629. Beyond Happiness: The Deep Longing to Matter with Rebecca Goldstein
unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc · 2026-03-12 · 53 min
Episode notes
What if the tale of Genesis were reframed as a story of humanity’s ascent into awareness of mortality and entropy? How are both connectedness and a “mattering project” key to flourishing as an individual? Rebecca Goldstein is the author of several fiction and non-fiction books, including The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, and The Mind-Body Problem . Greg and Rebecca discuss how the ideas in her new book, The Mattering Instinct , trace back to her novel, The Mind-Body Problem . Rebecca details a long-developed theory of human motivation: beyond survival and pleasure, humans are “creatures of matter who long to matter,” driven to justify themselves in their own eyes (homo justificans). To Rebecca, this is linked to self-reflection, theory of mind, and existential “absurdity.” This episode will outline some mattering strategies and also discuss personality links, ethics, and concerns about AI. *unSILOed Podcast is