#122 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (1st April 2019)

Hello and welcome to LetMeBoreYouToSleep.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Please only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes. Okay, right.

This is 122, episode 122 and I've been wanting to you know, kind of expand what I do, do something different because I've, I'm kind of doing these pretty much daily and so I thought you know, I thought I thought what can I do that's a little bit different to what I've already done. So what I thought I might do today is read something. So I've got my little Kindle here and I've got about 134 books on the Kindle.

Some of those are PDFs and not all books, but they're book, you know, they're not all kind of proper books. It's quite weird. I bought this Kindle probably a couple of years ago, maybe less, maybe more and I bought it and I got it at home and it was like, it was, it was in the sale so it was a special discount and everything.

Probably, probably January last year. The thing is, the first thing I did was drop it and I think it hit the corner of the table and there's a little kind of a dent on the screen on the right hand side, probably three quarters of the way down on the right hand side and it's just like a little black mark and it's there on every single page because it's on the screen because every, every page is the screen isn't it, I suppose, if you think about it. So what I thought I might do is read from something and the idea of doing that is actually boring me before I even start.

So that could be a good, a good sign that maybe it would be a, you know, a good idea. The only thing is, quite often when I make these recordings I've got my eyes closed. Sometimes I've got my eyes open, sometimes they're closed, but I don't know what the percentage is of my eyes being open and my eyes being closed whilst recording these let me bore you to sleep things.

I'd say probably more often my eyes are closed. I have to have my eyes open when I start the recording because I have to press record otherwise my finger would be going all over the place and I was thinking, I mentioned the other day that when I'm getting into my bed I take my socks off and I turn the light off first and I realised that I can't actually reach the light socket or, you know, the light switch whilst I'm sitting on my bed. I actually have to, I don't have to stand fully up, I can just like lean forward and reach the light switch but I can't, you know, so I can't do it from my actual bed.

I guess it's not that important but, you know, I just thought I'd mention it. The idea behind these recordings for those of you that may be listening for the first time is it's about allowing yourself to just let go because sleeping is really important. It's, you know, I sleep quite fairly easily and I fall asleep and it's one of my favourite things.

I've got a whole dream world that I keep visiting which is a bit weird but and it's, there's this thing that I keep dreaming, it's about where I'm living and I realise that I'm living here and I feel so relieved just remembering that I've got somewhere to live, somewhere kind of stable for the first time in my life. It's like, ah, but you know what I was dreaming about wasn't like bad, it was just, it was the, I don't know, it's going back to kind of moving around a lot and, yeah, it's quite strange. I remember once, there was this course, it's like training on lucid dreaming that I was invited to go to and I said no, I said what do you mean no?

I said no, I just, no, I said what? I said well I have enough, enough of trying to control what I think about when I'm awake and controlling what I do when I'm awake.

Why would I want to control what I do when I'm asleep? That's a time where I give up control, I give up the need to be in control of everything, I give up that stress, I just allow myself to relax and let my mind do whatever it wants to do and let my body heal, my mind heal, you know, and this person said yeah but it's not supposed to be taken quite that seriously. I said yeah but you want £30? He said yeah well we're a charity, we try to raise money. I said oh yeah I suppose so but I don't want to control being, you know, be controlling when I'm asleep.

He said I know you just said that, I said but you know kind of part of me wanted them to stop the course, just like stop it, again trying to be in control, trying to control others, like no, my aim, one of my aims in life apart from to one day fall in love, but one of my aims in life is to one day be able to do a recording without this ferret running around, he's been all over me today, right from when he got up till what literally just a few minutes ago, he's just

climbing over me, he even bit me earlier, he's just running from room to room, he wants to go out again, he's already been out once and he's scratching at the front door and I found out, I didn't realise until last night when, well it wasn't the evening but it was like late afternoon, I went to the shop and I came back, yeah it was probably just before seven o'clock when I got back and because I remember it was about 5.

45 roughly or 5.

47 when I thought about going to the shop, maybe a little bit later and I thought okay, so I walked to the bus stop but the bus went past just as I got to the, literally it was opposite the bus part, the bus stop and it just went straight past, so I think I might have said a naughty word and then I walked to the shop which is probably, it's a few miles to the shop and then now Andre's climbing on me again, Andre behave, behave yourself, can you hear him licking between my finger and

my thumb, you know that little bit of, well it's not webbed as a generally but you know the bit that can be webbed if you was, if it was a duck, hey what's going on with you today mate, so full of energy, the clocks went forward last night about two o'clock in the morning and I was awake, I'm usually awake at that time and you know someone actually put, I might have mentioned, oh what have you got there, he's got something stuck in his, in his fur just at the front of his neck, I haven't

got that, he's keeping still so he clearly wants me to remove it, oh I see what it is, more dirt, it's just dirt, he needs a bath, I need to give you a bath mate, he doesn't like baths though, really doesn't like them, I mean the only thing, he doesn't like water, when I take him out he will do anything to avoid stepping in a puddle and he can sense a puddle long before he gets anywhere near it, he just kind of knows it's there and he plans for it, it's like he's got a little

map that he studied before he's left the house, he studied all the different you know, the area that we walk and the sides of the roads and where all the different puddles are, but then again I suppose it's possible because puddles usually gather where there's like a little bit of a hole isn't it, like a little bit of a dip in the ground is where the puddles would gather, so maybe those places where he normally walks and maybe rubs himself into the mud is where the water gathers, so he's already prepared for that, maybe he,

maybe I don't know, maybe he talks to his friends that go walking around and they phone him up, maybe skype him or facetime him and say oi Andre, be careful, just you know where that tree is, you know the tree, you know the one that smells like heaven and all the dogs do, their wee-wees up there and we love sniffing and remember I said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he said well there's a puddle just before you get to it on the left-hand side, he said oh what left-hand side, which way, going from which ways and

I said oh come on, let's not go down that road, it's going to be a long, laborious conversation if we try and get stuck into which is left and who's right is what and everything, what are you doing, I'm sorry if he banged the microphone then, he's definitely wants something today, I don't know what, what is it you want mate, Andre what do you want, we're gonna go now, okay bye, see ya, so what's her name, there's someone on twitter that I, I probably mentioned this but I put a post offering, she said she was

insomniac, had insomnia and I just posted that you know, I've got some recordings of my help and someone posted underneath saying you can't be much good because it's two o'clock in the morning, you're still awake, yeah that's because I'm awake, I'm always awake at two in the morning, being an insomniac or not being able to sleep, it's not about what time you go to sleep, it's about whether or not you can sleep when you want to, not everybody goes to bed at 11 in the evening and gets up at five or six or seven or

eight in the morning, we've all got our own different lifestyles haven't we, the whole idea is like well you're up at three in the morning so therefore you know, you can't be any good, how can you help people to sleep if you're up at three, it's because I didn't go out of bed till two, actually it was about four o'clock, five, no yeah nearly five o'clock when I got out of bed today but I had a late one last night because of the clocks going forward and I was busy working on the websites and stuff,

I had no problem getting to sleep though, why is my thing not working, oh my kindle's just turned itself off, I was coming back on again, so what I was going to do, I was going to read this book called, I've got this book, it's called The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell and I downloaded this from Project Guttenberg's and it's basically, it says this e-book is for the use of anyone, anywhere, at no cost and without almost no restrictions whatsoever, you may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the

Project Guttenberg license included, with this e-book or online, yeah so basically the book was from, what year was it from, I don't know 1901 or something like that, sure I saw a date somewhere, no it doesn't, no I can't find a date for it, it's a very, very, very old book and it was re-released a few times, yeah so that's it, so there's a preface, I can't be bothered to read all that, so it's just, it's what I thought I'd just read a little bit and you can just relax while I read you this book,

so The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, Preface, in the following pages I have confined myself in the main to those problems of philosophy in regard to which I thought it possible to say something positive and constructive, since merely negative criticism seems out of place, for this reason theory of knowledge occupies a large space, a larger space than metaphysics in the present volume, and some topics much discussed by philosophers are treated very briefly, if at all, which is a bit weird, it's about philosophers, wouldn't they talk about subjects that philosophers talk about, but okay, so

I have derived valuable assistance from unpublished writings of G.

E. Moore and J. M.

Keynes, it might be Keynes, it's K-E-Y-N-E-S, I'm not sure, that doesn't matter does it, I'm probably dead now anyway, so from the former as regards the relations of sense data to physical objects, and from the latter as regards probability and induction, oh it's 1912 this was written, 1912, so it's out of the copyright and it can be used, yay, I'm going to look for some other stuff that I can use as well to read to you, I have also profited greatly by the criticisms and suggestions of Professor Gilbert Murray, that's weird, that sounds like a

familiar name, Gilbert Murray, doesn't that sound a bit familiar to you, Gilbert Murray, so chapter one, appearance and reality, is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it, this question which at first sight might not seem difficult, is really one of the most difficult that can be asked, when we have realised the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy, for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically as

we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realising all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas, in daily life we assume as certain many things which on a closer scrutiny are found to be so full of apparent contradictions that only a great amount of thought enables us to know what it is that we really may believe, in the search for certainty it is natural to begin with our present experiences, and in some sense, no doubt, knowledge is to be derived

from them, but any statement as to what it is that our immediate experiences make us know, is very likely to be wrong, it seems to me that I am now sitting in a chair, I'm sitting in a chair as well, at a table of a certain shape, well I'm just sitting in a chair, tables the other side of the room, on which I see sheets of paper with writing or print, see they didn't have the internet back then, or laptops, by turning my head I see out of the window buildings, oh out of the window

buildings and clouds and the sun, it's all dark here now, it's about 10 o'clock so it's yeah, I believe that the sun is about 93 million miles from the earth, that it is a hot globe, many times bigger than the earth, that owing to the earth's rotation, it rises every morning and will continue to do so for an indefinite time in the future, I believe that if any other normal person comes into my room, he will see the same chairs and tables and books and papers as I see, and that the table which I see

is the same table as the table which I feel pressing against my arm, all this seems to be so evident, as to be hardly worth stating, except in answer to a man who doubts whether I know anything, yet all this may be reasonably doubted and all of it requires much careful discussion before we can be sure that we have stated it in a form that is wholly true, to make our difficulties plain, let us concentrate attention on the table, to the eye is oblong, brown and shiny, mine's just kind of, it's brown but it's more

pale brown, you know, it's like a milky poo colour, to the touch it is smooth and cool and hard, it's cooler in the winter to be fair, you know, sometimes I wake up in the morning and it's, you know, November, December or whatever, and the table's very cold, but I turn the heating on and it warms up, but it is quite smooth, apart from when I've, or sometimes I do eat at the table and maybe some of the food, like maybe some baked beans fall over the plate and leave a little bit of a less

smoothness on the actual table, so it needs a bit of a clean, but generally it's fairly smooth and hard, it's hard, you know, it's this wood and when I tap it, it gives out a wooden sound, that's generally what wood does, you know, if it sounded like a lego brick that would be weird, I want to sound like an elephant, anyone else who sees and feels and hears the table will agree with this description, so that it might seem as if no difficulty would arise, but as soon as we try to be more precise, our

troubles begin, although I believe that the table is really of the same colour all over, the parts that reflect the light look much brighter than the other parts, and some parts look white because of reflected light, yeah I'm looking at my table now and parts of it look dark because of the shadows, plus I've not got my glasses on, so the edges aren't quite as sharp and sexy as normal, I know that if I move, the parts that reflect the light will be different, so that the apparent distribution of colours on the table will change,

yeah, it follows that if several people are looking at the table at the same time moment, no two of them will see exactly the same distribution of colours, because no two can see it from exactly the same point of view, and any change in the point of view makes some change in the way the light is reflected, for most practical purposes, these differences are unimportant, but to the painter they are all important, I'm sure there's other things that are important to painters, like having the right paint, having the right music playing on the radio, wearing

the proper clothes, because you don't wear your best clothes do you, you want to wear a tuxedo while you're painting, I want someone coming in and saying, oh by the way don't forget we've got that ball tonight, you know, it's like where's your dress, like oh no I'm wearing it, I'm wearing a ball gown dress while I'm painting, I forgot, well Jason take it off, the painter has to unlearn the habit of thinking that things seem to have the colour which common sense says they really have, and to learn the habit of seeing things as

they appear, here we have already the beginning of one of the distinctions that cause most trouble in philosophy, the distinction between appearance and reality, between what things seem to be and what they are, the painter wants to know what things seem to be, the practical man and the philosopher want to know what they are, but the philosopher's wish to know this is stronger than the practical man's and is more troubled by knowledge as to the difficulties of answering the question, to return to the table, oh good I was wondering about the table, I was a

bit worried that that was it, you know, we were never going to talk about the table again, but I'm glad we're coming back to it, oh I've put my mind at rest, it is evident from what we have found that there is no colour which pre-eminently appears to be the colour of the table, or even of any one particular part of the table, it appears to be of different colours from different points of view, and there is no reason for regarding some of these as more really its colour than others, and we know that even

from a given point of view, the colour will seem different by artificial light, or to a colour blind man, or to a man wearing blue spectacles, oh yeah, if you're wearing blue spectacles, I'm guessing he's not talking just about the frames, because that wouldn't make any difference, but if the lens was blue, everything's going to be changed isn't it, like, I don't know, everything, I mean you get onto a plane, the plane's still going to be the same, but you know, from what you see, the things are going to have a blue tint, I think

is, that must be where they got that idea of looking through tinted spectacles, I didn't realise they had blue tints back in the early 1920s or whatever, I don't know, while in the dark, there will be no colour at all, that's the point, does the desk, is my desk still milky poo colour when the lights are off, wow, okay, and though to touch and hearing the table will be unchanged, to be honest, I can't actually hear my table, it's a pretty quiet table, one of the most quiet tables I've ever had, I'm very pleased with

the level of noise that I received from that particular table, very pleased indeed, this colour is not something which is inherent in the table, but something dependent upon the table and the spectator and the way the light falls on the table, when in ordinary life, we speak of the colour of the table, we only mean the sort of colour which it will seem to have to a normal spectator from an ordinary point of view under usual conditions of light, but the other colours which appear under other conditions have just as good a right to be

considered real and therefore to avoid favouritism, we are compelled to deny that in itself, the table has any one particular colour, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to take him to the shops to help me buy paint, you know, for decorating, that'd be a nightmare, wouldn't it?

What do you mean about this red paint? Well, it's red to you, but depending on the light upon which you are looking upon the red paint, said that you thought it was red, if I was standing looking through a green telescope, it might appear to be a completely different colour, like yellow, for example. Just wait in the car, I'll buy the paints. The same thing applies to the texture, with the naked eye, one can see the grain, but otherwise the table looks smooth and even.

If we looked at it through a microscope, we should see roughness and hills and valleys and all sorts of hills and valleys, what little houses and chimneys and what little schools and hospitals and cars driving around, what is he going on about? And all sorts of differences that are imperceptible to the naked eye. With which of these is the real table? We are naturally tempted to say that what we see through the microscope is more real, but that in turn would be changed by a still more powerful microscope. If then we cannot trust what we see with the naked eye, why should we trust what we see through a microscope? Thus, again, you know, I've never used the word thus.

No, I've never used the word thus in a conversation. Therefore, I've used therefore, and thus, no, I've never used that anyway. He's used it.

Thus, again, the confidence in our senses, with which we began, deserts us. I don't know. I'm still seeing a table.

The shape of the table is no better. We are all in the habit of judging as to the real shapes of things, and we do this so unreflectingly that we come to think we actually see the real shapes. But, in fact, as we all have to learn if we try to draw, a given thing looks different in shape from every different point of view.

If our table is really rectangular, it will look from almost all points of view as if it had two acute angles and two obtuse. I thought obtuse was a rude word. Like, I've been called obtuse.

It just basically means I'm an angle. If opposite sides are parallel, they will look as if they converged to a point away from the spectator. If they are of equal length, they will look as if the nearer side were longer.

All these things are not commonly noticed in looking at a table, because experience has taught us to construct the real shape from the apparent shape, and the real shape is what interests us as practical men. I do believe he's probably writing this for women as well, but he's just using that pronoun rather than keep saying men or women or and women. But I don't know, maybe maybe he didn't.

I don't know. I'm sure women were around back then. Maybe it was just men.

Maybe women weren't invented yet. But the real shape is not what we see. It is something inferred from what we see.

And what we see is constantly changing in shape as we move about the room, so that here again the senses seem not to give us the truth about the table itself, but only about the appearance of the table. Similar difficulties arise when we consider the sense of touch. It is true that the table always gives us a sensation of hardness.

It depends, doesn't it? Because if we're wearing big rubber foam, big foam gloves, like a big foam hand that perhaps people wear at football matches and sports events, if you touch the hand, touch the table with that, it's going to feel spongy. And we feel that it resists pressure. You probably wouldn't really feel much pressure if you had a big false hand on.

But the sensation we obtain depends upon how hard we press the table, and also upon what part of the body we press with. Thus, the various sensations due to various pressures or various parts of the body cannot be supposed to reveal directly any definite property of the table, but at most to be signs of some property which perhaps causes all the sensations, but is not actually apparent in any of them. And the same applies still more obviously to the sounds which can be elicited by wrapping the table.

I think it's wrapping. Yeah, wrapping. And thus, it becomes evident that the real table, if there is one, well, if there is no table, my laptop is floating in midair, is not the same as what we immediately experienced by sight, or touch, or hearing.

The real table, if there is one, well, I've got a poltergeist who likes to stand still, is not immediately known to us at all, but must be an inferred, an inference, or inference from what is immediately known. Hence, that's another word I don't really use. I have used it, but again, I probably use therefore, or yeah, hence.

I suppose I could use hence a bit more often. It's rare that I would use it. Might if I was writing something, but very unlikely to use it in an auditory sentence.

So hence, two very difficult questions at once arise. Namely, number one, is there a real table at all? Number two, if so, what sort of object can it be? It's a table. It will help us in considering these questions to have a few simple terms of which the meaning is definite and clear.

Let us give the name of these, yeah, let us give the name of sense data to the things that are immediately known in sensation, such as colors, sounds, schmells, hardnesses, roughnesses, and so on. We shall give the name sensation to the experience of being immediately aware of these things. Thus, there's that word again, thus.

I probably would have put therefore, but it's not mine, is it? Okay, so thus, whenever we see a color, we have a sensation of the color, but the color itself is a sense datum, not a sensation. The color is that of which we are immediately aware, and the awareness itself is the sensation. It is plain that if we are to know anything about the table, it must be by means of the sense data brown color.

Oblong, shape, smoothness, et cetera, which we associate with the table, but for the reasons which have been given, we cannot say that the table is sense data, or even that the sense data are directly properties of the table. Thus, a problem arises as to the relation of the sense data to the real table. Suppose there is such a thing.

I'll have a quick drink. The real table, if it exists, we will call a physical object. Thus, we have to consider the relation of sense data to physical objects.

The collection of all physical objects is called matter. Thus, our two questions may be restated as follows. Number one, is there any such thing as matter? Number two, if so, what is its nature? The philosopher who first brought prominently forward the reasons for regarding the immediate objects of our senses as not existing independently of us was Bishop Berkeley, 1685 to 1753.

His three dialogues between Hylus and Philonus in opposition to skeptics and atheists undertake to prove that there is no such thing as matter at all, and that the world consists of nothing but minds and their ideas. Hylus has hitherto believed in matter, but he is no match for Philonus, who mercilessly drives him into contradictions and paradoxes, and makes his own denial of matter seem, in the end, as if it were almost common sense. The arguments employed are of very different value.

Some are important and sound, others are confused or squibbling. But Berkeley retains the merit of having shown that the existence of matter is capable of being denied without absurdity, and that if there are any things that exist independently of us, they cannot be the immediate objects of our sensations. There are two different questions involved when we ask whether matter exists and it is important to keep them clear.

We commonly mean by matter something which is opposed to mind, something which we think of as occupying space and as radically incapable of any sort of thought or consciousness. It is chiefly in this sense that Berkeley denies matter, that is to say, he does not deny that the sense data which we commonly take as signs of the existence of the table are really signs of the existence of something independent of us, but he does deny that this something is non-mental, that it is neither mind nor ideas entertained by some mind. He admits that there must be something which continues to exist when we go out of the room or shut our eyes.

Seeing the table does not really give us reason for believing in something which persists even when we are not seeing it, but he thinks that this is something cannot be radically different in nature from what we see and cannot be independent of seeing altogether, though it must be independent of our seeing. He is thus led to regard the real table as an idea in the mind of God. Such an idea has the required permanence and independence of ourselves without being, as matter would otherwise be, something quite unknowable in the sense that we can only infer it and can never be directly and immediately aware of it.

Other philosophers since Berkeley have also held that although the table does not depend for its existence upon being seen by me, it does depend upon being seen or otherwise apprehended in sensation by some mind, not necessarily the mind of God, but more often than not the whole collective mind of the universe. This they hold as Berkeley does chiefly because they think that there can be nothing real or at any rate nothing known to be real except minds and their thoughts and feelings. We might state the argument by which they support their view in some way as this.

Whatever can be thought of is an idea in the mind of the person thinking of it. Therefore, nothing can be thought of except ideas in minds, and what is inconceivable cannot exist. Such an argument, in my opinion, is fallacious, and of course those who advance it do not put it so shortly or so crudely.

Ah, but whether valid or not, the argument has been very widely advanced in one form or another, and very many philosophers, perhaps a majority, have held that there is nothing real except minds and their ideas. Such philosophers are called idealists. When they come to explaining matter, they either say, like Berkeley, that matter is really nothing but a collection of ideas, or they say, like Leibniz, 1646-1716, that what appears as matter is really a collection of more or less rudimentary minds.

But these philosophers, though they deny matter as opposed to mind, nevertheless, in another sense, admit matter. It will be remembered that we asked two questions, namely, number one, is there a real table at all? And number two, if so, what sort of object can it be? Now, both Berkeley and Leibniz admitted that there is a real table, but Berkeley says it is certain ideas in the mind of God, and Leibniz says it is a colony of souls. Thus, both of them answer our first question in the affirmative, and they only diverge from the views of ordinary mortals in their answer to our second question.

In fact, almost all philosophers seem to be agreed that there is a real table. They almost all agree that however much our sense, data, colour, shape, smoothness, etc. may depend upon us, yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us.

Something different, perhaps, completely from our sense, data, and yet to be regarded as causing those sense, data, whenever we are in a suitable relationship to the real table. So this says relation, not relationship, so it's probably not, they're not dating. Now, obviously, this point in which the philosophers are agreed, the view that there is a real table, whatever its nature may be, is vitally important, and it will be worthwhile to consider what reasons there are for accepting this view before we go on to the further question as to the nature of the real table.

Our next chapter, therefore, will be concerned with the reasons for supposing that there is a real table at all. Before we go further, it would be well to consider, for a moment, what it is that we have discovered so far. It has appeared that if we take any common object of the sort that is supposed to be known by the senses, what the senses immediately tell us is not the truth about the object as it is, apart from us.

I'll read that a little bit again. Immediate tell us is not the truth about the object as it is apart from us, but only the truth about certain sense data, which so far as we can see, depend upon the relations between us and the object. Thus, what we directly see and feel is merely appearance, which we believe to be a sign of some reality behind.

But if the reality is not what appears, have we any meaning of knowing whether there is any reality at all? And if so, have we any means of finding out what it is like? Such questions are bewildering, and it is difficult to know that even the strangest hypothesis may not be true. Thus, our familiar table, the milky poo one over there, which has roused but the slightest thoughts in us hitherto, has become a problem full of surprising possibilities. The one thing we know about it is that it is not what it seems.

Beyond this modest result, so far we have the most complete liberty of conjecture. Leibniz tells us it is a community of cells. Berkeley tells us it is an idea in the mind of God.

Sober science, scarcely less wonderful, tells us it is a vast collection of electrical charges in violent motion. Among these surprising possibilities, doubt suggests that perhaps there is no table at all. Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions, which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface, even in the commonest things of daily life.

And that was the end of chapter one. So I'll bring this to an end because it's... I'll perhaps do chapter two tomorrow, maybe. Let me know if you enjoyed this, and I'll see you next time.

Bye.