#729 - Alex O'Connor - Are People Becoming Less Moral?
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Hello, everybody, welcome back to the show. My yesterday is alexo. Conner is a youtube r writer and a podcasts. A grappling with difficult moral questions is a part of human life.

But in the age of wikipedia and ChatGPT, are we now outsourcing morality? Our people becoming less moral over time. And why does Peter hitchens really hate alex? Expect to learn what actually happened when Peter hidin stormed doubt alex s. Interview, whether ChatGPT can be convinced of the existence of god. What the non identity problem is, if nil ism will make a combat, the impact of the debate around free will, how much we can trust the historic al accuracy of the bible and much more.

With uber, reserve you can build juran varied in advance, ninety days in advance, perfect role, you forward thinkers and planning in google reserve your in varied of tonight days in advance uber see uber after details pilot .

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Alex o. Conner, O K.

On the show, how splendid we progress. The first time on a sky cool, second time was in person in Austin, and now something of a sort of cinematic production. I fear that next time will be in three d or something.

It's good to see you again. Good to see you how you feeling in the aftermath of Peter hitchins.

Validated, vindicated. I must say that I was a little bit, I was in two minds about uploading that that interview he does. There was a bit A A mixture of opinion coming from him.

He wasn't speaking entirely clearly, must have been something on his mind, he said, as he's getting up to work out, I don't think you should run this and i'm thinking, look, if if my guest tells me that they don't want me to run an interview for any reason I could be because they have had a bad hair day, then i'll respect that. And so I thought down, and I really gonna to, you know, be the bigger here and just not post this at all. But then he cut, saying, I run IT if you like.

I can't stop me from running IT. I just don't think you have any moral right to run IT. And I asked him why, and he said, IT was because I am a propaganda ous for drug decriminalizing, a subject which, prior to that, by the way, I spoken about once ever, and that i'd intentionally tricked him to appear on my podcast in order that I might fool him into a conversation about drugs.

Now, before the poca started, I said, mister hitchens, you have, uh, about three subject areas that we both talk about, where I think there's a bit of cross so that that you either spoken about or indeed written books about. And those are the decriminalizing of drugs. I also mentioned this in my email, at the existence of god or religion, I should say godden religion is the topic.

And a the third was monarchy. At this point he says, why, you know, monarchy is a bit boring. Okay, notice, listener, that he did not take the opportunity to tell me that he thought the drugs were bit boring and would rather not really talk about drugs at ool for too long.

Okay, fine. So i'm thinking, I agree with you, the monarchy incredibly boring, in fact, that the entirety of my point about the monarch is that is essentially just boring more than anything else. So let's just do the other two. So I say, run for about an hour day he says, as good, you know and I say, but you know, if the conversation flows, IT can be and I want a half, there could be .

two hours and okay.

he says, well looking I say, sometimes I can be three hours long, while three hours might be a bit long. We ll see how we do something thing about now and a half and now in a half on what was now, in my view, two subjects. So IT about forty minutes into this potentially ninety minute podcast on the same topic when he told me that we've been going round for too long on that topic, I was a little bit amused.

But I did think myself, maybe i've done something wrong here. Maybe I have upset him in a way that obviously was not intentional. You know, I wasn't trying to bring this out of him or IT do quite well for the channel is not like it's something I would do intentionally.

So I did think myself maybe i've done something. So I listened back and incentive to some friends, including you, and thank you for listening to IT and saying that, like most people just said, you have to run this. He's he's been completely unreasonable.

And so there have been criticisms. People have said, well, you know what? I was a bit boring or yeah, was going round in circles. I submit that was his fault, by the way, because he does this thing, which I ve noticed in a lot of philosophy and political discussion, which is the sort of, I know this one attitude. When you do a lot of interviews, I find that you have a sort, I know this one, and so I answer the question .

that they heard, not the answer that was asked .

exactly and and IT happens especially when it's it's easy enough to make that mistake if you're not listening, careful. So he was talking about, uh, the well, I ask him about the decriminalizing of of of cannabis and he says that, well, this will essentially mean that a lot of more children will be smoking in. He had this contention that children would end up smoking canopies.

And I thought to myself, well, okay, I can understand concern, of course, but I think the tobacco industry has suffered quite a below in still being perfectly legal to buy natural. But the kids just arent smoking cigarettes more is just not a thing that's really done. Why is that in otherwise we ve had quite a successful education campaign whereby it's not popular for to smoke anymore and yet it's still perfectly legal, can't have a similar approach to cannabis.

Potentially, by the way, not a good view. Potentially a perfectly rebuttal of you, i'm not sure, but I wouldn't know because I didn't get a rebuttal of that view. Instead, I just heard all you can do is this do the whole, which, by the way, is a genuinely quite tired line in this debate.

The whole, or what about smoking? We need another point where I brought about how you can say, what about alcohol? What about smoking? And that's not what I was doing because I intend that's not what I was doing and because that's what he heard because I know this one. I heard this before yeah and and you haven't read my book. I didn't to OCR to him that so IT is possible middies to read your book and yet still, after having done so decrepid.

yeah, it's sometimes when you hear people speak, especially guys that a little bit older, I think there is a, there is kind of like reverse ages m that goes on, which is, who is this sort of Young web snapper person who I maybe have heard of? I haven't heard of much and almost like a blaze kind of discrediting of the thing. This this is your show, but it's my show, so to speak. And yeah, was like I thought his attitude was pump s and unlikeable. And my favorite pop was when he threw the pillow at the microphone.

throwing the pillow down, and he kept ort of walking back over. He says, I I don't want you to post. And thanks to and .

talking about you before, I decided that I absolutely do not like you.

And I IT was quite something. And a lot of people message me saying, hey, like, i'm so sorry that happened like, you know, you do know right? And i'm thinking, sorry, sorry, I thought is no way that this is happening. I mean, when IT looks like he was about to get up, I surely know. But then internally i'm thinking like going on I don't think i've on anything wrong here .

IT podcasting equivalent of on ever go yeah .

you know know the latest thing was because he he get up to go and he walks out and he stands at the door and he is I wish you seen his body language IT was IT was very much there's one point where you can see IT when he walks back into shot and he says something and then after said he just all of stands there looking at me as if to say, like, what if you got and so he's keep going like i'm going to go now i'm going and I am going and wasting the podcast playing .

hard to get equivalent.

IT must have been something like that. IT was IT was like the person who wants to fight but wants to look like they didn't initiate the fight. And and I don't think it's my fault. I'll leave IT up to the to the judgment of the listener or the viewer. I don't think is my foot that he spent seventeen minutes, seventeen, count them seventeen entire minutes stood at the door, telling me how much he personally dislikes me, telling me how much he doesn't want to. Again.

to do that for as long as i've known you so well, will see how we did. Yeah, today, try convince me of the existence of god. Today, you manage to convince ChatGPT, which means does that mean that i'm smart in ChatGPT if you convince me more quickly or more slowly or not at all?

I don't know. I don't know that IT IT means that well, well, ChatGPT, if it's going to her eternal life, I sort of wonder how that's going to work in heaven. I don't know. I mean.

I don't know. I made because of nightmare for everyone as they walk around and you've got the ChatGPT logo .

floating yeah the interesting about the GPT is that you sort of you can essentially committed of anything. And so I wasn't quite sure if there was even a very good video idea, because I am sure I could just as easily commit that the god doesn't exist.

Well, at least you can be thankful that IT wasn't able to say IT had no opinion of you before. But I absolutely does not like you.

And then get up and walk out, right? Some people can come and say that at least ChatGPT stuck around until the end. That would be a task.

In fact, that's another video idea. I got chapt to store m out of an interview. Even I probably can do that.

Didn't this get up? You debated bench peo yesterday. How did that go? I've never seen you IT went well.

I think um IT IT will probably be out around the time of this this interview maybe slightly before sarty afterwards. Uh, IT was there was a good conversation. We were discussing whether or not relation is good for society and .

stand for Young Benjamin to take at the moment.

I suppose. So I mean, IT was a very much sort of don't mention the war type types scenario. I mean, the producers had said that we want this to be an advocate in conversation. We want this to be something that people can listen at any point. And also a ben had just the night before into the oxford on.

and I haven't seen that yet either.

But that sounds he the most tense thing that he's ever done, the most tense thing he's ever.

ever been a part of what I saw some kind of interesting was the video was only shot on what appeared to be iphone. yes. So there was no, maybe they just wanted to get up early as opposed to waiting for the oxford union official video to come through.

Seems to be the case. They do seem to be planning to upload IT. In fact, when I was recording with ban, I think his team were in the Green room sort of furiously to try and get IT out potentially before the oxo union.

I'm not entirely sure. But I mean, I I sounded like A A hell of an evening. And so the next day he was saying that he sort of felt like a nice break from that.

What to set opposite you. Well, you are a comfortable leather pair of shoes that he can put on.

I think ben relaxes in argumentation. I think he genuinely enjoys IT. I I think there's no contradiction to say that he was having some time off by sitting there and and having a having, but he was having a break from the politics, right in the words he was able to just argue about something a bit more perennial and a little less, a little less fire.

I suppose. What if you learned so you are i've been a massive fan of you since before you came on the pot test. And since then we become friends and you come out see me and we spend a turn the time together.

You will probably be my favorite person to watch debate people because it's kind of a little bit like watching batman verse, spider man or something. I know you well and we've argued a lot, but I and I know maybe bencher pero, but I don't know what will happen when these two people come together. You were president of sock, sock plastic society, and you were part of debate.

Sock, and all of this are the stuff at oxford. Given that you've got relatively illustrious heritage of both formal and informal debates, what is your assessment of bench heroes debating style, his ethical consistency, his ability to deploy logic at SATA? Ta, now that you've gone mano mano in the ring.

well, he has obviously an incredible high verbal like you. He constructs a sentence out of nowhere and do IT very quickly. And he's also very difficult to interrupt.

Not that I particularly wanted to. I mean, he throw out of maybe two or three points out at once and and you want to bud in and do the one by one. You don't want to be rude, of course. So so I let him finish IT was amazing how they just glued together into one wall of text.

You know, I I i've seen comments on some of the video that I was watching of him in preparation to talk to him where people were not being funny, and saying that they play the video on zero point seven phy, because IT makes him a sound Normal. That was the field of episode with with constant in Francis a trigonometry and ah he's talking about religion and its relation to defensive crisis. And people were saying that if you and I was very fast, if you played on zero point seven five, you forget that you've done that new deterring.

Somebody talk at a Normal volume, at a Normal speed and then constant comes in stunning like a blue whe so he's very quick. But also, I thought very charitable. This is the thing I think people get venture pero wrong. I went to his campaign, ian event after this discussion flash debate in because I was in cambridge. That's that's why we where we were out there and and so I went to this event and not talking to a lot of students afterwards.

And you hear a lot of people saying about benchmark that he is a bit of a bit of a grifter or well, i'm not really fan or you have this sort of secret fans who is said in the chain are going like, well, know you know, it's I think just it's important, you know, if you're going to disagree with someone is going to have to hear the thing that you are going to disagree with in the flash say so you can say that you like bench pero it's okay, you know um but people see this this side of him of the sort of slightly nearing sari owning college one kind of thing but I think in many ways he matches the energy that he's given. And so taking him seriously and listening to what he saying and being willing to to concede a point to him, he will do the same thing. I think that happened in this conversation.

You know it's it's steadfast was saying what we think to each other at one point. We both we use each other mutiny ously of being lusia al. But in such a manner that if you say something you get this sorted like, yeah no, that's a fair point actually maybe you put in this way instead or oh yeah, you know actually I was saying, no, you're right.

I should have said this instead that kind of attitude, which is the kind of thing that people think bencher is incapable of for some you know mean yeah and it's a kind of it's a hidden humility because IT comes out not in the attitude, not in the, not in a sort of is gonna give way to you emotion? You're right. I would just be if you if you pay attention to the way he's constructing an argument and changing its subtly based on your responses, you know that he really is listening and really is trying to engage with what you're actually saying and that's the kind of humility that I don't think can really be faked.

Yeah, I friends with a bunch guys have worked with him over the years, and I know for a fine fact that part of his debate prep involves a number of break glass in case of mass offence sort of escape patches and the layers of how uh deep and how aggressive he can go. Ah so I would love to know actually I might email and find out what he's got on you just in case I often needs to actually pull that .

pen but said to me when he walked in I saw the Peter hitching as everybody he's been saying to me recently so he did least seen that so he noted how I behaving. He knows other worse that if he did start out of screaming at me that I would probably .

just sit there and take a right OK like the philosophical cup that you are right yeah yeah .

you're kind of a little that another quite for for the foot of I I think yeah.

if you have updated IT too. I absolutely do not. I've decided I do not like you. Peter hitchen.

it's in there somewhere. I think it's, I actively dislike you. Is the quote this now?

I, I, i'm constantly shifting IT around. I don't think i'll never get rid. unusual.

What was that you did for a while of making? There's question their beliefs and lesbians question their sexuality.

Since I don't know talking about.

I remember .

I know a, we really have to each other a long time. You know what I found yesterday I was I sort stumbled across IT while looking for an email, trying to find out where we were filming today. And I found the original email that you sent me in must be twenty twenty when we first met.

And I was amazing. I was this sort of, hi alex, then watching your stuff for a while, like I was sort of three, four paragraph of text. I D love to sit down, have a conversation with you.

I think that your views will be a big interest, my view. And then i've i've already spoken to these people, and that was a bunch people that I I hadn't heard of, wasn't really in my sphere. And IT signed off Chris willson video event, fantastic.

yeah. Well, of my previous life, yeah. I had a filling nightclubs in my signal until only six months ago, and I realized that I needed to get rid of IT. But no, it's some. It's cold. I think, you know, if I could invest money in people, you, George mac, zack, my housemate winter bogle, rob enderson, you know, even roy sutherland, I don't think that the market has Priced in his talent.

And it's so funny because like what I did for almost all of my career in nightlife was find a different kind of talent like the generate party talent, but find kids that had good work, I think, in some skill and then bring them in and sort of train them up. Uh so keeping a finger on the post of what's happening with regards to trends, if he is appropriate and ba blah. But yeah you know there is a point I will happily say now there is a point that's going to recover in the next few years where something happens with you being involved that just catapults you into like super starter.

Like I would absolutely bet a shit ton of money that this is onna happen. You've got some what's that big thing you're doing soon? Can we announced the big thing .

that you're doing soon that eating bigger debate, I think not only because it's still very much up in the, however, is going to break the end that could you unless .

this does IT for me, I do this is the bigger on. So when was the last time that you're aware of in your world of philosophy that something like A A step change, like the equivalent of the discovery of the higg's boson happened in philosophy?

Yeah, just every now, again, something does come along this a bit revolutionary. And A A, A recent examples in by recent consider, we're talking about the history, twenty eighth century, the theory of knowledge is completely exploded by a mango would have to get here. And this is, this is actually, I think, quite fascinating.

I be interested to hear. Do you think about this? So knowledge is really difficult to define. People didn't use to have as much of a problem with that. Like if you had to give a definition of knowledge, I wasn't mean to know something isn't like a trick question. I just i'm just interested .

what do you think to know something a to be able to accurately predict what happens in the world?

Okay, so it's got something to do with that being true in the world and your ability to predict. But you can also think about things in the past, right? You you can know that the poly an existed or something. So so prediction of you .

yeah to infer to sort .

of to have some kind of belief about the .

world which is accurate, which is actually .

which is which is true. sure. But then imagine, for example, you're in a you're in like a locked concrete box with no windows and I don't know like a like some udo mitic tells you that it's raining outside and they are just like insane. They are on drugs or something and and they just tell you that it's raining. They convince of IT and and for some reason you believe them totally rationally and IT just so happens that IT, is Michael stance raining outside.

did you know right?

So you have a belief about the world, which is true, but I would seem very stranger, say that, you know, there's running outside, right? And so since play to in the ancient, we've had have had a consensus on the idea that knowledges justified true belief. J, T, B, so you need to have a belief is true.

You need to, of course, believe that to be true. But you have to also be justified in that belief. And that's what makes IT acknowledge.

So if you, if you see that is training outside through the window and you believe that, that is raining outside and then it's true that is training outside. Now you can say, you know, that is draining out OK and this is just essentially consensus. The the potentially thousands of years are talking about here, and then admin, get here and at least one account.

This may be awkward, but he said that he sort of hadn't really publish anything and was being compelled to to get something in a journal. And he just sort of reaches into his papers of random things she's been writing, pulls up the one on the top and and handed off for submission. This is about two or three pages long and just opens the whole thing with with essential, the account example, which now known as get cases.

So his example was to say, I imagine that you're in a job interview and a the your your interview is really quite well and the person says to you, you know, I I couldn't really be saying this, but I I think you've got IT and so you go back outside and you're feeling prety good. There are other candidates, but you have you got a pretty justified reason to think that you're going to get the job. Then the other guy goes in and while you're waiting for him, you know, you're just fiddling around in your pocket and and you take out whatever you got your pocket, you've got ten coins and you just filling with the ten coins.

So you develop a justified belief that the person he is gonna get the job has hand coin tous pocket because you you pretty sure you going to a get the job and you've just got you just had a look and you've got tank. So you got a justified belief for the person he's going to get drop at ten coins in their pocket. There's been some kind of like freak mistake, something maybe they have read your name wrong on the form, or the person who you told you, they thought you got to meant speak to the person.

But IT turns out the other guy actually get the job. But just by sheer coincidence, he also has ten coins in his pocket. The question is, did you know that the person who would get the job would have ten coins in his pocket? You have a justified, true belief with the person who gets the job would have ten coinsurance pocket. But IT seems in this circumstance, you didn't know that that just seems wrong, seems like a wrong account is a bit of a sort of clunky example. And he gets another one, which is also maybe a little bit punchy, this sort of Sparks this type of affair called a geta case.

When you told me, I think of a dinner the best getting your case, which was the person behind the hedge.

Yes.

so this is Better.

I think so. So I I think it's actually Better at first, is Better to experience them for yourself. And there are simply to explanations as well.

So I was dry. I was in a car driving around a abandoned over the head. I see this, this small child, to bouncing up and down behind the hedge.

And I thought to myself, I would cool. I'm about to see a horse. I mean, I looked like that he was riding a horse and I could.

I was like, cool. We're going to see horse and me right around this band. And the kid was actually on the his or her like dads back.

And that's why he was high often and bounced ing down. But just by share coincidence, in the field behind them was a horse. And I could not believe that.

I thought I just experienced that case. I had, I justified true belief that is about sea horse. The divulge with that one is that is probably not justified to believe that was about sea horse, because I probably should thought that they a father.

But a much more simple example. And this actually happened to me once I was in the the U. S. Capital building in in the crypt. And they have the clock that used to be in the house of representatives.

And they said that the reason they replaced and brought you down here, because they were fed up of winding IT up, they want to wind IT anymore. And I looked at IT, and I and I asked the tour guide lady said, do they still wind that walks down here? And he said, no and I thought, but it's the real it's the time.

It's is the time right now. And SHE was like up and must be a coincident. I was like the only one looking around like a that's that's pretty that's pretty extraordinary.

I think I guess that happens twice a day, right? But this is a geta case if you if you watch breaks, but you don't know that is broken. You've got a reliable watch, but today is broken.

And you look at the time and IT stopped on a half past three. And so you look at that anything I must be half part three. And IT does actually just so happen to be half past three.

Did you know it's half height? That's a gey case, justify the true belief and yet seems weird to say that you that you know IT so get revelation. Here was something like, what are talking about? A sort of genuine novelty in history of philosophy. And they come about quite rarely.

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of just a massive migraine? Basically, people will start coming up with arguments, responses, you know, so people say, well, maybe not justified true belief, maybe it's like cause ally related justification to the cause of the.

but presumably kind of in the same way that, I guess a new scientific discovery is made about the way that we metabolite glue coast are about what happens if you take this amount of nicotine, or the role of met former in preventing hyborian pressure or something. There are stacked on top of that one assumption, a number of other assumptions. But with philosophy, especially, something I imagine, like the philosophy of knowledge, is so foundational that having this entire universe built on this particular foundation, that means that the entire house of cards collapses down and people then need to rebuild all of this nightman. On top of that.

yeah almost of philosopher just a consistency test as IT isn't something like mathematics is just that we accept that there are certain axioms that even even mathematical axion, you know, you can, you can, you can question them.

I mean, the attache am just made a quick, good video about ukrainean geometry and how sort of just accepted for a very long time that for example, yeah if if you have a right tangle, then if you sort of joined up with the two lines coming off that right tangle, you will create a triangle whose interior angles add up to one hundred native degrees. And then the people are thinking about, what about like curved geometric spaces? What if you do is on the glow?

If you put a triangle on a globe, the angles on going to work up in that way. And these these are sort of like uh axim of mathematics that essentially they don't have to get prove wrong or throw out, but people realized that you can think about things differently. And so most of what we're doing is actually just testing for consistency. And so actually quite difficult to prove an axim wrong because you kind of need the next time just to get off the ground. And the rest of everything you're doing is consistency tested with that axim.

This is one of the most interesting things i'd learned from me maybe in the first every episode that we did as you are teaching me about the difference between ethics and matter ethics as someone that isn't formally trained in either um and you I use this all the time, is such an interesting mental model to think that in order for me you to have discussion about ethics, our meter ethical foundation, we need to agree on that because out of that, if we don't, the entire ethical discussion on top will just continue to fall back to definitional problems. And you're presuming so you can't discuss this stuff that happens on top if you unless you discuss this stuff is underneath and this is it's the entirety of the trans debate, right? It's the entirety of mexico a overwhelm that if you can't agree on the definition of words, the argument about the words and what they then refer to just collapses in on itself and continuously just falls back to an argument about the .

definition of words. Yes, this happens with, for example, freedom. There are lots of different ways of conceiving a freedom. Famously, freedom from and freedom too.

Right is, is freedom just being left alone? Or is freedom being empowered to do things you should be able to do? And then when you have people arguing about national alist health care, example, one person says, to be free, you need to be healthy.

And one person says, to be free, you need to spend your own money as you please and not be force to fund other people's healthcare. Now both of these people can be right. They're just finding freedom different.

So you you're quite right. And that's why matter. Ethics is quite important. I mean, A J air pointed out in language, truth and logic that the vast majority of ethical debate is not ethical debate, is description of debate, is factual debate. You look at these so called ethical debate around gun laws in america, for example, people are talking about statistics as saying, as many people die a year.

Or do you know that more children are killed by swiming pools? Uh, don't you know that like if we if we introduce, you know, if if we ban certain types of weapons or blab a blah, that this many less people will die. All these kind of things are just description of factual statements that people like to dispute with each other and that's why they like say, we have the facts on our side.

But the actual ethical question that the undergoes IT is is hardly ever even reached. You know, and so most of time people are actually arguing about that. I mean, the same thing with an abortion debate, for example, you know, the questions about biology, when does consciousness emerge? Can IT survive on its own with outside of the women this week or this week, you know, this kind of stuff will IT increase the number of women who die, or decrease the number of women who die.

But none of these ethical questions, and people think they are having an ethical debate, when they are actually just having a debate about facts that can be resolved in principle by scientific, empirical inquiry. The ethical question is the more interesting one that often assumed. And if people think that they agree with each other or understand each other in the same way on that ethical first point, then you, you're in for disaster. What do you watch? They don't. I mean.

yeah, what you wish that are more people could realize when IT comes to understanding ethics and consistency in their own lives. Is that something a little red pill or a particular insight that you wish you could deposit IT into the mind of the populist that you think would make their lives a little bit more easy, or the sense making a bit more simple?

I to know about making life easier, but I do think that people should recognize the extent to which emotions dominate our ethical thinking. I mean, I am take A I think it's seen as a relatively excentric view that ethics just is the expression of emotion. This was something popular, zed, by that same AJ air in a book that was so troubling to the ilo sophy ical consensus at the time that there's a story of think IT wasn't like a maybe a dean of bailo college or something, who when a student came in, everybody wants to talk about this book.

And they was so scared of the implications of IT that he literally throws IT out of the window because he each doesn't want to talk about IT, because he is talking about how the only things that can be meaningful of those which are analytically true or impera verifiable, if you if the same thing you're making isn't something you can at at least in principal test empirically, or something that's just a total logy to into his for, then what you're saying is literally meaningless. And people came to him and said, what about ethical statements? You can't prove these in principle, and they're not total logical.

And he said, well, the way that they're meaningful is that they are expression of emotion. And IT gives birth. This view called a motives m, which is really a philosopher of language, more than a philosopher of ethic.

IT tries to describe what people mean when they say good or bad. And famously he comes up with the synergy that saying murder is wrong is like saying boo murder, saying murder is given to charity good as saying a charity is just an expression of emotion. It's not even the same thing is saying I like charity or I don't like murder, because those things can be true or false.

They have truth value. IT could be true that I IT is just the psychological fact that I don't like murder. He means murder is wrong that day. When is just the expression of the emotion? Yeah, boo, murder. And I think even if you don't agree with him to that extent, as I more or less do, if you begin to recognize the extent to which emotions are dominating ethical conduct, pay attention to what IT feels like when you analyze something is wrong. I think IT belongs in the same category.

because you've got this emotion sweet of a the soup of stimulus going on inside of you. What is IT like to feel like something is wrong?

And we know that people, people seem to change what they rationally do based on how they are feeling. I, me, I don't. If you come across terror management theory before, surprise me if you had the idea all human beings are doing is trying to manage their fear of death.

And that's that's what motivates all, all human activity. And there plans some interesting studies and that some of them are hard to replicate and others. But I mean, the the first one the most famous was a some, I think, arizona state judges, and they were being asked to recommend a bond for the solicitation of prostitution.

And what the researchers did was they asked to a pillai just a form first and on half of the forms. They just mentioned death. They just put in a few questions about death, and nobody think happens after death.

You know, who would you put in your world that that kind of stuff, not nothing. Nothing too extreme. And I found the bond that was set by the judges in, I mean, I think the average bond for the control group was less than one hundred dollars.

And for the ones who are reminded of the death, S S. My two or three hundred dollars on average. What is that? And so the interpretation of Terry management theory was that when we're reminded of our deaths, we need to temporarily more heavily reaffirm the sort of death denying aspects of our culture.

The reason that we do things, the reason we create are the reason that we get out of bed. The reason that we have conversations like this, is because in in some way it's tractable trying to essentially deny our own death. Earn is back a road book called to deny death. And this this is essentially the idea. And so if for judges, that might be something like by participating in the legal system, they're participating in something that's a bit beyond them, and therefore IT exists outside of their own mortality.

And so that this is this mortality silent hypothesis, as is known, is that for a judge is there reminded of their own death, what they will temporarily be compelled to do is more harshly reaffirm that thing, that is, the death denying aspect of of their daily life, which is participation in the legal system. So more harsh penalties right now, me seems that the explanation seems to a little bit, and not sure about that, but IT seem strange that when you remind people of their own death, they will, you know, Christians and old muslim will become more directory towards jews. The people of different nationalities ties will sit further away from each other.

People will, when I raw pictures of currency will draw physically larger pictures of currency, people's opinion, whether they prefer a picture of a forest or or a picture, if we have suburban neighbor, will change on average like these. These things are extraordinary, just from being reminded of your own death. Of course, the biggest manifestation of the denial death would be religion.

And that that would also explain why, you know, the religion deals a lot with death and why why I sort of, if you remind people of throwing deaf, they also become religious, which, by the way, is true of atheists as well. People who don't believe in god will still become more religious, even if they don't ultimately believe in god. When reminded there. And .

yeah, I am. I ve been thinking a good bit recently about how people do an awful lot, especially in the modern world, that is death denialism. Mascara is something else.

I think the productivity movement very much is that you trying to fit more into less time, if only I could get more life, more work, more output out of my one unit of days or whatever. I think that a good chunk of the health and fitness world, h, the longevity movement, the biohacking movement, all of that is absolutely death, annalisa. And you can see as well at a nutrition all of the arguments about is IT Better for me to be carnival vegan.

Should I go high car or low car? And I do intermitted thing should be using key on, ultimately, the reason that I think these arguments are so leaming and passionate, especially when you think it's diet guys, right? It's diet. It's like I want to have aspartame. You want to have sugar.

Like how does my asp consumption or you you impact your sugar consumption? But what IT hits that for a lot of people, is a certainty about, I can predict and project out into the future how long i'm going to be able to live or die, and i'm going to be able to compare myself to this, a person. And there conviction in that particular approach, which arrogates my approach, blessedly suggests to me, you gan die sooner.

And that caused me to be fucking terrified. It's the same reason why people are. So how long do you need to do? It's not V O two max that's most important at H V.

It's not its resting heart rate. It's not it's galvanic skin temperature. We're not looking at that were looking at teleme length. We're not looking at that. It's whatever all of the things you know the entire field of health and finish, which I made big part of um I think is a good chunk of that is death analisa just master ating is getting big bye.

S yes, sometimes IT is more obvious. I think we need more nayyar health influences. You will sort of say I to I to when the question is asked you, should you eat the White bread or Brown bread to whatever is that all of begin with the question that this all depends on your reviews, the value of life, and also fear a bit of utility arian.

I mean, people often say that being unhealthy might be unethical because in a country with nationalist health care in burden. But but are you, I mean, who costs the tax pair more? The person who eats a bunch burgers has a heart attacks and died instantly? Or the person who lived in to old age and therefore has some kind of long term health problem like alzola.

I mean, I to, I need to introduct here. So you ring me probably three years ago, four years ago, you ring me and i'm in the gym. You say something like what you doing. So in the gym, what you doing? I just, whatever, whatever, catch up a little bit as I what's going on and so what's what happening and you ve said, i'm trying nya ism and I said, what you mean and you want as a life philosophy i'm trying nyalong m and I still don't know what you mean. So how is your experiment to make loyalism great game going?

Well, I was getting a bit fed up of people saying, oh, your nationalist. Oh, your naive. Well, they wouldn't hit in the times of nailless and they say, are you're naither est? Yeah, right? yeah.

I mean, there was, there was a clipper, Jordan Peterson on the next three dom forecast, and he says, oh, your secular and you and you go to all galleries. yeah. Well, what makes you think your secular and had turned on is real? He does, like I yourself on earth talking about, man, I think you can in A C.

S, and enjoy art. Now, I tried my best understand what he was getting out. And I think he was trying to basically say that in order to enjoy art, you need to have some kind of value.

And in order to have any kind of surface level value, you can always ask why that why that question, why do you value this? What you know the classic sort of why do you why do you go to school to get a good grade? Well, you don't just want the grade.

Why do you get the grade you do to get a good job? And so oneself happens with value. And so why do you, why do you value? You are because you may be value beauty or something.

And Peterson al thing is that whatever at the top of this value, higher archy is, in his definition, divine people. He just defines IT as such. And so he essentially said that, like, you know, people claim that they they are now alyse, but they don't live like that. I thought, what would you mean to really live like analyst? And you know, I I guess I tried to emphasize, but he's right into the extent that I think most people don't live like their analyst.

What would the definition of living like analysis?

I think IT would just mean the rejection of of of any such things in non contingent reason for acting.

Be more accessible.

You you would need to to to really think that there's no reason to do anything outside of essentially your crude preferences and biological drives.

right?

And I think the reason why people think that nya ism is unlivable is because they have this image of somebody just immediately becoming a rest in a cold type figure and just committing a murder or something. But they forget that these people still have their memory, and they they gona be emitted in in a, in a cultural upbringing that their preferences are essentially so going to be alive. I mean, pendel lt.

Was once asked, if you're natheless, why don't you kill and assault every person you want to and and he says, I do. I do kill and is all everybody I want to, which is precisely nobody and very clever. He gets a bit of of laws. But I mean, the the difficult question ethically is what happens when somebody doesn't have that? You happens when somebody doesn't degree with you.

I don't know what kind of boring, just when a ject so you could see the meaning making machine of society and cultural norms as being useful to constrain the behaviour of those outlier people， the ones who would go out and and commit the lattery of mass murders. But my mom told me that i'm not supposed to squash bugs. I was five years old and this is no Carried on through.

But yeah, I think enough for most people. We are the descendants of the people who avoided, at least for the most part, killing people that were close to us. And we felt a lot of the time, like when I close to each other.

yes, yes, I think that's probably true. The issue is the more that we try to explain away these these mechanisms, uh, we try to understand why in our evolutionary history, we might have evolved certain moral taboos, this kind of stuff IT begins to essentially take the complete ethical force out of IT. And that's what people think leads to leads. Annalisa, what wants you have fully explained why something would be considered in moral, just on evolutionary grounds? You're essentially taken out the the moral factor together and explaining IT in terms of genetic preference.

Yeah there's no more meaning. There's nothing there. No additional fluff for feeling of anything. But this is no. I ve spent a lot of time over the last few years talking to evolutionary psychologists, evolutionary biologist, to people that have looked at the evolution of culture as well. From memetic standpoint, two and IT does seem to me that culture is is just like exclusively an adaptive response to coordination at large scale. And the all of the things that are encoded in that are effective ways for your tribe to not blow itself.

Would you say the same thing about morality in general?

yes.

So then how do you escape this this nailless canon um that you think all all IT is the reason why are not killing people is just because you sort evolved that way. He does not going to take out some of the meaning.

So I think if you were permanently self assessing why you do the things you do and the inputs that you feel, but what that doesn't account for is the fact that we are self deceptive. Quite rania. And the sense of being a human is one that is imbued with meaning.

I often use this term about how um you are not personally cursed as a reassurance. And he was something is reassurance to me. If I was spending about the time I was feeling sad or down or whatever IT would feel like whatever emotion I was going through, whatever unpleasant emotion I was going through, was like a personal curse.

And this makes sense when you look back at how the god's were peroni fied as different sorts of emotions, right? That you know, you had had an arrow that hit you, or that you know, you had gods of war, you had gods of rough, you had gods of envy, you had god's of noisy. Because IT, the experience of a thing, of a thought, of an emotion, of a state is not just the confused chemical signals of your body.

And I can just reverse engineer this. Even the the interaction of you and whatever is going on in the social group around you isn't just that is imbued with meaning because you interpret things in this super experience, which scales things up from just what's happening to and IT feels like something that feels like to some there there, right? Yes.

yeah, yeah. You you can't escape that illusion if IT is an illusion. This is another thing that I spoke to, to bend about first name, first name basis. Mr, I did. I did try that. You, when I was mAiling back and forth about setting up that event, I, I, I went type out of like, well, would be great to talk to mr.

Super o about and I just didn't feel, no, I bring my back to do at least not behind back, not say that I rule behind his back but I felt even weirder that he wasn't to be appreciate the cursy anyway, he said, like, you know that I don't believe in free will. I don't know you believe in free will how we can talk about that. He's like like you don't believe free will, but but you you act as if free will does exist all the time.

And I remember thinking, what do you mean? What what does he look like to act as the free will doesn't exist? The very argument, or one of the arguments against free will, is that you are essentially driven by your biology, your genes.

You will, you know, the the of the shop and our line that you can do what you will. You just can't war what you will. In fact, you have to do what you will.

What drives behavior? If that's the case, why do you have this vision in your head that if you lack a belief in free, will you like not gna get out of bed in the morning? The very argument is that you will get out of bed in the morning because you desire to go get some breakfast.

That's like the whole point. And so any argument of that form of people say why you don't live like that's the case. I was like to to think, or what would IT look like to you then you, if I could ask joran Peterson when he says the way you don't live like an atheist, what would that look like to you?

I don't know if you might say something like, well, you would probably be this this morally deprived, you self interested ba ba. Like, maybe, but it's not really what you think. I mean, I don't know.

but yeah I think that is forgets the fact that you're a product of your time regardless of your beliefs from that time. Yeah right. I I understand the g day of Christian values, that everything is based on you to take a common talking point from guys.

But okay, how am I supposed to extricate me from that completely, shake the echo sketch of my value set and then take IT from the beginning? And let's not forget, like a lot of those values have grown out of what would have been an adaptive response in any case. Yeah, so the illusion .

is that the illusion is unshakable. And so IT is a IT senseless to me, to us, particularly on the free will thing. Like, why don't you actually like free will doing exist?

What what do you mean? Literally intelligent to exod his new book, determined signs a life without free will. Um every time I talk about freewill, people get upset.

Why is that?

That's the question for you. I think the problem .

about how it's not their fault. I like my this favorite jona of joke.

Yes, that's done to .

know very well of.

oh, every single time, every no, very, I don't know, I don't know. And it's something that the conversation about freewill is such a turn off for people that I actively push IT further into episodes. I actively don't title episode that have got that in IT.

I can therapy ously coax people into thinking about IT, but the responses is very it's a lot amount of time out of dissatisfaction. People don't like to think about that. Now IT may be because it's dry. I'm open to that, that trip. IT may be because IT threatens their sense of agency and sovereign, which is something of kind of built this channel off the back of, like you can enact change within your own life, internalize your locals of control, stop being such a bitch at saturn. And so maybe i'm like a the a victim of my own foundation did not regard that i've selected for a particular group people but after a few times few different conversations about IT time gentil um one guy was a compatibility like the quail I compatible list shaking your .

head while shaking your head that that it's just the most ludicrous promise to me comfortable lisa.

I am I right in saying that compatibly sm just kicks the calm down the road and plays mexico love loaded with .

things I think more or less right? Look, at the time you're just also dealing with essentially a redefinition .

of freewill what I mean thing .

yeah yeah some Harris called the the the atlantis fallacy. He he had an extended argument with annual than a compatible st about free well in dangle that would would talk about all about how this exists and this exists and and sounds like that that's true. But you're just not talking about what people care about.

And very well, what you're doing is we're trying to ask if atlanta exists and you're pointing to Venus and you're saying, look, here's the city, you know got a lot of water and it's kind of old and and these are all true. But but it's it's just not atlantis. And almost people talking about when they try to bring free well back into the discussion is just not free.

Well, it's as straight for as IT gets, in my view. I mean, there are versions of freedom that that can be sensibly a believed in IT kind of depends on what your conception of a freedom means. But if you mean something like authorship over your actions, if you mean that we could have a around the clock and I could done something differently, but I could have want a different I don't think that the answers is is yes, logically, as you impossible worlds discussion, there's a possible world where i'm in a different shot. But I guess like physically possibly matter, physically I couldn't have made a different choice. But regardless.

regardless of what you believe or don't believe about freewill, are the response, people's response to IT is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Maybe, yeah, maybe IT. Is that degree of control almost like the denial of death? Like, I wonder, have they done experiments on when people are reminded that they do or do not have free will, that their behavior adjust?

Not that I know if that I would love to see that, because if IT, maybe IT is true. But I think if IT is true, I I can understand what might be quite like fatalistic. I mean, IT laterally is quite fatty tic, really to IT to say that there's no freedom. And I can understand why that might makes someone sad, and that sadness might motivate the behavior slightly differently.

But I think that intrinsically a there a way to control for people who are sort happy or sad about that because you can believe in there's no well and and be like, thank goodness this all out of my hands if you can control for that and show that people do they are like less productive or or they don't get out a bit as much, then I think that would be meaningful. And there might be a sort of second order reason not to have this conversation. I don't know if there's been such a, such a investigation that has to death, by the way.

I think a good example of the death denial thing is to think about your your magnetic POS. If you, if you were sort of working on the great life work or something and you're about to die, and then you just about to sort of to finish IT off. Suppose you found out that after you publishers and you die a week later, you found out that to meet you was gna come and destroy the us.

Everybody dies. Does that make you more or less enthusiastic about finishing your project? Now for most people, I think it's gona make them less enthusiastic IT would certainly make me less enthusiastic.

But why? What's the difference to you? IT doesn't make a difference. You're gonna be dead beforehand anyway. Nothing's going to change.

Seems to suggest that maybe you know, the the desire to get this done before you die in the first place isn't just as people like to claim for the for the love of the art. And it's all in the process. No, it's because here's a work is going to outlive you.

Here's something is going to help you to escape your own death. I am faced with the inevitability of the destruction of even that the motivation goes down. I wouldn't be surprised if simply reminding somebody who's writing a play or something that one day heat death, everything evaporates, including your new book, if that would make them less motivated to finish the book, which to me implies the the reverse corollary. Y is that the reason you are making the book is in somewhere in debt to the fact that you think IT will outlive you, and therefore is an exercise in the denial of death.

Didn't on his back a diet and unfortunate time?

I don't know much his personality.

I think he did.

But there there are also there are interesting coincident like that daughter across. A lot of the thing about instance is, is that so many things happen all the time, that the only extraordinary thing would be if there weren't some extraordinary things like that, like all back of moves, killed in a, in a car crash, and he was killed in a car crush with the, with a train ticket in pocket.

So IT seemed like he decided at the last minute to go in the car and said he had previously said that the most absurd way to die would be in a in an automobile accident, and that's how he dies. A six prayed was terrified of I I think IT was the number sixty three. IT was like sixty three, or maybe maybe IT was like forty eight, I can't know, was one of one of the a number around around that he was just terrified of IT had had a real sort of full boating about IT for some reason.

And he he got a phone number that ended in that number and IT free to out. He got a hotel room that had that number in any end. You became convinced that he was going to die at that age.

Guess when he died forty eight? Now when is like eighty? Sometimes IT goes wrong.

You're a dick. You are a dick.

That was rather alright.

What's your sexy paradox? You wanted to show me think paradox .

this right now. I, I, I can't remember what the sources I want to attribute. The person who does IT maybe I can find IT let me find because I I want to make sure that they get the, they get the credit for. I was told about IT by a friend, and you have to give him minute because I want to, I don't want to know, pass this office.

my own, you do with everything else.

think is called the anto, the anthropic so so, so website, like called rising, rising entropy dot com. Is this seemingly the original paros? But I thought about IT by a friend, and it's, I guess, okay.

So imagine that. And what this does is, is IT shows us the different ways of thinking, give us wildly different answers to the same problem, different ways of, like looking at the problem. So imagine that there's a maniac who, and it's called the anthropic dice killer, if you want to look at out as maniacs, is kidnapping people in and murdering them.

And what he does is a kidnap one person, any blinds holton, any roles are dice. And if that dice is a six and i'll kill you, if not, let you go free and all we'll if you let you go free is you'll going pick up two people, kidnapped them, blind fold them rather does if is a six kills you, if is anything else, go free. Then it's four people and it's eight people.

And IT IT doubles experience until until he has a now you wake up knowing all the information. You wake up blind folded. And you know, you know these facts, and you know that devices about to be old, but you're blind fold is you don't know how many people are there with you.

You're given a button that you can press that will make the chances that you're killed half one in two. So if you want to, you can press this button, and fifty percent of the time I will just kill you immediately, and fifty percent time you get to free, or you can let them all the dice. okay? What do you do? Depress the button or not?

So at least on the surface, this is to do with the probability of one in six verses, one in two. But there is this escalating thing that's happening in the background. So I would presume that you would say, don't hit the button, because that has increased the chance of you being killed from one in six to .

one in two and and this seems true and any IT is true that, yeah, I mean, like you've ve got a one in six chance of dying and if you press that about you ve got a one in two. See you Better falling the dice. But if you think about IT as a as a sort of as one big block, then then something very strange happens. Because if you consider all of the people involved, if all you know is that you sort of woken up and you'll somewhere in this process, then interesting ly like is IT say it's the number two gets around two. Then there have been three people involved, three .

victims involved.

I and two of them end up dying and one of them goes through. So if you find yourself in this situation as a victim, you've got a more than half probability that are in the second group that ends up dying. I suppose that actually, that ends in the third group.

Right now, there are how many people involved? You got one than two than four. yeah. So we've got seven people involved, right? And four people end up dying. And so if if you sort of wake up in this scenario, you've thought a four in seven chance that you'll gonna die, that you're going to be one of the people who dies, which is more than half. And this continues such that if you consider the fact that that IT doesn't matter where IT ends, you're always gonna have a slightly higher than half chance that you're in the group that ends .

up getting killed but is IT is IT more than half given that each round of the dice role is only one in six .

yeah because it's about like if in fact IT gets the number three right like you know you know that you're gonna in, there's a more than half chance that you're going to be in agreed that dies. If if IT in fact gets the number two, then there's a more and half chance that that you do if in fact gets number of.

well.

maybe I mean seems lud button. But thinking about IT this way, IT seems like what you should actually do IT simultaneously. The case that you have got a one in six chance of dying because you're doing a on the role of a dice. But at the same time, if you think about the fact that the one of these groups is going to end up dying and IT doesn't matter where IT ends, the chances of you being in that group are always gna be slightly higher than .

half right from A A population level. Is the anthropic .

dice killed because is the anthropic principle is is thinking about.

yeah, what's that? I want to write a signified book. That was, there was a threat of the end of the world. They were looking to get humanity of the planet. And there is a theory that uses almost this exact same idea, which says that if you take the entirety of human history, and do you were to pick a time at which you were to live, and you have this rapid increase toward humanity, IT works out that it's it's more likely that you are within some percent of the end of humanity.

right? Yeah because course .

of the expansion .

al growth. But I so long that grow is going up at at the record feed.

Then this the exact I mean s on the .

website actually involves snake. So it's it's two dice and instead of the being one than two than four it's one and ten and one hundred one thousand. Now you're rolling snake er is a one of thirteen six chance. And IT turns out that if you add up the probability of of of like you know and number of cases, that is something like ninety percent chance there is the half that you get to press, which which just seems little and IT seems two things that true IT. Once, depending on just how you look at the problem, sometimes problems like this, I just to do with the way you work, then I think there are times like these interesting math paradoxes, which are paradoxes at all.

You must be familiar with the man who walks into the hotel pace, thirty pounds, goes up to his room and the bellboy says, all the guy behind the bar says, the manager says, I know he should have any paid twenty five if you got a deal on the calls of albums, as can you going give him five pounds back to the man in the room and the well boy thinks to himself on the way out like, this guy doesn't know IT Better. He didn't know how much he old. I'm going to pocket three pounds myself.

I'm only getting him from two pounds. So you get back to the room, says, excuse me, sorry, you pay, you know, you pay that pounds. You pay too much. His two pounds change. So how much is the man now paid?

Twenty five pounds? No, twenty eight pounds.

twenty eight pounds. And how much is developer on his pocket too? He gave, he gave you got two pounds back.

right? Was that money come from?

Yeah, he's got three to the world. So the man's now only paid twenty eight pounds. He's pay thirty pounds and it's two pounds back from the boy is got he paid twenty eight pounds. The bull boys got three pounds in pocket, which makes thirty one. So as the extra pound come from .

actually know he hasn't the guy paid twenty five plus. Now we've got to back.

That's right. So it's the way you were IT right? This this black stumps people, and you can do the other way round as well.

You can say that the guy gives up and he gives, the bible gives three pounds back to the guy. So he's only pay twenty seven pounds, but always got twenty viral. So media, how the hell does that work?

It's the a blue and black or Green and gold dress.

It's like, I mean for those that ah I guess there is there a real how how you were that is how .

people know short change IT .

when they they can people at a at a at a bar or something I mean easy way to individualize that particular problem to imagine that the man was only participate. Two pounds, the bubble goes up. And given twenty eight this way, give twenty eight pounds and decides to pocket two pounds himself.

So also we give you know, given twenty six pounds back. So how much is the man paid? Like four pounds s and how much the world boy got twenty six pounds, which is ludicrous.

He became a hell easily. People can be the last stand is all in the, is all in the wording. So a problem like the unroped us killed, I want to how much is just what is to do with the the way that you describe that?

Have there been any of paradoxes that sent you into a huge state for a little while there? Is there anything that captured a particularly long amount of time that you sort couldn't stop considering?

Almost of the famous one since since first study learning about her dog is like the famous monty hall problem that that that obsessed me for for what I wouldn't have obsessed me. But I was also to learn away by IT is also, you know, the mental problem that you'll definitely heard of this before. This is the game show and the .

three doors, right? Yes.

um there are interesting paradoxes, es, that are actually paradoxes. So is book by a gm L, C, equal paradox, which is a description of so called paradoxes. So like I think, I think all this paradox is when people used to think that the universe was infinite finites large. I mean, there was this problem that if if empty space is filled up, fairley randomly with stars, mean, we know there's a lot of stars in the sky and and galaxies and objects to the admit light, then there should essentially be no darkness in the sky. The sky should look kind of about and over cost, because like the the gaps in the sky.

you know the up, any amount.

any small gap, you might think this is really far away. They'll also be like close to together, therefore admit more light visually on that, be bigger. And and so if the universe is infinite, you should just see a sort of overcast and IT.

IT was a paradoxes like, how does this? How does this happen? And IT basically became an interesting proof that the universe has a beginning, that the universe is not, in fact, in just the fact that I get dark at night. Because if IT we're actually infinite, there should be a sort of overcast view olbers paradox. And like I say, it's sort of paradox, but not really paradox.

You familiar with the boetti void? Do you know that this is like my favorite part of the universe? I say like I mapping IT, like my favorite bobeck e restaurants and Austin. And it's a huge what's what's referred to is a super void, which is A A period of the universe area of the universe, which has way fewer galaxy and that you would anticipate and given what's the principle of like imagination across the universe, that IT should be IT should be relatively similar, right? Yes.

that IT shent enterprise.

And you just know.

you just sing the space words .

that mean you. So the point is that there shouldn't be huge fluctuation change in the way that we see the universe. Everything should be spread relatively evenly.

Now I found out that it's supposedly at the point of the big bang. There were one million particles of antimatter and one million and one particles of matter and IT. Is that one to one million? And one ratio that is exactly where everything that we see comes from.

And this minor imbaLance is actually what's permitted everything to exist. But this particular butters, B O O one with a mom out, T, E S, butters super voided. It's just super fucking in.

Interesting, this gap, whether is way more galaxies than that should be. Why should this? Given that we've got this sort of principle of imagination across the universe, that's one of my favorite things to like learn about.

yes. Is is is that we know about this voided because of the the disparity or is that that we hypothesize the disparity because of knows the .

we know based on mapping of I think i'm not sure if it's telescopic of its microwave background stuff, right, but we know that it's there, right? And the question is, what the fuck is this thing doing that?

Yeah, well, that's a bit sort of dark energy when we discovered that galaxies are spending a little bit too quickly on the outside, there seems to be something like pushing them along.

What you make of the tune universe, I do.

Uh, a lot of people describe IT as as the most powerful argument, forgot to existence. Christopher hitchen and back of a car once said that that was really what what gave him pause. I don't find that IT moves me very much.

I mean, IT does seem quite extraordinary that had any of the concerns of the universe, the force gravity, for example, if I was stronger, weaker by the the most unemotional inly small amount, then they either be strong enough that the universe was collapsed in itself, or IT would be so weak that atoms couldn't even form, or or these objects couldn't form, and everything just get blown upon at the big bang. Three explanations for this, its chance, it's necessity, or its design and chances seemed like a ludgate suggestion. I mean, there are lots of different consent.

And IT may be the case that we discover this sort of theory of everything that reduces IT down to one. Still a huge mystery as to why has the the concern that IT does but would mean that we're not talking about lots of different concerns in harmony. The idea of that sort of necessarily being that way doesn't seem that out of the question for me.

Like people people had in the language of saying that had the consent been different by a this amount, the universe couldn't exist. And what people often here is the chances of the constant being as IT was was the same number. But I don't think that's the same thing IT IT might just be not possible that I could have had a different valley.

What's that is the observers selection effect of this?

This doesn't work for the funding argument. I I think so the so called like anthropic principle, the universe seems designed for human life if this seems like people might point to, for example, the earth's perfect distance from the sun in the so called goldy ox zone had had been a little bit further out, or a little bit closer. Humans couldn't exist.

And the easy answer to that is to say, what you have, what if you didn't exist and wouldn't be there to observe that he didn't exist, right? And so you say given the size of the universe, life might develop somewhere, possibly multiple places, and the places where it's going to be observed coming about is where IT comes about. To no surprise, that works there.

But the the fine training concerns of the universe, we're not talking about like, we're not talking about like a potential billions of earth that could all give rise to human beings were talking about. One of these constants was different by a, by the tiny st amount. Nothing exists. And unsure IT is still true. That didn't .

not happen. My friend josh per.

give me an example in the past of like I don't know you, you can imagine, like a series of highly trained knife throws, just, just, just, just love like a hundred thousand knife to you in an attempt to kill you, and they all miss perfectly cutting out the silly web of your body behind you, absolutely perfectly, just like uncanny and someone says, what I must done that on purpose is like a trick, right? And you say, no, no, no, I I think is just happened by chance he said, what that's ludicrous.

I didn't and I wouldn't be here to so observe that I did what I IT still just wouldn't wouldn't do IT for you, even though that is true. How do you been killed? Wouldn't be that to observe IT IT.

Just seems such an coincidence that that just doesn't work for the when we're talking about the actual fundamental stuff of the universe, which is why people are so trouble. But I do think, generally speaking, with all of these kinds of things, fine tuning consciousness is another example is broadly in the scientific round that people think that this just can't be explained to that reference to a god. Maybe they are right, I don't know.

But if you intuitively were step into a time machine and look at some people having this conversation and you said, like, like, imagine them looking back and saying, gosh, can you believe that they hadn't worked out fine tuning yet? They hadn't figured the cause. They hadn't fired out the science of the consciousness yet. I I can conceive with that, I just intuitively, I can see someone doing that.

But when I think about my arguments for atheism, the problem of evil, divine, hidden in this kind of stuff, I can't imagine somebody looking to a time machine similarly at a conversation that I haven't going, gosh, can you believe that they hadn't worked out the problem of the evil yet? They have worked up divine hidden this year. I think these are perennial problems. So where you have these scientific arguments for the existence of god, I guess I just have more of a trust that they will one day be explained in a way that won't require records to vine author in in a way that my criticisms of religion will probably not be similarly result.

We had a great conversation in Austin, as you explained to me, about the potential historical accuracy or inaccuracy of jesus resurrection. Can you go through that a little bit? Yeah, I mean.

this sometimes you use as an argument for the existence of god, but I think more successful ly as use once you've ready, establish the existence of god to try to ease lish the truth of Christians. And that is a bunch of historical facts surrounding jesus alleged resurrection that you thought.

Have to ask what the best explanation is for now, you can't historical, prove a resurrection, but you can historical, prove events, and then ask the best, best explanation of those facts. So people will often point to the effect that there was a man called jesus walking around morally teaching people who was crucified by the romans, and that a few days after his death was seen, that people made claims that they'd seen him a after he died. And the question is, how do you explain these facts? The gospel reliability is an interesting question in general.

And people will often, on the surface level, say, like the bible contradicts itself as full of contradictions, and there are some seeming contradictions in in the gospel story. But of course, what a lot of people neglect to consider is that when we talking about the taxes, a historical document, contradictions shouldn't make us think that is like less accurate, but more accurate if historical sources contracted each other as evidence of the accuracy, rather than any of the opposite. Because if this is a mythical story that somebody making up, you would expect the details to concur.

That is, if you're questioning to suspects in some kind of murder trial or something, and their stories match up perfectly, like to the tea, the timings, everything, IT rows, a suspicion. Seems like somebody, he's inventing something sums coming up with the story here and trying to trying to perfect IT. Now he will have this idea that a bunch people got together and try to fool the world into this sort of mythical story of this man rising from the dead.

Do you think they would have made the mistake of just including these blatant contradictions? I don't know. In in other words, I I think if somebody was making IT up, they probably would have taken more care.

Is the return for this?

I'm sure there is right. I'm not a history and I can tell you what IT is, but. We we we do see contradictions on the minor points. We don't really see much disagreement about the major points.

I mean, there is some enough disagreement that I think to a super I mean, i'm saying this of or there's I put on that hat when when I must to have a conversation of this kind. I mean, IT does seem to be suspicious, for example, that the gospel of mark, which is the earliest gospel, contains no post resurrection appearances. And then the gospel of Matthew does include post resurrection appearances.

The gospel of blue includes even more. It's only in the gospel of john that we get, for instance, out in tomas, which is the the latest gospel, onic gospel. I should say that's where that arises.

In fact, the story of without Thomas famously, he doesn't believe that it's the risen cries, and jesus has come to touch my wounds, any touches, his wounds, any, any, any test, my lord on my god and jesus says, you believe, because you've seen blessed to those who believe without seeing. So in my view, what we have is this so called mythological development of no postal direction appearances. And as the time goes on, as we get further away from the source, the stories get more fantastical ending in a more a moral lesson to believe without help.

Yes, this to me, i'll seem a little bit suspicious. So is IT is a fascinating mystery, like a something very strange happened on yesterday morning, because how do we explain the fact that this man is crucified by the romance and then people claim to see him after he died? I'm willing to be put to death for that belief now.

Okay, maybe he didn't die. Unlikely as they say, the romans knew how to kill people. And supposedly in if they check and they go to, they go to to break the legs of the other prisoners as they're taking them down from from, from the the the crosses, they were taking them down sort temporarily, and they hadn't died yet.

But when they go to break jesus, his legs, they realize already dead, which is why his legs and get broken and and they stab him in the side with a stick to make sure that he's dead. I mean, yeah, like this was A A very effective method of killing people and they knew how to do IT. So it's unlikely that he just somehow survived this. So the guy is stabbed .

him with the spare and supposedly split on .

the street like after after the right after on cross. And it's essentially to check his head um okay so likely he is that he was actually crucified and then a few days later, people claiming to see him. Maybe they're lying, but then you don't tend to go to death for something you know to be a lie you're willing to people to death for things you think are true that are false.

But very rarely of people willing to die for beliefs that they don't actually believe themselves. That doesn't really happen. So they probably went lying as maybe they were maybe they were mistaken full yeah now I i've no nuisance about twenty nineteen, which is probably IT, will be slightly longer than the jesus was with his disciples.

But imagine spending every single day with this person, living with this person, eating with this person. And then you've only seen him a few days ago. And somehow imagine somebody managed to convince you that they, with me, even if I had a twin brother, they probably, would we have to convince you that IT was me, or maybe they were hycy ating in groups.

Did one of the earliest gospel, new tesman sources is the, is the letters of pool the earliest? And one of these letters pool refers to jesus having appear to five hundred people once. And in some of the gospel you get at least some grief paarts ces, at least more than one person.

And sometimes, you know, groups are disciplined. The twelve, or seeing jesus at once, you don't get group pollution instance like that. And so IT doesn't seem like they were were were mistaken either. And so if they're mistaken, they are not making IT up.

What explains the fact that these people claim to see him after he had died? And the the Christian apologists will say that the only real global explanation is that he really did rise from the debt. Now it's it's an interesting argument and it's quite powerful.

However, my my responses always been that this sort of process of elimination is very clever and that's how it's usually run. But they can go the other way. I mean, imagine what we're trying to prove, that there was such thing as a group pollution inside.

I know it's extraordinary, but there was a group pollutant ation. And I tried to prove IT by saying, well, what are the other explanations? Or maybe they lied while they ouldn't do that, because they wouldn't to death.

Or maybe a man rose from the dead. But come on, that doesn't happen. That that works out a lot of physics.

So the only remaining option is this kind of depends where you start. But IT is weird, something very strange. Teams have happened on that morning.

I can see why philosopher go mad because you are able to size multi evensen, convince yourself of something and then convince yourself of the opposite, and didn't convince you yourself of everything they believed.

Yeah, but that's .

that's and I think one .

of those famous cause of socket is that, you know, the sign of wisdom and man or something is stability to exchange belief without holding IT, without becoming convinced IDE, or something like that. And I I think it's something anybody can do, they want to and is why philosophers, I would think the philosophy Better at doing that. I don't think that's true.

I think they're just talking about self far less, far less political, far less real. And so so they are less likely to get there, are less likely to to be offended at the prospect of considering the fault of of their belief. Maybe I do you .

get into religion, as you definitely seem to be able to have an ability to drop into and out of arguments on both sides of the same fence and play with ideas in a way that I think is is rare and presumably a bit of a disposition but also largely trained because you can sit and convince ChatGPT that god exists or try to turn me into a theist and then stand on stage and do the exact opposite um and just I I think that is probably quite a lot to learn from how people who've spent a good bit of time playing with ideas in philosophy this passionately have that separation between themselves and the idea and the belief in what IT means to them the emotion and kind of that whole like ambient mess yeah is playing .

is a good word because it's fun. You know it's enjoyable. That's why is it's it's fun to talk about you know theory of knowledge because you like really cares IT doesn't you know IT doesn't grow corn as they say, 嗯， and make IT corn.

Have you have you right? And and and that's fine. Because if you did, then IT was certainly a bit serious. And I kind of really matters whether you get IT right wrong or is here which is sort of sort of having fun.

But you can, I don't know, I can of see why hercus would get burnt at the stake when religion had social power. Because, you know, you become convinced that this is the source of meaning, this is the source of truth. Without that, we are nothing being threatened.

And then IT turns out that maybe there are actually some hole. What are you going to do? I mean, you can't let them do that because this is literally, you know, society kilometers. And so you they then not getting Better at stake as what also for a noise am I am you mentioned earlier this recent resurgence in the idea that are we're all sort of balancing on you day Christian values may be kind of true in a sense, but IT does kind of get on my nerves that after I said the japan I yesterday that the the history of religious persecution against the very developments that those religious groups now like to claim as their own, I think the religion has shown to be wrong on a number of things.

I listed them yesterday, the position of women in society, the state of homosexuals, at least practicing homosexuals, the position of the earth in relation to the sun, the age of both of those celestial al bodies. Wrong about the common evolutionary ancestry of all animals, including the human animal, wrong about the owner of other human beings as private property, as is explicit, condoned, not only in the all testers, but also in the new. And now not only is religion to religion fails to come to us with with an apology and condition.

And 在 maybe we were wrong， he has, no, no, no. Those things are us all along. IT says, yes, we may have shown the instruments of torture to galileo because he suggested that the earth might orbit the sun rather than the other way around but hey, didn't you know that the scientific revolution is essentially of Christian in origin? Yes, the altesse gives you explicit, uh, instructions about exactly how to you either buy or steal other human beings and keep them sometimes as your sexual property.

But don't you know that the abolition ous movement is essentially you dao Christian in origin? Yes, I know that same poll says that man is the glory of god. That woman is the glory of man, and that I suff another woman to teach not to authority of a man.

Rather, he should remain silent. For adam was formed first than eve. But don't you know that justice movements are essentially do dear Christian in origin?

Yes, you know, we we know about the stoning homosexuals and the the fact that even send pulses that are not getting into heaven. But don't you know that the L G B. T. Movement is essentially sort of riding on the day? Christian principles IT seems me relatively offensive to the people who have managed to secure these developments against the very religious radiation that now like to blame them with their own.

Yeah both cause and the face, like being punched in face by somebody who then comes over and gives you a bandage for.

And yes, I mean, people like to refer to, and this is i'm sort of rehashing some of the software said yesterday here, the IT sort of people like to point out that the the people who really got the scientist revolution going or often believes in god. Gala believe in god. Newton believed in god. In fact, newton spent, but people would fascinate you to discover his diaries, to find that he spent more time writing about theology, then sign madman .

the last thirty years doing alchemy.

right? right? But here's the thing, right? Like if as I said yesterday, I I don't clam that this is the case, but if I were true that science had like undermined. Relation and Christianity, if I were the case that that actually these things aren't compass ble each other, then when somebody says what that can be the case, because then you know that the people who sort founded the science revolution religious.

But what else would they have been if they hadn't yet invented ism by which their believe would come to be undermined? Is like saying that is amazing, that the person who invented the motorcar didn't own a motorcar forehand. It's only saying is out of, I don't know, that seems very strange to me and and is very recently the popularity of this is increases. You say, I mean, you go back to the to the mid draught at the hydra neac ism IT was very popular to talk about how religions sort of always getting in the way of science. And maybe that was a bit crude, but I think we're seeing an equally crude anx ation of all of the beneficial social developments in the past hundred years as somehow necessarily standing upon the you day of Christian tradition that they couldn't .

have happened without them. Is this a scrambling for something to hold on to, given that the collapse of grand narratives has had some poor externalities over the last couple of years ago?

Is IT just mass cope? I think so. I think that analisa as IT were Carried with that, the feeling of being naked, you sort of thrown off what were essentially optional clothes to reveal what was there all along.

But when you actually face IT to nature, it's embarrassing, its scary. And you will do anything you can, if you find yourself naked in public, to find any clothes to put on, not just your old ones. Doesn't matter what clothes, any clothes are Better than no clothes. And so what people are beginning to realize. And so they scrambling for their old close again, and trying .

to legitimate.

yes, and trying to trying to put them on. And that's why easy as well for people to go around poking holes in other people's clothes, so easy to do. But that's what the success of a movement like new atheism, consistent in the fact that all they had to do should tell other people what they wrong.

You only need to pot calls other people's clothes, but if you need to, like, sow your own shirt, that gets a little more difficult. c. Slur said that the purpose of iloilo hy is not the cutting down the forest with the irrigation of deserts.

That's very interesting. Yeah, i've thought about this for a good while.

The seductiveness of being critic as opposed to be somebody that make suggestions you way here at this arc forum thing was spending our time really going get the food they just go grab bit if home boys here no matter yeah the seductiveness of being a critic ah and the lack of prepared ness of anybody to put forward any proposals for anything and it's easy for both sides accuse each other of being reactionary right the reaction we, right the reaction we laugh yeah and ultimately instance a perfect example of this is in the world of dating and sort of mate selection of the mating market, uh, everybody can provide criticisms about what's going wrong, and almost nobody provides any actionable steps to improve IT beyond something that is limited tive rather than additive, right? Like what if we could just stop doing this, then this would be fixed. I don't think that, that's quite the way that IT works.

And there's another very unique protection mechanism that's given, which is it's very hard to criticize someone's criticism. Or at least being a critic leaves you open to criticism way less than being a proposal. 哦 yeah， right. If I if I put something forward, if I posit a potential solution for you to be able to come back and say, well, this is shit and this is shit and this should makes complete, that is very easy to do for, as for you to say for me to critic you what you did and then for you to come back and go, well, actually it's like can get a little bit abstract and it's a few degrees removed from anything that feels real yeah.

I can't write song. You know, like if the world is full of Simon coll, so we'd up in their music. Somebody y's got to do the building here.

You can't just be a critic. And this is what I think has been the reason for the success of this sort of anti atis software we've seen recently. Even the new themselves so treated like it's a dead animal and in many ways IT is. And the things got to do with the fact that ah they they've ve been a very good job of of cutting down the central pillar of what has traditionally been the reason for people getting out of bed in the morning 嗯。 And then when people are there are saying, well, what do we put in its place, feel like see a you know i'm out and they go often, do different things and and what are people to do and that's .

why the job of the new atis sts to provide something to.

well, maybe not some, some people are just good at diagnosing problems. Call mark is a good example. Yeah, like comox is diagnoses of of the way the world works, of fascinating to read, incredible, useful if you disagree with them.

But obviously attempted to sort of build societies on those ideas alone have failed. Seems that you need something a little bit more um I just don't think it's true. The religion stuff I mean and so that's why I think we're seeing this because people are beginning to realize that IT probably isn't tree.

They can't get like quite get behind the truth claims, but they recognize that there's some utility in having other people believe that IT is true. And I didn't know where that leaves us because in this discussion about whether reliance is good or bad for society, I said yesterday, look, I will accept your premise wholesale. The religion is good may be even necessary for society.

What do you want me to do if I just don't think it's true much, just lie to my children raising, believing something that I I don't believe is the case, because I think that will somehow be beneficial to society. I don't think IT works like that. I don't think people can actually fool themselves. So you can act as if god exists. And that's what someone like you says that people do already but ultimately, if you just say, well, I think that know you just act like a Christian because it's good for me, then when push comes to shove and you really have to make a moral sacrifice, if you're not actually a Christian, you're probably not going to do the actually Christian. Then I wonder .

whether this is afforded to people because of the convenience and comfort of my life. The fact that having to really, really put something on the line is mostly lapping as belief systems. And i'll pick up that piece of trash and I, you know, give money to this person on the street.

Yeah, people have sort of forgotten.

I mean, like bosh. Wa, yeah.

just believe so irregular to make genuine moral sacrifices of the kind that used to become place about the history. Humanity forgot our ability to do so. And I think that if you push people now, they they recognize that they probably wouldn't make those sacrifices.

Did you see the mister beast poll where he asked, would rather have like a million dollars like a random personal earth dies or something like that if you press this button? And like I think about of a majority of people, that slim majority said, press up and kill, kill i'll a million bx and and I actually kind of believe them. I think they actually would.

And people want to say that that's because we've lost, you know, our belief in god. I don't know, maybe I I think a Better example is just like to say we've become too comfortable and I went when somebody says, in other words, like, oh, well know this must be due to due to to decline in reliance and the fact we forgot about you day of Christian heritage. I mean, you probably hear that a lot of the people that you might talk to on this podcast, i'll say something like that.

Just think yourself like is that really the best extension? Is that the only explanation could have be something to do with the growth technology. Could I could have be to do with something the growth comfort and is IT more likely to do with that? And maybe it's not the lack of religion is causing the other stuff, but this other source that's causing both of those things.

Yeah, i've been thinking a lot recently about stuff that is literally true but figuratively false, and a figuratively true but literally false. And IT kind of seems a little bit like the beliefs that you're talking about here. IT may be comforting, increasing in happiness, adaptive to kind of act as if these things exist. The belief in freewill, actually believing in freewill, or, sorry, you determinism generally, is something that may be literally true, but figuratively false. And that kind of where I ve come to as an opinion with this, that largely it's through design ignorance that I just don't think about IT that .

much precisely. The reason evolves. That's why IT exists is an illusion because IT IT does something for us. And and that's fine. I have I have i've never had a problem saying that. But when the sort of auspices under which i'm having a conversation with bench hero is that he made a video called the athene's delusion and in that video he says, like, look, you can't have free will without god I say, yeah, I agree, you can't have free will without god.

You just also can't have IT with god and he essentially says, like, well, you know that sort of A I don't know how free world works, but it's sort of a mystery that i'm i'm willing to accept wholesale and i'm like, well, this is finer who's the loser one here? You know what I mean like, I want no problem with saying, like, well, I I see that this is more Better, by the way, but I no problem. Body, yeah, maybe free will doesn't exist, but that is Better to actor.

So IT does. So, okay, fine. But they don't say that i'm one acting under a delusion.

Delusions can be good. They might have all for a good reason. But I don't know.

I I guess I find that difficult to treat. Something is true that isn't a bit like the gun is always loaded. That's one of red wine scenes example examples. It's it's not true that the gun is always loaded, but which is gonna tend that IT and that's much Better. At least we're good society.

We would really false figure like .

you can't actually actually like IT true. Like if you ask me to put money on like opening the n and a.

you behave in a that .

functions is when push comes to and you really need to make .

decision yeah so so you know .

it's all too easy to say, oh, you know we just sort of back as it's true.

Good example here using the using the actives if the gun is loaded thing, uh, you do not point IT to anybody. You do not leave IT around the children. You do not do the rest of IT. If A A robber breaks into your house, you don't go down n stairs with said acting loaded exactly .

right and so the moment that is actually really matters, like in the prior case, that only matters when he goes wrong, right? But when IT begins to matter when IT goes right and that IT goes right, this principal just doesn't work. And so i'm suspicious of his ethics. Y, in other words, I think we might need to actually start acting in accordance with what's true, which, by the way, for people will. Thanks for a long time.

Why don't we all just act chemicals with what's true? And then suddenly, when you begin to realize maybe free will isn't exist, maybe marama acy is just a social adaptation, suddenly this idea of acting in accordance with what's true is as a, as a point of principal goes out the window. And it's amazing how I I sort of see the ontology sts virtue ethicists transform for my very eyes into utility arians, outgoes the principle of live in accounts with the truth, outgo the principles of honesty and sort of lack of intentional self deception.

Because, well, we want the greatest good for the greatest number. Know a Better, more functional society comes about if we just pretend, as this is the case, what happened to the virtue? What happened to the principle? What happened to the deontological ethics? Just at the window, all of the sun.

I think sometimes people like to have their cake. Need to. In that respect, I like to act in accords with what I think is true.

I want somebody chAllenges me and says why you don't act as though you don't have free. Well, I just don't know what that means. I don't know what looks like. IT probably looks .

something like this. Alex are ladies and gentleman. Alex, it's been a wile since I have you on. I show at some point soon what can people expect to you over the next couple months? Want to up .

hopeful ly that conversation of venture before which I mention for sixteen billion time uh will be will be out of got a few debates coming up. Oxford union, the union in a cambridge on the monarchy.

So you're being known for the pierce Morgans propelled you, catapulted you to the forefront of the. Anti ma, becoming .

something of a royal correspondent. Anti rose, hey, my twitter. I was growing, growing by the most forest.

Why should people go there to keep up today with stuff you?

I just type in my name, alex s iconic. I am technically still cosmetics skeptic. Uh, that's my old handle. I'd tend to go by my Christian name now, but the handle is still there. So you're so far me that way.

relax. I appreciate you. Thank you.