How to be CERTAIN! Listener Question

Stefan Molyneux

Hey Stef. I have been listening to you for around a year and this is the first time I have disagreed with you. So I’m probably wrong but I can’t see the flaw in my thinking and I’d love your take on it.  So it’s around your discussion about what is truth and if someone, say a madman says something that happens to align with reality before it can be proven is that a true statement?  My argument would be, yes it is a true statement, however this can not be known until it can be proven and the statement itself has no value other than vague interest.  So to take the example given a mad man happens to be recorded in say 500 AD saying the earth orbits the sun. He is dismissed as a lunatic. Was his random statement true? I would argue it was true however that could not be known until the point at which it was shown that the earth orbiting the sun fixed the irregular orbit issue. At that point however the madman would be proven to be speaking a true statement.  However it would be the first person to actually prove the theory that would get credit for the discovery, not the madman - who happened to guess correctly. At the point the theory was proven knowledge of the truth propagates both forwards and backwards in time and whoever said it, it would now be known to be true regardless of when or where they said it. It is still the case that although we now know that the statement was true when said they could not have known this as it was not yet proven.  So we have two things, objective reality that exists and our knowledge of it that can only be interpreted from evidence.  Another example is University exams. After the exam is sat the result is set. However that exam result can not be known until the exam has been graded and the result communicated to you. If you come out of an exam and say “I got 68.5%” then that could be true but it is just a guess. You would not for example be able to get a job on that assertion as it can not be proven.   When you open the envelope does not change the reality of how you did in the exam. It simply collapses the probabilities both backwards and forwards in time. At that point you know what your result when you took the test was. It has not chan...  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB202

Transcript

00:00All righty. Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stephen Molyneux from

00:03Freedomain. A letter from Fiona. Fiona, she writes,

00:12Hey Steph, I've been listening to you for about a year. This is the first time I've disagreed with

00:15you. So I'm probably wrong, but I can't see the flaw in my thinking and I'd love your take on it.

00:22So it's around your discussion about what is truth. And if someone, say a madman,

00:26says something that happens to align with reality before it can be proven, is that a true statement?

00:32My argument would be yes, it is a true statement. However, this cannot be known until it can be

00:37proven. And the statement itself has no value other than vague interest. So to take the example,

00:43given a madman happens to be recorded in say 500 AD saying the earth orbits the sun,

00:48he's dismissed as a lunatic. Was this random statement true? I would argue that it was true.

00:54However, that could not be known until the point at which it was shown that the earth orbiting the

00:59sun fixed the irregular orbit issue. At that point, however, the madman would be proven to be speaking

01:04a true statement. However, it would be the first person to actually prove the theory that would

01:11get credit for the discovery, not the madman, who happened to guess correctly. At the point the

01:15theory was proven, knowledge of the truth propagates both forwards and backwards in time. And whoever said

01:21it, it would now be known to be true regardless of when and where they said it. It is still the case

01:28that although we now know that the statement was true, when said, they could not have known this as

01:34it was not yet proven. So we have two things, objective reality that exists and a knowledge of it

01:38that can only be interpreted from evidence. Another example is university exams. After the exam

01:46is set, the result is set. However, the exam result cannot be known until the exam has been graded

01:54and the result communicated to you. If you came out of an exam and say, I got 68.5%,

02:00then that could be true, but it's just a guess. You would not, for example, be able to get a job

02:04on that assertion as it cannot be proven. When you open the envelope, it does not change the reality

02:10of how you did in the exam. It simply collapses the probabilities both backwards and forwards in

02:13time. At that point, you know what your result, sorry, at that point, you know what your result

02:20when you took the test was. It has not changed since that point. However, you can only know it

02:26once you get the result at which point you can start using the result to, say, apply for jobs.

02:30So, in summary, my argument is objective reality exists. Our knowledge of reality does not change

02:36reality. Things are true and false based on agreements to reality. Statements are therefore

02:41true or false based on their alignment with reality, not our knowledge of it. However, we

02:46cannot know what is true and false until it is proven. We can only say of a statement true,

02:52we can only say of a statement was true or false. I think, sorry, I think you mean to say we can only

02:58say of a statement that it was true or false after we have proven the reality, but when a statement

03:03was said does not change the truth. Right. It's a great, great email and I really do appreciate

03:08it. It's a tangled but exciting topic and really, really, really, really important. Really,

03:15really important. So, you know, this Nostradamus thing. Nostradamus was this mystic from centuries

03:22ago who made a bunch of predictions in fairly metaphorical or allegorical terms. And people say

03:30that he had something of value to offer and so on. It's all a bunch of mystical nonsense.

03:36I'm sure he got some things accidentally correct. But you have to think of all the people who got

03:44things wrong, right? Millions of people have made tens or hundreds of millions of predictions

03:49throughout history. You would simply expect one person to be the most, quote, accurate or the most

03:55coincidentally true or accurate. If he said a great German power will arise in the 20th century

04:02and wage war and blah, blah, blah, right? Okay. But then there's lots of people who say, you know,

04:06the Inuit or angels descended from whatever, right? And so let's go back to the madman.

04:15And let's say that he says 500 A.D. The earth goes around the sun. Okay. Is that a true statement?

04:25The question is, is truth a statement or is truth a methodology? This is an epistemological question.

04:33Is the truth a statement or is the truth a methodology? Now, if the truth is a methodology,

04:42then the final result of proving that the earth goes around the sun is that you know that the earth

04:48goes around the sun. So saying the earth goes around the sun is the result of a whole series

04:55of reasoning, right? So some of the reasoning, of course, would be that I am drawn to the earth a

05:01lot more than the earth is drawn to me because I am much smaller, obviously, than the earth,

05:07except around Christmas or maybe Thanksgiving. And so because I am drawn to the earth a lot more than

05:14the earth is drawn to me, larger things attract smaller things. And the sun must be very large

05:22because it's on fire, right? In other words, planets are not on fire because they are too small

05:30to start igniting nuclear reactions. And so it's on fire. And the moon is smaller than the earth.

05:40And the moon goes around the earth. And the earth is smaller than the sun. Therefore,

05:45the earth must go around the sun. It explains the retrograde motion of Mars.

05:49And so on, right? So sort of we can go through a whole bunch of reasoning to understand that

05:56the earth goes around the sun. Some of it's reasoning, some of it is observation, and so on.

06:01But it accords with our general experience that things that have more mass are heavier.

06:10They are more drawn, right? So the things that have more mass are heavier, they are more dense,

06:16and they have more gravitational pull, and so on. So there is a bunch of reasoning you can

06:22go through to sort of understand this stuff. Also, when you understand the evolution of life,

06:28you would know that the heat and energy of the sun must have predated life. Life cannot survive

06:38without any energy. And the sun being the source of energy must have predated the earth. The sun was

06:45formed thus more likely before the earth. And therefore, if the sun was formed before the earth,

06:51it is more likely that it is the center and the requirement, and that the earth goes around the sun,

06:57and so on. There's lots of different ways you can sort of reason this sort of stuff out,

07:00but we can come to that understanding. So, if the truth is the final stage of a process of reasoning

07:13and empirical evidence, the earth goes around the sun, is the final stage, then saying the statement

07:21without the methodology is not true. Let me give you an example. So, I started playing tennis about the

07:31age of five or six. I remember when they raised the rates of the tennis club in England, the public

07:38club we went to. It's not really a club. It's just they raised the rates to play. My mother would get

07:42us up super early in the morning, and we'd climb over the fence to play tennis before she went to

07:46work. And like all, you know, average tennis players, you experiment with fast serves. And I played for a

07:58long time before I got any lessons. And once I got lessons, my serves got better. And I still remember,

08:03I was in Vegas, I was in Vegas, with a business colleague, we were playing tennis, and I served a perfect

08:08serve. Like I whacked it really hard. It went into the perfect spot, I aced him and so on. And that was a

08:15really great serve. If I could do that consistently, I would be a really good server, and so on, right? That'd be

08:23really good. It would really improve my tennis game, because the serve is kind of the key. Now, I had taken a

08:30little bit of training, but I hadn't really practiced, and I played recreationally. I'm not

08:35particularly interested in, you know, sports and leagues and so on. I get enough excitement from my

08:40job. I don't need anything else. Now, if I had trained consistently, and let's just say there's a

08:50certain magic ingredient of skill or ability or muscle reflexes or whatever it is, right? So I'm like, okay,

08:57to maybe slightly above average in sports, but nothing particularly spectacular. But let's say

09:02I had, you know, the Bjorn Borg, Andre Agassi, Magic Dust, and I trained, and I had a really good coach,

09:10and all of that, then I would be able to do that serve consistently. Now, if I ripped off that great

09:18serve in Vegas many decades ago, that was a great serve. Am I good at serving? No, because I can't do

09:28that consistently. In other words, a man who's good at serving, a tennis player who's good at serving,

09:37is a tennis player who has trained consistently and can reproduce it consistently. We can imagine,

09:43of course, a blind man being given a racket and a ball and being told roughly what to do,

09:50who could, I mean, it would be rare, but it could happen, that he threw the ball up, hit it,

09:54and it happened to be a perfect serve. Is he a good tennis player? I would argue that he is not a good

10:01tennis player because he can't reproduce it. So what is a good tennis player? A good tennis player

10:08is not someone who accidentally randomly hits a good serve and can't reproduce it, and then the

10:16next serves go completely wild and so on, right? That is not a good tennis player. It's the same

10:22thing, you know, I think I played golf maybe three times in my life for business purposes, but let's

10:30just say mini golf, right? Everyone's had that thing where they take, if you have kids, right, you take

10:35your kids mini golfing, and there's some wild shot that just goes really well, and they jump up and

10:41down, and we all cheer, and all that kind of stuff. Are they good at mini golf? Like if they're four or

10:46five years old, they whack the ball kind of randomly, it bounces off four things and sinks into a hole.

10:51Are they a good, are they good at mini golf? No, because they can't reproduce it. So can you be

11:00right without being good at being right? I remember silly little things that have stuck in my mind,

11:09probably as unconscious bookmarks for conversations, just like this one. But many years ago, a friend of

11:17mine played a golf game on his computer, and he showed me that his wife had made the most ridiculously

11:25improbable shot using the golf simulator. It was like not a physical one, but just like keyboard and

11:32mouse. So, you know, it went through trees, it bounced over a little pond, and then it sunk into

11:39the hole. A great shot, right? And he had saved the recording of that. And he said she never, never did

11:48anything like that again. Is she good at that computer game? No, because can't be reproduced. She has no

11:55methodology of reproduction. It's the old, are monkeys great writers if they type a haiku that's

12:03beautiful, or they type out some sonnet or some psalm, or whatever it is, right? If a kid who's

12:09randomly banging away on a keyboard or a xylophone puts out dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, right? The opening

12:17bit of Bohemian Rhapsody after the a cappella stuff. No, they're not writing music, they're not creating a

12:23great song. It's just random notes. If a child doing random scribbles writes e equals mc squared,

12:35have they independently discovered Einstein's most famous equation, right? Energy equals mass

12:42times the speed of light squared. No. No, they have not. They have simply made some toodles.

12:48Now, it is certainly true that e equals mc squared, but truth is not the relationship

12:57of the statement to reality, because that does not take into account the accidental nature

13:05of statements. If you've got a madman who says belugas are secretly physicists, and the stars are

13:15pinpricks in the giant colander known as the sky beyond which there is a beluga god. That's where

13:22all the light comes from. He glows. And the earth goes around the sun, and, and, and, and, right?

13:27Then he is saying a whole bunch of statements that are not true. I'm pretty sure that belugas are not

13:33secret physicists. He's saying a whole bunch of things that are not true. And then he accidentally

13:39says something that turns out later to correspond with reality. But the truth is not in the statement.

13:47The truth is in the methodology. It's really important. There is no truth without methodology.

13:55If you can imagine, uh, the blind tennis player, who, not tennis player, the guy, the blind guy handed a

14:04tennis racket and a tennis ball, spun around three times, happens to throw the ball up with his foot

14:09right on the center line, and delivers a perfect scorcher of a serve to the opposite diagonal. Would you,

14:15if he did that, would you then say, if you ran the tennis club, you're hired as the tennis coach?

14:21You would not. You would not say that, right? You would not say you're hired as the tennis coach,

14:26because you would recognize that this was an accident. This is not skill. This is not reproducibility.

14:33This is not any consistent ability. So truth is not the relationship of the statement to reality.

14:42Truth is the relationship of the mind to reality. I can write out E equals MC squared. I cannot do the

14:53math by which that equation is derived. It is true that E equals MC squared, but the truth is in the

15:04methodology, not interstatement. Truth is not accidental any more than being a good tennis player is a

15:15blank guy randomly hitting a good serve. Truth is the relationship between the mind and reality. And if

15:24some guy who's crazy, as you say in 500 AD, who says among a whole bunch of other random crazy stuff,

15:31and the earth goes around the sun, there is no truth value in his statement, because he has no

15:37methodology. He is the blind tennis player accidentally hitting a scorching serve, not even knowing where

15:44the ball went. Is he playing tennis, the blind tennis player? No, he's not playing tennis. He can't even see

15:51the court. There's no braille for tennis. So truth is in the relationship between the mind and the

16:01methodology and reality. Now, the question is, and this is a good question that came up, can we accept

16:08the truth without proving it ourselves? I accept that E equals MC squared. I do not do the math. I do not

16:17understand the fundamental physics, and so on. I mean, I accept it because there is a nuclear power and

16:24physicists as a whole accept it. Even those, like, I discard people who have financial interest, like who have

16:32a conflict of interest, right? So I know, of course, that people who refused to affirm catastrophic

16:41anthropogenic global warming, I got their funding cut, and all other kinds of terrible things happened. And so I don't

16:49accept any of that is true because it's too compromised, right? It's like asking the advertising agency that

16:55gets all of its money from Coca-Cola to be objective about Coca-Cola. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune.

17:05But, of course, Einstein was working in a patent office when he worked on this sort of stuff. He had no

17:10particular financial interest, and there was, of course, something that changed in physics because we got

17:15nuclear weapons and nuclear power, so something changed in terms of our understanding of these

17:19things. And I accept that. And, of course, we've all seen, you know, the relationship between mass

17:26and energy is interesting, right? I mean, I know that very little of firewood gets converted into energy,

17:33but we all have had the experience of, as kids, lighting a match, and you see the match burn to almost

17:41nothing, and you get heat and smoke out of it. So that's an example of the relationship between matter and

17:47energy. We have all seen a sunlight, which is energy, of course, being transformed into matter, which is

17:56plants and fruits and vegetables and all of that grass grows, right, from the sun. So we all have an intuitive

18:03understanding of the relationship between matter and energy. A human being is a great way to turn a pig into a

18:09horn, right? You eat the pig, you have the energy to write the poem. The poem now exists because of the

18:14energy consumed through the destruction of the pig, assuming you're not eating it alive, which would be

18:20gross. So we all understand the relationship between matter and energy, right? I am tired. I feel weak.

18:29My hands might be a little bit shaky, you know, for people who are a little bit more hypochondriacal.

18:34My blood sugar is collapsing, whatever, right? So we are low in energy, we eat food, and lo and behold,

18:44we have more energy, right? So that's an example of matter being converted into energy. And then the

18:52energy of our intestines and bowels and so on discards the aspects of the food we cannot eat,

18:59giving them a noxious smell so that we avoid them in terms of eating. And we poop, right? And that's

19:07an example of turning energy into matter, right? So we eat the pig, we get energy, we discard that,

19:15which also it goes from, in, you know, sort of base equation, obviously not 100% because that would

19:21be matter-antimatter and we'd be a stain in the universe, but to a small degree, we experience that,

19:27right? We experience that. Just as we experience kinetic energy and potential energy, right? If

19:35you've ever had those little toys that come for kids, it's a, it's a, like a little rollercoaster

19:43style thing with ball bearings and you, you build it with these spirals and loops and so on, you put

19:49the stuff at the top of the balls. So you lift the balls to the top and then the balls go down to the

19:52bottom and they sit there. So the kinetic energy is them going down, the potential energy is you're

19:57lifting it to the top, which then releases the potential for, well, the kinetic energy. So

20:01we all have this sort of vivid experience that conforms with the idea that there's a relationship

20:08between mass and energy. I remember as a kid, my friends and I used to get a box of matches,

20:15a lot of smokers back in the day. We used to get a box of matches and we used to get a nail and a

20:21hammer and some scuba masks and we would hammer into a piece, a sidewalk and we would scrape the

20:31match heads in and then we would put the nail in, hit it and watch the resulting explosion with great

20:37delight. And the masks, of course, were essential to protect our eyes. Apparently the rest of our face

20:44didn't really matter, but that's the way we did it. So it, it accords with our experience. It is accepted

20:51by people with no financial conflicts. It has produced new energy in the world, which is nuclear

20:57energy. And so, yep, I'm, I accept that. I accept that. So the truth is the result of a methodology.

21:07It is not the result of a statement. So, and again, I know these are a lot of analogies. I'll get to the

21:15reasoning at the end. So, let us say that my neighbor studies for 20 years, practices three

21:23hours a day and produces a beautiful painting. It's a lovely painting of a sunset. Now, he owns

21:31himself. He owns the effects of his actions, assuming that he did not steal all the materials

21:37unless he bought the materials. He paints the picture of the sunset in his basement and it's

21:41quite lovely. And then he sets it outside of his house to dry and he goes, he goes for a walk.

21:48So it's his painting, right? He owns himself. He owns the effects of his actions. It's his painting.

21:52Now, that ownership is the result of a process, right? The process of creation. And in this case,

22:00the beauty of the painting is the result of his skill and ability and training and so on,

22:06right? He spent 10,000 hours learning how to be a good painter. And so he's produced a beautiful

22:12painting of his sunset. Or dogs playing poker or a sad clown or something like that. It's his

22:18head sunset, right? Now, I look out my window and I see leaning up against my neighbor's house

22:23this beautiful picture of a sunset. And I am a bad guy and I steal it, right? And I hang it in my

22:33basement so I can go and admire it, rub my mustache and rub my hands in avaricious glee. Now, is the

22:42painting mine? Nope. I've stolen it. It belongs to him. I have it, but it's not mine. And I am honor-bound

22:52to return it. Or if he finds out about it, he sees it through my basement window. He can call the cops

22:56and say, that's my painting. And so on, right? And let's say he has a video of me taking it and

23:01whatever, right? It's proven. So, ownership is the result of a process. And truth is the result of a

23:10process. For someone to say, my statement is true because I said something random, is saying that

23:19truth is in the moment. It is not in the process, which is like saying that the painting is mine

23:28because I'm in possession of it, not the painting's ownership is the result of a process of studying and

23:36creation. Ownership is the result of a process. You can't just look at who has something and say

23:42that's who owns it. So, given that truth is the result of a process, a random statement cannot be

23:49considered true any more than a stolen good can be considered owned. It is, you're in possession of

23:57it, but you don't own it. You are in possession of some random syllables that later are proven to

24:02accidentally correspond with the truth, but the syllables themselves have no truth value.

24:06Because there's no reproducible methodology by which the truth can be obtained. You cannot be

24:14accidentally right any more than you can be accidentally a great golfer or a great tennis

24:22player or accidentally own things or legitimately own things by stealing them. In the same way,

24:31a person who is a thief, a rapist, and a murderer, like just the worst of the worst, right? A thief,

24:39a rapist, and a murderer, or a Hollywood actor. No, no, let's stay up from the bottom. Thief, a rapist,

24:44and a murderer who one day has an attack of conscience and decides to give $100 to charity. Has he become

24:56a good man? If he goes right back to pleading, raping, and murdering right afterwards? He has

25:02not become a good man. The cycle of abuse is kind of well known. Take the typical example, right? There's

25:07a man who beats up his wife, and then he apologizes, and Stella, and right? All of this sad stuff. And

25:17he's, I'm so sorry. I'll never do it again. I'm the worst guy. You're the greatest woman, blah, blah, blah.

25:22It was the alcohol. It was whatever, right? Has he become a good kind and loving husband when he is

25:31in the sorrowful apology stage of the cycle of abuse? He has not. He has not, because it's setting

25:39the stage for the next round of abuse. So is he a good husband when he is apologizing and not hitting

25:45her? And then he is a bad husband when he hits her again, and then a good husband? No, he's just a bad

25:49husband. Because his sorrow, his kindness, his whatever, it's not at all consistent. It's not

25:58at all consistent. A murderer is a murderer who we put in jail, even when he or she is not currently

26:05in the act of murdering someone. So we can accept things as true if they accord with our general

26:12experience. Experts who are not bought and paid for generally agree, this was the COVID thing too,

26:18that there was, of course, a massive conflict of interest between the scientists and the

26:24pharmaceutical industry and the media and the government. And there was just every incentive

26:28known to man, God and devil to lie. You're asked of which people somewhat gleefully did.

26:35So I accept E equals MC squared is true for various empirical reasons and reasons of personal

26:42empiricism. I accept that the earth goes around the sun because of my own empirical experience

26:49and the fact that there's reason and evidence. And I can see sped up pictures, sped up videos

26:56of the retrograde motion of Mars and so on. So, and there are scientists who have nothing to gain

27:04or lose in the matter who accept it. And so I accept it as true. Now, if you get to the radical

27:12skeptical position of, ah, but it could still be, it could all be a big conspiracy, blah, blah, blah,

27:16blah, right? Then that's just paranoia. Like, I'm sorry to say it. Like, that's just paranoia.

27:22I've never been to Japan, but I'm pretty sure Japan is not a conspiracy theory. The existence of Japan

27:27Japan is not a cause. It corresponds with reason and evidence that there are countries that exist

27:33that I have not been to, that when I go there, like I've never been to Hong Kong, I went to Hong

27:38Kong in 2019 to film a documentary. And lo and behold, it was there, right? There are flights that go

27:44there. I see them all over the airport. So in my experience, there have been countries that I've

27:49been told exist. I have been to a large number of them. And yeah, lo and behold, they do. They do

27:54exist, right? So Japan is not a conspiracy theory. Ah, but it could be, right? And it could be.

28:02Well, that's just a position of radical skepticism. And, you know, don't, this is the appeal to

28:09insecurity. Isn't it? Isn't it even the tiniest bit possible? Isn't it even the tiniest bit possible

28:16that Japan is a conspiracy theory and that the earth is indeed flat and everything goes around the

28:24earth and the sun is closer to you than Australia, which in Florida does actually feel to be the

28:29case. So that's just, isn't it, isn't it possible that, and this is an appeal to humility that is

28:36actually very destructive and it bothers people, right? So if you've, if you've been raised by

28:42people who are both wrong and certain, and this is just psychological stuff, right? If you've been

28:47raised by people who are both wrong and certain and tend to be quite bullying and aggressive about

28:50them being both wrong and certain, then certainty is dangerous to you. And if certainty has been

28:56dangerous to you, right? I mean, my mother was certain that she was psychic. And when I would

29:04point out things to the contrary, she would get angry. And so I stopped pointing out things to the

29:09contrary because my mother could be extremely dangerous when angry, like, yea, verily unto death.

29:14So if you've been raised by people who are both wrong and certain, then certainty is a danger to

29:21you. And so what you do is you try to sow seeds of doubt because of your anxiety about having been

29:29brutalized by certainty in the past. Certainly, certainty has become a predator and not you, this lady who

29:37sent in the question, I'm just talking about people in general. So certainty has become a danger. So

29:44then, because certainty makes you anxious, what you do is roam around in life trying to sow seeds of

29:50doubt in people because people who are certain are very dangerous. And of course, there are people who

29:55are certain who are very dangerous, if they're wrong, right? So in Cambodia, or, you know, sort of pick a

30:03totalitarian hellscape. But in Cambodia, they were certain that people should go and work on farms.

30:10So they herded all the intellectuals out of the cities and dropped them in farms where there were

30:16endless waves of mass starvation events killing millions and millions of people. So that certainty

30:22to the point of causing the deaths of millions of people, 100 million people killed by communism in

30:27the 20th century, well, they're very certain and they're very dangerous. But the way that you solve

30:36irrational certainty is not through an appeal to humility, because people who are narcissistic that

30:43way don't have the capacity really for humility or self-criticism. So it is saying the criminals are

30:51well-armed, let's disarm the good people. Let's disarm the police, let's disarm the law-abiding citizens,

30:57because the criminals are really dangerous with their guns, right? It's the same sort of thing.

31:02It's that people who are irrational and certain are dangerous. So your enemy there is not the

31:08certainty, but the irrationality, like you're missing the hostage taker and shooting the hostage and

31:13thinking that you've helped in some manner. The problem is not the certainty, the problem is the

31:18irrationality. In a way, too, by sowing seeds of doubt, it's sort of a sibling thing, right? And

31:25it's an elder sibling thing, too, for the most part. And the elder sibling thing goes something

31:29like this. Bob is the oldest sibling, Johnny is the youngest sibling, and the mother is a crazy mystic.

31:38And Bob, the elder sibling, has realized that if he pushes back against the mother's mysticism,

31:43the mother becomes violent. So the problem is that Johnny hasn't figured this out yet.

31:49But Bob, the older sibling, either wants to protect himself or protect his sibling or both,

31:54or something like that, just avoid some horrible blow-up. And so what does he do? Well, he can't

32:00criticize the mother's mysticism because that produces violence. So what he does is he tries his

32:06very best to get little Johnny to stop criticizing mysticism, to stop saying, oh, mama, that's crazy.

32:14Oh, that doesn't make any sense. What about all the dreams that didn't come true? And if you're so

32:18psychic, why did you marry dad? You know, all these sorts of things, right? Dad was a bad guy, right?

32:24So what Bob does is he says to little Johnny, you don't know for sure. And you know, just hold your

32:30tongue and just think about it. And maybe it's true. And he's doing this because he's afraid of the

32:35violence of the mystic. And so it is both missing the point, which is the danger is not the certainty,

32:44but the anti-rationality. And it is in a twisted way trying to protect people. If you're certain

32:50and moral, well, people who are both certain and moral often come to a very bad end in society.

32:55And I've been skating that ragged edge for 44 years. So people in a weird way, they're trying to

33:02help me, right? They're trying to protect me. Don't be certain and right, because you'll come to a bad

33:08end. And I don't know, maybe, but I mean, that's the gig, right? It's just like saying to a surgeon,

33:15but you can't operate because you might get an infection. You might make a mistake. It's like,

33:19that's part of the gig, right? And don't be a surgeon if you don't want any of that.

33:22So that I think is, is the issue. And when people say things that are crazy, and saying,

33:32if you're a madman in AD 500, saying that the earth goes around the sun is not a true statement,

33:37because there's no methodology in it. Truth is not the statement. Truth is the methodology.

33:43Truth is the relationship, not between the statement, which cannot think, right? Somebody writes

33:49out, because how would we know, right? So some, we discover some mad monk's diary. And he says,

33:55you know, the beluga are physicists, and Aristotle has been reincarnated as a cockroach, and I killed

34:02him yesterday. Like he says, all this crazy stuff. And he says, and the earth goes around the sun.

34:08There's no truth in the statement. Because truth is the relationship, not between the statement,

34:13because his book cannot think. There's no truth in the book. There's no truth in the sentence.

34:19The truth is in the relationship between the mind, and reality. It is in the process of

34:26pursuing truth. And also, of course, the mad monk who writes about the reincarnation of Aristotle,

34:33and that the earth goes around the sun. We only know that his statement is true,

34:37because people have proven it subsequently. And the fact that he didn't prove it means that he was

34:43accidentally right. As I've mentioned before, we don't, if the wind blows particles of sand into

34:49the shape E equals mc squared, we don't give it a degree in physics. We don't say, oh my god,

34:53the truth. The wind is sentient, right? It's just an accident. There is no truth in the wind blowing

34:59sand dunes into the shape of E equals mc squared, or a bunch of coconuts that fall in a pattern that's

35:05somewhat reminiscent of 2 and 2 equals 4, like the equation. There's no truth in that. The tree

35:11isn't doing math, and the wind isn't a physicist. It's an accidental aggregation of things. And it

35:17is really important, because it allows us to avoid being conned and lied to. So, if somebody says,

35:24this is true, whatever it is, X is true, right? You say, oh, um, that's interesting. And how do you

35:32know? You know, source, trust me, bro, is not a philosophical statement, right? How do you know?

35:38The earth goes around the sun. Oh, how do you know? I don't know. The voices told me in the same way that

35:42they told me that Aristotle had been reincarnated as a cockroach, and I killed him yesterday, and beluga

35:46whales are theoretical physicists, right? Okay, so the same words that told you crazy things are now

35:54saying the earth goes around the sun. There's no truth value in that. Because you have people,

35:59show your work, show your work. You ever have this, right, you're a kid, and you provide an answer to

36:05a complex math question, and they always want to say, show your work, right? A kid randomly scrolling

36:12on a math test might accidentally scroll out the right answer. That doesn't mean that the answer is

36:16right. It's just a coincidence. It's accident. Any more than the blind tennis player hitting a

36:22perfect serve the first time is a good tennis player. A good tennis player is one who can

36:28reliably reproduce good tennis shots, and a blind tennis player cannot. The truth is a methodology

36:35that reliably produces accurate information and validates rational theories about the world,

36:42the universe. The scientific method produces reproducible facts and validating of theories

36:50and accurate predictions about the world. So, a truth is in the relationship between the mind,

36:59the methodology, and reality. Now, after you produce a whole bunch of innovative and creative

37:07mathematical and physics proofs, you can say equals mc squared, and you show your work, so we can

37:14accept that that's true. And Einstein, of course, was someone who said that here's how we will know

37:22whether the theory is true or not. It was actually kind of refreshing, right, because there were these

37:26ideologues in the early part of the 20th century, communists and so on, even though Einstein was

37:33himself a big fan of Lenin. But there were these people who said, oh, this stuff is true, it's accurate,

37:39and they were ideologues and manic and crazy and insistent and titled and narcissistic and you name it,

37:45right? And Einstein said, well, if my theory is true, then we should see light bending around the sun

37:52during an eclipse. And, uh, if it's not true, then we won't see that. And, lo and behold, that's so

37:58they did. They saw an eclipse and they measured the position of the stars and light itself was being

38:03bent by gravity, right? And, of course, it's been proven now they take an atomic clock and they get

38:09a really fast plane flying around the world for a while and time has slightly changed. Uh, you know,

38:15microscopic level for the fast plane has been proven and established and you can see all of those

38:19experiments and read the results and so on, right? So, a certainty bringing anxiety is what drives

38:26people to try and say, truth is in the statement, truth is not in the mind or the methodology.

38:35If it's not proven, it's not true. If it's not reproducible, it's not true. If there's no theory

38:41behind it, it's not true. If there's no reasoning behind it, it's not true. If a toddler, you know,

38:46when kids learn how to speak, they make a whole bunch of incoherent sounds ahead of time, right?

38:52I remember when my daughter first discovered her voice. It was great. It was great. And,

38:58I'm sure you've seen these videos where kids occasionally make a swear word. Well,

39:02you don't punish them, right? Because they don't know that they're making a swear word.

39:06And theoretically, when a kid is just putting together random morphemes into practicing their

39:13words, that they could say two and two make four. Just an accident, right? But they don't know.

39:18They don't, it's not true. Because you're looking at the statement that is a result of methodology,

39:24and you are then backtracking it to something without a methodology. It is true that good tennis

39:33players serve well. It is not true that a man who randomly serves well is a good tennis player.

39:37So, truth is a methodology and a reproducible, consistent way of getting to the truth. And

39:45the truth results from that. Just as a painting results from a study and practice and actually

39:52making the painting. Taking the painting and saying it's mine is like looking at a statement and saying

39:58it's true, when the person who created it has no sense of it being true, has no reproducible methodology

40:05for it being true. So then when people say things, or make claims that things are true,

40:10we can't say, well, it could be. It could be. I don't know yet, because in the future,

40:14in the future, you know, this is what people say. Well, people used to believe things were true in

40:18the past, and then they found that they were wrong, and so on. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what?

40:23So what? That doesn't, right? When I was born, I didn't know that two and two made four.

40:29Now I know that two and two make four. Does that mean that because I went from a state of

40:33lesser knowledge to greater knowledge, that my new knowledge is invalid? Nope.

40:37Because there's nothing beyond two and two make four. There's nothing more true

40:40about two and two makes four than two and two makes four. It doesn't get more true,

40:43right? This sort of binary, right? Oh, two and two makes 3.999 repeated rounded up.

40:50Right. But anyway, so that's, I think that's the way to put it. So if people say this is true,

40:56say, oh, how do you know? What's your methodology, right? And that is going to create something,

41:01it's going to create some hostility. And listen, that's fine. If you don't want that hostility,

41:04that's fine. Like if you don't want people say, oh, this is true, right? I mean, I had a woman

41:10get mad at me in a relationship, right? She said, I'm psychic. And I'm like, oh, well,

41:14let's go down to Vegas and pick up the million dollars that the amazing Randy had at the time

41:18for anyone who can prove psychic abilities. It didn't look that way, right? She got mad at me,

41:21right? So it's true that if you go to bullshit artists and you say, it's not true. You don't have any proof.

41:28You don't know that. It's like, I do. There's no truth in your statement because truth is the result

41:33of a strict methodology. Truth is not accidental, random statements. There's no truth value. Yeah,

41:41but it is true. It's like, no, it's only true when it's proven. It is not true when it is stated.

41:47And there is no going back. Somebody who's in a mad fever dream or has Tourette's and say,

41:53the earth goes around the sun in AD 500. It's not a true statement. They say, well,

41:57later we found out to be true. We can go back in and put truth in. No, no, you can't because there

42:03was no methodology at the time. It was not a true statement. And it's confusing because we've seen

42:08the product. We know that the earth goes around the sun. So we think that somebody in the past who

42:11said it, uh, but again, that's like saying, well, we know what a good tennis player is.

42:17So a guy who randomly hits a ball. Well, is a good tennis player. Nope. It's not reproducible. So I hope

42:22that helps. I'd love to hear more about your thoughts. And thanks again, Fiona. It's a great,

42:26uh, great set of questions. Nothing negative I'm saying about people and con men applies to you,

42:31of course, but I really do appreciate these questions. Keep them coming.

42:34Mm. Freedomain.com slash donate. Bye.

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