As I explain in the introduction to the full conversation with Noam, due to an unfortunate rare mishap, this conversation is audio-only (and so is the clip). Hope you still enjoy it and find it interesting. Full episode with Noam Chomsky (Nov 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMscNuSUy0I
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Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest minds of our time and is one of the most cited scholars in history. He is a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. He has spent over 60 years at MIT and recently also joined the University of Arizona.

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1 of the peculiar things about us human beings is our mortality.

I wondered, I didn't care much about my own mortality, but I was worried about the fact that if my consciousness disappeared, would the entire universe disappear?

Did you ever find an answer to that question?

No, nobody's ever found an answer, but I stopped being bothered by it.

It's kind of like Woody Allen in 1 of his films, you may recall, he goes to a shrink when he's a child, and the shrink asks him, what's your problem?

He says, I just learned that the universe is expanding.

And then another absurd question is, what do you think is the meaning of our existence here, our life on earth, our brief little moment

That's something we answer by our own activities.

Meaning in the sense of significance, not meaning in the sense that a chair means this, but the significance of your life is something You


Speaker 0: 1 of the peculiar things about us human beings is our mortality. Ernest Becker explored it in general. Do you ponder the value of mortality? Do you think about your own mortality? I used to when I was about 12 years old.

I wondered, I didn't care much about my own mortality, but I was worried about the fact that if my consciousness disappeared, would the entire universe disappear? That was frightening.

Speaker 1: Did you ever find an answer to that question?

Speaker 0: No, nobody's ever found an answer, but I stopped being bothered by it. It's kind of like Woody Allen in 1 of his films, you may recall, he goes to a shrink when he's a child, and the shrink asks him, what's your problem? He says, I just learned that the universe is expanding. I can't handle that.

Speaker 1: And then another absurd question is, what do you think is the meaning of our existence here, our life on earth, our brief little moment

Speaker 0: in time. That's something we answer by our own activities. There's no general answer. We determine what the meaning of it is.

Speaker 1: The action determined the meaning.

Speaker 0: Meaning in the sense of significance, not meaning in the sense that a chair means this, but the significance of your life is something You

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Noam Chomsky: Meaning of Life