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Nov. 19, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:25:37

2534 My Friend is a Psychopath! - Sunday Call In Show November 17th, 2013

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Time	Text
	Good morning, everybody.
	Stephen Mullen from Freedom Main Radio.
	I hope you're doing well.
	It is 17th of November, 2013, and I had a magnificent intro planned, but then somebody booked me six people.
	It was going to be a beautiful haiku of pure poetry, but nonetheless, we will postpone that, and let's get to the first caller.
	All right, coming up first today is Kenny Via Phone.
	Hello, Kenny.
	Dare I say it?
	I think Kenny's dead.
	Oh, okay.
	Hello.
	Hi, Kenny.
	Hey, how's it going?
	Basically, I'm facing a little situation with a friend, and I'm always contemplating whether I need to basically shut him out of my life completely, or whether I should not, basically.
	I'm having a hard time putting these situations...
	But basically, I have the impression that he's a psychopathic.
	Alright.
	And why do you think that?
	I think that because he basically shows a lot of the symptoms of psychopathy.
	Yes, I understand that.
	But what are the signs?
	Like the signs of compulsively lying.
	Whether it matters or not, whether it's about things that actually happen or things that have no relevance.
	Like, I could ask him, like, why aren't you coming now to meet up with me?
	And he'll say, like, you know, because you have something important to talk about, and he'll say, like, oh, well, you know, the car's in the garage, but it's not, you know?
	Or it might be something a lot more important.
	I don't know.
	It's really hard to gauge, you know?
	And also, he has also the symptom of thinking, like, grandiose of himself.
	You know, like...
	And that his ideas are better than mine, regardless of...
	God, he doesn't have a philosophy show, does he?
	Sorry?
	Because that's...
	He doesn't have a philosophy show, because that man...
	No, he doesn't, but he seriously sounds like he does, so I just don't know.
	Right, right.
	Because, you know, I'll give you a little bit of perspective, okay?
	He's...
	Me and him, we were friends in...
	We were pretty good friends in high school, and...
	Everything was fine.
	We were good friends.
	We never had any problems.
	Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	I don't think you're giving me perspective.
	I think you're giving me a story.
	Was he not a compulsive liar in high school?
	To be honest, I guess he might have been, but I wouldn't be really able to know.
	I only know now because...
	There's a big part I pretty much left out, and that's that we did this big project together.
	It lasted two years.
	And it was when we went from friendship to partnership that seems really like the symptoms of psychopathy really surfaced.
	Because he's a pretty special case, my friend I'm talking about.
	He had a pretty rough childhood, you know?
	And I always give him a bit, not credit, but If he acted out or something, I would kind of say, like, you know, whatever.
	You lowered your standards because he had a bad childhood, right?
	Hmm.
	Sorry, yes or no?
	Well, no, but sometimes I get really upset at certain moments, and I'm like, you know, it doesn't give me an excuse to act out a certain way, you know?
	I knew you were going to say something like that.
	That's why I asked you for your thoughts.
	I just wanted to make sure that...
	Okay, so let's get back to the part I don't understand.
	Are you saying that you were good friends?
	Because good friends don't lie to each other.
	I mean, that's something that I don't think I need to make much of a philosophical argument for.
	And so, if you think he was a good friend in high school, because that's how you described him, but he was a liar in high school, then he was not a good friend.
	Now, if he was honest in high school, but has turned into, as you call it, a sort of pathological liar now, then that doesn't make much sense from, you know, sort of brain development standpoint.
	I mean, it's not like...
	It's not like early habits in people just vanish on their own.
	Unless he's got some sort of medical problem or a brain tumor which is causing his brain to change in a sort of fundamental way, then he can't have been more honest when he was younger than he is now.
	Now, right?
	Because if he suddenly developed this habit of lying, but was not a liar before, then he could have been a good friend.
	But if it was a liar before, which is almost certainly the case, then he couldn't have been a good friend in high school.
	So that would be my thoughts, at least when you start telling me.
	Because you said you were going to give me some perspective, and that did not clarify anything, but rather made things make less sense to me.
	Okay.
	So was he a liar in high school?
	Well, You know, to be honest, I didn't know.
	We were good friends in the sense that we played in the same soccer team.
	We always had a good time.
	Stop, stop, stop.
	You didn't know if he was telling you the truth or lying in high school?
	No, we would have good discussions and everything.
	What I wanted to make clear was that when we went from a friendship to partnership, that's one thing.
	I guess the test of honesty really surfaces.
	It happens more often when you're discussing certain situations.
	Oh, so it happens more often.
	Hang on, hang on.
	So it happened when you were in high school, but it happened less often, or at least you were less aware of it.
	So it did happen, right?
	I wasn't aware of it at all, actually, I think.
	I was really not aware of it.
	I wouldn't have done anything with him if I knew he was alive.
	I'm not...
	My head's not that far up in the clouds, you know?
	And how long were you friends with him before you got into this partnership?
	About four or five years.
	Oh, come on, man.
	Oh, no, no, no, no.
	Kenny, come on.
	Come on.
	You can't...
	You can't honestly expect me...
	No, no, no.
	Stop, stop.
	You can't honestly expect me to believe that you were really good friends with someone for four or five years and had no idea...
	At all, that he had a problem telling the truth.
	That's not possible.
	Really good friends is an overstatement.
	Okay, you said good friends.
	Do you mean acquaintances?
	Do you mean you knew each other in school to name?
	Yeah, we knew each other in school and we saw eye to eye on many things and we had good discussions.
	How do you know if you saw eye to eye on many things if he was a liar?
	Oh, yeah.
	And the reason I'm talking on this is, A, I just like to be annoying, but B, because I really want you to understand that you don't have to wait to do two years of partnership with someone to find out if they're a psychopath.
	Okay.
	Right?
	The signs are there right away.
	And I will also tell you that there's, let's say this guy is a monster.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I don't know the guy, but I'll go with what you said.
	Let's say this guy is an untrustworthy monster, and you want to get him out of your life.
	Of course, if he is an untrustworthy monster, I would not suggest having much to do with him.
	But the important thing is not whether you should get rid of him in your life.
	The important thing is, why is he there to begin with?
	Because if you get rid of this guy, but you don't know why he's there to begin with, then someone else is just going to take his place.
	So my question is, what happened in your childhood that this guy is in your life at all?
	In other words, why don't you notice?
	What people are like for four or five years and then get into business with them and then two years later find out that there's a problem.
	Why are your alarm systems deactivated?
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah.
	So what happened in your childhood that led you to be susceptible to this kind of person?
	I don't know.
	I really don't know how to answer that question.
	I really don't know.
	Well, you have any problem?
	Hang on a sec.
	Hang on a sec.
	So, when you were a child, how were you disciplined?
	Oh, I was...
	Every time I did something, like...
	But I would get hit, for sure.
	But not...
	Only, like, let's say I was to do something, like, really bad, you know?
	Like, nothing like, oh, you didn't do good in your exam, or I'm gonna fuck you, you know?
	Like, it wasn't anything like that.
	It was more like, you know, like...
	I would be playing video games, and, like, my sisters would, like, just...
	I don't know, hit me behind the head and run away and I would run after them and hit them back and then I would probably get the belt or something like that.
	The belt?
	Yeah.
	And how often would that happen?
	Yeah, I know.
	No, it was usually more slap.
	The belt was like, I remember it because it only happened like maybe four times, you know?
	But like, yeah, there was definitely, it wasn't like, it was probably, I don't know, one time every two months, three months.
	Like it really had to, like something had to escalate because the thing was that When things escalated, whether it was witnesses or not, I was like, I'm usually the culprit.
	Even in elementary school, high school, it was always like that.
	Because I just have, I guess, the appearance of being the initiator, but I'm not, you know?
	Are you saying that it was justified?
	What was justified?
	The hitting?
	No, I'm not saying it was justified.
	I'm sorry?
	Right, okay.
	Okay, because the way you were describing it to me was that it only happened when you did something really bad, which sounds like a justification, right?
	Well, I guess, hitting women, like, you know, that's what my dad used to, he used to tell me, you know, when I was really young, you know, like, under 10, whatever, you know, if you can't hit women, you can't touch women, so that's what he used to do.
	Yeah, well, of course, your sisters knew that, and that's why they would hit you and then run away, right?
	To get you in trouble.
	But my question is, why were your sisters doing that?
	Why were they doing that?
	I mean, my daughter plays with girls.
	She doesn't hit them and then run away.
	I mean, that would never happen.
	Yeah.
	Honestly, we were four kids.
	My oldest brother and two sisters, so...
	Honestly, it was really rare against any problems with my older brother.
	It would happen once every three years, but it was really more my sisters.
	I don't know.
	I think it was more of a...
	I don't know if it was a fun thing, or I don't know if it was because they didn't like me playing video games.
	No, listen, listen, listen to me.
	Listen, listen, listen, listen.
	Your sisters were older or younger than you were?
	One older, one younger.
	Okay.
	Did the older one hit you and then run away?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So Kenny, let me tell you something that's very clear to me.
	Your older sister would hit you and then run away knowing that if you chased after her and hit her, that you would be punished brutally by your father.
	That is not fun.
	If I deliberately instigate someone into an action that I know is very likely to result in them being hit with a belt, that is pretty monstrous.
	I need you to recalibrate your moral compass here.
	The older sister knows what happens if you hit her.
	Rather than enjoy that protection and be extra gentle and nice with you, She provokes you into hitting her knowing that if your father finds out that you will be hit with a belt.
	That is not fun.
	That is cruel.
	That is sadistic.
	That is provoking a child into a situation where that child is going to get beaten.
	that is fucked up.
	My question is why was she like that?
	Honestly, yes.
	I have no idea.
	My daughter yesterday was playing with a very nice three-year-old girl.
	And we were on a hike and my daughter said, let's race.
	And she ran.
	And the little girl was toddling after her laughing.
	And my daughter got to the end of the race and she said, I won!
	And she said, but don't worry.
	It's just because I'm bigger.
	Because you're only three and I'm four.
	And that's why I won.
	You will run as fast when you get bigger.
	So she was happy to have won.
	But she also immediately explained to the little girl that the little girl wasn't slow or behind.
	It was just an age difference.
	So that, I thought, was very compassionate.
	And she saw the little girl take a stick and start hitting some tall grasses.
	And she said, don't hit the grasses.
	They're living things.
	You can hit the leaves on the ground because they're dead.
	But don't hit the grasses because they're alive.
	And it's owie for them.
	Right?
	She didn't try and maneuver the little girl into a situation where the little girl would get beaten with a belt.
	Do you understand the difference?
	Not really, to be honest.
	Well, that's why this guy's in your life, then.
	That's why this guy's in your life.
	Maybe it was because I missed a little part of what you said, because it was a cut.
	Well, I don't want to repeat the story, but...
	Not the whole story, just when you said that, you know, she said not to kill the grass because it's alive.
	Yeah, just not to hit the grass because the grass is a living thing.
	Don't hit the grass.
	She was very assertive, but she certainly wasn't aggressive.
	And she said, basically, don't hit the grass.
	She was very concerned that the grass was going to be hit.
	Were your sisters very concerned that you would be hit?
	No.
	They seemed quite concerned that you wouldn't be hit, and therefore they would do things that would end up with you getting hit.
	There's a difference there.
	Right?
	Do you understand?
	Yeah, no, I understand that.
	Now, I'm not saying your sisters are bad people.
	They were also children.
	But my question is, why did they have such an excess of cruelty and sadism in their hearts that they wanted you, that they enjoyed, that they found it funny or fun for you to get hit with a belt?
	Where did that come from?
	I don't know.
	Yes, you do.
	You do, come on.
	They run the chance of getting hit, too, by me, so I don't know why...
	Well, no, but you see, if they get hit by you, that's even better, because then they can run to your dad and say, can he hit us?
	And then what's your dad going to do?
	They can't lose, right?
	Either they get to hit you, and you don't get to hit them back, which is fun for them, because it makes you feel frustrated and angry, or...
	They hit you, you hit them back, they run to your dad and you get the belt, right?
	Yeah.
	For hitting girls, which is against his moral code, right?
	Hitting children apparently is fine, but hitting girls, you see, is bad.
	Fucked up.
	Anyway, what about your mom?
	How did she discipline children?
	She, uh, she was like, uh, I don't really have much memories of her really, like, seeing me.
	I think, like, maybe one time.
	I don't really remember.
	Like, it really didn't happen, like I said, in, like, I don't know, weekly or monthly basis.
	It was really, like, when it would happen, it would happen, and that's it, you know?
	Well, you said there were two types.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	You said there were two types of hitting, one with a belt and one with something else that started with an S. I can't remember the word.
	Do you remember?
	A slap.
	Oh, a slap.
	Okay.
	Now, the belt you set, I think, was four times a year.
	But how often was the other hitting?
	The other hitting was for every, like, I guess, less intense cases, I guess, I could say.
	I know.
	How often was the other one?
	Well...
	Honestly, it was like, I don't know, let's say...
	My mom really thought, I guess, she did it when I was younger, like, I don't know, when I was probably between 5 and 10, but, no, not even 10, I think I was, it was something like, yeah, maybe between 5 and, like, 8 or something.
	Let's say, like, I embarrassed her somewhere or something, she would, like, give me a little slap or whatever.
	Yes, I'm going to ask you for the fourth time.
	I only have one memory, to be honest.
	I need to ask you for the fourth time.
	Now, you've just contradicted yourself, and I'm not saying this to try and catch you out or be mean, but you said it only happened once with your mother, and now you're saying it happened between the ages of five and eight?
	And I just need a rough estimate of how often.
	Was it once a year, once a month, once a week, once a day?
	It was probably two times a year, I would say, from my memory.
	So your mother would slap you two times a day?
	Sorry, two times a year.
	Something like that.
	She'd get really upset.
	Usually it was more like angry, like wait till we get back home or something like that, empty threats.
	But it would happen once or twice a year that she would actually...
	Did she ever say, wait till I tell your father?
	Yeah, that happens too.
	Yeah, for sure.
	That happens.
	So you understand where your sisters got it from, right?
	Using your father as the hitter, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	So, wait.
	So, Kenny, I'm trying to sort of understand this and excuse my, you know, this is the first time we've chatted and I'm just trying to get a mental map.
	But here's what I don't understand.
	Your mother would hit you twice a year.
	Your father would hit you four times a year, right?
	Yeah.
	So, are you saying that you would only get punished on average once every two months by either parent?
	And the rest of the time there was no punishment?
	Physically punished, yeah, but there was always the angry, like I said, those little threats, empty threats, just to get me on the edge here.
	I don't know how to really explain.
	But does that make sense to you that only once every eight weeks you would get physically punished?
	I'm not saying you're wrong.
	I'm not saying you're lying at all.
	It just seems unusual to me.
	That means either you are a very compliant child, Yeah, punishment.
	So again, I'm just telling you, it's a little hard for me to understand.
	It doesn't mean that you're wrong or anything, but does it make sense that only once every two months from either of your parents, would you receive any physical punishment?
	I mean, if you're right, you're right.
	I'm just telling you that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but that just could be an outlier.
	Yeah.
	From what I can remember, that's what it is.
	That's what it was.
	I don't remember being excessively beaten when I was young, but I do remember getting hit, that's for sure.
	My dad was a couple of years old, and he had it rough, I guess.
	My mom was from here, you know, I don't know.
	And her, too, she had it rough.
	So, like, you know, they were really, like, always like, you know, we want a better life for you guys.
	You know, we didn't have it that good.
	And then, like, I heard the stories of how badly they were, like, beaten, like, much more than me.
	But, yeah, it doesn't excuse them from the way they did it.
	You know, like, I could still say, like, there was a lot of...
	I had a really good childhood, but, you know, what do I know?
	It's not like I can compare it with another childhood I had in another world, you know?
	But...
	Sorry, so your argument is that you're saying that you had a really good childhood?
	No, I'm not saying I had a really good childhood.
	I have a lot of memories of good times, but I don't know.
	I can only compare myself to other people, I guess.
	No, that's not how you determine whether you had a good or bad childhood, because when you're a child, you can't compare yourself to other people, because you're a child.
	You don't know about other people's childhoods and few people will tell you as a child about other, other kids don't say, well, here's how tough I have it at home, that kind of stuff.
	So as a child, there is your immediate, direct, visceral, felt experience of your childhood.
	Now, when you get to be an adult, you can say, well, there are other people who had it harder and so on, but that's almost always a defense mechanism to deny your own pain.
	You know, if you're hungry, then you can say, well, there are starving children in India, right?
	But that's just a way to make you feel less hungry.
	It doesn't actually feed you.
	It doesn't give you any nutrition.
	So when people say, well, other people had it tougher, what they're doing is they're saying to themselves or to their inner child, what they're saying is, stop complaining.
	Stop feeling bad.
	Get some damn perspective.
	Lots of people had it.
	There are child soldiers in Africa.
	And you're complaining about a little bit of belt action on the ass.
	Well, I don't think that's reasonable because when you're a child, you have your direct experience of your childhood.
	And that needs to be understood.
	That needs to be processed.
	That needs to be experienced.
	It is appalling to hit a child with a belt.
	I know here in Canada, that will land you in jail.
	There's a criminal action.
	To hit a child with an implement.
	You are allowed, in the gracious kindness of the Canadian legal system, to hit a child not in the face with an open hand from the ages of 2 to 12, but you are not allowed to hit a child with implements.
	That is a criminal.
	That's assault.
	It's criminal assault on the most helpless member of society.
	It is an evil, a great evil.
	Now, I don't know why you have an inability to identify a compulsive liar for four to five years.
	I don't know.
	But the first place that I would look to is the degree to which you feel that you have the truth about your own history.
	If we don't know the truth of our own history, we cannot identify liars.
	Because we are not in truth ourselves.
	We are not immersed in truth.
	We don't speak truth with ourselves, with our history, with those around us.
	And if we don't have a true felt moral representation of our own childhood in our own minds, we are susceptible to manipulators, to liars, to bullies, to all these kinds of things.
	Truth is like If you go into a martial arts or a boxing stance, what do you do?
	You spread your feet wide and you root yourself.
	We used to do this in theater school as well.
	Probably the furthest thing from mixed martial arts that you can...
	Hey, some of that Tai Chi was tough, man.
	But you set yourself in a stance which is rooted, right?
	You never see a boxer with his feet pressed close together, right?
	Because he can just be knocked over.
	I mean, you should go into the mixed martial arts ring and the guys spread their legs and...
	They're rooted.
	Well, if you don't want to be pushed over in this world, you have to be rooted.
	And you can only be rooted in the truth.
	Right?
	You cannot box while chest deep in water.
	Or neck deep in water, for that matter.
	You have to be standing on something solid in order to be strong.
	And so you have to be rooted in a true emotional condition.
	Representation of your childhood in order to be free of corrupters and exploiters and so on.
	Look, and I say this like I didn't have a very true representation of my childhood in many ways when I was younger and I was wide open to exploiters and they picked my bones clean like a bunch of vultures.
	And then I When I went to therapy and when I did my journaling work and when I really began to accept what happened to me as a child and to respect the emotional experience of my childhood and to go through all of the disorienting rage and fear and joy and all of that that occurs when you accept what happened to you as a child and that there were things that were wrong,
	desperately wrong.
	I mean, in your case, at least if you were a Canadian, there are things that were outright criminal that were done to you as a child.
	When you accept that, you develop a bulletproof Batman suit against corruptors and liars.
	You do.
	Not only are they not in my life anymore, they don't even try.
	They don't even try to get into my life because they know.
	They know that I don't have my feet pressed together, chest deep in water, easy to push over, easy to submerge.
	They see a sort of strong and confident stance, well-rooted in the accuracy of my history, and they don't even bother.
	And this is what I keep saying about self-defense.
	The point is not to learn how to fight.
	The point is to learn how to be so nobody messes with you.
	Nobody tries to fight you.
	So that's important.
	You know, the people who say negative things about me, yeah, I got six hours of call-in shows.
	Call on in, everybody.
	Call on in.
	Tell me all about your problems with me.
	Let's have a conversation.
	How many of these people do that?
	Well, I think you can judge for yourself.
	So, this is why I ask you questions about your childhood, and this is why I guarantee you that until you get to the truth of your history, you can rotate this guy out, but someone else is just going to rotate himself back in.
	And then you'll spend another half decade not knowing if someone is telling the truth to you or is a compulsive liar.
	If that doesn't terrify you, then this conversation will be of no value to you.
	If it doesn't terrify you that you don't even know whether someone you characterize as a good friend for half a decade, that you don't even know whether he was lying to you all the time or telling you the truth.
	If you don't even know that you're driving very fast blindfolded and then someone tells you, then you've got to hit the brakes and you've got to work to take that blindfold off.
	And so my suggestion would be, you know, read some Alice Miller, read some John Bradshaw, read some Nathaniel Brandon, do some workbooks.
	If you can get a hold of a good therapist, that would be fantastic.
	But you really do need to start to work to get to a true emotional history of your childhood, and that will give you the wide stance that will keep people who are predatory away from you.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
	Because you should be having these conversations with your friends.
	How was your childhood?
	It doesn't mean it's the only thing you can talk about, but it's pretty important, especially when you're young.
	When you're young, you know, now my childhood is 30 years in the past, and it's not like it doesn't mean anything or doesn't matter, but it's less vivid to me now.
	I am more my own person than an inanimate shadow cast by a savage history.
	But when you're young, your childhood, and by that I don't mean, you know, bad things with your parents.
	I mean, that may be part of it, but, you know, most of us had shitty schooling.
	Some of us had religion.
	And, you know, according to Dr.
	Phil, 50% of sibling relationships are characterized as abusive.
	But that, to me, always comes from the parents' perspective.
	But childhood casts a very long and deep shadow.
	When you're young, you should be talking about your childhood with your friends.
	You should be asking them about their childhoods.
	And if you really love each other, if you really care for each other, you should help each other get to the truth about your childhoods.
	And that doesn't mean being each other's therapist.
	A therapist simply came out of a curious conversation.
	Curiosity and conversation really is the root of therapy.
	And one of the great values of therapy, as I've mentioned before, is it helps you to understand how interesting you actually are.
	I didn't feel very interesting when I was younger.
	I felt like I had some wit.
	I had some charm.
	I had some knowledge.
	But I didn't feel really that interesting.
	When I went to therapy for years, I realized that I was actually quite fascinating.
	I was fascinated by myself.
	I was fascinated by my creative process.
	I was fascinated by my language skills.
	I was fascinated by my...
	Allegory and metaphorical talents.
	I was fascinated by my dreams.
	I realized that I am a very deep and wide chamber of scintillating entertainment.
	And that gives you a lot of self-nutrition, of course, right?
	A lot of self-respect.
	So if people are not interested in me, that doesn't make me feel boring, right?
	If people don't want to plumb the depths of this conversation, it tells me that they're shallow, that they're scared, that they're cowardly.
	It doesn't have any relevance in terms of I know how interesting I am because I have really experienced it with an empathetic and curious listener.
	And one of the fundamentals of self-esteem is recognizing how much value you have to bring the world.
	And if you're around people who reject your value all the time, Who lie to you, who diminish you, who aren't curious about your history, who don't call you on the unconscious bullshit that traumatized histories always carry forward.
	Well, then you are going to never learn how interesting you are.
	And a lot of the people who call into this show are blind to their own depth, are blind to their own fascinating, individual, unique, powerful qualities.
	Now, the people who call into these dreams, they call in with dreams.
	One of the reasons that I want to talk about dreams with people is because it's such a deep and powerful well of knowledge.
	That we all carry within us about our culture, about our gods, about our parents, about our schools, our society, our governments, our siblings, our relationships.
	I mean, you listen to the unconscious, bam!
	It nails it.
	It hits across a chasm, a bullseye with a toothpick.
	It is an incredibly accurate and very philosophical part of us because our unconscious doesn't really give a shit about culture.
	It gives a shit about truth, reality, reason.
	And it only has to speak metaphorically because the bullshit of culture is the defense against reality.
	And so I bet that you are full of deep and powerful secrets.
	I bet you are full of deep and powerful truths.
	But when you're around shallow manipulative liars, you will not plumb the depths of that history.
	But in the depths of that history is also the pain of having been hit with a belt 16 to 20 times.
	You know, there's no defense.
	In court for beating your wife with a belt saying, well, I only did it four times a year.
	They don't say, well, okay, then you can go free.
	It just doesn't happen.
	I mean, you do it fucking once and you go to jail.
	And that's the perspective that I would encourage you to explore, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
	Thank you very much for your call.
	I really appreciate that.
	And thank you for your courage in talking about this stuff.
	And I hope that you will think about what I've said and maybe take me up on it.
	Take up the advice to go and talk to someone or certainly start this process of self-discovery.
	The best protection from evil is self-knowledge.
	Yeah, that's for sure.
	Guaranteed.
	Thanks, Kenny.
	Thanks a lot, Seth.
	You're number one, Ron.
	Okay.
	All right, adding Lori via phone.
	Via phone?
	Another phone.
	Wow.
	We should ship these people, like, nice Kleenex box brick phones from 1985 so that they can run Skype.
	Hello, Laurie.
	How are you?
	Well, good morning, Stefan.
	It's been a while.
	I've been waiting for this.
	Obviously, I'm doing very well.
	Thank you.
	First of all, I just want to say thanks to you for all the work that you're doing in the world.
	I really appreciate that.
	Thank you.
	You certainly had an impact on my life, so kudos to you, and keep on, keep on.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	So in terms of a question, what the question's ultimately going to be is, what do you think of this?
	And so what I'd like to do is offer you just a series of considerations, in part on why devas have any concept of God to begin with.
	If that's okay.
	Yeah, fantastic.
	Great topic.
	Yeah, I just listened to your YouTube video on God is Fear of Others, I think, last night.
	So first of all, one of the things that I've become much more sensitive to in the last few years is this idea that we've got these biochemical patterns that are reflection or it's what we relate to as our emotions.
	I'm sorry, we have these which patterns?
	I'm saying that we have the biochemistry.
	Every emotion that we feel is represented in our body as some biochemical molecule.
	There are molecules of emotion and so all of our experiences are very much colored or at least represented to us physically through the biochemical patterns.
	And that those patterns can be addictive, just like taking a drug from the outside, your body kind of gets used to experiencing certain biochemical patterns on the inside.
	Okay.
	Are you following me?
	Okay.
	Yes.
	And this is all backed up by research at this point, so I won't go into the details.
	Candice Pert has done a book called The Molecules of Emotion, and there's a lot more out there.
	So it's pretty well understood within the neuroscience, neurobiology community.
	But when I got that information myself, one of the things that I kind of intuited from all that was that whatever we conceive of in terms of a potential experience we might have in the world or something we might have some desire for or some longing for, that there may be a biochemical root to that, something we've already experienced in the past.
	And one of the things that I started to consider in this framework was our idea of heaven.
	And if you look, you know, even cross-culturally, a lot of people think that heaven is going to be a place where all of our needs are met with no effort of our own.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, absolutely.
	Okay.
	So I started to think to myself, where has that ever been the case in our actual physical lifetimes?
	That we would have this kind of latent memory, this latent intuition of that even being possible to experience life as having all of our needs being met with no effort of our own.
	And my conclusion about that was that, well, that's essentially what's going on in the womb.
	Yeah, assuming we didn't have past lives in resource-based economies, I would agree with you.
	Yeah, so I'm just saying that, because I'm trying to look at our actual, you know, relatively tangible experience of our own human existence that would cause us to even believe that that was possible.
	You know, that there's something being reflected from our own personal experience.
	And so that's the heaven idea to me, that when we're in the womb, you know, There's some part of our brain, and biochemically, there's something going on there biochemically that's imprinting all this experience on us that we recall.
	We have this intuition that, yeah, that's possible.
	It's possible to be in a state where all of your needs are being met with no effort of your own.
	Oh, that was wonderful, and it was floating on a cloud, and I really, really want that again.
	If that's possible to get that again, then I'm going to do whatever it takes to have that experience again.
	Well, and sorry, just to back that up, I think that I've done a show years ago on the Garden of Eden, but very, very briefly, that it's a story, I think, of the Garden of Eden, right?
	Where you open your mouth and fruit falls into it and you never have to work for anything and it's a life of permanent bliss.
	And you're naked except for being covered in your genitals with the fig leaves which obviously is diapers or whatever it is that they would use at the time.
	And then what happens is you gain knowledge of good and evil and that is a transition point from infancy to childhood.
	And then what are you cursed with when you have the knowledge of good and evil?
	you are cursed with childbearing for the woman, which is obviously menstruation and fertility and puberty.
	And you are cursed with work, having to work for a living, which is for a man becoming no longer dependent upon his parents, but becoming his own provider to his family.
	So I think in the Garden of Eden, there is that story, I think it's about outgrowing religion as a whole, but that's neither here nor there at the moment.
	But I think it is a very clear allegory for childhood, right? - Okay, right, right.
	And I'm not going to jump quite that far ahead yet, because we're skipping something I think is really crucial to why we then go on and intuit some kind of God in the world.
	But yes, I mean, I do agree.
	But see, my thinking is, why did we ever come up with a story like that in the first place?
	You know, where did that story come from out of our collective consciousness?
	Well, or even the Garden of Eden story.
	You know, we're trying to explain our experience And we're projecting from the subconscious or unconscious part of ourselves and imagining these possibilities, but where does that come from?
	What is it that we're tapping into of our own experience that then forms itself into these explanatory stories of why we are the way we are now?
	And Daniel Quinn does a pretty good job of looking at the stories that we keep telling ourselves and And what they reflect about our consciousness in the world, our lack thereof.
	But anyway, so that to me, you know, that is basically I'm saying that we all, every human being that's ever been born has had this in the womb experience where everything was being taken care of and there was no effort, not even crying that was necessary for their physiological needs to be met.
	So I think that's part of the reason why there's this inkling and that people can even begin to buy into that possibility is because they actually have experienced that directly themselves.
	Well, let me just pause you for a second.
	I think that this has very good explanatory power with the caveat that although it is a universal experience to be in the womb, it is not a universal experience to be religious, right?
	There are lots and lots of atheists and agnostics and so on.
	I don't want to interrupt if you've got a thought about that, but you can't bring the religion from the commonality of experience because our religious perspectives are different.
	But go ahead.
	Okay.
	But, you know, our perspectives on retirement may not be that different or having some reason for something out there to be taking care of us at some point, you know, but let's hold there because the next stage of development may be more important as well.
	Once we're out of the women, of course, I'm sure you've gone through this with Isabella, right?
	From my understanding, of course, my background's in social science.
	I've done a lot of research in childhood development.
	But one of the other things that I've been thinking about is, again, how we characterize God ideas.
	I'm no longer agreeing that there is a God in the sense that most people characterize God.
	But there is a point, again, in our own life experience, as newborn infants especially, where we are feeling one with everything.
	There is that initial point where, from my understanding, we're in a very deep hypnagogic state, and in general, we are experiencing the world as just a very fluid environment where we're kind of one with everything, and if we should be suffering, we make a call, we cry, and that need is met, whatever it happens to be.
	If we're feeling uncomfortable, then someone does something for us from the outside that relieves that discomfort if we're in a functional, you know, caretaking situation.
	And yet there's not a clear definition of who or what that is that's responding to our needs, and yet I'm assuming, this is theory, that when we're infants like that, we feel omnipotent, we feel omniscient, we feel like we are like God, you know, and that becomes our characterization of God at some other point.
	But the other part of that is this sense of being in control of things.
	Hang on a sec.
	I'm having trouble with the idea that a baby feels omniscient.
	I realize this is the thing.
	From my understanding, children really don't make that distinction between me and the other or when they start going through their separation anxiety.
	They're not really recognizing a lot of distinction between themselves before they get their ego boundaries and everything else and everyone else around them.
	Yeah, it's what Freud called this oceanic feeling of oneness, of blurred boundaries, no self, no other.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, so Freud called it.
	But I don't, I just, because I think what you're saying is the baby feels like God.
	And I don't think that's true because the baby recognizes how helpless the child himself or herself is, which is why they need to cry.
	I think that the supplication of God, Have my needs met that I can't meet myself and I need to cry or beg or laugh or chortle or manipulate others into giving me my needs?
	That has always struck me more as the position of a religious supplicant, of a person preying on his needs for some all-powerful entity to give him his requirements.
	So I just, again, this is tough stuff to prove, but I think that if the argument is that the baby feels more like God, I think the baby's helplessness is pretty clear to the baby, which is why they have to manipulate others into getting their needs met.
	And manipulate is not the right word, but it's the closest one I can think of.
	And I think that's more like a religious adherent than a deity.
	Go ahead, sorry.
	Well, let's just leave it open for possibility, because I don't know that it's been defined scientifically yet, exactly what that experience is for children.
	I would guess that if their needs are not met appropriately, then that would definitely reinforce a sense of impotence instead of omnipotence.
	If their parents aren't responding to those needs appropriately, then they're going to feel their dependency that much more and be threatened by that.
	But if their needs are being met, and if all it really takes is a good cry for them to get people to respond and those needs are being met, I guess my point is, as far as I understand it right now, they're still not really making a distinction between I and the other.
	It's happening in kind of a magical way that those needs are being met.
	It's not a really clear-cut experience one way or the other.
	Because there really is no definition of I and them.
	It's just happening.
	And I can see just as easily, like, I mean, I understand your point of view that this is, you know, potentially a religious supplicant begging someone else, but there's not even another else there yet for children until they start really developing those eco-boundaries and recognizing that there are others there.
	And even at that point, they're not recognizing right away that those others have needs of their own.
	That those others are not omnipotent beings who can just manifest whatever they need to manifest to take care of the child's needs.
	Well, sorry, I will certainly agree with you that...
	Infants don't recognize that the caregivers have needs of their own.
	In fact, it would be disastrous for a baby to do that because they'd say, well, I'm hungry, but I don't want to wake up my parents because they need to sleep.
	You just cry because you're hungry.
	But I do think that the babies, I mean, from my experience, and I was, you know, there's not a trump card or anything, but I have at least some, hopefully, some credibility in having been a stay-at-home dad throughout infancy.
	My daughter definitely knew that I was not her.
	The whole point of crying is knowing that you can't satisfy your own needs and you need some other entity to do that.
	Who's not you?
	Right?
	The whole act of crying is the recognition of the other.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Okay.
	Are you really certain about that, though?
	Or do you think that that crying is just a spontaneous, you know, I'm comfortable.
	It's a natural biological thing.
	Instinctive response to cry out and that would be across you know all the animal populations every you know every well but but we know that babies sorry but we know that babies who's we know that babies whose needs are not met stop crying so it is adaptive to whether or not it meet I think initially yeah they come out of the womb they cry because they're uncomfortable but if the needs are not met the baby stop crying and so we know that the crying that continues continues because they know that it gets a need met from something else or some other entity And
	that's just a minor tweak.
	I don't want to interrupt your flow as a whole.
	I just wanted to sort of mention that, but go ahead.
	Well, but, okay, so coming out of the—well, all right, well, let's just follow the—like I said, it's just a line of thinking about it, and I appreciate your—I want to get your feedback on it, to challenge it, or, you know, one way—it's just something to me that, again, as you said, could have explanatory power as to why we would ever, like I said, conceive of a god— That's omniscient and omnipotent based on our own personal experience.
	That's kind of what I'm going back to.
	That it's a projection from what we have experienced ourselves.
	Okay.
	However, once the child does start to realize that they are not omnipotent, That they're not necessarily in control of everything, that there are separate others out there, and that their needs aren't always being met, you know, as soon as they need them to be met, and that they aren't nearly as in control of things as they thought they were, or they were experiencing themselves to be in some kind of, you know, hyper-psychic state or whatever.
	That, to me, is when being a human being becomes problematic.
	And do you mean this becomes problematic for everyone?
	As an individual, you know, when we start to look at the experience of being human, I feel like it becomes particularly problematic when we realize we're not in control of everything around us.
	And so part of what I'm trying to address here, Stefan, is the tendency and the profound, you know, cultural attitude Towards the experience of being human, and as it's reflected in religion, as being sinful, as being bad, as being a problem, as being, you know, fundamentally something less than it is.
	And I think as infants, young infants, when we start to realize we are not in control of things anymore, or we never really were, I mean, I just think we just misperceive that experience as children.
	But it's deep, you know, it's a deep programming subconsciously and biochemically.
	And there's something we want to go back to.
	We want to grasp that.
	We want to feel in control of things again.
	And there's a certain amount of adjustment that has to take place when we realize we're not.
	And again, as you said, when we realize our needs and the needs of others don't always coincide, and there's just so much development that has to take place to overcome.
	So I guess part of the reason I've gotten to thinking about this this way is With the question, why would we ever think that we had any right whatsoever to try to control other people?
	You know, where did we ever have that experience?
	And I imagine, well, I used to be in control.
	Why can't I be in control now?
	I know what it feels like to be in control, but now I'm not in control.
	How do I get that back?
	And again, it becomes very problematic at that point.
	And then being human isn't so much fun anymore.
	And I'm willing to accept that somebody tells me, you know, you're sinful from the time that you're born, or human beings are cancer to the world, and all these other ideas that come out of that.
	It's because at some point in our own experience, we recognize how difficult it is to be human.
	But there's also that memory of what it was like To be omnipotent and what it was like to feel like you're completely in control of everything.
	And again, I think there's a biochemical pattern associated with that that we can become addicted to.
	And then if we're not very conscious of it, we project that into the world in our ways of trying to control everything else around us and other people around us.
	That's just, again, it's just a theory.
	No, and it's a very interesting theory.
	A very interesting theory.
	I don't want to interrupt if you have more to add to it.
	I think that gets to maybe one of the roots of the problems.
	And again, what I'm...
	Okay, so let me just add this because I think this is the next...
	Well, what...
	Okay, so if all this is...
	It's so much of...
	And again, you know, this goes back to whenever we started to be conscious in certain ways of our experience of human organisms and, you know, all this projection has taken place.
	And I guess one of the points I need to make is that To the degree that a lot of this we've experienced unconsciously, you know, or subconsciously or in the hypnagogic state, so it's very, what's the word, kind of intangible in a lot of ways.
	It's not particularly rational, and it's not something that we do bring fully to consciousness, so that instead it gets projected, you know, psychically into the world in terms of our art, in terms of our religion, and in terms of just, you know, our way of conceiving reality It's kind of projected.
	But then, and this is very interesting to me, once those projections are out there of, you know, the God types or whatever it is, we then, as a culture and as individuals, start to re-internalize what we have projected.
	And then you get into this weird loop of first projecting from that unconscious experiences from infancy.
	And then as an adult, re-internalizing that to say, oh yes, this is who I am, this is what I'm all about, or this is what this person, or however we define other people.
	And for instance, let me offer this.
	So in the stories about Jesus, well my understanding, whether it's historically accurate or not, was that Jesus was raised in a community that had, and something you mentioned in the God is the Fear of Others talk too, that that information about The role he was supposed to play as a Messiah was completely available to him.
	I mean, he was knowledgeable about the Jewish text.
	He knew what the prophets had said.
	He knew what the role was that he was supposed to play as a Messiah, and he identified with that and played out that role.
	It wasn't like it stemmed from him innately, and it was just from a complete fog of having any understanding of what was expected of him.
	And I see this even now in terms of how we identify with other roles that we play in society.
	But they're initial projections and then we re-internalize them.
	And I want to see if there's a way that we can kind of stop that process and appreciate who we are as human beings and as biological organisms on this planet that are truly, in and of ourselves, amazing.
	I mean, as biological organisms, human beings are really incredible.
	And I think to the extent that we have idealized some other state, some, you know, metaphysical state that is a higher expression of our humanity, in part because that's kind of what we thought we had at one point.
	And we really ground ourselves in what is amazing about just being an ordinary human being That we can move forward from there in ways that we've otherwise been crippled by trying to embody some other idealized, spiritual, whatever, when really this experience of being human is phenomenal in and of itself.
	Right.
	Well, yesterday, Mike and I and his wife went down to the Students for Liberty conference.
	I gave a speech Where I was quite honored to have the director of Fee, Lawrence Reed, in the audience.
	It's like singing to Freddie Mercury.
	It was a very enjoyable speech.
	And on the way down, we took the subway in, because who wants to drive in Toronto?
	And on the wall of the subway, like above the doors, there are these ads.
	Because, you know, it's taxpayer supported, so they need ads.
	And One of them was, you know, here's what happens when you accept Jesus into your life.
	And it was a man reaching for a very leggy girl with shorts on, which seemed a little creepy.
	But anyway, I read it, and I was, you know, again, I'm always fascinated by this kind of stuff.
	And it was basically, you know, Jesus will love you no matter what you've done.
	Jesus will love you no matter who you are.
	Jesus will love you no matter what your history is.
	And that, of course, is the desire for the unearned, right?
	Jesus' love is like the welfare state of the hungry soul, right?
	I mean, you will get money without earning it.
	Yeah, you will get money without earning it, and you will get love from...
	And of course, why would you want a love that has nothing to do with who you are?
	Well, because you don't think that you can earn it, right?
	Obviously, right?
	And why would you want money that is forcibly taken from other people and given to you?
	Because you're desperate...
	And you don't feel like you can earn it.
	And of course, money is not something that you have to earn through working.
	You can earn money through virtue, right?
	So there's all these questions in the US about, well, how do people pay for healthcare?
	I know this sounds like a tangent.
	It's not really.
	Well, how are people going to pay for healthcare?
	Well, you know, when I got sick earlier this year, I didn't ask for donations, but donations came in that covered the cost of my healthcare.
	Why?
	Because people care about...
	What I'm doing and they want me to continue doing because there's a lot of affection.
	So because I'm bringing, you know, love, wisdom, hopefully intelligence and all that to the world, people will pay for my health care, which was great.
	And it was a great example of how health care can be paid for.
	The requirement is that you actually contribute something positive to the world.
	But why would you want money without either contributing positively and gaining the reciprocity of charity or going out to earn it yourself?
	Because you don't believe you have anything to offer.
	So it was interesting to read all of that.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I was just going to say, but part of that to me goes back to that idea that you want to recover that feeling of having everything taken care of with no effort.
	But to me, that is like saying, I want to go back to grade one if I graduate it.
	Right?
	I mean, because when you are a child, when you're an infant, you do want to and you should get everything without effort, right?
	So somebody posted on the message board the other day.
	They said, well, how do you – how are you supposed to reason with an infant?
	Like, I mean, so you say negotiate with your children, but, you know, it takes a couple of years for your children to be able to negotiate.
	Well, I don't know.
	Maybe – And you have to transcend yourself in that process, by the way.
	You have to what?
	You have to transcend yourself in that process.
	I mean, it's no longer about you and your needs.
	It's about your child.
	It's not about your needs, absolutely, for sure.
	And so to me, there's a very great difference between the needs that are met and the needs that are not met.
	I believe that if your needs are not met early in life, you stay hungry until you're dead.
	And if your needs are met early in your life, you stay full until you're dead.
	And you can't sell food to somebody who's already full.
	I mean, you can't sell a meal in a restaurant to somebody who just had a big and great meal in a restaurant.
	And so, to me, thinking about that poster in the subway, what are they trying to sell?
	Well, they're trying to sell unconditional love.
	When should you have had unconditional love as a baby?
	If you did have unconditional love as a baby, you're full for the rest of your life because your personality is formed on that plenty.
	And then somebody saying, well, I'll love you no matter what, is someone who's trying to sell you a meal in a restaurant when you just had a great meal in a restaurant.
	You can say, I don't want it.
	I'm full.
	I don't need it.
	I'm full.
	But if you're hungry, then people can sell you that food that should have been provided to you when you were a baby.
	And I think that difference between having the needs met and having the needs not met, I think, is fundamental and explains, I think, to some degree why some people are more susceptible to the offering of religion and some people are less susceptible.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	I mean, I don't disagree with you on that at all.
	I guess, you know, even, but what I've sensed anyway, and even in my own life experience, is that lingering, you know, wish, oh, you know, I just wish everything could be taken care of, or I could be taken care of better, or whatever.
	And from my point of view now, you know, I see that as a You know, kind of the addiction to that earlier experience of having all your needs being met.
	And there's a point where you literally, well, have to grow out of that, whether you grow out of it naturally because you do get the care that you need from your parents and it's a normal functional process of human maturing over time, or you may not get that as an infant.
	And as I feel I did as a more mature adult, I had to kind of go back and re-parent myself as an individual and give myself the unconditional love that I needed.
	And I think, as I've mentioned multiple times on the chat room, Alice Miller's book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, really highlighted that to me in terms of mourning the loss of my unhappy childhood and acknowledging that my parents were the only ones who were obligated to love me unconditionally.
	And if they didn't do that, then it was nobody else's responsibility to do that, and if anything, I had to do that for myself.
	So I've gone from that place of needing that kind of unconditional love and then realizing that, no, I was never going to get it in a way that I had needed it as a child, but that I could move forward from there and continue to mature, and I think I have significantly.
	So I'm not in that place anymore in my life where I am I'm trying to be taken care of, you know, trying to have all those needs met with no effort.
	I'm totally willing to put out the effort.
	You know, I'm totally acknowledging that that's part of being a human being, is to have to work and to put out effort in order to meet your basic needs, and then if you aspire to do anything more than that, it's going to take even more effort.
	So you have to be willing to put out that effort, and it's worth it.
	You know, I've totally experienced the worth of I'm committing myself to that effort in life.
	And it's not like, oh God, you know, it's so terrible, you know, I've got to make this effort.
	No, it's just you stop resisting the need for life, the demand for that expression in the world from yourself, and you move on with it.
	And it's like building muscles.
	You know, the more weight you lift, the more resistance you've had to deal with, the more work you've had to do, the stronger your muscles get, and the easier and easier all those responsibilities in life become.
	So...
	I've moved beyond that, but I still see, you know, this is just my contribution to the dialogue.
	I still see, you know, pervasive attitudes about the problem, you know, of being human, the dilemma with being human.
	And that gets, you know, when I see somebody saying, you know, with response to something terrible that we're doing to the environment or whether, you know, human beings are just terrible, you know, human beings are terrible.
	Oh, that to me so obviously comes from a primary caregiver who did not want the child to be there.
	I would be better off if you'd never been born.
	I mean, that to me is...
	That's just a pure projection from that kind of stuff.
	And I think that level of completeness and self-knowledge that you have is, you know, not to be overly sycophantic, but that's one of the main reasons why I think I've always so enjoyed your contributions to this conversation, is that you do have that level of self-knowledge and completion with earlier phases that gives you a clearer perspective Thank
	you.
	Well, I tell you what, I know what I've offered to you, obviously, is challenging some of your point of view, especially on the part about the infant being the supplicant to the God types around them as caregivers.
	But I want you to think about that a little bit more and see...
	I do.
	It's a great idea.
	Yeah, if you can imagine that there could potentially be a feeling of omnipotence there, and that might be something that we then, again, like I said, end up projecting as something outside of ourselves when it was something that we actually experienced ourselves, if only for a brief period of time and if only in a way that we more or less misinterpreted it because we...
	We didn't have the full cognitive functioning to accurately assess our experience.
	And so anyway, it's going to be interesting to see how that continues to evolve, even in my own thinking.
	I would certainly mull that over.
	I think that's a really great idea.
	I'm going to read a few paragraphs from...
	My book, Against the Gods, I think it's some of the most important stuff I've ever written.
	People don't talk about it very much.
	I don't know if they just find it all too convincing or haven't read it at all, but the book is free.
	It's available at freedomradio.com forward slash free.
	So this is from my book, Against the Gods.
	This is Why Gods?
	It is helpful but not essential for atheism to explain why the concept of gods is so widespread and prevalent among mankind.
	The 10,000 or so gods that lie scattered across the past and present cultures of our species must represent some form of universal content or meaning for this fantasy to be so widespread.
	In general, religion has gone through four major phases.
	The first was animism or the idea that every rock and leaf and tree was imbued with a spiritual force.
	In this approach, a farmer would profusely apologize to a rock before moving it out of the way of his plow.
	It is fairly easy to understand that this arose from a fundamental confusion between what is living and what is not, or what has consciousness and what does not.
	A man who thinks that a rock deserves an apology lives in an extremely primitive state of mind wherein the division between his own consciousness and inanimate matter has not yet been established.
	My 18-month-old daughter is losing the habit of saying hello to the toilet and her bath and her toes, which gives you a sense of how primitive this phase is.
	In the second phase of religion, the distinction between living and not living becomes established and a multiplicity of deities that are specifically and thoroughly anthropomorphic take refuge somewhere above the clouds or on the peak of a mountain, sucking up in their wake all of the projected consciousness that formerly resided in rocks and trees and rivers.
	This is a vast improvement in accuracy, not to mention sanity, in that the differentiation between conscious and unconscious becomes established in a much wider sphere.
	In the third phase, the warring multiplicity of gods is in a sense hunted down, rounded up, and herded into one big squirming bag of pseudo-monitheism.
	The former glorious rivalry of the ancient Greek religions becomes diluted and caged into a tyrannical hierarchy of a single, inhuman, and utterly abstract god.
	This phase contains a variety of insurmountable tensions, which inevitably fragment the new monotheism into an even more bizarre version of the older polytheism, such as the Holy Trinity and the thousands of saints.
	In the fourth phase, religion becomes a set of more or less convincing fairy tales wherein obedience to a complete text is not required, but followers can pick and choose what they like according to their own personal preferences and tastes.
	And God is turned into a sort of ideological lapdog which trails after the prejudices of the believer, imbuing his own personal bigotries with a vague glow of eternal approval.
	In all these phases, there is a deep and consistent sense of a vast and powerful consciousness that lies outside the range of our conscious ego, which contains deep and mysterious elements of eternity, which existed before us and will continue to exist after us, which informs and guides many, if not most, which existed before us and will continue to exist after us, which informs and guides many, if not most, of our decisions, reveals its purposes and intentions through visions and dreams, frustrates our vices and supports our virtues,
	It is scarcely a novel insight to point out that our minds are divided between our conscious ego and our subconscious.
	Our conscious ego needs little explanation.
	It is the self-aware part of us that responds to willpower, focus, attention, and has direct access to the memories that we have accumulated in our lifetimes.
	It is a precise and astoundingly powerful tool that in a very real sense can be called the most mortal part of ourselves, since it grows and develops with us and will certainly die with us, as will all of our personal memories.
	However, there exists below consciousness, or surrounding consciousness, the subconscious.
	Whose processing power dwarfs the puny efforts of our conscious mind, and which also contains an element of eternity within itself.
	Our conscious memories are specific to our own lives, as are our more conscious choices and plans.
	I may dream at night of something I experienced that day, but the capacity for the experience of dreaming is not something that I have chosen, but rather something that my subconscious mind has developed and inherited and refined over millions of years.
	The subconscious mind, which controls everything from our heart rate to our breathing to the increasing uneasiness we experience when in a dangerous situation we have not yet noticed consciously, is like an eternal guardian angel or avenging devil if we have done evil, which is constantly prodding us with interfering emotions and sensations,
	discouraging us with fear and guilt, spurring us on with desire and pleasure, lecturing us about our choices in nightly dreams, Whipping us on with short-term lust while simultaneously cautioning us with fears about the long-term stability of our sexual partners to name just a few When we think of religion,
	we think of a puny consciousness, that of man, embedded in an eternal, infinite, and seemingly omniscient consciousness, which never shows itself directly, but which takes an enormous interest in us and evaluates our choices and preferences and rewards us and punishes us and responds in maddeningly oblique ways to our direct and painful supplications.
	Gods are also experienced as existing before us and living on after us, which directly relates to the quasi-eternal nature of the subconscious, which existed prior to our conscious mind and memories, even in the individual, and which is the ancient foundation upon which the temple of our ego was built.
	The mind of God is also considered to be vastly superior to that of man.
	Is this not also an exact description of the subconscious whose processing power has been estimated as 7,000 times that of the conscious mind?
	Man is considered to be a creation of God, and God is a deep and eternal consciousness that has existed forever.
	Is this not an exact description of the relationship between the conscious ego and the subconscious?
	As a species and in our own lives, our ego evolves out of our subconscious, which is why we cannot remember our very early years.
	I have an arm, which I can call my arm in a sense, but it is not really my arm because it existed before I experienced an I. My arm preceded me since it developed in the womb, and my ego had no part in its planning or creation, but rather my ego grew out of my body many years later.
	My arm...
	My body and my subconscious existed before me and certainly my body will exist after me though my ego will not be around to watch it decompose.
	Thus when we say that man is created by God what we really mean is that the ego is created by the body which precedes the ego both individually and collectively.
	My arm preceded my consciousness by years and the human arm in general preceded my particular arm by millions of years.
	It is in this sense that we are in fact created by an eternal pattern that precedes us.
	However, primitively we may have anthropomorphized this basic truth.
	So that's just a sort of brief bit from the book, which I hope people will read.
	It is free, and I think it's very useful.
	It's not a final full answer, but I think it ties into what you're saying, that we experience the world in an unconscious state first, and we retain that sense of the power of the unconscious and what creates us over time.
	I think that has a lot to do with why we are in some ways susceptible to the idea of a deity.
	Right.
	Now, and I would add to that, though, that...
	To the degree that your conscious mind becomes more fully integrated with your subconscious and that you're in relationship with that in a more conscious way, I think that brings you, you know, if there's anything to being enlightened,
	I think the only thing that's really going on in the world still to such a great degree is that we are projecting our subconscious mind Outside of ourselves, that we persist in thinking that this is something outside of me.
	And even, you know, I come into a relationship with my higher power, and yet, you know, there are, of course, other points of view on that now.
	No, you know, God is inside you, but we've still got this characterization of what God is to begin with before we decide on whether that's inside of us or not.
	And I think what is inside of us is our biology, is our biochemistry, is everything that's evolved in I have that book, and I have not read it.
	I've had it for years, and I've been meaning to read it.
	I know Dawkins says it's either really brilliant or completely insane, but I haven't read it yet.
	I really mean to, but time is pressing.
	Okay.
	Well, I have read it.
	And I read it right after I came out of realizing that my mother was paranoid schizophrenic and that our whole early life together had been kind of one big hallucination of hers, which included our being prophets sent here to save the world from drugs, prostitution, and witchcraft that had been infiltrated here by the communists and that the mafia was out to kill us.
	She was pretty florid, I guess, right?
	I'm very sorry about that.
	It's okay.
	I'm over it.
	But The Origin of Consciousness, when I read it, it helped me to kind of put her way of perceiving reality into perspective.
	I at least was open to accepting the possibility that part of that brain functioning is a throwback to a more primitive version of ourselves in terms of how we relate it to the world and how the brain works.
	The two different hemispheres of the brain actually were communicating and hallucinating between the two of them.
	It's an interesting theory.
	I don't know how it may or may not be quantified in scientific research, but it definitely put a frame around my own experiences with my mother and helped me to at least conceive of the possibility that this was more of a throwback to our earlier functioning.
	And it does, I think, also Yeah, go ahead.
	I think for me, Laurie, the purpose of maturity is to withdraw projections from the world and to recognize the simple fact that what is inside your head is inside your head and to stop projecting things onto the world.
	I think one of the great things about the approach that I think we're both taking is the unified field theory of philosophy is something which explains both religion and totalitarianism, that explains both theology or theocracy and, say, communism and fascism and the welfare state.
	That, to me, is what We're aiming for something which has explanatory power for all of these things and unmet the early needs in childhood resulting in a yearning for a state which takes care of you or a God who takes care of you is two sides of the same coin.
	If people have their early childhood needs met, then they are going to grow up with honor, with integrity, with peace, and they will not want something for nothing.
	You know, I said recently that the history of politics is the history of assholes in hats offering you something for nothing.
	Guess now they have suits.
	Why is it that we have A desire to get something for nothing.
	Why is it that we have a yearning that when somebody comes and offers and says, I'm going to take care of you, why do we respond to that?
	Because we have unmet childhood needs.
	The power of demagoguery, the power of sophistry, the power of oratory is to evoke and provoke unmet childhood needs, which then the demagogue offers to satisfy through some sort of power that is either state-based or religion-based. which then the demagogue offers to satisfy through some sort If the childhood needs are met, then the demagogue has no power.
	He is attempting to sell a bad meal to a person full of great food.
	And this is why I keep saying, you know, to argue politics may be interesting, may be fun.
	But if politics is, as seems to be the case, fairly well demonstrated in psychological experiment, after psychological experiment, if politics and religion are a confused and hysterical way to attempt to bypass legitimate grieving for unmet childhood needs, then there's no argument in the world that will then there's no argument in the world that will break that matrix.
	The only thing that can occur… It's self-knowledge, it's therapy, and the only thing which will prevent its recurrence is better parenting, which is why I'm happy to have the arguments about politics and ethics with the full knowledge that the goal of it is to unmask unmet childhood needs and to get people into some sort of self-knowledge program, whether it's self or administered or administered by others.
	And that way, the demagogue will lose his power.
	But you will not beat back the avoidance of unmet childhood needs through reason.
	As they say famously, you can't reason people out of beliefs they weren't reasoned into.
	And that, I think, has been my goal for many years.
	Yeah.
	The only other thing I would say is those demagogues are nevertheless acting out their desire to control everything.
	That's a very good point.
	I hadn't thought of that.
	You know, to be in control of other people or whatever, and they're just exercising that capacity that they've created out of whatever they've done with their lives to control other people.
	You have an admirable ability to empathize with demagogues, which is probably something I should work on because I think I have – viewing this as my mortal enemy, I think I have a bit more trouble empathizing with them.
	But that is an excellent point.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And I have seen – in fact, I have a little bit of a concern right now because – You've got your extremists who want to do some kind of violent overthrow of the government, and then you've got the government trying to control, and they're both afraid of each other.
	They're both sitting in this place of paranoia about the other, and yet there's actually a vast majority of the people in the middle who don't care, who aren't trying to manipulate and control and do all that kind of stuff, and yet if you get those two extremes in conflict with each other, we all get caught up in it.
	We all get caught up in the middle of that, and yet they're actually both operating from more or less the same paranoid, kind of fearful, disassociated place.
	And I've been kind of on both ends of that in terms of just people that I know to see that they're actually operating from the same point of view, and the rest of the population gets caught in the middle of that.
	And so somehow we've got to make sure that the rest of the population positions themselves so that neither of those two sides can really We get into conflict with each other because that could be really, really messy, and it would not be good for the world.
	Beautifully put.
	Beautifully put.
	Well, thank you.
	I'm sure we could chat all day.
	We do have another 1,200 callers, but thank you so much.
	You are welcome to call in any time.
	I massively value your contributions, and thank you so much for sharing.
	Okay.
	Thank you, Sivan.
	And there is a whole other subject, but you're right.
	We don't have time for it today, so we'll get to that another time.
	Absolutely.
	Thank you.
	All right, Ali.
	You're up next today, Ali.
	Go ahead.
	Hello, Stefan?
	Hello, how are you doing?
	Very good, thank you.
	I got a question about introversion and extroversion.
	I don't think I've heard a lot about...
	I don't think I've heard you talk about it.
	I don't think.
	Maybe I missed something, but...
	And my question is, where does it come from?
	Is it a preference, or is it an effect from childhood, or is it just your personality?
	What do you think the causal factor of determining whether or not you become more introverted or extroverted?
	Well, can you tell me what you mean?
	I mean, these are pretty broad terms.
	Can you tell me what you mean by introversion and extroversion?
	Yeah, what I mean by introversion is, you know, feeling at most comfortable with a few people and talking about deep subjects.
	And, you know, you get energy by, you know, spending time with less people and more people, I guess.
	And the opposite, well, this is my definition, maybe, I don't know.
	This is how I view it.
	And extroverted is more like, you know, outgoing and just enjoying bigger groups of people.
	And the more the merrier.
	And, you know, that's what you're craving for.
	I don't crave for it.
	I'm more of an introverted person.
	I crave for more solitude and less people in my surrounding, I guess.
	Because in my surrounding I feel like the black sheep.
	I don't feel like I fit in in that sense.
	I don't enjoy going to parties and such.
	I don't know if that is a problem or if it's just what I don't like to do.
	What do you dislike about parties?
	You know, I get very uncomfortable.
	And I guess I'm afraid, really, by many people.
	And I can't have any conversation, really.
	I feel...
	I don't know.
	It's...
	I don't know.
	It's difficult to explain, maybe, but I think I feel frightened.
	I think I'm having trouble starting conversation, and the conversation is not of my interest.
	I never get to delve deep into subjects, because...
	Maybe I go to the wrong parties or whatever, but I have trouble connecting with people, I guess, maybe.
	Do you find that it's harder to keep people's attention at a party?
	Like they get distracted more easily?
	Yeah.
	Like, you know, you're trying to talk to someone and they're looking around the room the whole time and it's really fucking annoying when people do that.
	And it's pretty tragic.
	I always feel like, well, I'll talk to you.
	Like, I had a guy I knew when I was younger.
	And, you know, I'd say, hey, you know, let's get together this weekend, right?
	And he'd say, well, I'll let you know Friday whether I can get together Saturday.
	And...
	I kind of knew what that was all about, which was he was basically saying, I think it'll be fun with you on Saturday, but just in case I get a better offer between now and Friday, I'm going to not commit to you until I find out whether I have a better offer to hang out.
	And so after this happened a couple of times, I kind of asked him about it.
	He was pretty evasive.
	And I basically said, you know, okay, well, I... If I'm not on your list of people who's fun enough, like if you can get a better offer and dump me, okay, well then let's just not make plans.
	Because what happens is then I might be left without something to do Saturday because you get a better offer.
	And basically what he meant was I said, hang out with you if I can't get a date.
	That's sort of what he was talking about.
	And I'm like, hey, don't let me crimp your style, player.
	So go have your dates and we'll wait to some other time where you're not going to be trading me in for a date at the last minute.
	And it's just sort of, you know, keeping people's attention can sometimes be a problem.
	And I mentioned this in a show recently, but this happened with Isabella chatting with a four-year-old boy.
	And the four-year-old boy asked her what color her kitties wore that she had.
	And she started answering him and he started looking around the room and all that, being kind of distracted.
	And she said, hey, I need you to listen.
	You ask me a question.
	I'm trying to respond.
	I really need you to listen to me.
	And he seemed kind of startled because, you know, and I had that phase with her where she would try and tell me a story.
	She'd be looking all over the room and I'd say, hey, hey, eye contact, eye contact.
	You're telling me something here.
	Don't look all the way around the room.
	I need her to be able to be in herself and talking while being connected to someone else, right?
	So the very odd thing or a way of, not an odd thing, a way of putting it that may be helpful is that if you grow up As a child in an environment where you don't negotiate, then negotiation is two people present in the conversation trying to connect on meeting needs.
	When you don't negotiate, then it becomes win-lose.
	A win-lose situation.
	And a win-lose situation is the parent gets their way and you don't get your way.
	You get your way and the parent doesn't get their way.
	And I think that both of these lead to the dualities of either introversion or extroversion.
	So for the most part, introversion has to do with finding other people's needs and preferences dominant in your personality and therefore you need to limit your exposure to other people because other people's needs kind of erase you.
	The extroversion or the being the center of attention or the life of the party or the class clown and so on has to do with, I don't want to be erased.
	If I'm not the center of attention, then I feel invisible.
	But once you're the center of attention, that kind of erases other people.
	And so I think in both introversion and extroversion, there is a lack of two people present in the conversation emotionally connecting and Introversion is I will listen to other people.
	And extroversion is other people will listen to me.
	And I think that...
	This is not to say there do seem to be some biological tendencies towards either perspective, although biological tendencies, given how much the womb shapes the personality, it's hard to know whether that's environmental or genetic.
	But I would say that if you didn't have a lot of...
	If you didn't have consistent negotiation with your parents, and we generally don't get it with priests or with teachers...
	But if you didn't at least have consistent negotiation with your parents and your siblings when you were a child, then relationships become win-lose, which seems to me somewhat of the distinction or differentiation between introversion and extroversion.
	Introversion is other people win and I lose, and extroversion is I win and other people lose.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, I guess.
	Yeah, because, you know, the concept of having a, you know, mutual kind of, how do you put it?
	Conversation.
	So a mutual benefit, a mutual discussion and so on, right?
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	That is a completely foreign concept from where I come from.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I would examine that, and I mean, I think the best way to overcome it, I mean, I was, I had sort of both elements of that when I was a kid.
	When I was a kid, I was quite introverted.
	I just loved nothing better than to read or play on my own, but I could get to the extroverted situation, right?
	So when I wrote about this in one of my novels that I was reading Emil and the Detectives when I was a kid, and the teacher got upset with me and told me to come up and take over the classroom, and I went up and I It was Friday and I put the next day's date on the classroom board and the kids started joking saying, well, that's tomorrow.
	And I said, well, if it's tomorrow, then it must be Saturday.
	There's no school.
	Class dismissed!
	And I sort of made these jokes about that and the teacher, of course, escalated from there.
	So I was sort of introverted, but when called upon to do something public, I could do that too, which I think is one of the reasons why I can give a good speech and also very interested in self-knowledge.
	So I do think that if there are biological tendencies towards one or the other, negotiation will tend to smooth those out a little bit.
	But if there are biological tendencies towards one or the other and there's not negotiation but win-lose within the environment...
	Then, you know, there does tend to be more older siblings or extroverts, and that's because they may lose with their parents, but they'll always win with their younger siblings.
	And so there may be that particular pattern as well.
	So I hope that makes some sense.
	And, you know, the best cure, I think, is just keep working on negotiation in your relationships.
	Thank you.
	You're very welcome.
	Great, great question.
	All right, Svetoslav, you're next.
	Go ahead.
	Hello?
	Yes, how are you doing, man?
	So, I got for...
	I saw your video on determinism versus free will, and what I remarked, what I... And I thought a bit about it.
	And your final argument that settled the question was that if people had no free will, they would be like TV, so there would be no point to argue with them, right?
	I don't know if that's my final argument.
	That's certainly one of the arguments, yeah.
	That's how you close the discussion.
	And the counterargument that I thought of was that the most common metaphor for the human brain isn't a TV that just broadcasts, but the computer.
	And you came from the software field, so you can't say that you didn't interact with computers, that interacting with computers is pointless, and free will isn't, most people don't ascribe free will to computers.
	Okay, so your argument is that human brains are like computers?
	Yes.
	And you interact with computers, therefore that's the same as debating a person?
	Not entirely, but it's pretty similar.
	Okay, so no, listen, this is easy peasy.
	Sorry, this is very easy.
	So what I'll do is I'll just take a short break.
	I'm, of course, running this through a computer.
	I will just take a short, like, one-minute break, and you can have a debate with my computer.
	Hang on, I'll turn the sound up.
	Okay, go for it.
	I mean, it's not totally the same, but it has similarities.
	No, but it's somewhat the same.
	So you just won't have a very high-level debate, but some level of debate.
	So, like with me, maybe you'd have 100% debate.
	Maybe with a computer, you'll have 70% debate.
	But, I mean, I'd be, man, I'd be really impressed if my computer could do that.
	I mean, I could make a lot of money.
	We'd pass the Turing test and everything.
	So, go ahead.
	For example, if I were a hacker trying to hack your computer...
	Wait, sorry, sorry.
	I don't think you're...
	Wait, are you talking to me or debating with my computer?
	To you.
	Okay, why are you not debating with my computer?
	Because...
	I mean...
	It's...
	It doesn't have voice recognition, for example.
	Oh, no, no.
	I have Dragon, naturally speaking.
	I will turn that on.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	And I'll turn the mic towards the speaker.
	Okay, I've just loaded the profile.
	Great program, by the way.
	Okay, it's got voice recognition, and the microphone is now turned.
	Hang on, bring the speaker up to the microphone.
	Okay, go ahead.
	but it can't further even if it even if I it recognized my words it still wouldn't be
	it also wouldn't be computer language yeah Oh, so you mean if you could program the computer, you could have a debate with it?
	Because you could tell it exactly what to do, it would do exactly what you tell it to, and that would be a debate?
	Sometimes not.
	If you are behind a desk and programming the computer, the computer is...
	You can do whatever you want, but if, for example, you're some...
	Wait, sorry, I'm still not certain why you're still talking to me.
	Because I'm just, I'm a little confused.
	And I mean, this is a bit of a sophistic exercise, but it is kind of important.
	Because you're telling me that I'm like a computer.
	My computer is a much better computer than I am.
	I mean, it is, right?
	I mean, my operating system can sometimes be a bit buggy.
	And my computer...
	I mean, it goes to sleep, but it doesn't need to sleep.
	And I am terrible at 3D games.
	Like, I have hand puppets and shit like that, that I'll sort of wave at people sometimes.
	But I am really, really bad...
	I'm particularly at multiplayer because people have to like email me their moves and stuff like that.
	You know, fired, rocket, top left quadrant, 270 degrees.
	And then I got to do a little pea shooter and stuff like that.
	So I'm terrible at a lot of stuff.
	Computers are way better at math than I am.
	And also computers, you know, can store massive amounts of information that, you know, I can store like – I can think of nine things at the same time.
	And after that I get kind of blurry.
	But computers can store and accurately recover billions or really – Functionally infinite or practically infinite amounts of information.
	So if I'm like a computer, then the computer is much better at being a computer than I am.
	But you understand that it would be ridiculous for you to try and have a debate with my computer, even with voice recognition and even with all that kind of stuff, right?
	So we're not the same.
	That's my point.
	You can say that if just like viruses and anti-viruses are contracting each other, that ideas do the same thing.
	Are you saying that an idea is like a computer virus?
	A bit like a program.
	Yeah, see, I mean, if the human brain was like a computer, we wouldn't need a computer.
	A computer is designed to do what a human brain is not very good at.
	And a computer can't do what a human brain does in terms of creativity and debating, which is why you're talking to me, not the computer.
	The reason we have tools is because we can't do some stuff, right?
	I mean, I can't cut down a tree with my bare hands, so I have an axe, right?
	I don't need a tool that lets me...
	Knit or sew because I already have my fingers.
	They do a great job with that.
	And so the reason we invent tools is because we don't have those capacities or, you know, I can't saw something.
	I can't saw something in two.
	I have a saw.
	I can't use my fist to hammer a nail in because I'm not actually Duke Nukem.
	And so we have a hammer, right?
	And we have nails and so on.
	So we have tools for the things that we really can't do well or can't do at all.
	And so the reason we have computers and the reason computers are so prevalent is they allow us to do things that we simply can't do, like, for instance, have this conversation.
	And so the idea that the human brain is somehow the same as a computer or even similar to a computer is not valid.
	We call it computer memory, but it's not computer memory.
	I mean, it's not memory like we have memory.
	Our memory is incomplete.
	It's influenced by stories.
	It comes and goes.
	I have memories of a painting, but the painting is the painting.
	And we have memories, but what's stored in a computer is what's stored in a computer.
	So, again, if you want to talk about software experience, yeah, I've never had a computer that doesn't do what I tell it to.
	Now, it may not do exactly what I tell it to do, but that's just because it's doing something which someone else told it to, like the operating system might have a glitch or the programming environment might have a glitch or the database might have a glitch or something like that.
	The glitch is just somebody told it to do something that was incorrect.
	So I don't think you're going to have much luck if you're not willing to debate with the computer analogizing the human brain to a computer because you recognize how silly it is to try to do that, right?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	And look, the reason I put you through that exercise is because when it comes to philosophy, don't talk about ideas, just do stuff practically.
	You know, if you're like, I have to talk to Steph, and only Steph, about free will versus determinism, then you're saying that I have something unique in the conversation to have, and then you can't say that I'm the same as everyone else.
	That's like saying, these are all oranges, But I got to absolutely eat that orange and there's no way in shape or form that I will eat any other orange whatsoever.
	Well, then there's got to be something different about that orange.
	They can't all be the same if they're not interchangeable.
	And if objects and computers and weather and wind, you would be insane to have a debate with.
	You don't yell at the weather even though it's a complex system.
	Whose output you cannot accurately predict except in the very broadest terms.
	If you will only ever debate with human beings and to debate with a computer or the weather would be insane, then you have to acknowledge that there's something fundamentally different about human beings with regards to everything else.
	If you see someone debating with a fire hydrant, we know that person is insane.
	And if...
	If your philosophy of determinism requires that everyone be insane, I would argue that there probably is a flaw in it somewhere.
	So if you only have a debate with human beings, you have to at least acknowledge and admit that there's something different or special about humanity versus everything else.
	Okay.
	That's a little free will, but because when I thought of this idea, it actually really wasn't a comfortable idea.
	So it's not just...
	I try to convince you to this idea because I'll get some pleasure but just to find the truth.
	But why was free will an uncomfortable idea for you?
	No determinism.
	Why was determinism an uncomfortable idea for you?
	Because, like you said, it totally makes morality invalid.
	Mm-hmm.
	Well, that's not a reason to disbelieve in something or to believe in something.
	There are consequences which, of course, make us emotionally uncomfortable.
	That doesn't mean that we shouldn't accept the argument.
	I'm pointing out one of the consequences, but pointing out the consequences of an idea is no...
	argument for its validity or invalidity, right?
	So saying that science leads to nuclear weapons in no way, shape, or form validates or invalidates science.
	Well, actually, it's science and statism leads to nuclear weapons, not science itself.
	Science tends to lead to cures in iPods.
	But the consequences of an idea are in no way a methodology for determining whether it's true or false.
	But what is a way of determining whether an idea is valid or invalid is if you cannot – if by your very actions you must accept the idea, you cannot use those actions to reject the idea.
	So the old argument is you cannot say – I cannot say to you, listen, man, language is incomprehensible.
	It makes no sense at all and you're never going to understand anything that I say because in the very act of communicating using language in a coherent fashion, I can't use that to make the claim that language is invalid.
	I can't mail you a letter and say, letters never get delivered.
	Because by mailing you a letter, I'm accepting that letters do get delivered, and by using language, I'm assuming that language has some degree of comprehensibility.
	And so you cannot argue with somebody, and only a human being, and then say that human beings are machines like everything else.
	They are essentially the same as inanimate objects, but I would never argue with an inanimate object.
	The basic idea of trying to change someone's mind is indicating that they have a choice and also they're responsible for the contents of their mind at least to some degree.
	So that's the challenge with determinism is that when you begin to argue with someone, my basic argument is that free will is our capacity to compare instances to ideals, our capacity to compare experiments to theories, to compare empiricism to principles.
	And that's what always happens in debates.
	You're saying, well, this is incorrect.
	You should be in conformity with the truth and so on.
	But it's optional, right?
	We can choose to have prejudices.
	I'm not saying you do, but we can choose to have prejudices or we can choose to compare what we believe and what happens in our life to ideals, to standards, to principles, which is fundamentally what philosophy is all about and what science is all about and so on and what medicine is all about as a subset of science.
	So that's sort of my basic argument about free will.
	And the reason that I have that argument is because, A, I believe it's true, and B, I can't have any conversation with anyone about anything meaningful without accepting that.
	And that doesn't mean that it's true.
	It just means that I won't be a hypocrite because I do want to talk to people about ideas and virtue and principles and philosophy and all that.
	And because I will do that, I can't hold a principle in opposition to that because that would be ridiculous, right?
	So anyone who debates with me is saying the same thing.
	I'm not saying you agree with it, but does the argument make any sense?
	Yes, it does.
	Alright, so I'd say mull it over.
	If you come up with good counter-arguments, I'm certainly happy to talk about it.
	I'm happy to talk about determinism, I just don't do it in a written format.
	So, for example...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Your argument with yelling at rocks that are tumbling down, that...
	You can, for example, yell at them and it will do nothing, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't interact with rocks.
	For example, you can preventively Yes, but sorry to interrupt, but that's not what you're doing with me.
	You're not putting down a net in case I run into your car, right?
	You are having a debate with me.
	So you were saying that I'm not even in the same category as a rock.
	Right now, a rock is determined, right?
	I mean, a rock falls off a mountainside...
	Hang on, a rock falls off a mountainside, its path is determined.
	We may not know exactly where it lands, but we know that its path is not chosen.
	And so we may build a protecting wall.
	I mean, if the river flood is going to rise, then we may put sandbags around our house, not because we think that the...
	The river is going to be a home invader.
	They're going to call the police and say, there's water in my basement.
	I didn't invite it in.
	It somehow bypassed the alarm.
	Come and throw it in jail, right?
	So we would build defensive measures against the water rising around our house, but with no idea that there'd be any moral content, and we certainly wouldn't debate with it.
	But the moment you start debating with someone, you're saying that they're not in the same category as an inanimate object.
	And therefore, it cannot be counted as part of the deterministic universe, of which, of course, the majority of the universe is vastly, vast majority is deterministic.
	But when you only speak to humans, you're saying they're different from everything else.
	Right?
	So you may build nets against a rock, but you're not building a net against me.
	You're debating with me.
	But if you were debating, if there was a rock here, like there's a video running here, if this show was a rock with a headphone on top of it, You would be insane to call in and debate, right?
	Well, for example, can't you say that debating is just another thing?
	No, because it's quantifiably different.
	Because you only debate with human beings.
	You don't debate with anything else.
	So you can't say it's like other things when it's the complete opposite of how you behave.
	That's like saying north and south are the exact same thing.
	But they're kind of opposites, right?
	And so if you will only ever debate with human beings...
	Then you can't say that they're like other things or just debating with human beings is like building a net against rocks because it's not.
	It's an activity that you only have with human beings and therefore there must be something different about human beings as opposed to rocks.
	We also don't build net against computers, but yet we put computers and rocks in the same category.
	Yeah, but that's just a sophist trick, right?
	We don't program rocks, but we don't program human beings.
	Again, there's still something fundamentally different about how we deal with human beings.
	The only person, the only group you will ever debate with is a human being.
	I assume you won't debate with a llama, you won't debate with the wind, you won't debate with the moon, you won't debate with the tide.
	You will only and forever debate with human beings or other sentient life forms that may come into our view.
	And so you're accepting.
	You are accepting and stating that there's something fundamentally different About human beings and everything else in the universe.
	However else we deal with these various different things, right?
	We put up an umbrella for rain and we build a roof for other things.
	These are both forms of shelter, but we may bring a rain barrel out to gather the rain.
	So we may deal with the rain in different ways, but we'll still never debate with it.
	debating is only and forever a human interaction, human-to-human interaction, and therefore you can't say that we're like everything else if you treat us completely differently.
	But, uh...
	Now, I'm going to end the call I'm sorry for that.
	But the reason being that if you continue to debate with me, you have accepted my position.
	And if you don't continue to debate with me, then you have rejected my position.
	But there's no possibility of further conversation.
	So I'm afraid either way, philosophy wins.
	So thank you very much for your call.
	It's always interesting to chat with determinists.
	And Mike, who do we have?
	Last caller, I think.
	All right.
	Julian, you're up next today.
	Go ahead, Julian.
	Go ahead.
	Yes.
	Hello, Steph.
	Well, first off, I'd like to say thank you.
	I've listened to your podcasts and YouTube videos for quite a while now, and I've learned quite a bit from you.
	I've basically been using you to educate myself on philosophy, so I'd like to thank you for that.
	Use me, Tilly.
	Use me up.
	Great Bill Withers song, but thank you very much.
	I appreciate that.
	Go ahead.
	Well, first off, I wanted to ask about spiritual encounters.
	And how to quantify them not particularly believing in a god.
	Does that make sense?
	Not even close.
	No, because I don't know what you mean by spiritual.
	Okay.
	So should I explain my example?
	My encounter?
	Yeah, I think that would be good.
	Okay.
	A couple of weeks ago at a party...
	I was with a group of friends.
	It was one of my friends' mother's 60th birthday party.
	And we went there.
	It was a very good time.
	And in the middle of the party, I had what I can only really describe as a spiritual encounter.
	It was not particularly engaging with other religions, but it was a eureka moment.
	A moment of...
	I think sometimes in Latin it's called a ghost grope.
	But okay, spiritual encounter.
	Help me.
	Help me out.
	Help me understand what that was.
	Well, it was a clarity.
	It was like I understood things about the world around me, about the place I was in my life, and about people.
	It was an incredible moment of realization about people, really.
	And what did you realize?
	Well, it's going to seem like a very silly and small thing, but I realized people wanted to be right.
	And more often than not, their desire to be right when...
	Fed into can lead to you being given the things that you're desiring.
	Wait, sorry.
	So people want to be right, and if you manipulate their desire to be right, you can get what you want?
	Not—I wouldn't put it that way, nor would I say manipulate their desire to— So much as fulfill their desire to be right.
	Like, if what they want to be right about make it a thing.
	Because no one wants to be manipulated.
	Okay, so let me just, sorry, let me just, I really want to understand this.
	So let's say I'm a racist.
	You know, I hate blacks.
	And I want to be right about that.
	How does that, how does your insight play into that?
	Well, for my example, it would be a bit more difficult.
	I'm black, and I don't really see the benefit of engaging a group of people who would hate me or anybody for a random thing, but that's just my own philosophy.
	Oh, sorry.
	Are you black?
	Yes.
	Okay, let's just say, to make it a little less emotionally confrontational, because I'm not a racist, but let's just say I hate those red-headed bastards.
	Because those red-headed bastards, there's not too many of them, so I'm not scared of them.
	But those red-headed bastards.
	Right, so again, this is the Socratic question, right?
	So if helping people fulfill their desire to be right, you didn't say helping people fulfill being right, which is kind of my job.
	You said helping people fulfill their desire to be right.
	And there are obviously situations where you wouldn't want to support that, right?
	Well, obviously.
	And my entire point is predicated on the fact that they have something that you could – that you want from them.
	I don't really think there's much, if anything, that I want from any type of a racist regardless of whether or not they're racist against those redheaded bastards or anything.
	I feel like anything that they could give me is tainted in a way, if that makes sense.
	Okay, so can you give me an example where helping someone achieve the rightness that they want would give you something that you want?
	And this helps me to understand the principle, right?
	Okay.
	Well, rightness in this way would be at the party, for example, I spoke with a woman there.
	And I kind of impressed her using knowledge that I've gained by listening to other programs and my other education.
	I like what you're saying.
	Because when you listen to FDR, you never impress women in any way she can.
	If you listen to other programs, they'll help you be a player plus.
	Well, sometimes Dan Carlin.
	Dan Carlin lays it on a bit better with the women.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm a 10 years married guy.
	What the hell do I have to say?
	It's like I was at dinner with some friends last night after the...
	I have to say this because the bitterness still remains.
	So we were at dinner and they were talking about, oh yeah, man, that podcast 70, that was a fantastic podcast.
	That was just the bomb.
	That was just fantastic.
	I'm like, whoa.
	So basically the 3,000 podcasts that I've done since.
	That song you wrote in 1972 was fantastic.
	What?
	What?
	You've actually put out albums since then?
	How interesting.
	Anyway.
	Neither – that's not that my infinite tide of petty bitterness derailed the conversation too much.
	So you are impressing this woman with your play of stats.
	Go on.
	More with my knowledge of the economy.
	And it turned across to the point where I walked up to her later at the party and did something I would never do.
	This was after the – The religious moment, I would say.
	The spiritual moment would be a better way of putting it.
	And that would be that I went up to her and I walked up to her after her song finished and I asked her if she was impressed.
	Because privately, and she was more than impressed, she offered me a job position in her company, which was my intent.
	And it was just...
	It was a very bizarre...
	I thought this was going to be a whole lot goodier than it was.
	No, no, no.
	This is taking a very different turn.
	I wasn't, you know, I was like, you know, she and her three stewardess friends all had stripped down to their brown crannies and a tickle fight on my groin.
	But, okay, so you got a job.
	Fantastic.
	Okay, go on.
	Well, I did say it was my friend's mother's 60-year-old party.
	Oh, right, right.
	Sorry.
	Oh, man, you just shattered the whole thing.
	All right, go on.
	But it was a moment.
	Since that night, I've...
	Wait a second, how does learning about the Battle of Sevastopol help you pick up women?
	Dan Carlin, you said.
	It was more along the lines of one of his Roman programs.
	He did, he spoke about the, they had to allow in other nationalities of people into the Roman Empire to allow their best.
	Oh, I thought it was going to be some Roman thing like, hey, you know what, I'm in a token, it looks like I'm riding a broomstick or something like that, but all right.
	No, it was a heady conversation.
	It was a room full of liberals, a heady conversation.
	It was interesting.
	But since then, I've realized that it's very true and that people's expectations, meeting their expectations and succeeding their expectations is a very powerful way of getting them to recognize you and to oftentimes get what you desire from them and to make them realize that what you desire is in their interest as well.
	Yeah, so you're basically talking win-win slash salesmanship, you know, kind of negotiations.
	That you have to meet and accept other people's needs in order to get your own needs met.
	Like if you want to sell someone a car, you have to ask them questions about what kind of car they're looking for, if they are, right?
	Yes, that's exactly it.
	My point for bringing this up is that that night it was...
	I, for school reasons, had had to read up on the Buddha.
	I had to read Siddhartha.
	And it was the only word I had really to describe it at the moment was a moment of enlightenment, where it was like the world around me was opened up.
	And it was far easier to understand people, to understand things and to understand situations.
	Like, I understood people that I really didn't like.
	And it made it more difficult to really engage that level of dislike at them.
	Yeah, certainly that you have to have, like in order to want to meet someone's needs, you have to have some respect for those needs, which is why the racism example is kind of tricky, right?
	How can I facilitate a racist in his bigotry is not really a noble stance to take in any way, shape or form.
	So yeah, so you have to have a sort of positive belief in somebody's Virtue or benevolence or something in order to want to fulfill their needs, right?
	If their needs are, you know, hold my hockey bag while I beat my wife, you don't want to fulfill those needs, right?
	No, I don't really think I'd like to hold someone's hockey bag and watch them do any of those things, no.
	Okay, so, but why...
	I mean, I recognize that you got a very powerful insight, you know, and I was talking earlier about the...
	The unconscious and its sort of integrating power and its astounding processing power.
	And have you been doing sort of self-work recently?
	I guess with Buddhism to some degree, right?
	Well, no.
	The reading Siddhartha was almost explicitly for school.
	And I wouldn't have done it without liking the teacher and that being an assignment I wanted to complete.
	I've never been a good student.
	I would say, as far as school was concerned, I've always been bad that way.
	And I mention this because I've spent the better majority of my life after high school re-educating myself.
	I spent—and I wouldn't have put it this way in the re-education.
	I was in between jobs.
	I was kind of depressed, but I spent the time learning something.
	So I learned economics from YouTube videos of Milton Friedman.
	I learned social studies and— I've been listening to you to learn philosophy, picking up different people who are specialists and who have something to say.
	It has been just something I've been doing for years now.
	So, in that way, I've been trying to work on myself to better my own mentality.
	I've never seen a benefit in psychiatrists, because I've always felt like if there's a problem with oneself, one has to first be aware of that problem.
	And if you're aware of a problem, you can work on it yourself with enough dedication.
	Oh, yeah.
	As far as modern psychiatry goes, the line from the song is, God damn the pusher man.
	But so, I mean, reading Siddhartha, it's been many years since I've read it, but reading Siddhartha is about, you know, connection and about empathy and so on.
	So the idea that...
	You would have that insight after reading that book and doing other forms of knowledge integration through Dan Carlin.
	We have a show with him tomorrow, actually, and people are like, whoa, how did you get Dan Carlin on?
	It's like, he's been on before.
	It's just buried in the mountain of trivia known as the previous FDR podcast.
	Remember, after 70, it's all downhill from there.
	But anyway.
	But...
	I don't know why you said that.
	The fact that it's surprising to you simply means that you have an unconscious that processes the information that you're working on and provides you feedback.
	That is not a spiritual.
	I think that's a very well understood phenomenon of the human brain that we learn stuff and then we have breakthroughs in our learning when our unconscious makes connections.
	And that has a lot to do with usually having quiet time in the mind.
	Like I... One of the big breakthroughs that I had, it doesn't really matter what the breakthrough was, but one of the breakthroughs that I had that I was traveling through, I guess, Central America, I went to Belize, to Guatemala, and the woman I was traveling with was going to go to Chichen Itza or some...
	No, no, because we were in some other place.
	She was going to go to some ruins that I had already seen.
	And I didn't really want to go again.
	And so she went, and I basically just hung around in this town, and I ended up climbing into a resort over a fence because I didn't want to sit having coffee all day, especially...
	Ooh, I'm in Guatemala, the coffee.
	Oh my God, it's terrible.
	Oh, that's right, because they ship it all to the rich white folks somewhere else.
	Anyway, but I was...
	Basically, I lay in a hammock, I listened to a little bit of music, but this is back in the day, right?
	I had like 100...
	I had 96 megs on my music player, so it was not a big music library.
	And basically what happened was I lay in the hammock for seven hours.
	And out of nowhere, I was dozing a little bit.
	I remember hearing some story from a guy on a balcony about how he got sick from the food.
	And I was just swinging gently in the wind.
	It was warm, no bugs.
	I lay there for seven hours, doze a little bit, and then I just had this kapow of an insight that was really life-changing.
	And I think that would fall under the category of What you say is a spiritual moment.
	I view that as I was doing self-work at the time.
	I was writing a lot.
	I was in the process of going through therapy.
	I was keeping a journal.
	I was talking about my dreams.
	And that combined with the calm for seven hours, the lack of stimulation, so to speak, for seven hours, allowed for a connection both to form and to float up to my conscious mind.
	And it was one of the very few times in life where I've had a connection that was like, A certainty that I never looked back from.
	Yes.
	And that's very rare because normally you get a certainty and it's like grabbing a soap bubble, right?
	It vanishes.
	You try and recreate it and it's real work.
	But this was one, it was just like, bang, this is it.
	And I've had a few of those in my life which have really been foundational in shaping who I am.
	I think that would fall into your category of a spiritual moment, but I think that spiritual...
	Is a way of not explaining it?
	Because once you say spiritual, you say kind of supernatural, kind of mystical, or whatever it is, and there's no way to explain that.
	Partially, but that's what I wanted to say.
	Partially, and the reason for asking this is probably foundational for this.
	I want to be a scientist.
	I'm studying, right now, teaching, but I'm planning on, after this, going to...
	I live in New York.
	There are plenty of great in-state physics colleges.
	I plan on going to one of those to learn more about the actual science I need for physics.
	I don't like science as much as I used to, especially after this moment, because it feels like science, and especially the way it's applied in the current day, is very unself-referential.
	It doesn't look at itself and find the flaws that it doesn't like in other things.
	So science really dislikes religion and spirituality and things that you really can't explain with science.
	Dislikes?
	Well...
	I mean, science is not a person, right?
	Yeah.
	I would say scientists then would say the vast majority of scientists dislike.
	No, because that is to put it...
	No, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.
	But that is to put it into the realm of personal preference or prejudice, almost like dislikes, like I dislike Brussels sprouts, right?
	But that's not...
	Right?
	I think that the accurate thing to say would be to say something like the scientific method is the opposite of religious faith.
	Right?
	Scientific method is skeptical.
	Religious faith is believe it and then you'll understand.
	And scientific method relies upon reproducibility and the age of miracles appears to be over.
	The scientific method requires on a rational analysis based upon empirical reality.
	That is completely the opposite when it comes to religion.
	So I would say that the scientific methodology and religious faith are opposites.
	But that's like saying, you know, people dislike cancer.
	It's like, well, no, cancer is dangerous.
	And harmful.
	And so an opposite methodology to say that there's mere dislike is to put it in the realm of prejudice rather than in the realm of, well, they are in fact opposites.
	And, you know, if you look at the benefits that science has provided the world and you look at the benefits that religion has provided the world, I think that it's pretty clear.
	You know, the fact that we're having this conversation through Skype and not through God.
	It's some indication of the value we have on technology or the value that it has.
	So I just wanted to remind you, you know, since you want to be a scientist, that it is not, you know, I'm sensitive to this because people, whenever they make bad arguments and saying scientists dislike religion is not even a bad argument, they say, oh, Steph is bashing this or he dislikes, oh, he, you know, he dislikes women.
	This is all nonsense.
	You know, it's either a good argument or it's not, but people's likes or dislikes don't really have much to do with it.
	There may be results.
	Of disliking something.
	Sorry, there may be emotional results from analyzing something, but that doesn't mean that the emotional results is something you should put first and foremost.
	Does that make any sense?
	That does make sense.
	And in so much that what you said, I agree with.
	My point with saying dislike is that there are things that religion makes a claim for and says that's true.
	I'm not going to talk about God because regardless whether or not I believe in God, I don't think that's as important as other claims they make, such as claims about sounds and Tibetan monks, for example, I believe...
	I've read this.
	They claim that the universe was birthed from an initial sound, that sound being om, which is where the meditative practice of going om comes from when you're meditating.
	But that's been proven scientifically that when you're meditating and when you emit a sound, that sound can have influences on your meditative state.
	No, I believe.
	I mean, there's a reason that the sound is – there's an old Woody Allen joke that he said.
	He studied this meditation and he found that his personal mantra was, yikes!
	Right?
	There's a reason it's, om, which is a soothing, peaceful sound.
	The M's, I'm sure.
	Relax the muscles and all that stuff.
	But there's no one whose personal mantra is, ah!
	Because that would not be particularly...
	So there's a reason that sound is chosen, and I'm sure there's some physiological response to it.
	You know, why it's not...
	It's my personal mantra.
	Oh, God.
	The sort of Jim Carrey most annoying sound in the world.
	Let's just play that again and make that the entire podcast.
	What this will do is it will call the mother mosquito to feast on your blood.
	But no, I mean, there's good physiological reasons behind that, I think.
	Well, my point would be that, and I wanted to ask you one more question, so I didn't really want to end on this, but my point was more along the lines that I spoke to a scientist in one of my classes recently, and he made the claim that...
	proof on the person making the claim.
	That being that if you make a claim saying that something is true, you have to be able to come forward and prove it.
	And I can agree with that, except for I've always seen science as the search for truth.
	So I feel that if someone makes a claim, if there is a test that can be done to prove it or disprove it, there's some burden on the side of science to see if it's true or I don't like the idea that science gets away with a lot of saying to claims, oh, if you don't believe this, then prove it.
	Like, you have to prove it.
	I can understand.
	Wait, so hang on a sec.
	So if I make a claim that two and two make five, is it incumbent upon mathematicians to work to disprove it?
	Well, but the problem is it would be so easy to disprove it that you – such a claim – I mean that's kind of like – that claim doesn't really make sense.
	You can prove it by just writing on a piece of paper 2 plus 2 equals 4.
	How are you going – Okay, well, let's say that I say that there's an invisible moon between us and the moon.
	Is it incumbent upon physicists to drop what they're doing and work to disprove it?
	But they wouldn't need to work to disprove it because the ponderance of evidence and information that's already come out states that there isn't or else gravity would work in a completely different way.
	Well, no.
	I say that it is not subject to the law of gravity.
	So, a non-gravitational, non...
	Well, then you're just creating something that can't be tested, therefore science doesn't have any place.
	Like, science is for...
	No, no, no, no.
	Science has a place.
	Which is to say, I call bullshit on the moon.
	I call bullshit on the invisible moon.
	That'd be a great name for a novel.
	No, no, no.
	I feel like science doesn't even really need to do that because you're trying to say – you're creating a situation that is ridiculous because it can't be proven.
	and you're saying it can't – it doesn't follow any of the other states of that.
	No, it can be.
	It can be proven.
	If I withdraw standards of proof from a proposition, it doesn't end up in a neutral state.
	It ends up in a disproven state.
	Like if I say there's a moon between us and the moon and the scientists say, well, we can't see it.
	And I say, well, it's invisible.
	And they say, well, there's no gravitational effect.
	And I say, well, it's immune from gravity.
	And they say, well, we can't hit it with x-rays or we can't hit it with infrareds or we can't bounce sonar off it.
	And I say, well, it's immune to all of those things.
	They don't sit there and say, well, maybe it's there and maybe it's not.
	They say, that's not there.
	If you withdraw standards of proof from your proposition, it's not a draw.
	You don't stymie things, right?
	You just—it's not true.
	Withdrawing standards of proof does not end up with things in an ambiguous, ambivalent, agnostic, neutral state.
	If you withdraw standards of proof, you're saying, my proposition does not meet standards of truth.
	Therefore, your proposition is false.
	It doesn't end up in a neutral place.
	I agree.
	Okay.
	Okay, so that's religion.
	Yes.
	My other question then was a bit more interesting, and it was about the ethicality of taking drugs to enhance performance.
	And this would be in that recently I've found drugs that have existed for a while that boost mental performance.
	I'm not sure how familiar you are with any of these.
	I'm not familiar with them at all.
	I'm not even sure.
	The only drug that I smoked cigarettes for a little bit just here and there, and I found that they were good at creativity and concentration additives, but obviously it's a bit too dangerous to continue.
	Yeah, nicotine is a good concentration aid.
	Yes, it's a good concentration booster and it helps with verbal memory, but it just does too many other horrible things.
	Yeah, you know, I like to exercise too much.
	I couldn't possibly keep the habit up.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	I'll give an example being purisatum.
	It's the oldest and one of the original forms of what they call nootropics, which means brain food.
	What they do is they are detox agents as well as boosting the amount of oxygen that gets to your brain, therefore boosting the amount of oxygen.
	Memory that your brain has to work with.
	There have never been any tests that have proven that they add memory, but there have also never been any tests to show that they add memory.
	Well, I guess my concern with performance enhancers is always the degree to which they weaken the body's natural capacity.
	Right, so if you have something which boosts oxygen flow to your brain, does your body say, whoa, shit, brain's getting too much oxygen, let's clamp it back down, right?
	And then you stop taking this stuff and, you know, you turn into a politician or something, right?
	Right.
	Well, yes, I could definitely see that.
	I very much oversimplify the way this works, partially because the science itself doesn't understand how it works.
	They know it doesn't work like a stimulant, that being the type of...
	Sorry, didn't you say it boosts the oxygen flow to the brain?
	That would seem to me to be some understanding of how it works.
	Well, yes, but...
	What it does is it makes your brain more permeable to the oxygen that's reaching it would be a better way of saying.
	And the catalyst, the agent that makes it so, the change, how it makes your brain do this is still unknown, even after 40 years of testing.
	But upon discovery, it created a new type of drug because it didn't Operate under the normal methods of boosting something in your body, therefore creating the negative side effects of when you stop taking it, you crash because your body got used to a high production of X, Y, or Z. Instead, this has your body operate more effectively.
	And it's kind of even more crazy than that if you ever did any research on it.
	It's...
	Not an antipsychotic, but it promotes a healthy psychotic state.
	Oxygen has been shown to do this.
	It's not a...
	A healthy...
	Wait, a healthy psychotic state?
	In that it...
	It limits the extremes of emotion.
	Not limits would be to put the wrong way.
	It promotes more balanced moods than the highs or the lows.
	Psychosis isn't being moody.
	psychosis is detachment from reality right yeah i mean these are people who think that uh you know space aliens are trying to suck out their brain through their ears or whatever which i guess would call it fall into the category of brain food but uh psychosis is again i'm no expert but as far as i understand it it's a detachment from reality i mean there's people who think that they're jesus come back from the dead or napoleon or or you know the sort of thing so i'm not sure that i understand what you mean by healthy healthy psychosis if you
	if you mean it it blends your emotional extremes I'm a big fan of emotional extremes.
	I think that emotional extremes are essential and healthy and important in the same way that pleasure and pain extremes are very healthy, right?
	Like if you step on a jellyfish, you kind of want to know that it hurts like hell so that you can get Joey Tribbiani to pee on it or whatever the hell happened.
	But so you want the extreme pain responses, I think, and you want the – I think the extreme emotional responses are really important.
	Like if a tiger jumps out of you in the woods in India, you don't want to be indifferent to that.
	You want to be like, holy shit, let me leave a trail of crap so I can escape up a tree or something, right?
	I guess you couldn't really escape up a tree, a thin tree.
	Anyway, so I'm a big fan of emotional extremes.
	I think passion is very much the friend of reason if you have self-knowledge.
	I agree with you.
	And I can agree and see where the emotional extremes could be useful.
	I just – in this way, I was more curious about the ethicality of taking drugs like this.
	But there's no moral question about it.
	I mean you're certainly not initiating force or fraud to take these drugs, right?
	No.
	No.
	Yeah, so there's no ethical considerations in terms of good and evil or right or wrong.
	There may be issues of sustainability.
	There may be issues of artificial boosts may cause the body's negative response or negative reinforcement in other areas.
	You know, I mean, I'm not saying it is cocaine, but cocaine, of course, causes the body to stop producing things that are kind of important for happiness, and therefore there's a crash and so on.
	Not a very productive way to achieve long-term happiness.
	So, yeah, I don't think there's any ethical considerations in it, but I would be very cautious about playing around with brain chemistry.
	I think the brain is a very delicate organism, and I think you want to be careful.
	First of all, philosophy is the ultimate mind-altering substance.
	I mean, you know, it's like basically saying, you know, if you're married to the most beautiful woman in the world, which I certainly feel like, why don't you have sex with Jabba the Hutt?
	It's like, because I'm not kinky for tapioca, right?
	So, you know, the idea that you would, you know, that'd be something to be gained from me from LSD when I've already got philosophy, you know, kind of a ridiculous proposition.
	So I think I would definitely look for non-drug ways of enhancing performance is ideal.
	If you do go for performance-enhancing drugs, I would definitely try them very cautiously.
	With very small doses and then stop to see if there's any withdrawal because you certainly don't want to end up dependent on the stuff and with a lower capacity when it's not there because, you know, some muscle hasn't developed when the stuff is omnipresent.
	So that would be my caution.
	But these are not moral issues.
	These are issues of long-term practicality.
	Those are very rational concerns.
	I like to throw those in once in a while.
	Yeah.
	As opposed to the irrational concerns, yes.
	Pray to Boba Fett, he'll tell you.
	I do appreciate them.
	And I also appreciate the comment about spiritual events not particularly needing to be spiritual in order for them to be understood.
	I mean, it's more fun when it's...
	Not mystical.
	You know, there's this weird thing that Oprah said, you know, how do you have a sense of wonder if you're an atheist?
	And it's like, I think that word is not what you mean.
	Because if you have a pseudo-explanation that has no intellectual or factual content, that's called confusion.
	You know, like if I say, how do I get downtown?
	And I say to you, you catch Mary Poppins' umbrella up to a sky cloud and wish yourself there, you'd say, wow, that explanation leaves me filled with wonder.
	You'd say, you're really confused.
	You really don't know anything about anything that's real.
	And so I think that people who are afraid of the truth fall in love with confusion.
	And they call it faith, they call it wonder, they call it spirituality and so on.
	But it is nonsense.
	I mean, there's nothing more powerful and amazing than the truth.
	You know, they think, you know, people think that the world is flat and it sits on top of penguins that sit on top of turtles that sit on top of eggs that sit on top of dragons, that that's somehow awe-inspiring.
	No, that's stacking bullshit, right?
	But what is awe-inspiring is the fact that we're spinning around at thousands of miles an hour and that we're going around the sun at thousands of miles an hour and that the The sun is going around the galaxy, which is one of hundreds of millions of galaxies in a universe that's 15 trillion years across in light years.
	I mean, that is amazing.
	That is incredible.
	That, to me, is awesome.
	The idea that God snapped his fingers and made a world is just, hey, it's false, it's confusion, it's nonsense.
	That to me is not awesome.
	That's just people who are saying, I don't know how to think.
	You know, there's nothing awesome about blindfolding a driver, spinning around 20 times and hitting the gas.
	That's just confusing and dangerous.
	So I think that skill and knowledge and the actual facts of the universe, you know, they say truth is stranger than fiction.
	Well, science is far more awe-inspiring than faith because I think that the amazing facts about where we are as a species and who we are as a species is infinitely more powerful than some ghost breathed life into us in clay.
	I mean, that's just confusion and silliness.
	There's not awe-inspiring.
	It's just dizzying.
	Yes, yes.
	It's very hard not to agree with that.
	Alright, but listen, it's been a long show, and we've had a whole bunch of questions.
	I really, really appreciate you bringing this stuff up.
	Yeah, be cautious with your brain.
	You know, it's a great friend of yours, and the moment you say, I need to enhance my performance, you're saying my performance is not good enough.
	And there's, I think, a level of self-denigration, however mild it may be, in saying, I could be better and I can't achieve it myself, and therefore I need X, Y, or Z to prop me up.
	I think that's not necessarily that great, but again, it's not a moral consideration.
	Thank you, everybody, for wonderful questions is all.
	I'm sorry we didn't get back to the caller who called in earlier, but perhaps we can talk another time.
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