Baruch Spinoza Was RIGHT: We Are Surrounded by IDIOTS — And Nobody Admits It

Pick a number between one and ten. Now say why it was that one. You can't, and Baruch Spinoza explained why 350 years ago, with a stone that thinks it is flying because it wants to. We look at why his own community cursed him, the two emotions that are used to steer people, why "good" and "bad" are not in things, the conatus, and the quiet method he left for becoming free: understand what pushes you. Every quote is in his own words, with the source on the screen. We also say plainly which famous stories may be legend and what neuroscience has NOT proved. 0:00 Pick a number 1:42 The Curse 4:05 A God Without a Temper 6:28 The Stone That Thinks It's Free 10:20 The Two Handles 13:26 Good and Bad Are Not in Things 15:47 The Power That Grows or Shrinks 17:44 The Way Out 19:46 The Coat and the Lenses 21:50 A Meditation on Life Where every quote comes from Ethics (1677), tr. R. H. M. Elwes (1883): Part I, Appendix ("Men think themselves free inasmuch as they are conscious of their volitions and desires..."); Part II, Prop. 48; Part III, Preface ("lines, planes, and solids"); Part III, Prop. 2, note (the infant and the milk); Part III, Prop. 6 (conatus); Part III, Prop. 11, note; Part III, Prop. 43; Part IV, Preface (music, melancholy, mourning, deafness); Part IV, Prop. 47; Part IV, Prop. 67 ("a meditation not of death but of life"); Part V, Prop. 3; Part V, Prop. 42; Part V, final note ("All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare"). Letter 58 (62) to G. H. Schuller, 1674, tr. R. H. M. Elwes (the thinking stone). Theologico-Political Treatise (1670), Preface, tr. R. H. M. Elwes ("Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear"; "fight as bravely for slavery as for safety"). Political Treatise, ch. I, §4, tr. R. H. M. Elwes ("not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand"). Letter to J. L. Fabritius, 30 March 1673 (the Heidelberg chair). The cherem of 27 July 1656, English translation as given in A. Wolf and S. Nadler. The knife and the coat: J. Colerus, The Life of Benedict de Spinosa (1705), after P. Bayle (1697); doubts in S. Nadler, "Who Tried to Kill Spinoza?", Jewish Review of Books. Libet, Gleason, Wright & Pearl, Brain 106 (1983); critique: Schurger, Sitt & Dehaene, PNAS 109 (2012). Images: public domain works via Wikimedia Commons (anonymous portrait of Spinoza, c. 1665; Herzog August Bibliothek portrait; Jan van der Heyden; Romeyn de Hooghe; Samuel Hirszenberg; Matthäus Merian; the 1656 cherem; title pages of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and the Opera Posthuma); chalk illustrations and motion graphics made for this channel. Music: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0: "Long Note Four", "Ossuary 6 - Air", "Echoes of Time v2", "Clean Soul", "Deliberate Thought".