0:00 - Introduction to Philosophy Evening
11:27 - Gratitude and Clarity Shared
14:37 - Abstract Theory to Practical Implementation
22:37 - Unprecedented Dive into Human Nature
28:58 - Probabilistic Knowledge and Certainty
36:44 - Seeking Knowledge
48:20 - Objectivist Epistemology Debate
56:47 - Attacking Certainty
1:01:03 - Theoretical Physics Discussion
1:05:20 - Multiverse Theory Exploration
1:14:14 - Hypothetical Teapot Debate
1:32:18 - Self and Other in Conversation
1:35:37 - Truth and Reason in Debate
1:42:44 - Thief's Contradiction in Property Rights
1:48:09 - The Contradiction
1:59:17 - Philosophy vs. Fraud
2:03:36 - The Ought Argument
2:08:18 - The Form of Argument
2:14:02 - Role-Playing Ethics
2:18:41 - Closing Appreciation
Stefan kicks off the philosophy evening by welcoming everyone and encouraging an interactive session. A caller shares appreciation for Stefan's clear discussions on topics like central coercion and the non-aggression principle, leading to a discussion on applying philosophical concepts to daily life. They explore personal experiences and the transformative power of philosophy, distinguishing Stefan's approach from other public figures. Stefan stresses integrating philosophical ideas into everyday life and evolving interactions with his audience.
The conversation shifts to the role of philosophy and academia in shaping society, criticizing academia's prioritization of status over societal change. Epistemology and free will are discussed, with examples like dreaming and teacups orbiting Mars illustrating the context-dependent nature of knowledge certainty. The complexity of defining knowledge and decision-making based on probabilities is highlighted, stressing the alignment of concepts with reality for genuine understanding.
Further delving into knowledge concepts, the conversation explores 'factive' knowledge, objectivist epistemology, and the need for verifiable external validation of statements. The significance of logic, reason, and overcoming uncertainties in established beliefs are emphasized. Stefan warns against the dangers of certainty without evidence, dismissing unsupported claims and underlining the importance of provable or falsifiable propositions.
The dialogue navigates hypothetical scenarios like a teapot orbiting Mars, diving into contradictions in terms and subjective beliefs. Morality and self-defense are examined, touching on the complexities of choices and obligations. The concept of "ought" versus personal preferences in different scenarios is explored, shedding light on the intricacies of moral standards and actions.
Property rights, theft, and moral theory complexities are scrutinized, with a focus on defending property rights and debunking theft justifications. Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) is introduced as a moral standard, emphasizing rationality and evidence in ethical theories. Respecting property rights and individuals aligning with UPB for societal success and ethical interactions are underscored.
Stefan elaborates on the relevance of UPB to truth, rationality, and objectivity, asserting its importance in ethics. He engages with a caller on UPB's applicability in various scenarios, highlighting the necessity of adhering to objective standards in discussions. Stefan concludes by encouraging listener support through donations, appreciating the engaging discourse on philosophical concepts and ethics.
[0:00] Yeah, hi everybody. Welcome June 14th to 2024. Welcome to your glorious philosophy evening. It is Friday Night Live. We're doing a voice chat and I am super thrilled. If anybody has any questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, whatever you like, I'm all ears. I certainly have topics as I want to do, but I'm happy to hear from you. So if you just want to unmute if you have any questions or comments help yourself to my brain like a buffet of vaguely British noises.
[0:35] Hey Stef can you hear me yes sir hey I just want to thank you for all of the hard work that you do and um all of the the dedication you've really allowed me to to see you know what I mean you said you mentioned that time that Helen Keller before she could new words or anything like that. It was just like electronic sensations or something. Right. And you have given me so much clarity and understanding in the world and about other people that I just can't imagine what it would be like to exist any other way, you know? So, uh, I, I'm just thrilled to be able to speak to you. This is, you're like a celebrity to me. Uh, all these years I've been listening to you And you had those huge YouTube channel streams and messages flooding in. And now here we are, just this small group. I'm just ecstatic for this.
[1:43] Well, I really appreciate your kind words. Thank you so much. What do you think was the most important aspect of philosophy for you? Was there some moment where you're just like, kapow? And things sort of came together? Was it some particular topic? Sometimes it's just a side phrase that happens to sink the pot, so to speak. What was it for you?
[2:07] Well, I hope I can answer your question, but I'm going to say that it's the call-in shows, and it's understanding how abuse and all of the turmoil and how the parents treated the child, which then became an adult and then had children of their own, and that has given me my glasses on, so to speak, so I can actually see. And really, a thing that I just can't get away from is UPB and the non-aggression principle, That is what really opened up my eyes with the documentaries you did, Sunset in the Golden State, which I've watched a couple of times over. And anytime I have guests over, I try to at least show them a couple of minutes of it and try to get them exposed to it. And centralized coercion, understanding the nature of the state for what it is. it's just it's illegitimate it's just force so i i hope i'm answering your question.
[3:26] No i appreciate that and when you first listen i mean it's funny i wish i could come in from the outside you know like that's kind of what philosophy is is kind of coming into to life from the outside from sort of principles and i you know one of the things that's wild about this show and and i take some credit for this of course but it has a lot to do with the honesty and generosity to the listeners, but it's a wild thing. Because normally there are physicists and there are engineers in the world, and the two are usually quite separate. So there's the heavy theorists and then there's the practical implementers. Now, the one thing that is really unique about what we do here is that we go from the most abstract theoreticals to the most practical implementations. We go from absolute theory to robust practice, right? So Einstein comes up with the theory of relativity, and then the Manhattan Project creates the bomb, right? Which is maybe not the best. Let's talk nuclear power.
[4:28] I love the topic of nuclear weapons, by the way.
[4:33] Yeah. So the fact that I've got these big abstractions, UPB and RTR, non-aggression principle, which is not mine, of course, but to take that and apply it to actual practical, problems in the world is fairly unprecedented in philosophy. And in fact, certainly to the degree that we do it, it is unprecedented that a philosopher is not helping people with abstract definitions of virtue and pointing out contradictions in their thinking, king, but is rather saying, how does philosophy change your life? While remaining strict to abstract principles, how does philosophy change your life? And the call-in shows are absolutely unique in the history of philosophy, that there are now thousands of conversations where we take the most abstract principles and apply them to actual life. Because, you know, a lot of philosophers are into abstract principles, and there are these sort of, I don't know, Tony Robbins self-help guru kind of guys who...
[5:48] Try to help people with their lives and so on, but not the two together. And that's, I think, the wildest thing about what's happening in these kinds of conversations, that we are going from the most abstract topics to the most practical implementations. Because philosophy can very easily be a distraction from life, because it feels very sort of disconnected, in sometimes almost dissociated from life and when you sort of plow through, people like schopenhauer or even nietzsche to some degree it's like well that's all well and good but.
[6:24] You know what does this do for my life how does this help me make actual decisions and, to have morality from the greatest abstractions to the most practical implementations, is a wild it's almost like breaking the third wall or the fourth wall it's like breaking the fourth wall in theater where instead of you looking at a room of actors pretending there's no audience they kind of come out and talk to you in the in the audience uh and and yet that's usually improv and so on but this is sort of very structured so i think that when i first and it's wild because i still remember this sort of from very very early on in the show show, that I've always loved chatting with people. And so I wanted to talk philosophy with people. And this is sort of way back in the day, Skype had this, I guess, kind of like now, but it was sort of a meeting room situation, where you could all join a particular meeting room. This is back in, I think, 2006, and so on. You could join a meeting room, you could mute and unmute people. And I was like, hey, let's talk philosophy. And I don't know why this happened. It's a very interesting question as to why this happened. But I was like, hey, let's talk philosophy.
[7:44] And people opened up their lives to the ether, like self-surgery with a hand grenade or something. They just opened up. And this has always been the call-in shows. Obviously, as you know, if you've filled out the form, there's nothing. But if somebody said, my call-in show is I want to discuss the technicalities of UPB, I'd be happy with that. I'd be thrilled with that. But...
[8:15] With almost no exceptions, I can say functionally all of talking to a philosopher is the personal life. All. Thousands and thousands of call-and-show requests over, you know, 18, 19 years. And it's all about personal life. That's unprecedented in the entire history of philosophy. I mean, you have shows where people talk about their personal lives, but it's usually from the perspective of a psychologist, not a philosopher. And here, I don't know what happened. It had something to do with an instinctual understanding of my skills, talents, abilities, and preferences that I didn't even know about. Because I'm like, hey, let's talk philosophy, and it was like, come the personal stories. And the opening up of the lid of privacy.
[9:16] And I kind of fell into that groove and I think did a pretty good job from early on. And it was like the audience knew me better than I knew myself. Because I'm like, hey, abstractions are the way to go. Let's talk philosophy. I mean, none of my early articles were really about self-knowledge.
[9:37] And history and childhood and and all of that but i there was some sort of collective borg brain thing that happened where people were like i'm going to talk to him about this and we started this just wild journey of converting abstractions to practical implementation that really has been going on and continues to go on and philosophy is the old discipline and life is an infinity of choices. So I don't think we're going to run out of... These issues anytime soon and that's fine with me i mean i know that the call-in shows are.
[10:17] Very unique and you know i enjoyed doing the politics and i thought it was very interesting and so on but when i sort of see these shows some of them are on the left most of them are on the right where people are just talking about some you know a little bit of gender politics and some politics as a whole and and all of that and it's like yeah i mean that's interesting but it just seems to me more of a distraction than anything else so yeah i mean obviously i want to thank Everyone who was involved in that, and especially the early people who reached deep into their hearts with both hands and poured them out on the internet and summoned a particular precision and expertise in me that I would not have laid a lot of money was coiled like a snake waiting to strike in my heart. So that I think is a really fascinating part of the show and something that the audience found in me before I did. And so I really wanted to thank everyone. But that was a wild conversation that started, you know, close to 20 years ago and continues to this day.
[11:19] Well, I'm just I just can't think of anyone else that I would be want to be that I want to be talking to you other than you.
[11:28] Right. Like, I don't want to talk to Jordan Peterson. You know, that guy's that guy's life is a disaster with those. Was it barbiturates or whatever he was on? I forgot. But you give clarity because I can see it in my daily life where I try to talk to people about things, just basic details of reality at work. And people, they get uncomfortable. You've mentioned that before. They tense up. There's a pause before they answer. And I can just really see what you answered my question that time about the Milgram experiments where everyone is terrified.
[12:14] They're terrified of what others think of them, what their family thinks of them, what their manager, co-workers, whatever. And, you know, you kind of, how shall I say, I go into a higher orbit, maybe electron orbit or something, an atom. And, you know, the community of people in those groups just kind of keeps shrinking and shrinking. Drinking so i think one of the last calls you uh you and others had mentioned pruning uh getting people out of your life who you know are are not contributors to making your life better and that's something i've been doing over the last many years and uh my circle is very small now but i do consider you to be in my circle and it's it's just really an honor to be speaking with you.
[13:14] Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. And as far as Dr. Peterson goes, I mean, obviously a very interesting fellow, a very highly, highly brilliant, brilliant, intelligent fellow and so on. Not a philosopher, but a psychologist, which is a kind of different thing.
[13:28] But yeah, it was pretty wild. It was pretty wild. I mean, the story is that Jordan Peterson's daughter ended up, didn't she have a child with a Stalinist or something like that, and And that's some pretty wild stuff. And yeah, he did get addicted, I think, to barbiturates. And the idea that he didn't know they were addictive, I don't find particularly credible. But a man, of course, is not defined by a mistake. You know, was it a mistake to take this? His wife, of course, was ill. And I understand that. But I wouldn't want to define him as, you know, foundationally flawed because of an addiction that he got into when he was doing some very high-flying and very stressful things. Activities. So I wouldn't write him off as far as all of that goes. And I think I've gotten some very useful things out of him. But, you know, a guy has worked with the UN and he doesn't really understand the nature of the state, which again, wouldn't be his job necessarily. He's a psychologist, not a philosopher or, you know, a political theorist and so on. But yeah, some useful and interesting stuff, but not the kind of principles that we need to really, really save things.
[14:37] And, you know, he doesn't talk about some of the more controversial things that I've talked about that he knows for sure are important and certainly part of his professional training and so on. So, certainly some limitations.
[14:50] And, I don't know, I mean, I got to, you know, I don't, people's marriages are very tough to judge, so I wouldn't go very far down that road. But I have to tell you that if I wanted to decorate half of, My wife and I's house with a bunch of totalitarian images from Stalinist Russia.
[15:11] Okay.
[15:12] I think she'd say, I know exactly what she would say. Well, that's more of a cry for help than anything else. And I think that's pretty rough. I think that's pretty rough. So, yeah, I mean, I try to take the good out of what I can get from people. And certainly, nobody has to be perfect. And Lord knows I'm not perfect. But it does seem that there are some limitations that would have me go a certain distance, but not others, with people like that, if it makes any sense. So, yeah, I mean, Jordan Peterson does know all about the IQ issues and so on, and he's just said he's not really going to talk about it, which is fine. But then, you know, don't talk about topics while obscuring topics, right? If I decide not to talk about something, I don't talk about it, as opposed to talking about it without talking about it, which seems, you know, because he's very much about honesty and so on. And so, yeah, I think there are obviously some limitations. Well, of course, having, you know, I have great admiration for his wit and his debating skills and his mind is ferociously fast. But yeah he seems like a not particularly happy fellow and.
[16:26] You know with maybe with the great intellect comes the great burdens but I don't think I'm burdened with too small an intellect and I think it is quite important to find ways to be happy in life, so I think there are some limitations there for sure and that's true with a lot of public figures you find some good stuff and you find the good that you can and you discard some of the stuff with some skepticism so.
[16:51] So, yeah, I'm immensely proud at the way in which this community has gone from theory to practice, right? So, if you look at something like Plato's descriptions of how Socrates was talking, Socrates comes across a fellow who's leading a prosecution against his own father for the death of a servant.
[17:17] And this turns into an abstract debate about justice and doesn't really return much to the practical questions of how to live. And these extreme cases, and I understand, like extreme cases test the rule. I know in law, right, edge cases make for bad law. And very, very few of us are going to try to decide, we're going to have to try to decide whether we turn our father in for causing someone's death, right? That's a very, very minor, very minor number of people, very small number of people. And so he's like, wow, you've really got to understand justice if you're prosecuting your own father.
[18:01] And then it just goes from the abstract conceptions of justice, and it very much is an edge case. And, of course, the philosophers who've avoided childhood, which is something I've been talking about from the very, I think my second or third show was about childhood. Maybe that's why people were talking about it with the call-ins and so on. But philosophers who've avoided childhood are almost universally covering up for and siding with abusers. And that is to their everlasting shame. And I'm sure that there have been philosophers in the past who maybe talked a little bit more about childhood or maybe talked more directly about childhood, but it seems they've just been scrubbed and erased from history. In a sense, as has been attempted with me, sort of scrubbed and erased from the world as a whole.
[18:59] And so it could be that there are philosophers who've done or tried to do what I've done, but we don't hear about them and they won't get taught in university. So to me, the study of philosophy is a way of taking the smart universal thinkers who are interested in morality and giving them an off-ramp to actually change society called academia.
[19:28] And i think it's really a shameful business as a whole because we really really need those interested in morality and universality and who are good reasoners and debaters to be engaged within society at the most foundational moral level and so i think it's the philosophy to academia utility to the people to parasitical irrelevance that's the whole purpose of it seems Seems to me modern education these days in the realm of ethics is to continually lure people away with the breadcrumbs of dollars and fame and lack of consequences to lead people away from actually change. Oh, are you someone who could actually change the world for the better? No, no, no, don't do that. That's scary and dangerous. But here we've got this lovely job for you. I remember Dr. Walter Block writing in ecstasies about this some years ago. Oh, you've only got to work maybe 10 hours a week, maybe 15 hours a week. We'll pay you 200 grand and you get a nice little office and you get sabbaticals. Oh, how about, how does four months off in the summer sound and prestige and, and all of this. And, you know, Lord knows I've met enough academics in my life to realize just, you know, there's a movie called Shadowlands. And.
[20:48] One professor, played by Anthony Hopkins, talks to another professor and says, doesn't this all just feel completely pointless and useless? The other professor looks kind of guilty and shameful and it's like, yes, of course, of course. And that is the whole thing. And so for me, being able to stay with the value and utility of philosophy, to smart, wise, curious and concerned people like yourself has been the greatest gift. And it is a great honor. And, you know, it's a unique and unprecedented view into the depths of human nature, right? I mean, these call-in shows, I don't mean to pressure anyone, but they'll be studied for hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years, in terms of this is a principled examination of a highly chaotic but principled place called the unconscious, called history, called memory, called the collision between society and virtue, honesty and the censorship required to move through society. It's an absolutely fascinating view that does not exist in any other place or shape or genre.
[22:11] Or milieu. It's absolutely unprecedented. We have thousands of call-in shows.
[22:19] That show the collision between the uncertainty of principles and the chaotic principles of the unconscious. The yearning for truth and its collision with social prejudices. I mean, it's just absolutely wild.
[22:37] And this is an absolute treasure trove for all of humanity. Going forward for all time. And, you know, Freud wrote in quite a bit of detail about his patients. He was a doctor, of course, and a cocaine dealer and cocaine pusher. And, of course, this is not therapy, and I'm certainly no psychologist, but it is a pretty unique look at how philosophy can dive deep into the psyche and pull the chaos apart part to find all of the beautiful principles attacked and suppressed by society as a whole. It's just an amazing, amazing thing. So I do thank everyone for allowing this to exist and to be available to the world forever. I take it enormously seriously. All right. So I'm happy to hear more. If anybody else has any other questions, comments, or if you want to continue, I'm certainly happy to listen.
[23:38] Maybe I'll give somebody else a chance for a moment. If not, I'll ask something else. I'm sorry to ask such a silly question, but is there a preferable subject matters?
[24:01] I'm sorry?
[24:03] I'm joining a little late. Are there preferable subject matters you're covering here?
[24:08] Whatever you like. It's your call.
[24:10] Oh, man.
[24:18] Oh, sorry. I thought you had a subject matter. I might.
[24:20] I'm racking my mind because I have so many things that cross it over every day. And now that I'm on the spot, I have a great opportunity to try to figure out. Okay. You know what? I had a discussion recently on epistemology and free will.
[24:43] I'm a little stumped on what would you say it means to know something. Maybe I should elaborate. I come from the objectivist camp when it comes to epistemology, but somebody said that we're contextualists rather than factive. And I thought that was really interesting and it caused a serious dilemma for me. I was basically told that, or basically the objectivists would hold that if we say we know something is true, but we find out later that it was false we have to hold that we knew we did have knowledge of both truth and falsehood falsehood in both instances when we were originally wrong and when we learned that we were correct but I disagree with that I don't I don't like that idea because if you say you knew that was true in the first place and it obviously you know he came out to be false and you have a contradiction You didn't actually know it. But I guess the objective is to bite the bullet and say they did know it. I don't know if that's very clear, but I guess what I'm expressing is I have a dilemma with that. And to my understanding, that is not factive, is what I was told. Have you heard that term in reference?
[26:03] What does factive mean? That's a word I'm not particularly familiar with.
[26:07] It was new to me, too. Essentially, in a fact of epistemology, it would be that we do have certainty of the truth and that... Your knowledge claim is dependent on the fact that it actually maps onto reality. So to give an example, we would probably say, yeah, I actually do know that there's no teapot orbiting Mars, right? Because, well, I have no evidence to suggest such a thing. But in the scenario where...
[26:41] No, but you couldn't say that. Sorry, but you couldn't say you have certain knowledge that there's no teapot orbiting Mars.
[26:49] Okay.
[26:50] Because it's something that could exist. It's potentially true. And if something is potentially true, you can't discount it unless you've scoured, right? Like if you had some amazing scouring X-ray robot that could circle all of Mars and make sure that there was no teapot, then you could say that. But you and I can't say there's no teapot circling Mars.
[27:13] What would you...
[27:14] We can say there's no square circle circling Mars, for sure. Because that's a contradictory, but a teapot is not a self-contradictory entity. And could there be a teapot circling Mars? Yes. Would I bet a lot of money that there is? I would not, right? But, you know, there could be. I mean, it could be some space alien that would have a cup holder that got jettisoned in some long ago flight. I mean, who knows, right? Whatever could be the case. But it is not impossible, and therefore it is possible. That's almost tautological, right? It's not impossible, and therefore it's possible, and therefore we can't say it's impossible.
[27:53] So, I totally get that. Would you define knowledge differently than the objectivist do? No.
[28:06] Well, it's been a while since I've read an introduction to objectivist epistemology. But knowledge is a tricky, it's a tricky word.
[28:17] Right?
[28:18] Because if I have knowledge of a dream that I had last night, I can't prove it, right? But that doesn't invalidate my knowledge, right? So if I dreamed about a teacup orbiting Mars last night, I can't prove that. But that doesn't invalidate my knowledge, if that makes sense. Like, you could go to a therapist if you wanted, you could make up a dream every day, if the therapist is really keen on analyzing your dreams, and the therapist would have to trust you, right? And if you were to say to the therapist, did your client have that dream last night about the polar bear?
[28:50] And the therapist would check his notes, right? And would say, oh, yeah, yeah, we discussed my patient's dream about the polar bear, right?
[28:58] Right and then you would say well what's the proof you have that your patient did in fact dream about a polar bear and say what's right here in my notes it's like yes but that's what the that's what the patient told you but you don't have proof that that's what the patient actually dreamt about does that mean so you wouldn't know for sure you just have to trust you'd have to trust the honesty of the patient and you'd also have to trust the incentives that it would be rather a huge waste of time and money to go to a therapist and talk about dreams you never had that because that would be that would be like i mean i guess you could get a hypochondriac who would go to a doctor and complain about aches and pains that didn't really exist but for to make up dreams to a therapist would be a huge waste of time so we'd have to say that the probability that the patient is lying about the dream would be pretty low but we wouldn't so we would that would be not knowledge that it would not be impossible it certainly is possible to dream about a polar bear and we certainly would say that incentives would cause the patient to tell the truth or the client to tell the truth about the dream about the polar bear but we wouldn't have certain knowledge we would have to act on that as uh true beyond a reasonable doubt.
[30:11] Right i mean so true beyond a reasonable doubt so if if i were to say you know if if somebody Somebody was a therapist and it was in the notes that the patient had a dream about, reported having a dream about a polar bear and you spent lots of time talking about it and it turns out that, you know, it had...
[30:30] It had real relevance to his life, he'd just seen a polar bear and, you know, his mother, his grandmother had big white snowy hair, like whatever, like they all sort of fit together, then that would be proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Would it be absolutely certain knowledge? No, it would not be absolutely certain knowledge, but it would be proof beyond a reasonable doubt and we would need to anticipate that, right? In the same way, is it possible that someone you hate.
[30:58] Recognized you in a restaurant told the chef and the chef put some poison in your food yeah i mean it's possible it's possible you can't you can't say a hundred percent it's impossible, but we go to restaurants and we eat you know we eat the food right so there's uh probability knowledge which we operate on uh all the time right i mean we don't know for certain we're going to get a job but we still apply for the job we don't know for certain if the girl we're going to ask out is going to go out with us but we ask her out anyway so it's sort of probabilistic, knowledge sort of weighing the odds and we're very well designed for that right animals are very well designed to weigh the odds right so lions creep creep close enough to the zebras that they can take the zebras down but they're never certain that they will zebras could run they could take a hoof to the face so animals are very good at figuring out probabilities and so and so are we. And so I would not bet a single thin dime on there being a teacup orbiting Mars. And you could, of course, argue.
[32:01] That there's no way that a teacup could be orbiting Mars. Because, again, not again, but for the first time, it depends on your definition of a teacup. If there's something that looks like a teacup, but is actually a toilet, for the they just space aliens happen to have toilets that look like teacups right then is it a teacup or a toilet you know you've probably seen there's this meme about some ancient two ancient men talking about some incomprehensible dice mechanism or whatever and it's like this is a great game we should write it down and they'll be like no they'll you know if they find this in 5 000 years they'll totally be able to figure out what it is and then archaeologists saying like we have no idea what they're doing, right? So, is it a teacup or a toilet? Well, for the alien, it would be a toilet, but maybe it looks like a teacup to us. So then if you say, well, the teacup is designed for the purposes of drinking tea, and therefore it has to be earthbound because tea is on earth. If it's some other alien plant that they brew, it's not tea because it's an alien plant which would have a different categorization and so on. So you could say that...
[33:14] A teacup, like no alien, sorry, no human spaceship has ever gone past Mars with a teacup, because the only things that have gone past Mars have been probes, which have no people on them, and therefore there are no teacups. And even if there was a teacup on it, it wouldn't have been jettisoned, because there's no avenue by which a teacup, even if it was stored in the probe, would get out of the... So then you'd say, okay, there's no teacup around Mars. There may be something that looks like a teacup, There may be something that is even used as a cup to brew some alien plant to drink, but that's not a teacup because tea is an Earth thing, right? So then we would say, if that's our definition, yeah, there's no. I would be very comfortable saying there is no teacup orbiting Mars because teacup is a human invention and there's no human invention that has been put around Mars. Now you could say, ah, yes, but, you know, 100,000 years ago there was a civilization that has been lost to all of us that had advanced technology and so on. Yeah, but there's no evidence that there was such an advanced civilization, and there certainly would be evidence if you think about our civilization. 100,000 years from now there'd be tons of evidence that we were here and what we did and so on. So, yeah, so knowledge, yeah, certainly knowledge is when the concepts in your mind accord with the facts of reality. And some of those facts of reality are directly observable.
[34:41] Is there a planetoid orbiting the Earth called the Moon? Yes, we see it every night. And is it orbiting? Yes, because the math checks out and we go around the Sun, the Sun goes around the galaxy and so on, right? So yes, we can directly observe that. If it's my knowledge that my patient dreamed of a polar bear, if I'm a therapist, right? Well, no, because I can't prove that. But I do have notes where my patient said he dreamt of a polar bear. So my knowledge is not that my patient dreamt of a polar bear, we just use that as a shorthand. My knowledge is that my patient told me he dreamed of a polar bear. And we got amazing insights. And it really helped him and moved his life forward. And he ended up asking out the girl he thought might have a chilly heart because he understood the nature of the polar bear and his dream, all these sort of number of things, right? So we use our shorthand for things all the time. And do I know for a simple fact that you are not a very cunning AI? Well, it seems unlikely, because we're actually having a conversation that would be beyond the realm of an AI to handle.
[35:59] May I interject or ask some questions?
[36:02] Yeah, go for it.
[36:03] So I like using the definition of knowledge that you just proposed. And does that sound coming from you?
[36:13] Yeah, somebody's got, if you're not, if you're like running water and stuff, just do me a solid, be basically polite and just mute. All right. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
[36:25] I'm sorry. Can you hear me? My apologies. I got a phone call on me. Tune those things out or make them not come in. All right. So...
[36:34] Sorry. James, can you... Sorry, James. Is there any way you can find out who's got the squeaking and taps and...
[36:41] I'm looking for it. Sorry. Okay.
[36:43] Thank you.
[36:44] Yeah, I like the definition of knowledge you gave that, like, the, I guess, concepts in our mind accord with reality. I believe that is what the person I was talking to described as factive, whereas, I guess, in objectivist epistemology...
[37:01] Okay, but sorry, why do we need... You know, there's that old Emerson quote, beware of any enterprise that requires the purchase of new clothes. Well, also beware of any argument that requires the invention of new words.
[37:13] Yeah.
[37:14] So why do we need factive? It seems like a specialized term when we already have knowledge, accurate facts are true.
[37:21] Because in this context, he was debating against objectivist epistemology, which, like I said, they have the dilemma. I view it as a dilemma, that they have to bite the bullet.
[37:35] Sorry. No, no, no, no, sorry. Sorry to be annoying. But if you're opposing an argument, I still don't see why you need to invent a new word.
[37:43] I don't know. Maybe I won't defend that point in particular. I don't know.
[37:48] Know um no i just i just if the word just means knowledge i don't know why you need the word i'm not accusing you of this i know you didn't invent the word but it seems kind of pretentious yeah i mean to to invent a new word when you're opposing an argument it's the argument is false and just i suppose it.
[38:04] Would be because there are different beliefs about epistemology right and they're just contending uh you should maybe there's an argument for classifying them with a particular word like like he said that.
[38:17] That that's not no that's not that's not answering the objection though the objection is why do you need a new word and and like if you don't know that's fine right if you don't know why we need a new word maybe there's some it just it seems odd that you would need to learn a new word in order to make an argument and and i my my my spider sense doth tingle about that like that just seems like kind of kind of cheaty perhaps um you know if i if i want to talk about morals and i invent the word ethicish i don't think i'm i don't think i'm clarifying too much but so maybe we can just cast that word aside and use whatever synonym yeah that's fun.
[39:01] So I, In objectivist epistemology, they would say that possible means you have evidence for that particular thing. And these people I was talking with said that they make a distinction between physically possible, logically possible, and I think they even had other ones too. And maybe that would get your spidey senses tingling too. But I mean, first off, I should ask, have you heard people make these distinctions? They say well i mean it's physically possible that uh the t-bots orbiting mars therefore it might be the case or um i even had someone say something really insane to me they said that it's um not physically possible for a blue for a ball to be blue all over while also not being blue all over but that is logically possible and that i just i don't even i can't even comprehend why they were doing this they were i guess they were arguing against.
[39:56] Sorry do they mean so well hang on but not blue could include shiny oily like if it did they mean not in the category or is it possible for a ball to be both blue and red without the cheat called purple right is it possible for a ball to be blue and red at the same time well that would be a contradiction that would be to say that the same object has two completely different wavelengths and that would.
[40:20] Yeah, so I agree. So their view is that this is not physically possible, but that somehow it's logically possible. And they were trying to contend against classical laws of logic. They were using, I forget the term, you're probably familiar with it, but they essentially believe in true contradictions, which was a very weird thing to grasp.
[40:48] Yeah, no, I've heard of this, sorry, I mean, I know that this is a prejudicial term, but I've heard of this kind of nonsense.
[40:53] It is nonsense, yeah.
[40:54] You know, I've disproven logic, I've, you know, it's like, no, you can't disprove logic, because you'd have to use logic to disprove logic. And logic doesn't break down like physics into quantum physics, where there's all this weird shit going on, like logic is logic. Logic. And so, the idea that you can break it into subatomic particles where things contradict each other in the way that, you know, matter seems to freak out down at the quantum level, that's not logic. Logic are principles, then it's not matter.
[41:23] Yeah.
[41:24] And even if we accept the quantum physics argument that matter behaves in freaky ways down at the very bottom of its essence, it doesn't do so at any level that approaches sense perception, which is what we build logic from. We build logic from sense perception. And so, yeah, the idea that you can have both three and four coconuts at the same time, that a pile of coconuts can be both three coconuts and four coconuts maximum at the same time, or that coconuts can be both plus three and minus three, and they can be fruits and vegetables and mammals and clouds at the same time. I mean, this is madness.
[42:06] I would say you might love it, but I think you absolutely hate it. But it's funny. I asked them for a demonstration of a true contradiction. I did a few conversations with these guys. They always surprise me. So they gave me a quote-unquote true contradiction. They said, this sentence is false. What does that mean? They said that the sentence is false. In that it's also true.
[42:33] Sorry bro i mean you're trying to sorry you're trying to have a discussion with me are you on a speakerphone wandering around somewhere i'm trying to like you keep coming and going audio wise we're trying to have an important discussion i'm not sure what your mic situation you hear.
[42:46] Me well right now i'm not sure why that's uh happening i'm using airpods maybe i should switch to speaker.
[42:51] No that's fine maybe it's just bad bad signal sorry i just thought I thought maybe you were wandering around yelling at a speakerphone or something. I did step outside.
[43:01] But I'll step inside so as to not win. Maybe that's possibly muddying it up. My apologies.
[43:08] Yeah, I'm just hanging on your every word.
[43:10] Okay, okay, okay. I'm stepping inside. I'll reiterate what I said shortly, or briefly.
[43:16] No, I think I understood. So the statement is, this sentence is false?
[43:21] Yeah, yes.
[43:25] But that's not a logical thought.
[43:27] I mean, it doesn't really...
[43:28] That's not an argument.
[43:29] I hardly understand what the point is being made there. Like, I asked what would make it so that the sentence is false.
[43:39] Well, the sentence needs to have a subject. A sentence itself cannot be true or false.
[43:44] I said the same thing, yeah.
[43:44] You can't evaluate... Yeah, you can't evaluate... It's like saying, is this person guilty? It's like, of what? According to what standard? What kind of guilt are you talking about? criminal, civil, moral, conscience, right? Like, you can't evaluate a statement with such little information. So, if somebody says this sentence is false, well, falsehood does not refer to a sentence. Falsehood, refers to an assertion of truth that can be proven and this this sentence is false is not, the proposition of a truth statement that can be evaluated so it is a meaningless sentence yes.
[44:28] Uh i heard uh harry binswanger basically come to the same conclusion that like the fact that it's self-referential doesn't denote anything uh there's there's no truth or falseness to it it's It's just, he said it's equivalent to just making sounds with your mouth.
[44:48] Yeah, so for something to be true, it has to reference something other than itself. And the sentence doesn't reference anything other than itself. And so how can we evaluate whether something is true or false when it makes no true or false claim that is outside its own syntax? Now, if you say it is true that the world is banana-shaped, okay, well, now we can evaluate that because you're making a truth statement that is verifiable independent of the syntax of the sentence. But this sentence is false. A sentence cannot be true or false.
[45:28] Agreed.
[45:29] It's like saying this leaf is guilty. It's a nonsense sentence. A sentence itself cannot be true or false qua it being a sentence. It can be true or false when it makes a claim about a verifiable external truth or falsehood, right? So if you say, if you point at a tree and say, this is a tree, well, now you can evaluate it because the sentence is pointing at something that is not just the sentence. But if you say, this sentence is false, You are not making a true or a false claim. You are simply making a self-referential statement that is missing the criteria or standard by which you would even be able to evaluate whether something is true or false, which is reference to something outside itself that can be independently verified, either through reason or evidence or both. So, yeah, it is a meaningless statement. And it's just one of these sort of tragic, sophist tricks to make people think, ooh, ooh, okay. hey i guess there is no such thing as reason right it's just really it's kind of.
[46:35] Demonic sure yeah absolutely um you.
[46:37] Know if you're if you're smart enough to come up with that kind of trap then you should be using your powers for good not you of course i know it's not your trap but yeah you should be using your powers to educate rather than.
[46:49] Yeah i agree i mean i asked like how does this apply to the real world because um i guess this is this is the analytic synthetic dichotomy that like you can have statements that are not connected to reality and i'm not super like under i don't know that like like the um fine details about the analytic dichotomy but to my understanding this is what they were doing um okay well.
[47:14] Let me let me give you another statement right um klingons are prone to heart disease.
[47:19] Yeah that would be um nothing because there's no such thing as a Klingon.
[47:28] Right. So there's no external test for a self-referential statement.
[47:34] Yes.
[47:37] Orcs in Dungeons & Dragons... Now, you could say... Now, if you say orcs have an armor class of 12... Well, orcs don't exist in armor class as a made-up concept. So that's one thing. If you were to say, though, in Dungeons & Dragons, orcs have an armor class of 12, okay, well, you can go and look it up and find out whether that's true or not. So if you're trying to reference orcs as real, your statement is meaningless. But if you're trying to reference orcs as a fictional entity in Dungeons & Dragons that have particular statistics, then sure. Then you can look that up, and you can verify that.
[48:13] Yes. I don't want to take up the floor too much in case anybody's interested, but...
[48:18] No, no, no, go. Are you kidding me? I love epistemology.
[48:20] Awesome, yeah, this is a thrill. Okay, so the knowledge thing, as I said before, the objectivists have to bite the bullet that they knew for certain this X was true, because there was no evidence to the contrary, essentially. But if they find out that they were wrong, well, then they now know that that wasn't the case. But they would have to say that they knew it beforehand and knew it afterwards, which, again, that's a contradiction, and I don't know how that could be good.
[48:50] No, but I, sorry to interrupt. So I know what the objectivists are fighting tooth and nail for here, and I sort of respect the goal, but I don't respect the solution. So, okay, so the way that it works is something like this. Well, you know, scientists once were convinced that the world was flat, and it turned out they were wrong. Scientists were once convinced that there was such a thing as ether, and it turns out they were wrong. Scientists once believed the world was 6,000 years old, and it turns out scientists once believed the earth was a... right? And this is memorably put forward believe it or not in a sitcom called Friends, where Ross is a paleontologist and his friend Phoebe is like a kind of hippy-dippy masseuse flaky as a crumbling pie, and, phoebe says you know what i'm just wondering if i can play this maybe it's better for me to play it i think i can find this and play it give me just a moment because it really is.
[49:58] While you do that fascinating my uh my friend who was in the call with me and another he was another objectivist knows a bit more about epistemology than actually quite a bit more than me um he basically said that if we let go of this standard, we have to default to basically Cartesian doubt. And I think that's what you're saying, right? All right, hang on.
[50:19] Hang on. Here we go. I think we're there. Okay, Phoebe, this is it. In this briefcase, I carry actual scientific facts, a briefcase of facts, if you will. Some of these fossils are over 200 million years old. Okay, look, before you even start, I'm not denying evolution, okay? I'm just saying that it's one of the possibilities. It's the only possibility, Phoebe. Okay, Ross, could you just... Okay, can you guys hear that all right? Okay, so yeah, Ross is saying, because he's a biologist, paleontologist, or whatever the heck he is, so he's very pro-science and very pro-evolution, right and phoebe's saying no i don't buy it right and he's like it's not for you to buy so hang on i'll play a bit more okay now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the earth was flat and up until like what 50 years ago you all thought the atom was the smallest thing until you split it open and this like whole mess of crap came out now are you Are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?
[51:43] There might be a teeny... Dining. Possibility. Can't believe you caved. Right, so this is funny, right? Because then she's like, I can't believe you caved. Hang on. You just abandoned your whole belief system. Before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Tell me, how are you going to go into work tomorrow? How are you going to face the other science guys? How are you going to face yourself?
[52:26] So he basically just gets up and folds away, right? So you all heard that, right? Now, that was a great moment in a, you know, semi-entertaining sitcom. It was a great moment. And so what the objectivists are trying to do is to overcome Cartesian doubt. And Cartesian doubt is, hey, man, you could be wrong about everything. You might be a brain in a tank. It could be a matrix. Like, you can't be right about anything. And from that, you can make anyone doubt anything. And yet, to doubt everything is to be insane. saying. So this is a brain, this is a brain worm, this is a mind infection designed to cripple you with anxiety and doubt, right? So she's saying, oh, hey man, scientists have been wrong in the past, so you could be wrong now. People have been wrong in the past who were absolutely certain. Now, the fact that you're absolutely certain, when other people who were also absolutely certain turned out to be completely wrong, How?
[53:38] How can it be that you can be so certain when everybody who's been certain in the past has also often been proven to be wrong? Now, that is an absolute attack upon your brain, on your sanity, on your mental health. It is an absolute assault that leverages our capacity for truth and uses it against us to drive us mad. I'm not kidding about any of this stuff. It is absolutely toxic. And, of course, the fact is it comes from a woman towards a male. It's also not. So, no, I mean, this is so... If you're weak, if you're weak, all you can do is inflict doubt. Right? That's all. Like, if the cavalry is coming and doing all of these things, things and you know you've got this like really violent indigenous population in say South America right the cavalry or the conquistadors and so on like you can't fight them you're weak, but what you can do is you can instill doubt, those who are physically weak fight the strong with the infraction of doubt.
[54:59] If that makes sense now this is not an argument this is simply an identification of the power mechanics at play so we'll get to the argument but that's what happens and you know the west is being brought down by the poison of doubt by post-modernism relativism subjectivism and so on right the people who were conquered by the west couldn't fight back, and therefore they have to infect with doubt and that's really what the uh uh government school system is for now is to inflict uh doubt right oh are you proud of your culture well slavery and and imperialism and like it's it's oh you well that we're going to portray the natives as noble kind and wonderful and you all just infected them with syphilis because you're animals like so it's just doubt and so if you say i'm certain right and this is what Ross is going to do is he's going to say to Phoebe, here's the evolutionary markers, here's the facts, here's the arguments, and so on, right?
[56:11] Now, she doesn't want to get to the facts, because she's female. And of course, I'm not characterizing all women like this, but it tends to be an argument from physically weaker people who can't impose their will, and therefore have to crack other people's will with caustic doubt, with toxic doubt, right? So, Ross comes in and he's got all the evidence. Here are all the facts, right?
[56:40] And she doesn't want to look at the facts. What she does is she launches an emotional attack.
[56:48] Right? She says, are you so unbelievably arrogant? Well, I don't want to be arrogant. Right? Are you so unbelievably arrogant that you're so certain that you're right?
[57:07] That you're going to say 100% when scientists have been wrong in the past. So she has an emotional attack and avoids reviewing the facts because she's flaky and she's weak-minded. And so she launches an attack on certainty based upon emotions, that anybody who's certain is arrogant and mean and bad. Now, that is a fascinating attack. And so, what do the objectivists do? Well, the objectivists say something like, how do I respond to the argument that people have been certain in the past, I'm certain now, people who've been certain in the past have turned out to be wrong. Wrong, and therefore my certainty could also turn out to be wrong. Well, they say, well, even if I turn out to be wrong, I'm still absolutely certain. And now that is not valid.
[58:11] Agreed.
[58:11] Right? That is not a valid argument. Because you never want to give the premise away, right? You never want to give the premise away to the other person. So the premise is, is scientists have been wrong. Because they've been absolutely certain, and wrong. It's like, well, the degree to which they're absolutely certain is the degree to which they're not scientists. Right? So scientists would say, well, of course, the flat Earth has been disproven since ancient times, right? Since the Egyptians put the two different sticks in the ground and were actually able to measure the circumference of the world based upon the different shadows in different places of the sticks on the curvature of the Earth. So that's been, you know, cast aside for a long time. And then her second example is, and, you know, weren't scientists absolutely certain that the smallest aspect of matter was the atom until you opened it up and all its other goop, she says, kept spilling out? And I would argue, or answer, no. A scientist who says, I'm absolutely certain that the atom is the smallest chunk of matter is false, because he doesn't know that. So, certainty in the absence of evidence is, in fact, arrogance.
[59:41] Certainty in the absence of evidence is, in fact, arrogance. And so, a scientist who says, well, I'm absolutely certain that the smallest chunk of matter is an atom, is a bad scientist, because he's making claims about the almost infinite regression of smaller bits within matter, saying that he knows that this is the end point when he doesn't. So, yes, people should not say things are absolutely true without evidence, and a scientist should know that most of all. Now, what he can say is the atom, like prior to the quarks and quantum physics and so on, he can say the atom is the smallest piece of matter we've found. It's the smallest piece of matter we know of. Okay, well, that's a true statement. It is, in fact. Now, but if you say there's nothing smaller, you can't prove that. You don't know that. You don't have the instrumentation. And, of course, science still doesn't have it, So physics still doesn't have its unified field theory that ties together gravitation and radiation and weak and strong atomic forces and gravity. It doesn't have that, right? So there's a lot still to learn in the realm of physics.
[1:00:45] May I throw an example? Yeah, go ahead. Do you think it's valid for scientists or anybody to say, well, we know for certain that matter cannot be created or destroyed? Right.
[1:01:04] Ah, that's an interesting question. I think it is fair to say that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only converted back and forth to energy. You can say that because if matter were destroyed, the material would have to go somewhere, right? Right, so, you know, everybody knows you blow up a ship, you just get lots of little bits of ship, right? The ship is still there, it's just disassembled. Like you drop the Lego, you still have all the Lego pieces that are just no longer assembled. So for matter to be destroyed would mean that it left this material plane, so to speak, in which case it would be, well, where did it go?
[1:01:51] I was saying the standard could be that it just no longer exists.
[1:01:59] Well, then the question is, where did it go?
[1:02:04] Um if i was trying to take like the position that like of uncertainty here i'd say something like oh it just ceased to exist and it doesn't go anywhere because it they can't if it doesn't exist now this is crazy well.
[1:02:18] No but it has to go somewhere no no it something has to go somewhere, something can't just cease to exist and there's no evidence in in any science or theory or or practical evidence, there's no evidence that something just ceases to exist. Now, maybe you could say it goes to another dimension, right? It winks out of our dimension and rematerializes in some other dimension, but that would be the equivalent of saying it ceases to exist because there'd be no evidence for it in another dimension. So saying it winks into another dimension is saying that it still exists, just somewhere else. So, the question would be, how could something that exists, simply cease to exist? Where would it go? Like, where would the atoms go? Where would the quarks go? Where would the electrons go? Where would it go? It's there, so where would it go? How could it just cease to exist? And there's... So, all theory, all practice, and just basic common sense tells us that this is not the case. It has to be somewhere i agree um because that is to say that that which is can cease to be is, in what mech in what method right without like just simply winking out of out of existence on what standard yeah.
[1:03:41] I can't even like pretend to take that argument very far actually.
[1:03:46] Well and as somebody points out as man well even if you annihilate matter with antimatter you get radiation as a product. Sure. I mean, so then it's converted into energy, right?
[1:03:55] Antimodern.
[1:03:56] So, I would, if somebody were to say, can you be absolutely certain that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but simply converted from matter to energy and back again, I would say, I am certain of that for both practical and theoretical reasons. Now, if If someone were to say, ah, yes, but scientists have been certain about things in the past, my argument would be, to the degree to which they are scientists, all claims of certainty about things which prove to be false are invalid claims. So, if some guy calling himself a scientist a couple of thousand years ago says, the Earth is flat and I know for certain, and I'm 100% certain, then he's not a scientist. If somebody said the atom is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the very smallest component of matter that could possibly exist, then he would not be a scientist. He would be acting as a mystic. He would be acting as somebody who's superstitious, who is taking something on faith. I don't even know that the quarks or whatever bits are going on beneath the atom, I don't even know that they're the smallest bits of matter. I don't know, right? I mean, and any scientist who says he knows for sure, I think, is not following science.
[1:05:20] What if like um and again at any point in time is that somebody else wants to talk or you want to take other questions no no no so this is good stuff i'm just trying to think of these like absurd scenarios like what if uh someone was to pause it to you they said uh you've seen like uh the men in black movies right remember i think it's like the end of the second one where like they close a locker or something like that and it's just like all these, universes, one being bigger than the other and so on. I don't know if I've drawn the scenario right. What if somebody posited to you that Earth or our entire universe is just like a speck of dust and on top of that there's another speck of dust and it's another set of universes and so on.
[1:06:11] Yeah, like Spider-Man across the multiverse, right? Right. Yeah, I get that. No, and every stoner I've ever talked to has had the thought at one time or another, it's like, hey, man, you ever noticed that the atom kind of looks like the solar system? Like, what if we're just an atom in someone's couch, man? You know, it's like, like, you know, everybody's kind of had that thought. And of course, the argument against that would be that ant-atoms are not infinitely regressive. In other words, atoms are not made up of atoms like that would be a contradiction in terms i.
[1:06:46] I would agree.
[1:06:46] Like a house is made up of bricks but a house can't be made up of a house because the house is the house i'm you know i'm made up of cells i am not made up of myself because that's tautology that's saying i i am i am rather than i am made of a sentence is made up of phonemes and words and and morphemes and so on but a sentence is not made up of a sentence, right? I mean, that's tautology. So, atoms cannot be made up of atoms, because atoms are a category of existence to do with scale, and atoms cannot be made up with atoms, and therefore, we cannot be an atom in a couch somewhere, because atoms can't be made up of atoms.
[1:07:29] Yeah, let's say I formulate it in a way that didn't require an infinite regression. Maybe I just said, uh, we're, it is a finite universe, but we just happen to be an Adam in a couch.
[1:07:43] It is a finite universe, but we just have... Well, then the language would be incorrect. Since atoms cannot make up atoms, we cannot be an atom in a couch. Because that is to say that, you know, obviously the solar system is untold hundreds of trillions of zillions of whatever of atoms. And therefore, you would be saying that the atom in the couch is made up of untold trillions of atoms, which would be a contradiction in terms. Because then you couldn't refer to them as atoms, right? Like, I can't say each brick is a house and you put enough of them together, you get a house. Like, each brick is a component of a house and you get enough bricks together, you get a house. But the brick is not a house, right? Because then you're saying that the house is made up of tens of thousands of houses. Well, then you've got a category error, right?
[1:08:34] Okay. If I switch the terminology, would that make it any better? What if I just said, what we experience is, I don't know, insert word, X, right? Instead of calling it an atom. We're just this tiny piece of existence on some couch. I don't know how else I could possibly formulate that.
[1:09:02] Well, no. So then, I mean, that's fine. People can say whatever they want. And then I would say that the statement needs to be provable or falsifiable in order to be evaluated. So how would we know that we are atoms in a couch? And if the person has no standard by which the proposition can be proven or disproven, then it is bullshit stoner speak.
[1:09:37] Hmm that's actually okay yeah um so what do you take where do you where do you take the conversation when they say well of course I can't like prove it but I mean it's possible right like no out of this this is where we have to draw this like fine well no no possible.
[1:09:53] No possible so possible implies proof I.
[1:09:56] Agree if.
[1:09:56] Something can never be proven it is not in the realm of true or false it is just dead-eyed Stone-a-speak. It cannot be evaluated as to truth or falsehood. So it's sort of like, is it possible that the last dream that Augustus Caesar had before he was murdered was of a seahorse? Right? Well, I suppose it's possible. Can it ever be proven? It can never be proven. So, it is not something that a sane person spends time evaluating. You see, a sane person, and now, of course, another, so a sane person would not spend time thinking about that which could never be proven in the realm of truth. Now, if you were to write a story about Caesar and it was really important they had a dream about a seahorse, you could make it up or whatever, but if somebody said, man, I'm really obsessed about the idea of, did Caesar dream of a seahorse before he was murdered? You'd say, you know, there's lots of important things to talk about and think about in the world. This is not one of them, right?
[1:11:10] So, to reference the teapot again, around Mars, when you say the word possible, I don't know if you recall, I mentioned earlier that these people I was mentioning to you, they Use the word possible in different fashions. In objectivist epistemology, I think I already said this, I don't remember, but possible means that there is evidence to suggest that this may be the case. When you say the word possible, do you have the same understanding or a different one?
[1:11:44] Well, I did kind of modify the argument as I sort of thought about it more. So the first is, is it a contradiction in terms for there to be a teapot orbiting Mars? Yes. No, it's not a contradiction in terms, right? Is it a contradiction in terms for a human being to be living comfortably unaided orbiting Mars? That is a contradiction, right? Because there's no air and there's no air pressure and, right, your lungs would explode and like you die, you know, in 10 seconds, right? Or less. Does that make sense? So that's a contradiction in terms. So if somebody were to say to me, it's possible that there's a human being in his underpants living comfortably floating around Mars, I would say, no, that's not possible. Completely impossible because by the nature of human beings you could not survive.
[1:12:41] We are we okay with that one right now with regards to the teapot thing if we and i said it depends how you define teapot so you could have something that looks like a teapot that is actually a toilet for space aliens well then that's not a teapot that's just something that looks like a teapot but it's in fact a toilet right and uh that there are no human teapots orbiting Mars, because human beings have not left the Earth. And then you'd say, well, but some prior civilization a million years ago, or maybe they left it. Okay, but then there wasn't tea back then, so it wouldn't be a teapot. Like, by definition, a teapot is something fairly contemporaneous using tea that is in our current ecosystem or whatever, right? So I would say, yeah, there's no teapot.
[1:13:20] So, I mean, I'm going to modify it a little bit. It uh let's let's say yeah we find out tomorrow that um some people who were in space uh threw a teapot out there because they wanted to for us to debate this hypothetical they threw no no.
[1:13:41] Sorry but people in space where.
[1:13:42] Like some people maybe who just like uh maybe we find out when the moon landing happened, that they threw a teapot out into space.
[1:13:52] No, but they can't. Because you couldn't throw a teapot hard enough to escape the gravity of the moon.
[1:13:58] That's true. Maybe we find out they launched the teapot through some sort of mechanism. And maybe in order to... I like how you're narrowing these things down, because this is all really important.
[1:14:15] Maybe the modifications here is the teapot is orbiting the moon per se maybe we'll say that they launched it at the moon with some mechanism um not so far enough from the moon uh to directly see it hit i don't this is tricky this is really tricky we just find out that as they were leaving the moon they launched it with some mechanism towards them from there they never cared to see it again right um and now Now we're having the debate, and I say, yeah, look, it's possible. It's possible. Do you take that?
[1:14:53] Sorry, would I take that as possible? Yeah, I would certainly take that as more possible than orbiting Mars, yes.
[1:15:02] Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm.
[1:15:06] Although they wouldn't have any actual mechanism for doing that. No, you know what? I'm going back to impossible. They can't throw it high enough to have it orbit the moon. and the spaceship, doesn't have windows that open for obvious reasons, right? So there's no way for them to get the teacup around the moon.
[1:15:27] Okay. So you're firm on, no, in fact, it's not a teapot orbiting Mars.
[1:15:36] Right. Now, what I would do then, just if we're having this debate, I would use the argument from rank freaking cowardice, not to you, but to somebody making this argument, right? So then I would say to that person, what do you think is the worst bigotry that exists in the world? Right and they would say i don't know virulent racism anti-sem like homophobia like transphobia like they would say some like what is the worst form of bigotry that you can picture right right, and then i would say, well isn't it true according to your logic that that bigotry might be good not bad if anything thing is possible, right? I happen to think bigotries are very bad, but isn't it, if you think it's possible for a teacup to be orbiting Mars, is it not also possible, that the most virulent bigotry you can think of is actually good? Right? Now what would they say?
[1:16:44] Yeah, they would refute that.
[1:16:49] And also, then I would say, is it not true that people have had very strong morals in the past that have turned out to be completely wrong? People thought slavery was justified, people thought women were inferior and should not be allowed to own property and vote. There have been endless bigotries throughout history that people thought were perfectly valid and true that turned out to be false, right? Are you so unbelievably arrogant that although there have been all these bigotries in the past that turned out to be false, all the anti-bigotries, all the bigotries against bigotries in the present are absolutely true? Like, let's put some meat on these bones, right? Let's make it something practical. Now, if, let's say, they said some prejudice, it could be that that prejudice is false, right? Okay, then I would say, so let's go find some people and argue that.
[1:17:55] This is good. I like that.
[1:17:58] Now, would they do that?
[1:18:00] I don't know that they would know how to react to that, actually.
[1:18:04] No, they would know exactly how to react to that. What would they do?
[1:18:09] I don't think they would want to go and argue. I think they would just assert that they're correct.
[1:18:16] Right. So then I would say, so then don't talk to me about uncertainties. Uncertainties. Because you're absolutely certain about them.
[1:18:22] I've employed a similar method when debating somebody on this, because they may not know anything, but neither do you. And it's like, well, I mean, how do you know that, right? How do you know that you don't know anything? And they have to default to an infinite regression. progression um well.
[1:18:40] Then then if they if they can't be certain of anything then anybody who is certain is their enemy so they need to go to i don't know some big rally for for some place and then they have to say that the people holding that rally are wrong yeah and they have to go and make a speech against the most deeply held beliefs of the people running that rally, will they do that they won't they can you they can't even assert that.
[1:19:03] They're they're having like different statements than you right like you could just tell them like well actually you're agreeing with me you don't know that you're disagreeing with me you don't know that the words coming out of your mouth are even the word.
[1:19:13] No no no i mean i i get that but i get that sort of intellectual trickery and i i agree with it but i'm just like okay so if you can't be certain of anything then anybody who's certain of anything yeah should you know i think right so so tell me where you've taken your belief system, and rather than bullshitting about fucking teacups and Mars, like, have you gone to some big rally, right, where people are chanting about, like, we oppose this bigotry and we oppose that bigotry, and have you stood up there and said, y'all are wrong. You can't be certain of this. Well, you haven't done any of that, right? You just muck about with teacups and Mars bullshit. So you don't believe any of this. You know, it's just, it's, it's a, you're, you're a virus of doubt. This is nothing you actually believe.
[1:20:10] I will say, unfortunately, for those who really take these conversations to that level about like uncertainty, I would imagine that if they care enough to do that, they probably um would hold the position that morality is subjective um and that's i.
[1:20:28] Okay fine so okay so morality is subjective so i need to see where you've gone to people who say racism is bad or some phobia is bad and said you're wrong yeah you're wrong to say that this is objective because that's their argument right there's no such thing as objective morality therefore you must have countless times gone to people who are pretty aggressive about their moral statements and told them that they're wrong but they never have because they don't believe any of this crap.
[1:21:00] Yeah i mean like there'd be um i.
[1:21:05] Mean you know sorry to interrupt you know what happens when these people get pulled over by the cops what do they say oh yes sir oh i'm so sorry sir oh yes I apologize oh I didn't mean to they don't sit there and say hey man speed is relative, you don't even know if you exist we could be an atom in a couch and couches can't speed so get lost fascist you know what I mean like they don't say any of that yeah.
[1:21:35] Yeah I mean.
[1:21:36] It's only doubtful questioning intelligent curious people it's never people with any actual power, Yeah.
[1:21:49] That's You got it there So.
[1:21:54] I mean, hey, if you really believe this stuff Why are you talking to me? Right Why aren't you up there with a megaphone At this local rally against X, Y, and Z And telling them that they're all wrong To be certain, oh because they might beat your ass oh suddenly we're back to objective yeah facts right oh.
[1:22:18] And like obviously you'd see the contradiction too right if somebody did assault them and they defended themselves i mean it presupposes that they ought defend themselves right that they think that they aren't uh defend themselves.
[1:22:29] No because i mean they they could they could fight club style let themselves get beaten up and you know whatever right i mean they could i mean that that to me wouldn't be any particular objective test, but it's like, hey man, if all certainty is wrong, you know the number of ideologues who are absolutely certain and act very brutally, because they're so certain. And you're screwing around with me in teacups when there are actual tyrants out there oppressing their entire populations based upon the certainty of their political perspectives? Why aren't you dealing with them? Oh, that's right, because they're big and scary and can inflict negative consequences.
[1:23:09] I just had a thought. I mean, I want to reference that statement I just made. If someone who holds these beliefs, right, If they're to defend themselves, like I said, they're presupposing that they ought to defend themselves, which can be evaluated. If they didn't think it was objectively the case, and it may not actually be objectively the case, maybe someone's actually not assaulting you.
[1:23:34] No, but it's not a moral absolute. No, no.
[1:23:37] I was going to switch this up, I guess, to give two examples. There may be a justified reason where somebody hits you because maybe you hit them back. right but in the case of self-defense the sorry.
[1:23:48] Sorry hang on hang on there's a justified reason why someone hits you because you.
[1:23:52] Hit them first did i say back i'm sorry my yeah you said back yeah uh no problem.
[1:23:58] That's fine i just want to make sure i understand.
[1:24:00] I'm not i'm.
[1:24:02] Not going to pick on little slips here and there lord knows i make.
[1:24:04] Yeah so that would be like a justified situation but in the situation where they're being assaulted and they defend themselves the fact that they defend themselves in that moment presupposes that they at least believe they ought to do it and could you not make the argument again this is just being formulated no.
[1:24:20] Not that they ought to do it that they have the right to do it.
[1:24:23] Well do you not do you not hold that uh anything you do presupposes that you think you ought to do it no.
[1:24:31] I don't think so.
[1:24:33] Oh so the other person.
[1:24:35] Ought not initiate violence against you but you are not obligated to defend yourself. Because that is to say that the initiation of violence and the response to violence, are under the same moral category of compulsion. Like you are compelled to not initiate force, but you can't be compelled to defend yourself. Because if you're compelled to defend yourself, it means violence must be used against you, because violence is being used against you. Because if you don't defend yourself, then violence is being used against you twice, which means double the violence. That can't be a good outcome, right? Because you'd have to be violently aggressed against for not defending yourself because it's an obligation to do it.
[1:25:14] Yeah. I want to make sure I have a good understanding of this. Let's say, take it out of this violent situation. Do you think that me having this conversation with you right now, because I'm doing it, there's the presupposition that I believe I ought to do it.
[1:25:34] Well, no, no, but ought is different from a compulsion, from that which can be compelled. So, I mean, you wanted to do it, but clearly, if you were to hang up, like, in the middle of this conversation, I would have no violent recourse. Of course, you haven't violated the non-aggression principle, right? Might be a little annoying, might be a little rude, but it wouldn't be a violation of the non-aggression principle. So, you want to do it. Now, I think that we ought to respect each other and try to reach a reasonable accommodation and not lie and not misrepresent. There's some standards of behavior, sort of aesthetically preferable actions, we should tell the truth and all of that. But these are not compelled. So, for instance, if a man is being assaulted, he can use violence to defend himself, but he cannot be compelled to use violence to defend himself. It is not an absolute requirement that he use violence because it's his choice. And for many people they don't fight back when a guy sticks a gun in their ribs they just hand over their wallet.
[1:26:49] I wouldn't compel something they don't have to they have the right to but they don't have to like a woman who's being sexually assaulted she has the right, to blow the guy's head off, but she doesn't I wouldn't throw her in jail if she didn't it's not an absolute obligation I'd throw the guy in jail for sexually assaulting the woman, but I wouldn't if the woman chose not to defend herself, for whatever reason, I would not consider that a violation of an absolute ought. It's, you know, you have the right to, but that doesn't mean you have to. Like if somebody steals a garden gnome from my front yard, am I absolutely obligated to use force to get it back? No, I can just shrug it off and say, ah, you know, whatever, I didn't like that garden gnome that much anyway, or it doesn't matter to me, or whatever, right? So you don't have to enforce your rights, but you certainly have the right to.
[1:27:44] Just to be clear, I want to make sure I'm being understood too. I'm saying any action you take, I could be eating a banana, I'm presupposing that I at least think I ought to do it. You would disagree with that?
[1:27:58] Nah, ought, but to know, so ought is a tricky word, right? So you prefer to, what does it mean ought? Ought implies obligation. If somebody lends you money, you ought to pay it back. If you want to eat a banana, if you're eating a banana, clearly you want to, but what does it mean to say you ought to? That's an obligation. That's a requirement. If you borrow a library book, you ought to bring it back. Right? If you put a dent in someone's car, you ought to pay for it to get repaired. But if you're just eating a banana because you like bananas, where's the ought? There is a different category here, right?
[1:28:39] Maybe the word, okay, the way I was thinking of the word ought is like synonymous with the word should, but maybe that's.
[1:28:51] Okay, so should you, now, let's say that you, okay, let's go to the banana thing. So let's say you have an illness that potassium treats. You have a potassium deficiency. Now, if you want to get more potassium, you ought to eat a banana. Does that make sense? Are you with me there?
[1:29:17] Yes, sorry. Somebody was trying to call me and I had to forward them. I heard that, though.
[1:29:24] Okay, so you ought to eat a banana if you're low on potassium and want to solve it, right? One of the ways to do that is to eat bananas, right? Bananas are potassium-rich or something like that, right? Whatever the case is, right? So you ought to, if you have a particular goal, if you just like the taste of bananas, what does that mean? You ought to do that which gives you pleasure. Well, the pleasure is enough, right? You don't need an obligation to. Let's say you hate bananas, and that's why you're potassium deficient, and your doctor says, just eat some bananas. Oh, I don't like them. Well, you know, whatever. Maybe take a potassium supplement, but the easiest way to get them is through bananas. Then he's like, oh, you hold your nose and you eat your banana, right? So then you ought to do it. But if you just really like bananas, where does the ought come in? Ought has something to do with a resistance, right? It's an obligation that's supposed to overcome a resistance, right?
[1:30:14] Yeah. Okay.
[1:30:15] Like, if I say, you know, when you're having really great sex, you ought to have an orgasm. What would that even mean? You want to have an orgasm. It's part of the great sex thing, right? So, I don't know about the ought. The ought has something to do with reluctance and overcoming a desire not to. Like, if somebody lends you money, in some ways, it's more pleasurable to keep the money and not give it back, right?
[1:30:38] Do you...
[1:30:39] So, you ought to because you don't, in particular, want to as a pleasure-based organism, right?
[1:30:45] Yeah, okay. Do you believe that there are any presuppositions in human action? Anything we do?
[1:30:57] Sorry, what do you mean presuppositions? That's a new term for us.
[1:31:04] That's...
[1:31:05] But I like the cunning way you're inserting new terms. That's very, very cool. Because we went from should to ought to presuppositions.
[1:31:11] Yeah, so I'm trying to think of how I would describe this.
[1:31:19] I mean , Are there any positive obligations?
[1:31:28] No, no. No, I'm saying that a presupposition would mean that there is a belief held that is in relation to the action I'm committing.
[1:31:46] Sorry, if that's a little too abstract for me, I don't quite follow.
[1:31:50] Yeah so like if i drink water and eat healthy and i maybe go to the gym um i i would argue that i'm presupposing or that i i hold the belief um and which is reflected through my actions that i want to be physically fit uh and healthy, Does that make sense?
[1:32:19] Yeah, so this is the if-then, right? Are you obligated to eat less food? No, you can eat less food. You cannot eat less food. If you want to lose weight, then you need to eat less food. Right, to take, like, if we take all the variables out, right? So if you want to lose weight, then you need to eat less food, right?
[1:32:42] Yes, yes.
[1:32:44] Okay if you use language you have to accept that language has the capacity for meaning, because you can't say you can't make an argument that language has no meaning because you're using language to convey with meaning that language has no capacity to convey meaning which is a contradiction yes so if you want to debate you have to accept that language has the capacity for meaning and.
[1:33:06] I would call that a presupposition i mean like even if i wasn't debating right let's Instead of just saying hi to you or something, right? Anything I utter.
[1:33:13] Well, no, it's a self-proving proposition. Or to deny it would be self-contradictory, right? So if I say human beings have no capacity to hear language, that would be a self-detonating statement because I'm using your ears to tell you that your ears never work. So my argument can be discarded. Does that make sense?
[1:33:39] Yes, it does. I have an example I'd like to present to you as well. But somebody has their hand raised.
[1:33:45] Okay, I feel like I'm not being allowed to build an argument here. But okay. Because I mean, there's a lot that comes out of what I just said. But if you want to give me another thing, that's fine. I don't mean to interrupt you, but go ahead.
[1:34:06] Well, I'm trying to process mentally what is the best path of conversation now, because maybe it is best the way you're building your argument.
[1:34:14] Well, no, I'm making an argument, and you're telling me you want something else. I'm halfway through making an argument, and you're like, let's do something else. And I'm like, why?
[1:34:23] I'm sorry, you're right.
[1:34:24] I'm sorry.
[1:34:25] If you want to continue that.
[1:34:29] Okay, so a number of things are embedded in the act of conversation, right? So clearly, there has to be a self and an other, right? You can't say to someone, you don't exist. Because if you don't believe the other person exists, then you wouldn't talk to them, right? So you have to accept a self and an other. You have to accept an independent consciousness. You you have to accept an objective reality. Between you two, you have to accept the validity of the senses. You have to accept that language is better than violence because you're using your words, not your fists. You have to accept that language has meaning, right? There is an enormous amount that you have to accept as absolute fact, to engage in a conversation. Do we accept that? So none of these things that I said, and there's more, but none of these things can be denied.
[1:35:30] Agreed, yeah.
[1:35:32] By simply the very act of having a conversation. Are we okay on that.
[1:35:36] Right?
[1:35:38] Okay. Now, in a conversation where you are debating, you also have to accept that truth and accuracy are infinitely preferable to lies, inaccuracy, and falsehood. So if you and I are debating whether the earth is round or flat, Implicit in that debate is that having a true belief about the shape of the world is infinitely better. Not just a little better. It's not like 10% better, because the Earth being a sphere is true, the Earth being flat is false. And it's not 10% more true.
[1:36:24] It's infinitely more true. Because what is true is infinitely preferable to what is false. And so, by that, I don't mean we say, well, one out of ten times, we'll just let the false thing be the best. It's always infinitely better. It's not a little better. So, when you have a debate and you correct someone, you are saying that truth is infinitely preferable to error, and that the means by which truth is ascertained is reason and evidence. Because that's what we've been doing right we've been using reason analogies evidence facts science whatever right to to establish our positions right so all of the above things about other people existing and language having meaning and sound existing and the sense organs are valid and so on right right because if i said to you if we were having a big disagreement and i said no no you agreed with me and you said no i didn't and i said no that's what i heard you'd say well you heard wrong right so you have to accept that language has meaning and the senses operate and are valid, right? Now, when you have a debate with someone, you are saying truth is infinitely preferable to falsehood. And the means by which truth is established is reason and evidence. Because you're not just shooting the guy.
[1:37:44] And you're not saying, well, okay, I'll give you this one about the Earth being flat, but you give me the next one about the Sun being bigger than the Moon, right? No, you say, look, it's got to be accurate, it's got to be true. And you also are saying that reason and evidence are objective and empirical, and you have to say that because you're using language to convey reason using the evidence of the senses, which requires an objective medium called reality, The air and sound waves and the cochlear hairs or whatever's going on in the bowels of your ear or something like that, right? So all of these things are implicit. So the ought is implicit in the very nature of debate, which is why you can't use UPB to overthrow UPB. This is sort of a short, short approach to UPB.
[1:38:37] To be clear, I don't disagree with anything you just said. The only thing is, a lot of those things where I'm like, if then, you said, I would have called those presuppositions. Do you... Is there... Do you... How do I put this? Do you just...
[1:38:55] Well, you could say conditional statements, you could say presuppositions, but yeah, if then. But the if then is implicit in the conversation.
[1:39:03] Yeah, and I would carry this through to actions, too. Like I said, it could be that I was eating a banana, but maybe I presuppose that I should eat it, otherwise I wouldn't have ate it.
[1:39:19] No, but then we're back to should. Should has an obligatory attitude to it.
[1:39:25] Okay, okay, okay.
[1:39:27] Right, you should eat your vegetables, right? But if your kid loves candy, you wouldn't say, you should eat your candy, right? Because the kid wants to eat the candy, right?
[1:39:38] Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Can I present to you another example?
[1:39:50] Sure.
[1:39:53] So there is a way of grounding the NAP that I'm not going to go over in its entirety. There's just like some things that are tied to this exact conversation. And I really like this grounding of the NAP. But in this argument, we highlight that like the law of the jungle. Um you're familiar with that phrase or term right okay.
[1:40:20] Oh yeah yeah yeah i mean you could say this is a day to read it tooth and claw yeah.
[1:40:24] They're like the sterner right belief that might makes right okay so we argue that it's a contradictory position because when the sterner right takes it they're pre when they try to take something from you uh they presuppose that they should be the the one to control it and um.
[1:40:45] No i don't know that they do i don't know that that's the might make right argument i think the might makes right argument is i can and i want to therefore i'm going to that should is a word used by weak people who can't defend their property in the hopes of paralyzing the strong people who want to take it with guilt or shame or like this sort of will to power argument from nietzsche right so the strong people say hey man i'm the viking and you're like the tweak-armed Irish farmer, I'm just going to take your shit. And I don't have to justify it other than I can, and I'm going to. But there's no ought. I just can't.
[1:41:22] Hmm.
[1:41:24] And, you know, you resist me if you want, and, you know, whoever wins, wins. But, yeah, I'm not going to pretend that there is any ought. It's just, you know, you say to the lion, you ought not to eat the zebra. It's like, well, if I'm hungry, I'm going to eat the zebra. If you want to stop me, you can try and stop me, Maybe that's what's going to happen.
[1:41:41] This is interesting.
[1:41:48] You know, this is the old argument from the ancient general, right? I think it was a Roman guy. He said, stop quoting words to men with swords.
[1:41:59] I'm going to call upon your memory. This is going to be, if you can't remember this, it's totally okay. Okay. Do you remember a long time ago when David Gordon tried giving a rebuttal to UPV? I think he did it twice, actually, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, it was terrible.
[1:42:17] It was really, really bad.
[1:42:18] Yeah.
[1:42:19] Yeah, that was embarrassingly bad.
[1:42:21] He's not really good on ethics.
[1:42:23] Oh, on so many levels. Okay.
[1:42:27] In one of his rebuttals, he referenced something you had said about when a thief takes something, there's like a contradiction because they're like rejecting property rights while also trying to affirm them. Do you recall something like that?
[1:42:45] Oh, I remember that argument precisely. So the argument, very briefly, is that one of the contradictions involved in stealing something is a thief would not bother stealing something if he knew that another thief was going to steal it from him right away. Like, why would you bother borrowing, like spending two weeks to borrow into a bank vault to steal a couple of bars of gold if you knew for certain that some well-armed mafia gang was going to steal the gold when you came out of the vault, right? Like, you wouldn't bother. So the thief wishes to both deny and affirm property rights, because he wants to take other people's property while retaining control over that property himself. So he wants property rights for himself, because he'll be very upset if people steal from him. So he both is denying and affirming property rights in the act of stealing. Now, this doesn't mean he's not going to steal, but it does mean that there's a logical contradiction in his approach to ownership.
[1:43:38] So, yes, I'm fully in agreement with that. Now, the thing I'm giving you, I would say it's identical. I guess the issue would be in that presupposition thing. Because this argument about the law of the jungle, I'll just read you a few sentences here, is that if there's a dispute between two individuals over who should be the one to control property, then both those individuals must presuppose this to be the case. That one is asserting that even though the other can actually control it it should be or it's the case that the one will call people a and B right a is saying that even though B could obtain control it a should control it and similarly on the other end B is asserting that even though a might be able to obtain control that he should be the one to control it is this is this it's not parallel to what you're saying no.
[1:44:40] Okay i don't think there's a contradiction there right so if two.
[1:44:44] People both see a chunk of gold actually no no go ahead that wasn't the full argument but uh that's that's okay no.
[1:44:53] It's not innately self-contradictory so let's say you and i are in a stream in alaska and we both see a chunk of gold at the same time and we both reach for it and grapple for it right.
[1:45:02] Well.
[1:45:03] We both believe that we you know what a lot of kids Kids always say, I saw it first, right? Or sometimes men in bars say, I saw her first, or whatever, right? So you and I are both wrestling over this piece of gold, right? Now, I think that I should own it. You think that you should own it. But we're not self-contradicting property rights. But if you have the gold, you found it, and it's yours, and then I steal it from you, then I'm saying, you should not have control over your own property. But I should retain control over your property that I've stolen. So I'm saying that you should not have control over property, but I should have control over property. Well, we're both human beings, so I have opposite rules for the same class of species. Which is like saying mammals should be both warm-blooded and cold-blooded at the same time. It's like, well, you're going to have to pick a lane there, buddy, because you can't have both. And so if you're going to say property rights should be violated for you but property rights should be respected for me, that's a contradiction so if I steal the chunk of gold from you and it's legitimately yours I steal the chunk of gold from you and then I wake up the next morning and someone's stolen it from me I'd be outraged.
[1:46:24] Especially if I went through considerable risk and danger to steal the chunk of gold I'd be outraged, because Because I'm saying that I want to keep what I've taken from you, that I want to violate your property rights while maintaining my own control of property, the property I've stolen. So that's a contradiction, right? Property rights should be both violated and affirmed is a contradiction.
[1:46:48] I agree. I agree. And this is, that argument goes, I guess, again, like, like I said, I think it's very similar to what you're saying. It goes a little further and says part of the contradiction that's occurring is when, when they defend that property from somebody else, right? They're affirming and also denying property rights, but also there's the issue that they're conflating possession and ownership, which are necessarily two distinct things. But anytime while they're controlling the property, which they're defending, right? I would argue that they're both presupposing a distinction between ownership and possession, yet they contradict.
[1:47:31] Well, the thief would say, I want to keep what I stole. In fact, I'm only stealing it because I want to keep it, right? So you think of a drug addict who steals something to pay for his drug addiction. Well, what does he do? He takes, I don't know, a cell phone. He steals a cell phone, and then he takes it to a fence and sells it, right?
[1:47:53] Yes. Right?
[1:47:56] So he knows that he stole it. He might lie about it, but he knows that he stole it. And the thief, sorry, the fence, the guy he's selling the cell phone to, also knows he stole it.
[1:48:09] Now he may lie about it but i mean they know right because he's coming to him not some legitimate place right so yeah both the thief and the drug addict know, that the drug addict does not have the right to dispose of the cell phone so they all know that the property right is invalid and they're fine but the fence if he buys the cell phone for a hundred dollars from the drug addict and then somebody steals a hundred dollars from him, the fence, he'd be outraged, right, because he wants to keep the hundred dollars.
[1:48:41] And that's where the contradiction is.
[1:48:42] Right?
[1:48:43] So again- Just to be clear.
[1:48:44] Yeah, you want to deny and affirm property rights, deny it for your victim and affirm it for yourself. Okay, well, that's just a contradiction. Yes. It's not going to stop you from stealing, but it is a logical contradiction.
[1:48:53] Yes, okay. I mean, I'm fully in line with all of this. They believe that- I.
[1:49:01] Stole from you, how dare someone steal from me, right?
[1:49:03] Yes, they assert they have a right to your property, but then also try to deny the existence of rights when they defend it, which is insane. And it's a contradiction. Okay, this is great. This is great. I will mention this, not to be a pester to you.
[1:49:29] No, it's not a pester. It's philosophy, man.
[1:49:31] Okay, I'm going to mention something I mentioned to you before, and I would really love if you're interested in this, that you send me a follow-up or something. But I sent you a friend's paper on his grounding in the NAP, and he ties it all the way down to epistemology. And the law of the jungle argument that we kind of just went over is featured in that paper. And it's an argument, what do they call it again, like argument, or argumentum e contrario. So basically he finds the contradictions in the other theories of law, like law of the jungle, mixed law, and then he evaluates those and proves that they contradict themselves.
[1:50:16] Well, so yeah, the thief prefers that his victim not defend his property, right? So the thief prefers that his victim not defend his property, but then the thief wants to defend his own property. So the thief will, you know, steal from you while you're sleeping so that you can't defend yourself or attack him or protect your property. But then the thief will use aggression to defend his own, what he's stolen, right? So the thief wants there to be no defense of property, and then the thief wants to enact violent defense of property, right? it.
[1:50:50] Yes this pretty much tears down both like law of the jungle and mixed law though mixed law can be a little more complicated to find these uh contradictions in but it still necessarily arrives at it.
[1:51:04] But upb and upb bypasses all of this i mean i think these are interesting arguments and i think they're worth worth making but upb bypasses all of this and upb simply says that stealing can never be universally preferable behavior. It's impossible. Not only is it impossible to enact in that everyone can't be stealing from everyone else all the time, right? But it's logically impossible. It doesn't even need to be empirically impossible, which it is, but it's logically impossible. Because if we say that theft, stealing, is universally preferable behavior, Stealing is the good, stealing is moral, then we have a logical contradiction, which is that stealing is the unwanted removal of property. But if stealing is universally preferable behavior, then everyone must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time, which is all time. But if you want to be stolen from, it's not theft.
[1:52:08] If you want to have your property removed from you, it's not theft. Like, I don't hire some junk place to come and get rid of the junk in my basement and then call up the cops and say, they stole from me. And then they say, you know, here's the contract. He paid us to take this stuff away. No, the cop would say, look, you can't accuse someone of stealing from you when you paid them to take the stuff away, or at least signed a contract saying they could take the stuff, right? I mean, if I leave a couch on my front yard saying, take me, I can't then film someone on taking it and go to the cops and say, he stole, right?
[1:52:41] So, UPB utterly wrecks, destroys, invalidates, and removes the possibility that stealing can be universally preferable behavior. Because if stealing is universally preferable behavior, there's no such thing as stealing and therefore you have a contradiction. You're saying that which does not exist must be universally preferable. Well, that's crazy. Like, that would be madness, right? And it does the same thing for rape, right? Rape can never be universally preferable behavior, because rape is desperately unwanted sexual contact. But if we say everyone should rape and be raped at the same time, then if you accept that, then you want to be raped, in which case it's not rape.
[1:53:27] If you want the sexual contact, it's not rape. Murder, assault, right? So UPB bypasses all of this stuff and says, can the proposed action be universalized? If the proposed action cannot be universalized, then it cannot be moral. It cannot be universally preferable behavior. Now, what about respect for property rights? What about not stealing? Can that be universalized? Yes. There is no logical or empirical contradiction for the respect for property rights. Everyone can not steal. Now, there are still people who will steal, but that's fine. I mean, this is a logical construct for morality, which accepts free will, which means that some people will act against morality. But the most dangerous predator is not a thief, but false moral theories. Because it's the false moral theories that has people steal half your property through the power of the state and run up massive debts for your children. It's the false moral theories that are the real predators. I don't care that much about individual thieves. So, it's dealing with the big issue, the big issues of where the real theft occurs in the world. So, yeah. UPB just bypasses all of this and says, okay, so you're saying that theft is universally preferable behavior. Well, let's play that out. It's impossible.
[1:54:52] It's asymmetrical, right? For someone to steal, the other person must desperately not want to have that property taken.
[1:54:59] And so it's asymmetrical. In other words, one person can enact stealing, but the other person has to oppose it. But it can't be universal if one person is pro it and the other one is very much anti it, then it's asymmetrical. Therefore, it can't be universal. So anyway, that's the elegance of UPP.
[1:55:13] Do you remember in your debate with rationality rules, one of his final criticisms he was issuing to you, and I'm starting to believe this might not really even matter when it comes to ethics. Uh he's one of his final criticisms in that debate is well you haven't arrived at an odd statement, um and if i recall correctly your response is like it's embedded in the argument but i think what he wanted was for you to formulate some sort of i don't know if it'd be a syllogism or even just any no.
[1:55:46] But he he was formulating the odd argument he was so he's saying your argument fails because you haven't established an ought argument. So he's saying that you ought to establish an ought argument, which means he's accepting ought.
[1:56:01] I agree.
[1:56:01] And he's criticizing me for failing to manifest the ought. So he's manifesting the ought, saying I haven't proven the ought. And it's like, but you can't contradict me without reference to an ought.
[1:56:14] Yes, yes.
[1:56:14] If he were to say, Stef, I'm just personally, your argument makes me very emotional, and that's why it's false. Well, nobody would accept that as a valid argument. It might be emotionally honest, probably would be, but our good buddy Stephen Woodward, if, but if he says, Stef, your argument objectively fails because you haven't established an ought, it's like, well, you just said objectively fails, which means there's an, my statement ought to create an ought, but you've already established the ought by criticizing my argument. So, yeah, you can't correct someone without reference.
[1:56:47] So I agree. I don't even believe in the Azot Gap. I think it's rather silly.
[1:56:53] Well, no, it's true in that orts don't exist in nature. Orts don't exist at the atomic level. I mean, I get that orts don't exist. So what?
[1:57:04] Yeah.
[1:57:06] Concepts don't exist in the world. That doesn't mean they're not valid. That doesn't mean they're not objective.
[1:57:10] I agree.
[1:57:11] And if you... Are debating, you are accepting aughts.
[1:57:18] So then...
[1:57:19] Right, I mean, because, and the problem with most debates, and I'm not including you and I, this is a great conversation, but the problem with most debates is the level of fraud involved is staggering. Because if someone said to me ahead of time, listen, man, it doesn't matter what you say. I'm just going to deny everything you say. Like, I'm going to pretend to be rational, but I'm not going to be rational, right? Now, I remember in the debate with Rationality Rules, Stephen fully accepted that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior. He fully accepted that. So then we're done.
[1:57:56] Okay.
[1:57:56] Then he's accepted that rape... Now, he'll go back and say, but there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior. It's like, okay, so then you're saying it's universally preferable behavior to say things that are true. And if you're going to say that it's universally preferable behavior to say that things are true, but there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, you've just contradicted yourself. You said that something is valid, universally preferable behavior, and also invalid at the same time, and that's just not valid. That's just not true. Self-contradictory statements can't be valid.
[1:58:25] So i guess i think this answers my question but uh i do want to get a clear answer when it comes to, um talking about ethics and saying um i don't know if it's yeah if we're talking about ethics we don't need to arrive at an odd statement essentially as long as you can find contradictions in the um the opposing theory i suppose right like you don't think you need to say so.
[1:58:58] Sorry we don't we don't need to arrive at an ought statement what is that that's an ought statement.
[1:59:02] You just.
[1:59:04] Made an odd statement saying we don't need to arrive at an odd statement.
[1:59:07] It's not necessary okay so it's.
[1:59:09] Not required which means you don't have to it's not a requirement so it ought not be.
[1:59:14] A requirement like.
[1:59:15] You you can't get away.
[1:59:16] From i agree if.
[1:59:17] You're debating if you're.
[1:59:17] Conversing Like I said, I don't really... This ought gap to me isn't too important. I get what you're saying, though. Obviously, there's no ought embedded in a tree or something. But I guess to propose UPB, you don't need to say you ought follow UPB. It's just a matter of fact that because you're already... Engaging in the conversation, you're saying, it's embedded. There it is. It's already there. I believe that's the way you've said it in the past, and I think it's kind of what you were just saying now, right?
[1:59:49] No, no. All I'm saying is that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be UPB.
[1:59:57] And it's... I think I need to chew on the thing, because I was just about to repeat myself, but I think I need to chew on what you just said.
[2:00:05] No, no. So then you're saying, oh, Stef, are you saying that you ought to follow UPB?
[2:00:10] Yeah, I guess what I was asking you is, do you need to arrive at that to, I guess, have a valid theory of ethics?
[2:00:19] Do I need to arrive at what?
[2:00:21] A statement saying you ought to follow UPP.
[2:00:28] Well, UPP is valid. Now, if you say, I'm interested in truth, facts, reason, evidence, and morality, then you have to accept UPB. Now, accepting UPB, of course, means that you should follow UPB, of course, right? You can't say, I fully accept the scientific method as the only means to truth, and I really want to get to the truth, and then, of course, you're obligated to follow the scientific method, right? If you say, I want the truth, the scientific method is the only way to ascertain the truth, so I'm not going to follow the scientific method, that would be a contradiction, right?
[2:01:02] Yeah, yeah, it does.
[2:01:07] Mathematics is the only way to get numerical accuracy. I desperately want numerical accuracy, then therefore you have to follow mathematics, right? That's embedded in the preferences. Does that make sense?
[2:01:17] Yes, yes, it does.
[2:01:20] Okay, so if you say, I want to follow reason, evidence, and truth, then UPB is rational. It's evidence-based in that societies that violate UPB do very badly, right? I mean, the free market affirms UPB and property rights and does much better, than a communist or socialist or fascist society that violate UPB in terms of, well, both life, liberty, property, and so on, right? If you look at most of human history, most of human in history has been massive violations of UPB in terms of slavery and the subjugation of women and the draft and so on, right? So if you look at when society has respected UPB more, which is small government and free markets and so on, then...
[2:02:10] Society does much better. I mean, so there's empirical evidence as well. If you look at the things that are successful in society, they tend to be those where UPB is respected the most. So things that fail are the things the governments do because it's a violation of UPB. Things that succeed tend to be more in the free market, which is where UPB is more respected. So there's reason and evidence. And it is true that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior. Now, you can reject universally preferable behavior, but then I don't want to hear a word out of your mouth about debating anyone. Because the moment you debate someone, you're saying, there's a universal standard called truth, and you should follow it, and you're not doing that. So, the moment you debate someone, you're accepting UPB, then the only question is, okay, since you already accept UPB by having a conversation with me, the only question is, what behaviors are UPB? And it turns out, respect for persons and property are the only behaviors that follow UPB. So, I mean, do you have to follow UPB? No. It's a choice because we have free will. I mean, you have to follow gravity. That's not a choice, right?
[2:03:21] Yeah.
[2:03:22] You can't open your eyes if they're functional. You can't open your eyes and not see. You can close your eyes, open them, but you can't open them and not see. So you have a choice to not follow UPB, for sure. You have a choice to reject UPB, as of course a lot of people have done, but you're wrong.
[2:03:37] And you've given up the right to say that you're interested in truth, rationality, objectivity, and morality. Because you are both affirming UPB and denying UPB.
[2:03:48] So you're saying that UBB is false, and therefore we should reject it. Okay, so it's universally preferable behavior to reject things that are false. So then you can't say there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior. So I would not command people to follow UBB. I would just say it's an inevitable result. You can't order people at gunpoint to follow the scientific method, right? I mean, it's not a violation of UBB to be a mystic. You can lie to yourself. You can falsify things. As long as it's not outright fraud or something like that, you can bullshit yourself all you want. So I'm not going to force you, oh, you have to follow UPB. But it is true. And you can't get ethics without it. You can't get ethics from gods. You can't get ethics from governments. You can't get ethics from your ancestors. You can't get ethics from chicken entrails or witch doctors. You can only get ethics from UPB. So if you want to be ethical, you have to follow UPB. Now, people can say, well, I don't want to. It's like, well, then, okay, you don't. Then don't debate anyone. don't otherwise you're a bottomless hypocrite because then you're saying there is upb but i just don't want to follow this one.
[2:04:53] It would be uh.
[2:04:54] All the ones that are actually valid.
[2:04:56] It would be contradictory right i mean the moment like to to give i guess more of a concrete if you had a moral, particularist who was rejecting upb you would say he's just simply living in contradiction because every action i'm so glad so i want to use the word presuppose but um how do i formulate this every time he engages in debate or, maybe even just thinks to himself about the truth, right? He's adhering to UPB.
[2:05:27] Well, I don't, yeah, yeah, thinking is unverifiable, so I can only verify empirically what people, I can only verify what people actually do, because anyone can say anything about what they think, right? It's not objective. Gotcha.
[2:05:41] But so long as they even ever make an argument about something, or try to correct somebody.
[2:05:46] Yeah, if they correct me, then they're saying, if they correct me, they're saying there's a universal standard to determine truth from falsehood, and you're falling short, and it's infinitely preferable that you be correct, not false. Right? And honestly, this is not, I hate to say this is not complicated, because it sounds like it's tricky in our minds, I get that. That but we you're in you're in kindergarten and you say two and two make five what does the teacher say sorry.
[2:06:12] You said two two makes five i didn't hear you too well.
[2:06:14] Yeah if you're a kid right you're five or six years old you're in kindergarten and you confidently say that two and two make five yeah they say you're you're wrong like you're making a statement about reality, which is false, and I'm here to correct you. And it's not personal. It's not like I'm offended by you saying that or a genie in a dream told me that you're wrong. It's like, no, it's a fact that you're wrong. So we have universally preferable behavior from the very beginning of our lives, and we accept it at all times, right? I mean, somebody like David Gordon says there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior.
[2:06:54] While making arguments in well-formed sentences instances right which to rebut points that i make right i mean it's like it's like saying to somebody there's no such thing as self-ownership and then making an argument which is yours to oppose an argument they made which is theirs well that's self-ownership owning yourself and owning the effects of your action so i mean so this is one of the big things that i brought to philosophy is forget about the content look at the form of the argument first and that will answer most of your questions. Like most philosophical arguments can be resolved by looking at the form of the argument rather than the content. Everyone wants to rush to the content of the argument. No, I do exist. No, there is such a thing as objective reality. No, the senses are valid. And it's like, no, but you don't have to do any of that. Because the simple act of using the senses means you have to accept that the senses are valid.
[2:07:51] Right?
[2:07:53] The simple act of having a debate. Having a debate requires using the senses because we can't Vulcan mind-meld link, right? So having a debate, having an argument, requires about 6,000 implicit facts to be accepted. Sense is valid. Language has meaning. You and I exist. There's an objective medium between us. Reason is better than violence. Rationality and evidence are what? Determines truth from falsehood.
[2:08:19] Truth is a value that is infinitely greater than falsehood. All of these things are absolutely completely and totally accepted in order to have even a conversation, let alone a debate. So it's all solved. But everybody wants to rush into, you know, it's like if somebody sends you a, I've used this argument before, because if I send you a letter that says, my argument is, letters never get delivered.
[2:08:46] Right? What would you say? Would you start arguing? Would you write me back? No, I think that letters do get delivered. And I say, no, I really don't think that they do. And here's my, like, what would you say? You wouldn't look at the letters on the letter. You'd look at the envelope, right? You wouldn't look at the content of the letter. You would look at the form of the letter. And you'd say, well, Stef, come on. You can't send me a letter saying that letters never get delivered. Because if you genuinely believed that, you wouldn't send me a letter because it would never get delivered. So the fact that you sent me a letter means you know that letters get delivered. So let's not, like the argument is in the letterhead. It's on the stamp. It's on the envelope, not in the content. Does that make sense?
[2:09:33] Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I always tell myself, there's still something I need to learn about UPV, but then I go and investigate it, and I'm like, maybe I do understand it well enough. And this is one of those moments. Although I've had a bit cleared up for me, for sure.
[2:09:57] No, tell me what doesn't make sense. And the reason is not because UPB is complicated, it's because we've all been lied to so much. But sorry, what is it?
[2:10:06] I mean, I think I get it now, but what I was confused about for the longest time is that if we were to give an ethical theory that we should, I guess if you're proposing an argument, whether it be just casually or syllogistically, I thought you'd have to end it with, like, therefore you ought, you know, in this case, therefore you ought adhere to UPV. But I believe after this conversation, I'm of the belief that you don't need to arrive to that statement.
[2:10:43] No, it's the question is not, do you, the question isn't, ought you follow UPV? The question is, do you accept UPB by correcting me? Do you accept UPB by having a conversation with me? Do you accept UPB by debating with me according to objective standards, one of which is that truth is infinitely preferable to error? Truth is UPB. So you can't argue against UPB by saying we should accept that which is true, because that's UPB.
[2:11:17] And i believe.
[2:11:18] So in in terms of the it's not it's not ought you to follow upb it's have you already accepted upb by having a debate with me, right so if if you and i are having this debate in fluent japanese right would you say to me Stef you ought to learn japanese.
[2:11:40] Uh if we're having it in the japanese that we said oh.
[2:11:44] Yeah you and i are debating back Pure Japanese, native speaking, 100%. We're having a big, rigorous back and forth in pure Japanese. Would you ever say to me, Stef, you ought to speak Japanese?
[2:11:56] No, not at all.
[2:11:58] No, because I already am speaking Japanese. So I don't say to people who are speaking Japanese, well, you really ought to learn and speak Japanese. I will simply point out, you already know and are speaking Japanese. So I don't say to people, you ought to follow UPB, who are correcting me according to universal standards. I say, you're already accepting and practicing universal standards. You're already practicing and accepting UPP. So, what are we, like, you're literally yelling at me in Japanese that there's no such thing as Japanese. Like, it's a little crazy, right?
[2:12:29] Yeah. So, for, like, the moral particularist, would your answer to that person be, it's like, well, you've already Wait.
[2:12:43] Wait, what do you mean by particularist?
[2:12:44] Particularistic so like uh there are people i.
[2:12:47] Love your habit of bringing these new terms in we haven't talked about that one yet.
[2:12:52] So all right.
[2:12:54] Well what about uh hijamba bob ahead do you agree with that it's like can we can a brother get a.
[2:12:59] Definition absolutely what is a moral someone who asserts that like uh morality is not like a universal thing like oh i have actually the right to aggress on you but but you don't to me um that would be some form of moral particularism i I don't know any, like, specific arguments or philosophies they hold in this.
[2:13:19] No, but that person isn't going to debate with you. They're just going to pull a gun on you, aren't they? Where's the debate?
[2:13:28] It's just in the scenario that, like, you're arguing with somebody about, like, objective morality.
[2:13:33] Okay, so let's do that. We can do this just to close off. Okay, so let's do that. So you tell me, you say what? There's no such thing as you play this person. What would they say?
[2:13:42] Um... So they would say, yeah, you know what, UPB does exist, but I choose to adhere to it sometimes when I want to, and not other times when it comes to aggression. Just to be clear, so I understand this form of argument.
[2:14:00] No, no, I get that you're role-playing. I just asked you to role-play.
[2:14:02] I have a question.
[2:14:03] I have a question. I'm sorry.
[2:14:04] I have a question. What?
[2:14:06] So are we role-playing? Outside the role-play.
[2:14:08] I'm sorry. Outside the role-play.
[2:14:10] Okay, that was the briefest role-play in the history of the show.
[2:14:13] I didn't want to make sure I could role-play it correctly. As you, PV, demonstrated as well, even outside of argumentation, like if I choose to eat and drink healthy foods and whatnot, I'm adhering to the...
[2:14:27] No, because that's subjective. So healthy food for a diabetic would be very different from healthy food for somebody trying to lose weight, or healthy food for a sumo wrestler. You know what I mean? like so healthy food for somebody trying to gain weight or like so that's subjective relative to goals upb is universal and independent.
[2:14:47] Okay all right i can do this role play all right so yeah yeah okay so i'm saying yeah no upb does exist you're right uh but i i choose which uh upbs to adhere to and which ones not not.
[2:15:04] So? So what? Well, what relevance does that have to the truth of UPB? So if you say the scientific method is valid, but sometimes I'm going to pray to the chicken gods for answers, what relevance? I mean, it just means you're deviating from the scientific method. That doesn't have any impact on the validity of the scientific method. It just means that you're not using it from time to time, which means you're going to be wrong. So the fact that you can deny UPB doesn't mean that UPB is false. I mean, I can choose not to follow the scientific method. That doesn't invalidate the scientific method, right? I can choose to eat nothing but cheesecake. That doesn't invalidate the science of nutrition, right?
[2:15:46] Yeah.
[2:15:47] I mean, the idea that you think you can break moral rules by disagreeing with them or not acting upon them is pretty narcissistic, honestly. Like, the entirety of morality doesn't depend upon your individual crappy little choices, my friend. Science doesn't depend on whether you follow it or not.
[2:16:04] Yeah.
[2:16:05] Well, I'm bad at math. That means math is invalid. I mean, that's narcissistic in the extreme, right? You can choose to follow stuff or not, but that's just your own little choices. It has nothing to do with what's true or not.
[2:16:16] Yeah yeah so the I totally got you so you condense that and I'm out of the role playing because I can't play that position I know I get that I can't play that position too long I was in theater school I know when the scene is over um so yeah the answer to that is like do, and don't whatever you want I suppose but um it doesn't make this theory untrue, or it doesn't make it false I don't know why it was false I mean.
[2:16:46] If you say, I'm going to say that two and two make five, do you think you've just broken the entire discipline of mathematics? That would be insane. That would be megalomaniacal. If I can fly because I choose to disbelieve in gravity, it's like, eh, do whatever you want, but you know, the truth is the truth.
[2:17:02] Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[2:17:05] I mean, that, and I'm not saying this would be you, that to me would be a sign of narcissistic vanity, that because you don't follow a rule, the rule is invalidated. It's bizarre to me. You know, it's like saying, well, I'm not going to wash my hands, therefore I'm never going to get an infection.
[2:17:20] It's like, what?
[2:17:22] The whole science of epidemiology is destroyed because I don't wash my hands. It's like, well, that's pretty narcissistic.
[2:17:27] I agree, and I guess since you probably want to wrap this up now, I'll just leave with this statement. I agree. And it's funny because I think I knew that answer anyways. I've certainly engaged in debates where somebody's like, oh, if the NAP is true, then what would you do in this scenario? Steal a penny or let the X terrible consequences occur? It's like, well, whether I violate the NAP or not doesn't make it untrue. So this hypothetical is just bunk at its root, realistically.
[2:17:59] Yeah if someone if someone put a gun to your head and asked you and told you to disavow the scientific method that means that science is destroyed it's like no science is only destroyed when you contradict fauci that's the only time that science is apparently destroyed yeah i mean that's just wild right that's just why they're saying that the truth depends upon my personal crappy little choices and it's like it really doesn't, yeah if i if i choose to sail around the world as if it's flat that makes the world flat, checkmate globalists right yeah all right anything you wanted to close up on here it's a great conversation i really appreciate it i.
[2:18:42] Really appreciate it i'd love to talk having these talks uh i do it with my friends all the time but it's always it's always special to talk with you about it so i really appreciate it i.
[2:18:53] Appreciate that and i really do want to thank everyone for dropping by i like i like these voice chats rather than you know sitting uh and and reading text which is fine too i i don't mind that particular but i do enjoy the agility and sparring of the voice chats i of course do have to be responsible to the income of the show and uh i think i think What happens is, because there's not a donate button directly on this medium, I think that what people do is they say, get lost in the conversation and don't remember to donate. But again, and I don't mean to press upon your generosity. So if you've donated recently, this is not for you. And I hugely thank you for it. But if you are listening to this now or later, and it's been a little while since you've donated, if you could help out, I would really, really appreciate that. that, you can help out the show at freedomain.com slash donate. And you can also go to freedomain.com slash subscribe star.
[2:19:53] But yeah, I'm just looking at this. Yeah, this is about 10% normal donations. So much though I enjoy these conversation calls, if it is low donations, I will have to regretfully not continue them, which is not, I mean, just talking about sort of negatives and consequences. So if you do enjoy these, and I'll obviously have to go buy donations because that's an indication of value to you. And of course, I'm not saying one way or the other, like whatever you find valuable is what I want to facilitate. So I'll keep an eye on this. And if you're listening to this later, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show, I'd really appreciate that. And I really, really do. Thank you everyone so much for a great conversation tonight. Lots of love from up here. And I will talk to you Sunday morning, 11am. am and i am gosh what am i have about 12 i mean it's a grueling thing again so i'm 12 through the just so you know what i'm doing when i'm not doing shows um i am about 12 of the way through, the shortened version of peaceful parenting so that's uh that's coming along all right thanks everyone lots of love from up here take care talk to you soon bye.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
