0:00

morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan

0:02

Molyneux from free domain. These are

0:04

questions from the book of faces, the

0:06

Facebook, Facebook. And

0:08

you can check me out there. And

0:11

the questions go something like this.

0:13

If the neural weights of our

0:15

values, neurons, is randomly initialized

0:17

as by neural network back propagation, does

0:19

that mean we can get an ought

0:21

from an is? And that

0:23

is basically randomness from the

0:26

total universe's electromagnetic smog. That

0:31

is a juicy bit of

0:33

kaleidoscopic syllable span.

0:35

That is a

0:37

thought cloud of random rotation. Let's

0:41

take it again. If the

0:43

neural weights of our values

0:45

neurons. Okay, so, this

0:49

is an empathy thing, right? This

0:51

is an empathy thing. This is really important.

0:54

I appreciate the question. I'm just trying to give

0:56

you some feedback here. to help

0:58

you, help you in your life. Somebody

1:01

help me. So

1:03

empathy is when

1:05

you sympathize with somebody

1:07

on the receiving end of your communication.

1:10

So for instance, are you

1:12

trying to sound smart

1:15

by making other people

1:17

feel dumb? So that's

1:19

exploit, right? That's not kind, that's

1:21

not nice, that's not thoughtful, that's

1:23

not considerate. And again, I'm

1:25

not... I'm not saying you're not this in general,

1:27

I'm just talking about this particular instance of communication. So

1:31

I don't know if this is probably a

1:33

joke, but if it's not, if

1:36

this is serious and this is a

1:38

problem in the world as a whole.

1:40

So jargon and, you know, acronyms, and

1:42

I had a conflict with the

1:44

guy on Telegram the other day who used

1:46

an acronym that even he didn't know what

1:48

it was. So this is just empathy. This

1:51

is just empathy, which is...

1:54

What is it like to be on the receiving

1:56

end of your communication? Ah, you

1:58

see, big question, big, deep question.

2:01

You can't have a relationship

2:03

that of any kind of

2:05

quality. You can have proximity

2:07

and semen and syllable exchanges,

2:09

but you can't have a

2:11

relationship. If you don't ask

2:13

yourself this basic question, what

2:15

is it like to be

2:17

on the receiving end of

2:19

my communication? This is related

2:21

to a question I got

2:23

not too long ago about

2:25

how do you tell if

2:27

somebody's emotionally mature? Well, they

2:29

recognize self and other. They

2:32

recognize that it is their responsibility

2:34

to be clear in their communication.

2:37

And they have a filter between stimulus and

2:39

response. Like, you know, people who just

2:41

get triggered and just get angry, they don't

2:43

have a filter between stimulus and response. So.

2:48

The person who's writing this yet i mean this

2:50

could be a joke or something like that

2:52

but this is quite common so it's even if

2:54

it's a joke it's a good learning tool. What

2:57

is it like to be on the receiving

2:59

end. Of your communication

3:01

so you would read like you would

3:03

read this back and i do this

3:05

when i'm writing when i'm communicating live

3:08

is a little tougher but i'm thinking

3:10

about it quite a bit but certainly

3:12

when i write what i do. Is.

3:16

I say, what is it like to

3:18

be on the receiving end of

3:20

this communication with no knowledge of the

3:22

subject in particular, like I've got

3:24

a book called Essential Philosophy, and

3:27

of course all of my books are

3:29

written to be comprehensible by non -technical

3:31

people. So, in

3:33

this kind of work you say,

3:35

what is it like to be on

3:37

the receiving end of this communication?

3:39

Can somebody understand what it is that

3:41

I'm doing? My life was forever

3:43

changed when I've read somewhere

3:45

that Socrates never used the

3:47

word epistemology, right? He spoke

3:49

in the common parlance. As

3:52

did Jesus, and he spoke in the

3:54

common parlance. So I've tried to invent as

3:56

few words as possible. I've made a

3:58

couple of joke works, joke words, and a

4:00

couple of acronyms for fun, but I

4:02

try not to invent any new language because,

4:05

you know, that is an old Emerson quote,

4:07

I think. Never, never trust any enterprise

4:09

that requires the purchase of new clothes.

4:11

Never trust any philosophy that requires the invention

4:13

of new words. So that

4:15

is something so when You have

4:17

empathy you say You put yourself outside

4:19

of yourself and you say what

4:21

is it like to be on the

4:23

receiving end of me? What is

4:26

it like to be on the receiving

4:28

end of me now? We're

4:30

born with this capacity. We're born with

4:32

this as a whole but what

4:34

happens for the most part is that

4:36

if you have hostile parents Empathizing

4:38

with them is a kind of suicide

4:40

If you have hostile parents who

4:43

look at you coldly or with contempt

4:45

or with hatred, even at times

4:47

who manipulate, who bully, who don't see

4:49

you for who you are, if

4:51

you empathize with them, you disappear. In

4:54

other words, to empathize with people who hate you is

4:56

to end up hating yourself. So we

4:58

have to shut off this empathy. And

5:00

when we are exclusively

5:02

punished for the general accidents

5:04

of youth, what happens

5:06

is we start developing this baffle

5:08

gap. So a

5:10

lot of people end up communicating

5:13

in life as if being

5:15

cross -examined by a hostile

5:17

prosecutor who's really out to

5:19

get them and on trial

5:21

for their life, right? So

5:23

that's how a lot of

5:25

people communicate. And

5:27

that's because they're being

5:29

cross -examined and they're gonna

5:32

be horrendously punished or

5:34

neglected or... or ostracized

5:36

or something like that,

5:38

they're being horrendously punished

5:41

if they give clear

5:43

and cogent answers. Right,

5:46

so I'll give you sort of an example. From

5:48

when I was a kid, so when I was

5:50

a kid, I could always be quote

5:52

gotten for something or other. Right, and

5:54

the one that I remember most vividly

5:57

is the flashlight. Right,

5:59

so I would borrow a flashlight or

6:01

I would use a flashlight, do

6:03

something fun at night with friends, maybe

6:05

in the woods, explore. build a

6:07

fort or something and we'd have a

6:09

flat I'd have a flashlight and

6:11

then a couple of days later you

6:13

know this is when I was

6:16

like maybe seven or eight years old

6:18

a couple of days later I'd

6:20

suddenly wake up be like hey where's

6:22

that flashlight where's that and then

6:24

I would have this ooh now of

6:26

course as kids you lose stuff

6:28

right it's natural it's inevitable it's not

6:30

a huge issue and stuff doesn't

6:32

matter relative to people so all the

6:35

people who sacrifice relationships for stuff

6:37

I want them to end up alone

6:39

with a bunch of ornaments that

6:41

can't hug them when they age out.

6:44

So I would have this uneasiness

6:46

from time to time like well

6:49

I can't afford to get a

6:51

new flashlight and we in the

6:53

70s in England when I was

6:55

a kid there were power outages

6:57

because there was a big coal

6:59

strike and all this kind of

7:02

stuff so in the power outages. My

7:05

mother would look for a flashlight

7:07

Right and Unfortunately, I did have

7:09

the kind of sibling who would

7:11

say oh, I think Steph had

7:13

it last right to be helpful

7:15

and so if I was questioned

7:17

about the flashlight I couldn't say

7:19

I Never had it because I

7:22

would have said I'm going to

7:24

the woods and Whatever nobody have

7:26

with you. I was a flashlight

7:28

bring it back right so I

7:30

couldn't say I never had it

7:32

because then it'd be punished for

7:34

lying. I couldn't say I

7:36

had it because then I'd be punished

7:39

for losing it. So I would have

7:41

to just create a big kaleidoscopic oar

7:43

cloud of confusing syllables to just try

7:45

and bafflegab into getting away with stuff.

7:47

And you know, people just plead the

7:49

fifth or whatever it is, right? People

7:51

do this with lawyers or in court

7:53

quite a bit, right? So if someone

7:55

says you did X and you never

7:57

did X, you can't say they're lying

8:00

because then they could sue you for

8:02

defamation, but you could say my memory

8:04

of the event is different. So

8:07

when I see this kind of

8:09

baffle gab language, what I see is,

8:11

and I see this with great

8:13

sympathy, really, really great sympathy, when

8:15

I see this kind of

8:17

baffle gab language, what I see

8:19

is somebody who was both

8:21

punished for telling the truth, right?

8:25

I had the flashlight and also

8:27

punished for lying. I didn't have

8:29

the flashlight. And if you're

8:31

punished for the truth, and you

8:33

punish for lying then you end

8:35

up having to your force to

8:37

say nothing really at all so

8:39

i mean you see this all

8:41

the time in academia i did

8:43

a whole parody of this decades

8:45

ago in a novel i wrote

8:47

called the god of atheists which

8:49

you should really check out people

8:52

have created online this was back

8:54

in the day a postmodern generator

8:56

like just generating nonsense language so

8:58

nonsense language. is when you're

9:00

punished for telling truth and you're punished for lying,

9:03

then you end up writing Kafkaesque syllables

9:05

that nobody can really understand because

9:07

you're just hoping that people get lost

9:09

in the fog of what you

9:11

say and give up the chase. This

9:13

is like a squid who's being

9:15

chased will release the cloud of ink

9:17

so that it can hide. The

9:20

cloud of ink is academic language and

9:22

I have to pad out my

9:24

essay so just make up a bunch

9:26

of nonsense and so on. So,

9:29

when you look at a sentence, like,

9:32

if the neural weights of

9:34

our value, values' neurons

9:36

is randomly initialized, as by

9:38

neural network propagation, does

9:40

that mean we can get an ought from an is? And

9:43

that, that is basically

9:45

randomness from the total universe's

9:47

electromagnetic smog. So,

9:49

neural weights is plural, neural

9:51

weights of our values' neurons is,

9:54

right? So, neural weights is plural, is,

9:56

is singular. Randomly

9:58

initialized, I don't even know what

10:00

that means, has binaural network back propagation.

10:02

Don't know what that means. Does that

10:05

mean we can get an ought from

10:07

an is? And that is basically randomness

10:09

from the total universe's electromagnetic smart. So

10:11

empathy, and this is a cry

10:13

for help, honestly. I mean, I'm just interpreting this as

10:15

a cry for help, and again, I say this with sympathy.

10:18

This is somebody who was punished for lying and punished

10:20

for telling the truth, and

10:22

has developed an exquisite

10:24

random... syllable generator, that

10:26

is an appeal to

10:28

insecurity, right? So, am

10:31

I supposed to know what neural network

10:33

back propagation, I mean, am I

10:35

supposed to know what that means? Is

10:37

that common knowledge? Have I just

10:39

sort of missed out on something that's

10:41

obvious, you know, this kind of

10:43

stuff, right? Well, so

10:46

then you have to pretend that you know

10:48

what they're talking about and you both end

10:50

up in this nonsense language as a whole,

10:52

right? So, This

10:55

is meaningless, drivel.

10:57

And again, I say this with sympathy.

10:59

I'm not trying to insult. It is

11:01

meaningless, drivel. And there may be

11:03

thoughts in there. But

11:05

when you communicate, you

11:07

have a responsibility

11:09

to be clear. And

11:12

it's fine if you can ask as many

11:14

complicated questions as you like. But

11:16

if you don't have empathy to

11:18

the point where you say to

11:20

me, or you say to yourself

11:23

regarding well I'm communicating with staff

11:25

I shouldn't assume that he knows

11:27

what I'm talking about so I'm

11:29

going to be as clear as

11:31

possible if the question really means

11:33

something to you then you will

11:35

make it as clear as possible

11:38

so for instance if you have

11:40

a great desire to write a

11:42

beautiful poem and then you write

11:44

it on a white background in

11:46

white font and quote printed out

11:48

which is to just have a

11:50

blank sheet of paper and then

11:52

you hand it to me, then

11:55

we are involved in something quite

11:57

bizarre. So if the

11:59

question was really important to you,

12:01

if the question is really important to

12:03

you, then you have to make

12:05

sure that I know what you're talking

12:07

about. Now if you don't make

12:09

sure I know what you're talking about

12:11

as much as possible, I could

12:13

ask some clarifying questions, but this person

12:15

hasn't even made the slightest effort

12:17

to have me understand what he, I

12:20

assume he, is talking about so

12:22

clearly the question isn't that important. If

12:24

the question isn't important enough for

12:26

you to be clear then it's not

12:28

really important enough for me to

12:31

answer. I mean we understand that. Now

12:33

the other thing that I

12:36

think of when I see this

12:38

kind of polysyllabic and dimensional

12:40

baffle gap is I say okay

12:42

so this person lacks empathy. because

12:45

they're not putting themselves on the receiving

12:47

end of their communication and seeing if

12:49

it's clear, right? Not

12:51

putting themselves on the receiving end of their

12:53

communication for reasons of child abuse and trauma, which

12:55

I sympathize with. So I

12:57

do not want to hand this

13:00

person the power of an answer

13:02

if they lack empathy, because if

13:04

they lack empathy, they cannot use

13:06

it for good. Right,

13:08

there's an old puzzle

13:10

in. Greek philosophy where

13:12

somebody says well if you if you borrow

13:14

something and somebody asks for it back should

13:17

you give it back and the answer of

13:19

course is well yes if you borrow something

13:21

from someone and they ask for it back

13:23

you should absolutely give it back and then

13:25

you know what if you've borrowed an axe

13:27

from your friend and your friend comes to

13:29

you and says give me your axe I

13:31

want to chop your I want to chop

13:33

my wife into tiny little pieces give me

13:36

an axe I want to chop my wife

13:38

into tiny little pieces. Well, you wouldn't want

13:40

to give him the axe back, right? So

13:42

saying, well, you should always return

13:45

things that you have borrowed is

13:47

complicated, right? And then it's a

13:49

fair question and so on. Although,

13:51

of course, it's a real edge

13:53

case, right? And so something that

13:55

nobody, I mean, nobody will

13:57

ever deal with that in their life as a whole.

14:00

And if you have a friend who wants to murder

14:02

his wife, your issue is not

14:04

that you borrowed something from him. The

14:06

issue is that you have people in

14:08

your life Who are this terrible or

14:10

this deranged or this murderous or this

14:12

evil and the whole issue then is

14:14

your moral judgment as a whole and

14:16

and so on right so I Don't

14:18

want to give power ups to people

14:20

who lack empathy So let's say I

14:23

give an answer to this question I

14:25

sort of puzzle it out give an

14:27

answer to this question Well, the other

14:29

thing too is that when people give

14:31

you baffle gaps and you answer the

14:33

question they'll always say Well, you didn't

14:35

get to the core of my question.

14:37

You didn't answer my question. You just

14:39

danced around it. Right? So when

14:41

people give you questions that are impossible to answer,

14:44

there's a reason for that. And that is

14:46

because they want to tell you that you got

14:48

it wrong. You didn't understand them. You didn't

14:50

respond. You weren't clear. So,

14:53

but if let's say I did

14:55

puzzle it out and give them

14:57

a great answer around morality, then

14:59

I would be giving deep moral

15:01

understanding to someone who lacks empathy,

15:03

which means they'll probably use it

15:05

not for good to put it

15:07

mildly. So it's a very interesting

15:09

interesting thing. It's a general, you

15:11

know, read it as if you're

15:13

not you basic empathy Read what

15:15

you write as if you're not

15:17

you and that's an interesting and

15:19

difficult thing to go through Because

15:21

it requires you to put yourself

15:23

outside of yourself and view yourself

15:25

critically Which of course if you

15:27

were verbally abused in particular as

15:29

a child putting yourself outside yourself

15:31

and being critical of yourself is

15:34

feels like you're inhabiting the skin,

15:36

you're wearing the skin suit of

15:38

an abuser and that's painful and

15:40

disorienting for a lot of people.

15:42

For reasons like, again, I completely

15:45

sympathize with, but I

15:47

think when I look for

15:49

empathy or I look for virtue

15:51

or I look for clarity, people

15:53

who are unclear, and you know,

15:55

I've been in philosophy, you

15:58

know, 40 plus years, right,

16:00

43 years, so I'm coming

16:02

on for a, half century

16:04

in philosophy. I

16:06

understand quite a bit

16:08

about philosophy and if I

16:10

don't understand something, it's

16:12

not because I lack knowledge.

16:15

Because if I've been in a field

16:17

for almost 50 years and I

16:19

don't understand what you're saying, I'm

16:21

not going to assume it's my fault. It

16:24

is your job to

16:26

be clear. Now, again, if

16:28

you were raised with verbal abuse, it is

16:30

terrifying and painful to be clear. Because

16:32

to be clear is to be

16:35

punished. To be

16:37

clear is to be punished. I

16:39

took the flashlight and lost

16:41

it. I did not take the

16:43

flashlight. Both things get you punished. Both the

16:45

truth and a lie will get you punished. So

16:48

you have to fog

16:50

and confuse. If

16:52

you could go back in your life

16:54

to when you were 17 and left school,

16:56

what would you do differently and why? You

16:59

know, I... Find

17:01

these kinds of exercises are

17:03

both useless and annoying. Now,

17:05

this doesn't mean that they

17:07

are useless and annoying. I'm

17:09

just telling you how I

17:12

find them. You can't go

17:14

back in time. So all

17:16

it's doing is trying to

17:18

stimulate regret or self -recrimination about

17:20

things that cannot be changed.

17:23

Right? Now, I understand a useful exercise and this

17:25

is what the first video I ever did

17:27

was live like you're dying, which is, you know,

17:29

go to the end of your life. Look

17:31

back in time and You would

17:33

be happy to do what you're doing

17:35

now what decisions can you make

17:37

that's gonna make the end of your

17:39

life better I get that you

17:41

know project yourself forward in time But

17:43

when you say to people what

17:45

would you have done differently in the

17:47

past you were inviting them to

17:49

regret and self -recrimination So I will

17:51

say that in general I've tried to

17:54

make the best decisions based on

17:56

the knowledge that I had And

17:58

I've always tried to reference philosophy.

18:00

I've always tried to improve my moral

18:02

status and station. And of

18:04

course I've made mistakes. I mean, to

18:06

live a life without making mistakes

18:08

is to live a pathetically paralyzed life,

18:10

which is the biggest mistake of

18:13

all. Right? If you,

18:15

if you play baseball, you

18:17

will miss hitting the ball. And the

18:20

only way to avoid missing the ball

18:22

is to not play baseball, which is

18:24

not even have that experience of fun

18:26

and camaraderie and teamwork and exercise, right?

18:28

So I certainly was very fortunate to get

18:31

exposed to philosophy at a young age, which

18:33

has really helped guide me to a better

18:35

and better place in life. So when people

18:37

say, well, what would you do differently if

18:39

you could go back? Well, of all, you

18:41

can't go back. You can't go back. And

18:44

it is unfair to say

18:46

that if I were to go

18:48

back 41 years to when

18:50

I was 17, with all

18:52

the knowledge I have now,

18:54

That would be bizarre because it's

18:56

too much power for a

18:58

mere 17 year old Brent, right?

19:01

Things have to evolve. For

19:03

me, it's like saying when

19:05

somebody is 18, saying,

19:07

would you like to have

19:10

been as tall as you are

19:12

at 18 when you were

19:14

two years old? Well, no,

19:16

that would be an indication of

19:18

some severe hormonal or growth hormone

19:20

dysfunction, like you'd be dying or

19:22

dead, right? So the

19:24

idea that it is an invitation to go

19:27

back and say, oh, I shouldn't have done

19:29

this or I should have done that or

19:31

I wish I'd done this or it's a

19:33

way of inviting regret and self -recrimination. Do

19:35

I have regrets? Yeah, I've got a couple

19:37

of regrets. But when I go back in time

19:39

and I put myself with empathy at the

19:41

time that I was making those decisions, I

19:44

didn't have the knowledge to make better

19:46

decisions. I did not

19:48

have the knowledge. to make better

19:50

decisions. So I beat my head against

19:52

the wall of art, the art world

19:54

for some time, without realizing that it

19:56

had been largely taken over by socialists

19:59

and communists to program the general population

20:01

to accept tyranny. It

20:03

was no longer about exploring the human

20:05

condition or anything like that. It

20:07

was just about propaganda. I

20:09

could have guessed this with, you know,

20:11

the farm show and the focus on Botolk

20:13

Brecht and so on, right? But

20:15

yes, it was all about... Depression

20:18

and exploitation and brutality and loss and

20:20

madness and I go it's just

20:22

about carving down depressing and lowering the

20:24

human spirit into an early grave

20:26

of Softly soul sucking syllables Now if

20:28

I had gone back and learned

20:30

all of that I might have been

20:33

overwhelmed by How much power crazy

20:35

people have in society and I might

20:37

have been too depressed to do

20:39

much with my life So it's sort

20:41

of like Saying and I honestly

20:43

I mean this is without a shred

20:45

of a Vanity, I'm just telling

20:48

you my direct experience of my life

20:50

I could not picture being in

20:52

a better position in my life as

20:54

a whole I could not I

20:56

could not I mean if if Someone

20:58

had said to me when I

21:00

was 17 was it 17 the guy

21:02

was saying right if somebody had

21:05

said to me when I was 17.

21:07

Here's what your life is gonna

21:09

be like When you are 58, right?

21:11

Let's say someone had gone forward,

21:13

right? Yes, what's your life's gonna be

21:15

like, Steph, when you're 58? I've

21:17

been like, damn. Wait,

21:20

I got a wonderful wife. I got a

21:22

really happy marriage. I've got a great relationship

21:24

with my child. I have good friends. I

21:26

have the most meaningful work known to man.

21:29

I can pay my bills. Like,

21:32

I would have been like, that's

21:34

fantastic, right? So for

21:36

me, I felt like I won the gold. I

21:38

mean, I earned the gold. I fought hard for

21:41

the gold. But honestly, I'm just telling you straight

21:43

up, right? For me, I won the gold. Now

21:46

if someone were to go

21:48

say to Michael Phelps, I think

21:50

one of the most successful

21:52

athletes or Whoever right Simone Biles

21:54

or Wayne Gretzky I think

21:56

was the best athlete of all

21:58

time because he was further

22:00

ahead of number two than any

22:02

other athlete so if you

22:04

go to an athlete who's won

22:06

the gold and Then you

22:08

were to say to that athlete.

22:10

Well, how would you have trained differently? I

22:14

feel like, do you see this gold? I

22:16

mean, do you see this gold medal? Do

22:18

you see these world records? I

22:20

mean, I'm not trying to brag

22:22

or anything like that, because look, my life has

22:25

certainly had its ups and downs, and I get

22:27

all of that, but at least where I've landed

22:29

is great. Not much

22:31

that I would do to change

22:33

or improve it. So,

22:36

when people say,

22:38

well, you're a great

22:40

athlete who's won a whole bunch and...

22:42

how would you have trained differently it's

22:44

like i don't really know it doesn't

22:46

really doesn't really make any sense to

22:48

me and of course not knowing what

22:50

i know now is what got me

22:52

here so i would not go back

22:54

and change anything because why is that

22:56

ripple effect the butterfly effect if i

22:58

go back and change something then i

23:00

might change where i've ended up which

23:02

i wouldn't want to do so all

23:04

right if we are merely the current

23:07

iteration of our genes what model obligations

23:09

do we have towards other iterations This

23:12

is unclear, right? If we are

23:14

merely the current iteration of our

23:16

genes, what moral obligations do we

23:18

have towards other iterations? So

23:20

is this sort of genetic ingroup preference?

23:22

I mean, there is baked into our systems.

23:25

I mean, we prefer our own children

23:27

to other people's children as a whole,

23:29

right? I mean, most people, if you

23:31

could only save your child or some

23:33

strangest child, you will save your child.

23:36

That's kind of baked into us. So...

23:38

That's all creatures. It's not

23:41

a human thing. So what

23:43

obligations? So in

23:45

general You will Transfer

23:47

your resources to your

23:49

children right time money

23:51

energy focus attention Resources

23:53

so in general you

23:55

will transfer resources to

23:57

your children. So your

24:00

property is devoted towards

24:02

your children but what

24:04

you owe to people

24:06

who you're not related

24:08

to, that you may

24:10

owe not morally, but

24:12

from a sort of

24:14

instinctual obligation love standpoint.

24:17

I mean, morally, you owe your

24:19

children, right, just about everything,

24:21

but what happens is you owe

24:23

your children just about everything. You

24:26

owe, I mean, you'll feel probably a

24:28

lot of blood loyalty to your family as

24:30

a whole. Now, with

24:32

regards to strangers, you

24:34

owe them Moral respect you

24:37

owe them the non -aggression principle and

24:39

you owe them a respect for

24:41

their property So you owe your children

24:43

the transfer of your property you

24:45

owe strangers respect for their property if

24:47

they respect your property right so

24:49

Hopefully that makes sense You did your

24:51

best work years ago the Christmas

24:53

truce truce it can't be beat Yeah,

24:55

I mean that's always an interesting

24:58

question for me which is You know

25:00

some of my work was sort

25:02

of very big and very famous wood

25:04

I like it if I was still

25:07

producing this sort of big famous work

25:09

that and so on. I mean, that's

25:11

an interesting question. I very much enjoy

25:13

the shows that I'm doing. I very

25:15

much enjoy the show that I'm doing

25:17

now, of course. So

25:19

I very much enjoy the

25:21

fact that I continue

25:23

to generate new ideas and

25:25

arguments perspectives and approaches

25:27

even in my 43rd year

25:29

of philosophy. That's pretty

25:32

cool. But if you look at

25:34

You know, like the band Queen ended up

25:36

teaming up with a couple of different singers.

25:38

They did some stuff with George Michael. They

25:40

did stuff with, oh, gosh,

25:42

what was the guy from all

25:45

right now? And then they did Adam

25:47

Lambert and so on, but never

25:49

really produced any new songs of note.

25:51

You know, when was the last time Paul

25:53

McCartney or Sting or Eric Clapton or like,

25:55

and fine, you know, no issue. But when

25:57

was the last time they produced good creative

26:00

new work? Well, I'm still, for me, producing

26:02

good creative new work. that

26:04

I'm satisfied with and happy with

26:06

and excited about and enjoy

26:08

producing. So I think that's pretty

26:10

good. That's pretty good. But yeah,

26:12

for sure, some people will prefer what

26:14

I did years ago and some people

26:16

will prefer what I do now. So

26:18

what is the nature of consciousness? Where

26:21

do thoughts come from? Give those a shot.

26:24

So the word nature is

26:26

something that most people

26:28

haven't thought through. So what

26:30

is the nature of

26:32

consciousness? Does that mean

26:35

what is the definition of

26:37

consciousness? Well, the definition of

26:39

human consciousness is our capacity

26:41

to form abstract ideals, to

26:43

form or derive. Is it

26:45

all a question? Like, are

26:47

our numbers invented or created

26:49

or discovered? Well,

26:51

numbers are identified, right? Now,

26:54

numbers are defined, right? You've got three coconuts,

26:56

there are three disparate things that you're identifying

26:58

with the number three. And then you can

27:00

take that concept of number three and say,

27:02

oh, there are three clouds in the sky

27:04

or there are three birds in the air.

27:06

And these are all accurate things. So they

27:08

are defined, numbers are defined. So

27:10

our capacity to create abstract definitions

27:12

is the definition of our consciousness as

27:14

opposed to, you know, like they've

27:16

taught sign language to monkeys for like

27:18

50, 60 years. Monkeys have

27:21

never once asked a question

27:23

and they certainly haven't defined anything

27:25

abstract and universal. So. Our

27:27

capacity to create, to accurately create and

27:29

identify universal concepts is foundational to our consciousness.

27:32

But when you say what is the

27:34

nature of consciousness, I don't know what you

27:36

mean by nature. Is it the definition?

27:38

Is it the process? Is it the physical

27:40

substrat? Is it the subjective experience or

27:42

whatever it is, right? So

27:44

if somebody, again, and

27:46

by nature, I mean, right? So if somebody says,

27:48

what is the nature of consciousness? Again,

27:50

this is, if I answer, based upon

27:53

the subjective experience they say, but that's not what

27:55

I was referring to. I was referring to the physical

27:57

substratto, like the biology of it. And

27:59

if I answer the

28:01

biology, they'll say, well, it's

28:03

something else. So I

28:05

don't generally respond to undefined

28:07

questions, either confusing

28:10

ones like the first or undefined

28:12

questions as a whole, because

28:14

it's a trap. And if

28:16

people can't be bothered to define their

28:18

terms, why would I be bothered

28:20

to answer the question? Where do thoughts

28:22

come from? Well thoughts come from

28:24

the brain because there are no thoughts that exist outside

28:26

of the brain, so I'm not really sure what that

28:28

means. All right, let's do one

28:30

or two more. Hey staff,

28:32

I've been listening to and watching your content

28:35

for 15 years now and you've been a

28:37

great source for all things philosophical. I'm grateful

28:39

for all the work you put into educating

28:41

and informing others, in particular as it pertains

28:43

to the state. My question is do you

28:45

believe we are either in or approaching the

28:47

modern equivalent? to the Enlightenment era when

28:49

humanity, early support of humanity, will finally be getting an

28:51

upgrade regarding knowing what it means to be a

28:53

free human being. Or is it too early yet, and

28:55

we have to go through something akin to the

28:57

Dark Ages for a while first? Thanks

28:59

for all you do. I hope you get the

29:01

chance to answer my question. See,

29:03

again, an upgrade regarding knowledge,

29:06

what it means to be a free human being. I

29:08

don't know what that means. So, are

29:10

things going to get better, or are things

29:13

going to get worse? Well...

29:15

We act in optimism.

29:17

We plan in pessimism. We

29:20

act in optimism. We plan in pessimism

29:22

so We spend money that we make

29:24

because We need to it'll make us

29:26

happy. There's things that we buy there

29:28

are value So we act in optimism

29:30

this one might be happy. This is

29:32

a good choice I'm gonna ask this

29:34

girl out because I think she'll say

29:36

yes, she might say yes I'm gonna

29:38

apply for this job that I want

29:40

because I think I might get it

29:42

so we act in optimism But

29:44

in long -term planning, we have

29:46

to be pessimistic. And this is just

29:49

a culture that comes from the cold,

29:51

and it's a good rational thing, right? So

29:54

I think of life insurance. So we act as if

29:56

we're not going to die today, but we have life

29:58

insurance today and not tomorrow because we might die today,

30:01

right? So we go out and make money,

30:03

we spend some money, and then we

30:05

say, well, when it comes to

30:07

getting old, I might live a long

30:09

time and I won't have enough money, right?

30:11

So we plant in the summer, And

30:13

we harvest in the fall or whatever, right?

30:15

We do all of that. Optimism,

30:17

planting works, we're going to get crops

30:19

and plants. And we do that because we're

30:21

pessimistic about our chances of surviving the

30:23

winter without a lot of extra food. So

30:26

I act in optimism and

30:28

I plan in pessimism. I don't

30:30

know what's going to happen

30:32

because there's too many unknowns, right?

30:34

So who would have known, who

30:37

would have imagined, who would have

30:39

guessed that say Elon Musk. would

30:41

buy twitter and turn it into

30:43

a relative free speech haven and

30:45

thus there's this ripple effect where

30:48

now mark zuckerberg is saying oh

30:50

yeah no we've gone way too

30:52

sensorious the fact check is a

30:54

bad we're going to replace them

30:56

with community notes because trump got

30:58

elected and he's losing business to

31:00

twitter or x and so facebook

31:02

and instagram are going to get

31:04

the ball clamps of bluehead censorship

31:06

release to some degree and So

31:08

I guess, you know, I mean,

31:10

I don't particularly believe the guy

31:12

has any principles, but he

31:15

can wet finger the wind and see what's

31:17

coming down the pipe to mix my metaphors. So

31:19

it's too unknown. It's

31:22

just too unknown. All

31:24

the stuff that I was talking about,

31:26

you know, 10, 15 or more years ago

31:28

is finally coming to the mainstream with,

31:30

of course, very little acknowledgement that I was

31:32

talking about a long time ago. So

31:35

who would have guessed I mean you

31:37

can't guess. Oh, well, you know what's gonna

31:39

happen as a free speech absolutist or

31:41

very close to a free speech absolutist is

31:43

gonna buy and liberate Twitter and and

31:45

so on right which you know as part

31:47

of Elon's business genius right because He

31:49

spent 44 billion dollars on Twitter But how

31:51

much has he made from free speech

31:53

and how much does he expect to make

31:56

or to continue to make and I'm

31:58

not just talking financially because he's not just

32:00

about the money far from it from

32:02

the election of Trump, right? So it was

32:04

a very, very sound investment. So

32:06

yeah, act in optimism

32:09

plan in pessimism. There's really

32:11

no better, no better

32:13

way to live. All

32:15

right. I mean, you put

32:18

your seatbelt on, right? You wear a bike

32:20

helmet. You don't, you go out

32:22

and driving not with the anticipation of crashing,

32:24

but you know that you might, right? So

32:26

you go out on your bike with the

32:28

anticipation of not crashing. But you wear a

32:30

helmet, right? So you plan in optimism. I'm

32:32

going to go out and enjoy my bike

32:34

ride and go drive somewhere. You plan and

32:36

you act in optimism. You plan and pessimism,

32:38

right? All right. All right.

32:40

So Corinthians, that's a big one. I

32:43

might do that one separately. Are

32:45

human beings worth helping? So

32:48

again, this is a

32:50

undefined question and it's a

32:52

trap, right? So if

32:54

you say human beings are worth helping, then you

32:56

have to help everyone. at all times and

32:58

all circumstances, no matter what, which is impossible, so

33:00

you can't win. If you say, well, no,

33:02

human beings aren't worth helping, then you're cold -hearted

33:04

and blah, blah, blah. So this is just a,

33:07

everything that is ill -defined is a trap, right?

33:09

And just be very wary of people who, right,

33:11

if your boss doesn't give you clear markers about

33:14

how he's gonna know whether you're a good or a

33:16

bad employee, then it's a trap, right? Are

33:18

human beings worth helping? I don't know. Are

33:22

human beings worth helping by

33:24

definition? In other words, Should

33:26

all human beings be helped? Well,

33:28

that's just a logical contradiction. Because

33:31

if all human beings should be on

33:33

the receiving end of being helped, then who

33:35

on earth is providing the helping? It's

33:37

asymmetric, right? It's like

33:39

saying all human beings should

33:41

receive a bag of

33:43

gold. Okay, well, who's digging up the

33:45

gold, putting it in the bag and giving it to

33:47

them? Well, whoever's doing that is not getting, right? And

33:50

you have to have the gold in order to

33:52

give the gold. So it's, if you say, are

33:54

human beings worth helping if you're saying the definition

33:56

of the human being is to be helped well

33:58

then that's a contradictory definition because you require human

34:01

beings to help and you can't to be helped

34:03

you can't be in the state of being helped

34:05

and helping at the same time so it's just

34:07

a logical contradiction. Is it

34:09

really better to give than to receive

34:11

that's a false dichotomy when you give.

34:14

You receive when you give to people

34:16

who are virtuous and you give

34:18

to people who you love you receive

34:20

virtue mutual support and love. in

34:23

return. So in the best relationships, there's

34:25

no dichotomy between giving and receiving. When

34:27

you're back on YouTube, I've still been to my

34:29

knowledge, so it's not really up to me. Objective

34:32

morality exists. Nope. Mathematical

34:34

numbers don't exist, but that doesn't mean

34:36

they don't describe real things in reality.

34:39

The scientific method doesn't exist. That doesn't

34:41

mean that it doesn't describe real things

34:43

in reality, right? The

34:45

law of gravity doesn't exist. That doesn't mean

34:47

that you should jump off a building, right? What

34:50

are feelings exactly if you're in the

34:52

mood? Same for time. What are

34:54

feelings exactly? Right? See again,

34:56

that's a trap. That's a

34:58

trap. Feelings in general

35:00

are instinctual rapid -fire evaluations

35:02

of situations or possibilities

35:04

that through your value system

35:06

and through your instincts,

35:09

some of which is independent

35:11

of your value system, feelings

35:13

are internally generated sense responses and

35:16

evaluations of good for me or bad

35:18

for me. right, so if a

35:20

drug addict finds a bag of drugs

35:22

that he can Snort or smoke

35:24

then he's very happy because it's good

35:26

for him with regards to Satisfying

35:28

his addiction. It's bad for him of

35:30

course in terms of health and

35:32

happiness and well -being in the long

35:34

run So he feels joy somebody plays

35:37

a lottery wins a million dollars

35:39

He feels joy even though it may

35:41

end up being completely destructive for

35:43

him because his emotions evaluate that as

35:45

good for him in the moment,

35:47

right if a man is devoted to

35:49

some girl and she leaves him

35:51

then he feels sorrow because his emotions

35:53

experience that is bad for him

35:55

even though It may end up being

35:57

good for him in the long

36:00

run, right? So either they are instinctual

36:02

inner sense responses to good for

36:04

me or bad for me and These

36:06

will change based upon your values

36:08

at least to some degree. Why do

36:10

some people think that life and

36:12

creation itself could have been a random

36:14

accident? Well

36:16

again, this is ill

36:19

-defined so random is

36:22

a human concept. Accident is

36:24

a human concept. Right?

36:26

So if I slip and fall

36:28

down a mountain because I'm being

36:31

careless, or just do it whatever,

36:33

that's an accident, right? I don't want to do

36:35

it. It's not something I willed or wanted. I

36:37

may have been careless, but I didn't want that.

36:39

So that's an accident. If, you know, the Palmer

36:41

style, the side of the mountain slides

36:43

into the sea, that's called a

36:45

disaster, but only for human beings. It's

36:48

not a disaster for the mountain. The

36:50

mountain doesn't care. It doesn't know consciousness,

36:52

no preferences, no senses, no nerves, no

36:54

emotions. The sea doesn't care, the

36:56

tsunami is bad for the fishing villages

36:58

it lands on, but the water doesn't

37:00

care if it's high or low, up

37:02

or down, back or forward, right? So,

37:05

accident and random are human

37:07

concepts. I mean, there's

37:09

no such thing as random in nature. Even

37:11

if things happen, quote, randomly, without

37:13

human beings, there would be nobody to evaluate

37:15

it as random. It wouldn't

37:17

be perceived as A random,

37:19

right? I mean,

37:21

some waterfall, it may feel like the water

37:23

droplets kind of land randomly because are

37:26

too many variables to figure out what's going

37:28

on and each affects each other. If

37:30

you look at the path of a

37:32

water molecule, it's going to be impossible to

37:34

predict in any great detail, right? Evaporation

37:37

and condensation and rain of

37:39

precipitation. But it's not

37:41

random. It's just, it's impossible for humans

37:43

to predict because the variables are

37:45

too great. But it's not random. And

37:47

it's not an accident. These random

37:49

and accident are human concepts. So

37:52

creation itself cannot have been

37:54

a random accident. If I

37:56

don't, you know, I'm not sure what

37:58

the status is of the Big Bang.

38:00

I gave up on physics once I

38:02

realized that string theory was a largely

38:04

completely unproductive money -grubbing scam from white

38:07

coats pillaging taxpayers because they're too nerdy

38:09

to use force directly. So

38:11

random accident, it's meaningless. When you

38:13

talk about if the Big Bang

38:15

is a thing, right? the

38:17

universe exploded from an infinitesimally small point,

38:19

it's not random, neither is it an

38:21

accident, it's just a physical process. If

38:24

there's a mountain slide, because

38:26

it's raining too much, this,

38:30

it's not an accident, because

38:32

it's just a physical process, right? If

38:35

you have dominoes, you may not know exactly, you

38:37

won't know exactly where the dominoes are gonna fall,

38:40

but the only concept that that's somewhat

38:42

randomized, that's a human concept, the

38:44

physics don't matter, right? Thoughts

38:46

on the following. Humans aspire to

38:48

gain wealth so they can skate on the backs

38:51

of the fiscally enslaved. Humans

38:53

aspire to gain wealth so they can

38:55

skate on the backs of the fiscally enslaved. Yeah,

38:58

I mean, again, that's just a big baffle, Gabby Nantes

39:00

and stuff. Are you saying

39:02

that everyone who desires to gain

39:04

wealth does it because they're enslaving

39:06

others? So that's old school, right?

39:09

That's old school. And

39:11

understand that the zero sum game, like

39:13

if you get... I get less,

39:15

if I get more, you get less,

39:17

comes from dysfunctional sibling relationships. So

39:20

if the parents put out a

39:22

pie and there are 10 children

39:24

and there's only one pie, then

39:26

if one child gets more, the

39:28

other children have to get less.

39:31

The idea of relationships multiplying

39:34

positivities is only in

39:36

functional moral relationships. My

39:38

wife and I's lives are measured

39:40

really better by having each other in

39:42

our lives. Right? That's

39:45

just facts reality, right?

39:48

So it's not like something is

39:50

subtracted from my life by having

39:52

my child or my wife in

39:54

my life, not the case at

39:56

all. So the idea

39:58

that you have more and

40:00

therefore someone else has to

40:03

have less is a dysfunctional

40:05

family and dysfunctional sibling relationship. It

40:08

is looking at, they call

40:10

it literally a piece of the pie, right? a

40:12

piece of the pie. And

40:15

that in a family, as

40:17

a child, resources are provided

40:19

and you cannot create or make

40:21

your own. So

40:24

if you say to

40:26

a millionaire chef, right, well,

40:29

your pie is limited. You can only have a certain

40:31

amount of pie. He'd say, well, I can afford

40:34

to buy and bake more pie than I can possibly

40:36

eat. Right, I'm a

40:38

millionaire and I'm a baker. So

40:40

I can afford to create

40:43

more pies than I could

40:45

possibly eat. So there is

40:47

no practical limitation on my

40:49

pie eating. I could

40:51

make 10 pies a day and I could eat,

40:53

but I would, you know, I would die eating

40:55

whatever that many pies. So

40:57

for a millionaire chef, a millionaire

40:59

pie maker saying, well, there's

41:01

only a limited amount of pies,

41:04

it's like, there's not. So

41:06

in a situation of adulthood

41:08

choice and abundance, then

41:11

You can have as much as you want.

41:13

In a situation of childhood dysfunction and scarcity,

41:15

it's a zero -sum game. So I understand all

41:17

of that. So thank you everyone so much

41:19

for great questions. I will get to the

41:21

one about Corinthians later, but it's a bit

41:23

long. Don't want to go over an hour.

41:26

Have yourself a wonderful glorious lovely day. My

41:28

friends, lots of love from up here. I'll

41:30

talk to you soon. Freedomain.com slash donate to

41:32

help out the show. Thanks a lot. Bye.