0:04 - Welcome to the Philosophy Chat
1:01 - The Embarrassed Millionaire
1:22 - Philosophy and Your Life
2:20 - The Dollar Meme Origin
5:21 - Arguments for the Existence of God
9:25 - The Nature of Logic
13:18 - Exploring Contradictions
23:24 - The Dual Nature of Creativity
28:33 - The Limits of Logic
37:58 - The Importance of Actionable Philosophy
39:22 - Consequentialism in Ethics
43:46 - The Nature of Moral Systems
47:10 - Evaluating Actions and Consequences
56:03 - Universally Preferable Behavior Explained
57:33 - The Coma Test Explained
58:37 - Morality and Absence of Evil
1:01:35 - Positive Moral Obligations
1:04:45 - Health and Morality Analogy
1:09:00 - The Coma Test Revisited
1:17:11 - Exploring Moral Contracts
1:24:52 - The Nature of Scientific Authority
1:33:21 - The Subjectivity of Good and Evil
1:36:01 - Moral Clarity and Society
1:48:31 - Engaging Different Perspectives
In this episode, we engage deeply with philosophy through a series of vibrant discussions with listeners from various backgrounds. The format remains open-ended, allowing each caller to introduce their own topics and explore philosophical ideas, ensuring that the conversation is dynamic and reflective of diverse perspectives.
We begin by addressing the humorous meme surrounding my past statements about monetary donations, unraveling its misinterpretations. This leads to a broad exploration of how our understanding of value and wealth influences our perceptions of gratitude and generosity. We share laughs over misunderstandings, while emphasizing the importance of context in both financial matters and the appreciation we show for others' contributions.
As the conversation progresses, listeners delve into profound philosophical inquiries, such as the existence of God and the nature of truth. One caller presents an argument around the necessity of logic as a framework for establishing truth, challenging the notion of subjective vs. objective realities. Our dialogue examines the complexities of metaphysics and epistemology, and we dissect ideas about logic's independence from the physical universe, ultimately questioning the very nature of existence itself.
Listeners raise thought-provoking queries about moral philosophy, probing the boundaries between good and evil. We tackle the often-contentious subject of ethics, contrasting consequentialism with a more universal framework of universally preferable behavior. By engaging in these discussions, we explore how personal beliefs around morality can influence perceptions of right and wrong in society, offering a reflection on relativism and the implications it has on human interactions.
This episode also touches on the deep connection between individuals' beliefs and their lived experiences. We acknowledge that many philosophical stances come from personal histories and emotional struggles, prompting a discussion about the importance of empathy and moral clarity in a world filled with contrasting ideologies.
Throughout the episode, lively exchanges highlight that philosophy is not merely an academic exercise but a practical endeavor that seeks to unravel the challenges of existence. As we wrap up, I reassure listeners of the value of questioning and exploring the intricacies of their beliefs, encouraging a mindset of openness and critical thinking that is essential in navigating the complexities of modern life.
The show closes with an emphasis on community engagement, fostering continued dialogue on philosophical matters in the future. The discussions serve not only to illuminate the philosophical landscape but also to strengthen our collective commitment to understanding and empathy in an increasingly divided world.
[0:00] There's the mic we're looking for. Mike, like my age old producer.
[0:05] Hey, how's it going? How's it going? How's it going, my friends? Welcome back, my friends, to the chat that never ends. Well, I guess at some point mortality will have us go the way of the dodo, but welcome, welcome, welcome, all right. Turn that a little bit. Only vans. All right, there we go. Things to edit out later. Ha, ha, ha, ha. All right. We're here. It's Wednesday night. We are here to talk philosophy. I am here to listen. It is your show. The topics are all yours. I am thrilled to hear any and everything that you have to say, and you just have to request a chitty chat.
[1:02] And we will bring you on board. Embarrassed millionaire. Well, you know, I can help you with that embarrassment, my friend. Freedomain.com slash donate. Freedomain.com slash donate.
[1:17] And you don't have to feel embarrassed, really, about anything.
[1:23] Well, let's jump straight in, shall we? I never know which of these headsets to use. Which one? I don't know. They're both uncomfortable. But what the hell? All right. Shatton in the Mart. I am all ears, my friend. What is on your mind? How can philosophy help you today?
[1:45] Hi, could you say the $1 meme? I know you're known for that. That's all I know you for.
[1:50] You want me to do what?
[1:52] There was a video of you where it's like someone sent you a dollar because they liked your advice. and you said one dollar. I thought that was very funny. I'm not sure if you remember.
[2:02] Well, I remember.
[2:03] You really did say this.
[2:05] No, that's an urban myth. Yeah, just so you know, that's a falsehood. So your understanding is that I said one fecking dollar or something like that.
[2:19] That's not what happened.
[2:21] I mean, in case anyone's curious. It's amazing. It has this sort of lifeblood all of its own, which would be interested in the origin story behind that meme.
[2:29] Yeah, sure.
[2:32] So what happened was somebody sent me $2. And what I did was I posted a little picture of the donation. Of course, I took out the email and the name and anything like that. And what I wrote was, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but dot, dot, dot. That was it. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but. And from that, of course, so I wrote, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but, right? And And it's true. And people lost their minds about this, which I thought was very funny. Because if somebody sends me $2, one of two things is happening. Either it's their last $2 and they can't possibly afford anymore. They can't afford bus fare. They can't afford ramen noodles. They're starving to death. In which case, please, this is a general principle. If it's your last $2, don't send it to me. Please use it to buy bus fare to get a job or buy some ramen noodles or whatever it is, right? But yeah, don't send me a last $2. If somebody, and this is from when I was a waiter, when I was a waiter, if somebody left me no tip.
[3:36] I, maybe I just assumed that they, uh, they don't really know about tipping culture. They're not really down with that and all of that. But if it's a hundred dollar bill, uh, like the bill is for a hundred dollars and they said, they leave me a dollar tip or I guess, you know, whatever it is, right. Then, um, that would be annoying, right? Now, when it comes to just basic business acumen, somebody who sends me $2, well, I've got to track it. I've got to report it. I got to pay tax on it. you know it's it's a bit of a hassle right so um anyway just people lost their minds and like i was so ungrateful and i just i scorned and mocked somebody who was poor like people just lost their minds over this which i actually find is it's kind of funny yeah so so basically that's what that's what happened with that meme and uh you know it it's like the meme that there was another meme or i guess another sort of rumor that that i pretended to be a teenage girl to comment positively on my Frozen movie review. And this, of course, was not true. I've never created alt accounts and commented positively on my YouTube videos. That would be ridiculous.
[4:45] And what it really was, was there used to be an old thing, for those who don't know, there was a competitor to Facebook and Twitter called Google Plus. And what happened was, somebody had, the woman had made, the young woman had made the comment on my Frozen video. So I had reposted it to Google Plus, and then because of the way that Google Plus worked, it ended up showing up under my account as a teenage girl on YouTube. But it's just silly things that people say rather than, you know, actually engaging in the realm of ideas. People come up with all of this nonsense. All right, JK.
[5:21] I feel my base biceps getting bigger already. JK, you are on the air, my friend. What's on your mind? don't forget to unmute.
[5:30] Yeah sure you can hear yeah okay got you uh so i guess what's on my mind is i've been going over some uh i guess arguments i've been making for the existence of god and uh sort of in opposition or well in to like in uh not up
[5:48] Yeah in a.
[5:49] In opposition to subjective truth and sort of like arguing for an objective truth that is sort of necessary for uh yeah so i don't know i guess just one of those things it was and some of the uh i guess arguments that i ended up sort of like going through and thinking about are also like related to Leibniz. He argues different things about ecossism and the existence of the world. I don't know. This is just a bunch of random stuff. I'm not actually very familiar on your belief in God or in anything like that.
[6:26] I'm not really sure why you're describing the arguments that you might have rather than giving me the arguments. Sorry.
[6:31] Okay, sure. Sorry. I wasn't sure if you were.
[6:33] You don't need preamble. We can dive into the deep end.
[6:36] Got you. Alright. So here it is, effectively, is so there is a way in which i believe the world to exist which is not the copenhagen interpretation of the world which is that in quantum mechanics that you know schrodinger's cat can both be dead and not dead that it is actually just one or the other and okay i just so
[6:59] Hang on boot sorry i didn't mean start mid-argument uh what what is it that you're trying to establish and what are your basic premises.
[7:07] Sure the basic premise is that logic is necessary and the conclusion that i am trying to make is that god is the necessary logic to prove this the consistency of all other logical systems
[7:26] Okay, so logic is necessary. What do you mean by necessary? I mean, we'll accept that what you mean, logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. So fine. What do you mean by necessary?
[7:37] I mean, necessary as in exists independent of the world.
[7:44] What do you mean by the world?
[7:46] That's a great question, yeah.
[7:47] So do you mean the universe?
[7:49] Yes, yes.
[7:50] Okay, so logic exists independently of the universe.
[7:54] Yes.
[7:54] So and i don't want to get all technical but uh are you talking about a sort of new aminal realm uh as in kant or a higher realm of forms as in plato do you mean that logic exists outside of time and space no.
[8:09] I do believe that there that it is cape that humans are capable of uh interceding with logic and
[8:17] No no hang on hang on we're not we're not human beings I'm just trying to understand your, you said logic exists outside the universe. Is that right?
[8:26] Yes. Okay. Outside of time, I should say.
[8:29] Well, and space. The universe is time and space, right? Yeah. Okay. So there is a hidden realm. We'll call it dimension X. I don't mean to diminish what it is that you're saying. Sure. We need a label for it, right? Or we could say the world of forms. But let's just say there's dimension X that is beyond sense perception and cannot be interacted with from this universe in any way wherein logic exists. Is that right?
[8:51] I do think it can be interacted with
[8:54] So is it part of the universe then?
[8:58] Yeah, I suppose it's just on, this is sort of the argument that I still need to develop more, which is whether or not the world exists or not, per se.
[9:10] Sorry, hang on. Per se doesn't explain anything. Per se. Listen, I'm not hostile to your ideas. I'm not negative. I'm not trying to disprove anything. This is just exploration and understanding. I just want to understand what it is that you're arguing for.
[9:22] Yes. So can follow up. Yes. It would be a part of the universal life.
[9:25] Hang on, hang on. you just told me that you're not sure if the universe exists.
[9:31] I mean the set of all okay so if you define the universe to be the everything which is a part of the world and its connections okay
[9:43] Can you stop saying the world because i don't know if you're talking about the earth or the universe.
[9:46] Of the earth yeah so the the you know what i can't i can't really actually argue this particular point of the universe. That's not what I have finished my research on, so I guess I would say that.
[10:00] Okay, hang on, but let's do the interesting metaphysical and epistemological questions, which I have no problem exploring. That's very, very important in the realm of philosophy. So, the question is, how do we know that the universe, like what exists and what doesn't, right? That's metaphysics. And then, how do we know what is true and what isn't? That's formally called the study of epistemology. So, with regards to the question of the existence of the universe, that which exists and that which doesn't. You have a realm, and I'm not trying to speak for you, so correct me if I go astray. You have a realm which we know exists because it impacts upon our sense data. It's consistent. It's objective. It's rational. You know, I look at a tree. You look at a tree. We say, hey, that's a tree. We climb the tree. We cut it down for firewood. We, you know, make little swords out of its limbs and go play fencing games in the backyard. So that is existence in that it impacts consistently on all evidence of the senses. It exists independently of our consciousness. We can't will it to be something different. So that is existence in the material sense that it is objective, according to the evidence of the senses, is not contradictory, and is consistent, which is how we know that waking life is real and a dream is not, right? Because dreams are inconsistent and subjective. And of course, if we film ourself, you know, we have a dream that we're riding on the back of an elephant over a lava forest.
[11:28] You know, we're actually in bed asleep. We can sort of film that and view it the next day. So we know that that's a subjective experience and also it's self-contradictory and so on. It comes and goes and there's no causality. You jump from one thing to the next, from one place to the next with no transition or no movement between. So if we have something that's consistent with the evidence of the senses and is objective and we share it and so on, and it's not self-contradictory, then we can say that that exists in the material sense. Do we sort of agree on that?
[11:57] Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay.
[11:59] So when you say something exists outside the universe, that is in contradiction to that which exists within the universe. Because if existed within the universe, we would have some evidence of it, right? Yes.
[12:13] Go ahead. So the point I'm making is that what we say to exist as a contradiction in the universe, I'm trying to more fully define. Like, what does it mean to have a contradiction in the universe?
[12:28] So let's talk about a contradiction in the universe, which would be a square circle. That's a contradictory property, right? Something can't be both a square and a circle, no matter how much my daughter used to try and draw one to disprove me. So, a square circle is a contradiction in terms. We agree on that, right?
[12:46] Yes, yeah. Okay. I, I, yeah, yes, I, I guess, yeah, I don't need to argue what I'm arguing.
[12:53] Okay, so if a square circle is a contradiction in terms, then we do not need to scour the universe from top to bottom and back to end to find out if there's a square circle. We don't need to look under the couch. We don't need to look in, in the attic, right? There is no such thing as a square circle by definition because it's a self-contradictory entity. We agreed on that?
[13:13] Yes, yeah.
[13:14] Okay, so. Okay. Logic.
[13:19] No, go ahead, please. I don't want this to be a monologue. If you've got a objection, please tell me.
[13:23] Yeah, the distinction that I suppose I'm making is that in certain systems of logic, there is the concept of computability, sort of that you have to go along some procedure in order to determine the truth at the end. And I was making a comparison, I guess, at the start to the way in which people conceptualize quantum physics, which is that things can be in two states. They can either be, yeah, they can be in two states. And so that my point being that. If you agree, I don't know, sorry, I'm jumping way ahead. I'll try to get back in track to the point you were making about square circles and contradictions existing.
[14:11] But so just, just interrupt for a moment, because quantum physics is to some degree, the new mysticism wherein people think that are not empirical. That's not how quantum physics works. Quantum physics, certainly you have things that look pretty freaky down at the subatomic level, and that's partly because of measurement issues and so on. Like you can know the position but not the direction of the electron because the moment you try and measure it you change it so there's a lot of freaky stuff that's going on down there however all of that resolves to perfect consistency by the time you scale up to anything that our senses can detect right so so when logic logic comes from the consistent objective and rational behavior of matter and energy in other words if if matter did not behave in a perfectly consistent way, a perfectly consistent way. I mean, you never let go of a ball and it floats for no reason or goes up or goes up for a split second and then goes down. Like the behavior of matter is perfectly consistent and not self-contradictory. And that's where we get logic from. Or to put it another way, if matter did not behave in a perfectly consistent way, we never would have had the stability necessary to develop over 4 billion years, the human brain. The human brain is sort of the tip of the iceberg off the absolute consistency of matter. Sorry, go ahead.
[15:29] Yeah, I suppose the thing that eats away at me for a definition like that is it seems somewhat disallowing of there being a contradiction. In the first place so that i would argue like if it is sort of this practical definition of truth in which we are sort of evolved and our sense of truth arises out of what is practical and the logic we deduce sorry
[16:01] I'm not sure what you mean by practical.
[16:03] Sorry sorry practical meaning uh distinct from, so objective, subjective, I should say.
[16:11] Empirical and objective. In practical, you could say animals that don't correctly process reality don't survive. I'm not sure we want to bring evolution in at this point, so I'm just trying to understand. Yeah, you're correct. Do you just mean objective and empirical?
[16:23] Yes, I do mean objective and empirical.
[16:25] And again, none of this is an opposition. I just want to understand your thinking.
[16:28] Sure. So, that you can have an empirical definition of truth, which is distinct from the objective definition of truth, and that in a system of empirical truth, it disallows objective truth.
[16:48] Hang on, hang on. Hang on. What's the difference between empirical and objective?
[16:52] Sure, sure. So empirical is the sort of solipsistic, sorry, I shouldn't bring in random words. Empirical is the particular element. Observations that is not communicable, or that is not, you do not have evidence that it is true for everybody in every sense of the universe, just like a square circle you can say we didn't have to search the universe for.
[17:30] Can you give me an example of something that would be coming through the evidence of the senses? And of course, we know that there's some evidence of the senses that is subjective. There's no two human beings who see exactly the same shade of red, right? And I mean, 10% of the male population is colorblind. So for sure, there are some elements of our sense experience which are subjective. However, there are some which can be objective, right? So the color is to some degree subjective, although not completely subjective. I mean, I don't look, if we both have functioning eyes and can see color, I don't look at greed and say that's red, and you don't look at red and say that's green, but we'll see slightly different shades of it. However, if we bounce a spectrometer or whatever it is off the color and we record the number called the wavelength, and you and I both look at, let's say the wavelength is, I just make up a number, 100, right? So then you and I would both look at that wavelength and say that is the objective definition or the red, green, blue on.
[18:29] Exactly.
[18:30] So there's some elements that are subjective, but we can easily translate that, at least with modern science, into that, which is objective. Sorry, go ahead.
[18:36] Here's an example I would give. So, for example, the gravitational constant of the universe, okay? It is a number which we observe, and it's used in fine-tuning arguments to say if it were any different, then there could be nothing in the universe. But the arguments atheists propose against it is that there is no reason to believe it could have been any other value that you know the possible range would be from negative infinity to positive infinity and that's a uniform distribution of probability and like So they're basically saying, you know, show me some evidence that it could be something else other than what we observe it to be. And I'm saying that certain truths like that under a worldview of empiricism are impossible to falsify, that you cannot have that value be any different if you take an empiricist worldview. Whereas I think that inherently our logic would exceed that empiricist worldview by just saying, well, hey, it's a number I observed. What if it were different? Like that's something that we can pose as a question. And so I say.
[19:45] Sure, but it never will be different because the history of the universe, you know, I have mixed feelings about obviously SuperString stuff and Big Bang and all of that sort of stuff. Because SuperString's been around since I was in my teens and doesn't seem to have produced anything particularly valuable. Well, we don't have a unified field theory, and they still can't figure out the origin of the universe. But that having been said, 14 billion years, if gravity varied up and down, we wouldn't ever have evolved, right? Because we would have evolved for a particular gravity set, which then would be dialed up and down, which would give the advantage to something else. And you just couldn't get anything really probably beyond much single-celled organisms. So we have no reason to believe that the gravity constant has changed at all over the course of the universe. And so we have every reason to believe it exists across all space and throughout all time. And we can say, gee, wouldn't it be interesting if it was a different number? Sure. Yeah. I mean, you can put that in a video game, you know, with anti-gravity or, you know, whatever it is. And it's interesting, although anti-gravity would not allow for the existence of life because life requires water and an atmosphere and anti-gravity would allow that, well, would never allow that to form because it would repel H2O and, you know, nitrogen and oxygen and so on into space. So there would be no life. So yeah, it is a constant, it is universal. And we can say, hey, what if it was different? That's, I guess, a vaguely interesting thought exercise, but it doesn't change the fact that it never will be different, it never was different, and it is the same everywhere.
[21:07] I suppose my question would be, why did we evolve to be capable of questioning that?
[21:14] What do you mean, why did we evolve?
[21:16] How is, because if truth is practical and there is no practical benefit of saying that this thing can be any different, what then led us to think that it can be? Is that itself sort of a delusion?
[21:34] No, because the human consciousness is fairly unique in the universe, as far as we know, in being able to create or imagine things that are not real. I mean, the first guy to create a log cabin, you know, there was no log cabin beforehand. He was just like, hey, I wonder what would happen if I cut these logs down and put them in this particular structure or arrangement. The first person who created a boat, right? The boat did not exist before. So the fact is that we really become the apex species on the planet because we have the ability to create things which did not exist. So, for the most part, of course, animals will use objects as tools, right? I mean, they will grab a rock and use it to open a coconut, maybe some monkeys or something, but they don't generally tend to fashion, I mean, they don't fashion like bows and arrows and swords and so on. So, the fact that we can create things that do not exist, that we have that imagination to create things that do not exist gives us a great deal of strength, of course, in that we can fashion tools and we can figure out fire.
[22:38] The minus, of course, is that we can also get lost in mysticism. We can daydream and waste time and so on. So there's, you know, we can, I mean, if you look at something like pornography, that's people having the fantasy of sexual activity without the actual resulting love, pair, bonding, children, and family. So the fact that we can fantasize about things is a great strength and a great weakness. Like the same way we like for, uh, uh, we like to expend minimal effort.
[23:06] To get our resources, which is why people preferred farming to hunting and people preferred traps to farming because it's less effort. And the fact that we want to get resources with less effort is good if it helps drive our technology.
[23:20] It's bad if it means we'd rather steal than create.
[23:24] So there's a light and a dark side to our capacity to reject reality. All progress comes from the rejection of empirical reality for the sake of building something new, if that makes sense.
[23:34] Yeah, definitely. There's two things that I guess I want to bring up. One is that you said that we sort of make things that didn't exist before. And I was just wondering kind of what you meant by that. And then two is just the statement that if in the future, then it became evolutionarily beneficial for us not to imagine things, then how would we know that? Would we know that we evolved in that way?
[23:58] Well, we do know that there are ethnicities and cultures that have a greater difficulty in creating things. I mean, the European culture, for better and worse, and has had definitely both sides of the spectrum, is particularly creative, right? So Europeans from 800 BC to 1950 were responsible for like 98% of the scientific and technical advances on the planet, right? So there's a lot of creativity in that if you compare, and I talked about this in my documentary on Hong Kong, if you compare, say, the Chinese culture, which was far more advanced than European culture for a significant, for most of the last 6,000 years, but then stagnated for a variety of reasons. In fact, when the Europeans, of course, were sailing around the world, trading and conquering and so on, and in China, the guy who came up with a boat that could sail across the ocean, He was killed and all of his blueprints were destroyed. And I think his relatives were killed too. It was some crazy thing where they just wanted. So we know that when cultures that are more creative and imaginative.
[25:04] Particularly if there's a free market involved, when those cultures come up against in a conflict situation, which is most cultures throughout human history, they come up in a conflict situation. The cultures that are more creative tend to win. Again, this is the example of the Europeans versus the indigenous population and so on. And so, in general, there's a price to be paid for stagnation. That price tends to be not winning in conflict. Sorry, go ahead.
[25:29] But this is sort of, I suppose, like a cultural Hegelian evolution you're describing of, rather than like a sort of faculties of an individual observing the reality.
[25:44] I'm not sure, I don't follow. Sorry, can you break that down for me a bit?
[25:47] Yeah, exactly. So in order to... Lose some ability to uh create some or to create or not create sorry in order to lose the ability to posit uh things which cannot be true which are impossible in order so if we were to lose the ability to posit things which are impossible then i'm saying that that would be observable, well, I'm asking the question, if that is observable at the level of the individual experience.
[26:30] I'm sorry, I'm really trying to understand, because I thought you were starting with the proof of God. So, all human capacities evolve to near disaster. Right? So, our capacity, and again, I'm talking mostly about European history, though it could apply to other countries and cultures as well. So, in Europe, European history we tend to be really creative and quite fantastical to the point where mysticism and collectivism can take over. So we can envision things that don't exist, which is great when it comes to houses and science and boats, or in a darker sense, you know, gunpowder and so on. We can envision things that don't exist and work to create them.
[27:14] But we go real close to psychosis, schizophrenia, dissociative madness. So all human faculties tend to extend themselves to the point where 1% more and you go crazy, right? So I think there is a war for creativity, which is the belief in your power to create things that don't exist, which also comes with a certain amount of danger, which is it's easy to get lost in fantasy and substitute. And you can see video games for this, right? These video games are artificial rewards. They are artificial progress. They are artificial achievements, which satisfy people. So creativity and paralysis are very closely linked. So creativity, like, wow, what's the greatest way I can woo this woman? Well, I'll write her a poem. And I used to woo women in my teens by writing poems and all kinds of stuff. And so that's great. But that very same capacity that allows you to daydream and write a poem can also have you daydream about the woman being yours and sort of being lost in a fantasy that actually doesn't get you anywhere. So there's that balance. If you don't have any creativity, if you're too concrete, you get conquered by tribes that are more concrete. But if you are too abstract, and then you get paralysis, which I think is kind of what's happening in.
[28:33] The world at the moment.
[28:34] I think I was a little off base in trying to argue evolution exactly, because the point being, I suppose, that I was that I go about well that I'll just say right now is that like The logic itself, which we define things to be contradictions in, is limited in several forms by, for example, like Godel's incompleteness theorem, the halting problem.
[29:04] Okay, so, hang on. So, logic is limited.
[29:08] Yeah.
[29:09] But if logic is derived from the absolute properties and behavior of matter and energy, and that's what it's for, can you give me an example in a person's practical life, practical existence in regards to logic and contradiction and morality, where the limitations that you were talking, Godel's incompleteness theorem and so on, where those limitations would come into play?
[29:34] Sure, absolutely. So, for example, if you are describing to somebody a paradox, there must be some agreement between two people as to, let us say, rules of a contract that they will enter into. In which, let's say, in a game theory sense...
[30:11] Sorry, let's just use a typical example. I'm going to pay you $500, you're going to send me an iPad.
[30:18] Yeah, gotcha. All right. Let me give this a shot. If I were to do what is my side which is uh i send you the ipad and you uh do not send me 500 i can say that it is in contradiction to the agreement we have okay yes then i would say Yes, what I will say is that that contract, then, could be said to not be in contradiction given a different set of laws, a different judicial system.
[31:04] Such as what? So now we're talking about law, which is man-made rules to some degree.
[31:09] Man-made rules, sure, yeah.
[31:10] But we're talking logic. So logic and law are hopefully somewhat related, but not the same. Let's talk about logic.
[31:17] Logic itself, okay. the the okay this is that this is my point i suppose is that when we are talking about the world in this way in which you need to know that you did not receive the 500 when you describe it as a contradiction because if you receive it later in time it's not a contradiction so what i'm and this goes into my argument that i make about like you know logical systems and stuff like that, that there's a notion of time, which is important to, uh, you know, like calculating computability and stuff like that, which is just that where, what is the point in time we are saying that this is in contradiction? Like when does
[32:02] That would be specified in the contract? So the contract would say you have 30 days to pay. And then usually what happens is there's a penalty for not paying. Sorry. Could you just do me a favor? You keep talking in my ear when I'm talking. Yeah. And I keep thinking you want to say something. So I don't know if you're trying to encourage me or something, but it's really quite distracting. So just as a personal favor to me, if you could hold off on that, I'll try and be concise. But it's really distracting because I think you're interrupting or wanting to say something. So yeah, so that's specified in the contract. And of course, you have this in your cell phone contract, or you have this particularly with your credit card contract. and they say, well, you have to pay a certain amount, maybe a bare minimum every month. If you don't pay it, you go into arrears and then we charge you, you know, it's like crazy interest, 20, 22%, 24%. I'm seen as high as 28%. It's completely mad.
[32:54] So as time is usually taken care of in the contract, when I was a kid in Dumb Mills, Canada, Toronto, Canada, there was a sign on the superintendent's door. And the sign said, rent checks must be certified after the fifth of each month. And certified means that the bank has already earmarked your money as being taken, so it won't bounce, right? So, that was an example of time. If you drop your check off at the first of the month, fine. After the fifth of the month, it has to be certified because what people would do is they would just drop off checks that they knew were going to bounce, and that's expensive and a problem.
[33:34] So, yeah, contracts usually specify some... Payment schedule and some penalty. Sorry, go ahead.
[33:41] Yes, I'm particularly interested in the truths which cannot be subject to such qualifications of being limited by time in that way.
[33:52] Okay, so I'm trying to give you, I'm trying to, I'm asking for examples of how Godel's incompleteness theorem shows up in, because philosophy should be actionable and it should be actionable by anybody with an IQ of whatever, some minimum so that they're not completely intellectually handicapped, right? So my concern is that if you start throwing around Goethe's incompleteness theorem or other things, what you're saying to people is, well, logic's limited, therefore you don't have to be logical. And so that's what I'm asking for is an example in life where logic is incomplete and it matters in the choices you're making practically and morally in your daily life.
[34:37] Sure. So, practically, if people want to know that they have some basis backing up the choices that they make, then they may not be satisfied if people tell them that whether or not... The reason the well, people don't, sorry, people don't go about doing this. I do like your actionable philosophy that
[35:19] It has to be actionable because otherwise it is arguing about whether Klingons have kidneys on the left or the right side. It's all just made up, right?
[35:29] It is very difficult just like falsifying a claim and stuff like this. Um, so where I would like, so, so yeah, okay. If you can say that there are, well, I guess, I don't know. Does proving God fall in that category of being beneficial to your life? I suppose if it is somebody who's judging you and you're going to go to hell, it would be. But, yes, I suppose then if people do want to have some idea of meaning, I suppose, I would say that if you don't have an understanding of that there exists...
[36:25] Things outside of your own understanding you won't really be able to communicate with other people in a reasonable way if you just think that uh truth is not an objective an objective uh quantity which you can uh attain or approximate and that certain you know so i I guess it's a moral argument at that point. It's just a difficult thing to come up with a moral system if you do not have a way of telling whether or not something is a contradiction in that moral system.
[37:07] Sure, yeah. I mean, we do have to have that way. And I've got a whole book on ethics called Universally Preferable Behavior, A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. You can also find a shorter version of the thesis at essentialphilosophy.com. So I hope that people will check that out and get that. But yeah, if you can't identify universal absolute contradictions and logic, then you can't have philosophy. You can't have engineering. You can't have math. You can't have science. You can't have the modern world. Because all of that relies upon universal absolute non-contradictory properties of matter and energy. So I love the thought that you're putting into this. I think it's great. And I really appreciate it. The conversation is anything that you wanted to mention because I think we got a bunch of people.
[37:55] Sorry for not being able to articulate it.
[37:58] No, listen, brother. Great job. I love these topics. I'm thrilled. Don't ever apologize, ever, ever apologize for working in the realm of philosophy and trying to understand these very challenging and difficult issues. So I'm thrilled that you had the conversation. You're welcome back anytime. And never be embarrassed about, you know, I flailed around in philosophy. For decades. I'm sure I'll still flail around more. It is not a process or a discipline that is ever done. And everyone who's speaking with honor, which you certainly are, and curiosity and reasonable exploration, nobody has anything to apologize for. Please don't feel bad. You did a great job and I really do appreciate the conversation.
[38:43] Hope to talk to you again.
[38:44] Thank you. Thanks, man. All right. Do this to Gamer, just also a little note, freedomain.com slash donate, freedomain.com slash donate, if you would like to help out the show. And again, I really do appreciate JK's, you know, working with these issues is very tough and they're slippery. The definitions are challenging and consistency is a real bear. And so I really do appreciate these conversations. Never feel, you know, if you're coming in honestly and you're coming in with curiosity and we're all willing to have a reasonable discussion, Never feel embarrassed about anything. There are no dumb questions. There are only malicious trolls. All right.
[39:22] Sorry, Dudist, if you want to unmute, I'm all ears. Well, I'm one ear and a half.
[39:28] Fair enough. So I'm glad to talk to you about this because, so I have most of a university level education in philosophy, which is to say I do not have a degree in philosophy, if you understand what I mean, but I know just enough to be a danger to myself and others. Um so my specialty uh when i was going to school was ethics and uh i have a point of view that had at least two professors clutching their pearls and i'd like to throw them i'd like to throw this at you and see what you think so my client is that there is only consequentialism so you can come at it from a deontological or virtue-based or that like weird spinozian geometry model okay so So,
[40:12] Bro, it's a crowd of non-experts.
[40:15] Okay.
[40:17] So, it's a little, I don't mean to be a nag, right? It's a little rude. So, when I say epistemology, I say that's a study of knowledge, right?
[40:25] Okay.
[40:25] So, have some sympathy for the syllable challenged who don't necessarily follow all these terms. And, of course, you also may be using these terms in a way that I would not be using. so don't fire off a cannon smoke of syllables and then keep going like everybody knows what you're talking about. It's a favor to me. I'd appreciate it.
[40:48] Okay, fair enough. I wasn't aware that that was the room, and I'll adjust my...
[40:53] Well, it takes.
[40:57] So I came to this conclusion, so there is only consequentialism, which is the idea that actions are good or bad based on the consequences of, right? So my thought about this was that even if you read Kant, who is a deontologist, which is the idea that actions are good or bad based on the actions themselves, even when he describes, and he goes through the universal maxim, which is the, the idea that you would never want to commit an act that would be acceptable or normal in an imagined world,
[41:43] Essentially.
[41:44] Well, I mean, sorry, just to be slightly more technical and correct me if your understanding is different, Kant, of course, posits the categorical imperative, and he says, act as if the principle of your action becomes universal to everyone. In other words, if you're going to go and steal, then would you be comfortable with everyone having the right to steal? Well, of course, you wouldn't want that because then whatever you stole would be stolen, from, and nobody would produce anything if everybody was a thief, right? So act as if the principle of your action becomes a general moral rule, and if you can't do that or you don't want that world, it's wrong.
[42:16] Yes, and you said it much better than I was trying. But I would argue that that is a consequentialist argument, because he's saying that the actions are wrong, and then And in order to justify why they're wrong, he says, because, and then goes on to list the consequences. So from the, and this is the idea that, that so many professors, well, two, two professors had issue with, because I was coming, they were trying to teach me all of the various little ethical models. And I was saying, yeah, but they're all the same. They all come back to consequences. And I was just wondering what you would do with that. if you think I'm onto something here or
[43:00] Well, that's a great question. And I know that for some people, this may seem abstract and esoteric. I promise you it's not. This is the nest of vipers that surrounds us all with moral rules. Everybody who talks about a moral rule is pulling a weapon on you. And I'm not kidding about that. This is life and death. This is war and peace. This is enslavement and freedom. All of these foundational questions about what is right. What is right is enforceable at the point of a gun. So, we are talking about the legitimate or illegitimate use of violence in this world.
[43:38] So, this is all very, very essential and important stuff, and not just in an
[43:42] abstract political sense or in a civilizational sense or a legal or state sense.
[43:47] It is what you justify in your own life. You know, there's a lot of people who fall prey to violence, abuse in relationships, children who are hit by their parents, spouses who are hit by each other, people who prey on each other all the time in personal relationships, all of these things are justified, right? So if a man hits his wife and he says, well, you brought it on yourself and she believes that, then she's received a moral argument, which means she's going to receive a whole lot more black eyes. So these are very, very important issues. And although it sounds abstract and esoteric, it comes down as to whether we survive or don't survive as a species. So if you agree with that general thing, I just really want to, people, I know that people's eyes can glaze over a little bit when it comes to abstract ethics, but it is absolutely essential in both our lives and in our civilization as a whole to have a clear-eyed view of these things. So that little speech having been said, let's talk about consequentialism. So, of course, I can come up with some examples, but this is your side of the conversation. So give me an example of a consequentialist moral rule. I mean, I know the moral rule is judge an act as good and bad by its effects, but that actually just pushes the evaluation.
[45:01] One step down the road, right? So, if someone rushes, like Bob rushes at Sally with a chainsaw and Sally shoots him, well, that's bad for Bob, but good for Sally, I suppose, right? So, how do we evaluate? Because if you say, well, we can't evaluate an action itself, but only its consequences, well, the consequences is an action or a state, which we then evaluate. So, I'm not sure that we've really solved the problem because we still have to evaluate something as being good or bad. So, how does consequentialism work in that sense?
[45:29] So bob runs a sally with a chainsaw sally shoots right okay so is the question from a consequentialist point of view is is is sally's actions uh moral are they moral so well
[45:44] Let's say good.
[45:45] Okay sure uh are they good well um a consequentialist i think would argue well if If Bob is the kind of person that would rush somebody else with a chainsaw and Sally only shot Bob because she was defending herself, then the overall consequences of that is that there is one less person in the world who is willing to rush at people with a chainsaw. And there's, while the person who's willing to defend themselves and stand their ground, and I would argue, quite possibly defend, do the same for others, is still in the world, therefore the world is that much marginally better.
[46:25] Okay, so the argument would be, Bob's behavior is negative. By shooting him, Sally has eliminated a negative, which is a good thing in the world.
[46:39] Yeah. I mean, more or less. Yeah.
[46:41] I would, I would. No, no, I, I, more or less is, is gives me a facial tick.
[46:45] Okay.
[46:46] Right. So I'm trying to understand the principle and I'm not saying this is your position. I know we're basically trying to steel man, the consequentialist position. So Bob is doing something negative, rushing at Sally with a chainsaw. Sally shoots him, Bob dies. And that's a good thing because Bob was doing something negative and Sally has eliminated that negative, not just for herself, but for everyone in the future. Is that right?
[47:10] Yes.
[47:11] Okay. So that's an extreme example. How about if he's just stealing? He's stealing her picnic basket. She's come out for a nice picnic. He's stealing her picnic basket. Stealing is wrong. Can she shoot him because she eliminates both his current theft and all future thefts?
[47:31] That's a good one. I like that, Stephen. How about if we introduce the judicious application of force into the equation? And we say, okay, so in a world, say, where we don't have police, I guess. And this is how people regulate each other, by rushing it.
[47:52] No, no, forget it. We're looking at the actions, not the police. Right? Let's say the police aren't around, or like, we're just looking at the individual actions. I don't want to bring cops into it, because that's a whole other conversation.
[48:02] Okay, so I would argue that Sally's shooting of Bob the Thief is not a judicious application force, and that ending Bob's life over a step is not appropriate.
[48:24] Okay, can she tackle him, beat him up, and get her picnic basket back? Yes Okay, why?
[48:35] Because now we have a situation where Bob might learn that stealing picnic baskets is wrong, and he might not do it again. So he's faced a consequence for his negative action that does not eliminate his ability to learn to be better in the future.
[48:51] But that could also happen if Sally only shot Bob in the leg when he comes at home with a chainsaw, right? So there's lots of complications here, of course. And these are moral questions that are interesting and, of course, very relevant. to the world as a whole. So a negative action in consequentialism is defined as what? What is a negative action?
[49:16] A negative action is an action that produces a negative outcome.
[49:20] No, no, you can't use the word in the definition.
[49:23] I'm sorry?
[49:24] You can't use the word in the definition. Okay. You can't say a negative action is something that produces a negative outcome, because that's just negative, negative. What's a negative outcome? What is negative?
[49:34] Fair point. A negative action and consequentialism is any action. That's rough, man. Can you help me out?
[49:49] So in general, the argument goes something like this. A negative action is something that reduces the amount of well-being, wealth, or happiness in society.
[50:02] Yes, that's right. That sounds very John Stuart Mill. Yeah. Which is, yeah, okay. So, all right, I would agree with that.
[50:14] Okay, so, go ahead.
[50:16] But how does that, and this has all been very interesting, and I've enjoyed it very much, but I would still argue that any of the other sort of moral systems outside of consequentialism still all funnel back down into consequentialism Because the actions themselves, be they good or bad, are argued from position of the consequences of the actions themselves.
[50:42] No, not you, PB.
[50:44] I'm sorry?
[50:46] No, not. So I don't know if you've heard of this, and it doesn't matter if you have or haven't. I can explain it in a minute or two. So I have a theory of ethics called universally preferable behavior. And universally preferable behavior is not consequentialist, neither is it utilitarian. Okay.
[51:03] Is that the book you mentioned earlier?
[51:06] Mm-hmm.
[51:08] And so I'll give you an example of how UPB handles the issue of theft. Okay. So... We've got Bob and Doug in a room, right? Now, if you say theft is universally preferable behavior, right? Because ethics has to do with universally preferable behavior. They don't, it doesn't matter what time of day it is. It doesn't matter where you are in the world or the universe. Morals are morals. It's like physics, right? So if you were to put a moral theory forward, which says theft is universally preferable behavior, then everyone must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time. Theft is universally preferable behavior, which means everybody must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time. Does that make sense?
[51:57] Yeah.
[51:58] Okay. Is that, hang on, is that possible?
[52:03] That a world could exist where everybody both...
[52:05] No, no, not a world, no. Is it logically possible for everyone to want to steal and be stolen from at the same time?
[52:13] No, of course not.
[52:14] Why not?
[52:17] Well, because if you are stolen from, then you are now short the things that you already stole. How do you handle property?
[52:27] No, that's not an answer. Try again. I know it's an annoying and difficult question, but the answer isn't you're down, right? Is it logically possible for all people in the world at all times to want to steal and be stolen from?
[52:44] I don't think so. I don't see how that would be. I mean, yes.
[52:48] Ah, jeez.
[52:49] Sorry.
[52:50] That's fine.
[52:52] I guess it's possible, but unlikely.
[52:57] It's not possible.
[52:59] Okay.
[53:00] And I'm sorry to be the annoying guy, but it's not possible. And I won't say for the simple reason because you're a very smart fellow and this is it took me 20 years to figure this crap out so unless you're way smarter than me which is always a possibility you wouldn't get it in a minute or two so the reason why it's impossible for stealing to be universally preferable behavior is that okay let me ask you this have you ever put something out by the curb wanting someone to take it away oh.
[53:27] For sure yeah
[53:27] What was it like a couch a couch Some old, dusty, Billy Idol futon stained couch, right? Okay. So you put the couch out on the road and you say, take me or something like that, right?
[53:43] Right.
[53:44] Now, you want someone to take your property. If they take your couch that you've put out on the road saying, take me, have they stolen from you?
[53:56] Um, but you cut out at the end there.
[53:58] Sorry. If someone takes the couch you put out on the curb with a sign saying, take me, have they stolen from you if they take that couch?
[54:05] Well, no. Well, I would, I would argue that you are offering it to anybody who wants it.
[54:11] Right. So stealing can never be universally preferable behavior because it means everybody must want to steal and to be stolen from. But if you want your property to be taken from you, it is no longer stealing. So, the definition self-detonates in a massive logical contradiction. So, you cannot, well, first of all, you just have people, Bob and Doug, in a room, stealing from each other all the time, which would be kind of odd, right? And at some point, they've gone to sleep, right? So, they can't be doing it, right? So, stealing can never be universally preferable behavior because it means everybody must want to steal and be stolen from. But if you want to be stolen from, the concept of stealing vanishes, and it's a self-contradiction. It's the same thing with rape. Rape is forced and unwanted sexual activity. So if you had a definition called rape is universally preferable behavior, then it would be to say everybody would want to rape and be raped at the same time. But if you want to be raped, it's no longer rape. It's just lovemaking or some weird kinky thing with, I don't know, a beat me, eat me licorice whip and some candles. So it's the same thing with assault. There are people who are happy to be assaulted. They are called boxers, right? Or hockey players or me giving a public speech in any place, right?
[55:39] So rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior because the categories are asymmetrical. In other words, one person, for a theft to the other person's property, the other person doesn't want that person to take their property. So it's asymmetrical. You have opposing viewpoints. If everyone has the same moral rule called steal,
[56:00] rape, assault, and murder, the categories all vanish.
[56:04] Because in order for these things to occur, one person has to want something which is the exact opposite of what the other person wants. Therefore, it can't be universalized. Does that make sense?
[56:15] I hadn't thought about it that way.
[56:16] Now, is it possible, if we say it is universally preferable behavior, to not steal? Now, universally preferable doesn't mean that everybody steals or doesn't steal, right? But it's just looking at it from an analytical theoretical standpoint. Is it possible, logically, for everyone in the world to not steal?
[56:43] Cut that again. Is it possible for everyone in the world to want to steal?
[56:47] No, to not steal.
[56:49] To not steal. It is possible for everyone in the world to not steal.
[56:55] Right. So having a universally preferable behavior called don't steal is logically possible. Having a universally preferable behavior called steal is logically impossible.
[57:09] Yes, I would agree with that. Because as you've mentioned, the desire to be stolen from negates the idea that it's theft in the first one.
[57:22] Yeah, it is impossible to achieve universally preferable behavior called stealing. It is logically impossible to achieve. It self-contradicts itself and therefore is invalid as a proposal.
[57:33] So the other thing which I talk about in my book is called the coma test. So if something is the good, then the opposite of that something must be the evil, right?
[57:45] So
[57:45] If not raping is good then raping must be evil right.
[57:52] Well hang on a minute um uh isn't oh geez this is so if is not raping good like in the affirmative or is just not raping just like the kind of thing that you should just not do and you don't get a cookie for not raping.
[58:13] Well, what do we do to rapists in a just society?
[58:18] We jail them, which is, as far as I'm concerned, not enough, but that's a personal thing.
[58:23] I mean, we used to hang them, which certainly prevented recurrence, which is actually a plus. But again, we have the issue of false allegations and so on. So I get that there's complications in that. So if we...
[58:38] Violently punish or kill rapists because what they do is evil, then to not rape, to not steal, to not assault, to not murder is good. Now, is it a massive positive goodness like being morally courageous and inspiring and healing the sick or whatever? But if we lived in a world where people did not steal, did not rape, did not assault, and did not murder, we would live in paradise compared to where we are now.
[59:08] I would generally agree with that. I think where I differ with you on this particular angle is on the notion that, and correct me if I'm wrong here, on the notion that not doing a bad thing is a good in the affirmative. Am I misunderstanding you on that?
[59:26] Well, it's sort of like saying, if you don't have any bad, healthy habits, you don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't just lie around and so on, and you eat in a healthy and appropriate manner and you're not fat or whatever it is, right? So if you have no unhealthy habits, then it means that you are exercising, maintaining your weight in a healthy way, eating in a healthy manner, not smoking, not drinking, whatever, right? So if you say, I don't have any bad healthy habits, am I healthy?
[1:00:06] I would argue Yeah, prima facie, sure Okay,
[1:00:10] So if I Don't do any evil, am I good? Uh, no Okay, so if I don't have any bad health habits, I'm healthy But if I don't have any bad moral habits, I'm not moral.
[1:00:25] You're not immoral
[1:00:27] No, no, but you said I'm not trying to be Socrates' annoying guy here, right? But if you say an absence of bad health habits results in health, which is a value and a positive, and then you say, but an absence of bad moral habits doesn't make you good, then you're saying that good is a positive moral obligation, right? So give me a positive moral obligation. And listen, you could be right. I'm not, you know, I'm not obviously far from omniscient, so you could be right. So give me a positive moral obligation that you would say makes someone good.
[1:01:04] I work for the fire department. Now, I'm well paid. I'm well compensated. But I take that job, I have devoted my life to that with the interest of being out in the world doing good things in the affirmative, helping people in the affirmative. And yes, would I do it if it was free? Probably not because I still have to pay it rent.
[1:01:33] You could be a volunteer, right? Lots of people aren't.
[1:01:36] Yeah, that's true too. So now, I think you have a moral responsibility to be healthy and to eat well and to exercise and do all of those things. That is a moral obligation as opposed to what I'm talking about, which is going out in the world and in the affirmative, choosing to act in the world such that it benefits other people in the best way possible. And you're not always perfect on that. Sometimes you help a person and that's the last thing they need. But I would argue that when it comes to morality, as opposed to something like physical health, that if we're going to be considered to be good people, we need to be acting in the affirmative, in the good affirmative, as opposed to just not doing that.
[1:02:22] Okay, that's a great analogy, and I appreciate that. So let me try and revisit the health analogy and see if we can work in what you're saying, which I think is great. So if I don't have any bad health habits, I'm healthy, but that doesn't mean I'm, I'm as healthy as I could be, right? So let's say that I don't have any bad health habits. You know, I move reasonably well. Um, I eat well, uh, I don't drink, I don't smoke. Now I'm still not going to be as healthy as if I run marathons and lift weights. Okay. Is that, is that fair to say?
[1:03:02] I mean, I, like, I, I suppose I could get all stupid about it and be like, well, It depends on the individual or whatever, but I understand.
[1:03:09] Of course. I mean, some people have bad knees, and I get all of that, right? Some people, oh, I lift weights, I hurt my back. I mean, everyone's gone through that one time or another, right? But in general, if you don't have any bad health habits, you're healthy, but that doesn't mean that you're as healthy as you could be.
[1:03:24] Does it, though?
[1:03:26] I mean, yeah. If you don't have any bad health habits, then you are not going to be as healthy as somebody who has significant positive health habits.
[1:03:38] Okay, but there's an objective standard for health.
[1:03:40] I'm trying to argue your point, by the way. Just so you know, I'm not saying that means you should agree or not, but I am trying to argue your point.
[1:03:49] I'm not, I don't know if the analogy with health is...
[1:03:53] No, let's just hang on, just stick with the analogy for health and we'll see if it translates to the moral. Okay. So somebody who has no bad health habits is not as healthy as somebody who has significantly positive health habits. I mean, they're healthier than somebody with bad health habits, but they're not as healthy as somebody with positive health habits, but they're still healthy.
[1:04:14] Yes, I would agree. They're not unhealthy.
[1:04:18] No, if you don't have any bad health habits... You are healthy, but you're not as healthy as you could be if you had really good health habits.
[1:04:27] Okay, so here's, okay, I get where you're going with this now. All right, so there are bad health habits that make you unhealthy. Yes. There are good health habits that make you healthy. And then there is just existing kind of in the middle where you have neither
[1:04:44] good nor bad health habits.
[1:04:46] No, no, no. An absence, hang on. and I was annoyingly precise about this, so forgive me. So I said, look, if you don't have any negative health habits, I included just lying around on the couch. Sure. Right, so sloth is a negative health habit. So it means that you do some movement and some exercise. It means that you stay at a reasonably healthy weight, but you're not optimizing your visceral fat at 2% or whatever it might be super healthy, I don't know, right? So you're healthy, because you don't have any bad health habits. You exercise, you eat reasonably well, you maintain a healthy weight, but you're not a, quote, fanatic about it or you don't spend a lot of time on it. So you're healthy. So the people with bad health habits, they smoke the drink, they lie around, they're obese and so on. They're unhealthy. People who don't have any negative health habits are moving, eating well, maintaining a relatively healthy weight. And then people who have fantastic health habits are lean and rip and cut and whatever it is that they're doing. I'm not an expert on this, but they're doing something that is really, really positive. Does that make sense?
[1:05:55] Yeah, I can agree with that.
[1:05:56] So somebody with bad health habits, you know, plus 10, super healthy, minus 10, death's door. Somebody with bad health habits is like minus five. Somebody with no bad health habits is like plus three. Somebody with great health habits is plus 10. Sure. We can go along like that, right? Right. So, somebody who's evil is minus five, somebody who refrains from, who has no evil habits.
[1:06:24] Which means they resist the temptation to steal. They resist the temptation to beat people up. They resist the temptation to rape because, I mean, I don't think rape, but I think everyone's had the urge to grab something and run, at least when you're young and everyone gets angry enough that they could, you know, thump the living crap out of someone. Like if you found an arsonist or something, right? So somebody has, somebody with no bad health habits has resisted those bad health habits, right? They've resisted the cookies and the drinks and the smoking and the drugs or whatever it is, right? The sloth. So they have exercised some willpower to avoid bad health habits. Somebody who has refrained from stealing, raping, murdering, assaulting, and so on. And we can throw property rights and keeping your contracts in there as a whole, because that's part of property rights, part of not stealing is you keep your contracts or you honor your contracts. So they have resisted negatives and they have achieved a positive, but not as much as if they were massively morally virtuous and an inspiration to all of humanity and walked on water or something like that, right? So, somebody with no negative health habits is healthy. They've resisted the negative health habits, but they haven't fully committed themselves to maximum health, if that makes sense. So, they're still plus three, but they're just not plus 10. So are we okay with that? So to not do evil is to be good, but it doesn't mean to be maximum good.
[1:07:48] That's right. I think it is insufficient to not be evil. I think that that is... And I guess you could...
[1:07:59] Wait, we just had this whole debate. I thought we... Didn't we just... You're still plus three, you're just not plus ten?
[1:08:05] Yeah, yeah, I guess.
[1:08:07] So you're good, you're just not great.
[1:08:08] Yeah, you're good, you're just not great. And I take your point that you could be better.
[1:08:14] And we are a zillion miles away from all of this, by the way. Like there's so much that humanity needs to do to just stop stealing. Like for instance, national debts are all stealing. Unfunded liabilities are stealing. Forcible transfer of wealth at the point of gun from the government is stealing. Like there's a whole bunch of stuff that we have to work on to even begin to draft a stealing. Uh, uh, you know, uh, it's just a whole bunch of stuff. I mean, thou shall not bear false witness. We lie to children all the time about all kinds of terrible stuff in schools and other places. So we are a zillion miles away from people just being basically moral. So if you're saying, well, that's not good enough, people got to be maximum moral. And I'm like, can we just get people out of the minus eight? That's all I'm looking for, to get them out of the minus eight, right? You know what, man?
[1:08:58] That's totally fair. You're right about that.
[1:09:00] Okay. So what I'm saying is that, and I have this thing in the book called the coma test. And the coma test is, if you say theft or stealing is universally preferable behavior, then someone who is stealing is good and somebody who is not stealing is bad.
[1:09:23] Yeah, I guess in that formulation that would work.
[1:09:25] Okay, so then you have the challenge. It's just kind of a gut sense challenge, which is, can a guy in a coma be evil?
[1:09:33] Can a guy what? You broke up again?
[1:09:34] Sorry, can a guy in a coma be evil?
[1:09:38] No, but he can't be good either.
[1:09:40] I agree, but he can't be evil, right? Okay, so if you have a positive moral obligation, then a guy in a coma is not doing that, right? So if I have a positive obligation, you lend me 500 bucks, we sign a contract, I'm supposed to pay it back to you today, and I just dodge you, and I don't pay it back, and I never pay it back, I've stolen 500 bucks from you, right? I have a positive obligation to pay you the money back that I said I'm going to pay back. Is that fair?
[1:10:07] I would agree with that, but I would also point out that the guy in the a coma doesn't have agency.
[1:10:11] No, no, no, I understand that. But what I'm saying is that if I have a positive moral obligation, then if I am not fulfilling that positive moral obligation, I must be a bad guy. Now, as far as agency goes, I'm just talking about the logic of it, right? So if you have a positive moral obligation, a guy can't achieve that while he's sleeping. A guy can't achieve that when he's in a coma or whatever it is, right? So this is one of the challenges of positive moral obligations. I think they're nice. I think it's good. I think people should talk about virtue. I think they should try and inspire others. I think that they should spread virtue and thwart evildoers and all that kind of stuff. But again, we're a zillion miles away, even from people not giving up their fantasies about the virtues of rape, theft, assault, and murder. So I'm happy to have that in 500 years. Right now, we've got to deal with the rape, theft, have to solve the murder thing. So my argument is that the coma test is important in that if you have, like, let's say giving to the poor is a moral obligation. Well, first of all, that's asymmetrical because you're giving to the poor, which means they're receiving. And there's always someone poorer than you. So you're just constantly passing money down the chain and all of humanity cannot be moral at the same time because somebody's giving and somebody has to be receiving. The comma test is important because...
[1:11:33] Half the world is asleep, which means half the world, if you have a positive moral obligation, half the world cannot achieve that positive moral obligation. However, when somebody is asleep or in a coma, they are not stealing, they are not raping, they are not assaulting, and they're not murdering. So they can achieve, they can achieve, or at least they can achieve that which is morally good, again, without agency, but logically they can achieve that which is the good, which is respect persons and property. At least don't violate persons and property, they can achieve that positive, right? And so these are just sort of gut level checks, which is that if you have positive moral obligations, then people in coma, it'd be better like getting mad at someone in a coma for not exercising. It's like, bro, you're in a coma. I'll give him a break, right?
[1:12:24] And so UPB is not consequentialist. It doesn't say, well, the effects of stealing are bad. What it says is, if you have a moral system that says stealing is good, it is invalid. It logically self-detonates. It cannot be achieved. It violates the coma test, and it's just wrong. Now, if you have a moral system which says respect property rights, that can be logically and consistently achieved by all human beings at all times. Everyone can not steal at the same time, and it passes the coma test in that the guy in the coma is not stealing, right? So that's sort of my argument for ethics. Of course, you know, there's other categories, right? But that's the general gist of it. And it's not consequentialist. It doesn't require a government. It doesn't require a God to punish or reward you. And it doesn't require an evaluation of the positive or negative effects of actions. It simply looks at the logical consistency and see if it's achievable.
[1:13:22] Yeah, I think I could see that from that point of view. I'd be interested to explore that idea further. Listen, man, thank you so much for this space. It was a lot of fun.
[1:13:31] Thank you. My pleasure, man. Great job, and I appreciate that. And yeah, please do poke at it and see what flaws you can find in it. And I appreciate all feedback on that. All right. Thank you, man. Go put out a fire. All right. Health Uncensored, you are on the air, my friend. What is on your mind?
[1:13:55] Hi, I couldn't hear you. Did you call me up?
[1:13:57] Health Uncensored, yes. Yeah.
[1:14:00] Okay, my question is on the debate of good and evil. As I've gotten older and I've researched things and I've kind of inquired into a lot of topics, I question whether the concept of good and evil is actually real. And my question for you would be...
[1:14:16] Hang on, hang on, hang on. Sorry to interrupt. I hate to be a Jordan Peterson guy. What do you mean by real? Do you mean valid? Do you mean exists in the universe? Satan? Valid. What do you mean? Valid.
[1:14:27] I question the validity.
[1:14:29] Validity. Okay, got it. Thank you.
[1:14:31] Okay, so my question, really, to get to the point, is that I enjoy watching nature shows on TV, like on Netflix, about different species around the world. And my question is, do you believe that other species can commit acts of evil or acts of good? No. Or is, when we look at other species, is it just instinct and survival?
[1:14:59] Yeah, no. So in order to be subject to morality, you have to have the ability of concept formation and universalization. In other words, you have to have an abstract theory. You have to have language. Which you have to have the capacity to abstract in a way that is language-based, because morality does not exist in the universe in the way that a tree or a rock does. Animals cannot form contracts, they cannot understand the consequences of their actions, and they cannot process morality, and you can't reason with them. And so it's like babies and toddlers can be kind of the same way, which is why we don't let them sign contracts. And children can't consent to, obviously, sexual activity and a whole bunch of other things because they don't process consequences in the way that adults did. So no, animals are not, I mean, it doesn't mean we should be wantonly cruel to animals, but it does mean that animals are not part of the social contract and are not subject to moral, I mean, condemnation. So if there's a dog that keeps biting people, we may put the dog down, but we don't put it on trial and put it in jail and say, I can't believe you bit people, You know how wrong that is. Violation of persons and property. So, no, animals are not part of the social contract because they don't process and understand the ideas of contract or abstract morality.
[1:16:15] I would implore you to, as I mentioned, I enjoy watching nature documentaries. I would implore you to watch a few yourself.
[1:16:22] Oh, I do. I've watched a whole bunch of them. My daughter, when she was younger, absolutely loved them. And we used to, of course, we would have a countdown. We would say, a countdown to David Attenborough or some other intergalactic a-hole saying, oh, do you like these animals? These animals are really cute. I look at these penguins. They're so cuddly, so wobbly. Aren't they so cute? Well, you're killing them with global warming. and always like that, but human beings are slaughtering the planet. And so it was all a bait and switch. It was all like, oh, do you like this little toy? It was always the countdown to apocalypse. So yeah, I might have watched a whole bunch of nature documentaries and I think nature is completely fascinating and absolutely beautiful.
[1:17:00] A bit further into this though, kind of just, I'd like to hear you clarify your position.
[1:17:06] So we're talking about moral contracts And that really is where we get into good and evil.
[1:17:12] But my question is, is that are these moral contracts valid? Meaning who's establishing the moral contracts? What gives them the authority? Is it more or less cultural norms? Is it a group decision? Where do these moral contracts come from?
[1:17:28] I mean, did you listen to the last debate?
[1:17:31] I didn't. No, I didn't get a chance to. I briefly heard the last what you were saying.
[1:17:37] But.
[1:17:37] Kind of what I'm getting at more or less is that I like science I'm of the philosophy that everything is cause and effect and
[1:17:48] That's not a philosophy I mean that's science right.
[1:17:52] Okay right but it plays into philosophy as well
[1:17:56] Okay so let me ask you this I appreciate your love of science I love science too I mean I could not love science because of what allows us to talk so So, When you say who enforces moral contracts, who enforces moral rules, who has the authority, okay, so who can tell you whether a scientific hypothesis is valid or not? Who has the authority?
[1:18:20] I would say that's a great question. I would say in science, there are no absolutes, but I would— No,
[1:18:26] There are absolutes in science. Come on. Come on. Of course there are. No, it's not debatable. It's not debatable. Science is not subjective. There are absolutes in science. Science couldn't exist if there were no absolutes in science. If there weren't fixed properties and reproducible and absolute properties of the behavior of matter and energy, we wouldn't have even evolved. Like if gravity dialed up and down, we would never would have evolved to have science. There are absolutely constants in science that are never overturned and never will be because we know that because science occurs across all the universe and through all time. And therefore, across the universe and through all time is as absolute as you're ever going to get, brother. And if you can't accept that as an absolute, then you can't even pick what words to use next in a sentence.
[1:19:14] I understand what you're saying. I understand what you're saying. More or less, what I was saying, though, is that as far as moral contracts go, you know.
[1:19:20] No, no, hang on, hang on. We didn't get an answer to the question. Who is it who enforces or is the authority on whether a scientific hypothesis is valid or not, is correct or incorrect?
[1:19:35] Well, if data can be replicated, science to me is searching for truth in the world around us. And if we start talking about gravity, that's not necessarily science. Science would be the explanation in saying, why is this happening?
[1:19:49] No, science first is the description of gravity, right? In other words, Galileo is not a scientist, right?
[1:19:54] Sure, sure. So more or less, though, what I was saying, and I try to be concise here and brief, but I don't mean as far as the authority on moral contracts, I mean where they come from. Like, let's say if we talk about… No,
[1:20:07] No, answer me, science. Okay. And listen, I appreciate your questions. I love the conversation that there's nothing negative or hostile at anything that I'm saying here. We're just, you know, two brains trying to spark a fire. But I would like an answer to the question, since you love science and all of that, which I do too, how do you know or who gets to be the authority on whether a scientific hypothesis or conjecture is valid or true?
[1:20:36] I think if experiments are conducted and the data is able to be replicated, it becomes an agreed-upon truth.
[1:20:43] Right. So the first thing that you would need in science as a whole is?
[1:20:48] Observation.
[1:20:49] No. The first thing you, well, okay, but that's everybody observes, right? What's particular to science? Well, particular to science is you have to have a hypothesis that has some predictability, some measurability, some falsifiability, right? If I say Klingons have kidneys on the left or the right side of their body, you can't falsify that because there's no such thing as Klingons, right? So the authority is, first of all, the theory has to be consistent. I can't have a theory that says gases both expand and contract when heated because it can't be both. So there has to be something like I can't say gravity is going to both repel and attract at the same time under the same circumstances. That's like saying my thesis is that two and two make both four and five and a unicorn at the same time. That would be lofty. We wouldn't get anywhere with that. Can we agree on that? It has to be logically consistent because it's describing the behavior of consistent matter.
[1:21:48] I follow. I agree.
[1:21:50] Okay. So the first thing it has to be is logically consistent. Now, who gets to determine? Is there a central authority that determines whether a conjecture or hypothesis is logically consistent? Do you have to apply? Do you have to have a government stamp of approval? Or who gets to determine whether a hypothesis is logically consistent?
[1:22:09] That's a complex question.
[1:22:11] No, it's not. Everyone. Everyone can look at that and say that makes sense or that doesn't make sense or you made an error here or this contradicts this, right?
[1:22:19] Okay, sure, yeah.
[1:22:20] Make sense?
[1:22:21] Yes.
[1:22:22] Right, so if I'm an engineer and I'm designing a bridge and I say, steel has the same strength as balsa wood, do we need to build each bridge and find out? No, don't complicate things, man. There's enough complications in the world. Come on. Think of being, no, no, no, this hesitation drives me nuts. And again, I could be wrong, but let's see. So you're an investor and you've got $5 million to build a bridge. One engineer comes and says, I'm using steel. another one comes with exactly the same design and says i'm using balsa wood which is like really light flaky wood who are you going to give the contract to if you have to choose one the.
[1:23:07] Uh the person with the steel contract
[1:23:08] Right so if the person says steel has the same tensile strength as balsa wood that person would be wrong.
[1:23:22] Yes.
[1:23:22] Okay.
[1:23:23] So who gets to determine that? Everyone. Everyone can look at a plan. Everyone can look at a project. Everyone can look at an argument, right? If I say all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal. Who's the central authority that gets to determine that that's a false argument or an invalid argument, technically?
[1:23:43] I understand how you're bringing this back to my question now. I get where you're going. I understand. But my question, let me be direct with this. Let's say you had a chicken sandwich for lunch today, okay? Right? Chicken had to die for you to eat that. Even if you didn't necessarily kill...
[1:23:59] Hang on, hang on. Are we on... Hang on. Sorry to interrupt. Are we on animal rights now?
[1:24:03] No, I'm just talking about...
[1:24:04] No, no, because we were in the whole bit of this going from science to morality. So science, it has to be logically consistent and it has to accord with the facts of reality. And the first test is, is it logically consistent? If it's not logically consistent, and it's an invalid theory. I don't care how you spin it. Not you personally, but anyone, right? Sure. So if I say, well, I'm going to base my equation, my proof of Fermat's last theorem relies on two and two making five, nobody goes beyond that. They don't say, well, let's just see how this plays out. They say, no, two and two don't make five, so you're wrong. It's invalid, right? So logical consistency, it's the same thing with morals. If you're going to propose a moral system, it has to be logically consistent or it's invalid. It's also, as a plus, as a bonus plus if it explains the facts of history and the economy. If, for instance, says, well, here's why communism or centrally planned economies do badly.
[1:24:50] Here's why the free market does well in the accumulation of wealth.
[1:24:53] Here's why slavery is inefficient. Here's why a free market and labor is efficient and so on, which property rights and self-ownership and the non-aggression principle all do. So if you have a moral theory that is consistent, which I just talked about, you didn't hear it, but that's totally fine. Obviously, you can go back and listen to my argument about UPB. So if you've got a moral theory that is logically consistent and, as a bonus point, explains pretty much all the major facts of history, then you've got a valid moral theory. And so on. Go on. No central authority provides that. Everyone can reason through it themselves. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:25:29] I understand. But what you're kind of saying is that there's a direct line between science and moral theory. But in my opinion, moral theory, really, we started talking about popular norms i mean popular opinion and cultural norms but to kind of put it really simply and and
[1:25:44] Sorry i can't i can't you just slide that one in right that's like a pickpocket right except you're depositing something that smells that crap in my pocket so of course there are cultural norms sure there are cultural norms called the rain gods are responsible for the weather does that mean that that's true.
[1:26:05] Not necessarily.
[1:26:06] Oh, come on, man.
[1:26:08] Well, I don't know. I can't.
[1:26:10] No, no. You've got to man up on this, bro. Go lift weights. Are you saying that there's a possibility that the rain guards control the weather?
[1:26:19] Maybe there is, yes.
[1:26:20] No. Come on, man.
[1:26:21] Well, we don't. I don't know. I can't disprove it. But more or less what I'm saying is this.
[1:26:28] Come on. What controls the weather?
[1:26:31] I don't know. I couldn't give you a reasonable answer on that.
[1:26:35] Okay, so you don't know whether the rain cards control the weather, but you're concerned about animal rights. Well, why would I listen to anyone who doesn't even know what controls the weather and doesn't say, well, the weather is a complicated system based upon mostly physical factors? I mean, obviously, they're all physical factors, but there's some human free will involved in whether you eat beans and fart or something like that, right? So why would I listen to anyone? I mean, I'm not trying to be hostile. I'm genuinely curious. Why would I listen to anyone who thinks that it's a potentially viable explanation that the weather is not controlled by physical factors, but is controlled by invisible ghosts?
[1:27:10] I mean, what I'm saying is that I'm well-educated enough to know to question things and that I couldn't give you a definitive...
[1:27:17] But not everything.
[1:27:19] Well, yeah.
[1:27:20] You don't want your mind to be so open that your brain falls out.
[1:27:24] More or less what i'm saying it i just want to be direct and simplify
[1:27:28] Please do yeah um.
[1:27:30] So so let's say if i eat a chicken sandwich today for lunch right a living thing has to die right for that to happen and the
[1:27:37] Living thing i don't know i don't know because according to your theory it could have been transformed into a rain god and have a perfect life in paradise controlling the weather based upon the dances of the pygmies touche touche touche no if you if you're not even going to give me that weather is physical. Why on earth would I give you that a chicken died?
[1:27:56] Okay. I, I get, that's
[1:27:58] The problem with your radical subjectivism is nothing. Why would I listen to anything? You might not even, you, you might be a rain guard whispering in my ear. None of this might be real. Uh, the words you are using might be the exact opposite. Maybe this is just a strange coincidence that in Klingon, it sounds like this argument. If you're not going to give me even basic physics, why would I give you anything real?
[1:28:22] I'm just kind of getting back to moral contracts and simplifying things down.
[1:28:29] No, because you think it's possible that rain gods control the weather, and therefore, I think it's possible that the chicken has been sent to a better place, and I'm putting it in chicken heaven by eating it, and it's incredibly happy and relieved to be free of its mortal shell.
[1:28:45] Sure, and if you and the people around you and your community all agree to that, that would become a moral contract. It would become a cultural norm, a moral contract.
[1:28:53] Hang on, hang on. So are you saying that if everybody believes that the rain gods control the weather, that the rain gods do in fact control the weather?
[1:29:03] If everyone believes that the rain gods control the weather, I would say that that would become, how can I put this?
[1:29:12] Yes, how?
[1:29:15] Stating moral contracts, I think it differs from science.
[1:29:19] No, answer the question. If everyone believes, listen, I mean, I'm going to hound you. I'm going to be annoying. I apologize. If it's any consolation, I'm annoying with myself about these things too. So let's take another example. The Aztecs believed that if they tortured and murdered children, they would get good crops from their God.
[1:29:39] Yes.
[1:29:40] Right? The God fed on the agony and the tears of the children. I assume this is just adrenochrome in the past or whatever it is, right?
[1:29:47] Sure.
[1:29:47] So is that... A valid belief, potentially, that if you torture children, you get good crops because of the happiness of the God that rules you?
[1:30:03] Well, what we're kind of talking, my opinion is that really fundamentally speaking, anything that benefits me, I'm going to think it's good. And anything that hurts or takes away from me, I'm going to think it's bad.
[1:30:13] Hang on, hang on. No, because you said that there's a possibility of the rain gods, and you don't believe in them, so it doesn't benefit you. Is it potentially valid that torturing and murdering children gives you good crops?
[1:30:28] I would, if I had to give my opinion, I would say no.
[1:30:30] No, no, no. I'm not asking for your opinion. Is it? Come on. Oh my God. What is wrong with people's moral sense? This is torturing and murdering innocent little children, bro. Are you saying that it's possible that that's good for society because it gives them good crops?
[1:30:45] Well, it's, I mean, the obvious answer is no, of course not.
[1:30:49] No, don't give me the obvious answer. Get behind what you're saying. Because if you're going to ask me to care about a fucking chicken, then you better care about human children, okay?
[1:31:00] But I'm not asking you. The point of the chicken is that, no, we don't care about chickens. It's a living thing with a family, with feelings. It's a mother. It's a son. And other animals, they grieve loss. Like if you watch a nature documentary about elephants, they grieve the loss of their loved ones. They cry. They show emotion.
[1:31:20] Okay, so the parents of the children murdered by the Aztecs mourn them too.
[1:31:27] But the point of what I'm getting at, though, is that when it comes to these moral contracts, how do they come into play and who gets to decide? And then the reality is— No,
[1:31:36] See, now we're back circular. Now we're back circular, which is if you have a rational moral system, it has to be logically consistent, bonus points if it explains the facts of history and what goes on across the world. My theory of ethics, UPB, does both of those things. It is logically consistent and it also explains what's going on around the world. So that's as close as you can get to science in the realm of ethics. Logically consistent, which is required for science, explains the world, which it does. So if you want people to care about chickens, I think that's fine. I think that's that's fine. But you then have to have absolute morality. And you can't possibly say, you can't possibly say, well, maybe the Aztecs are right to torture and murder children. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:32:18] Well, no, what I'm saying is actually the opposite, is that people shouldn't care about chickens. Because if we didn't eat other living things, we wouldn't survive.
[1:32:26] So why are you telling me about the mourning and the sadness and the nature documentaries and the mothers and the fathers and the offspring and the sadness? I don't understand.
[1:32:35] The point of what I was getting at to is that good and evil is personal opinion. It's based on whether I'm benefiting from a situation or whether I'm taking a loss. And it's subjective.
[1:32:47] So you would not call a rapist evil. What you're doing is you're kind of fading. Don't wriggle, bro. You're putting to me a really sinister and nasty and ugly moral proposition forward. I'm just telling you that. I will fight you on this. I will fight you on this. No, hang on, because you're putting forward an argument on my platform. I'm a moral philosopher. Right? So if I was a lung doctor and you said smoking is fantastic for you, I would fight you, right?
[1:33:20] Completely different situation.
[1:33:21] No, no. It's an analogy. It's not completely different.
[1:33:25] But it's an irrelevant analogy. What I'm saying is...
[1:33:28] No, no. Don't be rude. Don't just say my analogy is irrelevant and move on like I didn't say. That's kind of rude. Okay. So, if you say that which is beneficial to someone is the good and that which is negative to them is the bad, if you have a sadist who wants to rape a woman, it's beneficial to him and he's sad and unhappy if he doesn't get to do it. So is he following goodness by raping, in your view?
[1:33:56] Well, what I'm trying to say is that there is no good and evil, period.
[1:34:03] Okay, so a rapist is not evil. He's just doing his thing like a dolphin or a mountain lion.
[1:34:12] Yes, absolutely.
[1:34:15] Oh, so now we're absolute. You're not absolute about the fucking rain gods, but you're absolute that a rapist is not evil.
[1:34:23] Well, I don't think there is good and evil.
[1:34:25] You said absolutely the rapist is not evil. I'm just curious. Does it trouble you at all that you're saying that rape is not evil and rapists are not evil? Emotionally, does it trouble you at all?
[1:34:39] I don't think there is good and evil. That's what I'm saying. I think they're man-made concepts.
[1:34:43] Okay, I'm asking you about your soul. your heart, your feelings. I mean, are you married?
[1:34:51] That's not relevant.
[1:34:52] It is kind of relevant because I'm curious how much empathy you have for the victims of rape.
[1:34:58] Do you eat meat? Do you have empathy for the chicken you eat?
[1:35:01] I'm not talking about eating chickens. Are you saying that eating a chicken is the moral equivalent of raping a woman?
[1:35:10] It could be even worse. If you were to ask me.
[1:35:13] Okay, sorry. This is just absolute fucking moral evil here. I can't. I can't. I'm not going to. this is just that's repulsive i just like that's just absolutely repulsive i can't and i won't i'm not going to let this absolute filth on my fucking channel like just this is morally insane it's evil yeah rape is absolutely evil and wrong and destructive and vicious and contradictions to a contradictory to all moral sensibilities and if he's going to say that eating a chicken.
[1:35:43] How do people get to that state in their mind that they're like well i don't know So I don't know that the rain guards don't control the weather. And I'm not even going to say that torturing and murdering children for the sake of imaginary benefit to crops is wrong and bad.
[1:36:01] But eating a chicken could be worse than rape. Like, I don't even know how people get to this state. I don't, like, isn't there some part of your brain that says, like, you know, when you're driving the wrong way and you get this kind of uneasy feeling. This is before GPSs. I used to do a lot of driving in the business world to go to meetings and conferences and stuff. sales presentations. And you'd be driving along, driving along, and you'd have some list of instructions or whatever, and you'd be like, ah, you know, this is not, something's not quite right here. Something's not working here. I'm getting, I've been driving too long. Don't people get that sense when it comes to moral questions that it's like, okay, if I've gotten, this is an old Aristotelian argument, which is if you've got a moral system that says rape is not evil, you've done something wrong. Like murder is no problem for murder. Like you've There's got to be some moral instinct, and I'm not saying that proves anything. That's why I'm just... If people...
[1:36:53] Are not at all uneasy about publicly stating that rape is not immoral, but that eating a chicken is bad or could be worse. Like, if you don't have any breaks, then that's like arguing with a schizophrenic person to me. It's like trying to have a conversation with someone who can't tell the difference between real voices in the world and inner voices in their brain. You can't have a conversation with people who don't even say, yeah, that does seem a bit odd, but I don't know how to prove it, or I am a little concerned about it, or whatever.
[1:37:28] Yeah, it's gross, and I'm really sorry for that as a perspective that somebody has ended up with. I don't know what has to happen to someone in life that this is where they end up morally, because honestly, this is not an argument. I'm just going to share you my, it makes my skin crawl. I get just, can you imagine a babysitter? Like I'm not taking this guy, but as somebody with this kind of perspective, it makes my skin crawl. It is, uh, uh, almost demonic to me. So, all right. Uh, some people we've talked to before. I have another call. I'm doing a private call tonight after the show. It's been a big day of work. I did something this morning. I wrote a chapter of my book. i'm doing this show i'm doing a call afterwards but i like to work and philosophy is a great deal of fun all right let's go to i am owl what's that old joke uh you know somebody in this uh office has been possessed by an owl who anyway uh i am owl uh what is on your mind don't forget to unmute.
[1:38:35] Going um yeah i just posted a picture it sucks because like for whatever reason photos never give the sky justice but my sky is like the hazy red with the green in the background like the the i don't know i'm off at six i pull colors out of this what i'm looking at and there's like a lot of green in there and you know people say oh it's from the wild like listen i'm 37 i'm not as old as some people but i'm older than others and this is not oh i can
[1:39:08] See the picture yeah.
[1:39:09] Like it's it's not and people are delusional or something or just have blinders on because this is not the same sky that we've seen it's storming yeah but that's not the reason it looks like this y'all like there is something different about the sky and honestly there's something different about the lightning and the thunder too like the way it sounds my ears because I do pull notes and things out of what I'm hearing um and it sounds different when I'm hearing the thunder and I'm when I'm seeing the lightning I see it in a different way like that You know, and then, you know, then, of course, you've got people who say, well, maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just wacko and maybe I'm just seeing it like I'm just hallucinating or something. But come on.
[1:40:01] Yeah, I had some people in Florida visit a couple of months ago were saying that there's this weird fog and so on. I mean, I'm obviously no expert on the weather. It seems to me like that would be quite a big job to change the weather. But, you know, when Bill Gates is talking about blotting out the sun for the sake of cow farts, it just it's hard to imagine what they won't do. Won't do these days. So I appreciate that. Did you have a particular question or you wanted to share your concerns about the sky? Hey, the sky gods, we've got a theme. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:40:31] No, yeah, you were talking about sky gods when I first hopped in. I don't know what happened. It suddenly went to, yeah, just kind of really bad for a minute.
[1:40:46] Oh, yeah, that was ugly.
[1:40:48] That type of mindset. I, you know, I, I feel like I think what I've heard from other people and I can't speak for this person is that, you know, I understand the concept on a base level where good and evil are perspectives and things. But at the end of the day, there's still like a moral compass that we all seem to share. At least I thought we did before today that we all shared it, but I don't know now.
[1:41:15] Um well i think that again i'm not talking about this guy in particular of course but there are people out there who just they don't seem to have a conscience and it just stuff that bothers you and i which is like okay well this this has led me to a really dark place and there's like no matter what's happening it's it's got to be uh like you know if you're going to um i remember many years ago being invited to a friend's cottage and again this is long before gps and i, I drove, and I ended up, according to the instructions, I just ended up on a dark patch of land in the middle of nowhere, right? And so to me, it's like, okay, I don't know where I am, but I know I'm not at the right place, because it's really dark here. And I think the same thing if you've got a moral theory, For most people who have a conscience, there's a part of you that says, okay, well, if I'm more concerned about somebody having a chicken sandwich than a woman being brutally raped, I don't exactly know where I am, but I know I'm not at the right place because it's really dark here. And so what I did, of course, I didn't just sit there and say, oh, I'm sure this is it. And I'll just unpack and pull out my sleeping bag or whatever. I was like, okay, I want to go and call and try and figure out where I am. And I ended up getting to the right place. But there's some people like it just doesn't matter. They just keep, well, this is my theory, everything's subjective, and it doesn't trouble them.
[1:42:37] And this is why I asked him, okay, are you married? Because I think part of it comes from just loving people. You have to kind of love people and want to protect them and realize that if his viewpoint became more prevalent, then people would just do what they could get away with, and you can get away with quite a bit these days. And so he would be putting his family, his loved ones, his daughters, his wife, his grandmother, who are his aunts, he would be putting them in considerable danger by spreading this kind of belief system. And I think that we do have to have a certain kind of caution about this stuff because what we put out into the world, this is really the theme of my first big novel, Revolutions, like what we put out of the world has a huge significant impact on the quality of life down the road. And in particular, what our children are going to live under. And all of this relativism and the subjectivism and everything's cultural opinion and there's no such thing as right and wrong, there's no such thing as good and evil, how's that working out for us as a culture? How's that working out for us as a society? Those societies that believe in good and evil, however incorrectly, are kicking our ass. They're dominating, they're ruling, they're spreading, and we're shrinking and dying.
[1:43:47] And a lot of it has to do with a lack of moral clarity and a lack of love. This is why, you know, I've sort of been fighting back against the people who don't want to date and so on. It's like, well, if you don't want to date and don't want to get married, have kids, and you don't have really as much of a stake in the future. And it's easy to become relativistic and subjective if you don't really care about people that want to protect them. And the first line of defense, for those of us who care about our families and want to protect our families, the first line of defense is moral clarity. And that's why I've been working on it for so long. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:44:21] Yeah, I don't, I roll with all people I love all people I'll sit down and have a conversation with all people I think that we kind of gravitate Sometimes to people that can match Your own, like, intellect And things like that
[1:44:35] But you don't love the people who are messing up your sky, do you?
[1:44:40] What's that?
[1:44:41] You don't love the people who are messing up your sky, do you?
[1:44:44] No. So not all people.
[1:44:46] All people except for the sky messer-uppers.
[1:44:49] I'm saying, like, you know, there's different levels of love, I guess. And it's not an easy English term to articulate, you know, what the difference is. And I'm not a blocker, you know. I don't block as much as some people just block for a lot of little silly reasons these days. But, you know, I respect that. you know protect your peace whatever but as a mom um yeah i i'm putting it out there like i did block this guy and i don't know if that means he can still hear or not but honestly i don't care and it's like i'm gonna speak my peace anyway but right okay that rape is you know potentially not as bad as eating chicken and then expect mothers out here to like they you know fuck off basically but you know that to me that was there's a girl i think you you know i feel like i've seen like maybe three people in my life that had that same type of position not to that extreme i guess this is the most extreme i've ever heard oh
[1:45:52] It's not the most extreme i've ever heard but go on.
[1:45:56] Oh my gosh, that's sad, but I feel like it's a rising, watch out, please, honey, what, hold on one second, one second. No, that's fine. That's like, you know, there's something different there. Is the genetics changing in some people?
[1:46:13] No, I think, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm not talking about this person who I don't know. I don't know this person, so I wouldn't want to hazard a guess about him. But in general, I find that the people who have contempt for morality have done something really bad. They've done something really bad in their life, something they really regret, something that, in a sense, torments whatever vestigious conscience or vestigial conscience they still have, and they want to erase morality because morality or empathy or compassion or the natural universalizing we have of moral rules in our life is making them feel really bad. And that's why they focus on people eating chicken because they don't want to look in the mirror. Again, not this guy in particular. I don't know this guy. And he may be perfectly fine, just has, you know, gone down a bad path philosophically. But it's like the people who are determinists, right? The people who say, well, I don't have free will. I don't have a choice. A lot of them, not all, of course, a lot of them, in my view and in my experience, have done really bad things and they don't want to believe that they they made a bad choice so they get rid of free will and some people who are condemned by moral standards don't want to feel that and process it and maybe make amends they instead want to erase morality which is like some guy who's falling out of a plane wants to get rid of gravity and people who have failed their own conscience want to get rid of morality sorry i'll give you i'll give you the last word because i gotta close down the show but i appreciate your thoughts go ahead.
[1:47:42] No, like a hundred, a hundred percent. I think that's a big part of it. I've never, I'm, I'm autistic and I've always just like, if I even am getting close to a lie, I feel sick to my stomach and I can't sit on it. You know, if I, if I sit on it for 10 minutes, you know, it's almost like, I feel like I'm going to explode on the inside. And I've never related to that or understood that, like, just we've all made mistakes. We've all fucked up one way or another. Own that, you know, I own all of my shit because there's no part of me that feels like I'm an honest person if I don't.
[1:48:15] That is a beautiful way to put it. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. I appreciate everyone who called in tonight. I really do. Honestly, I want to see, like, nothing human is alien to me. I want to see the full spectrum of thought and opposition and challenges.
[1:48:28] I just love you guys for calling in and having these great conversations.
[1:48:31] I really do appreciate having people with very different and opposing views, which is not something I've done as much for the last while because I was more into talking to people who were closer to the conversation, but I love engaging the public square with y'all, and I really do thank you for your time and attention in these matters, very essential and important matters. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Really, really would appreciate it. Freedomain.com slash donate. Have yourself a glorious, wonderful, beautiful night. We will see you Friday night for Friday Night Live. Lots of love, everyone, And I'm sorry for the people we didn't get to. I will try and maybe do an extra show this week for that. And lots of love, my friends. Bye.
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