How to Make Your Ideas Survive a Changing World

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Ultra running shoes are all about space. The space to go further, to feel better, to do something you never thought possible. And this space starts with Ultra Fit. Unlike traditional running shoes, Ultra Fit gives toes more room to move naturally, so every step is strong, balanced, and comfortable. Whatever you're lacing up for, stay out there. With Ultra, shop now at ultrarunning.com. That's A-L-T-R-A running.com.

SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

Stonefire Naan is baked in blazing high heat to give you buttery, charred flatbread for any meal.

SPEAKER_1 (0:35)

I love it with tzatziki and barbecue chicken.

SPEAKER_3 (0:37)

Stonefire Naan is great when you're lost in the woods with your leg in a bear trap.

SPEAKER_2 (0:41)

I love making naan grilled cheese.

Sam Webster Harris (0:44)

Is that guy okay?

SPEAKER_3 (0:45)

I'm in shock by that buttermilk taste.

Sam Webster Harris (0:47)

Works great for pizza.

SPEAKER_1 (0:49)

Can we get him some help?

SPEAKER_3 (0:50)

You can share Stonefire Naan with your friends, like this friendly wolverine.

SPEAKER_2 (0:55)

Doesn't sound friendly. From our tradition to yours, Stonefire. Together we naan.

Sam Webster Harris (1:01)

When you feel the urge to prove yourself, let's say, you want to win an argument or outperform a colleague, maybe build something bigger, better, faster than anyone ever before.

Do you think that impulse is belonging to you? Is that ambition? Maybe discipline is involved?

Or is it possibly something a little less personal?

Now, one of the things that we explore here on the show is what it means to operate from genuine intention rather than just reflex and reacting to things.

How to actually...

I'm all for understanding how to actually, at a deep level, be in control of your life rather than just being a biological reaction machine.

Of course, working out if your interests and annoyances are really your own or just a program running, requires some understanding of the operating system underneath everything. So we often look at psychology, culture, and of course, childhood conditioning. But today, I want to look at the layer that was running before anyone thought about those things existing. I am talking about biology.

Here we're looking at rules that were written into the structure of reality about 4 billion years ago, and every organism that exists today, including you, exists because it followed them.

Most people can live their whole lives playing by these rules without ever really knowing the rules exist. They compete without understanding the real concept of competition. They get selected for and selected against without knowing what selection and the drives behind it really are.

They might use their energy to spread their ideas far and wide and try and build more things they like without understanding the fundamental concept of reproduction.

So hello and welcome to the Growth Mindset Psychology show with me, Samuel Webster Harris. As always, diving into the science of self-improvement and the philosophy of a life well-lived with a bit of a special feature episode today which I am stealing from my new show called How to Change the World and this episode from it is on the laws of nature and biology. And for it we will start at the very beginning like the beginning of everything and I'm sharing this episode here because I think it earns a place on this feed and it has a lot of cool ideas that just informed me about my own thinking as I go about my days on the planet so I'm sure it will do the same for you too. And with that, I hope you enjoy.

The question of what are we here for is as confusing as to whether a hot dog is a sandwich or not. Both questions are highly debated by the world's greatest philosophers and yet no one has an answer. However, the question of how did we get here is a better place to start and conveniently for the inquisitive innovators amongst us it will give us a lot of answers around how the flows of change work. The opening of the book Sapiens has one of the neatest summaries of the universe and science that has ever been written. And because you can't improve on perfection, I shall just simply repeat it for you now. Yuval Noah Harari states, About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called physics.

About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and energy started to coalesce into complex structures called atoms, which then combined into molecules. The story of atoms, molecules and their interactions is called chemistry.

About 3.8 billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms. The story of organisms is called biology. So, thanks Mr. Harari. From this short and simple paragraph, it becomes obvious that all known history is but a small fragment of biology. So today in the episode we are going to explore the three rules of biology that govern the success of organisms and ideas. We'll learn why competition is in our blood, whether equality is even possible, and what makes some nations, religions or even meme coins grow whilst others disappear into oblivion.