On Being with Krista Tippett

Well my first book, which is called Pythagoras as trousers, is basically a cultural history or physics that focuses on the historical relationship between physics and religion.

So Pythagoras believed that the numbers were literally gods and that when we found mathematical relationships inherent in the world around us, that what we were discovering was as it were the true reality behind the material phenomenon.

And the reason this is what I proposed in my book, Pythagoras' Trollers, is because what happened was that Platonism or Pythagoreanism was crystallized.

So Galileo said, what mathematics is the language in which the universe was written?

So Christianity and the idea that God is a mathematical creator is foundational to the scientific revolution, which is why claims that science and religion are fundamentally opposed is just absolute nonsense.

When I set out to write my book, I had no intention of writing about religion. I wanted to write a book about the cultural history of physics because I wanted to explain physics to my friends.

I want to throw in the word community I mean I think complexity can only be held by community and and I think that one of the most important things that needs to happen right now is if I may say so by your invitation being modeled right here which is intergenerational community I a few years ago invited Courtney and a bunch of her friends who are some of the most remarkable people I've ever met these 30 something folk who are doing it anyway and who give to me every sign that they're in it for the long haul not just for the short ride I invited them to my home in Madison, Wisconsin to help me and some of my colleagues at the little nonprofit I founded the Center for Courage and Renewal understand the digital revolution and how it might how our work might be enhanced and amplified through that because my generation knows very little about that I got this thing about six months ago and I'm still trying to figure out thank you I feel like I crossed over the promise the promise land and it ain't all it's cracked up to me so we spent three days in the living room and I was learning so much and I remember saying to them you may remember this Courtney at one point I said you know at age what was I 70 at the time 75 now I said I feel like I'm standing somewhere down the curvature of the earth I cannot see the horizon that you folks see where you're standing higher on that curvature I need your eyes and I need your ears and I need you to tell me what it is you're seeing because that same horizon is coming at me even though I don't know it and then I added and I need you to speak clearly and distinctly because I want to hear what you have to say my point is that I'm standing here having quote figure a lot of things out through 75 years of education social engagement risk taking rebellion although I think you can claim the rebel status only in retrospect and only very lightly because as soon as you start thinking in this moment consciously I'm a rebel you screw it all up I do believe this you know these this self labeling is dangerous stuff just do what you do I mean the bird doesn't think I'm a bird I can fly you know what am I doing sitting here on a branch they just you know they do what they do and so I have my frameworks which I need not only their eyes and ears I need to get inside their heads and hearts and see what that new framework is that can help me interpret that data better than I'm able to do the danger at age 75 is to think you have everything figured out and I would just say one more thing about Courtney's wonderful emphasis on humility my last book is called Healing the Heart of Democracy and in that book I talk about five habits of the heart borrowing a phrase from Alexis to Tockeville that I think we need to get our democracy back in a citizen movement but when I give talks about it I say if five is too many for you to hold on to you really only need to you need putspa and humility you know you need you need the hoodspot to know that you have a voice worth speaking and things worth saying and you need the humility to know that it's vital to listen because you may not have it right at all or only a very partial grasp on the truth so I think it's in holding these paradoxes that we start to sort things out we there's so much of this life that we're all trying to live that's just not about either or even though we've been trained to think and binary code right I mean that in the larger sense the metaphorical sense of that term it's both hand I breathe in and I breathe out I really it would really be dangerous for me to say I think I'm basically a breathing out kind of guy so that's how I'm gonna you know devote my life to I am an individual with a voice I am also embedded in a community on which I'm highly dependent from which I came into which I will return and I include the community of the natural world in that and and I need both the hoodspot and the humility to be there fully to be there now and to be there in a life-giving way.

I think you see things my way which is smart.

I think that Jonathan hates book the right just mind is such a terrific book right it's it illuminates

I want to throw in the word community I mean I think complexity can only be held by community and and I think that one of the most important things that needs to happen right now is if I may say so by your invitation being modeled right here which is intergenerational community I a few years ago invited Courtney and a bunch of her friends who are some of the most remarkable people I've ever met these 30 something folk who are doing it anyway and who give to me every sign that they're in it for the long haul not just for the short ride I invited them to my home in Madison, Wisconsin to help me and some of my colleagues at the little nonprofit I founded the Center for Courage and Renewal understand the digital revolution and how it might how our work might be enhanced and amplified through that because my generation knows very little about that

our charge is not to save the world after all it is to live in it flawed and fierce loving and humble

my brother-in-law Henry Allen Gleason Jr. was a linguist he wrote a book called an introduction to descriptive linguistics it is the book that I read and used as a textbook as a student in linguistics it's what I when I made the book test it was his descriptions of how language works that I relied on not something that came out of the Morphalisophical group.

It is the book that I read and used as a textbook as a student in linguistics.

It's what I, when I made the Wug Test, it was his descriptions of how language works that I relied on, not something that came out of the more philosophical group.

There's a wonderful book called Manus and Civilization, which talks about the different views of Manus over the centuries, you know, whether it's a spiritual divine thing or whether it's, you know, now it's a biochemical imbalance.