hello
so you've lined up a very large number
of questions today so a couple of things
first of all I have a number of YouTube
videos and podcasts lined up one with
Steven Pinker author of enlightenment
now one with Warren Farrell who wrote a
very interesting book called the boy
crisis and also a previous book called
white men earn more one with an animator
named Nina Paley one with a young guy
named Charlie Kirk who has organized a
large number of campus youth groups more
on the conservative end of things and
associated with free will so all those
will be coming out in the next month and
a half I would say and so thank you for
your continued support it makes all of
this possible and I'm also going on tour
I presume some of you know that if you
go to Jordan B Peterson calm and you
look up events you can see where it's
about 40 cities listed so far most of
them are in the US and a couple in
Europe Iceland the UK but we're
announcing we're going to announce ten
Canadian cities here in the next week as
well so that's all what's going to be
happening with me in the next two months
so I'll be on the road with my wife that
whole time sometimes in a plane you know
just commercial travel sometimes in a
Motorhome depending on where we're going
and how so I'm looking forward to seeing
you if you come out to the events I've
been enjoying them quite a bit it's good
to be able to talk to so many people so
twelve rules for life has sold about a
million copies now so that's really
quite something and I think we've sold
foreign rights in 43 countries so it'll
come out in not quite that many
languages but just about over the next
year and
something like that so all right so you
let's get at it here hopefully I could
warm up and get my brain going and and
answer some questions the first one 343
people have voted this one up could you
please discuss freewill and sam Harris's
and others ideas of its non-existence
well that's a good complicated question
to kick things off so I want to tell you
a little bit about how to conceptualize
freewill I think first because it's
obvious that we don't have infinite
freewill our our choice our choices are
constrained in all sorts of ways and I
think part of the reason that there's a
continual discussion about freewill in
the philosophical in the philosophical
literature is because just
conceptualizing the issue properly is
extraordinarily difficult so I like to
think about it at least in part the way
that you think about a game you know if
you're playing a game obviously the game
has rules so if it's a chess game or a
basketball game then there are things
that you can do and things that you
can't do and but and so it's a it's a
it's a closed world in some sense but
the fact that there are things you can't
do when you play a game also seem to
open up a universe of possibilities for
things that you can do so chess
obviously constrains you to a board and
to a certain number of men and to a
certain pattern of rules but the strange
thing is is that when you put in those
rules because rules sound like limits
they sound always like things you can't
do but when you set up a constrained
world like that and you lay out a system
of rules what you do is open up an
infinity of a near infinity of
possibilities same with music you know
music has rules obviously and if you
follow the rules then you can make an
infinite variety of music and so and so
there's a there's a very interesting
dynamic that's hard to understand
between constraint and possibility and
there's a deep idea that's associated
with that that I read in some Jewish
commentary on the biblical stories that
I I read a long time ago talking about
the relationship between God and man and
the idea was
God imagine a being with the classical
attributes of God omniscience
omnipotence and omnipresence all-seeing
all-knowing and all-powerful what is a
being like that lack and obviously the
answer is nothing right because by
definition those three traits provide
for absence of limitation but then
that's exactly what's lacking is
limitation and there's some strange
connection between limitation and and I
was saying say limitation that it's rule
governed as I mentioned before and the
opening up of possibility so that isn't
necessarily the case that now determine
determinism and limitation aren't
exactly the same thing but they're
analogous and they need to be discussed
together okay so though so that's the
first thing is that or whatever our free
choice is it isn't limited it's or it's
limited it's it's deeply limited now
here's another thing if I take my arm
and I go like this you see I'll do that
again now you see there's a movement
like that and then my hand stopped just
before my my other hand now it takes a
certain amount of time for the neural
messages to go from my brain to my arm
and back and the time it takes my hand
to go like this and stop is actually
shorter than the time it takes a message
to get to my brain and back so what that
means is that when I when I plan this
movement which is called a ballistic
movement it's called a ballistic
movement because it's like a bullet once
you let it go it's gone there's no
calling it back I've actually organized
the neurological and muscular sequences
that enable that action before it's
implemented I set all that up and then
it's released and the whole thing
cascades and so once the action has been
released let's say then I don't really
have any free will because I can't stop
it now so so you think about that it
looks like there's a temporal gradient
with regards to free will is that as you
look out into the future may perhaps the
farther out you look into the future
the farther down the road let's say the
more free your choices are but the
closer they get to implementation the
more they become
Mystic governed by standard cause of
processes and there's some transition
point where they change from being what
we would describe as choice that we
haven't got to free choice yet but at
least a choice there's some transition
point between that and ballistic
movement here's another way of thinking
about it like we know for example that
people who are expert at playing the
piano look ahead of where they're
playing and and they're doing the same
thing they're watching the notes they're
seeing where they're going but and then
they're disinhibited the automated
structures that enable them to play what
they've practiced so thoroughly they're
disinhibited those structures and then
they go automatically and then what
happens if you make a mistake is that
consciousness notes the error and then
unpacks the motor sequences that have
been practiced and then yuri practice
them and sequence them again until they
become automatic and deterministic so
there's choice in that you're reading
ahead but there's no choice in that once
you've read ahead and disinhibited the
actions then they run ballistically and
then you can think about the same thing
that's happening when you're driving in
a car you don't look right in front of
you when you're driving a car because
whatever is right in front of you if
you're going 40 miles an hour or
whatever you've already run over you
look a quarter of a mile down the road
and that gives you the opportunity to
see what's coming and to set up a
sequence of increasingly automated
movements that culminate in whatever it
is that you're doing while you're
driving and so there's a gradation from
choice to determinism a temporal
gradation and and I don't often see that
addressed when people talk about
freewill now Sam's issue is freewill is
that if you get someone to do something
like lift their finger and you and you
scan their brains using a variety of
techniques while they're doing that what
you'll see is that there's an action
potential that Emer and you ask them to
voluntarily move their finger so they're
doing it let's say by free choice
there's an action potential that you can
read that you can read off the brain
that occurs before the person either
moves their finger or let's say decides
to move their finger and that occurs
quite a bit before the feeling of
volunteer
or that voluntary act and so that's been
read by Benjamin Libet who did the
experiments as indication that even the
feeling of voluntary choice is
determined but I don't think that that's
a very useful way of addressing the
issue because the the issue of when you
lift your finger in up again is it
requires pre-programming to dis inhibit
like you know how to do this right you
don't have to learn to do that so you
have a little automated circuit that
does this sort of thing all these finger
movements and everything you can see
babies practicing them and they develop
automated circuitry that tends to be
posterior left hemisphere in order to
run those those automated processes out
and what you're basically doing when you
decide to do something that's a routine
that you've already practiced or made
out of subroutines that you've already
practiced is disinhibited them and the
the degree to which you might regard
that as free exactly is unclear as are
the temporal limitations so I don't
think that libbets experiments
demonstrate conclusively that there's no
such thing as free will even though
there are action potentials that
indicate that there is brain activity
signaling even the onset of a voluntary
choice voluntary choice early now
another thing that we might look at in
relationship to that is yeah so we can
look at it phenomenologically and we
could also look at it in in in
relationship to how people treat one
another so phenomenologically it seems
clear that we have free choice and it
isn't obvious to me why we have
consciousness if free choice isn't real
because consciousness looks to me like a
mechanism that deals with potential
before it's transformed into actuality
let's say and and I think consciousness
is also they the Faculty so to speak or
a manifestation of the faculty that
enables us to pre-program deterministic
actions so again let's think about
someone playing the piano they're
practicing you know after you repeat and
you repeat your finger movements if
you're playing the piano any complex
motor skill is like that you have to
repeat it and repeat it repeat it and
repeat it and you're using consciousness
to program it to sequence the motor move
limits and to pay attention to them that
all seems voluntary and it involves the
activation of a tremendous amount of
your brain because if you're doing
something new a lot of your brain is
activated and then as you practice it
the amount of brain that's activated
decreases it shifts from right to left
and then it shifts from frontal to
posterior and a smaller and smaller area
so what's happening is that
consciousness is creating little
machines in the back of your head that
do things in an automated manner and the
the the voluntas 'no Sapir and feels
that would be the phenomenological end
as if it's doing that voluntarily and it
is associated with a different pattern
of brain activity and so okay so there's
that there's the phenomenological
reality of voluntary choice and effort
as well because conscious programming of
that sort is also effortful it doesn't
seem to run deterministically like a
clock does and then finally there's also
and I don't know what you think about
this with regards to evidence but what
constitutes evidence is not always that
easy to determine even in the scientific
domain so emeriti think about how we
think about ourselves and other people
and how we treat ourselves and other
people you could imagine that you're
like a clock running down and that's
like a deterministic model but people
aren't clocks were dissipative
structures a clock is something that
runs downhill but human beings you can
look up dissipative structure I think
that was an idea that was first
formulated by the physicist Schrodinger
we were we're not we're not clocks by
any stretch of the imagination and we
take energy in and we disperse energy
and and we were anti-entropic in in a
temporary sense so that makes us and and
so and life is as well shorting a wrote
about that in a book called what is life
and we don't what we seem to do this is
how it looks to me we don't content with
the present and we're not driven by the
past instead what we see in front of us
is a
landscape of possibility and in my
Wilder moments I think that's associated
with the physical idea of multiple
universes but that's in my Wilder
moments it's just a speculation and so
what we see in front of us is a an array
of potential universes and those are the
universes that we could bring about as a
consequence of our actions and it and we
make choices to the right or the left
there's a lot of mythological
speculation about that sort of idea - in
an ethical sense because we decide what
sort of reality that we want to bring
into being and so we encounter potential
like God did at the beginning of time
when he made order out of chaos chaos is
this chaotic potential we confront
chaotic potential with our consciousness
and we cast that into reality and that
now then you think well is that really
the case well that's hard to say because
there are limits to our knowledge about
consciousness and about reality but if
you treat yourself like you're a free
moral agent with choice and that you can
determine the course of your life then
you seem to get along better with
yourself and to be less anxious and to
be more productive and if you treat
other people like that that they're free
agents that are making voluntary choices
about how reality is going to come into
being and you reward them when they do
it properly and you punish them or
otherwise discipline them when they
don't when they do it badly then your
relationships with them seem to work and
then if we predicate our society on the
presupposition that each individual
human being is capable of doing just
that
then we seem to have extremely
functional societies and so and this is
something that sam harris has been taken
to task for many times is if you
dispense with the idea of freewill how
is it you organize your relationship to
yourself your interactions with your
family and your relationships with the
broader social community it's a very
complicated issue so I believe strongly
that we have freewill that were
responsible for our choices those
choices are constrained in many many
ways I think there's a gradient of
freewill from free out into the future
to increasingly constrained as the press
manifests itself to deterministic in the
moment when with in the moment of action
we and that we might think that we
entered the realm of deterministic
causality at the moment of action
something like that that's how it looks
to me so well so at this rate we're
gonna answer about five questions so
that but that was a very very hard one
so anyways I hope that's helpful
Maelstrom who is apparently chaos given
the name asked me am i chaos or am i
order well that's a good question I
would say a lot of the time I'm chaos
but I do everything I can to put things
in order but I'm going to answer that in
the deeper way I would say because first
of all everything and everyone is chaos
and order at the same time and I don't
mean that in a trait sense I mean it in
a technical sense which is order
technically speaking in my way of
viewing the world is order is that
domain you inhabit when what you're
doing produces the results that you want
to have happen that's a pragmatic
perspective from from a philosophical
perspective it's derived at least in
part or is analogous to the pragmatism
of people like CS purse and William
James the the American American
pragmatists and there's a great book on
all that if you're interested called the
metaphysical Club so order is where you
are when what you're doing is producing
the results that you intended and that
validates what you're doing by the way
that's that's a pragmatic form of truth
your theory is accurate when if you
enact it then the results that you
intend emerge that's the definition of
truth from a pragmatic perspective it's
a very powerful definition and it's very
much associated with the Darwinian
notion of truth so that's worth that's
worth looking into now obviously there
are times when you implement a plan and
a world conception that goes along with
that plan and what you wanted didn't
happen and so then the domain of chaos
comes up the domain of the unpredictable
and unexpected and you have to contend
with it and sometimes when you are
acting you do perverse things
and things that that surprise you and
then things don't work out well for you
or or maybe you get a surprise and maybe
sometimes that might even be positive
and that's because the chaos within you
has manifested itself and you've done
something that exceeds the bounds of
your understanding and you know that can
happen to people so badly that they
develop post-traumatic stress
post-traumatic stress disorder sometimes
soldiers especially naive young soldiers
will go on a battlefield and watch
themselves do something they can't
imagine they're capable of doing and
then they have permanent post-traumatic
stress disorder so there's a chaos
within that can manifest itself that can
disrupt whatever order you are and you
know that minor ways because everybody's
always running around doing things that
aren't good for them that they know they
shouldn't do and that they can't control
and so there's a chaotic and an orderly
aspect to everything to the individual
to the family to the social world to the
natural world it's chaos and order at
every level of analysis simultaneously
which is why the Daoists think of the
world is made out of yin and yang which
is essentially analogous to the idea of
order and chaos and now but then there's
another element too so your order and
your chaos and the place that you live
the environment is order and chaos as
well but you're also the process that
mediates between the two and what that
means is you're the force that confronts
chaos and casts it into order we talked
about that in the free will discussion
that's the basis for the dragon myth or
at least part of it the hero myth you're
the force that confronts chaos and
transforms it into habitable order and
there's an idea that if you do that
using truthful speech it's probably the
deepest idea in the Bible if you
confront chaos and the unknown using
truthful speech then the order that you
produce is good so that also means that
your chaos and order and the process
that intermediates between them and
that's really the basis of the hero myth
so part of that is the hero story and
the dragon myth go out confront the
dragon get the gold bring it back share
it with the community and the dragon is
a representation of that which dwells
beyond the confines of the safe and
habitable space right it's an image of a
predator
part of what it is although it's way
more complicated than that and you're
also of the force that confronts order
when it becomes too tyrannical and
restructures it back to chaos and then
restructures the chaos back into more
beneficial order which is what you do
for example if you have an argument with
someone that you settle right because
the argument takes the orderly relation
that you have with that person and then
produces a chaotic interlude which is
all the pain that's associated with the
argument and that's a dissolution into
what Murchie Aliotti called pre
cosmogonic chaos and out of that a new
order can emerge and so the best way to
construe yourself is not as chaos or as
order but as the process that mediates
between them and that's the basis for
the ethos of the West is that the human
being is best represented as the
individual and the individual is that
attentive and communicative entity that
is continually capable of mediating
properly between chaos and order now
this is a deep idea you could read maps
of meaning if you would like the audio
version of that is coming out June 12th
by the way and I will make a video
detailing the relationship between maps
of meaning and twelve rules of life but
you can construe yourself you should
construe yourself as the process that
mediates between chaos and order and you
should aim to be the process that does
that properly using truthful
communication because that's how you
keep the elements of existence properly
balanced and you might say yeah but is
that real well if you read maps of
meaning there's a section on neural
psychology that's also buttress by a
book written by Ian McGilchrist called
the master and his emissary that lays
out the relationship between the right
and left hemisphere now it's quite
strange that we have a right and left
hemisphere it's almost as if we have two
consciousness as dwelling in our in our
in our in our being and they're quite
separable if you cut the corpus callosum
that unites the two then the two
hemispheres will act independently to
some degree you can communicate with
each of them somewhat independently so
they actually view the world quite
differently
and that that hemispheric distinction is
not only their human being
but also in animals long way down the
phylogenetic chain now I made the claim
partly because I was reading a man named
El Cajon and Goldberg who was a student
of Alexander Luria the most brilliant
neuropsychologist of the 20th century
and and Goldberg made the case that the
left hemisphere is specialized for for
what's known and the right hemisphere is
specialized for normally and feeis
Ramachandran who's a famous neurologist
an MD in in California has also made a
very similar claim based on his analysis
of brain-damaged individuals but
Goldberg's case was the left hemisphere
is specialized for what you know how to
do and the right hemisphere is
specialized for response to what's
unknown and that maps on to this order
chaos dimension right and the right
hemisphere now McGilchrist in his book
the master and his emissary has pointed
out quite clearly that the left
hemisphere has a tyrannical tendency
which it Ramachandran also viewed in his
brain-damaged patients by the way and
that the left hemisphere is always
trying to impose its logical and
restricted order on the world and to
make the world fit into that now it has
to do that there's reasons for that part
of the reason is is that if your theory
you've worked on for 10 years makes one
prediction error you shouldn't throw the
whole damn thing out you should doubt
the prediction error right because you
never know when your data is actually
data or is just another kind of theory
we can't get into that at the moment now
McGilchrist makes a very strong case and
and I think a more elaborated case than
I made in maps of meaning but it's the
same argument fundamentally that the
right hemisphere is concerned with
reaction to anomaly and so so what
happens in some sense is something
unexpected happens that's the domain of
chaos and that stops you in your tracks
it freezes you and that's a predator
response or prey response actually
you're frozen the unknown has manifested
itself you're not in order anymore you
don't know where you are and you don't
know what to do and so and you can't
just shut down like a computer does you
freeze instead and then what happens is
that the ancient mechanisms that have
helped our ancestors for tens of
millions of years or per
longer than that react to that which
lurks beyond the confines of the unknown
kick in and you start first of all
that's motoric so you freeze and then
you cautiously start to explore and then
it's imagistic you start making imaginal
representations metaphoric
representations dramatic representations
of what might constitute the unknown and
then those representations are practiced
and implemented in the world and they
become more and more fine-grained and
automatized and as that happens the
locale that they're represented in in
the brain shifts from right to left so
so so the reason I'm telling you all
this is because you know this is where
the metaphysical and the physical unites
and this is the sort of argument that I
was trying to make to Sam Harris and
hopefully we'll be able to continue
doing that because I'm going to meet him
three times in the next few months so
that the the yin-yang idea the chaos
order idea is metaphorical in some sense
to say that the world is made up of
order and chaos doesn't sound like an
empirical statement but strangely enough
the world to which our brains are
adapted is actually the world of chaos
and order you can think about it as
unexplored and explored territory too
that's another that's another you know
take on it and so then you think from a
Darwinian perspective think about it
this way from a Darwinian perspective
there's an there's an an axiomatic
presupposition and that is reality is
that which selects okay reality is the
force that selects over evolutionary
time and so the force that selects over
evolutionary time has selected for
hemispheric specialization bilateral
hemispheric specialization which
indicates the two different modes of
looking at the world are necessary for
survival right so that's real and so the
idea that the world is made out of chaos
and order is perhaps the most real idea
now here's something else cool that's
associated with that and this is an
antidote to nihilism I also think it's
an antidote to - what would you call
ideological ideological possession so
when you encounter something unknown you
orient towards it and that's an
involuntary response you could even
think about it as a deterministic
response it's part of
Orient's you very rapidly towards
predators so that they don't kill you
before you have a chance to respond okay
so you react because the anomalous thing
is meaningful it's intrinsically
meaningful and the reaction is first
terror with perhaps an overlay of
disgust and second curiosity and it's
terror so that you freeze and remain
paralyzed you turn to stone when you
look at the basilisk or the snake or the
Gorgon
you turn to stone you're paralyzed like
a prey animal and that's so the prey
predator can't see you at least in part
and there's other elements of the
orienting reflex that are associated
with predator avoidance and then if
nothing additionally terrible happens
you start to thaw out and you start to
explore and you do that with image first
and and then prep and then practice the
appropriate behaviors and then and then
automate those now look here's the thing
that's cool so that orienting reflex to
the unknown is it's an admixture of
threat fear and curiosity incentive
rewards so negative emotion and positive
emotion now and it's dose dependent the
larger the anomaly which means the
larger the map it blows out when it
manifests itself think of the difference
between being irritated at your marital
partner because they you know oh who
knows because they relate to pick you up
for work compared to how irritated you
would be if you found out they were
having an affair
difference in size of anomaly the first
one disrupts a tiny little part of your
space-time orientation and the second
one demolishes your past present and
future and the larger the disruption the
more negative emotion obviously and so
so there's this weird interplay between
negative and positive emotion in the
response to anomaly and but it's deeply
meaningful even if it's even if it
paralyzes you even if it's terrifying
it's meaningful and then that transforms
perhaps into intense curiosity and you
start to explore now the phenomena of
meaning is a manifestation of the
complex orienting reflex and so you're
wired so that you're not just order and
you're not just chaos your order
continually confronting chaos so that
the order remains updated and
you might say well how do you know how
much chaos you should confront in order
to keep the order continually updated
and the answer is meaning see something
is meaningful the reason that something
is meaningful is because you're getting
a deep instinctual signal that you're
encountering normally at a rate that
doesn't exceed your capability that's
also the rate at which you can keep
yourself updated optimally and so
meaning isn't epic phenomenal and it and
it isn't it isn't some kind of delusion
that rationality can and should overcome
to say well everything's meaningless
it's like no it's not meaning is the
most fundamental instinct for adaptation
and so that's partly why in 12 rules for
life I said one of the rules I think
it's rule 7 is do what is meaningful not
what is expedient because meaning is a
really good guide to long term
adaptation and so then and the other
thing about meaning which is what
happens when you get the balance between
chaos and order right is that meaning is
the antidote to despair and so if you
and there's all sorts of reasons in life
to be desperate and so if you immerse
yourself in meaning you can learn to do
that you can learn to do that you can
make that goal your highest goal and so
then the highest goal would be to be the
sort of mythological hero let's say to
embody and incarnate and imitate the
mythological hero like the imitation of
Christ which is what you're called to do
if you happen to be Christian that means
that you live in meaning and that
meaning is the antidote to the suffering
of life that would otherwise make you
brutal and vengeful and unhappy and
miserable and like that that young guy
who just mowed down 12 people in Toronto
these are real things you lose your
sense of meaning you end up in hell and
in hell you do all sorts of terrible
things these are these are dreadful
realities and it isn't as if they're not
grounded in the appropriate science so
anyways that was also a very complicated
question being gay and in a long-term
relationship we are considering kids
what are your thoughts about gay people
raising children
I think the Devils in the details to
tell you the truth when if I was ever
talking to any individuals about that
that's it the question is well how would
you raise them I mean you have problems
right if you're both of the same sex
then you're going to have the problem of
how to provide the proper model for you
know let's say you have a boy and a girl
you we know this is indisputable and
this is something I've talked to Warren
Farrell about kids in intact
heterosexual families where the father
is present do way better on multiple
indices than kids who are are part of
single-parent families now that doesn't
mean that there are no single parents
who do a good job right that's not the
same bloody claim those are different
claims but on average kid not only do
kids where father's are present do
better but societies or even even local
societies where there are more fathers
present do better not only for the kids
that they're fathering but the kids in
the neighborhood whether lots of intact
families with fathers do better and so I
believe quite firmly that the nuclear
family is the smallest viable human unit
father mother child smallest viable unit
and if you fragment it below that then
you end up paying now that that doesn't
mean that there are wait there aren't
ways that you can operate in the smaller
unit or a different unit effectively but
you have to contend with the fact that
it's necessary for people for kids to
have models for both sexes and that
means that means accepting that the
sexes are different even though there's
a fair overlap between them accepting
that they're different and that both
sexes play their role it looks like what
father's do and I talked to Warren
Farrell a lot about this and I'm going
to release this video this month about
what father's do and a lot of what they
do is rough-and-tumble play with the
kids which kids really really really
like and it's really important as young
panksepp a great effective
neuroscientist laid out in his studies
on routes he discovered the play
circuitry and fathers this is something
Farrell told me which was
extraordinarily interesting is that
fathers used
joy of the possibility of play as a
scaffold to help children learn to delay
gratification so imagine a father spends
a bunch of time playing with his kids
and they're having a great old time
they're wrestling around and pushing
each other's limits to find out where
they are and and learning the
physiological dance that goes along with
direct contact direct exciting contact
learning what hurts and what doesn't and
what constitutes fair play and what
isn't and how everybody can play and
still enjoy the game and how excited you
could get before it's too much and how
much you should whine and how much you
shouldn't and when you can object to
being hurt all of that had a deeply
embodied level the kids love that
they'll line up for that and panksepp
demonstrated very clearly that rats will
work to play and that routes play fair
and they learn to play fair because of
iterated play bouts and that if you
don't let juvenile male rats play then
their prefrontal cortexes don't develop
and they get attention deficit disorder
or the equivalent in rats and then you
can treat that with ritalin and so this
is all very vital material now if you're
going to if you if you're gay let's say
there's two two men or two women then
you have the problem of what you're
going to do for the Contra sexual target
and you can say well it doesn't matter
because there's no differences between
men and women and you can gerrymander
the damn question that way and avoid
your amoral responsibility or you can
face it squarely and say look you've
decided to step outside of the cultural
norm and to organize a non-standard
relationship which puts a tremendous
responsibility on you and then you have
to figure out how you can provide for
your children what it is that they would
get in the classic minimal human unit so
and more power to you I hope you can do
a good job of it you know I think
there's a room in the world for for a
diverse range of approaches to complex
life problems like like having kids and
finding a partner but that doesn't mean
you get to bury your head in the sand
about the absolute realities of life and
the fact that there are biological
differences between men and women to
deny that is is reprehensible in my
estimation and besides the empirical
data the scientific data are crystal
clear so in it so ok
call Youm says that everything
unconscious is projected into reality
how do you know if you are perceiving
reality accurately or are just
projecting great yeah well that's partly
why I'm a pragmatist well there's a
bunch of ways there's a bunch of ways
that you know pain tells you if you make
a mistake and you hurt yourself well
then your stupid theory was wrong right
that's what the pain says your stupid
theory was wrong and that's a pragmatic
you see that's another indication of
pragmatic theory of truth you lay out
look when you look at the world you look
at the world with a set of
presuppositions outlined that in Chapter
ten in in rules and twelve rules for
life called be precise in your speech it
indicates that when you look at the
world you look at it through a value
structure you can't help that because
you're always aiming of something in the
world and you're always aiming at
something you want and you're trying to
get it and so that means that you look
at the world through a value structure
now the question is whether or not that
value structure is valid and that's a
very complicated question okay so how do
you know if it's valid number one you
lay it out and you act it out
you you implement it perceptually and
then you act it out and if you get what
you wanted what the theory predicted
that's another way of thinking about it
but want it is a better way of thinking
about it then the fact that that
behavioral routine and perceptual
structure produced the intended result
validates it as a tool for obtaining
that result and that's a form of truth
now it might be the only form of truth
although I'm not convinced of that
completely but it might be it's a very
complicated question now how do you know
if your stupid theory is wrong okay
a it fails and you're hurt pain tells
you you pragmatically your theory was
wrong so that's why you should pay
attention to your own pain because your
suffering is indication that you still
have things to learn and maybe the
suffering of other people is also that
maybe something unexpected or
unpredictable happens when you're laying
out your plan and then the anomalous
manifests itself the unexpected or chaos
and then you get anxious while anxiety
is an indication that your plan your
arrow didn't fly to its mark so you
aimed wrong and that might mean a small
error you know maybe a tiny adjustment
of your
board might mean you just don't know
what the hell you're doing at all and
everything is lost
and so anxiety tells you if your theory
is wrong and then and then other people
tell you that and that's why you want to
surround yourself with other people
because you distribute your cognitive
resort you you you distribute your
problems to the cognitive resources of
the social group that's what we do when
we price things right everyone votes on
the price of something because it's so
difficult because the price of something
has to be established in relationship to
the price of everything else and that's
always in flux and so it's
computationally impossible problem and
so we outsource it to the market which
is the free cognitive decision of
millions of people and that's how we
determine price and so one of the things
you do to make sure that you're not any
stupider than you have to be blind
ignorant biased and all of that is you
surround yourself with other people and
you try to treat them well enough so
that they can tolerate you and then
every time that you do something stupid
because one of your theories is it is
vague or incomplete or wrong or biased
or you're willfully blind then they slap
you on the side of the head they ignore
you because you're boring they don't
laugh at your jokes because they're
stupid they they they are irritated at
your actions because you're not taking
your own long-term interests or the
interests of other people into account
and so you have pain you have anxiety
you have the reward of success that
that's that's a positive indicator that
your Theory's okay and then you have the
reactions of everyone else and if you're
clued in you pay attention to all of
those things and you try to update your
your order which is your perceptions you
try to update your order constantly as a
consequence of being humble in the face
of your errors which is why humility is
the precondition to for learning and why
it's one of the highest moral virtues so
and perceiving reality accurately you
don't really perceive reality and you
don't really perceive accurately you
perceive small portions of reality
extraordinarily limited in space and
time and accurately means well enough so
that when you do what you're doing it
works that's why I'm a pragmatist I mean
no
only I mean you know I mean there's lots
of other philosophical streams that have
influenced my thought existentialism
phenomena log phenomenology to mention
to others but the thing is you can't
perceive reality accurately because you
don't know everything so and you're full
of biases and and you're ignorant as
hell and so the best you can do is
perceive small bits of reality well
enough so that you can more or less get
what you need in a relatively short
period of time without screwing yourself
up too badly in the medium to long term
that's pretty much what you've got and
and that doesn't mean truth is
impossible it just means that it's very
very complicated to decide what truth is
and because the question is what is
truth for someone whose knowledge is
limited right because obviously because
your knowledge is limited and you don't
know everything saying some fundamental
way you're ignorant or wrong about
everything but that doesn't help because
you still have to act in the world so
there are bounded truths they're bounded
truths and so all right if past
experiences shape us oh no I missed one
you sight a tired brain foggy thinking
as the reason to stop answering
questions or giving a talk how do you
combat this while working or writing
daily well I eat a big breakfast
relatively soon on waking that really
helps if any of you out there are
anxious and many of you no doubt are
there'll be a large number of you who
are anxious and don't eat breakfast and
there'll be a whole bunch of you out
there who think well I don't eat
breakfast it isn't necessary it's like
that's wrong it's necessary
you've fasted all night if you load
yourself cognitively or physiologically
in the morning your brain stressed will
produce will encourage your body to
produce insulin it will take all the
blood sugar out of your blood and then
you're done for the day and then you'll
be anxious and another a lot of the rest
of you too you'll find if you're anxious
try this it's really really interesting
experiment the next time you're anxious
go eat something eat like eat some
protein and fat would be best you could
have cheese and crackers I'm not a big
fan of carbohydrates but whatever eat
whatever you're willing to eat but make
it solid don't eat a peanut butter or
don't eat like a chocolate bar or
something sweet eats
something substantial a piece of meat a
piece of cheese some peanut butter
something like that and then wait 10
minutes and see if you're less anxious
and try it out for like two weeks every
time you get anxious eat something
because then you can find out if you're
anxious yes if your anxiety is linked to
low blood sugar and it's very likely
that it is especially if you also get
irritable and foggy and you're thinking
and so and the best way to treat that as
far as I've been able to tell and
there's a decent literature on this is
to make sure that you eat a big
breakfast and you might say well I'm not
hungry in the morning it's like who the
hell cares if you're hungry I didn't say
enjoy your breakfast I said eat it
that's not the same thing you know
there's lots of things that you need to
do that you don't enjoy to begin with
you'll get hungry in six months and then
you'll start to enjoy it so that's a
massive difference I take small naps
quite frequently if I'm wiped out you
know I'll go have a nap for ten minutes
or 15 minutes and then that helps quite
a lot I try to wake up fairly regular a
lot on a fairly regular schedule that's
another thing I would really recommend
for people whose lives are in disarray
and who are anxious try to fix your wake
time sleep going when you sleep that's
not so important
so you can still you know stay up late
and have fun and all that but getting up
in the morning is really helpful so you
know and you you also have to figure out
how much you can work or write I can't
write for more than about max my
sustainable maximum for writing is three
hours a day and if I push it past that
then especially if I'm editing I I make
mistakes when I'm editing so that's
counterproductive and I can't sustain it
across time and so I don't really think
you can do more than about three hours
of extremely intense intellectual work a
day although if you have a nap you can
stretch that but I think at least I end
up paying for it across time
so nap make sure you eat and make sure
you eat protein and fat and not
carbohydrates because carbohydrates are
basically poisonous that's about that's
about and make sure that you get enough
sleep so that's that's how I combat it
and try to make myself hyper efficient
which is also a really interesting thing
to try
you know I was talking to my agents at
CAA Creative Artists Agency in LA and I
just hired a publicist to to help me
manage media in a more intelligent
manner and we're trying to think about
our overarching philosophy you know and
I first proposed to the CAA guys that
our overarching philosophy would be
something like because you need an
overarching philosophy under which you
nest all your specific actions it was
something like to educate as many people
as possible in the shortest period of
time which seems like a really good goal
like why the hell not do that but then
we broadened out a little bit this week
which was to try to do as much good
possible as efficiently as possible and
that efficiency thing is really fun if
you guys who are listening are out for a
challenge like one of the things that
you can I think this heightens the
meaning in your life is to try to do
difficult things right
aim high note names so damn high you
can't manage it and make sure you break
down your aims into reasonably
attainable sub goals but you want to aim
high and then you want to see how hyper
efficient you can get that's a great
thing to do in your early 20s is to see
okay like discipline yourself you think
okay how much work can I do if I load
myself right to the maximum how far do I
how far can I work how hard can I work
until I exhaust myself and then you back
off obviously because the optimal amount
of working productive engagement let's
say is that which is sustainable across
decades so you have to you have to learn
that but you don't learn that without
stretching yourself to your limits to
begin with and you know if your life
isn't everything it could be and if
you're suffering from an excess of
meaninglessness well it means you're not
oriented in the world of chaos and order
properly it's like you could learn to
discipline yourself look figure out what
figure out what it is that you need to
do and that you want to do and then see
how efficient you can get because one of
the things that's quite fun is to figure
out if you have a task I always tell my
graduate students this if they're doing
an experiment - if you have a task that
you have to do it's really interesting
to spend a few minutes sometimes hours
depending on how long the task is see if
you can figure out how to do it from
from five to 10 times faster it means
you'll have to rearrange the way you
think about it but you can often do it
and that's how extremely productive
people get so hyper efficient you know
sometimes it means the
to delegate it means sometimes it means
you have to bring other people aboard
that's delegation as well as suppose but
there's a lot of preconceptions that you
hold about who you are and who the world
is that you could dispense with that
would make you a way more efficient
actor in the world and so alright so
there that's that if past experiences
shape us from the moment of birth how
can an action be ever said to be the
result of free will rather than the
accumulation of past influences well it
is in large part the accumulation of
past influences because that's knowledge
but I address that I would say already
pretty thoroughly in my discussion of
free will your your free will isn't
absolute I mean what are you a genie
even a genie is constrained inside a
lamp you know so there's there's no
action without constraint there's no
action without limitation so it's it's
it's just not conceptualized well and
all of your choices are constrained not
least by the fact that you have to keep
yourself lives so even just because
there are limitations that emerge say as
a consequence of the accumulation of
past influences doesn't mean that you
aren't that you don't still have a
massive domain of freedom so what is
your opinion of attachment based therapy
and do you think that therapy is at risk
of encouraging people to wallow in
self-pity I'm not going to talk about
attachment based therapy because I don't
know enough about it to provide an
intelligent critique but I can answer
the second part of the question do I
think that therapy risks encouraging
people to wallow in self-pity not if
it's done by a competent therapist if
you're a therapist is encouraging you to
wallow in self-pity then it's time to
get the hell out of there you've got a
therapist who thinks that they're
supposed to offer you a safe space
that's not helpful look what do you do
as a therapist you act as a strategic
counselor so let's imagine someone comes
to see me so there's two big mysteries
right what's wrong and what what would
look better what's wrong and how what
would a cure look like and I don't know
and so if you're a therapist the first
thing you want to do is figure out that
you don't know what's wrong with this
person and probably neither do they and
you also don't know what's right for
them and so then you start talking to
the person to try to solve that problem
it's like okay you've come to see me
because something isn't right in your
life what is it
and so then the person has to talk and
talk and talk and you have to ask them
questions to find out because you know
maybe they're depressed maybe they're
anxious maybe they came from a terrible
family maybe they're really hard on
themselves and things are actually going
better than they think like you have no
idea what's wrong with them you're
ignorant you're ignorant and so are they
and so you say look you can tell me
anything as long try to tell the truth
because otherwise we're just not gonna
get anywhere because we're trying to
deal with reality here so tell me the
truth I'm not gonna be judgmental in any
stupid sense I'm gonna judge like mad
cuz I want to help you do things right
so I'm gonna be I'm gonna be judging
like mad but I'm not gonna throw you out
because of the things you say you're
gonna have to wander all over weird
territory to explain your problem
because you don't even know what it is
so you have to listen a lot the first
thing you want to figure out is okay
what's wrong here and the person will
tell you a hundred things that might be
wrong and that there's quite painful to
listen to often you know they'll tell
you about their past and their present I
don't mean painful in that it's not
engaging or that it's not worthwhile I
mean people's lives have a lot of pain
in them so it's painful to partake in
that so they'll tell you like a hundred
things that might be wrong and then you
do an analysis with them and you think
well okay how many of those things
really probably aren't a problem the
first thing that happens is if you let a
person talk about let's say they tell
you about a hundred problems the first
thing you find out is that 90 of them
aren't real problems and the person just
figures that out as they talk them
through they say well that's linked to
this and maybe that's not really a
problem that's not as bad as I thought
it wasn't we can probably ignore that
it's like they have a handful of cards
that aren't organized and they don't
know what to do with them there's too
many cards and so you say look lay your
cards on the table all of them and this
is also what you do when you're
listening to someone you're intimate
with and they're trying to solve a
problem and you have to be patient to do
this because they're all upset about
something right and you don't know what
it is and maybe they're upset about you
and maybe they're upset about themselves
and and they're not handling it very
well and they're impulsive and and
volatile and hard on you you say alright
Christ I'm gonna listen to you
it's like what's your stupid problem and
then they lay out their problem right
the problem space and you have to listen
and
jump in there too quickly with a damn
solution because what the hell do you
know so you listen to them lay out the
problem space they lay their cards on
the table then you say well we don't
have to pay attention to this we don't
have to pay attention to this and that's
the cutting the dragon of chaos down to
size that's what it is you look at the
dragon of chaos and it starts to shrink
okay so and that's because by looking at
it you indicate to the dragon that
you're bigger than you thought you were
and that you're bigger than it thought
you were and that's very very useful so
anyways you lay out your cards and then
you start to organize them it's like
well actually I only have ten problems
all right so then you think well how can
we break those problems down into
manageable subproblems and how can you
go about addressing them that can be
very complicated I hate my job well do
you have an alternative no well why not
well I don't have a resume
I hate being interviewed I'm afraid to
make a resume I love stop my education I
don't have any options it's like yeah
that's a lot of problems man and that's
you know those are strategic problems so
then you have to figure out how to help
the person strategize and then implement
the strategies and so the next step is
okay now we know your problems if you
could have a solution like that would be
the opposite of the problem what might a
solution look like
same issue it's like well there's lots
of solutions I don't know what to do
with my life I don't know what job to
have I don't know what person to
establish a long-term intimate
relationship with I don't know what I
would like to do with my family I don't
know how to use my time outside of work
I don't know how to resist temptation
like drug and alcohol abuse I don't know
I don't know how to take care of myself
mentally and physically all these
complicated problems it's like okay
let's sketch out a potential solution if
you could have what you wanted so that
would be a cure what would that look
like we formalize this by the way in the
future authoring process so if you do
the future authoring program which is
part of the self authoring suite it will
guide you through doing this it's
unbelievably useful to do that because
you're not going to hit what you don't
aim at so so then you you have the
person layout okay well where are we
headed it's a map now we know where we
are and it's a problem now we have to
figure out where we're headed and so
and then finally once we figure out
where we're headed we have to figure out
how to get there we have to make the map
let's go to a beginning place it's got
an end place now we have to map out the
terrain so like well I didn't finish my
degree or maybe I didn't go to college
or maybe I didn't finish high school
it's like well do you need a different
job yes do you need a high school
diploma to get that yes what steps do
you have to take to get a high school
diploma maybe you have to start with one
course right okay where do you find a
course you go look it up online what
things make you afraid to go back to
school which of those things are
stopping you how are you going to
overcome those fears so you take the
large-scale vision which is the place
you're headed to in the future that's
the cure and then you break it down into
the strategic elements that are
necessary to be implemented on a day to
day basis and you do that so that
they're difficult but attainable and
then the person if they're not difficult
then they're not worth attaining
obviously obviously you're not pushing
yourself and you want the person not
only to develop in the direction they're
supposed to develop but you want to get
them better at developing so you want to
push them just like you do with kids or
yourself if you have any sense and so
we'll break it down into small
implementable daily processes and then
you review those with your with your
client none of that's wallowing itself
petty man quite the contrary
quite the contrary so so psychotherapy
is get your story together who are you
where you're going where are you going
what's your strategy how are you going
to learn to overcome the frightening and
unexpected things that are going to pop
up at you when you implement that
strategy so when those can be some of
those things can be the natural world
I'm afraid of death I'm afraid of
illness I'm afraid of insanity and some
of those can be the social world I'm
afraid of my boss I'm afraid of my wife
I'm afraid of my friends I'm afraid of
being humiliated I'm afraid that people
won't like me those are the two big
classes of fears right fear of the great
mother nature fear of the great father
culture and if you're really afraid you
get to have both those fears at the same
time so there's nothing about that
that's wallowing in self-pity
quite the contrary it's a bad therapist
that does that
not there to make to feel sorry for you
they are there to be on the side of the
part of you that's aiming up and to
encourage you and to allow you to have a
space where you can lay out your
thoughts using your free speech to think
where you can lay out your thoughts
about what's wrong with you and how that
might be set right there's nothing to do
with wallowing in self-pity I don't want
to calculate high resolution utopia for
myself only to have it squandered by
fortune how do I ensure the meaning I
experience itself determined well you
can't because there's an arbitrary
element to existence so it is going to
be squandered to some degree by fortune
but that's that's not the point what are
you gonna do just sit back on your
laurels and wait for things to roll over
you so what you do look the hero myth
basically says go out there confront the
dragon get the gold share it with the
community and and and live properly or
it says the alternative is face the
tyrant enter the desert as a consequence
because everything falls apart recast
structure find the promised land those
are the two elements to the hero myth
and you mites and that's divine it's the
closest thing to divine that we know you
might say well what happens if you
follow the divine path and the answer
might be well everything turns out
perfectly because God is on your side
it's like no that isn't what happens
because things don't turn out perfectly
it's your best bet it's your best
strategy right that's the thing and you
know dragons wouldn't be dragons if they
couldn't eat you and so but that's okay
that's okay and this is something I
found so useful about the biblical
stories especially about the Abrahamic
stories which I didn't know that well
till I lectured about them last year
you know God calls people to the
adventure of their lives and so you
could say in part God is that force
within you which calls you to the
adventure of your life and says get away
from your family get away from your
blind and unconscious comfort and get
the hell out there in the world well God
calls Abraham out from his father's
where he stayed far too long and from
his kin where it's secure and like the
first thing he encounters is a
and then he encounters a tyranny
inhabited by people who want to steal
his wife it's like you think well he
Abraham should have just stayed in bed
and ignored God obviously well that
isn't how it is it's like we're built
for struggle as human beings you know
after the bubbles of bliss that
Dostoevsky described in in notes from
underground
we're built to contend with the world
we're built to contend with reality you
want a challenge and the best way that
you can take on a challenge because the
challenge fortifies you so you don't
want to be secure you want to be strong
and you get strong by taking on optimal
challenges and so you lay out your
destiny in the world and you take the
slings and arrows of fate and you make
yourself stronger while you're doing so
and you might fail and fortune might do
you in but it's your best bet and you
know people have also people that have
extracted unbelievable successes out of
catastrophic failures and so and I'm not
saying that in a naive way I know
perfectly well what happens to people
you know you're doing fine in life and
then you get cancer and then six months
later you're dead and all the heroism in
the world isn't going to save you at
that point but that's not the point
that's not the point
life is bounded by mortality but that
doesn't mean that you don't get out
there and contend and you develop by
contending and you minimize the net
amount of suffering in the world and
that's something man that's something to
do so it's it's it beats laying in your
basement and getting bitter and then
doing the terrible things that bitter
people do so you can't ensure that the
meaning you experience is self
determined but you can play your role to
the best of your ability and that will
be good enough and that will be good
enough that meaning the meaning that
you'll find in then in that I believe is
sufficient to be sustaining and perhaps
even sustaining through the flood so it
isn't that you can avoid catastrophe
it's that you can prepare yourself to
deal with it honorably when it arrives
that's what you've got I have very high
orderliness and low industriousness
twenty-third I have very high
orderliness 90th percentile low in
business 23% Oh what can I do to remedy
this and get a higher industriousness
okay first of all that's not that low
okay we got to think about percentiles
here for a minute because they're not
percentages they're different so if
you're at the 23rd percentile and there
were four people in a room you'd be the
least industrious of four of them and
that kind of puts you in the average
range it's not that big a deal there's
problems with it we'll get to that
although you may maybe your height and
openness to it anyway so I won't get
into that Lowell would be fifth
percentile because that makes you one in
twenty or second percentile because that
makes you one in fifty it's kind of
interesting to visualize a fairly large
high school class and then to think of
yourself as situated and there if you're
the least industrious person out of 50
that's going to be a problem you better
be smart or have some other things going
for you because you're gonna have a hard
time being diligent enough to be
successful okay having said that so and
maybe first percentile makes you one in
a hundred and point zero point one
percentile makes you one in a thousand
so you got to think about percentiles
properly so having said that let's say
you're not very high in industriousness
what should you do a make a dam plan
okay you need a plan for your life and I
would say use the future authoring
program because that will help you make
a plan or make a plan on your own that's
fine or make a plan because you talked
to someone but you know we put the
future authoring program together to
help people develop a vision of where
they could be a counter vision to scare
the hell out of them by helping them
think through how catastrophic things
could become if they let all their
stupidities get the upper hand and then
a second part of the program that helps
you make a strategy and we know the
future authoring program helps people
young man in particular who are doing
worse by the way in academic situations
it increases the probability that they
will stay in college and university by
between 25 and 50 percent so make a damn
plan and make one you want like don't
make a plan that is what you should do
even though it will be what you should
do make a plan that outlines a future so
that you can sit back and say look if I
had that future than all the horrible
things that are going to happen to me
are going to be worthwhile that's what
you want
so you want to think this game is worth
playing despite its tragedy that's what
you've got in life enough meaning to
serve as an antidote to tragedy all
right now and then you generate a
strategy and then the other thing you
should do if you're not very industrious
enough industrious is discipline
yourself and so what do you do with that
eat three times a day at regular
mealtimes that's a good thing to
practice because that starts to put some
stability into your life get up at the
same time I would highly recommend all
those young people out there who are
listening like you want to get a jump on
life get the hell out of bed in the
morning you know as I've got older I've
got up earlier and earlier now that's
partly because you don't need as much
sleep but it's also partly because I've
got more and more disciplined like get
up early in the morning and get your
things done man learn to get up at 6:00
in the morning and you'll be one deadly
creature especially if you can get to
work you'll have half your damn day done
by the time other people haul their
sorry asses out of bed and so that's a
massive massive advantage look Will
Ferrell Warren Farrell not the comedian
Warren Farrell the author he outlined
data in why men earn more which is a
book I would recommend by the way
showing that if you work 13% longer
hours you make 40 percent more money
it's nonlinear so you think why is that
well imagine you had 10 employees and
one of them works an extra 10 percent
it's not much well how often is that
person going to be promoted assuming you
have a clue as a boss it's like you're
gonna look at the 10 people and you
gonna think oh that guy's always here
like 45 minutes early it's like why
don't we give him the promotion
obviously right so these tie these small
edges that you can manage like that work
an extra 10% extra 13% have no
unproportional payoffs that's part of
the Pareto distribution so get get your
sleep cycle organized so you get up in
the morning learn how to do it no
excuses I'm too tired in the morning
I don't like mornings who cares that's
not relevant it's like discipline
yourself so you can manage it schedule
your meals because that's a good
disciplinary routine and then learn to
use a calendar like Google Calendar most
of you many of you out there do not use
a calendar okay
is not a prison and it's not a tyrant
not if you use it properly a calendar
keeps anxiety at bay it makes sure that
you do what you need to do which is
important because otherwise you fall
behind but if you use it properly though
it's also helps you plan what you want
to do so I could say well lay out your
damn calendar and design the days you
would like to have that's what your
calendars hat is for so you can put in
all sorts of things in there you want to
do and that would be good for you and
that's a really good really good way to
start being more industrious make a plan
you need a plan for three years you need
a plan for the next year you need to
plan for the next six months you need to
plan for the next three months you need
a plan for the week you need a plan for
the day you need to plan for the hour
all of that all of that I make lists
constantly of what I have to do and
they're like daily weekly monthly yearly
right now I can't look out more than
about six months you know because my
life is too complicated and chaotic but
but you need a vision of who you could
be what character you could have three
to five years out you can't go much
farther than that because life is too
unpredictable I think to make vision
that's longer-term than that subject to
there's too much chance associated with
it to spend a lot of time on maybe you
can stretch it to five years and in rare
cases you can have a ten-year goal but
it has to be pretty low resolution but
you want plans at all those levels of
resolution you want to write the things
down and what because what are you gonna
do you're gonna stumble around and get
to get what you need
you're gonna stumble around and be
useful to other people and it's useful
to be useful to other people you know
they want to work with you then they
want to do things with you they want to
have you around they trust you they open
up opportunities for you and if you
stumble around like you're blind you're
not gonna get anywhere and then you're
gonna suffer then you're gonna be bitter
and then you're gonna be cruel so that's
a bit that's hell that's a bad outcome
so unless you want that don't aim for it
and or it or aim for the opposite
because that's how you get out of it so
physical attractiveness is extensively
studied in departments of psychology how
big of a determinant of success is it
apart from IQ or any of the other
five traits that's tough one because
physical attractiveness is a very
complex trait it's also for example it's
a marker of health and of course health
is a mark is a prerequisite for success
so I
you can't take attractiveness as a
unitary dimension and measure it
sufficiently accurately wait I should
back up on that no one that I know of
has taken physical attractiveness as a
unitary concept measured it accurately
and then pitted against IQ and the big
five to see if it to what degree it adds
incremental validity to the prediction
of long-term success but physical but
and so I can't give you a technical
answer you know I can say well in a
complex job over the long-run IQ
accounts for maybe 20 percent of the
variance in success leaving eighty
percent therefore random events and and
the big five traits and connection
networks and and family background and
all those other things
gender perhaps that all the other things
that determine success physical that's
we know that physical at people who are
physically attractive though are given
the benefit of doubt by other people
they they benefit from the positive halo
effect and the positive halo effect is
the propensity of people to assume good
things about someone if there is one
outstanding thing about them that's
easily evident that's good and so if
you're if you're if you stand up
straight with your shoulders back so
that's rule one and twelve rules for
life then people are gonna see you as
more attractive if you're symmetrical
you're more attractive if you're thin
but not too thin you're more attractive
well and then there's like good skin and
good teeth and good hair and and all of
those things and proper proportions and
youth and there's a whole slew of things
that that that feed into that if you are
characterized by a plethora of those
features then people are also going to
assume that you're more competent and
more and more more worth having around
let's say but the problem is is that you
are so separating out the attractiveness
from the things the attractiveness is
correlated with is very hard that's why
you have to do
multivariate analysis that's multi
variable analysis in any complex social
science because a lot of these traits
overlap so but you know you can you can
there's there's some some things you can
do about that postural adjustment is
helpful to work out with weights that's
extraordinarily helpful that that
increases improves your posture and
makes you more confident and and and and
and at and you can dress reasonably well
and intelligently and all of those
things to help yourself capitalize on
whatever attractiveness you can muster
so what is your view on psychological
egoism if we're all ultimately acting
out of self-interest then does altruism
have any merit I don't think the
question is well posed and that's it's
one of those questions that leads into a
philosophical dead-end because it's not
well post there isn't any such thing as
self-interest it's not the right way to
think about it because you're not alone
and so this is why I like Piaget Jean
Piaget because he thought about this
intelligently look first of all whose
self-interest to you me do you mean your
immediate self-interest in the next
second so that would be impulsive
pleasure we're all acting for the
gaining of impulsive pleasure and to
hell with everything else well obviously
that's a stupid way to behave because
and everyone knows that because you can
do impulsive short-term gratifying
things like snort cocaine now and you
can keep doing that and it'll pay off
real real well in the extremely short
term and they'll just auger you into the
ground in the medium to long term so if
you're acting in your own self-interest
let's take that apart over what period
of time your self-interest in the next
second your self-interest in the next
hour
like if you're impulsive and you want to
gratify an impulse you're obviously
acting in your self-interest in the next
second or the next two seconds or the
next minute but you know you'll pay for
that
maybe you punch someone or you slap
someone because you're so angry and then
you know they knock you for a loop and
and then they charge you with assault
you know so well
it was great in your self-interest in
the second but like future remember that
Simpsons episode Homer drank a quart of
mayonnaise and and vodka and and margin
all his kids were telling him not to and
he said well that's a problem for future
Homer I sure don't envy that guy it's
like which is one of the best Simpsons
lines ever I think and well that's it
exactly it's like well there isn't just
you there's there's now you and there's
tonight you and there's tomorrow morning
you that's the one that will have the
hangover by the way and there's next
week you and next month you and next
year you and old you and so if you're
gonna act in your self-interest you have
to take that collective of use across
time into account when you make your
decision and now here's the cool thing
about that so then let's say well that
would be acting in your self-interest
writ large right across time spans but
the thing is future you and someone else
that you have to live with right now
that's not you are pretty much the same
people and so if you're gonna act in
your self-interest and you have other
people around you then you also want to
act in their self-interest because
otherwise they won't like you they won't
cooperate with you and they won't
compete with you in a reasonable manner
and so that's going to be a catastrophe
and so you want to act out what's good
for you now and what's good for you next
month and next year and you want to do
that in a way that's good for you and
your family and your community right now
next week and next year and you're going
to take all those things into account at
the same time
that's an equilibrate again from
piagetian perspective and it was his
idea that that constituted the basis for
proper moral judgment and it's a
brilliant idea it's a brilliant idea and
so that's your true self interest
there's no difference between your
interest in the interest of others not
in any fundamental sense even your
enemies which is why you're enjoying to
treat your enemy as if he was yourself
because he is you know when you think
well you should wish well you should
wish your enemies well well why well it
isn't that you hope they get a bigger
house than you it's that let's say
you're you're being pursued and
tormented by someone who's truly
reprehensible that person is they have a
miserable life man in all likelihood
let's say they're truly malevolent you
know they live in Hell and
what you might hope for them is that
they could figure out how to get out of
there because it's not good for them and
it's not good for anyone else think well
even your enemies it's like wouldn't it
be good if they could get their act
together and stop being so unnecessarily
malevolent and that's in your
self-interest so the idea that your
self-interest is somehow opposed to
other people's or that if you maximize
your self-interest you're not operating
in the best interests of other people is
predicated on a poor idea of what
constitutes your self-interest because
you're not separate in any real sense
from other people you may be not
separate from everything in some real
sense you know I mean Yong Yong in his
book mysterium Kim Yong sness he had
this idea I'm going to go through it
real quick it's a complicated idea that
this is how you put yourself together
the first thing you do is you you join
your emotions and your and your
rationality so that so that your mind
and your emotions are one thing he
called that the first conjunction so
that your motivations and your emotions
and the way that you think about the
world are all acting in the same
direction okay so that's the first
conjunction and you get your act
together that way so that would mean
incorporation of aggression and
sexuality from a Freudian perspective
those parts of you that are difficult to
integrate come to be integrated into one
thing so you can use your anger when you
need to and you have your sexuality
under control it doesn't have you but
you know how to use it and it's a power
for you and and you're properly
assertive in all of those things and so
you you build yourself into one
psychological unit and then you embody
that so that's the second conjunction
the second conjunction is take your mind
emotion motivation unity and act it out
act it out in the world so that there's
no distinction between you and what you
do between you and the way you think
about the world and your philosophy and
how you act that makes you at second
kind of unity and then the final
conjunction which is the most difficult
one is to stop thinking that the world
is different than you are this is why I
ask people to clean up the rooms it's
like your room is you it's you and so
you go in there and you clean up your
room you're cleaning you up - the same
way you're developed
discipline you're putting yourself in
order you're developing a vision of the
future you're figuring out how to dress
your figuring out how to take care of
your things you're interacting with the
micro cosmos that you have in front of
you and learning how to balance chaos
and order there's no difference between
you and what's around you and that's a
very difficult thing to understand and
so you want to act in a way that's good
for you but good for everything else at
the same time and that's that's a high
moral virtue and that's so there is
there that's the right way of thinking
about the relationship between
psychological egoism and altruism it's
like if you're as you move towards a
broader conceptualization of things you
start to understand that there is no
selfish self in there is no selfish
self-interest it isn't how life works
like if you're married to someone for
example and you're stuck with them for
the next 50 years it's like you can't
win an argument with them you can make
peace because they're you man they're
you there are a huge part of your
experience you have to treat that person
as if they are you and that it's not it
isn't like well I'm gonna treat you well
because you're me it's because people
don't treat themselves very well often
it's way more complicated than that you
just you don't want to defeat your wife
man
because then you live with a defeated
wife and if you think she isn't gonna
take revenge on you then here you're not
very bright so you want to listen to
what she has to say
and you want to listen to her problems
and you want to help her solve them
because she's you and you want to do the
same with your kids and then you want to
do the same with the people around you
if you can do it so and so the whole
idea of like well we're basically wired
to be selfish well we are when we're not
very wise and we act impulsively but as
your view of the world broadens you
start to understand that this is why in
the Buddhist philosophy no Buddha
attained nirvana so that meant he could
stay in union with the gods so to speak
he he attained the highest form of of
subjective experience what might be but
which might be something like total
immersion in
in bliss and meaning but he rejected it
because he went back into the world to
help other people attain nirvana or at
least to move towards it because he
realized that there was no individual
redemption without the redemption of all
and you if you don't understand that
then you're just not very wise and so
you're trying to be a force for good in
the world and that doesn't mean just
good for you that's just it's just blind
because there isn't any isolated you
that isn't how things are that's now
realities lays itself out so what is
your current thinking on Orthodox
Christianity the Orthodox Christians
like me I don't know why but I think I
have some idea I guess I've got a lot of
letters from religious people a lot of
lot from from Muslims from Jews from
Orthodox Jews in particular strangely
enough from Christian monk monks but a
lot from Orthodox Christians and I think
the reason for that as far as I can tell
is that the Orthodox look at
Christianity from a slightly different
angle than the Protestants and the
Catholics and I'm not putting down the
Protestants and the Catholics they have
a perspective a reason for their
viewpoint but what's happened in the
West I think and this is a dreadful
oversimplification so pre please forgive
me is that the West has viewed
Christianity more as a set of beliefs
that are analogous in some sense to a
cognitive theory of the world so to be a
Christian in the West you have to accept
that Christ died for your sins and that
you're redeemed so you have to accept
Christ as your Redeemer and that really
means to state that you believe a set of
propositions about Christ that he was
the son of God and that his death and
resurrection his sacrifice redeemed
mankind and that and then you partake in
that Redemption by laying out that a
core that accordance with a set of facts
let's say I don't I understand why
that's how it's worked out but I think
there's a big risk in that and I don't
think the Orthodox fell into that to the
same degree their idea more and this is
there in Protestant
and ISM and Catholicism - it's their it
but it's it's given more secondary more
implicit emphasis and I think that's a
problem especially in the modern world
the Orthodox would say as near as I can
tell that you should pick up your damn
cross and stumble up the hill that's
your job
right and the cross is the X where
everyone is located you right at the
center of reality you're suffering and
dying and being reborn all the time at
the center of reality as you transform
and you have to accept that and embrace
it you have to and that's very very hard
thing to do because it means to embrace
all your flaws and the flaws of reality
and the tragedy of existence and your
death and the sum total of human evil
all of that unbelievably demanding
requirement but you do what you can to
do that and then not only do you pick up
your cross so to speak but you stumble
uphill towards the City of God do you
stumble up towards what's good and
that's your destiny and that's where
meaning is to be had and the Orthodox
lay that out quite well that's your goal
is the imitation of Christ and Christ is
the logos this is the Christian story
Christ is the logos that God uses at the
beginning of time to transform pre
cosmogonic chaos into habitable order
truthful speech so that's the thing your
your the fact that you're capable of
uttering truthful speech is an
indication that you've shouldered your
cross and are stumbling uphill a very
coherent theory and the Orthodox I think
have done a very good job of keeping
that idea at the forefront of their of
their belief and so that's what I think
about Orthodox Christianity do I have
any thoughts on the myers-briggs
personality test yes it's old
it isn't psychometrically valid it
wasn't derived by factor analytic
techniques it should be replaced by the
big five or the big five aspect scale
which you can use if you go to
understand myself calm we've put it
online for people to use and to generate
a personality report Myers & Briggs
attempted to make a questionnaire
predicated on Union presuppositions and
perhaps they did a fine job for the
1930s but that was a long time ago and
there weren't any powerful computational
devices of the kind that were necessary
to sort out the structure of personality
properly which we've managed to do
since about 1960 onward so now the
myers-briggs is perfectly useful tool if
what you want to do is get people to
talk about the fact that there are
individual differences in personality
and corporations love it because no one
gets offended by it because everyone
wins but if you want a personality test
that actually tells you who you are
that's valid and reliable then you use
the big five and and that's that and so
I would say the myers-briggs should be
relegated to the dustbins of the past
because it's a defunct and archaic
instrument and it's no longer properly
valid and so that's that
how can women who waited too long to
have children find meaning in their
lives once they realize their mistake
how can we cope with the regret Jesus
that's a hard question well you know
there are other avenues to meaning right
I mean that's that's the first thing to
realize is that there are there's
intimate relationship
there's familial relationships that
aren't in accordance with children
there's other people that you can serve
there are other children that you can
serve so what you have to do because
intimate relationships are so important
and I'm including that close familiar
I'm not talking about sexual
relationships I'm talking about very
close social relationships the thing
about having children
if you're lucky is that you have a
relationship there of a depth that you
don't get anywhere else with the
possible exception of your parents and
siblings and your partner but there's
something about the child relationship
that's even more fundamental because the
thing about having a child is that if
you have any sense as soon as you have a
child you are no longer the most
important person right you're no longer
the person that you have primary
responsibility for it's now your child
and that produces a psychological
transformation and it produces a
relationship of a depth that can't be
easily duplicated elsewhere but it's not
like that's the only thing that there is
to do in life you know there there are
other relationships and I would say what
you do is you foster them to the degree
that that's possible and maybe you could
find other kids to serve you know
there's always the possibility of
volunteering for hospitals or or or
working in places where children need
service so that's a possibility as well
and so you've you know there are there
are a variety of sources of meaning in
people's lives and there they're not
unlimited
you know there's career there's
education there's what you do that's
meaningful meaningfully engages you
outside of work
there's your social relations your
friends and so forth and so maybe you
have five wave legs to stand on and you
missed one because you didn't have kids
or maybe you missed two because kids are
a big deal but that doesn't mean the
rest of them aren't accessible to you
and so you optimize your functioning
along
the dimensions that are left to you and
then I would also say maybe you try to
forgive yourself a little bit you know
like it's very difficult to go through
life without without regrets without
making mistakes you know and you can't
beat yourself to death for it because
then everyone would beat themselves to
death all the time and so you think well
that's that's I'm I'm too soon old and
too late wise to use an old cliche and
you think well that's the law of mankind
we learn things too late often and
that's too bad and you forgive yourself
because you're stupid and you don't know
what you're doing and you're unwise just
like everyone else and maybe you're
somewhat capable of learning if you're
careful and then you go out and you try
to foster relations and do good in the
world
to the degree that you can outside of
the necessity of of children and maybe
you have nephews nieces and you can
lavish some attention on them and find
your substitute where you can but I
would say to forgive yourself is a big
part of that it's like people make
mistakes man big mistakes and the people
that I've watched through life that have
been successful it's not like they
didn't make mistakes because everyone
makes mistakes and they do things they
regret and they miss opportunities and
it's a bloody catastrophe but they treat
themselves with some degree of mercy
along with the justice it's like yeah
well I screwed up there and I'm gonna
try to learn and I'm not gonna do it
again but I'm not gonna beat myself to
death so that I can't get up again and
so you do what you can to forgive
yourself you know it's a confusing time
to live in in many ways because we have
the birth control pill now and that
means reproduction has now become
voluntary well woman's a good time to
reproduce well never because who would
ever think about doing that it's so
ridiculously irrational and complicated
and the burden of responsibility is so
insanely high and you never secure
enough to to have the proper place to
bring children into the world and you
have to get your career going and your
and your intimate relationship and maybe
you have some struggle doing that and
one day you wake up and it's a bit late
it's like yeah well you're a product of
your time and one of the prices that
we're going to pay for have
birth control for having reliable
contraception is that some people are
going to make the wrong decision with
regards to having children and then you
view yourself as a product of your time
and that's a catastrophe you know
because to be a product of your time is
in some ways a catastrophe so but
there's other things to do in life and
and augering yourself into the ground
with regret and and and and
self-recrimination is not useful right I
mean you have to learn your lesson you
have to take your lumps all of that but
have some mercy you know that's it you
have said that the only moral absolute
is always to tell the truth what if you
have an Frank in the attic and the
Gestapo at you on your doorstep
then I would say that there has been a
lot of lies that have got you to that
point so you may be in a situation where
you're damned if you turn right and
you're damned if you turn left and what
that means is you made a lot of mistakes
along the way
you know so if the totalitarians are
knocking at your door if the
totalitarians are knocking on everyone's
door that means everyone should have
spoke up a lot sooner and then they
wouldn't end up in a situation where the
Gestapo was out the door and anne frank
was in the out is it was in the attic so
you know and then you end up in a
situation where you've made so many
mistakes that all you've got is hell
around you and that was certainly the
case in amsterdam sarin in in when the
nazis came in I mean the doctrine
admirable people and I know they were
invaded by the Nazis and that was a
terrible thing but many many many many
many people made many terrible moral
errors for all of that to occur and you
have to be awake and do everything you
can to make sure your society doesn't
this is the answer you be awake and you
make sure everything you society does
doesn't lead to the point where the
Gestapo is at your doorstep and you have
Anne Frank in the Attic it's a little
late to be thinking then I would say
why have confidence in an opinion when
it could be wrong well partly because it
could be right you know and that's why
it's better to think about opinions as
tools you know or maybe just dispense
with opinions altogether because who
cares about your stupid opinion but what
you want is tools to work in the world
and you think well I have a tool and it
might work so like let's say that you're
going in to negotiate with someone well
your your tool kit is your conceptual
the conceptual structure and the habits
that you have that enable you to
construe the situation and to conduct
the negotiation well you have to have
confidence that your that your tool kit
is appropriate or you wouldn't go out
there and test it and you say well I
might be wrong it's like yeah but you're
not going to learn if you're wrong
unless you go out there and test it so
you have to have provisional look let's
say that you're well let's say that
you're using a hammer to hammer in a
nail and you think well am I going to
hit the nail well you aim at the nail
and you hit it and you watch and if you
didn't hit it quite right then you aim a
little different you know so you have
enough confidence to swing the hammer
but that doesn't mean you're not paying
attention to the outcome so you want to
have confidence the best answer you
don't want to have confidence in the
opinion exactly you want out you want to
believe in the necessity of moving
forward in the world with your limited
tool kit and also you want to make the
the vowel
let's say that as you implement your
tools in the world that you're going to
pay attention to what happens and you're
going to modify them as necessary as you
move along that's the adoption of the
hero myth again because that's you know
let's say your opinion is a little
screwy and so you lay it out in the
world and you get responses that aren't
positive it's like you think oh okay
well that didn't work out quite right
they all go retool my opinion and so you
you move out into the world not as a
collection of opinions but as a
collection of tools and as the process
that can re cast those tools and then
you think well it's not so much that I
have confidence in my opinions I have I
know that they're necessary to express
them
because sometimes the work and if they
don't work then I can learn and that's
and that's the recipe for forthright
action in the world our daughter entered
her life at 24 due to depression if
someone is determined to end their life
how can one change their mind oh well
first of all that's I'm very sorry about
that
that's a terrible thing look I had this
friend her sorry there's been a lot of
depression in our family so it's a
question that cuts close to the bone
anyways I had this friend a friend of my
parents and her granddaughter committed
suicide you know she was just beating
herself up both out what could have I
done what could have I done differently
this is the problem with suicide it
leaves everybody behind thinking oh my
god what could have I done I could have
treated the person better I could
listened I could have been there it's
like and she was just beating yourself
up about this really feeling that she
wasn't a useful person that she'd failed
as a grandmother she's a really good
person you know and so I went for a walk
with her and I said she's married and
she likes her husband and he's a really
good guy and I said look you're you're
blaming yourself for the for your
granddaughters suicide it's like are you
blaming your husband are you setting him
down and telling him what a use useless
bastard he was as a grandfather because
his granddaughter committed suicide and
how he failed completely
she said no I'd never do that so I said
well don't do it to yourself
know people depression is a terrible
thing and many many many things caused
it and we don't understand we understand
some of them but lots of them we don't
understand
you know sometimes people get depressed
because they're really sick we know that
depression can be an inflammatory
disease it might be associated with
autoimmune dysfunction there's lots of
reasons that people get depressed and
depressed people can go places that are
so dark you just cannot imagine it and
it isn't necessarily the case that you
can always rescue someone you know and
but but drowning yourself in the
aftermath of a suicide is not helpful so
there's a there's a good room for self
forgiveness there you know I mean maybe
you did some things you shouldn't have
done that we're reprehensible in all of
that but you don't want to beat yourself
up remember the presumption of innocence
right innocent until proven guilty and
you have to apply that to yourself I
don't think I think there are times when
people are so depressed that there isn't
anything that anyone can do you know
when the depressed person thinks and
this is probably the worst part of it
the depressed person thinks everywhere I
look it's nothing but catastrophe and
there's no I can't see any way out of it
right I can't see any path forward
whatsoever and then they think as well
and maybe it's the combination of these
two thoughts that that really make
people suicidal it's like it's hopeless
it isn't going to get any better no
matter where I turn there's no escape
the suffering is unbearable and I'd
absolutely no use whatsoever to anyone
it would be better for everyone if I was
just gone because I'm going if I'm not
so much of a burden now that it's going
to destroy their life then I'm going to
be that much of a burden in the future
and so how do you imagine what that's
like for people but it's dreadful and
there's lots of ways you get there and
so you can listen to people you can
desperately encourage them to seek the
help they need you know like I've I've
seen antidepressants work miracles on
very very many people now they don't
work for everyone and they're not a
panacea but you know they have side
effects and all of that but one of the
side effects of untreated depression is
that you kill yourself and there is no
recovery from that and the
abilities actually rather high so you
can go to war with them about
antidepressants if the person can't get
out of their depression and their and
their suicidal it's like what do they
have to lose one month on
antidepressants they'll know well they
might have to experiment longer because
it would depend on you know some people
respond better to some classes of
antidepressants than the others it's
worth having a war with someone if
they're in dire straits and they won't
do everything they can to get better ECT
works
electroconvulsive therapy works for
intractable depression it's a terrible
thing to contemplate but the modern
versions of ECT aren't One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest and again it's like
there's no coming back from death so
look it isn't you can't rescue everyone
people get sick and they die and
sometimes the way they die looks like
it's depression depression is a
multi-faceted phenomena you can be there
for them you can listen you can watch
you can intervene you can try to
understand you can hold them accountable
you can do all of those things but that
but everyone has their own destiny you
know and you're not omnipotent and so
sometimes it could ask to feel curse
like your daughters and then and then
you should try to drag the least amount
of misery forward that you can once you
recover from your grief yeah I'm gonna
answer one more question
due to a recent incident my company is
making me undergo implicit bias training
how should I come to terms with my
possible firing when I refuse look
there's no sense in burning yourself at
the stake you know if you're gonna take
a principled stance on something at work
and you're gonna refuse you have to get
your tools in order you have to get your
quiver full of arrows you know what the
hell good is it going to be for you just
to get fired I maybe have a family that
depends on you that's not helpful that
doesn't mean I think you should be weak
because you have a family you should be
stronger I would say is your resume in
order is your CV in order is it updated
have you sent out other job applications
are you prepared do you have a lateral
move like this is a war not a battle and
you don't want to lose and so set
yourself up and then make your case and
when you make your case don't apologize
but don't do it carelessly you know you
you need a ladder remove because
otherwise you're too exposed so and if
you're gonna refuse have your arguments
at hand you know have them in writing
make sure that you share them with the
appropriate people don't make
unnecessary enemies and do yourself the
least amount of harm possible
now look having said that you know so
you're going to you know you're gonna
pay you're either gonna pay and you're
gonna go do a implicit bias training and
you're gonna sell a bit of your soul to
do that or you're gonna pay because
you're going to refuse and you're gonna
take that price so you've got price to
pay both ways if you're gonna refuse do
it intelligently do it programmatically
do it philosophically do it
strategically right stupid martyrdom is
just stupid martyrdom it's not helpful
so either maybe people you need to talk
to there may need to be more than one of
you you know so you may need to make
contact with the press like you got to
be strategic
about this you got to be intelligent
about it you don't want to just light
yourself in fire and out of protest
because maybe they'll just be a pile of
ashes that people sweep up and go on
with their idiocy so alright everyone
nice talking with you all thank you for
the questions come and see me if you
want if you go to Jordan Peterson Jordan
B Peterson calm you can see the upcoming
events they've gone they've been going
real well I'll talk about my book and
about all the other things that I'm
thinking about or not all of them but
some of the other things that I'm
thinking about I'm I try to make every
talk different even though you know the
outline is the same because I'm talking
about my book I guess that's about it
thank you for all the patreon support I
know it's been a little while since this
last Q&A that's life I guess at the
moment and I'll try to do one within the
next month I'm on the road Lord I'll
probably do it with my laptop so what
should I say in closing get your act
together much as you can there's things
to do in the world and it would be good
if everyone was out there doing them
we'll see how we could beat this old
globe back into some reasonable shape or
into better shape than it's ever been
that would be lovely thing to do so
goodbye for now