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PvI#102: Pit of Despair w/ Seth Paskin

October 6, 2025 by Mark Leave a Comment

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Mark’s Partially Examined Life co-host Seth joins us (i.e. Mark and Mary) to introduce Seth to improv and continue introducing philosophy to Mary.

We discuss Seth’s attraction to depressing texts, act out couples’ therapy and monster beauty parlor, and open up a few philosophical cans of worms: Is truth relative? (Hint: no!) Does outer beauty reflect inner beauty?

You can choose to watch this episode unedited on YouTube:

My image for the last episode was created with Claude AI, which informed me that it is not actually an image generator, so I have taken the plunge and have gotten a MidJourney subscription. This image of some couples’ therapy by a pit was supposed to be “as if drawn by a 4-year-old,” but I think achieving the desired level of shoddiness may be an ongoing struggle with this tool. Why are there people in the pit? I don’t know; I didn’t ask for that. Why is the therapist apparently a child? No clue. MidJourney generates several options based on any given query, and I picked this one, but they all featured people in the pit, and many of them looked much less child-drawn, so this is what you get today.

Filed Under: General Philosophy, Philosopher (Solo) Guest Tagged With: improv comedy podcast, philosophy podcast

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What is Philosophy Vs. Improv?

Mark Linsenmayer (host of The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast) and Mary Hynes (Second City instructor) — often along with guests — try to teach each other their crafts via conversation and improv scenes.

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Testimonials

Mark & Bill are well-matched in being able to so easily articulate the mental processes around their respective pursuits. Whatever sound range both their voices fall within, it's really pleasant on the ears, like listening to two small yet efficient air conditioners placed side by side.

Tim Sniffen (from Jackbox, NPR, The New Yorker, Improvised Shakespeare, Hello from the Magic Tavern)

Philosophy vs. Improv
2021-07-26T04:29:39+00:00

Tim Sniffen (from Jackbox, NPR, The New Yorker, Improvised Shakespeare, Hello from the Magic Tavern)

Mark & Bill are well-matched in being able to so easily articulate the mental processes around their respective pursuits. Whatever sound range both their voices fall within, it's really pleasant on the ears, like listening to two small yet efficient air conditioners placed side by side.
https://philosophyimprov.com/testimonials/149/
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