All Episodes
Previous Next
June 28, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
07:38
On the Blank Slate
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Um, so just bringing it back to the philosophy thing a little bit, you mentioned the thing about the blank slate.
So, I'm a big philosophy of mind buff.
My background is in philosophy.
Um, the thing about the blanks, blank slate, though, is I'm wondering how far you kind of, you know, push that idea in the sense that, like, in the kind of Randian way that, like, Rand is talking about the blank slate.
I'm wondering if you're still kind of holding to that idea.
Because the way that you were describing it a second ago was kind of thinking how you might have cognized how the lefties, you know, and the commies would think about the concept.
If that kind of makes sense, is there some sort of delineation there?
Do you still maybe hold to the sort of Randian view of the blank slate?
Well, tell me what your understanding is of the Randian view of the blank slate.
I just want to make sure we're on the same point.
What I remember from Rand, essentially what she says is, although we might have sort of natural impulses or something like that, essentially our conceptual schema is built out over time, right?
So like you get this in objectivist epistemology, basically how everything starts with impressions and builds over time into giant schema.
Actually, you get it actually a little bit in count too.
I think that actually still holds true.
But I was wondering how far, you know, you took it, you know, the idea of rejecting it or, you know, how you would approach it.
Right.
No, that's a great question.
So the blank slate, and I'll really do my best to keep this brief because we've got more callers than I really want to get to.
And I appreciate everyone coming by tonight.
It's a real delight and pleasure to chat with you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So the blank slate is valid and invalid.
That's the end of my speech and on we go.
So what I mean by that is, no, so if you look at people who grew up in Muslim countries tend to be Muslim, regardless of race, if Middle Eastern Muslim, there are certain countries in Eastern Europe where it's white Muslim countries.
So in general, people who grew up in Muslim households tend to be Muslim.
People who grew up in Christian households, atheist households, and so on, right?
So the content of the mind tends to be shaped by language, by culture, by your parents, by your schools.
And from that standpoint, we can't say that anyone is born a Muslim or is born a Christian or is born an atheist or anything like that.
That tends to be what comes into your mind from your environment.
And I don't want to speak endlessly if there's something you disagree with.
So is there something you disagree with that I said so far?
That seems about to be how I conceptualize this issue.
Okay.
So that is the content of the mind.
The form of the mind is combined, it has components of environment, free will, and genetics.
Right?
So I'm not a pure geneticist, of course, because I believe in free will.
I don't believe that free will encompasses every aspect of the brain because free will is a component of consciousness, but it cannot fundamentally change the brain.
So there's environment, there are genetics, and then there is choice.
Now, as a philosopher, as a moral philosopher in particular, I focus on choice.
So for instance, I've never said to anyone, listening to me will raise your IQ.
Why?
Because IQ is largely genetic.
It's been clocked at about 80% genetic by your late teens, 80 to 85%, and it goes upward from there.
If you get sort of the twin studies with people near the end of their life, the overwhelming majority of IQ is genetic.
So that is to some degree beyond, it's not entirely, but it's to a large degree beyond the capacity of philosophy to tinker with.
There is no aspect of personality that is unaffected by genetics.
Again, that doesn't define us, but it's an important component.
So if you look at things that are 100% genetic, like eye and hair color, clearly I can't say to people, listen to my show and you can pick your eye color, including plaid, right?
That's not a thing that would happen.
I can't say if your children listen to moral philosophy, they'll grow to be six inches taller, right?
Because that's all 100% genetic.
So the blank slate theory says that all differences between ethnicities and sexes and whatever, that all differences in outcome are 100% the result of bigotry.
In other words, everyone is identical.
And this is true within classes as well, like sexes, races, classes, and so on.
All the differences in outcomes are the result of prejudice, bigotry, evil, and exploitation.
So why is there a capitalist who makes money and a bunch of workers who make less money?
Right?
Now, the argument from a sort of philosophical or free market perspective is, assuming the guy didn't just inherit the factory, right?
It's that you've got a guy who's probably very smart, who's very ambitious, who's willing to take risks and is probably a bit of a psycho-workaholic, you know, like Elon Musk style.
And that plus some luck, plus, you know, the right place, the right time, and some good investment is why he ends up running the factory.
And this is, Jordan Peterson has talked about this, as has a lot of people.
This is called the Pareto principle, which is that the square root, in a meritocracy, the square root of any group of people produces half the value.
So in a company of 10,000 people, 100 of them produce half the value.
That's just, it's the weird magic multiplier.
I mean, it's like the Brad Pitt phenomenon.
There could be, you know, thousands of people in a Brad Pitt movie, but Brad Pitt is producing half the value because people would just go see the movie because Brad Pitt is in it.
So there are some people who are just crazy magic productivity machines.
And this is in every field known to man where there's a meritocracy.
Of course, in sports, 95% of the money goes to 5% of people.
In music, 95% of the money goes to 5% of the people.
In acting, in writing, in novel writing, you name it, in modeling, in porn, whatever, like whatever fields you look at where there's a good meritocracy and not crazy amounts of government interference, 90% to 5% of the money goes to 5% of the people.
Now, on the left, they say, well, look, if everyone's the same, why is one person getting paid more?
Because they're exploitive and evil.
And that's the answer.
And that is a, you know, I actually did This research not too long ago, which is, do leftists come disproportionately from younger or youngest siblings?
And the answer is yes, right?
Because for a variety of reasons, but it is one of the, it's a child's view of things, right?
Why does so-and-so have more?
Well, he just took it, right?
If you all go out with, with, to, to do trick or treat and some kid ends up two days later with a bunch more candy, he must have stolen it because whatever, right?
So if someone has more, they must have stolen it from me is a very immature and childish perspective.
The adult perspective is to say there are some people who just have great instincts for business.
They're probably born with it.
I mean, a friend of mine who's a great businessman was hustling, selling light up necklaces at concerts when he was in his teens.
I remember being 14 years old, lining up all night to get Michael Jackson tickets so I could sell them for some money.
There are some people who just have a good knack for business and they're very hardworking.
They instinctively understand customers.
They're good leaders.
They have a good finger on the pulse of the market, even if they can't explain why.
And they just produce stuff that's crazy valuable.
▲
Export Selection