The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - The Psychology of the Flood

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00:00:50.980 Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

00:00:59.420 You can support these podcasts by donating to Dr. Peterson's Patreon, the link to which can be found in the description.

00:01:06.820 Dr. Peterson's self-development programs, self-authoring, can be found at selfauthoring.com.

00:01:12.020 This is episode 24.

00:01:17.020 This podcast episode is the sixth installment of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson's Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories Lecture Series.

00:01:25.560 This episode focuses on Noah and the Ark and is entitled The Psychology of the Flood.

00:01:31.000 Dr. Peterson will be performing the remainder of the lecture series at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto.

00:01:35.320 Tickets can be found at jordanbpeterson.com slash bible hyphen series or by finding the link in the description.

00:01:56.260 So I'm going to launch right into it.

00:01:58.020 I like this story as well.

00:02:00.680 This is the story of Noah and the flood and then the Tower of Babel. 0.65

00:02:05.320 Which I think are juxtaposed very interestingly.

00:02:09.160 The Tower of Babel is one of those stories like Cain and Abel that's only a few lines long.

00:02:13.800 It's like a fragment in some sense.

00:02:15.500 Although the story of Noah is quite a well-developed narrative.

00:02:19.860 But like the other stories that we've covered, it is relevant at multiple levels of analysis simultaneously.

00:02:27.640 And so what I'm going to do to begin with is to start with some background information.

00:02:35.460 So some psychological background information so that the story makes sense.

00:02:40.580 And the first thing that I'd like to make a case for is that you bring to bear on the world an a priori perceptual structure.

00:02:53.100 And that's really an embodied structure.

00:02:54.980 And it's a consequence of the three and a half billion years that you've spent putting your body together.

00:03:00.880 Which is a tremendous amount of time.

00:03:03.100 And not only your body but your mind of course.

00:03:06.040 Because your mind is part of your body and very much embedded within it.

00:03:10.080 You know, you tend to think that you have your brain in your head.

00:03:13.020 And it's sort of floating separate from the rest of your body.

00:03:15.720 But it's not really true.

00:03:17.100 You have a tremendous, massive system of neurons running through your entire body.

00:03:24.580 Autonomic, there's more neurons in the autonomic nervous system than there are in the central nervous system.

00:03:30.020 So that's a lot of neurons.

00:03:31.140 And then your central nervous system of course enables you to exercise voluntary control over your musculature.

00:03:37.480 And also to receive information from it.

00:03:39.880 Your brain is really distributed through your body.

00:03:42.500 One of the things you may not know is that people who are paraplegic can walk.

00:03:47.200 If you suspend them above a treadmill, their legs will walk by themselves with no voluntary control.

00:03:52.020 So your spine is capable of quite complex activity.

00:03:55.620 In fact, when you walk mostly it's a controlled fall.

00:03:58.440 And mostly your spine is doing it.

00:04:00.160 And so, anyways, the point of all that is that you don't have a blank slate consciousness

00:04:08.480 that's interpreting a world that manifests itself as segregated objects.

00:04:14.040 In some straightforward sense, you have a built-in interpretive system

00:04:19.140 that's extraordinarily deeply embedded and invisible.

00:04:23.120 Because you might think about it as the implicit structure of your unconscious.

00:04:27.260 It's what gives rise to your conscious experience.

00:04:30.540 And it presents you with the world.

00:04:33.360 That's one way of thinking about it.

00:04:34.860 And it's a good way of thinking about it.

00:04:36.160 It's the psychoanalytic way of thinking about it.

00:04:38.060 As well as the neuroscientific way of thinking about it.

00:04:42.080 Because one of the things that's pretty interesting about modern neuroscientists,

00:04:45.100 especially the top-rate ones, and those are usually the ones that are working on emotions,

00:04:48.500 as far as I've been able to tell,

00:04:50.420 are often quite enamored of the psychoanalysts.

00:04:54.900 Yach Panksepp was a good example of that.

00:04:56.840 Because they came to understand that the psychoanalysts' insistence on underlying unconscious personified motivations

00:05:06.020 was actually an accurate reflection of how the brain worked.

00:05:09.180 So to think of yourself as a loose collection of autonomous spirits

00:05:13.660 that's governed by some overarching identity is a reasonable way of thinking about it.

00:05:19.080 But the question is, or a question that arises from that is,

00:05:24.360 what is the nature of this a priori structure that you use to interpret the world?

00:05:31.740 And I think the clearest answer to that is that it's a story.

00:05:35.920 That you live inside a story.

00:05:38.080 And that's very, very interesting to me.

00:05:39.920 Because I believe, and I have a couple of videos that lay this out,

00:05:46.020 I believe that Darwinian presuppositions

00:05:50.540 are at least as fundamental as Newtonian presuppositions.

00:05:55.680 I actually think they're more fundamental.

00:05:57.340 And that the fact that we've evolved story-like structures through which to interpret the world

00:06:04.340 indicates to me that there's something deeply true about story-like structures.

00:06:09.760 They're true at least insofar as the fact that we've developed them

00:06:14.060 means that here we are living

00:06:16.040 and that it's taken three and a half billion years to develop them.

00:06:19.480 They're highly functional.

00:06:22.020 And so we don't have much better definition of truth than highly functional.

00:06:26.060 You know, that's about as good as it gets.

00:06:28.180 Partly because we're limited creatures

00:06:30.280 and we don't have omniscient knowledge.

00:06:32.800 And so the best we can do with our knowledge, generally speaking,

00:06:35.780 is to note its functionality

00:06:37.720 and improve it when it fails to work properly.

00:06:41.120 I think the scientific method actually does that.

00:06:44.060 And so the fact that we've evolved a story-like structure

00:06:47.780 through which to interpret the world,

00:06:49.640 that's pretty damn interesting.

00:06:51.000 It says something fundamental about stories.

00:06:52.740 And it's strange in the same way

00:06:54.900 that the fact that we have hemispheric specialization

00:06:58.460 for the known and the unknown

00:06:59.780 or for chaos and order,

00:07:02.000 order and chaos, sorry,

00:07:03.560 respectively,

00:07:04.340 also says something fundamental about the nature of the world

00:07:07.180 if you assume that, you know,

00:07:08.580 we've evolved to reflect the structure of the world,

00:07:11.760 broadly speaking.

00:07:12.860 And that's obviously not just the physical structure,

00:07:16.440 the atoms and the molecules,

00:07:17.800 but all of the patterned manifestations

00:07:19.900 of the physical molecules

00:07:21.900 as they build structures of increasing complexity across time.

00:07:25.880 That would include human interactions

00:07:27.580 and political interactions,

00:07:29.520 economic interactions,

00:07:30.940 familial interactions,

00:07:32.280 all of those things that are

00:07:33.540 a very important part of our reality,

00:07:36.540 but perhaps in some sense not as fundamental

00:07:38.380 as the physical attributes

00:07:40.900 that the physicists concentrate on.

00:07:42.960 So we live in stories.

00:07:46.000 And so I want to talk to you

00:07:47.760 a little bit about stories

00:07:48.920 and about their structure.

00:07:50.460 Because when you understand

00:07:51.900 a little bit about the structure of stories,

00:07:54.540 then a whole array of things about mythology

00:07:57.400 all of a sudden make overwhelming sense.

00:08:00.040 And it's so useful

00:08:01.000 because what you see is that

00:08:03.040 many of the things that are

00:08:05.300 standard occurrences in your life

00:08:08.060 everyone's life

00:08:09.440 are portrayed universally in mythology.

00:08:14.420 And it's very helpful

00:08:15.660 because first of all,

00:08:17.260 it de-isolates you.

00:08:19.380 One of the things you learn

00:08:20.460 as a clinical psychologist

00:08:22.260 contra the anti-psychiatrists,

00:08:25.460 let's say,

00:08:26.360 is that diagnosis is often a relief to people.

00:08:29.880 You know, there's a problem with being diagnosed

00:08:32.140 because then you might be labeled

00:08:33.400 and then the label can follow you

00:08:34.660 for the rest of your life.

00:08:35.620 And once you're labeled as something,

00:08:38.360 then strange things happen around you

00:08:40.280 that often reinforce that label.

00:08:42.940 Maybe you start acting it out more

00:08:44.480 or you adopt it as an identity.

00:08:45.840 But there's a flip side of that,

00:08:47.420 which is that the last thing

00:08:49.200 that you ever want to hear

00:08:50.340 when you go see a physician

00:08:52.080 or a psychologist is,

00:08:54.040 you know,

00:08:54.340 I've never seen a case like yours before.

00:08:58.180 Right.

00:08:58.740 That is not a relief, man.

00:09:00.160 Because if the message is

00:09:02.840 I've never heard anything like

00:09:05.040 what you're telling me,

00:09:06.640 the outcome is either going to be

00:09:07.940 not so good for you

00:09:09.000 or you're not going to get listened to at all, right?

00:09:11.220 Because you're such an anomaly

00:09:12.340 that your existence is annoying

00:09:15.860 to the integrated knowledge structure

00:09:17.620 of the medical professional

00:09:18.680 that you're attempting to receive advice from.

00:09:20.940 Well, it's definitely the case 0.95

00:09:22.420 because, you know,

00:09:24.360 if you can be put in a box,

00:09:25.980 then the box tells the doctor

00:09:28.240 what to do with you.

00:09:29.660 And that's actually a relief to the doctor.

00:09:31.680 But also a relief to you, right?

00:09:33.420 Because you want to know.

00:09:34.520 So you come and you say,

00:09:35.600 look, I can't go out of my house much anymore.

00:09:38.160 I'm afraid on elevators.

00:09:40.480 I have heart palpitations

00:09:42.120 and I sometimes end up in the emergency room.

00:09:44.720 Increasingly, my interactions in the world

00:09:48.080 are restricted.

00:09:48.780 I find myself staying at home.

00:09:50.080 I'm afraid I'm going to die of a heart attack.

00:09:52.300 And the psychologist says,

00:09:54.140 well, you have agoraphobia.

00:09:55.820 It's like lots of people have that.

00:09:57.560 And here's usually how it develops

00:09:59.400 and here's the treatment course.

00:10:00.820 And, you know,

00:10:01.360 we can probably do something about that.

00:10:02.980 And it's like,

00:10:04.540 well, you're not going to die of a heart attack now,

00:10:07.040 probably.

00:10:07.640 That's a real relief.

00:10:08.780 You're not crazy in a completely unique way. 0.99

00:10:11.820 And you're crazy in a way 0.98

00:10:13.280 that might be treatable, you know. 0.99

00:10:15.920 And so it's such a relief

00:10:16.900 because people come in there

00:10:17.980 with a pile of snakes

00:10:19.140 of indeterminate magnitude

00:10:21.360 and they walk out

00:10:22.080 with one manageable snake.

00:10:23.640 And it's still a snake,

00:10:24.720 but, you know,

00:10:25.720 one manageable snake

00:10:27.000 beats a hydra, right?

00:10:29.020 So, all right.

00:10:31.540 So, back to stories.

00:10:34.220 So,

00:10:35.440 the stories that we tell

00:10:47.600 and that we live in

00:10:49.440 are fundamentally

00:10:51.120 ways that we deal

00:10:53.100 with the complexity of the world.

00:10:54.560 And the fundamental problem

00:10:56.820 with the world,

00:10:58.440 as far as I can tell,

00:10:59.820 is that not only is it

00:11:00.920 complex beyond your comprehension,

00:11:03.840 but the complexity shifts

00:11:05.400 in unpredictable ways.

00:11:07.800 So,

00:11:08.900 that's the Darwinian conundrum, actually.

00:11:11.720 That's why Darwinism

00:11:12.960 seems to be a practical necessity

00:11:15.160 with regards to the continuation of life

00:11:17.600 because

00:11:18.000 because the complexity changes

00:11:20.400 unpredictably,

00:11:21.780 you can't necessarily tell

00:11:23.620 what's going to work

00:11:24.380 in the future.

00:11:25.540 And so,

00:11:26.260 the Darwinian process

00:11:27.160 solves that

00:11:27.820 by generating

00:11:28.520 quasi-random

00:11:29.620 variations

00:11:31.700 and

00:11:32.180 letting whichever one

00:11:34.040 by happenstance

00:11:34.960 happens to work

00:11:35.860 in that environment

00:11:36.520 survive.

00:11:37.700 Now,

00:11:37.940 it's not random

00:11:39.300 precisely

00:11:40.560 because

00:11:41.020 the underlying structure

00:11:43.420 is conserved.

00:11:44.280 It's very rare

00:11:44.880 that a child

00:11:45.620 would be born

00:11:46.160 with an extra arm

00:11:47.140 or something like that.

00:11:48.260 Like the skeletal structure

00:11:49.840 that you inhabit

00:11:50.680 is shared by

00:11:52.240 animals going

00:11:53.700 way, way back

00:11:54.920 in evolutionary history.

00:11:56.020 There's a lot of conservation

00:11:57.080 in the evolutionary process.

00:11:59.480 So,

00:12:00.120 there's variation

00:12:00.760 within conservation.

00:12:02.200 Like music.

00:12:03.240 It's a good way 1.00

00:12:04.320 of thinking about it.

00:12:06.320 So,

00:12:08.580 the

00:12:08.960 stories that we tell

00:12:12.000 have exactly

00:12:12.640 the same structure.

00:12:13.520 they have this

00:12:15.560 core element

00:12:18.440 with variations.

00:12:19.600 And so,

00:12:19.860 all right,

00:12:20.220 I'll turn to the stories.

00:12:21.620 And so,

00:12:22.600 the first problem,

00:12:24.080 as I mentioned,

00:12:24.800 is a complexity problem.

00:12:27.780 Things are just

00:12:28.520 too complicated

00:12:29.360 to get a handle on.

00:12:30.760 And that actually

00:12:31.480 has serious consequences

00:12:32.960 because

00:12:33.380 what happens

00:12:34.340 to everyone eventually

00:12:35.260 is that their lives

00:12:36.140 become so complicated

00:12:37.080 that they die.

00:12:39.300 So, 0.73

00:12:39.980 and that,

00:12:40.340 and many terrible things

00:12:41.960 can happen to you

00:12:42.480 on the way to dying

00:12:43.340 as well

00:12:43.800 that are complex,

00:12:45.100 complexity-related,

00:12:47.160 right?

00:12:47.420 You can develop

00:12:47.920 a serious illness

00:12:48.560 that you can't get

00:12:49.220 a handle on.

00:12:50.140 You can hit a,

00:12:51.120 what would you call,

00:12:52.900 an impasse

00:12:53.440 in your relationship

00:12:54.280 that you cannot get past

00:12:56.020 and see no way out of.

00:12:57.840 That happens to people

00:12:58.820 quite frequently.

00:12:59.740 People who are suicidal,

00:13:01.020 for example,

00:13:01.580 they often feel like

00:13:02.460 they've been backed

00:13:03.100 into a corner.

00:13:04.540 That they have no options.

00:13:06.500 They have no good options.

00:13:07.520 No matter which way

00:13:08.260 they turn,

00:13:09.140 there's something terrible

00:13:09.920 to face

00:13:10.400 and they can't see

00:13:11.480 any way out of it.

00:13:12.880 And sometimes

00:13:13.660 that's more true

00:13:15.020 than you'd like to think

00:13:16.180 because we also tend

00:13:17.900 to like to think

00:13:19.140 that people's problems

00:13:20.000 are primarily psychological,

00:13:21.500 but they're not.

00:13:22.580 That's one thing

00:13:23.220 you learn quite rapidly

00:13:24.300 as a clinician

00:13:25.060 is that most of the time

00:13:26.880 people don't come to you

00:13:27.800 because they have

00:13:28.300 mental illness. 1.00

00:13:28.980 They come to you

00:13:29.500 because they have

00:13:30.000 a complexity management problem.

00:13:31.920 Their lives have got

00:13:32.880 out of hand on them

00:13:34.360 and they don't know

00:13:35.540 how to get them

00:13:36.060 back under control.

00:13:37.960 And so,

00:13:38.540 all sorts of things

00:13:39.340 can do that.

00:13:39.900 And then, of course,

00:13:40.460 that can make you anxious

00:13:41.260 or depressed.

00:13:42.080 It can trigger

00:13:42.500 all sorts of illnesses.

00:13:43.620 But the fundamental problem

00:13:44.920 is still that

00:13:45.520 things have got

00:13:46.860 beyond you.

00:13:48.340 And that actually

00:13:49.300 has a psychophysiological cost

00:13:51.080 that isn't merely

00:13:51.900 psychological.

00:13:52.960 You have a limited

00:13:53.940 amount of capacity

00:13:55.380 from a resource perspective

00:13:58.380 to deal with

00:13:59.400 emergent complexity.

00:14:01.380 It's just not enough

00:14:02.560 of you.

00:14:02.860 You'll exhaust

00:14:05.360 your psychophysiological

00:14:06.700 resources

00:14:08.040 if you get into

00:14:09.100 a situation

00:14:09.700 that's too complex.

00:14:11.340 Well, that's what

00:14:11.940 the idea of chaos represents.

00:14:15.820 It represents

00:14:16.320 that underlying complexity

00:14:17.500 that can manifest itself

00:14:18.780 at any time.

00:14:19.860 And it can manifest itself,

00:14:21.060 for example,

00:14:21.640 if you wake up

00:14:24.400 in the morning

00:14:24.760 and you feel an ache

00:14:26.100 of some sort

00:14:26.740 and perhaps it's nothing

00:14:28.080 and you ignore it

00:14:29.480 but it gets worse

00:14:30.220 and you end up

00:14:30.980 going to the hospital

00:14:31.820 and you find out

00:14:32.580 perhaps, for example,

00:14:34.820 that you have

00:14:35.180 pancreatic cancer

00:14:36.120 and you're going to live

00:14:37.100 for six months

00:14:37.740 and that's the end

00:14:38.420 of that.

00:14:39.420 And so it's

00:14:40.840 at that moment

00:14:42.500 that you break

00:14:43.240 through the thin ice

00:14:44.260 that everyone walks on

00:14:45.420 and you see

00:14:46.320 what's underneath

00:14:47.000 and what's underneath

00:14:47.880 is the ineradicable

00:14:49.280 complexity of life

00:14:50.780 and that's chaos.

00:14:52.720 And that's now

00:14:54.280 it's taken people

00:14:55.840 a long, long time

00:14:56.980 to get a grip

00:14:58.900 on this conceptual

00:15:00.880 what would you call it?

00:15:03.180 Conceptual schema.

00:15:04.120 And human beings

00:15:07.780 have done it

00:15:08.440 mostly with image

00:15:09.340 and story

00:15:09.940 before they've been able

00:15:10.780 to do it

00:15:11.160 in any articulated manner.

00:15:13.560 And so there are

00:15:14.480 a set of images

00:15:15.220 that represent

00:15:16.080 this underlying chaos

00:15:17.560 and one of them

00:15:18.720 is the dragon

00:15:19.400 of chaos

00:15:20.080 that,

00:15:20.780 precisely that.

00:15:22.160 And that's the dragon

00:15:23.100 that the hero

00:15:23.600 goes out to confront.

00:15:24.620 That's the symbol

00:15:25.300 of the unknown.

00:15:26.040 It's the thing

00:15:26.520 that lurks underneath.

00:15:27.700 It's the thing

00:15:28.240 that also guards treasure

00:15:29.580 because in the unknown

00:15:30.600 there's a possibility.

00:15:32.380 Also the water

00:15:34.140 that was there

00:15:35.520 that we talked about

00:15:36.220 in the Mesopotamian

00:15:37.040 creation myth

00:15:37.800 the water that's there

00:15:39.260 at the beginning

00:15:39.880 both the salt

00:15:41.800 and the fresh water

00:15:43.000 is often a symbol

00:15:44.060 of pre-cosmogonic chaos.

00:15:46.940 Often people have dreams

00:15:48.180 for example

00:15:48.800 some of you

00:15:49.420 have had this dream

00:15:50.060 I suspect you'll dream

00:15:51.060 that you're in a house

00:15:52.360 that you know well

00:15:53.240 and all of a sudden

00:15:54.340 you discover a new room

00:15:55.520 or a set of new rooms

00:15:56.480 or maybe a set of rooms

00:15:57.860 in the basement

00:15:58.440 and often the rooms

00:15:59.360 are not well organized

00:16:01.400 and they're full of water.

00:16:02.940 Those are very common things

00:16:04.100 and what that means

00:16:04.860 is that you've

00:16:05.620 broken through

00:16:07.220 the constraints

00:16:08.180 of your conscious

00:16:09.860 self-understanding

00:16:11.360 to a new domain

00:16:13.080 of possibility

00:16:15.500 but a new domain

00:16:16.840 that needs a tremendous

00:16:17.700 amount of work.

00:16:18.540 It says

00:16:18.820 well here's a new part of you

00:16:20.000 but it's not well developed.

00:16:22.520 It's flooded.

00:16:23.660 It's flooded with chaos

00:16:24.800 essentially.

00:16:26.160 And it's water

00:16:26.900 I think partly

00:16:27.580 because chaos

00:16:28.540 is not only

00:16:29.340 what you fall into

00:16:30.760 when you're

00:16:31.260 not expecting it

00:16:32.760 but it's also

00:16:33.400 the unknown

00:16:34.280 that you confront

00:16:35.080 forthrightly

00:16:35.840 and generate new things

00:16:36.880 out of

00:16:37.240 and water is a symbol

00:16:38.340 of life

00:16:38.700 especially in the desert

00:16:39.720 and of course

00:16:40.400 water

00:16:40.760 life is dependent

00:16:41.880 on water

00:16:42.440 and so

00:16:42.840 water is a natural

00:16:44.460 symbol

00:16:45.380 to utilize

00:16:47.600 to utilize

00:16:47.780 when you're talking

00:16:48.600 about something

00:16:49.240 that's life-giving

00:16:50.080 but also potentially deadly

00:16:51.540 because a little bit

00:16:52.540 of water

00:16:52.920 well that's a drink

00:16:53.920 but a lot of water

00:16:54.740 that's a shipwreck

00:16:55.640 right

00:16:56.360 and so

00:16:56.860 and those are the

00:16:58.140 those are the extremes

00:16:59.260 now

00:17:00.100 there are accounts

00:17:02.480 that are sort of

00:17:04.100 subtexts

00:17:04.980 in Genesis

00:17:05.740 and elsewhere

00:17:06.720 in the Old Testament

00:17:07.520 of God

00:17:09.100 conquering a

00:17:11.380 great monster

00:17:13.440 Leviathan

00:17:14.200 or

00:17:14.580 or

00:17:15.580 Behemoth

00:17:16.520 that has

00:17:17.000 these sort of

00:17:18.220 serpentile

00:17:18.980 elements

00:17:20.320 and

00:17:21.120 making the world

00:17:22.340 as a consequence

00:17:23.240 of that conflict

00:17:24.100 so there's this idea

00:17:25.440 that

00:17:25.760 the world creating

00:17:27.360 force

00:17:27.920 which we've talked about

00:17:28.940 as the logos

00:17:29.520 is the thing

00:17:30.540 that continually

00:17:31.140 confronts

00:17:31.860 chaos

00:17:32.780 and that

00:17:33.880 one way of thinking

00:17:35.140 about chaos

00:17:35.800 is as a predatory

00:17:37.080 reptilian monster

00:17:38.380 and often one 0.63

00:17:39.680 that lives in the depths

00:17:40.400 or perhaps underwater

00:17:41.520 and part of that

00:17:42.960 I think is because

00:17:43.700 we actually use

00:17:44.620 our predator detection

00:17:45.620 circuit to do this

00:17:46.620 sort of precognitive

00:17:47.540 processing

00:17:48.120 and so the notion

00:17:49.680 fundamentally is

00:17:50.600 anything that threatens

00:17:51.820 you instantaneously

00:17:52.740 is something that

00:17:54.180 your predator detection

00:17:55.100 circuit should be

00:17:55.820 working with

00:17:56.400 it's fast

00:17:57.880 it's fast

00:17:59.500 it's low resolution

00:18:00.540 it doesn't have

00:18:01.440 a lot of ideas

00:18:02.420 but it's really

00:18:03.880 really fast

00:18:04.640 and that also

00:18:05.500 accounts for

00:18:06.160 our capability

00:18:07.460 and tendency

00:18:08.280 to very rapidly

00:18:09.200 treat people

00:18:10.680 who upset

00:18:11.360 our conceptual

00:18:13.460 structures

00:18:14.820 as enemies

00:18:16.960 of the predatory

00:18:17.740 variety

00:18:18.260 we can fall

00:18:19.440 into that

00:18:19.880 in no time

00:18:21.240 flat

00:18:21.620 because it's

00:18:22.640 the archetype

00:18:24.260 if something comes

00:18:25.020 along to knock

00:18:26.280 you for a loop

00:18:26.980 it's a shark

00:18:28.240 it's something

00:18:28.740 that lurks

00:18:29.180 under the water

00:18:29.740 it's something

00:18:30.100 that will pull you

00:18:30.700 down

00:18:30.960 it's an enemy

00:18:31.600 and you should

00:18:34.240 get prepared

00:18:34.800 and that's a

00:18:35.820 reasonable defensive

00:18:36.580 strategy

00:18:37.080 even though

00:18:37.580 it also has

00:18:38.520 its dangers

00:18:39.080 and can sometimes

00:18:40.400 be wrong

00:18:40.960 so

00:18:42.260 the landscape

00:18:43.820 within which

00:18:44.640 we have to

00:18:47.860 erect our stories

00:18:48.780 is fundamentally

00:18:50.460 one of

00:18:51.060 an overarching

00:18:52.540 chaos

00:18:53.040 a chaos

00:18:53.500 that exceeds

00:18:54.060 our capacity

00:18:54.700 to comprehend

00:18:55.340 in any sense

00:18:57.200 individually

00:18:58.240 familial

00:18:58.980 socially

00:18:59.460 economically

00:19:00.100 we're always

00:19:01.220 threatened

00:19:02.580 by the collapse

00:19:03.340 of the structures

00:19:03.960 that we inhabit

00:19:04.680 constantly

00:19:05.620 we have to work

00:19:06.520 well it's like

00:19:07.620 you own a house

00:19:08.260 you know

00:19:08.640 how much time

00:19:09.720 do you spend

00:19:10.100 maintaining a house

00:19:11.140 well a lot

00:19:13.100 and why is that

00:19:13.940 it's because

00:19:14.360 the house falls apart 1.00

00:19:15.940 because you're stupid 1.00

00:19:16.780 and the house falls apart 1.00

00:19:18.420 well because you do

00:19:19.160 repairs wrong

00:19:19.920 or you ignore things

00:19:20.880 right

00:19:21.120 and I'm saying this

00:19:22.660 actually for technical reasons

00:19:23.980 the house falls apart 0.98

00:19:25.100 because you're incompetent 0.89

00:19:26.260 but even if you're competent 0.98

00:19:27.780 the house falls apart

00:19:28.700 right

00:19:29.140 it's just entropy

00:19:30.020 and so things have a proclivity

00:19:31.480 to fall apart

00:19:32.180 on their own

00:19:32.760 so you just have to run

00:19:33.740 like mad

00:19:34.280 just to keep them doing

00:19:35.940 what they're supposed

00:19:36.700 to be doing

00:19:37.380 and then of course

00:19:38.460 that is complicated

00:19:39.220 by your own

00:19:40.060 willful blindness

00:19:41.240 and inadequacy

00:19:42.120 as a repair person

00:19:43.140 and refusal to attend

00:19:44.340 and all those other things

00:19:45.260 so

00:19:45.460 and that's a very classic

00:19:47.580 idea

00:19:48.180 which we'll return to

00:19:49.160 one of the ideas

00:19:50.460 that Mircea Eliade

00:19:51.820 famous history of religions

00:19:55.320 extracted from

00:19:57.660 a very large corpus

00:19:59.820 of flood myths

00:20:00.920 was the idea

00:20:02.280 that the earth

00:20:03.600 is periodically flooded

00:20:04.820 for two reasons

00:20:05.740 one is

00:20:06.460 things fall apart

00:20:08.040 just entropy

00:20:09.140 it's straight entropy

00:20:09.980 it's

00:20:10.300 I don't remember

00:20:10.980 which law of thermodynamics

00:20:12.240 that is

00:20:12.820 but

00:20:13.060 it's one of the big laws

00:20:14.520 of thermodynamics

00:20:15.340 it's one of the top three

00:20:17.320 man

00:20:17.660 things fall apart

00:20:18.520 of their own accord

00:20:19.500 and that's one of the things

00:20:20.960 that we

00:20:21.340 have to contend with

00:20:22.520 and then

00:20:23.220 the rate at which

00:20:24.580 things fall apart

00:20:25.560 is sped

00:20:26.420 by the sins of men

00:20:27.960 that's the other idea

00:20:29.440 and

00:20:29.680 you know that

00:20:30.640 everyone knows that

00:20:31.740 because you know

00:20:32.540 you know

00:20:33.320 your car breaks down

00:20:34.720 in the highway

00:20:35.200 and you think

00:20:35.780 God that's so inconvenient

00:20:36.840 and then you

00:20:37.380 you know

00:20:37.640 you shake your fist

00:20:38.380 at the sky

00:20:38.900 and then there's part of you

00:20:39.900 in the back of your mind

00:20:41.140 that goes

00:20:42.020 God you know

00:20:42.660 I knew that rattle

00:20:44.600 that I wasn't paying attention to

00:20:46.020 actually signified something

00:20:48.020 you know

00:20:48.860 and I knew

00:20:49.900 I should have paid attention to it

00:20:51.440 and I didn't

00:20:52.520 and now I'm in the situation

00:20:53.860 that I'm in now

00:20:54.560 and you know

00:20:54.900 I know

00:20:55.500 I bet you this happens to people

00:20:57.800 two or three times a week

00:20:58.900 is 1.00

00:20:59.080 they do something stupid 1.00

00:21:00.600 that they know 1.00

00:21:01.140 they shouldn't have done

00:21:01.880 that they told themselves

00:21:03.000 not to do

00:21:03.600 mere seconds before

00:21:05.200 and they know

00:21:06.140 the voice says

00:21:07.500 don't do that

00:21:08.280 yeah yeah

00:21:08.860 you do it

00:21:09.800 you get nailed for it

00:21:11.120 exactly the way

00:21:11.880 that you knew

00:21:12.400 you would get nailed for it

00:21:13.540 and then you're hurt

00:21:14.400 doubly

00:21:15.420 because

00:21:15.800 not only did it fall apart 1.00

00:21:17.340 but you're the idiot 1.00

00:21:18.520 that made it fall apart 1.00

00:21:19.700 knowing full well

00:21:20.620 that it was going to fall apart

00:21:21.740 and ignoring it

00:21:22.680 and so

00:21:22.940 that's the idea

00:21:23.980 behind the notion

00:21:25.280 that

00:21:25.640 there are two reasons

00:21:26.960 that things fall apart

00:21:28.040 thermodynamic entropy

00:21:30.200 and

00:21:30.680 the proclivity of people

00:21:32.360 not to attend to things

00:21:33.860 they know

00:21:34.320 they should attend to

00:21:35.340 and partly

00:21:36.320 we do that

00:21:36.880 because

00:21:37.200 if a problem emerges

00:21:39.380 it always announces itself

00:21:40.840 unless it's a really

00:21:41.960 really tiny problem

00:21:42.960 and you're approaching it

00:21:43.860 voluntarily

00:21:44.240 it always announces itself

00:21:46.940 with negative emotion

00:21:48.100 and that's part of the

00:21:49.720 predator detection circuit

00:21:50.800 it announces itself

00:21:52.280 in frustration

00:21:53.000 or disappointment

00:21:53.780 or emotional pain

00:21:54.960 or grief

00:21:56.020 or the paramount one

00:21:57.700 anxiety

00:21:58.520 and no wonder

00:22:00.600 because it's a problem

00:22:01.540 right

00:22:01.800 and one of the logical

00:22:03.500 responses

00:22:03.960 is to sort of

00:22:04.680 freeze in the face

00:22:05.520 of the problem

00:22:06.140 but of course

00:22:07.100 if it's a problem

00:22:08.060 that has to be addressed

00:22:08.860 and solved

00:22:09.560 freezing it

00:22:10.420 and turning away from it

00:22:11.580 is not a good solution

00:22:12.860 because

00:22:13.280 since things tend to fall apart

00:22:15.180 on their own accord

00:22:16.060 if you just leave the thing alone

00:22:18.420 that's problematic

00:22:19.440 it's just going to get worse

00:22:21.140 not better

00:22:21.660 which is one of the things

00:22:22.580 that's very annoying about life

00:22:23.980 so for example

00:22:25.180 you know

00:22:25.640 if you get a warning message

00:22:27.320 from the tax department

00:22:28.820 the probability that

00:22:30.560 ignoring that

00:22:31.660 will make it go away

00:22:33.960 is zero

00:22:34.740 right

00:22:35.180 what will happen instead

00:22:36.140 is that the more you ignore it

00:22:37.500 the larger it will grow

00:22:38.640 and if you ignore it long enough

00:22:39.900 then it will turn into something

00:22:41.300 large enough to eat you

00:22:42.860 and that will be the end of you

00:22:44.580 and I read in Harper's Magazine

00:22:46.660 at one point

00:22:47.380 that people would rather be mugged

00:22:49.720 than audited

00:22:50.360 and so

00:22:51.260 I believe that

00:22:52.420 because the mugging man

00:22:53.340 that's over

00:22:53.960 right

00:22:54.160 it's like

00:22:54.520 a couple of minutes

00:22:56.160 a sheer terror

00:22:57.060 loss of your wallet

00:22:58.740 the way you walk

00:22:59.660 the audit

00:23:01.220 that's like

00:23:01.960 that's like a semi-fatal disease

00:23:04.660 so

00:23:05.600 so that's chaos

00:23:08.720 now it's the idea here too

00:23:11.160 is that that's the chaos

00:23:12.320 that's

00:23:13.420 the psychological idea

00:23:14.820 is that that's also the chaos

00:23:16.160 that

00:23:16.460 whatever is being represented

00:23:18.140 in Genesis

00:23:18.680 as the spirit of God

00:23:20.020 extracts order out of

00:23:21.840 at the beginning of time

00:23:22.940 and it's also

00:23:23.820 that which

00:23:24.880 we're constantly contending with

00:23:26.520 as we struggle

00:23:27.800 in the same manner

00:23:28.860 to construct and maintain

00:23:30.220 habitable worlds

00:23:31.280 so

00:23:32.360 it's brilliant

00:23:33.460 it's brilliant

00:23:34.240 you know

00:23:34.580 when I first

00:23:35.140 put together the relationship

00:23:37.000 between

00:23:37.540 what Iliadi called

00:23:39.520 the pre-cosmogonic chaos

00:23:40.800 and

00:23:41.220 the predatory landscape

00:23:43.360 that surrounded our ancestors

00:23:44.720 and

00:23:45.040 the manner in which

00:23:46.440 we're structured neurologically

00:23:47.940 to respond to all of that

00:23:49.420 I thought

00:23:49.800 it was

00:23:50.380 it was like

00:23:51.120 an amazing epiphany

00:23:52.960 because

00:23:53.320 it's self-evidently the case

00:23:55.360 that the world is too complicated

00:23:57.100 for us to deal with

00:23:58.100 and that's one of the problems

00:23:59.060 that we face

00:23:59.620 on an ongoing basis

00:24:01.260 and then

00:24:01.820 the question is

00:24:02.780 well what do you do about that

00:24:03.860 and

00:24:04.020 if you ignore it

00:24:05.480 it gets worse

00:24:06.060 so ignoring it doesn't work

00:24:07.360 and so

00:24:07.700 we know what doesn't work

00:24:09.280 and so if ignoring it doesn't work

00:24:10.760 then

00:24:10.980 attending to it might work

00:24:13.020 and then I found out

00:24:14.320 with the Egyptians

00:24:15.000 for example

00:24:15.700 that

00:24:16.020 Horus was the god of attention

00:24:18.260 and the same thing happened

00:24:19.420 among the Mesopotamians

00:24:20.560 with Marduk

00:24:21.200 and his

00:24:21.540 ring of eyes

00:24:22.540 it's like

00:24:23.040 what's the way to

00:24:24.360 forestall

00:24:25.360 the catastrophe of things

00:24:27.540 falling apart

00:24:28.360 and the answer to that

00:24:29.180 is by attending to them

00:24:30.280 voluntarily attending to them

00:24:31.920 and that slots very nicely

00:24:33.100 into the hero mythology

00:24:34.260 that promotes the idea

00:24:36.340 that if there's a dragon

00:24:37.960 in the whereabouts

00:24:39.860 in the near

00:24:41.500 in the neighborhood

00:24:43.420 let's say

00:24:44.020 that hiding in the basement

00:24:46.280 just makes it grow larger

00:24:47.700 it's time to go out 1.00

00:24:48.880 and confront the damn thing 0.99

00:24:50.700 and the general stories are 1.00

00:24:52.660 well you might get killed

00:24:54.080 because it's a dragon 0.82

00:24:55.080 but

00:24:55.340 it's only might

00:24:57.600 as opposed to

00:24:58.380 definitely will get killed 0.99

00:25:00.000 if it happens to attack you 1.00

00:25:01.420 at three in the morning

00:25:02.240 at home

00:25:03.180 when you're hung over

00:25:04.040 and it's been a bad day

00:25:05.220 and you don't have

00:25:06.320 your

00:25:06.600 you know

00:25:07.100 your sword

00:25:08.180 and your shield

00:25:08.740 at the ready

00:25:09.340 which is generally

00:25:10.360 what happens

00:25:11.100 to people who

00:25:11.980 avoid things

00:25:12.960 so it's not something

00:25:14.340 that should be recommended 0.91

00:25:15.580 you're screwed both ways 0.96

00:25:17.140 that's one of the things 0.99

00:25:18.240 that's so nice about

00:25:19.240 being deeply pessimistic

00:25:21.560 it's so freeing

00:25:22.760 because

00:25:23.040 one of the things

00:25:24.160 well

00:25:25.560 it's very frequent

00:25:26.600 it's such a relief

00:25:27.600 and it's really

00:25:28.700 a useful habit

00:25:29.620 to develop

00:25:30.700 is

00:25:30.980 sometimes

00:25:32.020 no matter what you do

00:25:33.480 you're in trouble

00:25:34.280 and that's a relief

00:25:35.660 because then you can stop

00:25:36.700 scrabbling around

00:25:37.660 for the way out

00:25:38.480 there's no way out

00:25:39.360 man

00:25:39.640 it's like

00:25:40.460 you can pick

00:25:41.260 murder

00:25:42.160 you know 0.99

00:25:42.860 wretched death A

00:25:44.280 or slightly less

00:25:45.440 wretched death B

00:25:46.560 something like that

00:25:47.500 and I know

00:25:48.880 that's a terrible way

00:25:50.220 of looking at things

00:25:50.960 but it is

00:25:52.000 extraordinarily useful

00:25:53.560 to understand

00:25:54.220 that many times

00:25:55.360 you get

00:25:55.680 your choice

00:25:56.740 boils down to

00:25:58.340 picking the least

00:25:59.160 bad option

00:26:00.100 and if that's all

00:26:01.560 you can do

00:26:02.100 if that's how

00:26:03.020 life is revealing

00:26:04.140 itself to you

00:26:04.820 it's like

00:26:05.080 well more power to you

00:26:06.180 the least bad option

00:26:07.240 that's the best

00:26:07.900 you can do

00:26:08.540 and it's good enough

00:26:10.820 especially compared

00:26:11.780 to the alternative

00:26:12.340 which is the most

00:26:13.280 bad option

00:26:14.060 so

00:26:14.940 all right

00:26:17.100 now

00:26:17.340 so the fundamental

00:26:20.560 reality of things

00:26:21.700 is complexity

00:26:22.560 beyond comprehension

00:26:23.780 and then

00:26:24.360 the question is

00:26:25.760 well how is it

00:26:26.660 that you manage that

00:26:27.540 and partly you manage that

00:26:28.700 and this is

00:26:29.200 where the

00:26:29.940 image of the patriarchal order

00:26:32.280 comes in

00:26:32.860 in the positive manner

00:26:34.540 I might point out

00:26:35.740 because in the absence

00:26:37.120 of patriarchal structure

00:26:38.800 for lack of a better

00:26:40.120 lexicon

00:26:40.760 there's nothing

00:26:41.560 but chaos

00:26:42.300 and I wouldn't

00:26:42.960 recommend chaos

00:26:44.400 because it's

00:26:45.220 there's a lot of it

00:26:47.800 and there isn't

00:26:48.300 that much of you

00:26:49.220 and if you think

00:26:50.360 you can handle it

00:26:51.160 without an a priori structure

00:26:52.460 and without a sociological

00:26:53.720 structure surrounding you

00:26:54.900 then you don't know

00:26:55.760 anything at all

00:26:56.600 about human beings

00:26:57.540 because one of the

00:26:58.660 things I've noticed

00:26:59.320 for example

00:26:59.920 is that

00:27:00.340 it's unbelievable

00:27:03.780 the degree

00:27:04.440 to which our sanity

00:27:05.500 depends on a

00:27:06.720 functioning sociological

00:27:07.920 structure

00:27:08.480 and here's why

00:27:09.740 well first of all

00:27:11.200 you kind of need to know

00:27:12.840 what to do every day

00:27:14.060 you have to have a routine

00:27:15.100 because you're an animal

00:27:15.980 you know

00:27:16.340 and you know

00:27:16.940 if you have a dog or a cat

00:27:18.160 dogs are a really good example

00:27:19.920 of this

00:27:20.140 dogs like routine

00:27:21.140 they like to be walked

00:27:22.440 the number of times a day

00:27:23.600 that they're supposed to be walked

00:27:24.780 and they get quite sick

00:27:25.980 very rapidly

00:27:26.680 if you don't

00:27:27.660 if you don't

00:27:28.400 routinize their

00:27:30.100 their days

00:27:30.860 children are exactly

00:27:31.960 the same way

00:27:32.620 now you can overdo it

00:27:33.980 right

00:27:34.220 but still

00:27:35.180 you know

00:27:35.480 you need to know

00:27:36.260 approximately when you should get up

00:27:37.920 it should be approximately the same

00:27:39.600 every day

00:27:40.100 you need to know approximately

00:27:41.480 when you're going to eat

00:27:42.960 you need to know

00:27:43.560 what you're going to eat

00:27:44.420 you need to know

00:27:44.980 who you're going to eat with

00:27:46.100 you need to know

00:27:46.660 where to buy your food

00:27:47.560 it's like

00:27:47.920 80% of your life

00:27:49.820 70% of your life

00:27:51.280 something like that

00:27:52.100 consists of those things

00:27:54.120 that you do

00:27:54.960 every single day

00:27:55.880 that you repeat

00:27:56.600 and those are often

00:27:58.260 the things that people

00:27:59.180 think about as the trivial

00:28:00.480 elements of their life

00:28:01.460 but one of the things

00:28:02.320 I would like to

00:28:03.040 point out to you

00:28:04.180 if you do the mathematics

00:28:05.200 I did this with a client of mine

00:28:08.080 who was having a hard time

00:28:09.160 putting his child to bed

00:28:11.280 they were having a fight

00:28:12.360 every night

00:28:12.860 and I knew

00:28:14.100 by that time

00:28:15.120 the studies indicate

00:28:15.960 that most parents

00:28:17.260 only spend 20 minutes

00:28:18.740 per day of one-on-one time

00:28:20.380 with their child

00:28:21.140 now

00:28:22.340 the reason for that

00:28:23.520 is that people are busy

00:28:24.540 and it's actually not that easy

00:28:25.860 to parse out 20 minutes

00:28:27.320 of one-on-one time

00:28:28.240 it's a lot bloody more time

00:28:29.760 than you think

00:28:30.520 but that's all there is

00:28:32.360 20 minutes

00:28:33.240 he's spending like 40 minutes a day

00:28:35.500 fighting with this kid

00:28:36.380 trying to get

00:28:37.020 the kid to go to bed

00:28:38.300 and that's not very

00:28:39.600 entertaining

00:28:40.820 you know

00:28:41.220 you think

00:28:41.600 well I was just having a scrap

00:28:43.000 with the kid about going to bed

00:28:44.400 but it's no no no

00:28:45.220 no no

00:28:45.620 if it happens every day

00:28:47.260 it's a catastrophe

00:28:48.320 so you do the math

00:28:49.780 so we'll say

00:28:51.080 five hours a week

00:28:52.020 for the sake of argument

00:28:52.980 just to keep it simple

00:28:53.980 it's 20 hours a month

00:28:56.080 it's 240 hours a year

00:28:58.800 that's six 40 hour work weeks

00:29:00.960 that guy was basically spending a month and a half of work weeks

00:29:04.360 doing absolutely nothing but having a wretched time

00:29:07.480 fighting with his son trying to get him to go to bed

00:29:10.880 horrible

00:29:12.060 right

00:29:12.700 that's just way too much time to spend doing something like that

00:29:16.080 if you want to actually have a positive relationship with someone

00:29:19.100 because it's just too

00:29:20.260 it's just too punishing

00:29:21.940 and so

00:29:23.240 well

00:29:24.420 so you need structure

00:29:25.440 you need predictability

00:29:26.500 and you need more of it than you think

00:29:28.360 just to keep you sane

00:29:29.860 now

00:29:30.480 if you're lucky

00:29:31.580 and maybe a bit odd

00:29:33.560 you can deviate

00:29:34.840 5% from the norm

00:29:37.000 or 10% from the norm

00:29:38.400 or something like that

00:29:39.280 carefully and cautiously

00:29:41.240 as long as the rest of you

00:29:42.860 is all well ordered

00:29:43.740 in a normative manner

00:29:44.740 you might be able to get away with that

00:29:46.460 and you might be able to sustain it across time

00:29:48.340 and people might be able to tolerate you

00:29:50.400 if you do it

00:29:51.000 or maybe you'll get really lucky

00:29:52.460 and you happen to be creative

00:29:53.780 but reasonably well put together

00:29:55.300 and people will actually be happy

00:29:56.880 that there's something idiosyncratic and unique about you

00:30:00.000 but even under those circumstances

00:30:01.880 mostly what you want is to

00:30:03.340 have a routine

00:30:05.180 that's disciplined

00:30:06.160 that's predictable

00:30:07.140 and bloody well stick to it

00:30:08.800 you're going to be way

00:30:09.900 healthier

00:30:10.920 and happier

00:30:11.720 and saner

00:30:12.480 if you do that

00:30:13.180 and then the other thing that you need

00:30:14.500 because

00:30:15.180 this is one of the things the psychoanalysts got wrong

00:30:18.260 I think

00:30:18.680 is that

00:30:19.000 they overestimated the degree to which

00:30:21.340 sanity was a consequence

00:30:22.920 of internal

00:30:23.880 of being properly structured internally

00:30:26.540 you know

00:30:27.100 because from the psychoanalytic point of view

00:30:29.640 you're sort of an ego

00:30:30.480 and that ego is inside you

00:30:32.080 and of course it rests on an unconscious structure

00:30:34.420 but

00:30:34.680 the purpose of psychoanalysis

00:30:36.680 is to sort out that unconscious structure

00:30:39.020 and the ego on top of it

00:30:40.540 and to make you a

00:30:41.460 fully functioning and autonomous individual

00:30:43.840 but there's a problem with that

00:30:45.640 because

00:30:45.960 the reason that you're sane

00:30:50.020 as a fully functional

00:30:51.320 and autonomous human being

00:30:52.860 isn't because

00:30:53.720 you've organized your psyche

00:30:55.480 even though that's important

00:30:56.680 the reason that you're sane

00:30:58.600 if you're

00:30:59.140 if you have a well organized unconscious

00:31:01.980 and ego

00:31:02.540 is because other people

00:31:03.580 can tolerate having you around

00:31:05.360 for reasonably extensive periods of time

00:31:07.940 and will cuff you across the back of the head 1.00

00:31:10.200 every time you do something so stupid 1.00

00:31:12.060 that people will dislike you permanently 1.00

00:31:14.160 if you continue

00:31:15.200 and so what people are doing to each other

00:31:17.720 all the time

00:31:18.560 just non-stop

00:31:20.120 is broadcasting sanity signals

00:31:22.880 back and forth

00:31:23.840 right

00:31:24.140 it's like

00:31:24.580 you smile at people

00:31:26.020 if they're

00:31:26.580 well if they're not

00:31:27.640 not only behaving properly

00:31:29.040 but behaving in a way

00:31:30.020 that you would like

00:31:30.700 to see them continue to behave

00:31:32.580 you frown at them if they're not

00:31:34.200 you ignore them if they're not

00:31:35.380 you shun them

00:31:36.140 you

00:31:36.320 you roll your eyes at them

00:31:37.900 you manifest a disgust face

00:31:39.520 you don't listen to them

00:31:40.460 you interrupt them

00:31:41.300 you won't cooperate with them

00:31:42.840 you won't compete with them

00:31:43.900 it's like

00:31:44.280 you're blasting signals

00:31:45.860 at other people

00:31:46.500 about how to regulate their behavior

00:31:48.020 so frequently

00:31:50.040 well it just makes up

00:31:51.260 all of your social interaction

00:31:52.540 that's why we face each other

00:31:54.260 and we have emotional displays

00:31:55.760 on our face

00:31:56.480 and we're looking at each other's eyes

00:31:57.860 and we know exactly

00:31:59.040 we know as much as we can

00:32:00.760 about what's going on

00:32:01.720 with each other

00:32:02.360 given that we don't have

00:32:03.540 immediate access

00:32:04.240 to the contents of their consciousness

00:32:05.840 and so

00:32:06.360 partly what you're doing

00:32:07.860 with your routine

00:32:09.040 is establishing yourself

00:32:10.500 as a credible

00:32:11.740 reliable

00:32:12.600 trustworthy

00:32:13.600 potentially interesting

00:32:15.080 human being

00:32:15.780 who isn't going to do anything

00:32:17.280 too erratic at any moment

00:32:18.660 and everyone else is around there

00:32:20.420 tapping you into shape

00:32:21.820 making sure that that's exactly

00:32:23.180 what you are

00:32:23.820 and that's how you stay sane

00:32:25.720 and so what happens to people too

00:32:27.160 if they don't have a routine

00:32:28.360 and they get isolated

00:32:29.820 is they start to drift

00:32:31.060 and they drift badly

00:32:32.580 because the world is too complicated

00:32:35.000 for you to keep it organized

00:32:36.800 all by yourself

00:32:38.040 you just cannot do it

00:32:39.900 so a lot of our

00:32:41.060 so we outsource the problem of sanity

00:32:43.740 and it's very intelligent

00:32:45.860 that we outsource the problem of sanity

00:32:47.520 because sanity is an impossibly complex problem

00:32:51.720 and so the way that we manage the incredibly complex problem

00:32:55.720 is we have a very large number of brains

00:32:58.800 working simultaneously on the problem

00:33:00.860 all the time

00:33:01.720 it's like a stock market for sanity

00:33:04.040 and it's partly

00:33:05.260 and I use that

00:33:06.540 I use that definition 0.98

00:33:07.840 with purpose

00:33:09.060 because the stock market does the same kind of impossible thing

00:33:12.520 right

00:33:12.720 because it tries to price things

00:33:14.080 which is impossible

00:33:15.160 there's

00:33:15.820 how many things are there

00:33:17.360 like a billion

00:33:18.400 how in the world do you decide what the price is

00:33:21.060 you can't decide what the price is

00:33:22.960 that's why you have a stock market

00:33:24.720 well in a free market

00:33:26.500 I mean for consumer goods

00:33:27.940 is everyone's voting on what the price of everything is all the time

00:33:30.820 and that's the way we figure it out

00:33:32.240 because it's actually

00:33:33.000 it's technically impossible

00:33:34.620 that's partly why the stock market explodes now and then

00:33:37.280 and there's bubbles

00:33:37.960 and all that sort of thing

00:33:38.960 but anyways

00:33:39.760 the point is

00:33:40.960 things are chaotic

00:33:44.460 in Alice in Wonderland

00:33:46.420 when Alice goes down the rabbit hole

00:33:48.260 that's the underworld

00:33:50.060 right

00:33:50.460 so now she's gone

00:33:52.240 into the substructure of being

00:33:54.200 and she meets the Red Queen

00:33:56.540 and the Red Queen is Mother Nature

00:33:58.500 and Mother Nature is running around

00:34:00.980 yelling

00:34:02.060 off with her heads 1.00

00:34:02.920 off with her heads 1.00

00:34:03.840 which is of course

00:34:05.500 what Mother Nature does 0.99

00:34:06.640 and she tells Alice

00:34:08.240 in my kingdom

00:34:09.720 you have to run as fast as you can

00:34:11.380 just to stay in the same place

00:34:12.980 and that's exactly right

00:34:14.860 and that's a description of

00:34:16.060 in fact evolutionary biologists

00:34:19.060 psychologists have picked up

00:34:20.400 on that phrase

00:34:21.080 they call it the Red Queen problem

00:34:22.480 and the Red Queen problem is

00:34:24.200 everything's after you all the time

00:34:27.340 and you're not smart enough

00:34:28.200 to do anything about it

00:34:29.280 or enough about it

00:34:30.480 and so that's a permanent existential problem

00:34:33.100 so how do you deal with that

00:34:34.200 you've got a biological structure

00:34:35.840 so your embodiment is part of

00:34:38.440 the solution to the problem

00:34:39.780 and then you're enculturated

00:34:41.400 and because you're enculturated

00:34:43.800 you're taught a lot of things

00:34:45.720 that you need to know

00:34:46.500 but mostly what you're taught

00:34:47.620 is how to communicate with other people

00:34:49.440 in an acceptable manner

00:34:50.540 and then once you can communicate

00:34:53.000 with people in an acceptable manner

00:34:54.960 then you can outsource your problems

00:34:56.520 constantly

00:34:57.120 which you're doing constantly

00:34:58.380 and so we're in this

00:34:59.200 continual dynamic exchange

00:35:01.700 of problem solving

00:35:02.640 so if you're a socialized person

00:35:04.200 that's what you get access to

00:35:05.680 and that's something to know

00:35:06.880 if you're going to have kids

00:35:07.920 and I mentioned this

00:35:08.840 I think in a previous lecture

00:35:09.940 the purpose of being a parent

00:35:13.080 for very young children

00:35:14.320 is to make your children

00:35:15.720 exceptionally socially desirable

00:35:18.620 by the age of four

00:35:20.280 because if you can do that

00:35:22.140 they're set

00:35:23.380 because everyone wants them around

00:35:26.140 and as soon as everybody wants them around

00:35:28.080 they want to play with them

00:35:28.940 they want to cooperate with them

00:35:29.980 they want to compete with them

00:35:31.100 it's like the door is open

00:35:32.520 the door is open

00:35:33.320 and they stay sane

00:35:34.260 because they've got all sorts of people

00:35:35.540 who actually like them

00:35:36.560 that are helping them out

00:35:37.820 and so that's your goal

00:35:39.260 is to make them

00:35:40.220 as socially acceptable

00:35:41.880 as you possibly can

00:35:43.020 as socially desirable

00:35:43.940 as you possibly can

00:35:44.980 and that doesn't mean

00:35:46.280 you render them

00:35:48.200 obedient without spirit

00:35:50.260 right

00:35:50.660 that's a tyrant's mode

00:35:52.380 of enforcing social acceptability

00:35:55.280 it's like never do anything wrong

00:35:57.000 well that's not any way to

00:35:59.140 I mean that's a good

00:36:00.100 piece of advice

00:36:01.220 you know

00:36:01.540 like

00:36:01.780 but

00:36:02.520 it's missing the other half

00:36:04.660 which is do a bunch of things

00:36:05.880 that are right

00:36:06.460 so that

00:36:06.940 so that

00:36:07.640 people are

00:36:08.600 thrilled to have you around

00:36:10.200 and encourage that

00:36:11.760 that's what you want to do

00:36:12.600 as a parent

00:36:13.220 as well as

00:36:14.120 inculcating the order

00:36:15.460 and so

00:36:16.020 you know

00:36:16.680 in this little diagram

00:36:18.320 I indicated that

00:36:19.260 there's God the father

00:36:20.620 with the son behind him

00:36:21.700 and he's

00:36:22.000 ruling over this walled city

00:36:23.680 so he's like

00:36:24.680 the meta spirit

00:36:25.640 of the walled city

00:36:26.700 it's very very nice

00:36:28.860 very nice image

00:36:30.580 brilliant image

00:36:31.540 so it's

00:36:32.420 is the collective spirit

00:36:34.460 of the city

00:36:35.140 that's another way of thinking about it

00:36:36.460 or the collective spirit

00:36:37.240 of the city

00:36:37.760 across time

00:36:38.840 or the collective spirit

00:36:40.040 of the force

00:36:41.360 that built

00:36:42.080 and maintained the city

00:36:43.540 across time

00:36:44.300 even better

00:36:45.140 and that's associated

00:36:46.540 with the sun

00:36:47.400 because it's a

00:36:48.460 it's associated

00:36:50.160 with enlightenment

00:36:50.840 and illumination

00:36:51.880 and all of those things

00:36:53.220 that we associate

00:36:53.800 with higher consciousness

00:36:54.780 and vision

00:36:55.420 it's a brilliant image

00:36:56.740 and then

00:36:57.540 I overlaid this

00:36:59.000 you know

00:36:59.260 now of course

00:37:00.100 the patriarchal aspect of existence

00:37:04.480 can become tyrannical

00:37:05.880 it does that quite regularly

00:37:07.840 it's one of the existential dangers

00:37:09.740 of human civilization

00:37:11.120 is that

00:37:11.720 civilization is a medication for chaos

00:37:14.580 but it can spin out of control

00:37:16.700 in and of itself

00:37:17.980 and become its own

00:37:18.980 sort of problem

00:37:19.960 which is like a hyper order problem

00:37:21.740 generally

00:37:22.140 which then produces a chaos problem

00:37:24.320 so

00:37:24.940 every solution

00:37:26.040 carries within it

00:37:27.180 certain problems

00:37:28.960 right

00:37:29.320 because no solution is perfect

00:37:30.680 and so you have to keep things in balance

00:37:32.360 but

00:37:32.640 it's one of the reasons

00:37:33.740 that I'm really

00:37:34.440 let's call it irritated

00:37:37.540 about the postmodernists

00:37:39.440 because they keep

00:37:40.360 yammering about the patriarchy

00:37:42.460 and it's very very annoying

00:37:44.380 because

00:37:44.880 because

00:37:46.020 it's self-evident

00:37:47.640 that social structures

00:37:49.020 are tyrannical

00:37:50.020 it's like

00:37:50.760 that's not news folks

00:37:52.540 that's obvious

00:37:54.000 but that's not all they are

00:37:56.520 and

00:37:56.980 it's

00:37:57.440 it's the reduction

00:37:59.180 of the entire

00:38:00.220 complex

00:38:01.880 solution

00:38:03.280 let's say

00:38:03.860 to a unidimensional problem

00:38:06.020 it's just

00:38:06.860 tyranny

00:38:07.660 it's like

00:38:08.100 no actually

00:38:09.160 it's not just tyranny

00:38:10.160 if you spent six months

00:38:11.800 somewhere that was just

00:38:12.860 tyranny

00:38:13.440 you'd know the difference

00:38:14.860 very very rapidly

00:38:15.820 and that doesn't mean

00:38:16.840 that everyone

00:38:17.840 doesn't give up

00:38:19.460 a pound or two

00:38:20.460 or ten

00:38:21.100 or twenty

00:38:21.700 of flesh

00:38:22.440 to participate

00:38:23.900 even in a society

00:38:25.380 that's as free

00:38:26.020 as a western society is

00:38:27.400 we all get crushed

00:38:28.520 and molded

00:38:29.180 by the tyrannical force

00:38:30.820 of social convention

00:38:31.960 but

00:38:33.160 at least in principle

00:38:34.500 the benefit

00:38:35.920 is worth the cost

00:38:37.220 and then it's also

00:38:38.400 up to you

00:38:38.920 to make sure

00:38:39.360 that you don't sacrifice

00:38:40.320 more to the group

00:38:41.380 than you should

00:38:42.820 and you can start

00:38:44.300 to tell

00:38:44.760 if you're sacrificing

00:38:45.800 more to the group

00:38:46.480 than you should

00:38:47.060 because you start

00:38:47.760 to become resentful

00:38:48.660 of other people

00:38:49.300 that's part of that

00:38:50.440 that's part of the

00:38:51.160 psychological mechanism

00:38:52.160 that's informing you

00:38:53.120 of that

00:38:53.440 so it's up to you

00:38:54.500 to fight

00:38:55.000 against

00:38:56.040 the overarching

00:38:57.720 pressure for conformity

00:38:59.360 to retain your

00:39:00.540 individual logos

00:39:01.920 let's say

00:39:02.560 but that's sort of

00:39:03.640 your problem

00:39:04.260 it's like

00:39:04.780 the group

00:39:05.820 wants you to behave

00:39:07.420 now if you could behave

00:39:09.200 and be

00:39:09.820 creatively productive

00:39:11.480 so much the better

00:39:12.340 but that's pretty damn rare

00:39:13.540 so

00:39:13.820 the group generally

00:39:15.280 tends to settle

00:39:16.240 just for behave

00:39:17.560 and there's a

00:39:18.580 tyrannical element

00:39:19.460 of that 0.88

00:39:19.860 but what the hell

00:39:20.900 is the alternative

00:39:21.560 it's you know

00:39:23.040 our society

00:39:23.820 is based on

00:39:24.720 consensus

00:39:25.440 and the consensus

00:39:26.460 is based on

00:39:27.340 the sacrifice

00:39:28.080 of a certain

00:39:29.200 sacrifice

00:39:29.780 of individuality

00:39:30.680 even though

00:39:31.220 individuality

00:39:31.880 is absolutely

00:39:32.520 necessary

00:39:33.100 as a revitalizing

00:39:34.680 force for the society

00:39:35.860 it's a very

00:39:36.640 tough thing

00:39:38.140 to manage properly

00:39:38.980 so anyways

00:39:39.500 you have

00:39:41.080 your physiological

00:39:43.460 structure

00:39:44.120 as your first

00:39:44.900 line of ordering

00:39:45.800 in relationship

00:39:46.540 to chaos

00:39:47.220 because your body

00:39:48.420 presents you

00:39:49.480 with the world

00:39:50.040 in a certain way

00:39:51.040 and then the second

00:39:52.160 line of defense

00:39:52.840 is something like

00:39:53.580 the sociological

00:39:54.340 structure that you

00:39:55.120 inhabit

00:39:55.440 we could call those

00:39:56.220 the competency

00:39:56.960 hierarchies

00:39:57.760 or something like that

00:39:58.700 and thank God

00:39:59.820 for them

00:40:00.200 because you know

00:40:01.260 maybe you're going

00:40:02.160 to be able to

00:40:02.540 specialize in one

00:40:03.380 or two things

00:40:04.000 in your life

00:40:04.520 or five things

00:40:05.280 but there's 300

00:40:06.040 things you need

00:40:06.800 to know

00:40:07.260 and if it's just

00:40:08.360 you

00:40:08.740 you know

00:40:09.260 you'll be doing

00:40:09.800 your genius level

00:40:10.560 mathematics

00:40:11.160 while your bathtub

00:40:12.400 is leaking

00:40:12.960 all over your

00:40:13.680 bathroom floor

00:40:15.620 and that's not so

00:40:16.340 good

00:40:16.540 so you can call

00:40:17.200 a plumber

00:40:17.640 and hooray for that

00:40:18.600 so you know

00:40:19.660 we tend to cooperate

00:40:20.700 to keep chaos

00:40:21.560 under control

00:40:22.300 and we tend to

00:40:23.520 cooperate to keep

00:40:24.340 order under control

00:40:25.360 and that's the

00:40:26.560 political dialogue

00:40:28.360 right

00:40:28.840 we maintain the

00:40:30.500 culture to keep

00:40:31.140 chaos under control

00:40:32.260 and we

00:40:33.500 balance the culture

00:40:35.340 out properly

00:40:35.980 to keep the

00:40:36.740 culture under control

00:40:38.040 and that way

00:40:39.180 we get to live

00:40:40.120 reasonably peacefully

00:40:41.740 reasonably productively

00:40:43.400 for a reasonable

00:40:44.400 amount of time

00:40:45.220 and that's the best

00:40:46.100 that we can do

00:40:46.820 and we should have

00:40:47.920 some gratitude

00:40:48.520 when that's working

00:40:49.780 because the default

00:40:51.540 condition

00:40:52.580 of things

00:40:54.540 is that not only

00:40:56.600 do they not work

00:40:57.400 very well

00:40:57.940 they work worse

00:40:58.820 and worse

00:40:59.360 over time

00:40:59.980 all by themselves

00:41:00.920 so anytime anything

00:41:02.120 is working

00:41:02.660 you should just be

00:41:03.460 amazed by it

00:41:06.740 going online

00:41:07.860 without expressvpn

00:41:09.060 is like not paying

00:41:09.920 attention to the

00:41:10.560 safety demonstration

00:41:11.320 on a flight

00:41:11.960 most of the time

00:41:13.100 you'll probably be

00:41:13.960 fine

00:41:14.300 but what if one day

00:41:15.640 that weird yellow

00:41:16.540 mask drops down

00:41:17.420 from overhead

00:41:17.900 and you have no

00:41:19.080 idea what to do

00:41:19.900 in our hyperconnected

00:41:21.220 world

00:41:21.500 your digital privacy

00:41:22.600 isn't just a luxury

00:41:23.600 it's a fundamental

00:41:24.800 right

00:41:25.160 every time you connect

00:41:26.080 to an unsecured network

00:41:27.260 in a cafe

00:41:27.920 hotel or airport

00:41:29.200 you're essentially

00:41:30.120 broadcasting your

00:41:31.020 personal information

00:41:31.820 to anyone with a

00:41:32.940 technical know-how

00:41:33.720 to intercept it

00:41:34.520 and let's be clear

00:41:35.360 it doesn't take

00:41:36.240 a genius hacker

00:41:36.880 to do this

00:41:37.520 with some off-the-shelf

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00:41:42.740 bank logins

00:41:43.660 and credit card details

00:41:44.920 now you might think

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00:41:47.240 who'd want my data

00:41:48.240 anyway

00:41:48.620 well on the dark web

00:41:49.920 your personal information

00:41:51.160 could fetch up to

00:41:51.960 $1,000

00:41:52.760 that's right

00:41:53.980 there's a whole

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00:43:51.300 all right so what does

00:43:55.060 the frame look like

00:43:56.020 well I think it looks

00:43:56.900 something like this and

00:43:57.840 this is as far as I can

00:43:59.100 tell this is the bare

00:44:00.000 bones this is the bare

00:44:01.520 bones of a variety of

00:44:02.380 things it's a bare

00:44:03.060 bones story it's a bare

00:44:04.620 bone conceptual

00:44:05.520 framework it's a bare

00:44:07.020 bone dasein to speak

00:44:08.960 in Heideggerian terms

00:44:10.300 it's like it's the bare

00:44:11.400 bones world that you

00:44:12.420 live in you're always in

00:44:13.640 one of these worlds

00:44:14.540 there's no getting out

00:44:15.780 of them you can move

00:44:17.340 from one to another but

00:44:18.540 you're always in a world

00:44:19.400 like this and so this is

00:44:20.500 the world that you're in

00:44:21.360 you're somewhere because

00:44:24.500 you have to be somewhere

00:44:25.460 now you might not know

00:44:26.600 where that is which means

00:44:28.420 that somewhere that you

00:44:29.620 are is chaotic in which

00:44:31.480 case you need to go over

00:44:32.760 your past in great detail

00:44:34.360 and figure out where you

00:44:35.940 are it's like you're lost

00:44:37.180 right you're you're lost

00:44:38.600 and the problem with being

00:44:39.460 lost is when you're lost

00:44:40.940 you don't know where to go

00:44:42.100 and the problem with not

00:44:43.040 knowing where to go is

00:44:43.860 there's a million places

00:44:45.120 that you could go and a

00:44:46.620 million places is too many

00:44:47.940 places for you to go

00:44:48.920 without dying so being

00:44:50.600 lost is not good so you

00:44:52.340 need to know where you

00:44:53.200 are one of the things that

00:44:55.160 we built online my

00:44:56.420 partners and I is this

00:44:58.220 program called past

00:44:59.460 authoring that helps

00:45:00.380 people lay out the

00:45:02.060 the narrative of their

00:45:04.040 past to identify to break

00:45:06.600 their life down into six

00:45:07.820 stages epochs we call them

00:45:09.580 and then to identify the

00:45:10.900 emotionally significant

00:45:13.100 moments in each epoch and

00:45:14.620 to write them out what

00:45:15.720 happened negatively what

00:45:16.780 happened positively what the

00:45:18.400 consequences were what you

00:45:20.060 derived from it perhaps what

00:45:21.460 you could have done

00:45:22.060 differently perhaps what you

00:45:23.320 learn from it all of that so

00:45:24.660 that you can narrow in zero

00:45:27.040 in on determining precisely

00:45:29.640 where it is that you are

00:45:31.320 right now and people are

00:45:33.000 often loath to do that

00:45:33.940 because they actually don't

00:45:34.780 want to know because they'd

00:45:35.680 rather be spread out in a

00:45:37.940 sort of half blind manner in

00:45:41.400 the fog hoping that the place

00:45:43.860 that they're at is better than

00:45:45.180 it really is and deluding

00:45:47.060 themselves by remaining vague

00:45:48.880 than to figure out I'm right

00:45:50.600 here right now with these

00:45:51.700 specific problems but it's

00:45:53.480 actually better to do that

00:45:55.560 because if you have a set of

00:45:57.120 specific problems and you've

00:45:58.760 really narrowed them down and

00:46:00.180 really specified them then you

00:46:02.020 can probably start fixing them

00:46:03.340 and you can start fixing them

00:46:05.700 in micro ways bit by bit but

00:46:08.380 there's no way you can do that

00:46:09.400 without knowing where you are

00:46:10.500 it's impossible and you can kind

00:46:12.380 of tell if you don't know where

00:46:13.720 you are it's quite

00:46:15.220 straightforward if you are

00:46:17.720 haunted by reveries of the past

00:46:20.260 for events that are older than

00:46:22.900 approximately 18 months if they

00:46:24.840 continue to come up in your mind

00:46:26.420 over and over in your dreams over

00:46:27.880 and over you haven't extracted the

00:46:32.040 world out from your past

00:46:33.880 experiences the potential is still

00:46:36.040 trapped in the past and to confront

00:46:38.440 the potential means to confront the

00:46:40.140 dragon of the past and of course

00:46:42.120 that's terrifying and it can

00:46:43.760 seriously be terrifying so for

00:46:45.340 example maybe you're vague and ill 0.72

00:46:47.740 formed and ill-defined because you

00:46:49.480 were abused very badly when you were

00:46:50.860 a child four years old something

00:46:52.400 like that and maybe you're abused by a

00:46:53.740 family member because that's

00:46:55.060 generally who does the abusing and so

00:46:57.520 that just makes it worse and then what

00:46:59.300 that means is that you've got a

00:47:01.600 implicit you've had an implicit

00:47:04.060 encounter with malevolent evil that

00:47:07.840 know you've had a direct encounter with

00:47:09.580 malevolent evil but you have an

00:47:11.020 implicit hypothesis of malevolent evil

00:47:13.660 that's plaguing you it's still there

00:47:15.640 it's trapped in the memories right

00:47:17.320 it's it's trapped in the

00:47:18.760 representational structure and as an

00:47:20.800 adult you're now faced with the

00:47:22.300 necessity of articulating that fully

00:47:24.340 before you have any chance whatsoever

00:47:25.720 of freeing yourself from it and so

00:47:27.520 that's no joke lots of times people

00:47:29.080 have to go into the past that's what

00:47:30.520 the psychoanalysts do and they and say

00:47:32.740 look here is something came along just

00:47:34.540 bloody well knocked me over and it

00:47:37.240 isn't even that I repressed it which

00:47:39.100 which I think was well we won't talk

00:47:41.560 about Freud's errors because Freud was a

00:47:43.480 genius so we'll just leave him alone

00:47:44.800 but but sometimes it's not repression

00:47:47.320 it's just the terrible things happen to

00:47:49.060 people at such a young age that there

00:47:50.860 isn't a bloody chance in hell that they

00:47:53.080 can figure out why they happened or

00:47:54.820 what to do with them or what they mean

00:47:56.500 and then you can carry that with you and

00:47:58.720 you carry it with you it's like your

00:48:01.660 your your body encounters the world in

00:48:04.280 stages and it happens very rapidly well

00:48:06.640 it can extend over years but the

00:48:08.320 initial stages happen very rapidly so

00:48:10.240 for example if you're walking down the

00:48:12.400 road and you hear a large noise be a

00:48:14.080 loud noise behind you go like this

00:48:16.000 that's a predator defense response by

00:48:18.480 the way you crouch down and that's to

00:48:20.420 stop something from jumping on your

00:48:22.000 back and getting at your neck too easily

00:48:23.920 that's like few mill a few hundred

00:48:26.020 milliseconds it's really fast or even

00:48:27.580 faster than that and it better be

00:48:29.080 because something like a snake but

00:48:31.120 we'll say can nail you just right now so

00:48:33.160 you better be fast but it's low

00:48:34.780 resolution it's like danger snake

00:48:37.180 something like that or danger predatory cat

00:48:39.640 it's that fast and then you can unravel

00:48:43.300 that and categorize it but that takes

00:48:47.260 time you do that with emotion and then

00:48:49.300 you do it with cognition you can do that

00:48:50.880 with long-term thinking you know because

00:48:52.660 maybe you've encountered someone

00:48:54.040 specifically malevolent and predatory at

00:48:56.140 work it happens to people a lot who's 0.68

00:48:58.060 operating as a as a destructive bully

00:49:00.940 and who seems to have no positive 0.91

00:49:02.880 function whatsoever and is only living

00:49:06.520 that out and then you you know you don't

00:49:08.260 know what to do about it so you're you're

00:49:10.180 in prey mode I don't mean this kind of

00:49:13.180 mode although that would help too but I

00:49:15.220 mean you're acting like a prey animal and

00:49:17.440 then you have this terribly complex thing

00:49:19.280 to decompose which is what the hell's up

00:49:21.280 with this person why are they making my 0.50

00:49:23.620 life miserable what is it about me that

00:49:25.660 allows them to make my life miserable

00:49:27.880 that's a nasty little road to walk down

00:49:29.920 and you're stuck with having to you're

00:49:32.020 stuck with having to decompose it maybe

00:49:34.180 you can't maybe formulating an explicit

00:49:37.360 philosophy of good and evil to deal with

00:49:39.760 something malevolent in your environment

00:49:41.920 actually just happens to be beyond you and

00:49:45.400 that could easily be it's certainly the

00:49:47.440 case for people who are young and it's

00:49:49.240 the case for plenty of adults as well it's

00:49:51.040 no simple thing to mad to manage it's

00:49:53.500 something to that often soldiers who

00:49:55.480 have post-traumatic stress disorder have

00:49:57.160 to do because they've encountered

00:49:58.480 terrible things they've either done them

00:50:00.340 or ran into them and they need to

00:50:02.200 update their moral model of the world or

00:50:04.660 if they end up in something close enough

00:50:07.360 closely approximating hell anyway so you

00:50:12.400 need to know where you are that's this

00:50:15.040 what is where are you so you're

00:50:17.500 navigating your navigator you're a

00:50:19.120 sailor on an ocean man that's what that's

00:50:21.100 what you are you're a mobile creature

00:50:22.480 you're going from point A to point B all

00:50:24.760 the time you know it's sitting there 1.00

00:50:26.260 glued to a rock like some brainless you 0.78

00:50:29.260 know sea creature there's a funny

00:50:31.000 little creature called a hydra very

00:50:33.340 simple little creature in its juvenile

00:50:35.620 stage it has a brain because it swims 0.92

00:50:37.600 around but then when it turns into an

00:50:39.700 adult it latches itself to a rock and

00:50:42.220 promptly digests its brain because if

00:50:44.500 you're just sitting on a rock and you're

00:50:45.920 not moving you don't need a brain so but

00:50:47.500 that's not our issue right we're

00:50:48.920 we're zipping around in the world and so

00:50:50.680 we're navigating agents and so to

00:50:52.600 navigate and there's two things you

00:50:55.000 need to know the first is where the

00:50:57.640 hell are you exactly precisely right

00:51:00.160 razor-sharp what's good about you and

00:51:03.340 what's bad about you by your own by your

00:51:05.500 own reckoning you don't have to you can

00:51:07.420 ask other people but this is a game you

00:51:09.100 play yourself it's like as far as I'm

00:51:11.140 concerned I'm taking stock what is it

00:51:14.200 that's okay about me and what needs some

00:51:15.640 work and you got to watch to not be too

00:51:18.280 self-critical when you're doing that too

00:51:19.840 because that can just be another kind of

00:51:21.100 flaw and then the next is okay well

00:51:23.080 where are you going what's your

00:51:24.820 destination well and that's what the

00:51:27.640 frame is now you know you could do that

00:51:29.680 in a very sophisticated way and you do

00:51:31.900 that by thinking consciously about who it

00:51:34.360 is that you are in an articulated manner

00:51:36.100 and where you want to go and why and how

00:51:38.260 you're going to get there and people

00:51:39.580 hardly ever do that that is that's come

00:51:41.620 as such an absolute shock to me as an

00:51:44.500 educator I just because one of the other

00:51:48.100 programs I use this in my classes what

00:51:51.760 are the other programs in this suite of

00:51:53.200 programs is called the future authoring

00:51:54.700 program and I started developing it my

00:51:57.040 maps of meaning class which is where

00:51:58.600 some of this materials from and I got

00:52:00.460 students to write about their past it's

00:52:02.140 like okay we're talking about stories so

00:52:04.900 let's tell your story who are you how

00:52:07.060 do you get here and what are you now that

00:52:10.480 usually helps people put things to rest

00:52:12.100 although it's quite stressful while

00:52:14.340 you're doing it stress goes up when

00:52:17.140 you're doing it and maybe you feel

00:52:18.760 miserable for a couple of weeks and

00:52:20.140 then stress goes down and it stays down

00:52:21.940 so that's and that's also why people

00:52:23.860 don't do it because who the hell wants 0.73

00:52:25.420 to have their stress go up but if it's

00:52:27.400 temporary it's a sacrifice so then the

00:52:30.240 next issue is well where are you going

00:52:31.840 and one of the things that and this I

00:52:33.700 just still I cannot understand the

00:52:36.040 students that had been in education

00:52:38.480 system for 15 years 14 years high-end

00:52:41.500 students most of them not once in their

00:52:43.840 whole bloody life did anyone ever get

00:52:46.720 them to sit down for like a day and say 0.87

00:52:48.640 alright justify your existence like well

00:52:53.200 seriously it's like here you are in

00:52:54.940 university you're taking a bunch of 0.99

00:52:56.200 courses you've got some sort of vague 0.99

00:52:58.240 career plan it's like defend the damn 0.99

00:53:00.820 thing a bit since you're going to go live 0.99

00:53:03.340 it and everything you're staking

00:53:05.680 everything on it it's like what's your 0.99

00:53:07.660 damn plan and why are you so convinced 0.99

00:53:10.540 that it's not the plan of a babbling 1.00

00:53:13.360 fool because if you haven't thought 1.00

00:53:15.760 about it then it is and if you really 0.99

00:53:17.740 want to go out there and live that out

00:53:19.300 you know one of the things Carl Jung said

00:53:21.700 was that you you're in a story whether

00:53:24.040 you know it or not and and then he made

00:53:27.160 two nice comments about that if it's

00:53:30.280 someone else's story you're probably going

00:53:31.840 to get a bit part and it might not be the

00:53:34.180 one you want and if it's a story that

00:53:36.760 you don't know it might be one with a

00:53:38.200 really bad ending or maybe it's just bad

00:53:40.600 period with a worse ending and if you

00:53:43.060 don't know what the story that you're

00:53:44.140 living out is maybe that's the one you

00:53:47.200 know maybe you got that from your mother

00:53:48.820 you got it from your grandmother you

00:53:50.380 got it from your aunt or God only knows

00:53:52.480 where you picked it up because you pick

00:53:54.160 up things like mad because that's what

00:53:55.540 human beings are like so maybe you're

00:53:57.520 living a malevolent tragedy unconsciously

00:54:00.400 and then one thing you might ask yourself

00:54:02.920 is well how wretched and miserable is

00:54:05.140 your life let's add futile to that how 0.99

00:54:07.480 wretched miserable and futile is your life 0.99

00:54:09.760 and you might say well yeah seventy 0.97

00:54:12.580 percent on each count it's like then

00:54:14.740 you're probably unconsciously living out

00:54:16.960 a malevolent tragedy and maybe that's

00:54:19.960 not for the best

00:54:21.340 well it's either that or the whole

00:54:22.900 universe hates you right or seventy 0.51

00:54:25.300 percent hates you you know so so

00:54:28.300 anyways you know we got students to start

00:54:30.280 writing in detail about not what they

00:54:35.140 wanted it's not a career thing because

00:54:38.440 that's the closest people usually get is

00:54:40.260 they have a career plan it's like no no

00:54:41.980 it's not a career plan that's that's

00:54:43.900 peripheral important but peripheral

00:54:45.820 it's like all right you got three

00:54:47.980 years man you're going to live them

00:54:49.580 anyways devote those three years to

00:54:52.960 setting the world up around you so that

00:54:54.520 it's the best it can possibly be for you

00:54:57.880 as if you were taking care of yourself as

00:55:00.520 if you cared for yourself but what would

00:55:03.660 that look like you know let's say just

00:55:05.200 for the sake of argument if you figured

00:55:07.120 out where you were that you could have

00:55:08.800 what would be best for you well what is

00:55:12.280 that I bet you never asked people don't

00:55:17.960 ask and so life comes at them like

00:55:21.340 random snakes and they sort of fend them

00:55:23.740 off and life goes by and things don't

00:55:26.680 work out the way people expected them to

00:55:28.540 but a huge part of that is they didn't

00:55:31.360 know where they were because they

00:55:33.040 wouldn't look or didn't know that they

00:55:34.540 should look

00:55:35.260 ignorance and willful blindness right to

00:55:37.360 great catastrophes and they never figured 0.86

00:55:40.560 out where they wanted to go or why now

00:55:43.260 there's a problem with figure out where

00:55:44.580 you want to go and the problem is is

00:55:47.040 that you make your conditions for

00:55:48.480 failure clear to yourself and people

00:55:51.060 don't like that so if you keep yourself

00:55:53.220 in the fog then you can't tell when you

00:55:55.920 screwed up now that isn't so good

00:55:58.020 because you're still screwing up you're 0.98

00:55:59.460 just too blind self-blind to notice

00:56:02.160 although in in in the short term that's

00:56:05.340 less painful if you make your criteria

00:56:07.920 for success razor sharp then you know

00:56:09.960 every time you screw up but that's great

00:56:12.360 because then you could fix it you could

00:56:14.020 either repair the the behavioral

00:56:19.140 inadequacy or the conceptual inadequacy that

00:56:21.840 you're using as a tool in that

00:56:23.160 situation or maybe you could adjust your 0.98

00:56:25.080 damn plan either way you can fix it and 0.99

00:56:28.740 so okay so you're living in one of 1.00

00:56:31.080 these bloody things and you might as 0.90

00:56:34.500 well it seems to me you might as well

00:56:36.240 make it the best one you could live in

00:56:37.800 because you don't have anything better

00:56:39.540 to do now if you don't do that if you

00:56:43.380 don't do it consciously and and this is

00:56:45.060 what the psychoanalyst pointed out is

00:56:46.560 that you have innumerable quasi

00:56:50.260 autonomous subsystems that make you up

00:56:53.580 that will generate stories impulsively

00:56:56.700 and you'll just act about and you know

00:56:59.100 that because you watch yourself over

00:57:01.080 two weeks and you think Jesus I did a 1.00

00:57:02.580 lot of stupid things in the last two 1.00

00:57:03.980 weeks and you think why and it's 1.00

00:57:06.180 because you're a random your collection

00:57:08.280 of somewhat random quasi autonomous

00:57:11.080 personality units and lacking a leader

00:57:14.100 they're just going to fire off whenever

00:57:16.200 they want you know first you're hungry

00:57:17.700 then you're thirsty then you want to go to

00:57:19.200 bed with your wife you know then you 0.62

00:57:20.900 want to sleep in then you want to tell

00:57:22.380 your boss off then you want to curse at

00:57:24.000 the guy that cuts you off in traffic

00:57:25.500 it's like you're kind of like a two

00:57:27.420 year old you know just it's one

00:57:29.700 emotional frame after another vying for

00:57:33.240 dominance there's no overarching

00:57:35.160 hierarchy and there's no king at the top

00:57:37.500 and so you know we already talked about

00:57:40.800 pyramids of competence and what's

00:57:42.900 supposed to be at the top is you want to

00:57:44.640 bring all those things together we

00:57:46.800 understand this neurologically I'll show

00:57:48.600 you some of that in a little bit we

00:57:50.100 understand this neurologically how how

00:57:52.220 how this maps in some sense right on to

00:57:55.440 the neural structure of your being you

00:57:58.260 want to put something in control and the

00:58:01.420 thing that you should put in control is

00:58:02.940 the bloody thing that pays attention and

00:58:04.980 learns right everything else in the

00:58:07.620 hierarchy should be subordinate to the 0.66

00:58:09.900 thing that pays attention and learns and

00:58:12.780 you could think well that's that's the

00:58:15.060 message of the idea of logos that's for

00:58:17.160 sure because logos is partly attention

00:58:19.200 and partly communication and you learn

00:58:21.300 a lot by communicating with others okay

00:58:23.460 so you need to know where you are just

00:58:26.580 like your GPS which is about the closest

00:58:28.920 thing we have to an intelligent cybernetic 0.82

00:58:31.140 system those GPS is in your cars those

00:58:33.240 bloody things are pretty smart because

00:58:34.620 they can they know where you are they

00:58:36.840 know where you're going and if you go

00:58:38.100 off course they recalculate your route it's

00:58:40.320 like those things are damn near alive

00:58:41.880 that's so close to intelligence it's and

00:58:44.280 and you you can tell that because they

00:58:46.140 act intelligent they solve problems

00:58:47.640 continually so you need and this is a

00:58:50.640 cybernetic model by the way and

00:58:52.080 cybernetic models were the models on

00:58:53.820 which the GPS systems were based so it's

00:58:55.740 not accidental so you need to know where

00:58:57.840 you are and you need to know where you're

00:58:59.340 going and then the next thing you need to

00:59:01.020 know is how it is that you're going to

00:59:03.000 act move your body how you're going to

00:59:05.880 propel yourself through time and space to

00:59:09.060 transform this into that and so okay and

00:59:12.360 then we can we can make that a little bit

00:59:14.160 more complex because it's a bit too

00:59:15.720 simple so we'll do this so it isn't

00:59:18.720 exactly that you live in one of these

00:59:20.240 it's that you live in a nested hierarchy

00:59:22.980 of these and you could think of this as

00:59:25.020 your own internal patriarchy that's a 0.64

00:59:27.360 good way of thinking about it and maybe

00:59:29.100 it could be a tyrant or maybe it could be

00:59:31.120 something that gives you security and

00:59:33.840 functional autonomy and hopefully that's

00:59:35.640 the one you go for but it's a battle you

00:59:37.920 know because a little bit of tyranny

00:59:40.320 exists in everyone and so well so at the

00:59:45.600 very highest level of analysis that

00:59:48.480 would be the overarching story maybe you

00:59:51.240 think I'd like to be a good person or a

00:59:53.040 successful person or famous person I

00:59:55.620 think goods probably better because you

00:59:58.020 can come up with the definition of good

00:59:59.680 if you want as long as doesn't annoy other

01:00:01.320 people too badly because they'll just get

01:00:05.220 in your way and that won't be helpful so

01:00:07.860 you have to negotiate it but let's say

01:00:10.140 you're a good person and sort of the

01:00:12.780 story at the top of the hierarchy and

01:00:15.120 then you could decompose that into your

01:00:17.580 primary roles maybe you're a good parent

01:00:19.680 maybe you're a good employer or maybe

01:00:21.780 you're good employee maybe you're a good

01:00:23.760 sibling maybe you're a good child you

01:00:25.560 know those are major roles that you have

01:00:27.120 in your life and so you'd say that what

01:00:29.880 good person is is what's good about you

01:00:33.000 across all those roles so it's a it's a

01:00:35.160 it's a higher order abstraction from

01:00:37.380 something more concrete and then you

01:00:38.760 can take the you know the the role good

01:00:41.880 parent and you can say well what is it

01:00:45.060 that constitutes a good parent and you

01:00:46.980 might say well a good parent this isn't

01:00:48.840 exhaustive obviously a good parent has a

01:00:51.180 good job and and takes care of his or her

01:00:54.240 family and then you might say well what

01:00:56.240 does it mean to take care of your family

01:00:58.680 and then you might say well you know you

01:01:00.720 you can cook the odd meal not too odd

01:01:03.160 hopefully you can cook the odd meal and

01:01:05.640 you can play with play with the baby and

01:01:08.220 then you might say well how do you play

01:01:09.600 with a baby and then you might say well

01:01:11.460 you play peekaboo with the baby or you

01:01:13.860 tickle the baby okay well that what's a

01:01:15.980 cool there's a cool shift there because

01:01:17.580 this is all articulated and conceptual

01:01:20.580 right right down to this level and then

01:01:22.620 all of a sudden it's your body because

01:01:24.400 how do you play peekaboo with a baby you

01:01:26.220 don't like have a chat about how you play

01:01:28.020 peekaboo with a baby right you go like

01:01:30.120 this it's quite fun you can even do it

01:01:32.640 with older people they even smile about

01:01:34.440 it right it's dad's gone and the baby's

01:01:37.560 all shocked to death about that where'd he

01:01:39.660 go oh look he's back you know it's the

01:01:42.360 baby is playing with the reliability of

01:01:44.460 the world so it's real intense game for a

01:01:47.340 baby it's like oh no dad's gone oh look

01:01:51.420 he showed up again oh no he's gone and then

01:01:54.180 dad's smiling to indicate that those

01:01:56.280 brief flashes into non-existence aren't

01:01:59.100 existentially terrifying beyond capacity

01:02:02.400 right and so but the point is is that if

01:02:04.800 you're playing peekaboo with the baby

01:02:06.000 you're not thinking anymore it's not in

01:02:07.920 the realm of articulation or

01:02:09.240 abstraction it's actually something that

01:02:10.920 you're doing with your body and so to

01:02:12.900 me this is a nice multi-stage solution

01:02:15.780 to the mind-body problem because what

01:02:17.760 happens is that the highest the higher

01:02:19.860 order of abstraction it's articulated and

01:02:22.260 conceptual but if you decompose it

01:02:24.720 sufficiently you end up with an actual

01:02:27.240 action and the action involves the

01:02:29.380 movement of musculature it's not

01:02:31.680 something conceptual and one of the

01:02:33.480 things that's really cool about this

01:02:35.100 hierarchy is that it has educational

01:02:38.460 lessons so one of the things you want to

01:02:40.480 do if you're trying to teach someone

01:02:41.940 something even yourself is you want to

01:02:44.220 you want to specify the thing that

01:02:46.680 needs to be doing at the highest

01:02:48.600 resolution possible level so I'll give you

01:02:51.900 just a brief example so let's say I may

01:02:54.600 have may be repeating this but it

01:02:56.100 doesn't matter say you've got a three

01:02:57.780 year old kid and they're in their room

01:02:59.520 is chaos right there's monsters are

01:03:01.560 going to be coming out under the bed in

01:03:02.940 no time flat unless that thing room

01:03:04.980 gets some order in it and so you you

01:03:07.500 tell the kid clean up the room you know

01:03:09.360 it's a mess and you leave and you come

01:03:10.920 back and the kids like throwing legos

01:03:12.540 everywhere it's they're not cleaning up

01:03:14.580 and then you think that's a bad kid

01:03:16.560 that's a bad theory a because you're

01:03:19.080 going right from here to here if you

01:03:22.320 want to have a good fight with someone

01:03:23.820 and destroy them then that's what you 0.54

01:03:25.320 do you don't bother with the subtleties 0.72

01:03:27.360 down here you just go right from the

01:03:28.800 right for the jugular it's like you're a 1.00

01:03:30.900 bad stupid kid you've always been that 1.00

01:03:33.300 way you're hopeless there's not a chance 1.00

01:03:35.280 of teaching you anything right and we

01:03:37.500 can that way you can nail the past the

01:03:39.540 present and the future all of the same 0.96

01:03:41.100 insult you've always been a terrible

01:03:43.500 person you there's no teaching you and 0.52

01:03:45.660 your future is going to be exactly the

01:03:47.100 same way then the only thing the person

01:03:49.200 can do if you do that to them is hit

01:03:51.060 you because that's that's it there's no

01:03:53.340 there's no coming back from that you

01:03:55.680 box them completely and so if you want

01:03:57.420 to have a really unproductive argument

01:03:59.060 you go right for this past present and

01:04:02.220 future you're not a good person

01:04:03.780 demolish their entire conceptual structure

01:04:05.940 and expose them completely naked to chaos

01:04:09.180 it's like great you won the argument it's

01:04:11.900 not a good thing to do to your long-term

01:04:14.280 partner let's say unless you want them

01:04:16.400 terrified out of their skull and

01:04:18.560 characterized and their attitude

01:04:22.020 towards you characterized by non-stop

01:04:24.240 extreme resentment it's probably not

01:04:26.580 going to do your love life a hell of a

01:04:28.140 lot of good for example so with the

01:04:30.660 three-year-old maybe what you do is you

01:04:32.280 say you you pick the level of analysis

01:04:34.980 at which they're actually functioning and

01:04:36.840 you say and this is something you can do

01:04:38.460 if you pay attention to a kid and lots

01:04:40.500 people won't pay attention to children

01:04:42.040 because they're terrified of them they're

01:04:43.720 terrified that they'll do something wrong

01:04:45.220 with them and or that that the kid won't 0.97

01:04:47.740 like them or some damn thing it's like 0.97

01:04:49.480 all you have to do to get a kid to like 0.99

01:04:51.580 you is pay attention to the kid for like

01:04:53.440 two seconds and the kid will instantly like

01:04:55.780 you because attention is so it's such a it's

01:04:59.980 it's the ultimate currency for children

01:05:02.740 right they they need adult attention

01:05:04.780 because adults know way more than kids and

01:05:06.940 so they love attention all you have to do is

01:05:08.620 pay attention to them they will like you

01:05:10.180 instantly so you tell the kid you see

01:05:14.200 that teddy bear kid goes yes then you've

01:05:17.440 established that the child has mastered

01:05:19.600 the art of perceiving a teddy bear

01:05:22.180 because they can say yes it's this

01:05:24.160 complicated thing man it's like a six

01:05:26.440 month old isn't going to do that three

01:05:28.280 month old has got the whole teddy bear

01:05:29.800 identification subroutine automatized so

01:05:32.920 teddy bear yes can you pick it up yes

01:05:36.340 pat pat pat good work do you see the

01:05:40.360 hole on that shelf yes can you put the

01:05:43.240 teddy bear in that hole yes go over do

01:05:46.960 that pat pat pat great okay now we'll do

01:05:50.440 thing number two thing number three so

01:05:53.280 you're building up the micro routines of

01:05:55.240 cleaning up the room from the bottom up

01:05:57.040 right here you're building it into their

01:05:59.100 body because you're starting with the

01:06:00.640 things they've already automatized and

01:06:02.260 building upwards towards abstraction and

01:06:04.820 so once the kid has all the micro

01:06:06.320 routines down and maybe there's a I don't

01:06:08.360 know how many micro routines are there to

01:06:10.100 clean up your room 200 like a lot but

01:06:13.760 not an infinite number so you teach them

01:06:15.740 all the micro routines and then you can

01:06:17.240 say run set of micro routines which means

01:06:21.080 clean up room and then they can do it they

01:06:23.420 know what it means so but you do the

01:06:25.800 building from the bottom up and lots of

01:06:27.320 times when you're arguing with someone

01:06:29.600 that you live with and hypothetically love

01:06:31.580 although those two things are hard to get

01:06:33.500 together in the same relationship what

01:06:37.040 you want to do is assume is assume 1.00

01:06:39.500 stupidity before you assume total in 1.00

01:06:42.440 total malevolence that's that's that's 1.00

01:06:44.600 a good rule of thumb for establishing

01:06:46.460 peace so maybe if your partner won't do

01:06:49.280 something well maybe it's there's

01:06:51.320 something going on up here but you might

01:06:53.240 want to assume to begin with they

01:06:54.560 actually just don't know how to do it and

01:06:56.480 you need to decompose it so maybe there's a

01:06:58.640 way you want to be greeted when you come

01:07:00.260 home because you're going to come home 0.86

01:07:01.820 every day probably and maybe that's a

01:07:03.860 five-minute interaction or a 10-minute

01:07:05.660 interaction so that's an hour a week or

01:07:07.580 four hours a month or 50 hours a year or

01:07:09.680 one solid work week of coming home

01:07:12.980 interactions right all you have to do is

01:07:15.380 get 50 interactions like that right and

01:07:18.260 you've got your relationship sorted out

01:07:20.360 that's something that's really worth

01:07:22.460 thinking about because that's it there's

01:07:23.840 you just don't have that much time

01:07:25.400 right get the meals sorted out that's

01:07:27.680 about five hours a day get your sleeping

01:07:30.080 time arrangements sorted out get the

01:07:32.780 fundamental interactions that you

01:07:34.460 repeat with your partner worked out

01:07:36.920 voluntarily and negotiate it you're

01:07:39.320 going to cover 80% of your life that

01:07:41.060 way and then it can just run as a

01:07:42.320 routine and that's really helpful and

01:07:44.480 if you don't do that consciously especially

01:07:46.640 because our roles have fragmented and

01:07:48.540 most of the traditional roles have

01:07:49.860 disappeared and so nobody knows who the

01:07:51.440 hell is supposed to do what in the 0.98

01:07:53.040 kitchen for example so nobody does 0.99

01:07:55.320 anything except bitch and fight make 1.00

01:07:57.300 wretched meals or buy or buy fast food or 0.99

01:08:01.200 some something like that so you know the

01:08:03.600 the alternative to that catastrophic

01:08:06.640 failure or continual resentment and

01:08:09.040 fighting is to rebuild the structures

01:08:11.100 from the bottom up using consensus and

01:08:13.380 negotiation and and you can do that so

01:08:15.700 that's you can think of that as the

01:08:17.580 patriarchal structure that's a good one

01:08:19.980 and I mean it's partly psychological

01:08:21.480 because these are things you do as a

01:08:23.820 person but it's also partly political

01:08:25.620 and economic and sociological because

01:08:27.900 while you're doing each of these things

01:08:30.060 you're also doing them in a way that

01:08:32.260 socially hopefully not just socially

01:08:34.500 acceptable but actually socially

01:08:36.120 desirable and so that's that's the

01:08:39.820 decomposition and the reason that this

01:08:41.700 keeps chaos at bay is because it isn't

01:08:44.940 because your belief systems keep chaos at

01:08:47.040 bay it's not that abstract it's that if

01:08:49.680 you do things right do these things

01:08:51.300 right then terrible things happen to

01:08:53.100 you with less frequency and that's not

01:08:55.200 like it's partly psychological because

01:08:57.480 maybe you don't fight as much maybe

01:08:58.860 you're not anxious as much maybe you're

01:09:00.340 not as depressed but a lot of it's just

01:09:02.040 practical if you just if you you know if

01:09:04.660 your kid doesn't leave his skateboard on

01:09:06.780 the stairs then you don't break your neck as

01:09:09.960 often and that's not just psychological

01:09:12.200 that's actually a good thing not to

01:09:13.720 break your neck so often and so this

01:09:15.780 this structure isn't merely something

01:09:18.180 that keeps things at bay psychologically

01:09:20.700 okay so here's a here's another look at a

01:09:27.960 hierarchy of narrative the structure that

01:09:32.140 keeps chaos at bay and this is maybe the

01:09:35.340 hierarchy that I engage in when I'm

01:09:36.960 writing and I'm doing all these things at

01:09:38.580 the same time that's that's what's cool

01:09:40.500 you know like when I ask a student what

01:09:42.780 are you doing when you write an essay

01:09:44.160 it's like well that's a hard question

01:09:46.800 right it's like well you're fast and

01:09:50.520 important question that's the first thing

01:09:52.680 you should do if you're writing an essay

01:09:53.700 then you're paying attention to the words

01:09:55.560 and the phrases in the sentences and the

01:09:57.960 sentence relationship between the

01:10:00.000 sentences within the paragraphs and the

01:10:01.500 paragraph relationships to one another

01:10:03.240 within the essay and then the essays

01:10:05.220 relevance to the class and the classes

01:10:08.160 relevance to your life and like the

01:10:10.680 essay bleeds out across your entire life

01:10:13.440 and so if I'm writing something well

01:10:16.800 obviously at the most highest resolution

01:10:20.760 level of analysis I'm actually moving my

01:10:22.440 fingers on the keyboard and moving my

01:10:24.600 eyes back and forth on the screen that's

01:10:26.880 where the mind meets the body but then I'm

01:10:29.580 trying to formulate a sentence and so I

01:10:31.920 try to think up a good sentence that's

01:10:33.480 that's nailing what I am trying to

01:10:36.060 formulate and then I try to pick it apart

01:10:37.680 and I do that a bunch of ways I take the

01:10:40.320 sentence and I put it on another page and

01:10:42.060 then I write like 10 different variants

01:10:43.680 of the sentence and see if I can get a

01:10:45.120 better variant and then I try to think 1.00

01:10:47.160 of ways that it's a stupid sentence to 0.99

01:10:48.940 see if I can you know put a pry bar 1.00

01:10:51.240 underneath it and loosen it up and if I

01:10:54.000 can't do anything if I can't manage that

01:10:56.160 then I keep the sentence that I've got and

01:10:57.840 then I do that with 10 sentences in a

01:10:59.940 paragraph and I make sure the sentences

01:11:01.560 are all arranged properly in the paragraph the

01:11:03.480 same way by rewriting a bunch of different

01:11:05.760 variants of it and trying to get the

01:11:07.500 word right and the phrase right and the

01:11:09.060 sentence right and the sentence order

01:11:10.740 right and the paragraph order right and

01:11:13.500 I can tell when it's right enough because I

01:11:16.080 can't make it any better that doesn't

01:11:17.820 mean it's right it just means I can't

01:11:20.040 improve it and so I get to the point

01:11:21.720 where if I'm writing a paragraph and I

01:11:23.880 write a variant and I can't tell if the

01:11:25.800 variant is any better and it might be

01:11:27.240 worse then I'm done I've hit the limit of

01:11:29.700 my intellectual capacity and it's time to

01:11:31.860 move on but then but you know that it

01:11:34.500 isn't like the essay that that I'm

01:11:36.600 writing let's say has a boundary that's

01:11:39.060 tightly drawn around the essay because 0.99

01:11:40.980 there's a reason I'm writing the damn 0.98

01:11:42.240 essay and that would be well I'm trying 0.98

01:11:44.280 to I'm trying to write a whole

01:11:45.780 manuscript hopefully I'm trying to

01:11:47.280 address an important problem because why

01:11:48.840 would I be doing it otherwise I mean

01:11:51.240 that would be kind of pointless and

01:11:52.620 maybe that's part of my role as a

01:11:54.600 scientist and that's a subset of my

01:11:56.880 role as a professor and then that's a

01:11:58.560 subset of my role as a productive citizen

01:12:01.260 and then that's a subset of my role of

01:12:04.320 someone who confronts the unknown see

01:12:07.200 and that's why the logos is the thing

01:12:11.160 that's at the top of the hierarchy

01:12:12.600 that's how the hierarchy should be

01:12:14.220 structured is that everything else should

01:12:16.620 be sick you see because you have a 0.99

01:12:18.180 structure and you think well what should

01:12:19.560 the structure be subordinate to and then

01:12:21.600 the answer should be something like the

01:12:23.820 structure should be subordinate to the

01:12:25.260 process that generates the structure or

01:12:28.080 the structure should be subordinate to the

01:12:29.760 process that generates and maintains the

01:12:31.800 structure well obviously how could it

01:12:34.500 be any other way unless the structures

01:12:36.360 perfect within which case you dispense

01:12:38.880 with the thing that generates it and

01:12:40.500 improves it but then you're a

01:12:41.880 totalitarian it's like hey we got the

01:12:43.680 answer it's like no you don't people are

01:12:46.380 still suffering and they're still dying 0.99

01:12:48.360 you don't have the damn answer and so 0.98

01:12:51.480 maybe you have an answer that means that 0.99

01:12:53.400 there isn't quite as much suffering and

01:12:54.880 dying as there could be but there's

01:12:56.820 plenty of road to be traveled yet and so

01:13:00.240 it don't makes perfect sense that all of

01:13:03.420 this should be should be nested within

01:13:06.540 this highest this I think of it sort of

01:13:09.000 as the highest order of moral striving and

01:13:12.060 then that also gives you a moral hierarchy

01:13:13.740 that's the most important thing you do

01:13:16.860 that with honest speech you do that with

01:13:18.960 attention and honest speech that's how

01:13:20.700 you do that and you don't sacrifice that

01:13:24.120 to any of this because if you do then

01:13:27.000 then you're hurting your soul it's

01:13:29.760 there's the this idea in the New

01:13:31.080 Testament that the sin against the Holy 0.94

01:13:33.180 Ghost is the one sin that can't be

01:13:34.740 forgiven no one knows what the hell that 0.60

01:13:36.360 means maybe it doesn't mean anything but

01:13:38.460 I think this is what it means is that

01:13:40.260 because this process generates all this

01:13:44.640 if you violate that process then there's

01:13:49.080 no hope for you because that's the

01:13:51.540 process by which you improve yourself

01:13:53.460 and everyone else to everything else so

01:13:56.280 if you decide you're not going to engage

01:13:57.540 in that it's like well there's no fixing

01:13:59.940 that because you've blown apart your

01:14:02.080 relationship with the thing that does the

01:14:04.300 fixing and so okay and so that's how you

01:14:09.300 keep chaos at bay and so part of that is

01:14:11.520 structural right because you know how to

01:14:13.200 do these things more or less it's part of

01:14:16.080 your skill set if you happen to be a

01:14:17.880 writer you could build one of these for a

01:14:19.380 plumber it doesn't doesn't make any

01:14:20.820 difference really although the outside

01:14:22.860 thing should be the same which is I think

01:14:25.200 partly why in in the Judeo-Christian

01:14:27.960 tradition there's the assumption that

01:14:31.080 people are fundamentally equal before God and

01:14:34.380 what that means is that well they should be

01:14:37.260 nested everyone regardless of their

01:14:40.860 particularities particularities as

01:14:43.080 individuals their highest order function

01:14:45.340 is that they do it in whatever manner

01:14:48.280 they can manage and that's an

01:14:49.840 extraordinarily valuable or maybe the

01:14:52.120 most extraordinarily valuable

01:14:53.740 sociological political and economic

01:14:55.600 function and so that's why people are

01:14:58.540 valuable it's like we have this faculty to

01:15:01.120 continually generate improvements to the

01:15:03.880 structure that we jointly inhabit great

01:15:08.200 that gives us it's so cool because that

01:15:10.660 gives us a fundamental unity with at the

01:15:13.160 highest order of analysis with with the

01:15:17.140 room for as much diversity as you can

01:15:19.400 possibly manage right because it actually

01:15:21.040 turns out that the more the

01:15:23.380 substructures differ the better because

01:15:25.180 then you know you can be doing something

01:15:26.680 different than me and that would be good

01:15:28.480 because if we were doing the same thing

01:15:29.740 then it's just duplication of labor if we

01:15:31.720 could agree on the higher order

01:15:33.580 principle and then specialize at the lower

01:15:35.620 order levels it's like that's you get to

01:15:38.420 have your cake and eat it too and that

01:15:40.520 doesn't happen very often so so and so

01:15:45.620 then another rule of thumb is if you're

01:15:47.660 trying to solve a problem solve it at

01:15:49.180 this level highest resolution level

01:15:51.860 possible before you dare move up dare

01:15:54.800 move up the hierarchy because they as you

01:15:57.980 move up the abstraction hierarchy the

01:15:59.540 probability that you'll make a

01:16:00.680 catastrophic error while attempting to

01:16:03.020 fix the problem radically increases because

01:16:05.660 abstraction is very very powerful and

01:16:08.240 so you want to be very careful when we

01:16:09.800 saw that when you know when this when

01:16:12.260 when the mortgage market crashed the

01:16:14.600 reason it crashed was because of

01:16:15.980 strange use of derivatives and

01:16:17.740 derivatives are like higher order

01:16:19.280 abstractions in the financial world and

01:16:21.080 derivatives give you tremendous

01:16:23.420 financial leverage and power with huge

01:16:26.540 risk and so the upside is massive

01:16:29.600 absolutely massive because you can

01:16:31.060 multiply your earnings but the

01:16:32.720 downside is complete bloody catastrophe and

01:16:35.600 so part of what i would say an

01:16:37.920 intelligent conservative ethos is is

01:16:41.480 solve the problem at the highest level

01:16:44.180 of resolution highest level low most

01:16:46.400 local level of resolution it's safer and

01:16:49.880 it's more likely to actually produce a

01:16:51.280 solution

01:16:52.280 ok now so now you're in your plan now we

01:16:57.680 simplified it again just to one little

01:16:59.360 map right but all those other things are

01:17:00.880 nested in there and so what happens to

01:17:03.680 you as you stroll merrily on your way

01:17:06.200 through life well what happens is that

01:17:08.420 as you're moving from point a to point

01:17:10.160 b you encounter things and people think

01:17:13.760 that what they encounter are objects but

01:17:16.160 that's not the case first of all most of

01:17:18.500 the things that you encounter many of

01:17:20.000 the things are actually other people and

01:17:21.560 they're not objects are too damn complex

01:17:23.000 and even apart from the social world the

01:17:27.200 things that you encounter aren't objects

01:17:29.120 they seem to be something more like

01:17:30.860 tools or obstacles and i don't mean that

01:17:33.320 we see objects and turn them into tools or

01:17:35.300 obstacles i mean that we see tools and

01:17:37.460 obstacles because what happens is that

01:17:39.080 when you array yourself towards a goal

01:17:42.860 then the world transforms itself into

01:17:46.340 things that get in the way of that goal

01:17:47.720 and things that three things things

01:17:49.580 that get in the way of the goal things

01:17:51.440 those are things you don't like things

01:17:53.120 that facilitate your movement towards

01:17:55.160 the goal those are things that you like

01:17:56.960 and irrelevant things and mostly you

01:17:59.660 want irrelevant things because there's

01:18:01.280 just too damn many things so the

01:18:03.320 category of irrelevant is when you really

01:18:05.300 like so most of things most of

01:18:07.820 everything is irrelevant if you have a

01:18:09.140 good plan a few things are good because

01:18:11.380 they move you forward and some other

01:18:12.580 things are not so good you want to go

01:18:14.680 around the not so good things if you

01:18:16.180 can manage them unless you like to run

01:18:17.800 head forth into like brick walls which

01:18:19.900 is not particularly so learning

01:18:21.880 experience but i wouldn't repeat it too

01:18:23.500 many times you want you want the world

01:18:26.440 to array itself as a set of we could say

01:18:29.800 tools now what happens is that you have

01:18:32.140 this perceptual system that's mediated by

01:18:34.180 dopamine it's the same system that

01:18:35.800 cocaine activates or methamphetamine are

01:18:38.560 the drugs that people really like to take

01:18:40.060 and it's the dopaminergic system that

01:18:42.940 responds with positive emotion to

01:18:44.920 indications that you've encountered

01:18:46.420 something that will facilitate your

01:18:47.740 movement towards a goal and that's

01:18:50.140 really important to know because people

01:18:52.600 tend to think that they're happy because

01:18:54.220 they achieve goals and that's not true

01:18:56.020 what's true it because as soon as you

01:18:58.240 achieve a goal then you have a problem

01:18:59.680 which is what's the next goal and that's

01:19:01.480 actually a big problem you encounter that

01:19:03.340 as soon as you graduate from university for

01:19:05.020 example that's right I made this joke

01:19:06.820 before day graduation day years like king

01:19:10.300 of the university hierarchy

01:19:11.680 undergraduate hierarchy day after your

01:19:14.620 unemployed potential starbucks employee

01:19:17.020 right so it's like so obviously the the

01:19:20.700 the accomplishment per se as a source of

01:19:23.800 reward is is problematic because when you

01:19:27.040 accomplish you run the frame to its end and

01:19:30.160 then you have the problem of needing a new

01:19:31.780 frame so that's a problem but if what

01:19:34.480 you're encountering instead are things

01:19:36.220 that will move you along your way it's

01:19:38.300 like hey that's great and that's where

01:19:39.920 you get your positive motivation and so

01:19:41.980 that's really thinking that's so much

01:19:43.960 worth thinking about you can think about

01:19:45.580 that for a year and that wouldn't even

01:19:47.200 be enough to think about it because

01:19:48.340 here's what it means it means in some

01:19:50.620 sense that the Buddhists are right with 1.00

01:19:52.240 their claim about Maya

01:19:53.560 M-A-Y-A which means that people live in an 1.00

01:19:56.080 illusion and what they mean by that is

01:19:57.940 well you have goal whatever your goal is

01:20:00.880 and that goal gives relevance to the

01:20:03.700 world and you could change the

01:20:05.620 relevance of the world in a snap just by

01:20:07.880 changing your goal you can do that and

01:20:10.720 so then you think well it's sort of an

01:20:12.120 illusion because you can just change it

01:20:13.840 now you don't want to push that line of

01:20:15.760 argumentation too far because even if

01:20:18.640 the specific point can be changed the

01:20:22.720 fact that you're in one of these frames

01:20:24.100 cannot be changed and so you have to be

01:20:26.980 in a frame although you get to pick the

01:20:28.420 frame so there's still an absolute there

01:20:30.160 which is that you have to be in a frame

01:20:31.480 and that is not a trivial absolute it's

01:20:33.820 a very it's a very major absolute so

01:20:36.220 then you think okay all of your

01:20:37.900 positive emotion is going to be

01:20:39.460 experienced in relationship to the goal

01:20:41.500 well then we think well you could use

01:20:44.020 some positive emotion it's a good thing

01:20:46.120 positive emotion inhibits anxiety and

01:20:50.140 disappointment and frustration and pain it

01:20:54.160 does all that technically it does that

01:20:56.560 that's why a football player with a broken

01:20:58.300 thumb who wants to score a touchdown can

01:21:00.280 go out there and you know play the

01:21:02.140 football game even though it's a kind of

01:21:04.360 an arbitrary goal right it's like really

01:21:06.280 you're going to go out there and like

01:21:07.300 risk your hand to fire a pigskin through

01:21:11.920 some some poles it's like well you can say

01:21:16.620 the same sort of cynical thing about most of

01:21:18.640 the things that people do but you can't

01:21:20.500 say the cynical thing about the fact that

01:21:22.360 they have to do things so you have a you

01:21:25.660 have a point you have your aim you have

01:21:27.820 your ambition and then that's what turns

01:21:30.280 the world into a potentially positive

01:21:31.840 place and here's the kicker this is so

01:21:34.540 cool the higher the aim the more the

01:21:37.720 positive emotion so that's that's you

01:21:41.260 think well why should I bother you know

01:21:43.180 why should I bother doing something

01:21:44.500 lofty and difficult it's like because it's

01:21:48.160 worth it that's why because the 1.00

01:21:52.720 alternative is stupid suffering because 1.00

01:21:55.660 really really because what happens is 1.00

01:21:57.520 like you don't need a framework in order

01:22:01.540 to suffer you can just lay there day

01:22:05.020 after day and suffer right that's easy

01:22:08.980 that's the default condition if you don't

01:22:11.860 have a lofty ambition then you suffer

01:22:14.920 miserably and the reason for that is

01:22:16.960 life is really complex short finite

01:22:19.840 full of suffering and beyond you and so

01:22:23.080 you can just lay there and think about

01:22:24.340 that and it's horrible and so that's not

01:22:26.680 helpful it's just not useful and so you

01:22:29.080 know people often say life is

01:22:30.940 meaningless it's like no it's not that's

01:22:33.280 wrong because it was meaningless that'd be

01:22:35.380 easy you could just sit there and do

01:22:36.520 nothing and it would matter right it'd be

01:22:38.140 like you look like you're like a lot

01:22:39.820 lobotomized sheep it's just irrelevant but

01:22:43.400 that isn't what happens when people say

01:22:45.520 that life has no meaning that isn't

01:22:47.620 what they mean what they mean is I'm 0.98

01:22:49.780 suffering stupidly and intensely and I 0.95

01:22:52.640 don't know what to do about it well the 0.99

01:22:54.700 suffering is meaningful it's just not the

01:22:57.100 kind of meaning you want so how do you get

01:22:59.140 out of that you adopt you you note the

01:23:04.840 baseline of suffering which is very very

01:23:07.900 very very high and then you say to

01:23:10.300 yourself okay I need to do something

01:23:11.680 that justifies that and that's not so

01:23:14.800 easy because it's the baseline for

01:23:16.780 suffering is high if you're going to make

01:23:18.520 something of yourself let's say so that

01:23:20.980 it's worthwhile to exist in the world

01:23:23.680 then you have to do you have to aim at

01:23:26.080 something that's so well structured that

01:23:29.780 you can say yeah earthquakes cancer

01:23:32.800 death of my family dissolution of my

01:23:35.860 goals ultimate futility of life and the

01:23:38.320 heat death of the universe hey it

01:23:41.200 doesn't matter it's worth it

01:23:43.180 all right so now here's an here's an

01:23:49.900 another complicating factor so I said well

01:23:53.740 there's three things that you can run

01:23:55.180 into when you're going about your your

01:23:58.720 goal and I would say if you're going to

01:24:02.140 form a goal if you're going to form a

01:24:03.760 plan look about three to five years out

01:24:06.100 in the future because beyond that you

01:24:08.740 get something called combinatorial

01:24:12.400 explosion and it means that there's so

01:24:14.680 many variables you just can't predict so

01:24:16.600 there's not that much point looking out

01:24:17.980 20 years because like what the hell do

01:24:20.020 you know what's going to happen in 20

01:24:21.520 years nothing three years maybe you've

01:24:24.460 got maybe you can chart a course to

01:24:26.900 three years five years something like

01:24:28.480 that so that's not a bad segment of time to

01:24:31.360 to consider and then consider what your

01:24:35.980 life would have to be like in order for

01:24:37.360 it to be worthwhile for you knowing

01:24:39.640 also what you're going to be like if it

01:24:41.980 isn't worthwhile for you and what you're

01:24:44.200 going to be like if it isn't worthwhile

01:24:45.640 for you is Cain that's what you're like

01:24:49.300 because that's what that story is about

01:24:50.680 because Abel's the guy who has a goal and

01:24:53.260 is making the proper sacrifices and Cain is

01:24:55.780 the person for whom by his own faults at

01:24:58.600 least in part things aren't working out

01:25:00.760 for and so the default for not doing

01:25:04.120 this is something like building

01:25:05.980 resentment bitterness with an underlying

01:25:08.200 what would you call it flavor enhancer of

01:25:11.800 murderous resentment something like that

01:25:14.020 which you will act out in the world which

01:25:16.120 people act out in the world all the time

01:25:17.680 and it's no wonder because without this

01:25:20.800 without something lofty pulling you 1.00

01:25:24.460 along then the baseline is stupid 1.00

01:25:26.920 suffering and you know if you take an 1.00

01:25:28.660 Anna dog and you just chain it in the

01:25:30.340 backyard you know and you put a collar on

01:25:32.260 it that's too tight so it chafes all the

01:25:34.420 time and it can't even bark and you know

01:25:36.580 there's just dirt around it and it's too

01:25:38.320 goddamn hot out in the Sun and maybe you 0.79

01:25:40.300 don't give it enough water you know it's 0.98

01:25:42.220 not going to be very happy dog its basic

01:25:45.220 condition is misery well the same applies

01:25:48.700 to people so alright so you're on your

01:25:52.540 way to see you remember the you've all

01:25:56.080 probably watched Pinocchio or know about

01:25:58.480 it one of the things that happens that's

01:26:00.040 really cool in Pinocchio is that when

01:26:02.100 Geppetto decides that he wants his puppet

01:26:04.480 to be a genuine autonomous being he

01:26:10.060 wishes upon a star it's a very strange

01:26:12.160 thing but everybody just swallows it

01:26:13.700 because we don't notice when we're

01:26:14.960 swallowing things that are that are

01:26:17.060 completely preposterous you know it's

01:26:19.220 this animated puppeteer wishes on a

01:26:23.420 star that his puppet is going to become

01:26:25.400 real and everybody nods their head and

01:26:26.840 goes oh yeah that makes sense it's like

01:26:28.520 no it doesn't it doesn't make any sense at

01:26:30.860 all but it doesn't matter it doesn't make

01:26:32.780 the sort of sense that we normally

01:26:34.040 associate with sense it makes a kind of

01:26:35.980 meta sense and everybody understands it so

01:26:38.320 this is what Geppetto is doing is he's

01:26:40.460 elevating his eyes above the horizon so

01:26:43.220 out of the realm of the worldly let's

01:26:45.980 say to the transcendent and the

01:26:48.260 transcendent will say for all intents and

01:26:50.300 purposes you can see the transcendent

01:26:52.160 spread above you in in in in the heaven

01:26:55.220 that arches over us it's it's close

01:26:57.800 enough for our purposes and there's a

01:27:00.200 star there and a star is something that's

01:27:01.820 eternal that shines in the darkness and

01:27:03.920 so Geppetto makes an agreement with the

01:27:05.960 transcendent he says look I'm willing to

01:27:07.820 do whatever it takes that my creation

01:27:10.160 becomes autonomous well that's exactly

01:27:12.980 this situation that you want to set up

01:27:14.360 for yourself is like okay you got to

01:27:15.980 figure out what star you're going to

01:27:18.440 orient yourself by and you have to ask

01:27:21.200 yourself like no one's ever asked you

01:27:23.060 okay if you had the choice to make your

01:27:26.380 life worth living what's your price what

01:27:30.860 do you need just find out first of all

01:27:33.740 you just ask you'll tell yourself like

01:27:35.960 you'll be afraid because you thought I'll

01:27:37.580 never get that it's like well lower your

01:27:39.320 sights a little bit then you know don't

01:27:41.200 ask for a 80-foot super yacht in like 1.00

01:27:43.760 six months that just means you're stupid 1.00

01:27:45.980 you know it doesn't mean you're not you 1.00

01:27:48.260 know first of all it's not going to make

01:27:49.400 you happy anyways you know it's just not

01:27:51.300 it's not it's not wise you're asking

01:27:54.800 you're supposed to be asking yourself

01:27:56.300 this question like you're someone you

01:27:57.560 care about so you imagine you're talking

01:27:59.900 to some 12 year old kid that you kind of

01:28:01.760 like think I wouldn't be so bad if this

01:28:03.920 12 year old kid had a decent life so you

01:28:07.460 too it's like it wouldn't be so bad the

01:28:09.140 universe wouldn't mind if you had a 0.85

01:28:10.400 decent life if there was little less

01:28:11.960 suffering on your part especially if

01:28:13.880 you didn't you know foist it off on

01:28:16.040 other people if there's a little less

01:28:17.660 suffering on your part and you made

01:28:19.520 things a little better everywhere you

01:28:20.920 went it's like the universe would

01:28:22.220 probably be okay with that so you could

01:28:24.200 I think you could get away with it if

01:28:25.760 you're sort of quiet about it and so ask

01:28:29.300 yourself okay so then once you've

01:28:31.820 established your your target and you

01:28:33.860 know where you are then you know what's

01:28:35.360 good for you because that moves you

01:28:37.640 along and that happens at a perceptual

01:28:39.560 level you don't have to think about it

01:28:40.820 anymore and the experimental literature

01:28:43.100 and that's already quite clear so for

01:28:44.600 example if I specify that podium as the

01:28:48.500 target for my action you know then I'm

01:28:51.380 happy when I'm walking towards it

01:28:52.700 because there it is and everything

01:28:53.900 cooperating really nicely but if I

01:28:56.120 specify going to the exit sign that you

01:28:59.420 guys can't see that that that this is an

01:29:02.660 obstacle in the front of then as soon

01:29:05.000 as I specify that then that's an

01:29:06.500 annoying obstacle and that's

01:29:08.680 precognitive it's happens immediately it

01:29:11.180 happens instantaneously and so it

01:29:13.580 really is the case that you you your

01:29:16.340 your being manifests itself inside these

01:29:19.700 frames and so what's so cool about that

01:29:21.860 is you can change the frame it doesn't

01:29:23.780 mean you can like juggle planets or

01:29:25.700 anything like that but it does give you

01:29:27.500 quite a scope of of of of what untrammeled

01:29:32.660 action within the world and if the

01:29:34.260 frame isn't working out then you can

01:29:35.600 tweak it or sometimes you have to make a

01:29:37.100 major adjustment in it whatever you 0.99

01:29:39.020 don't have to stick to the damn thing 0.99

01:29:40.500 like it's the ideology that you're going 1.00

01:29:42.380 to die for it's a tentative plan it's a

01:29:44.880 work in progress and it's nuts with the

01:29:47.300 future authoring program one of the

01:29:48.740 things I recommend for people is that

01:29:50.540 they should do it badly because you're

01:29:52.880 not going to get it right anyways but a

01:29:54.860 reasonable plan is way better than no

01:29:58.400 plan plus a reasonable plan is a plan

01:30:00.020 is a plan that has built into it the

01:30:02.720 processes that will enable the plan to

01:30:05.180 get better as you implement it so you

01:30:06.980 just start with a reasonable plan so you

01:30:09.260 don't have to worry about whether it's

01:30:10.580 correct it's not correct it doesn't

01:30:13.580 matter it's better than nothing that's

01:30:15.260 the issue so ok so you've got the world

01:30:17.180 parsed up into things that making making

01:30:20.780 you happy when you look at them things

01:30:23.660 that get in the way that produce negative

01:30:25.460 emotion and then a whole host of

01:30:27.380 irrelevant things because almost

01:30:29.420 everything's irrelevant and that's

01:30:31.580 where all the chaos is hiding the chaos

01:30:33.920 is hiding in what's irrelevant and so

01:30:36.920 and that's very interesting

01:30:38.480 observation because since the chaos is

01:30:40.400 virtually infinite it's a real questions

01:30:42.560 where the hell do you put it well you

01:30:44.360 put it in what you ignore and you can

01:30:46.520 ignore it as long as it isn't actively

01:30:48.200 interfering with your movement forward you

01:30:50.120 can assume that it's that it doesn't

01:30:52.820 matter that it isn't matter that it

01:30:55.280 doesn't matter same thing all right so

01:30:59.660 here's the kicker there's one more

01:31:01.040 class of things that you can run into

01:31:03.740 along the way and this is where the

01:31:06.500 chaos breaks through so let's say you're

01:31:15.320 moving from point A to point B and

01:31:16.820 and something that you don't expect

01:31:20.120 occurs and it gets in the way so let's

01:31:25.460 say that you're living with someone and

01:31:27.560 maybe you kind of like them you're not

01:31:29.120 married so you don't like them that much 1.00

01:31:30.980 because otherwise you'd ask them to

01:31:32.300 marry you but anyways and so how a

01:31:36.920 quarter of you is looking for something

01:31:38.780 better and three-quarters of you is

01:31:40.280 half satisfied something like that and

01:31:42.200 and then a person because we're

01:31:45.200 ambivalent about such things and then

01:31:46.880 the person you discover or the person

01:31:49.160 announces that they've been having an

01:31:50.540 affair okay so then how are you

01:31:53.420 supposed to respond emotionally to that

01:31:55.100 well the part of you that wasn't all

01:31:57.080 that committed to the relationship is

01:31:58.520 kind of exhilarated by that and then the

01:32:00.620 three-quarters of you that's half

01:32:02.000 satisfied is hurt and and you're going

01:32:04.220 to exploit that part for sure in the

01:32:06.020 ensuing discussions and not mention the

01:32:08.120 oh that's kind of exciting that you you

01:32:10.080 know betrayed me that way so so but the

01:32:15.000 point is is that you that's a hole now

01:32:17.580 what's happened is a hole has you have

01:32:20.220 this structure that you're walking on

01:32:22.260 like ice like the thin ice that you're

01:32:24.120 skating on and now there's a hole in it

01:32:26.080 and the hole we don't even know how deep

01:32:28.860 the hole is but you know there's a hole

01:32:30.240 there and so now you're anxious about it

01:32:32.340 oh they'll maybe also a little bit

01:32:33.660 excited because God only knows what's

01:32:35.160 down there but but you don't know

01:32:38.160 what to do with that hole because it

01:32:40.320 could spread very badly on you it

01:32:42.120 could be that you know the whole

01:32:43.920 relationship was a facade and that all

01:32:47.400 your relationships have been facade

01:32:48.840 facades and that the reason that is is 0.98

01:32:51.120 because you're so damn shallow that it's 0.98

01:32:52.620 impossible for you to have a 0.99

01:32:53.700 relationship that isn't just a facade and

01:32:56.040 that's partly because you don't pay any

01:32:57.900 attention to other people and it's also 0.93

01:32:59.220 partly because you're malevolent and 0.98

01:33:00.600 selfish so that's a nasty thing to 0.99

01:33:02.760 discover or maybe that's the sort of

01:33:04.740 person that you're attracting which

01:33:06.600 would make sense actually if that's the

01:33:08.220 sort of person that you are and so so

01:33:11.040 there are certain things that you can

01:33:12.900 encounter that basically unglu you and

01:33:15.540 what happens is that those moments of

01:33:17.820 being unglued travel up that entire

01:33:19.800 hierarchy of presuppositions it's like

01:33:22.360 because the one of the logical

01:33:24.780 conclusions to being betrayed in a

01:33:26.200 relationship is that you are that you're

01:33:28.200 truly a bad person now another equally

01:33:33.000 logical conclusion is that the person that

01:33:35.360 you're with is really a bad person and

01:33:37.040 another logical conclusion is all people 0.96

01:33:39.800 are truly bad people you know i mean

01:33:42.320 in in macro ways and in micro ways you

01:33:46.340 can't trust anyone you can't trust

01:33:47.720 women you can't trust men you can't 1.00

01:33:49.180 trust human beings you can't trust

01:33:50.540 yourself the whole place is a

01:33:52.520 catastrophe it's a nightmare well then

01:33:55.280 you can fall through into chaos now the

01:33:58.100 way your body responds to that when

01:34:00.240 something or maybe you know you're

01:34:01.460 supposed to be getting a promotion at

01:34:02.780 work that's good you're all chipper

01:34:04.580 about the promotion at work and you you

01:34:07.040 walk into your boss's office because he

01:34:08.900 or she wants to see you and they say

01:34:11.060 well you know we've reviewed your

01:34:13.400 performance over the last few years and

01:34:16.040 your performance has been somewhere

01:34:21.320 between mediocre and decent and we're

01:34:23.460 downsizing and see you later that's not a

01:34:28.640 raise or a promotion that's for sure

01:34:30.320 that's a hole that you fall into and the

01:34:34.160 question is well what do you make of

01:34:35.480 that right how do you frame that how do

01:34:38.600 you take that emergent chaos and make

01:34:41.120 habitable order out of you don't know is

01:34:43.220 the whole capitalist system rotten to the

01:34:45.620 core i mean that's a convenient

01:34:47.480 explanation under those circumstances

01:34:49.160 that's for sure

01:34:50.480 were you working for a psychopathic son 1.00

01:34:52.400 of a bitch did you make the wrong choice in 1.00

01:34:55.340 university and was that your father's 1.00

01:34:57.020 fault because you never did what you want

01:34:58.580 or was it your fault for not standing

01:35:00.380 up to them or is it a dying industry or

01:35:03.320 is maybe this a wake-up call that you

01:35:04.880 should go do something else that you've

01:35:06.140 been waiting to do you know that you've

01:35:08.180 actually wanted to do your whole life and 0.96

01:35:09.800 that's why you're doing such a miserable

01:35:11.840 job at your current occupation because

01:35:13.520 you're bitter and resentful about the

01:35:14.900 fact that you never did what you want

01:35:16.400 you don't know it's all of those things

01:35:18.740 at once and that's very stressful because

01:35:21.260 all of those things at once is too many

01:35:23.360 things and that's the re-emergence of

01:35:25.820 chaos that's the flood that's the return

01:35:29.780 to the beginning of the cosmos that's

01:35:31.640 another way that it's been represented

01:35:33.140 mythologically it's that you voyage all

01:35:35.420 the way back to the beginning of the

01:35:36.620 cosmos when there's nothing but

01:35:38.300 undifferentiated chaos and that's what

01:35:41.300 you're confronting and maybe it's too

01:35:43.160 much for you and often it is i mean that

01:35:45.500 that can really that can be traumatizing

01:35:48.740 it can hurt your brain you know it's just

01:35:51.380 too much for you to bear but it doesn't

01:35:53.420 matter you're stuck with it and so how

01:35:55.400 do you respond to that well some of it

01:35:57.020 is catastrophic negative emotion you

01:36:00.260 freeze and that's protective and maybe

01:36:02.180 you don't even want to move you don't

01:36:03.200 want to bloody well get out of bed for a

01:36:05.180 week and that's because your body is

01:36:06.980 reacting as if the bedroom floor is

01:36:09.260 covered with snakes and the best thing

01:36:10.640 for you to do is just not move just

01:36:12.620 freeze not a pleasant situation to be in

01:36:15.200 because it's your hyper aroused very very

01:36:18.560 physiologically demanding and there's zero

01:36:20.780 about it that's productive except maybe the

01:36:22.940 snakes won't see you but they've

01:36:24.380 already seen you so that isn't helping

01:36:26.120 very well so you've got all this

01:36:27.740 undifferentiated native negative emotion

01:36:29.780 anxiety fear hurt anger guilt shame

01:36:32.900 emotional pain the whole plethora of

01:36:35.120 catastrophes and then maybe on the other

01:36:37.700 side lurking down there is thank god i'm

01:36:40.700 done with that job i just bloody well

01:36:42.380 hated i dragged myself off to work every

01:36:45.080 day and there's a little part of my soul 0.64

01:36:47.420 that's so goddamn happy i finally got 0.82

01:36:49.280 fired that i can hardly stand it you know 0.92

01:36:51.920 maybe you don't even admit that to

01:36:53.420 yourself because well that would mean

01:36:55.100 that all that time you spent at the job

01:36:56.540 was just sunk cost you're deluding

01:36:58.700 yourself the whole time it isn't an

01:37:01.580 interesting thing to consider those

01:37:03.020 sometimes if you're in the unpleasant

01:37:04.640 circumstance of having to fire someone

01:37:07.240 you know sometimes firing someone is the

01:37:10.100 best thing that can happen to them which

01:37:11.660 doesn't mean that you should go out and

01:37:13.400 like enjoy it although i have met very

01:37:17.180 disagreeable people who actually enjoyed

01:37:19.180 firing people i'll tell you a story about

01:37:21.520 that at some point because it's quite

01:37:22.960 interesting but you know sometimes if

01:37:25.180 someone's just limping along in their job

01:37:27.400 and doing it as miserably and wretchedly as

01:37:30.460 they possibly can imagine the best thing

01:37:32.680 you can do to them for them is to say you

01:37:34.900 know you're failing at this and and that

01:37:39.520 doesn't necessarily mean that you would

01:37:40.900 have to be failing at absolutely

01:37:42.460 everything else in the entire world so 1.00

01:37:44.500 maybe you should just accept the damn 0.99

01:37:46.060 failure and go off and try something new 0.99

01:37:48.520 and i mean that's terrifying for people

01:37:50.920 and i know they hate it and all that but

01:37:52.600 but but sometimes it's better than the

01:37:56.980 alternative which is just slow

01:37:58.420 torturous death so here's a funny way of

01:38:05.200 looking at it so let's say you fall right

01:38:07.960 into that hole that's underneath any

01:38:10.660 everything and you've hit an anomaly that

01:38:12.880 you don't understand you say what's that

01:38:14.560 anomaly made out of exactly i know that's

01:38:17.560 a strange way of thinking about it you

01:38:19.060 know because it's not what you could say

01:38:21.520 we'll just go along with that it's a

01:38:24.100 metaphor what's that anomaly made out of

01:38:26.380 well here's a way of thinking about it's

01:38:27.700 made out of spirited matter and here's

01:38:30.280 why

01:38:31.020 this is something i learned in part from

01:38:32.980 piaget said what's made out of matter

01:38:36.520 because of course that's the world matter

01:38:39.040 and the world is also what matters and so

01:38:41.380 that's kind of a nice duality there but

01:38:44.380 it's made out of spirit because when you

01:38:46.960 encounter something anomalous and go

01:38:48.580 down the rabbit hole when you go into

01:38:49.960 the underworld that's underneath

01:38:51.040 everything that you've relied on you

01:38:53.620 learn things down there so what's down

01:38:55.480 there is information and that's now it's

01:38:57.880 maybe way more information than you want

01:39:00.280 but it is information it's information and

01:39:03.340 what can you what can you do with the

01:39:04.960 information you can inform yourself with

01:39:07.780 the information right you can put

01:39:09.940 yourself information with the

01:39:12.760 information that's helpful too and so

01:39:15.880 and you think well you you're a psyche

01:39:18.340 maybe you're not a spirit it depends on

01:39:20.140 you know whether you're a materialist or

01:39:21.820 not but at least we can say that you're

01:39:23.380 a psyche the question is what's your

01:39:25.020 psyche made out well it's obviously got a

01:39:27.220 material substrate but the matter happens

01:39:30.160 to be arrayed in a particular order and

01:39:33.040 that's an information order and so when

01:39:35.920 you fall into the underworld that's

01:39:37.480 underneath everything and you encounter

01:39:39.040 that latent information then what you

01:39:41.080 can do is enhance your psyche you can

01:39:43.100 grow your spirit because what you do is

01:39:44.980 you take the new information and you

01:39:47.620 incorporate it that's like eating the

01:39:49.840 apple that Adam and Eve ate you

01:39:51.580 incorporate that and that makes more of

01:39:53.560 you and that's not a metaphorical or

01:39:55.660 metaphysical proposition it's not it's to

01:39:57.940 say nothing other than well that's what

01:39:59.620 happens when children learn you think of

01:40:01.400 what happens child's three has a pretty

01:40:03.880 low-resolution representation of the

01:40:06.580 world and is a fairly low-resolution

01:40:09.280 human being got all the constituent

01:40:11.860 elements there but isn't

01:40:12.880 differentiated in any tremendous manner

01:40:15.220 that's all still to come in the future

01:40:16.660 and so what does the child do explore

01:40:19.360 what do they explore things they don't

01:40:22.120 understand that's where the

01:40:23.320 information is because you already

01:40:25.360 understand what you understand there's

01:40:26.860 no information there you go where

01:40:28.540 they're where you don't understand

01:40:30.100 that's where the information is and out of

01:40:32.020 that information you generate a higher

01:40:33.760 resolution world and you generate a

01:40:35.860 higher resolution self and so out of

01:40:38.320 the combat with the underlying dragon

01:40:41.280 of chaos you generate spirit and matter

01:40:43.600 and that's what you do when you go down

01:40:45.400 into the underworld so if it doesn't

01:40:47.860 kill you or if it doesn't make you wish 0.88

01:40:50.500 you were dead which it probably will but 1.00

01:40:52.780 there's a bunch of you that has to die 0.99

01:40:54.100 down there anyway so maybe that's not 0.81

01:40:55.780 such a bad thing because if you had this

01:40:57.880 relationship that ended in betrayal then

01:41:00.160 there's something that's just not

01:41:01.300 exactly right right there's something

01:41:03.700 that went and the reason I'm saying

01:41:05.200 that think well that's kind of

01:41:06.700 moralistic it's like actually I don't

01:41:08.440 mind being moralistic in case you

01:41:09.960 haven't noticed but but that's not it's

01:41:13.180 not a fair comment because you're 1.00

01:41:14.740 playing the stupid game it's like you 1.00

01:41:17.260 live with someone infidelity that's the 1.00

01:41:20.680 game right you've decided the rules with

01:41:23.320 the game comes a morality the morality are

01:41:25.840 the rules of the game well then the

01:41:28.120 thing collapses into infidelity it's

01:41:30.760 like well you played the game wrong or

01:41:32.800 it was the wrong game one of those two

01:41:34.420 you it's one of those two you pick the 1.00

01:41:37.620 damn game and having picked the game 0.99

01:41:39.880 you can't all of a sudden say well no 1.00

01:41:41.500 those aren't the rules it's like yeah

01:41:43.300 yeah if you pick the game you pick the

01:41:45.860 rules and if you fail at complying with

01:41:48.940 the rules then you fail now you could say

01:41:51.160 well I can pick a different game it's

01:41:52.480 like I don't care how you solve the

01:41:53.800 problem you're still stuck with the

01:41:55.720 problem it's a moral problem

01:41:57.640 fundamentally and it might take some

01:42:01.540 major league retooling to to fix it so

01:42:08.020 you're at point A trying to get to point

01:42:10.480 B that's not working out you hit an

01:42:13.120 anomaly you're not getting to point B

01:42:15.760 that's for sure your medical school

01:42:19.360 student you write your MCATs which is a

01:42:22.060 test you have to write to go to medical

01:42:23.680 school you get 25th percentile I don't

01:42:26.680 know who you are but you're not a

01:42:27.760 pre-med student and maybe you never

01:42:29.980 were right and that's the rub man and 0.78

01:42:32.560 so who the hell are you you don't know 0.63

01:42:35.320 collapse down here into this 0.97

01:42:37.720 motivational conflict this place of

01:42:40.120 motivation and emotional uncertainty and

01:42:42.160 tremendous information right it's a

01:42:44.580 place of transformation it's the Phoenix

01:42:46.780 that burns it's the burning part of the

01:42:48.880 Phoenix that burns it's it's the

01:42:50.780 journey to the underworld it's the

01:42:52.200 journey to hell it can really be a

01:42:54.060 journey to hell because you may find

01:42:55.860 out that the reason that your partner 0.98

01:42:58.380 betrayed you or that you didn't get your 0.99

01:42:59.820 damn promotion is because there's 1.00

01:43:01.680 seriously something wrong with you and 0.99

01:43:03.780 you know it and I don't just mean that

01:43:05.220 you don't know what you're doing I mean

01:43:06.840 that there's 25 percent of you that is

01:43:08.880 seriously aiming at things not being

01:43:11.280 good and so you fall into the

01:43:13.080 underworld and you find out that oh God I

01:43:17.200 just got exactly what I was aiming for or

01:43:19.200 or I got exactly what the worst part of

01:43:22.020 me was aiming for and that worst part

01:43:24.240 that's something to clean up and that's

01:43:25.920 not going to be easy because it's got

01:43:27.300 its hooks in me like something

01:43:28.860 something ferocious something seriously

01:43:31.740 ferocious and I've been toying with it

01:43:33.960 for a very long time and maybe I can't

01:43:36.540 even detach it anymore and so that's not

01:43:39.600 so fun and you see people like that in

01:43:41.340 psychotherapy very frequently or you see

01:43:43.140 them wandering around on the streets like

01:43:45.940 absolute catastrophic former shells of

01:43:49.540 themselves you know because they've hit

01:43:51.820 the underworld and they ended up in hell

01:43:53.500 and there's no getting out of it and so

01:43:55.300 those are the people you tend to give a

01:43:56.920 wide berth to when you walk down the

01:43:58.720 street so there you are down in the

01:44:00.520 underworld right back where the latent

01:44:03.320 information exists and just too much of

01:44:06.400 it and that's this it's the same thing

01:44:09.520 it's the same thing and that's why the

01:44:12.100 Adam and Eve story is archetypal right

01:44:14.680 because we're always ingesting something

01:44:18.280 new that knocks us into a new state of

01:44:21.340 self-consciousness and it's always a

01:44:23.680 catastrophic demolition of our current of

01:44:27.820 our previous paradise insufficient as that

01:44:30.220 paradise was something comes along to

01:44:32.380 destroy it and knocks the slats out of

01:44:34.720 our life and that's a voyage to the

01:44:36.480 underworld out of the walled garden into

01:44:41.780 chaos and so what is all of that well

01:44:52.220 there's lots of ways of construing it

01:44:54.020 it's a it's a frame transformation

01:44:57.080 there's a walled city it's got a hole in

01:45:00.260 it because all walled cities have holes in

01:45:02.120 them right because everything's imperfect

01:45:03.740 and that's where the chaos comes up and

01:45:05.540 then maybe you go out there like a hero to

01:45:08.000 fight the chaos and to re-establish the

01:45:10.760 frame that's what you're supposed to do

01:45:12.200 and maybe you free some information

01:45:14.480 while you're doing that or maybe you

01:45:18.500 establish a relationship and so that's

01:45:21.560 the journey frame damage chaos voluntary

01:45:27.020 confrontation reconstitution of the world

01:45:29.760 and that's that's human existence and

01:45:33.420 hopefully it's not just linear it's

01:45:36.720 it's stepwise right is that the you that

01:45:42.600 emerges as a consequence of your latest

01:45:44.520 catastrophe is everything that you were

01:45:46.980 before plus something more and that

01:45:50.100 actually constitutes what you might

01:45:51.900 describe as measurable progress right and

01:45:54.880 that's another argument against moral

01:45:56.340 relativism because if you can do

01:45:59.640 everything that you could do before and

01:46:01.140 you can do some more things we could

01:46:03.000 just define that as better it's not a

01:46:05.100 bad definition and then we have enough

01:46:06.960 it's like what you're trying to do is to

01:46:08.500 differentiate the world and differentiate

01:46:13.920 yourself and every time you undergo one

01:46:16.160 of these revolutions then hopefully both

01:46:18.120 of those things happen and then there's a

01:46:19.740 moral to that story too which is do it

01:46:23.340 voluntarily and maybe do it don't wait

01:46:28.140 for it to happen catastrophically keep

01:46:31.320 your eyes open and when something goes a

01:46:33.660 little bit wrong that you could fix fix

01:46:36.840 it don't say no that doesn't matter maybe

01:46:40.800 it does matter maybe it is matter maybe

01:46:43.140 it's exactly the matter out of which you

01:46:44.760 should be built maybe it's the matter out

01:46:46.740 of which the world should be built and if

01:46:48.900 part of you is telling you it matters

01:46:51.480 what it means is that that part is

01:46:54.420 telling you that there's something

01:46:55.920 there that you need to engage with

01:46:59.100 that's what it means for something to

01:47:00.900 matter I really get out of the kick a

01:47:02.880 kick out of the word matter because it's

01:47:04.440 got these two weird meanings right there's

01:47:06.360 the matter that everything is made out of

01:47:08.100 that materialists think everything is

01:47:10.800 made out of and that's just dead matter

01:47:12.420 and then there's the matter that life is

01:47:14.340 made out of which is what matters and

01:47:16.980 now and then you're moving through life

01:47:18.540 and something matters it's calling to

01:47:20.580 you and that's the unrevealed world

01:47:22.680 trying to reveal itself to you and all

01:47:25.080 you have to do is allow it to reveal

01:47:27.540 itself to you and then maybe what

01:47:29.460 happens is that a minor shift in shape

01:47:33.000 is all that has to happen to you don't

01:47:34.980 have to burn right down to the bloody egg 0.77

01:47:37.320 and and hatch out you know as a newborn 0.86

01:47:40.200 maybe you can just repair a little bit of

01:47:42.840 something that's gone wrong with you and

01:47:44.340 so you can undergo a sequence of

01:47:46.140 continual micro deaths instead of

01:47:48.060 waiting for the bloody catastrophe that

01:47:50.460 might send you so far down that you'll

01:47:51.960 never recover and all you have to do is

01:47:54.180 attend to what matters and your whole

01:47:56.280 nervous system is it's doing this for

01:47:58.320 you you've got a goal something happens

01:48:01.020 it matters so what are you supposed to do

01:48:03.060 with that you're supposed to you're

01:48:04.560 supposed to fix it you're supposed to

01:48:06.060 engage with it that's why it's calling

01:48:08.400 out to you as if it matters it's saying

01:48:10.680 there's an indeterminate part of the

01:48:12.960 world here that wants to manifest itself

01:48:15.000 into fully articulated being and it's

01:48:17.880 calling to you to do that and if you

01:48:20.520 ignore it then it accumulates and it

01:48:22.800 accumulates it turns into the dragon of

01:48:24.960 chaos and then it waits until you're not

01:48:27.480 at your best and then it eats you and

01:48:30.180 and that's the alternative so that seems like a

01:48:33.000 bad plan unless you like being lunch meat

01:48:35.700 so so that's a long introduction to Noah

01:48:44.220 but you need it you know because you can't

01:48:55.740 understand the story otherwise and so

01:48:57.660 because that's what the story is about

01:49:00.900 and and now we can go through the story

01:49:03.300 relatively rapidly although it doesn't

01:49:05.100 look like we'll go through all of it

01:49:06.300 tonight

01:49:07.460 ok so we'll start with the next section of

01:49:10.140 Genesis and this is immediately after

01:49:12.780 Cain and Abel and there's a short story to

01:49:14.640 begin with just a fragment I called it

01:49:17.460 giants of the earth and it came to pass

01:49:21.000 when men began to multiply on the face of

01:49:23.160 the earth so this is after Cain and Abel

01:49:24.780 that and daughters were born unto them

01:49:27.600 that the sons of God saw the daughters

01:49:31.260 of men that they were fair and took them 0.95

01:49:33.180 wives of all which they chose and the

01:49:38.400 Lord said my spirit shall not always

01:49:40.560 strive with man for that he is also

01:49:42.720 flesh yet his days will be a hundred and

01:49:45.660 twenty years there were giants in the

01:49:49.200 earth in those days and also after that

01:49:51.000 when the sons of God came in unto the

01:49:53.100 daughters of men and they bear children 0.70

01:49:54.780 to them the same became mighty men

01:49:56.760 which were of old men of renown now

01:50:00.000 there's been all sorts of attempts to

01:50:01.380 interpret those few rather jumbled lines

01:50:04.080 but I see it as a reflection of a

01:50:08.580 classic development of hero mythology

01:50:10.800 which is that and this is sort of

01:50:12.480 nostalgia for the past one of the

01:50:14.220 things Marcia Eliade pointed out was

01:50:17.040 that what happens to human memory in

01:50:21.900 pre-literate cultures because nothing is

01:50:23.640 written down is that what needs to be

01:50:26.160 preserved gets amalgamated and so

01:50:28.560 imagine that you have a culture that's

01:50:30.060 based on fishing let's say so you have to

01:50:32.400 be a good fisherman you know and and our

01:50:35.220 human beings who use simple tools to fish

01:50:38.040 are unbelievably good fishermen they know

01:50:40.020 every bloody thing you can possibly

01:50:41.220 imagine about fish because otherwise they

01:50:43.500 die so it's really important that they

01:50:45.180 learn everything about fish and maybe

01:50:46.860 they've been fishing for like 13,000

01:50:48.840 years or something like that so there's a

01:50:50.580 lot of accumulated knowledge and so

01:50:52.620 then the question is well who taught

01:50:54.420 mankind how to fish and the answer is

01:50:57.960 fragments of individuals across history

01:51:01.020 but that's you know you're not going to 0.99

01:51:02.640 remember the damn fragments you put them 0.96

01:51:04.380 all together into the amalgam of the 0.99

01:51:06.960 heroic fisherman you know the guy who

01:51:08.820 established the pattern for proper

01:51:10.980 fishing whatever that pattern happens to

01:51:12.900 be one of the patterns might be don't take 0.99

01:51:14.820 all the damn fish because there won't be 0.97

01:51:16.680 any for the next year or something like 0.99

01:51:18.300 that but all those fragments of

01:51:20.280 discovery get amalgamated into heroes of

01:51:23.220 the past and then what you do if you're

01:51:25.620 a fisherman is you act out the heroic

01:51:27.540 fishermen of the past and so the idea

01:51:29.460 that there were men of renown or heroes in

01:51:32.000 the past is just a fragmentary what would

01:51:36.420 you call it's just a fragment of that

01:51:38.820 sequence of ideas that back in the past

01:51:41.040 there were mighty human beings who

01:51:44.040 established the proper patterns of being

01:51:47.160 and they were the sons of God who took 0.68

01:51:49.260 the daughters of men to life now and it's

01:51:53.340 interesting too because we do know that

01:51:55.260 the more competent men are

01:51:58.620 disproportionately likely to leave offspring

01:52:02.460 so it's a perfectly reasonable way of

01:52:05.700 formulating the circumstance

01:52:07.800 when a woman experiences an unplanned

01:52:11.880 pregnancy she often feels alone and

01:52:14.020 afraid too often her first response is to

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01:53:22.300 on to the flood this is from murcia

01:53:30.420 Eliade who who wrote a book called a

01:53:32.420 history of religious ideas which i would

01:53:33.920 strongly recommend it's a three-volume set

01:53:36.420 it's quite readable and it's brilliant

01:53:38.160 it's brilliant i i really like it and

01:53:41.560 this is what

01:53:42.560 mitchell Eliade's had to say about flood

01:53:45.540 myths as has been well known since the

01:53:47.800 compilations made by our Andre H usner and

01:53:50.760 JG Fraser who wrote the golden bow the

01:53:53.340 deluge myth the flood myth is almost

01:53:55.500 universally disseminated it is documented on

01:53:58.140 all the continents although very rarely

01:54:00.360 in Africa particularly in the desert

01:54:02.520 for unsurprisingly although and on

01:54:06.780 various cultural levels a certain number

01:54:08.700 of variants seem to be the result of

01:54:10.400 dissemination rather than spontaneous

01:54:12.900 regeneration let's say first from

01:54:14.880 Mesopotamia and then from India it is 0.97

01:54:17.280 equally possible that one or several

01:54:19.440 diluvial catastrophes gave rise to

01:54:21.720 fabulous narratives but would be risky to

01:54:23.880 explain so widespread a myth by

01:54:25.900 phenomena of which no geological traces

01:54:28.180 has been found well Eliade wrote this

01:54:30.580 quite a while ago i think he wrote that

01:54:32.020 book perhaps in the 80s maybe in the

01:54:34.000 70s but since then there actually has

01:54:35.860 been quite a bit of evidence advanced in

01:54:38.860 various circles for the existence of

01:54:40.960 catastrophic floods that occurred within

01:54:43.420 the relative memory of human relative

01:54:46.640 human civilization memory let's say so

01:54:48.700 the west coast Indians for example i

01:54:50.860 suppose that's the wrong word the west

01:54:52.900 coast i don't know what to say either i

01:54:55.900 know

01:54:56.900 a kwakwaka 0.96

01:54:59.020 carver who told me a flood story and

01:55:01.900 they have a story that's almost

01:55:03.580 identical to the story of noah except of

01:55:05.980 course it involves giant canoes but

01:55:07.720 it's it's the same story they release if i

01:55:11.400 remember correctly a raven but noah

01:55:13.740 releases a raven first and then a dove

01:55:15.740 once once the flood comes to an end and

01:55:17.560 and it has a tower of babel issue to the

01:55:20.360 same story so the canoes are all put

01:55:22.520 together it's not one giant canoe it's

01:55:23.900 a bunch of canoes all together they

01:55:25.400 write out the flood and then the canoes

01:55:27.860 separated and go all over the world and

01:55:29.840 that's why there are people all over the

01:55:31.280 world so anyways the story is very widely

01:55:33.620 disseminated but you know there were

01:55:35.900 floods in North America not that long

01:55:38.780 ago so there are floods you can look up

01:55:41.060 the Missoula floods 15,000 to 13,000

01:55:44.300 years ago and the kwakwaka people have 0.99

01:55:46.460 probably been on the west coast for

01:55:47.600 something like 13 to 14,000 years so and

01:55:50.660 you know you can you can maintain an

01:55:52.260 oral tradition for a very very long time

01:55:54.200 you think no but traditional societies

01:55:57.200 don't change that's why they're

01:55:58.760 traditional and so they have the same

01:56:00.140 stories over generations they remember

01:56:02.540 the same stories so when the Missoula

01:56:05.420 floods which were a consequence of

01:56:07.760 melting glacial ice discharged up to

01:56:11.360 they figure there were 55,000 55 of them

01:56:13.940 between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago

01:56:16.220 discharged volumes up to 15 times the

01:56:18.840 volume of the Amazon River so these are

01:56:20.660 major league floods and then Sears et al

01:56:24.440 published a paper in 2008 called

01:56:26.600 climate change and post glacial human

01:56:28.580 dispersers in Southeast Asia claiming

01:56:30.980 that there were multiple floods

01:56:32.280 particularly affecting Southeast Asia

01:56:34.580 between 15,000 and 7,000 years ago so

01:56:37.760 there might Iliad it might be a bit wrong

01:56:40.100 about the notion that there were no

01:56:41.900 geological traces of such such

01:56:44.500 catastrophic flooding but anyways it

01:56:46.360 doesn't matter because we're still

01:56:47.500 looking at this from a psychological

01:56:48.760 perspective and that's fine the

01:56:51.380 majority of the flood myths seem in

01:56:53.020 some sense to form part of the cosmic

01:56:54.940 rhythm the old world people by a 0.99

01:56:58.000 fallen humanity is submerged under the

01:57:01.180 waters and sometime later a new world

01:57:03.640 emerges from the aquatic chaos in large

01:57:06.260 number of variants the flood is the

01:57:07.900 result of the sins or ritual faults of

01:57:10.540 human beings sometimes it results simply

01:57:13.180 from the wish of a divine being to put

01:57:15.160 an end to mankind the chief causes lie

01:57:17.620 at once in the sins of men and the 0.57

01:57:19.660 decrepitude of the world it's a

01:57:22.000 brilliant analysis partly because it

01:57:25.180 puts it it it draws this lovely parallel

01:57:28.600 between which I mentioned a bit earlier

01:57:31.000 between the fact that things go wrong

01:57:32.980 all by themselves but that you can speed

01:57:36.040 that along by not paying any attention

01:57:37.660 you know so if you're in a

01:57:39.100 relationship you know relationship takes

01:57:41.200 an awful lot of maintenance and you

01:57:43.120 know what it means needs to be

01:57:44.440 maintained because you start

01:57:45.640 developing some distance from the

01:57:47.320 person that you have the

01:57:48.220 relationship with and then that

01:57:49.720 starts to become tinged with a little

01:57:51.700 bit of dislike and hopefully not

01:57:53.320 contempt but a little bit of dislike and

01:57:55.120 maybe some some some emotional distance

01:57:58.300 and you feel that and you think well

01:58:00.400 it's hard to tell what you think but you

01:58:02.680 feel that anyways you know that that's

01:58:04.360 emerged and so then you have a chance at

01:58:06.800 at that point to repair whatever's gone

01:58:11.440 wrong and that would require some

01:58:13.460 retooling on both of your parts maybe

01:58:15.440 one more one person more than the other

01:58:17.340 but whatever we would require a serious

01:58:19.080 discussion like look I've noticed that

01:58:21.680 this has been happening and maybe it's

01:58:24.700 you and maybe it's me and we should

01:58:26.180 probably figure it out because if it was

01:58:27.840 you that'd be convenient and everything

01:58:29.520 but if it was me then I'd like to fix it

01:58:31.780 because then it would be fixed and so

01:58:33.860 that's why you listen to your partner

01:58:35.280 because they might tell you that 1.00

01:58:36.540 there's something stupid about you 1.00

01:58:37.760 that you don't know and then if you 1.00

01:58:39.440 could fix that then you wouldn't have 1.00

01:58:40.580 to be stupid in that way anymore and 0.98

01:58:42.440 it's actually one of the real useful 0.99

01:58:44.140 it's one of the genuinely useful

01:58:46.860 features of having a partner because 1.00

01:58:48.500 do you really want to be stupid and 1.00

01:58:50.080 then continue to repeat your mistakes 1.00

01:58:51.700 ad nauseum for the rest of your life I

01:58:54.000 know it's more convenient to do that

01:58:55.460 than to have a you know knock down

01:58:57.580 drag them out argument about just 1.00

01:58:59.200 exactly why you're stupid and how you 1.00

01:59:01.640 could fix it but still it's better to 1.00

01:59:04.040 have the argument so that chief causes

01:59:08.520 lie at once in the sins of men and the 0.99

01:59:10.420 decrepitude of the world and the sins

01:59:11.960 there are generally either acts of

01:59:15.180 commission where people do things that

01:59:17.780 they know to be wrong or they fail to do

01:59:20.700 things that they know would be right

01:59:22.240 doesn't really matter sins of commission

01:59:24.820 are usually judged more harshly say

01:59:26.960 within the judeo-christian tradition

01:59:28.740 but I think there might be a bit of an

01:59:30.340 error in that because sins of omission

01:59:31.980 can be a real catastrophe and so here's

01:59:34.560 a flood idea you tell me what you

01:59:36.260 think about this so you know so there's

01:59:38.260 this idea that a judgmental being will

01:59:40.620 flood you out if you continue on your

01:59:42.880 wayward ways and that seems like a

01:59:45.160 little bit of you know it's one of the

01:59:46.720 examples of of jehovah being a little

01:59:48.960 on the harsh side in the old testament

01:59:50.820 not something that modern people really

01:59:53.080 approve of so much because we like our

01:59:55.600 gods sort of domesticated let's put it

01:59:58.480 that way and unfortunately that isn't

02:00:01.640 how it tends to work but I've often

02:00:03.280 thought about the reaction in North

02:00:05.860 America to the hurricane in in New

02:00:12.820 Orleans because there's two ways of

02:00:15.060 reading that right one is mother nature

02:00:17.260 has a little fit and sends a hurricane

02:00:21.040 into New Orleans and wipes everyone out

02:00:23.600 and isn't that a catastrophe and isn't

02:00:25.820 that an example of isn't that example

02:00:29.420 of our fragility in the force in the

02:00:31.760 face of of natural power but there's

02:00:36.260 another way of reading it maybe this is

02:00:37.680 unfair but it'll do for the purpose of

02:00:39.440 illustration it's like you know the

02:00:41.180 Dutch build dykes right to keep the 1.00

02:00:42.860 ocean back and they're actually pretty

02:00:44.760 effective at that because their country is

02:00:46.760 mostly underwater and it turns out that if

02:00:48.920 you go to Holland it's actually not

02:00:50.180 underwater and so their dykes are 1.00

02:00:52.940 working and so that the Dutch were very 1.00

02:00:55.100 organized people and they better be

02:00:57.260 because their country is supposed to be

02:00:58.700 underwater right so you better be

02:01:00.140 organized if your country is supposed to

02:01:01.820 be underwater and so they are very

02:01:03.980 organized and they have a rule for their

02:01:05.600 dykes which is they try to estimate the 1.00

02:01:08.300 worst possible oceanic storm that will

02:01:11.180 come in 10,000 years and make sure that

02:01:14.840 the dykes will withstand that well from my 1.00

02:01:19.400 reading the Army Corps of Engineers in New

02:01:22.280 Orleans built the dykes for a storm every 1.00

02:01:24.620 hundred years and that's not so good

02:01:27.440 because we live about 80 years let's say so

02:01:31.520 that means the probability that one of

02:01:33.140 those storms is going to come whipping by in a

02:01:35.240 lifespan is pretty damn high and then so

02:01:38.100 that perhaps wasn't the wisest of

02:01:41.400 planning especially because some of New

02:01:43.200 Orleans is actually supposed to be

02:01:44.840 underwater and then worse you know

02:01:46.980 Mississippi is a state that's quite well

02:01:48.900 known for its corruption and so you

02:01:50.940 might also say that tremendous amount of

02:01:52.980 the money and time and resources that

02:01:55.020 could have and should have and was

02:01:56.760 planned to go towards fixing the problem

02:02:00.360 didn't and so the hurricane came along and

02:02:03.780 oh my god wasn't it a natural disaster and

02:02:06.360 the question is what bloody well makes you

02:02:09.660 so sure that it was a natural disaster

02:02:11.360 right because if the infrastructure would

02:02:14.640 have been maintained and built to the

02:02:16.740 specifications that were certainly

02:02:18.420 technically possible and would have

02:02:20.220 actually been less expensive in the long

02:02:22.320 run to build and everyone knew it and

02:02:25.020 the hurricane came along and wiped out the

02:02:27.300 city why do you think that's a natural

02:02:28.560 disaster to me that's an that's a natural

02:02:32.640 example if you think about it from a

02:02:35.940 metaphorical perspective of a judgmental God

02:02:38.640 deciding to use a flood to teach a moral

02:02:44.220 lesson and you might say well that's

02:02:46.380 pretty harsh what about all those flood

02:02:48.000 survivors it's like yeah well the whole

02:02:50.220 flood thing was kind of harsh and so

02:02:52.500 pointing out that there were steps that

02:02:54.060 could have been taken and and also that I

02:02:57.360 doubt in the aftermath have been taken

02:03:00.000 even though everyone knows now exactly what

02:03:02.640 what had happened is you might consider

02:03:07.440 the diagnosis but it's irrelevant

02:03:08.940 because what I'm what I'm really trying

02:03:10.800 to tell you is how the mythological

02:03:12.720 stories would line up on this because

02:03:14.460 you can tell a story about mother

02:03:15.960 nature manifesting her catastrophe and

02:03:20.220 potential for tragedy or you can tell

02:03:22.380 another story of an absolute failure of the

02:03:24.660 human social structure and the human

02:03:28.740 individual level because of the

02:03:31.140 corruption to address a problem that

02:03:33.300 everyone knew was there and so that's a

02:03:36.480 good example of how things how the flood

02:03:39.780 comes when you're not behaving properly

02:03:41.700 you know and one of the things that's

02:03:43.680 quite interesting about the Old

02:03:44.820 Testament and the people who wrote it is

02:03:46.500 that they always assume that if the

02:03:48.600 flood comes that meant you weren't

02:03:50.040 prepared if that's the rule right that

02:03:52.740 that's it's like the a priori axiom I

02:03:55.080 think you got flooded out hey you weren't

02:03:57.240 prepared enough how can you tell what you

02:03:59.680 got flooded out right that's the

02:04:01.780 evidence and you might say well that's

02:04:03.100 not very fair it's like fair isn't the

02:04:05.620 point the point is do you want to get

02:04:07.840 flooded out again or not because fair

02:04:10.660 would be well you better figure out why

02:04:12.160 you got flooded out and fix it so it

02:04:14.380 doesn't happen again and that's the

02:04:16.060 moral thing to do when you're thinking

02:04:18.340 about morality as walking the path it's

02:04:21.460 most appropriate to get to the

02:04:22.840 destination that you think would be the

02:04:24.820 best possible destination by the mere

02:04:29.680 fact that it exists that is it lives

02:04:33.400 and produces the cosmos gradually

02:04:35.140 deteriorates and ends by falling into

02:04:37.000 decay that is the reason why it has to

02:04:39.820 be recreated in other words the flood

02:04:41.860 realizes on the macrocosmic scale what

02:04:44.300 is symbolically affected during the new

02:04:46.180 year festival the end of the world and

02:04:48.520 the end of a sinful humanity in order to

02:04:50.900 make a new creation possible well that's

02:04:53.720 interesting there's a lot of

02:04:54.860 information packed into those few lines

02:04:56.840 the deliata wrote because he also at

02:04:59.780 the in the in the Mesopotamian rituals

02:05:03.800 the Mesopotamians would act out the 0.97

02:05:10.340 collapse of the kingdom into chaos

02:05:12.260 essentially at the New Year's

02:05:13.880 festival it's kind of what you do when

02:05:15.860 you make resolutions because like it's a

02:05:19.160 degenerate what you'd say is our

02:05:20.780 proclivity to make New Year's

02:05:21.920 resolution sort of a degenerate

02:05:23.580 ritual and I don't mean that it's bad I

02:05:25.560 mean that it's the remnants of

02:05:28.200 something much grander so the idea was

02:05:31.380 well the Mesopotamians would take their 1.00

02:05:33.720 emperor outside the city the walled city

02:05:35.640 and once a year and they would make him

02:05:38.520 kneel and they take off all his king

02:05:40.620 clothes and then they'd whack him with a

02:05:42.540 glove if I remember correctly the

02:05:44.040 priest would do that and then they'd

02:05:45.180 make him recount all the ways that he

02:05:46.980 wasn't being a good emperor that year he

02:05:49.620 wasn't being a good Marduk because that 0.98

02:05:51.480 was who he was supposed to be on earth

02:05:53.040 and that's the guy with eyes all the way

02:05:54.480 around his head speaks magic words and

02:05:56.660 transforms chaos into order that's what

02:05:59.160 the emperor is supposed to do and so the

02:06:01.140 question would be okay your emperor it's

02:06:03.100 like have a little humility here because

02:06:05.820 you're not God incarnate you probably made

02:06:07.980 some mistakes can you think of any ways in

02:06:10.100 the last year that you didn't take

02:06:11.960 every advantage of every opportunity you

02:06:14.720 possibly could have to take some spare

02:06:17.120 chaos and transform it into a bit of

02:06:19.100 habitable order that's a good thing to

02:06:21.140 think about well that's what you're

02:06:22.160 thinking about when you make a new

02:06:23.480 year's resolution even though you don't

02:06:24.860 know it it's like well could you be a

02:06:26.900 better person in the upcoming year well

02:06:30.260 you can imagine the flood and then you

02:06:39.860 can set yourself straight and then you

02:06:43.100 can prepare for it and that means maybe

02:06:45.140 you can stave it off but it also means

02:06:47.480 that maybe even if you don't stave it off

02:06:49.400 you could ride it out and that's

02:06:52.040 actually the story of Noah because what

02:06:54.440 happens with Noah is that he can see

02:06:56.780 that things are not good and that

02:07:00.140 there's a flood coming and God is maybe

02:07:03.380 letting him know and it says in the

02:07:05.540 story that Noah walked with God

02:07:07.040 remember that's what Adam did before he

02:07:08.720 got all self-conscious about the whole

02:07:10.220 thing he walked with God we'll talk

02:07:11.900 about that more next time but what that

02:07:13.700 would mean maybe is because Noah was

02:07:15.860 straight and he put himself together and

02:07:18.860 his familial relationships were good

02:07:20.900 because it also says that that his

02:07:22.740 antenna were working and he could see a

02:07:25.700 little farther into the future than

02:07:27.380 someone whose vision was completely

02:07:28.940 obscured by by fog and chaos and he

02:07:32.240 could tell that things were not going to

02:07:35.840 go well and so he prepared for it and

02:07:39.380 because he prepared for it well then

02:07:42.680 things actually went pretty well for

02:07:44.060 Noah even though the flood came and so

02:07:46.680 that's an interesting thing because

02:07:48.020 that's an that's an indeterminate issue

02:07:51.260 in human existence how big a hurricane

02:07:54.500 would it take to wipe out New Orleans if

02:07:56.180 everyone was prepared well that you're

02:07:59.000 not going to wipe out the Dutch I mean

02:08:00.440 that's going to be a tough one man you're 0.98

02:08:01.940 going to have to conjure up a pretty damn

02:08:03.440 big storm to take out their dykes well 1.00

02:08:06.560 how thoroughly defended could New Orleans

02:08:10.040 be if nobody in the municipal municipal and

02:08:14.000 state governments was corrupt well end of the

02:08:18.140 hurricane problem because that's something

02:08:19.580 that we could clearly deal with we know how to do it and

02:08:21.740 and the same applies in your own life is

02:08:24.020 that there are floods coming you can

02:08:26.240 bloody well be sure of that that's

02:08:27.740 absolutely 100% certain some of them are

02:08:30.920 going to be personal some of them are

02:08:32.300 going to be familial some of they're

02:08:33.980 going to be social and political and

02:08:35.480 economic it's like are they going to be

02:08:38.360 catastrophes for you are you going to ride

02:08:40.940 them out are you going to prepare well the

02:08:43.460 first issue might be well do you have your

02:08:45.080 act together well enough to see them

02:08:46.640 coming with enough advance warning so that

02:08:49.640 you can take proper measures maybe just

02:08:51.540 to sidestep it maybe just don't go where

02:08:53.840 the flood is going to be that's a simple

02:08:55.640 thing but maybe you don't have that

02:08:57.380 luxury right and so it is going to be a

02:09:00.440 catastrophe maybe someone in your family is

02:09:02.900 going to get really really sick right and

02:09:05.960 maybe maybe there's just a tiny pathway

02:09:09.020 through that that everything doesn't fall

02:09:11.240 apart it doesn't end in divorce it doesn't

02:09:13.940 end in death it doesn't end in sorrow it

02:09:16.040 doesn't end in catastrophe but the margin of

02:09:18.140 error is like slim down to virtually zero

02:09:20.540 and every imperfection that you bring to

02:09:23.480 that situation is going to increase the

02:09:25.100 probability that that tragedy is going

02:09:27.080 to turn into something indistinguishable

02:09:28.640 from hell and that's coming it's coming

02:09:31.700 your way absolutely certainly and so then

02:09:35.240 you might think well since it's coming

02:09:36.740 your way maybe the best thing to do is to

02:09:38.840 put yourself together so that when it

02:09:41.000 comes it can be the least amount of awful

02:09:43.460 possible so I'll close with the story

02:09:46.040 this was a very affecting story for me my

02:09:51.380 mother-in-law had frontotemporal 1.00

02:09:54.980 dementia she developed it quite young she's

02:09:57.980 about 55 something like that and her

02:10:01.100 husband who was very extroverted man

02:10:03.440 about town guy I grew up in a small town

02:10:06.200 everybody knew him he was charismatic drank

02:10:09.980 too much charismatic good businessman quite a

02:10:14.980 remarkable person a real character but not

02:10:18.320 exactly a family man even though he he he

02:10:21.320 provided for his family very well but

02:10:24.380 when his wife got sick he really took care of

02:10:26.620 her man it was something to see because

02:10:29.240 that's no joke dealing with someone who has

02:10:31.520 Alzheimer's for all intents and purposes

02:10:33.920 because they get taken away from you piece

02:10:36.260 by piece and that is not pretty and then

02:10:38.840 it's also hard right not only is it

02:10:41.880 catastrophic but it's hard and Jesus he 1.00

02:10:44.420 just stepped into that like perfectly and

02:10:47.660 it was way less awful than it could have been

02:10:51.980 way less it was just a tragedy it wasn't

02:10:55.760 hell and then I was there when she died

02:10:59.900 and my wife's family are actually pretty

02:11:04.720 good at dealing with death as it turns

02:11:06.460 out my wife's sister is a palliative care

02:11:09.440 nurse and you have to be pretty tough

02:11:11.100 cookie to be a palliative care nurse but

02:11:12.880 you can do it which is pretty interesting

02:11:14.560 because that means that you can go make

02:11:16.480 relationships with people at the last

02:11:18.780 stages of their life that are genuine

02:11:20.320 relationships and people just die on you

02:11:22.800 non-stop and yet you know she's a

02:11:26.940 competent alive alert fun person it's

02:11:33.660 like two thumbs up for her man that's

02:11:36.280 someone you can rely on in a tragedy and

02:11:38.560 her other sister is a pharmacist and my

02:11:42.320 wife has volunteered in palliative care 0.97

02:11:44.980 awards and is also very good at taking

02:11:46.580 care of people who are genuinely not in

02:11:49.480 good health and so we were there when

02:11:52.780 my mother-in-law died and of course you

02:11:57.220 can imagine here's a here's a deathbed

02:11:59.820 situation for you your mother-in-law is 0.99

02:12:02.800 dying and everyone's at each other's 0.51

02:12:04.600 throats it's like you think that's

02:12:06.140 uncommon then your eyes aren't open

02:12:08.080 because it's plenty bloody common and

02:12:10.220 then it's not just a tragedy it's hell and

02:12:12.960 like maybe you can stand the tragedy but

02:12:14.920 you can't stand the hell and in this

02:12:17.680 situation that isn't what happened is

02:12:19.640 everybody pulled together and what

02:12:21.560 happened was well she died but what was

02:12:25.040 so interesting was the family actually

02:12:26.680 came together more tightly as a

02:12:29.060 consequence and so although there was

02:12:31.100 something taken away on the one hand

02:12:32.660 there was something gained on the other

02:12:34.580 that wasn't trivial and I'm not trying to

02:12:36.500 be all optimistic and you know isn't the

02:12:39.380 universe a wonderful place about all this

02:12:41.120 like someone died and in an ugly way and

02:12:44.120 it was harsh but God it was a hell of a

02:12:47.840 lot better than it could have been and

02:12:49.160 maybe it was good enough that's the

02:12:50.780 thing you know is that this is something

02:12:52.520 that I constantly wonder is that if

02:12:54.500 people did what they could to speak the

02:12:59.300 truth and pay attention then maybe the

02:13:03.260 tragedy that's part of life wouldn't have

02:13:05.720 to deteriorate into the unbearable hell

02:13:08.660 that doesn't have to be part of life

02:13:10.880 and maybe we could actually tolerate the

02:13:13.160 tragedy or maybe we could even rise

02:13:14.600 above it or maybe we could even

02:13:15.680 mitigate it you know because we can we

02:13:18.080 do that sort of thing all the time and

02:13:19.700 so it's always an open question and

02:13:22.700 Eliade put it very well are the floods

02:13:26.780 the consequence of the fact that things

02:13:28.700 fall apart or are the floods a

02:13:30.920 consequence of the fact that people make

02:13:35.300 mistakes that they know they shouldn't make

02:13:37.580 and make anyways they sin right and

02:13:40.460 that's to miss the mark right because

02:13:42.080 that's an archery term to sin and that 1.00

02:13:43.760 means maybe they don't even specify the 0.97

02:13:45.680 damn target which is really you're not 0.94

02:13:48.320 going to hit it unless you specify it or 0.99

02:13:50.060 having specified it they just say oh to

02:13:54.380 hell with it it's not that important

02:13:56.480 it's like you got to be careful when you

02:13:58.340 say something like to hell with it it's 0.72

02:14:00.500 not that important because one of the

02:14:02.300 things that might happen to you if you

02:14:04.160 say to hell with it it's not that

02:14:06.260 important is that you might actually end 0.94

02:14:08.120 up in hell for a pretty prolonged

02:14:10.460 period of time or maybe for the 1.00

02:14:12.440 remainder of your miserable existence

02:14:15.560 because it's certainly the case that 0.87

02:14:17.060 people do exist there and I've seen them

02:14:19.460 exist there and once you're there it's

02:14:21.640 no trick it's no simple matter to get

02:14:23.760 the hell out and so it might matter that

02:14:26.900 the things that matter get addressed it

02:14:29.660 might matter that you do what you can to

02:14:31.700 walk with God like I said we'll talk

02:14:34.140 more about that next time and it might

02:14:36.480 be that that is how you build an ark and

02:14:39.600 are protected from the flood even if the 0.98

02:14:41.760 damn thing comes and the thing is it 0.97

02:14:45.120 will and this is a funny thing too that 1.00

02:14:47.640 I've noticed about our education system

02:14:50.480 and the way we teach students and their

02:14:53.340 trigger warnings and all of that absolute

02:14:55.900 rubbish thinking most of my lectures I'd

02:14:58.500 have to have a trigger warning every 15 0.94

02:15:00.360 seconds so as I tell my students when

02:15:04.860 they're young it's like look don't fool

02:15:06.540 yourself you know you're going to develop

02:15:10.260 a serious illness at least one maybe two

02:15:13.560 or three and one of them is likely to be

02:15:15.540 chronic and if it isn't you it's going to 1.00

02:15:17.580 be someone you love it's going to be your

02:15:19.120 husband it's going to be your parent it's

02:15:20.760 going to be your kids that's coming and

02:15:23.220 so is a lot of death and and pain and so

02:15:26.700 like just exactly what sort of person

02:15:29.520 are you going to be when that shows up

02:15:30.900 and that's the right question it isn't

02:15:33.660 how are you going to be happy in your

02:15:35.760 life it's like good luck with that it's 1.00

02:15:37.980 a stupid ambition anyways as far as I'm 1.00

02:15:39.840 concerned because it's too shallow you 1.00

02:15:41.940 know happiness you're lucky that comes

02:15:43.620 it comes and goes like the Sun coming

02:15:45.840 out from behind the cloud if you're happy

02:15:47.880 man more power to you enjoy it enjoy it

02:15:51.240 it's a it's a gift from the cosmos to be

02:15:53.700 happy but a pursuit no no the pursuit is 0.99

02:15:57.480 when the damn flood comes you want to be 0.97

02:16:01.200 the person who built ark and that's what 0.99

02:16:04.020 the story of Noah is about and the thing

02:16:06.240 is the flood is always coming that's

02:16:08.580 another thing that's worth commenting on

02:16:10.740 with regards to this story is you know

02:16:12.900 there's an apocalyptic element to the

02:16:15.120 Judeo-Christian tradition there's an

02:16:19.020 idea that the end of the world is

02:16:22.020 always at hand and that you should

02:16:24.360 prepare to be judged and the thing

02:16:26.700 about that is it's true and the reason

02:16:28.800 it's true is because the end of your

02:16:31.680 world is at hand and it will certainly

02:16:34.800 come and when it comes you will be judged

02:16:38.400 because it will be up to you to figure

02:16:40.860 out what to do with the fact that your

02:16:42.300 world just collapsed and that'll be a

02:16:44.400 moral problem of ultimate severity

02:16:47.520 because it'll push you right to your

02:16:49.260 limits and you'll find out exactly where

02:16:51.600 your unaddressed weaknesses lie because

02:16:55.020 that's what happens in a crisis and so

02:16:57.780 the reason that that's an archetypal

02:16:59.220 reality and it lurks underneath the

02:17:01.200 entire Judeo-Christian structure the

02:17:03.220 apocalypse the impending apocalypse is

02:17:05.140 because we always live in apocalyptic

02:17:07.680 times and your world is always in small

02:17:10.800 ways and large ways coming to an end and

02:17:13.680 so what do you do you prepare for it you

02:17:16.600 prepare for your world to come to an end

02:17:19.880 and then maybe when the end comes you

02:17:22.100 get another world that'd be a good deal

02:17:24.280 so we're ready for this next week

02:17:30.440 my question was regarding the online

02:17:44.720 university you plan to create and the

02:17:46.760 plans you have for that man we spoke

02:17:48.780 briefly last week and I want to ask you

02:17:50.060 how can a student such as myself get

02:17:51.620 involved with this process yeah well an

02:17:58.120 online university that's a great perhaps a

02:18:01.300 grandiose ambition right but one of the

02:18:04.420 things that so here's my here's my

02:18:06.880 rationale you know lots of things have

02:18:10.780 dramatically transformed in the last 20

02:18:13.540 years and whole swaths of enterprise has

02:18:18.400 been wiped out and that's happening at a

02:18:20.020 more and more rapid rate as our

02:18:21.760 technology progresses right now

02:18:23.800 newspapers are in the process of dying

02:18:25.720 actually think they're in the process of

02:18:27.580 committing suicide but they're in the

02:18:29.920 process of dying and that's going to

02:18:33.400 happen very rapidly I think the globe and

02:18:35.020 mail lost 10% of its readership in the

02:18:36.940 last three months something like that and

02:18:38.800 so what happens is that new technologies

02:18:44.020 come along to supplant the old

02:18:45.340 technologies and I've watched a number of

02:18:47.860 businesses fail some large businesses I

02:18:50.320 knew some people who worked at digital

02:18:52.900 equipment corporation when it was failing

02:18:54.640 and I've had some inside track into

02:18:56.500 failing businesses and I see when they

02:18:58.780 start to fail they tend to the failure

02:19:00.700 process tends to tip and then accelerate

02:19:02.740 can happen unbelievably quickly and this is

02:19:05.140 what it looks to me this is how it looks to

02:19:07.780 me in relationship to the universities

02:19:09.520 especially in the US although not only

02:19:12.460 especially in the humanities although not

02:19:15.040 only so number one so I've recorded three

02:19:25.120 years of my personality lecture say so

02:19:27.700 let's have three years of lectures on

02:19:29.860 Freud now what I should do with those I 0.92

02:19:33.520 think is edit them into one really good

02:19:36.100 lecture on Freud and then stop giving

02:19:38.260 that lecture because why would I give

02:19:39.640 that lecture again because I've already

02:19:40.960 given it and it's edited and it's in good

02:19:42.600 shape and if it's a really good lecture

02:19:44.680 then why does someone else have to give

02:19:46.300 the lecture why does 300 other people

02:19:48.160 have to give a lecture on Freud you

02:19:50.080 know what I mean what's going to happen

02:19:51.460 is there's going to be some really good

02:19:52.840 lectures on subjects and that's all that

02:19:55.840 people are going to need or want because

02:19:58.360 the internet tends to move things towards

02:20:00.760 winner-take-all very very rapidly and so

02:20:03.940 it seems to me that we're already at a

02:20:06.640 point technologically where we could

02:20:08.260 identify a hundred things that people

02:20:11.440 really need to know and do a sequence of

02:20:14.260 lectures on those things that were

02:20:15.700 outstanding and then they could be

02:20:18.280 updated and added to but then it's

02:20:20.080 like it's a done game and it's free so I

02:20:23.680 know I started thinking about this last

02:20:25.240 year when I noticed that my psychology

02:20:27.700 lectures had a million views and that was

02:20:29.680 last April and I thought that's amazing a

02:20:31.660 million views it's like what the hell

02:20:33.280 that's I don't know what to make of that

02:20:35.200 that's that's a best that's the kind of

02:20:37.500 best-selling book that you never write

02:20:39.040 because no one ever writes a best-selling

02:20:40.880 book so a million views that's something

02:20:43.400 to pay attention to and now it's way

02:20:44.720 more than that but there's videos and

02:20:47.600 podcasts and that means that people can

02:20:49.220 listen when they're doing other things

02:20:50.360 too and so that's really cool and maybe

02:20:52.340 people can listen better than they can

02:20:53.960 read that's a real possibility because

02:20:56.240 we've only been reading silently for

02:20:57.880 about well most of like most of humanity

02:21:00.920 for less than a hundred years and

02:21:02.360 virtually no one could read silently 500

02:21:05.120 years ago it's a really new skill and so

02:21:07.400 maybe we're better at listening and so all of a

02:21:10.160 sudden there's the possibility of

02:21:11.900 disseminating high-quality educational

02:21:14.120 material highly produced highly vetted

02:21:17.960 to millions of people for nothing

02:21:21.800 well how are you going to compete with

02:21:24.080 that then then it's worse because the

02:21:28.140 humanities which have become completely

02:21:30.560 degenerated almost completely degenerate

02:21:32.840 in my estimation have abandoned their

02:21:35.240 valuable intellectual property which is

02:21:37.700 the collective wisdom at least for the

02:21:39.740 West of Western civilization it's just

02:21:42.020 sitting there someone might as well

02:21:43.700 steal it back and then there's the

02:21:47.180 student loan debacle in the United

02:21:48.860 States that's pronounced properly debacle

02:21:51.560 debacle okay obviously I've read that

02:21:55.820 word more than said it and so you know

02:21:58.580 and so you know I had a guy write me today

02:22:01.160 and he asked if he should go to a private

02:22:02.900 college for twenty two thousand dollars a

02:22:04.640 year to Purdue produce to pursue an

02:22:06.740 undergraduate in psychology so that he

02:22:09.680 could get into clinical graduate school

02:22:11.240 or go to another university the state

02:22:13.520 university for far less I told him to go to 1.00

02:22:15.620 the state university because it's the

02:22:17.300 wise economic decision but you know it

02:22:19.400 doesn't seem to me that it's reasonable at

02:22:21.080 all to load people up when they're 22 with a

02:22:23.180 hundred thousand dollars in student debt

02:22:24.680 that they cannot declare bankruptcy for it's

02:22:28.220 indentured servitude and the and to load up

02:22:31.560 people when they're 22 or 23 with debt of

02:22:34.140 that magnitude it's like how the hell

02:22:36.260 are they going to be entrepreneurs

02:22:37.380 how are you going to take a risk with a

02:22:38.940 hundred thousand dollar debt load and

02:22:40.640 who's going to marry you well really

02:22:43.160 Jesus you know because another story I

02:22:45.260 heard recently was well I just got

02:22:47.100 married to my partner she brought into

02:22:49.140 the marriage a hundred and twenty

02:22:50.060 thousand dollars in student debt it's

02:22:51.620 like oh my god it's like that's

02:22:53.640 crippling man like once you're once 1.00

02:22:56.180 you're making a substantial amount of

02:22:58.420 money if you're fortunate maybe you're in

02:23:00.020 your 40s you could handle a debt load

02:23:01.700 like that but in your 20s it's just

02:23:03.340 crippling so you know the tuition fees 1.00

02:23:07.180 have ratcheted up like mad in the last

02:23:09.940 30 years the colleges and universities

02:23:12.000 have become unbelievably

02:23:13.220 administratively top-heavy they're

02:23:15.600 regulated to death by the by the

02:23:18.020 legislative system so there's ethics

02:23:19.920 committees which are so

02:23:21.020 counterproductive that it's just

02:23:22.360 unbelievable there's this entire whole

02:23:24.720 new monstrous hyper accommodation

02:23:27.600 movement that that's that borders on I

02:23:30.920 don't need all I'll make a video about

02:23:32.760 that soon enough that's absolutely

02:23:34.260 pathological and there's this whole 1.00

02:23:36.240 post-modern neo-marxist idiocy that's 0.99

02:23:38.760 going on in the universities and so like 0.99

02:23:40.720 well how many mistakes does an

02:23:42.240 institute plus students aren't being

02:23:44.700 taught how to speak they're not being

02:23:46.380 taught how to debate they're not being

02:23:48.180 taught how to write and they don't read

02:23:50.220 difficult things they read French

02:23:52.560 intellectual post-modernists right and

02:23:54.960 they probably don't read those either

02:23:56.220 they read secondarily derived pit they

02:23:59.280 skim secondarily derived papers about

02:24:02.700 French intellectual post-marxist for

02:24:05.460 post-modernists from the 1970s and the

02:24:08.400 standards have been lowered because

02:24:09.900 there's too many people pursuing higher

02:24:11.580 education and so I think okay there's

02:24:15.720 eight dimensions of success and on every

02:24:19.800 single dimension there's failure the

02:24:22.280 systems done the and so the vision

02:24:25.460 would be why not provide everybody in

02:24:28.100 the world with high quality education in

02:24:30.620 the humanities for like 150th the cost

02:24:33.860 you can charge for accreditation that's a

02:24:36.920 whole separate issue right accreditation

02:24:38.720 but the but the resources it's like why

02:24:41.600 not make them available to everyone so

02:24:44.420 that's the plan I mean I don't know if I

02:24:46.280 can do it or not but it's partly what I'm

02:24:48.320 doing with this biblical lecture series

02:24:49.880 it's sort of putting my toe in the water

02:24:51.800 but I have a plan and I have some good

02:24:55.400 programmers who are willing to help and

02:24:56.840 there's lots of people out there that

02:24:58.100 would help God I'm being flooded with

02:24:59.660 offers of help I'd love to take people

02:25:02.180 up on the offers but it's not that easy

02:25:04.040 to get someone to help you do something

02:25:05.660 you know what it so that'd be the plan

02:25:09.380 it's like so what would the plan be give

02:25:11.660 people a high-quality education in the

02:25:13.620 classic humanities teach them how to speak

02:25:15.560 and write a credit them for one-tenth the

02:25:18.980 current cost and do it with millions of

02:25:21.320 people instead of tens of thousands I'm

02:25:24.500 asking what plans do you have for the

02:25:25.700 accreditation side where people can show

02:25:27.500 something for what the time they spend

02:25:28.940 watching well one of the things that I

02:25:30.320 would do for example is imagine that you

02:25:32.540 were in a course and so you have taken

02:25:35.960 exam let's say it's a multiple choice

02:25:37.520 exam just for the sake of argument

02:25:39.560 because they're simpler the writing issue

02:25:41.900 is a separate problem well so one of the

02:25:46.160 things that you would do if you enrolled

02:25:47.780 in the course is generate multiple

02:25:49.400 choice questions that'd be one of your

02:25:50.780 assignments here's a lecture generate

02:25:53.060 ten multiple choice questions now you

02:25:54.980 got a thousand people generating ten

02:25:56.580 multiple choice questions well then you

02:25:58.500 can do their statistical procedures that

02:26:00.620 help you figure out what valid multiple

02:26:03.560 choice questions are you could have

02:26:06.140 people vote on them for that matter if

02:26:07.760 you put them on a website assignment

02:26:09.320 number two here's a hundred multiple

02:26:10.940 choice questions pick the ten that you

02:26:12.920 think are most representative of the

02:26:15.800 knowledge that you've acquired get a

02:26:17.540 hundred people to do that so you get

02:26:19.100 crowdsource the test construction and

02:26:21.440 then you could keep making the test

02:26:22.760 better and better as well because you

02:26:24.380 could build that I'd like to build the

02:26:25.640 system so that it was self-improving with a

02:26:27.980 minimum of administrative interference and

02:26:30.500 so then what would happen is that as you

02:26:33.980 got accredited so you start writing exams

02:26:36.320 and maybe you write more and more of them

02:26:37.880 then you'd start to buy voting power with

02:26:40.100 regards to the content of the courses and

02:26:42.080 maybe even the right to produce courses

02:26:43.820 to put them up online so it's something

02:26:46.400 like that but our strategy would be to

02:26:48.440 build we want to build a system that's

02:26:50.720 basically autonomous and self-improving

02:26:53.120 right from the beginning so minimum of

02:26:56.240 administrative overhead extremely low

02:26:58.400 cost widespread availability crowdsourced in

02:27:02.960 its structure and autonomously self-improving I think we can do that I don't know if I can do it

02:27:09.140 but I think we have the technology to do

02:27:13.040 that and then you think well so here's the

02:27:15.980 plan you know because you're I'm always

02:27:17.360 thinking of the point point B what what's a

02:27:19.460 good thing to do with life well the good

02:27:21.320 good thing to do with your life is the 0.99

02:27:22.540 most difficult goddamn thing you can think 0.98

02:27:24.620 of that would do the most possible good 0.99

02:27:26.600 that'll get you up in the morning and so

02:27:29.180 because you think why should I get up in

02:27:31.040 the morning it's like well you know I've got

02:27:33.320 50 million people to educate hey that'll do it

02:27:36.220 really you know that that's that'll that'll

02:27:40.160 overcome a lot of angst that sort of

02:27:42.140 thinking so well so it seems to me that it

02:27:47.300 seems to me that it's inevitable now

02:27:49.820 whether or not I can do it that's a whole

02:27:53.180 different story but I can certainly start it

02:27:55.640 and I'm going to start it my partner my

02:27:57.740 business partner the guy who helped me

02:27:59.120 develop the self-authoring program which

02:28:02.220 thousands of people are using that now

02:28:04.220 and we've helped thousands tens of

02:28:06.580 thousands of students now stay in

02:28:08.120 universities so that's really cool well

02:28:10.260 maybe not given the state of universities

02:28:12.020 I'm contributing to the problem but you

02:28:16.160 know but they're but they're sticking out

02:28:18.900 their plans that's the point they're

02:28:20.400 actually making plans and sticking them

02:28:21.940 out so so I think that we can and we

02:28:25.840 know how to start small with because

02:28:27.840 the way to build a big system is to

02:28:29.280 build a small system that works and then

02:28:30.880 scale it and so that's I've been

02:28:34.440 talking with my partner his name is

02:28:36.040 Daniel Higgins I have another partner

02:28:37.900 Bob Peel who used to be my graduate

02:28:39.580 supervisor at McGill and we've been

02:28:41.660 working on this sort of thing for about

02:28:42.940 25 years and our goal has been right

02:28:44.680 from the beginning to build low-cost

02:28:47.780 high-quality psychoeducational

02:28:49.580 interventions and bring them to as wide

02:28:51.240 a market as possible so and my and

02:28:55.040 Daniel in particular has devoted most of

02:28:56.700 his life to doing that it's been about 20

02:28:58.140 years now so so well that's a sketch of

02:29:03.300 it all outline more of it on on the web at

02:29:05.160 some point but that's kind of what what

02:29:06.660 we've been deciding what we've been

02:29:08.160 planning to do

02:29:09.240 all right thank you very much yeah

02:29:10.140 hello when you were on the Rubin report

02:29:17.800 not too long ago in that discussion you

02:29:20.860 mentioned how use of psilocybin

02:29:23.660 straightens people out and can produce

02:29:27.120 these transcendent experiences which is

02:29:29.460 jarring for a person who may have

02:29:30.960 I should have never mentioned that on the

02:29:33.160 Rubin report obviously for someone who

02:29:35.660 became a Christian as a result of their

02:29:37.320 only time doing magic mushrooms that's a

02:29:39.620 jarring piece of information I was just

02:29:41.000 wondering if you could expand on what you

02:29:42.280 find intriguing about religious experience

02:29:44.520 and what we can know about the

02:29:45.960 transcendent from them if if anything

02:29:47.740 that's a tough one man

02:29:54.560 the relationship between in theogenic use

02:30:03.960 let's say which is sometimes what those

02:30:06.240 chemicals are described and religious

02:30:10.320 experience is unspecified but it looks

02:30:13.260 like it's profound there is a man named

02:30:15.660 Gordon was all who wrote a book if I

02:30:18.540 remember correctly called Soma he was

02:30:22.020 investigating the potential use of

02:30:23.940 Amanita muscaria mushrooms among the

02:30:27.060 people who wrote the Hindu holy

02:30:28.980 scriptures thousands of years ago and he

02:30:32.140 felt that he identified the chemical

02:30:34.720 that they were using the sacred drink

02:30:37.180 the use of ayahuasca and psilocybin

02:30:42.820 mushrooms and so forth is well

02:30:44.500 documented particularly in North America

02:30:46.060 and the evidence the empirical evidence

02:30:48.820 that under certain conditions those

02:30:50.980 chemicals can produce religious 1.00

02:30:52.640 experiences is absolutely overwhelming

02:30:54.700 there's been good research done

02:30:56.440 recently at Johns Hopkins looking at

02:30:59.500 psilocybin the first research that's

02:31:01.480 been done on hallucinogens really in 30

02:31:04.960 years because people were so terrified

02:31:07.240 of them in the 60s and for good reason

02:31:09.060 indicated that the people that they

02:31:13.540 dosed with psilocybin about 75 percent of

02:31:16.060 them had a mystical experience which they

02:31:17.740 regarded as one of the five three to five

02:31:20.920 most important experiences of their life

02:31:22.420 and a year later were characterized by

02:31:26.440 permanent personality transformation which

02:31:28.480 was an increase in trait openness of one

02:31:30.580 standard deviation which is a lot by the

02:31:32.920 way it moves you from 50th percentile to

02:31:34.840 85th percentile for example it's a it's a

02:31:37.420 huge move and that look permanent now

02:31:39.940 whether or not that's a good thing that's a

02:31:41.620 whole different issue but they're very

02:31:43.420 very powerful and they also did some

02:31:45.400 recent research showing that psilocybin

02:31:48.640 mushrooms were an unbelievably effective

02:31:50.140 smoking cessation intervention so if I

02:31:54.280 remember correctly and I may have this

02:31:55.700 wrong because it's been a while since I

02:31:56.960 read it they had an 80 percent success

02:31:59.300 rate in in stopping people from using

02:32:02.240 tobacco with one psilocybin experience and

02:32:06.080 so well so those things are very all of

02:32:09.860 that's very interesting to me and I don't

02:32:11.480 exactly know what to make of it I don't

02:32:13.400 know what to make of it at all not even a

02:32:15.200 little bit but but the evidence for the

02:32:20.960 relationship between met mystical

02:32:23.900 experiences and hallucinogen use of

02:32:26.780 certain types is incontrovertible and I

02:32:29.120 don't and I don't think anybody else

02:32:31.100 knows what to derive from that I mean one

02:32:33.860 conclusion is something like religious

02:32:40.160 experiences are a common concomitant of

02:32:43.100 going temporarily insane and that it's not

02:32:46.280 a bad hypothesis because you see for

02:32:48.260 example in the prodroma of illnesses

02:32:50.780 like schizophrenia and sometimes manic

02:32:53.060 depressive disorder too on the manic end

02:32:54.860 you do see the emergence often of

02:32:57.920 religious type delusions it's not that

02:33:00.140 common but it's not uncommon so it's

02:33:01.940 definitely the case that if your brain

02:33:05.360 function has been detrimentally affected

02:33:09.080 one of the consequences can be

02:33:11.120 experiences that are subjectively

02:33:13.460 experienced as indistinguishable from the

02:33:15.440 religious you also see the same thing in

02:33:18.080 cases of epilepsy especially in the

02:33:20.540 prodroma so if you have an epileptic

02:33:22.380 condition sometimes you know that

02:33:24.500 you're going to have a seizure you can

02:33:26.100 feel it mounting and often or at least

02:33:29.960 occasionally those experiences are

02:33:32.780 associated with an elevation of

02:33:35.600 religious sensation deepening meaning

02:33:38.780 that increases in its depth and

02:33:41.900 complexity until it's overwhelming and

02:33:45.080 that's what subjectively brings on the

02:33:47.900 seizure now God only knows how to

02:33:50.540 disentangle causality in a

02:33:52.160 circumstance like that Dostoevsky had

02:33:54.440 seizures like that by the way so so that

02:33:57.740 the the pessimistic viewpoint is religious

02:34:02.520 phenomenology is a consequence of brain

02:34:04.520 disorder the positive side more

02:34:09.140 positive side is no religious 0.99

02:34:12.860 experience is a category of

02:34:15.680 experience that's within the realm of

02:34:18.020 human possibility and there are

02:34:20.180 different modes of eliciting it and we

02:34:22.860 know that there are many modes of

02:34:23.960 eliciting it fasting can elicit it

02:34:26.020 that's the dancing under some

02:34:31.700 circumstances music can elicit it music

02:34:33.980 elicits it regularly I mean basically as

02:34:35.960 far as I'm concerned rock concerts are

02:34:37.640 indistinguishable from religious

02:34:39.560 rituals their rituals not like they

02:34:42.500 don't come with dogmatic overlay let's

02:34:45.380 say but the ritualistic structure is

02:34:47.060 there and maybe it's there just

02:34:48.620 listening to music what that means for

02:34:52.580 the investigation of hallucinogens I have

02:34:55.280 no idea and I would also certainly use the

02:34:59.540 caution that Carl Jung developed when he

02:35:01.700 was talking about hallucinogens and he did

02:35:03.500 that I think only a very brief number of

02:35:05.900 times and I think in relationship to

02:35:07.820 eldest Huxley's original work on

02:35:09.560 mescaline experiences he said beware of

02:35:13.820 wisdom that you didn't earn and that's

02:35:17.360 very very smart so I would say there's

02:35:21.320 something to be learned about there's

02:35:23.420 something there's a lot to be learned

02:35:25.700 about hallucinogens there may be

02:35:27.200 something to be learned from them but

02:35:29.300 having said that if you play with fire

02:35:32.780 you end up burnt generally speaking so all

02:35:38.480 due caution is in effect so one more

02:35:43.160 I know you're an Aldous Huxley fan so I

02:35:46.820 thought I'd ask you this question

02:35:48.080 after reading his book Doors of

02:35:50.980 Perception in which he gives an account of

02:35:53.820 his experience taking the psychedelic drug

02:35:56.420 mescaline he stated that in the final

02:36:00.360 stages of egolessness there is an obscene

02:36:02.880 knowledge that all isn't all that all is

02:36:06.120 actually each he then went on to say

02:36:08.460 that this is as near I take it as a

02:36:11.160 finite mind can ever get to perceiving

02:36:13.240 everything that is happening in the

02:36:15.360 universe I was wondering if maybe you

02:36:17.800 could explain what that means because

02:36:19.260 I've been trying to understand it for a

02:36:21.420 month there is a neuroscientist a while

02:36:31.180 back whose name I don't remember who had a

02:36:33.360 stroke and she being a neuroscientist was

02:36:37.680 analyzing the neurological consequences of

02:36:41.520 the stroke as it occurred if I remember

02:36:43.980 correctly the stroke either temporarily or

02:36:47.940 more permanently took out the function of

02:36:50.460 large portions of her left hemisphere and 0.81

02:36:52.860 she had exactly that experience it was an

02:36:56.760 experience of ego dissolution something

02:36:59.400 like that that the the felt sense of of

02:37:05.340 identity shifting from that sort of narrow

02:37:07.560 boundary maybe that you would define by

02:37:10.440 the boundary of your physical being into

02:37:13.320 something that was much broader and much it

02:37:16.820 gets it gets it gets hard to describe this

02:37:19.700 without you know degenerating into hippie

02:37:22.640 poetry from 1967 very very rapidly but

02:37:25.640 it's something like a sense a sense of of the

02:37:32.060 underlying unity of consciousness that

02:37:33.920 might be one way of thinking about we

02:37:35.140 don't know much about consciousness in

02:37:37.220 fact I don't think we know anything about

02:37:38.360 consciousness and obviously consciousness

02:37:40.820 is something that we all share but it's

02:37:42.980 also something that we seem to also

02:37:45.440 experience individually but maybe our

02:37:48.320 individual consciousnesses are something

02:37:50.260 like the manifestations of something

02:37:52.160 that's a more unified consciousness

02:37:54.260 underneath I mean that's hardly an

02:37:56.120 original idea but it does seem to be the

02:37:58.760 case that under some circumstances there

02:38:01.200 are neurological transformations that make

02:38:03.320 that link more apparent assuming that the link exists now you could say well no

02:38:09.380 they're just producing a delusion but the funny thing about you know the funny thing about

02:38:15.260 delusions is that you got to think well how do you know something's a

02:38:18.140 delusion and the answer that has to be like something like well hardly anyone

02:38:22.700 else thinks it that would be criteria number one but criteria number two would be if you act on the

02:38:28.700 delusion do does your ship sink 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

02:38:39.080 well then maybe it wasn't a delusion and there's no evidence from the

02:38:44.240 psilocybin studies that have been conducted at Johns Hopkins that there was

02:38:47.900 detrimental effects for the participants and the participants certainly don't

02:38:51.140 think that the effects were detrimental so and I've been hesitant to talk

02:38:55.460 about any of this for obvious reasons haha I'll tell you something really funny I

02:38:59.660 think it's funny anyways I had Timothy Leary's old job at Harvard so you know and so

02:39:06.860 Leary's a good object lesson and being very careful about this sort of thing

02:39:10.220 because it certainly it isn't obvious that his net effect was good and I say

02:39:20.420 that with some caution because Leary was a very smart person and he was very

02:39:23.300 creative but he got tangled up in that hallucinogenic madhouse you know that

02:39:28.520 characterized the say the period from 1965 to about 1970 and it didn't seem to me

02:39:35.000 that that was altogether a good thing thing is we have these chemicals now in

02:39:39.260 our culture and people are experimenting with them like mad and making them

02:39:44.480 illegal doesn't seem to be working in large part because there I think there were

02:39:49.280 seven known seven to twenty known psychoactive substances that were illegal in

02:39:56.300 the year 2000 there's something like 400 now because labs all over the world keep

02:40:01.680 tweaking the molecules right because molecule a is illegal so chemists just

02:40:06.840 shifted a little bit then they have a new hallucinogen and which might be fine and

02:40:12.280 might not be because now and then you can produce a chemical that's unbelievably

02:40:15.840 dangerous fentanyl sort of like that there was a drug a while back that I can't

02:40:20.520 name I can't remember the name it was an acronym it was a fun drug if you took it

02:40:25.700 once it gave you permanent irreversible total Parkinson's disease so people would

02:40:30.980 take it and they were frozen and that was it so mptp I think it was called so it

02:40:37.580 because it destroyed the same area of the brain that that Parkinson's destroys

02:40:41.900 except they did it right away so you know designer drugs right a little caution is in

02:40:49.860 order how we might approach the issue of hallucinogen use in a mature manner well

02:40:56.640 that's a topic for an entirely other discussion I'm not even necessarily sure that it can be

02:41:01.740 approached that way although I would say at minimum determining what it is that you're up

02:41:09.380 to if you're going to experiment would be a good thing like what it is it exactly that

02:41:13.560 you're serving they're not party drugs they're not for fun right whatever they are that's not what

02:41:20.940 they're for and so maybe they could be used by people who are carefully orienting themselves

02:41:27.300 towards the good although I wouldn't say that that should be read as a recommendation thank you

02:41:35.220 thank you for listening to the jordan b peterson podcast that was episode 24 the psychology of the

02:41:47.420 flood you can support these podcasts by donating to dr peterson's patreon the link to which can be

02:41:52.720 found in the description dr peterson's self-development programs self-authoring can be found at self-authoring

02:41:58.360 dot com thank you for listening

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - July 19, 2017

The Psychology of the Flood

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