Episode Transcript  

One

The Horror of Being a Brain in a Vat

How do you know everything you’re seeing and feeling and hearing and tasting and smelling isn’t actually an illusion?

One of the main ways this problem is illustrated is: “How do you know you’re not just some brain in a vat, and all your perceptions are being chemically stimulated by tubes hooked up to some evil genius?”

Basically, the whole Matrix movie franchise was based on this idea.

And the point I want to highlight is that it’s a horrifying idea

It’s a hideous thought – the idea of a brain in a vat, detached from its own body, helplessly fed on artificially stimulated images and feelings that don’t correspond to anything real.

But here’s the really horrifying truth – many of us have chosen to live more and more like that. 

We are living a false life, and one separated from our bodies. And it’s utterly, horrifyingly tragic.

Two

Detaching the Mind from the Body

There are two main ways we are – of our own free will, and as a mode of recreation, no less! – there are two main ways we’re detaching the mind from the body.

One is through the use of drugs.

The re-emergence and legalization of psychedelics as a form of therapy and recreation is causing more and more of us to deliberately detach the mind from the senses

Where the pleasure we take in things and the very look and feel of them is less a reflection of the way things are, and more due to the artificial manipulation of our brains.

The other is through the use of screens

Where we pump artificial and distant images into our brains that have practically nothing to do with the here and now.

A constant preoccupation with the remote, the fantastic, the sensational – that’s a life where the mind is increasingly detached from the body. 

We’re doing it to ourselves. We’re cutting off the mind from the body. We’re turning ourselves into broken, helpless, overstimulated brains in vats. 

And it’s making us miserable.

Three

The Delight of Our Bodiliness

God made us physical creatures, and He put us into a particular point of space and time, because that’s where our mission and our happiness lies.

Now the connection to a certain point of space and time is our body.

Which means the more we focus on the here and now, the more we are connected to our body – and the more we engage our bodiliness, the more we’re connected to the here and now

And the here and now is where we find the most reality, the most goodness, and therefore the most delight.

Being and goodness are always convertible – the more real something is, the more good it is – and therefore the more delight we’re able to take in it.

What all that means is that if we want to really be happy, we have to focus on the full reality of the here and now – and we do that by cementing, not weakening, our connection to our bodies.

Four

Practices

Let’s make that concrete. How can we use our free time to fully engage the reality of the here and now through the body?

Well, there are three obvious ways:

First, by using our bodies to physically make something worthwhile.

Cooking, Drawing, Crafts, Learning a musical instrument, gardening. All this stuff reconnects you to the here and now. 

By the way, that’s also true if you’re a handy person, and really appreciate a home renovation project, or car repair

If you’re just fantasizing about when that project is over, by definition it’s not connecting you to the here and now.

But if you enjoy doing it, and aren’t in a hurry about it – great! That’s a wonderful recreation.

Secondly, by using our bodies to play a game

You can do non-strenuous games like horseshoes or bocce ball or pool 

You can do archery or marksmanship

Or you can do something really aerobic, like basketball or pickleball

These games are a marvelous way to use your body to get grounded – when you’re really doing these things, it brings you back to the here and now like nothing else.

Thirdly, by using your bodies to move

Walking, hiking, biking, lifting.

That makes you feel good to be alive! That makes you glad you’re not a brain in a vat – and it makes you never want to act like one again.

God gave us our bodies so we could appreciate His world, here and now. So let’s make sure we do.

Five

Glorify God in Your Body

St. Paul tells the Church of Corinth to “Glorify God in your body.” (I Cor 6:20).

That single sentence means a lot. It means, for instance, that we should avoid sexual sin, or any other sin that we commit through the body.

But it’s not just a negative teaching. 

We’re supposed to use our bodies to glorify God.

And we do that precisely by making our bodies an instrument of prayer. 

Practically that means, making sure that some of our prayer is done in a physical attitude of adoration and supplication.

It means – if we can and when we can – we should pray on our knees.

C.S. Lewis notes how foolish people are to “be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.” 

Remember, our bodies are how we refocus ourselves on the here and now.

And the truth is that God is present, right here and right now. That’s the truth we are trying to remember when we pray.

And when we fall to our knees to worship, it helps us to remember.

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