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Aug. 2, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
51:51
Healing the Is/Ought Dichotomy
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So one of the biggest challenges in philosophy, and I talk about this, of course, in my free book, Universally Preferable Behavior, A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, is the issue and challenge of the is-ought dichotomy, the facts and values.
So very briefly, the facts and values dichotomy is that we cannot get an ought from an is.
We cannot say that it is wrong to murder just because if you kill someone, they die.
I mean, if you kill someone, they die.
If you deprive them of oxygen or cut off their head or something like that, then they die.
That is incontrovertible fact.
Now, where do you get the ought, the should?
Now, of course, religion says, well, you get the ought or the should from God, right?
God commands this in the, right?
So how does philosophy answer that in the absence of the ought?
Now, one thing that's interesting is that you never see the is-ought dichotomy people.
We'll call them Humeans, since it was David Hume, the Scottish philosopher who first formulated this in the way that we currently understand it.
So we'll call them the Humeans.
So the Humeans never say this except with regards to morality.
So the Humeans don't organize big protests and marches saying all laws are immoral and unjust because you can't get an ought from an is, or you shouldn't have any laws because the laws of nature do not give rise to the laws of man.
The facts of reality do not give rise to the ethics of morality.
You never see that.
They never do that.
When someone says to someone else, oh, you're a Nazi, the Humeans never en masse say, well, you can't say that.
It's bad because there's nothing in reality that says your slur is negative or bad.
If they, oh, someone's a white supremacist or whatever it is, right?
Whatever negative term, the Humeans never say, well, you can't get an ought from an is, so you can't get a negative moral judgment or an insult or a slur.
You can't get that from an is.
It only ever comes trotting out when there is an attempt to prove morality from a secular standpoint.
Then immediately it comes out.
In other words, it's kind of a demonic weapon that is used against striving the mightiest to achieve secular morality.
The Humeans really don't, as far as I've seen, maybe they do that I haven't seen, of course, certainly possible.
But the Humeans don't say to the religious, well, you can't get an ought from an is, because the religious say, well, we certainly can.
The is of God creates the ought of commandments.
They never protest when somebody is being charged with a crime or on trial or convicted of a crime or put in prison.
They never protest and say, well, that's wrong because you can't get an ought from an is.
If someone is convicted of rape, if somebody's a rapist, the humeans don't say, well, I mean, you can't get an ought from an is, therefore, right, then this person should be set free because, right, it never happens that way.
Never once seen it in, you know, let's just say, a large number of freaking years in the realm of philosophy and politics and law and all.
Nothing.
The only time, and this is what, you know, this doesn't disprove it.
I understand that.
But it makes me pretty freaking suspicious that the only time the is-ought dichotomy gets trotted out is when somebody is trying to prove morality from a secular or non-theistic standpoint.
No other case, no other situation, no other situation, no other circumstance.
The Humeans did not protest the Nuremberg trials saying you can't get an ought from an is.
They did not protest COVID restrictions or mandates saying you can't get an ought from an is.
They do not protest university professors with tenure saying you can't get an ought from an is.
Therefore, all moral commandments and injunctions are invalid because you cannot get an ought from an is.
They never do that stuff ever.
It's only when somebody is trying to talk about secular morality that the is-ought dichotomy comes trotting out.
I don't remember the humeans ever protesting, say, the draft or the welfare state saying, well, you can't get an ought from an is.
So you can't say that people ought to be drafted.
You can't say that people ought to contribute to the welfare state.
What about socialized medicine?
Well, you can't say people ought to get medicine from the fact that people get sick, right?
Never.
Every time governments expand, the Humeans are absolutely absent.
But every time some philosopher wrestles with secular morality, oh, here they come, the wee barons, here they come, to ramble on about the is-ought dichotomy.
And listen, I, again, I know that this doesn't disprove it.
I'll sort of get to that.
I'll get to that.
I'll get to that.
But what I am saying is that it's incredibly suspicious behavior that has me know for an absolute fact that they're not arguing in good faith, that they're not interested in anything other than the castration and the hamstring of secular moralists, because that's the only time they come out.
I mean, the Humeans have never met a government program they didn't like.
They've never met an edict or a license or a requirement or anything like that.
So human conventions enforced at the point of a gun trouble not the Humeans at all, but boy, you try and prove secular ethics and out they come, can't get an ought from an is.
And again, I'm not saying this disproves it.
It just means that it's mostly bullshite.
And I'll tell you why, because, listen, if people are wrong, I respect them if they live by their values.
So if the Humeans were out en masse at every legal imposition, every moral judgment, every slur, every attack, like somebody gets called a racist and the Humeans like, well, you can't get an ought from an Is.
So you can't call people racist, right?
Because you can't get an ought from anything.
Racism is bad, right?
They never do any of that stuff.
It's only, it's like they hear this little sound, whatever it is, this like bat signal goes up.
Oh, God, someone's working on secular morality.
Let's bring out the is-ought dichotomy, which we never do under any other circumstances whatsoever.
And this is why it lasts, because secular morality is a denial of the validity of political power.
I mean, UPB certainly is.
So they're just unconsciously or consciously deployed or susceptible to the borrow mirrors of the political classes.
And oh, somebody's working on secular morality.
Ooh, is ought dichotomy?
Is ought dichotomy?
Is ought dichotomy?
And again, they don't believe it because they never deploy it anywhere else.
It's just this one special counterspell to the spell called secular morality.
So it's not a belief and it is not consistently applied.
They have no integrity with it whatsoever.
So I'm just telling you that's my backdrop.
That's my backdrop.
Now, they're effective.
Don't get me wrong.
They're effective because they deflate most moralists' enthusiasm or advocacy for their morality because they can't get an ought from an is.
Oh, I guess that's true.
I guess we can do that, right?
Meanwhile, people are imposing random subjective oughts at gunpoint all over the place, and they don't say a damn thing, a damn thing.
So, are there oughts in the is?
Yeah, I mean, I accept it.
I accept it because you, you know, man, moral laws are not inscribed in the fabric of the universe.
The vast majority of the universe has no moral laws whatsoever, right?
Because it has no consciousness and no conception of universal ethics, right?
There's no UPB on Mars.
There's no UPB on Uranus.
No UPB, well, maybe online, but not on yours.
And there's no UPB in the galaxy that we know of.
So, yeah, moral laws are not inscribed in the nature of the universe.
Fine.
Does that mean there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior?
Well, the scientific method is not inscribed in the nature of things either.
But the scientific method is the only valid way to correctly understand the behavior of matter and energy.
Reason is not inscribed in the nature of things, but that doesn't mean that reason is subjective or arbitrary.
If you have four bananas, you have four discrete entities called bananas, but the number four only exists in your mind.
Does that mean that the number four is arbitrary?
So if you want to be accurate about counting four bananas, you have to say that there are four, because there are, in fact, four bananas, not five, not three.
Now, if you are an animal and you don't have the conception of numbers, really, certainly not the abstract conception of numbers, then you can just snuffle the bananas and eat them and spit out the peels or eat the peels.
It doesn't really matter, right?
But if you are a mathematician and you want to be accurate about counting four bananas, you have to say that there are four bananas or whatever, mathematician or a kid who's counting bananas, right?
So if, now, the humans say, well, the moment there's an if, it's conditional and, you know, it's not absolute and so on.
It's like, it kind of is, right?
So all of the people who say you can't get an ought from an is are telling me my moral theories are invalid because they're not inscribed in the nature of the universe.
Steph, you shouldn't say that UPB is embedded in the nature of reality because it's not, right?
Okay, so yeah, I accept that.
I accept that you're correcting me according to a universal standard.
Can you get an ought from an is?
You just did.
If you say I can't do it, then you've told me I cannot get an ought from an is, and you ought not say that there is one, right?
The moment people say to me, you can't get an ought from an is, they've just got an ought, assuming you want to say things that are true.
Yes, it is absolutely true.
Concepts do not exist in the things they describe.
There's no ghostly essence to a tree that has you know what a tree is.
You didn't see it in a perfect world before you were born, like Plato suggests, or Plato openly states.
So, yeah, you can't get an ought from an is, but if you want to say things true about the world, what you say has to conform with the world.
You can't get an ought from an is, but if you point at a tree and say that's a tree, you are correct.
If you point at a tree and say that's a unicorn, you are double wrong in that it's not a unicorn and unicorns don't exist as magical creatures, right?
Horse with a horn on its head, who cares?
Who knows, right?
It doesn't matter.
Could be, but it doesn't matter.
But magical horses with horns on their heads do not exist because magic does not exist because magic is self-contradictory.
Propositions, effects without cause.
So it is true that you cannot get an ought from an is.
Therefore, if you are in pursuit of truth, you cannot say that UPB or moral theories are inscribed in the nature of the universe.
They are not.
They are not like dominoes that fall from the behavior of matter and energy.
But the moment that somebody says to me, you cannot get an ought from an is, they are saying you should say things that are true, not things that are false.
Right?
Steph, you can't get an ought from an is, so you shouldn't say that there, you shouldn't say that you can.
Can't get an ought from an is, so you shouldn't say that you can.
Okay.
But what if I want to lie?
You can get an ought from an is.
No, you can't.
Okay, so you're telling me I'm wrong and I should have my statements conform to that which is true in reality, which is you can't get an ought from an is.
You see?
I mean, as my daughter would say, she's got this race these days.
It's literally not that deep.
It's not that deep.
It's not that deep.
Ah, teens.
I mean, she's often not wrong.
So the moment somebody says, well, you can't get an ought from an is, can't get an ought from an is, they're saying, well, if you're saying you can get an ought from an is, you're wrong, and you absolutely should not do that.
It is false to say you can get an ought from an is.
So if you want to say things that are true, You should not say that you can get an ought from an is.
Okay, so you're saying what?
That the concepts in the mind should conform to the facts of reality.
And you should not advocate for things that are false, and you should only advocate for things that are true.
But if you can't get an ought from an is, why should I do that?
Oh, because you're saying that we have a choice about what we communicate, and we should communicate things that are true versus things that are false.
And you can't get an ought from an is, and so you should not say that you can.
Okay, so that's an ought.
You ought to say the truth.
So this is what I mean.
Like you cannot deny UPB without deploying UPB.
You cannot deny UPB without using UPB.
See, when you say you can't get an ought from an is, that is a UPB methodology.
It is universally preferable behavior to say or type or communicate things that are true, not things that are false.
Now, if I say you can get an ought from an is, and the humans come along and say, you can't get an ought from an is.
Sorry, that's how they sound.
They do, objectively.
That's not even me.
That's just your own brain putting on the sheep filter.
So when the humans come along and say you can't get an ought from an is, they don't understand that they're telling you an ought from an is.
In this case, an is not.
Oughts are not inscribed in the nature of reality, so you should not say that they are.
Now, implicit in that is if you value the truth and want to be correct, right?
So if I were to say, oh, you can totally get oughts from an is, say, no, you can't prove it.
It's like, no, I'm just stating it.
You absolutely, no, but you need to prove it.
You can't get an ought from an is.
No, no, you can.
But you, you can't, like, they would just get really frustrated, right?
Whereas I'm just asserting that you can, and they get really frustrated.
In other words, they would get upset with me saying something that was false as if it were true.
The moment I try and wire up what's in my head to what's in the world, the obligation for accuracy is automatically created because I am claiming accuracy.
If I say gases expand when heated, I'm claiming not a subjective experience or a dream I had last night or a daydream.
I'm claiming actual fact.
In other words, I'm saying not, I like gases to expand when heated.
I think it's cool when they do that.
I like the colors that gases have when they expand when they're heated, like all of this kind of stuff, right?
I'm not saying that.
I'm saying it is a fact independent of my consciousness that gases expand when heated.
So the moment I'm making a statement that is attempting to relate the contents of my mind to actual facts in reality, then the obligation to be true is created.
If I say, that is a tree, I'm claiming to make an objective statement about the identity of the thing that I'm pointing at, right?
You understand.
So if I'm saying something true about the world, then it needs to accurately represent, accurately represent what is in the world.
If I say, I like that tree, I am not making a statement connecting the contents of my mind to an objective fact in the universe.
I'm saying, I like maple trees.
They're pretty in the fall, and they make good tree juice for my pancakes.
It's all subjective, right?
If I say maple syrup is sweet, well, that's semi-objective.
It may not taste sweet to somebody with no taste buds or who's got, you know, in the throes of COVID or something, right?
No taste.
If I say maple syrup contains sugars, I think it does, right?
Assuming it does, right?
Or milk contains lactose, then yeah, I'm making a statement.
Not I prefer or I like or I dreamt or I wish or I fantasize or I imagine.
These are all operations in the mind that do not claim to represent things in the world.
But if I say that's a tree, I'm claiming that the contents in my mind and the language that I'm using matches the object that I'm pointing at.
And there is an implicit obligation to be accurate when you're claiming a correlation between the contents of your mind and what it is that you're communicating, because the contents of the mind also include the vocalizations, the language, the speech that goes out into the world.
So if I'm saying that the contents of my mind match the facts of reality, then they should match the facts of reality.
Is it in the nature of the tree that I have to be accurate when I point at something and say that it's a tree?
No, the tree doesn't care that I have accurately identified it or not.
The tree doesn't care about anything.
Why?
Because it's a tree, basically.
It doesn't care about anything.
So, I mean, that's how we know someone is sane, right?
Is that the contents of their mind match the facts of reality reasonably well when they claim they're speaking the truth about things in the world?
But if I run away from a tree thinking it is a demon that is going to devour me, I may not be working in the most objective conceivable fashion and the most sane, using the most sane methodologies.
So if I claim something is true, I'm saying that it is true relative to some external standard.
Now, it's built in, right?
So it's built in that when I point at something and say that's a tree, it is built in that I am actually identifying that thing as a tree, right?
That's built in.
I don't have to say it over and over again, right?
So you cannot get an ought from an is.
And the big question is, oh, look at me saying the word so often that it starts to sound mad, I tell you.
All right.
So you cannot get an ought from an is.
The real question is, is a debate an is or an ought, right?
So you can get an ought from an ought, right?
And this is the biggest question.
Is a debate an is or an ought?
I'm sorry, I know it sounds crazy, but it's really, it's really, this is the heart of the issue.
This is the heart of the issue.
Is a debate atoms or preference?
Is a debate an is or is a debate a should, right?
That's the big question.
That's the big question.
Now, if the debate is an is, then you cannot get an ought from an is.
But a debate, by its very nature, is not an is, but an ought.
We ought to use reason.
We ought to accord with evidence.
We ought to be consistent.
We ought to say things that are true.
That is the very nature of a debate.
A debate is an ought, not an is.
Now, an ought you can get from an ought, right?
If you want to go north, you ought to go north.
If your destination is north, you ought to go north.
If you want to live, you have to breathe.
If, right?
You ought to breathe if you have a goal, if you have a goal.
So is a debate a thing or a goal?
Well, it's not a thing, right?
A debate is not a thing.
It's not an object.
It's not a block.
It's not a tree.
It's not a brick.
It's not an atom, right?
A debate is an ought, not an is.
Now, you can get an ought from an ought, but you cannot get an ought from an is.
If you are thirsty, you ought to drink in order to satisfy your thirst.
If you're tired, you ought to rest in order to satisfy your tiredness.
If you want big muscles, you ought to train.
Well, you must train, I suppose, right?
If you want a baby, you have to have the old spermy egg dance.
It's the worst name for a breakfast place I've ever thought of, but at least for now.
Yet.
Yet.
Maybe not forever, but for now.
So you can't get an ought from an is.
Okay, I agree.
But a debate is not an is.
A debate is an ought.
And you can absolutely get an ought from an ought.
That's why oughts exist.
If you want to be accurate in math, right?
You ought to be correct in your equations, right?
If you want to get, if you want to get the correct answer, your answer has to be right.
So if you want to be good at math, you ought to say that two and two make four, not two and two make five.
If, if you don't care, you can just say whatever you want.
So, and it's funny, you know, I've been fussing around this is versus ought stuff.
I was just had dinner with a new friend of mine, and I've been fussing around with this isn't ought stuff.
It's funny, you have a belly full of Greek food, and suddenly it's all clear.
Because I've had, you know, I'm always annoyed when I have good answers, but not great answers.
In other words, airtight answers.
Right.
And this is airtight.
This is the, like, the answers before were good, but not airtight.
And I'm never, never satisfied until it's irrefutable.
Now, of course, irrefutable is like the old statement that you can't make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
So you can't make anything airtight because people are full of gas, right?
So, no, this is it.
I mean, this is the best answer.
This is the airtight answer.
The answers before were good.
Good, certainly solid.
Absolutely.
By saying you can't get an ought from an is, you are getting an ought from an is, which is an ought not.
But yeah, this is so, this is it.
And I'm going to just keep repeating it just to make sure it makes sense.
And so that it sinks into both of our bone marrow because you can't get an ought from an is.
People are really kind of annoying.
And, you know, it's fine for them to be annoying.
It's fine.
Like, I'm the last guy to say it's not okay to be annoying.
But, yeah.
So you can't get an ought from an is.
What is a debate?
Is a debate an ought or is a debate an is?
Well, it can't be an is.
It can't be an is, unless you say concepts are atoms and neurons in the brain and therefore they exist.
Like that's not, but they don't exist in the same way that the things they describe exist, right?
The concept of a tree or a forest doesn't exist in the same way that a tree or a collection of trees exists.
So the pursuit of truth is a process.
It is a journey that is very explicitly and implicitly like if you ask someone, is a debate, is a philosophical debate aimed at the pursuit of truth?
Yes.
Through reason and evidence, I mean, people would say yes, unless they're complete mystics, in which case they're not philosophers.
So you say, is a debate, is a philosophical debate aimed at the pursuit of truth?
Yeah.
According to reason and evidence.
In other words, if somebody blatantly contradicts themselves or says that the truth of their proposition is contingent upon the fact that the Earth is banana-shaped, you would say, well, that's not correct.
So if it's self-contradictory, if I say you both can and cannot get an ought from an is, right, that would not be sensible, right?
Because it violates the basic law of logic.
If I say two and two make both four and a banana tree, then that would not be consistent.
That would actually be quite mad, really.
So the debate is what?
The debate is a process of comparing propositions to reason and evidence.
And in this way, science is also a debate.
And it is, really.
I mean, a debate is supposed to have conclusions, but science is a debate comparing conjectures or hypotheses to reason and evidence.
In other words, are they logically consistent or consistent with logic?
Number one.
And number two, do they accord with experimental data?
Are they reproducible?
Do they accord with measurements and data and so on, right?
So if I have a conjecture, a hypothesis as a kid, that if I hold a tennis ball at arm's length, let it go, it's going to fall sideways and then up.
That's my theory.
Now, is it consistent?
Yes.
It's consistent with reason in that it's possible for these things to happen.
It's not innately self-contradictory for something to fall sideways and then up.
In other words, I'm not saying it goes up, down, sideways, and backwards through time all at the same time, right?
That would be self-contradictory.
That would be impossible.
Or the ball becomes a square circle, and that would be contradictory.
So saying the ball falls sideways and then up is not innately self-contradictory in that it's possible for these things to move.
It's possible for objects to move that way, right?
A fish can swim sideways and then up and a balloon could blow sideways and then up.
A sycamore leaf could blow sideways and then up.
Things can move sideways and up.
It's not innately self-contradictory in that way.
But of course, I hold the ball out at arm's length as a kid, and I have a theory.
My theory is that the ball moves sideways and up.
Now, does it accord with reason?
Yes, it is not innately self-contradictory.
However, what happens when I let go of the ball?
Well, it falls down.
It neither goes sideways nor up, unless it is insanely windy.
But, you know, like assuming still air and a reasonably solid ball, that kind of stuff.
The ball falls down.
If I say a ball that is made out of twine will bounce more than a ball made out of rubber.
Again, I would sort of test that now.
It's not innately self-contradictory.
One of them is going to bounce more than the other.
So in science, we say, does it accord with reason?
If it accords with reason, we could then move on to empirical testing.
And if it accords with reason and it accords with empirical testing, and it's predictive, right?
All balls will fall down, right?
In a vacuum, blah, blah, blah, right?
All balls will fall down, all other things being equal, then it accords with reason and it accords with evidence, and therefore it is true.
It is true.
Balls fall down.
Balls fall down.
Right?
So that is how it works in science.
Now, if we can think of a debate about whether Socrates is mortal, right?
Like take our old standard syllogism, right?
We take a debate that Socrates is mortal.
So if I put forward the proposition, all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal, then we don't know from that directly whether Socrates is mortal, but we sure know that I'm incorrect because I have a contradictory statement.
All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal.
We know that the argument cannot be correct because it self-contradicts, right?
All men are mortal.
Socrates is the category of man, but Socrates is immortal.
Therefore, not all men can be mortal or Socrates is mortal, right?
That's really the only two options.
So let's look at that debate.
Now, trying to determine whether Socrates is mortal, that is the purpose of the debate.
Is the process of debating whether Socrates is immortal, is it an is or an ought?
The debate is not an is.
The is exists independent of human consciousness.
Because if there was no is that existed independent of human consciousness, there wouldn't be enough stable matter or matter at all for human consciousness to evolve over the last 14 billion years of the universe and 4 billion years of life on Earth.
So does the debate exist outside of human consciousness?
No.
And let's just talk about the verbal debate.
Let's just pretend it's not recorded or the verbal debate, right?
So the verbal debate does not exist outside of human consciousness.
And therefore, since it exists within human consciousness and human consciousness is subject to the ought, all life is subject to the ought.
It is food.
I ought to eat in order to live.
So if the debate is only a product of the human mind and really, in a way, only exists because of the human mind, then the debate is more like a concept or a hypothesis.
Well, it is a hypothesis that's being tested.
So the debate has, as its goal, innately, explicitly and implicitly.
Like you don't need to say, I'm aiming to be honest and get to the truth in this debate because both sides are claiming to be honest and getting to the truth.
They just disagree what the truth is.
And it's either one of theirs or neither of theirs.
It can't be both if they're opposing positions.
So the debate is a process of the human mind, and therefore it is not an is, but an ought.
Not all processes of the human mind are oughts.
You know, daydreaming is not an ought.
A dreaming at night is not an ought, right?
But of course, a lot of the products, a lot of the processes, contents, and products of the human mind is an ought.
Some of them are certainly not oughts.
But the debate, by its very nature, is an ought.
The conversation is an ought.
Morality is an ought.
We ought to do good, we ought to do right, and it ought to be universal.
That way, it's not subjective.
And because it's subjective, it's not enforceable.
So the debate and concepts are oughts because they're not is.
In other words, the concept tree ought to, or we could say must, must and ought, if it must accord, if the concept tree must accord with the actual tree, if it must do that, then it ought to be accurate.
If whatever the concept is that it's describing in the world has to accord with the nature of what it's describing, then it ought to be accurate.
If my destination is north, I must go north to reach my destination.
Saying I must and I ought is pretty much the same thing.
I must eat in order to live.
Therefore, if I want to live, I ought to eat or I must eat.
I mean, I'm sure you could slice and dice this to some degree, but let's just take that as relative synonyms for the moment.
So the debate exists within the human mind.
It's a process of back and forth aimed at establishing the truth.
And a debate is not an is like a tree, is.
It is an ought in that if you were to debate with someone who says, I have no regard for the truth, like a troll, right?
I mean, if the troll were to say, I have no regard for the truth, I just want to waste your time and frustrate and annoy you.
I don't care about the truth.
I have no interest in the truth.
Then you wouldn't debate with that person because it would be a bad faith debate.
And of course, we've all had that process when we're debating with someone, either in person or online, usually online, where we suddenly go, oh, crap, they don't have any interest in the debate at all.
They just want to frustrate me and waste my time.
They play too much.
They play too much.
So if the goal of the debate is the truth, then people should enter the debate with the goal of pursuing and achieving the truth.
I mean, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I'm going to have a debate about whether I ought to have had that dream or not.
Because that is a process or operation of the unconscious mind.
It can't really be aughted.
It can't be aughted.
It is beyond the ought.
Beyond the aort cloud, isn't there an aught cloud in astronomy?
I think there is.
Oh, yeah.
Isn't it where the debris on the outskirts of the solar system is the ort cloud?
O-O-R-T.
I think it is, yeah.
So you can't get an ought from an is.
There is debris on the edge of the solar system.
We're going to call it the ort.
Ha ha!
Solved, you bleeding humians.
So the debate is a process of the human mind that does not exist in the real world with the goal of the truth.
And either implicitly or explicitly, the goal is to come to a resolution, right?
This is B-I-R-T from my days at Glendon College and at McGill in the debate club.
B-I-R-T.
Be it resolved that, right?
Be it resolved that.
So the conversation, the debates, really all that is foundational and involved in language as a whole is an ought.
Does language exist in the way that a tree exists?
It does not.
Therefore, all operations of consciousness that involve language, which would be a debate, debate, is not psychically transmitted.
It's not done through colors, right?
It's done through language.
So since language doesn't exist in the way that a tree exists, and language is a whole series of oughts, right?
Language is a whole series of oughts.
In other words, to communicate using language, you ought to have some kind of comprehensible series of letters and words that add up to some coherent thought.
Doesn't necessarily mean cogent, but at least it's coherent.
You can understand.
It's not just a random Elon Musk naming his 44th child in a keyboard smash of random letters.
Right?
So the debate involves all kinds of oughts.
We ought to aim for the truth.
We ought to use comprehensible language.
We ought to rebut each other's points.
We ought not to straw man.
We ought not to add harmony.
Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought.
It is an ought fest.
Oort fest.
So, can we get an ought from an is?
No, but a debate is an ought already.
Oh, it's so good.
Oh, my God.
My nipples go.
So, you can't get an ought from an is.
And this is what I was kind of getting at in the book, UPB.
Lo, those many years ago.
The debate is already an ought.
Morals are already an ought.
Debating morals is already an ought.
You can't get an ought from an is, but you can get an ought from an ought.
The debate is automatically an ought.
And therefore, saying you can't get an ought from an is when you're already in the ought environment is like saying you can't get to Greenland from China when you're already in Greenland.
It's like we're already in Greenland.
China is the is, can't get to Greenland, the ought, but because everybody who's debating is already in Greenland.
So you can't get to Greenland from China, but everybody's already in Greenland.
So that's the answer.
Now, of course, the question is, and this is the blistering brain excitement of being back on X with its 280 characters or whatever the hell it is.
You've got to get all kinds of haiku.
So how do I, and that's sort of, I don't know, I don't may not be able to resolve this in this particular yabble fest.
But the question then is, okay, well, how do I communicate this?
Something like, you can't get an ought from an is.
No, we're already in a debate.
We're not in an is.
We're in an ought.
A debate is an ought.
A debate is already an ought.
Unless you're going to tell me that you're not interested in truth over the course of this debate.
If you're not interested in truth over the course of this debate, and so I say, okay, maybe it's like this.
Are you interested in getting to the truth?
Yes.
Okay, then we already have an ought, which is we ought to get to the truth.
So we're already in an ought.
Forget the is.
We're long past the is.
We're in Greenland, baby.
Of course, people won't know what that means, unless they happen to have heard this.
And maybe it can be our cutesy little inside joke, you know, like the funny drink you spilled on me when we met.
Okay, so communicating it, that's that's a oe bit of a challenge, lad.
How are you bet?
Somebody says we can't get an ought from an is.
Listen to me, thinking in real time.
Normally it's more prepared.
But I got a bella full of black bean soup.
So somebody says you can't get an ought from an is.
Yeah, trust me, bro, we're in debates.
We're already in the land of ought.
Unless you, I mean, do you accept that we should both be aiming for the truth?
Yes.
Okay, then we both ought to tell the truth.
We both ought to be honest.
We both ought not to mischaracterize the straw man to add homonym to cock, whatever it is, right?
We shouldn't, should we use logical fallacies?
No.
So we're already in the ought.
We're already in the land of oughts.
Forget the is.
Can't get an ought from an is.
Agreed.
Can you get an ought from an ought?
Ah, there we go.
Okay.
Okay, you can't, there we go.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Agreed.
Can you get an ought from an ought?
Or you can't get an ought from an is.
Are any oughts valid?
And if they say, well, no, there's no valid oughts, then I'd say, okay, well, I'm not debating with you because you don't even think that you ought to tell the truth or you ought to, like, there's no debate, right?
To accept the debate, we have to accept the ought, which is kind of what I was saying, bars actress back in the day when I was talking about how you can't argue against UPB.
You can't argue against UPB without using UPB.
So this is another way of saying you can't argue against the ought without deploying the ought, which is to say the argument is the ought.
That the form of the proposition reveals the truth of the proposition.
So somebody says you can't, sorry, to an UPB thing.
I need to rehearse this.
By the way, this is what my chatterbox brain does on a daily basis, all the time.
What about this argument?
What about that argument?
Well, this could be better.
Well, that could be better.
So somebody says you can't get an ought from an is.
Say, can you get an ought from an ought?
By that, I mean, okay, what's the best way of putting that?
So somebody says, you can't get an ought from an is.
Can you get an ought from an ought?
If a scientist who ought to follow the scientific method, ought he to publish his data?
If he should follow the scientific method, is it incumbent upon him to publish his data?
I mean, in general, I would say yes.
Okay, if a scientist ought to follow the scientific method, ought other scientists be able to reproduce his results?
Should other scientists be able to reproduce his result?
I mean, that I know for sure.
Like, if you can't reproduce, this is the whole fusion in the jar thing from when I was younger, right?
So if you can't reproduce another scientist method, replication, if you can't replicate another scientist's findings, then they're not valid, right?
So can you get an ought from an ought?
If I want to get to a destination that is north, ought I go north?
If I want, right?
And maybe people have trouble with the implicit ought.
You know, like I didn't sign a contract that says I'm going to pay for my dinner at a restaurant, right?
Ought.
So maybe because it is implicit in the debate that you ought to pursue the truth in a rational and empirical fashion, maybe it's the implicit nature of the ought.
Okay, so sorry.
I hope this is helpful.
This is like, I don't know, this is like hearing how somebody writes a song.
The whole pro I find this stuff fascinating, but maybe you do, maybe you don't.
I like the behind the scenes stuff.
So somebody says, I honestly will do this even before a tweet sometimes.
So somebody says, you can't get an ought from an is.
And then I say, can you get an ought from an ought?
Yes.
You can get an ought from an ought.
Because you can't ever only just have one ought in life, because then you just use up your one ought and then you have no more oughts and you're right dead, right?
So if you want to live, ought you to eat and drink?
If you want to live.
Yes.
Okay.
If you want to have a good debate, ought you follow reason and evidence to the best of your ability?
Yes.
Would you enter into a debate if somebody said, I am not going to use reason and evidence.
I'm going to insult and shoot your dog.
Well, no.
I think I've made this argument many years ago.
But anyway, so would you?
No.
Okay.
So to be in a debate is to accept the oughts of reason and evidence and comprehensible language and speaking the same language.
And I guess it's two sides of the same coin and so on, right?
Okay.
I'll hopefully be able to boil it down even further, but I'm just sort of following the thread as it goes right now.
Hey, welcome to my inner voices.
If I could get it down to one, that would be fantastic, but no luck yet.
Right.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Can you get an ought from an ought?
Yes.
A debate is an ought.
We ought to tell the truth.
You can get an ought from an ought.
Therefore, you cannot, in a debate about UPB, appeal to the no ought from the is because we're already in an ought.
Oh, it feels good.
Feels good.
Like a fresh wax in some sunbeams.
So then how do you get that down to 280 characters or less in a way that is incontrovertible to all but the pig-headed?
See, I mean, you know, you can't, like, you can't navigate by the pig-headed no matter what, because they'll just steal your will to live.
And they're just there to block you and frustrate you.
And like they're minions, like the persons from Porlock and the sort of famous old short story, right?
So forget the pig-headed source, right?
I mean, the great thing about AI is you don't have to listen to the source people anymore.
So go look that shit up yourself, brother.
Okay, so you can't get an ought from an is.
Now, my answer has been what you just did.
But I think the better answer, the airtight answer, again, forgetting the pig-headed.
The airtight answer is you can't get an ought from an is.
We are already debating.
The ought is implicit.
Oh, that's good.
It's not complete, because there's steps missing, but it's got a whiff of goodness to it.
You can't get an ought from an is.
We're already debating and using language.
The ought.
We are already in an ought.
You can't get an ought.
That's not good enough, right?
Because it's too quick.
It's too rapid.
It's too concise.
No, too concise.
It is incomplete.
Sorry, too concise.
It's incomplete.
Like if there's a 12-step to fixing your toilet and they leave out the middle eight, it's not too concise.
It's incomplete.
All right.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Can you get an ought from an ought?
Yes.
A debate is an ought.
Therefore, by participating in a debate, we are already doing oughts.
Okay, that's not, that's better, right?
It's still a step or two missing, but it's better.
Okay.
It's like Freddie Mercury with the no, no, hit the drums like rat ta-ta.
You can't get an ought from an is.
We're in a debate.
The ought is implicit, and the debate can't exist in any other way.
Okay.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Are we in a debate?
Yes.
Is a debate, oh, maybe this is it.
Okay.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Are we in a debate?
Yes.
Is a debate an ought or an is?
Oh, that's good.
Now they can't say it's an is unless they're going to say, well, the atom's on the screen and blah, blah, blah, right?
But that's like saying that the word candy is the same as a candy bar.
It's not.
It's just not.
That's my argument.
It's just not, man.
How can you think that?
Bro.
So you can't get an ought from an is.
Is a debate an ought or an is?
Is a debate a thing or a should?
Is it a goal or is it an object?
If it is a goal, it is an ought because it's a willed direction, unlike a sycamore leaf or whatever it is, right?
Which is just blown by the wind.
You cannot get an ought from an is.
Is a debate an ought or an is?
A debate cannot be an is.
A debate is an ought.
So since we're debating, oughts are assumed and implicit, and therefore saying they don't apply is invalid.
Oh, that's better.
Oh, that's good.
That's a nipple tingle.
Yes.
It's like foreplay, but with a well-oiled squid.
Or me when I was 17.
All right.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Oh, I am.
I am philosophizing so hard, I totally missed my exit.
And that's some good philosophy, man.
Look at that.
Here I am talking about destinations and I missed mine.
Oh, well, we'll survive.
We will survive.
All right, here we go.
Good, good, good.
Look both ways.
And we're there.
It's pretty good.
I say we've got 80%, 80%, 80%.
I might need to, of course, I need to take this for a test drive live on X in order to see how well this goes.
But it's always tough in a debate to go meta, right?
To say, well, we're in a debate.
What are the inevitable prerequisites implicit and implied and required in order for there to be a debate?
Okay.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Debates are oughts by definition.
It needs, we've already crossed that bridge or something like you can't get an ought from an is.
Agreed.
A debate is an ought by definition, so let's keep going.
Assuming oughts, which are required for debates.
Oh, that's not bad.
That's not bad.
Of course, you'll be accused of rushing things or moving the goalposts or something like that.
You cannot get an ought from an is.
All debates are oughts.
Let's move on.
Debates aren't oughts.
Well, they're not is, are they?
They're a process with a goal, a destination that requires integrity and honesty and fidelity to the rules of reason and evidence.
Of course, they're oughts.
How can you have a debate that's not an ought?
A tree is not an ought.
A rock is not an ought.
So you can't get an ought from an is.
Agreed.
Debates are oughts by definition.
Ooh, that's pretty good.
And they are.
No, they're not.
So you're saying that we ought not follow the rules of reason and evidence?
Basically, because I'm telling you, I won't debate with you if you're not willing to.
Like, if there's no, if you, if there's no ought in this debate for you, I'm not debating you.
Any more than I would get into a boxing ring with somebody who said there's no rules to this fight.
Or I wouldn't play, I wouldn't set up chess or some complicated Catan board if somebody said I could just knock the board over and call in an airstrike and pee on it.
Okay, so you can't get an ought from an is.
It's hard work, man.
Philosophy is hard work.
It's fun work, but it's hard work.
You can't get an ought from an is.
Agreed.
Debates and language are oughts by definition.
Let's move on.
That's pretty good.
It's not perfect.
I don't know what perfect looks like at this because, you know, you don't want to have the standard of, well, perfect is when everyone agrees with you because then people would just not agree with you in order to be bloody-minded, right?
So you can't get an ought from an is.
Agreed.
Debates are oughts by definition.
Let's move on.
Ah, that feels right.
That feels right.
And you know, it's my feelings that count.
No, but when you've been doing it for long enough, you get an instinct as to what is right and good.
All right.
Let's take this for a test drive at some point tomorrow, I'm sure.
And I hope you find it interesting as I'm sort of hammering through this stuff.
It's neither easy nor automatic, but I do find it as long as you know you can get there, and I know well enough to know by now I can get there, right?
But as long as you know you can get there, then it's fun to do, right?
If somebody asked me to do, I don't know, IBM's corporate taxes, I wouldn't be able to get, like, I just couldn't get there, right?
There's just no way I could get there because I just don't have the knowledge or skill or ability.
So as long as I know I can get there, the journey is fun.
And look at that, we got there.
And I got to where I need to get to.
All right.
Thanks, everyone.
Love you guys.
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