3015 The Caller Who Doesn’t Exist - Call In Show - July 3rd, 2015
Question 1: In reference to the Mouse Utopian Experiments by John Calhoun - I believe that mammals must always have something to strive for or else they lose the will to live. Do you think that the belief in finite horizons is a subconscious kill switch, poisonous to the will to live? Question 2: I feel a very strong sense of apathy in just about every aspect of my life. I hide this behind a false sense of cheerfulness in the face of strangers, and push those very few who are close to me away when they see the state that I am in. How do I make changes when I feel huge lack of interest or passion for much of anything, nor much desire to do the incredible work necessary to heal my emotional wounds?"Question 3: You dogmatically cling to a belief in Atheism but do not ascribe it the equal responsibility of proving that God doesn't exist, rather than simply admitting you don't know. How can you dismiss with any kind of certainty that religion neither holds value nor truth?
Hi everybody, Stefan Mullen from Free Domain Radio.
Oh my god, it's Friday night!
Friday night!
What's happening?
Oh yeah, we had to move the show.
So, tonight and tomorrow, and by God.
By genetics.
I just finished part two of Gene Wars, the genetics of politics, which I hope you will check out.
I consider it, well, quite important work as a whole.
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Mike, who's on first?
Alright, up for us today is Michael.
Michael wrote in and said, My question is pertaining to the mouse utopian experiments by John Calhoun.
I spent some time thinking about this, and I believe it has...
It goes a long way to explain the current insane state of affairs in society.
I believe we must, as mammals, have a frontier so that we always...
We're always in the strive phase, or else the will to live dies.
If at once, only subconsciously, accepts that one's horizons are finite.
I believe we need to believe there is always an infinity out there of which we have yet explored.
I know smart people like the FDR community mostly innately believe this, as having the wisdom of Socrates and knowing there is always more to know, but on a whole, I believe humanity has shut its collective consciousness to the idea that there is an infinity of knowledge, space, and life, but rather believes that history is all written and nothing new is to be seen under the sun.
It's all been done before.
True innovation is impossible.
Yet I believe the world has just begun.
I believe there is always the possibility of such growth that all prior history will be seen as the flat part preceding the rapid rise of exponential curve.
Emerson said it well.
We think our civilization nears its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and morning star.
In our barbarous society, the influence of character is in its infancy.
As a political power, as the rightful lord who is to tumble all rulers from their chairs, its presence is hardly yet suspected.
All right, question time.
Would you hold that the lack of frontier or the belief in finite horizons is sort of subconscious and natural kill switch of consciousness, poisonous to the will to live?
Bit of a mouthful, but...
I don't think there's a lack of frontier at all.
I mean, for me, there's this giant wall of pink-pucket arsehole standing between us and the future.
And I don't think it's...
I don't feel that we lack...
Frontiers at all.
I mean, but it's this big giant wall of people who don't listen to reason and We need to find a way to bypass them or convince them of something useful or out breathe them or I don't know exactly why But, you know, in this giant, blank, Pink Floyd-style wall of puckered sphincters between us and a better future, I think there's quite a lot to be done.
I don't think that we're lacking in frontiers at all.
I think that most times people say we're lacking in frontiers when the frontier that we do have doesn't appeal to them.
And, you know, I say assholes because it's the yes-but people.
Yeah, we could have a free society, but my roads!
Or whatever it is, right?
I mean, yes, but people, that's why I call them assholes, because they're nothing but butts.
And you can put out a cigarette butt, but you've got to deal with the human ones.
And so I don't think that we're short of frontiers.
It's just that it's challenging for those of us who want to carve a way to a better future to see where we have to go and who we have to go through.
Yeah, I guess that my point was that I feel like that is the problem that most people have.
You know, I kind of said that, you know, I feel within the FDR community that that's not a widely held belief.
Like you would say, you know, it's understood in our community that there is a frontier.
You know, we just need to go out and do it.
It just takes a little bit of work.
But I feel like at large...
Well, yeah, that was probably an underestimation, but...
Yeah, if you found a way to make it a little bit of work, then I feel like I'm running a marathon by digging my front teeth into a sidewalk and pulling myself forward while covered in burrs and on sandpaper.
If you found a way to make it easier, please help a brother up.
Give me some jetpack.
I guess that's just the salesman in me, you know, trying to persuade people at first.
Oh, it's just a little bit.
Just give it a shot.
But...
Yeah, you know, I feel like it's like maybe the problem with society at large.
You know, it's hard to say, okay, yeah, I know the problem.
This is it.
You know, everybody thinks they know the solution and that kind of thing.
But I don't know.
You know, it seems to me that it makes a lot of sense.
And, you know, it kind of clicked with the R-type and K-type selection theory that you put out recently.
And I'm definitely going to look at your second part of that.
But, you know, with how, you know, in the mice utopia, it was all R-type species.
Yeah.
Okay, but hang on.
Just for those who don't know, so starting in the 50s, and I think he overcome his capacity to fear repetition, he drove these mouse experiments into the 70s, this Calhoun fellow, and so he started off with eight mice, like four males and four females, and he gave them cool play areas, and he gave them all the food and water that they could possibly want, and it turned into a nightmare.
A complete nightmare of incredibly passive mice, fat mice, I think.
The mothers gave up caring for their young and would sometimes just shoulder them aside, like give birth to them and wander off.
There were fights among the males for nothing in particular and then there was a certain contingent of mice who were called the beautiful ones and they basically would eat and sleep and groom and observe all of the social hellscape of late stage dysgenic mouse hell.
From a distance and he tried six million different ways from Sunday to try and make the mouse utopia work.
He tried rationing food.
He tried rationing water.
He tried rationing sexuality.
I think he tried just about every conceivable combination he could outside of predation to try and make the mice sustainable and functional and he was unable In any artificial controlled environment, there was no way to make the mouse population sustainable and functional.
In my mind, it's almost like, you know, what happened to the mice is they felt like they had done everything.
They'd been everywhere and they'd seen everything and they knew they were in a box.
You know, they knew that there was nothing more out there and, you know, why go on?
It's just going to be more of the same kind of thing.
Yeah, it's like that song, you can't always get what you want, you just might get what you need.
So, we want to not work, and not working is really bad for us.
I'd love to live in space, also like having bone density.
So, it's a challenge.
And so, it's a natural ambivalence of being alive, which is, we fear death, but our fear of death is really the only thing that keeps us alive, because it means we don't do stupid stuff which gets us killed.
We don't like pain and pain is essential for keeping us from injuring ourselves and so on.
We don't like work.
We don't like challenge sometimes.
I actually quite like a challenge, but a lot of people don't like challenge and yet removing challenge from the equation is desperately bad.
There's no way for any organism absent any kind of natural selection to...
If you remove natural selection from any type of organism Then dysgenics is the inevitable result because the number of negative or harmful mutations that occur in the genes vastly outstrips the number of beneficial mutations.
So if you remove natural selection, then dysgenics and the degradation of the species is inevitable.
And by natural selection, I'm certainly not talking about banning dumb people from breeding or releasing tigers into political conventions.
Okay, we'll return to that another time perhaps.
But no, I'm simply talking about letting natural competition in a free market have the most competent accrue the most resources and the least competent accrue the least resources, which is what naturally happens in a free market.
And that way, the more competent can have more kids and the less competent can have fewer kids.
That's not any kind of eugenics program.
It's just allowing freedom and trade to take its natural course.
I mean, if that's eugenics, then Shelley, the woman who wouldn't go out with me and let me feel her up when I was 15, was also practicing eugenics.
Because she said, no, man.
She's a dysgenicist.
So, yeah, I mean, we don't like competitive pressures.
A lot of us, some people, not everyone, our selected species don't like competitive pressures.
Competitive pressures case-selected species really do.
We don't like these things, but they are absolutely essential.
I mean, good lord, this isn't that complicated, not for you, but for most people.
I mean, don't like going to the dentist.
What happens if you don't go to the dentist?
Well, you end up with a lot more hurt and pain.
So, yeah, we want to escape competition.
Sometimes we want to escape loss.
We want to escape risk.
And if we somehow are magically granted our wish through the power and force of the state, Or through bamboozling a private charity or whatever.
Well, it's just really bad for us.
You know, like a drunk wants a drink.
It doesn't mean he should get one.
A cocaine addict wants more cocaine.
It doesn't mean that we should go and buy him that stuff.
I mean, get what you need.
Not what you want.
That's, I think, a challenge for people.
Yeah, I sometimes wonder if we'd introduce, or Calhoun had introduced a couple of owls to the utopia if it hadn't prevented the breakdown and the collapse.
Well, I mean, I think the challenge is, though, the more he kept introducing elements that reproduced the mouse's natural state, the more it's no longer an experiment, but just, this is what happens in nature.
And since we already have a giant experiment called what happens in nature, which is nature, I don't know what the point of it would be.
Like, the more he deviates from what happens in nature, the more he has an experiment, the less, I mean, the less point there is.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think it jives along the line or, you know, coincides or coheres along with your idea that, you know, you need both R and K type species in nature.
It's kind of a natural balance that must be maintained.
Yeah, I think in human society, a free society would tend more towards a predominantly K society with R's thrown in as the, you know, mix it up, challenge the rules, break with tradition.
That's part of progress.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, it's funny because the K's or the conservatives are considered to be intolerant of change, but the conservatives love the free market, which is a giant creative destruction agent of change.
What the conservatives don't like is rules that change all the time.
And so it's not that they don't like change.
They just don't like random, tyrannical changes, or at least what seem random.
But they're perfectly happy.
I mean, I've never met a conservative who's like, I'm not getting anything beyond a rotary phone, because I hate change.
I mean, that's just ridiculous.
They love the free market much more than the liberals, and the free market promotes the most change in society, you could argue sort of outside of science.
And yeah, so it's just...
Just by the by.
I don't know, I'll get to that when I do the presentation.
Was there anything else you wanted to mention?
What you said there kind of reminds me of how, when you mention competition among males, it seems that it kind of creates this under-vibe of, you know, uh-oh, watch out, you know, can I trust this guy?
You know, like when you begin to discuss this thing with other people I've found, you know, if I tell them about K-type and R-type and how, you know, we need competition, it seems like other people are kind of like, you know, immediately distrustful of the word competition almost, you know.
Competition promotes social cohesion in a foundational way.
I always was friends with the people I competed with in sports and would shake hands when we were done and it promotes social cohesion.
Competition produces testosterone and it produces the sort of happy dopamine joy juice that comes out of victory or at least playing the game well, even if you don't win.
These in turn produce oxytocin, which is a social bonding chemical.
It's called the love hormone sometimes.
So a society without competition has A terrible time.
There's no love.
This is why marriages break up in socialist countries all the time.
And it makes sense, right?
Because avoidance of competition is an R trait.
And R's don't bond.
They don't have monogamous mating relationships.
They don't invest much in their kids.
They don't have in-group preferences.
I mean, if you're avoidance of competition, that signals your system to produce less oxytocin, which means less of a social bonding chemical.
And so competition, it's one of these counterintuitive things that the fiercer the competition, the more love there is in society.
And that's not just true at a philosophical level.
That's true at a very basic hormonal and biological level.
And, you know, I think it's kind of like you're saying that, you know, there needs to be somewhat of a balance that, you know, Like, if you look at the tribes or whatever that you're outright competitive, like the first K-type species that would have evolved, like, you know, you said that the R-type ran away in the north and that kind of thing.
But if you look at, you know, to begin with, if you're just too competitive, it does create distrust and a breakdown of social cohesion because of overcompetitiveness.
I think that you need to cooperate or collaborate, at least to the point, like you were saying, to have consistent rules.
Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
No, because there's competition that can be fierce, but it's by the rules, right?
So if you think of a chess club, I mean, you'd want people in the chess club to play as well as they could, right?
And that's how everybody would improve.
And that's actually, like, there's no chess club that says play badly, right?
It is all about play as well as you can.
In fact, anybody, you know, it's always an insult if somebody lowers their standards when they're playing with you.
Right.
I mean, I always want to play your best, do your best.
Right.
And so if I don't think that there's a breakdown in social cohesion, if people are fiercely competitive, but play by the rules.
It's if their desire to win Is accompanied by a despair of winning by the rules, then they're going to cheat.
Now, I think social cohesion breaks down when there are cheaters.
I don't think when people compete and win by the rules is there...
Like, if you think about it in terms of the free market, right?
So, I don't know, what is Donald Trump worth?
Like, eight and a half billion dollars?
Which means he probably has created, like, hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value to people.
Assuming, you know, free market-y kind of stuff or whatever.
I don't know the degree to which that's true, but let's just assume it for the moment.
So his fierce desire to compete has created companies, departments, entire industries that service him, all of which have social cohesion and so on.
So his desire to compete has created so much economic value that there's a huge number of teams that all work together and sometimes compete with each other in order to service the wealth and the opportunities that Donald Trump has created.
So I don't think that fierce competition produces social dislocation or disarray.
It can definitely be a challenge to existing organizations that are being outcompeted.
But he has created a vast amount of teamwork.
I mean, think of all the people who like, you know, I don't know, let's say his enterprises have employed like 10,000 people.
Well, they're not working alone.
They're not working at home.
They're all working in teams.
Now, if those 10,000 people didn't have jobs, they'd be sitting at home and, you know, filling out some online resumes and playing Call of Duty, not knowing much, not really knowing anything about each other.
And so his fierce pursuit of competition, his desire to win in the economic sphere, has created teams out of atomized individuals and I think has promoted social cohesion.
I think it's not maybe so much fierce competition, but a better adjective would be maybe vehement competition, like you're saying, where you begin to engage in deceit.
And I find that it does disarm people When I mention the word competition to them and they get kind of on edge, that if I then explain to them that, you know, but first we must collaborate to establish rules in the match.
And, you know, it kind of goes along the lines of gentleman's warfare, almost.
You know, that, you know, we're not going to engage in guerrilla tactics.
We're not going to invade you in the middle of the night and kill all your women and children and burn down your tribe.
You know, we're going to ask you to come out to this field and we're going to like, you know what I mean?
Like, it's kind of like, well, at least we're going to try to do these things to have some semblance of civilization in society.
And, you know, I think it's borne out.
That, you know, those tribes that did establish consistent rules did better.
Well, I would say that people don't like to be subject to competition, some people, but they sure like the benefits of other people being subject to competition, right?
So, let's say you had some fat, old, bad actor, and Because there was no competition for the lead in Jurassic World, Chris Pratt was shouldered aside and this fat, old, bad actor took his place.
I mean, the movie would tank.
I mean, heroes, I remember, I think Robin Williams was talking about Jumanji, where he said it's the closest thing that somebody with this much finger hair is going to be to get playing an action hero, right?
Because Robin Williams can't get cast as an action hero because he doesn't look like, whatever, right?
Not enough jaw, right?
Not enough Chris Rock, Easter Island, inflated testosterone-based muscle mass.
But bad actors, that may be ambrosia for them.
So, yeah, I mean, some, you know, I mean, there's that old Seinfeld episode where what is it?
The Essence of Seduction and it's George Costanza in a pair of boxer shorts and so everybody wants competition to be in every field but their own Right?
I mean, nobody goes in for delicate surgery and says, God, I hope I have the worst doctor.
I hope I have a guy who wrote his license out in crayon, you know, and hung it on his wall with a fishing hook.
I mean, everybody says, I want the best.
I want the best.
I don't want to buy an album with terrible music.
I want to buy an album that's got great music.
I don't want a singing competition where the worst singer wins.
I want, you know, Kelly Clarkson and I want all these other guys, Ruben Stoddard and so on.
And so everybody wants quality and competition and excellence and the best person to win in every field except the one They're currently in.
And that's perfectly natural.
But all you have to do is have empathy to other people.
And say, well, if other people are consuming products or services from the field I'm in, if I were them, would I want the best person to win?
Of course you would.
So, feeling that you're outside the rules or feeling that...
Everybody should obey the rules except for you.
Everybody should be subject to the discipline of competition and voluntarism except you.
It's just a foundational lack of empathy, and that has to do with a shrunken amygdala, which is a liberal tradition, which we can, you can, Gene Wars Part 2, you can check it out, but yeah, it's natural.
It's natural for people to feel that way, and it just takes a moment of thought to say, well, what do I prefer?
Do I prefer it when people bring the best to the table that I get to consume their products?
Well, then, of course, they want the best from me, too.
Yeah, I agree.
Well, I guess it was nice to talk to you.
I don't want to take up all your time tonight.
Oh, thanks, man.
Great chat.
Yeah, and I'm really an admirer of the show, and as soon as I get some more cash flow together, I will donate again.
I really, really appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Well, have a good night, I hope.
All right.
Thank you, Michael.
Wait.
Mike, can we...
Could we just take maybe 40 to 45 minutes of silence and recognize respect for the fact that we had a quick call?
I'm just in shock.
It's padding.
Do you think it's because we've got two mics on the line?
They cancel each other out if something happens.
It's a warp at the space-time continuum that has accelerated my capacity to finish things.
I don't know.
Accelerated my capacity to finish things.
Or I was a teenager.
Anyway.
We'll have to test out that theory in the future, but for now, we can move on to Mr.
Brian.
Brian wrote in and said, I feel a strong sense of apathy in just about every aspect of my life.
I hide behind this false sense of cheerfulness in the face of strangers and push those very few who are close to me away when they see the state that I am in.
I have made a great deal of change in my life, but there are so many more ways in which I wish to better myself.
How might I go about making these changes when I feel huge lack of interest or passion for much of anything, nor much of a desire to do the incredible work necessary to heal my emotional wounds?
Wow.
Mr.
Brian, you know, you and I are going to do bitter combat in this call.
Why is that?
Because I'm quite an enthusiastic fellow, and you complain of a lack of motivation, which means that my energy is going to do battle with your lethargy, right?
It's muskrat versus sloth, the ultimate cage match of future motivation.
All right.
Well, I guess we'll see how this battle goes.
Where do you want to start?
That was an apathetic way of approaching combat.
Perfectly, perfectly illustrated.
I appreciate that very ferocious depth of honesty.
So, I'm not exactly sure how to start.
Of course not.
I mean, if you were, we wouldn't be having the conversation, right?
That's a pretty good point.
Why, look, how do you know you're underachieving?
Maybe you're not that achievement capable.
Well, to put it bluntly, I suppose I don't.
I don't know for sure if I am actually underachieving, but I get the sense that I'm not spending my time very well at all and that I'm just kind of wasting my time, in fact.
Okay, but how do you know?
Because the things I do all day are just kind of...
It feels like I'm not really...
Having a hard time describing, obviously.
Okay, what do you do all day?
I usually just play video games or just surf the web.
Okay, so you're achieving things in video games.
Well, I guess that's a good place to start is that I'm usually playing the same video games I've played in the past.
I'm just kind of redoing things I've already done and not really...
Oh, you're looking for like Easter eggs and maybe there's another way to...
Do something?
No, actually, I feel like I'm specifically just doing things to pass the time.
Like, I'm not actually trying to have fun or achieve any kind of goal.
I'm just trying to pass time.
What's wrong with that?
You've got to do something with time.
I guess I kind of get the sense for myself that I'm not passing the time, or that I'm passing the time because I'm, I just...
Ah, such a bugaboo.
No, I mean, the question is, I'm not trying to be facetious, like, how do you know there's even a problem?
I mean, I'm not saying there isn't, right?
I'm just curious how, like, have people, like, do you really feel there's a problem?
Because you can't really describe it.
Do you, or do people say you have a problem because you're playing old video games again?
I mean, do you have a job?
No.
And what do you live on?
I'm sorry, what was that?
What do you live on?
My brother and one of my roommates basically support me.
Why?
It's probably something I should ask them.
We don't communicate as much as we probably should or as much as I would like to.
Why do you think that your brother is paying your bills?
Well, I would say that he cares for me, at least in the sense that he...
No, no, no, no.
I wouldn't assume that.
I really need a drink.
I'm a drunk.
My brother got me a drink because he loves me.
I don't know that that's necessarily true.
It doesn't sound like it's doing you much good, right?
right and it's not making you happy.
I'm sorry, I'm just trying to think of what I think is the reason he supports me.
Okay, well let's switch since your thinking isn't working as well as we'd like, given our listeners need to keep things moving.
What are your feelings when you wake up in the morning?
Like you wake up in the morning, you open your eyes, sun is streaming in through the window, It's a day of boundless excitement and possibility, challenge, potential, achievement, failure, all the glory, guts, and garters of human existence.
You open your eyes in the morning, and what are your feelings?
It's less of a feeling and more of just lack of feeling.
Just kind of an emptiness, like a void, I suppose.
As if there's something missing.
Well, no.
A void is not that there's something missing.
Right?
Like, we don't look at space and say, ought to be full, right?
Yeah.
So, it can't be both neutral and a feeling that there's something missing.
Which is it?
I guess I would have to say it's something...
I feel like there's something missing then.
I guess I got those two.
Confused with each other.
No, I'm just being precise.
Now, when you say that there was something missing, is it something that you used to have, or is it something that you think you could have or should have?
It's definitely something I feel like I should have, something that I don't think I've ever really had, and that I know that is within my grasp if I can figure out why I don't want to do the kind of work that is necessary to get it.
So you've never had a feeling of sort of enthusiasm or satisfaction or whatever, right?
Not like a deep satisfaction, maybe like a shallow kind of...
Finish the level!
Right.
Yeah, that kind of thing.
All right.
So it's not something that is missing from your personal experience, but do you think other people have it and you'd like that?
Yes.
And what is it that you would like?
I hate to be so vague, but happiness, it's just...
I feel like that's something that when I look back on my life, I've not really been seriously happy in really any time that I can think of.
I like what you said about seriously happy.
Happiness is a very serious business.
It's a very serious business.
Like health is a very serious business.
So I like it when you said seriously happy.
A lot of people think happiness is like goofiness or frivolity or a lack of responsibility or, God help me, destroying your higher faculties with drug promiscuity or drink or whatever, right?
But seriously happy, I think those two go hand in hand.
To be happy results from Seriousness.
It results from a serious dedication to the steps necessary to achieve and maintain happiness.
Just like health doesn't arise from just flinging yourself at every piece of good taste in food and novel experience that you can, but it comes out of a very serious dedication to knowing what is healthy activities and pursuing them fairly rigorously.
So I just wanted to mention, I really liked, not that it hugely matters, but I really liked what you said about seriously happy.
I think that's very True.
I guess maybe I said it in that way because as a matter of fact probably about three months or so ago I quit smoking cannabis that had been a pretty regular thing for me actually pretty much all day every day and that's I guess I said that because I was using that as like fake happiness and I want that I want to have real happiness.
And how long were you smoking for?
Um, just probably about somewhere between three and a half and four and a half years, probably.
And before that, did you use anything else?
Any other drug or alcohol or...
Tobacco.
I smoked on and off since I was probably 13.
Right, okay.
Do you think that video games are a form of self-medication or distraction or...
Like, if you didn't have video games, what would your day look like?
If you didn't have the internet?
That's what I meant when I said that I feel like I'm just using them to fill time because it's just a replacement for...
For something else that I might have been doing instead, something like just basically hiding from myself, hiding from the world, which is what I feel I was using other things for, other drugs or whatever.
Right.
So it's kind of a form of self-medication.
In other words, if you didn't have video games, there would be more anxiety?
I think so, yeah.
What's wrong with anxiety?
Well, I'm at the point where I can't figure out what it's trying to tell me.
I can't figure out, at least, okay, that's not a good way to put it.
When I try to figure out what that anxiety is trying to tell me, I feel like I've hit a block, like I'm stuck somehow.
I have incredible difficulty figuring out what it's trying to tell me at this point.
No.
No, you don't.
Come on.
You know how to dial Skype.
You listen to this show.
There's no possible way that you have no idea what your anxiety is trying to tell you.
I mean, it may not be a detailed plan.
But I can tell you what your anxiety is trying to tell you, and I bet you can as well.
What is your anxiety trying to tell you?
On the most basic level, it's telling me that I am not doing what I feel is gonna fulfill me, I suppose.
It'll make me happy and that something's terribly wrong with what I'm doing.
Right.
It's telling you you're going to fucking die.
Bye.
Yeah.
Right?
You've got this incredible gift called existence and your life in geological time is like a candle dropped out of a plane flying over the Arctic.
It's out, right?
Yeah.
When you look back over the last couple of years, Brian, how much has time seemed to fly?
Faster than it ever has in my life.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
But that's what happened when you have the same day over and over again.
When you have the same day over and over again, time...
You can't kill time except with an atom bomb.
In other words, you can't kill time unless you're willing to kill a whole lot of it.
And when you kill a whole lot of time, you're in the fast lane to the ultimate off-ramp, right?
Yeah.
So your anxiety is saying, well, we can consume pixel distractions like a humpback whale consumes krill.
Still gonna die.
Still gonna die.
Still might want at some point to earn our own money.
Might at some point...
Want to leave more of a mark on the world than, oh yeah, that guy.
Yeah.
He played some games upstairs.
I heard some sound coming from his speakers.
I don't know.
I guess he did some stuff.
I don't know what it was.
I guess that's what I meant when I said I'm stuck and that part of me wants to move forward with my life and start achieving more and working towards the goals that I want.
And getting the things that I want, and another part of me just wants to keep on doing what I'm doing.
That's what your Xbox is trying to tell you.
X means past.
Someday you'll be X living, and they'll put you in a box!
With two X's on your eyes!
And coins from Sonic the Hedgehog on your eyeballs.
It might as well be X Pine Box with Paul Bearers.
When do you think it will be too late to change, Brian?
Okay.
When you're 30?
40?
Younger?
Older?
When you'll have missed...
The turnoff, then there's nowhere to go.
But just the same forever.
Sometimes it feels like it's already happened.
Well, certainly the belief that it's already happened will make it eternal, right?
Yeah.
Which tells me that it's just a way for me to, that part of me that wants to stay that way, to make me stay that way.
Or rather...
I don't know if that's a good way to put it.
Okay.
But now, I'm going to take a little bit charge of this, if you don't mind.
I know that that's an invitation coming from your passivity, but I'm going to take it anyway.
Yeah, that's probably a good option.
Okay, are you ready?
I don't think I am, but I'm going to give it a shot.
Excellent.
So, Mr.
Brian.
Yes.
Self-slaughter is an act of immense hatred and anger.
A refusal to make anything of yourself is anger at having been unmade by someone else.
You understand?
I get a sense of what you're saying.
It's not necessarily a shock, but I'll tell you more clarity.
If I had a dime for every time someone said to me, Steph, you turned out well.
Your mom must have done something right.
You got a successful career.
You made some coin.
You're married, happily married.
You're a great dad.
You're doing positive things in the world.
Your mom must have done something right.
Do you understand that if I hated my mom to the degree that I'd never want her praised by anyone, I'd do nothing with my life.
It is an immense act of hatred to be inert.
Because clearly it costs you enormously.
But there's something in you that has a giant barbaric fuck you to someone in order to sacrifice yourself in this way.
I get the sense that that's...
A lot of the time when I'm thinking about why I do this, I get the sense that It is just a giant fuck you to the entire world for being the way it is and for spawning people who have made me into what I am.
Right.
And so you're not close enough to the hatred to give people responsibility because you're saying it's the world and the world who made people who made me into the way that I am, right?
Like just a bunch of fucking dominoes falling from the dawn of time to your prone position, right?
I think the biggest reason I... or one of the biggest reasons I have that kind of attitude is because I can't speak to my parents because they have both passed away.
And I don't even know if that's a good reason, but I feel like...
Well, first of all, you can speak to them.
And secondly, they live as long as you do in your head.
I mean...
I will live forever.
I will live forever in what I'm putting into the world.
I bet you right now, on the whole planet, I never shut up.
Someone's always playing one of these conversations.
I never stop talking.
Right?
And I'm crawling into people's heads.
I'm setting up a teepee.
I'm laying out a welcome mat.
I'm putting my feet up on their couch.
Sometimes I don't even take off my shoes.
Taking up residence in other people's heads.
I am electronically photocopying my thought patterns all over the world at all times using all conceivable mediums that I can get my hands on.
I'm trying to build something called philosophy in people's heads with their participation.
And if a meteor hits my house tomorrow, I will live forever.
We've had 20 million minutes listened to a month just on YouTube.
20 million minutes a month.
That is a lot of photocopying.
So I will live forever.
People will be having conversations with me in a thousand years from now in the same way that I wrote when I was in the National Theatre School of Canada.
My first writing assignment was the trial and death of Socrates to write it as a play.
So I was having conversations with Socrates 2,500 years.
So, and I'm very sorry that your parents are deceased, but the idea that you then can't have a conversation with them, I don't quite understand.
I mean, if I can have a conversation with Socrates, you died a hell of a lot longer before your parents.
Or as what Nietzsche said, everybody wrestles with Socrates all the time.
It's quite true.
How long ago did they die?
My father was...
2000, 2001, and my mother was 2011.
So did your mother know that you were smoking marijuana?
I hadn't actually...
Oh, it started about the time of her death, right?
You said four years or so, so 2011?
It might have been a little bit before, a little bit after.
I don't remember exactly if it was...
But no, if it had started before she passed away, I never told her.
Did your parents live the lives that they wanted to live?
I know my mother didn't.
I don't know about my father because I don't remember a whole lot of him, like a whole lot of details, and I never got to speak to him as an adult.
But if he married a woman who didn't get to live the life that she...
Wanted to live.
It seems unlikely that your father did either, right?
I would say no, he didn't.
Okay, can you pretend to be your mother, now trapped like an orc under the ice of history, unable to act anything in the present because she's dead?
Brian, what would your mother say to you?
If she was floating around in your room watching you fart your days away on video games you've already played before, she's dead.
No chance to get the life she wants.
No chance to achieve what she wants.
No possibility of pounding through the ice of history and re-emerging into the world of action.
What would she say to you?
She probably wouldn't say anything to me directly.
She probably would be trying to get my aunts to talk to me about it because she did the same thing I did.
My aunts.
Okay.
Are you saying that your mother has died in this scenario and she's doing exactly the same as she would have in life?
No, I'm saying she basically did the same things I do.
She would just...
If she wasn't at work...
I know that, Brian.
I know that.
She's now died in this thought experiment.
What would she tell you?
From the view of four years dead...
Because she didn't have the life she wanted because she was scared and she was angry.
Now, when you're dead, I'm pretty sure that what made you afraid and what made you angry is probably not that important anymore, right?
So what would your mother say with the wisdom of being dead four years ago, but being able to talk to you now?
What would she tell you about achievement, about risk, about energy, about motivation?
I think she'd probably just say just go do it.
Just don't worry about the consequences.
Just do something.
Just stop.
Don't do what you...
I'm sorry.
Don't do what you don't want to do.
just go and try and get what you want I don't think she would Thank you.
What do you think she would say?
I'm sorry, Brian.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
There is a hell under the ice and that hell is regret.
And the greatest agony of your regret is when you cannot undo the damage you've done.
There's no restitution possible.
Brian, I gave you the example of a life unlived.
I gave you the template of cowardice.
I gave you the template of avoidance.
I gave you the template of compromise with nothing.
I give you the template of self-erasure.
I died without ever having lived and I infected you with that non-living.
And I'm so sorry that my inertia has created this well into which you seem to be sinking deeper every day into the weightless center of the earth where no motion is possible because all gravity is around you.
I am so sorry that even after I had the example of your father's death in 2001, I did not have that rouse me to grab life with any energy.
I am so sorry that the unmoving ghost jumped from me to you.
Without even leaving me, it just split and passed into you.
And that rather than act myself, I was content to infect you with the virus of non-action, the lethargy, the sleeping sickness of me.
And I'm sorry that I so enervated your muscles that to move at all feels like pain.
That achievement feels like loss.
That happiness feels like tragedy.
That motion feels like sickness.
That life feels like death.
That was my legacy.
See?
And seeing how it's played out after my death is so unbearably hard that I want to scream through the ice of my own non-existence and set fire to your life somehow.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I want to take those fucking computer games and blow them up.
I want to take that fucking console, that fucking computer, and throw it.
Into the asteroid belt and watching satisfaction as it is smashed into nothingness as it is smashing you into nothingness.
I want to Use the bottomless chasm of your next 60 years, a photocopy of the last few, and terrify you with the emptiness of that non-journey.
I want to take it all, compress it down like an accordion, stick it up your ass and have it set fire to you.
It gets you to move and do something.
And I'm so sorry that your brother's enablement of your inaction is somehow confused by you as support or love or confused by him as support or love.
Goddamn, that's what I gave you guys.
That's what I showed you.
That is the king's ring of non-existence that I pushed into the soft wax of your tender beings when you were young.
There is no regret like nothingness.
Anything is better than nothingness.
There is a fantasy of eternity in nothingness, in emptiness, in killing time.
There's this belief that somehow we have forever to fix our mistakes, to make it better.
But If you're in a war against time and you're killing time, I guarantee you time will win.
You can kill all the time you want.
Time will fucking kill you.
I didn't panic until after I was dead.
Brian, I need you to panic now.
And the only way I know how to help you panic is to apologize.
For the god-awful example that I set.
And that your father set.
For what you were capable of.
With this immense gift that I squandered.
But you can still spend.
Just off the top of my head, Brian, I think that's what she might say.
Oh.
It feels like there's a nest of bees in my stomach right now, just roiling around.
Tell me more.
The part about my brother supporting me when it's not such a good way to support me, I think that may be part of the reason I'm dissatisfied with my relationship.
And if you didn't hear earlier, it's also in the past six or seven months, We had a couple move in with us, and the guy is also helping to support the household.
So both of them are...
I feel this kind of almost resentment towards them that I couldn't identify.
And now I feel is the fact that they are supporting something that I don't want to continue.
Wait, Brian, you said moving in, moved in with us?
Yeah.
There's no us?
Your brother's paying the bills, right?
There's no us.
You saying that they're moving in with us is like a leech hanging off my leg and I say, and the leech says, oh, I guess we're going, we're going for a walk now.
No, I'm going for a walk.
You're just hanging on my blood.
I should clarify, it's only been in the past probably months or so that he's been, they've been supporting us.
Before that, we had been...
No!
There's no us!
You're a parasite on your brother!
And on this other couple, right?
You're not contributing to the bills, are you?
Not in the immediate path.
Basically, with...
I should say that when So basically after my father died our mother found out she had cancer and in the last 10 years of her life she basically was working on creating a savings basically a trust for me and my brother and that has been a lot of what has supported us and that was a big part of what was supporting us for a long time and basically I
guess that's why I say us, because it's just been...
neither of us have been really supporting anything for a long time, up until the past few months.
Oh, sorry, so your brother doesn't have a job either?
Oh, no, he does.
I'm getting to the point that basically it's only been in the past few months that either of us have had to do any kind of work, and we both were working at the same place about two and a half or three months ago, and we both quit because for...
I guess it doesn't really matter that much other than the fact that we both quit and...
He has now gotten a new job and I have not.
And how much money did you get from your mother's trust?
Including the insurance, it was probably close to $300,000.
So you got $300,000, I assume that's tax-free?
Yeah, because she put it in a trust, she worked with an accountant to make sure we didn't have to deal with that.
So you got $300,000 four years ago, right?
I should also say that we attempted starting a business with it and we were not successful and we spent most of it on that.
Why do you think you weren't successful?
When my aunt suggested that we use the money to start a business, I jumped on that because I had no direction and I just wanted something to have in my life, to feel like I was doing something with my life.
So you weren't passionate about the business itself, you just wanted to kill time with it.
Exactly.
Got it.
So something you weren't really passionate about, but you were using to distract yourself from yourself, didn't end up being that successful.
That's very correct.
Okay.
So, in four years, you've burned through $300,000 tax-free.
Was that each or combined?
Combined.
Combined.
So, yeah, $150,000 tax-free, that's mostly gone?
It's been gone.
That's why me and my brother had to get jobs.
Except you don't have a job.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Like, when it ran out, we both had to get jobs, and then, after a few months of that job, essentially, so basically what happened Was the catalyst.
I'm not saying this is what forced our hand, but what made us, not made us, what had us decide to quit was basically we both had inherited land from our fathers, our grandpa or something like that.
And a few months ago we got an offer from a company that said they were going to buy it from us for like $220,000, something like that.
And After some time of trying to work it out, it turns out that they had made an error in how much they wanted to offer it for us.
We were sick of the way we were getting treated at the job, and we figured even if the offer turned out to fall through, we were willing to take that risk because we wanted to just find somewhere else to work, even if we weren't going to get that Okay, that doesn't matter to me.
So, if I understand this correctly, your mother got cancer and she spent 10 years saving up to give you guys a trust, right?
Yeah.
So, she worked through her cancer to save money to give you guys this $300,000, right?
Yeah.
How do you feel about that being gone?
Like it was wasted.
That's not a feeling.
I feel as if...
I'm trying not to intellectualize.
I'm trying to actually tell you my feeling instead of telling what...
Let's go back to the bees in the belly.
I feel incredibly unsettled.
I feel, I guess kind of scared that that's, scared that that's how I do things, that that's how I took this wonderful opportunity to make something of myself.
And just kind of...
I feel...
angry that...
I want to keep adding things to how I feel.
I want to explain why I feel the way I do.
No, I don't think you need to explain.
I get it.
No, that's why I'm kind of hesitating and I'm hearing long pauses because I keep wanting to explain.
Brian, sorry to interrupt.
Brian, did your mom know that this was...
Is it fair to say that the money, you probably would have been better off without it?
Yeah.
Because then you wouldn't have the regrets and you wouldn't have the wasted time and you wouldn't have the loss and the guilt.
Would you have been better off without the money?
I think I would have been.
So did your mother not know that, you know, when my daughter was four, she liked candy floss.
And if I were to give her, say, a giant jacuzzi tub full of candy floss, I would come back and find tooth marks in the lining of the hot tub.
And no candy floss, right?
Yeah.
So, I know not to leave my daughter a hot tub full of candy floss.
At least when she was four.
Did your mother not know that this was going to be bad for you guys?
I mean, she worked really hard to give you this money while she was sick.
And...
It was bad for you, right?
I think it was incredibly bad.
I think that the reason she did that is because she knew that she wasn't providing what...
Not only did she know that she wasn't providing what we really did need, but she didn't...
I don't think she knew how to give us what we needed because she didn't have it herself.
So she has no choice or will in the matter.
No responsibility.
She didn't get it, so she just can't pass it forward.
Like, I can't be a good dad because I didn't have a good dad.
I can't be a philosopher.
I can't think rationally because I was not taught to think rationally.
So I guess a better way to put it would be she decided to give us money instead of what we really needed.
Why?
Why would you do that?
Let's pretend she has lots of choice because, listen, Brian, you do not need any philosophical approaches that rob people of choice.
You know the obvious reason why, right?
Yeah.
Anytime you absolve your mother of will, you strip yourself of will.
We've got this one big giant fucking dial, right?
Will, determinism.
Will, determinism.
Choice, inevitability.
Future, history.
Free will, shit happens.
Action, domino-like reaction.
This one big giant, you know, those throttles on boats, you push it all the way forward, right?
It's on-off.
And we, of course, when we're harmed by people, we have this great temptation to excuse them by no free will.
Just happened.
But that comes at an unbelievable cost to us, right?
Yeah.
So let's pretend your mother had all the free will, all the knowledge and moral responsibility in the world.
Why did she give you money?
Without teaching you how to use it.
And if she doesn't know how to use it, that's fine.
Why didn't she give you, like while she was here, 10 years to prepare you, right?
So why didn't she get you involved in a young entrepreneurs club?
I mean, according to Risky Business, those kids look great in sunglasses.
Or a trust with payouts over time.
Or only if you complete an apprenticeship with a business person.
Or I know these guys who will take you into their business and teach you how business works.
Or something, right?
So that's actually something I should mention.
She did.
That's how she did originally set up the trust was to have payouts over time.
And it ended up being we were able to just somehow...
Ignore that.
We were able to pretty much start using it within the first year or two.
Wait, hang on.
So your mother didn't want you to get the money up front, but you found a way around that?
Essentially, yeah.
Okay.
So you disobeyed your dying mother's wishes and took the money and blew it?
Yes.
How does that feel?
Because she was right in a way, right?
Awful.
I feel like complete shit for doing that.
I feel like if I had waited, I would have actually used it much more efficiently, much better.
And this is why you and your brother aren't talking that much, right?
Probably one of the reasons we've never really talked much.
Your dying mother scraped all this money together and structured it so you wouldn't get it all at once, and you jumped over her body and grabbed both armfuls, right?
Yeah.
I have this overpowering urge to say our aunt did it, but it was our decision.
Her sister?
My father's sister.
Right.
Well, I'm glad that you noticed that and I'm glad you intercepted that.
And look, you were young, right?
This doesn't make you like a bad person or anything like that, but I think when I was talking about self-annihilation as an act of hatred, it may be that you feel this way about yourself.
Anyone who could do that to his mother...
Why should that person get what they want in life?
Why should that person succeed?
Why should that person...
Does that make any sense?
Yeah.
The...
I mean, I've always felt like a bit like...
Kind of like I've hated myself.
At least as much as I can remember.
Now that's from my new little kid It's hard to say I Alright, I'm going to keep jumping to this, and I should try not to, but basically, I don't remember a whole lot from before I was nine.
So, I guess I should say probably from around the age of 10 or 11 onward.
And do you know why?
It's not our natural state, right?
Of course not, but I couldn't make a good guess.
I'd probably end up floundering, like I am now, if I were to try to make a guess at it.
Well, love is our involuntary response to virtue.
People think that I'm always talking about other people, but self-love, self-respect, is our involuntary or unconscious response to our own virtue, first and foremost.
Now, please understand, I'm not saying that you were a non-virtuous nine-year-old or ten-year-old, right?
But what I am saying is that if you have a moral evaluation of yourself as immoral, then that will engender self-hatred, whether justly or not, at least according to my way of thinking.
So is there any...
I'm not asking you to prove my theory.
I could be way off base here.
So don't obviously tell me anything that is not valid or correct.
But were you ever taught or did you ever think that you were not a good child?
Virtuous, not like obedient or whatever, right?
But...
Was there an event in your childhood where you felt a moral response was necessary but you couldn't summon it?
You see someone getting bullied or some animal getting hurt or something, some child getting abused or someone who was in pain or somebody who needed something that you felt you could have or should have provided?
I feel like a lot of the time when I could get away with it, I was mean.
You were mean.
And when I couldn't get away with it, I would be nice.
Well, that's not nice then, right?
Well, I guess...
I'm honest.
I won't steal anything because there are security cameras.
Well, that's not...
That's like saying that water has a shape because it runs up against a container, right?
I guess I'm just trying to find a word to the opposite of not...
I guess I was...
Refraining from being mean when I couldn't get away from it is a better way to put it.
Well, that's how we know that it was a choice, right?
Yeah.
Because if consequences would cause you to change your behavior, then that means you had a choice.
So, Brian, how were you mean?
What did you do?
One specific thing I can remember was when I was probably in 6th or 7th grade, I was just one day, I don't remember any kind of like constant or like Recurring to the same person bullying, but I was just...
It was just one day after school in Latchkey, I was...
Or it might have been during recess where there was one of the younger kids...
I went to a school where it was kindergarten, eighth grade, and he was probably in first grade, and I was just kind of...
I was really talking shit to him, and I was...
At one point he was on the ground and I ended up...
What were you saying to him?
How old were you and how old was he again?
I was in 7th grade, I think.
6th or 7th grade and he was in 1st grade.
So you were 12 and he was 6?
Something like that.
And I'm trying to remember the kind of things I was saying to him.
I do know that I was saying hurtful things.
I might not, I might be getting this confused with another event.
I think I might have just been physically pushing him around.
I think I was throwing a ball at him or something like that.
And at one point he was on the ground and I spit on him.
Did you push him down first or did he fall?
I think he fell from...
No, I think he sat down...
It's really hazy, so I'm kind of unsure.
But I know that at one point he was sitting on the ground and that's when I spit on him.
Who was the kid you were talking trash to?
I don't know if I consciously chose this kid for this reason, but we had what were called reading buddies, where an older kid would read to a younger kid.
And he was my brother's reading buddy.
And as a matter of fact, my brother got incredibly angry at me for it because of that.
Thank you.
I don't know.
what were you saying to your brother's reading buddy?
I think I was just venting my frustration or anger at him at, What were you saying to him?
I'm really trying to remember.
roughly.
I really wish I could remember.
Were you making fun of his appearance?
Were you calling him moral names like coward?
Were you making fun of his height?
Was he fat?
Were you, you know, my mom is so fat jokes.
I mean, what were you calling him stupid?
him ugly.
What were you saying?
I think I was.
I wasn't making fun of his appearance or anything like that.
I think I was just calling him mean names and trying to be as hurtful as possible.
Trying to make him feel bad about himself with like...
Like, probably no one likes you.
Like, you're a loser and things like that.
And you know these are all boomerang curses, right?
That's exactly what I was just thinking.
I mean, they probably bounced off him, but they...
They landed on you, right?
I think that's why I was saying them to him, because I was just myself saying it to myself, essentially.
Yeah, you were trying to write his future, but you carved your own, right?
Yeah.
So why...
Spit on a six-year-old.
Why would you do that?
I don't mean why like you bastard or anything.
I'm just, why?
Why would you do that?
It's not exactly a fair fight here, right?
Yeah, I think it was in line.
I was trying to be as mean as possible, and that seemed like that would be one of the most hurtful things I could do, is just spit on him when he's on the ground.
No, no, no, I get that.
Did you ever pick on anyone your own size?
No.
So it was always the little kids that you would bully, right?
Where it was not a fair fight.
Well, no one who was bigger than me at least, but someone who was...
I guess I'm also thinking back now to a time when I was much younger when I saw some people talking.
They were in my class and I thought that they were talking about me behind my back and I punched them both.
And they were the same size as me.
Did you square up and say, let's have a fight, or did you sucker punch them?
I ran up and sucker punched them both.
Right.
Not a fair fight either, right?
Right.
Were you actually correct or not?
I doubt I was.
I never found out whether I was or not.
Have you apologized to these people?
No, I haven't seen them since I haven't...
Oh, come on, man.
It's the internet.
This is not, you know, you're not trying to find...
It's not like Jason and the Golden Fleece, right?
I mean, it's the internet.
You type their fucking name into a browser and you find them.
No, I haven't.
Why do you think?
I mean, I get that old video games are interesting, but wouldn't that be a...
Honest thing to do?
Like a good thing to do?
It would be.
I would say I haven't because I'm afraid of taking action for myself.
Afraid of something that I'm trying to identify right now.
Well, you're afraid of being humiliated, which is...
Right.
When we bully people, we inflict our own worst fears on them, right?
Yeah.
We inflict our own worst fears on them.
And if you are exercising power to humiliate other people, then it becomes impossible to apologize because that is an invitation for other people to bully you and humiliate you, which is your worst fear, which is why you inflicted it, right?
Yeah.
So why is humiliation your worst fear?
Why is that your head full of rats in a cage?
I think because I have trouble seeing myself as, like, I see myself as like a good person and I when I look at when I actually look at myself I don't really see very much good and how would you know if you were a good person
This is a very fundamental question, so I appreciate your honesty in this, but how would you know if you were a good person?
I guess to start I probably would be a lot less unhappy.
Because...
No, no, no, no, no.
Oh my god.
What actions would you take that would give you the judgment that you're a good person, not what would the effects of being a good person be?
Right?
It's like saying, how would you know if you were dieting?
Well, I'm losing weight.
It's like, nope, that's the effects of dieting.
How would you know if you were dieting?
Well, I wouldn't eat this, I'd eat more of that, or whatever, right?
What actions would you take that would allow you to judge yourself as a good person?
I think to start, I would live more closely to what I hold to be moral principles rather I would live more closely to what I hold to be moral principles rather than doing the opposite or not Yeah, that's a tautology.
So yes, I understand that you would feel like a moral person if you acted morally, but that doesn't add anything to our knowledge, right?
It's like saying, I'll know I was dieting because I'd be dieting.
It doesn't actually add anything.
What specific actions could you or would you take that would allow yourself to say, I'm a good person?
I guess at this point I'm just kind of flailing around trying to figure out what actions I would take because I really am not sure what actions I would take to know I'm a good person.
Well, I mean, so one would be to apologize to the people that you harmed, right?
Yeah.
And what would you say if I were the little kid, just pretend he's still six years old, if you could go back in time, what would you say to that little kid right after you spat on him on the ground?
I'm so sorry that I even...
This is bringing up something that has made...
Sorry to not...
I'm kind of going out of the roleplay, but I feel like this is part of what makes me not feel like a good person, because I could say the words, but I wouldn't feel it.
Like, I wouldn't feel like I'm actually sorry.
Right.
So you're not really sorry?
No.
Not like I... No, I get it.
Look, I appreciate that honesty.
I really do.
And it's nothing worse than what I call the BNAP, the bullshit non-apology, right?
So that is refreshingly honest and I appreciate that.
It makes me feel like shit because I want to feel like I'm sorry, but I just don't.
No, you don't.
And I think that's very honest.
And so, I mean, if you're not honest for spitting at a six-year-old kid when you were 13, if you're not sorry about that, I think that's something to if you're not sorry about that, I think that's something to work Like, without that kind of emotional guidance, I don't know how you're going to achieve what you want, right?
I mean, because wanting the happiness is the same thing as wanting to be sorry for what you did.
You can't have one without the other, right?
Like, I don't think you can get happiness without feeling sorry.
Because that big dial about free will, same thing's true of emotion, right?
If you don't have empathy for the six-year-old kid that you spat on, how on earth could you have empathy for yourself to the point where you'll take actions to make yourself happy?
In other words, if you spit on this kid when you were 13 or 12 and he was six or so, when you spat on him, To apologize would make him feel better, would make him feel relief, would make him feel like, oh, good, I'm not just a terrible person, or I wasn't just horrible, this guy's got some issues, he's apologizing.
So you would give that child relief, he would feel better.
But if you don't have the empathy for a victim of your bullying, and you wouldn't be willing to, because you don't have that desire to make that person feel better, how on earth could you have the desire to make yourself feel better?
Right?
The six-year-old boy is you.
Well, I think we're getting somewhere because this is the first time that I've actually had tears come to my eyes.
I feel incredibly sad that this is like I want to be good, so to speak, but I'm lacking something that I need to get for myself.
And you know that happened when you sensed that I was giving up on you, right?
I didn't...
Because you've given up on yourself.
So you needed the experience of me giving up on you to recognize that you've given up on yourself.
You won't take the actions that you know you need to take to be happy.
You are condemning yourself to this photocopied, dismal day of self-distraction from here to eternity because you've given up on yourself, right?
So when I said, okay, well, I can't, you know, that's something you can work on, right?
I'm basically stepping back from the conversation and saying, well, there's nowhere else I can take you if you don't feel anything.
Sorrow or grief or remorse for spitting at a six-year-old kid when you were 12 or 13.
So the tears came when I said, "I can't go any further." I must have subconsciously thought or realized that you had given up on me because I didn't consciously realize it.
When you said that I didn't have the empathy, just a thought struck me that...
Because you're like a man saying, I want to eat food that tastes good, and then you tell me, well, I have no taste buds.
I can't taste anything.
Well, then I can't help you.
You have to work on getting your taste buds back and then maybe I can help you eat food that tastes good, but if you tell me you want food that tastes good but you've got no taste buds, saying I want to be happy but I have no empathy, well, can't help.
But then what's interesting is that when I said can't help, you found something.
You had tears, right?
Yeah.
And I've consciously realized that I have kind of given up on myself.
Like, I've multiple times had the thought that, like, I don't even want to try anymore.
Like I just, I want to just give up.
Who in your family, Brian, your ACE is two, no family love or support?
Second is a household member.
Depressed, mentally ill, or suicide attempt?
Who was that?
I'm very sure that my mother was depressed.
There was no suicide attempt, but I know that she was very depressed.
Especially now that she acted the same way I did.
The same, giving up on having her life the way she wants it.
Do you think that she wanted you or wants you to succeed?
No.
I can imagine she probably did want me to succeed.
then why would she give you the money?
Either she didn't know you well enough to know that giving you the money would make things worse, or she did, and it was an unconscious sabotage attempt.
I think that she...
She had set it up so we wouldn't get any money for the first five years, I think.
And she had the thought in her head that by that time we would be more responsible and have, I don't know, something...
I don't think that she thought that we were ready for the money at all.
At least not at the time.
But did she get from you a promise to not touch the money?
No.
Until she wanted you to?
No, she just set it up.
Why?
Why didn't she get that promise?
Why does she need this legal stuff, which can be surmounted, I guess, as you found through your father's sister.
Why didn't she just get a promise from you?
I would imagine because she didn't think that was worth anything, or she didn't...
Yeah, she just probably didn't think that that was really worth anything.
And in the ten years...
Between her diagnosis and her death, Brian, did she ever have a conversation with you about this mistrust?
No, I think she just thought it was just the way things are and that...
I don't know.
Well, I'm sorry that she didn't.
I mean, I think of all the countless hours she spent working to get that $300,000 together, I wish she'd spent some of those hours having conversations with you and your brother about your history and about everybody's choices, particularly her choices about your dad.
Would have been a little bit more valuable than the $300,000, right?
Which is gone now anyway.
Yeah, I've had that thought multiple times.
I'd rather had that.
Ten years.
Ten years.
She could have had that conversation.
It's not like you would have said no, right?
I'm sorry, said no to what?
If your mother had said to you, listen, we need to sit down and talk about our family, our choice, our histories, where you are, where you're going, right?
I don't know how long I've got left, so the urgency is whatever, right?
But instead, she's like, I'm going to make money.
Which is not what you needed.
Right.
Right.
And did your mother have the capacity for love?
If she did, I never saw it.
I don't think she did, but...
Did your mother have a mean streak?
This is...
Something where it gets weird and part of what I can't remember because I don't remember my mother screaming at me like consciously but according to my brother she when we were younger screamed at us a lot.
Depressed people can be pretty shrill.
Not all but depressed people you know they've got a lot of this forehead to the like back of the hand to the forehead stuff going on but at the same time they can be extraordinarily aggressive when they have power.
Yeah.
I know that.
First-hand experience.
Well, that's you and spitting, right?
Yeah.
That's what I was getting to.
Yeah.
Depressed people feel out of control and...
Like a drowning man will grab at anything to not drown.
People who feel out of control will grab at even the most sinister forms of power to feel any sense of efficacy, of any sense of control.
And so you probably felt out of control.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Because you had a mom, if she screamed at you and was depressed, then she was out of control, either of her screaming or her depression or both.
And because you felt out of control like a drowning man, you'll grab at anything to not drown, and you'll grab at anything to feel any sense of control.
And if that means spitting on a kid or making a kid cry, well, so be it.
I should also say that my father also yelled at us.
So it wasn't just my mother.
Oh yeah, no, I'm sure.
I mean, these...
There's an old Woody Allen movie called Everything You Wanted to Ask About Sex.
So everything you wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask or whatever.
And there's this giant breast.
Giant breast, like the size of a Sherman tank bouncing over the countryside and One guy turns to another and says, if I remember rightly, I think these things come in pairs.
It's the same thing with negative traits in parents.
If I remember rightly, I think these things come in pairs.
So it was modeled to you, and I'm also going to go out on a limb here and And say that, or guess that, your parents did not apologize to you before their demise for any of the wrong or harm that they did to you and your brother.
No, it was...
Like, there's no chance of me...
Like, okay, I should say that before...
When me and my brother would have been capable of talking to our parents about it was long after they were dead.
When we would have had any idea.
What?
Four years ago?
Well, we didn't actually start listening to your show and...
Oh, no, no, no.
Your parents should be in charge of that, not you.
I guess that's part of what I'm trying to say is that it never even entered their minds.
So the only way it would have happened is if we could have talked to them.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I'm not, okay.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
I'm not trying to excuse me.
What Vulcan mind melter you claiming here?
You know what did or did not ever enter your parents' minds?
Ever?
Well, if it entered their minds, they certainly didn't act upon it.
Okay, but that's very different.
Very different.
Yeah.
Very different statement.
A very different statement.
it.
I guess from my point of view, it feels like that it never would have entered their minds that they just are the way they are, or were the way they were.
It would have never even, to me, that would have never...
Okay, it's fine.
Did they ever watch television?
I don't remember if my dad did, but my mom was very often watching TV. Okay, did she ever watch sitcoms?
She watched a lot of History Channel.
She watched, like, A&E, things like that, like...
Oh, so she didn't watch...
Did she watch any fiction?
Any...
Oh, yeah.
She liked Star Trek.
She liked M.A.S.H., things like that.
And did she ever watch any shows that had kids in them?
As far as I know, I don't...
I don't know.
Yeah, I'm not sure if she did.
She probably at some point did, but I'm not sure.
Well, and the reason that I ask is that if you watch movies or watch television, I don't think I've ever seen a sympathetically portrayed parent scream at a child or hit a child.
Whenever you watch shows where there are children, the parents are always joking and happy and chatty and positive and playing with them.
And so the idea that they had no exposure to any other kinds of ways of being a parent, you know, one of the great things about television is that anybody who consumes any television...
Especially sitcoms, as I've talked about before, you know, like The Full House and Family Ties and other...
I can't remember them all off the top of my head, but Eight is Enough and all of these Believe It to Beaver and My Three Sons and Wait Till Your Father Gets Home and all this.
These shows are perpetual peaceful parenting training manuals that go into hundreds of millions of homes, A half dozen times a day and are consumed by hundreds of millions of parents.
Never in the history of the planet has so much and so many examples of peaceful parenting, of negotiation, of the avoidance of violence as a means of solving problems.
Never before in the history of the world has so many Examples of peaceful parenting gone out into the world of being consumed by so many people.
I used to watch Leave it to Beaver when I was a kid.
I don't remember the dad.
Was it named Ward Cleaver or something like that?
I don't remember the dad ever screaming at the children.
I don't know.
Did you ever watch the show?
I've seen the newer...
I think I saw the remake, the movie remake, but never the original show.
Oh, was there a movie?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Well, have you ever watched sitcoms where there are kids, or shows where there are kids?
Well, I've not watched them directly, but I've seen clips from them on YouTube, from reviews and stuff like that.
When you were a kid, you never watched sitcoms with kids in them?
I mostly watched cartoons.
At some point, I didn't really watch TV. I just started playing video games instead.
So I didn't really watch much TV after a certain point.
Mike, what were the ones you watched?
I used to watch lots of Lassie and Get Smart and Mr.
Ed on Nick at Night.
I know Lassie, you know, who stuck down the well.
Boy, I know Get Smart.
No one was spanking Timmy in Lassie.
But who's Mr.
Ed?
Mr.
Ed, I believe there were some kids.
Oh, man, I'm really stretching my memory.
But Mr.
Ed was the horse and the family that raised the horse.
And the horse could talk.
And there wasn't any spanking in that that I remember, or any violence.
The horse could talk?
Yes!
Mr.
Ed could talk!
I think that would come pretty much supplied with every marijuana joint, wouldn't it?
Like, smoke this, watch this.
It will make sense.
Okay.
But there wasn't any violence towards the kids in any of those shows that I can remember.
Everyone was very pleasant and was very polite and proper.
Yeah, I mean, did you ever watch the Leaver to Beaver ones?
I've seen clips, but I never actually watched full episodes.
I've seen a couple of the dad's speeches, though, that he's had.
Yeah, nice guy from Barbara Bensley was the mom who, like, was in basically an evening gown making pot roasts.
Pretty, pretty civilized.
Eddie Haskell was like the one 60s counterculture, slightly sinister force in that show.
But it was really wholesome.
I mean, the parents and the kids all reasoned with each other.
There was no spanking, no timeouts, no go to your rooms, no...
I mean, maybe there was.
I don't know.
I certainly haven't watched them all.
But even in the Flintstones, you know, with Pebbles and Bam Bam, the kids could be very aggressive and violent, didn't know their own strength and so on.
But there was never any corporal punishment or screaming at the kids that I remember.
Little Rascals going back to, what, the 1930s?
With alfalfa and buckwheat and, I mean, I didn't see any...
I mean, the kids had it hard sometimes, but I don't remember seeing any violence against them.
Full House, they had the talking stick, right?
Cosby Show!
Oh, yeah, I know.
A little tarnished now, but...
I don't know the idea that parents just didn't know any better.
I... I guess that's...
I shouldn't phrase things in a way that takes away the responsibility for my parents because we've found parenting books as we've cleaned out the basement and the attic.
So we know that they had other resources.
My brother and I, that is.
Okay, so your parents did read parenting books, and did you ever read the parenting books your parents read?
No.
Why?
Would that be fascinating?
I wish I could say it would be, but I honestly have...
The only thing I ever find interesting anymore are things where I can...
I don't have to think.
That's what I feel like now.
So you're dead set against thinking, is that right?
Thank you.
You know you're calling the wrong show for that, right?
Yeah, I guess it's...
It's like I'm calling into the cooking channel saying, okay, but nothing about food.
I guess that's the part of me that wants to just give up, would rather just not think, because thinking leads to not giving up.
Right, and you're not, like if you were an ER doctor, you wouldn't give CPR to yourself, right?
I don't think so.
Right.
So are you calling in to say goodbye to the world?
Is that the plan?
Are you just laying this burden on me to say, well, I don't want to think, I don't want to live, I don't want to do anything.
I mean, why would you call up for that?
Because that's not what I want.
I want to figure out why that's what I'm feeling.
Or at least be on the right track.
But you know why you're feeling that.
It's because you won't do the right things.
Right?
Do you think another day of playing old video games is going to help your life?
I should say it's because I want to figure out why I don't want to do the work.
Like why it's...
I guess...
Because that's all you think you're worth.
Right?
People will spend a million dollars or more if someone spray paints, I think someone did a while back ago, spray painted over the Mona Lisa.
Now they think they've got it behind glass.
But people, some asshole, came and spray painted over the Mona Lisa.
And they spend I don't know how much money getting the spray paint off the Mona Lisa, right?
Why?
Because it's worth it.
If somebody spray paints over graffiti, is anyone going to spend a million dollars to lovingly restore the graffiti underneath?
No.
See, you're not art, you're vandalism to yourself.
Why restore that which has no value?
And it's one of these gloriously self-fulfilling prophecies.
Ah, I'm not gonna live to an old age, so I might as well smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, and eat nothing but Snickers bars.
Hey, look!
I knew I was right.
Another perspective that I've thought of is doing those things in order to not live to an old age.
Oh yeah, so you could check out early and say, oh well, bad luck, right?
Something like that.
And maybe that's what your mom did.
Was she a healthy lady?
No.
Was her cancer anything of her own doing?
She smoked for a long time.
I don't know if that was the cause of it because it was not lung cancer.
It started in her eye and metastasized to her liver eventually.
Did she exercise?
Was she overweight?
She was overweight and she did not exercise and she did not eat well.
So she ate badly.
Did she drink as well?
No.
As far as I know, she didn't drink alcohol very often.
Okay.
So she ate poorly, she didn't exercise, she was overweight, and she smoked a lot when she was younger.
Yeah.
Right.
So maybe what Freud called thanatos.
He had Eros and Thanatos.
Eros was the love of life, or the life impulse, and Thanatos was the love of death.
As the poet says, half in love with easeful death.
Mike, can you look that line up for me?
I can't remember that.
Give me a link.
But you're half in love with easeful death, which is...
It's a great line from a song that everybody must listen to if you haven't listened to it already.
Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come, which he wrote after listening to Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind and saying, why can't we blacks write songs that powerful and deep?
And he wrote...
A change is going to come.
A change is going to come.
I'm not going to sing it because, man, you simply can't.
Maybe Tina Turner did a pretty good version, but it's really hard to do a good version of that song because he just had this unbelievably fantastic voice.
But he says, It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die, because I don't know what's up there beyond the sky.
It's too hard living, but I'm afraid to die.
That's...
And then, shortly afterwards, he died.
He was gunned down while in a prostitution deal, gone bad.
He was shot by, I think, a motel owner, this woman who thought he was coming in to rob her.
Let me just find the line here, because yours is not a new phenomenon, my friend.
Alright, here we go.
You ready?
This is the poem which is worth reading.
John Keats' Ode to a Nightingale.
This is from the late 18th, early 19th century.
He only lived to be 26.
This was in...
Yeah, he only lived to be 26.
So he says, Darkling...
I listen, and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful death, called him soft names in many amused rhyme, to take into thee air my quiet breath.
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, to cease upon the midnight with no pain, while thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad.
In such an ecstasy still wouldst thou sing And I have ears in vain, to thy high requiem become a sod.
So he's saying, I listen to this beautiful song of a nightingale, but I just want to die.
A beautiful song of the nightingale is all the riches that nature has to offer, all the possibilities, and of course birds sing because they want to fuck.
It's the creation of life.
And he's like, ah, I wish that I'd like to die in my sleep with no pain.
And he did die young.
Shelly was a, he would be some kind of crazy race car driver now.
But he was a boat racer.
And he went out against all advice into the storm and died.
And to thy high requiem become a sod.
So he's saying that the beauty, the high requiem is the beauty of the nightingale's song.
Sod is the ground that you're covered in.
And he's saying that the beauty of the world is his requiem as a poem or a song for the dead.
That the beauty of the nightingale accelerates his desire for death.
Yours is not the only consciousness that is half in love with a useful death, right?
Yeah.
The end of stress, the end of worries, the end of cares, the end of uncertainty, the end of pain, the end of loss, the end of guilt, the end of shame, the end of hatred, of self-hatred, of self-contempt.
All this Like a water spout crashing against a blackboard filled with dark words.
Erases.
Gone.
That if we feel like we have become a plague and a contagion upon the world, we can make the world a healthier place by inoculating ourself against the very breath that gives us life.
And there's a collective sense, I think, as well in our thirst for or rejection of life.
Who would miss me?
Should I die?
Who would be unhappy?
Should I die?
Who would be happy?
Should I die?
And life?
The thirst for life is not granted.
It must be earned, right?
Brian, you know what you need to do.
And I think that you're hoping that if you gain enough self-knowledge, that what you need to do will become easy.
And I'm not sure.
I mean, self-knowledge is definitely a good thing.
It makes it easier.
But at some point, it has to become just a matter of willpower.
You know, it's like, well, if I read enough diet books, then dieting will become easy.
Well, no.
I mean, you need to read the diet books, but you still got to change your diet, right?
And do you want to?
Is your future life worth fighting for?
I can't tell you that answer.
Because even if I could, that would be part of the very passivity that's got you here to begin with.
So you've got another, if you want them, 70 years on this planet.
Is the happiness of those 70 years worth acting on now?
I believe they are.
I believe they are too.
So then, you must act.
Look someone up on Facebook that you've wronged and say that you're sorry.
Look, it may not be as terrible as you think.
And if it is as terrible as you think, good.
Because let's say you call up or you message the guy you spat on and you say, I'm incredibly sorry for that.
That was harmful, that was wrong, that was destructive.
If the guy shits on you, good.
You just learn something about empathy, right?
Yeah.
And if not, look, there were people who were involved in this show before I had...
We used to have much more involvement with people in the show before I became a parent.
But, you know, it's just a...
If you're case-elected, it's a bit of a time sink.
Those R's got all the time in the world.
And when I got sick a couple of years ago, some of the people never bothered to send me a message or call.
And some of them have since called me up and said, listen, I'm really sorry about that.
You know, I didn't.
Give you any support or send you any best thoughts or best wishes or whatever when you were facing a life-threatening illness.
And I appreciated that.
I've had pleasant chats with them.
I told them how I felt and my frustration or disappointment at their behavior.
But we've had good conversations about it.
And I appreciate that.
I know that's not an easy thing to do.
It's an honorable and decent thing to do.
So you can call up and just say you're sorry.
Saying you're sorry...
It's an act of faith in your future.
It's an act of belief in the value of your future.
It's an act of benevolence towards the potential happiness of your future.
You know, like, sitting and grinding away on a bike machine is not fun.
Not getting anywhere.
It's not fun, but it's an act of benevolence to your future.
Like, quitting smoking is an act of benevolence to your future.
Losing weight or not gaining weight is an act of benevolence to your future.
Apologizing to people you've done wrong to is an act of benevolence to your future.
It's saying, I want to live in a future where I reap the benefits of apologies.
I have a respect for my future self to the point where...
Like, how are you treating your future self right now, Brian?
This moment, not particularly well, but this is where...
Badly.
Dude, you need some absolutes.
I'm sorry, but this fog of apparently and this, and I don't remember and badly, apparently, little of this, little of that.
No, this is not come see, come saw.
You are shitting and pissing on your future self.
Your future self, if it could send a message back in time, be like, put down the fucking joystick, man.
Future self calls back and says, stop smoking.
I've got oven mitts for lungs.
That's why it's kind of muddled for me, because I have been taking steps.
I did quit smoking, and for a while I was eating better and exercising, and then I just stopped caring about doing that anymore.
I don't understand.
You say you stopped caring about it.
Who gives a shit whether you care about it?
I mean, it's like, well, I was going to do my taxes, but I really didn't feel like I wanted to.
Well, who the fuck wants to do their taxes, but it's better than jail?
I don't understand what you mean when you say, I just didn't feel like it anymore.
Isn't that the whole point of why you need willpower and why we have standards and values is because we don't feel like shit a lot?
That's what I'm saying, is that I had the willpower to, like, I didn't want to do it just as much as I don't want to do it now, but before I was able to just do it.
Right.
So you just, I don't know, you make a commitment to do it.
There's no magic.
You make a commitment to do it and you just do it.
But you've got excuse-a-rama, right?
You've got this permission to not do it.
Don't have that.
That's how you get self-knowledge.
It's by doing things that are uncomfortable, realizing how you feel, working on the details, working on processing it, do a little bit more that you're uncomfortable with, work on the feelings, work on what's happening.
Right?
Because you've got this escape hatch called, well, if I don't feel like it enough, I won't.
No.
No.
I know that's not what was modeled for you, but I'm telling you, That if you want to get things done in your life, you don't have the escape hatch.
Yeah.
I've had to do shows when I feel terrible.
Mike, do I often call up and say, Oh, I got a bit of a headache.
I don't feel like doing a show tonight.
No.
No, you don't.
And I remember when we ran the tally of how many shows we did when you have cancer or undergoing chemotherapy, we were like, oh my god.
I did 300 shows that year.
300 shows!
Did I have a decent excuse to not do those shows?
I really did.
Yes, you did.
I really did.
So, I'm just, I'm not trying to lord it over you or whatever.
I'm just trying to, this is something that took me a long time to figure out.
Which is, you know, if you pull the plug out of the bath, all the water drains away.
And if you pull the plug out of your resolution, all your resolution drains away.
You've just got to not have an escape hatch for the resolution.
You've got to have no plug.
No plug!
No hole!
Or if there's a hole, we keep it plugged.
Don't feel like it?
Do it anyway.
Everyone who does anything of substance often does it when they don't want to.
And this is just 101 of how to get shit done in your life, which is you just do it.
So you just...
I mean, I'm sorry.
I mean, I don't know what else to say other than if you give yourself an out, you'll take it.
That's exactly right.
And if you say to yourself, okay, well, if I really, really don't want to do it, then I won't.
I mean, was it...
Mike, it was you who was telling me about Glenn Beck, right?
Yeah.
Like, how insanely bad and weird his health was while he was doing shows.
Yeah, he talked about how he would have, like, his hand would crimp up and he wouldn't be able to stand and he'd pretty much just, like, collapse and they'd just pretty much prop him up to do a show and he'd have people there that knew he was sick and if they saw him kind of trail off, they could jump in and kind of cover for him.
And he had like a hand signal, like take the camera off me, right?
Because sometimes he's like...
I'm in so much pain.
I'm in so much pain, you've got to take the camera.
Take it to the guest, point it at an empty chair, but don't show it at me because I'm about to grimace from the pain and whatever, right?
And he had started the blaze and he had how many dozens, if not hundreds of employees counting on him?
And he felt an obligation and he kept working through it and...
He got it done, you know?
Not saying that that's advisable necessarily in that circumstance, but he got it done.
Yeah, in A Long Day's Journey into Night, a horrifying play, based on real-life examples, the father, his son died at birth, right?
I think he was stillborn, I think, that lived for a little bit and then died, the father.
And he was an actor in a Adventure play, and he went and did a show that night.
I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong.
I don't know what's appropriate or what's not.
Maybe work helps.
I don't know that staring at the wallpaper would help in that situation.
But Brian, I mean, we've talked about the history, and I appreciate that.
I'm sensitive to it.
But if you want to protect your happiness, if you want to build a bridge for your To your future where there's a place that you'll want to get out of bed and want to be happy about your life.
You just have to have no out.
I mean, how many times has Donald Trump declared bankruptcy?
At least two, I think.
At least.
Yeah, I mean, he was in debt.
I'm making up numbers here, but he was in debt like $8 million.
And he walked past a homeless guy and he said to his wife, hey, that guy's $8 million richer than I am.
And then he just stops again.
And that is sort of a foundational thing that you just...
And once you start doing it, it gets easier and it gets easier.
It's just like any exercise, any muscle.
You know, first couple of times you do it, you're sore and Then you keep working on it, and it gets easier.
And then you get your own momentum, right?
I mean, Glenn Beck was employing dozens of people, friends, and he has a mission that he's pursuing.
And so it just, it becomes sort of unthinkable to not do it.
And it's no longer even just a matter of willpower.
It's just a matter of momentum.
But the willpower is what starts it.
And as you get into motion, right, it's...
An object in motion tends to stay in motion.
An object at rest tends to stay at rest.
So getting those bastards moving is a lot of shoulder work, sweat, blood, and tears.
But once you're in motion, then it's a whole lot easier.
But I know that beginning.
Like, I mean, I don't know, was it a couple of years ago, five or six years ago, I lost like 20, 25 pounds.
And it wasn't that easy.
Because I knew that I could never go back.
If you want to, like 97% of people who lose weight gain it back and often a lot more.
And that's because they say, okay, well, I've lost the weight, so now I'm going to go back to the way I was.
Like, nope, you can't go back.
You can't eat the way that you used to if you really want to keep the weight off.
And so the beginning is tough, but now it's, I think if I did go back and eat the way I used to, I probably would feel pretty unwell.
It's easier now.
So, from that standpoint, I don't have any other, there's no magic.
I think the pursuit of self-knowledge that you're going through is important.
I think to talk about your regrets with your brother, to talk about what you did to his reading buddy and what you did to the kid, have open and frank conversations with people about your life, write letters back and forth with your parents who are in your head.
I know you're in therapy, which is obviously very, very important, I think, and positive.
And those things will all help, but there is no substitute for making things happen.
I have to say that I've been in therapy, but I'm not currently in therapy.
And that's one of the things my brother has offered to pay for.
Yeah, my guess is you'll get more out of therapy if you pay for it yourself.
Because, I mean, that's why I say to people, donate to the show, because that engages their whole being in getting into philosophy or...
Your unconscious is empirical.
It doesn't respond to ideals.
And so if you don't put resources into it yourself, and I mean, I know we've offered to help people with therapy, and we have helped people to pay for therapy in extremities.
And so it can, you know, it's better than nothing.
But if, you know, I think it would be better if you got a job yourself and paid for it yourself.
Because I... Getting resources from your mom, getting resources from your brother hasn't helped.
And I think getting more resources is not exactly what you need.
So I would try and aim to do it yourself.
Yeah, I think that is what I need to do.
And at this point, I'm...
Will you try and contact the people you may have done wrong too and just apologize to them?
I will try to.
Although, to be honest, I feel like I've painted myself as a complete bully.
But...
There's only been a couple times where it was the case.
And to be honest, I can only remember the name.
I'm sorry, you're just making mouth sounds now.
I never said you were a complete bully.
I'm saying to the people that you've wronged, call them up and apologize.
And do that for them, but do it for yourself as well.
I'm not trying to portray you as a complete bully.
I think that you're a bully to yourself.
I think that's what I was saying, is that I was portraying myself.
Or I made myself feel that way.
But anyway, yes, I will do that.
And write a letter to yourself 10 years down the road.
What do you want?
And there's lots of things that you can do to reawaken the amygdala and sense of time that seems to have atrophied to some degree where you are.
And sense of time, sense of panic, sense of mortality, I think is what helps us to make better and smarter decisions in the here and now.
So I think there's a lot of things that you can do to jumpstart.
But you just have to Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever surrender your willpower and your standards.
You just don't.
No matter how much pressure is put upon you.
And there will be pressure you'll put upon yourself to undermine.
There'll be pressure that other people around you put on you to undermine probably your whole social circle, maybe your family, maybe your aunts, maybe your brother, may not be comfortable with you breaking out of the mold and striking off on your own.
But you follow virtue and integrity to the end.
To the end.
Because what other choice do we have?
Live other people's lives and pretend that they're non-standards or the stars we're supposed to sail by?
What the hell is that going to happen?
They live, they make their choices, we make our choices.
I could not be a leader.
Where I was before I separated from my family of origin and a lot of my friends, they did not permit me to be a leader.
And you can't be a leader without the support of people around you.
You can't.
You can't be big and powerful if the majority of people around you are invested in you being small and helpless.
So you grow and you see who's willing to grow with you.
But I would not have the life that I have if I had allowed myself to be limited by the smallness of those around me.
So you commit to being as big and powerful as possible.
See who wants to come along for the ride.
Will you keep us posted about how it goes?
I will do my best.
No?
Give us a yes or a no.
Oh my God, you're so annoying at this point.
I just gave you this big speech, man, on making a commitment.
What is it you do your best?
Is Deuce X going to suck you in once more to the point where you can't spend three minutes to write an email?
No, I will.
Yes, I will.
Do you get what I'm saying here?
Before we go, my God, man, I need you to understand what I'm saying.
Are you going to let us know how it goes?
Say yes or say no, but don't say, I'll do my best.
I know you're not busy.
Yes, I'll keep you posted.
I appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
And I thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
You guys have a good night.
You too.
All right.
Take care, Brian.
All right.
Up last today is Nicholas.
He wrote in and said, How can you dismiss with any kind of certainty that religion neither holds value nor truth?
You charge belief in God and religion.
Do we have to start with this already?
Do we have to start with the straw man at the very beginning?
Hold on, hold on.
We're going.
All right.
You charge belief in God and religion in general with the vicious crimes of state and the actions and motivations of people and sects, absolving them of moral responsibility for their acts of violence.
You dogmatically cling to a belief in atheism, but do not ascribe it the equal responsibility of proving that God doesn't exist, rather than simply admitting you don't know.
As someone who does feel that God has been proven an empirical reality in life, I would genuinely enjoy debating this subject from new perspectives with reason and evidence.
That's from Nicholas.
So Nicholas, if you would genuinely enjoy a debate, why'd you start off with misrepresentations and insults?
Okay, well, that was the impression that I got from...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Listen, don't be tough in the email.
And then when I call you on it, retreat to, that was my impression.
Because you didn't say, this is my impression, right?
I will read it back to you.
You said, how can you dismiss with any kind of certainty that religion neither holds value nor truth?
That was the impression I... Have I ever said that there's no value in religion?
Okay.
That was the impression I got from a large amount of your writings and your videos.
Okay, so my impression is...
It's more honest than this is what you mean or what you say.
No, I mean, we gather our opinion of someone's perspective from what they share with the world.
Yes, but it remains our opinion until we can actually provide empirical proof.
So if I have, and I've done 3,000 shows.
I haven't maintained my beliefs 100% over 3,000 shows.
That's not possible.
Neither would that be interesting to me or anybody else.
Right, so I recently did a show called An Atheist Apologizes to Christians.
Okay.
Wherein I did talk about, and I have talked about this before, the value that religion brings to various areas in people's lives.
I've talked about how people who are religious are less prone to depression, people who are religious generally have more stable marriages, they report better health, and so on.
And I've talked about some of the values that that provides.
So, rather than saying that's my impression, what you could say is...
If I'm incorrect, you know, I'm happy to retract that or whatever, right?
And again, I'm not saying that you have to have listened to every show and annotated everything that I've ever said about religion.
But when you're saying that I've said something which is not true and has recently been disproven, then you're incorrect about that, right?
Yes.
That's insulting.
And that's a particularly insulting thing to say to a philosopher who prides himself on reason and evidence, right?
Because dogmatically clinging to a belief is the exact opposite of everything that I advocate in this show, right?
Okay, but can you prove that God doesn't exist?
No, no, no, no, no.
I want to talk about the form of your communication before we get into the content.
Because you're framing this conversation in a very antagonistic and insulting way to begin with, right?
I want to acknowledge that before I just jump into the debate.
Yes, and I will admit to that, and I'll take responsibility for that.
But I will say that perhaps I felt antagonized by your positions as well.
Well, absolutely, and I can understand why you would, but that doesn't mean that you get to falsify what I've said.
So, for instance, if you want to know my thoughts about the existence of God, have you read my book called Against the Gods?
No, I'm in the process of reading UPB right now, but I'm still going through all your work right now.
I enjoy it very much.
Well, obviously, but obviously religion is a pretty important part of your belief system, and if you're going to debate me about...
existence of God, it might be helpful to read a short book which is all about my arguments for the existence of God.
Okay.
You're saying you put forward arguments for the existence of God?
Well, so you're saying, Steph, you've done this or you haven't done that.
Well, I've written a book that's free!
It's not a bait where you've got to pay me $100 to read the book.
It's completely free.
I like donations, but it's completely free to read.
And so before Like, before you rush in telling me about what I have said or haven't said about the existence of God, I've got a book that's free.
It's only 83 pages.
It's not like the New Testament plus the Old Testament plus ancient Aramaic original footnotes.
Yeah, it's an hour or two easy read.
Yeah, I understand that.
So you're saying you don't want to talk about this because I haven't read your book?
No, I'd like an apology.
I told you I accept moral responsibility for that.
I'm sorry for the antagonistic tone.
Don't sound sorry.
I am.
I am sorry for it.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
And I'm not trying to grind you down.
I'm not trying to bull break you.
It's just that if people misrepresent me when it's very easy to get the correct information and they misrepresent me in an antagonistic way, it's kind of a dick move, right?
Okay.
Fair enough.
Alright.
So, when it comes to religion itself, do you think that...
I don't think that it's important to prove that God doesn't exist?
I've heard some of your arguments that attempt to prove that God doesn't exist.
I have my own counter debate to that.
My own counter arguments to that.
If you want to hear them.
Well, okay.
Why don't you give me an argument that I've made against the existence of God in your rebuttal?
Okay.
Well, for example, you used that whole thing about the square circle.
Well, actually, may I say, before we talk about this, from my experience, because I've talked about this on the forum with people.
I tried to start a thread on this about...
About the value and truth in religion using empirical evidence and reason.
And I encountered a lot of hostility towards it.
Maybe I was, you know, like, I didn't think I was antagonistic in any way.
I really don't.
I mean, like, you can read it.
Did you think that you were antagonistic in your message to me?
Perhaps, yeah.
Perhaps.
And the reason I'm asking that is that if you didn't know you were antagonistic in your message to me, which was very insulting and wrong, incorrect, I mean, Then you may not be the best judge of whether you're being antagonistic or not.
Okay.
But, well, when I would provide debate on the subject, instead I would get simply, like, hostility and bullying and that kind of thing, rather than actual...
So, hang on.
So, are you saying that it's 100% other people's fault that you're getting a negative response?
No, no, no, no, no.
The point I'm trying to make is that I believe that atheism, that many people, from my experience, many people arrive to that position from a very emotional place.
And I can back this up, and if you want to hear it, I'll tell you.
Wait, are we going to do a debate about emotions or about God's existence?
Well, from my experience...
Sorry, I'm just confused, because your question was about About epistemological and metaphysical questions of God's existence.
And now we're talking about emotional motivations for atheism.
Because you said, well, Steph, you've made these arguments about the existence of God.
I disagree with them.
And I said, okay, well, give me an argument and your rebuttal.
And now we're talking about forum posts and emotional attachment to beliefs.
And I just, I don't know what the hell's going on.
Sorry.
Okay.
And I understand that.
But what I was trying to explain is that from my experience with doing this, like a kind of proto-debate before this conversation to prep for it, I experienced where it didn't matter what kind of argument I would put forward.
Because there was too much of an emotional connection to atheism to the point where they were not open to the evidence.
Say, for example, and I don't know what your views are on the subject of 9-11, but I'll just give you an example.
So, in the case of 9-11, when it comes to physical evidence, when it comes to supply of testimonial evidence...
Scientific evidence.
There's this overwhelming weight of evidence and reason where you could just, like, immerse your life in it, proving that it was very much not necessarily the official story.
But if you talk to someone who's emotionally invested in the official story, It is very likely that you'll encounter such hostility to that, to just even questioning it at all, that they won't be open to any kind of evidence or argument or reason or evidence.
And the same thing could be said the other way around, that if somebody is very much emotionally invested in 9-11 as an inside job, if you provide them evidence to the contrary, they can get aggressive as well.
I've certainly had that experience.
Absolutely.
And all I'm trying to point out is that When two people are coming from opposing sides, if they have an emotional investment in that, and I admit that I have an emotional investment in my beliefs, but if someone has an emotional investment into that and isn't open to arguments and evidence and reason that could cloud their judgment when it's brought up,
And I'm not necessarily accusing you of not being open to evidence and reason and all that in regards to the...
Oh no, sorry, I think I understand.
Hang on, you've switched from insulting me to insulting my listeners.
No.
And then you wonder why there's antagonism in your interactions with people?
I think I may have a clue.
I'm not sure, but I think there may be a clue here.
Why would that necessarily be an insult if I'm simply stating a reality?
It is an insult because this is a listenership that is hopefully dedicated to reason and evidence.
And you're saying, well, they're just rejecting valid arguments because of emotionalism.
So that's kind of insulting.
Now, again, maybe it's true.
Maybe it's true.
But to make that charge without substantial evidence is insulting.
Okay.
Because you're saying that people are just emotionally attached to atheism, they don't listen to reason, they don't respond to reason and evidence, rational arguments, and you're just saying that without any proof.
Well, I guess assertion without proof kind of the basis of faith, so maybe that all fits together.
Can I ask you if you...
No, I want to talk about the arguments about God.
That's what you wrote about.
I don't want to deal with this he said, she said about shit that happened on a board somewhere.
I mean, get to the arguments about God.
That's more important than what somebody posted on a message board.
Yes, but if I... Like just in that same situation on the message board, I tried going right in head first.
And as soon as I did, I immediately got just like bulldozed over with just this like bullying and down talking and just like...
Dude, dude, I just said I don't want to talk about this.
You can disagree with me, but you still need to acknowledge that I made some sounds with my head hole, right?
Alright, well, can I ask you a question?
I heard in a previous conversation that you had very recently on the call-in show, you said, for example, that you told this to a Jehovah's Witness, a person who was in Jehovah's Witnesses, and you said that God makes you feel little and insignificant, and you portrayed this in a negative light.
And for me, it's quite the opposite, where it's more of like a humbling and empowering experience.
And see...
It seems like that's like an emotional dislike or distaste towards religion.
I'm just out of curiosity.
Are we going to get to any rational arguments in this call?
If you want to dive right in, all right, let's go.
I don't think diving right in after 20 minutes is exactly the right way of phrasing it.
But yes, I would like a rational argument since that was the content of your email.
Alright, so you used basically abstracts of mathematics, for example, with the whole square circle thing and basically saying, well, 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 4, or I mean, 2 plus 2 equals 4, 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 5, and that somehow this is in relation to...
To the existence of God or not.
However, the space between one to two is the same as the space between one to five.
It is actually infinite.
There are infinite numbers between one to two, one to five.
And these numbers don't have any value at all unless applied to something.
It's a completely abstract and relative language.
And it doesn't actually hold like...
You can't really use that to say it exists.
Wait, I'm sorry to interrupt.
Are you saying that...
Conceptually, you can infinitely divide the space between numbers, and therefore, 1 equals 4.
I'm saying that the space between 1 to 2, if you go like 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, you could go on forever to infinity.
No, you can go on for 10 in that example.
No, you could go on to 1.11, 1.12, 1.13, 1.14.
Okay, so then you go to 1.99, and then you get to 2, which is 100.
Do you mean if you could go 1.11, 1.111, 1.1111, 1.111111, that sort of stuff?
Yes, yes, exactly.
So then are you saying that because there could be an infinity of numbers between 1 and 4, 1 is the same as 4 because they're both separated by an infinity?
My point is the space is equal.
The space between one to two is the same as the space between one to five.
It's infinity.
It shows it's just an abstract concept.
It's not accurate.
Oh, I get it.
So if you spend a thousand dollars on your visa, you can send them a one dollar bill with this explanation that there's an infinity of numbers between them and therefore the one is the same as a thousand and your bill is paid.
No, no, no, no.
My point is that you also use the law of contradiction.
Sorry, I'm not explaining it very well.
The law of non-contradiction, you use Aristotle's law of non-contradiction quite often in that argument, and I have quite a few problems with that.
But see, you're very emotionally invested in Aristotle, and I'm not going to say you're not open to any questioning towards Aristotle's arguments, but when we hold people...
I am emotionally invested in logic, I will certainly grant you that.
Yeah, okay, so the law of non-contradiction.
If I have a rational argument against it, would you be open to that?
You mean, would I, like if you have an argument that contradicts an argument, would I then be open to it destroying the law of non-contradiction?
I think that would be an impossible feat.
But see that, okay, you think it would be an impossible feat, and so do you admit that you have an emotional Basically, resistance to the idea that it could be...
No!
I just made a rational argument.
Why are you bringing emotions into it?
Alright, so the law of...
What was my rational argument?
What was your rational argument?
That it would be impossible...
I just said it.
I'm just curious if you're listening.
What was my rational argument?
...that it would be impossible to disprove.
I'm sorry?
You think it would be impossible to disprove.
I made an argument.
What was my argument?
I don't know.
What was your argument?
I heard a statement.
I didn't hear it.
Do you think it's important that you don't even know what my argument was?
Yes, I'm asking you what it was.
No, do you think it's important that you don't know what my argument was when I just made it?
And then you accuse me of emotional bias.
You didn't even hear the argument.
You tell me I'm wrong, didn't even hear the argument, can't repeat it back to me, and Nick, then you tell me I've got emotional bias.
Okay, I'll tell you the argument.
I'm genuinely asking you to repeat the argument, and you're just kind of going antagonistic on me.
Yeah, I'm going antagonistic.
All right.
Okay, so the argument is this, that if you want to argue against the law of non-contradiction, Then you have an argument in contradiction to the law of non-contradiction.
But that argument can only be valid if it matters that it contradicts.
So you can't create an opposing argument to the law of non-contradiction without affirming the law of non-contradiction because it only has value because it contradicts the law of non-contradiction, which thus affirms the law of non-contradiction.
That doesn't make any sense to me at all.
I'm saying that the law of non-contradiction is not true.
Something can both be true and not true at the same time.
Can you give me an example?
Yes.
Because you're just making a statement that's not an argument, right?
I will give you several examples if you wish.
We are both the same, but we are different.
A rock and a seagull are both composed entirely of matter.
They are the same.
They are also not the same.
No.
No, because you're changing the definition.
So if you say composed of matter, that is a standard which the rock and the seagull both sustain.
They are not both composed of matter and the opposite of matter at the same time.
They're not both composed of matter and vacuum at the same time.
By the standard of matter, they are both composed of matter at the same time.
There's no contradiction.
Now, if you change the definition and say one is alive and one is not, Well, then you've changed the category.
They are not the same and different by the same standard at the same time.
What is language anyway?
No, no, no.
Do you follow that argument?
Not in what is language.
Don't Clinton me, bro.
Don't Clinton me, bro.
Do you understand the argument?
Hang on, let me finish my point, then you can talk.
There's no contradiction if we use the same standard at the same time.
If you switch standards, then you switch standards, right?
Okay.
So you understand, you can't say that the seagull and the rock are arguments against the law of identity or the law of non-contradiction or anything like that.
Well, it's just semantics, really.
No, it's not.
No, it's not just semantics.
People say that when they've lost an argument.
Well, it's just semantics.
Up is down, black is white, I'm right, na-na-na-na-boo-boo.
I made an argument.
There's no contradiction if you hold the categorization stable.
If you switch around the categorization, then you're comparing apples to oranges.
They both have infinitely the same properties and infinitely different properties at the same time.
Adding infinitely does not explain anything.
Can you explain it?
Because I gave you a rebuttal to you earlier.
On the molecular level, they're both entirely composed of matter with very little distinction, if any at all.
And yet, they are different.
Wait, hang on.
Sorry, sorry.
Are you saying that the matter that a rock is composed of is very similar to the matter that a seagull is composed of?
Is that right?
I'm saying that on the molecular level, they could look exactly the same.
I don't know what that means at the molecular level.
Do you mean the atomic level?
Okay, fine.
That's what I meant, yeah.
And do you think that there's an excess of carbon in the rock as opposed to a carbon-based life form like a seagull?
All right, well, let's move on.
If I was to...
Wait, wait, what do you mean let's move on?
We're just in the middle of a conversation.
No, I mean, if you say that that's just definitions, then let me give you a more concrete example.
I'm not talking about definitions.
I'm asking you...
Let's say that you have the rock is a diamond, right?
And you have a seagull.
Are you saying that the atoms that compose the seagull are virtually identical or are identical to the atoms that would compose a diamond?
Yes.
I'm saying on the quantum level they would be exactly the same.
Wait, wait.
We've gone from molecular to atomic to quantum now.
Are you saying that at the atomic level, they're the same?
I'm not a scientist.
I don't know the language of science very well.
I think that's clear.
So you don't know what you're talking about.
You're just throwing scientific words at things, making, like, hoping to sound right.
Right.
You don't see how you're...
That's cheating, man.
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
That's like that line from Good Will Hunting.
Number one, don't do that.
Don't throw scientific words at stuff to hold a point when you don't understand the scientific words.
That's not fair, right?
Well, let's move on.
I'm not sure that I want to because we keep running over the bodies of your argument and you're saying, let's keep driving.
And I'm like, no, I think we've got to circle back.
This is a hit and run so far.
You believe that it was not an adequate example.
I'll give you another.
It's not a belief.
It's not a belief.
You're making a case and it's not sustainable.
I think...
Okay, let's do that.
Because...
Okay, I think...
All right, you want to move on then.
All right.
So if I was to say...
If you want to move on, I'm happy to go.
All right.
If I was to say that everything exists and nothing exists at the exact same time and that both are true...
Then that would be a complete contradiction, right?
All right.
Hang on a second.
So everything exists and nothing exists.
Yes.
I don't understand nothing existing because nothing is the absence of existence, isn't it?
It's the absence of matter or energy.
Yes.
All right.
And I can elaborate on this.
All right.
So...
Well, no, no, no.
Don't elaborate.
It's a contradiction.
I need you to resolve the contradiction before you elaborate.
So something existing is the presence of matter or energy.
The absence of matter or energy, you could say all the effects there are, but just to simplify it, the absence of presence of matter and energy is something existing.
Absence of matter and energy is something not existing.
Like if there's just a doorway, the door doesn't exist.
If the door's there and closed, door exists, you can't walk through it.
And so when you say everything exists, well, everything that has matter or energy exists, and nothing exists, then you're using the word exists to mean both the presence of matter and energy and the absence of matter and energy, and that's using the same word to describe opposite conditions, which I don't think is valid.
Correct, and I can elaborate my argument.
Okay?
Yeah.
Alright, so have you fully contemplated the concept of the infinite universe, of the universe being infinite?
Do you believe the universe is infinite?
Oh, I don't know.
I mean, I don't think anyone knows for sure.
Most modern science believes that it is infinite, from what I've seen.
No, I think they've got a big bang theory.
They may have a big collapse theory.
The universe is, what, 14.3 billion years old or something.
So that's at least it's big, but it's not infinite.
And I don't know if they think it's going to go on forever or it's going to...
Collapse back down or...
I don't know.
I don't know.
There's still discussions about what happens after the Big Bang, what the conditions were before the Big Bang, whether the Big Bang is even valid.
So I don't know that...
And again, I'm no expert on it, but I don't know the degree to which scientists believe that the universe is infinite.
They may believe that it's eternal and that matter cannot be created or destroyed, merely transferred from one form to another.
So...
That's a challenge, but I don't know.
I don't know.
But I don't know that infinite universe is a particularly valid concept as yet, and I certainly don't think it's being proven either way beyond a shadow of a doubt.
From everything I've seen, it confirms this.
Every bit of science I've seen confirms an infinite universe.
Mike, could you just have a quick look?
I don't want to type, it shows up on the mic.
Mike, if you could have a quick look about where the theory of the infinite universe is, you know, just whip up a quick PhD in physics, that would be excellent, because I don't know.
Okay, well, so basically...
Hang on a sec, hang on a sec.
I just want to see where that is, because we can't move on if I don't know what's going on here.
Here's where we put in the Jeopardy music.
Ha!
Let's see.
Reliable Quick Science.
Let's try and find it.
LiveScience.com.
Age of the universe could be infinite, but that's not the same as the universe.
No, I think that's pretty close.
So they're saying that the age could be.
Yeah, so nobody knows for sure.
Yeah, right.
Yes, but both sides seem to indicate that if you had a microscope that just could keep going on forever, that it would never end.
We just keep finding new worlds within worlds within worlds within worlds within worlds.
What does that mean?
It's like a world inside our world?
Is it like those Russian dolls?
I don't understand what that means.
Well, kind of like that.
Like, if you're looking with a microscope or on the quantum or atomic or molecular level, it just keeps on going.
You mean you can always try and find a way to get smaller?
Yeah.
Well, to see more things, yeah.
Well, yeah.
I mean, a one-dimensional point can be, I guess, theoretically infinitely small in size because you can keep zooming in, but...
Yeah.
That's an infinite universe in all directions.
No, I don't know that that's the same as infinite.
It means it can be infinitely divided, theoretically, which has no bearing or meaning on sense data, but it could be theoretically infinitely divided in like your example of you could infinitely divide Spaces between two numbers, but that has no practical value or capacity.
And you could never, of course, write out an infinite series of numbers.
It's like trying to find the repeating digits on pi.
It's never going to happen, at least according to the calculations that I've seen.
So, saying that you can infinitely subdivide something doesn't mean that something is infinite.
Yes, math is just an abstract concept, but...
But infinity can apply to anything.
I mean, every limitation that we've ever conceived of, we attempt to overcome it.
If it wasn't possible to overcome these limitations, we would give up and we wouldn't even try.
You know, everybody thought the Wright brothers couldn't fly, but they figured it out.
Well, no, not everybody, because otherwise there wouldn't be any Wright brothers, right?
Sorry, that was an overstatement.
But yeah, and I mean we've not been able to overcome say the reality of gravity or make time move backwards or you know There the speed of light seems pretty constant at least cracking through it and going faster I think there are theoretical tachyons that go faster than speed of light, but there are some limitations in You know, we've never been able to go from a to be with any mass objects without traversing the space in between Maybe they could be done sort of transporter style in the future.
But I don't think people have found a way to eliminate the property of gravity or anything like that.
So, yeah.
Who's to say what could happen in the future?
We've defied it in many ways.
Wait, wait, what do you mean we've defied gravity?
You mean you can jump?
They defied gravity in many ways.
What do you mean they defied gravity?
The only reason they needed to fly was because of gravity.
The only reason their plane stayed up in the air was because of gravity.
I don't understand what it means to say.
It's not an anti-gravity machine, it's an airplane.
Yeah, they worked with it, but I'm saying they achieved, they broke the limitations that gravity imposed upon us.
No.
The gravity was just as imposed on the plane as it is on a bumblebee, as it is on a cloud, As it is on a bird.
I mean, the gravity is as constant on the Wright Brothers' airplane as it is everywhere else.
And if they had not put that into their calculations, they would have crashed.
Correct.
They still got up in the sky when everyone thought that we, well, most people thought we would be restrained to being on the ground.
Oh, right.
I still, yeah, okay, but I'm not sure.
So, the Wright Brothers flew.
I'm not sure that helps you with the day it is.
Alright, so I'll give you another example is that within science we impose these things called laws, but these laws are broken all the time.
And the one constant that science seems to agree on is that everything changes.
No, I don't think so.
There are universal constants that are necessary for a significant number of scientific calculations, right?
They didn't get the probe out to Pluto by assuming that everything changes.
There are universal constants.
I remember memorizing some of these constants in science class.
I mean, there is a lot of...
Mike, if you can maybe rip off a few scientific constants, if you just throw that in, I'm sure there's quite a lot of...
Of constants that you have to insert into equations to make them work.
Let's just wait for a sec for those.
That have not broken so far.
Let's see what I can find here.
But would you agree that these are all subject to the possibility of changing?
Well, no.
By definition if they change then they're not constants and if they're constants they don't change.
There are many physical constants in science, some of the most widely recognized being the speed of light in a vacuum, the gravitational constant G, Planix constant, the electronic constant, and the elementary charge.
I think it's Planix, not Planix.
Is it P-L-A-N-C-K-S? P-L-A-N-C-K-S. Yeah, planks.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Physical constants can take many dimensional forms.
The speed of light signifies a maximum speed of the universe and is expressly dimensionally as length divided by time.
186,000 miles per second!
I'm not saying I'm proud, I know.
I just do.
Well, the fine structure constant A, which is characterized by the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, is dimensionless.
I know what some of that means.
Dimensionless.
I think we're getting closer to God.
So yeah, there are lots of constants.
And you can't have science without constants.
So you do not admit that these are all subject to the possibility of change and that constants haven't changed before.
That science hasn't been wrong before and that laws haven't been defied before.
Can you give me an example of a constant in science that was broken?
Well, it used to be a scientific law that the Sun revolved around the Earth.
That was not a law.
That was a hypothesis.
That's not a law.
That's a hypothesis of how the planets move and why they move and so on.
But that's not a constant.
That was just a hypothesis or a theory.
A constant is nothing more than a theory as well.
How is that anything more than a theory?
The speed of light is not a theory.
The speed of light is a measurable reality.
If I'm going 100 miles an hour on the road, I don't have a theory called I'm going 100,000 miles on the road.
I have an empirical and observational fact called I'm going 100 miles an hour on the road.
Whereas if I say that the reason that the stars move is that they revolve around the Earth, that is a theory.
That's not a constant, like it's not a number.
Constants generally resolve into numbers, or at least relationships, but the idea of how and why the universe moves would be a hypothesis.
Now, some people may not have believed it was a hypothesis, but the only reason they would have believed that is because in the Bible it says the earth is fixed and does not move.
And so therefore, they would have viewed it as an absolute, but not because of science, but because of religion.
Yes, but that's still believing something is an absolute.
I mean, if you're saying that it's not subject to the possibility of change in the future, that's assuming that you know the future.
To say that it's a constant, you're really only saying that it's been constant so far.
So an argument that you make that is valid now might be completely invalid in the future.
Absolutely.
Through no change in your argument or change in the facts, but just because the lords of logic might randomly reverse themselves.
Is that right?
No.
So this would also apply to you and your arguments and your propositions.
So your belief that there's a deity, for whatever reasons you have, may be proven to be completely false tomorrow through no change in anything other than stuff that the universe just randomly reverses itself So you can't claim to have any belief in the continued existence of a deity with any certainty, because that which is certain and absolute can reverse itself tomorrow, and therefore you can't claim any certainty in the existence of a deity.
You understand that argument, right?
This doesn't help you with your deity question.
I believe that there is no God and that there is a God at the exact same time, defying the law of contradiction.
And I can explain...
It doesn't defy anything because it's just a statement.
It's like saying, up is down.
There, I've disproved contradiction.
It's like, nope, you've just made a contradictory statement.
Up is down.
I mean, what's up?
Up is just our definition of where we are.
But, you know, if you're northward, like...
That's just a name that we gave it.
Okay, but we can say that the mercury is going up or down in a tube, or the temperature is going up or down.
I get that direction is somewhat, you know, relative to the earth and all that.
So you're saying that God both exists and doesn't exist simultaneously?
Yes, correct.
And do you both exist and not exist simultaneously?
Absolutely.
Yes, correct.
Does this call continue and not continue at the same time?
I suppose so.
Okay, Mike, let's try hanging up on this guy and let's see if we can continue the conversation.
Alright, let's give it a shot.
Let's give it a try.
Alright, so now we are both continuing and not continuing the conversation at the same time.
Let's see how that's gonna go.
Nick, are you there?
Are you there and not there?
Are you Nick and not Nick?
Is there, not there, at the same time, not time, Actually, you know this is starting to make sense.
It is.
I find that if I simply confuse myself enough with contradictory statements, a little portal opens up and a leprechaun wrapped in the Old Testament comes through doing an Irish jig.
No, sorry, Macarena.
But not Macarena!
At the same time.
I don't think I can go any further, so I think we should probably wind the show up at this point.
What do you think?
I think it's time to call it a show.
Yeah, I think I know when...
A conversation can't be particularly productive if somebody doesn't accept limitations of reason and evidence.
It's being productive and not productive at the same time.
It is, yeah, it's right.
I mean, so he can say that we're not allowing him back on the show, but I can say, well, of course we were.
It's just simultaneous with not allowing you back on the show.
Well, anyway, thanks everyone so much for a very interesting night.
It's always a great pleasure and honor.
It really is.
I mean, to Nick as well, it's a great honor that you would want to call up and talk about these issues.
Nick, If you want to call back in, love to hear about your childhood.
That, I think, would be a much more productive conversation.
I can only imagine what might have happened.
But I really appreciate that.
And freedomainradio.com slash donate to help out the show.
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Sorry.
Oh, God.
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