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Stefan Molyneux
  • 1 day ago
Stefan Molyneux discusses universally preferable behavior (UPB) with a caller, examining human success, moral volition, and critiquing behaviors like theft. Their dialogue highlights the importance of shared ethical understanding, offering key insights into ethics and morality.

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Transcript
00:00:00yeah no thanks for meeting um yeah i guess what would be the best what do you think would be the
00:00:05most efficient in our time um because i mean i could just randomly post questions or things but
00:00:12i wonder what would be like the best structure for for our conversation i think random questions
00:00:16is absolutely the way to go the randomer the betterer all righty um great well even i have
00:00:25your book pulled up too with highlights uh what would be the best thing um i guess yeah there's
00:00:34like high level questions and specifics maybe the first one i see here is a specific um i'm just
00:00:40trying to connect with okay so in the ground rules ground rule number one pay uh where you outline the
00:00:46ground rules of upb which by the way let me just say off the bat right just to cards on the table
00:00:52right um i think i think that's a very uh meticulous well thought out system that i would
00:01:00describe like um like like like if you see a beautiful like skyscraper right and it has
00:01:06a functioning elevator you got the hvac the plumbing um so the building works and it's a better building
00:01:12than what other people construct my questions mostly would focus on uh how the building makes
00:01:19contact with with the foundational layer and so just as a high level kind of uh characteristic of
00:01:24where i'll where i'll be asking some questions i think um but um so okay in the ground rule one
00:01:32uh right the distinction between is ought um and then the fact that the human beings generally prefer to
00:01:40live uh cannot be the basis for any valid theory of ethics so we have a ground rule there so i just
00:01:46wanted to clarify because where i was a little confused was on one of the things in the well
00:01:53my my pages won't correspond to thing but when you get to the um section universally preferable
00:02:00behavior uh upb five proofs i wanted to clarify um first on the the syllogism organisms succeed by
00:02:11acting upon universally preferable behavior man is the most successful organism i just here i just
00:02:17even this concept of successful species i just wanted to know when you use the word success here
00:02:22in what sense were you intending in the argument well i mean successful in terms of we are the
00:02:27unquestioned dominant species on the planet and we possess characteristics that no other species
00:02:38possesses right so you know apes have rudimentary intelligence and so on but we have conceptual
00:02:46abilities and language abilities not shared by any other creatures so uh success is in terms of
00:02:54dominance over other species spread across the planet ability to adapt to just about any environment
00:02:59and the fact that we have this you know truly awesome conceptual ability would be that definition
00:03:07gotcha thanks yes i mean and i would agree with that certainly can't dispute that so i guess that i
00:03:13was we were the dominant species and obviously we have these abilities i mean unmatched abilities you
00:03:19know reasoning conception conceptual uh the will the way we make decisions uh but then i guess i'm
00:03:25thinking like which slice of that is the operative slice to make the ub work because for example if we
00:03:33were to say succeeding at you know reproducing and and passing on genes well we could say that bacteria
00:03:40beats us on that dimension we could say power and in some sense that's true i mean we dominate
00:03:45everything but yet viruses still somehow can wipe us off so there is some tension there i suppose from
00:03:52just pure power over all other life forms and then obviously then when we have like sure the beauty of the
00:03:58arts culture uh intellectual proofs i mean just all the accomplishments of the intellect that we've
00:04:03done certainly that's a thing but i guess yeah which one of those three slices or is it a kind of
00:04:08the aggregate of those three dimensions or others that that are most relevant to making the
00:04:13with the upb claim sorry i didn't quite follow that last point
00:04:17could you give me a page reference if we're looking at the same thing that's probably a bit easier
00:04:22yeah sorry on the amazon kindle the pages so on the desktop view it says page 31 that that's not
00:04:30helpful but the chapter is universally preferable behavior and then you have the subsection upb 5
00:04:36proofs and um or if you do a control find it's it's where you have a syllogism that says organisms
00:04:42succeed by acting upon universally preferable behavior
00:04:45okay so uh let's see here i'm just looking for which which uh of the proofs is it
00:04:53uh i don't see a number on it there's five proofs so there's i mean it's the sec when i flip on my
00:05:03desktop it's the second page before the section that says upb optional and objective uh all organisms
00:05:10require universally preferred behavior to live is that right
00:05:13uh organisms oh well actually sorry that that's interesting too it was the one it was the one in
00:05:21the following pages but i did have that mark as well because uh so um no oh so organisms succeed
00:05:29by acting upon universally preferable behavior man is the most successful organism therefore man must
00:05:34have acted most successfully on the basis of universally preferable behavior man's mind is his most
00:05:39distinctive organ therefore man's mind must have acted most successfully on the basis of universally
00:05:43preferable behavior therefore universally preferable behavior must be valid and of course another
00:05:48way of putting that is that someone cannot argue against universally preferable behavior
00:05:53if universally preferable behavior is required for them to live to learn to make an argument to
00:06:01discuss to debate in other words you can't get an is from an ought but a debate is by its very
00:06:07nature and ought so that bridge has already been crossed so the ought doesn't yeah the ought doesn't exist
00:06:13in physics of course right i mean the fact that a rock falls down is simply a matter of physical
00:06:18properties and physical laws for which there is no causality that we know of if we sort of take
00:06:24religion out of the equation but if somebody says you cannot get an ought from an is
00:06:31they are making an ought statement yeah and so yeah once a debate is not an is a debate is an ought
00:06:39language is an ought conversation is an ought life is an ought because you can't achieve and sustain
00:06:46life without pursuing universally preferable behavior food shelter reproduction and and water and so on or
00:06:54liquid and so it's true that there is no ought in existence however life is the result of following
00:07:05universally preferable behavior a debate is an ought and language is an ought by its very nature so life
00:07:13debate and language are oughts by their very nature and so to deny universally preferable behavior is to deny
00:07:21that which is required for life which if you did in any consistent way uh you wouldn't be alive
00:07:26if you deny upb the effects would be you're not alive you're no longer alive and you're not flourishing
00:07:35you're not you're not succeeding and in the different dimensions if you deny upb um right and of course i
00:07:42think the uh the premise behind that which obviously i would agree with is that it is good it is good to be
00:07:50alive it is good to succeed you know uh that it's that there's something good about that as opposed
00:07:56to not living but not good in the abstract good in the example of the person who is alive oh sure yeah
00:08:04i mean you look like you're in a third or fourth decade is that fair to say um yeah i'm 32 32 32 32 okay
00:08:11so of course universally preferable behavior was first pursued by your mother
00:08:16right yeah i mean she ate enough and and kept herself healthy enough that you grew in the womb
00:08:23she gave birth to you she got up three times a night to breastfeed you or to feed you in some
00:08:28manner and so your mother pursued universally preferable behavior in order to keep you alive
00:08:34and then of course that burden slowly shifted from your parents to you as you grew and then once you
00:08:39became an adult obviously with some help right from your parents you pursued universally preferable
00:08:44behavior so your very existence marks a 32 year chain of absolute not relative not subjective not
00:08:51somewhat but absolute conformity to universally preferable behavior if you tell me that i'm wrong
00:09:01and i say oh so you agree that i'm right you would be annoyed so even the language has to follow
00:09:07standard definitions that we both agree on and of course as you know philosophy is a lot about
00:09:12defining terms so for somebody to say you can't get an ought from an is is fine if you're looking at
00:09:22physics but it is self-contradictory if you're looking at life in other words in the realm of physics
00:09:28yeah there's no ought but in the realm of life there is because physics operates independent of choice
00:09:37in other words there was physics around long before there was life and people
00:09:40and so you can't get an ought from an is if the is is physics yeah i completely agree but if somebody
00:09:48is sitting across from me as the pure result and i'm not saying you i don't mean this in a negative
00:09:54way but if somebody's sitting across from me and their life and their reason and their words and their
00:10:01desire to get to the truth and their preference for a reason over violence and their preference for good
00:10:05over evil says to me you can't get an ought from an is well if they're looking at the bare atoms yeah i
00:10:13get that but we're not looking at bare atoms we're looking at life and reason and debate and language
00:10:17all of which result from universally preferable behavior
00:10:22yeah yeah well yeah there's um so you see a couple of things that spark my thoughts right and then
00:10:31yeah all the all but for certain so i agree um yeah i mean just process because you said a couple
00:10:38of interesting things there um so yeah if i were to condense that right in some sense right any being
00:10:46that's alive uh comes as you said comes through a chain and let's just say without using the term for
00:10:52a moment of of decisions that were made whose effects were to promote you know life uh and all the good
00:11:00things all the good successes so you know being alive uh having uh a lot you know i suppose
00:11:05not excessive suffering uh that these are the types of high quality choices that were made that
00:11:12have the effects of bringing us you know to where we are here right to having a conversation we're
00:11:19seeking the truth we're we're discussing and and that comes from a chain of uh positive decisions
00:11:26made by you know the other the other humans that uh preceded us in some sense well and
00:11:31they're universal objective and absolute i mean let's let's take a silly example right so in order for
00:11:38you or let's let's make it me since it's a silly example i don't want to use you because that's kind
00:11:44of prejudicial so let's take my silly example right so i just inhaled
00:11:49now if i wish to say something and lord knows i've been known to go on and on but if i wish to say
00:11:57something i must inhale right i cannot yeah i cannot simply exhale and continue the conversation
00:12:06yes and that's not subjective because of course i need i need air passing by my vocal cords in order
00:12:14for me to be able to make sound right and so even in the act of saying something i have to i have to
00:12:23pursue universally preferable behavior for two reasons one if i don't breathe i can't say anything
00:12:27and number two if i don't breathe i'm gonna die right what's it three three three right three minutes
00:12:32of air and you're dead or three minutes of no air and you're dead three days of no drink and you're
00:12:37dead three weeks of no food and you're dead so if i don't breathe so so everybody knows that you
00:12:43have to breathe in order to live and it's not subjective it's not a preference yep it's not
00:12:50cultural right it is biology rooted in physics and again the is or dichotomy applies to physics
00:12:56does not apply to biology or biology i was like nodding my head but then you said it is biology
00:13:04rooted in physics that's what i was like oh well well so our needs but our need for oxygen
00:13:10is rooted in physics in that oxygen is not alive it has for us to be alive yeah oh not oxygen but
00:13:19yeah air like air the nitrogen the oxygen and the apparently apparently fatal levels of co2 these
00:13:24days but it is it our biology is rooted in physics in that if you even just think of calories in
00:13:31calories out that sort of energy consumption versus how much we burn we need uh h2o we need we need
00:13:40water we need liquid so that's physics right we don't just like obviously to reproduce we can't mate
00:13:46with a rock right what was that there was a poem um when days of old when nights were bold and women
00:13:53weren't invented they put their cocks between two rocks and walked away contented or something like
00:14:00that but okay so you can't i mean i remember having a debate with a guy i think his name was thaddeus
00:14:05russell he was a professor who said he genuinely believed that it was possible that a woman could
00:14:09mate with a tree and have a baby he was an odd fellow to put it mildly and then he's saying universe
00:14:14that would be the end of his teaching career but we don't have to deny distinct natures between beings
00:14:19okay yeah so to reproduce we need people but to eat uh we don't we can we can live off well i guess
00:14:26we live off organic stuff as a whole but for air uh we need to breathe the air the air itself is not
00:14:35alive so and and the absolute nature of energy in and energy out the absolute nature of us needing to
00:14:42oxygenate our cells and muscles the absolute nature of needing air and water in order to survive
00:14:49i mean you can live without reproducing but you can't live without air and that's what i mean
00:14:54when i say biology rooted in you right okay got right i just yeah right in that example of brie i
00:15:01just know that the um i mean right when we start talking about other moral rules or preferable
00:15:05behaviors it goes a little obviously you'd agree it goes a little more than just the physics but i agree
00:15:10with you so i think what i would say there because i i i agree uh with the method of performative
00:15:17self-contradiction so right i mean just like the relativist who says there's no truth is asserting
00:15:22a truth so it's just kind of nonsense right so somebody would say sorry to interrupt if somebody
00:15:28would say to me there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior then i would say continue the
00:15:33debate without inhaling right and would they be able to do that of course not right so exactly so
00:15:41which to me is another way of highlighting that there's an underlying structure that we rely upon
00:15:48so as soon as we engage in the act of conversation seeking the truth you know all this stuff it
00:15:52presupposes the norms it presupposes the oughts as you're saying that there is for example that it is
00:15:59good to to pursue truth and to remove falsehood right we we cannot help because as soon as we engage in
00:16:07the activity as you said i mean we we are we are presupposing the oughts we are presupposing the
00:16:12norm and so the only distinction i make is that we're not we're not derived we're not necessarily
00:16:17deriving it um directly from an is in the sense that like we're just observing things like i'm watching
00:16:26you know some some some beings some animals or even humans and humans chatting it it's it seems to me
00:16:34i would use the language that we're presupposing it um just like with logic right you can't prove
00:16:39logic but anytime you speak and make a proposition you're presupposing the condition of logic because
00:16:45that's what makes the whole thing work sorry why yeah sorry sorry to interrupt and sorry if i missed
00:16:49something uh but why why why can't we prove logic um because logic is a self-evident like non-contradiction
00:16:58it's impossible to falsify non-contradiction because the act of falsification itself relies
00:17:04on the principle of non-contradiction and so it's one of those things where you can't you know pull
00:17:11yourself out of it and then falsify it because any act of cognition is bound by by logic like it's
00:17:17something we just rely on it's impossible to falsify it i wouldn't uh i wouldn't i'm sorry to be
00:17:22annoying i wouldn't i wouldn't i wouldn't agree with that because for me the experiment yeah
00:17:28sorry but but for me logic is derived from the non-contradictory behavior of matter and energy
00:17:34this is this is actually i'm glad you brought the soaks we could explore that because yeah i think
00:17:41that that's i noticed that that that language there so let me let's just break that down so i'm
00:17:47observing matter and energy so right let's say i'm observing and whatever i mean if you want to
00:17:53pick what we're seeing maybe we're looking at some uh you know uh electron spinning or no let's let's
00:17:59set the level of sense data because that's where logic came from right so let's say we're looking at
00:18:04a bird can it can something be both a bird and a rock at the same time i mean let's not go with silly
00:18:12statue you know it's a statue of a bird right can something yeah can a bird be both a bird and a
00:18:19tree at the same time and of course the answer is no can something be both a tree and a cloud at the
00:18:24same time the answer of course is no can something be both a circle and a square at the same time of
00:18:31course the answer is no can two and two equal five if there are two rocks can you turn them into five
00:18:39rocks you know just without touching them or just like just moving the brown without splitting them
00:18:43or anything funky like that right yeah and so logic is derived from the empirical objective non-contradictory
00:18:53nature of reality and so i think that logic is entirely provable because it is in a sense that the shadow
00:19:01in our minds cast by the universal objective behavior of sense data and the sense data of
00:19:09universal matter and energy transmitted by sense data so logic is provable because it accurately
00:19:17describes the nature of and i say sense data because we don't want to get all kind of funky with quantum
00:19:23physics and because that was long after logic was defined and quantum physics all cancels out long
00:19:27before you get to the level of sense data so uh you know something cannot be both a table
00:19:33and an elephant at the same time and uh you know an object is either itself or it is uh something else
00:19:43it can't be both itself and something else a is a and you know aerosol the three basic laws
00:19:47so we get logic out of the non-contradictory and consistent behavior of matter and energy
00:19:56so i think that logic is proven by its concordance with the stable properties of matter and energy
00:20:04yeah i so the the words that i would use to agree with the prince i agree with the underlying
00:20:11principle but i think when we say derive so what i would say is that
00:20:16are uh we have the pre-existing faculties the capacities to you know exercise you know recognize
00:20:24identity non-contradiction but until we have the content that the sense data provides
00:20:30then we can't really be aware of it because to your point it isn't until i see the bird
00:20:34that my intellect can recognize as oh a bird is not a rock a bird is so in that sense like i agree that
00:20:41you need content to evaluate and see the principles in action with no content there's nothing to evaluate
00:20:47i mean i i can't have a thought if i have no content i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm not sure what
00:20:52you mean by content here content uh which in this case could be like a sense data you know a thing
00:20:58that i'm thinking about so in that sense right if i if i've never had sensory experiences i wouldn't
00:21:04have any content to to think about because i haven't seen anything i'm sorry to i don't it seems
00:21:10like a bit of a car before a horse thing because our senses evolved to serve our survival so if you
00:21:16didn't have any sense data you wouldn't ever have evolved you wouldn't be alive i mean so so life
00:21:20itself is founded upon the accurate transmissal of objective reality through sense data because
00:21:27if you think you can hunt a cloud and eat it you're going to die you're going to run off a cliff and
00:21:32you know you won't get any nutrition so saying well what if i didn't have any senses it's like well
00:21:37there wouldn't be any organisms there wouldn't be any life certainly not human life without at least
00:21:42a bunch of senses that corroborate each other and lead us to food and away from danger and help us
00:21:48figure out where the water is through hearing and feeling and taste and so on and the sense of
00:21:54smell to make sure that we don't eat rotten food or at least not too much so when you say content as
00:21:59if we can somehow take the human mind out of sense data but the human mind has evolved of prior
00:22:06evolutionary earlier ramifications or permutations of sense data so we wouldn't have a mind without
00:22:14sense data we wouldn't be alive um well yeah yeah so i mean i see the point you're making as far as
00:22:23like our anthropology and like the the you know our history of what you know but i i think you know
00:22:30even in that narrative right i think if we if you would agree that we both have to concede a little
00:22:36bit of humility and in like the the spark of consciousness right we we don't really know
00:22:42and can't definitively say what exactly happened what that was like you know how the intellect arose
00:22:49you know we could it like like like like right like let's say the um yeah i mean i'd say the hard
00:22:57problem of consciousness right i don't i don't think you know it's kind of impossible to say exactly
00:23:02what it was like to go from non-conscious to conscious and then you know describe in details that
00:23:07experience right no but we know sorry but we certainly know that pre-human conscious creatures
00:23:13rely and almost entirely on their sense data in order to survive and so we know that we know that
00:23:21senses precede human consciousness and so human consciousness to me the the we became conscious
00:23:29when we thought about sense data i know that doesn't really say that much but dogs don't really think
00:23:35about sense data they just sort of react but when we can think about sense data we can start to
00:23:41abstract principles from them in the way we can get math from balls being thrown around but dogs can't
00:23:46they just sort of follow the balls but we know for sure that there was sense data before there was
00:23:51human consciousness and of course you and i are relying on sense data to have the conversation and
00:23:56we're relying on the objectivity and universality of sense data with some exceptions for our eyes are
00:24:03slightly different shapes our ears are slightly different levels of acuity uh you would be
00:24:07younger than mine so you'd have slightly better hearing and so on so uh but yeah we know for sure
00:24:12that human consciousness evolved out of sense data and still relies on it for the principles that we call
00:24:20reason yeah i guess that's uh because i'm nodding my head and then there's a couple phrasings that
00:24:27correct away i'm i'm not gonna try and claim that i've solved the whole problem with one little
00:24:33speech so yeah go ahead so where we i could say it's quite true right the the order of events is
00:24:40we understand it as you said there's um sensors there's there's beings that are exposed to senses
00:24:46and and right if and if we go with the whole narrative of like the primitive eye where the worm just sees
00:24:52you know binary you know light versus light sensing cells and so on yeah
00:24:57right if we buy into that um and then somehow it proves you know into like more specificity but
00:25:04then there's still the mystery of like an actual aware being that that is now abstracting the function
00:25:13of abstracting and thinking because this is and this is kind of tricky but um a lot of when we get
00:25:21into the the narrative storytelling of like you know our origins there's a risk of hindsight bias where
00:25:27because i know that i'm here and i'm conscious i'm doing everything
00:25:31then therefore then we kind of apply that in reverse so so what i mean to say sorry if i'm not being
00:25:38clear what i mean to say is that x ante if i didn't know right if i didn't know that this is how the
00:25:43story is that consciousness would emerge and that we're doing these things that we're doing now i mean
00:25:48here we're talking on a computer and we're you know universally preferable behavior if i didn't know
00:25:52that that's how the story would turn out a priori before all that it seems inconceivable to even
00:26:00predict that you know what you just throw enough atoms and light waves at some eyeball and then
00:26:06eventually the magic's going to happen and in conscious processes and that's what that's just what's
00:26:11it's inevitable that's what needs to happen like without us knowing the end of that story it just
00:26:15seems to be from a x ante beginning of the story that no one there would be absolutely no reason
00:26:21to predict that that you just shoot enough uh matter and energy at something and then thoughts
00:26:26will happen like well of course i i completely agree with you there but that wasn't the topic
00:26:32at hand the topic at hand was you said that we can't prove reason and i said well yeah reason is derived
00:26:39from the objective rational and universal behavior of matter and energy so we can prove reason in other
00:26:47words we say there are these basic laws of consistency and non-contradiction where do they come from
00:26:53well they come from the rational consistent objective behavior of matter and energy and of course
00:27:00uh we couldn't have life if if matter wasn't stable right we just i mean we couldn't have
00:27:05life because there wouldn't be enough predictability to eat drink rest reproduce right there'd be no
00:27:13stability in i mean we wouldn't even have planets we wouldn't have we wouldn't have suns we wouldn't
00:27:18like behavior is is universal and absolute and objective and non-contradictory and so on all of
00:27:26which are coincidentally not coincidentally the properties of reason so i would say that reason
00:27:32is the shadow cast by the stable properties of matter and energy and if there was matter and
00:27:38energy at the sense level at the sense data level that contradicted reason we would be insane like
00:27:47that that's how we know someone is insane because if somebody says um that tree is both a tree and a
00:27:54cloud at the same time we would know that that person was psychotic they they had lost reason that's how we
00:28:01know the difference between our nightly dreams and our waking experiences our nightly dreams are
00:28:05self-contradictory and our waking lives we inhabit a universe that is not i mean people can be self-contradictory
00:28:13but the universe cannot be so i would say that reason is the extrapolation into universal principles and
00:28:23rules that follow the rules of physics to to a t that matter is a staple and predictable and generally
00:28:34inert and there's you know centrifugal forces there's forces of momentum and inertia and
00:28:40objects are stable and less change right i mean a tree is a tree until it dies and then maybe it falls
00:28:48over or something like that or it burns uh but things are what they are until some outfire side
00:28:54force acts upon them which is an object is itself or nothing else and of course we couldn't live if
00:28:59that wasn't the case because our kidneys are a kidney it doesn't suddenly turn into a ferret and chew
00:29:04its way out so you know so so all of our life requires and and sorry air doesn't air doesn't nourish
00:29:10us and then poison us from minute to minute so there's all this stable stuff but sorry go ahead yeah
00:29:15no as i say yeah there's no objection for me as far as describing the intelligibility and the order
00:29:19that's found in an external world that even without human beings like the world itself has an
00:29:25intelligible order as you said that doesn't self-contradict itself right there's a stability
00:29:29there's a consistency so i i have no dispute in that but that's the proof of reason the proof of
00:29:36reason is that they are principles derived from the stable and predictable and non-contradictory
00:29:41behavior of matter and energy that's the proof of reason
00:29:45reason that stable or derived um
00:29:52i i think yeah i mean maybe we just i'll just have to um no i'm not gonna i'm not gonna agree
00:30:01to disagree on this one i'm i'm happy to take no it's not it's not even no it's just it's just
00:30:05a different with the language because i mean you you're you're you you have a good choice in words
00:30:09but i still feel like i can i'm not elaborating what i'm trying to say so i'm trying to think of a
00:30:13better way to to say what not with i think i'm sorry but do you agree that reason corresponds to
00:30:21the objective non-contradictory behavior of matter i mean you could say energy but let's just say
00:30:25matter for the sake of simplicity that uh a a rock is a rock and not a rock and a tree yeah i just
00:30:32think it's more than that of course i agree that's part of it the reason is reason is what lets me see
00:30:38that a rock is a rock and a rock no no because animals know what rocks are
00:30:45before they have reason is right instinctive they just can't define them but they i mean they have to
00:30:52because they have to know the difference between a hole in a tree and a hole in a vagina or where
00:30:58they can reproduce or something like that right but no so it is not that reason identifies
00:31:05things in the world we only have reason because of the stability of things in the world so an animal
00:31:11knows the difference between food and not food and a dog knows the difference between a ball
00:31:19and an elephant and so and and if you if you would know if you put gravel sorry if you put if you put
00:31:27gravel in a dog's bowl it may sniff it for a moment but it's not going to eat it it knows the
00:31:31difference between gravel and food though it would not be able to define those things in any abstract
00:31:35way sorry go ahead oh i was gonna say i'm sorry to be a pain but for a lot of this uh right when
00:31:40when we use words i'll i'll kind of so we don't equivocate because i agree in one sense right the
00:31:46animal knows the difference but certainly when i say knows when we say a human knows we mean a kind
00:31:51of a different phenomenon we don't mean it in the same way no no no i'm sorry to be so contradictory
00:31:57okay no no both because have you have you been are you a father i'm a father yeah okay okay so
00:32:07do your kids do your kid did your kids like something before they had language they like
00:32:14something before they had language to express it sure or or to understand it right i mean we know
00:32:19that when a baby is born if you brush its cheek with a nipple it would turn its head towards a nipple
00:32:24right we know that babies are born recognizing their father's voice if they've heard their
00:32:28father's voice in the womb because the deeper voice penetrates the amniotic sac and so on
00:32:31and of course nobody would say that a newborn baby has any conceptual understanding of anything because
00:32:38it's basically a you know a raw piece of human putty uh starting the journey so uh human beings and of
00:32:45course there are people who have significant cognitive deficiencies which might put them at the level of
00:32:50of monkeys or apes or something like that and they still have preferences they they they still like
00:32:57things they still um like going out when it's sunny and not when it's raining though they could never
00:33:02describe things in those ways so uh human beings we start with a non-language understanding yes and
00:33:10animals in a sense or pre-animals understanding uh or or instinctual response to the world and then we we
00:33:18grow into our conceptual abilities over time so i wouldn't say that there's a huge there is of course
00:33:24between you and i we're having a conversation that monkeys could never do but we also grew out of
00:33:30having understanding and knowledge and preferences uh my my wife uh was a no mental health professional
00:33:37she practiced psychology for many decades and she studied child development and when my daughter was
00:33:43growing she's like oh here comes object constancy where you know the ball rolls under the couch and the
00:33:48kid does oh the ball's still under the couch right and dogs know that too if you've ever seen a dog
00:33:52sort of sniffing for its its ball under the couch it knows it can't see it but it knows it's still there
00:33:56and so uh children go through these sort of animal stages of understanding before developing
00:34:02abstract language and then hopefully rationality so again sorry to be a nitpicker but i wouldn't say that
00:34:08it's a clear line of demarcation between humans and animals yeah well okay uh yeah fair right i guess
00:34:17that does that have to go into what what is a human uh right and what's just a animal um if there
00:34:24if there's a meaningful distinction well yeah we grow out of sense data animals don't in general
00:34:29yeah so what i okay maybe i wonder what you think about it if we phrase um if it's an experiment like
00:34:37this like let's just even start man okay sorry i have two thoughts pumped in my head i'm sorry um
00:34:42the first because i thought about this i thought about this what would be let's say the what would
00:34:50the first moment of consciousness look like where you're aware of things and you can abstract so in
00:34:56my mind um without a pre-existing faculty of logic which i again i know this people if you just let me
00:35:03run with it for a sec um it would just be chaos and everything would be a sludge mess of stimulation
00:35:10it's just like non-stop just stimulation but the fact i can perceive you know a form of a rock and
00:35:17recognize it as such and you know and that's different than the tree and i can acknowledge
00:35:24that like recognize that not just data but i can interpret the data there is an interpreter mechanism
00:35:31on the data it's not just data but i have a judgment layer on top of the data and to me like that
00:35:38uh judgment faculty you know is a distinctive operation that this beyond just like raw observation
00:35:49but rather there's um there's like a there's like a judgment interpretive layer that would have to
00:35:55it's like it's just a precondition for making sense of anything if i didn't have that interpretive
00:36:00layer i couldn't make sense of anything well and of course but animals have that same too i mean
00:36:05the wolf has to differentiate between a rock and a rabbit otherwise it can't survive what well right
00:36:11so okay so the i mean one one form of conception would call that the uh was it the cogitative power
00:36:18like instinctual because i mean in one sense we know what humans think and we know under the box what
00:36:23it's like to do a syllogism you know premises conclusion um when when we look at other animals we just
00:36:29speculate and we look at their external behaviors and we try to make assumptions about what's going on
00:36:33underneath the hood but you know in some sense it's inaccessible i mean so the wolf does react like
00:36:40you know ouch like hot fire any animal you know they experience neurological stimulation pain run away you
00:36:47know so that we see that behavior you know but to what extent is that just some reflexive reflexive
00:36:54mechanistic kind of instinctual thing versus a you know higher order level of analysis and deliberation
00:37:02um you know evaluating the pros and cons you know like a discursive operation of the intellect
00:37:07yeah no i mean for sure i mean the senses are evolved in order to differentiate food from non-food in order
00:37:15to differentiate predators from non-predators in order to differentiate mating opportunities from
00:37:21non-mating opportunities which is why you know uh female dogs give off a smell and you know they're in
00:37:27heat and and so on right so the senses evolved to serve survival uh and so uh what human beings do
00:37:34i would argue that's different and this is a huge topic but you know just sort of to take a brief swing
00:37:39at it so we have the ability to extract essences from sense data that exist independent of specific items so
00:37:50we have a definition of a tree that is not required it's not required to be a specific tree now
00:37:59but of course when a a wolf is hunting it doesn't see a rabbit running and say oh that rabbit is
00:38:08slightly taller or wider or a slightly different shade right so it has a definition of a rabbit but
00:38:15the definition of the rabbit is based upon patterns instinct and movement which is what its senses
00:38:21have evolved to have it do but it does not have an abstract conceptual definition of what a rabbit is
00:38:29because that would not actually serve its survival it only needs to get to the level of that's a rabbit
00:38:37not a rock i like to eat them and i'm gonna chase it until i get a hold of it but it does not it's not
00:38:44does not serve the wolf's brain in terms of hunting the rabbit to have a definition of a rabbit but
00:38:49for humanity we have taken that leap to have the definition of a rabbit that exists for all rabbits
00:38:56rather than well this is an instinct that has the rabbit it's kind of like the rabbits i've seen
00:39:01before so i'll chase it and eat it yeah so that's okay it's interesting i just have to probably just
00:39:07think about it more but i'm just curious at least to put the bow on this this point would would you say
00:39:12if we let's say the wolf and the human would you say that both have the same uh well substance of
00:39:22senses but the humans is like a supercharged version of the same thing or or would you say
00:39:28that the human has extra senses that are just categorically distinct from the wolf or again is
00:39:34it just what the wolf has but just like max you know turn it up by a hundred you know just supercharge
00:39:39the wolf and then you get the humans yeah i wouldn't say so because from what i think biologists
00:39:45have talked about quite consistently is that there are of course animals that have vastly superior senses
00:39:52to humans right i mean as you know the bloodhounds that are used to sort of chase criminals who don't
00:39:57cross rivers or something like that so so there's just about every sort of kind of animal has some
00:40:04senses that are superior to humans if i were to and again nobody knows this sort of bicameral mind
00:40:10explosion thing but i would say that there was some human being somewhere uh in the distant past
00:40:18who decided to stop being reactive and when you so to to be proactive
00:40:25is not to hunt animals but to domesticate them it is not to go around looking for random fruit
00:40:34it is to plant and grow crops of your own and going from reactive to proactive was really the
00:40:43foundation of civilization because then once you've gone from reactive to proactive
00:40:48then the quicker you can define and understand things the more effectively you can
00:40:55harness uh the goods and energy and resources and so on of domesticated crops and of course the other
00:41:02thing too is that there is a way that this all spreads right so whichever person or group or tribe
00:41:11first figured out the sort of proactive don't just react to nature but proactively you know fence it
00:41:16in and plant it and harvest it and so on well they could they could have a much bigger army right
00:41:22army marches on its feet right yeah yeah they can have better weapons they can have bigger armies
00:41:29and so they will generally go around and and you know kill the men rape the women and spread
00:41:35the sort of more advanced uh genetics uh that way and that's sort of been the step up which it's a
00:41:42pretty bloody business well what war didn't do winter uh finished right and that if you have to plan for
00:41:48winter and you haven't planned for winter uh you tend not to make it so i think that this going from
00:41:54reactive wolves generally are reactive the wolves will go hunt for sure and so but they they will not
00:42:00build a fence to keep the rabbits in and then feast at their leisure right uh so um but but human
00:42:06beings do and i think that was going from reactive to proactive whoever came up with that bright idea
00:42:11was the founding the founding of a soul yeah no i think that's a really powerful frame it's just a
00:42:19nice way to say from reactive to proactive but i i suppose right even in that snapshot story that
00:42:24there's someone who decided to be proactive it's still to me uh and maybe that's just part of the
00:42:28mystery right that's why we're still or they just had the genetics right i mean they just had some
00:42:33random gene that amped up their intelligence because we know that genes genes like this iq as we know
00:42:40is highly hereditable and i think that somebody just had a mutation that just gave them
00:42:46relative to everyone else just a giant brain and they managed somehow to circumvent uh the primitive
00:42:54because you know once you get a tribal narrative once you get ancestors you get a god then you get
00:42:59a lot of cohesion and people are willing to die for their beliefs uh in a way that animals aren't and
00:43:05so it's a very powerful thing to spread but i i would imagine it was just some you know nature's just
00:43:10rolling the dice and someone happened to get you know 20 20s in a row on 20-sided dice and got
00:43:16the high iq and then uh sort of were able to organize their society and you know maybe they were
00:43:23uh that they had more wives because they had more resources because they first figured out to
00:43:27domesticate the animals and why don't we just build a fence and and keep the cows here rather than
00:43:31just go and wander all over hell's half acre trying to find them and you know i would assume that that
00:43:36gave that person and then eventually that tribe a higher reproductive uh capacities and you'd spread
00:43:44that high intelligence that way yeah well certainly as the skill provided and yeah propagates itself
00:43:50through all those advantages you mentioned um i just yeah it still just seems mysterious uh oh it
00:43:56is and we'll never know yeah we'll never know i'll say this step to go from reactive to proactive it's
00:44:00not just like go from iq of 10 to 11 or 12 right it's like right it's like advanced planning and
00:44:07future you know it's just a whole categorically like different thing like it's a new ability it's
00:44:10like it's like it's like being born with wings all of a sudden when you're when your dad didn't have
00:44:14any wings and you're like well i don't yeah i'm sorry because wings are a whole like it's just more
00:44:19of the same wings are a whole different thing right so i i used the gross yeah it's a gross but i mean
00:44:26like because it's not just extra neurons it's not like we went from like a million neurons to a
00:44:30million and one and then all of a sudden proactivity happened right there's something like
00:44:33well but i'm sure you know this uh that they can trace back blue eyes to one guy
00:44:40you know like one guy had the blue eye mutation and he was you know so hot baby that's you know he
00:44:48just uh produced a whole bunch of people with blue eyes and then they were considered very attractive
00:44:53and they were so i just take like one mutation like blue eyes and you know there's now millions and
00:44:59millions of blue-eyed people across the world so i mean we know that if it's if it's attractive and
00:45:03appealing enough or provides enough resources and certainly going from reactive to proactive wood
00:45:09i mean gosh i mean just look at like more reactive tribes uh like the indigenous population of north
00:45:15america i mean they did some farming and and so on but they still basically just wandered around
00:45:20after the buffalo and and uh attacked each other randomly but the more proactive europeans
00:45:26you know i mean came and kind of kind of won right so that's a a way that those genes would
00:45:32would kind of spread throughout history but but sort of going back to the original point of like
00:45:35yes you you you can prove reason by saying reason is derived from the objective properties of
00:45:45matter and energy every law of reason every law of reason follows the behavior of matter and energy
00:45:52or is derived from the behavior of matter and energy so if i were to say write up a business plan
00:45:59and say i'm going to both expand in china and shut down my operations in china so that i can both make
00:46:08and lose money simultaneously yeah the investors would wonder how i managed to get past security to
00:46:14have my mad ravings in their boardroom because those are impossible and and in the same way if you
00:46:20were a physicist and you were to say that gases both expand and contract when heated and that water
00:46:28both raises and lowers when you put an object in it that person would be considered insane because
00:46:34those two things are the same the same principle so all of the laws of logic follow the behavior of
00:46:40matter and energy and that's how logic is validated because otherwise logic is just something
00:46:44it's just basically a convenient lie that we agree on and uh it's not that
00:46:49yeah or it's part of our operating system uh which which which is a good but yeah i mean i guess
00:46:55and because i do it actually sorry do you have maybe like 15 uh more minutes i just want to check
00:46:59because i i love this convo man and i really appreciate these uh these arguments and i i think
00:47:04we're having a good brain spark so yeah let's let's do it oh thank you okay yeah because oh my gosh
00:47:09it's like i have so many things but i know we we just have you know we can't we can't eat the full
00:47:13elephant all in one go we can do it again though no worries anyway go ahead awesome awesome it's not
00:47:18what i would say is okay so when we say reason is derived from stable amount of energy to me right
00:47:24i would i would say because i would say humans use reason to make the claim that reason is derived
00:47:30from out energy like to me it like i can't even to even process what you're saying or even to believe
00:47:36it to say hey reason is derived from out an energy i'm using reason so you know to me like a proper
00:47:42let's say empirical or scientific thing you always have the null hypothesis and the counterfactual the
00:47:47control group but there's no control group in like uh you know the opposite of uh reality right
00:47:53there is no there is sorry sorry to be sorry to be so annoying and i could be wrong right well because
00:47:58a rock is not a tree that's what i'm saying because i mean that's a rock is never a tree like that
00:48:03if you find if you find self-contradictive self-contradictory behavior
00:48:08in matter then you invalidate reason but you can't and you won't
00:48:13so if you find self-contradictive because we don't find self-contradictory behavior
00:48:20and in matter yeah well because but could we even recognize what would it even look like in theory
00:48:26how could i can't even imagine no it's easy it's easy because you i'm sorry to be annoying but it's
00:48:32easy because it happens every night every night you go to sleep when you dream i had a dream last
00:48:42night about my father i was chatting with my father the man's been dead for four years
00:48:47yeah so there's a self-contradictory entity right my father is yeah worm food and my father is sitting
00:48:56across in an armchair chatting with me it's like those things are impossible you can't have but you
00:49:01cannot be both dead four years ago and talking with me in an armchair so there's an example of
00:49:07contradictory behavior of matter and energy and and so so i know that's how i know it's a dream and
00:49:15not real so go ahead oh oh well that's how you know it's not dream and not real so you said
00:49:22it happens every night sorry go ahead i was gonna say i if um to me that's like a specificity and
00:49:30definition so if we if it's the general claim of my father is dead my father is alive then that yeah
00:49:37those can't be true at the same time but of course the reality as you just described right is like
00:49:41i have a a dream state you know of a i perceive and interacting with my father but then i've also
00:49:49perceived his gravestone i have memory of burying him you know so therefore my dream my other thing
00:49:54must have been a dream right because because my father can't be alive because i saw him die or
00:49:59yes and my point is that when you say i can't conceive of contradictory things so that is a
00:50:04dream that contradicts reality but i'm sure you've had a dream where i mean i'll just think of one i
00:50:10had a while ago so i'm walking down a hospital corridor i open it up and it's the kindergarten that
00:50:17i first went to school in okay now the kindergarten i first went to school in the hospital was not in
00:50:22hospital right and of course we've all had it where you know you pick a flower and it turns into a
00:50:27candle or you jump off a building and suddenly you can fly but then when you think about flying
00:50:33suddenly you can't fly and you fall and right so here's all of the contradictory behavior of matter
00:50:38and energy we experience it every night we can and of course if reality were that chaotic we wouldn't
00:50:46have any laws of logic because nothing would have any stable consistency in behavior yeah that's
00:50:54so if i just stick with even this in my mind what you said like the flower turning into a candle or
00:50:59vice versa and so does that would that falsify logic or would that just falsify like let let this
00:51:06hypothetically right if if i was if i had this thing and let let's try if it's a candle and then it
00:51:12turns into a flower would it violate logic or is it violating my understanding of what the what the
00:51:17physical laws are because my understanding of the physical laws would be like that should be impossible
00:51:21no it would violate logic but the reason that it can't happen is that the behavior of matter and
00:51:29energy is not arbitrary or random and objects don't just magically change their own properties of
00:51:35behaviors right i mean but you think of medusa right she turns and looks at someone with her snake hair
00:51:41and he turns into stone and well flesh cannot turn into stone right even if we look at it like well
00:51:47it's not flesh and stone at the same time flesh cannot turn into stone i assume that this was just a
00:51:53myth that came about because they came across a bunch of statues of warriors somewhere and then there
00:51:58was a woman with wild hair nearby and they just said oh my she turned them into stone you know sort of
00:52:02superstition stuff that that happens but uh if a if i'm holding a a flower and it turns into a candle
00:52:11then i have been dosed with a drug because flowers do not turn into candles and vice versa they do not
00:52:19do it it will never happen it can never happen because we couldn't be alive if it ever did there could
00:52:25be no universe there could be no planets there could be no suns there could be no stable kidneys there
00:52:30could be no evolution for four billion years if matter and energy randomly changed its properties
00:52:36then we would not so the fact that we're here proves that matter and energy is stable
00:52:43and therefore proves that logic is universal and logic describes the behavior of matter and energy
00:52:51that vastly predates human consciousness when so if when you say we can't prove logic it'd be like
00:52:57our existence proves logic because logic is the abstraction of the stable properties of matter and
00:53:03energy and that's the the magical way that we wake up every morning and we don't think we're going to
00:53:09sleep right we wake up and you say wow that was a crazy dream and all of that right because in in our
00:53:14dreams things do change uh properties uh you know we we are old and then we are young we are tall and
00:53:22then we are short we can fly and then we can't fly objects uh you know we pick up a a frog and it turns
00:53:29into a bunch of rose petals and then we throw it and it turns into a dove and right it's and this is
00:53:34what magic does of course you know magicians and so on they just mess with our sense of reality and
00:53:38and so on which is fun but the reason it's fun is because we know it's impossible so trying to puzzle
00:53:43it out is interesting but yeah logic is validated by our existence uh i mean we couldn't if if matter
00:53:51that energy weren't stable the sun wouldn't be burning for 10 billion years and we wouldn't have had
00:53:55the chance to evolve
00:53:55yeah i mean yeah i mean you you because you you said at different points right and then it's like
00:54:04from a minute ago that i was thinking about that and um i mean because then right so then i'm trying
00:54:08to think what's which one to respond to but i mean yeah i guess i did want to ask you something else but
00:54:11i guess just to land the plan this this one um yeah i i think the reason why i know a candle can't turn
00:54:21into a flower is one i've never observed anything like that plus the totality of the body of knowledge
00:54:29and all the science we've done you know we've done millions of experiments and even though the
00:54:36experiments are on different topics you know maybe someone's studying a bird maybe someone's studying
00:54:40water molecules maybe someone even though this the specifics are different the the common thread and
00:54:46all those experiences are right that there's at least some stable property to manner in general
00:54:50because everything is composed of the matter well and i would also add to that the universe is 13
00:54:56billion years old the earth is i don't know what six billion years old and life is is four billion
00:55:01years old and we could never have evolved we could we could never have evolved
00:55:07to understand the universe if the universe were not stable i mean just think of everything that
00:55:15occurs at the cellular level at the genetic level at the double helix level everything i has to be
00:55:19stable yeah so so i i we don't we don't have to look it's not well all the scientists and this and
00:55:25that we can simply look at the fact that there's no there's absolutely zero possibility that we would
00:55:30be here if the universe wasn't stable so it is all of our own personal experiences our collective
00:55:36experience but the fact that we're having these experiences or these questions at all
00:55:40must be certain proof that the universe has been stable since its origins think of all the stable
00:55:45properties of matter and energy that were required to simply form the solar system and the sun and the
00:55:50planets and and so on so uh we know that it's stable and universal and reason is hooking into the
00:55:56most fundamental properties of the universe and you know the reason could be invalidated if
00:56:02massive behaved in self-contradictory or arbitrary manners but it will never be that way because
00:56:08we could never have evolved if that was even the remotest possibility in in uh in reality sorry go ahead
00:56:14no i yeah i completely got me you definitely don't need to persuade me on the stability of the
00:56:19universe and all that for sure i i agree and i suppose other people might phrase it as um
00:56:25that our sense of logic is a participation in in the higher the destroy the logical structure of
00:56:32reality itself and so it's not a participation i'm sorry it's not it's not a participation because
00:56:37we can't change it we cannot will a candle i don't mean involuntary i don't i'm not saying
00:56:43participate in a voluntary sense i'm saying that we in here we we somehow like you're saying we we're
00:56:48kind of attaching to that i don't mean like i'm choosing to participate i don't mean it like that way
00:56:53i mean more like um like uh like the moon participates in the light of the sun right
00:57:00like that's what i mean the moon isn't making it yeah okay so yes but it is not uh it is not
00:57:06willed it is not voluntary it's not arbitrary uh logic is and and so yeah logic is i mean logic
00:57:14literally is life because if the universe did not behave in a logical fashion we could never have
00:57:18evolved so when and so the fact that we exist is is the most foundational proof of logic
00:57:23but uh we can also go to our empirical experiences as well yes got it okay i guess yeah it's funny
00:57:29i wasn't even anticipating we would dive into this this but i guess maybe well you had to bring up
00:57:34logic big unprovable so i had to well that's you know yeah right wouldn't be a philosophy discussion
00:57:39then would i know um oh man okay well i guess maybe last thing for tonight i mean like i could go
00:57:45forever but i know it's late for you and but i did so back with upb one thing i would have loved i would
00:57:51love to hear your thoughts on and if i could first elaborate is i mean this is connected i'll get
00:57:57to the exact question but so first of all i think what's interesting is the idea of using like i see
00:58:04what you're doing as far as you have physical laws and you go back to the the rock falls it doesn't go
00:58:08up you know the rock doesn't go up it goes down um and then in some sense you know by metaphorical
00:58:14equivalence in some sense or you're saying well you know we let's we should see that with with with
00:58:19moral laws and so and then you get into kind of the the synchronous performance test you know for
00:58:25universality which in physics right that that's what you would do but so i wonder so i guess first of
00:58:32all i wonder if there's to what extent can we it would that be an appropriate one-to-one uh reference
00:58:40or is it a category error because what i mean is it with a physical law it's what must happen the rock
00:58:46must fall it doesn't matter if i want it to do something differently it must happen whereas when we
00:58:51get in the category of moral norms and things it's what you should do what you ought to do but people
00:58:56can obey or disobey the rule if someone murders someone they still murder them i mean it's not like
00:59:02with the rock i can't make the rock fly up the rock will go down so yeah and what so a that that
00:59:08this thinks you're curious your thoughts and b specifically in your test because you run through
00:59:12all the kind of core you know murder theft rape and it seems like the experiment you you kind of
00:59:18simulate is that if you can't perform this simultaneously then therefore it's not universal
00:59:24so it's like a universality in terms of synchronous performance i'm just curious what was the basis of
00:59:29that that kind of method that you're applying okay so to differentiate between and it's a great point
00:59:35between physics and free will if a man pushes a giant rock off the top of a hill and it bounces
00:59:43down and crushes your car obviously you're not angry at your car you're not angry at the rock you're not
00:59:48angry at the hill you're angry at the man who pushed the rock is that fair to say yeah okay if on the other
00:59:56hand it's a terrible storm and the wind blows the rock then you might be annoyed that you parked your car
01:00:04where the rock happened to land but you would not be angry at any particular individual because that
01:00:11would be the simple operation of physics with all of the sort of chaos and unpredictability of whether
01:00:16it's still not conscious or volitional is that fair to say uh yes and just for me to kind of elaborate
01:00:23thinking through this out loud so the difference is that on the one axis it could have been otherwise
01:00:30now you could say that with the storm too but at least with them with a with an agent with an
01:00:34intellect he had an idea he had understanding in some sense like pushing rock whatever so
01:00:40yeah the category of blame or anger responsibility culpability all that stuff assumes agency and action
01:00:47and choices and thoughts and deliberation whereas a storm i mean be angry it just seems nonsensical
01:00:54there's no decision making behind the storm so what's there to be yeah right so saying that there is
01:00:59preferred behavior is indicating that we have the capacity to choose something that is preferred
01:01:05versus unpreferred yes unlike the rock that's just bouncing down because the wind pushed it over or
01:01:10something like that it doesn't have any preferred or unpreferred uh behavior right and and so saying
01:01:17that morality is not physics i mean obviously is perfectly correct because it's a different category
01:01:22physics describes that which is non-volitional and is not preferred but simply is whereas morality
01:01:30describes things that are volitional and it's the examination of what can be universally preferred
01:01:36uh the the the fundamental job of philosophy is morality because it's the one thing that philosophy does
01:01:44that no other discipline is is centered on right biology is just centered on life geology on uh rocks and
01:01:52and and minerals and so on and physics on matter and energy and so on but but philosophy is moral
01:01:59philosophy is the foundation of it now of course there's philosophical elements to those other
01:02:02things particularly the scientific method because it's an epistemological approach but uh it's morality
01:02:09that philosophy is focused on science will not provide you with morality it will provide you cause and
01:02:16effect biology will not provide you with morality it will only talk about genetic success and failure
01:02:20but it is philosophy that talks about that which is universally preferable and it can't talk about
01:02:28universally preferred because that would be past tense right and not everybody prefers everything
01:02:34all at the same time so it's preferable as in the future tense what should we prefer uh in in our virtue
01:02:41so the question at the beginning of the book is people will say well there's no such thing as
01:02:45universally preferable behavior which is why i sort of prove that your existence and uh you engaging in
01:02:52the debate and you're using the correct language all accepts that there is universally preferable
01:02:57behavior so then the only question is not is there such a thing as universally preferable behavior
01:03:02but what is it and if people say well there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior
01:03:07they're actually acting on universal preferable behavior you should not say that there is things
01:03:12that are true that are false and so on right so then the question is okay well what uh what is
01:03:19university what is universally preferable behavior and it cannot be something that just people like to do
01:03:26because if everyone already liked to do the same thing you wouldn't need a system of morality right
01:03:31you didn't you have to be for things that people can choose uh choose badly so then we look at the
01:03:38traditional categories of ethics these are my categories but they're pretty common in ethical
01:03:43systems uh rape theft assault and murder so then we say okay
01:03:48can rape no let's let's take theft it's a little less volatile can theft be universally preferable behavior
01:03:57and if the proposition that theft can be universally preferable behavior immediately self-contradicts
01:04:07then we know it's false can be i mean any proposition that immediately self-contradicts
01:04:11we know is false right yeah okay any proposition yeah yeah yeah sorry go ahead no no listen if there's
01:04:19something you wanted to add to that i'm gonna monologue myself i just want to make can you repeat the exact
01:04:23sense any proposition or argument that immediately self-contradicts is invalid
01:04:28yeah if right and in this sense when we reply to morale in what sense does a moral rule
01:04:36self-contradict but yeah yeah any proposition of logic we sure yeah so if i say all men are mortal
01:04:42socrates is a man but socrates is immortal then that's a self-contradiction and therefore it's invalid
01:04:48right yeah so can theft be universally preferable behavior well theft of course is the unwanted taking
01:04:57of someone else's property can we agree on that because there's times when you want people to take
01:05:00your property please take my garbage away i've got this old couch i've left it on the front lawn with
01:05:05a sign that says take me so there's times when we want people to take our property and that's not theft
01:05:10right yes okay so and of course for a woman or for a man there's times when we want to make love
01:05:18and it's not rape rape is when we really don't want to and we're forced right so right right so if we say
01:05:24theft is universally preferable behavior stealing is universally preferable behavior we have an
01:05:32immediate self-contradiction which is this if stealing is universally preferable behavior
01:05:39then everyone must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time
01:05:46because stealing is universally preferable behavior sorry go ahead you're saying that uh if you want to
01:05:55steal to be consistent you should be okay with others stealing from from you no no not just okay with
01:06:02it it's universally preferable you should you should think that it's good it's good that other
01:06:07people steal from you if it's if it's good for you to steal from others it must be good for others
01:06:12to steal from you okay or you must send to that is it possible to want to be stolen from
01:06:18uh no because the definition of steal has unwanted right yeah so it is impossible for stealing to be
01:06:29universally preferable behavior because that would mean that everyone was smart to steal and be stolen
01:06:35from but the moment you want to be stolen from it's no longer stealing it's no longer theft so it's
01:06:40impossible to fulfill and in this case because right because we have to assert rightly so uh an equality of
01:06:51person so i can't have a special rule just for me because that's not right that's not a universal
01:06:56that's the u in the upb is it has to be universal and if we look at murder is it possible that you want
01:07:05someone to kill you
01:07:06do you want uh i'm trying to think well i'm just trying to think in the non-suicidal sense if you
01:07:15want someone to kill you um not while remaining alive uh well no it can be possible because there are
01:07:22people who sign up for euthanasia oh well yeah that's what i'm right that's what i mean that's
01:07:26what i'm thinking but it sounded like you were sorry maybe i'm just assuming what the answer was
01:07:30no okay want someone to murder you is different murder is is unwanted killing uh okay but it's
01:07:36possible to want someone to kill you is it possible i see to want someone to assault you
01:07:43because assault is also has an unwanted component in that word right and you might be some weird
01:07:51kinky guy who likes someone to thrash you with the beat me licorice whip i don't know or whatever
01:07:56right some s&m 50 shades of gray nonsense or whatever right and of course there are other times where you
01:08:02go into a situation where you have fully accept that you will be beaten such as the boxing ring
01:08:11right so so assault is the unwanted physical violence against someone else so right so basically
01:08:21you questioner is it possible to want an unwanted behavior and this is really the formula right that
01:08:26you're behind all these things right is it possible to want an unwanted behavior if it is impossible
01:08:32for rape theft assault and murder to be universally preferable behavior then they have to be wrong both
01:08:39logically and therefore morally since we're talking about morals logically and therefore morally
01:08:45um because because a rule a moral rule like oh go murder people no no it would be is murder can
01:08:59murder be universally preferable behavior no anything that is asynchronous in other words one person wins and
01:09:05the other person loses is impossible in other words if i were to say it is universally preferable
01:09:12behavior for everyone to give everyone else a dollar well but you'd have to be receiving a dollar as well
01:09:20so that's asynchronous right one person has to be on the receiving side so where you have asynchronous
01:09:25behaviors they cannot be universalized in other words for one person to do the behavior the other
01:09:32person has to do the opposite or at least not do that behavior and therefore it cannot be universalized
01:09:38so rape theft assault and murder cannot be universalized because they're asynchronous they are unwanted by
01:09:43the recipient and therefore they cannot be universally preferred does that make sense
01:09:48yes it does and i wanted to look at uh with the word universal i remember i was just um because i agree
01:09:57with that at the same i think we yeah i mean i agree with what you just said here just i think i'm
01:10:01just with the synchronous thing um or did i have to put it let me give you another example do you do
01:10:08play any racket sports i'm table i used to do table tennis kind of table tennis okay so in table tennis
01:10:14uh we have one in my basement my wife and i love to play so in table tennis one person serves and one
01:10:20person receives yeah right can both people receive at the same time no right obviously right so so
01:10:29that's asynchronous right one person has to serve and the other person has to receive i'm just wondering
01:10:34why i'm just i'm still trying to get back to why like again in physics i i understand but in in a rule
01:10:40like why does uh for me universal is like um the rational applicability of a rule you know where where a
01:10:52person understands the terms of the rule and then applies it as opposed to an action no no no no we're
01:10:59not no no because we're all we're doing is judging a theory okay right so so if you if somebody gives
01:11:08you a scientific hypothesis or a mathematical hypothesis or something like that they give
01:11:13you a scientific hypothesis okay then the first thing you would do to see if that scientific hypothesis
01:11:21could potentially be true is to look for self-contradictions and if there are self-contradictions
01:11:27in the scientific hypothesis it is invalid by definition right
01:11:31right which let's just give an example of a immediately self-contradictory hypothesis
01:11:39well i mean if i let go of this ball it's gonna fall down and up at the same time
01:11:43yeah exactly or the gas is gonna even before any observation you can't even get off the ground with
01:11:49doing the experiment because the hypothesis is incoherent yeah or it's just self-contradictory so if
01:11:54there was a mathematical theorem that said okay if we assume that one equals two and go from there
01:12:00you wouldn't read any further right right because one does not equal two and so everything that you
01:12:05get from that is downstream from an invalid uh conjecture and therefore is is all going to be
01:12:12incorrect right and so with so i hate to say with morality forget about the people because of course it's
01:12:19people-centric but a philosophy must first evaluate a moral theory to see if it is self-contradictory
01:12:28we don't think about what people do or don't do what they like or they don't like or anything like
01:12:34that because we have to first evaluate the moral theory right so if somebody if somebody was an
01:12:43engineer and came to you and said i want to build the bridge out of clouds spit and balsa wood
01:12:52would you go any further and evaluate their blueprints well of course in that exactly yeah
01:12:59and then that is right so i guess can we apply that analogy with the moral rules um so if somebody
01:13:05says theft is universally preferable behavior we would look at it and see if it self-contradicts and
01:13:13it does and therefore we would say that's an invalid theory now if somebody were to say some people
01:13:21should steal and other people should not steal then that breaks universality because you have a
01:13:29category called people for which you have opposite rules which would be like a biologist saying that
01:13:36mammals are both hot-blooded have hair give birth to live young and the exact opposite of that
01:13:42as well there's there's some mammals that do that and some mammals that do the opposite they're
01:13:48cold-blooded have no hair and lay eggs and you would say of course hang on if the definition of
01:13:55mammal is warm-blooded has hair gives birth to live young then why would you divide some mammals
01:14:00into that definition and then the opposite definition that wouldn't make any sense right
01:14:05right what basis do you have for making a distinction in the in the yeah right and
01:14:10because you have the shared nature and then human beings are we have a shared nature so
01:14:13why separate the categories of humans well especially to separate them into into diametrical opposites
01:14:20now yeah we can say that human beings should not eat human beings but human beings can eat animals
01:14:27and the reason for that would be that human beings are capable of moral reasoning and animals are not
01:14:33human beings are capable of negotiation and animals are not human beings are capable of ethical
01:14:37understanding and animals are not so we can there's a an objective set of distinctions that we can have
01:14:44different rules for but you can't just say we have a category called homo sapiens
01:14:48that have opposite moral characteristics based on based on what based on what and there's no
01:14:56particular answer therefore the artificial categorization into opposites is invalid
01:15:01okay now we can say and again this is just to to show how the the theory works in sort of more
01:15:11practical application we can say that people who have an iq say of 40 or 50
01:15:17are not capable of processing abstract reasoning and moral principles and therefore we may want to
01:15:26find them because while they are still human and maybe there'll be a cure at some point
01:15:32they're not operating at a level of uh moral reasoning that would hold them to be responsible
01:15:40they would sort of be acting as as as animals in a way and again through no fault of their own it's
01:15:45just sort of bad luck but uh so the human is not just the dna but it would be foundationally
01:15:50the capacity for moral understanding which most most human beings have yeah no okay i good i appreciate
01:15:59that yeah i'll have to uh chew more on that um because yeah i mean i i agree with i mean i like
01:16:05how you're you're framing that um so i'll just have to think about that more if i may ask last question
01:16:11and maybe this if this if this is a quick one great if you think it opens up a can of worms and we can
01:16:15just punt it till later i live for the worms like my father anyway sorry go on i so i'm curious in
01:16:22the upb framework like okay there's certain things which which ultimately boil down to the non-aggression
01:16:27principle and and and certain things you say if you're wrong but then as far as like positive
01:16:32things where you know enforceability or aggression might not necessarily be you know operating things
01:16:39for example right let's say um like like what you've done you you've spoken truth when it had
01:16:46consequence uh and you know so you so you exemplify it is a virtue of courage let's say
01:16:52and there's a certain virtue there so in the upb let's call it courage not foolhardiness though i
01:16:58appreciate the maybe maybe a little bit blending towards the latter but okay go ahead let's say let's
01:17:03call it courage for the sake of the argument or yeah or whatever even just in general the idea of
01:17:08speaking truth when you might get you know fallout is you know right so there's when bad things happen
01:17:14but you speak the truth so we say that's a good thing that that's a virtuous thing i guess if it's
01:17:20an easy answer if it's a longer one we can save it for later but yeah if um what in the upb how can i
01:17:26say yeah that is a virtuous that is virtuous because you know because upb passes the the test of upb i can
01:17:33say that as a virtuous thing going on sure so in upb has five and i wish i could shave him down but
01:17:40let's do five categories of action and there really are only two but there's there's there's good and
01:17:45evil right good and evil is sort of two sides of the same coin there's one coin but two sides
01:17:49so there's upb compliant right so can theft ever be universally preferable behavior no it cannot be
01:17:58because of the aforementioned self-contradiction that immediately manifests now can respecting
01:18:03property rights be universally preferable behavior in other words is there an immediate
01:18:09logical self-contradiction in the proposition of
01:18:14a respect for property rights being upb no there is not everyone can simultaneously without
01:18:22contradiction respect everyone else's property rights so if we imagine everybody falls asleep
01:18:29and and coincidentally all the billions of people across the world have a nap at the same time
01:18:34no one is stealing from anyone else they're all respecting each other's property rights and there's
01:18:38no innate self-contradiction in the way that there is if we say that theft is universally preferable
01:18:43behavior does that sort of make sense right then we pass that it doesn't it doesn't fail
01:18:49before launch the rocket doesn't collapse before we even launch it we can actually build the rocket
01:18:54you know and it passes the first stage of uh coherent theory yeah right so there are behaviors
01:19:02which are generally considered negative and will take a less controversial one such as being late i don't
01:19:10know if you've ever had that yeah and i saw sorry i just because i i did read all your distinction like
01:19:16the aesthetic things and like rude okay so so and i am familiar with your categories and i can go back
01:19:21to the section and i mean sorry no but just for those who haven't read the book just very very briefly
01:19:24so there's upb and then there's apa aesthetically preferable actions you know being reasonably polite
01:19:30being on time uh being honest and moral moral morally virtuous speaking truth to power being courageous
01:19:36these are all positive actions and the question is why are they not upb
01:19:42well because they can't be universalized so when i'm asleep and this is what i call the coma test
01:19:50right so can a man in a coma be evil and we would have an instinct to say well no he can't be virtuous
01:19:55but he sure as heck can't be evil right but if i'm asleep i'm neither raping assaulting murdering
01:20:01or stealing from anyone and so um i'm at least not doing evil if that makes sense i'm not not doing
01:20:09doing ugly harm to to others and so i am not inflicting on other people so evil generally is
01:20:19when an unwanted violence is inflicted upon someone else and the violence is almost by definition
01:20:26unwanted otherwise it's role playing or something weird like that or boxing which is not unwanted but
01:20:31accepted as the sport so unwanted violence inflicted on others requires that someone be acting
01:20:38to inflict the violence and then he have a victim who is receiving the violence like nobody would
01:20:45shoot anyone if immediately they got shot themselves or almost no one right and so there's an actor and
01:20:51a victim which is why it's asynchronous which is why it cannot be universalized now if somebody is late
01:20:57and we and most of us had have had that friend or maybe you've been that friend who's just late all
01:21:02the time and it's really kind of annoying you can't plan anything and you gotta crush your fingers and hope
01:21:07for the best and usually eventually this just kind of peters out because it just feels kind of rude
01:21:11and disrespectful after a while so but being late can't be universalized because in order to be late
01:21:17someone has to be waiting for you and therefore you have somebody who's acting to be late and someone
01:21:22who's the victim or reacting and their the being lateness is is inflicted upon them so it's asynchronous
01:21:29and therefore can't be universalized however it's still better to be on time because it's like keeping
01:21:33your word keeping your promise it generally is better to tell the truth but i'm not a kantian
01:21:38in that if somebody asks me where my wife is so they can go kill her uh they can go take a long walk
01:21:42off a short pier i'm gonna lie my ass off because uh i do not owe uh i do not owe honor and virtue
01:21:48to the evil and violent and murderous so they're aesthetically preferable actions
01:21:54that are beneficial but the reason you can't shoot someone who's late is they haven't violently
01:22:00inflicted it upon you right a an assault where somebody jumps out of the bushes and beats you
01:22:06around the head with a baseball bat i'm sorry i'm getting flashbacks to my australian speaking tour
01:22:10but if if somebody just jumps out of the bushes hits you with a baseball bat they have violently
01:22:15inflicted their will upon you somebody who says i'm going to be there at seven it doesn't show up
01:22:19till eight they've not violently inflicted their will upon you and therefore it's not uh asynchronous
01:22:25the asynchronous domination of violent will from one person to another so it's better to be on time
01:22:33but you can't shoot people who aren't on time it's better to be honest but you can't shoot people who
01:22:37lie it's better to be morally courageous but you can't shoot cowards uh but it's you can shoot a
01:22:44rapist who's about to assault you or your wife or your husband if that's the way that it's going
01:22:51so um there there are virtues which we should strive towards and they generally are much more
01:22:56important in our lives than upb i generally have not wanted to murder anyone over the course of my
01:23:02life may a few exceptions but mostly in debates but i have never wanted to rape anyone i've never
01:23:07wanted to i guess when i was younger i shoplifted a little bit but that was you know i was very young
01:23:11it's not the right thing learned better i made my restitution where i could but i i don't want to
01:23:17assault people so i don't go through my life holding back these seething feral pitbulls of of
01:23:24wanting to do all of this evil but you know moral courage takes a little bit of talking yourself into
01:23:29and sometimes it's a bit of a strain to be on time and so on so uh those are the more the things that
01:23:36i think most of us focus on in our life is not the great evils that uh would be criminal but the the
01:23:42generally positive behaviors that tend to uh edify and inspire hopefully others just as we've been
01:23:49inspired in turn so aesthetically preferable actions they are positive and they are good
01:23:55it's better to be on time and but they're they're not subject to upp because they're not asynchronous
01:24:01and they're not but they are asynchronous uh no are they no so being on time is asynchronous because
01:24:08there's there's the being late and then there's the person who's having the being like this the
01:24:12person who's being late the person who's inflicting on moral courage is not asynchronous um because it's
01:24:18just a sort of singular action but they're neither of them are violently enforced upon the other and
01:24:23you can't have a upb compliant anything that's violent enforcement of will because that's asynchronous
01:24:28one person gets their way the other person gets subjugated or beaten or is acted against and
01:24:32therefore it's asynchronous but apa would be the general virtues that that this is better to do but
01:24:38uh it is not in the same it's not in the category of good and evil it's the category of better and
01:24:44worse or nicer or less nice or um yeah i think better and worse it's better to be morally courageous
01:24:50but not too much but it's it's always good to not rape this it's the apa is subject to the aristotelian
01:24:57mean rather than the black and white of good and evil so as you know aristotle says a deficiency of
01:25:03courage is cowardice and excess of courage is foolhardiness and so the things that that balance
01:25:09uh you know being on time is good being early is probably kind of a waste of time being late is kind
01:25:14of rude and so you want to be just at the right time and uh even honesty right i mean it is i i can
01:25:22tell you this great personal experience i'm sure you've had the same experience it is very easy to be
01:25:26too honest to this world and to be too blunt and uh you know the little kids who say why is grandma so
01:25:31fat you know like they're oh shh you know like there's a certain amount of decorum and maybe overly
01:25:37british politeness or whatever that's sort of necessary in this world you can't just be blunt
01:25:40with everyone uh and so on and so even honesty can be subject to the aristotelian mean so those are the
01:25:47things that sort of delicate balancing acts in life as a whole but there's no there's no
01:25:54aristotelian mean between rape and not rape there's no sort of sweet middle in the middle like
01:25:58they just don't rape if that makes sense so the apa is more the the virtues that are subject to
01:26:03excess and deficiency and are better but have to be balanced if that makes sense
01:26:08well stefan i appreciate you uh you know having a conversation with me thank you for having me on i
01:26:16mean look i i could i could go forever because i enjoy this so much but i suppose it's like eating a
01:26:22good meal at some point i just have to say you know let's i'll let this digest and this is delicious
01:26:27and hey aristotelian meat again yeah i think you're right aristotelian meat in action right now yeah
01:26:32well i appreciate it too and listen man any any time you want to do it i you know i do i do a lot of
01:26:38stuff that's not you know hardcore philosophy stuff and so i you know this was my original motivation to
01:26:45get into the public square um so anytime you want to talk about it just shoot me a message and
01:26:49we'll do it and i'm sure people would really enjoy this convo right on thanks so much stefan
01:26:54have a great night bye bye
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