Philosopher Stefan Molyneux engages in a debate with a caller exploring the intricacies of universally preferable behavior (UPB) and its ethical implications. The conversation begins with a friendly discussion on how best to structure their conversation, leading directly into a deep dive into the principles that underpin Molyneux's philosophical framework. The caller praises Molyneux's book, likening his rigorous ethical system to a beautifully constructed skyscraper, setting the stage for a rich examination of foundational philosophical concepts.
As they traverse the ideas of success and domination in the animal kingdom, Molyneux offers a compelling definition of human success rooted in our unique cognitive abilities and adaptability. The caller raises important questions about the criteria for evaluating our success compared to other organisms, eventually leading to a discussion about the relationship between universally preferable behavior and the ethical structures of society. Molyneux asserts that UPB must serve as an absolute foundation for understanding ethics, as all living creatures inherently pursue behaviors that enhance their survival and flourishing.
The conversation takes an interesting turn as they explore the classic philosophical distinction between "is" and "ought." Molyneux argues that while physical properties can exist independent of choice, moral behavior requires a certain volition which aligns with the concept of universally preferable behavior. This exploration progresses toward the notion that ethical debates cannot exist without an implicit understanding of what ought to be done. The caller agrees, acknowledging that any dialogue presupposes a shared set of values about truth and morality.
As their discussion unfolds, they tackle the complex layers of philosophical reasoning, including logic and consciousness. Molyneux emphasizes the need for a stable foundation of logical reasoning derived from the consistent behavior of matter and energy, effectively linking it back to the ethical quandaries of human existence. Here, the caller challenges him to articulate further how these abstract concepts relate to the specific actions humans take and the implications of those actions on morality and ethics.
The lively discourse weaves through essential questions surrounding the nature of existence, consciousness, and the evolution of human reasoning. Molyneux posits that human consciousness, set against the backdrop of instinctual behavior observed in animals, enables us to abstract principles that guide moral choices. The caller offers thoughtful pushback, probing for clarification on the distinctions between instinctual and rational behavior, ultimately leading to a deeper exploration of the evolutionary journey that has shaped human reasoning.
As the conversation evolves, they examine moral principles within the framework of UPB, identifying theft, assault, and murder as behaviors that self-contradict their justification as universally preferable. Molyneux articulates a clear distinction that these acts inherently inflict harm on others, validating their exclusion from the realm of acceptable moral behavior. The caller is particularly intrigued by this evaluation of morality, exploring how UPB functions as both a guideline for ethical reasoning and a lens through which to evaluate the actions of individuals in society.
Wrapping up the conversation, they discuss the nature of positive actions—considered aesthetically preferable but not universally preferable—while also acknowledging that virtues such as courage take effort and moral fortitude. Molyneux notes that while certain behaviors might not fall under UTB due to their subjective nature, they still significantly influence the moral landscape of society.
Reflecting on the richness of their dialogue, the caller expresses a desire to continue the conversation in the future. Molyneux welcomes this idea, emphasizing the ongoing exploration of philosophical thought as both necessary and invigorating. Their discussion encapsulates profound insights into the nature of ethics, morality, and human consciousness—an enlightening experience for any listener navigating the complexities of philosophical inquiry.
0:07 - Conversation Structure
0:21 - Ground Rules of UPB
2:50 - Defining Success
7:28 - The Nature of Life
17:27 - Logic and Reason
29:33 - Proof of Reason
30:03 - Language and Thought
37:35 - From Reactive to Proactive
42:30 - The Mystery of Intelligence
1:06:56 - Morality and Universality
1:16:38 - The Role of Courage
1:26:09 - Conclusion and Reflections
[0:00] Yeah, no, thanks for meeting. Yeah, I guess what would be the best, what do you think would be the most efficient in our time?
[0:08] Because I mean, I could just randomly post questions or things, but I wonder what would be like the best structure for our conversation. i.
[0:15] Think random questions is absolutely the way to go the randomer the betterer.
[0:22] All righty um great well even i have your book pulled up too with highlights, what would be the best thing um, i guess yeah there's like high level questions and specifics maybe the first one i see here is a specific um i'm just trying to connect with okay so in the ground rules ground rule number one pay where you outlined the ground rules of UPB, which, by the way, let me even just say off the bat, just cards on the table, I think it's a very meticulous, well-thought-out system that I would describe like...
[1:03] Like if you see a beautiful skyscraper and it has a functioning elevator, you got the HVAC, the plumbing. So the building works and it's a better building than what other people construct. My questions mostly would focus on how the building makes contact with the foundational layer. And so just as a high level kind of characteristic of where I'll be asking some questions, I think. Um but um so okay in the ground rule one uh right the distinction between is ought, um and then the fact that the human beings generally prefer to live uh cannot be the basis for any valid theory of ethics so we have a ground rule there so i just wanted to clarify, because where i was a little confused was on one of the things in the well my my pages won't correspondence a thing but when you get to the um section universally preferable behavior uh upb five proofs i wanted to clarify um first on the the syllogism organisms succeed by acting upon universally preferable behavior man is the most successful organism i just here i just and even this concept of successful species i just wanted to know when you use the word success here in what sense were you intending in the argument?
[2:24] Well, I mean, successful in terms of we are the unquestioned dominant species on the planet. And, we possess characteristics that no other species possesses, right? So, you know, apes have rudimentary intelligence and so on, but we have conceptual
[2:46] abilities and language abilities not shared by any other creatures. So, success is in terms of dominance over other species spread across the planet, ability to adapt to just about any environment, and the fact that we have this, you know truly awesome conceptual ability would be that definition.
[3:07] Gotcha thanks yes and i would agree with that certainly can't dispute that so i guess that i was we were the dominant species and obviously we have these.
[3:16] Abilities i mean unmatched abilities you know reasoning conception.
[3:20] Conceptual uh the will the way we make decisions uh but then i guess i'm thinking like which slice of that is the operative slice to make the UVB work. For example, if we were to say succeeding at reproducing and passing on genes, well, we could say that bacteria beats us on that dimension. We could say power, and in some sense, that's true. I mean, we dominate everything, but yet viruses still somehow can wipe us off. So there is some tension there, I suppose, from just pure power over all other life forms. And then obviously then when we have like sure the beauty of the arts culture uh intellectual proofs i mean just all the accomplishments of the intellect that we've done certainly that's a thing but i guess which one of those three slices or is it a kind of the aggregate of those three dimensions or others that that are most relevant to making the with the upv claim sorry.
[4:16] I didn't quite follow that last point, Could you give me a page reference if we're looking at the same thing? It's probably a bit easier.
[4:23] Yeah, sorry, on the Amazon Kindle, the pages are... So on the desktop view, it says page 31. That's not helpful. But the chapter is universally preferable behavior. And then you have the subsection UPB5 proofs. Or if you do a control find, it's where you have the syllogism that says organisms succeed by acting upon universally preferable behavior.
[4:47] Okay so uh let's see here i'm just looking for which which uh of the proofs is it.
[4:54] Uh i don't see a number on it there's five proofs so there's i mean it's the sec when i flip on my desktop it's the second page before the section that says upb optional and objective uh.
[5:09] All organisms require universally preferred behavior to live is that right.
[5:15] Oh, organisms. Oh, well, actually, sorry, that's interesting, too. It was the one in the following pages, but I did have that marked as well.
[5:26] So, no. Oh, so organisms succeed by acting upon universally preferable behavior. Man is the most successful organism, therefore man must have acted most successfully on the basis of universally preferable behavior. Man's mind is his most distinctive organ, therefore man's mind must have acted most successfully on the basis of universally preferable behavior, therefore universally preferable behavior must be valid. And, of course, another way of putting that is that someone cannot argue against university preferable behavior.
[5:55] If universally preferable behavior is required for them to live, to learn, to make an argument, to discuss, to debate. In other words, you can't get an is from an ought, but a debate is by its very nature an ought, so that bridge has already been crossed. So the ought doesn't exist in physics, of course, right? I mean, the fact that a rock falls down is simply a matter of physical properties and physical laws for which there is no causality that we know of if we sort of take, religion out of the equation but if somebody says you cannot get an ought from an ears they are making an ought statement yeah and so once a debate is not an is a debate is an ought language is an ought conversation is an ought life is an ought because you can't achieve and sustain life without pursuing universally preferable behavior food shelter reproduction and water and so on, or liquid. And so it's true that there is no ought in existence. However, life is the result of following universally preferable behavior.
[7:07] A debate is an ought, and language is an ought by its very nature. So life, debate, and language are oughts by their very nature. And so to deny universally preferable behavior is to deny that which is required for life, which if you did in any consistent way, you wouldn't be alive.
[7:28] Mm-hmm. If you deny UPB, the effects would be you're not alive. You're no longer alive. Or you're not flourishing. You're not succeeding in the different dimensions if you deny UPB. Right. And of course, I think the premise behind that, which obviously I would agree with, is that it is good to be alive. It is good to succeed. That there's something good about that as opposed to not living.
[7:57] But not good in the abstract, good in the example of the person who is alive.
[8:02] Oh, sure. Yeah.
[8:04] I mean, you look like you're in a third or fourth decade. Is that fair to say?
[8:08] Yeah, I'm 32, 32.
[8:10] 32. Okay. So, of course, universally preferable behavior was first pursued by your mother. Right?
[8:17] Yeah.
[8:18] I mean, she ate enough and kept herself healthy enough that you grew in the womb. She gave birth to you. She got up three times a night to breastfeed you or to feed you in some manner. And so your mother pursued universally preferable behavior in order to keep you alive. And then, of course, that burden slowly shifted from your parents to you as you grew. And then once you became an adult, obviously with some help right from your parents, you pursued universally preferable behavior. So your very existence marks a 32-year chain of absolute, not relative, not subjective, not somewhat, but absolute conformity to universally preferable behavior. If you tell me that I'm wrong and I say, oh, so you agree that I'm right, you would be annoyed. So even the language has to follow standard definitions that we both agree on. And of course, as you know, philosophy is a lot about defining terms.
[9:15] So, for somebody to say, you can't get an ought from an is, is fine if you're looking at physics, but it is self-contradictory if you're looking at life. In other words, in the realm of physics, yeah, there's no ought, but in the realm of life, there is, because physics operates independent of choice. In other words, there was physics around long before there was life and people, and so you can't get an ought from an is if the is is physics yeah i completely agree but if somebody is sitting across from me as the pure result and i'm not saying you and i don't mean in any negative way but if somebody's sitting across from me and their life and their reason and their words and their desire to get to the truth and their preference for a reason over violence and their preference for good over evil, says to me, you can't get an ought from an is. Well, if they're looking at the bare atoms, yeah, I get that, but we're not looking at bare atoms. We're looking at life and reason and debate and language, all of which result from universally preferable behavior.
[10:25] Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, there's, um, so you see a couple of things that spark my thoughts, right. And then, yeah, all the, all the, so I agree. Um, yeah, let me just process because you said a couple of interesting things there. Um, so yeah, if I were to condense that, right. In some sense, right. Any being that's alive, uh, comes, as you said, comes through a chain and let's just say without using the term for a moment of, of decisions that were made. Whose effects were to promote, you know, life and all the good things, all the good successes. So, you know, being alive, having, you know, I suppose, not excessive suffering, that these are the types of high quality choices that were made that have the effects of bringing us, you know, to where we are here, right? To having a conversation, we're seeking the truth, we're discussing. And that comes from a chain of positive decisions made by the other humans that preceded us in some sense.
[11:31] Well, and they're universal, objective, and absolute. I mean, let's take a silly example, right? So in order for you, or let's make it me. Since it's a silly example, I don't want to use you because that's kind of prejudicial. So let's take my silly example, right? So I just inhaled.
[11:51] Now, if I wish to say something, and Lord knows I've been known to go on and on, but if I wish to say something, I must inhale, right? I cannot simply exhale and continue the conversation. And that's not subjective because, of course, I need air passing by my vocal cords in order for me to be able to make sound, right? And so even in the act of saying something i have to i have to pursue universally preferable behavior for two reasons one if i don't breathe i can't say anything and number two if i don't breathe i'm gonna die right what's it three three three right three minutes of air and you're dead or three minutes of no air and you're dead three days of no drink and you're dead three weeks of no food and you're dead so if i don't breathe so so everybody knows that you have to breathe in wanted to live and it's not subjective it's not a preference yep it's not cultural right it is biology rooted in physics and again the is or dichotomy applies to physics does not apply to biology or at least biology.
[13:01] I was like nodding my head but then you said it is biology rooted in physics that's what i was like oh well.
[13:05] Well so our needs but our need for oxygen is rooted in physics in that oxygen is not alive it has for.
[13:17] Us to be alive yeah.
[13:18] Oh not oxygen but yeah air like air the nitrogen the oxygen and the apparently apparently fatal levels of co2 these days but it is it our biology is rooted in physics in that if you even just think of calories in calories out. That's sort of energy consumption versus how much we burn. We need H2O, we need water, we need liquid. So that's physics, right? We don't just, like, obviously to reproduce, we can't mate with a rock, right? What was that? There was an old poem. Well, in days of old when nights were bold and women weren't invented, they put their cocks between two rocks, and walked away contented or something like that. I mean, I remember having a debate with a guy. I think his name was Thaddeus Russell. He was a professor who said he genuinely believed that it was possible that a woman could mate with a tree and have a baby. He was an odd fellow, to put it mildly. In any same universe, that would be the end of his teaching career.
[14:16] But we don't have to deny distinct natures between beings. Yeah.
[14:19] So to reproduce, we need people, but to eat, we can live off. Well, I guess we live off organic stuff. As a whole, but for air, we need to breathe the air. The air itself is not alive. And the absolute nature of energy in and energy out, the absolute nature of us needing to oxygenate our cells and muscles, the absolute nature of needing air and water in order to survive. I mean, you can live without reproducing, but you can't live without air. And that's what I mean when I say biology rooted in.
[14:57] Right. Okay. Got it. Right. I just, yeah. Right. In that example of Bree, I just know that the, um, I mean, right. When we start talking about other moral rules or preferable behaviors, it goes a little, obviously you'd agree it goes a little more than just the physics, but I agree with you. So I think what I would say there, cause I, I, I agree with the method of performative self-contradiction. So, right. I mean, just like the relativist who says there's no truth is asserting a truth. So it's just kind of nonsense, right?
[15:25] Yeah, so if somebody would say to me, there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, then I would say, continue the debate without inhaling. And would they be able to do that? Of course not.
[15:39] Right so exactly so it which to me is another way of highlighting that there's an underlying structure that we rely upon so as soon as we engage in the act of conversation seeking the truth you know all this stuff it presupposes the norms it presupposes the ought as you're saying that there is for example that it is good to to pursue truth and to remove falsehood right we We cannot help because as soon as we engage in the activity, as you said, I mean, we are presupposing the ought, we are presupposing the norm. And so the only distinction I make is that we're not necessarily deriving it directly from an is in the sense that we're just observing things. Like I'm watching some beings, some animals, or even humans and humans chatting. It it's it seems to me i would use the language that we're presupposing it um just like with logic right you can't prove logic but anytime you speak and make a proposition you're presupposing the condition of logic because that's what makes the whole thing work sorry why yeah sorry sorry to interrupt.
[16:48] And sorry if i missed something uh but why why why can't we prove logic.
[16:54] Um, because logic is a self-evident, like non-contradiction, it's impossible to falsify non-contradiction because the act of falsification itself relies on the principle of non-contradiction. And so it's one of those things where you can't, you know, pull yourself out of it and then falsify it because any act of cognition is bound by, by logic. Like it's something we just rely on. It's impossible to falsify it.
[17:20] I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't, I'm sorry to be annoying. I wouldn't agree with that. Because for me...
[17:27] It would be the experiment.
[17:28] No, no, sorry, but for me, logic is derived from the non-contradictory behavior of matter and energy.
[17:38] So actually, I'm glad you brought this up so we could explore that, because I think that that's... I noticed that language there. So, I mean, let's just break that down. So I'm observing matter and energy. So, right, let's say I'm observing... And whatever, I mean, if you want to pick what we're seeing, maybe we're looking at some, you know, electron spinning.
[17:58] No, let's set the level of sense data because that's where logic came from, right? So let's say we're looking at a bird. Can something be both a bird and a rock at the same time? I mean, let's not go with silly statue, you know, it's a statue of a bird, right? Can something, yeah, can a bird be both a bird and a tree at the same time? And of course, the answer is no. Can something be both a tree and a cloud at the same time? The answer, of course, is no. Can something be both a circle and a square at the same time? Of course, the answer is no. Can two and two equal five? If there are two rocks, can you turn them into five rocks, you know, just without touching them or just like just moving them around without splitting them or anything funky like that, right? And so logic is derived from the empirical, objective, non-contradictory nature of.
[18:55] Of reality. And so, I think that logic is entirely provable because it is, in a sense, that the shadow in our minds cast by the universal objective behavior of sense data, and the sense data of universal matter and energy transmitted by sense data. So, logic is provable because it accurately describes the nature of, and I say sense data because we don't want to get all kind of funky with quantum physics because that was long after logic was defined, and quantum physics all cancels out long before you get to the level of sense data. So, you know, something cannot be both a table and an elephant at the same time. And, you know, an object is either itself or it is something else. It can't be both itself and something else. A is A, and, you know, Aristotle's the three basic laws. So we get logic out of the non-contradictory and consistent behavior of matter and energy. So I think that logic is proven by its concordance with the stable properties of matter and energy.
[20:05] Yeah, so the words that I would use, I agree with the underlying principle, but I think when we say derive, so what I would say is that, are, uh, we have the preexisting faculties, the capacities to, you know, exercise, you know, recognize identity non-contradiction, but until we have the content that the sense data provides, then we can't really be aware of it. Cause to your point, it isn't until I see the bird that my intellect can recognize as, Oh, a bird is not a rock. A bird is. So in that sense, like I agree that you need content to evaluate and see the principles in action with no content, there's nothing to evaluate i mean i can't have a thought if i have no content.
[20:49] I'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm not sure what you mean by content here content.
[20:54] Uh which in this case could be like a sense data you know a thing that i'm thinking about so in that sense right if i if i've never had sensory experiences i wouldn't have any content to to think about because i.
[21:06] Haven't i'm sorry to i don't it seems like a bit of a car before a horse thing because our senses evolved to serve our survival so if you didn't have any sense data you wouldn't ever have evolved you wouldn't be alive i mean so so life itself is founded upon the accurate, transmissal of objective reality through sense data because if you think you can hunt a cloud and eat it you're going to die you're going to run off a cliff and you know you won't get any nutrition so saying well what if i didn't have any senses it's like well there wouldn't be any organisms there wouldn't be any life certainly not human life without at least a bunch of senses that corroborate each other and lead us to food and away from danger and help us figure out where the water is through hearing and feeling and taste and so on and the sense of smell to make sure that we don't eat rotten food or at least not too much so when you say content as if we can somehow take the human mind out of sense data but the human mind has evolved of prior evolutionary, earlier ramifications or permutations of sense data, so we wouldn't have a mind without sense data, we wouldn't be alive.
[22:18] Um well yeah yeah so i mean i see the point you're making as far as like our anthropology and like the the you know our history of what you know but i i think you know even in that narrative right i think if we if you would agree that we both have to concede a little bit of humility and in like the the spark of consciousness right we we don't really know and can't definitively say like what, exactly happened, what that was like, how the intellect arose. Let's say the hard problem of consciousness. I don't think it's impossible to say exactly what it was like to go from non-conscious to conscious and then describe in details that experience.
[23:07] No, but we know, sorry, but we certainly know that pre-human conscious creatures rely... Almost entirely on their sense data in order to survive. And so we know that senses precede human consciousness. And so human consciousness, to me, we became conscious when we thought about sense data. I know that doesn't really say that much, but dogs don't really think about sense data. They just sort of react. But when we can think about sense data, we can start to abstract principles from them in the way we can get math from balls being thrown around, but dogs can't. They just sort of follow the balls. but we know for sure that there was sense data before there was human consciousness and of course you and i are relying on sense data to have the conversation and we're relying on the objectivity and universality of sense data with some exceptions for our eyes are slightly different shapes our ears are slightly different levels of acuity you would be younger than mine so you'd have slightly better hearing and so on so but yeah we know for sure that human consciousness, evolved out of sense data and still relies on it for the principles that we call reason.
[24:22] Yeah i yeah i guess that's uh because i'm nodding my head and then there's a couple phrasings that get in there right.
[24:28] Oh yeah no correct away i i'm not gonna try and claim that i've solved the whole problem with one little speech so yeah go ahead so.
[24:35] Where we i could say it's quite true right the the order of events is we understand it as you said there's um sensors, there's beings that are exposed to senses. And if we go with the whole narrative of the primitive eye where the worm just sees binary light versus solight.
[24:55] Light-sensing cells and so on, yeah.
[24:57] Right. If we buy into that, and then somehow it proves into more specificity, but then there's still.
[25:06] The mystery of like an actual aware being that is now abstracting the function of abstracting and thinking because this is and this is kind of tricky but um a lot of when we get into the the narrative storytelling of like you know our origins there's a risk of hindsight bias where, because i know that i'm here and i'm conscious i'm doing everything, then therefore then we kind of apply that in reverse so what i mean to say sorry if i'm not being clear what i mean to say is that x ante if i didn't know right if i didn't know that this is how the story is that consciousness would emerge and that we're doing these things that we're doing now i mean here we're talking on a computer and we're you know universally preferable behavior if i didn't know that that's how the story would turn out a priori before all that it seems, inconceivable to even predict that you know what you just throw enough atoms and light waves at some eyeball and then eventually the magic's going to happen and in conscious processes and that's what that's just what's it's inevitable that's what needs to happen like without us knowing the end of that story it just seems to be from a ex-ante beginning of the story that no one there would be absolutely no reason to predict that that you just shoot enough uh matter and energy at something and then thoughts will happen like well of course I.
[26:28] Completely agree with you there, but that wasn't the topic at hand. The topic at hand was you said that, We can't prove reason. And I said, well, yeah, reason is derived from the objective, rational, and universal behavior of matter and energy. So we can prove reason. In other words, we say there are these basic laws of consistency and non-contradiction. Where do they come from? Well, they come from the rational, consistent, objective behavior of matter and energy. And of course, we couldn't have life if matter wasn't stable, right? We just, I mean, we couldn't have life because there wouldn't be enough predictability to eat, drink, rest, reproduce, right? There'd be no stability in, I mean, we wouldn't even have planets. We wouldn't have, we wouldn't have suns. We wouldn't like, behavior is universal and absolute and objective and non-contradictory and so on, all of which are coincidentally, not coincidentally, the properties of reason. So I would say that reason is the shadow cast by the stable properties of matter and energy. And if there was matter and energy at the sense level, at the sense data level.
[27:42] That contradicted reason, we would be insane.
[27:46] Like that's how we know someone is insane. Because if somebody says that tree is both a tree and a cloud at the same time, we would know that that person was psychotic. They had lost reason. That's how we know the difference between our nightly dreams and our waking experiences. Our nightly dreams are self-contradictory. and our waking lives we inhabit a universe that is not i mean people can be self-contradictory but the universe cannot be so i would say that reason is the extrapolation into universal principles and rules that follow the rules of physics to to a t that matter is a stable and predictable and generally inert and there's you know centrifugal forces there's forces of momentum and inertia and objects are stable and less changed right i mean a tree is a tree until it dies and then maybe it falls over or something like that or it burns but things are what they are until some out fireside force acts upon them which is an object as itself or nothing else and And of course, we couldn't live if that wasn't the case, because our kidneys are a kidney. It doesn't suddenly turn into a ferret and chew its way out. So, you know, so all of our life requires, and sorry, air doesn't nourish us and then poison us from minute to minute. So there's all this stable stuff. But sorry, go ahead.
[29:14] Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, there's no objection for me as far as describing the intelligibility and the order that's found in an external world that even without human beings, like the world itself has an intelligible order. As you said, that doesn't self-contradict itself, right? There's a stability, there's a consistency.
[29:31] So I have no dispute in that.
[29:34] But that's the proof of reason. The proof of reason is that they are principles derived from the stable and predictable and non-contradictory behavior of matter and energy. That's the proof of reason.
[29:48] Reason that it's stable or derived. I think, yeah, I mean, maybe we'll just have to...
[30:00] No, I'm not going to agree to disagree on this one. I'm happy to take pushback.
[30:04] No, it's just different with the language, because, I mean, you have a good choice in words, but I still feel like I can. I'm not elaborating what I'm trying to say, so I'm trying to think of a better way to say what I would. I think our ability...
[30:16] I'm sorry, but do you agree that reason corresponds to the objective, non-contradictory behavior of matter? I mean, you could say energy, but let's just say matter for the sake of simplicity. That a rock is a rock and not a rock and a tree at the same time.
[30:32] Yeah, I just think it's more than that. Of course, I agree that's part of it. The reason is what lets me see that a rock is a rock and a rock is not a tree.
[30:40] No, no. Because animals know what rocks are. Before they have reason.
[30:48] They just can't define them.
[30:50] But they have to because they have to know the difference between a hole in a tree and a hole in a vagina where they can reproduce or something like that, right? But no, so it is not that reason identifies things in the world. We only have reason because of the stability of things in the world. So an animal knows the difference between food and not food. And a dog knows the difference between a ball and an elephant. And so, and if you put gravel in a dog's bowl, it may sniff it for a moment, but it's not going to eat it. It knows the difference between gravel and food, though it would not be able to define those things in any abstract way. Sorry, go ahead.
[31:37] I was going to say, sorry to be a pain, But for a lot of this, when we use words, I'll kind of – so we don't equivocate. Because I agree in one sense, right, the animal knows the difference. But certainly when I say knows, when we say a human knows, we mean kind of a different phenomenon. We don't mean it in the same way. No, no, no.
[31:55] I'm sorry to be so contradictory. I really do apologize. Oh, you mean it in the same way?
[31:58] No. Okay.
[31:59] No, no. Both. Because – have you been – are you a father?
[32:04] I'm a father? Yeah.
[32:05] Okay. Okay, so did your kids like something before they had language?
[32:13] They like something before they had language to express it. Sure.
[32:16] Or to understand it. Right. I mean, we know that when a baby is born, if you brush its cheek with a nipple, it would turn its head towards a nipple.
[32:24] Right.
[32:24] We know that babies are born recognizing their father's voice if they've heard their father's voice in the womb because the deeper voice penetrates the amniotic sac and so on. And of course, nobody would say that a newborn baby has any conceptual understanding of anything because it's basically a raw piece of human putty starting the journey. So, human beings, and of course there are people who have significant cognitive deficiencies, which might put them at the level of monkeys or apes or something like that.
[32:54] They still have preferences, they still like things, they still like going out when it's sunny and not when it's raining, though they could never describe things in those ways. So, human beings, we start with a non-language understanding and animals, in a sense, or pre-animals understanding or instinctual response to the world, and then we grow into our conceptual abilities over time. So I wouldn't say that there's a huge, there is a course between you and I, we're having a conversation that monkeys could never do, but we also grew out of having understanding and knowledge and preferences. My wife was a mental health professional. She practiced psychology for many decades and she studied child development. And when my daughter was growing, she's like, oh, here comes object constancy where, you know, the ball rolls under the couch and the kid does, oh, the ball's still under the couch, right? And dogs know that too. If you've ever seen a dog sort of sniffing for its ball under the couch, it knows it can't see it, but it knows it's still there. And so children go through these sort of animal stages of understanding before developing abstract language and then hopefully rationality. So again, sorry to be a nitpicker, but I wouldn't say that it's a clear line of demarcation between humans and animals.
[34:13] Yeah, well, okay. Yeah, fair, right? I guess that does have to go into what is a human, right, and what's just an animal, if there's a meaningful distinction.
[34:25] Well, yeah, we grow out of sense data. Animals don't, in general.
[34:30] Yeah. So what I, okay, maybe I wonder what you think about it, if we phrase, if it's an experiment like this, like, let's just even start. Man, okay, sorry, I have two thoughts pumped in my head.
[34:40] No, take your time.
[34:42] I'm sorry. The first, because I've thought about this, I've thought about this, what would be, let's say, what would the first moment of consciousness look like where you're aware of things and you can abstract? So in my mind, without a pre-existing faculty of logic, which again, I know this people, if you could just let me run with it for a sec, it would just be chaos and everything would be a sludge mess of stimulation. It's just like nonstop stimulation but the fact i can perceive you know a form of a rock and recognize it as such and you know and that's different than the tree and i can acknowledge that like recognize that not just data but i can interpret the data there is an interpreter mechanism on the data it's not just data but i have a judgment layer on top of the data And to me, that judgment faculty is a distinctive operation that's beyond just raw observation, but rather there's a judgment interpretive layer that would have to—it's just a precondition for making sense of anything. If I didn't have that interpretive layer, I couldn't make sense of anything.
[36:02] Well, and of course, but animals have that same too. I mean, the wolf has to differentiate between a rock and a rabbit, otherwise it can't survive.
[36:10] Well, right. So, okay. So the, I mean, one, one form of conception would call that the, uh, was it the cogitative power, like instinctual? Cause I mean, in one sense, we know what humans think and we know under the box, what it's like to do a syllogism, you know, premises conclusion. Um, when, when we look at other animals, we just speculate and we look at their external behaviors and we try to make assumptions about what's going on underneath the hood. But you know in some sense it's inaccessible i mean so the wolf does react like you know ouch like hot fire any animal you know they experience neurological stimulation pain run away you know so that we see that behavior you know but to what extent is that just some, reflexive reflexive mechanistic kind of instinctual thing versus a higher order level of analysis and deliberation, you know, evaluating the pros and cons, you know, like a discursive operation of the intellect.
[37:07] Yeah, no, I mean, for sure. I mean, the senses are evolved in order to differentiate food from non-food, in order to differentiate predators from non-predators, in order to differentiate mating opportunities from non-mating opportunities, which is why, you know, female dogs give off a smell and, you know, they're in heat and so on, right? So, So the senses evolved to serve survival.
[37:30] And so what human beings do, I would argue, that's different. And this is a huge topic, but, you know, just sort of to take a brief swing at it. So we have the ability to extract essences from sense data that exist independent of specific items. So we have a definition of a tree that... Is not required to be a specific tree. But of course, when a wolf is hunting, it doesn't see a rabbit running and say, oh, that rabbit is slightly taller or wider or a slightly different shade. So it has a definition of a rabbit, but the definition of the rabbit is based upon patterns, instinct, and movement, which is what its senses have evolved to have it do. But it does not have an abstract conceptual definition of what a rabbit is because that would not actually serve.
[38:32] It's survival. It only needs to get to the level of, that's a rabbit, not a rock. I like to eat them, and I'm going to chase it until I get a hold of it. But it does not serve the wolf's brain in terms of hunting the rabbit to have a definition of a rabbit. But for humanity, we have taken that leap to have the definition of a rabbit that exists for all rabbits rather than, well, this is an instinct that has the rabbit, kind of like the rabbits I've seen before, so I'll chase it and eat it.
[39:03] Yeah so i that's okay it's interesting i just have to probably just think about it more but i'm just curious at least to put the bow on this this point would would you say if we let's say the wolf and the human would you say that both have the same uh well substance of senses but the humans is like a supercharged version of the same thing or or would you say that the human has extra senses that are just categorically distinct from the wolf or again is it just what the wolf has but just like max you know turn it up by a hundred you know just supercharge the wolf and then you get the humans yeah.
[39:41] I wouldn't say so because from what i think biologists have talked about quite consistently is that there are of course animals that have vastly superior senses to humans right i mean as you know the bloodhounds that are used to sort of chase criminals who don't.
[39:57] Cross rivers or something like that.
[39:59] So there's just about every sort of kind of animal has some senses that are superior to humans. If I were to, and again, nobody knows this sort of bicameral mind explosion thing, but I would say that there was some human being somewhere in the distant past who decided to stop being reactive. And so to be proactive, is not to hunt animals, but to domesticate. It is not to go around looking for random fruit, it is to plant and grow crops of your own. And going from reactive to proactive was really the foundation of civilization, because then once you've gone from reactive to proactive, then the quicker you can define and understand things, the more effectively you can.
[40:56] Harness the goods and energy and resources and so on of domesticated crops. And of course, the other thing too is that there is a way that this all spreads, right? So whichever person or group or tribe first figured out the sort of proactive, don't just react to nature, but proactively fence it in and plant it and harvest it and so on, well, they could have a much bigger army right army marches on its feet right yeah they can have better weapons they can have bigger armies and so they will generally go around and and you know kill the man rape the women and spread the sort of more advanced uh genetics uh that way and that's sort of been the step up but it's a pretty bloody business well what war didn't do winter uh finished right in that if you have to plan for winter and you haven't planned for winter you tend not to make it so i think that this, going from reactive wolves generally are reactive the wolves will go hunt for sure, and so but they they will not build a fence to keep the rabbits in and then feast at their leisure right uh so um but but human beings do and i think that was going from reactive to proactive whoever came up with that bright idea was the founding the founding of us all.
[42:15] Yeah, no, I think that's a really powerful frame. It's just a nice way to say it from reactive to proactive. But I suppose, right, even in that snapshot story that there's someone who decided to be proactive, it's still to me, and maybe that's just part of the mystery,
[42:29] right? That's why we're still exploring.
[42:30] Or they just had the genetics, right? I mean, they just had some random gene that amped up their intelligence. Because we know that genes like this IQ, as we know, is highly hereditable. And I think that somebody just had a mutation that just gave them, relative to everyone else, just a giant brain. And they managed somehow to circumvent the primitive. Because, you know, once you get a tribal narrative, once you get ancestors, you get gods, then you get a lot of cohesion. and people are willing to die for their beliefs in a way that animals aren't. And so it's a very powerful thing to spread. But I would imagine it was just some, you know, nature's just rolling the dice and someone happened to get, you know, 20s in a row on 20-sided dice and got the high IQ and then sort of were able to organize their society. And, you know, maybe they had more wives because they had more resources because they first figured out to domesticate the animals And why don't we just build a fence and keep the cows here rather than just go and wander all over hell's half acre trying to find them? And, you know, I would assume that that gave that person and then eventually that tribe higher reproductive capacities and you'd spread that high intelligence that way.
[43:46] Yeah, well, certainly, yeah, the skill provided and propagates itself through all those advantages you mentioned. I just, yeah, it still just seems mysterious.
[43:55] Oh, it is. And we'll never know. Yeah, we'll never know.
[43:57] I would say this step to go from reactive to proactive is not just like go from IQ of 10 to 11 or 12, right? It's like, it's like advanced planning and future, you know, it's just a whole categorically like different thing. Like it's a new ability. It's like, it's like, it's like being born with wings all of a sudden when you're, when your dad didn't have any wings and you're like.
[44:15] Well, No, I'm sorry, because wings are a whole like it's just more of the same wings are a whole different thing. Right.
[44:22] So I used the gross. Yeah, it's gross. But I mean, like, because it's not just extra neurons. It's not like we went from like a million neurons to a million and one. And then all of a sudden proactivity happened. Right. There's something like.
[44:35] I'm sure you know this, that they can trace back blue eyes to one guy. You know, like one guy had the blue eye mutation and he was, you know, so hot, baby, that, you know, he just produced a whole bunch of people with blue eyes and then they were considered very attractive and they were, so it just take like one mutation, like blue eyes and, you know, there's now millions and millions of blue eyed people across the world. So we know that if it's attractive and appealing enough or provides enough resources and certainly going from reactive to proactive would, I mean, gosh, I mean, just look at like more reactive tribes like the indigenous population of North America. I mean, they did some farming and so on, but they still basically just wandered around after the buffalo and attacked each other randomly. But the more proactive Europeans, you know, I mean, came and kind of won, right? So that's a way that those genes would kind of spread throughout history. But sort of going back to the original point of like, yes, you can prove reason by saying reason is derived from the objective properties of matter and energy. Every law of reason.
[45:48] Every law of reason follows the behavior of matter and energy or is derived from the behavior of matter and energy. So if I were to, say, write up a business plan and say, I'm going to both expand in China and shut down my operations in China so that I can both make and lose money simultaneously, the investors would wonder how I managed to get past security to have my mad ravings in their boardroom because those are impossible. And in the same way, if you were a physicist and you were to say that gases both expand and contract when heated and that water both raises and lowers when you put an object in it, that person would be considered insane because those two things are the same principle. So all of the laws of logic follow the behavior of matter and energy and that's how logic is validated because otherwise logic is just something it's just basically a convenient lie that we agree on and uh it's not that.
[46:50] Yeah, or it's part of our operating system, which is good. But yeah, I mean, I guess, and actually, sorry, do you have maybe like 15 more minutes? I just want to check because I love this convo.
[47:01] Man. And I really appreciate these arguments. And I think we're having a good brain spark. So yeah, let's do it.
[47:07] Oh, thank you. Okay, yeah, because, oh my gosh, it's like I have so many things. But I know we can't eat the full elephant all in one go.
[47:14] We can do it again, though. No worries. Anyway, go ahead.
[47:16] Awesome. what i would say is okay so when we say reason is derived from stable amount of energy to me right i would i would say because i would say humans use reason to make the claim that reason is derived from out energy like to me like i can't even to even process what you're saying or even to believe it to say hey reason is derived from out an energy i'm using reason so you know to me like a proper let's say empirical or scientific thing you always have the null hypothesis and the counterfactual, the control group, but there's no control group in like, uh, you know, the opposite of reality, right?
[47:53] No, there is. Sorry. Sorry to be so, no, I could be wrong. Right.
[47:58] Well, because a rock is not a tree. That's what I'm saying. Because I mean, that's a rock is never a tree like that.
[48:03] If you find, if you find self-contradictive, self-contradictory behavior in matter, then you invalidate reason, but you can't and you won't.
[48:16] If you find self-contradictive, because we don't find self-contradictory behavior in matter. Yeah, well, but could we even recognize, what would it even look like in theory? I can't even imagine.
[48:27] No, it's easy. It's easy. It's easy because, I'm sorry to be annoying, but it's easy because it happens every night. Every night you go to sleep and dream crazy things.
[48:39] You mean something like when you dream?
[48:40] When you dream. I had a dream last night about my father. I was chatting with my father. the man's been dead for four years yeah so there's a self-contradictory entity right my father is worm food and my father is sitting across in an armchair chatting with me it's like those things are impossible you can't have but he cannot be both dead four years ago and talking with him in an armchair so there's an example of contradictory behavior of matter and energy And so I know That's how I know it's a dream and not real So go ahead.
[49:18] Oh, well, that's how you know it's not dreaming, not real.
[49:21] So you said, well.
[49:22] I can't conceive of contradictory behavior.
[49:24] It happens every night. Sorry, go ahead.
[49:26] I was going to say, to me, that's like a specificity in definition. So if it's the general claim of my father is dead, my father is alive, then that, yeah, those can't be true at the same time. But of course, the reality, as you just described, right, is like I have a dream state, you know, of I perceive and interacting with my father. But then I've also perceived his gravestone. I have memory of burying him, you know, so therefore my dream, my other thing must've been a dream, right? Because, because my father can't be alive because I saw him die.
[49:59] Yes. And my point is that when you say I can't conceive of contradictory things, so that is a dream that contradicts reality, but I'm sure you've had a dream where, I mean, I'll just think of one I had a while ago. So, uh, I'm walking down a hospital corridor. I open it up, and it's the kindergarten that I first went to school in. Now, the kindergarten I first went to school in was not in a hospital, right? And of course, we've all had it where, you know, you pick a flower and it turns into a candle, or you jump off a building and suddenly you can fly, but then when you think about flying, suddenly you can't fly and you fall, right? So here's all of the contradictory behavior of matter and energy. We experience it every night. And of Of course, if reality were that chaotic, we wouldn't have any laws of logic because nothing would have any stable consistency in behavior.
[50:53] Yeah that's such well all right so if i just stick with even this in my mind what you said like the flower turning into a candle or vice versa and so does that would that falsify logic or would that just falsify like let let this hypothetically right if i was if i had this thing and let's try if it's a candle and then it turns into a flower would it violate logic or is it violating my understanding of what the what the physical laws are because my understanding of the physicals would be like, that should be impossible.
[51:21] No, it would violate logic. But the reason that it can't happen is that the behavior of matter and energy is not arbitrary or random. And objects don't just magically change their own properties of behaviors, right? I mean, you think of Medusa, right? She turns and looks at someone with her snake hair, and he turns into stone. Well, flesh cannot turn into stone, right? Even if we look at it like, Like, well, it's not flesh and stone at the same time. Flesh cannot turn into stone. I assume that this was just a myth that came about because they came across a bunch of statues of warriors somewhere. And then there was a woman with wild hair nearby. And they just said, oh, she turned them into stone. You know, sort of superstition stuff that happens. But if I'm holding a flower and it turns into a candle, then I have been dosed with a drug. Because flowers do not turn into candles and vice versa. They do not do it. It will never happen. It can never happen because we couldn't be alive if it ever did. There could be no universe. There could be no planets. There could be no suns. There could be no stable kidneys. There could be no evolution for 4 billion years. If matter and energy randomly changed its properties, then we would not. So the fact that we're here proves that matter and energy is stable.
[52:45] And therefore, it proves that logic is universal. And logic describes the behavior of matter and energy that vastly predates human consciousness. So when you say we can't prove logic, it'd be like our existence proves logic because logic is the abstraction of the stable properties of matter and energy. And that's the magical way that we wake up every morning and we don't think we're going to sleep, right? We wake up and you say, wow, that was a crazy dream and all of that, right? Because in our dreams things do change uh properties uh you know we we are old and then we are young we are tall and then we are short we can fly and then we can't fly objects uh you know we pick up a a frog and it turns into a bunch of rose petals and then we throw it and it turns into a dove and right it's and this is what magic does of course you know magicians and so on they just mess with our sense of reality and and so on which is fun but the reason it's fun is because we know it's impossible so trying to puzzle it out is interesting but yeah logic is validated, by our existence uh i mean we we couldn't if if matter that energy weren't stable the sun wouldn't be burning for 10 billion years and we wouldn't have had the chance to evolve.
[53:59] Yeah i mean yeah i mean you you because you you said at different points right and then it's like from a minute ago and i was thinking about that and um i mean because then right so then i'm trying to think which one to respond to. But I mean, yeah, I guess I did want to ask you something else, but I guess just to land the plan on this, this one, um, Yeah, I think the reason why I know a candle can't turn into a flower is one, I've never observed anything like that. Plus the totality of the body of knowledge and all the science we've done, you know, we've done millions of experiments. And even though the experiments are on different topics, you know, maybe someone's studying a bird, maybe someone's studying water molecules, maybe someone. Even though the specifics are different the the common thread in all those experiences are right that there's at least some stable property to manor in general because everything is composed of the matter.
[54:52] Well and i would also add to that the universe is 13 billion years old the earth is i don't know what six billion years old and life is is four billion years old and we could never have evolved we could we could never have evolved to understand the universe if the universe were not, stable i mean just think of everything that occurs at the cellular level at the genetic level at the double helix level everything has to be stable yeah so so i i we don't we don't have to look it's not well all the scientists and this and that we can simply look at the fact that there's no there's absolutely zero possibility that we would be here if the universe wasn't stable. So it is all of our own personal experiences, our collective experience, but the fact that we're having these experiences or these questions at all must be certain proof that the universe has been stable since its origins. Think of all the stable properties of matter and energy that were required to simply form the solar system and the sun and the planets and so on. So we know that it's stable and universal and reason is hooking into the most fundamental properties of the universe and you know the reason could be invalidated if matter behaved in self-contradictory or arbitrary manners but it will never be that way because we could never have evolved if that was even the remotest possibility in in uh in reality sorry go ahead.
[56:15] Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, you definitely don't need to persuade me on the stability of the universe and all that for sure. I agree. And I suppose other people might phrase it as that our sense of logic is a participation in the logical structure of reality itself.
[56:33] It's not a participation. I'm sorry. It's not a participation because we can't change it. We cannot will a candle to become a flower.
[56:42] I don't, I'm not saying participate in a voluntary sense. I'm saying that we in here, we, we somehow, like you're saying, we were kind of attaching to that. I don't, I don't mean like I'm choosing to participate. I don't mean it like that way at all. I mean more like, um, like, uh, like the moon participates in the light of the sun, right? Like that's what I mean.
[57:02] Okay, so yes, but it is not willed, it is not voluntary, it's not arbitrary. Logic is, and so, yeah, logic is, I mean, logic literally is life, because if the universe did not behave in a logical fashion, we could never have evolved. So the fact that we exist is the most foundational proof of logic, but we can also go to our empirical experiences as well.
[57:26] Yes got it well okay i guess yeah it's funny i wasn't even anticipating we would dive into this this but i guess maybe well you had to bring.
[57:33] Up logic big unprovable.
[57:35] So i had to well that's you know yeah right wouldn't be a philosophy discussion then would it um oh man okay well i guess maybe last thing for tonight i mean like i could go forever but i just know it's late for you and but i did so back with upb one thing i would have loved i would love to hear your thoughts on and if I could first elaborate, is.
[57:56] This is connected. I'll get to the exact question. First of all, I think what's interesting is the idea of using, I see what you're doing as far as you have physical laws and you can go back to the rock falls, it doesn't go up, the rock doesn't go up, it goes down. And then in some sense you know by metaphorical equivalence in some sense are you saying well you know let's we should see that with with with moral laws and so and then you get into kind of the synchronous performance test for universality which in physics right that that's what you do but so i wonder so i guess first of all i wonder if there's to what extent can we.
[58:36] Would that be an appropriate one-to-one reference or is it a category error? Because what I mean is that with a physical law, it's what must happen. The rock must fall. It doesn't matter if I want it to do something differently. It must happen. Whereas when we get in the category of moral norms and things, it's what you should do, what you ought to do. But people can obey or disobey the rule. If someone murders someone, they still murder them. It's not like with the rock. I can't make the rock fly up, the rock will go down. So yeah. And what, so a, that, that, this thing, so curious your thoughts and be specifically in your tests. Cause you run through all the kind of core, you know, murder, theft, rape. And it seems like the experiment you, you kind of simulate is that if you can't perform this simultaneously, then therefore it's not universal. So it's like a universality in terms of synchronous performance. I was just curious, what was the basis of that, that kind of method that you're applying.
[59:32] Okay so to differentiate between and it's a great point between physics and free will if a man pushes a giant rock off the top of a hill and it bounces down and crushes your car obviously you're not angry at your car you're not angry at the rock you're not angry at the hill you're angry at the man who pushed the rock is that fair to say Yeah. Okay. If, on the other hand, it's a terrible storm and the wind blows the rock, then you might be annoyed that you parked your car where the rock happened to land, but you would not be angry at any particular individual because that would be the simple operation of physics. With all of the sort of chaos and unpredictability of weather, it's still not conscious or volitional. Is that fair to say? Yeah.
[1:00:21] Yes. And just for me to kind of elaborate, thinking through this out loud. So the difference is that on the one exit, it could have been otherwise. Now you could say that with the storm too, but at least with an agent, with an intellect, he had an idea, he had understanding in some sense, like pushing rock, whatever. So, yeah, the category of blame or anger, responsibility, culpability, all that stuff assumes agency and action and choices and thoughts and deliberation. Whereas a storm, I mean, we anger, this seems nonsensical. There's no decision making behind the storm. So what's there to be? Yeah.
[1:00:58] Right. So saying that there is preferred behavior is indicating that we have the capacity to choose something that is preferred versus unpreferred. Yes. Unlike the rock that's just bouncing down because the wind pushed it over or something like that. It doesn't have any preferred or unpreferred behavior, right? And so saying that morality is not physics, I mean, obviously it's perfectly correct because it's a different category. Physics describes that which is non-volitional. And is not preferred, but simply is. Whereas morality describes things that are volitional, and it's the examination of what can be universally preferred.
[1:01:38] The fundamental job of philosophy is morality, because it's the one thing that philosophy does that no other discipline is centered on, right? Biology is just centered on life, geology on rocks and minerals, and so on, and physics on matter and energy and so on. But moral philosophy is the foundation of it. Now, of course, there's philosophical elements to those other things, particularly the scientific method, because it's an epistemological approach. But it's morality that philosophy is focused on. Science will not provide you with morality. It will provide you cause and effect. Biology will not provide you with morality. It will only talk about genetic success and failure, but it is philosophy that talks about that, which is universally preferable.
[1:02:27] And it can't talk about universally preferred because that would be past tense, right? And not everybody prefers everything all at the same time. So it's preferable as in the future tense, what should we prefer in our virtue? So the question at the beginning of the book is, people will say, well, there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, which is why I sort of proved that your existence and you engaging in a debate and you using the correct language all accepts that there is universally preferable behavior. So then the only question is not, is there such a thing as universally preferable behavior? But what is it? And if people say, well, there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, they're actually acting on universal preferable behavior. You should not say that there is things that are true, that are false and so on, right? So then the question is, okay, well, what...
[1:03:18] What is universally preferable behavior? And it cannot be something that just people like to do, because if everyone already liked to do the same thing, you wouldn't need a system of morality, right? You have to be for things where people can choose badly. So then we look at the traditional categories of ethics. These are my categories, but they're pretty common in ethical systems, rape, theft, assault, and murder. So then we say, okay, can rape, no, let's take theft. It's a little less volatile. Can theft be universally preferable behavior? And if the proposition that theft can be universally preferable behavior immediately self-contradicts, then we know it's false. I mean, any proposition that immediately self-contradicts, we know is false, right?
[1:04:13] Yeah.
[1:04:14] Okay.
[1:04:15] Any proposition, yeah.
[1:04:17] Sorry, go ahead. No, listen, if there's something you wanted to add to that, I'm going to monologue myself into the grave.
[1:04:22] I just want to make, can you repeat the exact sentence last minute?
[1:04:24] Any proposition or argument that immediately self-contradicts is invalid.
[1:04:30] Yeah, right. And in this sense, when we reply to morale, in what sense does a moral rule self-contradict? But yeah, any proposition of logic, we're sure.
[1:04:40] Yeah. So if I say all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal, then that's a self-contradiction and therefore it's invalid, right? Yeah. So can theft be universally preferable behavior? Well, theft, of course, is the unwanted taking of someone else's property. Can we agree on that? Because there's times when you want people to take your property. Please take my garbage away. I've got this old couch. I've left it on the front lawn with a sign that says, take me. So there's times when we want people to take our property, and that's not theft, right?
[1:05:13] Yes.
[1:05:14] Okay. So, and of course, for a woman or for a man, there's times where we want to make love and it's not rape. Rape is when we really don't want to and we're forced, right? So if we say theft is universally preferable behavior, stealing is universally preferable behavior, we have an immediate self-contradiction, which is this. If stealing is universally preferable behavior, then everyone must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time because.
[1:05:48] Stealing is universally preferable.
[1:05:50] Behavior sorry go ahead.
[1:05:52] You're saying that uh if you want to steal to be consistent you should be okay with others stealing from from you no.
[1:06:00] No not just okay with it it's universally preferable.
[1:06:03] You should you should think that it's good it's good that other people steal from you if it's if it's good for you to steal from others it must be good for others to steal from you okay or you must sent to that is it possible.
[1:06:15] To want to be stolen from.
[1:06:18] Uh no because the definition of steal has unwanted right yeah.
[1:06:26] So it is impossible for stealing to be universally preferable behavior because that would mean that everyone was meant to steal and be stolen from but the moment you want to be stolen from, it's no longer stealing. It's no longer theft. So it's impossible to fulfill.
[1:06:43] And in this case, because, right, because we have to assert, rightly so, an equality of persons. So I can't have a special rule just for me because that's not a,
[1:06:55] right, that's not a universal rule.
[1:06:57] That's the U in the UPB, is it has to be universal. And if we look at murder, is it possible that you want someone to kill you?
[1:07:10] Do you want, I'm trying to think, well, I'm just trying to think in the non-suicidal sense, if you want someone to kill you, not while remaining alive.
[1:07:19] Well, no, it can be possible because there are people who sign up for euthanasia.
[1:07:24] Oh, yeah, that's what I'm thinking, but it sounded like you were, sorry, maybe I was just assuming what the answer was.
[1:07:30] No, want someone to murder you is different. Murder is unwanted killing. Oh, okay. But it is possible to want someone to kill you. Is it possible?
[1:07:40] I see.
[1:07:41] To want someone to assault you.
[1:07:46] Because assault also has an unwanted component in that word, right?
[1:07:50] You might be some weird kinky guy who likes someone to thrash you with the beat, me eat, me licorice whip. I don't know, or whatever, right? Some S&M, Fifty Shades of Grey nonsense or whatever, right? And, of course, there are other times where you go into a situation where you have fully accept that you will be beaten, such as the boxing ring. Right so so assault is the unwanted physical violence against someone else so right.
[1:08:20] So basically your questioner is it possible to want an unwanted behavior and this is really the formula right that you're behind all these things right.
[1:08:28] Is it possible to want.
[1:08:29] An unwanted behavior.
[1:08:30] If it is impossible for rape theft assault and murder to be universally preferable behavior then they have to be wrong, both logically and therefore morally, since we're talking about morals.
[1:08:43] Logically and therefore morally, because a rule, a moral rule like, oh, go murder people.
[1:08:55] No, no, no. Can murder be universally preferable behavior? No. Anything that is asynchronous, in other words, one person wins and the other person loses, is impossible. In other words, if I were to say it is universally preferable behavior for everyone to give everyone else a dollar, well, but you'd have to be receiving a dollar as well. So that's asynchronous, right? One person has to be on the receiving side. So where you have asynchronous behaviors, they cannot be universalized. In other words, for one person to do the behavior, the other person has to do the opposite or at least not do that behavior. And therefore it cannot be universalized. So rape, theft, assault, and murder cannot be universalized because they're asynchronous. They are unwanted by the recipient, and therefore they cannot be universally preferred. Does that make sense?
[1:09:49] Yes, it does. And I wanted to look at, with the word universal, I remember, because I agree with that. I agree with what you just said here. Just with the synchronous thing, where did I put it?
[1:10:06] Let me give you another example. Do you play any racket sports?
[1:10:10] I used to do table tennis kind of stuff.
[1:10:12] Table tennis. Okay. So in table tennis, we have one in my basement. My wife and I love to play. So in table tennis, one person serves and one person receives.
[1:10:21] Yeah.
[1:10:22] Right? Can both people receive at the same time?
[1:10:27] No right obviously right.
[1:10:29] So so that's asynchronous right one person has to serve and the other.
[1:10:32] Person i'm just wondering what i'm just i'm still trying to get back to why like again in physics i i understand but in in a rule like why does uh for me universal is like um the rational applicability, of a rule you know where where a person understands the terms of the rule and then applies it as opposed to an action no no no no we're not no.
[1:10:59] No because we all we're doing is.
[1:11:01] Judging a theory okay right so if you.
[1:11:06] If somebody gives you a scientific hypothesis or a mathematical hypothesis or something like that they give you a scientific hypothesis.
[1:11:14] Okay then.
[1:11:16] The first thing you would do to see if that scientific hypothesis could potentially be true, is to look for self-contradictions. And if there are self-contradictions in the scientific hypothesis, it is invalid by definition, right?
[1:11:34] Right, which let's just give an example of an immediately self-contradictory hypothesis.
[1:11:39] Well, I mean, if I let go of this ball, it's going to fall down and up at the same time.
[1:11:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[1:11:45] Or the gas is going to...
[1:11:46] Even before any observation, you can't even get off the ground with doing the experiment because the hypothesis is incoherent.
[1:11:52] Yeah, or it's just self-contradictory. So if there was a mathematical theorem that said, okay, if we assume that one equals two and go from there, you wouldn't read any further, right? Right because one does not equal two and so everything that you get from that is downstream from an invalid uh conjecture and therefore is is all going to be incorrect right and so with so i hate to say with morality forget about the people because of course it's people-centric but a philosophy must first evaluate a moral theory, to see if it is self-contradictory. We don't think about what people do or don't do what they like or they don't like or anything like that because we have to first evaluate the moral theory. Right? So if somebody was an engineer and came to you and said, I want to build the bridge out of clouds, spit, and balsa wood, would you go any further? And evaluate their blueprints.
[1:12:57] Well, of course, in that... Yeah, and that is where I... So I guess, can we apply that analogy with the moral rules?
[1:13:04] So if somebody says theft... Is universally preferable behavior, we would look at it and see if it self-contradicts, and it does. And therefore, we would say that's an invalid theory. Now, if somebody were to say some people should steal and other people should not steal, then that breaks universality. Because you have a category called people for which you have opposite rules, which would be like a biologist saying that mammals are both hot-blooded, have hair, give birth to live young, and the exact opposite of that as well. There's some mammals that do that and some mammals that do the opposite. They're cold-blooded, have no hair, and lay eggs. And you would say, of course, hang on, if the definition of mammal is warm-blooded, has hair, gives birth to live young, then why would you divide some mammals into that definition and then the opposite definition? That wouldn't make any sense, right?
[1:14:05] Right, what basis do you have for making a distinction in the, yeah.
[1:14:10] Right.
[1:14:10] Because you have the shared nature. And then human beings, right, we have a shared nature, so why separate the categories of humans?
[1:14:16] Well, especially to separate them into diametrical opposites. Now, we can say that human beings should not eat human beings, but human beings can eat animals. And the reason for that would be that human beings are capable of moral reasoning and animals are not. Human beings are capable of negotiation, and animals are not. Human beings are capable of ethical understanding, and animals are not. So, there's an objective set of distinctions that we can have different rules for. But you can't just say we have a category called homo sapiens, that have opposite moral characteristics based on, oh, based on what? Based on what? And there's no particular answer, therefore, the artificial categorization into opposites is invalid.
[1:15:04] Okay.
[1:15:05] Now, we can say, and again, this is just to show how the theory works in sort of more practical application, we can say that people who have an IQ, say, of 40 or 50, are not capable of processing abstract reasoning and moral principles, and therefore we may want to confine them because while they are still human, and maybe there'll be a cure at some point, they're not operating at a level of moral reasoning that would hold them to be responsible. They would sort of be acting as animals in a way, and again, through no fault of their own, It's just sort of bad luck. But so the human is not just the DNA, but it would be foundationally the capacity for moral understanding, which most human beings have.
[1:15:56] Yeah, no. Okay, I appreciate that. Yeah, I'll chew more on that. Because yeah, I mean, I agree with, I mean, I like how you're framing that. So I'll just have to think about that more. If I may ask, last question, and maybe this, if this is a quick one, great. If you think it opens up a can of worms, and we can just punt it till later.
[1:16:17] I live for the worms, like my father. Anyway, sorry, go on.
[1:16:20] So I'm curious in the UPB framework, there are certain things which ultimately boil down to the non-aggression principle and certain things you say you're wrong. But then as far as positive things where enforceability or aggression might
[1:16:36] not necessarily be operating things. For example, let's say what you've done. You've spoken truth when it had consequence. Uh and you know so you so you exemplify it is a virtue of courage let's say and there's a certain virtue there so in the upb let's call it.
[1:16:56] Courage not foolhardiness though i appreciate the it.
[1:16:59] May be maybe.
[1:17:00] A little bit blending towards the latter but okay go ahead let's say.
[1:17:03] Let's call it courage for.
[1:17:04] The sake of the argument.
[1:17:05] Or yeah or whatever even just in general the idea of speaking truth when you might get you know fallout is you know right so there's when bad things happen but but you speak the truth. So we say, well, that's a good thing. That's a virtuous thing. I guess if it's an easy answer, if it's a longer one, we can save it for later. But yeah, in the UPB, how can I say, yeah, that is virtuous because UPB passes the test of UPB, I can say that is a virtuous thing going on. Sure.
[1:17:37] So UPB has five, and I wish I could shave him down, but let's say five categories of action. And there really are only two, but there's good and evil, right? Good and evil is sort of two sides of the same coin. There's one coin but two sides. So there's UPP compliant, right? So can... Theft ever be universally preferable behavior? No, it cannot be because of the aforementioned self-contradiction that immediately manifests. Now, can respecting property rights be universally preferable behavior? In other words, is there an immediate logical self-contradiction in the proposition of a respect for property rights being UPB? No, there is not. Everyone can simultaneously without contradiction respect everyone else's property rights. So if we imagine everybody falls asleep and coincidentally, all the billions of people across the world have a nap at the same time, no one is stealing from anyone else. They're all respecting each other's property rights. And there's no innate self-contradiction in the way that there is if we say that theft is universally preferable behavior. Does that sort of make sense?
[1:18:45] Right then we pass that it doesn't it doesn't fail before launch the rocket doesn't collapse before we even launch it we can actually build the rocket you know and it passes the first stage of uh coherent theory yeah right.
[1:18:58] So there are behaviors which are generally considered negative and we'll take a less controversial one such as being late i don't know if you've ever had.
[1:19:11] That yeah and i saw sorry i just because i i did read all your distinction like the aesthetic things and like rude and okay so so and i am familiar with your categories and i can go back this section and i mean sorry but.
[1:19:22] Just for those who haven't read the book just very very briefly so.
[1:19:24] There's upb.
[1:19:25] And then there's apa aesthetically preferable actions you know being reasonably polite being on time uh being honest and moral moral morally virtuous speaking truth to power being courageous. These are all positive actions. And the question is, why are they not UPB?
[1:19:43] Well, because they can't be universalized. So, when I'm asleep, and this is what I call the coma test, right? So, can a man in a coma be evil? And we would have an instinct to say, well, no, he can't be virtuous, but he sure as heck can't be evil, right? But if I'm asleep, I'm neither raping, assaulting, murdering, or stealing from anyone. And so, I'm at least not doing evil, if that makes sense. I'm not doing ugly harm to others. And so, I am not inflicting on other people. So, evil generally is when an unwanted violence is inflicted upon someone else, and the violence is almost by definition unwanted, otherwise it's role-playing or something weird like that, or boxing, which is not unwanted but accepted as the sport. So, unwanted violence inflicted on others requires that someone be acting to inflict the violence, and then he have a victim who is receiving it. The violence. Nobody would shoot anyone if immediately they got shot themselves or almost no one. And so there's an actor and a victim, which is why it's asynchronous, which is why it cannot be universalized. Now, if somebody is late, and most of us have had that friend, or maybe you've been that friend who's just late all the time, and it's really kind of annoying, you can't plan anything, and you've got to cross your fingers and hope for the best. And usually, eventually, this just kind of peters out because it just feels kind of rude and disrespectful for after a while.
[1:21:13] But being late can't be universalized because in order to be late, someone has to be waiting for you. And therefore, you have somebody who's acting to be late and someone who's the victim or reacting, and the being lateness is inflicted upon them. So it's asynchronous and therefore can't be universalized. However, it's still better to be on time because it's like keeping your word, keeping your promise. It generally is better to tell the truth. But I'm not a Kantian in that if somebody asks me where my wife is so they can go kill her, they can go take a long walk off a short pier. I'm going to lie my ass off because I do not owe honor and virtue to the evil and violent and murderous. So there are aesthetically preferable actions that are beneficial, but the reason you can't shoot someone who's late is they haven't violently inflicted it upon you. Right? An assault where somebody jumps out of the bushes and beats you around the head with a baseball bat. I'm sorry, I'm getting flashbacks to my Australian speaking tour. But if somebody just jumps out of the bushes, hits you with a baseball bat, they have violently inflicted their will upon you.
[1:22:16] Somebody who says, I'm going to be there at seven, it doesn't show up till eight, they've not violently inflicted their will upon you. And therefore, it's not asynchronous, the asynchronous domination of violent will from one person to another. So it's better to be on time, but you can't shoot people who aren't on time. It's better to be honest, but you can't shoot people who lie. It's better to be morally courageous, but you can't shoot cowards. But you can shoot a rapist who's about to assault you or your wife or your husband, if that's the way that it's going. So there are virtues which we should strive towards, and they generally are much more important in our lives than UPB. I generally have not wanted to murder anyone over the course of my life, maybe a few exceptions, but mostly in debates. But I have never wanted to rape anyone. I've never wanted to, I guess when I was younger, I shoplifted a little bit, but that was, you know, I was very young. It's not the right thing. Learned better. I made my restitution where I could, but I don't want to assault people, so I don't go through my life holding back these seething, feral pit bulls of wanting to do all of this evil, but moral courage takes a little bit of talking yourself into, and sometimes it's a bit of a strain to be on time, and so on. So those are more of the things that I think most of us focus on in our life, is not the great evils that would be criminal, but the generally positive behaviors that tend to.
[1:23:45] Edify and inspire, hopefully, others, just as we've been inspired in turn. So aesthetically preferable actions, they are positive and they are good. It's better to be on time. And, but they're not subject to UPP because they're not asynchronous, but they are asynchronous.
[1:24:05] No, so being on time is asynchronous because there's the being late and then there's the person who's having the being. There's the person who's being late and the person who's inflicting on. Moral courage is not asynchronous because it's just a sort of singular action, but neither of them are violently enforced upon the other, and you can't have a UPP compliant anything that's violent enforcement of will, because that's asynchronous. One person gets their way, the other person gets subjugated or beaten or is acted against, and therefore it's asynchronous. But APA would be the general virtues that this is better to do, but it's not in the category of good and evil. It's the category of better and worse or nicer or less nice.
[1:24:47] Yeah, I think better and worse. It's better to be morally courageous, but not too much. But it's always good to not rape. The APA is subject to the Aristotelian mean, rather than the black and white of good and evil. So as you know, Aristotle says a deficiency of courage is cowardice and excess of courage is foolhardiness. And so the things that balance, being on time is good, being early is probably kind of a waste of time, being late is kind of rude, and so you want to be just at the right time. And even honesty, right? I mean, I can tell you this from a great personal experience, i'm sure you've had the same experience it is very easy to be too honest to this world and to be too blunt and uh you know the little kids who say why is grandma so fat you know like the oh sh you know like there's a certain amount of decorum and maybe overly british politeness or whatever that's sort of necessary in this world you can't just be blunt with everyone, and so on and so even honesty can be subject to the aristotelian means so those are the things that sort of delicate balancing acts, in life as a whole, but there's no Aristotelian mean between rape and not rape. There's no sort of sweet middle in the middle, like they just don't rape, if that makes sense. So the APA is more the virtues that are subject to excess and deficiency and are better, but have to be balanced, if that makes sense.
[1:26:10] Well, Stefan, I appreciate you having a conversation with me. Thank you for having me on i mean look i i could i could go forever because i enjoy this so much but i suppose it's like eating a good meal at some point i just have to say you know let's i'll let this digest this is delicious and hey aristotelian.
[1:26:28] Meat again yeah i think you're right.
[1:26:29] Aristotelian meat in action right now yeah well i appreciate.
[1:26:33] It too and listen man any any time you want to do it i you know i do i do a lot of stuff that's not you know hardcore philosophy stuff and so i you know this was my original motivation to get into the public square. So anytime you want to talk about it, just shoot me a message and we'll do it. And I'm sure people will really enjoy this cover.
[1:26:52] Right on. Thanks so much, Stefan.
[1:26:54] Thanks, brother. Have a great night.
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