A Sense-Making Odyssey, Part 1: Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke & Jordan Hall
Join Matt and Chris as they enter an intellectual labyrinth of recursive sensemaking featuring the combined insights of Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke, and Jordan Hall. You will learn about many, many deep and complex concepts and puzzle over definitions of conscience, the vertical hierarchy, value, normativity, goals & ideals, quests, the ultimate unifying meta-narrative, self-sacrifice, and touchstones.With frequent excursions into a wild assortment of biblical stories, Platonic philosophy, Jungian psychology, Martial Art stances, and much, much more! This is a voyage through the refracted and refracting philosophical frameworks of three contemporary sensemaking powerhouses.So get your oars ready and prepare your mind to taste the Dialogos, vis-à-vis Moses...SourcesA Dialogue So Dangerous, It Just Might Bring You Wisdom | John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall | EP 532
An anthropologist and the psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer.
We try to understand what they're talking about.
Never has our introductory spiel, Chris, been more apropos than today, may I say.
So I'm Matt Brown.
With me is the monkey magic to my Tripitaka, the bad boy of the podcast scene, Chris Kavanagh.
Did you make a British reference, like the Tripataka?
Monkey Magic.
Trippy Tacika.
Trippy Taka.
I thought it was a Trapatica, but what do I know?
I don't know.
Maybe that's well, like um I yeah, what do you know?
That's right.
I could not burglar I could be right.
I could be right.
Yes, monkey magic is based on a Buddhist scrolls or something.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Journey to the West.
Journey to the West.
I did read a book, Chris.
So I mean, I watched the TV.
You have what?
Hold on, Matt.
Hold on.
Okay.
First of all, let's be clear.
My reference there is to the children's TV show that was a very popular export from Japan to Australia.
Very popular over here.
Yeah, had a big influence on me.
But then, like as a teenager, I somehow was given or came across a big thick book, and it was in English.
And I feel like it kind of was journeyed to the West.
It had it had legends about a monkey in it being hatched from an egg and stuff.
It was there like a weird guy doing things.
I think so.
I think so.
That sounds like the journey to the West.
Yeah.
I actually went to see a musical in London one time that was, you know, Gorillas.
It was like the the band Gorillas.
The band.
Yeah.
Yeah.
With the guy from Blur.
Uh, it was basically like the journey to the West, reimagined with visuals from the gorillas kind of art style.
So yeah.
Okay.
It was okay.
Okay.
So all right.
Uh so did you like gorillas?
I like gorillas.
My my user friend just loved gorillas, and I don't know.
I thought it was all right, but I didn't.
Um I mean, I'm I'm not a gorilla's head, right?
But I'm uh like I'll I'll put it on the my synth wave mix.
What's one of these days I gotta find out what synth wave is.
I don't think I've ever listened to a single synth wave.
Right.
This is horrifying for editor, Andy, because he has a synth wave podcast.
No, I know we both subscribe and listen to every episode, but so I don't know how you fest up this.
Sorry.
I listen, Andy.
I listen to the listens.
Chris likes that kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah.
But Matt, listen, today we don't have time for the shit on the game.
No, we do not.
We we gotta deal with something that is I mean, it's it's dangerous.
They say so themselves.
It's a ticking time bomb.
The conversation that we're looking at, you know, we look at lots of different conversations, Matt.
Yeah, we listen to proto-fascists, we listen to anti-capitalists, we we listen to people who only eat ruminant meat and and various other things.
But in there's a particular specialty that we often return to, which uh happens to be sense makers, right?
And if you don't know what a sense speaker is, don't worry.
You're going to by the end of this conversation.
But the particular morsel that we are looking at in this genre, they titled this.
We didn't title it this.
A dialogue so dangerous.
It just might bring you wisdom.
Uh Jordan B. Peterson, John Verbake, and Jordan Hall.
Episode 532 of the Jordan Peterson.
532, just let that sink in.
That's yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, this is a dangerous dialogue.
That's yeah, that's the fair mean and wisdom, you know, you might not be able to get the wisdom, but you might if you listen closely.
And uh like you said, we cover a lot of content, some of it more prosaic, some of it more mundane than others, some of it carries economics.
Some of it is more cerebral, more abstract, more up in the realm of the of pure forms, and uh this definitely falls into that category.
So it's gonna be a wild ride.
But tell me this, Chris.
Why are we returning to these three?
Because we've we've we've spoken to John Vaveki, we've covered Jordan B. Peterson in some depth, and we've even covered Jordan Hall in his sense making exploits previously.
So why why return?
Why should we return?
Well, there's two reasons in good sense making fashion.
There's a meta reason.
The meta reason is because we wanted to.
Because we have had to uh not had to, but we've listened to a lot of nonsense.
You know, Naval and Scott Adams was the most recent one, and the sense makers they're a particular brand of pretentious waffle that is at once, like yes, it is annoying and stuff, but it's also like quite art.
I think it's uh I think the words you're looking for is art.
It's it is in a sense it is it's performance art in a very special way.
So it is kind of a bit like a holiday for us, isn't it?
Yes, so that's that's the one reason.
The other reason that I will say, though, this wasn't the original motivation, but I but I think it does apply is that actually the themes that you will hear here are so recurrent across other areas and people that we cover, the kind of rhetorical techniques and whatnot, they crop up all over the place.
And this is Jordan Peterson, who you know is a big figure in like all sorts of spheres.
Um, and Jordan Hall, a lesser known figure, and John Verveki as well.
But in this sense, it kind of shows how you can have very strong political ideological content and culture war stuff, and you can in a way like launder it with these apparently lofty philosophical conversations.
We'll see whether that's true, but I but I think this is an important part.
If you want to be a Jordan Peterson, you have to do these conversations as well as the conversations with like you know, a Ben Shapiro or like a right-wing conservative pundit, because this is what gives you the intellectual capital for some of your audience to join you on your what might look like reactionary political rants.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, looking at the uh top comments on YouTube, the one with the most top votes says I have no clue what they are talking about, but I love it, which I think is that's an understandable reaction.
Um, and another one just below that is yeah, I'm not high enough for this right now, which I also think is a good take.
Yeah, yeah.
Now I'll just find out.
Yeah, let's let's let them free him what's going on.
So, you know, in good sense making fashion, a lot of what you have to do when you're sense making is talk about what you're talking about.
You have to free him things like like we just did, right?
Like what we just did, but not not exactly.
It goes much more meta than that.
So let's hear Jordan Peterson.
This is him on his own, attempting to introduce you know what's going to come up in today's conversation.
Today's conversation is a an extension and continuation of a series of conversations I've had, most particularly I would say, with John Verveki, who joins me today, and also with Jonathan Paggio.
And those conversations really center on specifying the foundational principles of iterable society and stable psyche.
That's a decent way of of thinking about it, or specifying more clearly and understandably the apex towards which systems of value strive.
And that's a very complicated set of problems, and so it takes a lot of conversations to Make progress, but I found I've been able to make a lot of progress with John and Jonathan.
And keeping up, everyone, you still clear.
I I mean, so the interesting thing for me is like, as he pointed out there, this is really an endless conversation that will never be resolved.
The important thing is it continues, right?
And he mentioned our Jonathan Peugeot, a figure that often comes up.
So the sense making ecosystem is a bit like a multi-level marketing scheme where there's like the people at the top, you know, Jordan Peterson, uh, John Vervake, Jennifer Peugeot, and there's other nodes that can come in.
But like the important thing is we all contribute to the sense speaking endeavor, and we're making progress.
We promise you, we're all it might be.
We're all moving forward.
You you might be forgiven for thinking they're going in circles, but no, they are moving forward.
It's a research project that is unfolding.
It is, yeah.
Um, via conversations, dialogues.
And you know, there were a lot of big words there, the foundational principles of iterable society and stable psyche, uh, apex towards the systems of value strive, so on and so forth, right?
But I'm going to attempt to, you know, translate sense makerism into normal speech.
So what he said there is that they're gonna have a conversation about the principles of resilient societies, psychological health, and the values that connect to them.
That's what he said, right?
In uh in a lot more words.
So they're they're talking about big ideas, and that's gonna lead to your big conversations, and that's just the way it is.
And actually, speaking of multi-level marketing, so there is a a place that you can go to if you really like sense making conversations.
There is like a hub that is gathering them.
They're also both lecturing, by the way, as well as me for Peterson Academy.
And so one of the things Peterson Academy is doing is aggregating a group of thinkers who are pursuing this problem, some directly, like John and Jonathan, some more peripherally.
And so you many of you who are listening will have um listened to some of the conversations I've had with Paggio, Jonathan Pajor with John Vervake.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's uh it's it's a research enterprise, and it's happening at at Jordan Peterson Academy.
So the goal is to understand this uh systems of value and moving towards an apex.
Uh what is Jordan getting at there, Chris?
Oh, well, don't put the cart before the horse, Matt.
You you're gonna hear a lot about what those systems of value are.
I'll I'll let Jordan outline it.
But the you know, like he said, it's not just the systems of values, it's also psychological health, it's also the values that we arrive at, all these kinds of things.
So you're gonna get to what Jordan thinks they are, but there still needs to be ground setting done.
And you know, we've had a conversation with John Vervake.
He's a uh professor at Toronto University, philosophically inclined professor who talks about cognitive stuff, but not not really cognitive sciencey stuff, like more philosophical speculations, you might say, or reflections.
Um, he's he's more concerned about the philosophy of Plato, I think, than the particular areas in the brain that are associated with different parts of speech or stuff like that, right?
So if that's what you want to imagine which field to put him in.
But um, Jordan Hallmott, we know who Jordan Hall is, but Jordan Peterson happily introduces him.
So for those of you who don't know Jordan Hall, this is Jordan Hall.
We introduced another person into this conversational realm today, Jordan Hall.
And Jordan is a serial entrepreneur who's been successful multiple times as a tech founder and has developed uh the capacities that are necessary to serve as a serial entrepreneur, and that means an openness to high-level creativity conjoined with um like deep technical prowess,
and then also the ability to separate the weak from the chaff under low information conditions.
And so Jordan Hall has been talking to John Vervake for quite a long time, a series of conversations.
And I met John again recently, and we talked about meeting, and John suggested that I include Jordan, and he flew in today to make that possible.
Another tech figure being invoked.
And there are all the conversations going on.
Other people are talking to other people.
And that flowery language of I, you know, he's uh he's got deep technical prowess, a high level of creativity.
It's I do like this introduction.
It's like a ring announcer, you know, and I stepping into the ring, a man that needs no introduction, but yeah, why don't you introduce me like this, Matt?
You know, a man with deep insights.
Uh well, if you could separate the wheat from the chaff and lower information conditions, Chris, then I would.
But that's a problem.
You got to demonstrate it first.
Yeah, so you must be itching now, Matt, to get into the conversation, right?
So there's a lot that's been said about the conversation that's about to come up.
Oh, no, wait, sorry.
He's not finished introducing the cover.
Let's just hear a bit more.
Like we're not ready yet.
And so we're in our conversation, we continued to flesh out really, I think the best way to conceptualize it is we're attempting to articulate the structure of something like Jacob's ladder, which is this nested sequence of value structures that tends towards a pinnacle.
Those are matters of definition.
And we're trying to understand the hierarchical relationship between our local plans and our ultimate ends, let's say, which is the same thing as trying to understand the relationship between the finite and the infinite.
And we're trying to do that in a way that's quite differentiated and propositional, but also is true to the phenomena and the and the what and the what the uniting reality of the transcendent.
And so I know that's complicated, but it's a complicated issue.
And while many of you are familiar with this already, and you can regard this conversation as a continuation on the same quest.
It does sound complicated, uniting the differential reality of the transcendent.
Yeah, the differentiated and the propositional, and uh you know, Jake.
The finite and the infinite.
Yeah, and the necessary series of value structures that tend towards a pinnacle, like Jacob's ladder.
Um, the hierarchical relationship between our so look, okay.
You're the you're the Jordan Peterson whisperer.
You you said you could translate this, Chris.
Um, would you like to have a go?
Oh, sure, sure.
Actually, I think this is useful because what he says here, I will argue, is essentially the only thing that he says in this conversation.
What was just said there is all that Jordan Peterson is gonna do, but he's just gonna repeat this endlessly, over and over again, using different words, but they say the same thing.
So the insight he had there, right?
Jacob's ladder, this biblical reference about you know a dream somebody had ascending from up to heaven, right?
Yeah.
So the notion is, Matt, there's a vertical, in this case, like a uh a ladder, an actual ladder ascending to heaven at the very top, you've got God at the bottom, you know, you got humans and whatnot.
So there's a there's a vertical ladder that we want to transcend.
So verticality, and then by thinking about this and discussing what that means, what values lead us up the ladder, that is helping us in this quest to get from the Mundian towards the divine, right?
So you got biblical references, the notion of vertical relationships, and that we can go up these vertical relationships by focusing on God, basically.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's right.
And I think part of his um philosophy is that uh everything we do, every little mundane thing from making a cup of coffee to making a uh uh a YouTube video, is um you know, guided fundamentally by the highest thing of this ladder, which is God.
So everything flows from God, all your little decisions that you're making.
Yeah.
So if I could sketch out the sense maker grammar for Jordan Peterson, it is reference to the Bible, reference to philosopher, psychologist, or some figure to show that he's you know red, Tolstoy or whoever it might be.
Mansion of verticality, and perhaps some reference about defining words, and then it'll return to the Bible and God.
That is it.
And let's see if that holds up throughout this conversation.
And it's also worth mentioning, Matt, that again, this is just Jordan Peterson's framing.
The other people aren't there.
He's just talking about the conversation that he's is going to have.
But the first topic that comes up when they start the conversation together is what are they trying to do?
What are they doing?
So it's a conversation about the conversation.
That's the first topic.
Right.
So let's hear that.
So now Jordan Hall and John Fervicki have joined him, and he's going to set out, you know, what are we doing today?
Um, Jordan, I was watching your podcast with Jonathan Pagio, and you started to talk to him about the vertical dimension.
And one of the things you both discussed was the notion that one of the things that might distinguish AI systems from human beings is this vertical dimension.
Now, cognitive capacity is soon not going to distinguish us by all appearances.
So I thought we might well delve into that.
This is obviously something John can immediately contribute to as well.
I've been trying to figure out the technicalities of the vertical dimension.
So let me run up hypothesis by you to begin with.
John, you should perhaps find this interesting.
I think it's a development of some of the ideas that we discussed when we were on tour together.
Okay, so the the beginning of the conversation, Matt, it's the vertical dimension.
We we need to uh define.
Yes.
Yeah.
So the conversation is going to be about the vertical dimension.
Maybe this will be part of the way that we can distinguish AI and human consciousness.
Maybe let's see.
I think they forget about AI.
I don't know if they return to it, but uh uh I think good uh Jordan's uh intuition is that uh this is what distinguishes us from AI.
We're connected to God and the machines aren't.
So that's kind of helpful.
Maybe well, so so there we go.
The the context of the conversation is that this is going to be about verticality.
Okay, let's let's stick to it.
Let's see how they get to it.
And of course, it's a continuation of another conversation that they've been having elsewhere.
We we've established that these conversations go, right?
So uh here they go.
Verticality.
So in this new book I wrote, the we who wrestle with God, one of the things I pointed out was that the God of the old testament, and this continues in the new testament as well, is characterized very fundamentally in multiple ways, but one of those ways, one of the cardinal ways that he's characterized is as the voice of conscience.
And I've been trying to figure out how conscience operates psychologically, and I think it the fact of conscience indicates something like a vertical hierarchy of value.
So imagine that whenever you do something, whether you know it or not, you have a proximal reason for it, and then a slightly wider reason, and then a slightly wider reason than that, and then a wider reason than that, and so forth.
And that sort of shades off into the unknowable.
Okay, Matt.
So can you recapitulate for the class what we're starting with here?
So what's the first pillar of this uh analysis?
Okay, so I think the first pillar is conscience, and um Jordan is relating it there to uh God, because uh the God of the Bible is an instantiation of one's conscience.
So we're gonna understand how conscience works psychologically, which for Jordan I think is putting it on this ladder, maybe conscience is the is the thing that calls us to move higher up on this ladder.
Oh, I'll I just can't help but point out that this is not the conventional psychological description of conscience, it's a bit different from that, but yeah, that's that's Jordan's.
Well, we what would the conventional definition of conscience be, Matt?
Just out of curiosity.
I mean, I I think it's roughly along the lines that you've internalized some sort of moral standards or social expectations in terms of what's uh frowned upon and what's good, um, what other people will approve of, and you you essentially internalize those things.
So it's kind of like a control process, an inhibitory control process that that's connected to socialization and temperament and and all sorts of things and and affect as well.
So you're gonna feel embarrassed or ashamed or whatever.
So we're essentially in internalizing the social values because we're social creatures.
That that would be the more conventional version, I think.
I have a feeling that will come up.
But um, yes, so we've got conscience psychologically is the vertical hierarchy of value, and as you imply, maybe the more that you go up that, the more conscience that you have.
That's sort of implied, but okay.
So we we've started off, we've got a fundamental premise that we're we're starting with.
So let's move on to the next step.
So imagine that whenever you do something, whether you know it or not, you have a proximal reason for it, and then a slightly wider reason, and then a slightly wider reason than that, and then a wider reason than that, and so forth, and that sort of shades off into the unknowable.
Now, for example, if I asked you why you're here having this conversation, let's let's play it out a little bit.
Why are you here having this conversation?
You invited me.
Okay, so that would be an in indication of what reciprocity with regards to hospitality.
Okay.
So why is it why was it important to you to accept the invitation?
So there was two other people who were connected to that invitation that oriented me towards thinking that it was a very good idea.
Okay.
We can keep going, but yeah, okay.
So so then part of that was that there was a social network that you regarded as valid.
Yep.
You were willing to take direction from that, and they indicated to you that the conversation might be worthwhile.
Is that is that a good summary?
Yeah.
Okay, so now we've got two superordinate.
Okay.
What would it mean for the conversation to be worthwhile?
Well, that's a very hard question.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, they get harder as they get as you go up the ladder.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, that look, that might seem like a uh a very self-indulgent and elaborate way to describe, you know, why you agree to come and talk to someone.
But but what Jordan's getting at here is that uh you've got sort of mundane, proximal reasons for doing things, but but all of those reasons are connected to other reasons and other values and um um beliefs that you've got, and if you trace it all the way back, it gets to some fundamental value about the world.
Do you think that's fair?
Yeah, and uh those of you familiar with Jordan Peterson's output might recognize this particular technique that he likes to do, where he defines having any value system at all, like thinking that anything is good is being religious.
Therefore, any action you can connect to any value, including value like that you want to eat food or live, is being religious.
That's an that's an instantiation of the life essence and yeah, so you can persist and you know, work towards the higher good and look after your children and love God.
Yeah.
Yeah, so you're kind of checkmated by purely existing in Jordan says well, that kind of proves his thesis.
So yeah, but but as you say, Matt, here he is purely trying to demonstrate that, like, yes, people have mundian reasons, but these often actually have these hidden assumptions that if you think it through, reflect on things that you know, you value social interactions and you think that it's possible to get the truth through conversations and so on and so forth.
And he he almost they almost got caught up there Because he said what would it mean for it to be valuable?
And he's like, well, or worth worthwhile.
Yeah, worthwhile.
He said what would it mean for the conversation to be worthwhile?
And oh, that's a very how would we define worthwhile?
But they managed to slightly sidestep if just for a moment.
But um, that's it.
So as I promised, we're back to discussing the conversation that they're they're having.
They're having a conversation, and the very fact that they're having the conversation illustrates the thesis that we are all on a vertical hierarchy oriented towards God.
Um, okay, so let's let's move on, Matt.
It's so far it's all making sense, you know, it's all very logical and coherent.
So Jordan Hall is gonna talk a bit more about conversations.
One of the things that I've noticed as I've accepted invitations over the past gosh, 10 years, is that oftentimes I don't discover that the conversation was worthwhile until well after the conversation occurred.
And so there's something like this there's a split between, let's say the epistemological sensibility of what would it mean for me to know that the conversation was worthwhile, and let's say for the moment, the ontological sense of what would it mean for the conversation to have been worthwhile, regardless of whether I knew that.
And there's something like a commitment to a perception or feeling that a particular choice is worthy, yeah, and then what it means to commit on the basis of that feeling is to simply engage in the moment that's occurring, right?
Regardless of having to constantly try to decide whether or not what's happening is worth being part of, as you might imagine.
Okay, okay, okay.
So I think what you just described is the how you might gather indication that a path that you can't quite specify might be worthwhile.
Yeah.
First of all, you said that there are paths that you can't specify that are worthwhile, right?
That that would be part of exploration.
Yep.
Right.
And that there are conditions under which circumstances under which you might be willing to to proceed down that investigative path.
Okay, so then we can divide that into two parts.
can say that you're making the presumption that there's something worthwhile in conversational investigation, which is a reflection of the logos, let's say.
The logos came in.
Logos.
The disappearance there.
Well, this is a dialogue, Chris.
This is a dialogue.
The logos is gonna feature.
Um okay, so it's kind of painful, but I I uh they're they're digging deep into what's I don't know why you do things if you're not sure if it's a good idea, and oh god.
I I actually actually I don't think I could follow that.
I didn't really follow.
Oh, you know, sense making has this unique quality where sometimes your brain just tunes out because what's been said is so it's such pseudo profundity for such one being observations that your brain simply refuses to vote.
It just it just glides past.
But I I think I can help you here, Matt.
So please Jordan Hall wanted to say he's noticed, Matt.
Okay, he's noticed sometimes he has conversations, and at the time he didn't realize that they were worthwhile, but afterwards, it was like actually that was worthwhile because later on it made him think about something or you know, connect something.
So that's good.
So he's noticed this, and this means that saying the conversation is worthwhile, that is tricky, Matt, because the epistemological sensibility of what it would mean to know that in the conversation is is different, right?
Because the moment he's saying that it it could be worthwhile, but you might not know it was worthwhile and whoa, yeah.
So you can't you can't ask him that because that's he wouldn't know that in the and then Jordan Jordan responds saying, right, yes, that's true, that's true.
But the very fact that you think that there is something that's worthwhile and not worthwhile, and that you admit that that's a possibility, all right?
That means that you do recognize that there is a a path that can lead to like a more, you know, that there is a there is a value that you want a more worthwhile conversation.
So The very basic concept, Matt, it yes, it proves it, right?
Jordan is acknowledging that some things are worthwhile.
So this is a very important point.
Jordan Hall.
Jordan Hall acknowledges that.
And that is an important component of Jordan Peterson's argument.
So yeah, it's uh you know meta meta commentary on the conversation, pseudo-profine proof, and I mention of the logos and sense making cats.
That's what we're there.
All right.
So let's let's keep going.
I mean, we're making slow progress.
We're still at the point that trying to work out the conversation once more, but they're moving forward.
They're progressing.
We may record this episode in stages, and I encourage people may have to listen to it in stages because I tell that you can take it all in in one guy.
No, it's it's hard.
So some competitions are worthwhile, and that means something.
That that means something.
Okay, what does that mean?
Yeah, let's find out.
But there's also conditions under which you've already been set up to presume that the probability that that exploration will take place is relatively high.
Yes?
Yep.
And you used your social connections partly to triangulate in on that.
So okay, okay.
So all right.
So that's not a bad indication of some nesting.
I we could we could continue because we could say things like, well, this is also a public conversation, and so if we manage it successfully, then we can explore together, and hopefully that's worthwhile, which we haven't defined yet, worthwhile, but we'd also have the opportunity to bring it to other people.
Yep.
Ah okay, okay.
All right.
So you may not know for sure that the thing that you're gonna do is worthwhile, but you can guess with a very high degree of probability, triangulating all of the things.
So that's why you might do things.
The other thing it reflects is there's social connections involved, Matt, and that's important.
But if you have a conversation requires social connections, because you need other people.
So this is important to now.
They did point out there, Matt, that they haven't defined worthwhile.
Now that's a that's a problem.
Right.
You know, Jordan, Jordan Hall highlighted some issues around how you know of something that's worthwhile, but he didn't define uh like what is the you know, precise definition of worthwhile.
Well, let's see if we could define worthwhile.
So, what would make the conversation worthwhile while it's happening, but then also in retrospect.
So you would have something like um it's funny.
Part of me wants to go and make it an analytic, to articulate it in an analytic fashion.
You go there for a while.
I think this is actually wrong.
I guess the wrong fundamental approach, but let me just take that approach for a little bit just to give some room.
Um, because you can imagine if you have a hierarchy of values, then you have a and you we have a finite amount of time and energy, right?
So we always have to be able to coordinate our allocation of finite time and energy for the moment, let's say our purposes and the things that we can actually consider to be strategic or have plans.
We make plans, and I'm just fine, that is a purpose, and then we have our values, and we want to be able to do this, we want to be able to coordinate our purposes and our values so that the most valuable things are the ones to which we attend with the most quality and amount of time, and so to the degree to which we realize the most valuable things on the basis of the amount of time that we're choosing to make, then we are effectively aligning our purposes with our values.
So that's so I think I actually think this is a bit of a side journey, but it looks to me like that's the basis for the instruction in the Sermon on the Mount.
So the Sermon on the Mount, which I think of as an instruction manual in some ways, basically says the first thing you do is orient yourself to the highest possible good, right?
And I think you could do that awkwardly and badly, and it would still be better than not doing it, right?
Because you're you're you're developing a relationship with the highest good, and then once you've done that, you attend with all due care to the present.
You set the frame, which is what I'm trying to do here is to serve the highest good, even though I might not be able to conceptualize that or articulate it, but that's my aim.
Right.
So uh so Jordan there, he he's doing well, he's doing well.
He's defined worthwhile.
Jordan Hall, we should always say, yeah.
I'll call him Hall from now on.
So Hall spends a bit of time there defining what's worthwhile.
And things that are worthwhile are the things that you prioritize that you do because you value them.
No, it took him a while to say that, but I think that's essentially what he said.
Am I missing anything?
No, he did say that, though.
It's worth noting, Matt, that he began by framing it that that is the wrong what he's about to argue.
That's the wrong road to go.
So he's he's like, there's a way that we could approach this, that's just wrong, the analytic way, but allow me to do that.
So we're gonna so he's doing the wrong thing first.
Um Jordan interrupts the wrong approach by saying, Well, there's a bit of a sidetrack of that if we think about the Bible, right?
And you'll notice that about the concept of verticality, given so the the sermon of the mind that Jordan mentions, it's an instruction manual in some ways, basically says the first thing you need to do is orientate yourself to the highest possible.
So we got the vertical, all right.
So, as I said, Bible reference mention of verticality.
That's that's what Jordan thought that he needed to mention.
So, yeah.
Um, Chris, I just I have to interrupt here because I I I had to quickly Google the Sermon on the Mount because not being a religious person, I didn't know what happened, Doctor.
Oh like a lot of stuff was said according to according to the Bible and the Sermon of the Mount.
Yeah, I don't know if it's all about orienting yourself to the highest possible thing or whatever.
Like I'm sure that that's in there somewhere, but there's a lot of other stuff that was set up there.
That just to saying.
Yeah, well, I mean, there is, Matt, there's a lot of things.
The Bible's a very dip book, so there's different stuff that you can interpret.
Yeah, you can you can read different things into different parts, I think.
That's yes, but the important thing is we've got the vertical dimension, yes, and that's it.
And we've defined worthwhile uh what we allocate time to achieve goals given that we we have finite time and resources, so that's but that is the wrong definition, but at least it's no definition.
No, I don't remember because my my ears were bleeding by this point.
But um, did Jordan Hall get a chance to give the correct definition of worthwhile?
I don't want to spoil that, Matt.
You'll find out.
So, you know, with me at a start, we're not finished yet, so let's hear a little bit more because you know they reference values there, Matt, right?
Yeah, and they haven't defined values.
Having established that aim, John, you might have some things to say here too.
Like we've talked about the relationship between value and perception and emotion in in quite a bit of detail.
So it seems to me that if you set your aim high, then even if you can't exactly specify the goal, you know, concretely, that your perceptions and your emotions will fall into alignment with that goal, and they'll show you the way, so to speak.
Maybe that's and this this goes back to the idea of conscience, you know.
So maybe once you get your goal set and the perceptuals, the perceptual systems are they're gonna lay out the landscape for navigation, you can feel your way along.
And I don't know if that's something like are you do you think when you're doing that, assuming that the goal isn't concretely specified that it's transcendent, you're still gonna be able to see or feel which steps you're taking forward are what reducing the entropy between where you are and that goal, and and then so you can see that both as a combination of conscience and calling in relationship to the goal.
The conscience would be the voice of negative emotion informing you when you're deviating from the path, and calling would be the invitation of positive emotion informing you, at least in part at the level of emotion that you're making the path manifest.
And I wonder too, if while you're doing that, if at the same time this probably happens particularly with dialogue, that you're clarifying the nature of the goal further, right?
Is there any of that?
Yeah, I mean, so um poor poor John Vavaccius is just starting his how am I gonna respond to that.
But as you mentioned a couple of times, this two and a half hour thing is absolutely littered with pseudo-profound bullshit.
Like every opportunity is just just swarming with it.
So we'll probably let most of it just pass over without comment.
But but I'll just take one example.
And you know, one example would be what Jordan there is trying to talk about, you know, moving closer to a goal, right?
Taking steps closer towards the highest good or whatever.
And he chooses to talk about it as like reducing the entropy between yourself and the goal.
Now, this is a very small example, and it's just one of thousands.
But this is an unnecessarily opaque and complicated way to describe just staying on the path versus veering off it.
A lot of these descriptors they use are kind of unsuitable for the thing that they're trying to say, but they sound smart, I suppose.
So there's a lot of that going on.
But so let's put let's put all of that aside though.
What's he saying?
Conscience, yeah, you know, you don't know what the what the ultimate good is.
You you might not be sure, but you can feel it.
If you're moving towards it, you can sort of feel your way towards it because you're gonna be getting what is he called?
He calls the perceptual feedback, perceptual systems and the landscape of navigation or whatever.
But what he's saying is that you'll you'll feel the correct vibes if you're heading towards God, essentially.
That's that's what your conscience is.
Yeah, yeah.
So I mean, charitably, you could say he's making a similar point to what you referenced earlier about conscience and emotions, reactions about like feeling embarrassed, or you know, when you're aligned more to what is regarded as normative or socially good in your environment, right?
That it'll create positive emotions versus negative emotions for behaving in ways that are are seen as negative and and so on.
Um but uh it is combining that psychological and technical jargon to essentially connect all of that to the notion that there's transcendent values and conscience is orientated towards transcendent value.
So right, like he wants value, perception and emotion connected to conscience, and conscience is connected to God, yeah, basically God, and yeah, basically God.
Um yeah, and this is where he's different.
This is where what he's talking about doesn't really have any connection to psychology.
Like if you're being very fair, you can detect some similar notes, but it might seem obvious to people, but there are pretty sophisticated psychological models of shame and stigma and self-esteem and pretty good models of why you know we're we're social creatures,
so we tend to in um we tend to monitor each other for good behavior, right and punish each other for bad behavior, and then we tend to internalize those sorts of things, so we sort of punish ourselves if you like for for behaving badly, uh doing stuff that is gonna essentially make us lose cachet in the eyes of others, right?
We have the self-monitoring system which helps us along with that.
Like if you have a dream of like giving a public talk and you know the the cliche that you're doing it in your underpants, you know, like it's that it's that kind of fear of social embarrassment that you've just like you've dramatically lost prestige and uh respect from from other people.
Um, this is the kind of thing we internalize and worry about.
Yeah, and so in this bit, you heard Peterson and right, he's doing what I already highlighted, which is he references the Bible.
In his case, he likes to use you know psychological theories and whatnot, the buttress, the points that he makes, but they tend to come from the realm of Jungian psychoanalytic approaches and this kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Uh John Vervecchi is not going to answer.
You heard him, right say, um, and my this will be a different flavor of sense making because he's a little bit different than Jordan Peterson.
So let's see what kind of references he brings up.
This is a direct response to that thing that Jordan Peterson just said.
Okay, so if you're trying to track along, it's in response to that.
I've actually been doing uh uh a lot of work around that right now, uh uh with respect to uh uh what i call perspectival knowing knowing what it's like and being able to take a perspective and some some sort of uh a confluence of things i mean first of all we are talking about basic relevance realization like what do we ignore what we pay attention to um and then within that i think what you're talking about is there's three interlinked
is there's origin, orientation, and ostention.
Origin is where am I?
And this is very much the vertical dimension, right?
It's where am I, who am I, what kind of thing am I, where am I in the environment?
And so this is, like, think about it very concretely.
You're lost, you first have to, where's your origin, where am I?
Then once you have your origin, you do orientation.
And orientation is kind of like this.
Here's the proposal.
So we've talked before about Marloponte's idea that relevance realization caches out an optimal grip, getting the right trade-off relations between being too close, too far away, too loose, too tight.
You're constantly doing that.
Now, I'll use an analogy.
When I'm sparring, I take a stance, right?
I don't actually fight with that stance.
That stance doesn't, you don't do anything with it.
The point of the stance is to get me sort of at this nexus place so that I got the best access to all the specific optimal grips.
It's readiness.
You're right.
Generalized readiness.
So orientation is this stance taking.
Yeah.
So to remind people, before they were struggling with the definition of conscience, but they've put that aside for the moment.
And Gionglovaki has introduced his own model of, I'm not sure what is a model of what, but it's a model that involves knowing what's going on
where you are knowing which way you're pointed and then i think extension i think is the third thing well no he said origin orientation and ostentation i don't know what that third one was no i don't know either but i i assume it's got something to do with by the way no no they get distracted we don't actually finish any there's a lot of threads left untied but yeah there's a lot of talking but
not a lot of points and like actually it's worth noting that so far right jordan hall i mean you asked matt at the time well what is the correct way to approach worthwhile that is not return to okay so like the jordan hall outlined a definition that is the wrong definition as a dream and he never he never got a chance to get to get no they got they got sidetracked and now they're on to uh well i suppose you could say it's connected right because
they're they're on conscience this is really around conscience right but conscience is connected i mean everything's well listen to me
it's not immediately apparent to me how conscience is connected to what uh he was just talking about well it's connected in the sense that he is taking the notion that Jordan Peterson has right that like you have to orientate yourself towards certain values.
And remember, that's how Jordan defined what conscience is.
What conscience is, orienting.
So you say, okay, I get it.
And he did mention the latter, because where you are on the latter, on the verticality.
It was important to note, yes, this is related to verticality.
And he referenced relevance realization, another kind of technical term.
And he makes a reference to Marlopontes.
So it's the same thing where you're referencing cognitive research, psychological terms.
in Vervicki's Greg bag of references there's martial arts metaphors right so there's he's he's into Tai Chi and a bit interested in Taoism and this kind of thing.
So you know it's about taking stances and the way that you get grips on your opponent redirecting energy all this kind of thing.
So uh Al Verveki is not above a Bible quote he will often reach more for eastern wisdom or reference to Plato, these kind of things.
But certainly the Bible is not outside the realm of possibility.
So he's saying perspectival knowing, like the ability to take someone else's perspective is related to relevance realization, which is related to what Jordan Peterson is talking about.
Verticality, which is related to conscience.
I see.
It's just what's not explained is is is how.
But oh well well hold on Matt.
Let let let's let him flesh it out a bit more.
Okay.
I mean the connection seem pretty clear to me, but that's that's all right.
People like you you might need some help.
So here we go.
So are are you distinguishing between the you made reference to figure out where you are that's like an orientation point and then the stance is preparation for yeah for where you're going to go the orientation the the or origin has there's a technical term called indexicality which is like me here now.
That's what you're trying to find.
What what who am I what state am I in?
Where am I right?
Like where am I actually standing so it happens when you wake up right you so you have your standing and then you have your stance and then you have a stare which is you you you a stand you point right and then you all of those are what they're doing is they're configuring a perspective what is being foregrounded what is being backgrounded.
Yeah, right.
And then now you can begin to do— And that's a world creation.
But it's what you said.
It's like it's what Rosa calls—you're looking for moments of resonance.
You're looking for moments where you are directing yourself to the world, but the world also, as you said, is calling to you.
Oh, there is a way I can do it.
It calls out to you.
Right.
Right.
And so if you if you're optimally oriented, you're both controlling your finding that sweet spot between control and responsive and you dance that out which I think is a good representation totally totally did that help no not not so much.
well but matt didn't you hear indexicality okay you've got look you've got a standing you stand and there's a stare right yeah look heartbreak rosa she said we look for yeah so you know look what's being pointed out here matt is orientated towards verticality that's related to your own position you have to understand where you
are in order to understand where you want to go and where other people are and you know yeah yeah so it's about yeah i mean i get the vibe you got to be optimally oriented um and in tune with your environment um and that's going to help you go up jordan's ladder something
like that yeah yeah so like no it's worth noting the game map this is is all related to what are they doing like what is the point to have a conversation that's that's where this is all stabbing from you ever it was Jordan Peterson asking Jordan Hall like why did you come here?
And uh that's where we we're still on this what is having a conversation even mean I I think they may have at some time forgotten that that's where where this is but we're still on topic one and we've just went down a couple of tangents.
What makes it very hard is it is what you said is true, that Jordan has a distinct theme that he keeps returning to and he wants to steer it towards.
But even so, it has the feeling of like a dream sequence where the conversation segues from one little rabbit hole and to the next rabbit hole.
And that makes it very difficult to track where we're going.
But yes, we've started off with talking about, you know, vertical dimensions and, taking perspectives and we've got orientation and what's going to happen next.
Well I allow me just a very quick recap for you Matt we've got conscience which is the vertical hierarchy of value the value perception and emotion they are elements that make up conscience as As as well.
And what's worthwhile is what we allocate time to do because of our values to achieve like set goals, right?
So that we've got a couple of things that are right.
There's other things that we haven't completely.
Oh, sorry, that was the wrong definition of warfile, but that's that's what we're working from.
That's what we're doing.
And so, okay, that's that's a couple of things that we've defined, but there's there's other things, Matt that we haven't got defined, and there's some concepts we haven't considered.
So uh let's continue on, right?
There's maybe maybe this will help.
You have to include the fact that you mentioned that you're also undergoing a process of transformation of self in media's rest.
Yes.
As you said, you're you're not gonna be able to do that.
That's what happens in an exciting conversation.
So what's happening here, yeah, performatively, we're we're engaging in the process that currently we're talking about.
Right, right.
So it so that means in a deep conversation, partly what you're doing is progressing forward to your to your various superordinate goals, but at the same time, you're transforming the nature of the superordinate goal and the relationship between the goal hierarchy as you proceed, right?
And that would that's not a bad definition of a quest.
And just one thing to to make sure that all of our questions are caught up.
So conscience would be the voice that comes from a higher order goal to you while you're operating at a more proximal, where you're operating more proximally, telling you that your proximal operations are violating a higher order goal.
Yeah, that's right.
Right, and then you can then you could imagine, okay.
So yes, that seems reasonable.
Yep.
Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it technically, right?
Because it is still in a sense, it's your voice still, because it's associated with your goals, but then it's also a voice from above, so to speak, especially if your goal hierarchy they did have a bit of a moment there where they're like, so we're talking about the process of talking, and this conversation we're having now would just be an illustration of yeah, but but but he to Jordan Peterson's credit, Matt, yeah, he brings it all together.
He's like, Yeah, okay, so what we've said is this, right?
And uh he got agreement.
The conversation is like a quest.
And just like with any quest, you gotta know where you are, where you're going, how you're gonna get there, and you gotta be checking all the time.
And you know, maybe you're hacking through the forest or something, and your conscience is telling you whether or not you're moving towards the ultimate most high order goal, which which is God, it is God.
But yeah, so it that that all makes sense.
Yeah, yeah.
And I I will know we got a definition of quest.
Quest is transforming the relationship between the superordinate goal and the relationship of the goal hierarchy.
Okay.
Yep, that makes perfect sense.
And I think that's uh Jordan Hall's contribution was important too, which is to remind them that you're in a constant state of transformation, you know.
Yeah, you might well be in a particular place oriented towards something, but you're you're transforming yourself at the same time, which that's just got to keep that in mind, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
This does come up for sense speakers like the point decide that like when you have a conversation with someone, Matt, you're not just talking to yourself, you're talking to someone else.
So that makes a third thing, which is the interaction between the two people.
And that interaction affects the two people.
So there's a lot of things going on in having you think you're just having a chat, right?
But it's it's not, it's not so simple, right?
It's a lot more complex than that.
Now, some people have accused Jordan Peterson of being a religious maniac.
Now is that warranted?
Well, that means by the clip.
Now, you could imagine too that if you you talked a bit about Christianity with Pajot as well.
So if you could imagine that you made the imitation of Christ your superordinate goal, even if you didn't exactly know what that means, because you can't, that would open up the possibility that whatever that represents could speak to you in the voice of insofar as you understand what that means, that could now speak to you with the voice of conscience.
And hypothetically, if it was orienting you accurate more accurately, as you practiced it, your understanding of that would increase and you'd get sharper at it.
You get you'd get more, you'd get more skilled at it, because you get more.
I've been talking to my wife, you know, she's been investigating the relationship between self-will, so to speak, and divine will, right?
In her prayer practice, she's trying to orient herself towards the divine.
And so what she does in the morning is that's what she does, is She sits down for an hour and she thinks, okay, if I was really going to do things right, whatever that means, what attitude would I have to adopt, and how would I do that?
And then you distinguish that from self-will.
So I would say, because self-will begs the question, what do you mean by self, right?
And my suspicions are that the more selfish the will, the more a goal that should be lower order is elevated to the highest place.
So like a hedonistic self, because the hedonists will say something like, I would like to do exactly what I want to do right now, regardless.
But there's a question that isn't answered there.
And the question is, well, why do you associate I with what you want?
Because an alternative way of conceptualizing that is that something that's lower order has taken possession of you so completely that you now identify with it.
That's kind of revealing, isn't it?
That's kind of a mishmash of ideas from Christianity and like Buddhist thought, right?
Like he's got the you want to be orienting yourself towards the divine, you want to be imitating Christ.
If you do that, then your conscience will guide you towards this this wonderful state, even if you're not quite sure what it means.
Uh he emphasizes.
Yeah.
But and if you don't do that, the only other thing that could guide what you do, selfish motivations, base, um, wallowing in your own propulsion.
Um, and also because there is no self, you're not even really doing what you want, probably like a devil, something lower order, uh chaos has taken control of you, and you've been deluded that you are acting for yourself, but actually probably you're acting for some nasty horrible base motivations.
Yeah, there is there is a mishmash of things there.
And I like the thing is that because Jordan's obsessed with the Bible, right?
I mean, his wife also very religious person, right?
So she's spending the morning meditating on how to be more Christ-like and what that actually means and all this kind of thing.
And this is important, but it's it's important in a way that you know, most normal religious people's reflections probably aren't as yeah, profined.
But my wife, my wife doesn't do that.
Well, you know, the Petersons are a unique breed, but the thing there is, Matt, that you you mentioned, you know, well, that's a bit Buddhist, but I don't think Jordan Peterson is drawing from the Buddhist thing, except as it's reflected through other writers, right?
Oh, that he likes.
But but that means that like this just reflects how Jordan Peterson is extremely myopic, because almost all religions have in them this notion about you know, there being a you which is selfish and which is, you know, for whatever reason, it can be because of demons, or it can just be human nature, it can be any number of things, but you can replace that by like, you know, so when Jordan is like it's all about Christ, right?
Imitating Christ, but like in Buddhist traditions, it can be about imitating the Buddha or the bodhisattvas, or right.
So, like what he presents as incredibly profound in Christianity, yeah, is is something that you find in almost every major religious tradition.
Yeah, yeah, this should be emphasized, I think, because at the abstracted bespoke level that Jordan Peterson engages with theology, Christian theology, it is so bespoke and so abstract that actually, you know, he could pick any religion.
It doesn't have to be Christianity, any religion he could make reference to and it would fit his highly abstracted theology, uh slash philosophy, whatever it is, perfectly well.
But yeah, no, he but he likes Christianity, he's a he's a Christian guy, so that's that's his bad thing.
Yeah, and it and before people say, I know that Jordan Peterson does make comparative religious analogy sometimes, but he's still very clear that despite that he might reference something from Sunni Islam, or he might reference, you know, something from a Buddhist parable or whatever, the overall thing he wants to emphasize is like Christ is the best version of it.
Like that's what you're this is this is a very common thing amongst religious people, right?
They'll often take the view that other religions are sort of getting glimpses of the perfect truth that that their particular religion does best.
So he's not alone in that.
No, I'll also mention Matt, you know, the indulgence of people like Peterson is quite something to befold.
There's two other people there, and he's just waffling away about like you know what his wife says in the voice.
That's tough and uh yeah, and it continues.
It continues.
He invites his people onto his podcast, but they they rarely get a word in.
Jordan Hall never got to tell us what what the good definition of cutchets was.
But uh, but yeah, let him continue, Chris.
So okay, one more one more question, then that at least on this line, with regards to this.
So imagine this superordinate figure being Christ for for just for the sake of argument for the moment.
So I've been trying to be anyone think through what would be the antithesis, I guess it's the antithesis of evil.
That's one way of thinking about it, and at the same time thinking about the postmodern insistence that there's no uniting story but power.
And so I I think the idea that there's no uniting story but power is self-defeating fundamentally.
Like I've I've seen no evidence that in complex biological systems, even in chimpanzee troops, that power iterates well.
Power is a degenerating game.
So one of the things you might ask is well, you might say, like the postmodernists do sometimes that there is no superordinate game.
Like that's the central claim of postmodernism, as far as I've been able to determine that there's no uniting meta-narrative.
Everything we do is united by a narrative at some level, and to just cap decapitate that arbitrarily and say, well, at some point there's no union, it's like, well, what point?
That's a really big problem.
But when they don't refuse to admit that there's a uniting meta-narrative, they turn to power.
And I've been trying to conceptualize what the antithesis or what the alternatives might be.
So, you know, there you heard the usual Jordan Peterson motifs, right?
Postmodernists, they're obsessed with power, they don't recognize that you know there can be other things, unifying stories, meta-narratives other than power, and the they the fact that they will deny that makes them evil, the antithesis of like a unifying.
So he doesn't like postmodern people because they only talk about power, but there are other stories, and yeah, a uniting meta now of one critique Matt.
Just you know, there's many different ones, but for argument's sake, let's say we tip the superordinate figure of Christ.
That's an example of it could be any, it could be anything, yeah.
But if you want, you know, just for an example, yeah.
So I guess I mean, you know, we don't need to cover how he doesn't like post-moderners, we get it.
Um, but Jordan Peterson does like stories, he does like narratives.
Oh, and yeah, and so this is uh this is how he frames it.
The other the other narrative makers or the other people that that you know focus on narratives, they're very bad because they don't recognize that there is one correct narrative, which is right, God, Christmas.
Well, there could be there could be many correct good meta.
Christ is just an ex an example, but actually Christ in himself is really just the instantiating a more powerful meta narrative.
So this is this is Jordan Peterson's thesis.
This is where the utmost verticality reaches.
So um listen to this.
And it seems to me, I'm I'm curious about this, John.
It seems to me that the central message of the Christian drama is that voluntary self-sacrifice is the uniting meta-narrative, and that works to unite people psychologically, and it works to unite them socially.
And it seems to me almost a matter of definition that social interaction is based on self-sacrifice, because that's kind of like the definition of social.
So, and then psychological self-sacrifice would seem to me to be the offering up of the lower order value structures to something that's transcendent, and then you get to have your cake and eat it too.
You get if you adopt the ethos of voluntary self sacrifice, then you unite yourself psychologically, but at the same time, it's the best possible strategy socially.
And that is definitely that's and that's not only an alternative to power, it's antithetical.
It's the opposite.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's the thesis, isn't it?
So Christianity, like you know, like most religions.
I mean, where he's right is that they are they do tend to be pro-social, right?
They they encourage pro-sociality.
Um to the other believers, yes.
Yes, to the other people in your group, right?
Don't cover your neighbor's ass, but smite you can smite the unbelievers.
Yeah, that's like except maybe in Christianity, you know, but whatever.
No, no, we're not letting come all the way with that one.
No, no, yes.
All of them also have calls to you know, turn yellow cheek and and be kind, but in practice, where push comes to show.
I know.
I know.
Okay.
So um, but he's saying this is I mean, this is great.
This is the the perfect meta-narrative because not only are you being a good a good person to other people in your society, by aligning your values with the highest values, you get to be really happy because you're now acting perfectly in sync with the greatest good.
If I have I framed it right, yeah, yeah.
I love and I I do want to call out one little definition that he slipped in there.
He said the definition of social is based on self-sacrifice.
And no, the definition of social is based on interacting with other people.
No, he's he wants to conceptualize that that ultimately involves sacrifice, but that's because of what a narcissistic preacher is.
But like he, you know, I'm sorry, but it's just it's that reframing where it's self-sacrified.
No, social is very easily defined as just interacting with yeah, other people.
And there are lots of ways to get respect and to do well uh in a society without putting your interest last and sacrificing yourself for the good of other people.
I mean, we live in a world where fucking bloody Elon Musk and Donald Trump are running the show, so there are clearly other ways to get ahead um in a society.
Although Jordan Peterson views them both as like you know, superman and superheroes, X-Men, as he's the described.
So yeah, but we've got there the voluntary self-sacrifice is the unifying meta-narrative of Christianity.
This is at the top of the vertical hierarchy.
So in conversations, you by being oriented towards having a good conversation or things being worthwhile, you are demonstrating the reality of this reality, right?
There is a tangential connection here to what they've been talking about, but now I'm not a carfail, okay, because there's one thing about sense making conversations, like in a way, they are interacting with each other.
But the thing is that as I pointed out earlier, they've got their own grab bag of references and they're all little philosophical hobby horses.
Um yes, hobby horses, that's a good word for it.
And so very often what you'll find is one of the monologues about a topic and lays out about his things, and the other one says, Ah, yes, that reminds me of blah, and then they leap to their hobby horse, which is like it's related because there's a word they use to go which is connected, but it's often actually quite different than what was just being discussed, and this will happen multiple times.
So here, this is John Vervake connecting his views about conscience.
Okay, that's ostensibly what it's about.
But he's gonna give a different definition than what Jordan Peterson supplied.
Remember, the Peterson definition is conscience is the vertical hierarchy of value.
So you you having that is what is conscience.
Now let's see what Verveki says conscience is.
So I want to say two things about two of your main points.
Um the first is I I I want to I want to explore conscience because I mean there is conscience that I think is the call to something higher, but I think there's also conscience that can be pathological.
Uh yeah, because it it's the internalized voice of authority figures who have punished us or try traumatized us.
And so it's like the harsh Freudian superego.
Well, yeah, I tend to have a sadistic superego.
So there's that, and then and then the other thing you said about self-sacrifice, and but you said something that maybe qualified it, because this is a qualification I would make.
Um I think the meta-narrative, I'll challenge it.
I think the meta-narrative isn't self-sacrifice.
I think it's self-sac, I think it's sacrifice in in service of getting to what is most real.
Oh, so it's not like this is important, Matt.
There's a very important distinction there.
Okay, it's it's gonna go hard as well.
But so Vervicki corrects him, right?
He wants to point out first of all that you can have like a negative conscience, right?
And Peterson seems to be like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Freudian superego, right?
Yep, yeah, because because Peterson's really focused on the on conscience of essentially the voice of God calling you to towards him.
But you know, the fact is like, hang on, hang on.
Sometimes you can have like a neurotic kind of conscience, and it's it might not be uh in steering you in a good direction.
Okay, good.
Peterson's right, like, yes, I'm done with that.
And then he says another correction, another correction.
You said that the unifying meta narrative is self-sacrifice.
That's wrong.
It's sacrifice in service of getting what is most real.
Yes, getting to what is most real.
Yeah, getting to what is most real.
Yes, there we go.
So this is a but they're talking about the the meta-narrative.
I mean, just to clarify here, Chris, like what is the meta-narrative?
Like Jordan Peterson would say it the meta unifying meta-narrative.
Yeah, but what is it?
What is a unifying meta-narrative exactly?
It's the top of the vertical uh relationship hierarchy.
I like took it to mean well, but no, but he's saying that's what the meta-narrative should be.
But is the meta-narrative kind of like the unspoken thing that everyone agrees is good or something, or like is it the sort of the underlying social values of a culture?
Like, like what what look map to exist to exist, you have to have a unifying meta-narrative because otherwise you just wouldn't get out of it you just flop around like a fish, right?
This is true, Peterson's so you can have lots of different ones, but ultimately the ones that are at the top of this hierarchy are you know, like the the postmodernists say the only one that you can have, right?
Is like power.
If there's a unifying meta narrative that combines people together and makes them behave socially, it's just power, it's power relationships, it's exploitation.
Peterson says, No, no, no, no, they've got it all wrong.
There's so many better ones, and actually the best one, the one you know that that actually everyone is kind of oriented to whether or not they admit it to themselves, is this self-sacrifice for other people, which is best encapsulated in the notion of Christ in the Christian doctrine.
But is Peterson saying okay, just accepting his framing of post-modernist, right?
Yeah, it's even Jordan Peterson would agree it's kind of a it's a descriptive in his framing, they're describing how the world is, right?
How relationships between people are and how people act and so on.
It's a descriptive thing.
They're getting it wrong, but they're describing it, yes.
Yeah, but Jordan Peterson, is he describing how people everywhere always operate or how they ought to be operating?
A little a little bit of both, because like based on what Al Sai know about Jordan Peterson, right?
Like from like his appearance on Jubilee and all the other content we've looked at, his notion is that this is true, regardless of whether you acknowledge it.
So you can say you're not religious, you can say you're not oriented to what is true or whatever, and you might even have adopted an ideology that obscures that, but fundamentally underneath it, the very thing that allows people to act, you know, socially is this, and this doesn't mean that you don't get tyrants and whatnot, but that's because they're fundamentally rebelling against the what is true and right and and so on.
So yeah, I think this is an underlying reality, which is best encapsulated in the Christian meta narrative, but it is a reality, like I see.
So yeah, no, I get it.
Thanks.
You're actually that helped a lot.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So you know, that's why he tells people who are explicitly atheist that they're not.
Yeah, you can't be it's not possible.
Yeah, you can only got out of bed this morning, so you're not what you say you are.
You just you're just flopping around at a lower order of on the hierarchy.
You're low on the ladder, basically diluting yourself.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you're kind of, you know, in the Christian version of it, you're rebelling against God's truth.
You're refusing to acknowledge it.
I get it.
I get it.
Yes, this is a new way of looking at the world for me.
So it's a bit of a struggle.
Yeah, but but so uh Verveki give a correction, right?
Seth makers like to do this where they're like, it's not about knowing, it's about what is known, right?
And and in this case, it's it's not about self-sacrifice, right?
It's it's about sacrifice in service to reach what is real.
To yeah, what is real.
So uh so I guess so it this is more of a vaccine's thing, like self-actualization, you know, Freud, you know, stuff, uh not so much the Christian religious stuff, obviously.
So yeah, although he has his hang ups around that as well, but um, I mean, her don't forget Hermes told him that he's essentially gonna be bringing people back to Christianity at the end of the day.
So and he was reused in a hardcore fundamentalist Christian background, right?
I think it did a bit of a number on him, but um yes, but that's not his fault.
Okay.
Um so anyway, it continues.
So this is still related to conscience, but Vrveki's gonna try to flesh out why this distinction is important.
Okay, no arguments with that.
I was using self, I would say, in that fractionated hedonistic manner, right?
Because you're you're if you're trying to organize yourself in relationship to a higher unity, you're you're sacrificing what's lower to that upward.
I agree.
Uh and but uh what I'm scanning at is I think what uh perhaps I I guess uh because we're talking about we're talking about conscience, and conscience is is a normative self-knowing, knowing yourself normatively rather than descriptively, right?
That's what conscience is.
Okay, why normatively?
Uh uh because it uh what as you said, uh you what you're doing is you're knowing yourself through a normative lens.
What is true, what is going on?
Oh, yeah, okay, okay.
Right.
So yeah, it's con science, knowing of yourself, but what you're doing is you're reflecting on yourself through a normative lens.
Okay, so that and that ties together the psychological and the social, that normative lens.
Normativity, Chris.
Normative, we're talking about normativity, right?
So Vervake's definition of conscience is normative self-knowing.
Knowing, knowing reflecting upon yourself through a normative lens, yes.
Yes, so not descriptively.
So this is a different framing than Jordan Pete.
Although he's they're connecting it, they're both nodding along and saying, yes, yes, well, that's basically the thing, but this is a new definition that we've just received, right?
And uh Jordan Hall wants to get in, Matt, because he's got another definition that's a little bit different.
Yeah, because uh it's a little bit different.
Like for Becky's definition is a little bit bespoke, but it's you can you could see it resonates with what philosophers generally describe normative things as, you know, because you got the philosophers have got their definition, psychologists have got a different definition, philosophers just say it's normative is just how things ought to be, right?
The standards and things that you claim uh prescribe good things, justified things, and so on, right?
What ought.
And in psychology, we talk about normative, where we're just talking about society, like what's typical, what's expected, what sort of norms uh are in society that sort of judge people's behavior and what what is Considered normal kind of uh development of behavior.
So anyway, that's what that's what the rest of the world thinks of normative.
What does Jordan Hall think?
Well, let's see.
Let's see what what Jordan Hall has to add to this.
Let me check if I disagree.
I may.
I don't I don't think I do, but I want to check.
Which is um I'm grounding the notion of conscience at a level that is quite below semantics.
Sure.
It's like the moment when you're playing music and you feel the sour note come, that feeling that you have of a direction towards wrongness is conscience.
Well, that this is what I want to take.
I agree.
And what I would say there is that, but that's the normative.
That's but that's showing up in perspective taking, yep, right, as opposed to rule following.
What you're doing is you're doing that like Jordan Jordan P said.
I'll have to do Jordan P and Jordan A, right?
Uh uh uh uh the dance, right?
The dance of the perspective taking.
Yep.
So I when I mean normative, I don't mean like a Kantian code.
I mean the the the very sort of sets of constraints that you put on yourself so that you shape your behavior according to uh you're trying to get at what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful.
That's what I meant by that.
So why normative then rather than ideal?
Because I okay, so I use ideal in a technical sense, which uh might be valuable to us.
So let me let me recapitulate for Jordan Hall.
So for Jordan Hall, he wants to note that when he thinks about normative, like it's not at the level of you know, semantic knowledge or it's it's more like an emotional feeling to hear a SAR note in a song, like that doesn't feel right.
And um Vervake is okay with that.
He's like, Yeah, yeah, that's that's right.
And that's because in his notion of normative, normative is the set of constraints that you put on yourself to shape your behavior to what is true and beautiful.
So that's rather different, Matt than what you said psychologists there, because like you know, what is normative in your society may not be orientated to what is true and beautiful, it could be conventional, like or just based purely on like socially pragmatic things or you know, conventions and so on.
So that's different, but that that is also indicative of Jordan Hall's approach, which is he likes to use analogies, a metaphors to describe things, right?
That's often his contribution.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, and to be fair to John Viveki, his take on it isn't wildly different from the philosophical version of normativity.
He adds a bit of flair.
It's the dance of perspective taking, but they go on, don't they, to put some work into understanding what normative is, because now they've they've forgotten about conscience for the moment.
Now we've got to figure out normative.
Yes, well, actually, you've got a bit of a sidetrack, Matt.
You get ahead of yourself because somebody mentioned the word ideal.
Oh they first they first have to sort that out.
And Peterson said, well, why do you use normative when you could say ideas?
You say, Well, that's a good point.
Let me clarify that.
So, yes, a sidetrack for a minute on um ideas and goals.
So I use ideal in a technical sense, which uh uh might be valuable to us.
So John Keeks makes a distinction between goals, which are states you can realize, and ideals, which are constraints that you bind yourself to.
So for example, uh-huh, uh like a clear goal state when I'm thirsty is to drink water.
But honesty isn't a state I get to, right?
It's a constraint I'm putting on all my behavior for the rest of my life.
So he calls those, he says, and one of the mistakes we can make is we can confuse goals and ideals.
Ideals are ways of being and goals are states that you can get uh an ideal is like a meta goal, is that a reasonable way?
But then where where does normative fall into that?
So normative, no what normativity is is normativity, are use that language, normativity are ideals, ways in which we constrain our behavior so that we can shape it so that we can get in contact with within and without with, I would argue, with what is most real.
It's complicated, isn't it?
But we are departing from the philosophical standard definitions of these things.
Uh this is getting pretty bespark.
We're gonna get back to all in a minute.
But but there, my I mean, it's a dense semantic thicket that you have to cut through here.
Right.
So let's let me try and retrace the path.
So Vervake talked about conscience is normative self-knowing, right?
So he was nuancing Jordan Peterson's thing about conscience is orientation towards the vertical axis, right?
So in his version, he's like, well, yes, but I would call that normative self-knowing.
And by normative, he doesn't mean it's actually normative, meaning orientation toward what is true and beautiful.
Right.
Right.
So actually it does share various things with with Jordan Peterson's concept.
But then here, Peterson said, Well, why don't you just call that an ideal?
I mean, set aside whether why to call it a different word, why that matters.
But he's like, Well, that is important because ideals are different from goals.
Goals are you know kind of pragmatic?
I'm thirsty, I want the drink.
An ideal is a as Jordan Peterson describes, a meta-goal, an orientation.
And they both say it's a constraint, it's constraint based on your behavior.
But then so Verve says, right, so normativity is like an ideal.
It's like orientating yourself towards an ideal towards what is true and beautiful.
So I guess his definition is that normativity is an ideal, it's just a specific ideal.
Like there could be other two.
I I think you just I think he may just have to leave that one.
Just like I don't think we're gonna get to the bottom of it.
I I'm sort of in my mind, I've got like a little graph of words and arrows pointing to it.
It's a bit of like you said, it's a thicket.
So let's let's just let that one, let's just let it lie.
Let's just let that one.
I'll let that go.
I think I think I got it though.
But it's you did a good you did a good job.
It's just that I'm but I but I think the the bit that gets me is that Vervake said it's really important to distinguish normativity and and ideals, but then he just outlined why normativity is an ideal.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
I that's why I'm confused.
But maybe they who knows, whatever.
Now Jordan Peterson notices something here, Matt.
Something's something's happened.
They've they might have strayed a bit afar.
So he's gonna call the uh you know the semantic bricks here while they they resolve this.
Okay, how does that relate?
Because the the other connotation of normative might be social norms, for example.
And I mean, there are I'm trying to put together the the definitions that you laid out.
So yeah, so social norms are supposed to be justified by their appeal to uh uh what you what you might call ethical norms, but the problem approximations of the ideal, yeah.
But I don't like the doing that because I normativity for me, uh ethics is too limited a sense of normativity.
It's it's around the right thing to do.
It doesn't cover everything that's covered by trying to make your thoughts as true as possible, trying to make your experiences as uh as tracking as what is beautiful as possible.
So there's a there's a discussion in Exodus that's relevant to that, I think.
Of course there is.
How can I relate this?
There's a little process that's operating in the back of Jordan Tidison's mind all the time, which is how can I relate this to something in the Bible?
It's always running, and every now and again it fires up.
Okay, I did think though, though, Matt, that you know, there's a part of Jordan Peterson, it's buried very, very deep, where there's like his undergraduate psychological training, right?
And he's like, Well, wait a minute, this is like a definition of normativity that doesn't gel with the way that psychologists are using it.
So there's isn't there a bit of an issue here, but he but no no no no no like that's too limited, the one around social norms and that kind of thing.
But but the world, I think even the philosophical version is too limiting for Vekki, like it's you know, it's not just what you ought to do, it's it's whatever steers you towards the true and the beautiful, it's it's kind of more cosmic than that.
I know, and God forbid anybody ask them what true and beauty.
Oh god.
I'm glad they uh try to define those words.
Yeah, I've Just realized they don't make that move.
But if I was there in the conversation, you know, that's a good sense record.
I could say, well, like, look, this is really great.
There's all gold.
But there's one thing that we haven't addressed yet.
Like we keep saying true and beautiful.
But do we do we don't know about me?
What do we mean by this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So look, I mean, like to recap, I mean, really, what's been going on this entire time so far is uh definitions, hair splitting definitions.
That's been a fairly long period of time on it.
That's uh one way to think about it.
Well, don't worry, Matt.
We're we're almost done with this topic, it's almost done.
They've they've almost resolved everything, kind of.
They never really get off this topic.
But um, so the the religious thing, you know, because John Vervake was bringing up his particular hobby horse topics, but Jordan was like, Well, doesn't this really a Bible story?
So here's his attempt to rest the conversation back to the you know the Bible stuff that he likes to talk about.
So when just before Moses goes up Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, so he's he's gathered up a lot of implicit knowledge by that point by serving as judge for like years, anyways, he leaves and he leaves Aaron in charge, and Aaron is the political voice of the prophet.
And as soon as the transcendent voice, the prophet disappears, the political voice bows to the whim of the crowd, right?
And so this is very interesting because if you have a consensus model of truth, the the biblical insistence is that a consensus model of truth will devolve almost instantly into worship of the golden calf, which is kind of like an orgeastic materialism, which strikes me as highly probable because I don't think there's much difference between an orgeastic materialism and a profound fractionated immaturity.
Oh, because you yeah, you agree with that totally okay, and so then the prophetic voice speaks for the ideal that unifies what would otherwise degenerate into orgeastic materialism, it's something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is this is Jordan's rejoinder, right?
You can't have things that are true and good that come from just people getting together and talking about things, whatever, because it'll just descend into orgeastic they'll be wallering in their own copulance.
That's what's going to be happening.
Yeah, so uh yeah, he's staring things back to where he wants them to be, which is his cosmic theology.
That's that's Jordan's bag, that's where he's gonna stay.
And I'll note there, Matt, he's referencing the Bible, a religious text, the goal of which is to encourage people to follow a particular religious system and um believe in a particular God.
And he's saying, in that Bible, there's this story where people they try they're left to their own devices, and they start going wrong until God comes back and you know tells them what to do, and then they sort it out, and like yeah, isn't that typical of atheist materialists?
Like, what other proof do you need that a Bible said this was all going badly until you know Moses comes back down and and tells them this is what God said, and then like oh well, it's quite shocking that a parable from the Bible should be so pro-God.
Um I know who would have expected that?
Who would have expected that?
And I'll also call out, Matt, that after talking about the orgyastic materialism that will inevitably follow if people don't you know have a orientation towards the most high.
Um that's what my Tuesday looks like, yeah.
And uh fractionally the immaturity, Matt.
So you know, you already had postmodernists or idiots, right?
Now you've got the EFES, they're all immature and uh materialist orgiastic individuals worshiping golden cows.
So that's definitely what EFAs are often doing.
Um he says that, and then John Vervake says, Oh, yeah, yeah, totally.
He's like, Oh, you agree with that?
It's like, yeah.
So I just want to point that out because sometimes people say, you know, oh, Verveke, he's much more reasonable than Jordan Peterson.
But in these conversations, he never ever pushes back at Jordan Peterson when he makes statements like this.
This sweeping generalization that is basically casting everybody that isn't religious in the particular way that Jordan Peterson thinks is good as being these immature, you know, in the moment focused hedonists.
And John Vervecky's like, yep, yep, that's that's spot on Jordan.
And Jordan even seems surprised, like, oh, you agree?
Yeah, okay, okay, like let's let's move on then.
And uh worth noting, yeah.
Worth noting.
Because yeah, I mean, I do think I I guess my impression is John Viveki's coming from a different direction, but he is incredibly agreeable and will go along with pretty much anything.
Jordan Peterson would like to take him.
Yeah.
Right.
No, Matt, Jordan Hall, he's been a bit quiet.
He hasn't had much of it.
I mean, he spoke so much.
The last time we covered this three sense makers together, Jordan Hall was dominating the conversation.
And he's hardly had a chance here because he's with two big kahunas.
But now he's got a chance to shine.
He's he's gonna add something.
He does.
So, you know, he added something when he explained the conscience is hearing a sore note in a song and recognizing that it's an emotional feeling.
He's gonna have a go now with uh normativity.
So let's hear what Jordan Hall defines normativity as.
I think we I think we can ground it concretely and make it really simple.
So just think about an infant that's learning how to pick up a P. There's a whole complex of feedback loops that are going on, orienting towards particular, in this case goal, right?
But the ability to be able to discern what random articulation of neuromuscular activity, coordinating hand, brain, eye, towards an increasing capacity to actually engage in depth perception, everything else produces the desired effect.
That extremely complex, subtle and continuous field of feedback loops and constraints that produces the capacity to move through reality to achieve a goal, that's normative.
Governed by the law of continuity or the infinitesimal, like all the way continuous, like a continuous wave.
Ethics is what happens when you endeavor to actually re-articulate that governed by the law of let's say the digital.
I can re-articulate semantically ethics.
I can take your norms, your norms have a field effect of continuity.
There's something about them which has a um, how do you say it right?
They're irreducible.
You cannot actually break them apart.
They're always available to respond to the reality that you're in because they are developed in complex relationship with reality.
Ethics takes a snapshot, just like when I'm digitizing a wave in sound, it takes a snapshot of it.
It reproduces that in a semantic form that allows us to actually do things like look at it.
Okay, so what would you say given that definition?
So I think I've developed a parallel notion of that conceptual framework.
Happy.
I mean, I like that.
There's the Jordan Hall we know and love.
He's he's letting he's letting his freak flag fly.
He really got a role on there.
Um he was spinning.
He he had those multiple plates spinning in the air there.
Um, so there you go.
Now we know what normativity is.
He's explained it in good, concrete, everyday terms, using nice simple example that we can all understand.
I are you are you clear about what normativity is now, Chris?
Straightforward terms, right?
Straightforward terms.
He like, why would Jordan Hall use a simple word when a more appropriate technical complex word would would be much better?
So he does give a concrete example of a child picking up a P, which the first time I heard it, I thought he was referring to like the linguistic thing of you know, learning to make the um the sound.
But yeah, I forgot that he says neuromuscular activity, and and that can be you are forgiven.
You are forgiven.
The incredibly dense the the dense way in which he explains it's like it's an understandable mistake.
But it is hard, it is a little bit hard to understand how that's related to normativity.
So I mean, let's should we just remind ourselves like what does normativity mean to normal people?
And the philosophical one, remember, is just what how things ought to be.
Just you know, what's what's correct and right, and for psychology, it's what what you said, which is what is customary, what is standard, basically, according to the norms of a society.
What's that got to do with a child reaching to grasp a Pell, it's the ability to discern what random articulation of neuromuscular activity coordinating hand brain eye movement leads to an increasing capacity to actually engage in depth perception.
So like I understand what he's describing there.
I I understand how you know we develop and are able to orientate ourselves through the world.
But he seems to be doing the sense weaker thing of talking about, you know, the same thing that we're talking about in the competition.
I'm gonna be charitable to Jordan Hall, and I think what what he's doing there, I think is he's got a he's got a very unnecessary example of yeah, you know, error correction, right?
So you have you have feedback loops, like he said, you know what I mean?
Yeah, coordination of hand-eye stuff.
There's there's feedback loops and control mechanisms involved.
So for him, this is a perfect analogy for conscience because conscience is a kind of control mechanism, an inhibitory mechanism that helps you steer yourself.
Um yeah, I think that's what he was getting at.
But I really love how he how he took that, and he likes that.
He likes this kind of continuous adjustment continually, and then he got into the law of continuity in the infinite decimals and a continuous wave.
And so ethics is is actually what you do when you take a snapshot of that.
So the like like lived experience of being normative, which is God and so towards how it's good.
It's this constant control, it's like jazz and you're flowing and you're dancing and you're moving towards you know the thing.
But when you stop and try to talk about it like they are, it's like you've you've you've taken that dance and you've you've put it, it's like a fly that's been encased in amber, and now it's static.
And now you you break it apart and you talk about it with words, and that's what they're doing now.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and Jordan Hall, one of the things he likes to do is reference technical terms from the world realm of technology.
So he talks about digitizing waves and sounds, and he you know, sometimes it will reverse like let's double-click on that.
So that's one of his unique characteristics is yeah, making reference to the world of technology.
Oh, yeah, he's he's seeing great metaphors here with like analog versus digital and you know, derivatives and continuous functions and uh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I I think you're you're doing well there, Matt.
That was a good articulation of what he's attempting to describe.
I think Jordan Peterson gets a little bit more confused than you or I did uh with this.
So here's Jordan Hall attempting to connect it to what Jordan Peterson was talking about, and then listen to Jordan Peterson's response.
Also to your notion of the uh the prophet and the political, right?
At the political, we are now an aggregate of things that are not actually part of an integrated whole, and therefore governed by consensus, which is what happens when you try to simulate a whole in an aggregate in the category of actually being in communion governed by the prophet, we are in fact a well-integrated whole and therefore no longer governed by an aggregate or by politics.
Yes, okay, yes.
That's okay.
That's exactly what I think that story indicates.
Yeah, okay.
So that's like it didn't sound like he was completely convinced that it sounded a bit like he was like, right, yes, yeah, okay.
I mean I can't blame Jordan Peterson.
I have sympathy for him because like yeah, he's like what not quite sure what to do with that.
But you know, Chris, this is a bit of a tangent, but you know, what we know something of Jordan Hall and the other sense makers.
Yeah, that there's kind of this bit of a dark enlightenment political dimension to it.
And you know, this did remind me of it a little bit because you know, Prophet is in charge of everything, he's communicating with God, everyone does what the prophet says.
They're they're an integrated, unified whole, as opposed to this messy arguing and debate that comes around when the populace is kind of figuring things out with themselves.
You know, you had factions and you have people with different ideas, they all kind of like the other one better, don't they?
Oh, yeah, yeah, the top-down the charismatic leader delivering the truth from the you know the higher principles from God.
Yes, they they do like that a bit more, and and I think you might hear echoes in this in various parts of this conversation, but but you know, my in general, what we have been hearing so far is sense weakened jazz.
There's been the Omega rulers being in effect, people have been yes, and they've been maybe we should define this, and And yes, everybody's, you know, trying to grab their part of the conversation pie.
So that is happening.
Some people are sometimes losing their ability to articulate their second or third point that they had promised to do.
But um, this next little bit where they're continuing on about that that topic, right?
But I think this is a good illustration of when said speaking, the friction about the the kind of narcissistic focus on your framing starts to bump up against the other person.
So listen to this interaction between the two Jordans and see if I'm being uh overly sensitive or not.
Yes.
Okay, yes.
That's okay.
That's exactly what I think that story indicates.
Yes.
Yeah, and so then the that vertical orientation that's symbolized in the Exodus story by Mount Sinai.
And then what happens when the commandments are delivered, they're delivered in a context of a much wider range of rules, right?
So there's like these macro rules that are really foundational, and then a bunch of micro rules that are more situational.
And it's what seems to happen is that the revelation is something in your language, that would be the translation of the normative to the ethical.
Yes, that's correct.
Right.
Yeah, so okay, so you think that.
Yeah.
Did you know did you see did you know of the relationship between that and what happened at Mount Sinai?
Yes.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
And we'll just we can add something that people generally know.
So it was worth asking.
It's uh um something might be interesting to add is just to think about the the next step vis-a-vis Moses.
Was I was I wrong?
Like if I being unfair by needling just a little bit of uh first into the conversation.
Uh what?
I the the uh are you are you skeptical that maybe Jordan Hole really has really thought about the Sermon on the Man as much as Jordan Peterson or what?
Well, just that it's that particular thing where you know Jordan's like, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this connects the verticality, right?
And Exodus once and I let's spend more time on that.
And Jordan Hall's like, yeah, uh-huh, yeah.
And then he reframes what Jordan Hall was saying into an analogy around the things that he prefers.
And Jordan Hall's like, yeah, that's right.
And he's like, so you you made that connection yourself?
Yep, yeah.
And then it's like, okay, good, because you know, most people wouldn't be in that connection.
He's like, nah, yeah, I made it.
All right.
And uh what about Moses vis-a-vis Moses?
I like that.
Yeah, that's so I I just detected a note there where there was like a little bit of a translation error going on, and they were, you know, they're good science makers, so they're trying to say, yes, and but Jordan pulling it so abruptly back to verticality, introduced just more friction than there usually is.
Yeah, yeah.
I think I think Jordan Hall tries to salvage things a little bit by oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think you can illustrate it.
I've got to illustrate it beautifully, but it kind of speaks to what you were talking about, you know, the dark enlightenment politics, because so Moses, right?
You know, vis-a-vis Moses.
What about Moses?
Because remember, Moses was brought up in and trained in the most executive situation humanity's ever produced, right?
Pharonic Egypt is an executive, and I mean this in terms of commander-in-chief executive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so one might imagine that when he finally exits he was a slave at the same time, because he was he was he was Hebrew.
So he has a full understanding of the thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's got the whole hierarchy, yeah.
Um, that he would he would naturally default back to an executive form of leadership when he moves it responsible for governing according to these rules, right?
He would move the rules into a legislative function, he would adopt the executive function.
But he doesn't do that, he adopts the judge function, right?
And the judge operates on on by means of norms first, laws second, even the common law.
Like I think about the how the common.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Would a reasonable man do?
This is a question that is actually hitting.
What would a reason the whole system.
Well, yeah.
So there's something also that's fascinating about that.
Because if I if you two have a dispute that you can't settle, you're lacking a superordinate structure that unites two different narratives, let's say.
Yeah.
And if I impose a narrative structure on you, if it's an imposition, it's gonna be fragile.
I'm going to have to feel my way between your dispute and find a superordinate principle that you can't better.
Yeah.
Right.
And unless you accept that is valid, like, and that would be unless it's in accordance with your conscience and your calling, maybe.
Yeah.
It's it's gonna fragment the first time it's stress tested.
Well, that's what I but the re I think this is very close to the point uh I wanted to make, which that uh for me the normative, it doesn't just encompass uh the the more the moral.
Uh uh because for example, for you to get the common thing between Jordan and I, uh, you have to get first of all a shared meaning structure.
Yes.
We're both, and I don't mean just semantic meaning, I mean embodied, embodied meaning.
That can be my is you know, sense speaking poetry.
You've got like a biblical story with reinterpreted in an insanely idiosyncratic way, which even the internal logic, which we might spend sometime on, doesn't make a huge amount of sense.
You've got another sense weaker trying to translate it into a way that connects to their interests, right?
About like negotiating and the again, a vertical structure with a superordinate beliefs that you agree with, and then the third sense speaker coming in at the end and saying, Well, that relates to the way I was talking about normativity, right?
Maybe we could turn to that.
So it's oh, it's so good.
Because like one thing for me was Jordan Hall said that the pharaohs in Egypt, that society was like the super executive, the most executive society that's ever existed, which is an unusual way to put it, but it's not usually a way to put it.
And by the way, they talk about all of these things, like you know, the Moses come to the hill and telling everyone what to do, right?
Never having to follow the law and stuff like that.
But in but in Jordan's world, none of that is a lot of power, right?
Like power is bad, right?
That's what postmodern is.
You're not allowed to use the word power.
No, you can't use that, right?
You talk about executives and stuff, and uh, you know, but it's like he's he's a judge or something, so it's so it's different and it's good.
Yeah, like the funny thing was Jordan threw a a fact in that was just not helpful for that story, because he was like, Yeah, so the pharaohs were executives, but he was a slave, right?
He was a he and then Jordan Hall is like, yes.
So he had a whole he understood the whole society, right?
Because he was a yeah, so good good incorporation of that thing, which is completely coun to the notion that he would adopt the executive mode, because like Jordan's point was, well, but he's not in that mode.
And then Jordan Dehall says, and this, but there's two things that are it's here there.
It's first he doesn't adopt the executive function, he examps the judge function.
Now some people might say that an executive issuing decrees and laws that must be followed, is somewhat similar to like a judge, right?
The ultimate judge.
Like that you might say that, but you might be like, well, but a judge is just translating laws, but Jordan Hall throws a curple there because he's like, and as a judge, of course, he's not about law, he's primarily about norms.
Yeah, laws are secondary to judge it's my it's it's norms first, laws second.
Yeah, and and then you brain just gets bent into a pretzel trying to try to so I think the argument is Moses adopted a judge-based system.
Yep, yeah, but but we shouldn't understand judges to be about laws, even though Moses, you know, the most associated with the tech about and and they're not executives, even though Jordan was kind of leaning that way before being corrected.
Yeah.
Peterson.
And and then Jordan translates it to like if you're having the dispute, you have to be on the same.
Yeah, same meaning structure.
You've got to all have the same semiotics or whatever.
And then it'll all break down because you have to have this superordinate thing that kind of I don't know.
It's it's pretty abstract.
And then Jordan Vivake weighs in at the John Vivicky.
Yeah, to bring clarity, which is that this is all going to the point that the normative isn't just the moral or what you ought to do, it's mainly about a shared meaning structure.
Yes, but the important thing, Matt, is it's it's not just about like semantic shared meaning, it's embodied.
Embodied, right?
That's different.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
So look, that this kind of I'm I'm saying this, this adds a bowl to this session.
It definitely does not.
But um this this I think wraps up this little part of the conversation a little bit.
Um and you'll get to hear various elements come in.
So why don't I let uh John Vervake, you know, like elaborate a little bit more and see where this leads us.
So the reason why I do I try I I think of normativity as a broader notion is it includes the the includes this idea of connectedness to what's real, meaning that I think is actually more foundational than uh our moral decisions, our moral decisions, I think are ultimately regulated by what we find meaningly most real.
I I think that's uh what ultimately orients us.
Because you need some touchstone that tells you, well, how do I know when this is true?
How do I know when this is good?
How why touchstone?
Because I think what we're talking about is what's the metaphor is contact with reality.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, there's a foundational element to that.
There's two points.
It's contact and comparison.
So think about this.
Our judgments are realness are right.
This is from Spinoza, basically.
Uh you like think about when you're waking up.
You're in this small world and you're in the dream, right?
And then you go, you wake up to a bigger world, and that from that bigger world, you can see the limitations and the biases of the smaller world, and you judge the bigger world to be more real than this is what people mean when they want to be connected to something larger than their themselves.
That's more real.
Right.
Well, that's interesting that that's upward, eh?
Of course it is.
Yeah, of course it is.
And uh Jordan Peterson's always scanning for any way.
This could be connected to verticality.
So funny.
He's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's that's like pointing up, right?
And uh, I also like the interjection of why touchstone.
Why that word?
Well, because the thing about there is when there's a touchstone, there's a contact, and there is a reality, and there is a point in which you find contact with a a foundation that anchors you into reality that is most meaningfully most meaningful.
Yeah, well, there's there's a larger explanation for why use the word touchstone.
I was I wasn't gonna play out that, but you you forced by hand.
Uh so you know, you give what you said there is just like that's only beginning to scratch the surface.
Well, they know it's a case because they make a comp they make a compart uh a contrast to comparison.
So notice that I use the length of the stick to explain the length of the shadow, not the length of the shadow to explain the length of the stick.
One thing explains the other.
One is a source of a source of intelligibility for the other, and it's not reversed.
So we judge things in terms of a comparative contrast of increased realness, and that is a matter of like you have to you have to do this, you have to transform.
That's what you're saying earlier, Jordan.
We you have to transform you, you have to wake up.
Like ultimately the the truths are not trues that you can get to without having undergone transformation.
Yeah, so the touchstone is it's a transformation of of the axiomatic assumptions on which that viewpoint are based, as far as I can tell.
Can you believe that Good Friday and Easter are just around the corner?
These are the most important holidays in Christianity.
Don't play the ad.
Don't play the but the ads do elevate, I think the whole discussion.
I know, I know.
It's so but but there but you got you know the touchstone is the transformation of the axiomatic assumption of which viewpoints are based, as far as Jordan can tell.
So remember everyone, we're still the shuttle and stick, we're still defining normativity.
We're still getting to grips with this thing, having departed from any meaningful thing.
Um normativity to remind people as well, is John Vervetke's contribution to what is conscience, right?
What's conscience?
And that is important because related to the vertical hierarchy of value, which is the very reason you're having this conversation with these two guys, which is the whole point of this.
This whole journey we've been on is based on why are we talking about why are we doing this?
I like that the whole companies, why are we doing this?
But it's also got to do with a baby grasping a P. That is.
Oh, we shouldn't forget the B what it really boils down to.
Yeah, so I've already forgotten that there were like about three segues in that last bit, you know, I've forgotten the first two.
Um don't worry, Matt.
I'll I'll take you along because Vravake has a correction to offer.
But if you want to find out what the correction is, you will have to wait till the next episode because we realized that uh while recording this, this is such a dense journey through the thicket of sense making that it wouldn't be fair to overload every one of our listeners' brains with the full trek in one voyage.
So we're going to give you a little break here, you know, try and digest the ideas that you've got so far.
Yeah, and this is part one of our sense speaking voyage.
Part two will be coming before too long.
So, you know, yeah, try and take time to yeah, you know, reflect on what you've heard here today and what you've learned.
Yeah, some time processing it.
Yeah, just process that for a while.
Sit with it.
Um lot of nuggets of truth in there.
Um did you want to give any impressions, any any thoughts, any any summary?
Like how big big big I mean, I I find it impressive that they are able to create this hermetically sealed little uh conceptual bubble, and they can start off with with nothing, they can start off with pose a question,
like what's nothing, like literally nothing, except words, and then kind of define those words in such a way that they have no connection to to any the you know prior definitions of these words, really, and then they sort of they hermetically seal their little world and then play around with it, start you know, start defining those words and connecting them to other things.
This they have all the greatest hits, the parables and the psychology and the metaphors about positioning yourself and so on, and uh yeah, they create like a little what world garden for themselves to play, you know.
I find that that's why I kind of find it art because I I find it kind of amazing that anyone can do this.
Well, the bit that gets to me is what you emphasize there, that they're essentially just running down different definitions of boards, like their own idiosyncratic ones, and they are connected to concepts that exist, like they very, very often reference other thinkers.
Uh now I would call what they're doing performative.
If you were more charitable, you would refer it to them giving due credit.
But I mean, they will often reference a concept or a thinker, uh philosopher, psychologist, uh writer, some you know, important figure from intellectual history, and then they speak to how this word that this person uses relates to their understanding of this topic,
and it's connected to the definition that they've developed of this word, and then they'll go down the road for a little bit with that word, and then another one will interject the word and somebody will say, Well, why did you use that word?
And we'll we'll start going down, you know, the definitions of that.
But underneath it, I do think there is a coherent thing.
It's not particularly profound, right?
But Jordan Peterson is constantly trying to connect things to the Bible, to religiosity, and to this notion that there is a vertical system of values, uh value hierarchy, if you will, and you know, the kind of Christian self-sacrifice story is at the top.
That's that's what he always wants to bring up, always bring it back to all of the various vignettes and stories are always related to that.
Jordan Hall, on the other hand, is like kind of just you know, making references to the technology and insights that he's developed from you know his ability to be polymathic in different respects, and yes, he does have his own little ideas about things, right?
And they're a little bit dark enlightenment, but but primarily he's there to sense me in a the purest form.
And Verveki is more attached to this very verbose, self-helpy, dense philosophical self-reflection and and kind of religious hand-wringing as well, right?
But with references to Eastern traditions, martial arts, and Plato, and a couple of other figures that he likes.
So they do have a kind of core thesis that they're that they're returning to, and it's not incoherent to me.
It seems like you know, their definitions might not all cohere in the moment, or this kind of thing, but the the thematic stuff is all the same.
But it's just that they're they're basically just using each other as a riff to link to what they want to talk about, and their presentation is that it's all coming together and they're all informing each other's worldview, and you know, they're learning things from each other, but I don't see much evidence of that happening.
I just see them like enjoying the ability to riff and just whenever possible, turning things back to you know, their set of topics that they like to discuss.
And and that is actually something that you know, in general happens in conversations, but with sense makers, it's kind of turned up to 12, yeah, right in the interactions.
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think you're right, like despite all the psychobabble and the performativity and the city of profan bullshit, you know.
Yeah, you're right that uh Jordan Peterson's thesis is really clear.
All meaning and all good things come from God.
Life is a hierarchy, you need to work to be ascending it.
Society's a hierarchy, and you know, we should accept that, and all the bad stuff that that isn't God is is at the bottom, and all of the secular stuff is is down there, and uh, yeah, you know, he finds lots of weird ways to kind of try to prove that point that's uh you know, he's consistent.
And you know, to be fair to Vivaki, I mean, what I learned from looking into some of the words he uses and the discipline from which he comes out of is that it's uh it's an actual topic, it's a field of academic uh discourse, discourse, shall we say.
It was one that I have been completely ignorant of and quite happy to be ignorant of, frankly.
But this this sort of semiotics sort of signs and symbols and you know, cognition systems and this this philosophy of language, just to be clear, Matt, why lad is the field that he plays in, and there is like a whole lot of debates and right there.
You're not saying that you were ignorant of the notion that semiotics is a field, for example, or that kind of thing, right?
You know, there are plenty of very influential theorists who have uh like developed theories around those topics and that have influenced like I know the theories and whatnot.
Like I know there's a field of sociolinguistics and if no what have you?
It's just it's nothing I've ever studied, and it's not it's not stuff that ever seems to have any connection with the whole field of psychology that I that I'm really familiar with.
It's not very empirical.
There are people in that those kind of fields who are empirically oriented and and quite rigorous in lots of ways, but the approach which you're on for Veki picks is much more like the philosophy of it, it's like the philosophy of semiotics or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, like the philosophy of science, right?
Or that kind of thing.
It doesn't actually entail doing science.
There are philosophers of science who who do science or who have like very good grasps around topics in scientific fields, and there are philosophers of science who are a bit waffly.
Right.
Like that's uh that's just the nature of the discipline, but they're not necessarily doing science, right?
That's kind of the thing.
So like Verbeck is a cognitive scientist, not in the VN of like doing any cognitive research.
Yeah, it's just a language, the entire the entire field, papers in it and stuff like that are like there's no connection to anything that I've ever studied and anything that I know about it, but I just want to acknowledge that it like it does exist.
He's not he's not making these words up, he's not making up the names of these these people up.
It's uh it's a real thing.
No, no.
I thought Jordan Peterson.
No, but Jordan Peterson's references are more basic.
I I feel oh well, yeah, just I think like that's the difference is like Verveki is referencing a specialized discipline language that he's more familiar with.
But Jordan Peterson's references are you know towards Jungian philosophy and comparative religious studies and this kind of thing.
So they're they're all just drawing from the whale of a given name.
I mean, you find John Vivek is more impressive.
No, I don't find it impressive.
I mean, it's not impressive, it's just I mean, I I don't like it.
Like, I don't like this is my own prejudice, my own personal whatever, but I that entire field of academia, and and in my mind, I know it's not post-modernism, like they're they're a different crowd doing different things, different way, but in my but they're kind of the same to me.
Like they're just they're writing, you know, turduid, incredibly dense, non-empirical manuscripts that are you know, and they they're kind of doing sense making in the academic literature, and so I just want to really be clear that this is my own personal prejudice, if you're like that stuff does not make sense to me, and I don't see the point of it.
It it typically makes sense to me, but I I take your point about the waffling nature of it.
So in any case, yeah, I mean it's uh high-level science-making conversation about science weakening conversation.
This is this is something that science makers seem to need to do periodically.
But you know, if you're if you were doing uh biological study of the science speaking ecosystem, you might note that periodically science speakers must return in groups of three over more and discuss the nature of science making.
Um then they're okay for a little while.
Now, you you know, Chris, I think I told you this before, but when I was an undergrad, there was a studying psychology, there was a bunch of compulsory subjects we had to take, right?
And there was one stream of subjects.
I think the first one was called interpersonal communication, the other one was group facilitation, blah de blah, something whatever, right?
But what it actually was was, and this was this weird little stream, but again, it didn't seem to have any connection to the rest of the psychology that I studied, but it seemed to be like I'm not kidding when I say the workshops were exactly like this in the sense that they're they would schedule these three-hour workshops.
And when I say a workshop, it was just a classroom where you sat down, and they would make a big deal about how the topic was like nothing, but what we could what we're gonna do is spend the entire three hours reflecting on the process and the nature of the conversation, and it drove everyone absolutely mental and people complained,
and there were a lot of like toxic, like you put people under that stress and you make them very bored for an hour and a half, and you kind of force them to say things, and some students would sort of there, there was just basically they encouraged unhealthy dynamics so that they could analyze them.
Anyway, it was incredibly futile, and I despised it, everything about it.
And I've never really figured out because I was just uh I was Just a kid.
I was just an undergraduate student.
I just, you know, got through those subjects and then forgot about them immediately.
So if anyone has a background in psychology and suffered through similar bullshit, I'd appreciate, yeah, let me know.
Remind me of what this stream of research of not research or what this subfield of psychology is, because I've never encountered it again, except sort of secondhand through this kind of shit.
And uh shaking.
Like, I don't know, just like burn it with fire, man.
Like that stuff needs to be gotten rid of.
Don't put any more undergraduates through that nonsense.
What a waste of time.
Well, the last thing I'll say, Ma about this, you know, this little break we're taking.
People should keep in mind that we've discussed the vertical hierarchy and the vertical dimension, conscience, what worthwhile, what that relates to, quests, what a quest might be.
Um, the unifying meta narrative and voluntary self-sacrifice, normativity, ideals, and we're gonna go some other places.
There's more words that we'll get.
And I do understand Matt for listeners, people that like this, right?
These are all big concepts, and the way they talk about them is like they're constantly building something, they're constructing this very important analytical structure, which explains a lot of things, and it's got a lot of concepts, right?
So if somebody says, What was this conversation about?
And you say, Well, it's about consciousness and conscience and normativity and what ideals are and what goals are, right?
Like it's all big concepts, but it's it actually is more like a nested doll of just like recursive, recursive self-referential definitions and hair screen.
Yes.
That's how I describe it.
And the important thing is like whatever you think of that kind of conceptual dialogue.
Yes.
I think the fact remains, and it's undeniable, is that they don't really get anywhere with it.
Like you'll notice all of those topics, they start to define it, but then they get distracted by another word and they move on to that and they segue to the next thing.
So I I don't feel that they accomplish what they set out to.
Or I would say that like where we are now is exactly where they were at the beginning.
They all hold the same definitions as they did in the same kind of focuses.
They've might have heard like a new analogy that they can use or whatever, but like there isn't an up to it in the perspectives, right?
Like it's just Jordan Peterson started this conversation believing that everything is about vertical hierarchy and references the Bible.
And he's he's gonna leave that kind of the conversation believing that too.
So like the notion that there's something very important being discussed and discovered in this conversation only applies insofar as everyone involved already knows that they're right, and it's just other people confirming that they're they are right through different things that they've learned that yeah, proof of yeah.
The structure of it is is just endless elaboration on stuff they already believe.
Um, yeah, there's there's there's no revision or any forward progress, I don't think.
But yeah, no, that's true of some fields in academia too, I think.
Yeah, well, we'll see how they frame it in the second part of the conversation.
But yeah, this is good, Matt.
We'll give people a little little rest and I, you know, go as we say, mull things over and um be prepared for when you come back and we'll we'll do the shoutouts for everyone and all that kind of stuff, you know, at the end of the second episode.
So yeah, um, yeah.
Okay, all right.
And for the really brave people to listen to this with the second part has already released, just jump straight in.
