Water

Overthink

2025-06-03

53 分钟
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Oceans, baths, ponds, and amniotic sacs? In episode 131 of Overthink, David and Ellie take a deep dive into the topic of water as part of their four-part series on the elements. They discuss how all life begins in water, and the conceptual features of water, such as its fluidity and shapelessness. What did Thales of Miletus mean by ‘all is water’? How is water used as a metaphor for the Dao? And at what point does being in water go from feeling like Moana to feeling like Jaws? In the Patreon bonus segment, they talk about water as a symbol of purification, the significance of plate tectonics, and the relationship between AI and water usage.   Works Discussed:  Aristotle, On the Heavens  Francis Bacon, Novum Organum Jamie Linton, What Is Water? The History of a Modern Abstraction David Macauley, Elemental Philosophy: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water as Environmental Ideas  Anna Secor, “Spacetimeunconscious” Neil Shubin, Your Inner Fish Lao Tzu, Dao De Jing  Peter Godfrey Smith, Metazoa Support the show Patreon | patreon.com/overthinkpodcast Website | overthinkpodcast.com Instagram & Twitter | @overthink_pod Email | dearoverthink@gmail.com YouTube | Overthink podcast
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  • Hello, and welcome to Overthink.

  • The podcast where we tell you which philosophical ideas don't hold water.

  • Or ones that do.

  • I feel like we usually do ones that do more.

  • Although we, you know, we can be critical here and there.

  • I'm Ellie Anderson.

  • And I'm David Peña-Guzman.

  • And today we are indeed talking about water.

  • We're in the middle of our series on the four elements.

  • And as I was thinking about what we might say about water.

  • One thing that I thought about as a place to start is the fact that water is often associated with scarcity,

  • at least these days.

  • And I think that's different from the three other elements that we're discussing,

  • fire, earth and air.

  • Certainly fire, we would want less of as a species.

  • Air, obviously,

  • there are a lot of changes that are happening to our air with climate change.

  • And I think the same is true of earth.

  • But it doesn't sound right to say that we wish there were more air or more.

  • earth.