Using Experimental Philosophy to Shift Perspective, with Jonathon Keats | Big Think Mentor
Using Experimental Philosophy to Shift Perspective, with Jonathon Keats
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Jonathon Keats introduces his workshop by listing the following five rules for looking at the world like an experimental philosopher:
1. Ask naive questions,
2. invert perceptions,
3. combine incompatible ideas,
4. remix metaphors,
5. and pursue paradox.
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Jonathon Keats:
Jonathon Keats is a San Francisco-based experimental philosopher who has, over the years, sold real estate in the extra dimensions of space-time proposed by string theory (he sold a hundred and seventy-two extra-dimensional lots in the Bay Area in a single day); made an attempt to genetically engineer God (God turns out to be related to the cyanobacterium); and copyrighted his own mind (in order to get a seventy-year post-life extension.
Keats’s bold experiments raise serious questions and put into practice his conviction that the world needs more “curious amateurs,” willing to explore publicly whatever intrigues them, in defiance of a culture that increasingly forecloses on wonder and siloes knowledge into narrowly defined areas of expertise.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Jonathon Keats:
My name is Jonathon Keats and I am an experimental philosopher. What that means is that I do things like open a restaurant for plants. I sell real estate in the extra dimensions of space. I choreograph ballets for honeybees. I build systems by which you can become married by a law of nature using quantum mechanics as the foundation rather than a legal or religious authority. I even attempt to genetically engineered God.
All of these are rather absurd on the surface and may not seem especially practical in your everyday life. However I think that there are some basic lessons that can be extracted from them that, at least for me, are highly useful even when I am not pursuing experimental philosophy. Even when I am simply trying to get by in the world, basic ways in which an experimental philosopher looks at the world that can be divided perhaps into five lessons.
And I’m going to go over these with you by way of example looking at some of the projects that I have undertaken with the take away that you might be able to apply these rules either to undertake your own experiments in philosophy or simply that you can use these in your creative problem-solving at work or at home. The lessons can be very briefly summarized as follows.
Ask naïve questions, invert perceptions, combine incompatible ideas, remix metaphors and pursue paradox. By no means are these comprehensive and they’re rather glib yet I think that if you take these as a point of departure, as I sometimes do, you’ll find that you get outside of yourself in terms of your routines, your education and your common sense. And you start to look at the world in different ways that may lead you to ideas that you never knew that you had.
@Mykhailo_Vasylenko
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Wow that course is amazing. Thanks for sharing!
@SnakeDoc455
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
gay
@DarthDefiler
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
This guy is High as FUUUUUUCK!
@Trollylol0502
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
PAUSE THE VIDEO! Good, and now, before you watch this .. I want you to imagine that you are bound to a chair, and sitting in a dark basement room, with this man next to you … Ok you can play now 😉
(Side note: Absolutely no offence to Jonathan Keats, the things he says makes you think and I'm glad that he brings them up … not that I will ever have any use for it, but still ;D)
@andrehallqvist449
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Let him go to the toilett. He need to take a shit
@onetwoBias
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
This is so fucking cool!
@crosbying
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
none of this made any sense, I am very impressed :-p
@5StarWantedCam
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
This is eccentrically intellectual. Although, it also borders insanity.
@iamagiraffe4510
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Has anyone else noticed this guy doesn't blink?
@HallowMeor
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
These are not the droids you're looking for.. haha. Although rather interesting once you can have relatable perspectives to be practical.
@pollograssopollo
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
oh, we have to pay for the workshop :/
@troggulbot740
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
hm, yes- as always safety first; the importanceo fthe individual.
@KidFictionOfficial
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Drugks
@homogenoushodgepodge
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
I don't understand what this inane gibberish has to do with philosophy.
@justyn89teo
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Well first of all i thnik this man is weird, second of all i like tehnology philososophy …biology etc il like to learn new things, your videos are so informative. Good job and keep it up.
@Nagadadavida
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Man, you've opened my eye's. Next time I have a problem I'll go to the closest 5 year old and get their advice on solving it. You don't have to be 5 years old to have an imagination. I prefer my adult imagination over my childhood one for one simple fact. I used to believe a house could be made of pepperoni and be painted with all the Marvel characters… Now I know I couldn't fit all of the characters in one house.
@JohnPaton3
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
a 5 year old generally is not capable of abstract thought – abstract thought begins to show at around 11 or 12, but varies (please don't use words you don't understand)
@famousadio
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
So can I get paid to think ridiculous things to?
@FallingSpiderPig
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
I thought this was gonna be about the Romantic poet….now I'm disappointed, its just a guy chanting absurd platitudes =(
@MilesMartinez
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
You're really mean.
@chartaiwan
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Im sorry BIG Think …but this person with this kind of image and talk just gives a bad name to academics and anyone related to any kind of studies..is the personification of a nerd in the worst sense of the word…
@marceelino
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
I think this guy live with Alice in Wonderland.
@marceelino
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
lol, crazy talk
@otorishingen8600
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Bravo 🙂
@casehyperspace
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
i was paying attention to what he had to say until i tried to see if he blinked. is this guy even human? i think i saw him blink only 3 times in the 3 minute video.
@yoyoyoy500
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
wage related questions I mean
@yoyoyoy500
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
As much as I'd like to have this man's job I just feel like asking him "How much are you paid to do this sir?" and a whole bunch of other wage related jobs
@drewhuff447
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
he looks like pete holmes
@minotaur7517
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
wtf do you mean by "geneticly engineer god" you cant freakin do tht because he is already real
@mettlebettele
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
try onlineipchanger dude coom ~ or similar sites like it. you want it, you should have it. intellectual property is a false construct.
@mettlebettele
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
hardly, just keep logging in and out until you are allocated with a US ip
@Sciencery
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
It should be.
@MarkHidden
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
So that what it is called… I like to call it reality engineering, it makes it sound more constructive. Philosophy just has a nebulousness to it, not that their is anything wrong with that, and to be fair some Philosophers are very constructive in their thinking, without resorting to name calling, or title synthesis. Those who can fault someone for manufacturing their own identity. As a-posed to stealing some one else's… I digress, those perhaps their is a propose.
@88and6
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
This dude gets paid to do stupid shit.
@megawolf7
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Abject nonsense.
@Sciencery
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Did you pay for them?
@Sciencery
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
You must be so deep and dark.
@pigboiii
February 3, 2026 at 4:18 pm
he looks akward shame
Comments are closed.