0:00 - Introduction
0:56 - Viewer Suggested Show: Baby Reindeer
3:04 - Deeper Themes in Baby Reindeer
3:19 - Movie Review: Return to the Kingdom of the Province of the Galactic Empire of the Planet of the Apes
5:52 - Thoughts on Movie Diversity
8:55 - Real-Time Relationships AI Usage
10:53 - Role-Playing for Family Dynamics
14:33 - Unexpected Turn of Events
17:19 - Discussion on Regret
27:56 - Understanding Consciousness Objectively
35:49 - The Insights from "The Present"
38:53 - Exploring the Fifth Dimension Theory
41:24 - Humor and Typing Errors
43:28 - Questioning Consciousness Every Night
45:36 - Viewer Appreciation and Tipping
46:07 - Fun Fact about Annie Lennox and Procol Harum
46:07 - AI and Consciousness Debate
46:54 - Christmas Songs and Memories
47:46 - The Issue with Consciousness
48:06 - Predictability of AI and People
48:27 - The Problem with People and AI
48:37 - Dream Interpretation
50:44 - Analyzing AI and Behavior
50:49 - The Influence of AI on Society
51:29 - Misunderstandings in Communication
51:49 - Relationship Dilemmas
54:04 - Neurolinguistic Programming Discussion
54:36 - Strategies of Genius and NLP
55:34 - Teaching Philosophy and Thinking
56:58 - Simplicity in Thinking
59:03 - The Simplicity of Thinking
1:01:08 - Philosophical Thinking for Beginners
1:02:12 - The Concept of Free Will
1:02:59 - Choosing Morality and Free Will
1:04:23 - Comparing Actions to Ideal Standards
1:06:52 - Taking Care of Health and Relationships
1:08:00 - Age Gap Concerns in Relationships
1:13:02 - Extracting Themes from a Book
1:15:26 - Themes of Change and Influence
1:17:37 - The Essence of Friendship
1:23:48 - Healing from Childhood Trauma
1:27:49 - Overcoming Self-Blame
1:30:47 - Effects of Childhood on Physical Growth
1:32:29 - Understanding Self-Attack
1:32:40 - Journey of Healing and Awareness
Join me in this episode as I share updates on the Peaceful Parenting AI audiobook and e-books, available for a limited time. We dive into our experiences watching the captivating show Baby Reindeer and a thought-provoking movie about apes, offering our critiques and reflections. Furthermore, I highlight the success of our real-time relationships AI and recount a heartwarming story shared by a caller that touched us deeply.
I tackle listener questions on regret and consciousness, delving into profound discussions surrounding loss, pair bonding, and the dual nature of grief - loss and regret. Together, we engage in an introspective dialogue, urging participation in polls and calls to enrich our conversations with diverse perspectives.
I appreciate the audience's meticulous attention and curiosity, leading us to explore the concept of objectively proving consciousness. By emphasizing the inherent evidence within the questions posed, we explore deductive and inductive reasoning, underscoring that the essence of arguments lies within the questions themselves. Shift the focus to the structure of arguments rather than just their content, unveiling the concept of Universal Preferable Behavior (UPB) and its implications.
Let's raise awareness on mental health and discern the fine line between reality and dreams, discussing realism in various contexts and unraveling the enigma of objective consciousness. Our dialogue widens to dissect the dimensions of realism in movies and dreams, unraveling the complexities of distinguishing reality from subjective encounters.
Throughout the episode, we traverse through a myriad of topics encompassing films, music, artificial intelligence, dreams, philosophy, personal anecdotes, and advice. We ponder on the parallels between human behavior and AI, propelled by predictability and conditioning, alongside a fascinating exploration of dream interpretation intertwined with personal encounters.
Engaging with multiple callers, we navigate discussions on overthinking, self-criticism, childhood trauma, and friendship, stressing the significance of comprehending past behaviors and survival mechanisms. Friendships get a spotlight alongside themes from a book, intertwined with lighthearted banter to create a dynamic episode. We express gratitude and affection for our listeners, extending an invitation for donations and a glimpse into future episodes before bidding a warm farewell, reminding everyone to stay awesome.
[0:01] Good evening! Welcome to your Friday night. Oh, pinch-punch, end of the month, and the last day you can get, you know what, we'll count the day that this is published too, which may be tomorrow, the last day that you can get access to the Peaceful Parenting AI, the audiobook, and the e-books of Peaceful Parenting, share it away, share it away, and And I hope that you will avail yourself. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. People who subscribe have had it for a while and all of that. Thank you for the face check. It really helps with editing shorts.
[0:42] I edit shorts and turn them into thongs. But Jared may, in fact, be talking about something slightly different. I doubt it. But it's possible. No, it's not possible. Not possible. All right.
[0:56] So yeah good evening good evening welcome welcome if you haven't been here for a while welcome back if you have been for a while oh who am i kidding welcome back so a couple of couple of things couple of things so a listener suggested that i watch a show entitled baby reindeer Reindeer.
[1:19] Spoiler, Baby Reindeer is not a children's show. In fact, it is, much like Fallout, a portal to one of the lower layers of hell itself. Now, I don't want to bore you if you haven't seen it, haven't heard about it. Hit me with a Y if you've heard of or seen anything Anything to do with the Hellfest known as Baby Reindeer. Baby Reindeer. It's such a cute name, such a sweet name. Could not get through one episode. Could get through one episode of that show? Could not get through one episode of that show. Yes. So it is like being awake during your own appendectomy, or if you were a dog, being awake as they saw your balls off with a rusty knife. Something like that. Okay, some pluses. The writing is interesting. The characters are grim, but very well acted. The main Scottish guy who looks like he just got released from some Japanese concentration camp. Uh, yes. Yes. It's not a pretty show. It's about a failed or failing comedian, a comedian who's failing, and the obsession that a rather tubby and frizzy-haired Scottish girl, also great actress. I mean, you look at someone like that and you're like, so you want to be an actress? Well, I mean, good for you. That's courageous. And it is about massive dysfunction. And it also does go surprisingly deep.
[2:48] It does go surprisingly deep. It talks about the hidden benefits of dysfunction. It talks about intergenerational family trauma. And it goes real deep, multi-generations to explain the issues that are going on.
[3:04] So that was... I'm not recommending it. I'm just saying if you can grit your teeth and make it through the dental drill of the show, there's some interesting stuff in it. But that is pretty rough.
[3:20] I also did go and see a movie called Return to the Kingdom of the Province of the Galactic Empire of the Planet of the Apes or something like that. It was a long title, but not as long as the movie. And I remember reading the original. It was called Monkey Planet by Pierre Boulle. I read that in my early teens, found it quite striking. And it's not bad. It's long, and it's too long. First of all, the technology for these movies continues to be jaw-dropping to me. So the fact that they have CGI apes, they literally have CGI apes fighting in water. I mean, I can't even tell you. I remember once talking to a fellow...
[4:01] Who was an animator in the movie Rio, the bird movie Rio, saying that they had, you know, just hell with the feathers getting blurred out by the background and how much work they had to do on that. And that's some fairly cartoony-looking birds, but a great movie. But they have apes, of course, the hair, the water flowing, the apes displacing the water, the water splashing and the refractions. I mean, it's insane what they can do with technology these days. I wish they applied it to slightly better stories, but I thought it was very, very interesting.
[4:36] Confusing, because, you know, the premise of the movie is there's a virus that makes the apes smarter and the humans dumber. And it was a little confusing because there was no diversity. It was all white people who were dumber, and then all of the apes didn't, they didn't seem to be very smart at all, because they had trouble forming sentences and basic concepts. But it was very interesting because there was an ape leader who said, oh, the humans, they were called echoes or humans, the humans are your problem. And he kept pointing at the white woman, the humans are your problem. Because, you know, they want to put you in cages. And meanwhile, this guy was burning up apes left, right and center to get a hold of human technology to dictate over everyone and dominate everyone. One so it was deep in a sense that you had a leader who was pointing at somebody who wasn't a threat and who was telling people that person is the real threat but of course he was literally killing apes left right and center in order to try and get hold of um human technology and so on so you know there was some interesting stuff in that i'm not sure how deep people would really go in it but uh i wouldn't recommend it but again it's the only thing like i wouldn't recommend it but But if you do watch it, there's things to be gotten out of it. So it is interesting.
[5:53] And of course, you know, everything has to be dumbed down and everything has to be international friendly and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, I mean, that's sort of natural. And I don't generally watch...
[6:03] Uh many movies somebody says i saw the new planet the apes movie i wanted to like it but i was not invested into any of the characters yeah i mean the apes couldn't read the apes couldn't swim the a like it was just i don't know it just seemed kind of kind of odd to me that uh these are supposed to be smart apes and i'm used to some sort of vague british accent smart apes from the original movies and uh these apes just seem very very stupid and uh all the telegraphing you know the thing with the eagles like you just know exactly what's going to be happening so.
[6:34] It's interesting i thought it was interesting for the technology i thought some of the meta narratives about politics were interesting but it's way too long it's way too long you know like my it's sort of when when you you see oh they're climbing this cliff and it's not the end of the movie you know they're going to slip and almost fall but not quite and you know everything's kind kind of predictable and so on. But I thought it was interesting seeing how those people are the enemy. And the white girl wanted to destroy military power and the apes wanted to utilize it to dominate the world and so on. And I thought that was interesting too. I mean, you know, white people as a whole tend to be into slightly smaller government. They're not necessarily white females, or at least not single white females. But I did a show, The Truth About Free Speech, many years ago about the demographics of those who support free speech. And it was most illuminating and well worth checking out. Of course, fdrpodcast.com. Now we're actually doing something kind of cool too, which was returning sections of freedomain.com into standalone apps. In other words, it's something that you can install and run outside of the browser.
[7:42] Standalone apps. It's very cool. It's very cool. And also I wanted to thank everyone one who has been using the free domain real-time relationships AI. It is by far the most popular AI that we have, which I, you know, in hindsight is not too shocking, of course, because.
[8:08] Call-in shows, which are philosophy to personal issues. That was pretty neat. That was pretty neat. So yeah, thanks everyone to doing that. People are actually using the real-time relationships, but for role-playing with family members, family figures, and that's pretty interesting to see. It's certainly one of the things that I do in the call-in shows that's pretty neat, which is to do the role play with people and people have found a way to get that to work, which is kind of neat.
[8:55] So good for everyone for that, And we'll try and add more stuff to the real-time relationships AI so that people can get it and use it that way. So, all right. Let me just see here. I'm just going to save the image because we do have this. I'm going to give you one of the role plays that we found, or that somebody did, which is kind of neat. All right.
[9:29] Somebody says, great, the AI says, great, who will you be role-playing as and who should I role-play in this scenario? I will be myself and you could be my father. The AI says, great, let's start the role-play. Please begin by expressing something to me as your father that you've been wanting to discuss or that's been on your mind.
[9:49] And somebody says, Dad, I need you to know I'm incredibly hurt by how emotionally absent you were during my childhood. AI says, I'm really sorry to hear that you felt hurt by emotional absence during your childhood. It's important for me to understand more about how you felt and what I could have done differently. Can you tell me more about specific instances that made you feel this way or how you think things could have been better? He says, I had a very difficult time making friends at school. You were condescending and rude when I tried to tell you. I'm sorry to hear that you felt that way when you tried to talk to me about your difficulties in making friends. It was not my intention to be condescending or rude. Let's talk about it more. Can you tell me what I said or did that made you feel that way? It's important for me to understand so I can be more supportive in the future. One particular time I told you some kids laughed at me and it made me feel stupid. You were very dismissive and told me to get over it and not act like a baby. Oh, I'm sorry that I responded that way. It wasn't right for me to dismiss your feelings like that. It's important for you to know that your feelings are valid and I should have been more supportive and understanding. Let's talk about how we can better handle situations like this in the future. How would you have liked me to support you during that time?
[10:53] You can help by listening to my story and understanding that my feelings are hurt without offering any solutions. Absolutely. I'm here to listen. Please feel free to share your story and express how you're feeling. I'll make sure to give you the space to be heard without jumping to conclusions.
[11:11] So anyway, just little little snippets here so it's very interesting to see how these role plays can uh can work.
[11:24] Uh charlton heston's cameo in 2001 planet of the apes he has a hidden corroded pistol made by humans quote i warn you their ingenuity goes hand in hand with their cruelty no creature is is as devious as violence. You must find this human quickly. Don't let him get to Kalima! Unquote.
[11:46] Is there any way to prove consciousness objectively? It feels real for me personally, thus feels real in others, but I'm not sure how to prove it for myself and other people, other than I think, therefore I am.
[12:01] That is a very, very good question. An excellent, excellent question. Really difficult, so I'm going to pretend you didn't ask it. All right. Is the bot supposed to be that nice? Well, see, now the bot isn't going to say, if you say be my father it's going to role play as a father based upon what's in the book if you say maybe my father is mean or dismissive and cruel maybe it would be i don't know whether it would respond to prompts like that but uh but you can always try it that way all right, oh gosh let me tell you let me tell you a little bit of an interesting free domain story and then we'll get to the question on consciousness so a very interesting free free domain story. So I got, I seem to have a couple of cascades of emergencies going back and forth these days, callers with emergencies, which, you know, makes my life a tad chaotic, but I'm not going to complain about being in demand. Oh, and don't forget now, of course, if you want private call-ins, you can do a check mark at freedomain.com slash call. If you want a private call-in, it won't be, I won't keep it. It won't be recorded and it certainly won't be published and it's totally private and all of that so you can use that as a an option if you're asking for a call then at freedomain.com slash call, but yeah so I got a call, so both the man and the woman have been on the show it's.
[13:28] A woman who was in love with an illegal immigrant, I talked to her, and then I talked to the man who was an illegal immigrant, and we had some really juicy and deep conversations about love and all of that. And they were together, and then they weren't together, and he was really working hard to get them to be back together as a couple. He was hoping against hope or working, not even hoping against hope. He was invited to come and stay with him so that they could rekindle their relationship because he really wanted her to be his wife. And he texted me or contacted me in an emergency and I talked to him this morning for a little over two hours because, because he'd been waiting to get this woman back into his life. And he was yearning for her and burning for her. And what's the twist? What happened?
[14:33] What happened, do you think?
[14:40] What do you think happened that he wanted to call me?
[14:54] I think it's a first, for me.
[15:06] Sorry, a bunch of people are typing, but I think we've got a bit of a delay. She broke things off. Well, they weren't together. So he was, they had talked, he wanted to get back together with her. But she had said, not right now, but maybe in the future, because they were really, you know, they were hand in glove, so to speak. And then he was invited to come and stay with him because he and she was supposed to be there like as close as tomorrow or something like that, and then they had a wee bit of a hiccup, and does anybody want to have any other guesses as to what might have happened? Hello Jason, by the way, over there on Rumble. What did happen? Well, not quite correct guesses, and I wouldn't have guessed this either. What happened was she died. She died. She died.
[16:17] She died. And it's funny now to think, of course, that she lives on forever, in a sense, in the Freedoming Archives, But, boy, that's an ex-ex-girlfriend. No, she wouldn't be deported. She wasn't the illegal. But no, she died.
[16:37] It can happen. It can happen to you. It can happen to me. It will happen to everyone eventually. Yes, he did say how. She was visiting relatives in a relatively small plane, and unfortunately what happened was the relatively small plane did, did the day the music died stuff the alia stuff the john uh the denver stuff bob denver, the small plane did what small planes occasionally do so.
[17:19] Somebody says i'm tempted to do the private call-in is there a time limit you've told me no less than two times i should do a call and i really do need your help i think my call would be beneficial to others so i'm leaning towards public either way i will pay you for your time donation or otherwise right uh i leave it to your discretion if you want to do a public that's fine if you want to do a call and you think it might be public and then afterwards you decide for it to be private you can just pay me for my time and then it won't go public right so all all can be worked out i am here to help so we talked about regret two kinds of regret okay give me give me this. 1 to 10. Give me a 1 to 10. Let's poll, baby. I take your poll, baby. Let's poll, baby. What is your level of regret in life? I mean, I think it's fair to say that if you don't have regrets, you regret not having regrets because it means you haven't done much living. What is your level of regret?
[18:19] I will post, when I post the show, I will post the previous calls. But yeah, this is somebody who. Yeah, so listen, I mean, if you do a public call and then you want to make it a private call, I'll just delete the recording and you can pay me for my time. I mean, obviously, I want to be as flexible. Michelle says six, six, five. Mr. Waterday chalks six. So not too bad. Not too bad. Not too bad at all. Eight or nine, I live in the past. Two, three. Three, mostly about stuff I did in my younger life before free domain. Not buying more Bitcoin is level 10. Well, there is that. There is that. How about losing some? Eight to nine. Yeah. Yeah.
[19:09] Yeah. Five, sometimes I regret my engineering career choice. Hmm. Right. Five, not sure how much of my life is my choice to, or are my choices to regret? Right.
[19:25] So just, I mean, the call would go out at some point, but basically I said to him that there's two kinds of regret. The first is the regret that is just loss. It's just loss. You know, my wife and I are very happily married 21 years, and hopefully we get another 30 or 40 years together. But, you know, most likely it's going to be me just statistically, but one of us is probably going to have to go on without the other, right? One of us is going to have to go on without the other. And it's going to be agony. It's going to be horrible. It's going to be incredibly painful. It's going to be sorrowful and tragic and terrible and all of that. And that's the price we pay for pair bonding, right? That's just, that's the deal. That's the price we pay for pair bonding. The price we pay for pair bonding is loss. So that's natural. And you can't do much about that other than avoid pair bonding, which is far worse than grief or sorrow or regret. So, yes, two types of grief. sorry yeah two types of grief the first is just the i think i said two types of sorrow sorry two types of regret so the first sorrow the first grief is just life right uh pair bonding and and like you know if you see a bunch of rabbits in a field and one of them gets taken by a hawk the other ones barely look up and barely care whereas if the male wolf or lion loses their mate then there's a huge amount of grieving and all of that.
[20:55] So the two types of grief are loss and regret. And loss is actually a mark of pride. Like you've had something and life takes away everything from you, right? Life is about accumulating and then time just picking your pockets and taking everything away, right? It takes away your youth, your fatality, your muscle mass, your hair, Your posture, sometimes it takes away your health and then it just kills you, right? So time is just like we're made of sand and we're staggering against a heavy wind, getting blown into dust every step of the way. So it's just about losing things. So you have to have things in order to lose things. And that loss is part of grieving or sorrow.
[21:45] And we can't do anything about that other than fail to live, which is, it just shifts sorrow to regret. It shifts loss to regret, to fail to have anything to lose. Whereas if you have things that you deeply regret, then that's something you can learn for the future. And if it's too late for you, you can teach it to others. Hello, hidden dragon. Wait, I see you. What's that old joke? I watched the movie Crouching Tigers, Hidden Dragon. There were no tigers and no dragons. Yes, because they were crouching and hidden. So anyway, we'll get into more of that in the show itself. But it was a very interesting meditation on loss and sorrow, and the dangers of trash planet. So, anyway, we'll get into that when the show comes out, but look for that. It's a very, I think it's the first call or died show that I know, right?
[22:58] All right, is there a way to prove consciousness objectively? It feels real for me personally, thus feels real in others too, but not sure how to prove it for myself and in other people, other than I think therefore I am.
[23:10] I appreciate the attention to detail. I do. I appreciate the attention to detail. I appreciate the curiosity. I absolutely guarantee you that this is not the big or even any kind of major moral issue in your life. This is not any kind of moral issue in your life. So this is a tiny bit of a mental wank fest, which I don't mind. I'm just saying that you would pursue this in order to avoid other things. Like, you know, children who are being mistreated, you know, people who believe lies, You know, people who applaud violence in the form of power, particularly political power. So there's lots of people, lots of people in your life who are drowning under error and corruption. And you want to know whether consciousness exists objectively, right? So is there a way to prove consciousness objectively? So most proof is considered to be, I mean, there's sort of three major kinds of moral reasoning or sort of rational reasoning. And I go into this in my great book called The Art of the Argument. You can get that at artoftheargument.com. So there is deductive reasoning, which is 100%, right? Like all men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. There is inductive reasoning, which is based upon probabilities. It's likely that, right? If you have two, a man and a woman that you don't know anything about, it's likely that the woman is shorter than the man, right? That's just sort of inductive reasoning. There's another sort of more creative way you create something new.
[24:40] But to me, there is, this is sort of one of the big contributions I've made to the field of philosophy.
[24:52] Is that the proof of the premise is embedded in the question. The proof of the argument is embedded in the question. So if we look not at a detached series of letters here but we look at the conversation if we look at the number of assumptions that are embedded in the conversation as a whole we can see that the proof of consciousness is required for the conversation to occur right so you are typing to me steph is there a way to prove consciousness objectively now the only reason you're typing Typing that to me is because you accept that you have consciousness and I have consciousness. Otherwise, you wouldn't type that to me. Right? If you were typing this to me and you sent it and then you found out that you'd been disconnected from the Internet for some reason and the message hadn't gotten through, you'd be like, oh, well, oh, Steph didn't answer. He didn't answer. And then you find out that the message didn't go through for some technical reason. You'd be like, oh, okay, so I'll resend the message because I want Steph's answer. So you are not talking with yourself. You're not talking in a dream. You're not talking to nothing. You're not talking to your hand, right? You're talking to somebody else who has consciousness, who can understand.
[26:12] Respond to you and there's no way that i can respond to you that doesn't require an acceptance of objective consciousness like if i were to say to you there's no such thing as consciousness well i would be replying to you hoping to change your mind about whether you had a mind i can't do that it is when people say language is meaningless they are accepting that language has meaning in order to try and communicate that language has no meaning. So people, they drill down into the content. Oh, I got to prove consciousness objectively. How do I do this? I'm going to look at brain scans. I'm going to work syllogistically. I'm going to work through deductive or inductive reason. No, forget all of that. Look at what's happening and what is required for the conversation to occur.
[27:03] Right? So if somebody says to me, language has no meaning, I can either start to prove that language does have meaning, or I can say the proof that language has meaning is embedded in the fact that you're using language, therefore you accept that language has meaning. Because if you can communicate that language has no meaning using language, you can only do that because language has meaning, and the form of your argument contradicts the content of your argument. This is really, really important stuff. And this is embedded in UPB as well. The form of your argument contradicts the content of your argument. So if I say to you, human beings cannot communicate through voice.
[27:57] I say to you, I say human beings cannot communicate. And people are like, okay, well, let's prove whether, no, no, no, forget all of that. Forget all of that.
[28:14] Forget all of that. Oh, did you mean to send me $2? Just curious. Sometimes people slip a digit.
[28:29] Everybody's, yeah, everybody, suddenly everybody's trying to be witty. Everybody's trying to make jokes because this solves so many problems that it puts you in direct confrontation with people's craziness, right? So if I say to you, sound waves do not exist, are you going to sit there and say, no, no, Steph, sound waves do exist, and here's sound waves, and here's me talking, and oscilloscope, and spec, like here, absolutely. No, forget that. Forget all of that. First look at the premises embedded in the nature of the argument, in the nature of the interaction. The form of the argument cannot contradict the content of the argument, because empiricism wins, right? So if I say to you, sound does not exist, or it's impossible for human beings to hear, or language has no meaning, or I don't have vocal cords, or you don't have ears that work. If I say to you any of the things that are contradicted by the form of the argument, the form of the argument wins. Do you see what I mean? So everybody wants to dig into the actual argument and nobody wants to look at the form of the argument and what is required for the argument to be made at all.
[29:48] And so when you say to me, Steph, how do you prove that consciousness exists objectively? I would say you just proved it by asking me a question. And there's nothing else that needs to be done. Maybe there are people out there who don't believe that consciousness exists objectively, but they'll never ask me a question because they don't believe that my consciousness exists. Right? I mean, if you have a dream where some character gives you gold, you don't check around your bed for the gold in the morning do you because that's a dream and it's not real you know there's there's a meme uh it's a bit of a funny meme where the woman says you know i'm beginning to think that my husband is never going to apologize for the way he behaved in my dream last night right i mean that's kind of a joke thing right so but of course apologizing to your wife for what you did in a dream is a little crazy right i mean no sane wife would really i mean she may be concerned about the dream she had and ask you some questions but you wouldn't be morally responsible for what she dreamed you did, right?
[30:51] So, like, about 95% of philosophical arguments are solved by looking not at the content of the argument, but the form of the argument. What premises are embedded in the form of the argument? Well, in order to debate with someone, to ask them a question, to oppose them, you have to accept that you exist. You have to exist that they exist. You have to accept that language has meaning. You have to accept that there's some relatively objective way to communicate information. To correct someone, you have to accept that there are ideal standards that they're deviating from and that it's infinitely better to conform to those ideal standards called truth and empiricism than it is to just make things up. So there's so many things that you have to accept just to correct someone else.
[31:40] That arguing about those things is worse than useless, it's worse than pointless, it's a complete waste of time. Like if I sent, I made these arguments like, I don't know, 15, 17 years ago in a video, we can dig it up afterwards. But if I write you a letter containing the argument that letters never get delivered, and I mail it to you, then the content of my argument contradicts the form of the argument, the epistolary form, right? So if I write to you and say letters never get delivered then the fact that I'm writing to you and mailing it means that I accept that letters get delivered I mean maybe once in a while they don't but I accept that they get delivered reliably enough that that's how I'm sending you the argument do you see what I mean so if I write you the argument letters never get delivered right and then I wrap it up put a stamp on it and mail it off then the form of my argument relies on the fact that letters get delivered and if the form of the argument contradicts the the content of the argument, the content can be dismissed. So anybody who says to you, well, you can't prove the consciousness exists, it's like, of course I can, you just did, because you addressed me, one consciousness to another.
[32:54] Like that the proof is in the fact that you've asked me a question, and everybody wants to dodge that shit. Not you guys, of course, you're wonderful. But most people just want to dodge that stuff. No, no, forget about everything that I'm doing. just only focus completely in isolation from what I'm doing and from what I'm saying only focus on what I'm saying not what I'm doing right so.
[33:19] So yeah really really important this stuff is so simple and can be life-changing yeah everything I say is a lie this sentence is a lie yeah all of this sort of stuff right, years ago depressed and battling with determinism Jared says I heard Steph say you're not going to appeal to my capacity to change my mind to convince me that I cannot change my mind yeah for sure, yeah if somebody wants to convince you that you can't change your mind, that's crazy, that is crazy Crazy. Yeah, or you don't intend the letter to be delivered, which makes mailing it a waste of time from your POV. Now, it's not Steph's law. The proof of the premise is embedded in the question. That's not a constant. But in any contradiction between the content of the argument and the form of the argument, the form of the argument wins.
[34:25] From UPP itself, premise 3, language has the capacity for meaning. Since all arguments require language, any proposition that rests on the premise that language is meaningless is immediately disproven. Using language to argue that language has no meaning is like using a courier to send a message arguing that couriers never deliver messages. Yeah. Carrier pigeons never get to their intended location, he said, affixing that message to a carrier pigeon and sending it off to its intended location, right? So forget about... And this is UPP. This is what drives people so crazy about UPB. It's the moment somebody says UPB is invalid, they've just used UPB. They're saying that there's an objective universal standard called validity that UPB fails to meet and it's universally preferable behavior to say things that are true, not false. And right, so you cannot disprove UPB without deploying or utilizing UPB any more than you can say language has no meaning without relying on the fact that language has the capacity for meaning. So, yeah, I mean, read UBB. I know it can be a bit of a bear. You can go to essentialphilosophy.com. GPT-4 says it's a performative contradiction. Yeah, I refer, performative contradiction sounds like some jazz hands nonsense in the basement of some New York eatery, but self-detonating arguments, self-detonating arguments. You know, you aim, the gun goes off in your face, right?
[35:50] Bing bong bing boing says reading peaceful parenting with my wife right now soon to be parents mind-blowing stuff steph oh i'm glad to hear i'm very glad to hear and you should definitely check out the peaceful parenting ai as well which has also got real traction i think the one that has the least traction is the staff but ai but that was kind of early on and all of that but it's pretty good too um yeah maybe we should do a upb and we just have upbs we'll just just have a eyes for each one of my books, right?
[36:23] All right. Oh, I did all of this. Yes. Oh, I'm gonna close this. These are the ones I'm like, these seem vaguely familiar. The beta boxers and all of that. So, Yeah, I mean, UPB is real simple, right? I mean, you can't argue against UPB with deploying UPB, therefore UPB stands undefeated. It can't be defeated, because the only way it can be defeated is by deploying UPB to say that UPB is invalid, which is a performative contradiction, a self-detonating statement. It is universally preferable behavior to say that there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior. Right? Right? So, you can't argue against UPB without affirming UPB, so the only question is what is or is not valid UPB, not whether there is or is not such a valid concept as UPB, the only question is what is or is not valid UPB, and property rights and the non-aggression principle are the only valid UPBs.
[37:39] Uh it would be nice to have a pocket advisor of steph's wisdom on tap well yeah so this is one of the reasons why we are putting together some of the ais and the um podcast search engine to be a standalone app that you can have in your pocket fdrurl.com slash upb yeah what what uh What were some of the insights the AI extracted from your book, The Present? Yeah, Jared, do you mind digging those up? I don't have them on this computer. Jesus Christ, I envy how you VAM. Yes, I often look in the mirror and say, I envy how I VAM. I VAM what I VAM. Oh, did that comment go?
[38:23] I did read the Fifth Dimension paper by the guy. I actually read it today. I did read the fifth dimension paper by the guy, and it was interesting. I thought it was interesting. It feels wrong, but it's hard to disprove. So, I'll do some more work on it and figure out, he may be right, he may be wrong, I don't think he's right, but I can't prove immediately that he's wrong, which, it's fine, it was interesting to read.
[38:54] Fifth dimension spoilers. Okay, so, the basic argument is, you know, the four dimensions, right? Three we can perceive through the senses, one we can't. And so it's X, Y, Z, right? Like up, left, and deep, right? X, Y, Z, that's the three dimensions. And time is the fourth dimension. And he says that there's another dimension called realism.
[39:25] Realism. So if we go looking for the sword Excalibur, the magical sword Excalibur, we can say okay i'm going to go to this location in if i have a time machine in king arthur's court and i'm going to go but but we'll never find it because it's not real so there has to be another dimension called realism and movies so he goes into movies and dreams and uh other things and and how the eiffel tower is going to decay from its original thing so it's less realistic to the the original plan as time goes along so uh so realism x y z time and realism or i i'm not sure i put it he calls it realism but uh that there could be any number decay or uh to me that would be to some degree the passage over time and uh valid or not true or not right so we perceive things in our dreams that aren't real right we see things that aren't there we hear things that aren't there, and by the by, you know, this is one of the reasons why it's really important to work on your mental health, because we are this close to going crazy all the time.
[40:35] Right, the barrier between sanity and madness is willed principles often and nothing else, because you understand we're psychotic every night. We're psychotic every night and not just in that fun role play. But no, we're psychotic every night. We literally lose complete track of reality and we give ourselves over to florid, multisensory, rabid, totally accepted delusions every single night. Every single night we go to an insane asylum of sanity called the dream state, right? So really, really be careful with your mental health and focus on truth, reason, objectivity, empiricism, and reality because every night we get a preview of what it's like to completely fucking lose our minds. So don't do that, right? Don't do that, right?
[41:25] Uh, I envy how you come to your conclusions is what I meant. LOL. I know, I know. I was just waiting for you to retype it. Hey, there's nothing wrong with mocking typos. Lord knows I make them.
[41:37] So entropy as a dimension. No, it's not. I mean, I hear what you mean about entropy, but it's more than entropy. Uh, it is, uh, that, uh, the, the realism is so, uh, if you think of a movie, right, that's in the movie, right? So if you think of a movie, there is, uh, there are are movies that are purely fantastical right like um what dreams may come with robin williams where he's in paintings and like their dreams that are purely fantastic movies that are purely fantastical uh really heavily animated movies with talking fish and so on and then there are there are the sort of gritty realism movies that don't have any magic and don't have any talking um clownfish or anything like that and so there are different degrees of realism in movies and so we can detect how real the movie is relative to our waking lives and so there's levels of realism movie set in the future always have a certain amount of unrealism to them movie set in the distant past have a certain unreality to them because it tends to be highly sanitized right there's that great line from monty python's uh holy grail and that was what was that funded by led zeppelin and pink floyd like a bunch of musicians funded that movie's 300 000 pound budget or whatever it was.
[42:48] But in it i must be a king how do you know well he hasn't got shit all over him right that was That was one of the most accurate views of the Middle Ages, which is making sweet, sweet love to a woman who'd never brushed her teeth. So let's see here.
[43:11] Let's see here. Dimension assumes we're addressing either state specifically, like you can have a hypothetical XYZ in a video game or in reality. I'm not sure what that means. Okay, here's my question. What does this change? What do we do differently? What value would this add to my life?
[43:29] Well, but Jared, we have to answer the question of, is consciousness objective every night? Because every night we fall asleep, and we dream of things that never were and never will be, and we dream of people long dead, and we dream of people we've never met. Right? I mean, I remember many years ago having a dream that.
[43:55] I was Roger Taylor on some Queen tour, banging away, you know, like the We Will Rock You foot stomp hand clap. And I've never been the drummer for Queen. So, you know, I'm not Scott Adams. So I've never been, right? So things that I've never done, places I've never been, people I've never met, and so on. So every night, right, every night, we have to, have to, have to figure out what's real or not. Because we wake up in the morning and we have to know that we've woken up. We have to know what's real, what's not. And if someone berates us, like if we have a dream of our boss berating us at night in our dreams, that's different from our boss berating us in the world. Which is why I can't believe my husband's not going to apologize for what he did in my dream last night. Right that's funny because one is your consciousness making things up at night and the other is a real person in the real world so it really does you know people who are unable to answer that question, what is genuine consciousness what is objective consciousness i'm not saying you're one of them but people who are fundamentally unable to answer that question are insane right they're like the beautiful mind nash guy right hey do you do you see that guy do you see that guy because he's He's talking to me, but I don't know if he's real.
[45:18] So people who can't distinguish objective consciousness, because everything that happens in a dream is subjective consciousness, right? It's you making up things in the world, right? So.
[45:36] Just tipped at Free Domain. Thanks, Steph. I appreciate that. But isn't the film already electrons arranged in a certain way that you could predict their position? I don't know. Have you ever been surprised by a film? Douglas Adams played guitar with Procol Harum on stage on the occasion of his 40th birthday. He was a huge fan of Procol Harum, right? They're the Whiter Shades of Pale guy. Annie Lennox did a really, really nice cover of that. Wow, she does a nice cover. She could do a nice cover of Happy Birthday. Give me goosebumps, that crazy Scottish.
[46:07] Homeless house builder singer guy a google engineer claimed ai is conscious can your argument be used to claim it's not or do you think it's possible for ai to eventually become conscious no ai you can look at my presentation it's the truth about ai i did two of them ai is just a word guesser it's just a word it's not conscious i would say that we can think that an ai is conscious when it has meaningful dreams at night that it takes a while to figure out that that to me would be the big test of consciousness is does it have meaningful dreams at night so i don't believe that ais are even remotely conscious because it's all deterministic word guessing right with some variables obviously thrown in but no it's uh it's not it's it's interesting and it's a great simulation of consciousness for sure.
[46:55] Oh did she d god god rest you i love that song god rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay, remember christ our savior was born on christmas day to save us all from satan's power when we had gone astray oh tidings of comfort and joy i love that uh oh little town of bethlehem is another lovely one i actually know both the vocal lines from that from choir way back in the day, uh and uh john anderson did a whole christmas album that was really good too but um she did a really nice version on one of the um christmas albums a very special christmas Annie Lennox did a really nice, Walking in a Winter Wonderland I mean that one We could sing the phone book And give God goosebumps It's wild.
[47:42] The biggest issue with AI is that it will fool people that it is conscious.
[47:46] Biggest issue is not that AI is close to consciousness. The biggest issue is that most people's consciousness is too close to AI. That's the issue. The issue is not that we have this incredible, fertile, beautiful consciousness and AI doesn't reach it. The problem is that AI is an NPC and way too many people are just programmed by propaganda to basically be AI.
[48:07] You put something in, you know what comes out. You say this, they get offended. You say that, they get happy. They're completely predictable and completely boring. So the problem isn't that AI is getting close to humanity. The problem is most people are way too close to deterministic pre-programmed AI word-picking nonsense.
[48:28] That's the problem to me. I don't care how close AI gets to people. I care how close most people are to AI. That's horrible.
[48:37] It's that behavior, anger at something done in a dream, a symptom of borderline personality. I don't know. I don't know. That's an interesting question.
[48:45] If it's real, if it's real, like if somebody's really angry at something that someone did in a dream, then there's somebody who's concerned about something that's going on in their dream state, but isn't taking the time to figure it out, right? So if you have a, the standard issue would be that if you're a woman and you dream that that your husband cheats on you, then you wake up and you're mad at him. Well, why would I dream that, right? So you wake up and you're mad at your husband for cheating on you. Well, you need to sort of figure out what's going on in the marriage. The dream is trying to tell you something, and the dream is a warning, right?
[49:27] Let's see here. Hey, Steph, I had a dream, and all I remember is having a mouthful of glass shards. My whole mouth was bleeding, gums, tonsils, and roof of mouth. I started chewing the glass to swallow and then woke up. What do you think this could be interpreted as? Thanks. This one's not hard. This is not hard. Thank you for the tip, by the way. So a mouthful of glass shards is verbal abuse. It's verbal abuse. usually now you chewing the glass to swallow it i assume means that you're not the deliverer of verbal abuse but you are receiving verbal abuse so you receive verbal abuse and you had to internalize it in order to survive a brutal and bullying environment and if this is not right we'll take another swing right i'm just because i think just because i'm certain doesn't mean i'm right but this kind of stuff right but i would assume that this would say that you have had to swallow a lot of verbal abuse over your life and blame yourself for being abused, internalize it, and that's why you have to chew the glass to swallow it.
[50:44] Let's see here.
[50:49] I mean they're already i mean you feed ai crime debt crime data and everybody loses their minds right so people don't want they don't want ai they want a new technocratic atheist god that they can bully other people with all ai says this when they're in control of the ai so ai is the foreshadow of the modern mystery mystery religion of scientism right the mystery religion wherein and, hey, man, they've got a model. It's really complicated math. They all agree.
[51:21] So it's just turning into a mystery religion, right? So Google is a form, of course, of behavior modification.
[51:29] Well, I looked it up and this is what's said and Google is really smart and all that. Sorry, did you mean to send me a $3 tip? Not complaining, just asking. I didn't see the age gap question. If you can repost it, I will be happy to have a look at it.
[51:49] Started listening to you call him with a 35 year old lady who's single and won't settle damn i hope it ends well.
[51:59] It's a funny thing you know as men, oh nailed oh i nailed it maybe it has something to do with going through peaceful parenting as well yes yes yes the question is why is it glass so glass in the mouth is to do with verbal abuse but why is it glass so glass i would imagine if i had to guess why it's glass so glass is two things transparent and fragile so you probably had someone without boundaries or personal borders who was extremely fragile and aggressive maybe a mother who was neurotic extremely neurotic and so she's got no boundaries you can see right through her but she's, fragile and when she breaks she hurts right so when glass breaks it hurts i had a cousin who put his hand through when i was a kid he put his hand through a, a um greenhouse and almost died just the cuts were so bad on his arm so i would imagine that you had a neurotic or neurasthenic mother who was had no boundaries and could only establish established boundaries through when people could see right through her through verbal abuse.
[53:13] I've been there at home called lazy and stupid, called a retard in school due to a speech impediment, misery lifted only when alone, shocked I am an introvert. Yeah, I'm sorry about that, I really am. The surveillance state is a tower of Babel and I hadn't thought about that since since AI started to take off, but it's part of that as well. Tower of Babel meaning building something equal to God. I mean, of course, the great danger of AI, totalitarian dictatorships in the past were limited by manpower, but AI and surveillance technology and so on means that it's much easier, as do central bank digital currencies, means that it's much easier and much less labor-intensive to control you. And that's not ideal, to put it mildly.
[54:05] The relationship call-ins are my favorite. Yeah, I mean, this is not... Sorry, I thought I spent $30 multitasking while listening to you. You're what? You're multitasking while listening to me? That's it. I'm going to play a video game with my feet while doing a show. That's it. I'm in Minecraft Dungeon my way through things. All right. Let me get back here as well. Neurolinguistic programming. NLP. Let me just make sure. Oh, I should just go to the tip thing. All right.
[54:37] Thank you for the tip. What's your opinion on neuro-linguistic programming? I'm reading Strategies of Genius, NLP book, only 10% into the book. The book makes the argument that first principles is what makes a genius. Your thoughts? I'm trying to emulate how you rationalize and come to your conclusions. Hmm. I wouldn't say that I know enough about NLP, liquid lanyard particles. So I don't know enough about NLP to provide much of a useful feedback on it, but I can tell you my general methodology for thinking, if that helps at all, if you'd be interested or would like to copy-paste my general approach to thinking. Hit me with a why if you'd like that, or we can move on to other topics.
[55:34] I haven't checked the comments over here. Do you specifically teach people to be philosophical apart from demonstrating it, or is that how it's taught? So the way you teach people to be philosophical is you say not what is the content of the argument, but what is required for your argument to exist in the first place. Oh, you would like to. All right.
[56:01] Make me a genius or a refund. Yeah, well, I'm not sure about that, but I can certainly do my best to help improve things. So my general principles for thinking are, it's way simpler than you think. Right, so it's way simpler than you think.
[56:25] So for instance, when somebody says, glass shards in the mouth that I have to swallow. Okay so the dream is saying mouth pain mouth pain glass of shards right mouth pain okay so what is the most common form of mouth pain verbal abuse so it's just simple, it's it's i don't complicate things well the history of the this and the psychology and the id and the it's like okay so the dream is about pain in the mouth okay so what is the most common form of mouth pain, verbal abuse.
[56:58] I mean, I don't want, that's not brilliant. To me, to me, it's not, it's just way simpler. It's just way simpler than you think. So when people say love is complicated, it's like, well, is it? Is it complicated? You can love and hate someone at the same time. It's like, no, no, I don't love and hate my wife. I don't love and hate my daughter. I don't love and hate my friends. So things are just simpler than you think. UPB is ridiculously simple can everyone want to steal and be stolen from at the same time? Nope, it's physically impossible and it's a self-contradictory statement so it can't be it can't be.
[57:37] Is determinism really complicated? Determinism versus free will? No. If somebody's telling me that I don't have the ability to change my mind, then they're trying to change my mind to the perspective that I don't have the ability to change my mind. That's not that complicated. I'm sorry. There are things that are complicated. It's complicated to write a novel, but it's not complicated. I just, honestly, the way I think is I turn my brain off. I know it sounds bizarre. are the way i think is like i'm not going to analyze anything i'm just going to wait for the deep shocks of massive contradiction to show up in my gut the way i think is to turn the higher reasoning stuff off and to say well that doesn't make any sense honestly one of the most powerful statements i ever got was in the business world there's a fairly common statement these days i had an investor say okay no no explain it to me like i'm five years old now when it comes to philosophy we have to explain it to people like they're five years old because we start inflicting philosophy in particular morality on children when they're five years old so if you can't explain it like someone's five years old you've done something wrong because we inflict philosophy, can you imagine saying i've designed a tablet for a five-year-old and it's command line linux.
[59:04] Well that can't be correct now can it you can't have a tablet for a five-year-old unless he's super precocious and i do say here they he there you can't have a tablet for a five-year-old, that's command line linux in wingdings actually it could be kind of fun so for me it's not about thinking it's just not overthinking that's all it is thinking it's just not overthinking.
[59:30] Overthinking is the mess, right? Thinking is the simplest thing in the known universe, which is why people overcomplicate it so you don't just come up with simple things, right?
[59:47] So if you want to know the nature of political power, right, it's pretty, pretty simple. You go to your kids and you say, you've got two sons, Bob and Doug, and you go to your sons and you say, let's say they're eight and ten, and you say, okay, Bob, you can hit whoever you want. Doug, if you hit anyone, you're going to be severely punished. What are they going to say? It's like, it's not complicated. Maybe I spent enough time around kids explaining things to kids when I worked in a daycare year after year after year that I just got used to explaining things in a way that makes basic sense. So you go to the younger kids, you say, hey, you can hit anyone and you'll be rewarded. Anyone you hit, I'm going to give you candy, but if you hit anyone, you're going to be locked in your room. You're going to be spanked, right? Now, what happens if you create opposite moral rules for the same category of people?
[1:00:41] What are they going to say? That's completely unfair and insane. Why would he get rewarded for hitting people and I get punished for hitting people? It's a fair question. So, So if you don't have opposite rules for your kids, why not have not-opposite rules for society as a whole, which stymies the ethical legitimacy of political power? So it's not… For me, thinking is unthinking.
[1:01:08] Can I explain it like someone's five years old?
[1:01:19] I mean and and there is a certain amount of elegance in just in comprehension like I don't understand because when we hear this crazy complicated stuff because I did a lot of work on the history of philosophers series 22 parts available for donors at freedomain.locals.com or subscribestar.com slash freedomain did a lot of work and a lot of it is like polysyllabic proto-germanic bafflegab that makes your lower intestines look like a straight line, It makes the complexity of your body, it is to clear thinking as your actual body is to a lollipop figure, right? So, that can't be right. It can't be that complicated. Philosophy can't be that complicated. Otherwise, we can't have any moral free will.
[1:02:12] So, when it comes to free will, okay, so what's the definition of free will? Oh my gosh, it's so complicated. But what I do is I don't sit there and say, okay, what are all the possible definitions of free will? And let me study it in various different languages. Let me look at the etymology of the word. And that's really complicated. And if it's overcomplicated and it's philosophy, it's not right. It's not right. So when it came to working on the question of free will, it's just about relaxing your brain. Say, okay, so So.
[1:02:44] What do I do when I'm choosing? I just look in and say, what do I do when I'm choosing? Well, particularly when it comes to moral things, I have a moral standard, tell the truth, and I'm choosing whether to do that or not.
[1:03:00] It has to be in the future, because there's no free will about the past. The past is set in stone, irrevocable, although the stories can change in your head. So it's just a matter of saying, okay, it's simple. And I always think about these things like I'm a kid. Okay, so I'm a kid, and I'm trying to figure out whether to tell the truth or not. So when I was in boarding school, I lost my treasured pen that I got from my father, and I went and said I lost my pen, and they took me to the headmaster, and the headmaster took out this beautiful gold pen and said, is this your pen? And I said, that's not my pen. And he said, wow, that's really honest. A lot of kids would say, yes, that is my pen because it's been here for quite a while, but I didn't want someone else's pen.
[1:03:41] So I think about those kinds of situations. Okay, so what's free will? Well, I had something called tell the truth, and that's what I chose to do. And I could have chosen to lie. So then when I say, so what am I doing as a kid, right? You know, if I have a standard called tell the truth, I can choose whether to tell the truth or not. And it has to do with the future, because you can't choose to tell the truth after you've already lied. You can choose to come clean and tell the truth now, but you can't choose to have not lied once it's already happened. So I sit there and say, so what I'm doing? I'm comparing proposed actions to ideal standards. That's not, I don't consider that brilliant unless simplicity is brilliant. I don't. It's like, that's what we're doing all the time.
[1:04:24] I'm comparing proposed actions to ideal standards when it comes to morals.
[1:04:29] Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That's an ideal standard. You compare your proposed actions. Would you like it if he did that to you? Think of the other person. Be empathetic, right? If the tables were turned, right?
[1:04:42] This is what we're all, we've got to tell the truth. You've got to be honest. Don't steal. Oh, you want that candy? Don't steal. Well, your proposed actions to ideal standards. That's all we're doing all the time. And of course, that stymies the determinists because then the determinists say, well, you've got to change your, you've got to change your mind relative to an ideal standard called choose the truth. In other words, choose the truth that determinism is true, but determinism being true means you can't choose anything or change your mind. So it's self-conscious. So when somebody says to me, there's no such thing as free will, I'd say, so are you asking that you compare the contents of my mind to an ideal standard? Well, that is free will. Comparing proposed actions, in other words, accepting or rejecting your argument comparing proposed actions to ideal standards so we could kind of go on and on with this kind of stuff but my way of thinking is it's just it's way simpler than you think because the the endless urge is to over complicate because a lot of people think that over complication means brilliance nope no no no no particularly with philosophy okay i get Yet, when you're designing, you know, an i9 or an i12 processor chip, whatever they come up next with, that's very, very complicated stuff, right? But it's complicated, so the computers become simple to use.
[1:06:06] Free domain is the best user interface for philosophy that has ever been around. Because it's not a simple truism that's kind of boring and useless, right? And it's not overcomplicated to the point where you can't deploy it. So, the answer is way simpler than you think, and once you're overcomplicating it, you're on the wrong path, in particular with philosophy.
[1:06:40] I remember you saying, universals help reason the most, and that was a game changer in my thinking. Yeah, because reason is one of the ultimate universals, right? Question, long-term singleton, sorry, lifelong singleton coming on 50.
[1:06:52] I want to turn my life around with diet and exercise already back at church I don't know I could find a partner or even want one but for me after getting past a health crisis I want to commit to real change I do fear being old and crippled thanks Steph I appreciate that and congratulations, it is you know you don't want to wait till you're old to take care of your health, I can guarantee you that like I'm going to be 58 this year.
[1:07:19] And I'm at the view I can see the old people around out i can see people my own age beginning to fall apart like they're walking little trails of things toes falling off and the earlobes falling off and people are beginning to pay the price oh i love those heavy metal concerts when i was younger now i've got the tinnitus right so people are beginning to reap the rewards or the punishments of their prior decisions don't wait till you're older to take care of your health do not do it because a lot of times it's kind of too late All right. I've started dating someone younger than myself, but have just established the age gap is 16 years. Me, 52. She's 36.
[1:08:00] Is this too big to be practical? We are otherwise progressing well as a new couple, but I'm worried this will be unfair on her in the long run. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?
[1:08:12] Why would you think for her? I mean, she knows your age. I assume you haven't been lying about your age. I mean, you're not like me who could pass for a cozy 17. I mean, not a very healthy 17 at all. But 17, maybe a 17-year-old dog. So, worried this would be unfair on her in the long run, stop thinking both sides of the relationship. Do you know why? Because then it's not a relationship. You know, like, okay, if you want to know what you're doing, please don't do this in relationships. For the love of all that's holy do not do this in relationships so i want to i want you to think hey hey steph just phoned me he wants me to come and play tennis with him and i'm like yeah great so so you come over we meet we play tennis we've got like more balls than a nfl quarterback and we're going to play tennis right so then what i do is i hit the ball nice and high and then i run over and i hit back from your side and then i run over and i hit back from my side and then i ran out the way and i hit back right so would you be like what the hell are you doing why are you playing both sides. I'm like, well, I'm taking care of your game for you. And it's like, I don't want you to take care of my game for me. I want you to hit me the ball so I can hit it back. You're doing hitting both sides, right? Don't think other people's side of the relationship. Ask them. When you think it's unfair for the other person, that's her choice to make. Good Lord, stop possessing her like Like some demon in a doll.
[1:09:38] You say, what do you think of the age gap? You understand I'll be a lot older when I'll take care of myself and all that. But I'm, you know, I'm a lot older. She's like, yeah, I thought about that. I'm okay with it. That's it. Done. Shut up. Don't sell past the sale. Well, but I really have to look out for her concerns. It's like, what is she, a toddler? Okay, you got a child proof of toddler's house. but you don't childproof a grown-ass woman's desire or not desire to be in a relationship with a man who's older. Good Lord! I'm worried this will be unfair on her in the long run. That's her choice to make! Stop playing both sides of the court. Play your side! Fine for traveling. All right. Hey, Steph, I have problems sometimes overthinking. Especially when I work on software, I try to think about every aspect of the program I have trouble keeping it all together. How do I stop my mind solving problems? Okay, do you know why you overthink if you do? Do you know why you overthink?
[1:10:50] Somebody says, but the determinists would ask, why would you choose to abide by an ideal moral standard instead of following your mammalian preferences? You don't have any control over what makes you choose one or another. And then I would say, and this is the funny thing with determinists, right? I'm not saying you should, I'm not saying it would be morally right, but if you just slap them hard across the face, they'll be upset and angry with you. So then determinism is a lie. Well, no, that was just determined, right? I mean, would you get angry at a tree if the tree suddenly got caught in a gust of wind and slapped you in the face with its leaves. You don't have any control over what makes you choose one or another. So then say, okay, well, then they choose free will. You can't complain about it because I have no control, over whether I choose free will or not, right? I have no control over whether I choose free will or not, right?
[1:11:42] So they'll be mad at you while saying you have no control over what you say. Say so i did have these debates way back in the day there was a whole paroxysm of multi-year battles against determinists which i emerged bloody but victorious as did the community, and the determinists would say well your argument is wrong and i said well there's no such thing as wrong in a deterministic universe is it wrong for it to rain on your wedding day no it's not wrong it's not immoral the weather's not being immoral there's no choice no choice there's no such thing as being wrong in a deterministic universe because wrong refers to an ideal state that you're responsible for choosing or rejecting. It can't be wrong. So I choose to reject, I don't even choose, I am programmed to reject determinism.
[1:12:33] The government is always trying to childproof people's decisions yeah well a lot of people who had incomplete childhoods want the government to be their parent right but the government being people's parents means that they become tyrants to everyone else, oh that was a helpful response good good good all right uh themes if you're interested interested. All right.
[1:13:03] There's a couple of spoilers-ish here, but it's such a great book, The Present, that you should just read it or listen to it. Listening to it is even better, right? Okay. From the provided context of The Present by Stefan Molyneux, several key ideas and themes can be extracted that reflect on both personal and societal levels. The complexity of feminist identity. The protagonist, Rachel, embodies the complexities and sometimes contradictions within feminist identities. She considers herself a feminist, yet finds empowerment and pleasure in traditional markers of femininity and desirability. This duality explores the nuanced reality of modern feminist identities, where empowerment can come from both adherence to and rejection of traditional gender roles or norms. The ethical dilemmas of journalism. Rachel's career in journalism serves as a backdrop for exploring the ethical challenges within the field. The narrative suggests a tension between the idealistic principles taught in journalism school and the compromises required to succeed in the industry. This theme raises questions about integrity, success, and the sacrifices made for career advancement.
[1:14:08] Personal Identity and Societal Expectations Through Rachel's self-reflection and her struggle with societal expectations of beauty and success, the book delves into the broader theme of personal identity versus societal norms. It examines how external perceptions and standards can shape one's self-image and decisions, often leading to internal conflicts and a sense of dissonance. Yeah, the battle between the collective and the self, right?
[1:14:35] The search for authenticity. Rachel's journey is also one of seeking authenticity in a world that often values appearance over substance. Her experiences reflect a broader philosophical inquiry into what it means to live authentically in a society that promotes conformity and superficial success.
[1:14:52] The role of change agents. Rachel's aspiration to be a change agent, it's something that she uses. She wants to be a change agent and she's incredibly relieved that nobody actually asks her to define the term. but of course a change agent is a status propagandist, right? An agent means agent of the state and change means changing people's minds against their will. Rachel's aspirations to be a change agent through her work in journalism touches on themes of influence, responsibility and the power of the media. It prompts readers to consider the impact individuals can have on society and the complexities involved in effecting change.
[1:15:26] So, yeah, those are some of the themes that, and you know they're not bad. It's not bad. And not bad. Love you, Steph. You have no idea how much you've helped me. I have so much more confidence because I ask myself, how would Steph handle this situation? Love you. You are a gift to all humanity. My friend, I appreciate that. That is very kind. And thank you. Thank you so, so much. That is fuel for the gruel. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. All right. Any other last questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems? Curveballs! Donations! James, to our lovely listeners both here and on Rumble.
[1:16:20] Oh, that's pretty funny. I remember watching your video about Ahmed Mohamed, the clock bomb boy in 2015. Boy, doesn't that feel like a life and a half ago. Somebody says, this is the gift for you. I had nine beers tonight, then wanked over a French woman. Now time for Stéphane Molyneux. I wouldn't necessarily do that in that order, but good for you for landing in the right place, I suppose. I would like to hear more about your difficulties with Hortense. Found nothing more interesting. I don't know what that means, I'm afraid. My difficulties with Hortense. I hope that the French woman was not... Live. That would be my sincere hope that it's merely the picture of a French woman and that it's not Emmanuel Macron's... Wife? I guess, who knows? Who knows, maybe Candace is right. Who knows? All right. Let's get to any other. A question. What is the essence of friendship? I ask because I have few friends and would like to have, make, earn more and better ones.
[1:17:31] What is the essence of a friendship? So, I mean, there's lots of ways that friendship manifests.
[1:17:37] Some can be companionship. Some can be, you know, you play sports together and so on. But to me, the essence of friendship is the modeling and encouragement of virtue and the reminders for integrity. So when you have friends, you have, friendship is conscience multiplier.
[1:17:57] Friendship is conscience multiplier. It's hard to have your own conscience because it's hard to see ourselves from the inside. You know, one of the great advancements in psychology was the invention of the mirror that was accessible to people as a whole. So you could finally look into your own eyes and see how you look from other people. Looking into a mirror is being outside yourself and looking at yourself. I mean, don't you have this? You know, I live with my wife and daughter and, you know, every now and then I think, what's it like to be them looking up at me, right? because I'm fairly tall and they're not quite so tall. So the essence of friendship is to have people around you who can remind you of the path to virtue, both in theory and in example. So when you can outsource significant operations of your conscience to those around you, you are much more efficient in your pursuit of morality and therefore you are much faster able to achieve happiness. That seemed too short, but I'm not going to overdo it. All right. Spent last summer listening to your books while walking in the neighborhood. Exercise my body and mind. Good times. Oh, that's nice. That's nice.
[1:19:25] I recently watched a friend take a torch to his life, and I genuinely feel like a coward for not telling him he made a mistake. I basically didn't want him to rage out at me for stating how I felt. You feel like a coward for not standing between a self-destructive friend and his self-destruction. I wouldn't call you a coward for that. I might call you a coward for having such a person in your life in the first place, but I wouldn't call you a coward for that, if that makes sense and I say this myself having been cowardly and you know it's still occasionally I drop the ball so I'm not you know we all have that capacity and all of that but why would you.
[1:20:12] If you're not a young man right so if you're talking about somebody in his 40s and 50s who's still on a self-destructive kick how on earth can you help them, and why would you have someone like that in your life, somebody says i've had a friend like that and he has antisocial personality disorder so i'd run in the opposite direction, yeah the self arsonists will just burn you to the ground, you know it's it's a it's a deep and self-wounding vanity to imagine you have healing words that can reverse all amounts of potentially physical brain damage from abuse. The number of people you can help in this life is very, very few.
[1:21:06] The number of people you can help in this life is very, very few. Don't overestimate that or or you will be consumed. You will be consumed. The reason I overthink is because I don't want to make long-term mistakes. Thank you for reminding me. No. The reason you overthink is because you were verbally abused or attacked as a child for getting things wrong. But that's it. Honestly, don't overcomplicate it. Why do you do something that is negative for you? Because at some point it was positive for you. Right? It's not complicated. Oh, why do I do this negative thing? Why do I overthink? Because it was a survival strategy you had to have in order to survive as a kid, in order to not be cast out or abandoned by your parents as a child. So why, why, why do you do this negative thing? Because it wasn't always negative. We don't act randomly. We don't act randomly. When I was younger, I tended to judge women mostly by their physical appearance. Why? Because I had a mother whose only value to men was her physical appearance. And if I had questioned that and looked for anything deeper, she would have turned on me like a cornered rabbit jackal and chewed my haunches off, let's say.
[1:22:23] So, yeah, the reason you overthink is that you have defensive thinking because you were attacked and punished for getting things wrong. And I guarantee you, the reason you overthink is because what you were attacked for changed from day to day, depending on the mood of your abuser. So you overthink because it was the appropriate level of thinking when you were younger. It's just, you know, like, well, I remember that time when I was chased by that bear in the woods. I just have this habit of overrunning. It's like, well, no, you can't really overrun from a bear in the woods, but you can overrun three days later when you're sprinting everywhere because you think the bear is still behind you, right? So turn around. Are you still being chased by a bear? If not, slow the fuck down. Over the shoulder. Any bears? Anything? Any, any bears? No? Stop running. Oh, it's weird that I'm running. No, it's not, because if you spent your childhood, 20 years, being chased by bears, it's kind of a hard habit to drop over the shoulder. Any bears? No bears? Okay, slow the fuck down. You're fine. You're fine.
[1:23:43] All right. Thank you for reminding me about the overthinking thing. I underthought that and it dipped into the wake.
[1:23:49] Steph, do you think living peacefully and free from abuse is in living healthy you can cure brain damage from childhood abuse uh yeah i i think there's a lot of neuroplasticity and you can't ever be unabused right but you can uh i believe i'm not talking about physical things because i'm not any kind of expert on the biology or the physicality of the brain but uh yes you can absolutely be happy and at peace from a childhood set of trauma but you have to stop being around the stimuli. He says, ah, because he genuinely did have a lot of admirable traits. It's a long story, but I genuinely feel I failed him. There really wasn't anything I could do. Again, long story and don't want to get into it, but he really surprised me in a negative way. Yeah, bullshit. I'm sorry, that's just not true. Oh my gosh, that's drama, man. He genuinely did have a lot of admirable traits. No you mistook dysfunction for virtue but he was just so generous with everything and so generous with everyone and he gave people his time and his resources and his home and he's so kind it's like no he's no boundaries he's no boundaries.
[1:25:02] He's no self, so he focuses on saving others all the time. He'd give you the shirt off his back. Well, that's stupid. How about you get your own damn shirt? It's fine when you're a teenager, but not in your 40s. So he did not have a lot of admirable traits, because it's impossible to burn your entire life to the ground, taking people down around you, and also have a lot of admirable traits. She was exceedingly fertile and 90. No, no, sorry, you're going to have to choose one of those things. I genuinely feel I failed him. No, that's just drama. Sorry, man, that's just made-up nonsense and drama. That's just you wanting to feel special and your friends. No, he's just a messed-up guy. He's just a messed-up guy, and you got dragged in for reasons of your childhood, and now you're trying to justify it. Sorry, that's just not it. And if I'm wrong, call in at freedomain.com. All right. Thank you, Steph. that was incredibly useful. As always, I do tend to overthink things. Why are you people annoying me tonight?
[1:26:11] So I gave you the whole reason why you're overthinking things, that it wasn't overthinking things, that it was simply a defensive measure because you were punished a lot as a child. And what do you say? I guess I do overthink things. Here's the reason why it wasn't overthinking in the past. Well, it was just overthinking. No, no, no. This is why it's not overthinking. It was perfectly appropriate thinking in the past. Well, I guess I tend to overthink things. No. Oh, my God. I did a call-in show, it's not out yet, about a guy who had all this social anxiety and was constantly scanning for cues from other people as to whether he was doing the right or the wrong thing. Right? It's like, well, he was raised with no social cues. I think his father was diagnosed, diagnosed, whatever that means, with Asperger's. It's like, so he grew up without knowing any social cues. So of course he's going to have to scan everything and try and figure things out for himself, right? I have social anxiety. It's like, well, A, you could just be surrounded by assholes, and B, you might just be entirely untrained on how to socialize, which is a complicated thing. It's complicated to socialize, right? It's a very complicated thing. Thanks for the answer. I think so too. too, a lot of healing can happen with the right combination of things. That's a little bit of a word salad. Healing is when you know why you're doing things, so you don't just blame yourself.
[1:27:38] Right? Healing is when you get to the truth of why you do something, so you don't just blame yourself, as if you're a causeless atom in isolation from all other external forces.
[1:27:49] I just had a conversation with a friend of mine about this today, a fairly ferocious one at that, but yes, so, we get to the truth, so we stop blaming ourselves, right, because every asshole and their dog, when we're kids, if they abuse us, they want us to say, I'm not abusing you, I'm simply telling the truth about your flaws, and then you get to the truth, and it's like, no, I wasn't flawed, people were just abusive, so we get to the truth so when you say i overthink things.
[1:28:27] When you say i overthink things you are saying i have this mysterious flaw in isolation of all external stimuli it's like well no i don't just randomly run around sometimes you just get chased by bears i just have this weird habit of running i mean it's true that there are bears behind me when that happens, but it's just this way. I don't ever think about the bears. I just randomly run around for no fucking reason and fall down and go boom. I got an owie. Stop it. Stop looking at yourself as causelessly bad or wrong. That's just you. I understand it. I'm not saying you're wrong for doing it. That's what you had. You had to swallow the broken glass. You had to blame yourself as a way of reducing the attacks against you, right? You had to blame yourself. If you were verbally abused or physically abused, you had to blame yourself in order to reduce the attacks against you, right? Because if you self-attacked, they'd leave you a little bit alone. They'd attack you less. You wouldn't get hit as much if you were punching yourself. You wouldn't get yelled at as much if you were yelling at yourself. You wouldn't get attacked as much if you attacked yourself. I get it. I get it. And I understand that. That's a survival strategy. I applaud you for taking it. Good for you. Well done. Excellent. Good job. Now stop it.
[1:29:45] You blame yourself to avoid attacks, not because you have any independent evaluation of your own personhood. I do feel compelled to state that I'm in my early 30s. Right. So, you're 15 years an adult. The overthinking in childhood, appeasing the whims of an abusive family, this is something I will re-listen to, so helpful to understand myself, rather profound. Thank you. I don't do rather profound, man. it's all profound all the time all depth except when i'm repeating statements about wanking over french women in which case it's profound do you feel like you would be physically bigger if you had a less difficult childhood if you got more food uh it's possible it's possible it's possible i mean i'm i'm i'm thick uh chested right like i'm thick chested and i have a bit of a barrel body body, which means I can't eat too much, and I'm certainly, I'm just a shade under six foot, so I'm certainly above average in height.
[1:30:48] Yes, that was an excellent joke de français. Comédie de français. Comédie à la français. All right.
[1:30:59] A French woman looking up. Is that a seagull? All right. Any last questions, comments? I do believe it's time for me to wind up my shoulders, to the sticking point and go and bowl like a fusillade broadside from Captain Blackbeard. Bluebeard, Bluebeard! There we go. Bluetooth, you know, it's named after some Norse guy who had blue teeth. Anyway. Just waiting. Any other last tips? I think it's a pretty good show. Come on, pretty good show. A lot of useful stuff here. How to think. Overthinking how not to overthink we got age differences don't play both sides of the tennis court we got some really really good stuff.
[1:31:45] Is 2100 words 15-minute call-in intro too long? Yes. Best bowling score, Steph? I honestly... Oh, five pin? What am I, eight? No, of course it's 10-pin bowling. Good Lord. And I use the kind of bowling ball that you may have seen in the movie The Dam Busters. You can go look that up if you like. All right. Have yourself a glorious, glorious evening. I will post my scores later for donors in case you're curious. And love you guys to death for making this journey so fantastic. You are boon companions in the fellowship of the think. I'm really the return of the think and the two towers composed of all our balls and ovaries. All right.
[1:32:30] Understanding self-attack has been an important part of this exponential healing curve I've been in recently. When Steph was bringing up the same phenomenon months ago, I remember how clearly things were at that point. Good.
[1:32:40] I'm glad i'm glad for that for sure thanks steph stay awesome you too lee appreciate you guys so much and if you're listening to this later of course free domain.com slash donates uh maybe i give you one more day because this is going to go out probably tomorrow and i will uh i've got some absolutely fantastic call-in shows coming up uh they're already recorded and processed but they're not out yet just some incredibly mind-blowing stuff and actually saw a message from the guy who called me after he got out of prison that he wants that show released, but I'm still mulling it over. So, all right. Have yourself a glorious evening, everyone. Lots of love from up here. Talk to you soon. Bye.
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