Well, I had a minute, and he really pulled a lot together in Episode 33.
I think the thing he hasn’t solved, that science doesn’t have a lot to say about, is this thing he calls “relevance realization”. He claims it’s a thing, it’s how we choose what to focus on out of the millions of things happening at any given moment. It’s coupled with the environment, it’s that “water we swim in”, so when we try to explain why we are focusing at a detail, we can step back and include more framing to say why, but that doesn’t solve the relevance problem, because there’s always more framing, until we’ve explained our entire life and then how our ancestors led to us. You can’t do it.
So he calls it “primordial” and borrows from the Tao, saying “the way it can be spoken of is not the way”. He has to keep clarifying that he’s not trying to sneak in gods, like when says it’s a “fundamental grounding of being”. He even evokes St. Paul. He also quotes extensively from an essay. I think it’s in here, but not sure The joy of secularism : 11 essays for how we live now / edited by George Levine - Penn State University Libraries Catalog if that’s the right reference.
So, a lot. I’m not sure how easy this will be for someone who hasn’t seen the previous 32 episodes. He jokes about how he wishes he could do 100 more but his production crew would kill him. I especially liked his descriptions of curiosity and wonder, and how they differ. Curiosity is the having mode, directed at material things. Wonder is opening up to the whole atmosphere we exist in, we participate in it, and are in awe of its inexhaustible potential.
Near the end he makes a reference to studies that show people in religious communities are protected from some of life’s difficulties. He doesn’t seem to be aware of studies about how secular communities can serve that same purpose. That was disappointing. But, I’ll probably keep listening.