#149 – Diana Walsh Pasulka: Aliens, Technology, Religion, and the Nature of Belief

Lex Fridman Podcast

Diana Walsh Pasulka is a professor of philosophy and religion at UNCW and author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Diana’s Website: https://uncw.edu/par/faculty/faculty-pasulka.html
American Cosmic (book): https://amzn.to/3aK2kaj

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:28) – What is real?
(13:56) – Can beliefs become reality?
(18:59) – Donald Hoffman
(22:57) – Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
(26:27) – Ayn Rand
(33:25) – How do religions start?
(48:38) – Religion is an evolutionary advantage
(53:59) – Religion used in propaganda
(58:32) – What did Nietzsche mean by “God is Dead”?
(1:03:59) – American Cosmic
(1:07:45) – What do aliens look like?
(1:16:28) – History of space programs
(1:19:30) – Jacques Vallee
(1:28:55) – Artificial intelligence
(1:34:25) – Ufology community
(1:45:38) – Psychedelics
(1:49:35) – Tic Tac UFO
(1:58:09) – Roswell UFO incident
(2:09:14) – Bob Lazar
(2:12:50) – Monoliths in the desert
(2:23:39) – Humans will co-evolve with AI
(2:26:58) – Neuralink
(2:31:48) – Singularity
(2:41:39) – Books: Nietzsche
(2:46:44) – Books: Hannah Arendt
(2:51:43) – Fear of death
(2:56:11) – Meaning of life