Quote · Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast
Ep 622 - Am-I.Film (feat. Milo Reed)
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Spinoza, Taoism, and the Rational Path to God
At 27:11 · chapter starts 26:20
A digression into philosophy becomes one of the episode's richest stretches. Milo describes reading Spinoza's first chapter and understanding nothing intellectually, but experiencing a full-body vibration — a phenomenon that also hit him reading the Tao Te Ching. Both books 'chose him,' and he spent his university years trying to reconcile Spinoza's Euclidean proof-of-God with Lao Tzu's instruction to stop trying to prove anything. Spinoza calls God, substance, and nature three names for the same thing — a view Einstein publicly endorsed. Milo frames this as the 'neurotic Jewish version of Taoism,' a way to be rigorously rational and still arrive at peace. Matt connects it to his reading of Alasdair MacIntyre: that modern culture collapsed Aristotelian virtue ethics into rule-following, and the '60s reaction collapsed it further into rule-rejection, leaving everyone still miserable. He adds his belief, backed by unspecified research, that people with genuine transcendental beliefs live about seven years longer on average.
Spinoza called God, substance, and nature three names for the same thing, and proved it with Euclidean geometry. Einstein endorsed it publicly. Milo Reed found in Spinoza a bridge between rational inquiry and the oceanic Taoist peace of Lao Tzu — two books that made his body vibrate before his mind could understand them.
Baruch Spinoza identified God, substance, and nature as three names for the same thing — a conception Einstein endorsed when asked if he believed in God, saying 'I believe in Spinoza's God.'
