Speaker 1: This is Jonathan Feeshow. Welcome to the symbolic world, all.
Speaker 2: Right, and so everyone, I am very happy to be
Speaker 2: here with Peter Bogojin. All of you will know him,
Speaker 2: you know if you're kind of in the conversation of
Speaker 2: meaning and of uh, you know, the problem of woke
Speaker 2: culture and how to react to it and how to
Speaker 2: kind of save our Western society. He's now affiliated with
Speaker 2: the University of Austin and we met in London last year.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't during ARC like it was around
Speaker 2: I think you know, it wasn't during ARC because before
Speaker 2: we had a bit of a conversation by religion, and
Speaker 2: we both were very critical of a lot of the
Speaker 2: postmodern stuff because of how religious it is. And the
Speaker 2: surprise in the discussion with Peter was wondering, well, if
Speaker 2: you think that, why then do you like religion and
Speaker 2: so or why do you not critical about against religion itself?
Speaker 2: And so we thought it would be a great opportunity
Speaker 2: to continue the conversation. So Peter, thanks for coming up.
Speaker 3: Thanks Jonathan, thanks for having me. I think we met
Speaker 3: at an unheard event, didn't we.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right, it was. Yeah, I forget
Speaker 2: it was. It's actually the showing of your documentary, of
Speaker 2: the documentary.
Speaker 3: About Mike Nainis documentary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, about the whole paper, all the papers that
Speaker 2: you wrote with Lindsay and yeah, yeah, it was a
Speaker 2: great documentary the reformers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I Mike did a great job. And then in
Speaker 3: that conversation, let's see, we were both fetching about the
Speaker 3: new religion and the architecture of the new religion. And
Speaker 3: I think I said to you, well, if you realize
Speaker 3: that's a problem, why don't you realize that your religion
Speaker 3: is a problem. And it's a The question is a version.
Speaker 3: It has an old so I told you it has
Speaker 3: an older pedigree in the literature. But it's a version
Speaker 3: of John W. Loftus's outsider test for faith. And the
Speaker 3: idea is that you want to look at your religion
Speaker 3: as an outsider, as you and I are outsiders to
Speaker 3: these religion religions as a as a Muslim, as an
Speaker 3: outsider to you know, Pentecostalism. And they see speaking in
Speaker 3: tongues of silly. I gave a talk about this years
Speaker 3: ago at the East Jesus the Easter Bunny and other
Speaker 3: delusions just say no. By the way, at that talk,
Speaker 3: the original title of that talk was supposed to be
Speaker 3: Jesus Mohammad and Other Delusions, Jesus Mohammad, the Easter Bunny
Speaker 3: and other Delusions, just to say no, But the university
Speaker 3: made me take out Mohammed, but it was fine to
Speaker 3: keep Jesus in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course we all know that the case. But
Speaker 2: everybody pretends to be open about Islam, but is really
Speaker 2: just scared, is what it is, you know. And so
Speaker 2: I think that the importance, like the first thing to
Speaker 2: talk about is to see also, you know, when I
Speaker 2: talk about religion, I think we're in some ways at
Speaker 2: the outset, we're thinking about it a little differently. Like
Speaker 2: for you, it seemed religion is like things that you believe,
Speaker 2: let's say, that are often somewhat extraordinary, that that kind
Speaker 2: of you know, that constitute the.
Speaker 3: Group.
Speaker 2: You know. I see religion at the outset as like
Speaker 2: the word implies as the thing that binds us right,
Speaker 2: And so for me, religion is an extension of many
Speaker 2: other aspects. So religion isn't like a freak thing that
Speaker 2: exists completely on its own, but it's an extension of
Speaker 2: binding and so it's an extension of the manner in
Speaker 2: which we recognize that multiplicity joins into unity. So if
Speaker 2: you have a nation, you need a way for you
Speaker 2: to know that you're a nation and not just a
Speaker 2: bunch of strangers. There's something not just no, but participate, right,
Speaker 2: It's not just like a mental knowledge. Have ways to
Speaker 2: know and participate in the fact that you exist as one.
Speaker 2: And that will even in terms of nation, will end
Speaker 2: up looking like what we tend to think religion is. Right,
Speaker 2: You'll have Washington, d c. With monuments that that remember
Speaker 2: the people that founded it. People will go on pilgrimages,
Speaker 2: they'll they'll go see these monuments to like participate and remember.
Speaker 2: We'll have parades, We'll have will have you know, pledges,
Speaker 2: we'll have a flag and songs, all these things that
Speaker 2: are there to help us know and celebrate in the
Speaker 2: unity we participate in. And so I see that scaling
Speaker 2: at every level of participation, from the actually the person
Speaker 2: first of all, then the family, then communities, cities, churches, clubs,
Speaker 2: basket you know, teams, sports, teams. They all have a
Speaker 2: way in which we need to know how to be together.
Speaker 2: And so that's why the ritual of a church, to
Speaker 2: me is the highest level because it tries to bind
Speaker 2: us into the highest thing. It tries to bind us
Speaker 2: in the high thing we can imagine. But a sports
Speaker 2: scene will look religious too. It'll have a mascot, we'll
Speaker 2: we'll have uniforms, we'll have you know, songs and ways
Speaker 2: to know that this is our team and we're kind
Speaker 2: of rooting for it. And so that's to me, maybe
Speaker 2: that's the big difference at the outset, which is why
Speaker 2: just to finish on this, which is why when I
Speaker 2: look at the woke thing, I can see that it's
Speaker 2: religious because it's it's a mode of binding that has celebration,
Speaker 2: ritual you know, that has all of those things. But
Speaker 2: it's but it is perverse, right, because you can have
Speaker 2: manners of binding that are perverse, right. You can have
Speaker 2: a street gang. The street gang will have rituals, will
Speaker 2: have initiation, we'll have a name, costumes, all of that,
Speaker 2: but it none but it leads you towards something that
Speaker 2: is actually dangerous for the other you know, for the
Speaker 2: other beings that exists in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I'm not buying the thing that binds us.
Speaker 3: And the reason I'm not buying that is that I
Speaker 3: think that it either doesn't capture the nuance or it's
Speaker 3: missing something fundamental in that. When I think about religion,
Speaker 3: I think about the reference to it has truth claims.
Speaker 3: Sports teams don't have truth claims, and so if you
Speaker 3: recognize the truth or not you if one recognizes the
Speaker 3: truth claims of other religions is silly, and one recognizes
Speaker 3: the trappings behind that, then it's unclear to me why
Speaker 3: if one is reasoning honestly, why would one recognize that
Speaker 3: the truth claims of one's own religion, as I don't know,
Speaker 3: not epistemically sound. So I guess I'm not buying the
Speaker 3: binding thing because there has to be Like Haunter Rent
Speaker 3: talks about how to have an ideology means you must
Speaker 3: believe it's true, right, I mean truth component to that
Speaker 3: in which there's not. To a sports team, you adjudicate
Speaker 3: those you know, like I know nothing about sports, but no.
Speaker 2: There is a sport. There is a truth claim that
Speaker 2: in sports. What I mean it's it's a it's a
Speaker 2: little different, but it's you have to accept the identity
Speaker 2: and the rules of the sport. You actually have to
Speaker 2: accept those as being true. Relative to the sport. They're
Speaker 2: not true in an absolute sense, but they're true relative
Speaker 2: to the sport.
Speaker 3: Right, those are conventions, Those are everybody knows that those
Speaker 3: are arbitrary conventions, and they I wish I knew more
Speaker 3: about sports. I could you know, give a soccer.
Speaker 2: Or they're not completely arbitrary convention.
Speaker 3: They have a pats No, I mean you can't bring
Speaker 3: a chainsaw on into a boxing match, right, So, but
Speaker 3: those those rules you.
Speaker 2: Would you wouldn't make a sport of someone I don't know,
Speaker 2: someone like rubbing the side of a table for two hours.
Speaker 2: Like there are certain things that capture human attention that
Speaker 2: are objective and that you can't you can't act. There's
Speaker 2: a scale, there's a there's a scale of relevance in sport.
Speaker 2: But all sports have aspects in common which make them
Speaker 2: sport that are true, like that you don't that you
Speaker 2: don't care about them. Right, you can make a sport
Speaker 2: out of something completely ridiculous that nobody would actually love.
Speaker 2: But if you make a sport that has the right
Speaker 2: amount of of excellence in competition, there's a way to
Speaker 2: know who's winning. There's all of these things that are
Speaker 2: necessary for a sport to exist. So there's variability, but
Speaker 2: there's still a bound there's a boundary to variability. So
Speaker 2: you could see this right, Yeah, So so let's say
Speaker 2: you could say, so I'm a Christian, I want to
Speaker 2: be careful not to like freak people out, like I
Speaker 2: am very much a Christian. They want be freaked out
Speaker 2: about think that Mike freak out some of the Christians.
Speaker 2: Is to say that in order to bind yourself at
Speaker 2: the highest level right the way that that that unites
Speaker 2: the most elements together, there's a there's a certain amount
Speaker 2: of variability which is possible, but that amount of variability
Speaker 2: is limited to the fact that we're binding ourself to
Speaker 2: the highest thing. So, like you said, binding yourself to
Speaker 2: a sport and binding yourself to the infinite source of
Speaker 2: all things, that that gives you a mode of being
Speaker 2: that encompasses all other modes of being, which is what
Speaker 2: religion tends to do because it offers it offers identity,
Speaker 2: it offers morality, it offers ways to come together in marriage,
Speaker 2: in death, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That it
Speaker 2: that it it also has a type of variability. So
Speaker 2: like a good example would be the flying spaghetti monster,
Speaker 2: Like the flying spaghetti monster is actually an impossible religion.
Speaker 2: Like technically it's an impossible religion because it doesn't have
Speaker 2: the characteristics necessary to bind you something real. But Islam
Speaker 2: is sufficiently like although I disagree with some of the
Speaker 2: tenets of Islam, it's sufficiently structured so that it can
Speaker 2: do that. And if and if someone said, will replace
Speaker 2: it with the flying spaghett then you wouldn't exist as
Speaker 2: a religion.
Speaker 3: Okay, So there's a lot going on in this conversation.
Speaker 3: So I suggest before we go down or explore other topics,
Speaker 3: we need to disinvigorate some terms, talk about some things.
Speaker 3: So Big trew Stein talks about what you're talking about
Speaker 3: in terms of the commonalities among sports and call some
Speaker 3: family resemblances. So the resemblances, you could have a I
Speaker 3: don't know if you could have a sport for rubbing
Speaker 3: a table. I guess a gind of a sport for
Speaker 3: anything you wanted to. And you, again, you have ways
Speaker 3: to djudicate, you have conventions. But the difference with religion
Speaker 3: is you're making you're not making truth claims. I mean
Speaker 3: you're you're you're saying that we agree if you get
Speaker 3: that again, I'm just making this up. If you kick
Speaker 3: the ball through this net or whatever, you throw the
Speaker 3: ball in this net at a certain number of feet,
Speaker 3: you get two points and then I can't remember it is.
Speaker 3: I think it's three points in basketball. Who the hell?
Speaker 3: I have literally no idea that no big deal. Okay,
Speaker 3: so something like that. But but we're talking about specific things.
Speaker 3: We're talking about linguistic propositions, so sentences in which communities
Speaker 3: agree that belief in those is fundamentally constitutive of what
Speaker 3: it means to belong in the community. For example, they're
Speaker 3: being historic and historical Jesus. Now, I know some people
Speaker 3: who consider themselves Christians who don't accept the historicity of Jesus.
Speaker 3: I mean that that's I mean, I couldn't care less
Speaker 3: how people self. I don't. I mean I really in
Speaker 3: that sense. So it's not a moral question or even
Speaker 3: a political question. It's in the broader sense. I think
Speaker 3: if you were to ask the overwhelming majority of Christians,
Speaker 3: they would say to you, yes, you have to accept
Speaker 3: that Jesus died for your sins and he was crucified,
Speaker 3: et cetera, which basically Muslims don't believe. I don't know,
Speaker 3: many Christians don't believe that. They don't know that Muslims
Speaker 3: don't believe Jesus is crucified. But that's just parenthetical. So
Speaker 3: the the the difference is to things that bind us.
Speaker 3: Lots of things bind us. You can cook a meal
Speaker 3: and bind us, But that's very different from a truth claim.
Speaker 2: Right, So what my like, You're right that there is
Speaker 2: a truth claim aspect to religion. But I do think
Speaker 2: honestly that in the life of the world that has
Speaker 2: always been a secondary thing to the participative reality of religion.
Speaker 2: Which is what I mean is that even the truth claims,
Speaker 2: the truth claims, the reason why we find the truth
Speaker 2: claims important is because of what they offer downstream. Right,
Speaker 2: So there's a downstream thing in the truth claim. So
Speaker 2: it's like, it's not just like I just have these
Speaker 2: arbitrary truth claims. I believe in certain things because they
Speaker 2: offer a world in which I exist, and that world
Speaker 2: has characteristics. And so the Christian story, for example, of
Speaker 2: the teaching of Jesus, the death and the resurrection, the
Speaker 2: cross becomes a model for being and so and then
Speaker 2: it becomes the structure of our world. It structures our
Speaker 2: perception and structures on morality. It structures are ethics, it
Speaker 2: structures what we care about. It does all of that
Speaker 2: downstream from the truth claim, right, And so I understand.
Speaker 2: So it's like, it's so you could have all kinds
Speaker 2: of arbitrary truth claims. You could say, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I have a truth claim which is that Jesus's sandals,
Speaker 2: you know, were one inch thick, And it's like, well,
Speaker 2: who cares. That doesn't mean anything, It has no reason.
Speaker 2: But if I say I have a truth claim, which
Speaker 2: is Jesus died and resurrected from the dead, that means
Speaker 2: it's because it offers a world that is different from
Speaker 2: if that wasn't the case. And that world happens in
Speaker 2: like I said, in participation. So you go to church.
Speaker 2: The church is at the middle of the town. It's
Speaker 2: the Hides building. Everybody can see the staple of the
Speaker 2: church with the cross above it. And then they all
Speaker 2: gather there together to manifest their unity. They celebrate the
Speaker 2: things that brings them together. Birth, death, marriages. All of
Speaker 2: these things happen in light of that of what the
Speaker 2: truth claim offers. And so a simple example is that
Speaker 2: let's say in many many In most societies before Christianity,
Speaker 2: there was no need to say I do. There was
Speaker 2: absolutely no need to It's like you're getting married, it
Speaker 2: was decided for you. You bring the people there, and
Speaker 2: the woman had absolutely no say in what we're like
Speaker 2: in the marriage. Is like a man takes a wife
Speaker 2: and some guy just they just decide that that's her,
Speaker 2: and they come together and they get married, and there
Speaker 2: was no need to ask for the willing acceptance of
Speaker 2: that responsibility of the people. Now Christianity comes offers the
Speaker 2: Cross as an example, and now in that frame of
Speaker 2: willing self sacrifice, the husband and the wife now in
Speaker 2: a Christian marriage have to say that they are willing
Speaker 2: to take this other person at there as their husband
Speaker 2: or as their as their bride. So it's a little example.
Speaker 2: But what I mean is that the truth claim is
Speaker 2: not is it offers a world in which to live.
Speaker 2: And that's the most important because like I said, who
Speaker 2: cares about truth claim? Like there are all millions of
Speaker 2: truth things I could have that that they don't offer.
Speaker 2: They don't offer me anything.
Speaker 3: So so I wrote down what you said. So it's
Speaker 3: the truth clam is important because of what it offers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you're talking about the consequences of the truth claim.
Speaker 2: The reason why that truth claim is important not whether
Speaker 2: it's true or not. That's another question. But the reason
Speaker 2: why a certain truth claim is important is because of
Speaker 2: what it offers, right I, Like I said, there are
Speaker 2: millions of truth things I can make, but there's one
Speaker 2: truth claim that that will I don't know like that
Speaker 2: will offer me something. Right, the truth claim about how
Speaker 2: to make you know how to to make a certain
Speaker 2: type of medicine is more important than the truth clay
Speaker 2: that there's a like a half an inch piece of
Speaker 2: rubber that fell on the ground next to me. That's
Speaker 2: also a truth claim, but it doesn't offer me anything,
Speaker 2: And so I don't have to posit it in an
Speaker 2: important place. I don't have to lift it up as
Speaker 2: above others in that way.
Speaker 3: So so I'm trying not to import any new words
Speaker 3: into the conversation. So you're saying that one should, and
Speaker 3: I want to relate this back to the idea of
Speaker 3: binding to make sure I understand you're saying that there
Speaker 3: are certain truth claims which yield greater binding.
Speaker 2: Well, let me start there is that, right, Well, that's necessary,
Speaker 2: like in terms of care First of all, in terms
Speaker 2: of care, there's a person in terms of attention, certain
Speaker 2: truth thames necessarily bring about more binding because there are
Speaker 2: things you care about more than others. There's a hierarchy
Speaker 2: of care in a person, in a community or whatever,
Speaker 2: and so the truth thames of a community are binding
Speaker 2: in care. Right, So you know that's why we claim
Speaker 2: that's why we elevate the founding of a nation because
Speaker 2: that founding of that nation is the reason why we
Speaker 2: exist as a nation. We don't talk about what George
Speaker 2: Washington ate for breakfast.
Speaker 3: So it's so if something, if a truthuls So again,
Speaker 3: I'm repeating this only back to you to make sure
Speaker 3: I understand it's important because of what it offers and
Speaker 3: the thing that it offers you, would you believe in
Speaker 3: even if it didn't offer you anything? Should should you
Speaker 3: believe it? If it offers you nothing.
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't care about it. It's not that it
Speaker 2: I wouldn't care about. If you said, if you told me, ay, Jonathan,
Speaker 2: there's a piece of rubber on the ground in Syria
Speaker 2: at the corner of these two streets, I would say, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm going to forget that now I'm gonna forget that
Speaker 2: now because you know, I'm.
Speaker 3: Right, well, yes, I'm thinking about I'm thinking about a
Speaker 3: lot of things. They're populating my head in the conversation,
Speaker 3: thinking about this idea of Islam, of submission and submitting
Speaker 3: because it's true, independent of its benefit for you, independent
Speaker 3: of paradise afterward. There's just submission because that's the will
Speaker 3: of God. And so I'm not I'm not contesting or
Speaker 3: repudiating any concept of benefit as.
Speaker 2: Like it's an interesting first of all, it's like, it's
Speaker 2: actually an interesting question because in Islam we don't say
Speaker 2: God is love, and Christianity we say God is love.
Speaker 2: And you know, how can I say this like that
Speaker 2: might even afford me the possibility of understanding the hierarchy
Speaker 2: of goods that present themselves to me in a different
Speaker 2: way that a Muslim will will be able to understand it,
Speaker 2: and that will that will offer for a world to me,
Speaker 2: you know, and that that world has a shape. And
Speaker 2: we can compare worlds, right, we can. We can compare
Speaker 2: the world of someone who believes for example, in Zeus,
Speaker 2: let's say, and what that world looks like, and the
Speaker 2: world of someone who believes in the monotheistic God or
Speaker 2: the God, the God of the Bible, let's say, or etcetera, etcetera. Right,
Speaker 2: you can also have a world where someone, for example,
Speaker 2: believes only in reason, and you can see what that
Speaker 2: world for because we have an example of it, like
Speaker 2: we have the Enlightenment and we have with that Gabe
Speaker 2: and we can see what that does, and and that's
Speaker 2: that's part of this. So it's like, there are truth
Speaker 2: claims that are different than other truth claims in that sense,
Speaker 2: especially about the highest aspect, because it's a it's like
Speaker 2: a it's an anchor.
Speaker 3: Would you believe something if are you comfortable with all
Speaker 3: of your Christian beliefs?
Speaker 2: Am I comfort with all of my Christian beliefs? That's
Speaker 2: an interesting one. I would say, like most people, there's
Speaker 2: a hierarchy of comfort with a hierarchy of Christian beliefs.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's a good way to understand it. It's like
Speaker 2: because the purpose, like I said, what's the reasons why
Speaker 2: I'm saying this, is that the way that we live
Speaker 2: in the world is about trust and about where to
Speaker 2: go mostly and less about truth claims. Right, I believe
Speaker 2: there's nothing I think truthlams are important, like I think
Speaker 2: that they that they're part of this. But so there
Speaker 2: are things about Christianity which I see as being absolutely
Speaker 2: necessary and absolutely world giving, you know, and and so
Speaker 2: I do believe them. But as you go down the
Speaker 2: list of what all kinds of Christians believe, there's certain
Speaker 2: things which seem either irrelevant to me or kind of shady.
Speaker 2: And then I'm like, eh, you know, either I think
Speaker 2: it's not interesting or or I don't believe it, or
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, just whatever, and then maybe one day
Speaker 2: I'll have more work confidence on this or that. But
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter that much, because like I said, I
Speaker 2: don't think most of our lives are about making sure
Speaker 2: our truth claims are accurate. Most of our life is
Speaker 2: about knowing where to go and what to do and
Speaker 2: how to be. That's the thing that's mostly important, and
Speaker 2: I want to be careful. I'm not saying the truth
Speaker 2: clams aren't important, that making sure things are accurate isn't important,
Speaker 2: but it's downstream from the other. Because the one, the
Speaker 2: one of how to be, where to go to, where
Speaker 2: to look, how to exist. It makes you care about
Speaker 2: certain truth claims and not care about others. And so
Speaker 2: the truth claims are downstream from the direction.
Speaker 3: You could say, but would you follow a path if
Speaker 3: you if it had the binding element to it and
Speaker 3: you thought it made your life better but it wasn't true.
Speaker 2: Well, it depends if I could know that it wasn't
Speaker 2: factually true. Yeah right, that's a little that's more complicated
Speaker 2: because even the factually true to me is complicated. It's
Speaker 2: a little complicated because there are different levels of factuality,
Speaker 2: and so the question is always what level of factuality
Speaker 2: is necessary for you to believe something is true? And
Speaker 2: there are certain What I mean is that there are
Speaker 2: forensic descriptions to a police officer, right, and so it's
Speaker 2: like here's a fact sheet of all the things that
Speaker 2: happen at a crime scene and it's like all super
Speaker 2: detail and it's whatever, right, And then there's the Then
Speaker 2: there's the I think my wife loves me. That I
Speaker 2: think my wife's love me is a truth claim, but
Speaker 2: I don't have the forensic I can't access the forensic.
Speaker 3: Better my wife loves me, Because you would be an
Speaker 3: erring if you said, I think my wife loves me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, well no, I trust I trust my life.
Speaker 3: My wife loves me as opposed to I think my
Speaker 3: wife loves me.
Speaker 2: That made something like I trust my wife loves me.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 3: Well, no, because your feeling of trust, you'd be you'd
Speaker 3: you'd be infallible with that.
Speaker 2: What trust would would be that there's a sufficient amount
Speaker 2: of of of stickiness between that's a my trust and
Speaker 2: the facts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can just climinate the my trust or
Speaker 3: I think my wife loves me, my.
Speaker 2: Wife loves me. Yeah, but I could be proved, I
Speaker 2: could be proven. There could be a moment where things
Speaker 2: happen and then I don't. That is definitely possible. So
Speaker 2: I think that that's that's the case for.
Speaker 3: So can I ask you a personal question? Yeah, are
Speaker 3: you monogamous?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay, So if you find out that your wife was
Speaker 3: cheating on you with multiple men and women and going
Speaker 3: to these crazy orgies, would you want to know that
Speaker 3: that's true?
Speaker 2: If it, yes, I would definitely, And I would also
Speaker 2: it would also cast a dispersion on on the idea
Speaker 2: that she loves me, and it would be good reason
Speaker 2: to divorce her.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you you want to know things that are true,
Speaker 3: even if the consequence of those things are negative to
Speaker 3: your own life.
Speaker 2: Well of course, I mean I think that that I
Speaker 2: think that's right. But it's always about the level, right,
Speaker 2: It's always about the level of true. So someone could
Speaker 2: come and like exactly like, someone could come and tell
Speaker 2: me some rumor. Right, it's like, oh you know, oh
Speaker 2: someone told me that they saw your wife talking to
Speaker 2: this guy, you know, and that guy's really a player.
Speaker 2: So you should be really worried, Jonathan about your wife.
Speaker 3: Right, what people who are so belign like you. But
Speaker 3: what I mean, your imagination was just so different from
Speaker 3: what my imagination would have called you.
Speaker 2: Whatever. What I mean is that that I could, I could,
Speaker 2: there could be a rumor, there could be things that
Speaker 2: if I was, if I was if I didn't trust
Speaker 2: her in me to doubt that she is faithful to me,
Speaker 2: that she loved me. But I'm careful to make sure
Speaker 2: that the barrier is sufficient right in order to break
Speaker 2: that because because you can always go into like micro
Speaker 2: details and find reasons to to to disprove. So, especially
Speaker 2: if it's trust, like man, trust is something that needs
Speaker 2: a kind of a kind of directionality to it.
Speaker 3: And the reason for your the reason that you and
Speaker 3: I realized, I have to be incredibly careful and precise
Speaker 3: with each word. So if this is not not just
Speaker 3: accurate but precise, let me know. The reason that you
Speaker 3: believe the main propositions of your religion is because you
Speaker 3: think that they're true.
Speaker 2: It's it's first of all, because I believe what they
Speaker 2: are for, and then secondly that I believe and I
Speaker 2: trust that, and secondly that I believe they're true. And
Speaker 2: it's the same with my wife, by the way, which
Speaker 2: is the reason why I think my wife loves me
Speaker 2: is not because it's because it's true, because it's important,
Speaker 2: and then secondly it's true because if it wasn't important,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't care about it. You wouldn't have to ask me.
Speaker 2: You would not even have to ask me that whether
Speaker 2: or not. And so it's the same with faith, like if.
Speaker 3: It wasn't true, it would be irrelevant. Would it afforded
Speaker 3: you or would it I don't know, I'm asking.
Speaker 2: No, it would obviously if it becomes if it becomes untrue,
Speaker 2: like I'm true in the sense of that there's a
Speaker 2: disjunk between the trust and the factuality of things, that
Speaker 2: the factory of things are disconnected from what I trust,
Speaker 2: then then obviously then that would break like it would break.
Speaker 2: It was like it's like a second battune.
Speaker 3: You'd know it that I would that I.
Speaker 2: Would find that out. Let's say, yeah, that I find
Speaker 2: out that my wife is cheating on me. Let's say yeah,
Speaker 2: then that would break the link.
Speaker 3: So it seemed to me, you know, and I think
Speaker 3: I'm misunderstanding, misunderstanding you because I just don't I don't
Speaker 3: see how this could be true. I replaced. I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't see how this could be the case. It
Speaker 3: wouldn't it have to be like you would have to
Speaker 3: believe that they're true, and then other things would come
Speaker 3: downstream of that the benefits, because of what it all.
Speaker 2: If the benefits come first, they come before the true
Speaker 2: because there are millions of things that are true, Peter,
Speaker 2: that I don't care about. There's like an indefinite amount
Speaker 2: of things that are true that I don't care because
Speaker 2: they don't offer me a world. But there are certain
Speaker 2: things that do offer me up possibility, and and those
Speaker 2: are the ones I care about. So the value comes first, right,
Speaker 2: and then the truth of it come second. Because if
Speaker 2: because think about it, like if I find out that
Speaker 2: my wife it's cheating on me, and now I'm now,
Speaker 2: I'm now, I now I hate life. Now, I'm I'm mad,
Speaker 2: I'm sad, everything falls apart because the value that it
Speaker 2: was that offered me was was the reason why I
Speaker 2: cared for it to be true in the first lay.
Speaker 2: I still want it to be true, right, because we got.
Speaker 4: To introduce you to the idea of composion at some point.
Speaker 4: But that's a conversation for another day. So okay, So
Speaker 4: I'm still trying to make my I'm still trying to
Speaker 4: make my wrap my head around this. So are you saying.
Speaker 3: That the benefits of what you get lead you to
Speaker 3: believe it's true?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not saying that, Oh Okay. What I'm saying
Speaker 2: is that the benefit of what it offers makes you
Speaker 2: see the value of it.
Speaker 3: Okay that I can see, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: And then it makes you see why you should care.
Speaker 3: Okay that I got that.
Speaker 2: That's participate in that. Okay, I got that, right, And
Speaker 2: then okay, let me give you, let me give you.
Speaker 3: Keep going with the string because I'm you know, and.
Speaker 2: So and so and so. Then there are certain elements
Speaker 2: of that that have to do with what you would
Speaker 2: call factuality at certain at different levels and then those
Speaker 2: have to connect, like there has to be a certain
Speaker 2: amount of connection with factuality, of course.
Speaker 3: And they can they the connection there is this a
Speaker 3: kind of I don't mean it pejoratively, but a god
Speaker 3: of the gaps is like, is this that that gap
Speaker 3: keeps getting smaller and smaller, so that at some level
Speaker 3: the factual accordance means that the activity is tethered to
Speaker 3: reality and that it's true.
Speaker 2: It's true. Okay, so let's let's let's let's let's it's
Speaker 2: there's this and I say this like there's a scale
Speaker 2: of there's like a scale that you need in order
Speaker 2: to know that you want to engage, that you want
Speaker 2: to participate in. That's what I that's what I'm seeing.
Speaker 2: It's what's about to understand that it's about participation. So
Speaker 2: if I write so, I trust that the sidewalk near
Speaker 2: my house is going to hold me up, right, I
Speaker 2: trust that, and I actually I don't think about it.
Speaker 2: I actually never think about it. I just walk on
Speaker 2: the sidewalk, right, But it is possible that something could
Speaker 2: happen sure that would force me to question that. And
Speaker 2: the thing is that there's there's actually a scale of
Speaker 2: that and that, and some people will be triggered really
Speaker 2: fast about about the trust of the sidewalk, and some
Speaker 2: people will will be triggered too late, and then that
Speaker 2: it'll collapse and they'll fall into the hole. And and
Speaker 2: so the person that is triggered really fast, they'll be
Speaker 2: they'll be they'll be afraid, they'll be super cautious, they'll
Speaker 2: be really cared, and maybe most of the time they're
Speaker 2: they're avoiding something which is not a problem at all.
Speaker 2: And the person that right, So there's a there's a scale.
Speaker 2: So it's this is the same thing with the religious thing,
Speaker 2: like in the sense that you know, if you if
Speaker 2: you're an American, right, and you think it's good to
Speaker 2: me an American because you trust the foundation of America,
Speaker 2: then people what they're going to do and they do.
Speaker 2: Now is it going to start to say, well, what
Speaker 2: about this, what about Thomas jefferson sins, what about Thomas
Speaker 2: Jefferson's slavery, what about this, this this? And some people
Speaker 2: will start will say, well, if Thomas Jefferson not slave,
Speaker 2: therefore America invalidate right. And other people will say, well, no,
Speaker 2: I need like you know, I would need I would
Speaker 2: need to know that like someone I don't know, like
Speaker 2: that the the very principles of the of the the
Speaker 2: whole thing are completely erroneous in order for me to
Speaker 2: abandon my allegiance to America. But all of that is like,
Speaker 2: all of that is like and so it's the same
Speaker 2: with religions. So someone will say, you know, do you
Speaker 2: believe in the truth of resurrection? And the truth is
Speaker 2: I would say yes, And then someone would say, but
Speaker 2: what if I could show you that resurrection is impossible?
Speaker 2: And it's like, it's like, okay, you can you do that?
Speaker 2: Like can you show me that resurrection is impossible? And
Speaker 2: what does that even mean? Like I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: that what what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: I think that's really interesting, So let's follow with that.
Speaker 3: That's a really good point, and I hear you. So
Speaker 3: let's let's follow that up. So instead of someone's saying
Speaker 3: to you, I can show you that resurrection is false,
Speaker 3: let's say that I don't know, some archaeologists went on
Speaker 3: some digs somewhere and they found this ancient library, and
Speaker 3: in this ancient library were nearly perfectly preserved scrolls that
Speaker 3: were like, haha, we perpetrated a great hoax. We you know,
Speaker 3: the you know whatever, that the Jesus, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, would you still believe then?
Speaker 2: Okay? So what if what if someone in a thousand
Speaker 2: in five hundred years went back into our old internet
Speaker 2: archive and was able to get into four Chance and
Speaker 2: discovered that there are like insider CIA people that are
Speaker 2: saying that we're run by lizard people, okay, and that
Speaker 2: they have a whole account of it, like five hundred
Speaker 2: page books about how you run by lizard people.
Speaker 3: All Right, So I see, I understand you, and I
Speaker 3: hear you, and I think that that's you. And if
Speaker 3: I'm out of you know, if this is uh, if
Speaker 3: this is too harsh, you know, I think you're looking
Speaker 3: for a reason to maintain the belief.
Speaker 2: You think, well, yeah, because of what it affords me.
Speaker 2: Of course I'm looking not looking for a reason to
Speaker 2: maintain my belief. I'm suspicious of people who try to
Speaker 2: take it away from me, first of all, suspicious about
Speaker 2: their intention just like just like the guy who comes
Speaker 2: to me and says, you know, I saw your wife
Speaker 2: talking to this guy. It's like, I'm suspicious about your intentions,
Speaker 2: Like what is it you're hoping to accomplish by casting
Speaker 2: this doubt on me, Ah, that those these are That's
Speaker 2: the thing. So it's not that I'm looking for reason
Speaker 2: to maintain belief, because when I'm walking on the sidewalk,
Speaker 2: I'm not looking for reason to maintain belief. But if someone,
Speaker 2: you like, if someone's trying to cast doubt on if
Speaker 2: a crazy guy comes up to me and says, the
Speaker 2: sidewalk is made of jello, the sidewalk is made of jello,
Speaker 2: and then I'm gonna be like, well, sorry, I get sidewalk,
Speaker 2: not you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's because you have you have no reason to.
Speaker 3: But if you were walking down down the street on
Speaker 3: the sidewalk and a couple of people just vanished, like
Speaker 3: they sunk into the sidewalk it turned into some like
Speaker 3: sci fi, then I.
Speaker 2: Would definitely not.
Speaker 3: That would be a very reasonable rational thing to do.
Speaker 3: So but in these instances, let me.
Speaker 2: Give you an example of today. Like example today, right,
Speaker 2: It's like, there are people that fake miracles all the time,
Speaker 2: the people that lie about miracles. There are people that
Speaker 2: lie about healing. There are people that lie about all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff. And every time I hear a story
Speaker 2: of someone getting healed or someone some miracle or whatever, like,
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, I don't know. I don't necessar
Speaker 2: necessarily have an opinion on it. Now, it doesn't know.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that I don't believe that miracles are
Speaker 2: possible or that healing.
Speaker 3: That's fascinating to me. So why should on a scale
Speaker 3: from one to ten? So if one is no way, jose,
Speaker 3: five is maybe, ten is absolutely Why should your default
Speaker 3: be five? Your default should be like one point one?
Speaker 2: What do you mean defaults? Were you one for one
Speaker 2: that I should immediately believe people's claims?
Speaker 3: No, So, so if we have a scale with one
Speaker 3: being this is this is bs, five being maybe it's possible,
Speaker 3: ten being this is absolutely true if someone tells you
Speaker 3: about some miracle they've seen, I don't understand why you're
Speaker 3: defaulting to five instead of defaulting to two. You should
Speaker 3: why your default? Maybe my default would be my default
Speaker 3: would be one.
Speaker 5: Point zero, like if the skills zero to ten be
Speaker 5: like zero point one, one one one, But I would
Speaker 5: still be doxastically open. You know, I'd be open open
Speaker 5: to that given sufficient evidence. But why would your default
Speaker 5: be five? Why would you say?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 2: Well, because I've experienced miracles, because I've seen people I've
Speaker 2: seen it, Like I've seen people have someone pray for
Speaker 2: them and then then they go to the doctor and
Speaker 2: the cancer is gone. Like you know, if you.
Speaker 3: Don't even know that's causal. People spontaneously remit from things
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 2: That's it's not How how do you, okay, how do
Speaker 2: you establish causality between meeting and and and events evidence
Speaker 2: there's no way to establish causality between meeting and events.
Speaker 3: Well, there actually is. The Harvard Prayer Study, for example,
Speaker 3: was the largest and the largest end I camera. It's
Speaker 3: like someone will look it up at like one thousand,
Speaker 3: six hundred thousand, eight hundreds I think people in which
Speaker 3: they had double blond placebo control groups about people praying
Speaker 3: for other people, and then they after I think cardiac events,
Speaker 3: and then they looked at that and there was no
Speaker 3: statistically significant difference in fact that people who got prayed
Speaker 3: for actually did it slight slightly slightly worse off. But
Speaker 3: like you can, you can just invoke the tools of
Speaker 3: science to figure that out. If if praying for someone
Speaker 3: caused cancer to go away, I mean, we've studied it
Speaker 3: and it's just not true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well I don't then I say this, I I
Speaker 2: really struggle to see how you could study that. And
Speaker 2: the reason is because prayer is there is not a
Speaker 2: prayer is not a mechanical process that you just put
Speaker 2: someone you did, put two people in a box and
Speaker 2: say pray for him, put a wall between you, like
Speaker 2: you're praying secret, and then you try to know you're right.
Speaker 2: It's as if you said you know anyways, I just find.
Speaker 3: It you're absolutely correct. That's why it's essential that you
Speaker 3: you have a rigorous methodology. You get people who actually believe.
Speaker 3: I think they, if memory serves me correctly, they recruited
Speaker 3: from Catholic churches among other churches. But you get people
Speaker 3: who genuinely believe, who are church goers. You get a
Speaker 3: large end in other words, a large number of people
Speaker 3: in the sample you find.
Speaker 2: You don't believe at all that prayer can help someone recover.
Speaker 2: What do you believe in the police?
Speaker 3: You mean intercessory prayer?
Speaker 2: Like do you believe in the placebo effect?
Speaker 3: But wait, you mean intercessory prayer?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like someone praying for someone else they could help
Speaker 2: them heal.
Speaker 3: No, I think it's total nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. It's
Speaker 3: complete and utter nonsense.
Speaker 2: Do you I mean, do you think do you think that?
Speaker 2: Do you think? Do you think effect is real?
Speaker 3: You wouldn't get the placebo effect with intercessory prayer. You
Speaker 3: get the placebo effect with people praying for themselves.
Speaker 2: Okay, you may get.
Speaker 3: The placebo effect if.
Speaker 2: Trust your doctor does the placebo effect.
Speaker 3: If you don't hold on me, finish the thoughts, you
Speaker 3: may get the placebo effect if people in your immediate
Speaker 3: circle were around you praying for you, and you had that.
Speaker 3: But there is no placebo effect. If you find people
Speaker 3: who are genuinely genuine believes, you show a pictures, you're
Speaker 3: introduced them to this person set up, and they go
Speaker 3: off and they pray, then there's no contagion there.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what what do you think the placebo effect is?
Speaker 3: That's a that that that's another question from We have
Speaker 3: data on this and it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: So effect doesn't work.
Speaker 3: No, No, no intercessory prayer. So then my question to
Speaker 3: you becomes my same question as I asked you before,
Speaker 3: which is you know about going back? You know we
Speaker 3: find some scrolls. So I've given you another example. So
Speaker 3: you said you've seen miracle in your life and someone
Speaker 3: prayed for and I asked you how it's causal.
Speaker 5: So I've given you another reason to at least pause
Speaker 5: or have doubt, and that has given you no doubt.
Speaker 3: And so my my comment to you would be, it
Speaker 3: seems to me I like you. You're a nice guy,
Speaker 3: if you get along very well, and it seems to
Speaker 3: me that you're looking for a reason to hold the
Speaker 3: belief like those reasonable Like if you looked at that
Speaker 3: from any other proposition I gave you, like people would say, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: maybe that gives me a reason's doubt. Maybe I should
Speaker 3: be more epistemically questioning.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I definitely can I say this, I
Speaker 2: definitely doubt. I definitely have doubts when I hear certain
Speaker 2: stories about people healing e racacy, Like I definitely do
Speaker 2: have doubts about that. But I also see the manner
Speaker 2: in which meaning and a connection to meaning, yeah, does
Speaker 2: have an effect on health, like and that I see,
Speaker 2: I see it all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's different. That's different from an objective claim of
Speaker 3: someone praying for someone else and then then they're spontaneously
Speaker 3: remitting from some cancer or something. That's a different claim.
Speaker 2: It's not a completely different claim. And because it's related
Speaker 2: to the way in which things like speech, things like care,
Speaker 2: things like attention are related to healing. Right, So they're
Speaker 2: not disconnected, like the human being finds healing in connection
Speaker 2: to meaning.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's a good way to think about it, and
Speaker 2: that it.
Speaker 3: Is possitive talks about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I mean, so there's a way
Speaker 2: in which meaning it's a prayer, the prayer is an
Speaker 2: invocation of participation in higher meaning. That's in one aspect
Speaker 2: of what prayer is. It's calling upon something which is
Speaker 2: higher than us, right, and then asking it to act
Speaker 2: with meaning down on the being. And that it's like
Speaker 2: it's a reflect and it has I mean, in some
Speaker 2: way it's a reflection also of the care of the people. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's not it's not a cold thing. So that
Speaker 2: if you pray for someone, usually it means that you
Speaker 2: have some kind of love for them, like you care
Speaker 2: for them, and that you're going to get attention to them.
Speaker 3: Would you believe that that prayer would heal people if
Speaker 3: there was no God? That the meaning alone in calling
Speaker 3: upon it's the very act of calling upon something higher,
Speaker 3: even if that higher thing doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question because in my the way that
Speaker 2: I understand it is that it is because of meaning
Speaker 2: that I believe in God. Is because I see that
Speaker 2: meaning stacked vertically and moves up towards unity, that I
Speaker 2: believe that that there are meanings that transcend me and therefore,
Speaker 2: and those meanings are active. They're not just data. They're
Speaker 2: they're agent like. They they're agentic, they act down on us.
Speaker 2: And so for me, the question about meaning and the
Speaker 2: question about God is the same. It's the same question.
Speaker 2: So it's a complicated it's a complicated question to answer.
Speaker 3: So if there were no God, if you could. I'm
Speaker 3: watching an amazing show right now that I highly recommend
Speaker 3: called Dark Matter. Love It one of the best shows
Speaker 3: I've seen in yours. It's a it plums there telling you.
Speaker 3: I have no financial association with the show. I'm telling
Speaker 3: you this for a reason, but it's like a subgenre
Speaker 3: of science fiction, parallel worlds. Let's say that you will
Speaker 3: go to a parallel world and one of those worlds
Speaker 3: had a god, h and the other world didn't have
Speaker 3: a god, and the world without a god, people are praying,
Speaker 3: They're calling upon the higher meaning. It's intercessory prayer on
Speaker 3: behalf of someone else. I don't cancer alcohols. What happened?
Speaker 2: I think this is why because you don't agree with
Speaker 2: what a god is like there we would not exist
Speaker 2: without without a god a world can that if you
Speaker 2: believe in God, that's.
Speaker 3: A totally different that's a totally different question. I'm happy
Speaker 3: to explore that with you. I mean, we can do
Speaker 3: that right now? Well why not? And how would you
Speaker 3: know that?
Speaker 2: The way they know it at a lower level, let's say,
Speaker 2: at the start, is to realize that that the the
Speaker 2: whole is always more than the sum of its parts.
Speaker 2: And you see that happen. So you see that every
Speaker 2: being has a third being. So it's like there's you
Speaker 2: and I, and then there's there's a relationship, and that
Speaker 2: relationship has a has a kind. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: in our in this case. It it's transient to some extent,
Speaker 2: but it's also real. Right, and so this is true
Speaker 2: about all groups, Like all groups have something that pops
Speaker 2: up above it, which becomes an identity, which which which
Speaker 2: which relates people together. And that identity is causal vertically right,
Speaker 2: It binds, it's it's a it binds that group together.
Speaker 3: It Okay, I'm with you so far. But I don't understand.
Speaker 3: I'm not a god.
Speaker 2: That's a god. So by the way, I don't that
Speaker 2: that is a god or an angel, use whatever word
Speaker 2: you want. It is an active agent that buys multiplicity
Speaker 2: together into unity.
Speaker 3: And so you're not talking about You're not talking about
Speaker 3: a cosmological thing. You're not talking about Aristotle's prime mover.
Speaker 3: You're not talking about the Alpha and Omega at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the universe, like you're not talking about the atman,
Speaker 3: the breath, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But it all the hierarchy of God culminates into the
Speaker 2: absolute like it has to, okay, because you can see
Speaker 2: it happen at every level, and at some point you
Speaker 2: know whether or not the absolute that that you know.
Speaker 2: I understand why some people struggle to see the absolute
Speaker 2: as personal or agentic. I understand why that that's part
Speaker 2: of some philosophies. But there's a sense in which you
Speaker 2: can see it and a scale up. That's why all
Speaker 2: the traditions have these kind of hierarchies of gods. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like you have little gods and bigger gods than
Speaker 2: these gods can hold other gods.
Speaker 3: Just in Taiwan, I saw i saw I was fascin
Speaker 3: like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I mean for the same reason that we have
Speaker 2: like you see that there's a person, right, there's a
Speaker 2: multiplicity in me, and I've held together, and then that
Speaker 2: I can hold together in a family, and then that
Speaker 2: family can hold together in a city, and then that
Speaker 2: city can hold together in the nation. And all those
Speaker 2: levels have a form of of binding, right and a
Speaker 2: form of agency because they command us how to be together.
Speaker 2: Right continues to scale and.
Speaker 3: I'm with you. I'm with you on the scaling, I'm
Speaker 3: with you in the binding. I'm with you. So let
Speaker 3: me just ask so I can understand. So you if
Speaker 3: a meteor came and smashed the kill literally everybody on earth? Uh,
Speaker 3: would would there? Would there be a God?
Speaker 2: That that's a that's a hilarious idea, Like it's one
Speaker 2: of those things where if you believe that the world
Speaker 2: lays itself out in meaning, yeah, right, then to just say, well,
Speaker 2: if something wiped out the meaning major making agent of
Speaker 2: all of reality, yes, would God still exists? Because you
Speaker 2: don't believe the world functions with meaning. You think it's
Speaker 2: just arbitrary causes things bumping into each other. So a
Speaker 2: meteorite that hits you and kills all the agentic agentic
Speaker 2: beings that we know. Yes, because you don't believe that
Speaker 2: there's actually a story and that there's actually meaning, So
Speaker 2: to be consistent, it's a I can't answer that question
Speaker 2: because I actually believe the world lays itself out in
Speaker 2: the hierarchies of of beings and in hierarchys of stories,
Speaker 2: that this is no functions.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, there's only to be consistent. There's only
Speaker 3: one answer to that question for your belief system. To
Speaker 3: my belief system, there's I think two, possibly three. But
Speaker 3: to yours you'd have to say that's not possible.
Speaker 2: That what's not possible for the media right to just
Speaker 2: hit the earth randomly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, wouldn't you?
Speaker 2: Well, is it possible? I mean, there is there. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's obviously a sense in most traditions and in Christianity too,
Speaker 2: that this world will end, that that's part of the story, right,
Speaker 2: and that but the ending of this world is not
Speaker 2: the ending of the world, like in the sense that
Speaker 2: there's a new world that emerges from the end, right.
Speaker 3: But not that it's programmed into the tilos or subspeci
Speaker 3: atturnity taught to us at the you know, under the
Speaker 3: watchful eye of a trinity. This this event's unfold But
Speaker 3: it's just so ol man, big meteor dude came down
Speaker 3: from freaking who knows what, Alpha Centauri whatever wherever it
Speaker 3: comes down and just like tells of a buddy, what
Speaker 3: a bummer that would be.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but that's what that's what I mean. What
Speaker 2: I mean is that.
Speaker 3: I'm going never get my black belt jiu jitsu.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we could, I mean, we could obviously do
Speaker 2: it at a at a smaller scale that that that
Speaker 2: makes sense, right, because tragic things do happen, you know,
Speaker 2: that is definitely true. But I think you're right that
Speaker 2: I would I would tend to think that, okay, because
Speaker 2: I believe agency and intelligence are actually an aspect of being,
Speaker 2: Like they're actually the reality. And and I think that humans,
Speaker 2: at least to our knowledge, right, like a specific role
Speaker 2: in that in that cosmos. Like we humans seem to
Speaker 2: be at least, like I said, as we know to
Speaker 2: be being that is both intelligent and incarnated. And so
Speaker 2: we we we have that that kind of that place,
Speaker 2: and so we seem to have an important place in
Speaker 2: the universe in that sense, because are the universe knowing itself,
Speaker 2: where the universe where we are basically the capacity for
Speaker 2: being to analyze itself, to know itself and and all
Speaker 2: of that. And so the idea that just a random
Speaker 2: destruction of all humans, I think you're right that I
Speaker 2: that I don't think that that can happen.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think that it can.
Speaker 2: The end of all things can happen, but I don't
Speaker 2: think it. I think that it would be it would
Speaker 2: play itself out in a story, because I think stories
Speaker 2: are part of of the of reality.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm trying to I'm trying to. I'm asking
Speaker 3: these questions because I'm trying to figure out what you
Speaker 3: believe and I'm trying to have it make sense to me.
Speaker 3: So and I'm trying to do so. And I'm really
Speaker 3: sincere when I say this was a harmonica of charity.
Speaker 3: So what is your view on the origin of the universe?
Speaker 3: What is my view on the cosmological Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: do you think you think God created the whole shebang?
Speaker 2: I think I think that the origin of the universe
Speaker 2: is in intelligence. And I'm sorry I would say yes,
Speaker 2: I believe that God created the world.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, let me ask you a total curveball question.
Speaker 3: I put this out on I was thinking about this.
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about this for a long time.
Speaker 2: Let me just say the word that is that I
Speaker 2: believe that the origin of the universe has to account
Speaker 2: for the intelligence that it contained.
Speaker 3: The origin of the universe has to Oh so it
Speaker 3: can't be a chance mutations at trance evolutionary mutations that
Speaker 3: yielded this with some I don't know, I guess perturbations
Speaker 3: in the system, but that yielded consciousness as it's currently
Speaker 3: manifest in humans and animals.
Speaker 2: It'd be you whatever chance mutation, selection is not chance.
Speaker 2: Selection is the pracituation of being. So if being has
Speaker 2: a tendency to perpetuate itself, let's say then it has
Speaker 2: certain qualities which are which are already close to intelligence,
Speaker 2: like to whatever we think intelligence is, you know, because
Speaker 2: autopoesis is not a you know, it's like there's a
Speaker 2: difference between an autopoetic being and just a you know,
Speaker 2: a rock falling to the ground like there. This is
Speaker 2: this is a qualitative difference that has to be So
Speaker 2: even if it's chance mutation, the selection process is in
Speaker 2: no there is in no way chance is always to
Speaker 2: the perpetuation of being. The selection is so god like,
Speaker 2: so you can tell you that, I remember, I think
Speaker 2: it was Jordan Veterson actually used the first one I
Speaker 2: heard him say that. He said, God is that which selects,
Speaker 2: and so that's it. That's a pretty good idea. That's
Speaker 2: an interesting idea at least about the notion of of
Speaker 2: what of how to help people understand what we mean
Speaker 2: by by God.
Speaker 3: Let's say, yeah, and in that sense you mean selecting.
Speaker 3: So I think it's it's funny. It's harkening me back
Speaker 3: to being in time to buy my higher I haven't
Speaker 3: read Hydeger in a long time, never really assured answer that. Actually,
Speaker 3: my my translation test from Master's Grazios was in Oh no,
Speaker 3: that's crazy.
Speaker 2: I think they didn't like you. I think they had
Speaker 2: some distinct courage.
Speaker 3: Uh so that's probably more true than you know. Okay, So,
Speaker 3: so you're using being in that sense in it as
Speaker 3: opposed to well, adaptive organisms. So you're using a kind
Speaker 3: of philosophical or even theological sense of being as this
Speaker 3: thing that's revealing itself in the world.
Speaker 2: Even the adaptive organism think about it like, there's we take,
Speaker 2: we take how did we take for granted, like that
Speaker 2: being perpetuates. Well, let's let's say that, like why does
Speaker 2: why does life fight entropy?
Speaker 3: Oh, well, that's a different question. Hold on, let's let's
Speaker 3: let's go back to your other questions.
Speaker 2: Kind of different questions, the exact same question.
Speaker 3: Good, Okay, does hold on? And I have to shift
Speaker 3: my consciousness and say that question because this is a
Speaker 3: this is so many things. I'm trying to limit this. Sorry.
Speaker 6: Sorry, So if you you know, if you could rewind
Speaker 6: the clock and we evolved slightly differently, uh, and for example,
Speaker 6: we were kind of appendage bearing.
Speaker 3: I don't know, if you play StarCraft for a long time,
Speaker 3: the Dessert, you know these like insect desoid creatures that
Speaker 3: went on and they were in different bodies, and one
Speaker 3: claimed to be the Christ and he resurrected. You wouldn't
Speaker 3: need humans in their current incarnation and their car physical
Speaker 3: forms right like you. You would have the same intact theology,
Speaker 3: et cetera, with beings that look quite different. You're looking like,
Speaker 3: that's what I'm looking at you.
Speaker 2: I think it's hilarious because you you think that the
Speaker 2: fact that humans the way they are became conscious and
Speaker 2: intelligent is just this arbitrary thing, like it could have
Speaker 2: been something else, but we don't have an example of
Speaker 2: it being something else. You have no way to speculate
Speaker 2: the idea that that insects in the form of insects
Speaker 2: with exoskeletons or whichever, could become self knowing beings in
Speaker 2: the way that humans are right and so and and
Speaker 2: But I want to be curious. I want to be
Speaker 2: I want to be cautious. Like, did not sound like
Speaker 2: I'm just think right? You could say, so what it
Speaker 2: feels like when you're asking me that question, I say, like,
Speaker 2: I see a Tellos let's say in in in.
Speaker 3: It exactly what I'm where I'm going.
Speaker 2: I see a Teleson animal. So I say, there are
Speaker 2: animals that fly, and those animals do not have to
Speaker 2: be related biologically in order to reach flight, but in
Speaker 2: order to reach flight, there are certain characteristics that they
Speaker 2: have to have in order to fly. So tell me, well,
Speaker 2: what if it was a slug but it became really
Speaker 2: advanced and then it flew, And I'd be like, well, no,
Speaker 2: because slugs don't have what it needs to fly. And
Speaker 2: so if you propose some arbitrary being that has all
Speaker 2: these characteristics and you say, well, what if that was
Speaker 2: the being that became the self conscious intelligent being. I'm like, well, whatever,
Speaker 2: it's like, that's a that's it to me. That's it's
Speaker 2: as irrelevant as it's saying, what if slugs could fly? Well,
Speaker 2: if they could fly, they wouldn't be slugs. There would
Speaker 2: be something else. I guess something that they would have
Speaker 2: wings that have some kind of extension that could push
Speaker 2: against air. Like it's not like anything can be anything.
Speaker 3: Sure, So the the purpose of the thought experiment was
Speaker 3: it was none a roundabout, but it was a way
Speaker 3: to see if I could figure out without asking you directly.
Speaker 3: So I'll ask you directly tilos that you're thinking about
Speaker 3: the current you know, five fingers and toes and the
Speaker 3: way we look with the hair on top of our
Speaker 3: head and male and female, et cetera. About that would
Speaker 3: we debated recently?
Speaker 2: So that's maybe because we got rid of that frame
Speaker 2: that held everything together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, that's a that's a totally another conversation.
Speaker 3: That's such the substitution hypothesis. So so you think that
Speaker 3: the way we are right now is there's a kind
Speaker 3: of necessity in that a biological and evolutionary necessity and
Speaker 3: the function.
Speaker 2: I think. So I think I think that it's not
Speaker 2: that there is invariability. Of course there's variability, but that
Speaker 2: variability is limited, right, just like all the time you
Speaker 2: talk about variability, is that there's a variability of things
Speaker 2: that can accomplish something, but it's not indefinite. And so
Speaker 2: I think that the way that humans can I say
Speaker 2: this like this is also why you know, this is
Speaker 2: also why the the ancient thinking they would see a
Speaker 2: human as microcosms, right, and that's why they say something
Speaker 2: like that man is the image of God. Like even
Speaker 2: the way that man is made, like his part, the
Speaker 2: fact that he's he stands straight, the fact that his
Speaker 2: head is above the fact like all of these these
Speaker 2: aspects of even the way that human is made is
Speaker 2: related to is not arbitrary. It has in someone has
Speaker 2: to be within a certain amount of a variety to
Speaker 2: be the case.
Speaker 3: It's not orbitrary evolutionarily, because if we were subject to
Speaker 3: different evolutionary pressures, we would look differently. And I guess
Speaker 3: I'm asking you if we look differently, considerably different differently,
Speaker 3: would the same theological precepts still be operative in the
Speaker 3: your paradigm.
Speaker 2: It's like, I really, I just it's funny how I
Speaker 2: hate these questions because well, I think it's also because
Speaker 2: I'm really a realists. Like I'm a realist in the
Speaker 2: sense that I'm like, why are you speculating about world
Speaker 2: that don't exist? In order to help out the world
Speaker 2: that you get.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you. I'll tell you exactly why I'm doing
Speaker 3: doing that so I can see I can figure out
Speaker 3: the limits of the belief and how your beliefs cohere
Speaker 3: together in some kind of a system. So the purposes
Speaker 3: of the questions, they're not gotcha's, they're not trick questions
Speaker 3: or anything. They are ways for me to figure It's
Speaker 3: kind of like coherence testing for beliefs, and it gives
Speaker 3: me a better idea. It's the other thing is it's
Speaker 3: a way for me to listen to what you believe.
Speaker 3: And sometimes if you ask somebody a question, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's a it's people won't give in and out
Speaker 3: saying you won't do this, but people won't give you
Speaker 3: a direct answer to the question, and so what you'll
Speaker 3: have to do is you'll have to tease that that out.
Speaker 3: Like for example, if I said, uh so, the way
Speaker 3: that we've evolved now to look like we do with
Speaker 3: five fingers five toes. Is that evolutionarily? Is that a necessity?
Speaker 3: Or if conditions were different, you know, it's pre advent
Speaker 3: of No, I have to be before pre advent of
Speaker 3: brand ten thousand years ago. But if conditions were a
Speaker 3: different you know, different son for sort, the.
Speaker 2: Different son that's h Lyricus like this, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think this is probably again like why I really I
Speaker 2: believe the meaning is part of the world. It's like
Speaker 2: there's a coherence to the way the world is, like
Speaker 2: the dishes of our son to the earth, that all
Speaker 2: of these things are the fine tune whatever reality that
Speaker 2: makes it possible for us to exist.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So if you bothered a world with three sons and
Speaker 2: you think, well, what if we evolved on a world
Speaker 2: with three sons, like well, I would we evolve on
Speaker 2: a world with three sons? Like would we evolve in
Speaker 2: a world that's not the exact one that we're in?
Speaker 3: So the only the only reason that we can look
Speaker 3: at these things and say, you know, wow, this is
Speaker 3: extraordinary is because if those initial conditions weren't the same,
Speaker 3: there'd be nobody there to say, wow, this is extraordinary
Speaker 3: of course, right, So, but that doesn't mean I was
Speaker 3: at an Indian restaurant many years ago and the guy
Speaker 3: didn't speak English of that well, and he asked my friend,
Speaker 3: my buddy Steve. He said, what is the meaning of meaning?
Speaker 3: And I thought that was like such a great question.
Speaker 3: But in other words, you, I'm saying that because the
Speaker 3: sentiment is there. We're looking at the situation which we
Speaker 3: find ourselves and we're saying, oh my god, this is miraculous,
Speaker 3: there's life, et cetera. Yeah, but you're only saying that
Speaker 3: because we're only saying that because it's an easy pitfall
Speaker 3: to fall into, because if the conditions were different, there'd
Speaker 3: be no one there to say it.
Speaker 2: That's right. There would be no one there to say it, yeah,
Speaker 2: And so you would also be no one there to
Speaker 2: not say it or.
Speaker 3: To That's the fallacy of it, be knowing there for anything, right,
Speaker 3: that's the fallacy of fine tuning. And so then we
Speaker 3: infer from that that it's been fine tuned the universe.
Speaker 3: That's Victor Stenger wrote a great book about that, the
Speaker 3: fallacy of fine tuning.
Speaker 2: Well, we don't how can I say this, like, we
Speaker 2: don't like we infer from that that it's fine tuned.
Speaker 2: How can I say this, like, yeah, we see that
Speaker 2: meaning and purpose, right, and patterns exist. They don't exist
Speaker 2: in the same way that things exist, but they exist
Speaker 2: in the in the manner in which they they bind
Speaker 2: elements together. Right, So we notice, for example that bats fly,
Speaker 2: and birds fly, and butterflies fly and all these things fly.
Speaker 2: And so now we have a category called flying, which
Speaker 2: is a purpose. It is a tellos. You could say,
Speaker 2: you could say something like, well, there is no tellos,
Speaker 2: but if we still recognize it, like the tellos is
Speaker 2: not in the things. The tells is in the way
Speaker 2: that we recognize it as sharing something in common towards
Speaker 2: the purpose.
Speaker 3: And so that the tailos would be maybe Taylor's wouldn't
Speaker 3: be the right way to look at it, but it would.
Speaker 3: Those were adaptations to enable reproductive success. But they have
Speaker 3: a coherence to them, that's one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: They have a coherence that resembled itself across space.
Speaker 3: Right, That's why we can You can say that speech
Speaker 3: utterance and I understand you.
Speaker 2: So you could say that that's so that's an objective
Speaker 2: pattern that if certain constraints are placed on certain things,
Speaker 2: then they will yield certain results that that that that
Speaker 2: bring a being into a certain tailos. But you but
Speaker 2: it's hard. So what I would say is that that
Speaker 2: tailos pre exists.
Speaker 3: Well, I was right up with you towards the end.
Speaker 3: I was almost going to agree, what do you mean?
Speaker 3: What do you mean pre exists?
Speaker 2: What? It exists because it is independent from the multiple
Speaker 2: instantiations of it. It's it's it's independent. It's not dependent
Speaker 2: on the instantiations, right, because they are from different species
Speaker 2: and therefore they attain something we recognize as a pattern
Speaker 2: of being, and that pattern of being it's not dependent
Speaker 2: on on the on the on the multiple effects that
Speaker 2: happen down here. Is is it okay?
Speaker 3: So I guess I'm unclear. So so why I don't
Speaker 3: understand where being keeps coming into this? What do you
Speaker 3: mean by being?
Speaker 2: What do I mean by being? In the case of
Speaker 2: what we're talking about, we're talking about something which is
Speaker 2: something which perpetuates itself, like especially in terms of biology,
Speaker 2: like that's a really that I think that's a good
Speaker 2: way of thinking about it, right, Something that's that's that's
Speaker 2: autopoetic and that is agentic that has that acts on
Speaker 2: other things.
Speaker 3: Right, So would most be a being?
Speaker 2: I mean, to some extent, it's a lower being, right.
Speaker 2: That's that's how it's traditionally understood, is that there is
Speaker 2: a hierarchy of beings in terms of how much how
Speaker 2: uh let's say they are and how let's say, how conscious. Also,
Speaker 2: I mean that's not there's a related to being conscious
Speaker 2: and it's not exactly the same, but there is a relation.
Speaker 3: Okay, And so now relate that to me so I
Speaker 3: can understand. And then I have to go relate that
Speaker 3: to me so I can understand the flying thing.
Speaker 2: Related to flying things. So you have a bunch of okay,
Speaker 2: so you have you have a bunch of stuff, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be like ten people on the internet who
Speaker 3: thinks this is the greatest. Everyone else can like one
Speaker 3: of these guys talking about it. Okay.
Speaker 2: So all right, so you have you have a bunch
Speaker 2: of You have a bunch of stuff, right, and there's
Speaker 2: a way in which that stuff enters into patterns. Okay,
Speaker 2: does that? Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: Right? Then?
Speaker 2: That makes sense?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Okay, And so what you notice is that and those
Speaker 2: patterns they kind of cohere multiplicity into one. Does that
Speaker 2: make sense, right, So that.
Speaker 3: Means because I'm thinking about in terms of flying, butterfly
Speaker 3: maths and.
Speaker 2: That what I'm pos positing is that that pattern is
Speaker 2: an objective reality. It's not objective in the same way
Speaker 2: that it's objective like math is real. It's real like
Speaker 2: math is real. It's really like proportions are real. It's real,
Speaker 2: like relationship between you know, the ordered relationships are real. Okay,
Speaker 2: And that's a it's agentic in the sense that it
Speaker 2: binds things into it for reasons, for purposes, and so
Speaker 2: the beings they come to something that you recognize. You
Speaker 2: see a pattern which is called flying, and that pattern
Speaker 2: is independent from the constituents, because all these different constituents
Speaker 2: reach the same thing that have nothing to do with
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 3: What do you mean independent of the constituents?
Speaker 2: What I mean is that there's no biological continuation between well,
Speaker 2: I mean maybe very very far back, but like there's
Speaker 2: no biological continuation between a bird and a bat and
Speaker 2: a butterfly.
Speaker 3: They were adaptive, right, They were adaptive, and they adapted.
Speaker 2: To adapted in a manner that is a type of
Speaker 2: pattern that you can recognize as having coherence.
Speaker 3: Totally agree, right, But yeah.
Speaker 2: So that is can I say this like now, take that, right,
Speaker 2: that type of thinking, and you apply it to groups
Speaker 2: of people, for example, and then you notice that there
Speaker 2: are argantic patterns that run through groups of people, right,
Speaker 2: and that those have a type of coherence, and you
Speaker 2: can reckon I did across right, So you just know
Speaker 2: what war is because there are people in in Papua
Speaker 2: New Guinea in war, and there are people in American war,
Speaker 2: and there are people in China in war, and they're
Speaker 2: all manifesting a single pattern that is that is coherent
Speaker 2: and is and is agentic because nobody is controlling it.
Speaker 2: There's no one in the war that is to That's
Speaker 2: that's what a god is, Peter.
Speaker 3: See okay, now you lost me.
Speaker 2: It okay, So okay, so you have you have a
Speaker 2: form of have a form of hey, let me use
Speaker 2: it now more religious language. You have of transcendent agency, right,
Speaker 2: that is coherent and that that binds groups of people
Speaker 2: into behaviors that none of the people control, but that
Speaker 2: is nonetheless plays itself out with the purpose that nobody
Speaker 2: can fully hold on to and that you can recognize
Speaker 2: across different different spheres. And so that's what someone would
Speaker 2: call the god of war.
Speaker 3: That is what you've really stretched the semantic range.
Speaker 2: And that's the crage at all. And now I'm talking
Speaker 2: about little gods, like these are little gods. These are
Speaker 2: the angels, these are the demons, these are the these
Speaker 2: are the small agentic beings that we see run through
Speaker 2: our society, you know, and we see recognized. So we
Speaker 2: can see that someone is possessed by a certain type
Speaker 2: of agency and they no longer have control of their being,
Speaker 2: and so we say they're possessed by a demon.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I could for the purpose of conversation, I
Speaker 3: could completely adopt the language, the worldview, the structure. I
Speaker 3: could do that. I can make that little little little shift. Okay,
Speaker 3: I got it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So now, so now what the difference between that world? Right,
Speaker 2: have a world, let's say the world pagan where you
Speaker 2: have multiple agencies. Some of the represent aspects of reality, right,
Speaker 2: so like uh, like desire or war or you know, craftsmanship,
Speaker 2: and you see them, and then some actually represent groups
Speaker 2: of people. Right, So, right, they have the local god
Speaker 2: that is the principality that holds our that it's the
Speaker 2: reason why we're a tribe and not just a bunch
Speaker 2: of strangers, right, right, But the problem with these gods,
Speaker 2: right is that obviously they don't all want the same thing,
Speaker 2: and so they fight with each other. Not only the
Speaker 2: gods fight with each other, but then the tribes and
Speaker 2: the groups fight with each other. Okay, and so you see,
Speaker 2: but it actually has like in practice, it's not it's
Speaker 2: not to say that the religion causes the war. Is
Speaker 2: that the agency that's running through them is in competition
Speaker 2: with the other. And so you can experience that inside yourself,
Speaker 2: the same thing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So you have lust, and you have this other desire,
Speaker 2: and you have hunger, you have things that you have pride,
Speaker 2: you have all these things that are running and you
Speaker 2: can recognize them across people. So it's like, if I
Speaker 2: experience lust, I can see that when you experience lust,
Speaker 2: it seems to be similar. And so I can reckon God.
Speaker 3: Hope not.
Speaker 2: When we're together. You know, i'd.
Speaker 3: Have the end of this conversation. Very you know this
Speaker 3: from your baby.
Speaker 2: The whole thing is important, Okay, So let me just
Speaker 2: get through it. So you have this world where there
Speaker 2: and so then what what what happens is that at
Speaker 2: some point you realize that there is something which can
Speaker 2: bind all of those together, and so we can't. So
Speaker 2: may maybe we can to some extent disagree to what
Speaker 2: that is, you know, And so we'll say being. We'll
Speaker 2: say I am right. So God in the Bible says
Speaker 2: I am that I am, So I am being itself
Speaker 2: all right? So being itself seems to align all of
Speaker 2: these different agencies together or the infinite, So we say
Speaker 2: God is infinite. God is is all this all knowing,
Speaker 2: all all all like, it's just all and so we
Speaker 2: haven't we can notice that we have to bind all
Speaker 2: of these multiplicities into a top unity.
Speaker 3: Why can't the thing that binds be an evolutionary impulse?
Speaker 2: But I don't even know what do you mean the
Speaker 2: impulster from.
Speaker 3: Hire for example? Why why couldn't that be this?
Speaker 2: So the let's say, the perpetuation of being, I like,
Speaker 2: the survive is a weird thing because it's you know that,
Speaker 2: can I say it?
Speaker 3: Okay? Okay?
Speaker 2: Because because you know, because anyways to say, the perpetuation
Speaker 2: of being seems to perpetuate, right, And so I think
Speaker 2: that that's not a completely bad way of seeing it,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think that the question is what
Speaker 2: how can I say this, What makes that the most
Speaker 2: possible at the most levels. I'm the longest stretch of time,
Speaker 2: and I think that that if you look at the
Speaker 2: very immediate things, a lot of I think a lot
Speaker 2: of the of the kind of simplistic I think Darwinian
Speaker 2: things is usually they look at it at a very
Speaker 2: short scale. It's like just this one. The reason why
Speaker 2: that perpetuates in being is because I trying to scale it.
Speaker 2: I know it's hard for no.
Speaker 3: I just it doesn't seem to me to be a
Speaker 3: very parsimonious explanation. What do you mean, well, I mean
Speaker 3: you can just it's kind of thinking adjunct to Okham Trazer.
Speaker 3: You can Why would you posit anything beyond it seems
Speaker 3: like it's orienting itself to it to another ontology or
Speaker 3: another metaphysics or something supernatural. When you have naturalistic explanations
Speaker 3: given the framework in the paradigm that you've.
Speaker 2: Just explicated, you don't have natural frameworks. And the reason
Speaker 2: why is because the evolutionary type biologists. And you see
Speaker 2: that in Dawkins too, because when he gets into the
Speaker 2: world of memes, he's like, well, I give that a
Speaker 2: I'm not going to talk about memes. I know one
Speaker 2: who came up with the term memes. But I don't
Speaker 2: understand how they function. I don't understand the reason why
Speaker 2: they're there. I don't understand how they bind reality together.
Speaker 2: I don't understand how they perpetuate being. I don't understand
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. And so you have this problem
Speaker 2: because humans don't. Also beings that are higher than us
Speaker 2: also try to perpetuate themselves. Nations at nations are autopoetic.
Speaker 2: Nations are urgentic. Nations try to defend themselves from other beings.
Speaker 2: They act analogously to beings. At a lower level. They
Speaker 2: act like big cells.
Speaker 3: And so I I never think about how to grow.
Speaker 3: But isn't being only found in beings?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: Isn't being only found in beings?
Speaker 2: Well, it's found incarnated, you could say, in beings. But
Speaker 2: it nonetheless calls rights, It calls towards something right, it
Speaker 2: calls towards unity. Is maybe the.
Speaker 3: Yes, Okay, So I guess at an individual atomic level,
Speaker 3: I can at a mistic level, would be better way
Speaker 3: to think. I can I get the and I can
Speaker 3: use the beings. It gets more difficult for me, And
Speaker 3: maybe it's just the lack of my imagination.
Speaker 2: Like, the reason why it's important is because it's because
Speaker 2: you have no way of accounting for religion. Religion is
Speaker 2: a universal thing that is there in every culture from
Speaker 2: the beginning of time until very recently, and you don't
Speaker 2: have a way to account for it except to say
Speaker 2: that it's something bad that we should kind of get
Speaker 2: rid of.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of so I don't think, no, no, I
Speaker 3: don't think we should get rid of that.
Speaker 2: What I mean is that is that this is the problem, like,
Speaker 2: because there are modes of unifying beings together that transcend
Speaker 2: the individual level, and if you can, if you don't
Speaker 2: have a system that accounts for it, then you just
Speaker 2: then you say religion is a mind virus or whatever
Speaker 2: type of thing that a lot of the I'm not
Speaker 2: saying you said that, but let's say safe Yeah, so
Speaker 2: it's like that it's that it's a that it's a
Speaker 2: mind virus. Think, okay, that mean that you can't see
Speaker 2: the analogy between let's say, a religious service and a
Speaker 2: religious procession and the cohesion of cells together in a
Speaker 2: in an Oregon and how there's a type of there's
Speaker 2: a there's a there's a way in which they come together,
Speaker 2: the multiplicity moves in the EU.
Speaker 3: So just just to be clear with my sense, then
Speaker 3: I really do have to go out right, Just to
Speaker 3: be clear with my sense. I was very explicit in
Speaker 3: my work, am I writing that religion is not the
Speaker 3: problem religion the fact that couldn't be more clear. Religion
Speaker 3: is community, religious people coming together, a religious religious a
Speaker 3: lot of positive aspects. My problem has always from day
Speaker 3: one been the epistemological claims, the truth claims.
Speaker 5: The.
Speaker 3: And again I never think about this stuff anymore. It's
Speaker 3: just totally irrelevant given the civilizational threats we currently facing.
Speaker 3: I think we both agree on those. All right, I
Speaker 3: have to go.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, it was good. We can set
Speaker 2: up another meeting, but this was.
Speaker 3: Another one man. All right, good good. I had a
Speaker 3: good time, Thanks Jonathan, quite good fun.
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