Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

March 1, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:02:37

1288 Determinism, History and Anxiety - Convo

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello? Hello, Steph, can you hear me?
	Hey, how's it going? Alright, how are you?
	I'm better, thank you.
	I just want to say upfront that I really appreciate you taking this call.
	I know you've spent a lot of time on me recently, so it really does mean a lot to me.
	Great, okay, good. Well, I mean, I think it's an important topic.
	I've often wanted to get to the psychological roots of determinism, or at least certain kinds of determinism, and I know that you're not exactly along those lines, but I can't unfortunately get conversations going with determinists.
	Of course, my basic theory is that determinists seem to be driven by an avoidance or a lack of self-knowledge, which in a way makes determinism seem believable, because if you don't have self-knowledge, then you are run by your unconscious, and your free will or choice becomes that much less,
	right? Like, if you don't understand navigation, you can't cross an ocean, and if you don't understand yourself, you have that much less choice, and they seem to be run by a lot of emotional defenses, which feel automatic, and in a way are automatic, like your immune system, and so I think it's an avoidance of self-knowledge, and I've certainly never...
	Well, there's one guy who posted on the board who said he was sympathetic to psychology, but I've never seen a determinist who had a...
	who'd gone to therapy or had a deep knowledge of psychology, and that seems to be A correlation though of course it doesn't prove anything it's just an interesting correlation so I thought it was a good topic to talk about.
	Right, and I think I agree with your assessment.
	I mean, I do believe in free will as well, but I have some sympathy for the determinist position, I think, because, I mean, especially for me when I was depressed and things like that, that's kind of how life was.
	So, I mean, I do understand that these determinists probably are living determinism in that way.
	What I wanted to talk to you about was my emotional experience around the topic and I mean I've been working on this for a while and I've gone through various phases and huge emotional swings and all sorts of stuff and I came to a lot of conclusions along the way which I've tried to set aside and just be more curious About your experience and stuff now,
	and I want to share my experience with you through the debates as well and see what you think of that.
	I'm not sure where to start.
	I guess recently I've I've kind of looked for information on topics relating to this because it seems like every kind of question you ask, there's 20 more questions that come up.
	I've gone through the philosophy of science, all sorts of physics things, quantum mechanics, just all over the place in search for answers on this.
	It seems there are none, pretty much.
	I've tried to put all that aside.
	I'm going to try to ignore all that today and just talk about my experiences.
	I guess I'll start from the beginning.
	When I first came across the topic on FTR, I think I was the same as you.
	I actually never even heard of determinism before I came across it on FTR. I just always assumed free will.
	It wasn't even a question.
	I remember when it first came up, I kind of ignored it, like I didn't care, if that makes sense, and I didn't particularly take an interest into it.
	I listened to some of the podcasts, and I didn't really understand them.
	I didn't really understand the arguments, or at least that's what I told myself at the time, and I kind of I just forgot about it, if that makes sense.
	Which isn't really like me at all, to be honest, but that's what I did at the time.
	And the topic came up again for me, I guess, about six weeks ago, when Candice asked me about it.
	She asked me to explain some of the arguments to her, because she wasn't understanding them.
	And I couldn't.
	I didn't understand them either, and I couldn't explain them.
	And so I started Investigating and really thinking about these things, and I just couldn't make sense of a lot of the arguments you were putting forward.
	So I kind of explored more, and what I thought at the time was some of the arguments you were putting forward, I came to the conclusion that they were wrong, which may or may not be true.
	I'm not sure. It could be that it's more likely that I just don't understand them.
	Sorry, I would just say that it's probably not that you...
	Well, it may be that I'm wrong, although I don't think so.
	I mean, I've done free will for a couple of years now and not had any significant objections from rational people.
	I could be wrong, but I don't think it's because you wouldn't understand the arguments.
	I mean, the argument for free will is not dependent upon science.
	It is dependent upon logic.
	It is a self-detonating argument to attempt to change people That you claim cannot be changed.
	I mean, that's just a self...
	I mean, again, I don't want to get into the content of the argument here, but it takes...
	And I know that you have this higher order of intelligence, but it takes a higher order of intelligence to look at the framework of a debate rather than to look at the debate itself.
	Right? So, it takes a higher...
	To look at when your arguments are self-defeating...
	Everybody wants to overleap that and go straight into discussing the actual issues.
	But it takes a higher order of intelligence to look at the framework of the argument, right?
	And I know you have that, so I don't think it's that you don't understand the arguments.
	I think that that's something else, which is probably what we're talking about here.
	Right, and I don't see that contradiction to determinism.
	Maybe I'm just missing it, but I mean, I don't see that.
	Well, you watched the debate, right?
	Right, and I wanted to share my experience of that with you because that was very emotionally volatile for me.
	I got anxious, I got angry, I felt physically sick and afterwards I had quite a bit of insomnia and some of these things were kind of going around in my head and messing with me.
	Sorry, what were the things that were going around in your head?
	Well, I didn't like how you handled the debate.
	You didn't like how I handled the debate?
	Okay, I'm all ears.
	Right, yeah, this was like, that was really shocking to me.
	I mean, I'm not saying that the determinists did much better, but I wasn't expecting much better from them, if that makes sense.
	But the criticisms that you had of that debate, and I assume...
	Sorry, could you repeat that? The debate was the culmination of a lot of things.
	Your criticism was of me, right?
	I mean, that's the primary thing.
	And everybody has. Everybody who's had problems with that debate has had no problem letting me know.
	But I haven't seen people criticize what to me is the fundamental issue on the part of these three determinists.
	But anyway, come on. We can come back to that later.
	Right, and after I watched it, I was kind of horrified at what I was thinking.
	So what I did the other day is I went through it and transcribed a lot of it and tried to see if my thoughts and whatever were just completely irrational or if there was something there.
	And I think there was something there, although, I mean, you may disagree, but I thought there were a number of times in the debate when you...
	Agreed on something, and then afterwards spoke as if that agreement hadn't happened, if that makes sense.
	And you feel that was happening on my side, but not on their side?
	I think it was happening, especially with Paul on their side, but I mean, I don't know Paul, and I don't particularly care about him, if that makes sense, but I don't know you.
	In terms of integrity, it doesn't matter whether you care about the person, right?
	I mean, if you're gonna bring a judgment of integrity to a debate, it doesn't matter whether you care about the person or not, right?
	Because it's an objective judgment.
	Well, sure, sure, that makes sense.
	But anyway, sorry, go on.
	Yeah, I think the main thing was this issue of change, changing The behaviour of other people and stuff.
	I mean, it seems that that debate went around a number of times and I think you agreed on it a number of times and then went back on it, if that makes sense.
	I'm not sure what the content was that I agreed on and then changed my mind about.
	About the fact that...
	Oh, you were using the rock metaphor, of course, that either rocks or people could change the behaviour of other people.
	Right. Right, like rocks crashing into each other, for sure.
	But that change is entirely predetermined, right?
	It is a bunch of rocks bouncing down a hill, right?
	Right. But I think what What happened for me is you seem to agree on that with the determinists and then speak as if that agreement wasn't there, then agree again, then speak as if it wasn't there, then agree again.
	And that seemed to happen like a number of times.
	Sorry, just to clarify that point, that is an issue with a...
	It's a problem with the word change.
	Not the problem with the word, but with the two meanings of the word change.
	So the first word is If I see a rock bouncing down a hill and another rock hits it, then the path of that first rock and the second rock will change, right?
	As if they hadn't hit, right?
	So we can use the word change in that context, but we can also use the word change in the free will context of I am going to seek to change someone's mind to improve his or her thinking, and that is a willed and chosen So the problem is the use of the word change in both contexts.
	That's where people get confused.
	Because in the rocks falling down a hill, or rocks rolling down a hill analogy, the word change is simply a metaphor.
	Because since it's all predetermined, there is in fact no change in the course of the rock.
	Because the rock would never have gone in its original trajectory anyway.
	Because it would have inevitably been hit by another rock.
	So that just looks like change to us because we didn't expect it, if that makes sense.
	But it's not real change because that's all predetermined.
	The rocks are absolutely going to hit each other.
	We can't predict it, but it looks like change.
	But of course it isn't because it's just where the rocks...
	There is no original trajectory because it was inevitable that the rocks were going to hit each other and then move to a new...
	What seems like a new direction.
	But of course it's not really change.
	It's just something that we...
	It's a word we use as an observer that the rock's trajectory or direction has changed because they've hit each other.
	But of course it hasn't changed because that was inevitable that they were going to hit each other and it just looks like a change to us.
	So people use that word in terms of change.
	And they also use it in the free will context of you should change your thinking to approach more of a rational or empirical ideal.
	I'm going to choose that. I also get to have something called a rational and empirical ideal because I don't believe in determinism and I believe that we have the capacity to compare our thoughts to a philosophical ideal.
	So that's the challenge with the word change, if I understand what you mean in the context of that debate.
	Okay, that clarifies it a little bit, but it was, I mean, at the minimum, it was certainly extremely confusing for me, because it seemed like that kind of sub-debate happened over and over and over.
	Well, and that's because I got the concession, which is the foundation of determinism, that complexity doesn't matter, right?
	That's something we discussed right at the beginning.
	And if complexity doesn't matter, then rocks equals human beings.
	If rocks don't equal human beings, then human beings have an attribute that rocks don't have called consciousness, called choice, which is basically the free will argument.
	The free will argument is that rational consciousness, human consciousness, is not the same.
	As a rock or a tapeworm.
	It has an additional characteristic called choice.
	And if you say complexity matters, then you can, the more complex an organism gets, you can give it additional properties that are greater than the sum of its parts.
	If complexity doesn't matter, then there is no additional characteristics that are gained by piling on additional complexity, right?
	A pebble is the same as a rock is the same as a boulder, right?
	I mean, you'll get a little bit of additional gravity, but that's only in proportion to the mass.
	But you don't sort of get, wow, you know, a pebble doesn't have free will, but a boulder does, right?
	We recognize that the complexity of, or the, you know, trillions of additional atoms that would be in a boulder don't change the rockness of the object, right?
	And so the determinist argument is that complexity is immaterial to the equation, that human beings are just highly complex machines.
	If human beings are highly complex machines, then basically when you compare a human being to rocks falling down a hill, you're essentially comparing pebbles falling down a hill to rocks falling down a hill, i.e.
	less complex or pebbles or more complex or boulders.
	Now, there's no physicist who would say that the laws of physics change when boulders go down a hill as opposed to when pebbles go down a hill, right?
	I'm sorry, you broke up a little bit at the end there?
	There's no physicist who would say that the laws of physics are different for boulders going down a hill than they are for rocks going down a hill or pebbles, right?
	The size of the rock is immaterial.
	Right. So that's an example of complexity being immaterial.
	You can compare big rocks going down a hill with small rocks going down a hill and it's the same equations, it's the same behavior, right?
	Right. And so that's the example of complexity not mattering.
	And so if complexity doesn't matter, when you're comparing human beings interacting, it's functionally identical, and the laws of physics are the same, for rocks going down a hill, right?
	That was the fundamental back and forth that we had.
	That they said complexity doesn't matter, which supports determinism, but then they rejected the analogy of rocks going down a hill compared to human beings interacting, which then says complexity does matter, right?
	In other words, human beings are so complex that we have different rules.
	I think at the beginning they agreed that complexity doesn't matter in terms of causality, but I don't think that they agreed that rocks are the same as humans, which is I agree with you, but then they're contradicting themselves, right?
	Because then they're saying complexity does matter.
	Because a human being is so complex that we have to treat it as different than a rock or a tapeworm, right?
	Well, again, I think they were saying it doesn't matter in terms of the laws of causality, but, I mean, there's certainly differences between humans and rocks.
	Well, no, but see, in the deterministic universe, people say that the differences between humans and rocks is an illusion.
	And it's an illusion that is generated by our inability to recognize the complexity of a human being, that it only gives rise to the appearance of free will, but not actual free will.
	Right, so you and I would look at a religious person who says, well, the difference between a human being and an animal is that a human being has a soul, and we would say, well, that's an illusory difference, because there's no such thing as a soul, right?
	A human being is just an animal, right?
	Like there's no magic called the soul which separates human beings from animals, right?
	Thank you.
	Sure, but I don't think determinists would say that humans have the same properties as rocks.
	Obviously we're conscious and we can speak and we can form concepts and things like that.
	But then you're saying complexity matters, in which case you open up the possibility of free will.
	Because if human beings are different than rocks, the question is why.
	In which case there must be some aspect of human life that is different.
	Than a rock or a tapeworm or even a chimpanzee, which determinists consistently fail to debate with, right?
	And then in which case complexity does matter, in which case you can't say that everything is predetermined because there's an X factor called complexity that is not simply a lack of knowledge, right?
	And that's why I use the weather analogy, right?
	Because we can't perfectly predict the weather, though we can in general, which is the same thing with human beings.
	We can't perfectly predict every individual's actions, but we can predict the actions of human beings in many ways as a whole, right?
	They respond to incentives, they prefer to live, and so on.
	And yet we would not say that the weather has free will, even though it's complex and unpredictable, because the weather is clearly not a conscious entity, right?
	So the complexity in terms of the weather, additional complexity does not generate the possibility of consciousness, but of course determinists don't debate with clouds, right?
	They only debate with human beings, which is a self-contradictory position, because they're saying complexity doesn't matter.
	Human being is exactly the same as weather, in that it's a complex system which cannot be individually predicted.
	But it would be ridiculous to debate with the weather, but it's perfectly sensible to debate with a human being.
	That's a contradictory position.
	Well, I don't think...
	I mean, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I don't think they're saying that humans are the same as the weather or anything like that.
	I think that would be kind of a ridiculous position to take.
	No, they are. Sorry to interrupt.
	They absolutely are.
	I know it's a difficult position to comprehend, but determinists are absolutely saying that human beings are identical to the weather.
	That it is all atoms and the laws of physics and that there is no possibility of consciousness or choice.
	It is only an illusion that we have like the soul or ghosts or gods or virtuous governments or something like that.
	Yeah, no, that is the determinist position that it is all the laws of physics and we are simply unrolling in the same way that the formation of the solar system unrolls not because of a conscious design of a god but as the movement of immutable laws of physics.
	You seem to be, like, lumping different things in there.
	I think that determinists would say that we're subject to the same laws as the weather, but not that we're the same as the weather.
	Like, obviously, we're conscious and whatnot and the weather isn't, but, I mean, as I understand it, they're saying that we're, you know, we're under the same laws of causality as the weather is, for example, but not that we're the same as the weather.
	Like, those two things don't seem... Sorry, but what's the difference there?
	What's the difference between a human being and the weather?
	Well, obviously, we're conscious and things like that.
	Sorry, what does consciousness mean in a deterministic universe?
	Well, the same as a free will universe, I'm assuming.
	I'm not sure what that means.
	Because as far as I mean, from the determinists I've debated with over the years, consciousness is an illusion in the same way that a belief in the soul is an illusion, right?
	We feel conscious and we feel like we have free will, but it's not true.
	We don't have these things because the operation of our minds is simply atoms and energy in our brain.
	It is all predetermined, exactly as everything else in the universe is.
	It just follows the laws of physics, and we don't have any choice in the matter.
	We certainly feel like we do have consciousness and choice, but the determinists, of course, argue that that is an illusion.
	We look at the complexity of our own mental processes and it feels like we have choice, but it's not actually true.
	I've heard the determinists say that choice is an illusion, but I've never heard them say that consciousness is an illusion.
	Do you think animals have any type of consciousness?
	Oh yeah, for sure animals would have consciousness.
	Yeah, that makes sense to me. But they don't have free will, right?
	I would not say that animals have free will in the sense that animals cannot compare the contents of their minds to any kind of ideal or abstract concepts.
	I mean, that to me is the essence of free will, right?
	It's the ability to compare a statement relative to an ideal, right?
	right, called truth or called virtue or called value or called comparison to reality or anything like that.
	Whereas animals don't.
	They're mostly perceptual, right?
	And they do have some learning capacities, but they do not have the capacity to compare 2 plus 2 equals 5 to 2 plus 2 equals 4, right?
	Right.
	And I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that definition of free will a bit because I've done a whole video series on that, so I don't...
	I have seen those, but I mean, as I understand it, the key to free will is choice, the ability to make choices, right?
	I mean, comparisons to standards and stuff, I mean, you can write software that does those kinds of actions, if that makes sense.
	So I'm trying to work out what's different.
	It seems like there's something missing from the definition.
	Well, but the software would not be comparing, right?
	The software would not be voluntarily comparing instances to concepts, right?
	Percepts to concepts.
	The software would simply be following instructions that the computer programmer had put in.
	So that doesn't really work.
	But human beings certainly have the ability to...
	I mean, those with a non-damaged functioning mind.
	We have the ability to look at a statement, to listen to somebody's truth claim, and compare it to...
	An ideal version of truth.
	I mean, this is when you correct someone's spelling or you correct 2 plus 2 equals 5.
	You were saying, well, the content of your mind is invalid.
	This statement is invalid relative to an ideal called truth.
	Or consistency or logic or empirical evidence or something like that.
	And human beings are unique in that And that capacity, to me, is the differentiator between a non-free will situation and a free will situation, because that is an optional.
	I think people can choose, or at least it's certainly been my experience as a communicator and philosopher, that people can choose.
	To compare, like if someone makes a truth statement, you know, the government is virtuous, or whatever, then they have the option to submit that truth statement to empirical or rational validation, or they have the option to continue to claim that it is a truth statement while rejecting empirical or rational evidence to the contrary.
	And that, to me, is the choice.
	And it is a choice that has significant consequences, like if people reject reality and continue to work with the primacy of consciousness while still claiming that there's truth value in what they're saying, right?
	So if I say the government is virtuous, and that is a true and virtuous statement, and I then reject and attack all evidence to the contrary, then I'm claiming that truth is both a value in terms of its ability to support my prejudices and an anti-value in that I reject rational and empirical evidence.
	That creates a situation where I become defensive and I become hostile and I become tense and I become rigid and I become ideological and so on.
	And that, of course, reduces my ability to respond flexibly and with integrity to new information.
	And so we all know these dogmatic Marxists or even objectivists or people like that who simply reject new evidence and cling to sort of the holy text, so to speak.
	Well, they don't have a lot of choice because they are putting the primacy of consciousness over reason and evidence.
	And our ability to do that or to not do that is the foundation of Of what I would consider free will.
	And also, depending on which road we choose, it either reinforces our ability to choose or it diminishes our ability to choose if we reject reason and evidence while still claiming that our beliefs are derived from reason and evidence.
	And of course, the fundamental aspect of this or example of this really is the religious mindset.
	Okay, I think that makes more sense to me.
	Just to clarify, so free would be the ability to choose to subject things to an external standard rather than the actual subjecting ideas to an external standard?
	Is that correct? Yeah, it's a choice, and the choice really only applies to people who claim that their statements are true because of some external standard.
	So a religious person will say, I believe in God, Not because I was told to.
	Not because I've seen a picture of him in a book.
	Not because I think I owe the priest some money.
	A religious person will say, I believe in a God because a God exists.
	My belief is a helpless shadow cast by the monument called the existence of God.
	I am simply reacting to a fact when I say that God exists.
	The person who says that God exists is saying that there is an external truth which my internal belief is a mere passive reflection of.
	And that's how they gain the passion and conviction behind their belief.
	And so if a religious person, as they always do, say, I believe in God because God exists.
	I believe God is virtuous not because I was told it, but because God is virtuous and therefore I believe it.
	They're saying, well, my beliefs are a shadow cast by a pillar called objective truth or reality.
	And when you then say, well, there is no pillar, you disprove the existence of God, the question is, well, what happens to their shadow?
	If you disprove the pillar, does the shadow go away?
	If you disprove God, does the shadow cast by the pillar vanish as well?
	That's the choice that people have.
	Because they're saying, my beliefs are a shadow cast by the truth.
	And you disprove that pillar, and what happens to their beliefs?
	Well, if they continue to maintain their beliefs, then they're willfully rejecting all of that And they're just saying, well, basically it's revealed that their beliefs are believed because of an emotional preference or because of an emotional defense or because of some other reason, but they're only claiming that it is empirically or passively derived from that which is.
	And that really is the difference.
	If somebody says, well, my beliefs are...
	A shadow cast by a pillar, they're saying, well, our beliefs should be based on objective truth and reality.
	And then when you take away that pillar, or show that there is no pillar, then what they do in that moment is they have a choice about that.
	I believe they have a choice.
	Because they've already said that truth and reality are the standards.
	Sorry, that reality and empiricism are the standards of truth.
	And so when you change When you reveal that there is no pillar, do they continue to cling to the shadow or do they let the shadow go?
	I think they have a choice in that moment.
	So when somebody hits a contradiction in his thinking, he has a choice whether to cling to his irrational prejudice or to submit to reason.
	And that really is the essence of free will.
	And without that, if you reject that, then there really is no possibility of any particular choice.
	It's all just reaction after that.
	Right. I think I agree with that.
	I think that makes it more clear.
	Because I wrote down all the definitions from your video series and I didn't come across you actually talking about choice in the definition in there.
	So I think that's where I got confused.
	So I think that's definitely more clear for me now.
	Great. Okay, there's a couple of questions I wanted to ask you, because I listened to kind of all the stuff you did on the topic in around a week or so, so I got to kind of see a compressed chronological version of how your opinions evolved over time and stuff like that.
	I'm wondering, your belief in free will, what level of certainty do you have in that?
	Like on a 1 to 100 scale, for instance?
	My belief in free will?
	What do you mean? Like, how sure are you that free will exists?
	Sorry, again, I just want to make sure I really understand what it is that you're saying, because I don't think that free will exists, right?
	I mean, any more than truth exists, or virtue exists.
	What do you mean by that?
	Well, free will is not a thing, right?
	It's not like a kidney or a rock, right?
	It's not a thing. It's a process.
	It's like consciousness is not a thing.
	It's an effect of matter and energy.
	Like gravity is not an object, but an effect of mass.
	And I view consciousness, free will, as an effect of the brain, the wetware, right?
	And so existence to me is a difficult concept when it comes to that.
	You could perhaps say, And I'm not trying to correct your thinking.
	I'm just trying to make sure I understand the terms that you're using and that we are speaking the same language.
	You could say, how convinced am I that it's impossible to argue against free will?
	And I'm 150% convinced of that, if that helps.
	Okay, well, the question was coming up because, I mean, you said it a number of times in the podcast that there's, you know, there's no proof either way, if that makes sense.
	So is that still your position now?
	Well, yeah, for sure. There is no exact empirical proof that I've ever known that says we have now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the physical basis for choice.
	That, to my knowledge, is not something that has ever been achieved, and I don't think it's something that will be achieved in any reasonable timeframe.
	Right. So, just in a comparison, for instance, there are some things you know for sure, and that would be like 100%.
	So, would you say this belief that the free will process occurs, would you say that's 100% belief?
	Well, again, just to go back to it, it's sort of, again, I'm just trying to be really precise, right?
	Because this is where a lot of confusions arise.
	Not on your part, but just in general.
	People could say to me, well, how certain are you that governments are evil, right?
	And if I said, well, I'm 150% certain that governments are evil, then what people would do, or could do, is they could then say, well, you know, governments did this that was good, governments did that that was good, and they would bring empirical examples.
	of good that governments had done, which I would also accept as good, let's say, right?
	I may obviously not agree with the method, but they would look at the results, right?
	And they would say, well, the government did, I don't know, brought supplies to these starving people.
	Is that not a good action, right?
	It's tough to say that governments are evil, but what you can say is that arguments Attempting to prove the virtue of governments are invalid.
	Because this is UPB, right?
	UPB is not good exists objective of consciousness and here's its description like a law of physics.
	UPB is consistency is a value or nothing is a value and if nothing is a value you can't debate anything.
	If anything is a value consistency has to be a value and therefore any statements to do with good and evil have to be consistent.
	And that, of course, is the approach that I take to the free will versus determinist debate.
	As you could hear from the debate I had with these people, I didn't bring any physics to bear, because it's irrelevant.
	And it's not that the science of physics is irrelevant, but what I'm saying is that it's irrelevant to the debate, because a determinist must logically refuse to engage in debates.
	I've gone through this argument a million times.
	I'm not going to go through it here again.
	Therefore, I can say that if somebody argues against the free will position, he or she is automatically accepting the free will position.
	And that's all that needs to be done.
	In the same way that I don't have to go out and prove that every nihilist is unhappy.
	Right? Because that's self-reporting and it's an impossible task.
	But what I can do is I can say That nihilism or agnosticism or statism is self-contradictory and irrational in its arguments.
	And that's the approach that I take with determinism, that it is self-contradictory and irrational in its arguments.
	So I can say that arguments against free will Are all invalid, and I'm completely and totally certain of that, having gone through it six billion times.
	So, you know, does free will exist?
	Well, that to me is not a statement that I, as a philosopher, would be comfortable in many ways in making.
	I think it's not a meaningful statement, but I certainly would say that I'm perfectly comfortable with the logical reality that any arguments against free will are automatically self-contradictory and therefore invalid.
	Okay.
	I completely don't understand that argument, that how debating is a contradiction, and I could be just completely retarded.
	I mean, I've gone over this, I've heard it so many times in your podcast, but I just completely don't get it.
	Well, it's just to use the metaphor, right?
	I mean, because the metaphor is something that cuts through the logical confusion that people have.
	That it makes no sense to stand at the top of a mountain and yell at the rocks going down the mountain, bumping into each other, that they're going in the right or wrong direction, right?
	Sure. So.
	So with the rocks falling down a mountain, there is no ideal state.
	There's no preferred state. There is simply what is happening as the result of the unrolling of the inevitable laws of physics, right?
	So there's no such thing as a preferred state in a deterministic universe.
	Because there's no possibility of a different state.
	Right?
	Yeah, that's where I get caught up.
	I don't see how that follows.
	I've gone over this so many times that I am going to just completely...
	Everybody accepts that you can't yell at rocks, right?
	You understand. You would accept that if I stood at the top of a hill yelling at rocks to go left or go right, that they're going in the wrong direction, that they should change their direction of their own choice, that that would be the actions of a crazy person, right?
	Well, of course, because, you know, they can't hear you.
	But humans can hear you.
	Yes, but it doesn't matter, because complexity doesn't matter, right?
	Because it doesn't matter whether pebbles or boulders are rolling down a hill.
	The size, the complexity, the number of atoms, it doesn't matter in a deterministic universe.
	Because if it does matter, then consciousness has different properties than everything else, and then they accept free will.
	Okay, I'm getting totally confused.
	It could be just that I'm completely retarded on this, but, I mean, I have gone over this argument and I just can't make sense, but I just don't see how it...
	Okay, let me...
	I'm not going to go through the argument again, because I don't really care about the feelings, but does consciousness have different properties than other objects in the universe, human consciousness?
	Different properties, yes.
	I think so, yes. Okay.
	Then we accept free will.
	If consciousness does not have properties, if the atoms and energy within the human brain do not possess as an aggregate different properties than everything else that we know of in the universe, then you're a determinist and there's no such thing as choice.
	If you say, well, the complexity of the human consciousness produces an attribute that is singular in the universe called consciousness, choice, free will, then you accept free will.
	That's all there is to it.
	That's why I keep asking people, does complexity matter?
	If complexity doesn't matter, then a human being is a rock.
	The deterministic worldview works perfectly, but debating is insane.
	And if you accept that complexity does matter, that the complexity of the human mind produces something that is different from everything else in the universe, then clearly we accept consciousness and choice.
	And therefore we can debate, but we can't say that everything is determined because complexity matters and there's an X factor called consciousness which matters.
	Okay, I'll probably have to go over this a few more times, because I'm not quite grasping it, but that's okay.
	No, I guarantee that you are completely grasping it, because you are an incredibly bright fellow.
	And I guarantee you that this confusion has nothing to do with intellectual clarity, but more to do with an emotional difficulty.
	And I'm happy to help with that, but obviously I don't want to spend more time on this debate, right?
	Right, right, okay.
	Because you don't have, I mean, you have grasped the most obtuse and abstract and great concepts, and you've had the most amazing intellectual clarity and initiative, right?
	So why would this issue become so foggy?
	Because I guarantee you it's not that complex.
	Okay. So let's talk about the feelings that you had.
	About this debate.
	You said you had anxiety and insomnia after you watched the video debate.
	Right, and that was...
	I mean, the conscious thoughts I had associated with that was...
	I mean, I didn't think you were debating very well, and maybe that's not what was actually going on, but...
	I thought a lot of the arguments didn't make sense, and they still don't make sense to me now, which isn't to say that they're wrong, but those were the thoughts.
	Now, of the two groups who were, I mean, myself and the determinists, I mean, the thing that I thought was not honorable on the part of the determinists, and of course they would say, well, honor has no meaning because the universe is determined, was if I went to someone's board, right? If I went to someone's board who was, I don't know, Christian or something, and for months or years I told that person he was wrong, right?
	And then that person finally said, okay, great, let's have a debate.
	And I was not able to hold a coherent position for any particular length of time that I was logically backed into corners, refused to admit it, and refused to give way.
	My response would be to apologize.
	Right? To say, look, I'm not saying that you're right, but I will say your position is better than I thought, and I was not able, though I had two weeks to prepare for this debate, I was not able to overturn your positions.
	And therefore I'm sorry that I said it was obvious that you were wrong for months or years because I could not sustain my position in the debate.
	To me, that's just a basic matter of integrity.
	If you say that someone's just plain wrong and it's obvious and it's ridiculous for them to hold their position and you debate with them and can't sustain your point, then you owe that person an apology.
	It doesn't mean that that person is right and you're wrong.
	But you owe that person an apology for saying that they're stupid for holding their position, that the position is completely and obviously wrong, and then can't sustain your point in the debate.
	Right? You understand? That's kind of dishonorable in my view.
	Right. That makes sense, yeah.
	And yet nothing of the kind happened, right?
	Right. Now, we may say, well, Steph did this, that, or the other wrong in the debate, but I certainly, I had been saying, I think you guys are wrong.
	I put out lots of arguments.
	I gave them two weeks to prepare.
	And they couldn't come up with a coherent position.
	And they couldn't defend their position.
	And so I didn't owe them an apology, because I said, you're wrong.
	And I argued, and everyone I've heard from, with the exception of one or two people like yourself, everyone I've heard from have said, well, yeah, you completely won that debate.
	And that doesn't mean that I'm right, it just means that in that debate, I came up with the more consistent and compelling points, and they didn't.
	So, the question then is, do you see that aspect, where they had lots of time to prepare for the debate?
	My positions are very public, they could have noted them all down.
	As you could see, I started with a definition of determinism that they accepted, so I had studied their position, and they had not done It seems, any preparation, right?
	And I even put the Free Will series out into the stream which they could have listened to and come up with notes, right?
	So they, after months or years of telling me that I was wrong, they had weeks to prepare for the debate.
	I put the Free Will series out into the mainstream so even the non-donators could get a hold of it and published that it was there and available.
	And they didn't do any preparation, it would seem, right?
	Right.
	And that's important.
	That's a Simon the Boxer, right?
	If you've told someone, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, and that person says, okay, let's debate, and you know that person is a good debater, then what you do is you study their position and you find the logical flaws and you present the flaws, right?
	I mean, they went in wanting to lose, guaranteed.
	Okay.
	I actually thought, I mean, that applied to two of them, but I don't...
	PCRS, I think he did make quite a few good points in the debate, if that makes sense.
	And you may disagree, but...
	Yeah, I do disagree.
	I mean, it's not like everything they said was incoherent, but they kept reversing themselves, right?
	Complexity doesn't matter, so I'm a determinist, but then when it comes to A lack of complexity means I can't debate, then suddenly complexity does matter and I am not a determinist.
	That position was, I thought, not particularly honorable.
	And I'm not saying every point he made was bad, but certainly the consensus and the almost universal consensus seems to be that they put a very poor showing in and that they could not answer the logical points that I was making.
	Right. Maybe this is just because I, for whatever reason, couldn't understand all your arguments.
	No, I think you can understand all of my arguments.
	I think there's a personal cost or an emotional cost for that.
	That could be the case, but consciously, I didn't.
	And, I mean, my experience of the debate was...
	That PCRS's arguments made the most sense to me out of anyone debating.
	The other determinists didn't make a lot of sense.
	Your arguments, some of them made sense to me, a lot of them didn't.
	And PCRS was probably, from my perspective, the most consistent.
	Which isn't to say anything about being true, but that was just how I experienced it.
	Okay, and now let's say that that's all true.
	Let's say that, you know, this guy, Peter, his name is, I don't think he's going to care, that Peter and I made equally valid points.
	I don't think it's true, but let's say that it is true.
	Why would that cause insomnia?
	I don't think they were equally valid.
	I understood all of his points, but I only understood a few of yours.
	Right. Why would that cause insomnia?
	Because if I've made clear logical contradictions...
	Then they should be easy to point out, right?
	Oh. Okay.
	Right, so if I've said 2 plus 2 is 4, and then later in the debate I say 2 plus 2 is green, and then I say 2 plus 2 is a unicorn, and then I say 2 plus 2 is spam, right, then these contradictory positions should be relatively easy.
	I mean, it wasn't that long a debate, but the contradictions that I've made should be relatively clear, right?
	I think he did point some of them out.
	I just don't think he, you know, he didn't repeat them or he didn't go on with it.
	Well, but for you, right, for you, they should be relatively clear.
	As you say, you think you've seen them and so on, right?
	So why haven't you posted them?
	Because I wanted to speak to you first.
	Maybe I should post them.
	But this is, like, a really volatile topic, so, I mean, I wasn't sure if that was a good idea before speaking to you or not.
	Well, but you could always email them, right?
	Right. Okay, now let's say that that's all true, that Peter made the best points and that I made some decent points, but as you say, or as I understand what you're saying, mostly contradictory points, bad points.
	Well, I'm saying I didn't understand them, so, you know, I'm not certain enough to say whether they were right or wrong or contradictory or not, but for sure I didn't understand them.
	Okay, so let's say that I made points you didn't understand and Peter made points that you did understand.
	Why would that cause insomnia?
	I'm not sure exactly.
	Well, let's say...
	Okay, what's your fear about...
	Maybe it's a fear about me.
	Maybe it's that...
	You know, I said many months ago, maybe over a year ago, there's always this...
	Fear, when you follow someone intellectually, that at some point they just go nuts, right?
	It's very anxiety-provoking for a lot of people, and it certainly has been for me.
	Certainly there was big objectivists, and then when I read more about Ayn Rand's life, it was It was devastating for me, right, to see, or at least to hear the reports of the irrational way in which she lived versus what she preached.
	And then also when I saw her being interviewed and, you know, she had these cold, hard, suspicious eyes and, you know, she just didn't seem like a person who was comfortable in her own skin.
	Like it was quite a challenge for me to see that.
	And that wasn't necessarily the content of her arguments.
	That more was the form of her life, if that makes any sense.
	Right, and I think you're along the right lines here.
	I have thought about this before, and the thoughts were along the lines of, well, if I think your arguments have problems, and you disagree that your arguments have problems, and neither of us can convince each other, no matter whether I'm right or wrong, I will kind of perceive that you're wrong, if that makes sense, and that will obviously cause a lot of anxiety for the reasons you said.
	Right, so if, for instance, free will is just an axiom for me but I claim there are rational arguments for it, then I'm saying free will is the shadow of the pillar cast by truth and reason and evidence and so on, right?
	And then if someone like a determinist disproves the pillar called free will but I still cling to the idea, then I have become bigoted, right?
	I have become intellectually dishonest and manipulative and I'm clinging to something that I like.
	Rather than accepting the truth, which is fundamentally statism and religion, right?
	People just cling to these things claiming that they're true because they like them, because it makes them anxious to let go of them, right?
	So to say to people we should live in a stateless society makes them anxious.
	To say to people there's no God, it makes them anxious.
	For some people to say the family is not axiomatically virtuous, that makes people anxious.
	So maybe your concern is that I'm in that camp when it comes to free will, that it's something that I just like and consider valuable.
	And so I make up all of this highfalutin gobbledygook to make it plausible and refuse to accept evidence to the contrary.
	Is that sort of what you might be thinking?
	Right. I think that's the base kind of subconscious fear of it all.
	Okay. Let's just keep going.
	What if it is true that I have an irrational blind spot when it comes to free will versus determinism?
	And I come up with all of this highfalutin nonsense to baffle gab determinists and to win them with sophistical rhetoric and I shut down the debate because people are getting too close to the truth and it harms my income and I can't be a philosopher and I can't love my wife.
	Like I'm just desperately clinging to all of these illusory values for the sake of an irrational preference and a sort of bigotry rather than because of their dedication to the truth.
	Let's say that's true in this instance right now obviously it's not true I think in a bunch of other instances but let's say I have an irrational blind spot called free will.
	What does that mean to you?
	That would be...
	That would be pretty scary, I think.
	Why? Because if I became kind of firm in that belief for whatever reason, correctly or incorrectly, then I think my relationship to FDR would change fundamentally.
	Because of imperfection on my part or a sort of localized hypocrisy or dishonesty on my part, is that right?
	Well, right. Well, I mean, there's lots of kind of great resources in the world, right?
	But most of them are, well, I think of them as kind of, you know, you take what you like, you leave the rest.
	Like, you know, Dawkins on biology or, you know, things like that.
	You know, you can take some areas, but you just reject the rest of it.
	And my relationship to you and FDR isn't like that.
	It's take everything, right?
	Yeah, it's a buffet without shit sandwiches, right?
	Right. It's fully on board.
	And I mean, it really does scare me to think, you know, I don't want FDR to become, you know, just another resource where you take some stuff and leave other stuff, if that makes sense.
	Sure. That change, I mean, even if it's like take 99% and leave 1%, that is like hugely different from take 100%, if you know what I mean.
	Okay, and let's say that...
	I mean, we can make up whatever percentage we like, but let's say 1%, right?
	So let's say that I'm 1% wrong.
	I mean, first of all, that would be fantastic.
	I mean, I would be incredibly proud of that.
	But let's say I'm 1% wrong.
	That means what to you?
	Um... Hmm, I'm not sure exactly.
	Because I can see you that the anxiety that you feel towards me, being 1% wrong, has nothing to do with me.
	I'm not even going out on a limb, I'm walking out on a pier on this one.
	A concrete pier, well sunken.
	If you put together a prison, and I use this metaphor loosely, but just so you understand where I am, if you put together a prison called 1% Error is Catastrophic, Or causes a foundational break in trust, you realize I don't sit in that cell, right?
	Because to me, 1% error is great, right?
	Right. I mean, if I get 99% on a test, right, am I happy or sad?
	I don't think it would be exactly the same as error.
	Okay, let's say 1% lack of integrity.
	Right. Okay, 1% hypocrisy, whatever, right?
	If there's a test called virtue and I get 99% or 90%, to me, that's pretty good, right?
	Because it's like compared to what?
	Compared to a perfect ideal standard?
	Well, yeah, okay, then it's minus 1% or minus 10%.
	But I look around the world and say, well, what is the general level of integrity of people in the world?
	Well, if I'm, which I would not put it higher than 10 or 20%, okay, so I'm, you know, 5 to 10 to 100 times better, no, 5 to 10 times better than the average.
	And that's good.
	Because I don't go into that prison cell called localized hypocrisy equals general catastrophe.
	That doesn't mean that I would accept that hypocrisy in myself.
	It doesn't mean that I'm not part of a process of continuous improvement.
	But I don't think that Bill Gates wrings his hands because he's only got 90% of the OS market, right?
	And says, I'm a complete failure.
	Right. I'm so sorry, could you hold on for one second, please?
	Okay, I'm back.
	Sorry about that. No problem.
	So, for me, 1% hypocrisy or 10% hypocrisy is not bad.
	I mean, obviously 10% is not as good as 1%, right?
	Also, because I have not...
	I have not had the feeling or had the experience or seen the syllogistical proof of how Determinism is valid and free will is invalid, right?
	Because, again, syllogistically, in a deterministic universe, there's no such thing as valid or invalid, right?
	So, determinism is, to me, arguing against free will is identical to arguing against UPB, because you're proposing an ideal standard and saying people should prefer that, which, of course, is my definition of free will, and it's not accidental that it's that, right?
	And in the same way, arguing against UPB requires a universal standard of truth that people should prefer, which is what UPB is, right?
	So, it is just a syllogistical thing.
	I know in my own experience as a thinker, I have definitely experienced something where, a feeling, right?
	Where it's like, you know, there's something not quite right about this, but I'm going to go with it, right?
	I mean, I used to have that with the objectivist proof of ethics I remember debating with.
	A very high-powered attorney in his 70s who was sharp, sharp, sharp debating ethics with him in Florida.
	He was a relative of Christina's.
	And I could even tell, as the argument was unrolling, that there was a problem with the objectivist view of ethics, though it is what I had accepted for like 15 years.
	And I felt that feeling before, and what I was basically thinking was, gosh, I hope because there was a number of people watching the debate, I was like, ah, I hope that he doesn't figure this...
	I hope he doesn't figure... I knew there was something wrong, but I hope that he doesn't figure out what it is, right?
	And I didn't want to, in the middle of the debate, break off and examine what I thought was wrong.
	I know that feeling when something's not quite right.
	I also knew that feeling when I was an objectivist when it came to the arguments for voluntary taxation, which, you know, was the black-white solution, right?
	Because voluntary taxation is an oxymoron, and So when it came to monopolistic state services in an objectivist society, I had that same feeling that something wasn't quite right.
	And it took me a long time to figure it out because I hadn't read any other anarchist thinkers.
	I had to sort of invent the wheel on my own, for better or for worse.
	So I do know the feeling when something's not right with a debate or an argument.
	And that doesn't mean that that means that I'm not...
	But it means I'm not acting without integrity.
	Or I'm not acting hypocritically when I reject the deterministic arguments.
	Because I think I can only be accused of hypocrisy if I rejected syllogistical proof.
	Or, for my own personal experience, I would accuse myself of hypocrisy if I had the feeling that something was wrong and refused to acknowledge it.
	Because to me, that feeling is essential for the development of new thought, new solutions, new ideas, and better ways of understanding and thinking.
	So, For myself, I do not think, even if I'm wrong about free will, I do not believe that I'm acting without integrity, because I have not seen, again, you may disagree, but I just know for myself, I have not experienced, either intellectually or emotionally, the feeling that I'm not correct.
	And of course, I put a lot of work into defining and developing the arguments for.
	So for me, it's not 1% hypocrisy, because 1% hypocrisy, I would, I hope, right, I would try and work on to improve, but I do not have that experience either intellectually or emotionally.
	But for you, so it's not a prison for me, right, that if I'm not 100% correct, it's catastrophe.
	But I guarantee that it's a prison for you, right?
	Right. And just to top this off, right, and to refer to the premium cast that we had, a couple of months ago you found there to be a problem with FDR and you vanished.
	And in hindsight, you wish you had done something differently, right?
	Right. And so for you, that was not, quote, 100% good behavior, right?
	Right. Or ideal behavior or whatever.
	I mean, good and evil doesn't apply, but you know what I mean, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And so by your standards, I should feel extraordinarily anxious and depressed and avoidant because you made a mistake, right?
	I'm sorry, could you repeat that again?
	Well, if your standard is 1% bad or bad actions, let's say, or 1% unproductive actions is cause for catastrophe, then I should feel that way about your decision to toss FDR a couple of months ago.
	You should feel that way?
	Yeah, according to your standard, wouldn't that be the case?
	In other words, and let me abstract this a little bit more, because I get the feeling it's not connecting with you emotionally.
	What I mean by that is, if 1% error or 1% hypocrisy is a catastrophe in a personal relationship, to the point where you can't sleep and you feel a lot of anxiety, Then, what does that standard do to you?
	I mean, I would submit that your anxiety came not from poor actions on my part, but from a feeling that you were refooing yourself with an irrational standard of perfection that no one can meet.
	I don't behave perfectly.
	You don't behave perfectly, right?
	Right.
	So, what is this standard of all or nothing, black and white, perfection or disaster?
	Right, it must be food related.
	Well, it must be something unrelated to a determinist debate on the web.
	And it's not to say that that didn't trigger it.
	Of course it did, right? But I guarantee you it's not about the determinist debate, fundamentally.
	Okay. Because if you give me permission to act less than perfectly, or to act hypocritically, let's say, you give me that permission.
	Yes, Steph may be clinging to this irrationally, I'm not sure, I don't know, but he's human, he may be over-invested, he may be manipulating, I don't think he's conscious of it, because I've not seen him specifically reject Syllogistically perfect arguments.
	I've not seen him get irrationally angry about this, and so on, right?
	So, if Steph is acting badly, he's doing so with decent intentions, right?
	Right. And that's something that we're all prey to, right?
	Nobody can be perfect, right?
	Particularly when we're, as you and I and the other people in the conversation are doing, we're inventing the plane As we're flying it, right?
	I mean, because we're trying to live a philosophy that we're building, right?
	Right. So mistakes are going to be, you know, it's like expecting the Wright brothers to come up with the space shuttle, right?
	Right. So my question is, around the standard of perfection, around the standard of the fear of irrationality or hypocrisy or whatever you want to call it, right?
	What does that fear do to you, given that you know that you act in ways that are not perfect, right?
	Right. I mean, obviously it doesn't make you relaxed, right?
	No, not at all. It's sort of like trying to do really complicated dance steps while being improvised, and the judges have like a rifle, if you put a foot wrong, in their opinion, right?
	Right. That's like crazy stressful, right?
	Yeah. Because if you give me the freedom to make mistakes or to be hypocritical, then you give yourself that freedom.
	We're all UPB compliant, right?
	You can't put me in a cage.
	You can only put you in a cage, right?
	Because you can't impose these values of perfection upon me, right?
	Right. You can only impose them upon your image of me, which is you, right?
	You can't exempt yourself from any rule that you apply to me, right?
	Yeah. Anyway, that's enough for my quick flyby.
	Tell me what you think and feel about what we're talking about.
	I'm feeling kind of...
	It's kind of...
	Kind of a sadness, but it's not hugely deep.
	It's a bit shallow, and things are hitting, but they're connecting with me, but I also have a confused state in my mind at the moment.
	I'm not sure why that is.
	Right, right. Well, I'm going to put forward a And I'm sorry, I know that I said talk, but it sounds like you're having a little trouble getting through to the core of this, so do you mind if I give you a way of looking at it that I think might break through there?
	Please do. Well, have you ever watched, it's an American show, The Big Bang Theory?
	Yes. Okay, I think Johnny Galecki, or some guy from Rose, I can't remember his name, he plays this nerdy physicist, this short guy, right, who's got a crush on the girl next door.
	Right. And I wish I could find this clip, and I'd like to post it, because to me, it really struck me, because I find it quite an...
	I think that the tall, skinny guy is just brilliant.
	I think it's just a very...
	It's an enjoyable show.
	And he's over at...
	Penny's, this girl Penny's apartment, and she catches him in a logical error, right?
	Because he's good with physics, but he's bad with relationships.
	So she catches him in a logical error about his emotions, right?
	And she says, like, it's got to be either this or this, right?
	And he looks at her, and he knows he's caught, right?
	but he's stressed.
	And he looks at her and he kind of screws up his face and he says, "I'm sorry, what were the options again?" And that to me is a classic and beautifully acted and well-written response, right?
	Which is the response to aggression or perceived aggression is often confusion.
	It's a defense, right?
	It's fogging, right? Right.
	And confusion is very, very important, right?
	Right. And I'll give you another example.
	This is from my own life.
	When we were broke, my mother was trying to sell some jewelry when I was in my, I guess, early teens.
	And she put an ad in the newspaper to sell some ring.
	And we had to go on some trip.
	And we were on the bus and she turned to me suddenly, really angrily, and she said, did you remember to turn on the answering machine?
	And in that moment, I could not remember.
	Now, and the reason I couldn't remember was I knew that I was in an impossible situation, right?
	Or I likely was.
	Because if I said yes, and then we came home and the answering machine was not on, then I would be in big trouble, right?
	Right. But if I said no, Then she would yell at me.
	My mom didn't care if we were on the bus.
	She'd just yell at me on the bus, right? Right.
	So my response was, I think so, but I'm not sure.
	I believe so. And of course her response was, well, don't think, just know, right?
	Right. And so my response to that was confusion.
	And I genuinely didn't know, but there was a moment where I could have really thought about it.
	You know, if I was in a situation of calm, where I wasn't going to be attacked for the wrong thing, then I would have closed my eyes, I would have thought about it, I would have gone back over my mind about what I did before I left the flats, or whatever, right?
	And I'm sure I would have come to a pretty accurate answer.
	My other thought in that bus trip was, It doesn't matter.
	Because nobody's going to call who wants the ring, leave their number, but never call back.
	If the answering machine's not on and they call and they want the ring, they'll just call back, right?
	And very few people, because we tried to sell some stuff before, I couldn't remember a single person who'd ever phoned left their phone number for a callback because, you know, people didn't used to like before call display and handing out phone numbers and so on.
	So basically, I couldn't I couldn't come up with an answer that would help me avoid being attacked, right?
	Either now or later. Unless the magical happened and I said yes, I did turn it on, and then when we got home, it was on, right?
	But I wasn't willing to take that chance.
	Because in my family, when you said something like that, yes, I left it on, and it turned out not to be on in my family, that became a core mythology that then would be used against you for years, right?
	Like every time you would then say, I'm certain about something, it's like, oh, are you as certain as the answering machine incident?
	So the stakes were very high, the attack, the stress, the fear, the, you know, all of that kind of, so the response was, I think so, but I'm not sure.
	Fog, right? Right.
	Like a squid popping out its ink when you try to grab it, right?
	Because it can't run, all it can do is hide, right?
	And the reason I'm telling you that story is that I would suggest that there's a possibility that in your family this kind of stuff was not unknown, right?
	But again, tell me if this makes any sense to you or rings at all true.
	I can't think of a story similar to the one You told me there.
	I don't really have memories of this, the confusion stuff when I was a kid, but...
	Well, what would happen if you made a mistake?
	What kind of mistake? Like, if you went to the store to pick up two things and you only brought back one.
	Or whatever, I don't know what responsibilities you had, or you had a chore and you did it badly or sloppily, but what would happen when you made a mistake?
	I'd probably just get nagged at.
	Sorry, what do you mean probably?
	You don't recall? If I didn't do a chore or something that I was meant to do, I'd get asked over and over again to do it.
	Why would you get asked over and over again?
	Because you just wouldn't do it? Yeah, because I didn't do it for whatever reason.
	And what response did you provide to being asked to do it over and over?
	I usually said I'll do it later, I think.
	I mean, this was in my teenage years, for sure.
	I can't remember examples before that.
	And that's a kind, again, I'm not trying to make the facts fit the theory, but that is a kind of fogging, right?
	Because you're not saying yes and you're not saying no, right?
	You're saying later. Right.
	That's a fogged response, right?
	Right. And that, of course, gives you the ability to retain power in the situation, right?
	Right. And what about with your dad?
	If you did something wrong, or spilt something, or irritated him, what would happen then?
	I can't remember any negative...
	Interactions in that sense with my dad.
	It was my mum that would continually ask me and things like that.
	So your dad didn't correct you or corrected you in a positive way or how did that work?
	It would... I mean, again, the things I can think of would be in my teenage years, because obviously it wasn't around much, so the things he would hear about would be kind of the more major things rather than the day-to-day things.
	And it was kind of...
	I'm sure you'll tell me in a minute this is wrong, but it seemed to me like a neutral response, if that makes sense.
	Like, it wasn't... It wasn't...
	Kind of punishment. It was just like, okay.
	You know, let's deal with it kind of thing.
	No, I'm not going to correct your experiences.
	Of course not, right? I mean, I'm an empiricist first and foremost, right?
	So I fully accept that.
	I'm sorry? I meant when I said it was neutral.
	Maybe it wasn't neutral. Maybe I'm just not saying that.
	Well, no. I mean, generally, if it's something...
	Look, I think you have a scar tissue called perfectionism.
	The contradiction of which creates great anxiety within you.
	Yeah, so I've had the problem of perfectionism ever since I was really, really young.
	Right, right. So all we're doing, since that is not a natural position of childhood, the natural position of childhood is a comfortable acceptance of failure.
	Guaranteed. Because there's simply no way, I mean, just seeing this with Isabella, there's no way that we can master our bodies, the complexities of our environment, and so on, without massive and perpetual failures, right?
	Right. I mean, she hits herself in the head, right?
	I mean, that's not a very successful human being as yet, as far as physical control goes, right?
	Right. Right?
	She made herself cry once, right?
	She just whacks herself in the head, right?
	Because she's flailing around, right?
	So she's just a massive bag of absolutely cute fail at the moment, right?
	Right. And that's going to be the case for years and years and years, right?
	Yeah. So a child with a standard of perfectionism, innate, would never function, right?
	Right. So comfort with error is essential to...
	it's innate to children.
	In my experience and opinion, not just with Isabella, but with other kids that I've known, right?
	And so when there is a discomfort with error or failure, or even hypocrisy, when there's a huge discomfort with it, given that we all have this capacity and virtue is like health, right?
	You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be healthy, right?
	You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be virtuous-y, right?
	Right. You know, like a candy bar doesn't make you die, and a white lie doesn't make you evil, right?
	But we have these standards, right?
	Like these pure, crystalline, magical, platonic standards, right?
	And when we don't meet them, we feel almost indistinguishable from someone who strangles a kitten sometimes, right?
	Right. So my question is, where did it come from?
	There had to be some external force that, I mean, and I can't remember, were your parents religious at all?
	No, they weren't. I believe I've actually spoken to you about perfectionism at a really young age before.
	I remember two stories that my mum told me, which one of them was about a jigsaw puzzle when I was really young and I would kind of study the box and stare at it for weeks and weeks and not attempt it until I could do it kind of really fast and really perfectly.
	And the other one was learning to walk.
	Apparently I was the only kid around who never fell over learning to walk or learning to climb on chairs or things like that.
	I would kind of study what was going on and I wouldn't attempt it until I was sure I couldn't fail, if that makes sense, like most people.
	Now, do you consider this to be innate to your personality or do you consider this to be somewhat environmental?
	I'm not saying what the truth is because we may never know, but I'm just curious what your perception of it is.
	I used to think it was a night, but I don't think it was a night anymore.
	Yeah, because an indication that a child is frightened of making an error to the point where I'll study something for weeks before attempting it, usually is an indication of a critical environment, right?
	Right. Like, I don't know if you've ever seen those kids who come from Who are in aggressive environments, when they bring you a cup of water, they have both hands, they're staring at it, they're trying not to wobble, right?
	Because they're terrified of dropping it, right?
	Right. That is, of course, an indication that when Isabella drops something, it's like, oh, you dropped something, let's get a cloth and clean it up, right?
	As opposed to, how could you be so careless, you know?
	Right. Or even saying to a child who's carrying something, be careful!
	Makes that child stressed, right?
	Right. And if we have the feeling when we're...
	This is all theory, right?
	But when we have a feeling when we're toddlers or babies or infants that our parents' affection rises and falls on their approval of our behavior in the moment...
	Then that's pretty stressful.
	That's a non-bonding situation.
	The child is not bonded to the parent.
	If the parent provides and withholds approval based on the actions of the child in the moment.
	Right. You just...
	Reminded me of something. It's a memory that's been popping up for the last week or so into my mind, which I think is about the non-bonding with my mother when I was really young.
	So would that be related to this?
	Well, sure. Absolutely.
	I mean, a non-bonding means that I can't put a foot wrong.
	Because if my mother's...
	I mean, my mother's good regard for me is absolutely essential.
	It is... Like oxygen to an adult, right?
	I cannot survive as a baby.
	This is our instinct. I cannot survive without my mother's good opinion of me.
	I can't. Because, I mean, abandonment and infanticide were very common throughout history, so children who were not that concerned with their parents' good opinion of them didn't tend to survive, right?
	Right. So a child always inevitably feels, I must hold my parents' good, my mother's, let's say, my mother's good opinion of me.
	Right.
	And I mean, the things that have been popping up from my memory, I think my mum kind of either resented me or hated me when I was born.
	Right.
	So that would probably make sense with its theory.
	And these memories have been popping up kind of since I watched the determinist debate as well.
	Right, okay, that's interesting.
	So, sorry, go ahead.
	Do you want me to tell you what they are, or is it not important?
	Sure, please. There's two.
	One of them is kind of a vague series of small offhand comments that my mother made, kind of...
	Throughout my childhood and teenage years, you know, along the lines of, you know, you're an accident and, you know, if you weren't born, I would have done this, I would have done that, kind of like an implied blame for Her life not going the way it was.
	And the other memory, which is a much more strong one, pops up.
	You know the phrase, you know, he's got a face only a mother could love, you know, talking about the...
	Oh yeah, it's a horrible thing.
	It's a horrible thing to say. The genetic...
	Whatever the genetic bond is, the attachment between mother and child is so strong.
	That's not what she said to me.
	I remember her telling me that when I was born, I was the ugliest baby that she had ever seen.
	Wow. I think I remember your mother is quite physically attractive, is that right?
	No. What?
	I think she was when she was younger, but...
	Yeah, I think she's overweight now.
	Yeah, she's overweight.
	Right, right. Okay, sorry, go on.
	Yeah, but that's a memory that's popped up a number of times, just kind of in random situations.
	So, sorry, she said, you have a face only a mother could love?
	You were the ugliest baby I've ever seen, is that right?
	She said, yeah, you were the ugliest baby I'd ever seen.
	And how old were you when she told you this?
	Um... I think it happened more than once.
	Just roughly? I can remember specifically her telling me when I was 9 or 10, but I also remember that that wasn't the first time.
	And why did she tell you this, do you think?
	I'm not sure. She said it as a joke at the time.
	Why did she tell you this?
	You know. You know, they're not sure it never works with me, right?
	Right. I mean, clearly it's a pretty shocking thing to say to a child, right?
	Right. Completely, wildly inappropriate and destructive, right?
	Yeah. I didn't at all get that when she told me at the time.
	No, of course not, right? Which is even more indicative that it's a problematic thing, right?
	If it's not shocking, it's even more shocking, right?
	Right. So why did she tell you that?
	I'm having one of those retarded moments at the moment.
	Well, if we put these things together, right?
	I could have had a better life without you.
	You were an accident. You were the ugliest baby.
	You have a face only a mother could love, right?
	Oh, she didn't say, you have a face only a mother could love.
	I was just saying that.
	That's a statement that resonates with regards to these others, right?
	Right. It was just a comparison to what she said about moving the ugly baby.
	Yeah, right. Right.
	Okay, so let's say that your girlfriend were to say, I'd be much better off not in this relationship.
	I could have a much better life, and I find you physically repulsive.
	How would you feel that that relationship was going?
	Awful. Right.
	And what do you think the next step would be?
	We'd probably break up.
	Yeah, she'd leave you, right? I mean, those are pretty clear exit lines, right?
	Right. I'd be much happier not in this relationship.
	I only got into this relationship by accident, and you're physically repulsive to me.
	Right.
	So your mother is saying to you, I'm going to break up with you.
	Right.
	Now, that is a death sentence for a child, right?
	Right.
	Yeah. So, when you have a tenuous bond, or a non-bond with your mother, what you have to be is a perfectionist performer, right?
	You have to not cause trouble, you have to get everything right, because you're on a tightrope, right?
	Yeah. Called abandonment or infanticide or whatever is going on in the primitive side of the brain, right?
	Which is developed in these kinds of circumstances or situations.
	Right. I'm hanging by a thread, so I better get everything right.
	I better not be a problem.
	I better not be difficult.
	I better not make people unhappy.
	I've got to do everything right.
	Because there's no room for error, because I'm hanging by a thread anyway, right?
	Right. Like, childhood is supposed to be like a wee trapeze, right?
	You're supposed to practice in a safe environment, but you were actually in a real trapeze with no net, right?
	You can't make any mistakes in that situation, right?
	Right. It was not a simulation.
	it was the real deal, right?
	Yeah.
	So the fear of making a mistake, the fear of a lack of integrity is...
	is something that causes such a deep level of anxiety and disquiet, right?
	Because, I mean, as babies and children, we want our parents to help us with our mistakes and to give us comfort with making mistakes and to help us to learn from mistakes, which, you know, it's a cliche, but it's true.
	They are opportunities in disguise, right?
	I mean, if we never make a mistake, we're not living, right?
	And if we ignore the possibility of learning that comes from our mistakes, we're ignoring the greatest education there is, right?
	Right. And so, now that you're an adult, the standard of perfectionism is a continuance of the lack of bonding, right?
	Again, this is the theory, right?
	And you can see how well it works for you, but this feeling that error equals, or hypocrisy or bad behavior equals catastrophe, a complete break in the relationship, disaster, anxiety, sleeplessness, and so on.
	I mean, this comes from early childhood.
	It's too embedded.
	for it to be a response to a YouTube debate.
	And when things go deep enough, and I know this from experience, when things go deep enough into our brain that they're interfering with our sleep, it's infancy.
	Because sleep regulation is something that is learned by toddlers, right, at two to four months, or six months.
	Or newborns, really.
	So when trauma goes deep enough to interfere with our sleep, Then we're talking very early in my experience and understanding.
	Right. Well, that's it for my theory.
	What do you think? Yeah, that really resonates with me.
	And so you were trying to do to me what your mother did to you, right?
	That's how you're understanding it.
	That's how you're trying to inhabit it, right?
	Right. The part that I'm not getting about the theory is the confusion part.
	I'm sorry, could you go over that bit one more time?
	Well, you try to prevent mistakes, right?
	But when you can't prevent mistakes, when you are caught in a contradiction, you will adopt confusion as a way of defusing the attack or the abandonment.
	Because when we display confusion, we try to evoke pity or condescension, which is better than aggression, right?
	Right. And we try to put ourselves in the position of someone who needs to be instructed rather than somebody who needs to be attacked, right, from the position of the parent.
	Right. I just didn't know.
	I just didn't understand. And we saw this earlier, right?
	Because instead of dealing...
	And I fell into this trap, right?
	So instead of dealing with the emotions, we dealt with the concepts, right?
	Right. Because the confusion plus the criticism that you brought got me to respond, and it was obviously somewhat of my choice, and I'm not disappointed that I did it, because I think it was important to square away the intellectual stuff.
	But that confusion and criticism brings up the intellectual debate, right?
	right?
	Right.
	But it really wasn't about the intellectual debate because whenever I made the clear points, the confusion and the criticism came up again, right?
	Yeah.
	Now you may not agree with that, but let's just work with that for the moment as a possibility, right?
	I mean, I think you will understand it when you deal with this stuff and you'll go like, well, of course it was clear, right?
	But we weren't able to come to a resolution about what I consider to be pretty self-evident stuff, even though you've got a brain the size of a planet, right?
	And so it was to avoid the anxiety of imperfection or the anxiety around imperfection that you kept criticizing and then being confused, right?
	And I'll see you next time.
	Like, I don't understand what this means, or this seems wrong, and then I explain it, and you say, well, I'm confused now, right?
	Right. That actually is a way of avoiding...
	And so that's why I said, okay, well, let's say that I'm being hypocritical.
	Let's say that I have a blind spot.
	So what, right? If I say, okay, well let's forget the intellectual, since that just leads us to confusion and no resolution.
	Let's say, forget the intellectual, forget the argument, forget determinism, forget free will.
	Let's say that everything you're saying is true and I'm being hypocritical.
	So what? Then we got to the feelings, right?
	Right.
	So the confusion is designed to avoid the anxiety of imperfection, right?
	This is going to sound awful, but that last bit confused me.
	Alright. I'm comfortable with error.
	I don't believe...
	I mean, I could say I'm comfortable with hypocrisy, but I'm not really, but I don't get any sense of hypocrisy for myself.
	From the... Determinist argument, but let's say there's some kind of hypocrisy I'm not conscious of, which is kind of a complicated thing to say, because how can it be hypocrisy if it's unconscious?
	But anyway, let's say that I'm comfortable with error, I'm comfortable with bigotry, because let's say that it's 1% or whatever, right?
	That's pretty damn good relative to the rest of the world.
	So I'm comfortable with that as a thesis, right?
	I'm willing to explore that.
	It doesn't cause me discomfort, right?
	Right. And so when...
	Like, so when you were saying, you know, Steph, you're wrong, and then you were debating dishonestly, or whatever you were saying, right, and then I responded and you got confused, that was like a double whammy.
	Because first you say, well, Steph, you're being dishonest, and then you say, well, Steph, you're being confusing.
	And given I know how intelligent you are, the only reason that I would be confusing is if I'm being defensive, right?
	Right. Right, so then the criticisms continue, right?
	Of me. Explicit or implicit, right?
	And then when I say, okay, well, forget the theories.
	I accept your criticisms.
	Let's say I accept your criticisms.
	What then, right? Well, then it was a catastrophe, right?
	Yeah. And then you felt anxious, right?
	Yeah. So at the beginning, when you're kind of coming at me, right, with, you know, Steph, you were dishonest, and I'm exaggerating, but this is sort of what was there, right?
	You know, you were manipulative, you were exaggerating, Peter had better points, you were defensive, you were, you know, using your skills to make the worst argument appear, the better, all of that kind of stuff, right?
	Then I felt some anxiety, right?
	Right. And then I thought, well, no, I mean, I don't believe that's the case, that I haven't seen the syllogistical proof and so on, right?
	And so then I came back to you with the syllogistical proof and you got confused, which is another criticism of me.
	Either I'm being confusing or being defensive or whatever, because I know it can't be that you're not intelligent enough.
	So then I said, okay, well, let's accept this.
	So then you started to feel the anxiety.
	Once I said, okay, well, let's say I am being erroneous or hypocritical.
	So what? Why would that be a problem that you wouldn't sleep, right?
	Right. And then you started to feel anxious, right?
	Yeah. So once we overcame the confusion by completely bypassing it, by saying, well, let's drop the intellectual side and let's say that all your criticisms of me are true, so what, right?
	In other words, when I no longer felt anxiety because you were calling me dishonest or hypocritical or whatever, or saying that there was a strong possibility or whatever, right?
	When I said, okay, I'm not going to feel anxious about that, then you started to feel anxious, right?
	Yeah. And then we went to this issue of, you know, breaking of the bond with the mother and this perfectionism and so on, right?
	So confusionism, sorry, confusion, it's a new philosophy I'm working on.
	Confusion was a way of avoiding the anxiety around imperfection.
	Right? Because if you had said, okay, Steph, I get your arguments, then the next question would be, well, if Steph is right about this, Then why do I feel hostility towards Steph or anxiety around this issue?
	Then we've eliminated the issue, the intellectual issue, free will or determinism, as a factor.
	It has to be something else.
	So we either eliminate that issue by you accepting my position, or we eliminate it by just saying, okay, well let's say you're completely right, so what?
	Why would the emotional response be so strong?
	So if you had grasped my points, which I know you do, if you had grasped my points, then you would have been unable to retain the focus on the free will or determinist stuff.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Right. You would have gone straight.
	So the confusion is a defense against the anxiety, right, which is underlying the insomnia and the mental torture that you're experiencing, right?
	Right. If I had grasped the points you were making, though, wouldn't that have not caused the anxiety in the first place?
	Because I wouldn't have thought you were wrong?
	Well, yeah, but if you had grasped the points, it means that you would...
	If you had grasped points, it would mean that you weren't defended against it, right?
	That you weren't anxiety-avoidant, right?
	I mean, this is the basic idea that I'm working with here, and I'm just finishing up a podcast series on this, so I'll just touch on it briefly because I'll go into it again.
	The only knowledge we avoid is self-knowledge.
	The only knowledge we fundamentally avoid is self-knowledge.
	Right? So the fog that you have about this stuff, and it's not just you, right?
	Lots of people have this fog, which is why this stupid ass debate has gone on for so long.
	Not stupid ass like in terms of you, but in terms of the intellectual content, which is not elevated.
	The reason this debate has gone on so long is that people are avoiding some knowledge about themselves, right?
	So when you fog out, it's not a knowledge of determinism versus free will that you're avoiding.
	It's some knowledge about yourself.
	And that knowledge is composed of two things.
	The knowledge that we avoid, and there are two layers of knowledge that we avoid about ourselves.
	The first is trauma that we have experienced, and the second is trauma that we have inflicted.
	That's the knowledge that we're continually avoiding within ourselves.
	So if you've had this standard of perfectionism, obviously it's traumatic to you to have this standard.
	Yeah. And I bet you, in fact I know for sure, because you've tried it on me, you've inflicted this standard on others as a way of managing your own anxiety, right?
	Right. And that's not good, right?
	Right. Because you don't want to be like your mom in that way.
	Right. So the fog is something distasteful about yourself, right?
	And it's more likely to be something distasteful about yourself in this phase of the conversation because you've already talked about prior traumas in your history, right?
	Right. So it's probably not something that you've suffered, but rather something that you've inflicted on others, right?
	Right. All the way back to the PHP is superior to ASP stuff, right?
	You have these haughty standards, right?
	Yeah. And you're kind of a little contemptuous at times, right?
	Right. And that's acting out.
	That's anxiety avoidance, right?
	And that's inhabiting the skin to a small degree of your abuser, right?
	Yeah. And we all have that capacity.
	We all have the capacity to do that, right?
	And I think that you don't.
	I don't want to do that anymore, which is probably why this issue has been haunting me.
	It's so essential to let go of the standard called perfectionism.
	Perfectionism is just a synonym for control and abuse.
	Right. So yeah, I would make a list, if I were you, of the ways in which your perfectionism, obviously where it's harmed you, but also where you've inflicted it upon others.
	Okay. And I think that will give you some release from this.
	Because it will give you, and also what it's cost you to inflict that on others, right?
	Because, I mean, your absence from FDR was a kind of perfectionism that only applied to others, not to you, right?
	Right. Because that's the problem with perfectionism.
	It's... There was a guy who came up here talking, he was one of the, the one time I think we had this salon, he came up and was talking about his dad was a real perfectionist, right?
	And it's like, oh, did your dad have perfectionist standards with regards to his own parenting?
	No. Right?
	Right. Perfectionism is completely non-UPB compliant because when you have a standard called perfectionism, it violates perfectionism, right?
	Because we can't be perfect, so a standard called perfectionism violates itself.
	It's non-you-be-compliant, and it's always applied to others, to the exclusion of the self.
	It's always hypocritical, fundamentally.
	Right. Which is why perfectionists are so sensitive to hypocrisy.
	Right. Is that enough to, I don't want to take up your entire day, is that sort of enough to start with?
	Yeah, I think it is.
	So you think when I work through this emotion, then this confusion and whatnot will just kind of evaporate?
	Is that right? Well, yeah.
	I mean, when you work through what the confusion is protecting you from, then you don't need the defense anymore.
	And it might arise under certain situations, but you will be able to intercept the confusion and say, well, what What self-knowledge am I avoiding?
	If I'm not confused, what do I learn about myself?
	If I don't give myself the out of a fog, what do I see that I'm blinding myself to?
	About myself, fundamentally. Because once you recognize a feeling as a defense, then you can oppose it, right?
	And relax the defense and see what's behind it, right?
	As long as you don't feel that it's a defense, but that there's something wrong with the argument or I'm not smart enough to grasp it or whatever, right?
	Then you don't see it as a defense and therefore you can't dismantle it, right?
	Right. I feel this call is inconclusive for you.
	Yeah, I mean, a lot of what you were saying hit home, but there's something that doesn't seem to be resolved in my mind, and I'm not sure exactly what that is.
	Well, that's okay. That may be something that you need to work out with yourself.
	I don't think that there's much more that I could pile onto the hour and three quarters at the moment.
	But that certainly could be something that you need to work out yourself.
	Of course, talking about confusion as a defense...
	It's something we've seen. You've heard this a million times in listener calls, right?
	When we all go to that retarded place?
	Yeah. We know that's where the truth really is, right?
	Right. So, that's exactly what's happening here, right?
	There's confusion, there's dissociation, and that's where the truth is, right?
	So, unfortunately, when we're dealing with confusion as a defense, the first defense against probing it is confusion, right?
	Which is why it's hard to resolve these calls, right?
	Right. Because you start thinking about it, then you get distracted, then you get confused, then you go in circles, right?
	Right. And that's just something which, I mean, I can't talk you out of that.
	That's just something that you need to work out in conversation with yourself or with others over time, you know, with that kind of self-knowledge.
	Right. I just have one other question about this confusion.
	I mean, around this kind of free will determinist thing where it's come up, the only time I've got confused is either talking to you or listening to your arguments directly.
	I've discussed it with quite a number of other people and I've never got confused in those times, so what do you think the difference would be there?
	Well, the The difference could be either A, that my definitions are completely confusing, riddled with contradictions, baffling and insane.
	That's one possibility.
	I think that would be sort of out of characteristic with the rest of everything that I do, so I would not put that down as the first possibility.
	I agree with that.
	And the other is that it's bang on and it's valid and therefore it provokes the defense.
	Okay, but when I've had other people...
	Sorry, what I mean by that is that a Christian talking to an agnostic will not feel the same level of confusion and hostility as a Christian talking to a strong atheist like me, right?
	Right. Because the agnostic will say, well, I'm not into organized religion, but it's certainly possible that God does exist, so he leaves the door open, right?
	Right. Whereas...
	A strong atheist like myself will be, there is no God, there is no possibility of a God, institutionalized religion is an exploitive error, it is abusive towards children, it survives by preying on the helpless and the innocent, it is predatory, it is destructive, right?
	But basically you're in an evil cult with no truth value whatsoever.
	In fact, it's built on a foundation of abusive lies, right?
	He's going to be a lot more hostile and uncomfortable and whatever, right?
	With me than he is with an agnostic, right?
	Right. So I'm unrelenting on my attacks upon determinism because I consider it to be a ridiculous and embarrassing intellectual position that unfortunately claims to have a certain veneer of scientism to it and therefore, like agnosticism, swallows up the resolve of the people who need to have the most clarity.
	So I consider it a pernicious doctrine, right?
	In many ways. A very destructive doctrine because In a way, it's more plausible than religion, but it's a completely irrational position.
	So I am unrelenting upon my attacks upon determinism, which would probably provoke more dissociation and anxiety in you than your conversations with other people who may not be as gung-ho against it.
	Right, right. That does make sense.
	And if I were gung-ho against determinism, but it was completely obvious where my logical errors were, then you probably wouldn't, again, because you're just like, well, you know, dismissive, right?
	In the same way that we can, you know, dismiss, I don't know, Scientology or something, right?
	But if I'm gung-ho absolute and correct, then it's going to push up against defenses for sure.
	And we saw that with the Ron Paul supporters last year.
	Thank you.
	Right. And again, I'm not saying this proves that what I'm saying is true, but it certainly would explain that if I have a lot of credibility and people haven't been able to overturn the core logical arguments, then it would explain the confusion, because it's a defense, right?
	If I stay confused, how do I benefit, right?
	It's like what people feel with UPB. Remember all that stuff about UPB and confusion and you'd try and explain something and they'd go off on some tangent.
	And that's been solved by the book, right?
	Because the book lays it out pretty clearly.
	At least I think so. Because the question then is like, okay, well, let's say UPB is true.
	What are the consequences?
	Let's say free will is true and the determinists are manipulative and defensive.
	Right? Let's say it is true, what do you feel?
	And if people say, well, I feel completely indifferent to either possibility, then we know it's not a defense, right?
	But if when we say, okay, let's say it's true, let's say I'm hypocritical, and then I feel all kinds of anxious and panicky, then we know that it's the anxious and the panic that's driving the debate, not the intellectual content.
	Right.
	Right.
	So when you say to a Christian, okay, let's just say there is no God, what do you feel?
	Despair, and loneliness, and pain, and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Well, if we have to debate without acknowledging those feelings, we're not going to get anywhere, right?
	Right. And that's why I said, okay, well, let's say I'm being hypocritical.
	Let's say, right, what are the feelings?
	Well, you know, catastrophe, and anxiety, and sleeplessness, and right?
	But that's what's driving, right?
	What's going on? And then once we deal with those emotions, we can get back to the rational debate.
	But if the rational debate is being skewed by all of these emotions that are unacknowledged and causing defenses to pop up all over the place, then we can't get anywhere, right?
	We can't navigate while we're blindfolded.
	Right.
	I'm not sure why I'd have a defense against free will, if that makes sense.
	Like, against that specifically.
	Or is it non-specific?
	Am I missing that point?
	I don't know.
	And again, I don't want to spend all day on this, because we've had a long call as it is.
	That's something for you to figure out, right?
	Which is, what does it mean to say that Steph's position is true, That free will is syllogistic, is axiomatic, really, in the same way that UPB is and logic is, right?
	And the acceptance of the senses and empirical reality and the existence of others, you know, all of these axiomatic things to philosophy.
	I don't know why you would have a particular opposition to free will.
	I mean, the two things that I believe is the case is that people who are religious Oppose free will because they believe it is an argument for the soul, that it's a non-material, magical, whatever, whatever, right?
	So some people do that, and Peter's one of those, as he said.
	Other people oppose free will because they want to forgive people who've done them wrong, right?
	So they say, well, they didn't have a choice, there's no such thing as free will, they're not morally responsible, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Right. Sorry, go ahead.
	That makes sense, but...
	Hang on, sorry. And the third possibility is that if someone is not proud of what he's done and doesn't want to deal with his responsibility, then free will becomes a problematic position, right?
	In other words, if I've done something that's really bad and it arouses in me feelings of guilt, remorse, self-hatred even maybe, then determinism becomes something that I can use to keep those feelings at bay, right?
	Because it was inevitable that it was going to happen, and so there's no particular responsibility that I should take.
	That would be an illusion. Right, right.
	I mean, those last two, in particular, I think I'll need to explore those.
	But the strange thing for me is my conscious desire is I really wanted to put, you know, a nail in the determinist coffin, if that makes sense.
	Because, I mean, consciously anyway, for me, determinism is far more anxiety-provoking.
	No, but you can't put a nail in the coffin for something because it's anxiety-provoking, right?
	That's not a reason to have a position, right?
	I know. What I'm saying is, like, if I did have emotional defenses, based on, like, my conscious experience, I would have thought that would have been the other way.
	Well, no, it's because you accept...
	I mean, the only reason you'd want to put a nail in the coffin of determinism is because you accept it to some degree.
	I mean, if it causes you anxiety, it's because you think it might be true, right?
	Right? Right, right.
	And so putting a nail in the coffin because you feel it might be true and thus wanting it to go away is never going to work, right?
	Because you have to deal with the underlying anxiety and you have to deal with the reality that you must accept to some degree the premises of determinism in order for determinists to create such anxiety within you.
	Right. And to want to make the argument go away.
	Right. I mean, I didn't shut down the determinist debate because...
	I felt anxious or irritated or scared.
	I got completely bored and I lost all respect for the determinists.
	It just got completely ridiculous to pretend that we were talking about anything intellectual when we weren't.
	Fundamentally, it just got completely boring, as all defenses do.
	It felt like I was debating with a broken computer.
	It just gets boring. And I'm not going to participate with people in that kind of emotional avoidance by pretending it's an intellectual thing.
	determinists can either be honest about what they think and feel that we can deal with the real issue but I'm not going to continue to participate in an intellectual debate as if it's got anything to do with what's really going on right and your focus on as you say you made lists of the arguments and of course you weren't there for the debate but if you you made lists of the arguments it means that you're taking the wrong approach
	Because you need to take the approach of why does it bother me, not what is true.
	Right.
	Why am I not sleeping?
	And it's not because Steph might be inconsistent or determinism might be true, right?
	It's something that you're bringing into, right?
	So if you still lack that perspective, then you're going to feel even more anxiety because you won't know how to solve the problem.
	You'll take the approach of, let me deal with the syllogisms, right?
	Right. Without self-knowledge, nothing can be true.
	Because we don't know when we're being manipulated by ourselves or being anxiety avoidant or whatever.
	Without self-knowledge, nothing can be true.
	If you're arguing with a Christian who is afraid of there being no God for psychological reasons and doesn't know it, you can't ever come to a truth statement about it.
	ever.
	Without self-knowledge there's no such thing as truth.
	So, and this is a general tip for you and for everyone else who listens to this, right?
	If you feel anxious about something, you need to learn not about the topic, but about yourself.
	Right. That sounds like a good idea.
	When that stuff's squared away, you can go back to the topic with more objectivity and so on, right?
	But if you don't have a map of your own defenses and emotions and feelings and thoughts, you can't come to any truth statements, right?
	Right. Because you don't know if it's prejudice or reaction or fog or manipulation or avoidance or self-justification or superiority or all of the other defenses that can float around and trip us up all the time.
	Without that self-knowledge, we get to reality through ourselves.
	We can't get to reality by overstepping ourselves because we'll just poke ourselves in the eyes down the road and not even know it, right?
	Right. Does that make more sense?
	Yeah, it does, and I think I've got a lot of questions I have to work through.
	Right, and we may emerge out of that with me being completely wrong about determinism and completely hypocritical, right?
	We may, absolutely.
	But you see, if you have that amazing knowledge to bring to me, but you're defensive, you can't bring it to me.
	Right, right. Right, if you have the gift...
	To me called, Steph, you're being hypocritical in this area, which of course if I am, I want to know and I want to fix it, right?
	Right, of course. If you have that gift to give to me, but you're defensive and foggy, you can't give that gift to me.
	The reason I want you to work on yourself is because you might be right.
	Right, right. People think that I think that if determinism was false, everything would vanish.
	Determinism would be a wonderful thesis to be true in many, many ways.
	I'd love it to be true in so many ways.
	I really would. That really surprises me.
	Oh, it would be wonderful.
	In the same way that a god and a soul would be wonderful.
	I'd love to live forever. I'd love to meet up with my wife in the afterlife.
	I'd love for us to have an eternity to sit on a cloud and talk about philosophy.
	Wonderful! I'd love to live forever.
	Why would you like determinism to be true?
	Because that seems to be completely against what you talked about in your earlier podcast on the topic.
	Yeah, I mean, there would be costs to determinism being true, right?
	Absolutely, for sure. But there would be benefits as well.
	You know, this strain of willpower by which I'm attempting to move the biggest lever in the world called thought, right, and self-knowledge, it's a strain on me.
	Because I believe I have a responsibility and a choice and I have to navigate and so on, right?
	Whereas if all of my next podcasts and choices and everything I posted on the board, if it were all completely predetermined and I didn't have any responsibility, it'd be pretty relaxing.
	If I said, well, you know, donations are down, I should try and do a great podcast to bring them back up because I want this and I want that, right?
	As opposed to, well, donations are going to do what they're going to do, my podcasts are going to flow out of me the way they're going to flow out of me, I can just Let it happen, right?
	I don't have to will anything, I don't have to...
	My God, that would be wonderful!
	How relaxing, right?
	And I wouldn't...
	I couldn't blame anyone, right?
	I wouldn't have to sit there and say, well, this person did bad and they should have done better.
	It's like, well, my mother's not to blame, my dad's not to blame, no one's to blame, right?
	I mean, that would be kind of nice.
	It's not like it's a great deal of fun having moral judgments all the time, right?
	But wouldn't, like, the costs outweigh the benefits?
	Well, maybe, but I'm just telling you there's things about it that would be wonderful.
	Right, okay. I could just do what I felt like.
	I mean, that would be really nice, right?
	Right. Because everything I did was not my choice.
	It was perfectly predetermined from the dawn of time, right?
	No responsibility, no preference, no choice, no, right?
	Okay. I could never be right or wrong.
	No one else could ever be right or wrong.
	We could just, I don't know, sit and gossip.
	I mean, it would come if some scientific experiment completely proved that everything was predetermined and could completely predict everyone's behavior.
	It would come as a shock, but not an entirely unwelcome one.
	Thank you.
	Because I do things that I don't want to do at times because I feel that if you have gifts, you have a responsibility, right?
	I mean, if you have, I don't know, the ability to To heal people's cancer with your brain, it's kind of selfish to just sit around and eat bonbons, in my opinion, right?
	I think if you have an ability, then you can do the world some good.
	I think it's important to do it, even if it's tough and even if it's whatever, right?
	Right. Now, if there was no such thing as a preferred state, if there was no such thing as responsibility or choice or preference or truth, then I would do things differently.
	And I believe that that would make me unhappy.
	Right? Because I think, I mean, I get much more pluses than minuses out of FDR. But there would be no preferred states.
	There would be no one to convince.
	There would be no debating. I wouldn't participate in such a silly fraud as debating or attempting to convince people to live well.
	Any more than I would yell at rocks bouncing down a hill, right?
	It would be lovely! And a rational response to the inevitable.
	But I don't believe that's true.
	And so I'll take the hard road, which is a great, though very difficult at times, road.
	I do believe in choice.
	Truth and virtue and so on.
	So I'm certainly acting in consistency with my beliefs.
	Whether the beliefs themselves are true or false, I have the integrity based on consistency with first principles, which is not what determinists can claim who debate with me.
	The determinists I never hear from I have respect for them.
	If that makes any sense, right?
	But no, there definitely would be pluses.
	Okay. When I take down FDR, because there's no point arguing for better things, and of course taking down FDR would be inevitable.
	Everything I chose would be inevitable.
	It wouldn't be a choice. I'm just a rock bouncing downhill.
	Everything that I do is... It would be mind-blowing, and it would be fascinating to see if anything would change out of that.
	And if it was going to change, it wouldn't in fact be a change.
	It's an incomprehensible state to me for there to be no choice, but I'm certainly willing to explore it if it turns out to be scientifically true.
	I just know that logically it's self-contradictory.
	Right. And hopefully I can see that sometime in the future as well.
	Excellent. Alright, well listen, I'm going to let you go because I know it's some god-awful time in the morning for you, right?
	But thanks, it was a great chat.
	I hope that it has some better effects in the long run than it does in the short run, which I know it hasn't been fantastic for you, but I certainly did the best that I could.
	Right, and thanks again.
	I really, really appreciate all the time you've given me recently.
	You're welcome. Can I throw this out?
	I think this is definitely interesting for others.
	How do you feel about that? Sure.
	Would one of the donated streams be okay?
	I'd rather it go mainstream, if that's alright, but why don't you have a listen to it and let me know what you think.
	Okay, no problem. Thanks, man.
	All the best. Okay, thank you.

▲