Sheldon Solomon is a social psychologist, a philosopher, co-developer of Terror Management Theory, co-author of The Worm at the Core.

Please support this channel by supporting our sponsors:

– Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex (https://blinkist.com/lex)

– ExpressVPN at https://www.expressvpn.com/lexpod (https://www.expressvpn.com/lexpod)

– Cash App: download app & use code “LexPodcast”

Episode links:

Sheldon’s Website: https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/solomon.php (https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/solomon.php)

The Worm at the Core (book): https://amzn.to/31hQAXH (https://amzn.to/31hQAXH)

Denial of Death (book): https://amzn.to/329Zxl4 (https://amzn.to/329Zxl4)

If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/podcast (https://lexfridman.com/podcast) or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter (https://twitter.com/lexfridman), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman), Medium (https://medium.com/@lexfridman), or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman) where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/artificial-intelligence/id1434243584), follow on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL), or support it on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman).

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:

00:00 – Introduction

05:34 – Role of death in life

22:57 – Jordan Peterson

53:02 – Humans are both selfish and cooperative

56:57 – Civilization collapse

1:10:07 – Meditating on your mortality

1:16:10 – Kierkegaard and Heidegger

1:33:25 – Elon Musk

1:36:56 – Thinking deeply about death

1:45:53 – Religion

1:56:59 – Consciousness

2:03:39 – Why is Ernest Becker not better known

2:07:09 – AI and mortality

2:21:07 – Academia should welcome renegade thinkers

2:36:33 – Book recommendations

2:43:23 – Advice for young people

2:48:17 – Meaning of life