0:00

welcome to season four episode eighty one

0:02

of the j bp podcast i'm

0:04

michaela peterson sam harris

0:06

joined dad on this episode and they had a chance

0:09

to talk again after a long hiatus

0:12

as most of you know or might know sam

0:14

as sam philosopher and neuroscientists and

0:16

new york times bestselling author the

0:18

host of the making sense podcast and

0:20

the creator of waking up waking meditation

0:22

app informed by decades of firsthand experience

0:25

under various teachers and dad

0:28

and sam discuss the is odd problem

0:31

mean you can't make claims about how the world ought

0:33

to be based on what already is

0:35

they also touched on religion psychedelics

0:37

perception and attention the waking

0:40

up app which mom has been using for about

0:42

for about now and more

0:44

by the way if youre tired of me interrupting

0:46

this podcast with ads thats how we keep

0:48

in production visit jordan b peterson

0:51

dot supercash dot com to

0:53

sign up for and ad free version

0:56

it , an all major platforms and its just

0:58

ten dollars a month or hundred or the year you

1:00

also get exclusive access to presale tickets

1:02

for shows and monthly ask

1:04

me anything episodes where members submit

1:06

the questions questions thats

1:08

at jordan b peterson dot supercash

1:11

dot com or in the show notes please

1:13

remember to subscribe if you enjoy this kind content

1:33

hello

1:36

everyone i'm pleased today

1:38

in a variety of ways to

1:39

have as my guest dr

1:42

sam harris the the

1:44

undoubtedly familiar to many of you watching

1:46

or listening to this sam is a neuroscientist

1:49

philosopher and author of five

1:51

new york times bestsellers his

1:53

work covers a wide range of topics neuroscience

1:56

moral philosophy religion

1:59

meditation this political polarization

2:02

rationality but generally

2:04

focuses on are developing understanding

2:07

of ourselves and how our

2:09

developing understanding of ourselves in the world is

2:11

changing our sense of how we should live these

2:14

books include the end of faith the

2:16

moral landscape free will

2:18

lying and waking up them

2:21

hosts the popular making sense

2:23

podcast with also the creator

2:25

of the waking up app which were going to talk about

2:28

a fair bit today which offers a more

2:30

rational approach to the practice of meditation

2:33

and an ongoing exploration what it means to

2:35

live a good life he's

2:37

practice meditation for more than thirty

2:40

years and the studied with many tibetans

2:42

indian burmese and western

2:44

meditation teachers both in the us

2:46

and abroad the whole the degree

2:48

in philosophy from stanford and

2:51

a phd in neuroscience from

2:53

u c l a that

2:55

when i spoke twice few years ago

2:58

it's probably four years ago now

3:00

on his podcast we got bogged down a bit

3:02

first time trying to grow on a definition

3:04

of truth which in our defense

3:06

is not necessarily the easiest thing

3:08

to come to an agreement on but our second

3:10

discussion flowed more freely then

3:13

we met twice in front of live audience

3:15

is about three thousand in vancouver

3:18

soon after a dublin and then at the old

3:20

to in london was were tremendously

3:22

exciting events i believe for both of us and

3:25

for everyone else involved and perhaps even

3:27

for the audiences were something approximating

3:29

nine thousand and eight thousand people respectively

3:32

listen to our discussions

3:34

and we haven't spoken well

3:37

for a long time perhaps not since

3:39

then even and i

3:42

so i'm very much looking forward to this and

3:44

the tamar first thing i really

3:46

like to know is what do you make

3:48

of those events in

3:50

retrospect and they

3:53

attracted a very large crowd certainly

3:55

by our standards and i'd like

3:57

to know how you look back on out

4:00

and what you think about that

4:02

the first one is a i'm just very happy to to see

4:05

you and to be speaking with you again

4:07

it's really it's been as

4:09

, was book once on the phone since those

4:11

advances are not mistaken but but

4:13

has been his ears surpass quickly

4:16

or also slowly depending on what's

4:18

going on as you know and i and

4:20

i've i've heard i've a lot of what

4:22

you've of through indirectly

4:24

and what you put out there publicly

4:26

and publicly just you know i was in just you i

4:28

was worried about you and i'm incredibly gratified

4:31

to see you reemerge and

4:33

and connect with your

4:35

audience and

4:39

there is always an alarm yeah

4:41

well it's i'm i'm pretty thrilled to be back

4:43

and to be able to be talking to people again

4:45

like this so let's hope

4:47

it continues yeah continues

4:51

ito was very interesting because of the a

4:53

you as you know and as as your your

4:56

, know you you really did can come

4:58

out of nowhere like are playing

5:00

on a on a rocket like trajectory

5:03

right so you you are somebody i had never heard of

5:05

and then all of all sudden you were the most requested

5:08

the him or my are you from my audience

5:11

to have on the podcast and

5:13

, we did at first bike as you mentioned where we we got

5:15

bogged down on questions but test malady

5:17

and damn what are you know i think

5:19

i haven't listened to it since but ice i still

5:21

think it was a useful conversation and not

5:24

known as going here and many people found

5:26

it very valuable on a nice to see a to to

5:28

either to my advantage or your advantage people

5:30

found it valuable they

5:32

heard what heard put some heard within one

5:35

to here in it and some it and their minds

5:37

sad and around as

5:39

sam it wasn't ended by

5:42

people

5:44

most of many people certainly thought felt

5:46

it was a kind of failed experiment and conversation

5:48

with you tried again and , we

5:50

had a a much more amicable

5:53

discussion on my podcast

5:55

and that planted the seed for these

5:58

public events and

6:01

if memory serves we had one event

6:03

booked in vancouver and

6:06

, are still not quite the same as

6:08

jordan peterson yet yet then

6:10

in lucky in that fifteen

6:13

days it took us took actually get to that event

6:18

eurostar had risen so quickly

6:20

that we've recognized that emit a promoter

6:22

recognize that we'd had a book and another

6:25

, immediately after

6:27

you know so the next night we next night to

6:29

back to back events in vancouver

6:33

and then year those two subsequent events with you were

6:35

really a lot of fun because we

6:38

, disagreeing very stridently

6:40

about it fairly existential

6:43

topics and by

6:46

the time we got to london and

6:48

dublin we had his

6:50

immense audiences that were for segmented

6:53

it in ways that i had never quite experience

6:56

or i've been in front of you ,

6:58

my home team audience i've been in front of a hostile

7:00

audience but i've never been in front of an audience were

7:03

were fifty percent or sixty

7:05

forty on the who i don't know what the split was at that point

7:08

but he knows thousands of people were on

7:10

one team and thousands of people were on another team

7:13

for questions of god and say is and meaning

7:15

and yeah but everybody was

7:17

on board for the disgusted you remember one

7:19

thing that happened or this was in vancouver

7:22

we were gonna switch to a queue a day and we

7:24

asked the audience essentially if they wanted

7:26

the discussion to continue because we're in the middle

7:29

of it or if they wanted to switch to the queue and

7:31

was overwhelming support of the audience for

7:33

the discussion to continue which i thought right

7:35

remarkable yeah

7:39

yes it was a it was a lot of fun end

7:42

of the which is a tremendous amount of energy me to

7:44

have eight , nine thousand people

7:46

show up for a and ,

7:48

discussion really may when they when they see

7:50

it they don't have a character

7:52

somewhat of a debate but was not framed

7:55

as any seem like a formal debate and we're really

7:57

just having a conversation and a

7:59

green we agreed and disagreeing where

8:01

we disagreed and it was some anyway

8:04

, found it to be a lot of fun

8:06

and accuracy exciting yeah

8:09

people exciting yeah it so am i

8:11

guess and so what do you make of that it's like why

8:13

in the world was what it was that we

8:15

were talking about attractive

8:18

to so many thousands of people

8:22

well you , when you look at the full

8:24

sweep of what we cover i mean in in those

8:27

particular conversations we weren't weren't

8:30

on areas the we've we agree about

8:32

much more and await you know you and i if we're if

8:34

we're going to turn us loose on questions

8:37

have some

8:39

the moral panic around identity

8:41

politics and social justice

8:44

hysteria in the you and i will agree i

8:46

think probably ninety percent or more

8:48

on many those topics

8:51

i don't recall was touching any of that

8:53

but that it but that was a note in the background

8:57

it was certainly get it was certainly do the wind in your

8:59

sales a been a making you more and

9:01

more prominent at that point because you had hit

9:03

hit those topic so hard it

9:08

how does we were touching questions as we

9:12

know what is reality and how we should live

9:14

within it really you know the be the fundamental

9:17

questions of of ,

9:19

it means to live a good life one of the requisites

9:21

for live in a good life how

9:23

should we think about our place in the universe so

9:25

as to have the best chance of women a good life

9:29

these are the most important questions anyone

9:32

ever asks provided they

9:34

have sufficient freedom to

9:36

even worry about such things it

9:38

is idiots of with the wolf is at the door

9:41

in the room or , people really

9:43

the most part don't have the luxury of of

9:45

worrying about whether they're as ethical

9:48

or as on as store as profoundly

9:50

engaged would deem the present

9:52

moment as

9:54

they might be once

9:57

you get the something like

10:00

the world concerns were you have

10:02

a nice material ,

10:04

where your you know survival is not not

10:07

question and when one political stability

10:09

is sufficient that you're not continually

10:11

worried that you know your neighbors

10:13

are going to murder you then

10:17

you're done it really the

10:19

and then then we've seen when you

10:21

when you when you wake up at three in the morning and can't get back

10:23

to sleep you're thinking about what

10:26

it what does this all mean and what seen

10:28

one is a good life one of the things

10:30

that we did agree on i think that sort

10:33

of provided a container for the

10:35

discussions in total was

10:37

that

10:38

there was potentially such a

10:40

thing as the good life that that's just

10:42

not some you know epa phenomenal

10:45

abstraction or something like that

10:47

but something central the

10:51

the some degree i think we disagreed about

10:54

where the information for deriving

10:56

what might constitute the good life comes

10:59

from but it isn't even clear

11:01

to me exactly where are those

11:03

differences lie and that was

11:05

part of i suppose the fun of the discussion then

11:07

something that i also hope to continue today

11:09

because i've seen it

11:13

seems to me that you turned your attention

11:15

more and more perhaps not more and more but

11:18

you certainly continued your route into

11:21

investigation , what constitutes the good

11:23

life and and also

11:25

your attempts to bring what you've

11:27

learned to up on the crypt

11:29

perhaps an increasingly wide audience using

11:31

the technology that you're using now at this

11:34

app that you have which is waking

11:36

up up my wife has i'm

11:38

subscribed to that for the last year and

11:40

half and i joked with you earlier that she

11:42

probably spent more time with you than she has with me

11:44

and the last year a half so that's quite quite

11:47

comical but she finds it's quite useful and

11:49

, took a good look at it today how

11:52

how does

11:53

tell me about that app and why you're doing that

11:55

are you do that instead of writing a book or is

11:58

it or another book and and where are you

12:00

the now why seem to be doing everything instead

12:02

of writing a book the , a

12:04

book is has become an opportunity cost

12:06

i can't justify the moment

12:08

but no doubt i will write up another

12:10

book at some point but yeah between my podcast

12:13

and app that's really

12:15

that doesn't the two channels where i am

12:17

putting out my ideas at this point

12:20

why did you switch to that big why i

12:22

looked at the app and one of the things you're

12:24

doing is you've broken down lectures

12:26

in some sense into like

12:28

ten minute chunks of litter i focused

12:31

on different topics are more variety of topics

12:33

or got the operate here

12:36

me my phone there

12:39

was groups of lectures fundamentals minded

12:41

emotion the illusory self mysteries

12:44

and paradoxes and some of the topics

12:46

for example the illusory self ah

12:49

help another alone with others looking

12:51

in the mirror the art of doing nothing the

12:54

mystery in paradoxes what is real

12:56

consciousness the mystery of being in

12:59

some ways it looks like a book writers

13:01

got chapters it's got a sub chapters but

13:03

why why this why this technology

13:06

and how was it performed for you in comparison

13:09

to a book

13:11

so i i did write the book version of this

13:13

content or recently most of his contents

13:15

i have a book waking up and

13:19

it touches you know it it it is my attempt

13:22

to ground so

13:24

called spiritual experience and experiences

13:26

like self transcendence and unconditional

13:28

love and the , of things

13:30

people experience on been a very psychedelic

13:32

seen evidence of see all of increasing

13:34

interest of people now now

13:37

wanted to ground all of that in what i

13:39

consider to be irrational empirical

13:41

understanding of the world right i didn't want

13:43

to believe anything on insufficient evidence so as

13:46

to prop up the

13:50

the importance of these experiences because they don't

13:52

they don't actually need to be that

13:55

i base by me

13:57

and my my view say or any unjustified

14:00

to knowledge and

14:02

they do a to any a very interesting

14:04

points deliver their own kind of knowledge about

14:06

the nature of the mind me there are things you can recognize

14:09

directly in your experience

14:12

that puts your understanding

14:14

of fear on subjectivity the

14:17

in closer register

14:19

with what we understand about the brain right know

14:21

not everything is is it can be can

14:23

be cashed out experiential

14:26

a but many things can and

14:28

, it can i can i ask you one question

14:30

short while i okay so that

14:34

there's a bunch of that that i agree with deeply

14:36

and one of the things i've tried to do to the degree

14:39

that it was possible when talking about let's

14:41

say matters that could be religious

14:44

i've tried to stay out of the religious

14:46

territory as much as possible because it seems

14:48

to me counter productive to

14:50

make an appeal to face would you can

14:52

make an appeal to or what would you to

14:54

it's not just to experience steeper

14:57

than have something like the combination

14:59

of experience in science of and be run

15:01

something by you as an example and

15:03

see what you think of this because one of

15:06

the things that we really smart

15:08

about i suppose are discussed was the

15:11

the is art conundrum right great

15:14

we we agree that you have to have ought

15:16

because you have to act and that's

15:18

that that landscape of value but

15:21

we ran into some trouble i think

15:23

trying to make our viewpoints

15:25

about where those ought might be derived

15:28

from you seem to be more

15:30

convince than me perhaps that

15:33

the step from his to ot

15:35

was simpler and i

15:37

was more convinced that it was more complicated

15:39

and never problems that still remain

15:41

there

15:43

i'll let you respond to that but i wanted to talk

15:45

about the steeper experience i was standing

15:47

with my wife the other day on the dock of

15:49

this cottage we have up north and it's very dark

15:52

up here and so when you look

15:54

up you can see the night sky well enough to

15:56

see that milky way and actually to see galaxies

15:58

if you use the corner of your and

16:00

so

16:02

one of the things that associated with that

16:04

his own experience in law and

16:06

it it's not surprising because they are you are

16:09

confronting what's essentially internet

16:11

are you concerned is as much as it

16:13

might be for us and

16:16

i thought a lot about the experience of op

16:18

one of the things and it's also produced

16:20

by music quite regularly one of the things

16:23

that happens when you experience or is

16:25

that of this digital pilot

16:27

erection

16:28

mechanism kicks yeah and that's

16:30

the mechanism that makes prey

16:33

animals

16:34

ah pop you see this with cats they're quite

16:36

funny when they do this are ,

16:38

pop up so they look figure in

16:40

, in in when they catch

16:43

sight of a threatening predator

16:45

and so they perhaps subjectively

16:47

experiencing experience

16:49

the more terror stricken and of

16:51

off but that always

16:53

very always very it's not it's not irrational

16:57

response it's way underneath rational

16:59

an intern instinctual response and it

17:02

seems to me as well that it's associated

17:04

very tightly with our instinct to imitate

17:06

and it's strange to think

17:09

that you could look at the night sky that

17:11

can catalyze the

17:13

in an instinct imitate but we're

17:15

very

17:16

we're very good at using abstraction

17:19

us creatures and it's not exactly obvious

17:21

what we can imitate what we can't

17:24

so i think that's an example of this

17:26

idea that you're putting forward that

17:29

the domain of religious experience

17:32

that say or spiritual experience a

17:34

either the biological

17:37

underpinning a deep biological underpinnings

17:40

and part of my question is what

17:43

what are the implications about exactly

17:46

is that if that happens to be the case

17:49

so first i'd like to know if you agree about

17:51

that discussion about on the is an odd

17:53

thing and than anything else you'd like to add

17:55

i'd like to hear yeah we've

17:57

opened many doors era that sir

18:00

see of ten our conversation a

18:02

tree and just those topics but what

18:05

is your with he is on there maybe

18:08

your and very good company most people in science

18:10

and philosophy as you know believe there really

18:12

is a a a distinction

18:15

between years and on and to

18:17

follow humes really

18:19

cast aside remarks and he didn't go into

18:21

a deeply but but as one point he

18:24

, that you can't arrives

18:27

and ot from it is right is no description of the

18:29

way the world is that can tell you how it ought to be

18:31

so and

18:34

he was he was decrying the fact that so many

18:36

scholars and and in in general some a theologians

18:39

in his time would move smoothly

18:41

from his to ot without acknowledging

18:43

that they had had committed a a

18:45

logical error by

18:48

do think there's a trick of language looking at the

18:50

bottom of this of this odd talk that

18:52

is sam misleading and

18:55

it's

18:58

it's difficult to spot and you know i believe

19:00

i have spotted it and and but i idea

19:02

that people don't agree with me don't agree with me a minute they're

19:05

they're intuitions don't pass through you

19:07

know the point where i'm where i'm to shove them and

19:12

you know is somewhat analogous to if

19:15

want her vid can stay made a point when he was

19:17

criticizing freud was criticizing freud's notion

19:19

of the unconscious he didn't really

19:22

, the unconscious was was

19:24

fallacious and that you know we can leave that aside i don't

19:26

you know that's i'm not

19:28

sure i agree with him there but the the point

19:30

he was making by the power of language was interested

19:32

he said imagine instead

19:35

of saying i

19:37

saw a nobody in the room we

19:40

said i saw mr nobody

19:43

in the room marginal language has forced

19:45

us to say i saw mr nobody rights

19:48

to some he just imagine ,

19:50

confusion would be born of that convention of language

19:52

has something he said in his settings in a blue

19:54

book and there are many

19:56

places in our thinking about

19:58

the world where lang is it

20:01

, a similarly confusing

20:03

role where we we have real five something

20:06

something is not all the happens with free will

20:08

fear no say i think it's a can do it confuses

20:10

about free will confuse us about us

20:13

guess for about amassing what

20:16

you know if you're an atheist who doesn't believe

20:18

that anything happens after you die right

20:20

if you think there's ,

20:23

rebirth you know there's no reincarnation

20:25

and and that eastern pictures arm and

20:27

rebirth this is probably on true and

20:29

you think there's no heaven or hell you really think you get

20:31

something like a dial tone when you die many

20:35

people are left expecting some kind of oblivion

20:38

some kind of positive nothingness some

20:40

cause some some permanent loss

20:42

of experience where answer to this notion

20:45

of notion of not of

20:48

there's a kind of reallocation but

20:51

if you if you think about a more clearly that's precisely

20:53

the kind of thing you would not expect me to if if it's

20:55

simply the end of experience will then

20:58

you're not going to be experiencing the end of experience

21:01

right this right this you didn't he didn't experience

21:03

and absence before you were born during

21:06

the ideas and experiences implicit

21:08

in the way to question is fine right

21:11

right in the nose of nothing you're going to suffer

21:13

minutes isn't in it epicurious pointed

21:15

, and through

21:18

the creases that your death is nothing

21:20

for us you know where what were where what death is not

21:22

and where data as we are not right like the sisters

21:24

non overlapping sets of sacks

21:27

whatever those facts are is in fact

21:29

as as the end of experience so which

21:31

assumes nothing to worry about really is yes

21:33

sire if death is is just the end

21:36

of anything

21:39

so how do you think that relates to it is

21:41

odd minutes or so to come back to two years

21:43

and i just think

21:45

really what we have me forget about morality

21:48

forget about questions of good and evil forget

21:50

about the any

21:52

value judgment

21:55

what i fight and try to return

21:57

your mind to something like the primal circumstances

22:00

consciousness raimi just you just imagine

22:02

waking up from he , a

22:04

by one hundred year sleep and

22:06

you forgotten everything about yourself and now

22:08

you're just a mind just a world

22:13

in some sense were all in that we're

22:15

all potentially in that position in

22:17

every moment in our lives you know

22:19

just seen creation

22:21

of fresh right seen this moment of

22:23

seen here in smell and taste in touch and

22:26

thinking for the you know as over the first time

22:28

you're clearly edged you know that have

22:30

you ever heard

22:32

the neuro logical case i

22:34

think it was a man who had bilateral hippocampus

22:37

damage he was in a psychiatric

22:39

area a little and he woke up

22:41

like that every second yeah we always

22:43

would he and he i would come in the room and

22:45

he'd say it's as if it's as if

22:47

i'm seeing you for the first time he lost

22:50

out right lost the imposition of

22:52

memory on his perception and so

22:54

every perception was fresh and new

22:56

it was her and i'm not recommending brain

22:58

damaged any one is aware freshening up to

23:00

experience but there's a there's a nine

23:04

neurologically compromised way

23:06

of of whereas been as

23:08

intuition which is it just a in this moment

23:11

you know you'd do we experience really

23:13

is potentially totally

23:16

fresh and totally new and

23:20

but for the fact that there's there's there's is

23:22

ever present layer of are thinking

23:24

about it or remember remembering what just

23:27

happened are expecting the next

23:29

thing's gonna happen as really the conversation

23:31

we're having with ourselves and each moment and

23:33

, is a way of

23:35

breaking that spell and actually been

23:37

vividly aware of the present moment in a way

23:40

that to freeze you from this automaticity

23:42

of just a viewing everything through your

23:44

to through concepts and your disruptiveness doesn't

23:46

neurologically justifiable viewpoint

23:49

to because it looks like

23:51

in the hippocampus map that more

23:53

or less keeps track of

23:55

in some sense or memories and

23:57

then also of our conditional

23:59

position in the world the

24:02

likely either

24:04

the inhibiting that more primal perception

24:07

although it it's doing it in a very useful

24:09

manner generally speaking because it keeps his oriented

24:11

enough in the moment so that we

24:14

focus on minute the minute

24:16

details that might be necessary to our survival

24:18

but it's conceivable

24:21

that it's simile tenuously blinding to

24:23

blinding us to a broader and

24:25

deeper reality that in some

24:27

senses deeply nourishing in

24:29

the face of suffering yeah

24:31

you're an end to what's more the

24:34

the mechanism that ,

24:36

tiling over reality with concepts

24:39

in every moment and keeping us thinking

24:41

and purr purr separating about our

24:43

experience rather than recognizing

24:45

that were identical to our experience experience

24:49

it was table isp for the discussion for second

24:51

of us would go under the question of what is the self

24:53

you know what we mean by self and what my friends

24:55

self transcendence be but did

24:58

this whole mechanism did this

25:00

of most if not all

25:02

of our psychological suffering writer like

25:05

that there's just yeah ,

25:07

all of our anxiety and depression and

25:09

fear and regret and shame

25:11

and and and an inability

25:13

to love even the people we ostensibly

25:15

love scenery in our lives

25:18

lives was a contraction in to cells

25:21

that are so toxic so

25:23

much of the time

25:26

all of our differing our happiness to some

25:28

future time where we've met all of these calls

25:31

that that did raise our status

25:33

in comparison with it you know everyone else were comparing

25:35

ourselves to the whole stratum

25:38

of have been a person there's

25:40

a conception of endlessly thinking

25:43

about ourselves about our pass in our future

25:45

and even are present and it's possible

25:47

the punched through that whether it's through

25:51

using psychedelic or practicing

25:53

meditation or just having interstate

25:55

a collision with the present moment is engineered

25:57

by something you know you're someone close

26:00

you guys are saying something something

26:02

to use it can do that yeah can do that

26:04

and donuts can do that or you know

26:06

in certain cases the near the are you describe

26:09

looking at looking up at that the milky way right

26:11

away that that that can do that for people let

26:15

me live my brother i do i just i just didn't answer

26:17

it i didn't answer your question the

26:20

this this

26:22

notion that there's there's

26:25

a separation between facts and values

26:27

right doesn't doesn't run through

26:29

when you when you think of what does primal

26:32

circumstances like where you have to figure

26:34

out you only when

26:36

you have to make sense of the world

26:38

you have to you have to try to understand

26:41

what is going on in the world and

26:44

the are different but most importantly have to get out what

26:46

to do next right yes i view

26:48

so as you can forget

26:50

about morality forget about science forget

26:52

about anything the ,

26:54

the moment and just recognize

26:56

that the world research

27:00

we're confronted with a pen ever

27:02

present navigation problem

27:04

we have this the possibility of navigating

27:07

both personally and collectively to

27:09

, in the space of all possible

27:12

experience that are just manifestly

27:15

terrible and again and the with

27:17

a worse place i call the worst possible misery

27:19

for everyone right so it is possible

27:21

to imagine a universe where every

27:24

conscious system sufferers

27:26

as much as it possibly can for as long

27:28

as it can in some some version of the

27:30

perfect hell rights and

27:32

then there's dennis possible to recognize

27:35

and whenever you want to call it with you it will they

27:37

want to use words like good and evil right and

27:39

wrong or not every

27:41

other players on the when i got

27:43

a moral landscape is better

27:46

the worst possible misery for our

27:48

i agree with that completely that and

27:50

that's why i started atrocity for so long

27:53

because i figured if i could find out what

27:55

the worst thing was that

27:57

would be a pointer to the best thing because

27:59

the the worst thing then the opposite

28:01

of that is the best thing whatever that is

28:04

mean you have the proposition allies it it's

28:06

not even that easy to do sit in that

28:08

or maybe many opposite of that i'm a noxious

28:10

be one best possible

28:13

plays on the landscape it could be many peaks

28:15

and valleys on the moral landscape in

28:17

there could be peaks it or not

28:19

equivalent in anything but

28:21

the fact that they are equally distant from

28:23

the worst possible misery for everyone

28:26

right to they could be arms , not

28:28

you know it does descent can sound like moral relativism

28:30

but it's not it's it's it's an objective painter

28:33

one around i think it's us or the but

28:35

it's just as a there are there may be there may be

28:37

very different ways of living were

28:40

given a given the have

28:42

the right kind of mine's involved

28:45

involved could be happy and very strange ways

28:47

and in ways that it would counter intuitive

28:52

but nonetheless they can be very far from

28:54

the very far possible misery for everyone so

28:57

any good i call this soon so whatever

28:59

you want home navigating

29:02

in the space moving away from just

29:05

on and durable pointless misery

29:08

right toward a

29:10

beauty and creativity and joy

29:12

and love and in all of the good stuff

29:14

we recognize and again is that there's

29:16

there's no we haven't seen the horizon of as we have no

29:18

idea how beautiful life could be

29:21

for for minds like our own i'm

29:23

or minds you know a is significantly

29:25

more sensitive and creative and

29:27

intelligent than our own i'm into

29:29

it does it does a vision of heaven is

29:31

a place that was perfect where everyone

29:34

that was in it was striving to make it better

29:37

right right yeah so there's there's some

29:40

if we we don't know how good things can

29:42

get and we don't know how bad things can get but

29:44

we know they can get quite terrible from

29:46

where our current vantage point and we know they can get quite

29:48

wonderful from our current vantage point and

29:52

this is where the distance between

29:54

facts and values collapses for me

29:56

there are right on let me ask you whether latest

29:59

land the survive final set me up there

30:01

there are right and wrong answers

30:04

with respect to how to navigate in the

30:06

space though there there there

30:08

is it is and there were there right

30:10

and wrong whether we've discovered them are not

30:12

right we could all be wrong about the

30:14

thing we should do next so as to be

30:17

as , as possible in a we could be

30:20

we could sink we're doing something

30:22

very wise and compassionate and useful

30:24

and actually we're we're a

30:26

slowly poisoning ourselves with some

30:28

in a toxin that we haven't identified rights

30:31

amateur they're they're seeing his own the it is truly

30:34

possible to not know what you don't

30:36

you it's true it's possible to not

30:38

know what you're missing right for their the be at

30:40

a some happier place on the landscape

30:42

that you could get to if only you knew to

30:44

try to get try it but you're not

30:46

trying to get to it because you're satisfied the

30:49

eat or drink in twelve beers a night

30:51

and in are cheating on your wife or

30:53

whatever it is too high you can have can whole civilization

30:55

that is unaware of whole civilization a local

30:58

peak yeah rape one philosophy

31:00

but yes it's not as good as it might

31:02

be

31:03

this episode is brought to you by helix sleep

31:05

gq and wired number one matters of twenty

31:07

twenty sleeping on a tour bus

31:09

saw glam and fine until you're in one of the side

31:11

costs in your me and then it's pretty bad

31:14

i woke up so sore like the princess

31:16

and a p that my he like mattress

31:20

cause the any pain while sleeping it's like sleeping

31:22

on a cloud i haven't slept on a mattress

31:24

like it before it's amazing their beds

31:26

coming soft medium and from you

31:28

can take their two minutes sleep quiz and they'll match each of

31:30

the masters of your dreams you can even take

31:33

it with your partner and he looks will find a mattress that works

31:35

for both of you we have a ten

31:37

year warranty and you get to try it out for one

31:39

hundred nights risk free they'll

31:41

pick it back up if you don't love it but you will

31:44

i can't recommend them or not and right now

31:46

he looks as offering or listeners up to two hundred

31:48

dollars off all mattress orders and

31:50

to free pillows at helix sleep dot

31:53

com slash jordan does helix

31:55

sleep dot com slash jordan for

31:57

two hundred dollars off plus to free pillows

32:20

so there there are

32:23

the two ways to see that this in my view

32:25

that this this disconnection between

32:27

facts and values collapses first

32:30

you , to see you need to value certain

32:32

things in order to get any facts

32:35

and hand in the first place me any statement

32:37

about facts facts on

32:39

having first valued things

32:41

like evidence and logical coherence

32:44

right if you're if you don't value logic

32:48

does not logical argument you can give someone

32:50

to say that they should someone

32:52

doesn't value evidence he was no evidence

32:54

you could give them to say that they should value and

32:56

so that so it it built the epistemology

32:58

sort of bites its own tail or put

33:01

our picks yourself up from is brighter little that

33:03

actually that actually hearkens back

33:05

to the is ot problem right because

33:08

right there are you said

33:10

and are not denying the validity of anything

33:12

you've said so far but right there you said

33:14

that without

33:16

agreeing on the validity of evidence let's

33:18

say there's no agreement

33:21

about what is there

33:23

we got a frame problem there right we

33:26

have that value that you need to even

33:28

determine what is the question

33:30

then is what where does that value come from and you

33:32

can't say well it comes from what is in some easy

33:35

manner because you just said but unless you have a

33:37

value of a certain sort you can't derive what

33:39

is and that's partly why this art is

33:41

is ot problem just doesn't seem

33:43

to go away

33:45

you barely know but he goes away because he

33:47

goes away the mommy recognize there

33:50

is in principle always a mystery

33:53

that our backs this is true

33:55

experiential a imo i said i would say

33:57

the streets manually with respect to the nature of consciousness

34:00

but it's true conceptually withers would

34:02

respect he even those fields

34:05

they pretend the be most

34:08

directly in contact with the nature of reality

34:10

me to even physics you know when you're talking about the

34:12

most rudimentary laws of physics right

34:14

there is still there has

34:16

to be a first brute fact

34:19

the raped or a brute axiom that

34:22

you accept

34:24

that doesn't that need not prove itself

34:26

right is it this was self justifying

34:28

of his demolishing yes well that exact

34:30

yes i believe that while i think that that's

34:32

why soft

34:35

, in so many religious traditions

34:38

is that there is that starting place

34:40

there and you're you're trying to flesh out

34:42

where that is where least to some degree

34:44

some let degree so ask you a couple

34:46

of that you mention one taken the now

34:48

ski a couple more think so

34:51

this is what distinction is even

34:53

more peculiar when you look

34:55

deep into the neuroscience of perception

34:59

one of the most influential books i ever read

35:01

was an ecological approach to visual

35:03

perception and

35:05

it's a classic text on perception

35:08

and very sophisticated one and i don't

35:10

think

35:12

what has no pretensions to mysticism

35:14

of any sort and , that's

35:16

kind of interesting given the conclusion

35:19

and the conclusion of the author is

35:22

that what we see

35:24

hard facts or

35:26

objects

35:28

we see meanings so for example

35:30

a six month old who

35:32

crawls towards a visual cliff

35:34

which is it played of glass stretched

35:36

over placed over

35:39

a a falling off places

35:41

the the six month old will stop

35:43

he won't crawl

35:45

seven months i don't remember the exact it's you want

35:47

crawl across that piece of glass

35:50

he doesn't see cliff and

35:52

in for for

35:54

wing off place he sees

35:56

falling off place and there is a condition

35:58

called neglect which is

36:00

interesting of certain people are pre frontal

36:02

lobe damage called sorry it's not

36:04

neglect is called utilization behavior

36:06

the us and these people lose the ability

36:09

not to act in the presence

36:11

of a meaningful objects or they walk down the

36:13

hall and the door is open they

36:15

will go through the door

36:17

if you put a cap in front of them they cannot

36:19

stop but pick it up because they

36:21

don't see cop and inferred drinking

36:24

you're drinking object directly

36:26

and so he even that is

36:28

what distinction is deceptive

36:31

in a very fundamental says because it's

36:34

predicated on the idea that

36:36

what we see are meaningless objects

36:38

and that we lay an overlay of meaning

36:41

on top of that and it's not by no

36:43

means obvious at all that that's how

36:45

we see your and but that's part

36:47

of the reason why it's been so difficult to make

36:49

machines that can see and act in the real

36:51

world because the object

36:53

world is not simple and that value

36:56

structure that you're describing that over

36:58

that that value structure

37:00

right that embedded

37:04

in all of our perceptions in ways that we

37:06

are only beginning to understand scientifically

37:10

yeah i did it is so many ways in which

37:12

are that was called folk

37:14

folk psychological fans

37:16

of of what our minds do

37:19

is is just completely

37:22

broken ram we have we have a sense

37:24

of of the

37:26

tools were using to do anything you know that

37:28

would believe desires perceptions

37:32

expectations the

37:34

movement of attention right and i enter

37:36

sense of what all of this is

37:40

from the first person side daphne

37:42

broken apart in in in many respects

37:44

as we've study these things neuroscientific

37:47

way from the and psychologically from that the third

37:50

party sites and understanding

37:53

, understanding the world and in our place

37:55

within it and was possible is

37:58

inevitably is of those to

38:00

size and you can't you can't fully banish

38:03

first person experience because they're made

38:06

most of what we do we know about

38:08

ourselves has has a cash

38:10

value in terms of the experience

38:12

or side mirrors navy or to take the

38:14

greatest case there's simply no

38:17

evidence of consciousness

38:19

anywhere in the universe but for

38:21

the fact that we know it to to

38:23

exist in ourselves from the first person side

38:25

and you can't look at a brain even

38:28

a living one and have and form

38:30

any intuition that it is a

38:32

locus of consciousness it only by correlating

38:35

changes in the experience of living people

38:38

with the noted tools of neuro imaging

38:40

neuro imaging case or or of things like eg

38:43

where we say okay with the want to brains doing that

38:45

there's something that it's like to experience

38:47

those changes rights and that

38:49

and and we pretend

38:51

rather often to take the

38:54

third person science side off the

38:56

gold standard of first person

38:58

experience and say okay oh that's

39:00

really in the mind maybe an illusion

39:02

maybe that consciousness is an illusion what

39:05

we know is happening is that our brains

39:07

that are process in your information and we've got

39:09

things like synopses and and neuromodulators

39:11

and the neurotransmitters and that's the real

39:14

stuff right as the reality this mind

39:16

part is is some kind of

39:18

fun

39:20

did you know definition is not

39:22

an observation reality

39:25

for it's not a big problem here there's

39:27

no you can't you can't banish

39:29

the banish the the side

39:32

which is in fact

39:34

cashing out so many of your claims

39:36

about the nature of in this

39:38

case the brain and

39:42

that's not to say that

39:45

we can't be deeply mistaken from

39:48

the first person side about what our minds are doing

39:50

to me so i may you know as he was with indicated

39:53

here already i'm an enormous fan

39:55

of meditation of meditation it's i think is indispensable

39:58

for understanding certain things about and the

40:00

term of the mind but

40:03

you can't even tell that you have a brain

40:05

my meditating much less be

40:08

a one is doing i suppose i guess the there are things

40:10

that you there there it's a major blind spots

40:12

in first person experience no matter how

40:15

you train experience

40:18

you can notice for instance that the

40:21

, of self the sense that

40:24

you're a subject interior

40:26

to your experience they have of the are a ton of a

40:28

locus of consciousness that

40:31

is appropriate inexperienced

40:34

that is that is an illusion

40:36

or it as at best a convention writer

40:38

to kind of construction that you can

40:40

see to construct and so

40:43

much of some why why do

40:45

you why do you leave that that so

40:47

useful

40:50

horror here yeah no it's just requests are want

40:52

to make i want to make one observation before we

40:54

go back to earth so well

40:57

one of the things the things when i was studying

40:59

ancient egyptian mythology was

41:02

that the egyptians

41:05

worship horace not

41:07

the i

41:08

yeah we may have talked about this before

41:10

but

41:12

they weren't worshipping rationality

41:14

they weren't worshipping that monkey mind

41:17

they were worshipping attention

41:19

itself and they regarded attention

41:21

as the process

41:24

that revitalize the had totalitarianism

41:27

because they had a god for that that was oh cyrus

41:31

so there's something the

41:34

when the egyptians were

41:36

contemplating what constituted

41:38

proper political sovereignty

41:42

they regarded the union of or cyrus

41:44

and and horace as the emblem

41:47

of proper sovereignty and that was

41:49

the oh serious that was rescued from his

41:51

totalitarian state by his union

41:53

with horace so it's

41:55

like the conceptual world which tends

41:57

to ossify like

42:00

like egypt in them exodus book

42:02

know that attention process

42:05

which

42:06

the focus is perhaps on what's outside

42:08

of the of totalitarian certainty

42:11

and therefore continues to updated

42:14

that's not rationality

42:16

and i think it's pointing to something that

42:18

similar to what you're fascinated

42:20

by with your concentration

42:23

on it i think it's on attention the

42:26

say it's not rationality

42:28

certainly not it's it's not

42:30

the contents of thought something

42:33

more like direct the apprehension and

42:35

you know if you're in clinical in clinical

42:37

practice rodgers carl rodgers

42:40

particularly taking a

42:42

bit of a leave from freud but he

42:44

said that if you attend who

42:47

your clients which meant listen to them

42:49

but it meant a ten didn't mean

42:52

engage them and rational dialogue it it

42:54

meant more like listen they

42:56

will transform psychologically

42:58

as psychologically matter of course

43:00

that's

43:04

where i use attention as slightly the

43:07

front where a more

43:09

specific way and ,

43:12

from something like consciousness or awareness

43:15

itself seven or so so

43:17

this is i think this is an answer the different ways

43:19

of use it but it one

43:22

tends to to meet this definition now

43:24

in in cognitive science and neuroscience

43:27

were the

43:30

narrowing of the field the

43:32

of awareness but there's still

43:34

a field or there's or or this is like a spotlight

43:36

within a within a larger fields of reasons

43:39

i i'm i'm looking at you and on zoom now

43:42

and i can look at look at can look at you know one of

43:44

your eyes radicals as is specifically

43:46

look at that i can focus on mad

43:50

that there are many other things that

43:52

i had a within my visual field that that

43:54

i'm not focusing on but which are never

43:56

the less there and one

43:58

of them could suddenly capture my quote

44:01

attention as i'm looking at your i am doing

44:03

my best to look at your eyes to the exclusion

44:05

of everything else but it's you know if a mouse

44:07

ran across my desk all of a sudden

44:10

that would have one hundred percent of my attention and

44:12

that's such a sense in a shift of

44:14

the spotlights that that's

44:16

the that's the attentional mechanism

44:19

that is happening within this a larger context

44:21

of a why would call consciousness or awareness

44:24

how are you using attention

44:27

yeah like a phobia right exactly

44:29

so it is the kind of a cognitive phobia

44:32

where that's where consciousness is most

44:34

intense right because those neurons are

44:37

each neuron into for the is connected

44:39

to ten thousand euros in the primary visual

44:41

cortex

44:42

though it's it's tremendously dance

44:45

cortical he and then so you can

44:47

think of maybe we could distinguish these two concepts

44:50

this way so at in the

44:52

center of your vision up the phobia

44:54

it's extraordinarily high resolution consciousness

44:57

which we call attention from and and as you move

44:59

out from the for via to the periphery your

45:02

your consciousness becomes

45:04

lower and lower resolution until out

45:06

here if you're speaking visually

45:09

you can't even really count the number of fingers

45:11

that you see you can see the hands only

45:13

if they move and out here it's black

45:15

and white and out here it's gone

45:18

hi resolution for for your focus

45:21

and you can move your eyes to put that high

45:23

resolution hi neurological

45:26

vision the work

45:29

the i would i would use the terminology a little differently

45:31

here those i wouldn't have a consciousness is diminishing

45:34

at the edges i was in it and visual

45:36

perception is so consciousness is

45:38

just the fact that ,

45:41

is been known race you can be conscious

45:43

for instance of of

45:45

very blurry vision rider you can be conscious

45:47

that you're blinded you can't see anything right but cut

45:49

like if you just close your eyes now even

45:52

your financial consciousness just

45:55

as president is jersey or be

45:57

right away or a discotheque the the darkness behind

45:59

your eyes that's right and it'll be even old and dark years

46:01

it's scintillating i would veto various colors

46:04

and right so okay so we

46:06

could say that we've got that high resolution

46:08

attention middle that is lower resolution

46:10

how to here where you can see and then that

46:13

all contained within

46:16

a broader attentional field

46:19

that is it i would call that that brew the broadest

46:21

possible field just consciousness

46:24

talking or awareness fight so the okay so

46:26

now we know exactly what i mean by our terms

46:28

and so and so would i would wear i

46:30

when i would say is due to to your question which i think

46:32

it's a very important question of we are was

46:34

the point of of

46:36

examining the cell seen a much less transcending

46:39

it

46:42

there are several points me whether the main one

46:44

is that it is the the

46:47

string upon which all of our

46:49

suffering is is strong

46:51

amazes it it is just it

46:53

, what when you feel as miserable

46:55

as you can feel that sense

46:58

of been ripped the center

47:00

of this torment

47:04

in like what what

47:06

what direction where you find relief

47:08

right i'm in this is this is just as as you've got

47:11

a cacophony of see unpleasant

47:13

experience and then you've got this place

47:16

in the middle of it or apparent place in the middle

47:18

of it from what you're trying to resist

47:20

this experience right or fragrant trying to figure out

47:22

how to change it right so you have you a

47:25

a pain somewhere

47:27

in your body there's

47:29

a pain there's a strong stimulus

47:32

of unpleasant sensation you know the burning

47:34

and sven stabbing and twisting

47:36

ceiling and , there's

47:39

this reaction to it from apparently

47:41

some point outside the pain it's

47:44

very likely enough for most people up in the

47:46

head and the most people feel like they're a subject

47:49

in their heads that is

47:51

not do not

47:53

truly coincident with the rest of their body they

47:55

don't feel your tentacles

47:58

audience and you like a half

48:00

these and his body scan misbehave in

48:02

various ways against the have a terrible pain

48:04

the , down there was a senior ne

48:07

ne appear now

48:09

i a hostage been

48:12

tortured by the

48:14

misbehavior they have the rest

48:16

of your body right and your resists

48:18

you're trying to read trying to find some way

48:20

of resisting these sensations

48:24

and so it is with emotional distress or

48:26

unpleasant thoughts right you know that you can have

48:28

thoughts that terrorize you a

48:31

and all of it seems to suggest i mean this mean

48:33

this know this is the extreme case of of

48:36

stork unhappiness ,

48:39

even in the best of times right even when things

48:41

are going really well and everyday experiences very

48:43

smooth and and getting what we

48:45

want and that you know that with but we lose

48:48

our favorite treats are just are bad an

48:50

arm's length away and we're still in

48:52

our mouths with in our drops or whatever it is

48:54

we're more gratifying

48:57

this thing at the center of our experience

48:59

and it can never be finally gratified

49:02

because experience

49:04

itself is impermanent is just a you know it's just

49:06

you get to the thing you want the

49:09

new gorge yourself on it and

49:11

then know what new thing you

49:13

want a new thing in the you then you need a drink of water

49:15

because you that that was listed as lingering taste

49:18

in your mouth of chocolate mousse or whatever it is

49:20

is to cloying and too much either

49:22

wash that out so that users to meet you wouldn't want

49:24

to stay in that state even if you could and

49:26

is some this some this of this role in dissatisfaction

49:30

even in satisfaction

49:32

that we will encounter even in the best

49:35

of of times right even when you literally can

49:37

get anything more or less anything you want

49:41

and and yet we know at

49:43

any moment it can be subverted

49:45

by something terrible happening you know at any

49:47

moment you can suddenly feel like you're you're

49:49

you might be having a heart attack right and the and then that

49:51

becomes the , that the

49:54

to sense of me in the of

49:57

collapses upon and

50:00

the end is

50:02

it is it makes life a minister's

50:05

again the sense of of have been

50:08

it is vulnerable center right it

50:10

makes life is come along emergency

50:13

they can be pacified by

50:17

increasingly strenuous efforts to control

50:19

experience right we have to control

50:21

this thing because get

50:24

anymore is anymore seal were constantly any

50:28

we might die yeah yeah you want

50:30

morning however you know but even it

50:32

or even for those of us who don't think about death very

50:35

off animal and their those people we're

50:39

constantly

50:41

modifying are experienced so is due to

50:43

avoid discomfort weather's social discomfort

50:46

or physical discomfort or may just every

50:48

every correction in our bodies media if you

50:50

just try to sit still for an

50:52

hour you'll notice that

50:55

all of the micro adjustments of the

50:57

in posture that you're now no longer making

51:01

or made because the

51:03

really don't have to wait long before you feel

51:05

miserable

51:06

i mean your body the amount of pain you can get

51:08

just sitting in the most comfortable chair

51:10

you can find in your home

51:13

and just resolving not to move is

51:15

is quite extraordinary it's just you know

51:17

it is it's just no

51:19

position as comfortable enough that it will be comfortable

51:21

an hour from now

51:23

so when you when you rise out of that

51:25

into this meditative state what

51:27

what what's your experience and what

51:29

has that done for you personally

51:31

and ethically

51:35

okay so the starting point

51:37

which address

51:38

the only sketched out of have been a subject

51:40

in the head writer me this is something that

51:43

i , be some personal your to ninety

51:45

nine percent of our audience or me or ninety

51:48

nine point nine nine nine percent of our on as people

51:51

feel that they are they don't feel identical

51:53

to their bodies issue like they have bodies and

51:55

now they they might be told okay

51:58

be you might want to look into this practice of

52:00

annotation you might want to just understand yourself

52:02

a little better here start with this

52:04

practice you can close your eyes

52:06

pay attention to the feeling of breathing

52:09

you know the sensation of breathing in a in the and

52:11

the rise in falling of their chest or that the

52:13

air passing in their nostrils and

52:16

every time you get lost in thought come

52:18

back to the raw sensation of breathe and very

52:21

basic exercises was called mindfulness

52:24

in a moment you try try to do that

52:27

you begin to discover or you know some almost

52:29

down the line you discover that

52:32

it's very hard to do your your

52:34

default state

52:36

is to get distracted by a conversation

52:39

and you're having with yourself

52:41

to forget all about this project pan attention

52:44

to the present moment and it could be it in does matter what

52:46

it is but you know the the brass in this case it's

52:49

and central he

52:51

didn't act true to say that for most people

52:53

and i literally ninety nine point nine

52:55

percent of our audience that they

52:58

couldn't pay attention to the brass for

53:00

a full minute say even

53:03

, their lives depended on it raises a

53:05

user is simply not in the cards is not

53:07

is seen as at the sight of the world could depend

53:09

on it and and who's

53:12

not really fairly well trained

53:14

in trained i just couldn't do

53:16

it and so that's interesting right

53:18

what's interesting is that despite

53:20

your best efforts you

53:22

get carried away by saw the

53:25

helplessly moment after moments

53:30

now been able to break

53:32

that spell been able to see saw it as

53:34

thought of as of of eventually that once you get

53:36

some degree of mindfulness in

53:38

, hand no longer confined

53:41

your attention to the breath

53:43

or any other arbitrary object you begin

53:45

to open it up to everything you can possibly

53:47

experience i was just the of sights and sounds

53:49

and sensations and emotions and

53:52

and source themselves can become

53:54

objects of mindfulness

53:57

when you can this is where this

54:00

cruz the crucial

54:03

and almost binary difference

54:05

which

54:07

which produces an immense amount of psychological

54:10

jennifer the moment

54:12

you can really notice thoughts

54:15

at themselves as appearances

54:17

in consciousness rather than

54:20

what you are in each moment because what what happens

54:22

is in the default case

54:25

source and a creep up from behind

54:27

us in some sense that kind of come out of nowhere

54:30

and , just feels like me right

54:32

so i'm in i'm trying to to

54:34

reflects of identification know wouldn't

54:36

act the damn things out if they didn't feel

54:38

like you either oh and so they they have to

54:40

have that impulse to auction in them that that

54:42

part of felt identity right

54:45

so and so you're saying that you're saying and this is

54:47

part of i suppose part of the buddhist

54:49

tradition particularly although not only

54:51

that being the that

54:53

of those thoughts is your heart

54:55

of what

54:56

prolongs suffering at least

54:58

under some circuit especially being a habit

55:01

of them piazza get the answers

55:03

and so this is so by the

55:05

the people in a listen to us now can

55:08

feel this are you know the in a we're talking

55:10

and people are trying to understand

55:12

, threat of this conversation but it's computer

55:14

they have a voice in their head it's competing

55:17

competing that's right data they're trying to listen does but

55:20

they're also thinking right in a thing is as they

55:22

they might think oh what the hell's

55:24

the talking about like this talking about some some

55:26

intrusive saw it comes in or like oh no

55:28

wait a minute he didn't answer the question of that

55:31

thought that that feels of

55:33

if you're identified with it if you don't see

55:35

it as mirror language

55:37

appearing in consciousness or mere

55:40

imagery right it feels

55:42

like me is like that is the cells

55:44

that is not feel like what i believe

55:47

yesterday that that is all know say around

55:49

terroristic the our wealth one of the things you do

55:51

in clinical work all the time especially

55:54

in the cognitive behavioral field is

55:56

you help people identify those

55:58

thoughts in some sense as

56:01

the objects that they are no longer

56:03

identify with him and say you know just

56:05

because you think that it's

56:08

not necessarily true it's not

56:10

necessarily you and it's not

56:12

necessarily helpful run a we

56:14

can check and see if any of those three

56:17

you know propositions were true maybe

56:19

it is you maybe be you do believe it it maybe it is useful

56:21

but we're going to start by hypothesizing

56:25

that some of these automatic thoughts

56:27

are actually what's driving your misery

56:30

and i really also see that as a tremendous

56:32

danger of totalitarian etiologies

56:35

because their thought systems that are almost entirely

56:37

foreign in some sense to

56:40

the individual person that

56:42

invade that cognitive space that

56:44

you're describing and then manifest

56:46

themselves as unquestioning identity

56:49

and or their blinding the person to some

56:51

underlying reality that's actually

56:54

revisit flying and nourishing

56:56

and an antidote to suffering then

56:58

there are a tremendous block to exactly

57:00

that process

57:02

yeah yes it is there to levels that

57:04

which we can address this problem of

57:07

thought and it's good connection to suffering

57:10

and , is it a level of thought itself rights

57:13

are you can you can replace bad thoughts with better

57:15

thoughts are you can use even get some

57:17

you can triangulate on you or your

57:19

tendency to have one kind of conversation with yourself

57:22

yourself an engineer a better conversation with that

57:25

and that's enough and a as intelligent they are

57:27

apparently like a six year old for example

57:29

antioch thinking like a thirty year old right

57:31

right and what what's more thirty year old it actually

57:33

has good intentions for you relic

57:35

from france right you write your mind

57:38

your violet yeah yeah yeah last one even

57:40

the sci me asking imagine asking so

57:43

on medicine that so that's that's

57:46

a that's a totally legitimate way

57:48

to to climb

57:50

out of us the the great hall

57:52

of of suffering that people

57:55

find themselves and the there's

57:58

a there's a more fundamental and they

58:00

are not i'm not saying what you know what

58:03

i'm what i'm recommending terms of be a meditation and mindfulness

58:05

here is more fundamental it

58:07

it is not is completely compatible with

58:10

that complete a more conceptual discursive

58:12

lair right and some things i would argue

58:14

somethings are best addressed on the

58:17

discursive layer and some things are better are

58:19

better on the on the lead the more fundamental

58:21

a or as well as you know when you're sitting meditating

58:24

first of all you're sitting

58:27

so it's perfectly reasonable to adopt

58:29

a mode of thought that healthful and productive

58:32

in relationship to the fact that you're sitting

58:35

you know those more discursive propositional

58:37

thought that we've been describing their

58:39

their higher resolution in some sense and

58:41

they're more practically implementable and so

58:43

there's going to want to get that in order but

58:46

that doesn't mean that there

58:48

that this phenomenon that you're describing

58:50

this outside the entire discursive structure

58:52

doesn't exist and refs it's probably

58:54

also the place we go at least to some degree

58:57

when we go to sleep and we dream and get revivified

59:00

outside that discursive landscape and

59:02

if necessary for physiological

59:04

rejuvenation

59:06

this episode was sponsored by alicia health

59:09

rip him has dozens of the world's best scientists

59:11

working with that the to them or nobel

59:14

prize winners

59:15

try vitamin complex matter

59:17

does what no other product guys close

59:20

the franking of our brain

59:22

that's right starting in our thirties our brains actually

59:24

begin to shrink even if we're healthy

59:27

that affect memory learning and even physical activity

59:30

was pretty skeptical but they sent over bunch of peer

59:32

reviewed studies it's true mattered

59:35

patented and clinically proven to slow

59:37

the age related loss in the brains memory

59:39

centers by eighty six percent on average

59:42

the matters customers report improvements

59:44

in memory and cognition a healthy

59:46

brain is just as crucial as crucial healthy body

59:48

don't neglect code explore

59:50

matter dot com slash jordan

59:53

and enter code at j b p one zero

59:55

ad checkout to save ten percent off

59:57

prepaid plans for matter plus their

1:00:00

the happening

1:00:22

you may know i'm working on a buck hopefully i'll finish

1:00:24

it one dreams program effective

1:00:27

editing how to take your writing to the next level

1:00:29

is very useful for writing your

1:00:32

kids straight from one dream that i found

1:00:34

interesting if

1:00:36

you're stuck you could try lane your pages

1:00:38

down on the floor packing them up on the wall

1:00:41

or hanging them up on a clothesline i

1:00:43

give you a linear perspective another

1:00:46

cat recommended they've different

1:00:48

versions of your manuscript does

1:00:50

it without any as well a new version every time

1:00:52

he added under him and full

1:00:54

of experts that will inspire you and make the whole process

1:00:57

fun

1:00:57

is fascinating material on just about any

1:00:59

topic i want you to sign up for wondering

1:01:02

them today on dream is offering our listeners

1:01:04

a special free twenty due date

1:01:06

trial the ship to celebrate the new

1:01:08

year visit one dram dot com

1:01:10

the slash peterson claim this

1:01:12

offer again that w

1:01:15

l n the are i

1:01:17

you am dot com

1:01:19

slash peterson

1:01:39

they will dreams are very interesting because a i think

1:01:41

they are necessary and we

1:01:43

know a lot about the necessity of of

1:01:45

rem sleep for hell censor there's no question

1:01:47

that dreams are doing good things for us but

1:01:50

they also are inexperience

1:01:53

as start psychosis

1:01:56

you know me that they are they are a condition monsieur he

1:01:58

was we're talking about lucid dreaming this

1:02:00

circumstance where you really

1:02:02

have no idea what's going on to me you are you

1:02:04

are in reality asleep in your bed

1:02:07

and yet you have transitioned into another

1:02:10

experience

1:02:11

which were the laws of nature violated

1:02:13

you're talking to dead people you are you

1:02:15

know who we will lead the sky's the limit right and

1:02:18

you're not even surprise you're doing so

1:02:20

little reality testing you not

1:02:22

even surprised about these changes you

1:02:24

have so little purchase on who you were just

1:02:26

fifteen minutes ago when you went to sleep that

1:02:29

, just me to

1:02:31

does me to some degree at that point to that

1:02:33

you have suspended your unthinking

1:02:35

identification with your daytime

1:02:37

propositional thought so you're you're pretty

1:02:40

have been in or in the normal case your identified

1:02:42

with your dream

1:02:44

body and you and your dream persona i need

1:02:46

whoever you whoever you've become a any your pure

1:02:48

being terrorized in a in a in

1:02:50

a more malleable still

1:02:53

there yeah it's just it's just

1:02:56

it's

1:02:56

it's more random and less

1:02:58

logically coherent and do something they're

1:03:01

about exploration and change

1:03:03

of categories themselves that's going on

1:03:05

but i can see your point about it still being

1:03:08

will heard of that but i'm and more to the point is

1:03:10

there's actually a very

1:03:12

close connection between what happens with ordinary

1:03:14

saw it and dreaming so

1:03:16

for instance

1:03:19

the were ordinary

1:03:21

thinking is come

1:03:23

in my view or ordinary identification

1:03:26

with thought i'm not allow me to demonize thought

1:03:28

per se because we need saw it's an

1:03:30

end the goal of meditation is not to

1:03:32

get rid of scientists to be able to recognize

1:03:34

them as as what they aren't

1:03:36

recognize the process of thinking and

1:03:39

, break this is the pseudo identification

1:03:42

when it's but the identification with saw

1:03:44

it is very much analogous to dreaming

1:03:46

and not knowing that you're dreaming and switch

1:03:49

from a normal dream to normal lucid dream

1:03:51

is analogous to to the kind of waking

1:03:54

up in the middle of life that i'm i'm

1:03:56

advocating here where you can actually just recognize

1:03:59

thoughts as it's intercepting

1:04:01

that the way in which thought

1:04:04

steel over us whereas that you're trying

1:04:06

to pay attention to something then all

1:04:09

of a sudden you're you're replay

1:04:11

in an argument that you had with your wife

1:04:13

you know yesterday right and

1:04:15

, and it and is actually is

1:04:18

is it's dredging up the emotion

1:04:20

that is appropriate to that argument scenario getting

1:04:23

angry or regretful

1:04:25

or whatever it is

1:04:28

it's quite crazy is totally normal

1:04:31

and this is the default state of most people most

1:04:33

of the time but given

1:04:36

how unhappy

1:04:37

the character of our conversation is with

1:04:39

ourselves most of the time given

1:04:41

the stories were telling ourselves or less than

1:04:44

perfectly inspiring and perfectly ennobling

1:04:47

and and

1:04:49

rates opening of the great reservoirs

1:04:52

of compassion and wisdom right

1:04:54

they're not doing that it's

1:04:57

worth looking into this and it is

1:04:59

it does have this dream my character of

1:05:02

the humming out of nowhere

1:05:05

and seasons completely seizing the

1:05:07

reins of of attention and

1:05:09

identity and taken as elsewhere the

1:05:13

and

1:05:14

also we forget it we we it

1:05:16

has as part of the totalitarian

1:05:19

spirit of rationality that proclivity

1:05:22

but it it is but a lovely songs aren't rational

1:05:24

is just it's just you just refer seen

1:05:26

your experience has just like of you'll tell yourself

1:05:29

the same thing ten times in a row and

1:05:31

never and you won't be bored on the tenth time

1:05:33

you'll you'll like it if you just imagine

1:05:36

what , be like to externalize your thoughts

1:05:38

on a loudspeaker for everyone to listen to

1:05:41

you know and you're just too easy as it was just

1:05:44

helplessly vote externalized every

1:05:47

every normal person would sound insane

1:05:50

because it because of the the preserve

1:05:52

or asian and the and

1:05:55

the just the redundancy and need

1:05:57

and strange structure to

1:06:00

the discursive nasa minutes is this is a

1:06:05

his ever present it is so it's sort

1:06:07

of president strikes strikes strange

1:06:11

to be presuming oh wait

1:06:13

we have it we have a dialogue with

1:06:15

ourselves as though the i

1:06:18

could talk to the me

1:06:20

and that made any sense at all like i'm sitting

1:06:22

here and you're getting set

1:06:24

up for this interview right end oh

1:06:27

think oh

1:06:29

i gotta get some water now

1:06:33

i know if on the one to say

1:06:35

it no no no year

1:06:37

as a brine i am i know i need water

1:06:40

whom i tell ya players like i'm telling

1:06:42

someone else who needs to be informed

1:06:44

about that well at your be a probably telling

1:06:46

the prefrontal cortex and it

1:06:48

tells the motor cortex so you know

1:06:50

it's and that's probably the hypothalamus talking

1:06:53

to the prefrontal cortex because it doesn't

1:06:55

have direct output over the motor cortex

1:06:58

something like that of a while and i mean

1:07:00

it it yet it remains to be seen whether any

1:07:02

of that is actually functionally necessary but i

1:07:04

think for the most part if not

1:07:06

i'm into the most part we we simply talk

1:07:09

to it's almost like we started talking to our parents

1:07:12

you , once we once we had once the a

1:07:14

of my language is incredibly useful as you know and

1:07:16

as it is is what defines us as as

1:07:19

people in many respects and

1:07:21

once again to again his again to once he gets

1:07:23

tuned up it never shuts

1:07:25

off and you know we're talking

1:07:27

to a that is so it was first were pre linguistic

1:07:30

and would just drinking and language

1:07:32

that aimed at our seen a lot are all

1:07:34

the time our parents are the jabbering to

1:07:36

as we begin to understand

1:07:39

what they're saying as so much of it as

1:07:41

seen on indexical they're pointing to things

1:07:43

and and were name in those things were hearing the

1:07:45

word the sounds associated with those the things that

1:07:47

are being grasp and handed to us and and

1:07:51

soon we begin to participate in his

1:07:53

language game in in ways that we're not conscious

1:07:55

of and once his his to end up

1:07:58

we've talked to her parents we jabber to

1:08:00

our parents incessantly and then we jabber to

1:08:02

ourselves when they leave the room and

1:08:05

, never stops why i don't even

1:08:07

in mcgilchrist and i have talked about

1:08:09

he had his ego and

1:08:12

he he's

1:08:14

the opinion i hope i'm not misrepresenting

1:08:17

and and and it's an idea that

1:08:19

i had shared to some degree is that

1:08:22

the right hemisphere

1:08:24

in many ways this is left handed

1:08:27

people at least in

1:08:29

some senses more regulated by the underlying

1:08:32

limbic structures the motivational structures

1:08:34

like an animal is and

1:08:37

and the left hemisphere to

1:08:39

the degree that is linguistic it inhibits

1:08:42

those right hemisphere functions tonic

1:08:44

lee and that's unlikely tonic speech

1:08:47

and what that means implies perhaps

1:08:50

is that if you can shut that speech off

1:08:53

there's a different mode of perception that

1:08:55

characterized by the right hemispheres

1:08:57

immerse meant in these underlying motivational

1:09:00

systems that might be

1:09:02

part and parcel of that revisionists

1:09:04

occasion possibility that your

1:09:06

i think you're pointing to

1:09:09

that's something that lies outside the linguistic

1:09:11

landscape

1:09:12

and that can be or maybe hyper dominant has

1:09:15

become hyper dominant in us because

1:09:17

, so immersed in language me

1:09:19

from from what i can tell and it it does for

1:09:21

that the the research on the

1:09:23

new the neuro imaging research and meditation is

1:09:25

i am still in it's infancy

1:09:27

despite the fact they're been hundreds and even

1:09:29

thousands of paper person's point person's

1:09:31

meditation

1:09:34

the silence a in

1:09:36

the default mode network is certainly porn

1:09:38

of them have

1:09:41

, to change your that is relevant and

1:09:43

the default mode network network people

1:09:45

have made people have heard of his by now but it you're used

1:09:47

to be kind of an of topic

1:09:49

but just a brief review the

1:09:52

default mode network is call

1:09:55

the default mode because in it it was

1:09:57

noticed in virtually every neuro imaging experiment

1:10:00

never designed to resist the system

1:10:02

of of structures in the midline of the brain that

1:10:05

would would their their

1:10:07

activity in between

1:10:09

tasks or whatever the paradigm was if

1:10:11

you're giving people are reading tasker a sensory

1:10:13

task for a memory task or we have away

1:10:15

visual discrimination whatever it is you're putting them

1:10:17

in the scanner they have to pay attention to something

1:10:20

in those epochs between tas

1:10:23

when they were no longer having to pay attention to something

1:10:25

a whether waiting for the next thing that be presented

1:10:27

to them this these

1:10:29

set of structures in the midline would increase

1:10:31

their activity is it was called the default mode

1:10:35

is just the kind of the brains idling states

1:10:38

but these are also these structures that

1:10:41

that seem to have a disproportionate

1:10:43

amount of responsibility for

1:10:45

self reference and self representation

1:10:48

and and they get tuned up even further

1:10:51

when you give people tasks that

1:10:53

require a set a a

1:10:55

a retrospectives it's analysis of the

1:10:57

self you know if i spy gave you a list

1:10:59

of words and i was saying i

1:11:01

ask you to decide which of these words apply

1:11:03

to you and was it is words don't apply

1:11:05

to you as you as writes that's

1:11:07

the kind of task that would increase in a

1:11:09

be above baseline activity

1:11:12

and in the default mode network there

1:11:16

are other components to this these

1:11:19

are the questions of identity a minute a lot

1:11:21

of that it has a is is

1:11:23

in whole or in part mediated by the

1:11:25

default mode and

1:11:28

it this is what becomes noticeably

1:11:30

quiescent when you are successfully

1:11:32

practicing mindfulness and it becomes quiescent

1:11:35

way in in those experiences

1:11:37

it was psychedelic swear this sense of self

1:11:40

is is transcended ,

1:11:42

a time where linguistic communication

1:11:44

often becomes extremely difficult yeah

1:11:47

yeah but

1:11:49

so what's interesting here is i

1:11:52

think people the

1:11:55

ordinary people who do not take the psychedelic

1:11:57

than have no interest in meditation do

1:11:59

it syrians interruptions

1:12:02

in the sense of self a lot better

1:12:04

go unrecognized and sometimes

1:12:06

they go recognized because

1:12:09

they're there are so called

1:12:11

peak experiences win rate of flow experiences

1:12:14

where you know that dumb don't even the

1:12:16

kinds of experiences you reference to the looking

1:12:18

up at the milky way other than the the most

1:12:21

beautiful encounter with encounter with

1:12:25

story night you have you know in that decade

1:12:27

say you've gone to the place where there's the lease

1:12:29

light pollution and you've got in a cloudless

1:12:32

moonless night and then you'd be point your

1:12:34

gaze skyward and

1:12:36

you get the full experience

1:12:39

that is

1:12:42

there to experience has people tend to have

1:12:44

one eight when they have sought out a peak experience

1:12:46

like that if they're lucky

1:12:49

they really have something like a

1:12:51

moment where they're listed out of themselves

1:12:54

and a retaken just have

1:12:56

something like this breathtaking encounter

1:12:58

with nature and then

1:13:00

all too often that last

1:13:03

see know a second and a half then

1:13:05

they're just talking about it and thinking

1:13:08

about it and trying to get back to

1:13:10

it but they're they're still just jabbering to themselves

1:13:12

and to do it you know whoever is with them very

1:13:15

likely trying to get ahold

1:13:17

of the saying where if you took

1:13:19

mushrooms are he took acid in

1:13:22

that circumstance will then you're linguistic

1:13:24

and you know efforts to to

1:13:26

get this thing in hand are completely

1:13:29

blown over and you have the

1:13:31

full you know multi our

1:13:33

encounter with the thing itself

1:13:36

right and it's you , that's what that's

1:13:38

what's so amazing about psychedelic

1:13:40

so that whoever you warming is let's leave the

1:13:43

of a we be

1:13:48

the the on

1:13:51

or is this of

1:13:54

the data of your

1:13:56

senses and you're in in in particular

1:13:58

the the in circumstance like the

1:14:00

one you described your engagement with

1:14:02

the natural world become so

1:14:06

limited so salient the

1:14:10

the boundary between self and world

1:14:12

is completely overcome i say like

1:14:14

and the energetics of all of that suddenly

1:14:16

becomes very salient was not just like

1:14:19

you're no longer representing yourself

1:14:21

representing also the consequences you know

1:14:23

you know griffiths work and if know someone

1:14:25

has a mystical experience on silverside

1:14:28

than and there are smokers they stop seventy

1:14:30

five percent of the time yeah yeah

1:14:32

like never let my soon so far out of themselves

1:14:35

that even their addictions left yeah

1:14:38

you're right that's quite something be you know

1:14:40

you talk about being possessed by that default

1:14:42

network ought to be possessed by an addiction

1:14:44

like addiction nicotine addiction is something like that

1:14:46

gone wild

1:14:47

nonetheless him going there

1:14:50

apparently

1:14:51

has this transformative capacity

1:14:54

you also see the same thing with treatment for alcoholics

1:14:57

you know i'm in for for years alcohol

1:14:59

researchers have known that the only reliable

1:15:01

treatment for alcoholism spiritual

1:15:03

transformation that hard

1:15:05

nosed empirical research has been wrestling

1:15:08

with that for a long time they

1:15:10

can get it gives you the sense that

1:15:13

the again it a night

1:15:16

i'm not claiming that the the

1:15:18

the you to take vision that one has on

1:15:20

lsd or of psilocybin is necessarily

1:15:23

the the true target state of

1:15:25

one spiritual live images that you know in some

1:15:27

ways i i think it's not it's

1:15:30

, something misleading about it by at a minimum

1:15:33

teasing this this cunt ended

1:15:35

a continuum a positive experience

1:15:37

experience know just have just been flooded with bless

1:15:40

and and completely overcome wings

1:15:43

overcome and encounter with the

1:15:45

present moment where and in and meaning just

1:15:47

as perception of mean whether that meaning can be

1:15:49

rationally justified in the and wrote

1:15:52

is literally you can if you're in the right

1:15:54

state of mind it doesn't matter what you're

1:15:56

looking at it doesn't have to be the milky way you can just

1:15:58

be staring at up staring at puddle

1:16:00

in the concrete in a parking lot and

1:16:02

old son that is the you

1:16:04

know the answer to the mystery of existence

1:16:06

right so in some ways it's it's

1:16:09

it's , easy there's a place

1:16:11

to stand where you can pathologize this

1:16:14

is this per often a of of

1:16:16

meaning but we're leaving out

1:16:18

of subtly done that criticism as that criticism the

1:16:20

experience itself proves

1:16:23

beyond any possibility of doubt it

1:16:25

is possible to have the

1:16:28

utterly transformed mean transform

1:16:30

it is

1:16:34

totally satisfying an encounter

1:16:36

with the present moment that isn't

1:16:38

itself dependence on

1:16:40

anything happening it's it's

1:16:42

a quality of your attention now neuro

1:16:45

chemically that something obviously has to

1:16:47

happen in order to to ,

1:16:49

you to pay attention that fully to anything

1:16:52

but there is a way of granting your attention

1:16:54

to the present moment so that the sacredness

1:16:57

of anything hums fully

1:16:59

interview

1:17:01

okay let me i got a couple of questions

1:17:03

for you on that so let's go back

1:17:05

to this starry night idea so

1:17:08

i want to tell your story was i talking

1:17:10

to my wife today about the fact that i was going to talk

1:17:12

to you because she's been falling your meditation

1:17:15

course but at the same time that

1:17:17

she's done she said

1:17:19

she was she had a medical death sentence

1:17:21

two years ago he a fundamental okay

1:17:24

so she's been through

1:17:26

the variety of forms of hell and has

1:17:28

come up the other side and has changed

1:17:30

in consequences that and

1:17:33

one of the things she started doing as well as

1:17:35

doing your meditation course was using

1:17:38

the rosary so i asked her today

1:17:40

those be talking to the jonathan persia

1:17:43

who's a strong nearly interesting

1:17:46

religious thinker who cars icons he's

1:17:48

a former french canadian young guys very

1:17:50

very deep person in my estimation

1:17:53

in any case she's been praying rosary and i said

1:17:55

okay so while you do that and you listen

1:17:57

to sam's meditations is so how does that

1:18:00

my do the rosary fast well

1:18:03

what do you why why do you do that and

1:18:05

what you to and how do you see related she

1:18:07

said well with rosary so she's

1:18:09

she's concentrating on mary and she

1:18:11

said marisa as a conduit

1:18:13

to christ and oh explain what

1:18:16

she meant by that it's neck but he

1:18:19

he it's a price as she she said

1:18:21

while first it's a practice okay so she does

1:18:24

it every day so it's and embodied practice

1:18:26

right so she says the words and

1:18:28

she moves these beats and so she's moving

1:18:30

your hands and there's divided

1:18:34

into five sections and so when her attention

1:18:36

wanders from prayer it's

1:18:38

, back because there's five sections

1:18:41

might see imagine you have this tendency to wander

1:18:44

off into the default network and but

1:18:46

by manipulating something with your hands ties

1:18:48

you to the present moment they are okay

1:18:51

so it's a meditative practice that

1:18:53

that's more and body been to sitting still

1:18:55

say and see finds that useful and and

1:18:58

while she says the words well we

1:19:00

talk a lot about what these words mean answer

1:19:03

in reference to the starry night for example

1:19:05

there's this series of renaissance paintings

1:19:07

which are quite magnificent that

1:19:09

show an image of mary with her

1:19:12

with twelve stars around your hands

1:19:14

on hands with her foot on a serpent

1:19:17

that's that's an allusion to the garden of eden

1:19:19

because

1:19:21

while eve crushes the serpent beneath

1:19:23

her foot and so

1:19:25

this is relevant to your discussion and

1:19:27

our discussion earlier about the deepest

1:19:29

of all evils

1:19:31

right is that that's a concern of yours has been

1:19:33

a concern of mine what's the darkness possible

1:19:36

place well

1:19:37

the that sneak in those

1:19:39

paintings represent that and that's

1:19:41

why in christianity the snake which is

1:19:43

a predator is associated with satan

1:19:46

right as the as what would you say the emissary

1:19:48

of evil or malevolent something like that

1:19:51

and so because mary has her

1:19:53

head in the stars she can

1:19:55

have her foot on us serpent

1:19:58

and that's part of that matter

1:20:00

the patient and while she does that before

1:20:02

she listens to your meditation but

1:20:05

that's where i see the

1:20:07

the psychological lake let's say cause

1:20:09

you want to put your psyche in

1:20:11

the highest possible place

1:20:13

whatever that isn't and we don't know what it is

1:20:15

exactly but it's something like what

1:20:17

happens when you look up at the night

1:20:20

sky something like

1:20:22

that and if you do that that

1:20:24

means that your foot is symbol tediously

1:20:26

on that serpent

1:20:30

yeah i know i may i don't have any

1:20:33

the facade it's wonderful that he's

1:20:36

using the app and getting some benefit from it i

1:20:39

i love that and is now and my and

1:20:41

adjusted position of of doing the rosary

1:20:43

was doing doing know what i am recommend

1:20:46

any app is not as some

1:20:48

the i'd

1:20:51

as you might think

1:20:53

it is in my my in my view on the i have

1:20:56

either the it's the

1:20:58

there's so much from

1:21:04

there's so much read it so much resonance

1:21:06

between what i think is true and

1:21:08

the kinds of things jesus said

1:21:11

write my own that my my my

1:21:13

issue my my issue with organized religion

1:21:15

every organized religion is

1:21:17

just stead clearly what

1:21:20

we're really talking about the deeper

1:21:23

universal truths about the nature

1:21:25

of of mind right now you

1:21:27

have the weather widget way with with limited to human minds

1:21:30

which is mind itself consciousness

1:21:32

itself and , there's

1:21:34

no culture there's no religion there's no

1:21:37

provincial calls

1:21:40

that has the ,

1:21:43

story and what we really what the really

1:21:45

the burden on us in in in every present

1:21:47

generation the certainly now

1:21:49

in in in twenty first century

1:21:51

where dirt all the barriers

1:21:53

to two to one

1:21:57

universalisation

1:22:00

all the various to improve you're getting information

1:22:02

and translating from other languages all that's

1:22:04

broken down we have we have access to everyone's

1:22:06

ideas right have been one hundred billion people

1:22:09

at a bunch of them have had good idea as a bunch of

1:22:11

them have bad had bad ideas and we

1:22:13

have access to two

1:22:16

thousands of years ago human conversation

1:22:18

a lot of my only argument out what those ideas

1:22:21

were my only argument is that we

1:22:23

should only care about using the best

1:22:26

ideas we

1:22:28

should and we'd we no longer have

1:22:31

the right to in

1:22:33

a deep serious sectarianism

1:22:36

right now we can be as as not to say that you can't be especially

1:22:38

taken with with ,

1:22:41

and the tradition that has grown up around him and

1:22:45

you know you're not you're kind of bored with socrates

1:22:47

and see don't spend as much time with him and that's all fine

1:22:49

but have fine but i have

1:22:51

had traditionally with organized religion

1:22:54

is religion historically

1:22:57

is the only corner

1:22:59

of culture where people

1:23:01

begin saying to themselves into

1:23:03

their children we're

1:23:05

planning totally different game over here this is

1:23:08

not just as it is not a matter of just ideas

1:23:10

and human beings and human conversations

1:23:12

and ordinary books no no

1:23:14

these books were written

1:23:17

by god or so inspired by god yeah

1:23:19

and they , be edited

1:23:21

and ever i think

1:23:24

i ever seems to me that late the

1:23:26

danger and that i'm not disagreeing

1:23:28

with you it

1:23:31

it seems to be the danger and that is that it

1:23:33

it actually minimizes the

1:23:35

problem of atrocity that's associated

1:23:38

with sectarianism because and

1:23:40

admirable perhaps you know and i'll

1:23:42

agree with you awake and heap as many atrocities

1:23:45

as you want on our side of the balance i i will agree

1:23:47

with you as wow okay so this is what

1:23:49

i'm pointing to the because we're

1:23:51

having this discussion in

1:23:53

some ways about sacred sites and

1:23:55

so and then we're talking about

1:23:57

the issue of religion and so

1:24:00

there's a couple of things i want to say about that is

1:24:02

dorothy ascii had it right to some degree

1:24:04

in the grand inquisitor

1:24:07

it goes to do you remember that story the

1:24:09

grand who is it or yeah i've had a adams

1:24:11

is been in many okay now several

1:24:13

decades and actually read the book but while the remarkable

1:24:16

thing about that stories christ comes back

1:24:18

to earth your and

1:24:20

he does the miracles and it's the

1:24:22

church himself that puts him in jail and

1:24:24

then the head of returns comes to the jail and says

1:24:27

what the hell are you doing back here the last thing we need

1:24:29

is here we've got everything sorted out we know what's

1:24:31

going on like we're going to

1:24:33

death tomorrow the

1:24:36

criticism on the lips and the

1:24:38

grand inquisitor turns white

1:24:40

then when he leaves the grand inquisitor

1:24:42

he leaves the door and

1:24:45

that was that so brilliant and you know dostoevsky

1:24:48

was writing at the same time of nature and

1:24:50

had quite an influence on each as it turned out

1:24:53

and but because nasty ascii was writing

1:24:55

fiction he could go places

1:24:58

north the if you couldn't go as a philosopher and

1:25:01

one of the things he was trying to point out was that

1:25:04

despite the proclivity

1:25:06

to totalitarianism that you can

1:25:08

lay at the feet of sectarian religion

1:25:10

the

1:25:13

doors left open

1:25:15

you know all of us have to come

1:25:17

to terms with the fact that our institutions

1:25:20

religious and otherwise tend to ossify

1:25:22

into these totalitarian structures that

1:25:24

are analogous socially i think in some

1:25:26

ways to the default network with you just

1:25:28

described they're trying

1:25:30

to point to something beyond that

1:25:33

but

1:25:34

you know they degenerate and ossify

1:25:36

and then but but then we have to go

1:25:38

underneath out to if we're going to get or criticisms

1:25:40

right because as terrified is

1:25:43

it's reasonable to be about religious

1:25:45

sectarianism and totalitarianism

1:25:48

it's also necessary to remember that

1:25:50

chimpanzees go on raiding parties

1:25:53

there and and killed the neighboring

1:25:55

tribes so to speak and they're not motivated

1:25:58

by religious concerns and so

1:26:00

to put that at the feet of religion

1:26:02

even implicitly i think it's i

1:26:05

understand why

1:26:08

that's an impulse it

1:26:11

doesn't

1:26:12

face the problem deeply enough and it also

1:26:14

obscure as a potential solution i think

1:26:16

because it it can

1:26:17

it tends to throw the baby out with the bathwater

1:26:20

i know you're trying to regain the bayer

1:26:22

not say the baby i know i

1:26:24

i love their baby

1:26:28

the i'm is for me the the

1:26:31

crucial variables that may

1:26:33

come religion

1:26:36

the itself so problematic are

1:26:38

one

1:26:39

the religions and and this is true of the

1:26:42

the abrahamic one say in particular the

1:26:44

, that are focused on a text

1:26:46

writer that can't be edited now ear

1:26:49

for religious moderates and religious liberals

1:26:51

will will with me and i'll say

1:26:54

that the whole tradition is a matter

1:26:56

of mean of reinterpreting

1:26:58

and grappling with the the the

1:27:00

contradictions and need an

1:27:03

is it that an is all very rich discourse

1:27:06

and blah blah blah but that the real

1:27:08

problem is the books themselves

1:27:11

the tray they're merely

1:27:13

human origins on almost

1:27:15

every page you know there's just like either with

1:27:18

the is true of the plays of shakespeare

1:27:20

is true the alien the odyssey it's

1:27:23

true of true of

1:27:25

is true of still staff ski and

1:27:27

is true of the bible right in all

1:27:29

it's parts i so there's just there's

1:27:32

and the you

1:27:34

would you know if you just imagine how

1:27:37

good a book would be could

1:27:39

be but were truly

1:27:41

written or dictated by

1:27:44

a by an omniscient been it's

1:27:47

it's just this trivially easy

1:27:49

to imagine that he ever it's easy to be so

1:27:51

much better than is a impact our sits really

1:27:54

not that easy to translate sorts

1:27:56

of experiences that you're pointing to into

1:27:58

words no no i know

1:28:00

i have it right nobody in but you can

1:28:02

do better , worse well well

1:28:05

well let's talk about that for a minute better and worse

1:28:07

because that's really the that and

1:28:09

and i want to tie this back to your comments about navigation

1:28:12

earlier i'm so you

1:28:14

know we do have and this is perhaps

1:28:16

an issue of definition of getting the definition

1:28:19

stray to get in here we do

1:28:21

have the sense that some texts

1:28:24

are deeper than others after

1:28:26

i don't think it's reasonable to describe out that

1:28:28

you can read a shovel story think well you

1:28:31

know that was shallow and you

1:28:33

can read a deep story and you think that was day

1:28:35

but you don't know exactly what you mean by

1:28:37

shallow

1:28:38

the body so that you're an actor but let

1:28:40

me just add going and one get note here which is

1:28:43

somewhat confounding goes well the oil rich

1:28:45

or santa by psychedelic so it's possible

1:28:48

for you to be bringing the depths

1:28:50

to a text or

1:28:52

to a circumstance or to a puddle in the in a parking

1:28:54

lot that isn't necessarily

1:28:57

their rights to like that like that this

1:28:59

that this is the policy of most modern quandary

1:29:01

yeah like i will ever literally i in a

1:29:03

you any if you're if you're gonna connect

1:29:05

all the dots you know you can him

1:29:07

disappear did in the end of face as a as

1:29:09

a parlor trick just because i wanted

1:29:12

to prove this point is it i literally walk

1:29:14

into a bookstore he and went to the cookbook

1:29:16

i'll the bookstore and randomly chose a cookbook

1:29:19

and opened it i opened it up at random and just

1:29:21

just be dictated just wrote down the

1:29:23

recipe and ,

1:29:25

created a mystical text on the basis

1:29:28

of that recipe imagine by just showed that

1:29:30

this recipe which it was first some hawaiian

1:29:32

cookbook was a walk seared fish

1:29:35

and shrimp cakes or something and

1:29:37

i and the ingredients and that recipe

1:29:40

and whoa they completely can sabeel a

1:29:42

tory mystical text

1:29:45

out of those ingredients now that that was

1:29:47

something i was bringing to the text was no author

1:29:51

creating that doctor

1:29:53

there's clearly a problem in the log ireland

1:29:55

and i mean we're trying to get people can always do

1:29:57

that right so that that is very hard to keep

1:29:59

score

1:30:00

the year ended and to be and

1:30:02

to be rigorous all we can do

1:30:04

is again and again have

1:30:06

this is this experience of you

1:30:08

say something that on

1:30:11

your own side purports to be meaningful

1:30:13

and intends to be meaningful you're trying to convey

1:30:15

something and then i and other

1:30:18

people seem to grasp

1:30:21

what you're communicating and we have

1:30:23

this inter subjective convergence

1:30:25

which has been increasingly satisfying and

1:30:27

he has his are emitted but i do take appointed

1:30:29

earlier i do dostoevsky was right and you know the

1:30:32

brothers karamazov is a deeply

1:30:34

interesting meaningful document at

1:30:37

, so let's take that was that our environment

1:30:40

and because you , your

1:30:42

finger on the postmodern quandary right

1:30:44

because the post modernists in some

1:30:47

sense the reason that they ran into

1:30:49

trouble we assuming

1:30:53

they criticize the notion that there was a canonical

1:30:55

interpretation of attacks because there's so

1:30:58

many subject of interpretations of any text

1:31:01

in , there's a near infinite number

1:31:03

of potential subjective interpretations

1:31:05

of any tax just like there's almost an infinite

1:31:07

number of places you could be looking right

1:31:09

now and so it's a huge

1:31:12

deep problem so

1:31:14

and when you say that you can project something

1:31:17

onto the text that in some sense isn't fair

1:31:19

that's also would have it extremely

1:31:21

deep problem and these neurons are deep

1:31:23

enough you know the fact of multiple interpretations

1:31:26

of a single reality is so pervasive

1:31:29

that it stopped ai researchers

1:31:31

it's the thing that stopped ai researchers

1:31:34

from being able to build functional robots

1:31:37

my gets a killer pariah access

1:31:45

party i think by the merits of your own arguments

1:31:47

that we do have do have subjective

1:31:50

intuition that texts

1:31:52

different depp

1:31:54

and that that means something so i'm going to propose

1:31:56

what it means and you tell me what you think about this

1:31:58

okay the one

1:32:01

of the ways that we specify where

1:32:04

to look at his by

1:32:06

looking at what we deem to be important

1:32:10

so here's a way of conceptualizing now and

1:32:12

it's sort of maps on to the idea of the phobia

1:32:14

extending outward to less high

1:32:16

resolution consciousness so

1:32:20

i write a sentence because i want to write a paragraph

1:32:23

i read a paragraph because i want to sequence paragraphs

1:32:26

into a book or chapter i read chapters

1:32:28

to sequence in them into a book i

1:32:30

read a book because i want to be a practicing scientist

1:32:33

i want to be a scientist a

1:32:36

i to be a i

1:32:38

to be a and i

1:32:41

to be a to the

1:32:46

okay so those are nested value structures

1:32:49

and we see the world through that

1:32:51

structure

1:32:52

simultaneously the whole thing is there

1:32:55

and if one part of it collapses we make

1:32:57

reference to up the part that contains

1:33:00

it that how we don't crash

1:33:02

like a computer

1:33:04

know that now the navigation that

1:33:06

you described these nested

1:33:09

structures they're navigation

1:33:12

maps as far as i can tell you

1:33:14

now okay so here's the depths issue

1:33:17

some

1:33:19

maps more other

1:33:21

maps dependent on them then

1:33:24

other maps do okay

1:33:26

so if i go into your

1:33:29

map structure some of that even

1:33:31

proposition life and i mess about

1:33:33

with

1:33:34

the deeper axiomatic propositions

1:33:36

upon which many other propositions

1:33:38

rest they're not going to disturb

1:33:41

you fundamentally the

1:33:43

not part about experience of death

1:33:46

and you and you know look look you get

1:33:48

much more if you're married and you love your wife

1:33:51

your much more upset if she divorces

1:33:53

you then if you have an argument about

1:33:56

who should do the dishes well

1:33:58

why while because

1:34:00

the stability of your marriage is a precondition

1:34:02

for all sorts of other ways that you perceive

1:34:04

the world and if not violated

1:34:06

well that's dramatic

1:34:08

so

1:34:10

so when we do so and reason i'm

1:34:13

trying to get this clear with us because you think

1:34:15

clearly about these things but also because

1:34:18

it allows

1:34:20

it allows for clarification of language in

1:34:22

some sense so we could say that as

1:34:25

you go deeper into that nested

1:34:27

structure what

1:34:29

you approach becomes more and more sacred

1:34:32

by definition i'm trying to define it

1:34:35

experiences because

1:34:38

leave

1:34:39

so let's say your transformed at a fundamental

1:34:42

level that means something shifts

1:34:44

way down deep the

1:34:46

not how you feel it even him in an embodied

1:34:49

sense and and

1:34:51

what we've defined as as

1:34:53

human beings as religious as far

1:34:55

as i can tell or sacred is

1:34:59

our attempt to define the landscape

1:35:02

that is characterized by those deepest

1:35:04

structures of maps

1:35:07

what you're talking about i think is outside the map

1:35:09

system altogether in some sense

1:35:11

you know it's the container for all about

1:35:15

yeah yeah it is

1:35:17

in some sense because early

1:35:20

it's it's orthogonal to it made it penetrates

1:35:22

at every point but it's not reducible

1:35:25

to it and that's

1:35:28

why so consequential that of for instance i

1:35:31

think you can

1:35:33

i started taking the except

1:35:35

in your your picture of nested maps

1:35:38

and and depth and all that ebay i agree

1:35:40

with all of that a and

1:35:43

maps can be more or less

1:35:45

get useful , more or

1:35:47

less than register with with the the reality

1:35:50

their purporting to describe right i'm

1:35:52

so you can have salty maps and

1:35:55

in science we really try to get an accurate map

1:35:57

and accurate map we have high resolution we

1:36:00

are language game which is

1:36:03

when it's working it optimize

1:36:05

to you know his resurrection fineman famously

1:36:08

said not fooling ourselves raymond as like the

1:36:10

master value of not fooling yourself whereas i

1:36:12

would argue in in religious

1:36:14

discourse not fooling yourself

1:36:16

is not a master value and value and

1:36:19

in a so much of what goes by the name of religious

1:36:21

faith okay for but let me let me put my

1:36:23

own terminology that because you talk

1:36:25

about the

1:36:27

read and and and you accept that

1:36:29

and and you also a dead and

1:36:31

you also see it as river fighting and at

1:36:33

em and crucial to prevent suffering

1:36:36

juxtaposed against religion

1:36:39

and sort of what what's the difference as

1:36:41

far as you're concerned between what sacred and

1:36:43

what's religious yeah

1:36:46

good question was so

1:36:49

maybe the best way to get at it is by reference to

1:36:51

a principle which is

1:36:54

i think what adding anything that's true right

1:36:57

and destroy scientifically prescriptive

1:36:59

late but it's true spiritually and it's true

1:37:01

with respect to anything we would call sacred anything

1:37:04

that's true anything is real the

1:37:06

use discoverable

1:37:08

now right as i get

1:37:11

little like like if we if we lost everything we lost

1:37:13

all the books if we lost all the tools of

1:37:15

we lost everything and we just found

1:37:17

ourselves having to reboot

1:37:20

not only civilization but the

1:37:23

human cognition

1:37:25

everything that is real

1:37:28

the discoverable from

1:37:30

that starting point he beaters even if you're starting

1:37:33

zero again now we would that we would talk about it differently

1:37:36

we would have you know we would we would have memories

1:37:38

of what of what had some of us would have memories of all

1:37:40

the with lost in that would anchor us to certain

1:37:42

expectations lights

1:37:45

the point is what is true what is real

1:37:47

what is what is what is the real opportunity

1:37:50

for direct

1:37:53

self transcended engagement with reality

1:37:56

right what it was a real opportunity for army

1:37:58

taken his absence learning

1:38:01

one matter i really wish me i understand

1:38:03

what you mean i believe but here's

1:38:05

here's potential problem with that

1:38:10

i'm pretty i'm i'm not a limited scale close

1:38:12

to it or possible net understand it's i'm not

1:38:14

saying that we shouldn't stand

1:38:17

on the shoulders of giants and i'm not saying tradition

1:38:19

as useless in fact eighty

1:38:21

i would i would probably agree with you that

1:38:25

that we should be fairly conservative in

1:38:27

how we in in how we overthrow our

1:38:29

traditions and is or not i'm not arguing that

1:38:31

we should just be radical iconoclasts

1:38:33

the tears are it was a tear everything down to the studs

1:38:36

and start again that's how as as our i'm advocate

1:38:38

what what's the difference between what's the difference

1:38:40

in your vision and between that

1:38:42

tradition that you would be conservative

1:38:44

about and religion

1:38:47

i'm not turning the owner you are just too you know the

1:38:49

how you're making the distinct exceptionally

1:38:51

it comes down to to very specific claims

1:38:53

that that i think our clearly

1:38:56

false

1:38:58

in which many of our religions advertise

1:39:00

as not only the important

1:39:02

but indispensable for their projects

1:39:05

so same thing as long as a as

1:39:07

an as an example i'm

1:39:11

in islam mainstream islam

1:39:13

not just al qaeda style

1:39:15

his mom just any islam that really

1:39:17

is worthy of the name and the year twenty twenty

1:39:19

one is founded on

1:39:22

the claim the koran

1:39:24

is the literal word of god

1:39:27

and it is it is not resort is what

1:39:29

what does literal me yet but nobody bit

1:39:32

be in the minds of most muslims most of

1:39:34

the time it means that

1:39:36

these

1:39:38

the standards were dictated

1:39:40

to muhammad is cave by the

1:39:42

archangel gabriel and he was

1:39:44

he was commanded to recite and he recited

1:39:47

them and what we have here is

1:39:49

it in truth the claim that

1:39:51

the the the orthodox claim is is

1:39:54

even more stringent than what

1:39:57

they did they seemingly analogous you know fundamentalists

1:39:59

really the christian claim about the bible

1:40:02

is not just the text itself

1:40:05

it is there's verbatim

1:40:07

what god said

1:40:10

the

1:40:12

that does a document itself is a in

1:40:14

fact the like they lived in

1:40:16

every instantiation of the physical

1:40:18

document is itself the word of god

1:40:20

as i guess it's the sort of a double

1:40:23

layer of sacredness do it why is it

1:40:26

cannot be any of

1:40:28

that claim or is it the problem that

1:40:30

of people who purport to understand

1:40:32

that claim to be one hundred percent

1:40:35

right to know to know the problem is

1:40:37

is that given that claim given

1:40:40

the actual contents of the book the

1:40:43

out you have is in

1:40:45

was source

1:40:49

the vote divisiveness and conflict

1:40:52

like if you dignify that claims okay this

1:40:54

is the most important series

1:40:57

, utterances ever expressed

1:40:59

on earth this , let's

1:41:02

find out what the creator of the what universe wants

1:41:04

us to know what he wants us

1:41:06

to know above all else

1:41:09

is that one we should hate

1:41:11

and fear and despise

1:41:13

and resist and never befriend

1:41:16

unbelievers

1:41:18

that's that's he that

1:41:20

message comes through on virtually every page

1:41:22

and a hell has been prepared for these unbelievers

1:41:25

where their skins will be endlessly burned

1:41:27

off of them and and and replenish

1:41:29

so that it can be tortured a new rights do

1:41:31

you think there's any relationship between

1:41:33

that claim and your observation

1:41:37

the failure to take refuge

1:41:39

in the sacred as new laid

1:41:42

it out do you

1:41:44

to possession by the default yet

1:41:46

work and puts you in was essential else

1:41:48

okay so it is protect it is possible

1:41:51

to give a very enlightened reading

1:41:53

this text or really any text

1:41:56