The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Biblical Series： The Psychology of the Flood

00:00:00.940 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:57.420 Welcome to Season 3, Episode 6 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

00:01:02.260 I'm Mikayla Peterson, Jordan's daughter.

00:01:05.180 I hope you enjoy this episode. It's called The Psychology of the Flood.

00:01:09.540 We're still in Florida. There are so many mosquitoes here.

00:01:13.500 Dad's doing better again. He started working out, and he's getting stronger.

00:01:17.560 JBP will be back by, hopefully, later in the fall.

00:01:22.140 Maybe a bit later than the fall. We'll see.

00:01:24.700 We're making him take it easy for as long as we can, so he can come back stronger than ever.

00:01:29.760 More updates? Well, I've released a podcast.

00:01:33.020 If you guys are interested, it's called The Mikayla Peterson Podcast.

00:01:37.040 Super original, but hopefully people enjoy it.

00:01:39.720 A tad less intellectual and a lot more casual than this podcast, but I try.

00:01:44.820 Hope you enjoy this episode.

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00:03:58.840 Season 3, Episode 6, The Psychology of the Flood.

00:04:02.940 A Jordan B. Peterson Lecture.

00:04:04.640 So I'm going to launch right into it.

00:04:09.260 I like this story as well.

00:04:12.180 This is the story of Noah and the flood and then the Tower of Babel,

00:04:16.800 which I think are juxtaposed very interestingly.

00:04:20.420 The Tower of Babel is one of those stories like Cain and Abel that's only a few lines long.

00:04:25.040 It's like a fragment in some sense,

00:04:26.740 although the story of Noah is quite a well-developed narrative.

00:04:30.000 But like the other stories that we've covered,

00:04:34.880 it is relevant at multiple levels of analysis simultaneously.

00:04:39.980 And so what I'm going to do to begin with

00:04:42.680 is to start with some background information,

00:04:46.440 so some psychological background information so that the story makes sense.

00:04:52.000 And the first thing that I'd like to make a case for is that

00:04:56.380 you bring to bear on the world an a priori perceptual structure.

00:05:03.400 And that's really an embodied structure,

00:05:06.000 and it's a consequence of the three and a half billion years

00:05:09.480 that you've spent putting your body together,

00:05:12.320 which is a tremendous amount of time.

00:05:14.360 And not only your body, but your mind, of course,

00:05:17.220 because your mind is part of your body and very much embedded within it.

00:05:21.340 You know, you tend to think that you have your brain in your head

00:05:24.220 and it's sort of floating separate from the rest of your body,

00:05:26.960 but it's not really true.

00:05:28.340 You have a tremendous, massive system of neurons

00:05:34.260 running through your entire body, autonomic.

00:05:37.280 There's more neurons in the autonomic nervous system

00:05:39.640 than there are in the central nervous system,

00:05:41.260 so that's a lot of neurons.

00:05:42.380 And then your central nervous system, of course,

00:05:44.740 enables you to exercise voluntary control over your musculature

00:05:48.460 and also to receive information from it.

00:05:51.140 Your brain is really distributed through your body.

00:05:53.060 One of the things you may not know

00:05:55.640 is that people who are paraplegic can walk.

00:05:58.500 If you suspend them above a treadmill,

00:06:00.520 their legs will walk by themselves with no voluntary control.

00:06:03.500 So your spine is capable of quite complex activity.

00:06:06.900 In fact, when you walk, mostly it's a controlled fall

00:06:09.560 and mostly your spine is doing it.

00:06:11.420 And so, anyways, the point of all that is that

00:06:16.260 you don't have a blank slate consciousness

00:06:19.760 that's interpreting a world that manifests itself as segregated objects

00:06:25.020 in some straightforward sense.

00:06:27.880 You have a built-in interpretive system

00:06:30.400 that's extraordinarily deeply embedded and invisible

00:06:34.360 because you might think about it as the implicit structure of your unconscious.

00:06:38.140 It's what gives rise to your conscious experience

00:06:41.440 and it presents you with the world.

00:06:44.620 That's one way of thinking about it.

00:06:46.120 And it's a good way of thinking about it.

00:06:47.400 It's the psychoanalytic way of thinking about it

00:06:49.300 as well as the neuroscientific way of thinking about it

00:06:53.300 because one of the things that's pretty interesting

00:06:54.940 about modern neuroscientists,

00:06:56.420 especially the top-rate ones,

00:06:57.660 and those are usually the ones that are working on emotions

00:06:59.560 as far as I've been able to tell,

00:07:01.700 are often quite enamored of the psychoanalysts.

00:07:06.220 Yach Panksepp was a good example of that

00:07:08.100 because they came to understand

00:07:10.820 that the psychoanalysts' insistence

00:07:12.740 on underlying unconscious personified motivations

00:07:17.280 was actually an accurate reflection of how the brain worked.

00:07:20.420 So to think of yourself as a loose collection

00:07:22.480 of autonomous spirits

00:07:24.920 that's governed by some overarching identity

00:07:27.960 is a reasonable way of thinking about it.

00:07:31.360 The question is,

00:07:33.260 or a question that arises from that is,

00:07:35.640 what is the nature of this a priori structure

00:07:38.720 that you use to interpret the world?

00:07:43.000 And I think the clearest answer to that

00:07:45.260 is that it's a story.

00:07:47.200 That you live inside a story.

00:07:49.320 And that's very, very interesting to me

00:07:51.160 because I believe,

00:07:53.940 and I have a couple of videos that lay this out,

00:07:57.340 I believe that Darwinian presuppositions

00:08:01.800 are at least as fundamental as Newtonian presuppositions.

00:08:06.920 I actually think they're more fundamental

00:08:08.360 and that the fact that we've evolved story-like structures

00:08:13.680 through which to interpret the world

00:08:15.600 indicates to me that there's something deeply true

00:08:19.300 about story-like structures.

00:08:21.160 They're true at least insofar as

00:08:22.980 the fact that we've developed them

00:08:25.300 means that here we are living

00:08:27.280 and that it's taken three and a half billion years

00:08:29.900 to develop them.

00:08:30.740 They're highly functional.

00:08:33.280 And so we don't have much better definition of truth

00:08:36.060 than highly functional.

00:08:37.380 You know, that's about as good as it gets.

00:08:39.400 Partly because we're limited creatures

00:08:41.540 and we don't have omniscient knowledge

00:08:43.920 and so the best we can do with our knowledge,

00:08:46.340 generally speaking,

00:08:47.040 is to note its functionality

00:08:49.020 and improve it when it fails to work properly.

00:08:52.380 I think the scientific method actually does that.

00:08:55.560 And so the fact that we've evolved a story-like structure

00:08:59.040 through which to interpret the world,

00:09:00.900 that's pretty damn interesting.

00:09:02.260 It says something fundamental about stories.

00:09:03.880 And it's strange in the same way

00:09:06.160 that the fact that we have

00:09:08.020 hemispheric specialization

00:09:09.720 for the known and the unknown

00:09:11.020 or for chaos and order,

00:09:13.220 order and chaos, sorry,

00:09:14.800 respectively,

00:09:15.600 also says something fundamental

00:09:17.360 about the nature of the world.

00:09:18.440 If you assume that, you know,

00:09:19.840 we've evolved to reflect the structure

00:09:22.020 of the world, broadly speaking.

00:09:24.140 And that's obviously not just the physical structure,

00:09:27.700 the atoms and the molecules,

00:09:29.060 but all of the patterned manifestations

00:09:31.160 of the physical molecules

00:09:33.160 as they build structures

00:09:34.540 of increasing complexity across time.

00:09:37.140 That would include human interactions

00:09:38.840 and political interactions,

00:09:40.780 economic interactions,

00:09:42.200 familial interactions,

00:09:43.460 all of those things

00:09:44.440 that are a very important part of our reality,

00:09:47.800 but perhaps in some sense

00:09:48.840 not as fundamental

00:09:49.640 as the physical attributes

00:09:52.160 that the visitors concentrate on.

00:09:54.220 So we live in stories.

00:09:57.180 And so I want to talk to you

00:09:59.020 a little bit about stories

00:10:00.180 and about their structure.

00:10:01.740 Because when you understand

00:10:03.160 a little bit about the structure of stories,

00:10:05.400 then a whole array of things

00:10:07.860 about mythology

00:10:08.660 all of a sudden make overwhelming sense.

00:10:11.320 And it's so useful

00:10:12.260 because what you see

00:10:13.740 is that many of the things

00:10:16.000 that are standard occurrences

00:10:18.180 in your life,

00:10:19.760 everyone's life,

00:10:20.700 are portrayed universally

00:10:24.640 in mythology.

00:10:25.680 And it's very helpful

00:10:26.920 because, first of all,

00:10:28.500 it de-isolates you.

00:10:30.640 One of the things you learn

00:10:31.720 as a clinical psychologist

00:10:33.520 contra the anti-psychiatrists,

00:10:36.720 let's say,

00:10:37.620 is that diagnosis

00:10:39.280 is often a relief to people.

00:10:41.420 You know,

00:10:42.000 there's a problem

00:10:42.580 with being diagnosed

00:10:43.400 because then you might be labeled

00:10:44.660 and then the label can follow you

00:10:45.920 for the rest of your life.

00:10:46.860 And once you're labeled

00:10:48.700 as something,

00:10:49.620 then strange things happen

00:10:51.060 around you

00:10:51.540 that often reinforce that label.

00:10:54.200 Maybe you start acting it out more

00:10:55.740 or you adopt it as an identity.

00:10:57.080 But there's a flip side of that,

00:10:58.680 which is that

00:10:59.180 the last thing

00:11:00.460 that you ever want to hear

00:11:01.600 when you go see

00:11:02.400 a physician

00:11:03.320 or a psychologist

00:11:04.680 is,

00:11:04.940 you know,

00:11:06.040 I've never seen a case

00:11:07.240 like yours before.

00:11:09.460 Right,

00:11:10.000 that is not a relief, man,

00:11:11.420 because if

00:11:12.400 the message is

00:11:14.100 I've never heard

00:11:15.120 anything like

00:11:16.300 what you're telling me,

00:11:17.900 the outcome is either

00:11:18.840 going to be

00:11:19.200 not so good for you

00:11:20.240 or you're not going to get

00:11:21.360 listened to at all, right?

00:11:22.480 Because you're such an anomaly

00:11:23.600 that you're actually,

00:11:25.580 your existence is annoying

00:11:27.120 to the integrated knowledge structure

00:11:28.880 of the medical professional

00:11:29.920 that you're attempting

00:11:30.620 to receive advice from.

00:11:32.440 Well,

00:11:32.720 it's definitely the case

00:11:33.680 because, you know,

00:11:35.600 if you can be put in a box

00:11:37.100 then the box

00:11:38.480 tells the doctor

00:11:39.500 what to do with you

00:11:40.860 and that's actually

00:11:41.540 a relief to the doctor

00:11:42.560 but also a relief to you, right?

00:11:44.700 Because you want to know

00:11:45.320 so you come and you say

00:11:46.780 look,

00:11:47.140 I can't go out of my house

00:11:48.640 much anymore.

00:11:49.460 I'm afraid on elevators.

00:11:51.740 I have heart palpitations

00:11:53.380 and I sometimes

00:11:54.020 I end up in the emergency room.

00:11:56.080 Increasingly,

00:11:56.860 my interactions in the world

00:11:59.340 are restricted.

00:12:00.040 I find myself staying at home.

00:12:01.600 I'm afraid I'm going to die

00:12:02.480 of a heart attack

00:12:03.100 and the psychologist says

00:12:04.960 well, you have agoraphobia.

00:12:07.100 It's like lots of people

00:12:08.100 have that

00:12:08.620 and here's usually

00:12:09.960 how it develops

00:12:10.660 and here's the treatment course

00:12:11.920 and, you know,

00:12:12.620 we can probably do something

00:12:13.600 about that

00:12:14.180 and it's like

00:12:14.740 well,

00:12:16.400 you're not going to die

00:12:17.400 of a heart attack now

00:12:18.220 probably.

00:12:18.900 That's a real relief.

00:12:20.040 You're not crazy

00:12:20.920 in a completely unique way

00:12:22.740 and you're crazy

00:12:24.080 in a way

00:12:24.540 that might be

00:12:25.740 treatable, you know.

00:12:27.180 And so it's such a relief

00:12:28.160 because people come in there

00:12:29.240 with a pile of snakes

00:12:30.400 of indeterminate magnitude

00:12:32.620 and they walk out

00:12:33.340 with one manageable snake

00:12:34.800 and it's still a snake

00:12:35.800 but, you know,

00:12:37.000 one manageable snake

00:12:38.260 beats a hydra, right?

00:12:40.960 So,

00:12:42.240 alright,

00:12:42.760 so,

00:12:43.020 back to stories.

00:12:44.840 So,

00:12:46.360 the stories that

00:12:49.340 that we tell

00:12:50.920 and that we live in

00:12:52.760 are fundamentally

00:12:54.440 ways that we deal

00:12:56.420 with the complexity

00:12:57.180 of the world

00:12:57.880 and the fundamental

00:12:59.540 problem with the world

00:13:00.820 as far as I can tell

00:13:03.060 is that not only

00:13:03.900 is it complex

00:13:05.380 beyond your comprehension

00:13:06.580 but the complexity

00:13:08.160 shifts in unpredictable ways.

00:13:11.180 So,

00:13:11.660 that's the Darwinian

00:13:13.360 conundrum actually

00:13:14.220 that's why

00:13:15.520 Darwinism seems to be

00:13:16.840 a practical necessity

00:13:18.480 with regards

00:13:19.580 to the continuation

00:13:20.240 of life

00:13:20.920 because

00:13:21.320 because the complexity

00:13:22.960 changes

00:13:23.720 unpredictably

00:13:24.880 you can't necessarily

00:13:26.600 tell what's going

00:13:27.360 to work in the future

00:13:28.260 and so

00:13:29.200 the Darwinian process

00:13:30.480 solves that

00:13:31.160 by generating

00:13:31.860 quasi-random

00:13:32.960 variations

00:13:35.040 and

00:13:35.500 letting

00:13:36.620 whichever one

00:13:37.360 by happenstance

00:13:38.280 happens to work

00:13:39.180 in that environment

00:13:39.860 survive.

00:13:41.100 Now,

00:13:41.280 it's not

00:13:41.720 random

00:13:42.640 precisely

00:13:43.880 because

00:13:44.320 the underlying

00:13:46.220 structure

00:13:46.740 is conserved.

00:13:47.600 It's very rare

00:13:48.200 that a child

00:13:48.940 would be born

00:13:49.480 with an extra arm

00:13:50.460 or something like that

00:13:51.380 and like the skeletal

00:13:52.780 structure that you

00:13:53.620 inhabit

00:13:54.000 is shared

00:13:55.220 by animals

00:13:56.700 going way,

00:13:57.760 way back

00:13:58.260 in evolutionary history.

00:13:59.360 There's a lot

00:13:59.860 of conservation

00:14:00.420 in the evolutionary

00:14:02.000 process

00:14:02.540 but

00:14:02.800 so there's

00:14:03.560 variation

00:14:04.080 within conservation

00:14:05.180 like music.

00:14:06.240 it's a good

00:14:06.980 it's a good way

00:14:07.660 of thinking

00:14:08.000 about it.

00:14:09.620 So

00:14:09.840 the

00:14:12.280 stories that we

00:14:15.100 tell have exactly

00:14:15.980 the same structure.

00:14:17.040 They

00:14:17.140 have this

00:14:18.880 core element

00:14:21.760 with variations

00:14:22.600 and so

00:14:23.080 all right

00:14:23.400 I'll turn

00:14:24.100 to the stories

00:14:24.720 and so

00:14:25.140 the first problem

00:14:27.140 as I mentioned

00:14:27.960 is a complexity

00:14:29.200 problem.

00:14:29.760 things are just

00:14:31.840 too complicated

00:14:32.680 to get a handle on

00:14:33.700 and that actually

00:14:34.800 has serious

00:14:35.620 consequences

00:14:36.280 because

00:14:36.720 what happens

00:14:37.660 to everyone

00:14:38.160 eventually

00:14:38.600 is that their

00:14:39.240 lives become

00:14:39.760 so complicated

00:14:40.420 that they die.

00:14:42.660 So

00:14:42.800 and that

00:14:43.680 and many

00:14:44.680 terrible things

00:14:45.280 can happen

00:14:45.660 to you on the way

00:14:46.200 to dying

00:14:46.660 as well

00:14:47.120 that are

00:14:47.480 complex

00:14:48.200 complexity

00:14:49.000 related

00:14:50.320 right

00:14:50.680 you can develop

00:14:51.260 a serious illness

00:14:51.900 that you can't

00:14:52.460 get a handle on

00:14:53.140 you can hit a

00:14:54.380 what would you call

00:14:56.180 an impasse

00:14:56.780 in your relationship

00:14:57.600 that you cannot

00:14:58.480 get past

00:14:59.320 and see no way

00:15:00.600 out of

00:15:01.020 that happens to

00:15:01.940 people quite frequently

00:15:02.700 people who are

00:15:03.600 suicidal for example

00:15:04.800 they often feel like

00:15:05.780 they've been backed

00:15:06.420 into a corner

00:15:07.180 that they have

00:15:08.980 no options

00:15:09.640 they have no good

00:15:10.380 options

00:15:10.760 no matter which

00:15:11.400 way they turn

00:15:12.060 there's something

00:15:12.920 terrible to face

00:15:13.740 and they can't

00:15:14.660 see any way

00:15:15.120 out of it

00:15:15.560 and sometimes

00:15:16.980 that's more true

00:15:18.340 than you'd like

00:15:19.140 to think

00:15:19.500 because

00:15:19.820 we also tend

00:15:21.240 to like to think

00:15:22.460 that people's problems

00:15:23.340 are primarily

00:15:23.940 psychological

00:15:24.600 but they're not

00:15:25.440 that's one thing

00:15:26.540 you learn quite

00:15:27.080 rapidly as a clinician

00:15:28.380 is that

00:15:28.880 most of the time

00:15:30.220 people don't come to you

00:15:31.120 because they have

00:15:31.640 mental illness

00:15:32.200 they come to you

00:15:32.820 because they have

00:15:33.320 a complexity management

00:15:34.340 problem

00:15:34.840 their lives have got

00:15:36.200 out of hand

00:15:37.060 on them

00:15:37.680 and they don't know

00:15:38.860 how to get them

00:15:39.400 back under control

00:15:40.320 and so

00:15:41.620 all sorts of things

00:15:42.660 can do that

00:15:43.180 and then of course

00:15:43.740 that can make you

00:15:44.300 anxious or depressed

00:15:45.240 it can trigger

00:15:45.820 all sorts of illnesses

00:15:46.740 but the fundamental

00:15:47.840 problem is still

00:15:48.640 that things have

00:15:49.780 got beyond you

00:15:51.180 and that actually

00:15:52.620 has a psychophysiological

00:15:53.800 cost that isn't

00:15:54.840 merely psychological

00:15:55.860 you have a limited

00:15:57.260 amount of capacity

00:15:58.700 from a resource

00:16:01.100 perspective

00:16:01.700 to deal with

00:16:02.720 emergent complexity

00:16:03.780 it's just not

00:16:05.500 enough of you

00:16:06.180 you'll exhaust

00:16:08.660 your psychophysiological

00:16:10.020 resources

00:16:11.240 if you get into

00:16:12.420 a situation

00:16:13.020 that's too complex

00:16:13.980 well that's what

00:16:15.260 that's what the idea

00:16:17.880 of chaos represents

00:16:18.920 it represents

00:16:19.580 that underlying

00:16:20.260 complexity

00:16:20.840 that can manifest

00:16:21.640 itself at any time

00:16:22.740 and it can manifest

00:16:23.860 itself for example

00:16:24.840 if you're

00:16:25.340 if you wake up

00:16:27.720 in the morning

00:16:28.080 and you know

00:16:28.620 you feel an ache

00:16:29.420 of some sort

00:16:30.080 and perhaps

00:16:30.880 it's nothing

00:16:31.400 and you ignore it

00:16:32.800 but it gets worse

00:16:33.560 and you end up

00:16:34.280 going to the hospital

00:16:35.160 and you find out

00:16:35.900 perhaps

00:16:36.740 for example

00:16:38.060 that you have

00:16:38.500 pancreatic cancer

00:16:39.440 and you're going

00:16:40.160 to live for six months

00:16:41.080 and that's the end

00:16:41.740 of that

00:16:42.180 and so it's

00:16:43.520 it's

00:16:44.160 it's

00:16:44.780 it's at that moment

00:16:45.820 that you break

00:16:46.580 through the thin ice

00:16:47.600 that everyone walks on

00:16:48.740 and you see

00:16:49.640 what's underneath

00:16:50.320 and what's underneath

00:16:51.180 is the ineradicable

00:16:52.600 complexity of life

00:16:54.120 and that's

00:16:55.340 chaos

00:16:56.060 and that's

00:16:57.140 now

00:16:57.600 it's taken people

00:16:59.140 a long long time

00:17:00.320 to get a grip

00:17:02.220 on this conceptual

00:17:04.220 what would you call it

00:17:06.500 conceptual schema

00:17:07.440 and

00:17:09.540 and human beings

00:17:11.100 have done it

00:17:11.760 mostly with image

00:17:12.660 and story

00:17:13.260 before they've been

00:17:13.960 able to do it

00:17:14.480 in any articulated manner

00:17:15.880 and so

00:17:17.220 there are a set of images

00:17:18.540 that represent

00:17:19.400 this underlying chaos

00:17:20.880 and one of them

00:17:22.040 is the dragon

00:17:22.720 of chaos

00:17:23.400 that precisely that

00:17:24.940 and that's the dragon

00:17:26.420 that the hero

00:17:26.940 goes out to confront

00:17:27.800 that's the symbol

00:17:28.620 of the unknown

00:17:29.240 it's the thing

00:17:29.840 that lurks underneath

00:17:30.700 it's the thing

00:17:31.560 that also guards treasure

00:17:32.900 because in the unknown

00:17:33.920 there's possibility

00:17:34.900 also the

00:17:36.200 the water

00:17:37.460 that was there

00:17:38.820 that we talked about

00:17:39.540 in the Mesopotamian

00:17:40.360 creation myth

00:17:41.120 the water that's there

00:17:42.600 at the beginning

00:17:43.200 both the salt

00:17:45.140 and the fresh water

00:17:46.320 is often a symbol

00:17:47.400 of pre-cosmogonic chaos

00:17:49.200 often people have dreams

00:17:51.500 for example

00:17:52.120 some of you have had

00:17:53.000 this dream

00:17:53.380 I suspect you'll dream

00:17:54.400 that you're in a house

00:17:55.680 that you know well

00:17:56.580 and all of a sudden

00:17:57.660 you discover a new room

00:17:58.840 or a set of new rooms

00:17:59.800 or maybe a set of rooms

00:18:01.180 in the basement

00:18:01.780 and often the rooms

00:18:02.700 are not well organized

00:18:04.700 and they're full of water

00:18:05.860 those are very common things

00:18:07.440 and what that means

00:18:08.180 is that you've

00:18:08.960 broken through

00:18:10.560 the constraints

00:18:11.520 of your

00:18:11.960 conscious

00:18:13.200 self-understanding

00:18:14.680 to a new domain

00:18:16.400 of possibility

00:18:18.840 but a new domain

00:18:20.180 that needs a tremendous

00:18:21.040 amount of work

00:18:21.760 it says

00:18:22.140 well here's a new part

00:18:23.100 of you

00:18:23.320 but it's not well developed

00:18:24.960 it's flooded

00:18:26.780 it's flooded with chaos

00:18:28.140 essentially

00:18:28.780 and it's water

00:18:30.240 I think partly

00:18:30.900 because chaos

00:18:31.980 is not only

00:18:32.660 what you fall into

00:18:34.080 when you're

00:18:34.600 not expecting it

00:18:36.080 but it's also

00:18:36.720 the unknown

00:18:37.600 that you confront

00:18:38.420 forthrightly

00:18:39.180 and generate new things

00:18:40.200 out of

00:18:40.560 and water

00:18:41.120 is a symbol of life

00:18:42.020 especially in the desert

00:18:43.040 and of course

00:18:43.720 water

00:18:44.080 life is dependent

00:18:45.200 on water

00:18:45.780 and so

00:18:46.160 water is a natural

00:18:47.760 symbol

00:18:48.700 to

00:18:49.800 utilize

00:18:50.940 when you're talking

00:18:51.920 about something

00:18:52.560 that's life-giving

00:18:53.400 but also potentially deadly

00:18:54.860 because a little bit of water

00:18:56.220 well that's a drink

00:18:57.240 but a lot of water

00:18:58.060 that's a shipwreck

00:18:58.960 right

00:18:59.680 and so

00:19:00.180 and those are the

00:19:01.460 those are the extremes

00:19:02.580 now

00:19:03.420 there are accounts

00:19:05.820 that are sort of

00:19:07.420 subtexts

00:19:08.320 in Genesis

00:19:09.060 and elsewhere

00:19:10.060 in the Old Testament

00:19:10.840 of God

00:19:12.440 conquering a

00:19:14.700 great

00:19:15.640 monster

00:19:16.760 Leviathan

00:19:17.540 or

00:19:17.900 or

00:19:18.900 Behemoth

00:19:19.840 that has

00:19:20.340 these sort of

00:19:21.540 serpentile

00:19:22.300 elements

00:19:23.620 and

00:19:24.440 making the world

00:19:25.660 as a consequence

00:19:26.560 of that conflict

00:19:27.420 so there's this idea

00:19:28.780 that

00:19:29.080 the world creating

00:19:30.680 force

00:19:31.220 which we've talked about

00:19:32.260 as the logos

00:19:32.840 is the thing that

00:19:34.040 continually confronts

00:19:35.260 chaos

00:19:36.100 and that

00:19:37.200 one way of thinking

00:19:38.480 about chaos

00:19:39.100 is as a predatory

00:19:40.420 reptilian monster

00:19:41.700 and often one

00:19:43.000 that lives in the depths

00:19:43.720 or perhaps underwater

00:19:44.820 and part of that

00:19:46.280 I think is because

00:19:47.020 we actually use

00:19:47.960 our predator detection

00:19:48.940 circuit to do this

00:19:49.940 sort of precognitive

00:19:50.880 processing

00:19:51.440 and so the notion

00:19:53.020 fundamentally is

00:19:53.920 anything that threatens

00:19:55.180 you instantaneously

00:19:56.080 is something that

00:19:57.500 your predator detection

00:19:58.420 circuit should be

00:19:59.140 working with

00:19:59.720 it's fast

00:20:01.200 it's fast

00:20:02.820 it's low resolution

00:20:03.860 it doesn't have

00:20:04.760 a lot of ideas

00:20:05.600 but it's really

00:20:07.200 really fast

00:20:07.960 and that also

00:20:08.820 accounts for

00:20:09.480 capability

00:20:10.780 and tendency

00:20:11.600 to very rapidly

00:20:12.520 treat people

00:20:14.020 who upset

00:20:14.680 our

00:20:15.100 conceptual

00:20:16.780 structures

00:20:18.140 as

00:20:18.600 enemies

00:20:20.280 of the predatory

00:20:21.060 variety

00:20:21.580 we can fall

00:20:22.760 into that

00:20:23.200 in no time

00:20:24.560 flat

00:20:24.940 because

00:20:25.520 it's

00:20:25.960 the archetype

00:20:27.280 if something

00:20:28.080 comes along

00:20:28.720 to knock you

00:20:29.740 for a loop

00:20:30.320 it's a shark

00:20:31.580 it's something

00:20:32.060 that lurks

00:20:32.500 under the water

00:20:33.060 it's something

00:20:33.420 that will pull you

00:20:34.040 down

00:20:34.280 it's an enemy

00:20:34.900 and

00:20:35.860 and you should

00:20:37.560 get prepared

00:20:38.100 and that's a

00:20:39.140 reasonable defensive

00:20:39.900 strategy

00:20:40.380 even though

00:20:40.880 it also has

00:20:41.840 its dangers

00:20:42.400 and can sometimes

00:20:43.720 be wrong

00:20:44.280 so

00:20:45.580 the landscape

00:20:47.140 within which

00:20:47.960 we have to

00:20:51.180 erect our stories

00:20:52.100 is fundamentally

00:20:53.780 one of

00:20:54.380 an overarching

00:20:55.860 chaos

00:20:56.360 a chaos

00:20:56.820 that exceeds

00:20:57.380 our capacity

00:20:58.020 to comprehend

00:20:58.660 in any sense

00:21:00.540 individually

00:21:01.560 familial

00:21:02.320 socially

00:21:02.780 economically

00:21:03.420 we're always

00:21:04.540 threatened by

00:21:06.140 the collapse

00:21:06.660 of the structures

00:21:07.280 that we inhabit

00:21:08.000 constantly

00:21:08.940 we have to work

00:21:09.860 well it's like

00:21:10.940 you own a house

00:21:11.580 you know

00:21:11.960 how much time

00:21:13.040 do you spend

00:21:13.420 maintaining a house

00:21:14.460 well a lot

00:21:16.420 and why is that

00:21:17.260 is because

00:21:17.680 the house falls apart

00:21:19.280 because you're stupid

00:21:20.080 and the house

00:21:21.080 falls apart

00:21:21.740 well because you do

00:21:22.500 repairs wrong

00:21:23.240 or you ignore things

00:21:24.200 right

00:21:24.460 and I'm saying this

00:21:25.980 actually for technical

00:21:26.900 reasons

00:21:27.300 the house falls apart

00:21:28.420 because you're

00:21:28.900 incompetent

00:21:29.600 but even if you're

00:21:30.760 competent

00:21:31.120 the house falls apart

00:21:32.020 right

00:21:32.460 it's just entropy

00:21:33.360 and so things have

00:21:34.220 a proclivity

00:21:34.800 to fall apart

00:21:35.500 on their own

00:21:36.080 so you just have to

00:21:36.800 run like mad

00:21:37.600 just to keep them

00:21:38.980 doing what they're

00:21:39.740 supposed to be doing

00:21:40.660 and then of course

00:21:41.780 that is complicated

00:21:42.540 by your own

00:21:43.380 willful blindness

00:21:44.580 and inadequacy

00:21:45.460 as a repair person

00:21:46.480 and refusal to attend

00:21:47.660 and all those other

00:21:48.300 things

00:21:48.580 so

00:21:48.800 and that's a very

00:21:50.440 classic idea

00:21:51.500 which we'll return to

00:21:52.480 one of the ideas

00:21:53.800 that

00:21:54.060 Mircea Eliade

00:21:55.140 famous historian

00:21:58.100 of religions

00:21:58.640 extracted from

00:22:00.980 a very

00:22:01.780 large corpus

00:22:03.140 of flood myths

00:22:04.240 was the idea

00:22:05.600 that the earth

00:22:06.920 is periodically

00:22:07.700 flooded for two

00:22:08.600 reasons

00:22:09.060 one is

00:22:09.800 things fall apart

00:22:11.360 just entropy

00:22:12.460 it's straight entropy

00:22:13.280 it's

00:22:13.620 I don't remember

00:22:14.320 which law of

00:22:14.920 thermodynamics

00:22:15.560 that is

00:22:16.140 but

00:22:16.380 it's one of the

00:22:17.300 big laws

00:22:17.840 of thermodynamics

00:22:18.660 it's one of the

00:22:20.040 top three

00:22:20.640 things fall apart

00:22:21.840 of their own accord

00:22:22.820 and that's one of the

00:22:24.040 things that we

00:22:24.660 have to contend with

00:22:25.860 and then

00:22:26.560 the rate at which

00:22:27.920 things fall apart

00:22:28.900 is sped

00:22:29.740 by the sins

00:22:30.640 of men

00:22:31.300 that's the other idea

00:22:32.760 and you know that

00:22:33.960 everyone knows that

00:22:35.060 because you know

00:22:35.860 you know

00:22:36.640 your car breaks down

00:22:38.040 in the highway

00:22:38.520 and you think

00:22:39.120 God that's so inconvenient

00:22:40.160 and then you

00:22:40.700 you know

00:22:40.960 you shake your fist

00:22:41.700 at the sky

00:22:42.240 and then there's

00:22:42.700 part of you

00:22:43.220 in the back of your mind

00:22:44.480 that goes

00:22:45.340 God you know

00:22:45.980 I knew that rattle

00:22:47.940 that I wasn't paying

00:22:48.680 attention to

00:22:49.340 actually signified

00:22:50.860 something

00:22:51.360 you know

00:22:52.180 and I knew

00:22:53.240 I should have

00:22:53.760 paid attention to it

00:22:54.760 and I didn't

00:22:55.840 and now I'm in the

00:22:56.760 situation that I'm in

00:22:57.640 now

00:22:57.880 and you know

00:22:58.220 I know

00:22:58.840 I bet you this happens

00:23:00.660 to people two or three

00:23:01.600 times a week

00:23:02.220 is they do something

00:23:03.560 stupid that they know

00:23:04.460 they shouldn't have done

00:23:05.200 that they told themselves

00:23:06.320 not to do mere seconds

00:23:07.900 before

00:23:08.520 and they know

00:23:09.460 the voice says

00:23:10.840 don't do that

00:23:11.620 yeah yeah

00:23:12.180 you do it

00:23:13.120 you get nailed for it

00:23:14.440 exactly the way that you

00:23:15.520 knew you would get

00:23:16.180 nailed for it

00:23:16.880 and then you're hurt

00:23:17.700 doubly

00:23:18.740 because not only

00:23:19.780 did it fall apart

00:23:20.660 but you're the idiot

00:23:21.840 that made it fall apart

00:23:23.020 knowing full well

00:23:23.940 that it was going to

00:23:24.540 fall apart

00:23:25.060 and ignoring it

00:23:26.000 and so

00:23:26.280 that's the idea

00:23:27.300 behind the notion

00:23:28.600 that there are two

00:23:29.860 reasons that things

00:23:30.760 fall apart

00:23:31.380 thermodynamic entropy

00:23:33.540 and the proclivity

00:23:35.040 of people

00:23:35.700 not to attend

00:23:36.660 to things

00:23:37.180 they know

00:23:37.640 they should attend to

00:23:38.640 and partly

00:23:39.640 we do that

00:23:40.200 because

00:23:40.520 if a problem emerges

00:23:42.700 it always announces

00:23:43.680 itself

00:23:44.200 unless it's a really

00:23:45.280 really tiny problem

00:23:46.300 and you're approaching

00:23:47.020 it voluntarily

00:23:47.560 it always announces itself

00:23:50.280 with negative emotion

00:23:51.420 and that's part of the

00:23:53.040 predator detection circuit

00:23:54.120 it announces itself

00:23:55.600 in frustration

00:23:56.340 or disappointment

00:23:57.100 or emotional pain

00:23:58.280 or grief

00:23:59.340 or the paramount one

00:24:01.020 anxiety

00:24:01.840 and no wonder

00:24:03.940 because it's a problem

00:24:04.860 right

00:24:05.120 and one of the logical

00:24:06.820 responses

00:24:07.280 is to sort of

00:24:08.000 freeze in the face

00:24:08.840 of the problem

00:24:09.460 but of course

00:24:10.420 if it's a problem

00:24:11.380 that has to be addressed

00:24:12.180 and solved

00:24:12.900 freezing it

00:24:13.740 and turning away from it

00:24:14.920 is not a good solution

00:24:16.200 because

00:24:16.600 since things tend to

00:24:18.020 fall apart

00:24:18.500 on their own accord

00:24:19.380 if you just leave

00:24:21.120 the thing alone

00:24:21.740 that's problematic

00:24:22.740 it's just going to get worse

00:24:24.460 not better

00:24:24.980 which is one of the things

00:24:25.900 that's very annoying

00:24:26.620 about life

00:24:27.300 so for example

00:24:28.520 you know

00:24:28.960 if you get a warning message

00:24:30.640 from the tax department

00:24:32.140 the probability

00:24:33.480 that ignoring that

00:24:34.980 will make it go away

00:24:37.260 is zero

00:24:38.080 right

00:24:38.500 what will happen instead

00:24:39.460 is that the more you ignore it

00:24:40.820 the larger it will grow

00:24:41.960 and if you ignore it long enough

00:24:43.220 then it will turn into something

00:24:44.640 large enough to eat you

00:24:46.180 and that will be the end of you

00:24:47.900 and I read in Harper's Magazine

00:24:49.980 at one point

00:24:50.700 that people would rather be mugged

00:24:53.040 than audited

00:24:53.680 and so

00:24:54.580 I believe that

00:24:55.740 because the mugging man

00:24:56.680 that's over

00:24:57.280 right

00:24:57.500 it's like

00:24:57.840 couple of minutes

00:24:59.480 a sheer terror

00:25:00.380 loss of your wallet

00:25:02.060 the way you walk

00:25:03.000 the audit

00:25:04.560 that's like

00:25:05.280 that's like a

00:25:06.460 semi-fatal disease

00:25:07.980 so

00:25:08.920 so that's chaos

00:25:12.040 now it's the idea here too

00:25:14.480 is that that's the chaos

00:25:15.640 that's

00:25:16.760 the psychological idea

00:25:18.140 is that that's also the chaos

00:25:19.500 that

00:25:19.780 whatever is being represented

00:25:21.460 in Genesis

00:25:22.000 as the spirit of God

00:25:23.340 extracts order out of

00:25:25.160 at the beginning of time

00:25:26.260 and it's also

00:25:27.140 that which we're constantly

00:25:29.000 contending with

00:25:29.840 as we struggle

00:25:31.120 in the same manner

00:25:32.180 to construct and maintain

00:25:33.540 habitable worlds

00:25:34.600 so

00:25:35.680 it's brilliant

00:25:36.760 it's brilliant

00:25:37.560 you know when I first

00:25:38.460 put together the relationship

00:25:40.320 between

00:25:40.880 what Iliad

00:25:42.520 called the pre-cosmogonic chaos

00:25:44.120 and

00:25:44.520 the predatory

00:25:45.600 predatory landscape

00:25:46.700 that surrounded our ancestors

00:25:48.040 and

00:25:48.360 the manner in which

00:25:49.760 we're structured

00:25:50.460 neurologically

00:25:51.240 to respond to all of that

00:25:52.740 I thought

00:25:53.120 it was

00:25:53.720 it was like

00:25:54.440 an amazing epiphany

00:25:56.300 because

00:25:56.640 it's self-evidently

00:25:58.080 the case

00:25:58.700 that the world

00:25:59.700 is too complicated

00:26:00.420 for us to deal with

00:26:01.420 and that's one of the problems

00:26:02.360 that we face

00:26:02.940 on an ongoing basis

00:26:04.680 going online

00:26:06.720 without ExpressVPN

00:26:07.700 is like not paying attention

00:26:09.120 to the safety demonstration

00:26:10.160 on a flight

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00:26:11.980 you'll probably be fine

00:26:13.180 but

00:26:13.580 what if one day

00:26:14.520 that weird yellow mask

00:26:15.760 drops down from overhead

00:26:16.780 and you have no idea

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00:26:46.120 who'd want my data anyway

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00:30:07.440 elevate your prayer

00:30:08.920 life today

00:30:09.640 welcome to season three

00:30:16.280 episode six

00:30:17.220 of the jordan b peterson

00:30:18.540 podcast

00:30:19.000 i'm mikayla peterson

00:30:20.980 jordan's daughter

00:30:21.840 i hope you enjoy

00:30:23.520 this episode

00:30:24.220 it's called

00:30:24.940 the psychology

00:30:25.640 of the flood

00:30:26.380 we're still in florida

00:30:28.180 there are so many

00:30:29.540 mosquitoes here

00:30:30.460 dad's doing better

00:30:31.920 again

00:30:32.360 he started working

00:30:33.460 out and he's

00:30:34.380 getting stronger

00:30:35.260 jbp will be back

00:30:37.100 by hopefully

00:30:38.240 later in the fall

00:30:39.300 maybe a bit later

00:30:40.720 than the fall

00:30:41.260 we'll see

00:30:41.740 we're making him

00:30:42.900 take it easy

00:30:43.440 for as long as we

00:30:44.220 can so he can

00:30:45.060 come back stronger

00:30:45.940 than ever

00:30:46.460 more updates

00:30:48.320 well

00:30:48.920 i've released a

00:30:49.880 podcast

00:30:50.480 if you guys are

00:30:51.200 interested

00:30:51.560 it's called

00:30:52.160 the mikayla peterson

00:30:53.520 podcast

00:30:54.200 super original

00:30:55.460 but hopefully

00:30:56.200 people enjoy it

00:30:57.060 a tad less

00:30:58.220 intellectual

00:30:58.700 and a lot more

00:30:59.460 casual than this

00:31:00.440 podcast

00:31:01.040 but i try

00:31:01.780 hope you enjoy

00:31:03.020 this episode

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00:33:12.380 season 3 episode 6

00:33:18.560 the psychology of the

00:33:19.980 flood a jordan b

00:33:21.360 peterson lecture

00:33:22.240 so i'm going to

00:33:25.980 launch right into it

00:33:26.860 i like this story as

00:33:29.260 well this is the

00:33:30.520 story of noah and

00:33:31.500 the flood and then

00:33:32.900 the tower of babel

00:33:33.900 which i think are

00:33:35.760 juxtaposed very

00:33:36.920 interestingly the

00:33:38.180 tower of babel is one

00:33:39.320 of those stories like

00:33:40.220 cain and abel that's

00:33:41.020 only a few lines long

00:33:42.280 it's like a fragment

00:33:43.580 in some sense although

00:33:44.560 the story of noah is

00:33:46.020 quite a well-developed

00:33:47.300 narrative but like

00:33:49.980 the other stories that

00:33:50.880 we've covered it is

00:33:53.980 relevant at multiple

00:33:54.900 levels of analysis

00:33:55.820 simultaneously and

00:33:57.700 so what i'm going to

00:33:59.440 do to begin with is

00:34:01.740 to start with some

00:34:02.680 background information

00:34:04.060 so some psychological

00:34:05.560 background information

00:34:06.960 so that the story makes

00:34:09.100 sense and the first

00:34:10.520 thing that i'd like to

00:34:11.740 i'd like to make a

00:34:13.000 case for is that

00:34:13.980 the you bring to

00:34:17.500 bear on the world

00:34:18.360 an a priori perceptual

00:34:20.480 structure and that's

00:34:22.460 really an embodied

00:34:23.100 structure and it's a

00:34:24.200 consequence of the

00:34:25.740 three and a half

00:34:26.320 billion years that

00:34:27.520 you've spent putting

00:34:28.780 your body together

00:34:29.780 which is a tremendous

00:34:30.800 amount of time and

00:34:32.020 not only your body but

00:34:33.780 your mind of course

00:34:34.760 because your mind is

00:34:36.020 part of your body and

00:34:36.980 very much embedded

00:34:38.300 within it you know you

00:34:39.460 tend to think that you

00:34:40.420 have your brain in your

00:34:41.600 head and it's sort of

00:34:42.620 floating separate from

00:34:43.740 the rest of your body

00:34:44.540 but it's not really

00:34:45.520 true you're tremendous

00:34:47.340 massive system of neurons

00:34:51.960 running through your

00:34:52.680 entire body autonomic

00:34:54.720 there's more neurons in

00:34:56.140 the autonomic nervous

00:34:56.980 system than they're on

00:34:57.760 the central nervous system

00:34:58.840 so that's a lot of

00:34:59.600 neurons and then your

00:35:01.040 central nervous system of

00:35:02.100 course enables you to

00:35:03.200 exercise voluntary control

00:35:05.100 over your musculature and

00:35:06.840 also to receive

00:35:07.860 information from it

00:35:08.760 your brain is really

00:35:09.520 distributed through your

00:35:10.440 body one of the things

00:35:12.060 you may not know is

00:35:13.480 that people who are

00:35:14.720 paraplegic can walk if

00:35:16.160 you if you suspend them

00:35:17.320 above a treadmill their

00:35:18.280 legs will walk by

00:35:19.160 themselves with no

00:35:20.060 voluntary control so

00:35:21.260 your spine is capable of

00:35:23.100 quite complex activity in

00:35:24.660 fact when you walk

00:35:25.420 mostly it's a controlled

00:35:26.800 fall and mostly your

00:35:27.900 spine is doing it and

00:35:29.060 so so anyways the point

00:35:33.040 of all that is that you

00:35:35.260 don't have a blank slate

00:35:36.700 consciousness that's

00:35:38.540 interpreting a world

00:35:40.160 that manifests itself as

00:35:41.560 segregated objects in some

00:35:43.680 straightforward sense you

00:35:45.620 have a built-in

00:35:46.980 interpretive system that's

00:35:48.440 extraordinarily deeply

00:35:49.800 embedded and invisible

00:35:52.020 because you might think

00:35:53.400 about it as the implicit

00:35:54.400 structure of your

00:35:55.280 unconscious it's it what

00:35:56.960 it's what gives rise to

00:35:58.100 your conscious experience

00:35:59.080 and and it presents you

00:36:01.200 with the world that that's

00:36:02.640 one way of thinking

00:36:03.320 about it and it's a good

00:36:04.180 way of thinking about it

00:36:05.020 the psychoanalytic way of

00:36:06.260 thinking about it as well

00:36:07.640 as the neuroscientific way

00:36:09.200 of thinking about it

00:36:10.940 because one of the things

00:36:11.740 that's pretty interesting

00:36:12.580 about modern

00:36:13.240 neuroscientists especially

00:36:14.320 the top-rate ones and

00:36:15.420 those are usually the ones

00:36:16.220 that are working on

00:36:16.840 emotions as far as I've

00:36:17.940 been able to tell are

00:36:19.640 are often quite enamored

00:36:22.640 of the psychoanalysts

00:36:23.820 Yach Panksepp was a good

00:36:25.000 example of that because

00:36:26.080 they came to understand

00:36:28.500 that the psychoanalysts

00:36:29.700 insistence on underlying

00:36:32.480 unconscious personified

00:36:34.280 motivations was actually

00:36:35.660 an accurate reflection of

00:36:36.760 how the brain worked

00:36:37.640 and sort of think of

00:36:38.680 yourself as a loose

00:36:39.600 collection of autonomous

00:36:41.900 spirits that's governed by

00:36:43.540 some overarching identity

00:36:45.600 is is is a reasonable way

00:36:47.180 of thinking about it

00:36:48.020 the the question is or a

00:36:51.200 question that arises from

00:36:52.440 that is what is the nature

00:36:54.420 of this a priori structure

00:36:56.360 that you use to interpret

00:36:59.360 the world and I think the

00:37:01.540 clearest answer to that is

00:37:03.040 that it's a story that you

00:37:05.180 live inside the story and

00:37:07.180 that's very very interesting

00:37:08.420 to me because I believe I

00:37:12.140 have a couple of videos that

00:37:13.640 lay this out I believe that

00:37:15.740 Darwinian presuppositions are

00:37:21.460 at least as fundamental as

00:37:22.780 Newtonian presuppositions I

00:37:24.740 actually think they're more

00:37:25.520 fundamental and that the fact

00:37:28.700 that we've evolved story like

00:37:30.720 structures through which to

00:37:32.300 interpret the world indicates

00:37:34.400 to me that there's something

00:37:36.140 deeply true about story like

00:37:37.960 structures but they're true at

00:37:39.620 least insofar as the fact that

00:37:41.960 we've developed them means that

00:37:43.740 here we are living and that it's

00:37:46.120 taken three and a half billion

00:37:47.260 years to develop them they're

00:37:48.520 highly functional and so we

00:37:51.920 don't have much better

00:37:52.680 definition of truth than highly

00:37:54.240 functional you know that that's

00:37:55.620 about as good as it gets partly

00:37:57.360 because we're limited creatures and

00:37:59.460 we don't have omniscient knowledge

00:38:01.560 and so the best we can do with our

00:38:03.540 knowledge generally speaking is to

00:38:05.120 note its functionality and improve it

00:38:08.180 when it fails to work properly I think

00:38:10.420 the scientific method actually does that

00:38:12.240 and so the fact that we've evolved a

00:38:15.780 story-like structure through which to

00:38:17.340 interpret the world that's pretty damn

00:38:19.320 interesting it says something

00:38:20.460 fundamental about stories and it's

00:38:21.780 it's strange in the same way that the

00:38:24.660 fact that we have hemispheric

00:38:26.520 specialization for the known and the

00:38:28.200 unknown or for chaos and order order

00:38:31.180 and chaos or a respectively also says

00:38:33.900 something fundamental about the nature

00:38:35.700 of the world if you assume that you

00:38:37.320 know we've evolved to reflect the

00:38:39.200 structure of the world broadly speaking

00:38:41.820 and that's obviously not just the

00:38:43.360 physical structure the atoms and the

00:38:46.020 molecules but all of the pattern

00:38:48.000 manifestations of the physical

00:38:50.340 molecules as they build structures of

00:38:52.320 increasing complexity across time that

00:38:55.140 would include human interactions and

00:38:56.700 all of and political interactions

00:38:58.260 economic interactions familial

00:39:00.240 interactions all of those things that

00:39:02.160 are a very important part of our

00:39:04.860 reality but perhaps in some sense not as

00:39:06.760 fundamental as the physical

00:39:08.940 attributes that the visitors

00:39:10.500 concentrate on so we live in stories

00:39:12.960 and so I want to talk to you a little

00:39:16.860 bit about stories and about their

00:39:18.420 structure because when you

00:39:20.100 understand a little bit about the

00:39:22.140 structure of stories then a whole

00:39:24.000 array of things about mythology all of a

00:39:26.640 sudden make overwhelming sense and it's

00:39:29.100 so useful because what you see is that

00:39:31.860 many of the things that are standard

00:39:35.100 occurrences in your life everyone's life

00:39:38.220 are portrayed universally in mythology and

00:39:43.320 and it's very helpful because first of

00:39:45.580 all it de-isolates you one of the

00:39:48.660 things you learn as a clinical

00:39:50.520 psychologist contra the anti-psychiatrists

00:39:54.180 let's say is that diagnosis is often a

00:39:57.840 relief to people you know there's a

00:39:59.940 problem with being diagnosed because

00:40:01.380 then you might be labeled and then the

00:40:02.700 label can follow you for the rest of your

00:40:04.200 life and once you're labeled as

00:40:06.600 something then strange things happen

00:40:08.700 around you that so often reinforce that

00:40:11.040 label maybe you start acting it out

00:40:12.960 more or you adopt it as an identity but

00:40:14.760 there's a flip side of that which is

00:40:16.560 that the last thing that you ever want

00:40:18.840 to hear when you go see a physician or

00:40:21.360 psychologist is you know I've never seen

00:40:24.420 a case like yours before right that is

00:40:27.900 not a relief man because if the message

00:40:31.440 is I've never heard anything like what

00:40:34.160 you're telling me the outcome is either

00:40:36.380 going to be not so good for you or you're

00:40:38.540 not going to get listened to at all right

00:40:40.040 because you're such an anomaly that

00:40:41.480 you're you're actually in your existence

00:40:44.060 is annoying to the integrated knowledge

00:40:46.100 structure of the medical professional

00:40:47.600 that you're attempting to receive

00:40:49.040 advice from well it's definitely the case

00:40:51.080 because they didn't you know if you can

00:40:53.840 be put in a box then the box tells the

00:40:56.660 doctor what to do with you and that's

00:40:58.760 actually a relief to the doctor but also a

00:41:01.220 relief to you right because you want to

00:41:02.780 know so you come and you say look I

00:41:04.820 can't go out of my house much anymore

00:41:06.740 I'm afraid on elevators I have heart

00:41:10.340 palpitations and I sometimes I end up in

00:41:12.140 the emergency room increasingly my

00:41:14.600 interactions in the world are restricted I

00:41:17.660 find myself staying at home afraid I'm

00:41:19.640 going to die of a heart attack and the

00:41:21.560 psychologist says well you have

00:41:23.400 agoraphobia it's like lots of people

00:41:25.760 have that and here's usually how it

00:41:27.860 develops and here's the treatment course

00:41:29.480 and you know we can probably do

00:41:30.920 something about that and it's like well

00:41:33.620 you're not going to die of a heart

00:41:35.300 attack now probably that's a real

00:41:37.040 relief you're not crazy in a completely

00:41:39.440 unique way and you're crazy in a way

00:41:42.080 that might be treatable you know and

00:41:44.900 it's such a relief because people come

00:41:46.640 in there with a pile of snakes of

00:41:48.800 indeterminate magnitude and they walk out

00:41:50.900 with one manageable snake and it's still a

00:41:53.060 snake but you know one manageable snake

00:41:55.820 beats a hydra right so all right so so

00:42:00.920 back back to stories so the stories

00:42:06.680 that that we tell and that we live in

00:42:10.280 are fundamentally ways that we deal with

00:42:14.180 the complexity of the world and the

00:42:16.640 fundamental problem with the world as

00:42:19.940 far as I can tell is that not only is it

00:42:21.800 complex beyond your comprehension but

00:42:24.980 the complexity shifts in unpredictable

00:42:27.140 ways so that's the Darwinian conundrum

00:42:31.460 actually that's why Darwinism seems to

00:42:34.280 be a practical necessity with regards to

00:42:37.340 the continuation of life because because

00:42:39.920 the complexity changes unpredictably you

00:42:43.060 can't necessarily tell what's going to

00:42:45.080 work in the future and so the

00:42:47.280 Darwinian process solves that by

00:42:48.920 generating quasi random variations and

00:42:53.060 letting whichever one by happenstance

00:42:55.520 happens to work in that environment

00:42:57.140 survive now it's not random precisely

00:43:01.580 because the underlying structure is

00:43:04.520 conserved it's very rare that a child

00:43:06.560 would be born with an extra arm or

00:43:08.180 something like that and like the

00:43:09.800 skeletal structure that you inhabit is

00:43:11.840 shared by animals going way way back in

00:43:15.980 evolutionary history there's a lot of

00:43:17.540 conservation and in the evolutionary

00:43:19.700 process but so there's variation within

00:43:21.980 conservation like music it's a good it's

00:43:24.860 a good way of thinking about it so the

00:43:29.760 the stories that we tell have exactly the

00:43:33.780 same structure they they have this this

00:43:38.480 core element with variations and so are

00:43:40.880 it I'll turn to the stories and so the

00:43:43.940 first problem as I mentioned is come a

00:43:46.280 complexity problem things are just too

00:43:49.640 complicated to get a handle on and that

00:43:52.040 actually has serious consequences

00:43:53.600 because what happens to everyone

00:43:55.700 eventually is that their lives become so

00:43:57.560 complicated that they die so and that and

00:44:01.540 that and many terrible things can happen

00:44:03.320 you on the way to dying as well that are

00:44:05.060 complex complexity related right you can

00:44:08.600 develop a serious illness that you can't

00:44:10.040 get a handle on you can hit a what would

00:44:13.520 you call an impasse in your relationship

00:44:15.200 that you cannot get past and see no way

00:44:18.080 out of that happens to people quite

00:44:19.880 frequently people who are suicidal for

00:44:22.040 example they often feel like they've been

00:44:23.720 backed into a corner that no that they

00:44:26.360 have no options they have no good options no

00:44:28.520 matter which way they turn there's

00:44:30.260 something terrible to face and they can't

00:44:32.180 see any way out of it and sometimes that's

00:44:34.840 more true than you'd like to think because

00:44:37.340 we also tend to like to think that people's

00:44:40.460 problems are primarily psychological but

00:44:42.560 they're not that that's one thing you

00:44:44.240 learn quite rapidly as a clinician is

00:44:46.280 that most of the time people don't come

00:44:48.500 to you because they have mental illness

00:44:49.580 they come to you because they have a

00:44:50.960 complexity management problem their

00:44:52.960 lives have got out of hand on them and

00:44:55.460 they don't know how to get them back

00:44:57.140 under control and so all sorts of things

00:45:00.260 can do that and then of course that can

00:45:01.640 make you anxious or depressed it can

00:45:03.140 trigger all sorts of illnesses but the

00:45:05.020 fundamental problem is still that things

00:45:07.040 have got beyond you and that actually has

00:45:10.400 a psychophysiological cost that isn't

00:45:12.440 merely psychological you have a limited

00:45:14.960 amount of capacity from from from a

00:45:18.260 resource perspective to deal with

00:45:20.300 emergent complexity you just it's just

00:45:22.880 not enough of you you just you'll

00:45:25.280 exhaust your psychophysiological

00:45:27.720 resources if you get into a situation

00:45:30.380 that's too complex well that's what this

00:45:34.460 that's what the idea of chaos

00:45:35.840 represents it represents that

00:45:37.460 underlying complexity that can

00:45:38.900 manifest itself at any time and it can

00:45:41.120 manifest itself for example if you're

00:45:42.860 if you wake up in the morning and you

00:45:46.100 know you feel an ache of some sort and

00:45:47.840 perhaps it's nothing and you ignore it

00:45:50.360 but it gets worse and you end up going

00:45:52.280 to the hospital and you find out perhaps

00:45:54.200 for example that you have pancreatic

00:45:56.300 cancer and you're going to live for six

00:45:58.400 months and that's the end of that and

00:45:59.960 so it's it's it's it's at that moment

00:46:03.320 that you break through the thin ice that

00:46:05.360 everyone walks on and you see what's

00:46:07.520 underneath and what's underneath is the

00:46:09.320 in eradicable complexity of life and

00:46:11.920 that's chaos and that's now it's taken

00:46:16.460 people a long long time to get a grip on

00:46:19.980 this conceptuals what would you call it

00:46:24.080 conceptual schema and and human beings

00:46:28.700 have done it mostly with image and story

00:46:30.800 before they've been able to do it in any

00:46:32.420 articulated manner and so there are set

00:46:35.720 of images that represent this

00:46:37.400 underlying chaos and one of them is the

00:46:39.980 dragon of chaos that that precisely

00:46:42.260 that and that's the dragon that the

00:46:44.300 hero goes out to confront that's the

00:46:45.920 symbol of the unknown it's the thing

00:46:47.420 that lurks underneath it's the thing that

00:46:49.300 also guards treasure because in the

00:46:51.140 unknown there's possibility also the the

00:46:54.680 water that that was there that we

00:46:56.660 talked about in the Mesopotamian

00:46:57.980 creation myth the water that's there at

00:47:00.320 the beginning both the salt and the

00:47:03.080 freshwater is often a symbol of

00:47:05.180 pre-cosmogonic chaos often people have

00:47:08.720 dreams for example some of you have had

00:47:10.580 this dream I suspect you'll dream that

00:47:12.020 you're in a house that you know well and

00:47:14.840 all of a sudden you discover a new room

00:47:16.400 or a set of new rooms or maybe a set of

00:47:18.500 rooms in the basement and often the

00:47:20.040 rooms are are not well organized and

00:47:22.580 they're full of water those are very

00:47:24.380 common things and what that means is

00:47:25.940 that you've broken through the

00:47:28.400 constraints of your conscious

00:47:30.800 self-understanding to a new domain of

00:47:34.280 of possibility but a new domain that

00:47:37.940 needs a tremendous amount of work it

00:47:39.500 says well here's a new part of you but

00:47:41.120 it's not well developed there's there's

00:47:43.460 it's flooded it's flooded with chaos

00:47:45.620 essentially and it's water I think

00:47:48.200 partly because chaos is not only what you

00:47:50.660 fall into when you're not expecting it

00:47:53.660 but it's also the unknown that you

00:47:55.580 confront forthrightly and generate new

00:47:57.500 things out of and water is a symbol of

00:47:59.420 life especially in the desert of course

00:48:01.340 water life is dependent on water and so

00:48:03.740 water is a natural symbol to utilize when

00:48:09.020 you're talking about something that's

00:48:10.400 life-giving but also potentially deadly

00:48:12.540 because a little bit of water well

00:48:14.300 that's a drink but a lot of water

00:48:15.620 that's a shipwreck right and so and

00:48:18.260 those are the those are the extremes now

00:48:20.900 now there are accounts that are sort of

00:48:24.980 subtexts in Genesis and elsewhere in the

00:48:27.920 Old Testament of God conquering a great

00:48:33.140 monster Leviathan or or a behemoth that

00:48:37.620 has these sort of serpentile elements and

00:48:42.020 making the world as a consequence of that

00:48:44.480 conflict so there's this idea that the

00:48:46.820 the world creating force which we've

00:48:49.340 talked about as the logos is the thing

00:48:51.440 that continually confronts chaos and

00:48:54.080 that one way of thinking about chaos is as a

00:48:57.140 predatory reptilian monster and often

00:49:00.440 one that lives in the depths or perhaps

00:49:01.700 underwater and part of that I think is

00:49:04.320 because we actually use our predator

00:49:06.140 detection circuit to do this sort of

00:49:07.820 precognitive processing and so that the

00:49:10.320 notion fundamentally is anything that

00:49:12.440 threatens you instantaneously is something

00:49:14.960 that your predator detection circuit should

00:49:16.640 be working with it's fast it's it's

00:49:19.760 it's fast it's low resolution it

00:49:21.920 doesn't have a lot of ideas but it's

00:49:24.440 really really fast and that also

00:49:26.360 accounts for capability and tendency to

00:49:29.420 very rapidly treat people who upset our

00:49:32.540 conceptual structures as enemies of the

00:49:38.200 predatory variety we can fall into that in

00:49:41.700 no time flat because it's it's the

00:49:44.280 archetype if something comes along to

00:49:46.800 knock you for a loop it's a shark it's

00:49:49.380 something that lurks under the water

00:49:50.460 something that will pull you down it's

00:49:52.080 an enemy and and you should get prepared

00:49:55.500 and that's a reasonable defensive

00:49:57.580 strategy even though it also has its

00:49:59.580 dangers and can sometimes be wrong so the

00:50:04.140 landscape within which we have to erect our

00:50:09.240 stories is fundamentally one of an

00:50:12.840 overarching chaos a chaos that exceeds

00:50:15.000 our capacity to comprehend in in any

00:50:17.760 sense individually familial socially

00:50:20.460 economically we're always threatened by

00:50:23.700 the collapse of the structures that we

00:50:25.200 inhabit constantly we have to work well

00:50:28.260 it's like you own a house you know how

00:50:29.880 much time do you spend maintaining a

00:50:31.620 house well a lot and why is that is

00:50:34.980 because the house falls apart because

00:50:37.020 you're stupid and the house falls apart

00:50:39.180 well because you do repairs wrong or you

00:50:41.100 ignore things right and I'm saying this

00:50:43.560 actually for technical reasons the

00:50:45.300 house falls apart because you're

00:50:46.500 incompetent but even if you're

00:50:48.360 competent the house falls apart right

00:50:50.040 it's just entropy and so things have a

00:50:51.840 proclivity to fall apart on their own so

00:50:53.880 you just have to run like mad just to

00:50:56.040 keep them doing what they're supposed to

00:50:57.780 be doing and then of course that is

00:50:59.700 complicated by your own willful blindness

00:51:02.280 and inadequacy as a repair person and

00:51:04.240 refusal to attend and all those other

00:51:05.760 things so so and that's a very classic

00:51:08.340 idea which will return to one of the

00:51:11.100 ideas that that Mircea Eliade a famous

00:51:15.300 historian of religions extracted from a

00:51:18.720 very large corpus of flood myths was the

00:51:22.800 idea that the earth is periodically

00:51:25.320 flooded for two reasons one is things

00:51:28.020 fall apart just entropy it's straight

00:51:30.540 entropy it's I don't remember which law of

00:51:32.400 thermodynamics that is but it's one of

00:51:34.800 the big laws of thermodynamics let's

00:51:36.660 it's one of the top three man things

00:51:38.880 fall apart of their own accord and

00:51:41.100 that's one of the things that we have to

00:51:42.960 contend with and then the rate at which

00:51:45.420 things fall apart is sped by the sins of

00:51:48.420 men that's the other idea and you know

00:51:51.240 that everyone knows that because you know

00:51:53.220 you know you know your car breaks down in

00:51:55.740 the highway and you think god that's so

00:51:57.300 inconvenient and then you you know you

00:51:58.740 shake your fist at the sky and then

00:52:00.120 there's part of you in the back of your

00:52:01.860 mind that goes god you know I knew that

00:52:05.040 rattle that I wasn't paying attention to

00:52:06.840 actually signified something you know and

00:52:10.020 I knew I should have paid attention to it and I

00:52:12.960 didn't and now I'm in the situation that I'm

00:52:15.060 in now and you know I know I bet you this

00:52:17.940 happens to people two or three times a week

00:52:19.680 is they do something stupid that they

00:52:21.840 know they shouldn't have done that they

00:52:23.100 told themselves not to do mere seconds

00:52:25.560 before and they know the voice says

00:52:28.380 don't do that yeah yeah you do it you

00:52:31.140 get nailed for it exactly the way that

00:52:32.940 you knew you would get nailed for it and

00:52:34.740 then you're hurt doubly because not only

00:52:37.380 did it fall apart but you're the idiot that

00:52:39.660 made it fall apart knowing full well that

00:52:41.700 was going to fall apart and ignoring it

00:52:43.560 and so that's the idea behind the notion

00:52:46.260 that there are two reasons that things

00:52:48.300 fall apart thermodynamic entropy and the

00:52:52.020 proclivity of people not to attend to

00:52:54.420 things they know they should attend to

00:52:56.160 and partly we do that because if if a

00:52:59.400 problem emerges it always announces

00:53:01.260 itself unless it's a really really tiny

00:53:03.420 problem and you're approaching it

00:53:04.740 voluntary voluntarily it always announces

00:53:07.420 itself with negative emotion and that's

00:53:10.260 part of the predator detection circuit it

00:53:11.880 announces itself in frustration or

00:53:14.100 disappointment or emotional pain or

00:53:16.380 grief or the paramount one anxiety and

00:53:20.100 and no wonder because it's a problem

00:53:22.500 right and the logical one of the

00:53:24.180 logical responses is to sort of freeze in

00:53:26.100 the face of the problem but of course if

00:53:28.560 it's problem that has to be addressed and

00:53:30.000 solved freezing it and turning away from

00:53:32.340 it is not a good solution because since

00:53:34.860 things tend to fall apart on the road

00:53:36.600 accord if you just leave the thing alone

00:53:39.180 that's problematic it's just going to get

00:53:41.760 worse not better which is one of the

00:53:43.260 things that's very annoying about life so

00:53:45.600 for example you know if you get a

00:53:47.040 warning message from the tax department

00:53:49.380 the probability that ignoring that

00:53:52.440 will make it go away is zero right what

00:53:56.340 will happen instead is that the more you

00:53:58.020 ignore it the larger it will grow and if

00:53:59.880 you ignore it long enough then it will

00:54:01.560 turn into something large enough to eat

00:54:03.480 you and that will be the end of you and

00:54:06.000 I read in Harper's magazine at one

00:54:07.980 point that people would rather be mugged

00:54:10.500 than audited and so I believe that

00:54:13.320 because the mugging man that's over

00:54:14.880 right it's like a couple of minutes a

00:54:17.220 sheer terror loss your wallet the way

00:54:20.040 you walk the audit that's like that's

00:54:23.640 like a semi-fatal disease so so that's

00:54:28.920 chaos now it's the idea here too is that

00:54:32.400 that's the chaos that's the psychological

00:54:35.460 idea is that that's also the chaos that

00:54:37.320 whatever is being represented in

00:54:39.240 Genesis as the spirit of God extracts

00:54:42.060 order out of at the beginning of time

00:54:43.740 and it's also that which we're

00:54:46.020 constantly contending with as we

00:54:48.180 struggle in the same manner to

00:54:49.980 construct and maintain habitable worlds

00:54:52.200 so it's brilliant it's brilliant you

00:54:55.380 know when I first put together the

00:54:57.360 relationship between what Eliade called

00:55:00.420 the pre-cosmogonic chaos and the

00:55:02.640 predator predatory landscape that

00:55:04.560 surrounded our ancestors and the manner

00:55:06.900 in which were structured neurologically to

00:55:09.120 respond to all of that I thought it was

00:55:11.280 it was like an amazing epiphany because

00:55:14.280 it's self evidently the case that the

00:55:17.100 world is too complicated for us to deal

00:55:18.780 with and that's one of the problems that

00:55:20.100 we face on an ongoing basis and then the

00:55:23.100 question is well what do you do about

00:55:24.420 that and if you ignore it it gets worse

00:55:26.880 so ignoring it doesn't work and so we

00:55:29.200 know what doesn't work and so if

00:55:30.660 ignoring it doesn't work then

00:55:31.880 attending to it might work and then I

00:55:34.740 found out with the Egyptians for

00:55:36.240 example that Horus was the god of

00:55:38.700 attention and the same thing happened

00:55:40.380 among the Mesopotamians with Marduk and

00:55:42.300 his ring of eyes it's like what's the

00:55:44.820 way to forestall the catastrophe of

00:55:48.000 things falling apart and the answer to

00:55:49.920 that is by attending to them voluntarily

00:55:52.200 attending to them and that slots very

00:55:53.700 nicely into the hero mythology that

00:55:55.560 promotes the idea that if there's a

00:55:58.440 dragon in in the whereabouts in in the

00:56:02.220 near in the in the neighborhood let's

00:56:04.680 say that hiding in the basement just

00:56:07.560 makes it grow larger it's time to go out

00:56:09.720 and confront the damn thing and the

00:56:12.420 general stories are as well you might

00:56:14.580 get killed because it's a dragon but it's

00:56:17.880 only might as opposed to definitely will

00:56:20.340 get killed if it happens to attack you

00:56:22.380 at three in the morning at home when

00:56:24.300 you're hungover and it's been a bad day

00:56:26.040 and you don't have your you know are

00:56:28.320 your sword in your shield at the ready

00:56:30.180 which is generally what happens to

00:56:32.340 people who avoid things so it's not

00:56:34.860 something that should be recommended

00:56:36.600 you're screwed both ways that's one of

00:56:38.820 the things that's so nice about being

00:56:41.160 deeply pessimistic it's so freeing because

00:56:43.860 one of the things well it's very

00:56:47.100 frequent it's such a relief and it's

00:56:49.320 really a useful habit to develop is

00:56:51.900 sometimes no matter what you do you're

00:56:54.660 in trouble and that's a relief because

00:56:56.820 then you can stop scrabbling around for

00:56:58.860 the way out there's no way out man it's

00:57:01.140 like you can pick murder you know wretched

00:57:04.500 death a or slightly less wretched death be

00:57:07.380 something like that but and and I know

00:57:09.660 that's a terrible way of looking at

00:57:11.640 things but it is extraordinarily useful to

00:57:14.640 understand that many times you get your

00:57:17.100 choice boils down to picking the least bad

00:57:20.460 option and if that's all you can do if

00:57:23.220 that's what how life is revealing

00:57:25.140 itself to you it's like what more power

00:57:26.640 to you the least bad option that's the

00:57:28.600 best you can do and and and it's good

00:57:31.340 enough especially compared to the

00:57:32.940 alternative which is the most bad option

00:57:35.040 so all right now so the fundamental

00:57:41.760 reality of things is complexity beyond

00:57:43.680 comprehension and then the question is

00:57:46.620 well how is it that you manage that and

00:57:48.600 partly you manage that and this is where

00:57:50.580 the image of the patriarchal order comes

00:57:53.520 in in the positive manner I might point

00:57:56.340 out because in the absence of patriarchal

00:57:59.280 structure for lack of a better lexicon

00:58:01.680 there's nothing but chaos and I wouldn't

00:58:03.840 recommend chaos because it's it there's a

00:58:08.160 lot of it and there isn't that much of you

00:58:10.080 and if you think you can handle it

00:58:12.040 without an a priori structure and without

00:58:13.840 a sociological structure surrounding you

00:58:15.820 then you don't know anything at all

00:58:17.320 about human beings because one of the

00:58:19.600 things I've noticed for example is that

00:58:21.220 it's it's unbelievable the degree to

00:58:25.540 which our sanity depends on a

00:58:27.460 functioning sociological structure and

00:58:29.860 here's why well first of all you kind of

00:58:33.160 need to know what to do every day you

00:58:35.140 have to have a routine because you're an

00:58:36.520 animal you know and you know if you have a

00:58:38.260 dog or a cat dogs are really good

00:58:40.480 example this dogs like routine they

00:58:42.560 like to be walked the number of times a

00:58:44.320 day that they're supposed to be walked

00:58:45.640 and they get quite sick very rapidly if

00:58:47.800 you don't if you don't routinize their

00:58:50.980 their days children are exactly the same

00:58:53.260 way now you can overdo it right but

00:58:55.360 still you know you need to know

00:58:57.040 approximately when you should get up

00:58:58.720 should be approximately the same every

00:59:00.760 day you need to know approximately you're

00:59:02.680 going when you're going to eat you

00:59:04.060 need to know what you're going to eat

00:59:05.320 you need to know who you're going to eat

00:59:06.700 with you need to know where to buy your

00:59:08.200 food it's like 80% of your life 70% of

00:59:11.860 your life something like that consists

00:59:14.140 of those things that you do every

00:59:16.300 single day that you repeat and those

00:59:18.760 are often the things that people think

00:59:20.380 about as the trivial elements of their

00:59:22.120 life but one of the things I would like

00:59:23.680 to point out to you if you do the

00:59:25.540 mathematics I did this with a client of

00:59:28.780 mine who was having a hard time putting

00:59:30.940 his child to bed they were having a

00:59:32.980 fight every night and I knew by that

00:59:35.620 time the studies indicate that most

00:59:37.780 parents only spend 20 minutes per day

00:59:40.180 of one-on-one time with their child

00:59:42.160 now the reason for that is that people

00:59:44.920 are busy and it's actually not that easy

00:59:46.600 to parse out 20 minutes of one-on-one

00:59:48.760 time it's a lot bloody more time than you

00:59:51.040 think but that's all there is 20 minutes

00:59:54.160 he's spending like 40 minutes a day

00:59:56.260 fighting with this kid trying to get the

00:59:58.420 kid to go to bed and that's not very

01:00:00.400 entertaining you know you think why it's

01:00:02.920 just having a scrap with the kid about

01:00:04.780 going to bed but it's no no no no no if

01:00:07.300 it happens every day it's a

01:00:08.760 catastrophe so you do the math so we'll

01:00:11.800 say five hours a week for the sake of

01:00:13.600 argument just to keep it simple it's 20

01:00:15.460 hours a month it's 240 hours a year

01:00:19.780 that's 640 hour work weeks that guy was

01:00:23.020 basically spending a month and a half of

01:00:24.760 work weeks doing absolutely nothing but

01:00:26.800 having a wretched time fighting with his

01:00:30.100 son trying to get him to go to bed

01:00:31.720 horrible right that's just way too much

01:00:34.660 time to spend doing something like that

01:00:36.880 if you want to actually have a positive

01:00:39.040 relationship with someone because it's

01:00:40.480 just too it's just too punishing and so

01:00:44.080 well so you need structure you need

01:00:46.780 predictability and you need more of it

01:00:48.640 than you think just to keep you sane now

01:00:51.340 if you're lucky and and maybe a bit odd

01:00:54.340 you can deviate five percent from the norm

01:00:57.880 or 10% from the norm or something like

01:00:59.920 that carefully and cautiously as long as

01:01:03.100 the rest of you is all well ordered in

01:01:04.840 a normative manner you might be able to

01:01:06.700 get away with that and you might be able

01:01:08.020 to sustain it across time and people

01:01:10.000 might be able to tolerate you if you do

01:01:11.740 it or maybe you'll get really lucky and

01:01:13.540 you happen to be creative but

01:01:14.980 reasonably well put together and people

01:01:16.600 actually be happy that there's

01:01:18.460 something idiosyncratic and unique

01:01:20.320 about you but even under those

01:01:22.180 circumstances mostly what you want is

01:01:24.040 to have a routine it's disciplined it's

01:01:27.640 predictable and bloody well stick to it

01:01:29.740 you're going to be way healthier and

01:01:32.200 happier and saner if you do that and

01:01:34.240 then the other thing that you need

01:01:35.200 because this is one of the things the

01:01:37.900 psychoanalysts got wrong I think is

01:01:39.760 that they overestimated the degree to

01:01:41.980 which sanity was a consequence of

01:01:44.140 internal of being properly structured

01:01:46.840 internally you know because from the

01:01:49.480 psychoanalytic point of view you're sort of

01:01:51.040 an ego and that ego is inside you of

01:01:53.440 course it rests on an unconscious

01:01:54.760 structure but the purpose of

01:01:56.440 psychoanalysis is to sort out that

01:01:58.900 unconscious structure and the ego on

01:02:01.000 top of it and to make you a fully

01:02:02.860 functioning and autonomous individual

01:02:04.900 but there's a problem with that because

01:02:06.880 the reason that you're saying as a fully

01:02:11.560 functional and autonomous human being

01:02:13.540 isn't because you've organized your

01:02:16.000 psyche even though that's important the

01:02:18.340 reason that you're saying if you're a

01:02:20.200 what if you have a well-organized

01:02:22.420 unconscious and ego is because other

01:02:24.220 people can tolerate having you around

01:02:26.080 for reasonably extensive periods of

01:02:28.600 time and will cuff you across the back

01:02:30.700 of the head every time you do something

01:02:32.320 so stupid that people will dislike you

01:02:34.480 permanently if you continue and so what

01:02:37.420 people are doing to each other all the

01:02:39.100 time just non-stop is broadcasting

01:02:42.580 sanity signals back and forth right it's

01:02:45.280 like you smile at people if they're well

01:02:48.100 if they're not not only behaving properly

01:02:50.020 but behaving in a way that you would

01:02:51.400 like to see them continue to behave you

01:02:53.980 frown at them if they're not you ignore

01:02:55.660 them if they're not you shun them you

01:02:57.220 you roll your eyes at them you manifest a

01:02:59.620 disgust face you don't listen to them you

01:03:01.540 interrupt them you won't cooperate with

01:03:03.580 them you won't compete with them it's

01:03:05.020 like you're blasting signals that other

01:03:07.120 people about how to regulate their

01:03:08.440 behavior so frequently well just makes up

01:03:12.160 all of your social interaction that's why

01:03:14.320 we face each other and we have emotional

01:03:16.280 displays on our face and we're looking

01:03:17.980 at each other's eyes and we know

01:03:19.480 exactly we know as much as we can about

01:03:21.880 what's going on with each other given

01:03:23.920 that we don't have immediate access to

01:03:25.480 the contents of their consciousness and

01:03:27.080 so partly what you're doing with your

01:03:29.500 routine is establishing yourself as a

01:03:32.080 credible reliable trustworthy potentially

01:03:35.560 interesting human being who isn't going

01:03:37.560 to do anything too erratic at any moment and

01:03:40.120 everyone else is around there tapping you

01:03:42.280 into shape making sure that that's exactly

01:03:44.140 what you are and that's how you stay

01:03:46.180 sane and so what happens to people too

01:03:48.040 if they don't have a routine and they

01:03:50.140 get isolated as they start to drift and

01:03:52.720 they drift badly because the world is too

01:03:55.120 complicated for you to keep it organized

01:03:57.640 all by yourself you just cannot do it so

01:04:01.240 a lot of our so we outsource the problem

01:04:03.980 of sanity and it's very intelligent that

01:04:07.000 we outsource the problem of sanity because

01:04:08.900 sanity is an impossibly complex problem

01:04:12.680 and so the way that we manage the

01:04:14.900 incredibly complex problem is we have a

01:04:17.300 very large number of brains working

01:04:20.240 simultaneously on the problem all the

01:04:22.340 time it's like a stock market for sanity

01:04:24.800 and it's partly and I use that I use that

01:04:28.040 definition with purpose because the

01:04:30.860 stock market does the same kind of

01:04:32.600 impossible thing right because it tries to

01:04:34.280 price things which is impossible there's

01:04:36.680 so how many things are there like a

01:04:38.780 billion how in the world do you decide

01:04:40.820 what the price is you can't decide what

01:04:43.160 the price is that's why you have a stock

01:04:45.080 market as well in a free market I mean

01:04:47.720 for for consumer goods is everyone's

01:04:49.460 voting on what the price of everything is

01:04:51.080 all the time and that's the way we

01:04:52.700 figured out because it's actually it's

01:04:54.500 technically impossible that's partly why

01:04:56.600 the stock market explodes now and then

01:04:58.160 and there's bubbles and all that sort of

01:04:59.660 thing but anyways the point is things are

01:05:04.820 chaotic in ellis in wonderland when

01:05:07.880 ellis goes down the rabbit hole that's

01:05:10.460 the underworld right so now she's gone

01:05:13.100 into the substructure of being and she

01:05:16.520 meets the red queen and the red queen is

01:05:18.800 mother nature and mother nature is

01:05:21.260 running around yelling off with her

01:05:23.480 heads off with their heads which is of

01:05:26.120 course what mother nature does and she

01:05:28.520 tells ellis in my kingdom you have to run

01:05:31.280 as fast as you can just to stay in the

01:05:33.200 same place and that's exactly right

01:05:35.600 and that's a description of in fact

01:05:38.780 evolutionary biologists psychologists

01:05:40.700 picked up on that phrase they call it

01:05:42.380 the red queen problem and the red queen

01:05:44.480 problem is everything's after you all

01:05:47.900 the time and you're not smart enough to

01:05:49.280 do anything about it or enough about it

01:05:51.320 and so that's a permanent existential

01:05:53.240 problem so how do you deal with that

01:05:54.980 you've got a biological structure so your

01:05:58.260 embodiment is part of the solution to the

01:06:00.380 problem and then you're enculturated

01:06:02.240 and because you're enculturated you're

01:06:05.840 taught a lot of things that you need to

01:06:07.280 know but mostly what you're taught is

01:06:09.080 how to communicate with other people in

01:06:10.520 an acceptable manner and then once you

01:06:13.460 can communicate with people in an

01:06:15.140 acceptable manner then you can

01:06:16.400 outsource your problems constantly which

01:06:18.500 you're doing constantly and so we're in

01:06:19.940 this continual dynamic exchange of

01:06:22.820 problem-solving so if you're a

01:06:24.320 socialized person that's what you get

01:06:26.060 access to and that's something to know

01:06:27.800 if you're going to have kids and I

01:06:29.180 mentioned this I think in a previous

01:06:30.560 lecture the purpose of being a parent

01:06:34.100 for very young children is to make your

01:06:36.140 children exceptionally socially

01:06:38.840 desirable by the age of four because if

01:06:42.140 you can do that they're set because

01:06:45.020 everyone wants them around and as soon

01:06:47.940 as everybody wants them around they want

01:06:49.340 to play with them they want to cooperate

01:06:50.480 when they want to compete with them it's

01:06:52.160 like the doors open the doors open and

01:06:54.440 they stay sane because they've got all

01:06:55.940 sorts of people who actually like them

01:06:57.440 that are helping them out and so that's

01:06:59.660 your goal is to make them as socially

01:07:02.240 acceptable as you possibly can socially

01:07:04.460 desirable as you possibly can and that

01:07:06.620 doesn't mean you render them obedient

01:07:10.200 without spirit right that's that's a

01:07:12.260 tyrant's motive of enforcing social

01:07:15.500 acceptability it's like never do anything

01:07:17.300 wrong well that's not any way to I mean

01:07:20.520 that's a good piece of advice you know

01:07:22.460 like but it's missing the other half

01:07:25.520 which is do a bunch of things that are

01:07:27.060 right so that so that people are thrilled

01:07:30.320 to have you around and to and encourage

01:07:32.480 that that's what you want to do as a

01:07:33.740 parent as well as inculcating the order

01:07:36.440 and so you know when in this little

01:07:38.900 diagram I indicated that there's God the

01:07:41.240 father with the son behind him and he's

01:07:42.860 ruling over this walled city so he's

01:07:45.380 like the meta spirit of the walled city

01:07:47.660 it's very very nice very nice image

01:07:51.560 brilliant image so it's is the

01:07:54.320 collective spirit of the city that's

01:07:56.360 another way of thinking about it or the

01:07:57.560 collective spirit of the city across

01:07:59.300 time or the collective spirit of the

01:08:01.460 force that built and maintained the city

01:08:04.400 across time even better and that's

01:08:06.920 associated with the Sun because it's a

01:08:09.080 it's a it's it's it's associated with

01:08:11.300 enlightenment and illumination and all

01:08:13.700 of those things that we associate with

01:08:14.960 higher consciousness and vision it's a

01:08:16.880 brilliant image and then I overlaid this

01:08:19.880 you know now of course the patriarchal

01:08:22.520 aspect of existence can become tyrannical

01:08:26.840 it does that quite regularly it's one of

01:08:29.300 the existential dangers of human

01:08:31.480 civilization is that civilization is a

01:08:34.100 medication for chaos but it can spin out

01:08:36.980 of control in and of itself and become

01:08:39.380 its own sort of problem which is like a

01:08:41.300 hyperorder problem generally which

01:08:43.280 then produces a chaos problem so every

01:08:46.400 solution carries within it certain

01:08:49.100 problems right because no solution is

01:08:51.200 perfect and so you have to keep things

01:08:52.740 in balance but it's one of the reasons

01:08:54.680 that I'm really let's call it irritated

01:08:58.540 about the postmodernists because they

01:09:00.880 keep yammering about the patriarchy and

01:09:03.620 it's very very annoying because because

01:09:06.920 it's self-evident that social

01:09:09.560 structures are tyrannical it's like

01:09:11.720 that's not news folks that's obvious

01:09:14.900 but that's not all they are and it's

01:09:18.260 it's there it's the reduction of the

01:09:20.600 entire complex solution let's say to a

01:09:25.400 unidimensional problem it's just tight

01:09:28.100 tyranny it's like no actually it's not

01:09:30.440 just tyranny if you spent six months

01:09:32.480 somewhere that was just tyranny you'd

01:09:35.120 know the difference very very rapidly

01:09:36.800 and that doesn't mean that everyone

01:09:38.840 doesn't give up a pound or two or ten or

01:09:42.200 twenty of flesh to participate even in

01:09:45.740 the society that's as free as a western

01:09:47.600 society is we all get crushed and molded

01:09:49.760 by the tyrannical force of social

01:09:52.340 convention but at least in principle the

01:09:56.240 benefit is worth the cost and then it's

01:09:59.060 also up to you to make sure that you

01:10:00.560 don't sacrifice more to the group then

01:10:03.020 you should and you can start to tell if

01:10:05.840 you're sacrificing more to the group

01:10:07.400 than you should because you start to

01:10:08.800 become resentful of other people that's

01:10:10.820 part of that that's part of the

01:10:12.020 psychological mechanism that's informing

01:10:13.880 you of that so it's up to you to fight

01:10:15.860 against the you know the overarching

01:10:18.740 pressure for conformity to retain your

01:10:21.380 individual logos let's say but that's

01:10:24.260 sort of your problem it's like the group

01:10:26.660 wants you to behave now if you could

01:10:29.780 behave and be creatively productive so

01:10:32.720 much the better but that's pretty damn

01:10:34.100 rare so the group generally tends to

01:10:36.800 settle just for behave and there's a

01:10:39.320 tyrannical element of that but what the

01:10:41.660 hell is the alternative it's you know

01:10:43.880 our society is based on consensus and the

01:10:46.900 consensus is based on the sacrifice of

01:10:49.160 a certain sacrifice of individuality even

01:10:52.040 though individuality is absolutely

01:10:53.480 necessary as a revitalizing force for the

01:10:56.240 society it's a very tight touch tough

01:10:58.880 thing to manage properly so anyways you

01:11:01.680 have the your physiological structure

01:11:05.120 as your first line of ordering in

01:11:06.980 relationship to chaos because your body

01:11:09.260 presents you with the world in a certain

01:11:11.600 way and then the second line of defense

01:11:13.820 is something like the sociological

01:11:15.380 structure that you inhabit we could call

01:11:16.940 those the competency hierarchies or

01:11:18.800 something like that and thank God for

01:11:20.960 them because you know maybe you're going

01:11:23.060 to be able to specialize in one or two

01:11:24.500 things in your life or five things but

01:11:26.420 there's 300 things you need to know and

01:11:28.760 if it's just you you know you'll be

01:11:30.500 doing your genius level mathematics

01:11:32.180 while your bathtub is leaking all over

01:11:34.340 your all over your bathroom floor and

01:11:36.740 that's not so good so you can call a

01:11:38.180 plumber and hurray for that so you know

01:11:40.580 we tend to cooperate to keep chaos under

01:11:42.740 control and we tend to cooperate to keep

01:11:45.200 order under control and that's the

01:11:47.420 political dialogue right we maintain the

01:11:51.380 culture to keep chaos under control and

01:11:53.480 we balance the culture out properly to

01:11:57.200 keep the culture under control and that

01:11:59.900 way we get to live reasonably peacefully

01:12:02.720 reasonably productively for a reasonable

01:12:05.360 amount of time and that's the best that

01:12:07.160 we can do and we should have some

01:12:09.020 gratitude when that's working because

01:12:11.120 the default condition of things is that

01:12:16.820 not only do they not work very well they

01:12:19.040 work worse and worse over time all by

01:12:21.320 themselves so anytime anything is

01:12:23.300 working you should just be amazed by it

01:12:25.760 all right so what does the frame look

01:12:29.180 like well I think it looks something

01:12:30.740 like this and this is as far as I can

01:12:32.600 tell this is the bare bones this is the

01:12:34.820 bare bones of a variety of things it's a

01:12:36.260 bare bones story it's a bare bone

01:12:38.300 conceptual framework it's a bare bone

01:12:40.700 dasein to speak in Heideggerian terms

01:12:43.820 it's like it's the bare bones world that

01:12:45.800 you live in you're always in one of these

01:12:47.600 worlds there's no getting out of them

01:12:49.580 you can move from one to another but

01:12:52.040 you're always in a world like this and

01:12:53.480 so this is the world that you're in

01:12:54.740 you're somewhere because you have to be

01:12:58.520 somewhere now you might not know where

01:13:00.260 that is which means that the somewhere

01:13:02.720 that you are is chaotic in which case

01:13:05.180 you need to go over your past in great

01:13:07.400 detail and figure out where you are it's

01:13:09.800 like you're lost right here you're lost

01:13:11.900 and the problem with being lost is when

01:13:13.940 you're lost you don't know where to go and

01:13:15.800 the problem with not knowing where to go

01:13:17.180 is there's a million places that you

01:13:19.040 could go and a million places is too

01:13:21.200 many places for you to go without

01:13:22.580 dying so being lost is not good so you

01:13:25.820 need to know where you are one of the

01:13:28.160 things that we built online my partners

01:13:30.620 and I is this program called past

01:13:32.780 authoring that helps people lay out the

01:13:35.480 the narrative of their past to identify to

01:13:39.800 break their life down into six stages

01:13:41.780 epochs we call them and then to

01:13:43.400 identify the emotionally significant

01:13:46.760 moments in each epoch and to write them

01:13:48.620 out what happened negatively what

01:13:50.240 happened positively what the

01:13:51.800 consequences were what you derive from

01:13:54.140 it perhaps what you could have done

01:13:55.340 differently perhaps what you learned from

01:13:57.320 it all of that so that you can narrow in

01:13:59.780 zero in on determining precisely where it

01:14:03.980 is that you are right now and people are

01:14:06.440 often loath to do that because they

01:14:07.640 actually don't want to know because

01:14:08.900 they'd rather be spread out in a sort

01:14:11.660 of half blind manner in the fog hoping

01:14:16.700 that the place that they're at is better

01:14:18.380 than it really is and deluding

01:14:20.540 themselves by remaining vague than to

01:14:23.060 figure out I'm right here right now with

01:14:24.920 these specific problems but it's

01:14:26.960 actually better to do that because if

01:14:29.720 you have a set of specific problems and

01:14:32.000 you've really narrowed them down and

01:14:33.620 really specified them then you can

01:14:35.600 probably start fixing them and you can

01:14:37.220 start fixing them in Mike micro ways bit

01:14:41.240 by bit but there's no way you can do

01:14:42.680 that without knowing where you are it's

01:14:44.180 impossible and you can kind of tell if

01:14:46.460 you don't know where you are it's

01:14:48.200 quite straightforward if you are

01:14:51.140 haunted by reveries of the past for

01:14:55.040 events that are older than

01:14:56.360 approximately 18 months if they continue

01:14:58.820 to come up in your mind over and over in

01:15:00.680 your dreams over and over you haven't

01:15:03.920 extracted the world out from your past

01:15:07.220 experiences the potential is still

01:15:09.380 trapped in the past and to confront the

01:15:12.080 potential means to confront the dragon

01:15:14.040 of the past and of course that's

01:15:15.800 terrifying and it can seriously be

01:15:17.900 terrifying so for example maybe you're

01:15:20.420 vague and ill-formed and ill-defined

01:15:22.160 because you were abused very badly when

01:15:24.140 you were a child four years old

01:15:25.460 something like that and maybe you're

01:15:26.720 abused by a family member because

01:15:28.100 that's generally who does the abusing and

01:15:30.320 and so that just makes it worse and

01:15:32.420 then what that means is that you've got a

01:15:35.120 implicit you've had an implicit

01:15:37.580 encounter with malevolent evil that no

01:15:41.720 you've had a direct encounter with

01:15:43.080 malevolent evil but you have an

01:15:44.520 implicit hypothesis of malevolent evil

01:15:47.180 that's plaguing you it's still there

01:15:49.220 it's trapped in the memories right it's

01:15:51.560 it's trapped in the representational

01:15:53.120 structure and as an adult you're now

01:15:55.160 faced with the necessity of

01:15:56.660 articulating that fully before you have

01:15:58.520 any chance whatsoever of freeing yourself

01:16:00.320 from it and so that's no joke lots of

01:16:02.180 times people have to go into the past

01:16:03.740 that's what the psychoanalysts do and

01:16:05.660 and say look here is something came

01:16:07.580 along just bloody well knock me over and

01:16:10.400 it isn't even that I repressed it which

01:16:12.620 which I think was well we won't talk

01:16:15.200 about Freud's errors because Freud was a

01:16:17.000 genius so we'll just leave him alone but

01:16:18.740 but sometimes it's not repression it's

01:16:21.020 just the terrible things happen to

01:16:22.580 people at such a young age that there

01:16:24.440 isn't a bloody chance in hell that they

01:16:26.600 can figure out why they happened or

01:16:28.340 what to do with them or what they mean

01:16:30.080 and then you can carry that with you

01:16:32.120 and you carry it with you it's like

01:16:33.800 here your your body encounters the

01:16:37.440 world in stages and it happens very

01:16:39.320 rapidly well it can extend over years

01:16:41.600 but the initial stages happen very

01:16:43.040 rapidly so for example if you're

01:16:45.320 walking down the road and you hear a

01:16:46.600 large noise be a loud noise behind you

01:16:48.800 go like this that's a predator defense

01:16:51.260 response by the way you crouch down and

01:16:53.180 that's to stop something from jumping on

01:16:55.340 your back and getting at your neck too

01:16:57.080 easily that's like female few hundred

01:16:59.540 milliseconds it's really fast or even

01:17:01.100 faster than that and it better be

01:17:02.540 because something like a snake but we'll

01:17:04.880 say can nail you just right now so you

01:17:06.800 better be fast but it's low resolution

01:17:09.080 it's like danger snake something like that

01:17:11.480 or danger predatory cat it's that fast and

01:17:15.140 then you can unravel that and categorize

01:17:19.880 it but that takes time you do that with

01:17:22.040 emotion and then you do it with

01:17:23.180 cognition you can do that with long-term

01:17:24.920 thinking you know because maybe you've

01:17:26.780 encountered someone specifically malevolent and

01:17:28.940 predatory at work it happens to people a lot

01:17:31.220 who's operating as a as a destructive bully and

01:17:34.940 who seems to have no positive function

01:17:36.620 whatsoever and is only living that out and

01:17:40.940 then you you know you don't know what to

01:17:42.080 do about it so you're you're in prey

01:17:44.840 mode I don't mean this kind of mode

01:17:47.000 although that would help too but I mean

01:17:49.220 you're acting like a prey animal and

01:17:51.020 then you have this terribly complex thing

01:17:52.820 to decompose which is what the hell's up

01:17:54.860 with this person why are they making my

01:17:57.140 life miserable what is it about me that

01:17:59.340 allows them to make my life miserable

01:18:01.400 that's a nasty little road to walk down

01:18:03.440 and you're stuck with having to you're

01:18:05.540 stuck with having to decompose it maybe

01:18:07.700 you can't maybe formulating an

01:18:10.280 explicit philosophy of good and evil to

01:18:12.740 deal with something malevolent in your

01:18:15.300 environment actually just happens to be

01:18:17.720 beyond you and that could easily be it

01:18:20.540 certainly the case for people who are

01:18:21.800 young and it's the case for plenty of

01:18:23.660 adults as well it's no simple thing to

01:18:25.520 mad to manage it's something to that

01:18:27.860 often soldiers who have post-traumatic

01:18:29.780 stress disorder have to do because

01:18:31.280 they've encountered terrible things they've

01:18:33.320 either done them or ran into them and

01:18:34.940 they need to update their moral model of

01:18:37.520 the world or if they end up in

01:18:39.440 something close enough closely

01:18:41.480 approximating hell anyway so you need to

01:18:46.280 know where you are that's this what is

01:18:49.160 where are you so you're navigating you're

01:18:51.860 navigator you're a sailor on an ocean

01:18:53.480 and that's what that's what you are you're

01:18:55.340 a mobile creature you're going from point

01:18:57.440 A to point B all the time you're not

01:18:59.360 sitting there glued to a rock like some

01:19:01.220 brainless you know sea creature there's a

01:19:04.340 funny little creature called a Hydra very

01:19:06.860 simple little creature in its juvenile

01:19:09.140 stage it has a brain because it swims

01:19:11.180 around but then when it turns into an

01:19:13.220 adult it latches itself to a rock and

01:19:15.740 promptly digests its brain because if

01:19:18.020 you're just sitting on a rock and you're

01:19:19.420 not moving you don't need a brain so but

01:19:21.020 that's not our issue right we're we're

01:19:22.940 zipping around in the world and so we're

01:19:24.380 navigating agents and so to navigate you

01:19:27.560 there's two things you need to know the

01:19:30.080 first is where the hell are you exactly

01:19:32.540 precisely right razor sharp what's good

01:19:36.320 about you and what's bad about you by

01:19:37.940 your own by your own reckoning you don't

01:19:40.040 have to you can ask other people but

01:19:41.900 this is a game you play yourself it's

01:19:43.580 like as far as I'm concerned I'm taking

01:19:46.560 stock what is it that's okay about me and

01:19:48.620 what needs some work and you got to watch

01:19:50.660 to not be too self-critical when you're

01:19:52.840 doing that too because that can just be

01:19:54.140 another kind of flaw and then the next is

01:19:56.060 okay well where are you going what's

01:19:58.280 your destination well and that's what

01:20:01.100 the frame is now you know you could do

01:20:03.140 that in a very sophisticated way and you

01:20:05.360 do that by thinking consciously about

01:20:07.400 who it is that you are in an

01:20:08.900 articulated manner and where you want to

01:20:10.760 go and why and how you're going to get

01:20:12.440 there and people hardly ever do that

01:20:13.940 that is that's come as such an absolute

01:20:16.220 shock to me as an educator I just because

01:20:20.900 one of the other programs I use this in my

01:20:23.720 classes what are the other programs in

01:20:26.180 this suite of programs is called the

01:20:27.620 future authoring program and I started

01:20:29.840 developing it my maps of meaning class

01:20:31.640 which is where some of this materials

01:20:33.080 from and I got students to write about

01:20:34.820 their past it's like okay we're we're

01:20:37.220 talking about stories so let's tell your

01:20:39.380 story who are you how do you get here

01:20:41.180 what are you now that usually helps

01:20:44.600 people put things to rest although it's

01:20:46.280 quite stressful while you're doing it

01:20:48.500 stress goes up when you're doing it and

01:20:51.440 and maybe you feel miserable for a

01:20:52.980 couple of weeks and then stress goes

01:20:54.380 down and it stays down so that's and

01:20:56.480 that's also why people don't do it

01:20:58.040 because who the hell wants to have the

01:20:59.300 stress go up but if it's temporary it's

01:21:01.700 a sacrifice so then the next issue is

01:21:04.400 well where are you going and one of the

01:21:05.780 things that and this I just still I

01:21:07.820 cannot understand the students that had

01:21:10.280 been in education system for 15 years

01:21:12.980 14 years high-end students most of them

01:21:15.920 not once in their whole bloody life did

01:21:19.160 anyone ever get them to sit down for

01:21:21.260 like a day and say all right justify

01:21:23.900 your existence like well seriously it's

01:21:27.800 like here you are in university you're

01:21:29.180 taking a bunch of courses you've got

01:21:30.560 some sort of vague career plan it's like

01:21:33.080 defend the damn thing a bit since you're

01:21:36.080 going to go live it and everything

01:21:38.180 you're staking everything on it it's

01:21:40.260 like what's your damn plan and why are

01:21:43.460 you so convinced that it's not the plan of a

01:21:45.500 babbling fool because if you haven't

01:21:49.100 thought about it then it is and if you

01:21:51.140 really want to go out there and live

01:21:52.280 that out you know one of the things

01:21:54.380 Carl Jung said was that you you're in a

01:21:57.020 story whether you know it or not and

01:21:59.360 and then he made two nice comments about

01:22:01.760 that if it's someone else's story you're

01:22:04.980 probably going to get a bit part and it

01:22:07.160 might not be the one you want and if

01:22:09.680 it's a story that you don't know it might

01:22:11.240 be one with a really bad ending or maybe

01:22:13.460 it's just bad period with a worse ending

01:22:15.920 and if you don't know what the story

01:22:17.420 that you're living out is maybe that's

01:22:19.520 the one you know maybe you got that from

01:22:21.980 your mother you got it from your

01:22:23.120 grandmother you got it from your aunt or

01:22:24.920 God only knows where you picked it up

01:22:26.900 because you pick up things like mad

01:22:28.460 because that's what human beings are

01:22:29.660 like so maybe you're living a malevolent

01:22:32.120 tragedy unconsciously and then one thing

01:22:35.540 you might ask yourself is well how wretched

01:22:37.700 and miserable is your life let's add

01:22:39.620 futile to that how wretched miserable and

01:22:42.080 futile is your life and you might say

01:22:44.600 well yeah 70% on each count it's like

01:22:47.780 then you're probably unconsciously living

01:22:50.300 out a malevolent tragedy and maybe

01:22:53.180 that's not for the best it's either that

01:22:56.000 or the whole universe hates you right or

01:22:58.340 70% hates you you know so so anyways you

01:23:02.420 know we got students to start writing in

01:23:06.620 detail about not what they wanted it's

01:23:09.800 not a career thing because that's the

01:23:12.260 closest people usually get is they have

01:23:14.060 a career plan it's like no no it's not a

01:23:15.920 career plan that's that's peripheral

01:23:18.020 important but peripheral it's like all

01:23:20.540 right you got three years man you're going to

01:23:22.760 live them anyways devote those three years

01:23:26.180 to setting the world up around you so

01:23:27.920 that it's the best it can possibly be for

01:23:30.500 for you as if you were taking care of

01:23:33.500 yourself as if you cared for yourself

01:23:35.720 well what would that look like you know

01:23:38.120 let's say just for the sake of argument if

01:23:40.280 you figured out where you were that you

01:23:41.900 could have what would be best for you

01:23:43.820 well what is that I bet you never asked

01:23:50.120 people don't ask and so life comes at them

01:23:53.780 like random snakes and they sort of fend

01:23:57.020 them off and life goes by and things

01:23:59.960 don't work out the way people expected

01:24:01.880 them to but a huge part of that is they

01:24:04.700 didn't know where they were because

01:24:06.500 they wouldn't look or didn't know that

01:24:08.000 they should look ignorance and willful

01:24:09.920 blindness right to great catastrophes and

01:24:12.200 they never figured out where they wanted

01:24:14.780 to go or why now there's a problem with

01:24:17.600 figuring out where you want to go and

01:24:19.040 the problem is is that you make your

01:24:21.320 conditions for failure clear to yourself

01:24:23.060 and people don't like that so if you

01:24:26.380 keep yourself in the fog then you can't

01:24:28.880 tell when you screwed up now that isn't

01:24:31.220 so good because you're still screwing up

01:24:32.820 you're just too blind self-blind to

01:24:35.600 notice although in in the short term

01:24:38.660 that's less painful if you make your

01:24:41.000 criteria for success razor-sharp then

01:24:43.280 you know every time you screw up but

01:24:45.500 that's great because then you could fix

01:24:47.000 it you could either repair the the the

01:24:52.040 behavioral inadequacy or the

01:24:53.720 conceptual inadequacy that you're using

01:24:55.940 as a tool in that situation or maybe

01:24:57.860 you could adjust your damn plan either

01:24:59.900 way you can fix it and so okay so you're

01:25:04.040 living in one of these bloody things and

01:25:06.620 you might as well it seems to me you

01:25:09.360 might as well make it the best one you

01:25:10.760 could live in because you don't have

01:25:12.620 anything better to do now if you don't

01:25:16.160 do that if you don't do it

01:25:17.300 consciously and and this is what the

01:25:18.840 psychoanalysts pointed out is that you

01:25:20.960 have innumerable quasi autonomous

01:25:24.620 subsystems that make you up that will

01:25:27.860 generate stories impulsively and you'll

01:25:30.920 just act them out and you know that

01:25:32.840 because you watch yourself over two

01:25:34.760 weeks and you think Jesus I did a lot of

01:25:36.320 stupid things in the last two weeks and

01:25:38.060 you think why and it's because you're a

01:25:40.340 random you're a collection of somewhat

01:25:42.560 random quasi autonomous personality

01:25:45.460 units and lacking a leader they're just

01:25:48.620 going to fire off whenever they want you

01:25:50.420 know first you're hungry then you're

01:25:51.740 thirsty then you want to go to bed with

01:25:53.060 your wife you know then you want to

01:25:54.620 sleep in and you want to tell your boss

01:25:56.240 off and you want to curse at the guy

01:25:57.800 that cuts you off in traffic it's like

01:25:59.540 you're kind of like a two-year-old you

01:26:02.120 know just it's one emotional frame after

01:26:05.720 another vying for dominance there's no

01:26:07.880 overarching hierarchy and there's no king

01:26:10.640 at the top and so you know we already

01:26:13.880 talked about pyramids of competence and

01:26:16.040 what's supposed to be at the top is you

01:26:17.840 want to bring all those things

01:26:19.040 together we understand this

01:26:21.020 neurologically I'll show you some of

01:26:22.580 that in a little bit we understand this

01:26:24.200 neurologically how how how this maps in

01:26:27.680 some sense right on to the neural

01:26:29.420 structure of your being you want to put

01:26:32.180 something in control and the thing that

01:26:35.300 you should put in control is the bloody

01:26:37.160 thing that pays attention and learns right

01:26:39.500 everything else in the hierarchy should be

01:26:42.080 subordinate to the thing that pays

01:26:44.540 attention and learns and you could think

01:26:47.240 well that's that's the message of the

01:26:49.280 idea of logos that's for sure because

01:26:51.140 logos is partly attention and partly

01:26:53.180 communication and you learn a lot by

01:26:55.280 communicating with others okay so you

01:26:57.860 need to know where you are just like

01:27:00.320 your GPS which is about the closest thing

01:27:02.660 we have to an intelligent cybernetic

01:27:04.700 system those GPS is in your cars those

01:27:06.800 bloody things are pretty smart because

01:27:08.180 they can they know where you are they

01:27:10.400 know where you're going and if you go off

01:27:11.840 course they recalculate your route it's

01:27:13.920 like those things are damn near alive

01:27:15.480 that's so close to intelligence it's

01:27:17.760 and you you can tell that because they

01:27:19.680 act intelligent they solve problems

01:27:21.480 continually so you need and this is a

01:27:24.180 cybernetic model by the way and

01:27:25.620 cybernetic models were the models on

01:27:27.360 which the GPS systems were based so it's

01:27:29.280 not accidental so you need to know where

01:27:31.380 you are and you need to know where you're

01:27:32.920 going and then the next thing you need to

01:27:34.560 know is how it is that you're going to

01:27:36.540 act move your body how you're going to

01:27:39.360 propel yourself through time and space

01:27:41.700 to transform this into that and so okay

01:27:45.720 and then we can we can make that a

01:27:47.400 little bit more complex because it's a

01:27:48.920 bit too simple so we'll do this so it

01:27:52.020 isn't exactly that you live in one of

01:27:53.600 these it's that you live in a nested

01:27:55.620 hierarchy of these and you could think of

01:27:58.120 this as your own internal patriarchy

01:28:00.480 that's a good way of thinking about it

01:28:02.040 and maybe it could be a tyrant or maybe

01:28:04.200 it could be something that gives you

01:28:05.920 security and functional autonomy and

01:28:08.560 hopefully that's the one you go for but

01:28:10.600 it's a battle you know because a little

01:28:13.120 bit of tyranny exists in everyone and so

01:28:16.540 well so at the very highest level of

01:28:20.620 analysis that would be the overarching

01:28:22.780 story maybe you think I'd like to be a

01:28:25.600 good person or a successful person or

01:28:27.700 famous person I think goods probably

01:28:30.100 better because you can come up with the

01:28:32.260 definition of good if you want as long

01:28:34.040 as long as it doesn't annoy other people

01:28:35.240 too badly because they'll just get in

01:28:38.900 your way and that won't be helpful so

01:28:41.420 you have to negotiate it but let's say

01:28:43.640 you're a good person and sort of the

01:28:46.280 story at the top of the hierarchy and

01:28:48.680 then you could decompose that into your

01:28:51.140 primary roles maybe you're a good parent

01:28:53.240 maybe you're a good employer or maybe

01:28:55.340 you're a good employee maybe you're a good

01:28:57.320 sibling maybe you're a good child you

01:28:59.120 know those are major roles that you have

01:29:00.680 in your life and so you'd say that what

01:29:03.440 good person is is what's good about you

01:29:06.540 across all those roles so it's a it's a

01:29:08.660 it's a higher order abstraction from

01:29:10.880 something more concrete and then you can

01:29:12.440 take the you know the the role good

01:29:15.380 parent and you can say well what is it

01:29:18.560 that constitutes a good parent and you

01:29:20.480 might say well a good parent this isn't

01:29:22.360 exhaustive obviously a good parent has a

01:29:24.680 good job and and takes care of his or

01:29:27.740 her family and then you might say well

01:29:29.600 what does it mean to take care of your

01:29:31.640 family and then you might say well you

01:29:33.800 know you you can cook the odd meal not

01:29:36.200 too odd hopefully you can cook the odd

01:29:38.480 meal and you can play with play with the

01:29:40.820 baby and then you might say well how do

01:29:42.860 you play with a baby and then you might

01:29:44.540 say well you play peekaboo with the baby

01:29:47.180 or you tickle the baby okay well that

01:29:49.100 what's a cool there's a cool shift there

01:29:50.780 because this is all articulated and

01:29:53.300 conceptual right right down to this level

01:29:55.640 and then all of a sudden it's your body

01:29:57.440 because how do you play peekaboo with a

01:29:58.960 baby you don't like have a chat about

01:30:01.080 how you play peekaboo with a baby right

01:30:02.980 you go like this it's quite fun you can

01:30:05.880 even do it with older people they even

01:30:07.460 smile about it right it's dad's gone and

01:30:10.740 the baby's all shocked death about that

01:30:12.920 where'd he go oh look he's back you know

01:30:15.440 it's the baby is playing with the

01:30:17.120 reliability of the world so it's real

01:30:19.660 intense game for a baby it's like it's

01:30:22.840 like oh no dad's gone oh look he showed

01:30:25.460 up again oh no he's gone and then dad's

01:30:28.300 smiling to indicate that those brief

01:30:30.220 flashes into non-existence aren't

01:30:32.620 existentially terrifying beyond capacity

01:30:35.980 right and so but the point is is that if

01:30:38.380 you're playing peekaboo with the baby

01:30:39.580 you're not thinking anymore it's not in

01:30:41.500 the realm of articulation or

01:30:42.800 abstraction it's actually something that

01:30:44.560 you're doing with your body and so to

01:30:46.520 me this is a nice multi-stage solution to

01:30:49.520 the mind-body problem because what

01:30:51.340 happens is that the highest the higher

01:30:53.480 order of abstraction it's articulated

01:30:55.700 and conceptual but if you decompose it

01:30:58.280 sufficiently you end up with an actual

01:31:00.860 action and the action involves the

01:31:02.960 movement of musculature it's not

01:31:05.240 something conceptual and one of the

01:31:07.080 things that's really cool about this

01:31:08.720 hierarchy is that it has educational

01:31:12.080 lessons so one of the things you want to

01:31:14.060 do if you're trying to teach someone

01:31:15.500 something even yourself is you want to

01:31:17.780 you want to specify the thing that

01:31:20.240 needs to be doing at the highest

01:31:22.160 resolution possible level so I'll give

01:31:25.340 you just a brief example so let's say I

01:31:27.500 may have maybe repeating this but it

01:31:29.660 doesn't matter say you've got a three

01:31:31.340 year old kid and they're in their room

01:31:33.080 is chaos right this monsters are going

01:31:35.240 to be coming out under the bed in no

01:31:36.680 time flat unless that thing room gets

01:31:38.840 some order in it and so you you tell the

01:31:41.360 kid clean up the room you know it's a

01:31:43.160 mess and you leave and you come back and

01:31:44.900 the kids like throwing legos

01:31:46.100 everywhere it's they're not cleaning up

01:31:48.080 and then you think that's a bad kid

01:31:50.140 that's a bad theory a because you're

01:31:52.700 going right from here to here if you

01:31:55.880 want to have a good fight with someone

01:31:57.380 and destroy them then that's what you do

01:31:59.000 you don't bother with the subtleties down

01:32:01.160 here you just go right from the right

01:32:02.780 for the jugular it's like you're a bad

01:32:04.760 stupid kid you've always been that way

01:32:07.040 you're hopeless there's not a chance of

01:32:09.020 teaching you anything right and we can

01:32:11.240 that way you can nail the past the

01:32:13.080 present and the future all of the same

01:32:14.640 insult you've always been a terrible

01:32:17.040 person you there's no teaching you and

01:32:19.200 your future is going to be exactly the

01:32:20.640 same way then the only thing the

01:32:22.380 person can do if you do that to them is

01:32:24.180 hit you because that's that's it there's

01:32:26.640 no there's no coming back from that you

01:32:29.220 box them completely and so if you want

01:32:30.960 to have a really unproductive argument

01:32:32.580 you go right for this past present and

01:32:35.760 future you're not a good person

01:32:37.320 demolish their entire conceptual structure

01:32:39.480 and expose them completely naked to

01:32:42.300 chaos it's like great you won the

01:32:44.460 argument it's not a good thing to do to

01:32:46.560 your long-term partner let's say unless

01:32:49.380 you want them terrified out of their

01:32:51.360 skull and characterized and their

01:32:55.080 attitude towards you characterized by

01:32:57.000 non-stop extreme resentment it's

01:32:59.640 probably not going to do your love life a

01:33:01.380 hell of a lot of good for example so

01:33:03.840 with the three-year-old maybe what you do

01:33:05.460 is you say you you pick the level of

01:33:07.980 analysis at which they're actually

01:33:09.300 functioning and you say and this is

01:33:11.280 something you can do if you pay

01:33:12.720 attention to a kid and lots people won't

01:33:14.460 pay attention to children because

01:33:15.720 they're terrified of them they're

01:33:17.220 terrified that they'll do something

01:33:18.420 wrong with them and or that that the

01:33:20.880 kid won't like them or some damn thing

01:33:22.680 it's like all you have to do to get a

01:33:24.540 kid to like you is pay attention to the

01:33:26.460 kid for like two seconds and the kid

01:33:28.320 will instantly like you because

01:33:30.120 attention is so it's such a it's it's

01:33:33.780 the ultimate currency for children

01:33:36.540 right they they they need adult

01:33:38.040 attention because adults know way more

01:33:39.900 than kids and so they love attention

01:33:41.400 all you have to pay attention to them

01:33:43.000 they will like you instantly so you tell

01:33:46.500 the kid you see that teddy bear kid goes

01:33:49.680 yes then you've established that the

01:33:51.880 child has mastered the art of

01:33:54.120 perceiving a teddy bear because they can

01:33:56.820 say yes it's this complicated thing man

01:33:58.920 it's like a six-month-old isn't going

01:34:00.720 to do that three-month-old has got the

01:34:02.700 whole teddy bear identification

01:34:04.680 subroutine automatized so teddy bear

01:34:07.620 yes can you pick it up yes pat pat pat

01:34:12.460 good work do you see the hole on that

01:34:14.400 shelf yes can you put the teddy bear in

01:34:17.520 that hole yes go over do that pat pat pat

01:34:21.780 great okay now we'll do thing number two

01:34:25.320 thing number three so you're building up

01:34:27.540 the micro routines of cleaning up the

01:34:29.540 room from the bottom up right you're

01:34:31.100 you're building it into their body

01:34:32.960 because you're starting with the things

01:34:34.460 they've already automatized and

01:34:35.780 building upwards towards abstraction and

01:34:38.360 so once the kid has all the micro

01:34:39.860 routines down and maybe there's a I don't

01:34:41.840 know how many micro routines are there to

01:34:43.640 clean up your room 200 like a lot but not an

01:34:47.600 infinite number so you teach them all the

01:34:49.520 micro routines and then you can say run

01:34:51.800 set of micro routines which means clean up

01:34:55.400 room and then they can do it they know what it

01:34:57.320 means so but you do the building from the

01:34:59.960 bottom up and lots of times when you're

01:35:01.520 arguing with someone that you live with

01:35:03.920 and hypothetically love although those

01:35:05.960 two things are hard to get together in

01:35:07.760 the same relationship what you want to do

01:35:11.060 is assume is assumed stupidity before you

01:35:14.300 assume total in total malevolence that's

01:35:17.420 that's that's that's a good rule of thumb for

01:35:19.400 establishing peace so maybe if your partner

01:35:21.740 won't do something well maybe it's

01:35:24.260 there's something going on up here but

01:35:26.120 you might want to assume to begin with

01:35:27.860 they actually just don't know how to do

01:35:29.660 it and you need to decompose it so maybe

01:35:31.940 there's a way you want to be greeted

01:35:33.260 when you come home because you're going

01:35:35.000 to come home every day probably and

01:35:36.580 maybe that's a five-minute interaction or a

01:35:38.720 ten-minute interaction so that's an hour a

01:35:40.640 week or four hours a month or 50 hours a

01:35:42.800 year or one solid work week of coming

01:35:46.280 home interactions right all you have to do

01:35:48.800 is get 50 interactions like that right and

01:35:51.860 and you've got your relationships sorted

01:35:53.900 out that's something that's really

01:35:55.820 worth thinking about because that's it

01:35:57.140 there's you just don't have that much

01:35:58.620 time right get the meals sorted out

01:36:00.980 that's about five hours a day get your

01:36:03.140 sleeping time arrangements sorted out

01:36:05.540 get the fundamental interactions that

01:36:07.760 you repeat with your partner worked out

01:36:10.460 voluntarily and negotiated you're going

01:36:12.920 to cover 80% of your life that way and

01:36:14.900 then it can just run as a routine and

01:36:17.000 that's really helpful and if you don't do

01:36:18.560 that consciously especially because our

01:36:20.840 roles have fragmented and most of the

01:36:22.460 traditional roles have disappeared and

01:36:24.020 so nobody knows who they all supposed to

01:36:25.580 do what in the kitchen for example so

01:36:27.980 nobody does anything except bitch and

01:36:30.140 fight and make wretched meals or buy or

01:36:33.440 buy fast food or something like that so

01:36:36.440 you know the the alternative to that

01:36:38.360 catastrophic failure or continual

01:36:41.780 resentment and fighting is to rebuild the

01:36:44.120 structures from the bottom up using

01:36:45.800 consensus and negotiation and and you can

01:36:48.740 do that so that's you can think of that

01:36:50.780 as the patriarchal structure that's a

01:36:53.120 good one and I mean it's partly

01:36:54.500 psychological because these are things

01:36:56.120 you do as a person but it's also partly

01:36:58.580 political and economic and

01:37:00.320 sociological because while you're doing

01:37:02.600 each of these things you're also doing

01:37:05.000 them in a way that socially hopefully not

01:37:07.400 just socially acceptable but actually

01:37:09.080 socially desirable and so that's that's

01:37:13.100 the decomposition and the reason that this

01:37:15.260 keeps chaos at bay is because it isn't

01:37:18.500 because your belief systems keep chaos at

01:37:20.600 bay it's not that abstract it's that if

01:37:23.240 you do things right do these things

01:37:24.860 right then terrible things happen to you

01:37:26.720 with less frequency and that's not

01:37:28.760 cycle like it's partly psychological

01:37:30.860 because maybe you don't fight as much

01:37:32.120 maybe you're not anxious as much maybe

01:37:33.740 you're not as depressed but a lot of

01:37:35.360 it's just practical if you just if you

01:37:37.520 you know if your kid doesn't leave his

01:37:39.480 skateboard on the stairs then you don't

01:37:42.440 break your neck as often and that's not

01:37:44.780 just psychological that's actually a

01:37:46.340 good thing not to break your neck so

01:37:48.020 often and so this this structure isn't

01:37:50.960 merely something that keeps things at

01:37:53.060 bay psychologically okay so here's a

01:37:56.480 here's another look at a hierarchy of

01:38:02.360 narrative the structure that keeps chaos

01:38:06.140 at bay and this is maybe the hierarchy

01:38:09.380 that I engage in when I'm writing and I'm

01:38:11.180 doing all these things at the same time

01:38:12.800 that's that's what's cool you know

01:38:14.360 like when I ask a student what are you

01:38:16.520 doing when you write an essay it's like

01:38:19.220 well that's a hard question right it's

01:38:20.720 like well you're fast and important

01:38:24.500 question that's the first thing you

01:38:26.360 should do if you're writing an essay then

01:38:27.920 you're paying attention to the words and

01:38:29.480 the phrases and the sentences and the

01:38:31.520 sentence relationship between the

01:38:33.560 sentences within the paragraphs and the

01:38:35.120 paragraph relationships to one another

01:38:36.680 within the essay and then the essays

01:38:38.780 relevance to the class and the class is

01:38:41.720 relevance to your life and like the

01:38:44.240 essay bleeds out across your entire

01:38:46.700 life and so if I'm writing something

01:38:49.760 well obviously at the most highest

01:38:53.660 resolution level of analysis I'm

01:38:55.220 actually moving my fingers on the

01:38:56.780 keyboard and moving my eyes back and

01:38:58.880 forth on the screen that's where the

01:39:00.860 mind meets the body but then I'm trying

01:39:03.320 to formulate a sentence and so I try to

01:39:05.780 think up a good sentence that's that's

01:39:07.580 nailing what I am trying to formulate

01:39:09.980 and then I try to pick it apart and I do

01:39:12.260 that a bunch of ways I take the sense

01:39:14.180 and I put it on another page and then I

01:39:15.800 write like 10 different variants of the

01:39:17.480 sentence and see if I can get a better

01:39:18.860 variant and then I try to think of ways

01:39:21.020 that it's a stupid sentence to see if I

01:39:22.880 can you know put a pry bar underneath it

01:39:25.400 and loosen it up and if I can't do

01:39:27.980 anything if I can't manage that then I

01:39:29.960 keep the sentence that I've got and then I

01:39:31.520 do that with 10 sentences in a

01:39:33.500 paragraph and I make sure the sentences

01:39:35.120 are all arranged properly in the

01:39:36.500 paragraph the same way by rewriting a

01:39:38.660 bunch of different variants of it and

01:39:40.160 trying to get the word right and the

01:39:41.840 phrase right and the sentence right and

01:39:43.400 the sentence order right and the

01:39:44.780 paragraph order right and I can tell

01:39:47.780 what it's right enough because I can't

01:39:49.940 make it any better that doesn't mean

01:39:51.440 it's right it just means I can't improve

01:39:53.960 it and so I get to the point where if

01:39:55.580 I'm writing a paragraph and I write a

01:39:57.620 variant and I can't tell if the

01:39:59.300 variant is any better and it might be

01:40:00.800 worse then I'm done I've hit the limit of

01:40:03.200 my intellectual capacity and it's time

01:40:05.300 to move on but then but you know that

01:40:07.820 it isn't like the essay that that I'm

01:40:10.160 writing let's say has a boundary that's

01:40:12.620 tightly drawn around the essay because

01:40:14.540 there's a reason I'm writing the damn

01:40:15.800 essay and that would be well I'm trying

01:40:17.780 to I'm trying to write a whole

01:40:19.340 manuscript hopefully I'm trying to

01:40:20.840 address an important problem because why

01:40:22.400 would I be doing it otherwise I mean

01:40:24.800 that would be kind of pointless and

01:40:26.120 maybe that's part of my role as a

01:40:28.160 scientist and that's a subset of my

01:40:30.440 role as a professor and then that's a

01:40:32.120 subset of my role as a productive

01:40:34.340 citizen and then that's a subset of my

01:40:37.280 role of someone who confronts the

01:40:39.560 unknown see and that's why the logos is

01:40:43.460 the thing that's at the top of the

01:40:45.620 hierarchy that's how the hierarchy should

01:40:47.660 be structured is that everything else

01:40:49.220 should be sick you see because you have a

01:40:51.740 structure do you think well what should

01:40:53.120 the structure be subordinate to and then

01:40:55.160 the answer should be something like the

01:40:57.360 structure should be subordinate to the

01:40:58.820 process that generates the structure or

01:41:01.040 the structure should be subordinate to

01:41:03.200 the process that generates and maintains

01:41:05.180 the structure well obviously how could it

01:41:08.060 be any other way unless the structure is

01:41:09.920 perfect when in which case you dispense

01:41:12.500 with the thing that generates it and

01:41:14.040 improves it but then you're a

01:41:15.440 totalitarian it's like hey we got the

01:41:17.200 answer it's like no you don't people are

01:41:19.940 still suffering and they're still dying

01:41:21.920 you don't have the damn answer and so

01:41:24.980 maybe you have an answer that means that

01:41:26.900 there isn't quite as much suffering and

01:41:28.400 dying as there could be but there's

01:41:30.380 plenty of road to be traveled yet and

01:41:33.500 so it don't makes perfect sense that all

01:41:36.800 of this should be should be nested within

01:41:40.100 this highest is I think of it sort of as

01:41:42.680 the highest order of moral striving and

01:41:45.620 then that also gives you a moral

01:41:46.760 hierarchy that's the most important thing

01:41:49.520 you do that with honest speech you do that

01:41:52.400 with attention and honest speech that's

01:41:54.080 how you do that and you don't sacrifice

01:41:57.560 that to any of this because if you do

01:42:00.260 then then you're hurting your soul it's

01:42:03.320 there's the this idea in the New

01:42:04.580 Testament that the sin against the Holy

01:42:06.740 Ghost is the one sin that can't be

01:42:08.300 forgiven no one knows what the hell that

01:42:09.920 means maybe it doesn't mean anything but

01:42:12.020 I think this is what it means is that

01:42:13.760 because this process generates all this

01:42:18.200 if you violate that process then there's

01:42:22.640 no hope for you because that's the

01:42:25.040 process by which you improve yourself

01:42:27.020 and everyone else to everything else so

01:42:29.780 if you decide you're not going to engage

01:42:31.100 in that it's like well there's no fixing

01:42:33.460 that because you've blown apart your

01:42:35.600 relationship with the thing that does the

01:42:37.820 fixing and so okay and so that's how you

01:42:42.800 keep chaos at bay and so part of that is

01:42:45.020 structural right because you know how to

01:42:46.700 do these things more or less it's part of

01:42:49.580 your skill set if you happen to be a writer

01:42:51.560 you could build one of these for a

01:42:52.880 plumber it doesn't doesn't make any

01:42:54.320 difference really although the outside

01:42:56.360 things should be the same which is I

01:42:58.640 think partly why in in the Judeo-Christian

01:43:01.520 tradition there's the assumption that

01:43:04.580 people are fundamentally equal before God and

01:43:07.880 what that means is that well they should be

01:43:10.760 nested everyone regardless of their

01:43:14.360 particularities particularities as

01:43:16.580 individuals their highest order function

01:43:19.040 is that they do it in whatever manner

01:43:21.740 they can manage and that's an

01:43:23.360 extraordinarily valuable or maybe the

01:43:25.640 most extraordinarily valuable sociological

01:43:28.500 political and economic function and so

01:43:30.560 that's why people are valuable it's like we

01:43:33.280 have this faculty to continually generate

01:43:35.720 improvements to the structure that we

01:43:39.500 jointly inhabit great that gives us it's

01:43:43.340 so cool because that gives us a

01:43:44.660 fundamental unity with at the highest

01:43:46.880 order of of analysis with with the room

01:43:50.900 for as much diversity as you can possibly

01:43:53.040 manage right because it actually turns out

01:43:55.040 that the more the substructures differ the

01:43:58.220 better because then you know you can be

01:43:59.840 doing something different than me and that

01:44:01.640 would be good because if we were doing the

01:44:02.960 same thing then it's just duplication of

01:44:04.640 labor if we could agree on the higher

01:44:06.860 order principle and then specialize at the

01:44:09.020 lower order levels it's like that's you

01:44:11.720 get to have your cake and eat it too and

01:44:13.880 that doesn't happen very often so so and

01:44:18.740 so then another rule of thumb is if you're

01:44:21.200 trying to solve a problem solve it at this

01:44:22.820 level highest resolution level possible

01:44:25.880 before you dare move up dare move up the

01:44:28.940 hierarchy because they as you move up the

01:44:32.000 abstraction hierarchy the probability

01:44:33.740 that you'll make a catastrophic error

01:44:35.420 while attempting to fix the problem

01:44:37.400 radically increases because abstraction

01:44:40.160 is very very powerful and so you want to

01:44:42.260 be very careful I mean we saw that when

01:44:43.940 you know when this when the when the

01:44:46.440 mortgage market crashed the reason it

01:44:48.480 crashed was because of strange use of

01:44:50.480 derivatives and derivatives are like

01:44:52.040 higher order abstractions in the

01:44:53.700 financial world and derivatives give you

01:44:55.820 tremendous financial leverage and power

01:44:59.120 with huge risk and so that the upside is

01:45:02.540 massive absolutely massive because you

01:45:04.500 can multiply your earnings but the

01:45:06.260 downside is complete bloody catastrophe

01:45:08.960 and so part of what I would say an

01:45:11.420 intelligent conservative ethos is is

01:45:14.900 solve the problem at the highest level of

01:45:17.840 resolution highest level low most local

01:45:20.280 level of resolution it's safer and it's

01:45:23.540 more likely to actually produce a solution

01:45:24.860 solution okay now so now you're in your

01:45:30.140 plan now we're simplified again just to

01:45:32.420 one little map right but all those other

01:45:34.040 things are nested in there and so what

01:45:36.680 happens to you as you stroll merrily on

01:45:39.380 your way through life well what happens is

01:45:41.840 that as you're moving from point A to

01:45:43.580 point B you encounter things and people

01:45:47.120 think that what they encounter are objects

01:45:49.520 but that's not the case first of all most of

01:45:52.080 the things that you encounter many of the

01:45:53.600 things are actually other people and

01:45:55.100 they're not objects they're too damn

01:45:56.480 complex and even apart from the social

01:46:00.080 world the things that you encounter

01:46:02.120 aren't objects they seem to be

01:46:03.560 something more like tools or obstacles

01:46:05.660 and I don't mean that we see objects and

01:46:07.820 turn them into tools or obstacles I mean

01:46:09.740 that we see tools and obstacles because

01:46:11.780 what happens is that when you array

01:46:13.640 yourself towards a goal then the world

01:46:18.200 transforms itself into things that get in

01:46:20.540 the way of that goal and things that

01:46:21.860 three things things that get in the way

01:46:23.660 of the goal think those are things you

01:46:25.640 don't like things that facilitate your

01:46:27.920 movement towards the goal those are

01:46:29.720 things that you like and irrelevant

01:46:31.760 things and mostly you want irrelevant

01:46:34.040 things because there's just too damn many

01:46:35.420 things so the category of irrelevant is

01:46:38.180 when you really like so most of things

01:46:40.880 most of everything is irrelevant if you

01:46:42.440 have a good plan a few things are good

01:46:44.480 because they move you forward and some

01:46:45.980 other things are not so good you want to

01:46:48.080 go around the not so good things if you

01:46:49.740 can manage them unless you like to run

01:46:51.360 head forth into like brick walls which

01:46:53.460 is not particularly so learning

01:46:55.440 experience but I wouldn't repeat it too

01:46:57.060 many times you want you want the world

01:46:59.940 to array itself as a set of we could say

01:47:03.360 tools now what happens is that you have

01:47:05.520 this perceptual system that's mediated by

01:47:07.740 dopamine it's the same system that

01:47:09.360 cocaine activates or methamphetamine are

01:47:12.120 the drugs that people really like to take

01:47:13.620 and it's the dopaminergic system that

01:47:16.320 responds with positive emotion to

01:47:18.480 indications that you've encountered

01:47:19.740 something that will facilitate your

01:47:21.300 movement towards a goal and that's

01:47:23.700 really important to know because people

01:47:26.160 tend to think that they're happy

01:47:27.480 because they achieve goals and that's

01:47:29.100 not true what's true it because as soon

01:47:31.680 as you achieve a goal then you have a

01:47:32.820 problem which is what's the next goal and

01:47:34.860 that's actually a big problem you

01:47:36.300 encounter that as soon as you graduate

01:47:37.740 from university for example that's right

01:47:39.420 I made this joke before

01:47:41.100 day graduation day years like king of the

01:47:44.100 university hierarchy undergraduate

01:47:46.260 hierarchy day after your unemployed

01:47:48.660 potential Starbucks employee right so

01:47:51.540 it's like so obviously the the the

01:47:54.660 accomplishment per se as a source of

01:47:57.360 reward is is problematic because when

01:48:00.480 you accomplish you run the the frame to

01:48:03.000 its end and then you have the problem of

01:48:04.740 needing a new frame so that's a problem

01:48:06.780 but if what you're encountering instead

01:48:09.180 are things that will move you along your

01:48:11.220 way it's like hey that's great and

01:48:13.060 that's where you get your positive

01:48:14.320 motivation and so that's really

01:48:16.120 thinking that's so much we're thinking

01:48:18.100 about you can think about that for a

01:48:19.660 year and that wouldn't even be enough

01:48:21.100 to think about it because here's what

01:48:22.420 it means it means in some sense that the

01:48:24.820 Buddhists are right with their claim

01:48:26.200 about Maya maya which means that people

01:48:29.200 live in an illusion and what they mean by

01:48:31.000 that is well you have goal whatever your

01:48:34.000 goal is and that goal gives relevance to

01:48:37.180 the world and you can change the

01:48:39.180 relevance of the world in the snap just

01:48:41.300 by changing your goal you can do that

01:48:43.880 and so then you think well it's sort of

01:48:45.560 an illusion because you can just change

01:48:47.120 it now you don't want to push that line

01:48:49.160 of argumentation too far because even if

01:48:52.160 the specific point can be changed the

01:48:56.240 fact that you're in one of these frames

01:48:57.560 cannot be changed and so you have to be

01:49:00.500 in a frame although you get to pick the

01:49:01.940 frame so there's still an absolute there

01:49:03.680 which is that you have to be in a frame

01:49:04.940 and that is not a trivial absolute it's a

01:49:07.460 very it's a very major absolute so then

01:49:09.860 you think okay all of your positive

01:49:11.900 emotion is going to be experienced in

01:49:13.760 relationship to the goal well then we

01:49:16.520 think well you could use some positive

01:49:18.140 emotion it's a good thing positive

01:49:20.660 emotion inhibits anxiety and

01:49:23.840 disappointment and frustration and pain it

01:49:27.680 does all that technically it does that

01:49:30.080 that's why a football player with a broken

01:49:31.520 thumb who wants to score a touchdown can

01:49:33.800 go out there you know play the football

01:49:36.020 game even though it's a kind of an

01:49:38.000 arbitrary goal right it's like really

01:49:39.740 you're going to go out there and like

01:49:40.820 risk your hand to fire a pigskin through

01:49:45.440 some some poles it's like well you can

01:49:50.000 say the same sort of cynical thing about

01:49:51.500 most of the things that people do but you

01:49:53.780 can't say the cynical thing about the

01:49:55.520 fact that they have to do things so you

01:49:58.280 have a you have a point you have your

01:50:00.620 aim you have your ambition and then

01:50:02.960 that's what turns the world into a

01:50:04.700 potentially positive place and here's

01:50:06.800 the kicker this is so cool the higher

01:50:10.120 the aim the more the positive emotion so

01:50:13.660 that's that's you think well why should I

01:50:15.720 bother you know why should I bother

01:50:17.500 doing something lofty and difficult it's

01:50:20.140 like because it's worth it that's why

01:50:25.000 because the alternative is stupid

01:50:27.760 suffering because really really because

01:50:30.340 what happens is like you don't need a

01:50:33.940 framework in order to suffer you can just

01:50:37.200 lay there day after day and suffer right

01:50:41.680 that's easy so that's the default

01:50:43.840 condition if you don't have a lofty

01:50:46.300 ambition then you suffer miserably and

01:50:49.720 the reason for that is life is really

01:50:51.120 complex short finite full of suffering and

01:50:55.320 beyond you and so you can just lay there

01:50:57.360 and think about that and it's horrible

01:50:58.860 and so that's not helpful it's just not

01:51:01.380 useful and so you know people often say

01:51:03.720 life is meaningless it's like no it's not

01:51:05.880 that's wrong because it was meaningless

01:51:08.520 that'd be easy you could just sit there and

01:51:09.960 do nothing and it wouldn't matter right it

01:51:11.580 be like you look like you're like a lot

01:51:13.380 lobotomized sheep it's just irrelevant but

01:51:16.920 that isn't what happens when people say that

01:51:19.560 life has no meaning that isn't what they mean

01:51:21.660 what they mean is I'm suffering stupidly and

01:51:25.200 intensely and I don't know what to do

01:51:27.300 about it well the suffering is meaningful

01:51:29.760 it's just not the kind of meaning you

01:51:31.320 want so how do you get out of that you

01:51:34.320 adopt you you you note the baseline of

01:51:39.300 suffering which is very very very very high

01:51:42.300 and then you say to yourself okay I need

01:51:44.940 to do something that justifies that and

01:51:46.620 that's not so easy because it's the

01:51:49.680 baseline for suffering is high if

01:51:51.660 you're going to make something of

01:51:52.620 yourself let's say so that it's

01:51:54.780 worthwhile to exist in the world then

01:51:58.200 you have to do you have to aim at

01:51:59.640 something that's so well structured that

01:52:03.360 you can say yeah earthquakes cancer death

01:52:07.380 of my family dissolution of my goals

01:52:09.840 ultimate futility of life and the heat

01:52:12.120 death of the universe hey it doesn't

01:52:15.120 matter it's worth it all right so now

01:52:21.420 here's an here's an another

01:52:24.480 complicating factor so I said well

01:52:27.240 there's three things that you can run

01:52:28.680 into when you're going about your your

01:52:32.220 goal and I would say if you're going to

01:52:35.640 form a goal if you're going to form a

01:52:37.320 plan look about three to five years out

01:52:39.660 in the future because beyond that you

01:52:42.300 get something called combinatorial

01:52:45.900 explosion and it means that there's so

01:52:48.240 many variables you just can't predict

01:52:49.740 so there's not that much point looking

01:52:51.420 out 20 years because like what the hell

01:52:53.400 do you know what's going to happen in 20

01:52:55.080 years nothing three years maybe you've

01:52:57.960 got maybe you can chart a course to

01:53:00.420 three years five years something like

01:53:01.980 that so that's not a bad segment of time

01:53:04.620 to to consider and then consider what

01:53:09.300 your life would have to be like in

01:53:10.560 order for it to be worthwhile for you

01:53:12.420 knowing also what you're going to be

01:53:15.120 like if it isn't worthwhile for you and

01:53:16.800 what you're going to be like if it

01:53:18.660 isn't worthwhile for you is Cain that's

01:53:22.320 what you're like because that's what

01:53:23.580 that story is about because Abel's the

01:53:25.180 guy who has a goal and is making the

01:53:27.360 proper sacrifices and Cain is the person

01:53:29.820 for whom by his own faults at least in

01:53:32.580 part things aren't working out for

01:53:34.560 and so the default for not doing this

01:53:37.860 is something like building resentment

01:53:40.080 bitterness with an underlying what

01:53:42.720 would you call it flavor enhancer of

01:53:45.360 murderous resentment something like

01:53:47.460 that which you will act out in the

01:53:49.200 world which people act out in the world

01:53:50.560 all the time and it's no wonder

01:53:52.500 because without this without something

01:53:55.680 lofty pulling you along then the

01:53:59.340 baseline is stupid suffering and you

01:54:01.560 know if you take an anna dog and you

01:54:03.180 just chain in the backyard you know and

01:54:04.920 you put a collar on it that's too tight

01:54:06.480 so it chafes all the time and it can't

01:54:08.700 even bark and you know there's just dirt

01:54:10.920 around it and it's too goddamn hot out

01:54:12.780 in the Sun and maybe you don't give it

01:54:14.280 enough water you know it's not going to

01:54:16.080 be very happy dog its basic condition is

01:54:19.680 misery well the same applies to people so

01:54:23.400 all right so you're on your way to see

01:54:27.240 you remember that you've all probably

01:54:30.120 watched Pinocchio or know about it one

01:54:32.400 of the things that happens that's really

01:54:33.720 cool in Pinocchio is that when Geppetto

01:54:36.000 decides that he wants his puppet to be a

01:54:39.360 genuine autonomous being he wishes upon a

01:54:44.280 star it's a very strange thing but

01:54:46.080 everybody just swallows it because we

01:54:47.580 don't notice when we're swallowing things

01:54:49.080 that are that are completely preposterous

01:54:51.820 you know it's this animated puppeteer

01:54:55.740 wishes on a star that his puppet is

01:54:58.500 going to become real and everybody nods

01:55:00.000 their head and goes oh yeah that makes

01:55:01.200 sense it's like no it doesn't it doesn't

01:55:03.660 make any sense at all but it doesn't

01:55:05.220 matter it doesn't make the sort of sense

01:55:07.080 that we normally associate with sense it

01:55:08.880 makes a kind of meta sense and

01:55:10.380 everybody understands it so this is what

01:55:12.300 Geppetto's doing is he's elevating his

01:55:14.760 eyes above the horizon so out of the

01:55:17.520 realm of the worldly let's say to the

01:55:20.280 transcendent and the transcendent will

01:55:22.560 say for all intents and purposes you can

01:55:24.600 see the transcendent spread above you in

01:55:27.060 in in in the heaven that arches over us

01:55:30.000 it's it's close enough for our purposes

01:55:32.820 and there's a star there and a star is

01:55:34.860 something that's eternal that shines in

01:55:36.720 the darkness and so Geppetto makes an

01:55:38.700 agreement with the transcendent he says

01:55:40.620 look I'm willing to do whatever it takes

01:55:42.060 that my creation becomes autonomous well

01:55:45.820 that's exactly this situation that you

01:55:47.400 want to set up for yourself is like

01:55:48.900 ok you got to figure out what star you're

01:55:51.600 going to orient yourself by and you

01:55:54.240 have to ask yourself like no one's ever

01:55:56.040 asked you okay if you had the choice to

01:55:59.440 make your life worth living what's your

01:56:02.820 price what do you need just find out

01:56:06.560 first of all you just ask you'll tell

01:56:08.740 yourself like you'll be afraid because

01:56:10.680 you thought I'll never get that it's

01:56:12.060 like well lower your sights a little bit

01:56:13.740 then you know don't ask for a 80-foot

01:56:15.960 super yacht in like six months that

01:56:18.360 just means you're stupid you know it

01:56:20.400 doesn't mean you're not you know first

01:56:22.260 of all it's not going to make you happy

01:56:23.160 anyways you know it's just not it's not

01:56:25.800 it's not wise you're asking you're

01:56:28.440 supposed to be asking yourself this

01:56:29.940 question like you're someone you care

01:56:31.380 about so you imagine you're talking to

01:56:33.480 some 12 year old kid that you kind of

01:56:35.280 like think I wouldn't be so bad if this

01:56:37.440 12 year old kid had a decent life so you

01:56:40.980 too it's like it wouldn't be so bad the

01:56:42.660 universe wouldn't mind if you had a

01:56:43.920 decent life if there was little less

01:56:45.480 suffering on your part especially if

01:56:47.400 you didn't you know foist it off on

01:56:49.600 other people if there's a little less

01:56:51.180 suffering on your part and you made

01:56:53.040 things a little better everywhere you

01:56:54.480 went it's like the universe would

01:56:55.740 probably be okay with that so you could

01:56:57.720 I think you could get away with it if

01:56:59.280 you're sort of quiet about it and so ask

01:57:02.820 yourself okay so then once you've

01:57:05.340 established your your target you know

01:57:07.560 where you are then you know what's good

01:57:09.120 for you because that moves you along and

01:57:11.760 that happens at a perceptual level you

01:57:13.440 don't have to think about it anymore and

01:57:14.880 the experimental literature and that's

01:57:16.980 already quite clear so for example if I

01:57:19.500 specify that podium as the target for my

01:57:22.920 action you know then I'm happy when I'm

01:57:25.500 walking towards it because there it is

01:57:27.000 and everything cooperating really nicely

01:57:28.740 but if I specify going to the exit sign

01:57:32.760 that you guys can't see that's

01:57:34.020 that that that this is an obstacle in

01:57:37.080 the front of then as soon as I specify

01:57:39.180 that then that's an annoying obstacle

01:57:41.280 and that's precognitive it happens

01:57:44.120 immediately it happens instantaneously and

01:57:46.860 so it really is the case that you you

01:57:49.440 your your being manifests itself inside

01:57:52.920 these frames and so what's so cool about

01:57:55.380 that is you can change the frame that

01:57:57.120 doesn't mean you can like juggle planets

01:57:59.100 or anything like that but it does give

01:58:00.960 you quite a scope of of of of what

01:58:05.040 untrammeled action within the world and

01:58:07.560 if the frame isn't working out then you

01:58:09.000 can tweak it or sometimes you have to

01:58:10.440 make a major adjustment in it whatever

01:58:12.120 you don't have to stick to the damn

01:58:13.680 thing like it's the ideology that you're

01:58:15.680 going to die for it's a tentative plan

01:58:18.060 it's a work in progress and it's nuts

01:58:20.160 with the future authoring program one of

01:58:22.200 the things I recommend for people is that

01:58:24.060 they should do it badly because you're not

01:58:26.520 going to get it right anyways but a

01:58:28.500 reasonable plan is way better than no

01:58:31.860 plan plus a reasonable plan is a plan

01:58:34.020 that has built into it the processes

01:58:37.560 that will enable the plan to get better

01:58:39.120 as you implement it so you just start

01:58:40.980 with a reasonable plan so you don't have

01:58:43.020 to worry about whether it's correct it's

01:58:45.240 not correct it doesn't matter it's

01:58:47.580 better than nothing that's the issue so

01:58:49.500 okay so you've got the world parsed up

01:58:51.300 into things that making are making you

01:58:54.660 happy when you look at them things that

01:58:57.360 get in the way that produce negative

01:58:58.980 emotion and then a whole host of

01:59:00.900 irrelevant things because almost

01:59:03.000 everything's irrelevant and that's

01:59:05.100 where all the chaos is hiding the chaos is

01:59:07.680 hiding in what's irrelevant and so and

01:59:11.280 that's very interesting observation

01:59:12.480 because since the chaos is virtually

01:59:14.580 infinite it's a real questions where the

01:59:16.380 hell do you put it well you put it in

01:59:18.300 what you ignore and you can ignore it as

01:59:20.580 long as it isn't actively interfering with

01:59:22.560 your movement forward you can assume

01:59:24.180 that it's that it doesn't matter that

01:59:27.480 it isn't matter that it doesn't matter

01:59:29.400 same thing all right so here's the

01:59:33.600 kicker there's one more class of things

01:59:36.240 that you can run into along the way and

01:59:38.820 this is where the chaos breaks through so

01:59:41.880 let's say you're moving from point A to

01:59:45.060 point B and something that you don't

01:59:48.000 expect occurs and it gets in the way so

01:59:52.500 let's say that you're living with

01:59:55.920 someone and maybe you kind of like them

01:59:57.420 you're not married so you don't like

01:59:59.280 them that much because otherwise you'd

02:00:00.780 ask them to marry you but anyways and so

02:00:05.520 how quarter of you is looking for

02:00:07.440 something better and three-quarters of

02:00:08.840 you is half satisfied something like that

02:00:10.620 and then a person because we're

02:00:14.100 ambivalent about such things and then the

02:00:15.880 person you discover or the person

02:00:18.100 announces that they've been having an

02:00:19.480 affair okay so then how are you

02:00:22.360 supposed to respond emotionally to that

02:00:23.980 well the part of you that wasn't all

02:00:26.020 that committed to the relationship is

02:00:27.460 kind of exhilarated by that and then the

02:00:29.560 three-quarters of you that's half

02:00:31.000 satisfied is hurt and and you're going

02:00:33.200 to exploit that part for sure in the

02:00:34.960 ensuing discussions and not mention the

02:00:37.060 oh that's kind of exciting that you've

02:00:38.800 you know betrayed me that way so so but

02:00:43.660 the point is is that you that's a

02:00:45.880 hole now what's happened is a hole has

02:00:48.040 you have this structure that you're

02:00:50.680 walking on like ice like the thin ice

02:00:52.720 that you're skating on and now there's a

02:00:54.380 hole in it and the hole we don't even

02:00:57.460 know how deep the hole is but you know

02:00:58.780 there's a hole there and so now you're

02:01:00.460 anxious about it oh though maybe also a

02:01:02.320 little bit excited because God only

02:01:03.640 knows what's down there but but you

02:01:06.780 don't know what to do with that hole

02:01:08.320 because it could spread very badly on you

02:01:10.880 it could be that you know the whole

02:01:12.800 relationship was a facade and that all

02:01:16.280 your relationships have been facade

02:01:17.720 facades and that the reason that is is

02:01:20.000 because you're so damn shallow that it's

02:01:21.500 impossible for you to have a

02:01:22.580 relationship that isn't just a facade and

02:01:24.860 that's partly because you don't pay any

02:01:26.780 attention to other people and it's also

02:01:28.100 partly because you're malevolent and

02:01:29.480 selfish so that's a nasty thing to

02:01:31.640 discover or maybe that's the sort of

02:01:33.560 person that you're attracting which

02:01:35.480 would make sense actually if that's the

02:01:37.100 sort of person that you are and so so

02:01:39.980 there are certain things that you can

02:01:41.840 encounter that basically unglu you and

02:01:43.940 what happens is that those moments of

02:01:46.740 being unglued travel up that entire

02:01:48.740 hierarchy of presuppositions it's like

02:01:51.260 because the one of the logical

02:01:53.720 conclusions to being betrayed in a

02:01:55.100 relationship is that you are that you're

02:01:57.140 truly a bad person now another equally

02:02:01.940 logical conclusion is that the person that

02:02:04.280 you're with is really a bad person and

02:02:05.960 another logical conclusion is all people

02:02:08.700 are truly bad people you know I mean in

02:02:12.660 in macro ways and in micro ways you

02:02:15.240 can't trust anyone you can't trust

02:02:16.560 women you can't trust men you can't

02:02:18.060 trust human beings you can't trust

02:02:19.380 yourself the whole place is a

02:02:21.420 catastrophe it's a nightmare well then

02:02:24.180 you can fall through into chaos now the

02:02:27.000 way your body responds to that when

02:02:29.160 something or maybe you know you're

02:02:30.360 supposed to be getting a promotion at

02:02:31.700 work that's good you're all chipper

02:02:33.480 about the promotion at work and you you

02:02:35.940 walk into your boss's office because he

02:02:37.800 or she wants to see you and they say

02:02:39.900 well you know we've reviewed your

02:02:42.300 performance over the last few years and

02:02:45.000 your performance has been somewhere

02:02:50.220 between mediocre and decent and we're

02:02:52.380 downsizing and see you later that's not a

02:02:57.600 raise or a promotion that's for sure

02:02:59.280 not so whole that you fall into and the

02:03:03.120 question is well what do you make of

02:03:04.380 that right how do you frame that how do

02:03:07.500 you take that emergent chaos and make

02:03:10.080 habitable order out of you don't know is

02:03:12.120 the whole capitalist system rotten to the

02:03:14.520 core I mean that's a convenient

02:03:16.380 explanation under those circumstances

02:03:18.000 that's for sure

02:03:19.260 were you working for a psychopathic son

02:03:21.360 of a bitch did you make the wrong choice

02:03:23.940 in university and was that your father's

02:03:25.920 fault because you never did what you want

02:03:27.540 or was it your fault for not standing

02:03:29.280 up to him or is it a dying industry or

02:03:32.220 is maybe this a wake-up call that you

02:03:33.780 should go do something else that you've

02:03:35.040 been waiting to do you know that you've

02:03:37.080 actually wanted to do your whole life

02:03:38.460 and that's why you're doing such a

02:03:40.140 miserable job at your current

02:03:41.640 occupation because you're bitter and

02:03:43.020 resentful about the fact that you never

02:03:44.520 did what you want you don't know it's

02:03:46.860 all of those things at once and that's

02:03:49.140 very stressful because all of those

02:03:50.880 things at once is too many things and

02:03:52.920 that's the re-emergence of chaos

02:03:55.200 that's the flood that's the return to

02:03:58.920 the beginning of the cosmos that's

02:04:00.540 another way that it's been represented

02:04:02.040 mythologically it's that you voyage all

02:04:04.320 the way back to the beginning of the

02:04:05.520 cosmos when there's nothing but

02:04:07.200 undifferentiated chaos and that's what

02:04:10.200 you're confronting and maybe it's too

02:04:12.060 much for you and often it is I mean that

02:04:14.400 that can really that can be traumatizing

02:04:17.640 it can hurt your brain you know it's just

02:04:20.220 too much for you to bear but it doesn't

02:04:22.320 matter you're stuck with it and so how

02:04:24.320 do you respond to that well some of it

02:04:25.980 is catastrophic negative emotion you

02:04:29.160 freeze and that's protective and maybe

02:04:31.080 you don't even want to move you don't

02:04:32.100 want to bloody well get out of bed for a

02:04:34.080 week and that's because your body is

02:04:35.880 reacting as if the bedroom floor is

02:04:38.160 covered with snakes and the best thing

02:04:39.540 for you to do is just not move just

02:04:41.520 freeze not a pleasant situation to be in

02:04:44.100 because it's your hyper aroused very very

02:04:47.460 physiologically demanding and there's zero

02:04:49.680 about it that's productive except maybe the

02:04:51.840 snakes won't see you but they've already

02:04:53.560 seen you so that isn't helping very well

02:04:55.560 so you've got all this undifferentiated

02:04:57.460 negative emotion anxiety fear hurt anger

02:05:00.840 guilt shame emotional pain the whole

02:05:03.420 plethora of catastrophes and then maybe

02:05:05.720 on the other side lurking down there is

02:05:08.520 thank God I'm done with that job I just

02:05:10.800 bloody well hated I drag myself off to

02:05:13.200 work every day and there's a little part

02:05:15.900 of my soul that's so goddamn happy I

02:05:17.820 finally got fired that I can hardly stand

02:05:20.220 it you know maybe you don't even admit

02:05:21.940 that to yourself because well that would

02:05:23.880 mean that all that time you spent at the

02:05:25.320 job was just sunk cost you're deluding

02:05:27.600 yourself the whole time

02:05:29.220 it isn't an interesting thing to

02:05:31.320 consider those sometimes if you're in the

02:05:33.120 unpleasant circumstance of having to fire

02:05:35.760 someone you know sometimes firing

02:05:38.400 someone is the best thing that can

02:05:39.720 happen to them which doesn't mean that

02:05:41.520 you should go out and like enjoy it

02:05:44.220 although I have met very disagreeable

02:05:46.800 people who actually enjoyed firing

02:05:48.480 people I'll tell you a story about that

02:05:50.760 at some point because it's quite

02:05:51.840 interesting but you know sometimes if

02:05:54.120 someone's just limping along in their

02:05:55.800 job and doing it as miserably and

02:05:58.740 wretchedly as they possibly can imagine

02:06:00.900 the best thing you can do to them for

02:06:03.060 them is to say you know you're failing at

02:06:06.120 this and and that doesn't necessarily

02:06:08.820 mean that you would have to be failing at

02:06:10.680 absolutely everything else in the entire

02:06:12.860 world so maybe you should just accept

02:06:14.580 the damn failure and go off and try

02:06:17.000 something new and I mean that's

02:06:18.820 terrifying for people and I know they

02:06:20.440 hate it and all that but but but

02:06:24.760 sometimes it's better than the

02:06:25.980 alternative which is just slow

02:06:27.460 torturous death when a woman

02:06:31.420 experiences an unplanned pregnancy she

02:06:33.680 often feels alone and afraid too often

02:06:36.360 her first response is to seek out an

02:06:38.160 abortion because that's what left-leaning

02:06:40.280 institutions have conditioned her to do

02:06:42.320 but because of the generosity of

02:06:44.380 listeners like you that search may lead

02:06:46.520 her to a pre-born network clinic where

02:06:48.580 by the grace of God she'll choose life

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02:07:43.240 so here's a funny way of looking at it

02:07:50.740 so let's say you fall right into that

02:07:53.460 hole that's underneath any everything

02:07:56.060 and you've hit an anomaly that you

02:07:57.860 don't understand you say what's that

02:07:59.500 anomaly made out of exactly I know

02:08:02.220 that's a strange way of thinking about

02:08:03.700 it you know because it's not what you

02:08:06.140 could say we'll just go along with that

02:08:08.640 it's a metaphor what's that anomaly

02:08:10.600 made out of well here's a way of

02:08:12.040 thinking about it's made out of

02:08:13.080 spirited matter and here's why this is

02:08:16.780 something I learned in part from Piaget

02:08:18.440 said well it's made out of matter

02:08:21.520 because of course that's the world

02:08:23.600 matter and the world is also what

02:08:25.460 matters and so that's kind of a nice

02:08:27.260 duality there but it's made out of

02:08:29.820 spirit because when you encounter

02:08:32.220 something anomalous and go down the

02:08:33.720 rabbit hole when you go into the

02:08:34.920 underworld that's underneath

02:08:35.940 everything that you've relied on you

02:08:38.460 learn things down there so what's down

02:08:40.320 there is information and that now it's

02:08:42.720 maybe way more information than you want

02:08:45.120 but it is information it's information and

02:08:48.240 what can you what can you do with the

02:08:49.800 information you can inform yourself with

02:08:52.680 the information right you can put

02:08:54.740 yourself information with the

02:08:57.540 information that's helpful too and so

02:09:00.660 and you think well you you're a psyche

02:09:03.180 maybe you're not a spirit it depends on

02:09:04.980 you know whether you're a materialist or

02:09:06.720 not but at least we can say that you're

02:09:08.220 a psyche the question is what's your

02:09:09.880 psyche made of well it's obviously got a

02:09:12.120 material substrate but the matter happens

02:09:15.000 to be arrayed in a particular order and

02:09:17.900 that's an information order and so when

02:09:20.760 you fall into the underworld that's

02:09:22.260 underneath everything and you

02:09:23.380 encounter that latent information then

02:09:25.560 what you can do is enhance your psyche you

02:09:27.720 can grow your spirit because what you do

02:09:29.580 is you take the new information and you

02:09:32.460 incorporate it that's like eating the

02:09:34.680 apple that Adam and Eve ate you

02:09:36.420 incorporate that and that makes more of

02:09:38.340 you and that's not a metaphorical or

02:09:40.500 metaphysical proposition it's not it's to

02:09:42.780 say nothing other than well that's what

02:09:44.460 happens when children learn you think of

02:09:46.200 what happens

02:09:47.040 Charles III has a pretty low resolution

02:09:49.680 representation of the world and is a

02:09:52.920 fairly low resolution human being got all

02:09:56.040 the constituent elements there but isn't

02:09:57.720 differentiated in any tremendous

02:09:59.800 manner that's all still to come in the

02:10:01.440 future and so what does the child do

02:10:03.240 explore what do they explore things they

02:10:06.780 don't understand that's where the

02:10:08.160 information is because you already

02:10:10.200 understand what you understand there's

02:10:11.700 no information there you go where

02:10:13.320 there where you don't understand that's

02:10:15.180 where the information is and out of that

02:10:16.980 information you generate a higher

02:10:18.540 resolution world and you generate a

02:10:20.700 higher resolution self and so out of the

02:10:23.400 combat with the underlying dragon of

02:10:26.220 chaos you generate spirit and matter

02:10:28.440 and that's what you do when you go

02:10:30.120 down into the underworld so if it

02:10:32.460 doesn't kill you or if it doesn't make

02:10:35.020 you wish you were dead which you

02:10:36.220 probably will but there's a bunch of

02:10:38.160 you that has to die down there anyway so

02:10:40.000 maybe that's not such a bad thing

02:10:41.220 because if you had this relationship

02:10:43.380 that ended in betrayal then there's

02:10:45.200 something that's just not exactly right

02:10:46.920 right there's something that went and

02:10:49.200 the reason I'm saying that think well

02:10:50.820 that's kind of moralistic like actually

02:10:53.100 I don't mind being moralistic in case

02:10:54.660 you haven't noticed but but that's not

02:10:57.720 it's not a fair comment because you're

02:10:59.580 playing the stupid game it's like you

02:11:02.100 live with someone infidelity that's the

02:11:05.520 game right you've decided the rules

02:11:07.560 with the game comes a morality the

02:11:10.020 morality are the rules of the game well

02:11:12.360 then the thing collapses into infidelity

02:11:14.520 it's like well you played the game wrong or

02:11:17.580 it was the wrong game one of those two

02:11:19.200 you it's one of those two you pick the

02:11:22.440 damn game and having picked the game

02:11:24.660 you can't all of a sudden say well no

02:11:26.280 those aren't the rules it's like yeah

02:11:28.080 yeah if you pick the game you pick the

02:11:30.660 rules and if you fail at complying with

02:11:33.720 the rules then you fail now you could say

02:11:35.940 well I could pick a different game it's

02:11:37.300 like I don't care how you solve the

02:11:38.580 problem you're still stuck with the

02:11:40.540 problem it's a moral problem fundamentally

02:11:43.260 and it might take some major league

02:11:46.960 retooling to to fix it so you're at

02:11:51.760 point a trying to get to point b that's

02:11:54.700 not working out you hit an anomaly you're

02:11:58.080 not getting to point b that's for sure

02:12:00.260 your medical school student you write

02:12:04.260 your mcats which is this test you have

02:12:06.120 to write to go to medical school you get

02:12:07.820 25th percentile I don't know who you are

02:12:10.580 but you're not a pre-med student and

02:12:12.620 maybe you never were right and that's

02:12:14.840 the rub man and so who the hell are you

02:12:17.780 you don't know collapse down here into

02:12:20.840 this motivational conflict this place of

02:12:23.420 motivational and emotional uncertainty

02:12:25.280 and tremendous information right it's a

02:12:27.860 place of transformation it's the

02:12:29.660 phoenix that burns it's the burning

02:12:31.640 part of the phoenix that burns it's it's

02:12:33.860 the journey to the underworld it's the

02:12:35.480 journey to hell it can really be a

02:12:37.280 journey to hell because you may find out

02:12:39.380 that the reason that your partner

02:12:41.660 betrayed you or that you didn't get your

02:12:43.100 damn promotion is because there's

02:12:44.960 seriously something wrong with you and

02:12:47.060 you know it and I don't just mean that

02:12:48.500 you don't know what you're doing I mean

02:12:50.120 that there's 25% of you that is

02:12:52.160 seriously aiming at things not being good

02:12:54.920 and so you fall into the underworld and

02:12:57.020 you find out that oh god I just got

02:13:00.920 exactly what I was aiming for or I got

02:13:03.740 exactly what the worst part of me was

02:13:05.600 aiming for and that worst part that's

02:13:07.760 something to clean up and that's not

02:13:09.440 going to be easy because it's got its

02:13:10.760 hooks in me like something something

02:13:13.100 ferocious something seriously ferocious

02:13:15.380 and I've been toying with it for a very

02:13:17.840 long time and maybe I can't even detach

02:13:20.720 it anymore and so that's not so fun and

02:13:23.480 you see people like that in psychotherapy

02:13:24.980 very frequently or you see them

02:13:26.540 wandering around on the streets like

02:13:29.180 absolute catastrophic former shells of

02:13:32.780 themselves you know because they've hit

02:13:35.040 the underworld and they ended up in hell

02:13:36.780 and there's no getting out of it and so

02:13:38.580 those are the people you tend to give a

02:13:40.200 wide birth to when you walk down the

02:13:42.000 street so there you are down in the

02:13:43.800 underworld right back where the latent

02:13:46.560 information exists and just too much of it

02:13:49.800 and that's this it's the same thing it's

02:13:53.820 the same thing and that's why the Adam and

02:13:55.680 Eve story is archetypal right because

02:13:58.440 we're always ingesting something new that

02:14:02.040 that knocks us into a new state of

02:14:04.620 self-consciousness and it's always a

02:14:06.960 catastrophic demolition of our current of

02:14:11.100 our previous paradise insufficient as that

02:14:13.500 paradise was something comes along to

02:14:15.660 destroy it and knocks the slats out of our

02:14:18.120 life and that's a voyage to the

02:14:19.740 underworld out of the walled garden into

02:14:25.080 chaos and so what is all of that

02:14:31.440 well there's lots of ways of

02:14:36.600 construing it it's a it's a frame

02:14:39.420 transformation there's a walled city

02:14:42.600 it's got a hole in it because all walled

02:14:44.400 cities have holes in them right because

02:14:46.020 everything's imperfect and that's where

02:14:47.520 the chaos comes up and then maybe you go

02:14:50.060 out there like a hero to fight the chaos

02:14:52.020 and to reestablish the frame that's what

02:14:54.840 you're supposed to do and maybe you free

02:14:56.400 some information while you're doing that

02:14:58.560 or maybe you establish a relationship

02:15:02.940 and so that's the journey frame damage

02:15:07.560 chaos voluntary confrontation

02:15:11.160 reconstitution of the world and that's

02:15:14.340 that's human existence and hopefully it's

02:15:17.160 not just linear it's it's stepwise right

02:15:22.320 is that the you that emerges as a

02:15:26.700 consequence of your latest catastrophe is

02:15:28.920 everything that you were before plus

02:15:31.200 something more and that actually

02:15:33.540 constitutes what you might describe as

02:15:35.320 measurable progress right and that's

02:15:38.220 another argument against moral relativism

02:15:39.900 because if you can do everything that

02:15:43.500 you could do before and you can do some

02:15:45.240 more things we could just define that as

02:15:47.220 better it's not a bad definition and

02:15:49.560 then we have enough it's like what you're

02:15:51.000 trying to do is to differentiate the

02:15:54.240 world and differentiate yourself and

02:15:58.320 every time you undergo one of these

02:15:59.640 revolutions then hopefully both of those

02:16:01.680 things happen and then there's a moral to

02:16:03.900 that story too which is do it

02:16:06.600 voluntarily and maybe do it don't wait

02:16:11.400 for it to happen catastrophically keep

02:16:14.580 your eyes open and when something goes a

02:16:16.920 little bit wrong that you could fix fix

02:16:20.100 it don't say no that doesn't matter maybe

02:16:24.060 it does matter maybe it is matter maybe

02:16:26.400 it's exactly the matter out of which you

02:16:28.020 should be built maybe it's the matter out

02:16:30.000 of which the world should be built and if

02:16:32.160 part of you is telling you it matters what

02:16:36.120 it means is that that part is telling

02:16:38.040 you that there's something there that

02:16:40.140 you need to engage with that's what it

02:16:43.140 means for something to matter I really

02:16:45.060 get out of the kick a kick out of the

02:16:46.860 word matter because it's got these two

02:16:48.240 weird meanings right there's the matter

02:16:50.280 that everything is made out of that

02:16:52.440 materialists think everything is made

02:16:54.300 out of and that's just dead matter and

02:16:55.860 then there's the matter that life is

02:16:57.620 made out of which is what matters and

02:17:00.300 now and then you're moving through life

02:17:01.860 and something matters it's calling to

02:17:03.900 you and that's the unrevealed world

02:17:05.820 trying to reveal itself to you and all

02:17:08.340 you have to do is allow it to reveal

02:17:10.740 itself to you and then maybe what

02:17:12.780 happens is that a minor shift in shape is

02:17:16.860 all that has to happen to you don't have

02:17:18.360 to burn right down to the bloody egg and

02:17:20.940 and hatch out you know as a newborn maybe

02:17:24.000 you can just repair a little bit of

02:17:26.100 something that's gone wrong with you and

02:17:27.600 so you can undergo a sequence of

02:17:29.220 continual micro deaths instead of waiting

02:17:31.920 for the bloody catastrophe that might

02:17:33.900 send you so far down that you'll never

02:17:35.400 recover and all you have to do is attend

02:17:37.800 to what matters and your whole nervous

02:17:39.900 system is it's doing this for you you've

02:17:42.180 got a goal something happens it matters so

02:17:45.600 what are you supposed to do with that

02:17:46.680 you're supposed to you're supposed to

02:17:48.180 fix it you're supposed to engage with it

02:17:50.220 that's why it's calling out to you as if

02:17:52.440 it matters it's saying there's an

02:17:54.660 indeterminate part of the world here that

02:17:56.880 wants to manifest itself into fully

02:17:59.040 articulated being and it's calling to

02:18:01.800 you to do that and if you ignore it

02:18:04.320 then it accumulates and it accumulates it

02:18:07.020 turns into the dragon of chaos and then

02:18:09.000 it waits until you're not at your best and

02:18:12.180 then it eats you and that's the

02:18:14.300 alternative so that seems like a bad plan

02:18:16.800 unless you like being lunch meat so

02:18:20.160 so that's a long introduction to Noah

02:18:27.480 but you need it you know because you can't

02:18:39.060 understand the story otherwise and so

02:18:41.000 because that's what the story is about

02:18:44.420 and now we can go through the story

02:18:46.840 relatively rapidly although it doesn't

02:18:48.440 look like we'll go through all of it

02:18:49.580 tonight okay so we'll start with the

02:18:52.680 next section of Genesis and this is

02:18:55.220 immediately after Cain and Abel and

02:18:56.840 there's a short story to begin with

02:18:58.400 just a fragment I called it giants of

02:19:01.340 the earth and it came to pass when men

02:19:04.940 began to multiply on the face of the

02:19:06.560 earth so this is after Cain and Abel

02:19:08.240 that and daughters were born unto them

02:19:10.880 that the sons of God saw the daughters of

02:19:14.660 men that they were fair and took them

02:19:16.460 wives of all which they chose and the

02:19:21.680 Lord said my spirit shall not always

02:19:23.720 strive with man for that he is also

02:19:26.000 flesh yet his days will be a hundred and

02:19:28.940 twenty years there were giants in the

02:19:32.480 earth in those days and also after that

02:19:34.280 when the sons of God came in unto the

02:19:36.380 daughters of men and they bear children

02:19:38.060 to them the same became mighty men which

02:19:40.280 were of old men of renown now there's

02:19:43.460 been all sorts of attempts to interpret

02:19:45.140 those few rather jumbled lines but I see

02:19:49.640 it as a reflection of a classic

02:19:52.460 development of hero mythology which is

02:19:54.440 that and this is sort of nostalgia for

02:19:56.480 the past one of the things Mircea Eliade

02:19:58.400 pointed out was that what happens to human

02:20:04.280 memory in preliterate cultures because

02:20:06.500 nothing is written down is that what

02:20:08.880 needs to be preserved gets amalgamated and

02:20:11.600 so imagine that you have a culture that's

02:20:13.340 based on fishing we'll say so you have

02:20:15.560 to be a good fisherman you know and and

02:20:17.780 human beings who use simple tools to

02:20:21.020 fish are unbelievably good fishermen they

02:20:23.180 know every bloody thing you can possibly

02:20:24.560 imagine about fish because otherwise they

02:20:26.780 die so it's really important that they

02:20:28.460 learn everything about fish and maybe

02:20:30.140 they've been fishing for like 13,000

02:20:32.180 years or something like that so there's a

02:20:33.860 lot of accumulated knowledge and so then

02:20:36.020 the question is well who taught mankind

02:20:39.200 how to fish and the answer is fragments

02:20:42.440 of individuals across history but

02:20:45.080 that's you know you're not going to

02:20:45.920 remember the damn fragments you put them

02:20:47.600 all together into the amalgam of the

02:20:50.240 heroic fisherman you know the guy who

02:20:52.100 established the pattern for proper

02:20:54.200 fishing whatever that pattern happens to

02:20:56.180 be one of the patterns might be don't

02:20:57.860 take all the damn fish because there

02:20:59.660 won't be any for the next year or

02:21:01.040 something like that but all those

02:21:02.720 fragments of discovery get amalgamated

02:21:04.520 into heroes of the past and then what

02:21:08.280 you do if you're a fisherman is you act

02:21:10.040 out the heroic fishermen of the past and

02:21:12.200 so the idea that there were men of

02:21:14.000 renown or heroes in the past is just a

02:21:17.540 fragmentary what would you call it's

02:21:20.600 just a fragment of that sequence of

02:21:22.760 ideas that back in the past there were

02:21:24.920 mighty human beings who established the

02:21:28.100 proper patterns of being and they were

02:21:31.340 the sons of God who took the daughters

02:21:33.640 of men to life now and it's interesting

02:21:37.180 too because we do know that the more

02:21:40.300 competent men are disproportionately

02:21:42.940 likely to leave offspring so it's a

02:21:47.740 perfectly reasonable way of formulating

02:21:50.080 the circumstance onto the flood this is

02:21:55.240 from Mircea Eliade who wrote a book

02:21:57.760 called a history of religious ideas which

02:21:59.380 I would strongly recommend it's a three

02:22:00.940 volume set it's quite readable and it's

02:22:03.280 brilliant it's brilliant I really like it

02:22:05.620 and this is what

02:22:07.700 Mircea Eliade had to say about flood

02:22:11.200 myths as has been well known since the

02:22:13.480 compilations made by our Andre H Huesner and

02:22:16.300 JG Fraser who wrote the golden bow the

02:22:19.000 deluge myth the flood myth is almost

02:22:21.100 universally disseminated it is documented on

02:22:23.800 all the continents although very rarely in

02:22:26.140 Africa particularly in the desert for

02:22:28.680 unsurprisingly although and on various

02:22:32.800 cultural levels a certain number of

02:22:34.480 variants seem to be the result of

02:22:36.100 dissemination rather than spontaneous

02:22:38.620 regeneration let's say first from

02:22:40.600 Mesopotamia and then from India it is

02:22:43.000 equally possible that one or several

02:22:44.680 diluvial catastrophes gave rise to

02:22:47.440 fabulous narratives but it would be risky

02:22:49.360 to explain so widespread a myth by

02:22:51.580 phenomena of which no geological traces has

02:22:54.100 been found well Eliade wrote this quite a

02:22:56.560 while ago I think he wrote that book

02:22:57.940 perhaps in the 80s maybe in the 70s but

02:23:00.520 since then there actually has been quite a

02:23:02.020 bit of evidence advanced in various

02:23:04.960 circles for the existence of

02:23:06.700 catastrophic floods that occurred within

02:23:09.160 the relative memory of human relative

02:23:12.340 human civilization memory let's say so

02:23:14.420 the West Coast Indians for example I

02:23:16.600 suppose that's the wrong word the West

02:23:18.580 Coast I don't know what to say either I

02:23:21.460 I know a Quaquaquaquaquaqua Carver who

02:23:25.740 told me a flood story and they have a

02:23:27.960 story that's almost identical to the

02:23:30.080 story of Noah except of course it

02:23:32.000 involves giant canoes but it's it's the

02:23:34.220 same story they release if I remember

02:23:37.340 correctly a raven but Noah releases a

02:23:39.920 raven first and then a dove once once

02:23:41.920 the flood comes to an end and and it

02:23:43.800 has a Tower of Babel issue to the same

02:23:46.180 story so the canoes are all put

02:23:48.180 together it's not one giant canoe it's a

02:23:49.600 bunch of canoes all together they write

02:23:51.280 out the flood and then the canoes

02:23:53.500 separated and go all over the world and

02:23:55.540 that's why there are people all over the

02:23:56.980 world so anyways the story is very widely

02:23:59.320 disseminated but you know there were

02:24:01.540 floods in North America not that long

02:24:04.480 ago so there are floods you can look up

02:24:06.760 the Missoula floods 15,000 to 13,000

02:24:10.000 years ago and the Quaquaquaqua people have

02:24:12.120 probably been on the West Coast for

02:24:13.300 something like 13 to 14,000 years so and

02:24:16.300 you know you can you can maintain an oral

02:24:18.160 tradition for a very very long time you

02:24:20.380 think no but traditional societies

02:24:22.900 don't change that's why they're

02:24:24.460 traditional and so they have the same

02:24:25.840 stories over generations they remember

02:24:28.240 the same stories so when the Missoula

02:24:31.060 floods which were a consequence of

02:24:33.460 melting glacial ice discharged up to

02:24:37.060 they figure there were 55,000 55 of them

02:24:39.640 between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago

02:24:41.920 discharged volumes up to 15 times the

02:24:44.540 volume of the Amazon River so these are

02:24:46.360 major league floods and then Sears et al

02:24:50.200 published a paper in 2008 called

02:24:52.300 climate change and post glacial human

02:24:54.280 disperses in Southeast Asia claiming

02:24:56.680 that there were multiple floods

02:24:58.060 particularly affecting Southeast Asia

02:25:00.280 between 15,000 and 7,000 years ago so

02:25:03.520 there might Iliad it might be a bit wrong

02:25:05.860 about the notion that there were no

02:25:07.660 geological traces of such such

02:25:10.280 catastrophic flooding but anyways it

02:25:12.100 doesn't matter because we're still

02:25:13.300 looking at this from a psychological

02:25:14.560 perspective and that's fine the

02:25:17.140 majority of the flood myths seem in some

02:25:18.940 sense to form part of the cosmic rhythm

02:25:21.040 the old world people by a fallen

02:25:24.220 humanity is submerged under the waters

02:25:27.400 and sometime later a new world emerges

02:25:29.920 from the aquatic chaos in large number of

02:25:32.380 variants the flood is the result of the

02:25:34.240 sins or ritual faults of human beings

02:25:37.000 sometimes it results simply from the wish of a

02:25:39.640 divine being to put an end to mankind

02:25:41.800 the chief causes lie at once in the

02:25:44.380 sins of men and the decrepitude of the

02:25:46.180 world it's a brilliant analysis partly

02:25:50.500 because it puts it it it draws this

02:25:53.320 lovely parallel between which I mentioned a

02:25:56.500 bit earlier between the fact that things

02:25:58.060 go wrong all by themselves but that you

02:26:01.240 can speed that along by not paying any

02:26:03.220 attention you know so if you're in a

02:26:04.780 relationship you know relationship takes

02:26:06.880 an awful lot of maintenance and you know

02:26:08.980 what it means needs to be maintained

02:26:10.600 because you start developing some

02:26:12.120 distance from the person that you have

02:26:13.780 the relationship with and then that

02:26:15.400 starts to become tinged with a little bit

02:26:17.560 of dislike and hopefully not contempt but

02:26:19.720 a little bit of dislike and maybe some

02:26:21.580 some some emotional distance and you feel

02:26:24.700 that and you think well it's hard to tell

02:26:27.160 what you think but you feel that anyways

02:26:29.200 you know that that's emerged and so

02:26:31.420 then you have a chance at that point to

02:26:33.460 repair whatever's gone wrong and that

02:26:38.260 would require some retooling on both of

02:26:40.360 your parts maybe one more one person

02:26:42.460 more than the other but whatever we

02:26:43.780 would require a serious discussion like

02:26:45.640 look I've noticed that this has been

02:26:47.920 happening and maybe it's you and maybe

02:26:50.920 it's me and we should probably figure it

02:26:52.480 out because if it was you that'd be

02:26:54.100 convenient and everything but if it was

02:26:55.720 me then I'd like to fix it because then

02:26:58.420 it would be fixed and so that's why you

02:26:59.980 listen to your partner because they

02:27:01.360 might tell you that there's something

02:27:02.560 stupid about you that you don't know

02:27:04.120 and then if you could fix that then

02:27:05.800 you wouldn't have to be stupid in that

02:27:07.060 way anymore and it's actually one of

02:27:08.800 the real useful it's one of the

02:27:11.200 genuinely useful features of having a

02:27:13.420 partner because do you really want to be

02:27:15.160 stupid and then continue to repeat your

02:27:16.900 mistakes ad nauseum for the rest of your

02:27:19.000 life I know it's more convenient to do

02:27:20.860 that than to have a you know knock down

02:27:23.140 drag them out argument about just

02:27:24.820 exactly why you're stupid and how you

02:27:27.160 could fix it but still it's better to

02:27:29.620 have the argument so that chief causes

02:27:34.220 lie at once in the sins of men and the

02:27:36.120 decrepitude of the world and the sins

02:27:37.660 there are generally either acts of

02:27:40.860 commission where people do things that

02:27:43.480 they know to be wrong or they fail to do

02:27:46.380 things that they know would be right

02:27:47.940 doesn't really matter sins of commission

02:27:50.520 are usually judged more harshly say

02:27:52.660 within the Judeo-Christian tradition but I

02:27:54.860 think there might be a bit of an error in

02:27:56.440 that because sins of omission can be a

02:27:58.180 real catastrophe and so here's a flood

02:28:00.640 idea you tell me what you think about

02:28:02.400 this so you know so there's this idea

02:28:04.480 that a judgmental being will flood you

02:28:07.000 out if you continue on your wayward ways

02:28:09.580 and that seems like a little bit of you

02:28:11.700 know it's one of the examples of of

02:28:13.840 Jehovah being a little on the harsh side

02:28:15.680 in the Old Testament not something that

02:28:17.420 modern people really approve of so much

02:28:20.640 because we like our gods sort of

02:28:22.140 domesticated let's put it that way and

02:28:25.520 unfortunately that isn't how it tends to

02:28:27.980 work but I've often thought about the

02:28:30.720 reaction in North America to the

02:28:33.900 hurricane in in New Orleans because

02:28:40.080 there's two ways of reading that right

02:28:41.600 one is Mother Nature has a little fit and

02:28:45.700 sends a hurricane into New Orleans and

02:28:48.340 wipes everyone out and isn't that a

02:28:50.120 catastrophe and isn't that an example of

02:28:52.620 isn't that example of our fragility in

02:28:56.620 the force in the face of of natural

02:28:59.940 power but there's another way of reading

02:29:02.720 it maybe this is unfair but it'll do for

02:29:04.720 the purposes of illustration it's like

02:29:06.180 you know the Dutch build dykes right to

02:29:08.400 keep the ocean back and they're actually

02:29:10.320 pretty effective at that because their

02:29:12.120 country is mostly underwater and it turns

02:29:14.260 out that if you go to Holland it's

02:29:15.480 actually not underwater and so their dykes

02:29:18.520 are working and so the Dutch were very

02:29:20.880 organized people and they better be

02:29:23.060 because their country is supposed to be

02:29:24.520 underwater right so you better be

02:29:25.940 organized if your country is supposed to

02:29:27.580 be underwater and so they are very

02:29:29.760 organized and they have a rule for their

02:29:31.400 dykes which is they try to estimate the

02:29:34.100 worst possible oceanic storm that will

02:29:36.940 come in 10,000 years and make sure that

02:29:40.620 the dykes will withstand that well from my

02:29:45.220 reading the Army Corps of Engineers in New

02:29:48.100 Orleans built the dykes for a storm every

02:29:50.400 hundred years and that's not so good

02:29:53.320 because we live about 80 years let's say

02:29:57.080 so that means the probability that one

02:29:58.820 of those storms is going to come whipping

02:30:00.140 by in a lifespan is pretty damn high and

02:30:03.220 then so that perhaps wasn't the wisest of

02:30:07.200 planning especially because some of New

02:30:09.000 Orleans is actually supposed to be

02:30:10.620 underwater and then worse you know

02:30:12.800 Mississippi is a state that's quite well

02:30:14.700 known for its corruption and so you

02:30:16.820 might also say that tremendous amount of

02:30:18.740 the money and time and resources that

02:30:20.780 could have and should have and was

02:30:22.520 planned to go towards fixing the problem

02:30:26.360 didn't and so the hurricane came along

02:30:29.300 and oh my god wasn't it a natural

02:30:31.320 disaster and the question is what

02:30:34.280 bloody well makes you so sure that it was

02:30:36.320 a natural disaster right because if the

02:30:39.140 infrastructure would have been

02:30:40.640 maintained and built to the

02:30:42.440 specifications that were certainly

02:30:44.120 technically possible and would have

02:30:45.940 actually been less expensive in the long

02:30:47.860 run to build and everyone knew it and

02:30:51.520 the hurricane came along and wipe out the

02:30:53.020 city why do you think that's a natural

02:30:54.580 disaster to me that's an that's a

02:30:57.160 natural example if you think about it

02:31:01.420 from a metaphorical perspective of a

02:31:03.640 judgmental God deciding to use a flood to

02:31:09.040 teach a moral lesson and you might say well

02:31:11.860 that's pretty harsh what about all those

02:31:13.360 flood survivors it's like yeah well the

02:31:15.700 whole flood thing was kind of harsh and

02:31:17.440 so pointing out that there were steps

02:31:19.480 that could have been taken and and also

02:31:21.880 that I doubt in the aftermath have been

02:31:25.240 taken even though everyone knows now

02:31:27.580 exactly what had happened is you might

02:31:32.680 consider it a diagnosis but it's

02:31:34.300 irrelevant because what I'm what I'm

02:31:35.980 really trying to tell you is how the

02:31:37.540 mythological stories would line up on this

02:31:39.580 because you can tell a story about mother

02:31:41.620 nature manifesting her catastrophe and

02:31:45.940 potential for tragedy or you can tell

02:31:48.040 another story of an absolute failure of

02:31:49.960 the human social structure and the human

02:31:54.400 individual level because of the

02:31:56.800 corruption to address a problem that

02:31:58.900 everyone knew was there and so that's a

02:32:02.140 good example of how things how the flood

02:32:05.440 comes when you're not behaving properly

02:32:07.420 you know and one of the things that's

02:32:09.420 quite interesting about the Old

02:32:10.600 Testament and the people who wrote it is

02:32:12.220 that they always assume that if the

02:32:14.340 flood comes that meant you weren't

02:32:15.820 prepared if that's the rule right that

02:32:18.460 that's it's like the a priori axiom I

02:32:21.160 think you got flooded out hey you weren't

02:32:22.980 prepared enough how can you tell well you

02:32:25.400 got flooded out right that's the evidence

02:32:28.000 and you might say well that's not very

02:32:29.320 fair it's like fair isn't the point the

02:32:32.500 point is do you want to get flooded out

02:32:34.200 again or not because fair would be well

02:32:37.020 you better figure out why you got

02:32:38.280 flooded out and fix it so it doesn't

02:32:40.420 happen again and that's the moral thing

02:32:42.540 to do when when you're thinking about

02:32:44.280 morality as walking the path it's most

02:32:47.400 appropriate to get to the destination

02:32:49.560 that you think would be the best

02:32:50.820 possible destination by the mere fact

02:32:55.380 that it exists that is it lives and

02:32:59.220 produces the cosmos gradually

02:33:00.840 deteriorates and ends by falling into

02:33:02.720 decay that is the reason why it has to

02:33:05.520 be recreated in other words the flood

02:33:07.560 realizes on the macrocosmic scale what

02:33:10.000 is symbolically affected during the new

02:33:11.900 year festival the end of the world and

02:33:14.240 the end of a sinful humanity in order to

02:33:16.600 make a new creation possible well that's

02:33:19.420 an interesting there's a lot of

02:33:20.640 information packed into those few lines

02:33:22.680 that Eliade wrote because he also at in

02:33:26.760 the in the Mesopotamian rituals the

02:33:32.320 Mesopotamians would act out the collapse

02:33:36.820 of the kingdom into chaos essentially at

02:33:39.180 the new year's festival it's kind of what

02:33:41.160 you do when you make resolutions because

02:33:43.940 like it's a degenerate what you'd say is

02:33:46.420 our proclivity to make new year's

02:33:47.700 resolutions sort of a degenerate ritual and

02:33:50.140 I don't mean that it's bad I mean that

02:33:51.680 it's the remnants of something much

02:33:54.700 grander so the idea was well the

02:33:58.160 Mesopotamians would take their emperor

02:34:00.000 outside the city the walled city and

02:34:02.420 once a year and they would make him

02:34:04.340 kneel and they take off all his king

02:34:06.380 clothes and then they'd whack him with a

02:34:08.380 glove if I remember correctly the priest

02:34:10.020 would do that and then they'd make him

02:34:11.360 recount all the ways that he wasn't

02:34:13.060 being a good emperor that year he

02:34:15.420 wasn't being a good Marduk because that

02:34:17.220 was who he was supposed to be on earth

02:34:18.780 and that's the guy with eyes all the way

02:34:20.260 around his head speaks magic words and

02:34:22.400 transforms chaos into order that's what

02:34:24.940 the emperor is supposed to do and so the

02:34:26.900 question would be okay your emperor

02:34:28.500 it's like have a little humility here

02:34:31.380 because you're not God incarnate you

02:34:33.320 probably made some mistakes can you think

02:34:35.220 of any ways in the last year that you

02:34:37.240 didn't take every advantage of every

02:34:39.740 opportunity you possibly could have to

02:34:41.840 take some spare chaos and transform it

02:34:44.280 into habitable order that's a good thing

02:34:46.780 to think about well that's what you're

02:34:47.940 thinking about when you make a new

02:34:49.260 year's resolution even though you don't

02:34:50.680 know it it's like well could you be a

02:34:52.760 better person in the upcoming year

02:34:55.200 well you can imagine the flood and then

02:35:05.460 you can set yourself straight and then

02:35:08.720 you can prepare for it and that means

02:35:10.560 maybe you can stave it off but it also

02:35:13.040 means that maybe even if you don't stave

02:35:14.900 it off you could ride it out and that's

02:35:17.920 actually the story of Noah because what

02:35:20.220 happens with Noah is that he can see

02:35:22.580 that things are not good and that

02:35:25.880 there's a flood coming and God is maybe

02:35:29.140 letting him know and it says in the story

02:35:31.540 that Noah walked with God remember and

02:35:33.320 that's what Adam did before he got all

02:35:34.780 self-conscious about the whole thing he

02:35:36.320 walked with God we'll talk about that more

02:35:38.240 next time but what that would mean maybe is

02:35:40.300 because Noah was straight and he put

02:35:43.680 himself together and his familial

02:35:45.580 relationships were good because it also

02:35:47.280 says that that his antenna were working

02:35:49.680 and he could see a little farther into the

02:35:52.560 future than someone whose vision was

02:35:54.220 completely obscured by by fog and chaos and

02:35:57.880 he could tell that things were not going to go

02:36:01.780 well and so he prepared for it and because he

02:36:05.500 prepared for it well then things actually went

02:36:09.180 pretty well for Noah even though the flood

02:36:11.300 came and so that's an interesting thing

02:36:13.460 because that's an that's an indeterminate

02:36:15.780 issue in human existence how big a

02:36:19.860 hurricane would it take to wipe out New

02:36:21.400 Orleans if everyone was prepared well

02:36:24.260 you're not going to wipe out the Dutch I

02:36:26.100 mean that's going to be a tough one man

02:36:27.540 you're going to have to conjure up a

02:36:28.760 pretty damn big storm to take out their

02:36:30.700 dikes well how thoroughly defended could

02:36:35.600 New Orleans be if nobody in the

02:36:38.300 municipal municipal and state governments

02:36:40.480 was corrupt well end of the hurricane

02:36:44.320 problem because that's something that we

02:36:45.700 could clearly deal with we know how to do

02:36:47.260 it and the same applies in your own life

02:36:49.580 is that there are floods coming you can

02:36:52.040 bloody well be sure of that that's

02:36:53.580 absolutely 100 percent certain some of

02:36:56.460 them are going to be personal some of

02:36:57.900 them are going to be familial some of

02:36:59.640 they're going to be social and political

02:37:01.080 and economic it's like are they going to

02:37:04.020 be catastrophes for you are you going to

02:37:06.540 ride them out are you going to prepare

02:37:08.360 well the first issue might be well do

02:37:10.500 you have your act together well enough

02:37:11.960 to see them coming with enough advance

02:37:14.800 warning so that you can take proper

02:37:16.240 measures maybe just to sidestep it maybe

02:37:18.560 just don't go where the flood is going

02:37:20.400 to be that's a simple thing but maybe

02:37:22.380 you don't have that luxury right and so

02:37:24.760 it is going to be a catastrophe maybe

02:37:27.400 someone in your family is going to get

02:37:28.980 really really sick right and maybe maybe

02:37:32.640 there's just a tiny pathway through that

02:37:35.460 that everything doesn't fall apart it

02:37:38.020 doesn't end in divorce it doesn't end

02:37:39.880 in death it doesn't end in sorrow it

02:37:41.860 doesn't end in catastrophe but the

02:37:43.540 margin of error is like slimmed down to

02:37:45.360 virtually zero and every imperfection that

02:37:48.780 you bring to that situation is going to

02:37:50.340 increase the probability that that

02:37:52.020 tragedy is going to turn into something

02:37:53.660 indistinguishable from hell and that's

02:37:56.240 coming it's coming your way absolutely

02:37:59.140 certainly and so then you might think

02:38:01.600 well since it's coming your way maybe

02:38:03.540 the best thing to do is to put

02:38:04.840 yourself together so that when it comes

02:38:07.060 it can be the least amount of awful

02:38:09.220 possible so i'll close with the story

02:38:12.140 this was a very affecting story for me

02:38:15.880 my mother-in-law had frontotemporal

02:38:21.020 dementia and she developed it quite young

02:38:22.820 she's about 55 something like that and

02:38:26.660 her husband who was very extroverted

02:38:28.920 man-about-town guy i grew up in a small

02:38:31.760 town everybody knew him he was

02:38:33.460 charismatic drank too much charismatic

02:38:37.480 good businessman quite a remarkable

02:38:41.160 person a real character but not exactly a

02:38:44.920 family man even though he he he provided

02:38:48.100 for his family very well but when his

02:38:50.440 wife got sick he really took care of her

02:38:52.640 man it was something to see because

02:38:55.040 that's no joke dealing with someone who

02:38:57.100 has alzheimer's for all intents and

02:38:59.480 purposes because they get taken away

02:39:01.280 from you piece by piece and that is not

02:39:03.860 pretty and then it's also hard right not

02:39:07.200 only is it catastrophic but it's hard and

02:39:09.680 Jesus he just stepped into that like

02:39:11.480 perfectly and it was way less awful than it

02:39:17.400 could have been way less it was just a

02:39:19.860 tragedy it wasn't hell and then i was

02:39:24.340 there when she died and my wife's family

02:39:28.860 are actually pretty good at dealing with

02:39:31.200 death as it turns out my wife's sister

02:39:33.860 is a palliative care nurse and you have

02:39:36.240 to be pretty tough cookie to be a

02:39:37.520 palliative care nurse but you can do it

02:39:39.300 which is pretty interesting because

02:39:40.580 that means that you can go make

02:39:42.200 relationships with people at the last

02:39:44.480 stages of their life that are genuine

02:39:46.020 relationships and people just die on you

02:39:48.500 non-stop and yet you know she's a

02:39:52.540 competent alive alert fun person it's

02:39:59.380 like two thumbs up for her man that's

02:40:02.000 someone you can rely on in a tragedy and

02:40:04.260 her other sister is a pharmacist and my

02:40:08.020 wife has volunteered in palliative care

02:40:10.680 wards and is also very good at taking

02:40:12.280 care of people who are genuinely not in

02:40:15.200 good health and so we were there when my

02:40:18.980 mother-in-law died and of course you can

02:40:23.080 imagine here's a here's a deathbed

02:40:25.520 situation for you your mother-in-law is

02:40:28.520 dying and everyone's at each other's

02:40:30.320 throats it's like you think that's

02:40:31.840 uncommon then your eyes aren't open

02:40:33.800 because it's plenty bloody common and

02:40:35.920 then it's not just a tragedy it's hell

02:40:37.840 and like maybe you can stand the

02:40:39.880 tragedy but you can't stand the hell and

02:40:42.300 in this situation that isn't what

02:40:44.800 happened is everybody pulled together

02:40:46.100 and what happened was well she died but

02:40:50.440 what was so interesting was the family

02:40:52.120 actually came together more tightly as a

02:40:54.760 consequence and so although there was

02:40:56.860 something taken away on the one hand

02:40:58.480 there was something gained on the other

02:41:00.340 that wasn't trivial and I'm not trying to

02:41:02.200 be all all optimistic and you know isn't

02:41:04.900 the universe a wonderful place about all

02:41:06.760 this like someone died in an ugly way

02:41:09.520 and it was harsh but God it was a hell

02:41:13.360 of a lot better than it could have been

02:41:14.560 and maybe it was good enough that's the

02:41:16.480 thing you know is that this is something

02:41:18.220 that I constantly wonder is that if

02:41:20.500 people did what they could to speak the

02:41:25.000 truth and pay attention then maybe the

02:41:28.960 tragedy that's part of life wouldn't have to

02:41:31.580 deteriorate into the unbearable hell that

02:41:35.060 doesn't have to be part of life and

02:41:37.280 maybe we could actually tolerate the

02:41:38.840 tragedy or maybe we could even rise above

02:41:40.640 it or maybe we could even mitigate it you

02:41:42.440 know because we can we do that sort of

02:41:44.360 thing all the time and so it's always an

02:41:46.520 open question and Eliade put it very

02:41:49.340 well are the floods the consequence of

02:41:53.480 the fact that things fall apart or are

02:41:56.060 the floods a consequence of the fact that

02:41:58.040 people make mistakes that they know they

02:42:02.780 shouldn't make and make anyways they sin

02:42:05.780 right and that's to miss the mark right

02:42:07.640 because that's an archery term to sin and

02:42:09.360 that means maybe they don't even specify the

02:42:11.520 damn target which is really you're not going to

02:42:14.360 hit it unless you specify it or having

02:42:16.640 specified it they just say oh to hell with it

02:42:20.740 it's not that important it's like you got to be

02:42:23.520 careful when you say something like to hell

02:42:25.460 with it it's not that important because

02:42:27.620 one of the things that might happen to

02:42:29.140 you if you say to hell with it it's not

02:42:31.860 that important is that you might actually

02:42:33.680 end up in hell for a pretty prolonged

02:42:36.260 period of time or maybe for the remainder

02:42:39.740 of your miserable existence because it's

02:42:41.940 certainly the case that people do exist

02:42:43.800 there and I've seen them exist there and

02:42:46.480 once you're there it's no trick it's no

02:42:48.480 simple matter to get the hell out and so

02:42:51.200 it might matter that the things that matter

02:42:54.000 get addressed it might matter that you do

02:42:56.640 what you can to walk with God like I said

02:42:59.560 we'll talk more about that next time and

02:43:01.960 it might be that that is how you build an

02:43:05.000 ark and are protected from the flood even

02:43:07.160 if the damn thing comes and the thing is

02:43:10.800 it will and this is a funny thing too that

02:43:13.420 I've noticed about our education system and

02:43:16.420 the way we teach students and their trigger

02:43:19.600 warnings and all of that absolute rubbish

02:43:22.260 I think in most of my lectures I'd have to

02:43:24.520 have a trigger warning every 15 seconds

02:43:26.780 so as I tell my students when they're

02:43:30.800 young it's like look don't fool yourself

02:43:32.880 you know you're going to develop a serious

02:43:36.640 illness at least one maybe two or three

02:43:39.720 and one of them is likely to be chronic

02:43:41.780 and if it isn't you it's going to be

02:43:43.500 someone you love it's going to be your

02:43:44.920 husband it's going to be your parent it's

02:43:46.620 going to be your kids that's coming and

02:43:49.660 so is a lot of death and and pain and so

02:43:52.980 like just exactly what sort of person are

02:43:55.340 you going to be when that shows up and

02:43:56.920 that's the right question it isn't how

02:43:59.800 are you going to be happy in your life

02:44:01.720 it's like good luck with that it's a

02:44:03.760 stupid ambition anyways as far as I'm

02:44:05.560 concerned because it's too shallow you

02:44:07.660 know happiness you're lucky that comes

02:44:09.380 that comes and goes like the Sun coming

02:44:11.560 out from behind the cloud if you're happy

02:44:13.600 man more power to you enjoy it enjoy it

02:44:16.920 it's a it's a gift from the cosmos to be

02:44:19.440 happy but at pursuit no no the pursuit

02:44:23.040 is when the damn flood comes you want to

02:44:26.880 be the person who built ark and that's

02:44:29.580 what the story of Noah is about and the

02:44:31.800 thing is the flood is always coming

02:44:33.900 that's another thing that's worth

02:44:35.280 commenting on with regards to this

02:44:37.380 story is you know there's an

02:44:38.920 apocalyptic element to the Judeo-Christian

02:44:41.280 tradition there's an idea that the end

02:44:46.740 of the world is always at hand and that

02:44:49.680 you should prepare to be judged and the

02:44:52.200 thing about that is it's true and the

02:44:54.180 reason it's true is because the end of

02:44:57.180 your world is at hand and it will

02:45:00.000 certainly come and when it comes you will

02:45:03.300 be judged because it will be up to you to

02:45:06.300 figure out what to do with the fact that

02:45:07.860 your world just collapsed and that'll be

02:45:10.020 a moral problem of ultimate severity

02:45:13.020 because it'll push you right to your

02:45:14.940 limits and you'll find out exactly

02:45:17.100 where your unaddressed weaknesses lie

02:45:19.740 because that's what happens in a crisis

02:45:22.680 and so the reason that that's an

02:45:24.600 archetypal reality and it lurks

02:45:26.280 underneath the entire Judeo-Christian

02:45:28.100 structure the apocalypse the impending

02:45:30.160 apocalypse is because we always live in

02:45:32.860 apocalyptic times and your world is

02:45:35.060 always in small ways and large ways

02:45:37.600 coming to an end and so what do you do

02:45:40.160 you prepare for it you prepare for your

02:45:43.660 world to come to an end and then maybe

02:45:46.920 when the end comes you get another world

02:45:48.600 that'd be a good deal

02:45:50.000 so we're ready for this next week

02:45:56.160 my question was regarding the online

02:46:10.420 university you plan to create and the

02:46:12.460 plans you have for that man we've spoke

02:46:14.520 briefly last week and I want to ask you

02:46:15.760 how can a student such as myself get

02:46:17.320 involved with this process yeah well an

02:46:20.020 online university that's a great perhaps a

02:46:23.280 grandiose ambition right but one of the

02:46:26.400 things that so here's my here's my

02:46:28.900 rationale you know lots of things have

02:46:32.760 dramatically transformed in the last 20

02:46:35.480 years and whole swaths of enterprise has

02:46:40.340 been wiped out and that's happening at a

02:46:42.020 more and more rapid rate as our

02:46:43.740 technology progresses right now

02:46:45.820 newspapers are in the process of dying

02:46:47.840 actually think they're in the process of

02:46:49.580 committing suicide but they're in the

02:46:51.940 process of dying and that's going to

02:46:55.380 happen very rapidly I think the globe and

02:46:57.020 mail lost 10% of its readership in the

02:46:58.960 last three months something like that

02:47:00.560 and so what happens is that new

02:47:05.020 technologies come along to supplant the

02:47:07.180 old technologies and I've watched a

02:47:09.540 number of businesses fail some large

02:47:11.460 businesses I knew some people who worked

02:47:14.380 at digital equipment corporation when it

02:47:16.040 was failing and I've had some inside

02:47:17.620 track into failing businesses and I see

02:47:20.220 when they start to fail they tend to the

02:47:22.200 failure process tends to tip and then

02:47:24.000 accelerate can happen unbelievably

02:47:25.300 quickly and this is what it looks to me

02:47:27.840 this is how it looks to me in

02:47:30.000 relationship to the universities

02:47:31.380 especially in the US although not only

02:47:34.200 especially in the humanities although not

02:47:36.660 only so number one so I've recorded three

02:47:46.980 years of my personality lecture say so

02:47:49.560 let's have three years of lectures on

02:47:51.780 Freud now what I should do with those I

02:47:55.380 think is edit them into one really good

02:47:57.960 lecture on Freud and then stop giving

02:48:00.060 that lecture because why would I give that

02:48:01.620 lecture again because I've already given it

02:48:03.300 and it's edited and it's in good shape and

02:48:05.700 if it's a really good lecture then why

02:48:07.020 does someone else have to give the

02:48:08.300 lecture why does 300 other people have

02:48:10.200 to give a lecture on Freud you know

02:48:12.180 what I mean what's going to happen is

02:48:13.440 there's going to be some really good

02:48:14.700 lectures on subjects and that's all the

02:48:17.700 people are going to need or want because

02:48:20.220 the internet tends to move things towards

02:48:22.620 winner-take-all very very rapidly and so it

02:48:26.400 seems to me that we're already at a point

02:48:28.680 technologically where we could identify a

02:48:31.280 a hundred things that people really

02:48:33.560 need to know and do a sequence of

02:48:36.140 lectures on those things that were

02:48:37.580 outstanding and then they could be

02:48:40.160 updated and added to but then it's like

02:48:42.080 it's a done game and it's free so I know

02:48:45.800 started thinking about this last year when

02:48:47.540 I noticed that my psychology lectures had a

02:48:50.360 million views and that was last April and

02:48:52.400 I thought that's amazing a million views

02:48:54.200 it's like what the hell that's I don't

02:48:56.480 know what to make of that that's that's a

02:48:58.340 best that's the kind of best-selling book

02:49:00.080 that you never write because no one

02:49:01.940 ever writes a best-selling book so a

02:49:03.860 million views that's something to pay

02:49:05.540 attention to and now it's way more than

02:49:06.920 that but there's videos and podcasts and

02:49:10.220 that means that people can listen when

02:49:11.660 they're doing other things too and so

02:49:13.100 that's really cool and maybe people can

02:49:14.780 listen better than they can read that's a

02:49:17.060 real possibility because we've only been

02:49:18.740 reading silently for about well most of

02:49:21.260 like most of humanity for less than a

02:49:23.420 hundred years and virtually no one could

02:49:25.760 read silently 500 years ago it's a really

02:49:28.360 new skill and so maybe we're better at

02:49:30.100 listening and so all of a sudden

02:49:32.140 there's the possibility of disseminating

02:49:34.720 high-quality educational material

02:49:36.640 highly produced highly vetted to

02:49:40.660 millions of people for nothing well how

02:49:45.280 are you going to compete with that then

02:49:46.900 then it's worse because the humanities

02:49:50.680 which have become completely degenerated

02:49:53.200 almost completely degenerate in my

02:49:55.000 estimation have abandoned their

02:49:57.160 valuable intellectual property which is

02:49:59.620 the collective wisdom at least for the

02:50:01.660 West of Western civilization it's just

02:50:03.940 sitting there someone might as well

02:50:05.620 steal it back and then there's the

02:50:09.100 student loan debacle in the United

02:50:10.780 States that's pronounced property

02:50:12.900 debacle debate debacle okay obviously I've

02:50:17.380 read that word more than said it and so

02:50:19.500 you know and so you know I had a guy

02:50:22.500 write me today and he asked if he should

02:50:24.240 go to a private college for $22,000 a

02:50:26.520 year to produce to pursue an

02:50:28.620 undergraduate in psychology so that he

02:50:31.560 could get into clinical graduate school

02:50:33.000 or go to another university the state

02:50:35.400 university for far less I told him to go

02:50:37.440 to the state university because it's the

02:50:39.180 wise economic decision but you know it

02:50:41.260 doesn't seem to me that it's

02:50:42.300 reasonable at all to load people up when

02:50:44.340 they're 22 with a hundred thousand

02:50:45.660 dollars in student debt that they

02:50:47.620 cannot declare bankruptcy for its

02:50:50.060 indentured servitude and the and to load

02:50:53.300 up people when they're 22 or 23 with

02:50:55.580 debt of that magnitude it's like how

02:50:57.920 the hell are they going to be

02:50:58.700 entrepreneurs how are you going to take

02:51:00.260 a risk with a hundred thousand dollar

02:51:01.560 debt load and who's going to marry you

02:51:03.680 well really Jesus you know because

02:51:06.260 another story I heard recently was well

02:51:08.160 I just got married to my partner she

02:51:10.300 brought into the marriage a hundred and

02:51:11.780 twenty thousand dollars in student debt

02:51:13.280 it's like oh my god it's like that's

02:51:15.540 crippling man like once you're once

02:51:18.080 you're making a substantial amount of

02:51:20.320 money if you're fortunate maybe you're

02:51:21.840 in your 40s you could handle a debt

02:51:23.440 load like that but in your 20s it's

02:51:25.000 just crippling so you know the tuition

02:51:28.740 fees have rat ratcheted up like mad in

02:51:31.520 the last 30 years the unit the

02:51:32.940 colleges and universities have become

02:51:34.400 unbelievably administratively top heavy

02:51:36.560 they're regulated to death by the by the

02:51:39.920 legislative system so there's ethics

02:51:41.820 committees which are so counterproductive

02:51:43.720 that it's just unbelievable there's this

02:51:45.740 entire whole whole new monstrous hyper

02:51:49.460 accommodation movement that that's

02:51:51.560 that borders on I don't know all I'll

02:51:53.980 make a video about that soon enough

02:51:55.280 that's absolutely pathological and

02:51:57.200 there's this whole post-modern neo

02:51:59.480 Marxist idiocy that's going on in the

02:52:01.280 universities and so like well how many

02:52:03.200 mistakes does an institute plus students

02:52:06.260 aren't being taught how to speak they're

02:52:07.900 not being taught how to debate they're

02:52:09.740 not being taught how to write and they

02:52:11.540 don't read difficult things they read

02:52:14.120 French intellectual post-modernists

02:52:16.280 right and they probably don't read

02:52:17.720 those either they read secondarily

02:52:20.180 derived pit they skim secondarily derived

02:52:23.120 papers about French intellectual post

02:52:26.480 Marxists for post-modernists from the

02:52:28.640 1970s and the standards have been

02:52:31.220 lowered because there's too many people

02:52:32.600 pursuing higher education and so I think

02:52:34.940 okay there's eight dimensions of success

02:52:38.840 success and on every single dimension

02:52:42.440 there's failure the system's done the and

02:52:46.580 so the vision would be why not provide

02:52:49.440 everybody in the world with high quality

02:52:51.500 education in the humanities for like

02:52:54.320 one-fiftieth the cost you can charge for

02:52:57.440 accreditation that's a whole separate

02:52:59.380 issue right accreditation but the but the

02:53:02.240 resources it's like why not make them

02:53:04.000 available to everyone so that's the plan I

02:53:07.580 I mean I don't know if I can do it or

02:53:08.720 not but that's partly what I'm doing

02:53:10.400 with this biblical lecture series it's

02:53:11.900 sort of putting my toe in the water but

02:53:14.660 I have a plan and I have some good

02:53:17.300 programmers who are willing to help and

02:53:18.740 there's lots of people out there that

02:53:19.940 would help God I'm being flooded with

02:53:21.620 offers of help I'd love to take people up

02:53:24.320 on the offers but it's not that easy to

02:53:26.180 get someone to help you do something you

02:53:27.680 know what it so that'd be the plan it's

02:53:31.580 like so what would the plan be give

02:53:33.560 people a high-quality education in the

02:53:35.520 classic humanities teach them how to

02:53:37.200 speak and write accredit them for one

02:53:40.380 tenth the current cost and do it with

02:53:42.660 millions of people instead of tens of

02:53:44.880 thousands so I'm asking what plans do

02:53:47.340 you have for the accreditation side where

02:53:48.600 people can show something for what the

02:53:50.340 time they spend watching well one of the

02:53:51.720 things that I would do for example is

02:53:53.340 imagine that you're in a course and so

02:53:56.400 you have taken exam let's say it's a

02:53:58.800 multiple-choice exam just for the sake of

02:54:00.660 argument because they're simpler the

02:54:03.300 writing issue is a separate problem

02:54:04.920 also one of the things that you would

02:54:08.940 do if you enrolled in the course is

02:54:10.320 generate multiple-choice questions

02:54:12.060 that'd be one of your assignments

02:54:13.320 here's a lecture generate 10 multiple

02:54:15.540 choice questions now you've got a

02:54:17.040 thousand people generating 10 multiple

02:54:18.900 choice questions well then you can do

02:54:20.700 their statistical procedures that help

02:54:22.740 you figure out what valid multiple

02:54:25.460 choice questions are you could have

02:54:28.060 people vote on them for that matter if

02:54:29.640 you put them on a website assignment

02:54:31.240 number two here's a hundred multiple

02:54:32.860 choice questions pick the 10 that you

02:54:34.900 think are most representative of the

02:54:37.800 knowledge that you've acquired get a

02:54:39.520 hundred people to do that so you get

02:54:41.080 crowdsource the test construction and

02:54:43.580 then you could keep making the test

02:54:44.780 better and better as well because you

02:54:46.360 could build that I'd like to build a

02:54:47.620 system so that it was self-improving

02:54:49.460 with a minimum of administrative

02:54:51.240 interference and so then what would

02:54:54.800 happen is that as you got accredited so

02:54:57.300 you start writing exams and maybe you write

02:54:59.180 more and more of them then you'd start

02:55:00.800 to buy voting power with regards to the

02:55:02.600 content of the courses and maybe even

02:55:04.580 the right to produce courses to put them

02:55:06.260 up online so it's something like that

02:55:08.540 but our strategy would be to build we

02:55:11.600 want to build a system that's basically

02:55:13.040 autonomous and self-improving right

02:55:15.920 from the beginning so minimum of

02:55:18.200 administrative overhead extremely low

02:55:20.400 cost widespread availability crowdsourced

02:55:24.800 in its structure and autonomously

02:55:27.700 self-improving I think we can do that I

02:55:30.480 don't know if I can do it but I think

02:55:33.480 we have the technology to do that and

02:55:35.780 then you think well so here's the plan

02:55:38.260 you know because you're I'm always

02:55:39.380 thinking of the point point B what what's

02:55:41.400 a good thing to do with life well the

02:55:43.120 good good thing to do with your life is

02:55:44.460 the most difficult goddamn thing you can

02:55:46.380 think of that would do the most

02:55:47.820 possible good that'll get you up in the

02:55:49.840 morning and so because you think why

02:55:52.400 should I get up in the morning it's

02:55:53.800 like well you know I've got 50 million

02:55:56.000 people to educate hey that'll do it

02:55:58.340 really you know that that's that'll

02:56:01.820 that'll overcome a lot of angst that

02:56:03.740 sort of thinking so well so it seems to

02:56:08.220 me that it seems to me that it's

02:56:10.000 inevitable now whether or not I can do

02:56:13.820 it that's a whole different story but I

02:56:16.560 can certainly start it and I'm going to

02:56:18.500 start it my partner my business partner

02:56:20.260 the guy who helped me develop the

02:56:22.840 self-authoring program which thousands

02:56:24.940 of people are using that now and we've

02:56:27.280 helped thousands tens of thousands of

02:56:28.960 students now stay in university so

02:56:30.760 that's really cool well maybe not given

02:56:33.100 the state of universities I'm

02:56:36.080 contributing to the problem but you know

02:56:38.200 but they're but they're sticking out

02:56:40.780 their plans that's the point they're

02:56:42.280 actually making plans and sticking them

02:56:43.840 out so so I think that we can and we

02:56:47.740 know how to start small with because

02:56:49.740 the way to build a big system is to

02:56:51.180 build a small system that works and then

02:56:52.800 scale it and so that's I've been

02:56:56.360 talking with my partner his name is

02:56:57.960 Daniel Higgins I have another partner

02:56:59.820 Bob Peel who used to be my graduate

02:57:01.480 supervisor at McGill and we've been

02:57:03.560 working on this sort of thing for about

02:57:04.860 25 years and our goal has been right

02:57:06.580 from the beginning to build low-cost

02:57:09.680 high-quality psychoeducational

02:57:11.480 interventions and bring them to as wide

02:57:13.140 market as possible so and then my and

02:57:16.920 Daniel in particular has devoted most

02:57:18.480 of his life to doing that it's been

02:57:19.620 about 20 years now so so well that's a

02:57:24.780 sketch of it I'll outline more of it on

02:57:26.400 on the web at some point but that's kind

02:57:27.960 of what what we've been deciding what

02:57:29.760 we've been planning to do

02:57:31.140 thank you very much yeah

02:57:36.140 hello when you were on the Rubin report

02:57:40.020 not too long ago in that discussion you

02:57:42.780 mentioned how use of psilocybin

02:57:45.580 straightens people out and can produce

02:57:49.020 these transcendent experiences which is

02:57:51.360 jarring for a person who may have

02:57:52.880 I should have never mentioned that on the

02:57:55.060 Rubin report obviously for someone who

02:57:57.560 became a Christian as a result of their

02:57:59.220 only time doing magic mushrooms that's a

02:58:01.520 jarring piece of information I was just

02:58:02.900 wondering if you could expand on what

02:58:04.060 you find intriguing about religious

02:58:05.940 experience and what we can know about

02:58:07.720 the transcendent from them if anything

02:58:09.600 that's a tough one man the relationship

02:58:17.940 between in theogenic use let's say which

02:58:21.460 is sometimes what those chemicals are

02:58:23.760 described and religious experience is

02:58:27.300 unspecified but it looks like it's

02:58:29.960 profound there is a man named Gordon

02:58:32.280 was on who wrote a book if I remember

02:58:35.100 correctly called Soma he was investigating

02:58:38.980 the potential use of Amanita muscaria

02:58:41.320 mushrooms among the people who wrote the

02:58:44.140 Hindu holy scriptures thousands of years

02:58:47.320 ago and he felt that he identified the

02:58:49.840 chemical that they were using the sacred

02:58:52.320 drink the use of ayahuasca and psilocybin

02:58:58.320 mushrooms and so forth is well documented

02:59:00.940 particularly in North America and the evidence the

02:59:04.320 empirical evidence the empirical evidence that under certain conditions those chemicals can produce religious experiences is absolutely overwhelming there's been good research done recently at Johns Hopkins looking at psilocybin the first research that's been done on hallucinogens really in 30 years because people were so terrified of them in the 60s and for good reason

02:59:24.660 indicated that the people that they dosed with psilocybin about 75% of them had a mystical experience which they regarded as one of the three to five most important experiences of their life and a year later were characterized by permanent personality transformation which was an increase in trait openness of one standard deviation which is a lot by the way it moves you from 50th percentile to 85th percentile for example it's a huge move

02:59:53.820 and that looked permanent now whether or not that's a good thing that's a whole different issue but they're very very powerful and they also did some recent research showing that psilocybin mushrooms were an unbelievably effective smoking cessation intervention so if I remember correctly and I may have this wrong because it's been a while since I read it they had an 80 percent success rate in stopping people from using tobacco with one psilocybin experience and so

03:00:23.060 so well so those things are very all of that's very interesting to me and I don't exactly know what to make of it I don't know what to make of it at all not even a little bit but

03:00:32.840 but the evidence for the relationship between met mystical experiences and hallucinogen use of certain types is incontrovertible and I don't and I don't think anybody else knows what to derive from that I mean one conclusion is

03:00:50.780 something like

03:00:55.880 Religious experiences are a common concomitant of going temporarily insane and that it's not a bad hypothesis because you see for example in the prodrome of

03:01:06.500 illnesses like schizophrenia and sometimes manic depressive disorder to on the mannequin you do see the emergence often of religious type delusions

03:01:15.740 It's not that common but it's not uncommon so it's definitely the case that if your

03:01:21.140 brain

03:01:22.340 function has been

03:01:24.180 detrimentally affected one of the consequences can be

03:01:28.100 Experiences that are subjectively experienced as indistinguishable from the religious you also see the same thing in cases of

03:01:35.360 epilepsy especially in the prodroma so if you have an epileptic condition sometimes

03:01:39.280 You know that you're going to have a seizure you can feel it mounting and often

03:01:45.380 Or at least occasionally those experiences are associated with a an elevation of

03:01:52.520 religious sensation deepening meaning

03:01:55.800 That increases in its depth and complexity until it's overwhelming and that's what

03:02:03.020 Subjectively brings on the seizure now

03:02:05.020 God only knows how to disentangle causality in a circumstance like that

03:02:09.920 Dostoevsky had seizures like that by the way so so that the the pessimistic viewpoint is

03:02:18.240 Religious phenomenology is a consequence of brain disorder

03:02:22.400 the positive side

03:02:24.900 more positive side is

03:02:27.740 No religious experience is a

03:02:30.240 a

03:02:31.380 Category of experience that's within the realm of human possibility and there are different modes of eliciting it and we know that there are many modes of eliciting it fasting can elicit it

03:02:44.000 Dancing under some circumstances music can elicit it music elicits it regularly

03:02:48.280 I mean basically as far as I'm concerned rock concerts are indistinguishable from religious rituals

03:02:53.260 They're rituals not like they don't come with a dogmatic overlay

03:02:58.160 Let's say but the ritualistic structure is there and maybe it's there just listening to music

03:03:04.640 What that means for the investigation of hallucinogens I have no idea and I would also certainly

03:03:11.860 Use the caution that Carl Jung developed when he was talking about hallucinogens

03:03:16.320 And he did that I think only a very brief number of times and I think in relationship to Aldous Huxley's original work on

03:03:22.760 Mescaline experiences he said

03:03:26.300 Beware of wisdom that you didn't earn

03:03:29.840 And that's very very smart, so I would say

03:03:34.000 There's something to be learned about there's something

03:03:37.460 There's a lot to be learned about hallucinogens. There may be something to be learned from them, but having said that

03:03:44.600 If you play with fire you end up burnt generally speaking, so

03:03:49.180 So all due caution is in effect

03:03:54.720 So one more

03:03:56.260 I know you're an Aldous Huxley fan, so I thought I'd ask you this question

03:04:02.500 After reading his book doors of perception in which he gives an account of his experience taking the psychedelic drug mescaline

03:04:09.800 He stated that in the final stages of egolessness. There is an obscene knowledge that

03:04:16.900 All is an all that all is actually each

03:04:20.280 He then went on to say that this is as near I take it as a finite mind can ever get to perceiving

03:04:26.920 Everything that is happening in the universe

03:04:29.420 I was wondering if maybe you could explain what that means because I've been trying to understand it for a month

03:04:34.720 There is a neuroscientist a while back whose name I don't remember who had a stroke and she

03:04:49.380 being a neuroscientist was analyzing the

03:04:53.100 neurological

03:04:54.100 Consequences of the stroke as it occurred if I remember correctly the stroke

03:04:59.620 Either temporarily or more permanently took out the function of large portions of her left hemisphere and she

03:05:07.040 Had exactly that experience. It was an experience of ego dissolution something like that

03:05:13.400 that the the the felt sense of

03:05:17.920 Of identity shifting from that sort of narrow boundary maybe that you would define by the boundary of your physical being

03:05:25.680 into something that was much broader and much

03:05:29.340 What it gets it gets it gets hard to describe this without you know

03:05:34.740 Degenerating into hippie poetry from 1967 very very rapidly, but it's something like

03:05:41.360 a

03:05:42.420 sense a sense of of the underlying unity of consciousness that might be one way of thinking about we don't know much about consciousness

03:05:49.900 In fact, I don't think we know anything about consciousness and obviously consciousness is something that we all share

03:05:55.680 but it's also something that we

03:05:57.780 Seem to also experience individually, but maybe our individual consciousnesses are something like the manifestations of something that's a more

03:06:06.340 Unified consciousness underneath. I mean that's hardly an original idea

03:06:10.340 But it does seem to be the case that under some circumstances there are neurological transformations that make that

03:06:18.580 Link more apparent assuming that the link exists now you could say well. No, they're just producing a delusion

03:06:23.960 But the funny thing about

03:06:26.460 You know funny thing about delusions is that you got to think well

03:06:30.300 How do you know something's a delusion and the answer that has to be like something like well hardly anyone else thinks it that would be criteria number one?

03:06:38.100 But criteria number two would be if you act on the delusion do does your ship sink?

03:06:44.880 Because if your ship sinks then it was a delusion. It's something like that, but if you act on your delusion and things get better

03:06:51.940 well

03:06:53.940 Then maybe it wasn't a delusion and there's no evidence from the psilocybin studies that have been conducted at Johns Hopkins

03:06:59.940 That there was detrimental effects for the participants and the participants certainly don't think that the effects were detrimental

03:07:06.940 So and I've been hesitant to talk about any of this for obvious reasons

03:07:09.940 I'll tell you something really funny

03:07:11.940 I think it's funny anyways

03:07:13.940 I had Timothy Leary's old job at Harvard

03:07:16.940 So you know and so Leary is a good object lesson in being very careful about this sort of thing because it certainly

03:07:23.940 It isn't obvious that his net effect was good

03:07:27.940 And I say that with some caution because Leary was a very smart person and he was very creative

03:07:34.940 But he got tangled up in that hallucinogenic madhouse

03:07:37.940 You know that that characterized the say the period from 1965 to about 1970 and it

03:07:43.940 It didn't seem to me that that was altogether a good thing thing is we have these chemicals now in our culture and people are experimenting

03:07:52.940 With them like mad and making them illegal doesn't seem to be working in large part because

03:07:58.940 There I think there were seven known seven to twenty known psychoactive substances that were illegal

03:08:05.940 In the year 2000 and something like 400 now because labs all over the world keep tweaking the molecules

03:08:13.940 Right because molecule a is illegal. So chemists just shifted a little bit then they have a new hallucinogen and

03:08:21.940 Which might be fine and might not be because now and then you can produce a chemical that's unbelievably dangerous

03:08:27.940 Fentanyl sort of like that there was a drug a while back that I can't name I can't remember the name was an acronym

03:08:33.940 It was a fun drug if you took it once it gave you permanent irreversible total Parkinson's disease

03:08:40.940 So people would take it and they were frozen and that was it so mptp I think it was called

03:08:47.940 So it because it destroyed the same area of the brain that that Parkinson's destroys except they did it right away

03:08:54.940 So you know designer drugs right a little caution is in order how we might approach the issue of hallucinogens

03:09:02.940 Hallucinogen use in a mature manner

03:09:05.940 Well, that's a topic for an entirely other discussion

03:09:07.940 I'm not even necessarily sure that it can be approached that way although I would say at minimum

03:09:14.940 Determining what it is that you're up to if you're going to experiment would be a good thing like what it is it exactly that you're serving

03:09:21.940 They're not party drugs. They're not for fun

03:09:24.940 Right, whatever they are. That's not what they're for and so maybe they could be used

03:09:31.940 By people who are carefully orienting themselves towards the good

03:09:35.940 Although I wouldn't say that that should be read as a recommendation

03:09:40.940 Thank you

03:09:41.940 Thank you

03:09:43.940 Yep

03:09:44.940 We'll see you next week

03:09:49.940 Thank you

03:09:50.940 If you found this conversation meaningful you might think about picking up dad's books maps of meaning the architecture of belief

03:09:55.940 Or his newer bestseller 12 rules for life and antidote to chaos

03:10:00.940 Both of these works delve much deeper into the topics covered in the Jordan B. Peterson podcast

03:10:05.940 See jordanbpeterson.com for audio ebook and text links

03:10:09.940 Or pick up the books at your favorite bookseller

03:10:11.940 Remember to check out jordanbpeterson.com slash personality for information on his new course

03:10:16.940 Which is now 50% off

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03:10:25.940 Next week's episode is a continuation of the biblical series and is titled walking with God

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03:11:14.940 From the Westwood One Podcast Network

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - May 17, 2020

Biblical Series： The Psychology of the Flood

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