – Sheldon Solomon: Death and Meaning
Sheldon Solomon is a social psychologist, a philosopher, co-developer of Terror Management Theory, co-author of The Worm at the Core. Please support this channel by supporting our sponsors: – Blinkist: https://blinkist.
Lex Fridman recommended Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov, and discussed The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, The Worm at the Core by Sheldon Solomon and others, and A Book Review of Carl Becker's Book on the Declaration of Independence by Frederick Pollock and others. Sheldon Solomon recommended THE PLAGUE by Albert Camus and Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers, and discussed Homo aestheticus by Ellen Dissanayake, The Poetical Works of Alexander Smith by Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp by Alexander Smith, escape from evil by ernest becker, Birth and Death of Meaning by Ernest Becker, Maps of Meaning by Jordan B. Peterson, Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost In the Machine by Stephen Pinker, Second Treatise of Government by John Locke, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, Collapse by Jared M. Diamond, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, False Dawn by John Gray, Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, Existence and being by Martin Heidegger, The concept of time by Martin Heidegger, Darwin's Cathedral by David Wilson, In the Name of Identity by Amin Maalouf, An Arabic Zoological Dictionary by Amin Malouf, How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, Consciousness Regained by Nicholas Humphrey, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, Deer Disassembly by Eric Fromm and others, Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm, Charter Schools and Their Enemies by Thomas Sowell, Ulysses by James Joyce, Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, The Dead by James Joyce, Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, and The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Denial of Death
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning psychological and philosophical study exploring how human behavior is driven by the fear of mortality.
Discussed“let me say as a side note that ernest becker's book denial of death had a big impact on my thinking about human cognition consciousness and the deep ocean currents of our mind that are behind the surface behaviors we observe”
Where to get it
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The Worm at the Core
The Worm at the Core by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski explores terror management theory and the foundational role that the fear of death plays in driving human behavior and societal creation.
Discussed“your view of the human condition is that death you've written the book warm with the core that death is at the core of our consciousness of everything of how we see the world of what drives us”
Where to get it
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Homo aestheticus
Discussed“another woman ellen dizzinayake wrote a book called homo aestheticus and following aristotle and his poetics she's like well we're not only rational animals we're also aesthetic creatures that appreciate beauty”
Where to get it
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The Poetical Works of Alexander Smith
Discussed“what garnered my attention when i was a young punk was just a single line in an essay by a scottish guy it was alexander smith in in a book called dreamthwarp i think it's written in the 1860s”
Where to get it
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Dreamthorp
Discussed“what garnered my attention when i was a young punk was just a single line in an essay by a scottish guy it was alexander smith in in a book called dreamthwarp i think it's written in the 1860s he just says right in the middle of an essay it is our knowledge that we have to die that makes”
Where to get it
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escape from evil
Escape from Evil by Ernest Becker is a profound philosophical and anthropological work that examines how human cultures, economic systems, and historical atrocities are driven by a universal terror of death and a quest for immortality.
Discussed“it's actually his next to last book i don't know how you pulled this off but he had one more after he died called escape from evil and evidently it was supposed to originally”
Where to get it
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Birth and Death of Meaning
Birth and Death of Meaning by Ernest Becker is an exploration of human psychology and culture framed primarily through an evolutionary and psychoanalytic lens.
Discussed“um there's another book the birth and death of meaning – which is framed – um in from an evolutionary perspective”
Where to get it
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A Book Review of Carl Becker's Book on the Declaration of Independence
Discussed“you said you picked up becker's book and you know it felt like it was onto something that's the same thing i felt when i picked up becker's book”
Where to get it
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Maps of Meaning
Maps of Meaning by Jordan B.
Discussed“jordan was working on his maps of meaning and we were publishing our work and i i think jordan at the time – um was concerned about our vague claims to the effect that all meaning is arbitrary”
Where to get it
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Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost In the Machine
Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost In the Machine is an influential work of popular science and philosophy by Stephen Pinker that explores human nature and the historical trajectory of violence.
Discussed“that would basically be like stephen pinker's blank slate”
Where to get it
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Second Treatise of Government
Second Treatise of Government by John Locke is a foundational work of classical political philosophy published in 1689 that articulates natural rights theory, arguing that legitimate government authority derives from the consent of the governed and that individuals possess inherent rights to life, liberty, and property.
Discussed“and he starts in his second treatise on government 1690 or so”
Where to get it
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Moby Dick
Moby Dick by Herman Melville is a classic 19th-century novel exploring the obsessions of Captain Ahab and the dramatic whaling voyage of the Pequod.
Discussed“so and and melville does the same thing in moby dick where he he thinks about will there ever come a time where we run out of whales”
Where to get it
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Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an extensive economic analysis arguing that the concentration of wealth and increasing inequality are inevitable features of modern capitalist systems unless actively countered by progressive taxation and state intervention.
Discussed“that over time would always you know the thomas pickerty guy who writes about capital and just makes the point that return on investment will always be greater than wages”
Where to get it
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The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is a seminal science book that popularizes a gene-centric view of evolution and explores the biological origins of selfishness and altruism.
Discussed“uh this i'm going here from richard dawkins uh the selfish gene you know to i love the early dawkins”
Where to get it
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Collapse
Collapse by Jared M.
Discussed“so i'm with jared diamond you know in the book collapse where he points out studying – um the collapse of major civilizations that it often happens right after things appear to never have been better”
Where to get it
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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L.
Discussed“and how i mentioned to you off camera that i've been reading uh the the rise and fall of the third reich”
Where to get it
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Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt is a foundational historical and political analysis examining the origins, mechanisms, and societal conditions that give rise to authoritarian regimes and totalitarian control.
Discussed“and actually hannah arendt in the 1950s said the same thing in her book about totalitarianism when she said that you know that economics has reached the point where most money is made not by actually making stuff”
Where to get it
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Existence and being
Existence and being by Martin Heidegger is a profound philosophical text exploring fundamental questions concerning human existence, the nature of the self, and time.
Discussed“a year or two ago i i started reading smartin heidegger si'm reading being in time”
Where to get it
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The concept of time
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger is a foundational work of twentieth-century continental philosophy that explores the nature of human existence, temporality, and being.
Discussed“a year or two ago i i started reading smartin heidegger si'm reading being in time”
Where to get it
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Darwin's Cathedral
Darwin's Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson is a notable work exploring the evolutionary origins of religion through the lens of group selection and communality.
Discussed“so it's david sloane wilson wrote a book called darwin's cathedral”
Where to get it
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In the Name of Identity
Discussed“and so there's a guy named amin malouf a lebanese guy who writes in french swho in the 1990s i think wrote a book called in the name of identity violence and the need to belong”
Where to get it
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An Arabic Zoological Dictionary
Discussed“and so there's a guy named amin malouf a lebanese guy who writes in french who in the 1990s i think wrote a book called in the name of identity violence and the need to belong”
Where to get it
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How the Mind Works
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker is a comprehensive exploration of evolutionary psychology that investigates how the human brain evolved, how it processes information, and how these mechanisms shape modern human behavior.
Discussed“that sstephen pinker i do agree with his claim sand i think how the mind works that it is the key question for the psychological sciences”
Where to get it
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Consciousness Regained
Consciousness Regained by Nicholas Humphrey is an exploration of the evolutionary origins of human consciousness, proposing that it developed primarily to navigate complex social environments.
Discussed“another possibility is uh nicholas humphrey a british dude who wrote a book about i think it's called regaining consciousness”
Where to get it
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Sapiens
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is a sweeping exploration of how Homo sapiens evolved, dominated the planet, and constructed complex imaginary orders like religion, money, and nations.
Discussed“i'm swith sa harare with the sapiens that we're kind of we seem to construct ideas on top of each other”
Where to get it
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Deer Disassembly
Discussed“it's eric fromm uh in a book called escape from freedom he's like look you”
Where to get it
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Escape from Freedom
Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm is a prominent psychological and sociological work that explores humanity's complex relationship with liberty and the psychological appeal of authoritarianism.
Discussed“therefore it is claimed sit's eric fromm sin a book called escape from freedom he's like look you”
Where to get it
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Charter Schools and Their Enemies
Charter Schools and Their Enemies by Thomas Sowell is a non-fiction book examining the history, successes, and political opposition surrounding the charter school movement in American education.
Discussed“thomas soul uh wrote a book about uh recent book on um charter schools”
Where to get it
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THE PLAGUE
The Plague by Albert Camus is a classic existentialist novel that uses the allegorical setting of a city struck by a deadly epidemic to explore profound themes of human suffering, absurdism, collective responsibility, and resilience.
Recommended“i will tell you the last line of the plague we learn in times of pestilence that there's more to admire in men than to despise and i love that”
Where to get it
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Clock Without Hands
Clock Without Hands is a historical and character-driven novel by Carson McCullers that explores deep existential themes, racial tensions, and human isolation in the American South.
Recommended“i'm enamored with a novel by a woman named carson mccullers written in 1953 called clock without hands”
Where to get it
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Ulysses
James Joyce's landmark modernist novel Ulysses chronicles an ordinary day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin, mapping human consciousness and daily existence through a revolutionary stream-of-consciousness technique.
Discussed“look it took me 40 years to read ulysses i could not get past the first five pages”
Where to get it
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Being and Time
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger is a monumental and notoriously dense work of twentieth-century philosophy that investigates the fundamental nature of human existence, or Dasein, through the lens of time and mortality.
Discussed“and it took me 40 years to read being in time”
Where to get it
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Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce is a famously experimental and notoriously dense modernist novel that challenges traditional narrative structures with its idiosyncratic language and dreamlike logic.
Discussed“i i even uh i i guess read parts of finnegan's wake no way”
Where to get it
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The Dead
The Dead by James Joyce is the famous closing novella of his 1914 collection Dubliners, widely celebrated as a masterpiece of modernist fiction and short story craftsmanship.
Discussed“i i like his uh short stories the dead”
Where to get it
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Absalom, Absalom!
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner is a monumental American novel exploring family trauma, ambition, race, and the heavy burdens of the past in the deep South.
Discussed“i like faulkner absalom absalom is is a fine book”
Where to get it
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The Decline of the West
The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler, Arthur Helps, and Charles Francis Atkinson is a monumental historical and philosophical work that argues civilizations go through a predictable cycle of birth, growth, maturity, and ultimate decay.
Discussed“and then there's another lunatic oswald spangler who wrote a book called decline of the west”
Where to get it
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Speak, Memory
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov is an autobiographical memoir that explores the author's early life as a Russian aristocrat prior to the Russian Revolution.
Recommended“and now let me leave you with some words from vladimir nabokov that sheldon uses in his book warm at the core the cradle rocks above and abyss and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (8) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“the following is a conversation with sheldon solomon a social psychologist a philosopher co-developer of terror management theory and co-author of the warm at the core on the role of death and life”
“you know we had just written our book – the worm at the core and he's like you know you you you're missing a big opportunity every time you say something you have to have your phone”
“and then you got the epicureans and then you got the tibetan book of the dead and then you got like the medieval monks that you know worked with like a skull – on their desk”
“he's a novelist that i like about – he wrote a book called winesburg ohio”
“he wrote a book called winesburg ohio”
“and evidently sthoreau sold like 75 copies of walden”
“it's the great gatsby”
“and now let me leave you with some words from vladimir nabokov that sheldon uses in his book warm at the core the cradle rocks above and abyss and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness”