Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - Jordan Peterson on Imperfectly Consistent Logic
Aired: 2025-06-12
Duration: 04:07


=== Logic From Matter (04:07) ===

[00:00:00]  Right?
[00:00:00]  So, I haven't actually added any truth value.
[00:00:02]  I've just defined something as being true no matter what.
[00:00:06]  kind of goal or output, this thing is good.
[00:00:09]  So I want to figure out how...
[00:00:18]  There's an element of that that's true.
[00:00:21]  So, for example, in the story of Job, Job is unfairly tortured.
[00:00:27]  In consequence of a bet between God and Satan.
[00:00:30]  So Job is emblematic of someone who's being hurt for no apparent reason.
[00:00:34]  Okay, so Job's response to that is that he refuses to lose faith in himself.
[00:00:40]  I've watched so much Kevin Samuel that I'm like, what kind of wig is she wearing?
[00:00:44]  Refuses to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of being.
[00:00:47]  Okay.
[00:00:48]  And those are like, those are axiomatic decisions.
[00:00:50]  They're not exactly evident.
[00:00:58]  So I'm essentially trying to figure out, do you believe that something can be good, like stance independently, something that can be good?
[00:01:03]  I don't know what you mean by stance independent.
[00:01:05]  You mean independent of people?
[00:01:06]  Independent of people.
[00:01:07]  We can use that, or more so.
[00:01:09]  I want to be more specific.
[00:01:10]  Something that can be good.
[00:01:12]  Yeah, so, I mean, logic exists independent of people insofar as entities in the world are not self-contradictory, right?
[00:01:21]  I mean, I'm not doing this show while sitting on your lap at the same time.
[00:01:25]  That's just for donors as a whole, and that's on my OnlyFans page.
[00:01:29]  But things, objects in the world, right?
[00:01:33]  This thing that I'm holding is a fork, right?
[00:01:36]  It's a fork.
[00:01:36]  It's not a fork and a dragon and a concept and on fire and a gas at the same time, right?
[00:01:42]  So logic...
[00:01:49]  Gravity doesn't both attract and repel at the same time.
[00:01:53]  So, and if I leave this fork here, I come back tomorrow, it's still a fork.
[00:01:57]  It hasn't turned into a dove, right?
[00:01:59]  So, the stability and predictability of matter is the basis for the consistency, stability, and predictability of logic, right?
[00:02:09]  Two and two is four, yesterday, today, tomorrow, everywhere in the universe, and so on, right?
[00:02:16]  So, the consistent behavior of matter and energy exists prior to humanity defining logic in the abstract.
[00:02:23]  Logic is imperfectly derived from the consistency of matter and energy.
[00:02:26]  And by imperfectly, I mean if you have something that you call logic that is self-contradictory or inconsistent across time and space, then it's not logic, right?
[00:02:34]  Because the behavior of matter and energy is never self-contradictory.
[00:02:40]  And is consistent across time and space.
[00:02:42]  So logic is derived from the behavior of matter.
[00:02:44]  And of course, if matter didn't have that level of stability and predictability and consistency, we never could have evolved to develop our brains, right?
[00:02:49]  There wouldn't be enough if people just randomly burst into flames, whatever, right?
[00:02:53]  For no reason then.
[00:02:55]  All right.
[00:02:56]  Right, regardless of any end goal.
[00:02:59]  It's just good.
[00:03:00]  Yeah, something that is intrinsically good in and of itself without being goal-oriented, right?
[00:03:05]  Because the problem with making morality, I mean, you guys know, right?
[00:03:09]  What is the problem with morality being outcome dependent?
[00:03:18]  Why can something not be moral based upon Jordan Peterson's argument for good or bad outcomes?
[00:03:28]  What's the problem with consequentialism with regards to morality?
[00:03:35]  Tell me.
[00:03:38]  If people are going to have to type now.
[00:03:40]  I used to tell all these Bible stories to my daughter when she was very little, and we used to have a pretty hilarious retelling of these various stories and so on, right?
[00:03:49]  So, I worship the consistency of matter and energy.
[00:03:54]  What we kind of do, in a way, right?
[00:03:56]  Because if matter and energy were not perfectly consistent, perfectly consistent, perfectly consistent, then we wouldn't be here.
[00:04:04]  We wouldn't have any foundation to build our brains on.