Podcasts Culture Very Bad Wizards Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")

Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")

Published: Dec. 18, 2018, 7:30 p.m.

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In the famous words of the idealist philosopher George Berkeley, \\u201cTo exist is to be perceived.\\u201d Our ideas and perceptions are the fundamental objects in the universe; there is no real world beyond them. Hume wrote (I think) that Berkeley\\u2019s arguments don\\u2019t admit of the slightest refutation, and they don\\u2019t inspire the slightest conviction. On Earth, that may be true. On Tl\\xf6n, it\\u2019s false \\u2013 the people there are \\u201ccongenital idealists.\\u201d Their language, philosophy, literature, and religion presuppose idealism. It\\u2019s their common sense. And their philosophy starts to encroach on their reality. But what happens when we read and hear about Tl\\xf6n \\u2013 can their idealism invade our \\u201creal\\u201d world? Will we start to lose our metaphysical bearings? David and Tamler talk about Borges\\u2019s invasive, unsettling story \\u201cTl\\xf6n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.\\u201d Please listen so we can exist!

(And speaking of things that may or may not exist, we also discuss the metaphysics of holes.)

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