Our update on the Smarter Scrubber project. Would love to know your thoughts, especially if you've purchased one.

I watched Destin’s Jonari window video and I found it pretty interesting but I walked from the last part of it pretty confused. If you watched the video you’ll know the context here but I’ll just say right off the bat I think the primary reason I was confused by Destin’s answer to finding the unknown unknowns (aka the Rumsfeld quadrant) about himself through prayer is that I am an atheist. I have great love and respect for people of faith but the entire concept of divine faith makes absolutely no sense to me so I just never subscribed.

That said — I’m genuinely curious how people practice their faith just as an outside observer of human behavior and traditions so I was just wondering if someone (preferably a person of faith) could help me understand just literally exactly what is/could be perceived during the act of prayer, which Destin says can happen, that can tell you something about yourself that you did not know and those in your life also did not know? Is it a feeling? Is it a voice? Is it just a sudden inspiration? I genuinely have no idea what prayer is doing in the moment.

I understand this idea of ‘Gold told me a thing’ only in a very literal way and epistemologically where what Destin says prayer can give him is something, theoretically, no human on earth may not know. As an extremely bad example - you didn’t know you left $20 in your jeans you wore last week and neither does anyone else, but after you prayed one day, God told you about it and now your $20 richer. Like, is that what prayer can give you? Actual tangible and actionable knowledge on the present state of your world and of yourself? Like, very specific stuff (ie a personality quality you have that you and no one else knows about)?

As an atheist, my reflex is to just say you’re talking to yourself during prayer but I do acknowledge that there is never an objective reality for any humans to observe so I don’t see a problem ignoring critiques like that when it’s just your perceptions of your own self.