Knowledge, Truth, and Keeping a Clean Soul
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about the nature of knowledge, and why we can't seem to figure out the most obvious A priori out there, which is why we don't figure out things like 2 + 2 = 4.
Transcript
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I'm sure you've run into this before. We're trying to talk to somebody and explain that
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they're sick, that their method of life is a suicide urge, that it's an ugly rot in their
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soul, and you just can't get it across to them. I had this experience the other day talking to
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an antinatalist on a YouTube comment thread. Well, and he didn't even know he's an antinatalist,
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probably didn't know, just picked up the virus, the meme, the infection from our culture. But I've
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been thinking a lot about that, about the nature of knowledge, nature of communication, and it really
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struck me. Knowledge is revelatory. Our species acquires knowledge through revelation, not
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through reasoning. I know how mad that sounds, but bear with me for a little bit. Because
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we've all done the high school, university, a priori argument. Like, what is a priori knowledge?
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And allegedly, supposedly, and we can all agree, that a priori knowledge constitutes things like
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2 plus 2 equals 4. In theory, a mind existing in a black vast vacuum of nothing could still figure
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out mathematics. In theory, they could even figure out the entire universe if they had enough time and
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enough memory capacity to come up with all of that. And yet, here's the weird thing. Humans don't figure
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out 2 plus 2 equals 4 on average, do we? It's the most obvious a priori out there, that 1 plus 1 equals 2,
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2 plus 2 equals 4. This should be the very basis of a priori. It's the most a priori of a priori,
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and yet very few people figure it out. In fact, there's good arguments that math wasn't invented until
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after we had currency. And ain't that strange? There's tribes in the jungle that can't count past 3.
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3. And what it boils down to is that truth is revelatory for us. Think about it. If we want to
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actually talk about a priori, things that you just know to be true, there are certainly the obvious
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physical ones. Hunger, lust, so forth. But on a deeper level, on an intellectual level, what's a
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priori for a human being? Love is a priori. Righteousness is a priori. Justice is a priori.
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These are things we just know that we already have in our brain. And the most basic of universal a prioris
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are impossible for us to figure out without an external example.
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And now what we've done, the amazing thing about science,
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is that it combines both of these things. You can almost describe it as a meditation over numbers
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A brain that actually operated in this universe, that actually understood the a priori nature of this
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universe, that could think and come up with ideas, should have figured out science a lot faster.
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And I don't just mean the scientific method. But I mean, in 1910, you put a brain that actually
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thinks in that way, in that manner, it should have figured out the next two centuries of science,
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should have been figured out within a few years. Maybe it hasn't done the experiments yet to confirm or
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deny, but it's plotted out the paths. Why is it that we're so unable to plot out those paths?
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Yes, and when you do come up with the scientific discovery,
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something like relativity, that there is no absolute location in the universe,
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So that if you meditate upon the numbers for long enough, the idea pops into your head.
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You don't figure it out logically. None of us do.
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And imagine trying to communicate the message of relativity.
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Or of quantum mechanics. The fact that the universe shatters into a billion possibilities
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every nanosecond. That anything that can happen does happen. The universe is infinite,
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not just in scope, but in possibility. And I'm sure that somewhere such a brain does exist,
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such an a priori brain. But it's not us. And so you wind up with the inability to communicate
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certain things to people. If you went back to ancient Greece and tried to explain about relativity,
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about no absolute position, about the philosophical implications of this, you'd be completely speaking
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over their heads. And when you try and speak to somebody that's spiritually sick,
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Nowadays, we like to describe behaviors as being unhealthy for you. That relationship is unhealthy. That
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lifestyle is unhealthy. Which is a really weird way of describing a sickness of the soul.
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Because for one thing, health is objective. We can all agree on what a heart attack is. A heart
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attack is an objective reality. Obesity is objective. Your physical fitness level is objective. We may
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have debates on whether or not bacon is good for you. You know, I love to harp on that there's
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health benefits to smoking. You know, certainly we can disagree on the facts or agree that we need more
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facts. But ultimately, it's an objective opinion.
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When you do start to see the difference between healthy and unhealthy of the soul, the spiritual
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sickness, and even I'm using these terms, you can start to see the sickness in other people,
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but there's no way to explain it to them. There's a great book that describes this phenomenon.
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Let me just confirm the title. The Wind in the Door by Madeline Lengel, which I might reread the whole
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series. It's been quite some time. It's an amazing, amazing science fiction series. Where
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the young boy in the story, the brother of the sisters, the protagonist, is sick because the
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Ferrandale, these organisms that live in his mitochondrial DNA, are no longer following their
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life cycle. They're not rooting down and becoming mature adults. They're playing at
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at being a teenager their entire life. And as a result, he himself is sick.
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And so these spiritually corrupt people wind up doing things that feel good to them.
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And so you can try and explain that, no, it's not healthy to act like a teenager your entire
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life. That a 20-year-old woman, using her looks to get attention and all the sex she craves,
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that this is going to hurt you in the long run. This is going to destroy and sap you and turn you into
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this ugly little Cro-Magnon creature, that there will be nothing human left to you.
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But she won't believe you. Because in her mind, the life feels good.
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This is where we get to narratives, to stories. This is why our species tells stories.
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Because the story gives you a catharsis. It allows you to have that revelation.
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I mean, the whole feminist issue with women destroying themselves and going mentally ill
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from the constant bad boy sex and no love, it should be bloody self-evident. It certainly is to
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us men, but we're not the women living it, are we?
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Any piece of true fiction has redemptive qualities in it. It has an element in it that allows you to
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achieve some sort of epiphany. Even...and I'm going to use this as an example of very bad fiction. Atlas
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Shrugged is very poorly written. And yet reading it, you get to stare into the souls of socialists.
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There are a lot of problems with that book, but how evil and dark and rat-like the socialists were,
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that's not one of them. That's exactly what they look like on the inside.
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I see people daily with these sad, dark beasts inside of them, and they don't even know that
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they're there. And if you try to tell them that they were there, they'll mistake you for an oppressor,
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or some sort of old curmudgeon-y, fuddy-duddy, or something like that.
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if logic can help you find your soul, what can?
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And the answer is just seeking after the thing. Just seeking after the truth
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And that's all it is. That's what most religions basically boil down to.
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The problem is that this isn't the sort of thing you can put in numbers. It's not the sort of thing you can
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Two POWs in Korea. And they had brutal brainwashing techniques there.
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Well worth studying, so that you know how to resist them yourself, should the day ever come.
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The first one cracks. And they start playing his voice on radio,
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broadcasting it to the United States, going on about how great communism is, and how evil and
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imperialistic Americans are. The other holds true to their oaths.
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They don't crack. And they spend the next 20 years in that camp, forgotten about by their country,
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until finally the world political climate ships, and they're allowed to go back home. A shell of a man
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If it was the first man, it's not because he cracked. It's because he never should have joined the military.
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And if it's the second man that failed, it's because he wasn't ready for the pressures of
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a military that was going to abandon him for 20 years. And yet he followed their dictates anyway.
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And of course you can easily reverse things. That's what I mean about it all being subjective.
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You can't really see another person's soul. You can see their body, and you can see the
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sickness residing in that, and how it infects their soul. But ultimately everybody has their own struggle
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that they have to deal with. Success in your struggle might lead to riches, it might lead to happiness,
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or it might lead to misery in a Soviet gulag. But that seeking after truth, that struggle,
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winning that spiritual struggle, is ultimately the only thing we have in life. Your dignity is the one
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thing that can never be taken from you, if you can only give it away.