Biblical Series III: God and the Hierarchy of Authority

I'm really looking forward to this lecture, not like I wasn't looking forward to the other ones, but the stories that I want to cover tonight, one of the things that just absolutely staggers me about them, especially the story of Cain and Abel (which I hope to get to) is, like, it's so short. It's unbelievable. It's like ten, eleven lines. There's nothing to it at all. And I've found that it's essentially inexhaustible in its capacity to reveal meaning, and I don't exactly know what to make of that. I mean I... I think, you know, because I said I was going to take as rational an approach to this issue as I possibly could, I think it has something to do with this intense process of condensation across very long periods of time. That's the simplest explanation. But I'll tell you, the information in there is so densely packed that it really is-- it's really-- it's not that easy to come up with an explanation for that. Not one that I find fully compelling. I mean, I do think that the really old stories (and we've been covering the really archaic stories in the Bible so far) I think that one of the things that you can be virtually certain about is that everything about them that was memorable was remembered, right, and so in some sense And this is kind of like the idea of Richard Dawkins idea of memes, which is often why I thought that Richard Dawkins if he was a little bit more mystically inclined he would have become Karl Jung, because their theories are unbelievably similar. The similar of meme and the similar of arch... the idea of archetypes of the collective unconscious are very, very similar ideas except Jungian ideas-- far more profound in my estimation well it just is he thought it [through] so much better. You know Because Dawkins tended to think of memes sort of like a mind worm you know something that would infest a mind and maybe multiple minds But he never really took I don't think he really ever took the idea with the seriousness it deserved And I did hear him actually make a joke with Sam Harris the last time they talked about the fact that that there was some possibility that the Production of memes say religious memes could alter evolutionary history, [and] they both avoided that topic instantly They had a big laugh about it men decided they weren't going to go down that road and so that wasn't fair that was quite [interesting] to me, but these Is the the the density of these stories I do really [think] still is a is a mystery it Certainly has something to do with their absolute [their] in their impossibility to be forgotten [you] know and that's actually something that we could be tested empirically I don't know if anybody has ever done that because you could tell naive people two stories even equal length right one that had an archetypal theme and the other that didn't and then wait three months and See which one's people remembered better and be relatively straightforward thing to test I haven't tested it, but maybe I will at [some] point, but anyways, that's all to say that. I'm very Excited about this lecture because I get an opportunity to go over the story of Adam and eve and the story of cain and Abel And I [hopefully] [manage] both of those today, and maybe we'll get to the story of Noah and the tower of babel as well But I wouldn't count on it not arthur eight we've been not at the rate we've been progressing if that's okay That's that's no problem. It's there's no sense rushing this [alright]. So we're going to go before we go that before we do that I want to Finish my discussion of the idea of the psychological significance of the idea of God, and I've been thinking [about] this a lot more You know because of course this lecture series gives me the opportunity and the necessity to continue to think and you know it Certainly is the [case] so the hypothesis that I've been developing with the trinitarian idea is something like That the trinitarian idea is the earliest Emergence in image of the idea that there has to be an underlying cognitive Structure that gives rise to consciousness as well as consciousness itself and so what I would suggest Was that the idea of God the father is something akin to the idea of the a priori? structure that that gives rise to consciousness You know that's an inbuilt part of us, so that's our structure. You could think about that as something That's been produced over a vast evolutionary time span and I don't think that's completely out of keeping with the with the With the ideas [that] are laid forth in Genesis one at least if you think about them from a metaphorical perspective And it's hard to read them literally because I don't know what you know. There's an emphasis on day and night, but The idea of Day and night as as 24-hour diurnal. You know daytime and nighttime Interchanges [that] are based on the claw on the earthly clock seems to be a bit Absurd when you first start to think about the construction of the cosmos so just doesn't seem to me that a literal interpretation is Appropriate and I mean it's another thing that you might not know but you know many of the early church [fathers] one of them origen in particular stated very clearly this was in 300 ad that these ancient stories were to be taken as as Wise metaphors and not to be taken literally like the idea that the people who established Christianity for example were all the sorts of people who were biblical [literalist]. It's just absolutely historically wrong [I] mean some of them were and some of them still are that's not the point Many of them weren't and it's not like people who live 2,000 years ago were stupid by any stretch of the imagination And so they were perfectly capable of understanding what constant you know what constituted something approximating a metaphor and also knew that fiction in some sense Considered as an abstraction could tell you truth that nonfiction wasn't able Wasn't able to get at lets you think that fiction is only for entertainment And I think that's a very that's a that's a big mistake to think that so Alright, so here we go so yes so with regards to the idea of God the father, so the idea is that In order to make sense out of the world you have [to] have an a priori cognitive Structure that was something that immanuel kant as I said last time put forward as an argument against the idea that all of the information that we Acquire during our lifetime [is] a consequence of incoming sense data and the reason that kant objected to that and he was Absolutely right about this is that you can't make sense of sense Data without an a priori structure You can't extract from sense data the structure that enables you to make sense of sense data It's not possible, and that's really being demonstrated I would say Beyond the shadow of a doubt since the 1960s and the best demonstration of that was actually the initial failure of artificial intelligence because when the AI people started promising that we would have fully functional and autonomous robots and artificial intelligence back in the 1960s What they didn't understand and what stole them terribly until about the early 1990s was that it was almost That the problem of perception with a much deeper problem than anybody ever Recognized because like when you look at the world you just see well look there's objects out there and by the way you don't Objects you see tools just so you know in the neurobiology. That's quite clear You don't see objects and infer utility You see useful things and infer object so it's actually the reverse of what people generally think but the point is is that Regardless of whether you see objects or useful things when you look [at] the world you just see it And you think well seeing is easy because they're the things are and all you have to do is like you know turn your head And they appear And that's just so wrong that it's it's almost impossible to overstate Like the problem of perception is staggeringly difficult and one of the primary reasons that we still don't really have autonomous robots so there were a lot closer to it than we were in the 1960s because it turned out that you actually have to [have] an embodied you have to have a body before you can say it and Even more importantly you [have] to have a body before you can see Because the act of seeing is actually the act of mapping the patterns of the world [onto] the patterns of the body. It's not Things are out there you see them then you think about them, then you evaluate them Then you decide to act on them and then you act. [I] mean that you could call that a folk idea of Psychological processing or a perception it's not that is not how it works like your eyes for [example] map One of the things they do is map right onto your spinal cord for example They might right onto your emotional system So it's actually possible for example For people to be blind and still be able to detect facial expressions Which is to say you can with someone who's cortically blind so they've had their visual Cortex Destroyed often by a stroke they'll tell you that they can't see anything But they can guess which hand you put up if you ask them to and if you flash them pictures of Angry or Fearful Faces they show skin conductance responses to the more emotion laden faces And it's because imagine that the world is made out of patterns which it is then imagine that those patterns are transmitted to you Electromagnetically you have to light and then imagine that the pattern is duplicated on the retina And then that pattern is propagated along the optic nerve and then the pattern is distributed throughout your brain and some of that pattern Makes up what you call conscious vision, but other parts of it Just activate your body so for example when I look at this when I look at this this whatever it whatever it is a Bottle that's words, huh? You know when I look at it Especially with intent in mind as soon as I look at it the pattern of the bod of the bottle activates the gripping mechanism of my hand and Part of the action of per Sortie the active perception is to adjust My bodily posture including my hand grip to be of the optimal size to pick that up And it's not that I see the bottle and then think about how to move my hand That's too slow It's that I use my motor motor Cortex to perceive the bottle and that's actually somewhat Independent of actually seeing the bottle as a conscious experience so Anyways, huh the reason the reason that I'm telling you that [all] of that And there's much more about that that can be told Rodney Brooks ['is] someone to know about he's a robotics engineer who worked in the 1990s and he invented the Roomba among many other things so he's a real genius stuffed guy and He works was one of the first people to really Point out that to have to be [able] to have a machine that Perceived well enough to work in the world That you had to give it a body and that the perception would actually be built from the body up rather than from the abstract cognitive perceptions down and so well and that that turned out to be the case and bird rooks boiled all sorts of weird little machines in the 1990s that didn't even really have any central brain but they could do things like run away from [light] and so they could perceive light that their perception was that act of running away from right and So perception perception is very very very tightly tied to action in ways that people don't normally perceive Anyways, that's all to say that you cannot perceive the [world] without being embody and you know your embodied in a manner that's taken you roughly three and a half billion years to pull off right there's being a lot of death as a Prerequisite to the embodied form that you take and so it's taken all that trial and error to produce something like you that can interact with the complexity of the world well enough to last the relatively paltry 80 or so years that you can last and So I think about that as this may be wrong, but I think it's a useful at least it's a useful Hypothesis, I think the idea God the father is something like the birth of the idea that there has to be an internal Structure that out of which consciousness itself arises that gives form to things and well And if that's the case and perhaps it's not but if it's the case it's certainly reflection. It's a reflection of the kind of Factual truth that I've been describing now and then like I also mentioned that I kind of see the idea of Both the holy Spirit and those also of christ and most specifically of christ in in the form of the word as the active consciousness that that structure produces and uses not only to to Formulate the world because we formulate the world at least the world that we experience We formulate but also to change and modify that world because there's absolutely no doubt that we do that Partly with our bodies which are optimally? Developed to do that. Which is why we have hands unlike dolphins would have you know very large brains like us But can't really change the world. We're really adapted and evolved to change the world and to world and our speech [is] really a an Extension of our ability to use our hands, so the speech systems that we use are you know very [well-developed] motor? very well-developed motor skill and generally speaking your your dominant linguistic hemisphere is the same as your dominant hand and People talk with their hands like [me] as you may have noticed [and] we use sign language and there's a tight relationship [between] the use of the hand and the use of language, and that's partly because language is a productive Force and the hand is part of it part of what changes the world and so all those things are tied together in a Very very complex way with this a priori structure and also with the embodied structure And I also think that's part of the reason why classical christianity puts such an emphasis not only on the divinity of the spirit But also on the divinity of the body, this is a harder thing to grapple with you know it's easier [for] people to think if you think in religious terms at all that you have some sort of Transcended spirit that somehow detached from the body that might have some life after death [something] like that but the Christian Christianity in particular really insists on the divinity of the body, so the idea is that There's an underlying structure. It's this quasi patriarchal nature partly because it's for complex reasons But partly because it's a reflection of the social structure as well as other things and then that uses consciousness in the form particularly of language But most particularly in the form of truthful language in order to produce the world in a manner That's good, and I think that's a walloping Powerful Powerful idea especially the relationship between the idea that it's truthful speech that gives rise to the good because that's a really fundamental Moral Claim and I think that's a tough one to beat man because one of the things I've really noticed is and then this and It isn't just me that's for sure is that you know there's a lot of tragedy in [life] There's no doubt about that and lots of people that I see for example in my clinical practice are Laid Low by the Tragedy of life But I also see very very frequently that people get tangled up in deceit in webs of deceit that are often multiple Generations long and that just takes them out you know and so that so deceit can produce Extraordinary levels of suffering that lasts for very very long periods of time and that's really a clinical truism. You know because freud of course identified one of the Problems that contributed [to] the suffering we might associate with mental illness with repression Which is it's kind of like a lie of omission That's a perfectly reasonable way to think about it and Jung stated straight out that there was no difference between the psychotherapeutic the curative psychotherapeutic effort and Supreme moral effort including truth that those were the same thing as far as he was [concerned] and carl Rogers another great Clinician who was at one point a Christian missionary before he became More [moore's] more strictly scientific. He believed that it was in truthful, dialogue that that that clinical transformation took place and you know it and of course one of the prerequisites for genuine transformation in the clinical setting is that the Therapist tells the truth and the client tells the truth because otherwise how in the world. Do [you] know what's going on? how can you solve the problem when you don't even know what the problem is and [you] don't know what the problem is unless the Person tells you the truth that's something really to think about in light [of] your own Relationships because you know if you don't tell the people around you the truth? And they don't know who you are and maybe that's a good thing You know because well seriously people have reasons to Lie, right? I mean that aren't trivial But it's really worth knowing that you can't even get your hands on the problem unless you formulate it truthfully and if you can't get your hands on the problem the Probability that you're going to solve it is it's just so low and so then I've been thinking [about] as well The this and this idea has become more Credible to [me] the longer. I've developed it the longer. I thought about it. You know the idea that there's oh Go Bob It's partly the idea that Well, let me let [me] figure out how to start this property friend of mine business partner and a guy that [I've] written scientific papers with very smart guy Took me to task and I think I told you this a little bit about Using the term dominance Hierarchy which might be fine for like Chimpanzees and for lobsters and for creatures like that But not not first not not for chimpanzees even so much and and he said something [very] interesting he thought that the [idea] of dominance Hierarchy was actually a projection of a early 20th century quasi Marxist Hypothesis [onto] the animal Kingdom that was being observed and the notion that the hierarchical structure that you see that characterizes say mating hierarchies in Chimps for Example the idea that that was predicated on power was actually a projection of a kind of political ideology and I thought that really bugged me for a long time when he said that because Like because I'd really been used to using the term dominant iurc and I thought he told me all that I thought that's so annoying It's so annoying because it might be right and then it took me months to think about it And then I and then I was also reading Frans de Waal at the same time [and] he's a primatologist and also Jaak panksepp Because he was a Brilliant Brilliant effective neuroscientist who unfortunately just died he wrote a great book called Affect of Neuroscience and For rats to play they have to play fair or they won't play with each other And that's that's a staggering discovery right because anything that helps Instantiate the Emergence of ethical behavior in animals and that associates it with an evolutionary Process which is essentially what what pays up was doing gives credence to the [notion] that the ethics that guide us are not near social logical epiphenomena Constructs [their] deep Deeply rooted if flat and that they're rats for god's sake he can't trust them and they still play fair you [know] and De Waal Notice that the chimp troops that he studied, but it wasn't wasn't the barber barbaric chimp that ruled with an iron fist that was the successful ruler because he kept getting torn to shreds by his by the Compatriots that he ignored and stomped on Susie showed some weakness. They just tear him into pieces the chimp leaders that were Stable you know that had a stable [kingdom]. Let's say We're very Reciprocal in terms of their interactions with their friends and chimps have friends and they out they actually last for very long time chimp friendships and they were also very reciprocal in their interactions with the females and with the infants And I thought that's [what] Frans De Waal is a very smart guy And I thought that was also foundational science because it's really something to note that The attributes that give rise [to] dominance in a male [dominance] Hierarchy sort of use [that] word let's call it Authority that might be better or even shudder competence which [I] think is a better way of thinking about it Is that that's not predicated purely on anything? That's that's that's as simple as brute power, and I think [too] You know I think as well that the idea and this is [a] deeply devious and dangerous political idea in my estimation the idea that male dominance hierarchies sorry Male hierarchies are Fundamentally predicated on power in a little in a [law-abiding] in a law-abiding society I think is I think all you [fu] think about that for like a month say She's not long to understand How absurd [that] is because most people who are in positions of authority let's say are just as hemmed in by ethical responsibilities or even more so than people at the other levels of the of the hierarchy And we know this even in the managerial literature because we know generally speaking that Managers are more stressed by their subordinates than the subordinates are stressed by their managers And that's not surprising you want to be responsible for like [200] people you really want that. That's hard work, man and I mean [I] know it's a pain to have a boss because the To care about what the boss thinks and maybe the person is arbitrary which case they're not going to be particularly successful But it's no joke to be responsible for 200 people and you have to behave very carefully when you're in a position of Responsibility and authority like that because you will get called out if you make mistakes [constantly] so it's not like you're it's not like because you have a position That's higher up in the hierarchy that you're less constrained by ethical necessity now if you're a psychopath Well, that's a whole different story but psychopaths have to move pretty rapidly from Hierarchy to hierarchy right because they get found out quite quickly and As soon as their reputation is shattered then they can't get away with their Shenanigans anymore, so [okay] [so] all of this is to say that there is something very interesting about the Pattern of Behavior [so] imagine that Imagine that sexual selection is working something like this And we know that sexual selection is a very very very very powerful biological Force even though biologists ignored it for almost a hundred years after charles Darwin originally wrote about it thinking mostly about natural selection They didn't like the idea of sexual selection because it tended to introduce the notion of mind Into the process of [evolution] because it deals with choice you know But so imagine on the one hand that you have a male hierarchy We know that the men at the top of the Hierarchy are much more likely to be? Reprimanded the boil. It's particularly true of men So you have twice as many female ancestors as you have male ancestors not going to do the math? But and I know it doesn't sound plausible, but you could look it up and figure it out It's it's perfectly reasonable fact that actually happens to be true So there's twice as if twice as many female ancestors because females are twice as likely on average to leave offspring as men now, what happens is Any man man who does reproduce tends to reproduce more than once but a bunch of the reproduce zero? Whereas so it would be the average man who reproduces has two children [and] the average man who doesn't reproduce have zero obviously and the average woman who reproduces has one child so That means that there's twice as many Females in your line as there is males so that that's a big deal and and so imagine that it works something like this so the men elect the Competent men who are admired and who are and who are I? Can't say dominant who are who are given positions of authority and respect let's put it that way and it's like an election Now it could be an actual democratic election, but it's at least an election of consensus or it's at least an election of well We're not going to kill him for now. Which is also a form of election, right? it's a form of tolerance [you] know so So and then what happens is the women for their part peel from the top of the mental Hierarchy and so you've got two Factors that are driving human sexual selection across vast stretches of evolutionary time One is the election of men by men to positions where they're much more [likely] to reproduce And the second is the tendency of women to peel off the top of [dáil] dominant turkeys which is extraordinarily well established [cross] culturally? even if you flatten out, the socio-economic Disparity say between men [and] women like they've [done] in scAndinavia. You don't you don't? Reduce the tendency of women to peel off the top [of] the male hierarchy by much And why would you [I] mean women are smart why in the world wouldn't they go for four? Why wouldn't they strive to make relationships with men who [are] relatively successful? And why wouldn't they let the men themselves define why that how that constitutes success? it makes sense like if you want to figure out who the best man is why not let the men compete and the Man who wins whatever the competition is is the best man by definition? [how] else would you define it, so okay, so why am I telling you [all] that well the reason is is because it seems to me that there's this comp this being this complex interplay across human evolution between the election of the male dominance Hierarchy and sexual success And that's a big deal if it's true. It could be because what would happen [you] see is that as men evolved they would evolve to be better and better at climbing up the male hierarchy because the ones who weren't good at that wouldn't reproduce so Obviously that's going to happen But then it wouldn't [just] be a hierarchy because there's a whole bunch of different hierarchies and so then you might say well are there commonalities across hierarchies reasonable thing to propose it mean They're not completely opposed to one another at least if you're more success relatively more successful in [Run] Hierarchy then you're more probable It's more probable that you'll be successful in another And that's actually a really good definition of general Intelligence or IQ and that's actually one of the things that women select men for now men also select women for that But the selection pressure is even higher from women to men and general Iq is one of the things that propels you up across? Dominant turkeys because it's a general problem-solving mechanism, and the other thing [that] seems to do that to some degree is conscientiousness And there's also some evidence that women prefer conscientious men so and of course why wouldn't they because you can trust them and and And and and they work, and so those are both good things So then you think okay, so men have adapted to start to climb the male dominance Hierarchy but it's the set of all possible hierarchies that they're adapted to climb and So then you think there's there's a set of attributes that can be acted out That and that can be embodied that will increase the probability that you're going to rise to the top of any given Hierarchy and then you could say well that as you adapt to that fact then you start to develop an understanding of what that pattern Constitutes and so that starts to become the abstract representation of something like multi-dimensional competence And that's like the abstraction of virtue itself well and none of that has them none of that's arbitrary now and that's as bloody well grounded in biology if anything could [be] and I think [that's] a really hard argument to refute and Like one of the things I should tell you [about] how I think is [that] when I think something I spend a long time trying to figure [out] if it's wrong You know because [I] like to hack at it from every possible Direction To see if it's a weak idea because if it's a weak idea Then I'd rather just dispense with it and find something better And I've had a real hard time trying to figure out what's wrong with that idea I it seems to me that it's pretty damn solid and then the idea that You know if you watch what people do in movies, and so on and when they're reading fiction It's obvious that they're very good at identifying both the hero and the antihero we could say the antihero generally speaking the bad guy is someone who strives for Authority and position, but fails generally speaking not always, but fail so he's a good bad example a kid you take a kid to a good guy bad guy movie the kid takes out pretty fast that he's not supposed to be the bad guy and and Figures out very quickly to zero in on the good guy And that means that there's there's an affinity between the pattern of good guy that's being played out in the fiction and the perceptual Capacity of the child you [know] and one of the things I told my son when he was a kid I used to take him to movies that were sometimes more frightening than they should have been but One of the things I always told him was I never said don't be [afraid] because I think that's bad advice for kids What I said was keep your eye on the hero Right keep your [eye] on the hero and again He was gripped by the movie and often quite afraid of them you know because movies can be very frightening so he just like zero in on that guy and Hoping and you know what it's like in [a] movie you hope that the good guy wins Generally speaking, and I mean why do you do that? Where does that where does that come from you see how deeply rooted that is inside you you'll bloody well go Line up and pay to watch that happen it's not an easy thing to understand and it's it's so self-evident to people that we don't even notice that it's a tremendous mystery and So is it so unreasonable to [think] that we would have actually over the Millennia come to some sort of collective Conclusion about what the best of the best guys are best of the good guys are and what the worst of the bad guys are And to me archetypically speaking thinking of that as the Hostile brothers So that's christ and Satan or cain and Abel for example very common mythological motif the hostile brothers It's like those are those those are archetypes it's like the satan for example is by definition the worst that a person can be and Christ by definition, this is Independent of anything but Conceptualization is by definition the best today that a man can be now as I said speaking psychologically and conceptually but I given our capacity for imagination and our ability to engage in fiction and our love for fiction and our capacity to dramatize and our love for the story stories of heroism and Catastrophe and and good and evil. [I] can't see how it [could] any other way like so [well] so so that's part of the Idea that's driving the notion of the evolution of the idea of God and even more specifically Driving the evolution of the idea at least in part of the trinity so God is an abstracted ideal formulated in large part to Dissociate the ideal from any particular incarnation or man [or] any ruler and there's another rule in the biblical stories which is that when the actual ruler [I've] mentioned this before when the actual Ruler becomes confused with the Abstracted ideals then the state immediately turns into a tyranny and the whole bloody thing collapses, [so] [the] idea, it's so sophisticated You know one of the things that we figured out and this was a hard thing to figure out was that you had to take the Abstraction and divorce it from any particular power structure and then think about it as something [that] existed as an abstraction But a real thing right real and that [it] governed your behavior in [everyone's] behavior including the damned King The King was responsible to the abstracted ideal man that's an impossible. That is such an impossible ideal You know why would if they agreed [that] [5000] years ago? But one of the things you see continually happening in the old testament [is] that as soon as the israelite for example the ISraelite Kings? become almighty the real God comes along [and] just Cuts them into pieces and then the whole bloody state falls apart for like hundreds of years. It's like I think that's a lesson that that we have not thoroughly Consciously yet learned. It's still implicit in the narratives. We still haven't figured out. Why that's the case Again, I think that's a real hard argument to to to dispense with so All right, so we looked at this a little bit The trinitarian idea is that there's a there's a father that's maybe the Dramatic representation of the structures that underlie consciousness the embody structures that underlie consciousness, and then there's the son And that's that that's consciousness But in its particular historical form that's the thing that's so interesting about the figure of the son And then there's consciousness as such and that seems to [be] something like the the indwelling spirit and so I mean these psychological ideas came from somewhere right that they have a history they didn't just spring out of nowhere and they emerge from from dreams and Hypothesis and artistic visions and all of that over a long time and maybe they get clarified into something like consciousness but it takes a long time to get from To get from watching you know from to chimpanzees watching each other to a human being saying well We're we all we all exhibit this faculty called consciousness. I mean, that's a long journey You know that's a really long [journey], and there's going to be plenty of stages in between One of the things I really like about Jean piaget the developmental psychologist was that he was so insistent that children Act out and dramatized ideas before they understand them and And Merlin Donald who's a psychologist at Queen's university? wrote a couple of interesting books along those lines at all as well looking at the importance of imitation for the development of Higher cognition in human beings and so the notion that We embody ideas before we abstract them out and then represent them in an articulated way I think is an extraordinarily solid idea And I really can't see how it could [be] any other way And if you watch children you see that like think about what a child is doing When he plays house or she plays house you know the child acts out the father or the mother But what's so interesting about me to think well? Look isn't that cute she's imitating her mother It's like no She's not that's not what happens because when your child imitates you it's very annoying because you move your arm And then they move their arm, and you know that you move your head to copy you no one likes that It's direct direct imitation. That's not what a child is doing with the child is playing what the child is doing is watching the mother over multiple instantiations and then extracting out the spirit called mother and that's whatever if mother like across all those multiple manifestations and then laying out that pattern internally and Manifesting itself in an abstract world, it's so sophisticated It's just I'm that's what you're doing when you're playing house or having a tea partier or taking care of a doll It's not you've seen your mother take care of a doll. You haven't seen that It's that you're smart enough to pull out the abstraction And then embody it and certainly the child is attempting to strive towards an ideal at that point You know she's not lighting her doll on fire. You know well with you know certain exceptions, but generally ones that we try to not encourage right, so So you see that capacity in the children, and it's something we also know that if children Don't don't engage in that sort of dramatic and pretend play to a tremendous degree That they don't they [don't] get properly socialized. It's really a critical element of Developing self understanding and then also [developing] the capability [of] being with others because what you do when you're a child Especially around the age of four is you jointly construct a shared fictional world? Will play house together let's say and then you act out your joint [roles] within that shared fictional world you know and and that's a form of Very advanced cognitions very sophisticated [I] see that and piaget did as well and so did you and so did freud these brilliant? Observers and also Merlin Donald these brilliant observers of the manner in which cognition came to be they noted very clearly that embodied imitation and dramatic abstraction constituted the ground out of which higher abstract cognition emerged enough, how could it not [be] because Obviously, we were mostly bodies before we were minds Clearly and so we were acting out things way before we understood them just like the chimpanzees act out the idea that You know you have to act reasonably sensibly if your head chimpanzee or you're going to get yourself ripped apart And you see that rules because when wolves have a dominance dispute, you know They pump up their hair at each other to look big and they they growl and bark and you know they're very menacing and one Wolf chickens out rolls over puts up his neck and basically what he's saying is yeah, I'm pretty useless So you could kill me [if] I want to if you want to and the other wolf says yeah You know you're pretty useless and I could tear out your throat but tomorrow we might need to bring down a wolf or moves so I'll kick you out and And it's not like they think that because they don't know they don't think [that] they acted out as a behavioral pattern then if you're an [anthropologist] or [a] An ethologist and you went and watched the wolves you'd say it's as if they were acting according to the following rule and that Often confused me because I thought well the wolves act black wolves act out rules, and I thought no. No a rule is what we Construct, when we articulate a behavioral pattern right we observe a stable behavioral Pattern and when we articulate it We can call it a rule but for the wolves. It's not a rule It's just a stable behavioral Pattern and so we acted like wolf troops or chimpanzee troops all of that When well I'm firfer untold really [untold] tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of years before we were able to formulate That pattern of behavior at anything approximating a story or the image and [and] even longer before we could articulate it as a set of Ethical Rules, and I'm dwelling this I know I've repeated some of this before But it's so important because you know there's this tremendous push, especially from the social the social Constructionist to make the case that ethics is arbitrary ethics is morality is relative There's no fundamental biological grounding in relationship to human behavior Especially [in] the in the category of ethics, and I think that that's well first of all It's dangerous because that means that people are Anything you want to turn them into [and] you bloody well better be careful of [people] who think [that] and second? I just think that the evidence that that's wrong is so overwhelming that we should just stop thinking that way I mean the and that's probably why I'm also attacking this from an evolutionary perspective there's lots of converging lines of evidence that ethic ethical standards of at least of the most of the most crucial store Sort not only evolve but also Spontaneously re-emerge for example in the dramatic play of children, so we need to take that seriously and so well That's partly what we're doing here trying to take that seriously, so Okay, so the idea there at least in part was [that] the father employed the sun to generate habitable order out of Chaos [I]? Also think there might be something more approximately true about that as well too because one of the things we do know There's something that's cool about men men are much more criminal than women and that by the way that does not look like it's Socio-cultural partly because it peaks when testosterone kicks in around 14 like it just spikes the hell up And then it really it stays pretty high until about 27 and so standard Penological theory for those of you who don't know this is that if you have a repeat offender? You know a guy who just won't stop getting in trouble [yes] home in prison till he's 28, and it isn't like you're rehabilitating him or anything. It's like by 28 He's done with his criminal career because the crime curve is peaks at 15 and then falls down around 27 or so it burns out and that's often by the way that's often that's that's often when men get married and settle down and [stabilized] one of the things that's One of the things that's cool about that is the creativity curve for men is almost exactly the same thing [it] Ramps up when testosterone kicks in and then it starts to flatten out around 27 that Curves Match very very closely so that's so that's that's quite cool It's the creativity Element of it that I'm particularly interested in because the creativity is in many ways it [attributed] youth and that's look. I mean if you look at that sentence And you've stripped it of its religious context what you would say is that well the older people use the younger people to Generate creative ideas and renew [the] world it's like yeah, that's that's what happens, and you you know you also have no idea How many of the things that we? Discovered or invented as human beings were stumbled across by children and adolescence You know because they're well, they're much more exploratory They're less constrained by their by their already extent knowledge structures and they're less conservative so yeah that seems just right to me, so And right in an extraordinarily important way Because it also means that it's like if you're an actual father One of the things that it means is [that] that's part of what you should be encouraging your son to do right Which is which [is] does the rail of a father is to encourage That is clearly the role and to encourage is to say well. Go out there confront the Chaos of The unknown and the Chaos that underlies everything and drop it with it. You know how because you can do It here as big as the Chaos itself And you know do something useful as a consequence and makes your life [better] and make everyone else's life better And you know you can do it and man. That's the right thing to tell that's the right thing to tell young men You know talking to young women is more complicated because they have more more Let's say issues to deal with because their lives are more complicated in some ways but that's definitely the right thing to be to be telling your your son and one of the things that I've really noticed recently since I've been lecturing especially in the last seven or eight months most of my audiences being young men and and I've talked a lot of them [too] a lot I've talked a lot to them about both truth and responsibility and I think that those those are the two things that underlie this capacity and It there seems to me to be a tremendous [hunger] for that idea. It's not the same idea as right You know it's very different ideas. It's a counterpart to right and so it's you know Life is [hard]. [it's] chaotic. It's difficult. It's really Definitely a challenge And so you can either shrink from that and no bloody wonder because you know it's going to kill you It's not it's no joke man where you can? Fuckin front it and try to do something about it Well, what's better and and then you say [to] the person look man? you could do it like that's what a human being is like and if you just stood up and got yourself together and You find out by trying that you can in fact do that And I do think that that's that's a great core religious message as far as I [can] tell and I think that's deeply embedded in this sort of in this sort of idea, so All right, so this is what I've [been] telling you. This is something like how knowledge itself is generated first of all there's the unknown as And that's really what you don't know anything about and generally when you encounter that you don't encounter it with thought You encounter it like this Right and that that's the first Representation of the absolutely unknown, it's something that is beyond your comprehension, and it's terrifying and because it's Beyond your comprehension You cannot perceive it you cannot understand it But you still have to deal with it and the way you deal with it Is [that] you freeze that's what the that's what a basilisk does say to the to the kids in Harry Potter, right? They take a look at it And they freeze that's the snake the Terrible snake of Chaos that lives underneath everything you see that that thing freezes you and that's because [you're] a prey animal but at the same time it makes you curious, and so that's the first level of contact with the absolute unknown is the Emotional combination of freezing and curiosity and that's reflected I think in the dragon stories the dragon is the terrible thing that lives underground Accords gold or hoards Virgins very very strange behavior for reptile as we pointed out before but the idea [is] that it's a symbolic representation of the Predatory quality of the Unknown combined with the capacity of the Unknown to generate nothing but novel information And it's very you can see that is very [characteristic] of human beings because we are prey animals, but we're also unbelievably Exploratory and we're pretty damn good predators And we occupy this weird cognitive niche and so one of the things we've learned is that if we? Forth Lightly confront the unknown terrifying as it is there's a massive prize to be gained continually and so that seems to be true, right [it's] true as anything is and then I would also say that that idea and we know that one of the metaphors that underlies [gods] extraction of Habitable order out of Chaos at the beginning of time is an older idea and a more archaic idea that God confronted something like the leviathan and that's one of the words for this serpent like Chaos creature that's often used in the old testament or the Leviathan and they Beat them on. Yeah. That's the other thing and so there's this [idea] that I think came probably came from the mesopotamia that the God either in the [sun-like] Aspect or in the father like aspect is the thing that confronts this terrible beast that? represents the Chaotic unknown and Cuts it into pieces and then sometimes gives the body parts to the populace in order to feed them so you can see a hunting Metaphor there as well, but it's deeper than that and so all right, so The first thing is there's the absolute unknown and the unknown is what you do not understand. It's what's beyond the campfire Maybe it's what's beyond the tree even more anciently [an] old [word] when we when we lived in trees It's out there that where you don't know and what's out there Crocodiles and snakes and birds of prey and cats and all sorts of things like predatory cats And they will eat you but there's utility and going out there to find out What's there like maybe you go? And you don't kill the snake you kill the damn nest of snakes and that makes you pretty popular just as you should be that accelerates your your rep reductive Potential let's say and we're descended from people who did that and so we have this? Notion about how the world is structured that's deeply embedded in our pSyChe [like] really really deeply way way down way below the surface Cognition way down in the limbic system in these ancient parts of the brain that are like 60 million years old or a hundred million years old or older than that? ancient ancient brain structures And so the first thing we do is we act out our Encounter with the unknown world and we act that out in the same way in a manner. That's analogous to the Manner That's presented as a description of what it is that God does at the beginning of time to extract habitable order out of Chaos? And [I] I will tell you about the other part of that for now, so you act it out first and then The second thing is you watch people who act it out? And you start to make representations of that that's stories, right? And maybe you admire them and then after a long time you collect a bunch of those stories and then you can say what that is you can articulate it as a pattern and So and this is something Nietzsche also figured out to begin with you know because prior [to] Nietzsche [I] would say he did so many things first it was quite remarkable. You know there was an idea that You first think and then you act, and then people like to think that of course you do it Bloody Rubbish because you're impulsive as you can possibly imagine you're always doing things before you think and sometimes That's a really good idea so the idea that you see things and then think and then act It's like you really know I'm sorry did I don't do that. I know one I know I know does that and they certainly do that Don't do that when they're emotional you know you act first and one of the things that Nietzsche said very clearly was that our Ideas emerged out of the ground of our action over over thousands and thousands of years and then when philosophers were Putting forward those ideas what they were doing wasn't generating creative ideas They were just telling the story of humanity It's already there. It's already in us it's already in our patterns of behavior and and it strikes me that that's Well he was a genius and that was one of the genius one of his Many many observations of pure genius and so you can think about it. You know you can think about it like this, [too] is that? There's unknown and then you act in the face [of] the unknown and then you you dream about the action and that's what you're doing in a movie theater, and then you speak about it and So you know and of course once you speak about it that affects how you dream and how you dream affects How you act it's not like the all of the causal direction is it was one way because it's not deep these things loop But it's still from the unknown through the body through the imagination into articulation That's the primary mode of the generation of of wisdom let's say and you can easily map that onto an evolutionary explanation Because the body comes first right and then is the imagination, which is the body in Abstraction and only then the word and of course that's [exactly] how things did evolve because we could imagine things Long before we could speak at least that's the theory, so and I represented that this is a image from my book maps of meaning and so So the idea is that this is the fundamental representation of the unknown as such it's half spirit because it partakes of the air like a bird and it's half matter because it's on the ground like a like a like a Make and and that's what you think is there when you don't know what is there? That's how your body reacts to what's there when you don't know what is there? You know that [too] because if you're alone at night You know it maybe you're a little rattled up for one reason other maybe you watched a horror movie and you know there's some weird Noise in the other room. It's dark, and you could just try this once It's like so you're on edge you think You want to turn the light on and go in the room and see don't do that just open the door a little bit and sneak your hand in and just watch what your imagination Fills that room with right and then then you remember what it's like to be three years old in bed in afraid of the dark Right and I read a good book on dragons lately Recently that that that had a very interesting hypothesis about them. I thought one of the things the guy did was track I can't remember his name unfortunately Track how common the image of the dragon was worldwide. It's unbelievably widespread it's crazily widespread and he thought that this was actually the category of Primate Predator and The Predator was so predator is a weird category right because like there's there's crocodiles in it, and there's lions And they don't have much in [common] except they eat you so it's a functional category And so this is the this is the imagistic representation of the functional category of Predator and his predator Theory was well if you're a monkey, then a bird would pick you off like an eagle, and so that's this right and Then if it wasn't eagle it was a cat as they climb teary trees and give you a good chomping and then if it wasn't a cat And you go down to the ground and a snake would get you or maybe a snake would climb up the tree because snakes like? to do that and get you and so that's a pre cat snake basically Free cat snake bird, and that's the thing you really That's the thing [you're] really want to avoid you don't want to come across one of those and so [and] then you know the other thing it does is breathe fire Which is quite [interested] [because] obviously fire was both greatest friend and greatest enemy of humanity And we've mastered fire for a long time it might be as long as [two] or [three] million years That's what Richard rang him. [I] think it's [rang] [ham]. He wrote a book recently on. I think it was ragan who wrote a book on when human beings [learned] to cook that was about two million years ago and cooking increased the Increase the availability of calories you know how chimpanzees are sort of shaped like a big Like they're ugly. They're shaped like a big bowling ball You know they're really they look really fat, [and] it's and they're short and they're wide and that's because they have intestinal tracts that are like you know 300 miles long and the reason for that is because they have to digest leaves and so you go out in the forest and like sit there and eat leaves for a whole day and See how that works out for you. You know yeah, they have no calories in them. So chimps spend about [inkless] I think it's eight hours a day chewing and It's because what they eat has no nutritional value And then they have to have this tremendous Guts in order to extract anything at all out of it human beings at some point Just thought oh to hell [with] that we'll cook something and then we traded our guts for brain Which you know more or less has worked, and I think it's made us a lot more attractive as well So okay well, so the idea here was that Well, that's the basic archetype [of] the unknown as such and then I like the st.. George version of this it's so cool because St.. George lives in a like a castle and the castle is partly falling down and it's partly because there's a dragon That's come up [to] like it's an eternal dragon It's come back to giver who in a rough time which always happens Because there isn't the eternal dragon is always given are giving our fallen down castles a rough time always And so then St. [George's] the Hero who goes out to confront the dragon and he Frees the virgin from its grasp and I would say that's a pretty straightforward Story about the sexual attractiveness of the masculine spirit that's willing to forthrightly encounter the unknown That's it looks just straight looks like a straight biological representation to [me], and it's a really really old story Right it's the oldest written story. We have and that's basically the mesopotamian creation myth The anu male ish, which which basically lays out precisely that story and so and it's replayed. I mean I bet you The movie Goers Among you especially the ones that [are] more attracted [to] the superhero. You know they're really flashy sort of Superhero type movies, you've probably seen the St. George story like 150 times in the last 10 [years] you never get tired of it because it's the central story of mankind so you've got the unknown as such and That is what you react to with your body in the existential terror and extraordinary Curiosity are gripping you and then it's like the unknown unknowns that Who's the politician under bush? Rumsfeld yeah, I think the reason that that phrase caught on so well is because he nailed an archetype There's unknown unknowns, and there's known unknowns and that's the unknown unknown and you have to be able to react [to] an unknown unknown because they can get you and You can't just plead ignorance because then you're dead that doesn't work like human beings are the sort of creature who has to know what? To do when they don't know what to do, and that's very paradoxical and what we do is we prepare to do everything That's right We're on guard we prepare to do everything very very stressful and but also very engaging and very Very much something that heightens consciousness and maybe those circuits are Permanently turned on in human beings because we also know that we're going to die and no other animal knows that and so sometimes I [think] that our that our stress circuits are just on all the time, and that's part of what accounts for our heightened consciousness so you have your unknown unknowns and then you have your relatively you have the unknowns that you actually encounter in the world like the mystery of your of your Romantic partner when you have a fight [with] them It's like [well] We're having a fight who the hell are you [I] mean you're not the absolute unknown because I know something about you but you're the unknown as its manifesting itself to me right now, right and and and then there's a known that we inhabit And then there's the knower and the known is given symbolic representation as far as I've been able to tell in Patriarchal form in the form of male deities and the unknown as you encountered it's given Feminine form so We won't get into that too much but but if you're interested in that you could look at my maps of meetings lectures Or maybe take a look at the book but I think it's a good. I think it's a good schema for religious archetypes I've worked on a long time it seems to fit the union Criteria quite nicely. It maps nicely [onto] Joseph Campbell's ideas He got almost all has ideas from you however and It also makes sense from a biological and an evolution a perspective as far as I [can] tell that's a lot of cross validation at least in my estimation So okay so back to the hierarchy of dominance. Well, let's take a look at it a little bit, so I'm quite enamored of lobsters as some of you might know Because I found out this just blew me away when I found it out. I mean I I've done a lot of work in Neuro Chemistry Some similar chemistry because I used to study alcoholism and drug abuse and alcoholism to study alcohol You have to know a lot about the brain because alcohol goes Everywhere in the brain it affects every neural chemical system And so if you're going to study alcohol it kind of has to study, Neuro chemistry in General And so I did that [for] [quite] a long time. I really got in a [murud] of a book Called the Neuro psychology of anxiety by [Jeffery] Gray which is an absolute work of genius although extraordinarily? Did I don't know how many references that book has it's like? Must be a thousand and gray actually read them and worse he understood them and then and then he and then he integrated them [into] this book and so to read it you have to really master functional neural chemistry and animal Behaviorism and and Motivation and emotion and neural anatomy like it's a killer book but man It's really rich and it's taken psychologists about 40 years to really unpack that book But one of the things I learned about that was just exactly how much Continuity there was in the neural chemistry of human beings in the neural chemistry of animals. It's absolutely staggering It's the sort of thing that makes the fact of evolution something like [self] [evident] I do think it's self-evident for other reasons that I'll tell you about later. I think evolution or I think natural selection Random mutation and natural selection is the only way you can solve the problem of how to deal with an environment That's complex Beyond your ability to comprehend [I] think what you do is you generate endless variants because [God] only knows what the [hell's] going to happen next They all almost all [of] them die because they're failures and a couple propagate and you know the environment keeps moving around like a giant snake you never know what it's going to do next and so the Best you can do is say well Here's thirty things that might work, and you know twenty-eight of them are going to perish if you're if you're an insect It's like the ratio is way way higher than that, so Anyways back to the lobsters In all of these so these creatures engage in in Dominance disputes and and I think dominance is the right way to think about it because lobsters aren't very empathic And they're not very social and so it really is the toughest lobster that wins You know and what's so cool [about] the lobster is that? When a lobster wins he flexes and gets bigger, so he looks bigger because [he's] a winner It's like he's advertising that and the biological the [neurochemical] system that makes him flex is serotonergic And you think well who cares what the hell does [that] mean? Well tell you what it [means] It's the same chemical that's affected by Antidepressants in human beings and so like if you're depressed you're a defeated lobster like you're like this. I'm small I'm not you know things are dangerous. I don't want to fight you give someone an antidepressant It's like up they stretch, and then they're ready to like take on the world again Well if you give lobsters who just got defeated in the fight serotonin, then they stretch out and they'll fight again and that's like we separated from those creatures on the evolutionary timescale somewhere between 350 and 600 million years ago, and the damn Neuro chemistry is the same and so that's another indication of just how important Hierarchies of Authority are I mean they've been conserved since the time of Lobsters right there weren't trees around when lobsters first first manifested themselves on the planet and so what that means is these hierarchies that I've been talking about those things are older than trees and So one of the truisms for what constitutes real from a Darwinian perspective? Is that which has been around the longest period of time right because it's had the longest period of time to exert selection pressure Well, we know we evolved and lived in trees something on the order of 60 million years ago we're talking [ten] times as far back as that for the Hierarchy and so the idea that human beings that the hierarchy [is] something that has exerted Selection pressure on human beings is I don't think that's a disputable. That's not a disputable issue How it's done it and exactly what that means we can argue about but like that sort of biological Continuity is just absolutely unbelievable [I] It was funny because I revealed this finding I didn't discover this I read about it But [I] talked to my graduate students about I used to take them out for breakfast you know and they were very contentious Snappy Bunch and And they're always trying to one-up each other And they're quite witty and for like six months until it got very annoying Every time one of them went up the other they'd stretch themselves out like snap their hands like So [that] was that was very funny. It was really very funny. So you see this in Lobsters, and so that's pretty amazing so You know and one of the other thing that's really cool about lobsters Is that let's say you've been like talk lobster for a long time, but you're getting kind of old and some young Lobster just you know whales the hell out of you and and so you're all depressed, but thing is your brain is dominant But you don't have much of a brain because you're a lobster and so now what are you going to do because you just lost and the answer is while your brain will dissolve and Then you'll grow a subordinate brain Yeah, so that's we're thinking about [two] right here for a couple of reasons first of all if any of you have ever been seriously Defeated in life. You know what that's like. It's like It's a death a descent a dissolution and if you're lucky a regrowth And and maybe not as the same person that's what happens to people with post-traumatic [stress] disorder right their brains undergo permanent neurological Transformation and they then Inhabit a world it's much more dangerous than the world that they inhabited to begin with but we also know - if you have post-traumatic Stress disorder or depression that your hippocampus shrinks Right it dies and shrinks and you can sometimes get it to grow back your hippocampus shrinks and your amygdala grows and the amygdala increases emotional sensitivity and the hippocampus inhibits emotional sensitivity and so if you've been badly defeated the hippocampus shrinks and the amygdala Grows now if you recover the hippocampus will regrow and the antidepressants actually seem to help that but the damn amygdala never shrinks again and So well so that's another lesson from the lobster It's quite a terrifying one but but it's one like it's so interesting that [you] can relate to that, [right]? It's like I get what that poor crustacean is going through you know so Okay, here's the rats and this is from yak [bank] [steps] work rat. He was the first guy who figured out the rats giggle And you might think well, what kind of stupid thing is that to study is like [$50,000] research grant for giggling rats. You know [aside]? but He discovered the play circuitry in mammals. That's a big deal right? It's like discovering a whole new continent There's a play circuit in mammals . It's built right in so it's not socially constructed. There's a there's a biological Platform for that and so what? [panksepp] would do with rats he found out if rats if you take a rat puff away from its mother it dies Even if you feed it even if you keep it warm it dies now you can stop it from dying by taking a pencil with an eraser on the end and Massaging it right because rats won't live without love and the same thing happens to human babies And we saw that Romania when there was that Catastrophe have to tell Chesco in the orphanages where the orphanages were full of unwanted babies because Ceausescu insisted that every Romanian woman was constantly pregnant So the orphan is just stacked up with unwanted babies lots of them didn't even have names and they were warehoused warm shelter food Devastating lots of them died most of them died before the first year and the ones that didn't die were permanently dysfunctional because You have to be touched if you're a human being it's not an option you have to be played with it's not an option It's it's part of Neural Developmental Necessity And you have to also play fair, so because otherwise you produce a very disjointed Child who isn't able to engage in the niceties of social interaction? Which is continual play in some sense and reciprocity so what panksepp did with his [rat] he noticed that male rats? juveniles really liked to wrestle and they wrestle just like humans Beings wrestle they pinned each other for crying out loud with like that that rat has just lost He's down for a ten count right and so so what you do is you take Juvenile rats? And you can find out that they want to play because you can attach a spring to them and Then they'll try to run and you can measure how hard they're running by how hard they're pulling on the spring and then you can Estimate how motivated they [are] and so you can find out that? well Fed rat who doesn't have anything on his mind will still work hard to play if To enter an arena where he's been allowed to play before he'll work [for] that So that you think while the rats motivated, so the two rats Go out there and they play and And so they're playing like dogs play and everyone knows what that looks like if you're you know what you have any sense about dogs [they] kind of go like this and kids do that and maybe you do that with your [wife] if you're gonna play with her a little bit okay my poor my poor wife man when she Huh? she was a she was a Young she had older siblings and so she wasn't played with as much when she was little as she might have been and I Used to like you know what you take a pill away And you go like this three times right that means look out a pillow is coming your way So I go one two [three] wow But she looked she was completely dismayed at me like what do you do that for and I thought well I? Eventually taught her that rule the other thing I used to do The only thing I used to do you know it said sometimes She'd come at me like this when we were playing round, and I grabbed her wrist And I'd knock her for her for her hamsters heard not close together. She used to just get completely annoyed about [that] and I thought Right that's what you do you just opened your hands well. She didn't know that either So she hadn't been played [with] enough when she was a little [rat] and so anyways Anyway, so you let the route the little rats. Go out there, right? And so let's imagine one [of] them is 10% bigger than other and so that the 10% bigger rat wins Because 10% is enough in rat way to ensure that you're going to be the pinner rather than the penny, okay? So so that's fine so a knit net the rat the rat pins the big rat pins a little rat and now the big rat is the is the Authority Rat and so then the next time that the rats play The little Rod has to invite the big rat to play so the big rats out there being cool and a little that pops up And you know does the whole will you play with me thing and the big rat will deign to play with it but if you pair them repeatedly unless the big rat lets the little rat win 30 percent of the time so little rat will not invite him to play and Panksepp discovered that it's like I read that that just blew me away it's like that is so amazing because you see well first of their there's an analogy to psays ideas about the emergence of Morality out of play and human being so that was very cool But the notion that that was built in to rats at the level of wrestling was and their social They're deeply social animals right they have to know how [to] get along with [one] another and most of their authority Disputes dominance disputes, you don't want them to end in bloodshed and combat because you know if your rat won And I'm rat [2] and we tear each other to shreds In a dominance dispute rat 3 is just going to move in it's really not a great Strategy and so be better if we could settle our differences You know somewhat peacefully and so while so rat anyway peg's had figured out that rats Play and not only [did] they play they play fair and they [seemed] to enjoy it he also figured out This was really cool [to] that if you give juvenile rats attention deficit disorder drugs Ritalin suppresses prey play So that's worth thinking about. It's like well. Why do you have to give? Juvenile Human beings Amphetamines in school well because they need to play well, you know they don't get to play you know get to wrestle around I mean that's oppression as far as I can tell they don't get to wrestle around that's fine feed them some amphetamines man [that'll] shut down the old play circuits. Well is the other problem is panksepp found out that if you don't let Juvenile male rats play? Their prefrontal cortexes don't develop properly Surprise surprise, you're not letting them [ensure] It's like what else would you expect so you know that's something to think about really hard, I would say so Well, so there's some wolves going at it, [and] [we're] all [hunting] not exactly there's some moves having an Authority dispute, but More technically speaking And a lot of [its] posturing you know they tend they tend [not] well Socialized wolves tend not to hurt each other during authority disputes because well for over obvious reasons It's too dangerous and so they have other ways of demonstrating who should be listen to authorities And there's chimps doing you have this particular house. I think if I remember correctly I think it's right This is a really cool picture because I think this chimp chimps don't like snakes by the way So for example if you take a chimp that's never seen a snake And you show it a snake it is not. Happy it will get the hell away from that snake if you bring a chimp Anesthetized into a roomful of chimps the chips will all get away from that and then look at the body they don't like that either and if you bring a big snake into a chimp cage even if the chimps have never seen it like they'll get away from it and Then stare at it and chimps out in the wild if they see a big snake They'll they'll stand there and they have a noise that means it's like holy crap. That's a big snake you know It actually means that technically, I'll tell you why in a minute But they get they stand away from it then they make this this Noise which means oh my [God] look at the snake and then they'll stand there for like 24 hours looking at the snake and so the snakes are really really they're super stimuli for Chimpanzees So that's pretty interesting in this chimp seem to learn how to take this dead snake and go scare other chips with it and that was That was hardly how he established his authority and you know and [while] there? There's a there's a there's a threat, and you like if I was you, [and] I was around that chimp I would take that threat seriously because those things are no joke man And you see the same thing here with the I don't remember what kind of monkey that is but they're engaged in agonistic Behavior and so From so and there has been by the way there has been Recent research showing that in higher order primates that [there] is snake Detection circuitry that's built into them right so it's not learned It's not learned deeper than that now for a long time Psychologist psychologist knew for a long time that I could make you afraid in a conditioning experience Experiment much faster using a snake or a picture of the snake than a gun or a picture of a gun So we can learn fear [to] snakes very rapidly spiders as well, and so then people thought well maybe we were prepared to develop fear to snakes or spiders that sort of thing But the more recent research has indicated that it's more than just prepared is that we have the Detection circuitry built right into us and Well is because well why wouldn't we that's that's really the [issue]. It's like It's not really [that] much of a surprise unless you think of human beings as a blank slate And if you think that [been] I don't know you should crawl out of the 16th century That's that's all I would look I would look at it because I mean that's that's that's just go on that idea it's it's it's so wrong, so So maybe you can think about this as a dominance hierarchy, but wolves look for those wolves look for Credibility and competence as well and and chimpanzees don't like Brutal tyrants And so we'll talk about it as the hierarchy of authority and so well. This is kind of how it starts to [develop] You know you see well these girls are negotiating the domestic environment here and how to behave properly and how to share and all that and turn and take turns And so they're negotiating the hierarchy of authority and if you're good at reciprocity It's sometimes you're the authority and sometimes the other person is the authority that's fair play, right? And so these boys are doing the same thing and you see they're all smiling away And so it looks like aggressive behavior and people who are not? Very attentive and who are paranoid and who don't like? Human beings can confuse this with aggression and they forbid it at schools Which is you know I know when my kids were going to school for example. This was quite a while ago now They were forbidden to pick up snow on the off chance They might throw a snowball and we know how terrible that is So what I told my son was [that] he was perfectly welcome to pelt any teacher he wanted to in the back of the head with the snowball as long as he was willing to Suffer the consequences of doing it, and I don't know if he ever did But he was happy with he was certainly happy with the idea which made me very [happy] about him, so Yeah, so so you know kids need to do this they really really Seriously need to do this it's what civilize --is them and [they] that needs to happen [between] the ages of [two] and [four] because if they're not Civilized by the time they're [4] then you might as well Just forget it, and that's a that's a horrible statistic but it's unbelievably well borne out in the relevant developmental literature like there's lots of aggressive two-Year-olds most of them are male and If they stay aggressive past the age of four they tend to be lifetime aggressive. They make no friends. They're outcasts they're much more likely to end up antisocial criminal Delinquent and in jail and so Your kids need to be socialized between the ages of two and four And that's particularly true for the more aggressive males and most of the rest of two-year-olds are male and that isn't socialization by the way So there's a [more--not] more abstract representation of the same sort of thing And I'm trying to make the case [that] this that the that the hierarchy of authority emerges out of a [game-like] Matrix an Underlying Game-like Matrix And that's one of the things that one of the things that's so brilliant about Jean Piaget he figured that out it's so smart and he was interested in the biological origin of morality and he identified it he he he Traced the origin to play and the emergence of morality out of play, and that's it's so smart [it's] just I [just] can't believe how smart an idea that was because it's the [bottom-up] construction of of Morality now Piaget was [a] constructionist and to some degree social constructionist He underestimated the role of biology, but that doesn't invalidate his theory. It's really easy to put a biological underpinning underneath underneath pas theory, we know the biology well enough to do it quite quite nicely now so I mean we well the fact that tanks have for example [could] identify the play circuit is a really good start with that right because Play has been around so [long] that. We have a circuit. That's dedicated to it and so that's that's a very very ancient That's a very ancient issue And so you know this is this is very much of an abstraction of a game here, and then of course you get the ultimate abstraction in representation, what in a representation like like that Where even though even the landscape of the game is fictional and of course we've migrated to a large degree [into] those sorts of fictional landscapes fictional books movies video games so it's the same it's an extension of the same thing so practice for practice for real life the Shades in some cases into real life itself, so Alright More representations of God the father I like these representations. I like the triangle Idea I mean I [don't] know why God is wearing a triangular hat it's kind of a strange fashion choice but I think it's Associated with the idea of the pyramid and I think that's associated with the idea of the hierarchy of Authority and I think that's why the Egyptians put their pharaohs inside pyramids I know, there's more to it than [that] But I think some of that has [to] do with the notion of this hierarchical structure you see this on that now that's speculative obviously and I don't want to make too much [of] it, but But I can't help but think that there's something to that see that's on the back of [the] American Dollar Bill I like that a lot [that's] like the eye of horus from the egyptians and so the idea here is something like At the top of the Hierarchy is something that is no longer part of the hierarchy Right, so if you move up the hierarchy enough what happens is [that] you develop the [ability] as a consequence of moving up that hierarchy To be detached enough from the Hierarchy, so you're no longer really part of it And so [that] you can move in all sorts of different hierarchies and the thing the idea here is [that] the thing [that] you're really? Developing is the capacity to pay attention, and I would say from a from mythological perspective the the one thing that seems to compete with the idea of the spoken word as the as the source of the Extraction of habitable order from Chaos is the [I] is the capacity to pay attention so marduk for example the mesopotamian creator. God who? emerged in the hierarchy of Mesopotamian gods and came out at the top right he was the victor of the gods He had eyes all the way around his head and he could speak Magic words, and I really like that I really like that idea and the egyptians developed that idea too because their God horus was the eye Everyone knew was the eye of [horus] that that sense that image is so compelling that we still know [about] everybody has seen the eye of [horus] with a really open pupil and What the egyptians learned was that the open eye was what revivified the dead society it's so smart So what do you do if your life? Isn't in order bloody well pay attention and that isn't the same as thinking It's a different process paying attention thinking is like the imposition of structure in some sense I know I'm oversimplifying but paying attention is something like watching for what you don't know and So like one of the things I often recommend to my clinical clients if they're having trouble with a family member is Number one, shut up. Don't tell them anything about yourself just and I don't mean in a rude way It's just like no more personal information number [two] watch them like a hawk and listen and if you do that long enough They will tell you exactly what they're up to And they will also tell you who they [think] you are and then you'll be shocked because they think you're something generally speaking That's not like you what you are at all and when they tell you it's like a revelation to both of you But attention [is] an unbelievably powerful force, and you see this in psychotherapy Too because a lot of what you do and in any Reparative relationship is really pay attention to another person pay attention and listen and you would not believe what people will tell [you] or reveal to you if you watch them as if you want to know instead of watching them so that you'll have your prejudices Reinforced that's usually how people interact is like. I want to keep thinking about you the way I'm thinking about you, and so I'm going to filter out anything that just proves my theory That's not what I'm talking about at all. It's like I'm going to watch you and figure [out] what you're up to. [not] in a rude way none of [that] I just want to see what's there and that'll be good for you Probably and also be good for me, and so well, so that's the idea that you know climbing up a hierarchy of authority can give you vision and that vision can transcend the actual Hierarchy, and I think that's also the I think that's also the That's the metaphysical space that an artist occupies because artists really aren't in a hierarchy there outside of hierarchies You've watched the Lion king most of you yeah That's that Zoo you know the little bird that's the eye of the king that's the same thing there so and that's that's echoed in this idea as well, so So well that's some more More ideas of Hierarchies same idea. This is right gold Silver Bronze, why gold gold is the sun [gold] is pure right? So the idea is that the thing that's at the top of the hierarchy is incorruptible because gold doesn't mix with anything else, right? It's this sort of metal that doesn't ever become corrupted. It's a noble metal It doesn't become corrupted, and so it Shines like the sun And it's associated with what's ever at the top of the [hierarchy] and the gold The gold Medal is a disc like the sun, and it's awarded to those people who? Occupied the top position and who are manifestations of the ideal and here's here's I can tell you a quick story [so] imagine that you're watching an olympic contest [I] found this happens to me very often with gymnastics because the gymnasts are so absolutely unbelievable you know so you go watch the gymnastic performance and the verse is out there bouncing around like You know you can't even imagine doing it. They're so perfect at it. So you see this person they're going through this routine They're just absolutely Spectacular and flawless at it. You know at the [end] They stop and everybody claps and and they're all excited to see what a human being can do and that's why we're in the audience Watching because we want to see what a human being can do and the judges go like 9.8 9.8 9.8 Everybody's thrilled and then the next contestant comes out, and it's [like] well They're just basically screwed right it's like this person came out there and was perfect How are you going to top that that's an interesting question because this Is a representation of what you do to top? Perfection itself and you can do it [and] here's how you do it And you know this even though you don't know you know it, so let's say the next contestant comes out They're kind of shaky because it's like oh man the bar is being raised high so what they do is they put themselves right on the edge of Chaos and You can tell by watching them that they are one bloody fraction of a second from Catastrophe [they're] pushing themselves farther than they've ever gone in the direction of their perfection [and] Everyone in the room is so tense they can hardly stand it right you can hear a pin drop and that person is flipping around It they're just it's just right on the edge of catastrophe [and] at the end They go like this, you know And there's that gesture of triumph that goes along with that and everybody rises in one instant and just claps like mad It's like well, why what are you doing? What are you doing? When you're doing that right? You can't even help it it grabs you right in the core of your being and you stand up And it's it's an act of worship. That's what it is and you saw someone Go Beyond their perfection into the domain of Chaos and establish order right in front of your eyes And you're so thrilled about that you know you're happy to be alive And everyone's celebrating it all at the same time, and it's an absolutely amazing thing, and that's what well sometimes That's what this represents and sometimes that's what this represents And that's what we're trying to get at because that's at the pinnacle of the hierarchy right not only are you doing? What you should be [doing]? but you're doing it in a way that increases the probability that you'll do it better the next time you do it and [then] you could say here's another thing to think about along the same lines And I know we haven't got that [out] of an easy yet You tell your kids to play fair right you say [Norman] it's not [whether] [not] you win. It's how you play the game and You say that you don't really know what you mean you feel kind of stupid saying it even though You know it's true and your kid looks at you like there's something wrong with you because he doesn't know what you're talking about either but you know it's true [and] So here's why it's true Life isn't a game. It's a set of games and The rule is never Sacrifice victory across the set of games for victory and one game Right and that's what it means to play Properly you want to play so that people keep inviting you [to] play because that's how you win Right you win by being invited to play the largest possible array of games and the way you do that is by Manifesting the fact that you can play in a reciprocal manner every time you play even if there's victory at stake And that's what makes you successful across time And we all know that and we even tell our kids that but we don't know [that] we know it and so we're not adapting ourselves to the game and Victory in the game We're adapting ourselves to the [metagame] and victory across the set of all possible games, and that's what that well That's exactly what as far as I can tell that's exactly what this is aiming at to that. That's the same idea that There's that there's a transit. There's a mode of being that transcends the particularities of [the] of the localized contests That's the other way to think about it and to act morally is not to win today's contest at the expense of the rest of possible contests and Again, I don't see that as something that's arbitrary it's not relativistic there's an absolute Moral an absolute Moral stance there and everyone recognizes it and And I also think it's the key to success and I would also say it's very much akin in a strange way like the the the person who is the master at Being invited to play the largest possible games number of games is also the same person I haven't quite figured out the precise [relationship] between these two is also the same person that goes out Forthrightly to conquer the unknown before it presents itself as the enemy at the door. They're the same thing now I don't I can't haven't figured well. Why that is exactly but but Well, I'll figure it out eventually and when I do I'll don't tell you well if you're interested, so okay, so here's the mother no ideas of God as as Hierarchical authority figures so strip the religious preconceptions off what you observe and just look at what you see well look there's primate looking upward Ad Dominance figure, that's that's what you see there now It's very interestingly symbolically Represented because you have gone The farther there with the cross and I think what that [means] as far as I can tell is [that] there's a recognition there in the image that the person who's most dominant is the one who's or the most have the most [authority] is the one who's Voluntarily accepted the suffering that's part of being and that's what that picture represents It's like the authority holds that says this is what you have to accept and that that that that transfix is the viewer Because of because of the fact that it's true, and you think well is that true, okay? Well think about it this way? Do you like brave people or do you like cowards? Well that that's pretty straightforward and what's the ultimate act of Bravery? It's to come to terms with the fact that you're mortal and limited and to live forthrightly Regardless well obviously that's at the core of what's of what's admirable and why would we presume that that's not the case We act as if that's the case. It's what everyone dreams and wishes that they could they could do I mean assuming that? You know you've dispensed with the idea that you're going to be immortal I suppose that might be worth wishing for [too] or or perhaps not immortal is a very long time But you certainly want this and that [image] says well This is what you should be and you [know] we've got that same Opening into the sky going on in that image that I showed you before it's like This is a transcendent truth that constantly reman efest itself across time and space and jung would say it's built into your psyche that Image now you know there are elements of it [that] are culturally constructed it wouldn't [necessarily] have to be the cross Although the cross is a very old symbol. It's far older than then it's use in Christianity. It has been used in many many religious representations, but that echoes the soul echoes with that you know and Well, then there's moses up there on [the] on the mount Receiving these the the law and so we'll talk a lot more about that when we get to exodus but if yeah yeah, yeah If we get to exodus so well look where does it happen well on the mountain. Well, that's a pyramid That's up right. That's optics up. It's it's up in stratosphere is up in the sky where where you look upward, okay? And and then so what's happening to moses well here? Here's a bit of a clue as far as I can tell [I] Figured this out partly again by reading jean Piaget because one of the things that pSA said about kids was that They first learned to play a game But they don't know what the rules are meaning that if you have a bunch of kids together they can play a game but if you take one of the kids out of the game when they're young say six, and you say What the rule are what are the rules they can only sort of give you a representation? So you take six-year-old one and he'll tell you some of the rules and six-year-old two will tell you different rules and and you know Six-year-Old three will tell you different rules, but if you put them all together they can play so they have the knowledge Embodied either individually or [in] the group the knowledge is there to be extracted well then they get a little older they can extract the rules and Then they start to play by the rules [and] then the CSA's last step was well they didn't just the kids play by the rules that they learned that they can make the rules and He thought about that as moral progression first you can play then you can play by the rules then you learn Maybe because he didn't think everyone learned this that you're actually the master of the rules [that] [doesn't] mean the rules are arbitrary But it means that You could be the generator of the rule that's assuming that you know how to play the game And he thought about that as a Moral Moral progression And then I thought well that's exactly what happened [to] moses in in the story of exodus because moses is out there leading all those Israelites around and like they don't have a law they don't have a lawgiver They have a tradition, and they're all like crabby because both are in a desert. It's like They're in a tyranny, but now they're in a desert. It's like. That's no improvement So they're really getting pretty bitchy about it and so they're worshipping False idols and having one catastrophe after another and they get moses to judge their Conflicts so he does that for God only knows how long forever crabby israelites come to moses and bitch at him It's like wow he did this and she did that and and so then he has to figure out how [to] make peace and He does that so long that one of his I think it's his father-in-law tells him he has to stop doing it because he's going To exhaust himself [well] then you think well, what's happening? Well? And I'm not assuming that this is a like a literal historical story. I think again It's a condensation. Well any group has a set of customs Just like a wolf pack does and so then the customs are being manifest in someone. Who's a genius is watching and thinking okay? Well, what's the rule in this situation? What's the rule in this situation? What's the rule in this situation and then in his imagination [the] rules turn into a hierarchy and then he goes up on the mountain [just] bang and he thinks oh my God Here's the rules that we've been living by all this time, and that's the revelation of the commandments well, and you think well How else could it be you think the rules came first and baying them came second? It's like no the rules come first Sorry the actions come first the obeying them comes first And then you figure out what everybody's up to you say hey look this is what you've been up to all [along] everybody goes oh Yeah, that seems to make sense peak and if it didn't who would follow them no one was going to follow them if they don't match what's already there you just think about that is unjust and so that's that's portrayed here as A Cataclysmic human event it's like oh my God we've been chimpanzees. We've been in this hierarchy of authority for so long we have no idea what we're doing and all of a sudden poof it bursts into Revelatory consciousness, and we could say here is the law and you say well is it given by God well? Hey it depends on what you [mean] [by] God we could start with [that] presupposition, but it's not like it Just came out of nowhere it took it and this is something else Nietzsche observed so interestingly, and he said you know that a moral revelation was the consequence of a tremendously long process of initial construction and then formulation thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years of custom a building custom before you get the revelation of the Articulated law and that's a description of the pattern [that] works. Let's say well. What's the pattern that works? It's the game that you can [play] with everybody else day after day with no degeneration And that's another thing piaget figured out. It's so brilliant, and that's his idea of the equilibrate state it's an extension of the [menu'] accounts idea about the universe [Maksim] right act in a way so that each action could become a Universal rule that was Kinda Mental Moral Maxim and PSa put a twist on that. He said no, no, that's not exactly yet. [it's] Act in such a way that it works for you now And next week and next month and next year and ten years from now and so that while it's working for you it's also working for the people around you and for the broader society and Then and that's the equilibrate estate And you could think about that as an intimation of [the] [kingdom] of the city of God on Earth It's something like that And it's based on this idea that a morality has to be iterable And you know there's lots of there's been lots of simulations online already artificial intelligence simulations of trading games Right I mean the people who've been studying the emergence of Moral behavior say in artificial intelligence Systems have already caught on to the idea that one of the crucial elements to the analysis of morality is inner ability you can't play a degenerating game because Because it degenerates Like obviously you want to play a game that at least [remains] stable across time and God if you could really get your act together Maybe it would slowly get better and of course that's what you'd hope for your family, right? That's what you're always trying to do unless you're completely hell-bent on revenge and destruction It's like is there a way that we can continue to play together that will make playing together even better the next day that's what you're up to and Well, I don't see anything arbitrary about that [and] part of it. This is also why I think that bloody post modernists are so incorrect because you know they say something like there's an infinite number of interpretations of The world and that's actually true But then they make a mistake and they say well, no Interpretation is to be privileged over any other interpretation. It's like wrong wrong that's that's where things go seriously off the rails because the Interpretation has to be and this is the piagetian Objection is like if you and I are going to play a game rule one is we both have to want to play Rule two is other people are going to let us play rule 3 is we should be able to play it across a pretty long Period of time without it degenerating and maybe rule 4 is well. We're playing the world shouldn't kill us It's like there are not very many [gay] like you don't send your kids out to play on the superhighway, right? So they're not playing hockey on the superhighway because the world kills them and so There's an infinite [number] of interpretations But there is not an infinite number of solutions [and] the solutions are Constrained by the fact of the world and are suffering in the world and then also constrained by the fact that we constrain each other And so that's that's where. I think that's gone like dreadfully dreadfully wrong, so All right It's really fun to look at these old pictures once you kind of know what they mean, you know the leaf That's what I've discovered. Is that once I kind of understand the underlying Rationale for I mean someone worked hard on that that's an engraving right they took a long time making that picture They're serious about it and when you understand what it means You know all those people there their prostate prostrate at the at the at the revelation of the law? It's like well, no wonder It's like break the law and see what happens breaks the universal Moral law man and see what happens You know I see people in that situation Well as you all do all the time perhaps me more than you because I'm a clinical psychologist you know and if the people I'm seeing haven't broken the Universal law then you can bloody well be sure that people around them have it's no joke Like you make a mistake and things will go seriously wrong for you, and so it's no wonder that. You'd be Terrified at the revelation of the structure that governs our being one of the things that's so remarkable about the old testament This is another thing Nietzsche commented on: he was a real admirer of the old testament not so much of the new testament He thought it was a sin for Europe to have glued the new testament on to the old testament [because] he thought the old testament was a really accurate representation of the phenomenology of Being. It's like stay awake speak properly be honest or Watch the hell out Because things will come your [way] that you just do not want to see at all and it might not [just] be you it might Be everyone you know and everything about your culture that is demolished for for generation after generation. It's like Stay awake and be careful And I like I think that people only don't believe that when they're being hubristic And I think that most people know that deep in their hearts You know when you get high on your horse that happens fairly often if you have any sense you think geez I better be careful [top] myself down and fare a bit because if I get too puffed up man Something's going to come along and take me out at the knees and everyone knows that pride comes before a fall It's like if you have any that's why it says in the old [testament] that fear of God is the beginning of wisdom [it's] like I've never in all my years as a clinical psychologist, and this is something that really does terrify me I have I have never seen anyone ever get away with anything at all even once you [know] There's that old idea that. God has a book you know and keeps track of everything in heaven. It's like okay Okay, [you] know maybe it's not a book fine But that is a really useful thing to think about because well, maybe you disagree Maybe you think people get away with things all the time I tell you I've never seen it what I see instead is [that] thing happens right they someone twists the fabric of reality and They do it successfully because it doesn't snap back at them that moment and then like two years later something Unravels, and they get walloped and they think oh my God that's so unfair and then we track it It's like but what happened before that this and then what this and then what this and then what oh? Oh this well that's where it went wrong. It's yeah, because you can't twist the fabric of reality without having it snap back It doesn't work that way, [and] why would it because what are you going to do twist the fabric of reality? I don't think so I think it's bigger than you. You know And I think that one of the things that really tempts people is the idea that well, I can get away with it It's like yeah you try you see. Oh, well that works It's like you get away with nothing and that is the beginning of wisdom and I it's something that deeply terrifies me And you know err ever since? last September when I Came to Board like broader public attention one of the thing I'd be terrified [of] making [mistake] because I certainly know I'm more than capable of making a mistake and Going so far either. I haven't made [one] or no one found out about it, so But it's like you know we walk on a very thin and narrow Edge and we're very lucky when things aren't degenerating into Chaos around us or Rapidly moving too far too much order and it's not an easy thing to stay on that line and You can tell when you say you're on that line because the things are deeply meaningful and engaging when you're on that line but if you're not Existentially terrified about the consequences of wavering off that then you are truly, not awake So and that's what I see in this picture You know it's like look out man, because there are rules and if you break them God help you so one of the things that seems to me the case with regard this in the question period A bit last time is that one of the things that seems to be actually one of the Advantages to gluing the new testament on to the old testament is the idea of a transformation and morality that is analogous to the pia Jetty an idea that After you learn to play [by] the rules you can learn to make the rules because I think that's actually what happens to some degree in the transition between the [old] testament and the new testament Because in the old testament most morality is prohibition Here are things you shouldn't do. It's like no fair enough. That's a lot of what you do with your kids Don't do this don't do this don't Especially when they're happy you're always going around telling them to stop being so happy because all they're doing is causing trouble It's quite painful if you're a parent and you notice that but the first morality is prohibition right Control yourself so you don't cause too much trouble and then maybe if you get that down And you're good at it, then the next thing is well once you're disciplined then you can start working [toward] something that's a positive good, and that's the transformation that seems to me to [be] fundamentally characteristic of the Juxtaposition of the new testament on to the old testament, but in these images is still something like serve tradition serve the father psychologically speaking support the tradition because You live on it they're in an old mesopotamian story the enumeration you can which you can read about if you're interested [in] the Original gods who are really badly behaved? They're like two year [old] in fact. They're a lot like two year olds They kill the primordial gone absolute Pea tree oracle God they kill him and try to live on his corpse Well, that's what we all do right because we live on the corpse of our ancestors You could say we live on the corpse of our culture It's dead And that's not a great place [to] live [so] you have to keep revivifying it so the damn thing You know stays Active and awake you you stay [on] the carbs for too long and then the devil or the Demon of Chaos comes back And that's what happens in the mesopotamian story It's like don't be thinking that you can stay on the corpse of your ancestors for too long without Contributing to the revivification of the system because the Chaos that all of that holds that that all that holds that bay will definitely come and visit you you [see] that in stories like The Hobbit you know hobbits. They're nice they like to eat. [they're] kind of fat. They're shorts are not very bright you know They're hubristic. They have no idea. What's out there in the broader world They're protected if you remember by the striders who are the sons of great Kings who look like? Tramps they have nothing but contempt for them they patrol the borders and keep the Bloody hobbits safe But out there out there in the periphery all hell is brewing and Chaos is is is Generating and forming and that's an archetypal story And that's why people like that story so much Because that's exactly right [like] we're the hobbits and there are we are Protected from Chaos by the spirits of our dead Ancestors, and we're too damn stupid to know it, and we think oh well We don't need them anymore and that to me that's post-Modernism That's what the bloody universities are doing with the humanities [to] absolutely appalling and we will pay for it so Unless we wake up, and hopefully we'll wake up because that would be better than paying for it even [though] being awake as well [they're] painful so so then I had this vision one time and I kind of portrayed it in this in this image of What the world was like and I thought well, it's not a pyramid It's not a single Hierarchy of authority that's not what it is It's it's an array of hierarchies of Authority so you imagine this sort of infinite plane and the the infinite plane There's nothing but pyramids and inside the pyramids there are strata of people Everywhere far as you can look some of the pyramids are tall some of them are short they overlap it's endless the [plain] is endless and those are all the positions to which you could rise and everybody's inside the pyramid sort of crammed up trying to move towards the top and then there's the possibility of sailing across over top of all [of] them and seeing how the structure itself works and that's and that's the eye that floats above the pyramid and it sees the structure itself and the highest order of being is [not] to be at the top of the pyramid it's to use the discipline that you attain by striving towards the top of the pyramid to release yourself from the pyramid and move one step up and That's I [think] that's one of the things that's instantiated in the idea of the for example of the holy ghost so And I think that's akin to that that's sisyphus and needs a set of sisyphus if I remember correctly that one has to [Imagine] him happy well If there's a rock at the bottom of the Hill Then you might as well push it up the hill and if it rolls back [down] well then you've got something else to do don't you can push the damn rock back up the hill and there's no shortage of Rocks to put up to push up the hill and that's what we're built for anyways And so let's go out and like push some damn boulders up the hill and then maybe we could have enough self-confidence And enough enough respect for ourselves that we wouldn't have to turn to Hatred and revenge and try to take everything down because I think that's the alternative so He's not weak. That's one thing you can say about him The same idea represented there right that's outlets who voluntarily takes the world on his shoulders It's like the idea of christ taking the sins of the world on his shoulders [it's] exactly the same notion which is the notion that you should be able to recognize in yourself all the horror of Humanity and take responsibility [for] it because that's what that means and the thing that's so interesting about that is that if you can recognize Yourself in yourself all the horror of humanity [you] [will] instantly have a hell of a lot more Respect for yourself than you did before you did that because there's some real utility and knowing that you're a monster Now on just because you're a monster doesn't mean you have to be a monster, [but] it's really useful to [know] that you are one so then and one of the things that Jung Knew and this is something that I find so [amazing] about his writing [is] I think something that really distinguishes him for example from Joseph Campbell who talked about following your bliss is like Jung said very clearly that the first step to enlightenment is the encounter with the shadow and what he meant by that was Everything horrible that human beings have done was [done] by human beings and you're one of them [and] So if you don't understand that and to understand that really means to know how it was that you could have done it and that's a shattering thing to try to imagine that to try to imagine yourself as Someone who's engaged in medieval torture to see how you could in fact do that You're never the same after you learn that but being never the same after learning that is Unbelievably useful because when you understand that that's what you're like, then you're a whole different creature And I don't think and this is something I did learn from jung is that you cannot be a good person until you know How much evil you contain within you it is not possible, and it's partly because you just don't have any potency like if you're just naive if you're just nice if you'd never hurt anyone you'd never hurt a fly you don't have the Capability [for] any of that, why would anyone ever take you seriously? You're you're just you're a domestic animal at best You know and a rather contemptible one at that? and it's a very strange thing because you wouldn't think that the revelation of the capacity for evil is a precondition [for] the realization of good But I believe first of all why [would] you be serious enough to even attempt [to] pursue the good? Unless you had some sense of what the consequence was of not doing it You have to be serious about these sorts of things. It's not it's not it's not the game of a child, right It's the game of [a] fully developed adult and you have learned this in part when I had little kids I wrote a chapter from my new book called never let your children do anything that makes you dislike them and Why was that and I read I read that wrote that after [I] knew I was a monster And I thought I'm going to make sure I [liked] my kids I'm going to make sure they behave around me so that I like them because I'm way bigger than them and I'm way more cruel than they are and I've got tricks up my sleeve that they cannot even possibly imagine [and] if if they Irritate me. [I] will absolutely Take it out on them, and if you don't think that you're the sort of person that would do that Then you are the sort of person [who] is doing it? you know We're not going to get to Adam and Eve ha ha Aria I watched this great documentary once Called Hitman hart and was about Bret hart and who was the most famous Canadian in the world for a while and he? was a worldwide wrestling federation wrestler you know and he was a good guy and He came from this famous family of wrestlers who all came from Alberta? I think there were seven brothers who were wrestlers and seven sisters and all the sisters married wrestlers, and they were all offspring children of Stu hart who Was a wrestling impresario like 40 years ago and it was it was such a cool documentary because I was always wondering why in the world did people watch wrestling and And then believe it you know believe it. Do you believe movies when you go watch them? It's like That's a hard question to answer while you're there you do and so if you're watching wrestling, and you're a wrestling fan Do you believe it? Well it is a matter of belief? It's a matter of being engaged in a drama and there are different levels of drama right so let's say worldwide wrestling Federation drama is not the most sophisticated form of drama, okay? But I'm not being a not being a smart aleck when I'm saying that There is drama of different sophistication for different people, and that's also why religious truths exist at multiple levels simultaneously Right it is got to [be] something in it for everyone, and that's a hard belief system that's a hard system to put together something for the Unbelievably sophisticated and something for the common person okay? So we have wrestling and bret hart was a good guy, and he fell into the archetype of being a good guy And that's partly what [the] what the story's about. It was a bit too much for him, but um One of the things that he he laid out So carefully where because he figured that 120 million people knew him something like that and that everywhere he went he was treated like a hero and he found out quite a bit of quite a burden as you could imagine if you think about It but he portrayed. What was happening in the wrestling ring as classic good against evil but not Conceptualized and discussed right embodied thought out acted out You know like like the like thor and the hulk except like right in front of you and so well That's exactly this sort of thing. I mean we could consider hockey more sophisticated than wrestling perhaps and As I said I'm not being a critic of these, I'm not being Critically minded about these things I understand their purpose, and I would highly recommend that documentary it's a brilliant documentary But this is it's the same thing. It's a silver cup right. It's like there's the hero of the team That's the hero of the team's you know here's something cool if you're the fan of the Toronto blue Jays are the Toronto maple leafs of course this hardly ever happens to you if you're the fan of the Toronto maple leafs because they always lose, but haha but but if You're watching a game and your team wins and we take your testosterone Levels then they went up And if you watch the Toronto maple leafs and they lost, and you're a fan then your testosterone levels go down So that's pretty damn funny. You know. I mean really don't you see how deeply instantiated. This is in people I mean it bloody well alters your biochemistry like your your your testosterone levels. It's all more my team loss You know it's like ah do. We know there'll be nothing in it for the wife tonight. You know Yeah Well, this is the cosmos I think from from the phenomenological perspective and one of the things that that that has come To my realization is that this is real? This is real. It's not a metaphor [it's] [way] deeper than a metaphor the most real things about life are the place you don't know and the place you know and You could say well that's explored territory and unexplored territory that's real and it's been around forever back to the lobsters You know if you put lobsters in their new place the first thing They do is go around their territory finding places to hide and also making a burrow so the first thing They do is establish what they know? Against what they don't know and [that's] real it's real from the Darwinian perspective And we're going to say that what's real from the Darwinian perspective is plenty real enough because we're alive [and] everything and so that sort Of thing matters like well, that's what this is the taoist symbol. That's what it says. Is that what way it says? What is experience made of? Eternally that's easy Chaos and order and In every bit of Chaos. There's the possibility of order and in every bit of order There's the possibility of Chaos, and that's the way right. That's the path of life That's life itself and where you're supposed to be is right on the border between the two of those and why is that? stable enough Engaged enough, right? So not only are you doing what you should be doing you're doing [in] a way that increases the probability that you'll do it better tomorrow and you can tell when you're doing that because You're engaged you're in the right time and place and your your neurology tells you that that's what meaning is that's what transcendent meaning is and that's so cool because I also think [that] that is the antidote to Existential suffering the antidote to existential suffering is to be at the right place at the right time and you know? You want to get technical about it okay anxiety and pain? That's the cause that's the reality of the existential [so] suffering okay So let's say you're in the right place at the right time what happens to you, biochemically? Dopaminergic activation, what does that do? Suppresses anxiety and it's analgesic now it's more than that because also produces positive emotion and the desire [to] move forward and it underlies creativity and And so so not only do you get the positive engagement from a neurochemical? Perspective you get the analgesia and you get the anti end and you get the reduction of [anxiety] so it's not hypothetical It's and it is the case that the dopaminergic systems those are the exploratory systems unbelievably ancient and archaic are activated when you're optimally positioned to be To be what? Incorporating new information, which is what human beings do because we're information foragers, and so we want to be secure But building on [our] security at the same time and then we want to do it for ourselves We want to do it for other people we want to do it for our families We want to do it for broader Society we want to bring the whole world Together in alignment to do that, and that's meaningful And God only knows what we could do about the suffering of the world if we did that you know we have no idea What we could do if [we] started doing things properly and maybe so many of the things that dismay us about life We could we could stop I mean We stopped a lot of them in the last hundred years you [know] things are a lot better than they were a hundred years ago Obviously, they're not perfect, but [a] hundred years ago 120 years ago man, you know the average person in the western world lived on less than a dollar a day in today's dollars It's like you just try that for a week and see how much fun that is so the daoists Well, what is this well? This is the pre cosmogonic Chaos out of which the [word] of [God] extracted habitable order at the beginning of time It's the same thing. It's the [same] thing and [that] Chaos We'll talk a bit more about [that] later I guess because it's a very complicated thing to to describe, but it's certainly the thing that when you encounter The Chaos is what you encounter when the twin towers fall? right you remember what that was [like] right, so It was it was september 10th. Well that was the world everyone knew what the world was like and then it was september 11th and everyone walked around day for three days because the [Building's] [failed] But so what you can see a building fall, you can understand what it's what happens when a building falls So then what's going on with the being dazed well? it's the Chaos that underlies our habitable order manifested itself in those buildings [collapse] was a Brilliant act of Terrorism and Everyone was frozen and curious because that's how we react to that sort of thing the it's like It's like the shark. You know remember that famous That famous movie poster for jaws with the woman swimming on the top of the water and that terrible Leviathan shark underneath coming up to to take her out. Well that's life man That's the world and now and then you see [that] [and] when something falls like the twin towers fall you remember that the Ocean below you the abyss right the primordial abyss that bloody thing is deep and Then you're fragile, and that happens when [someone] betrays you and it's happened It happens to you when your dreams fall apart you encounter that Chaos again from which the world is extracted And then you're called upon to act out attention and the word in order to bring the world back into order and none of that is none of that is Superstitious none of that is superstitious none of that's even metaphorical. It's real Its ribs more real than anything else, and I [think] the reason for that in part is that This has been it's been this way forever Right as long as there's been life this has been the rule of life and That's the cosmos that's reality. That's what we inhabit And so one of the things you know the the so-called new atheists And I they don't want to go on a tangent about new atheists because I think atheists are often remarkably honest and very consistent in their analysis, so But I just don't think they're taking the problem seriously that like I don't think they take their evolutionary theorizing nearly With the seriousness that it that it necessitates, and I don't think that I Don't think that you can dispute the proposition that the longer something has had a selection effect Life the more real it [is] it's the fundamental axiom of Darwinian biology And I think the Darwinian world is more real than the [physical] world that was the argument that I was trying to have with with Sam Harris, and I didn't do the world's best job with that although it went not too bad the second time, but it's It's not something to be taken lightly. [it's] a very serious Profound and meaningful proposition and People [act] [it] out and want to act it out whether they know it or not That's Marduk So the story of Marduk, I'll just give it to you very briefly Time at an apse who are locked in embrace at the beginning of time goddess of [saltwater]. God of freshwater? Together Chaos an order right they give rise Masculine feminine they give rise [to] the world of the elder gods and those are to me their primordial motivational forces or something like [that] and Their rage and their lust and their love and all these things that possess us that are there forever and they're out in the world acting and they carelessly slay absolu their father and they're making a racket and then they Collapse ooh and then time at gives wind of [that], and that's a [timeout] right there by the way she's kind of a rough looking creature and She's a mother of all things and so she's not very happy about this. They said though these her children have destroyed structure itself Plus They're noisy and Careless and so she thinks all right, just like Noah Just like the God that brings the flood to know what exactly the same idea time ad comes back It says yeah, okay enough is enough. I'm going to take you out and she makes this Battalion of monsters and puts the worst monster there is at the head of the Battalion. His name is King He's like a precursor to the idea of Satan and she lets the gods know hey I'm coming for you, and so they're not very happy about this because their gods, but like yeah She's Chaos itself right she gave birth to everything. This is no joke and so they send one God out after another to confront her and they all come [back] with the tails between their legs There's no hope and then one day There's a new God that emerges in that marduk and the gods know as soon as he pops up they know he's something new Remember and this is happening [while] the mesopotamians are assembling themselves into one of the world's first great Civilizations so all the gods of all those tribes are coming together to [organize] themselves into a hierarchy to figure out What proposition rules everything and so marduk is elected by all the gods and he says look I'll go out there And I'll take on time at but here's the rule from here on you follow me. I determine destiny I'm the top God I'm the [thing] at the top of the hierarchy and all the other gods say hey look no problem you get rid of Chaos We do exactly what you say now marduk. [he] [has] eyes all the way around his head and he speaks Magic words Those are his primary attributes and so he takes a net and he goes out to confront time out and and he he He encloses her in a net which I think is so cool because it's an encapsulation right? It's a conceptual encapsulation. He encloses Chaos itself in a conceptual structure he puts it in the net and then he cuts her into pieces and he makes the world and then Then he creates human beings to inhabit [that] world and to serve the gods and he creates human beings out of the blood of king of the worst of the demons and That took me to call into young as the student might help me figure that out. I thought that's pretty damn pessimistic It's like you know what exactly it sounds like a fall metaphor. It's like the idea of original sin, but but our joint Conclusion With regards to that with it human beings are the only creatures in creation that can truly deceive Right we have the capacity for evil. Just like it says in the Adam and Eve story We can actually do that and that's why we're made out of the blood of king of the king of the demons the We are the thing that can deceive that can twist the structure of reality? well, so marduk now the mesopotamians had an emperor right and the emperor was the Avatar of Marduk that's what made him emperor. He was only at emperor if he was going to be marduk he had to be a good marduk which Mantia do confront time at Chaos and Cut her off and make or out of her pieces and what the method name is used to do at the New Year's celebration They go outside the walled city, and that's explored territory versus unexplored territory They go outside their walled city into [Chaos] and they bring all the statues that represented the gods And they'd act this out because they're trying to figure something out right you're trying to figure [out] what this means They're acting it out, and then they take their emperor and the priest would make them kneel, and [they'd] take all his king equally all his king uniform off his emperor uniform off and Make him kneel and humiliate him and nail him with a glove and say okay How were you not a good [marduk] this year right? And then he'd recount all the ways that he was inadequate in confronting Chaos, and then they do the celebration and marduk would win and and the king would go sleep with a royal prostitute and and The reason for that was it's the same [idea] st.. George pulling the virgin from the dragon it's exactly the same idea that if you call if you encounter the Reptilian Chaos you can extract something out of it with which if you unite, you produce creative order That's what they were acting out, and that was the basis for the mesopotamian idea of sovereignty. It's so smart it's so unbelievably smart and you know the mesopotamians had a massive influence on the civilizations that then had a massive influence on assets one of the stories of how the notion of sovereignty itself came to be it's the Evolution of the idea of God that's one way of thinking about it But even more importantly it's the evolution of the idea of the redemptive human being right? And that's taken - it's one of its conclusions following the story of buddha But also in the story of christ the idea of the perfect individual and the notion is well That's the word that speaks truth into Chaos at the beginning of time to generate habitable order that is good That's the story and so with that Let's See oh Sure, I'll just show you these [pictures] because they're so interesting once you know what they mean, they're so cool. That's a symbol of infinity [let's] Hercules and Hydra. What's life like cut off one head what happens? Seven more grow right, what do you do run hold well? No, that's not what you do it This is what you do you fight it It's the it's the Chaos that generates Partial Chaos, it's the ultimate Chaos that generates partial Chaos But that Chaos also is what Revista finds life because otherwise it would just be static Mercury The head of the Hydra right freeze of you, I'd [saint] George. He's doing it peacefully which is so interesting right? He's got a beatific look on his face in that particular representation another [Saint] George right the virgin in the background I think that's say dan if I remember correctly St.. George is the Patron Saint of England Here's an interesting one this actually sheds light on on the human proclivity for Warfare St.. George That's a Muslim soldier It's really easy to transform the enemy into the dragon right because the enemy is often the predator and we do that instantaneously Right without a second thought and so then we can go to war morally because why not take out the snakes? well, you know the problem is where are the snakes or maybe they're outside and maybe they're not maybe they're in this room and even Worse maybe they're in you and that's wisdom when you know that they're in you. Why wouldn't she be happy about that especially [if] she had a especially if she had a child right seriously? and that's [horace] right the god of vision and he was a He was a falken because Falcons have great vision and they fly above everything and they can see everything so that was the egyptian created God horus, and I'll tell you the story about horus at some points well Now here are some pictures that demonstrate what I had Described as the emergence of let's say the meta hero out of the hero So there's the person you [admire], and then there's the set of people that you admire [and] then there's the meta set of admirable people and the extraction of that ideal as far as I can tell that's just what's portrayed in these images That's a great one. It's very sophisticated image you see that the two sides of Christ's face are not symmetrical One is God in ones man. That's what that icon means and so the fully developed person in this representation. [it's] one of the oldest representations of this sort that we know the idea is that There's a there's a human person In his ordinariness let's say, and then there's this this kinship with the divine that's associated with the willing adoption of the responsibilities of Moral Mortal being and that produces this union And then it's manifest in a book right because that's speech, and it's associated with the son right it's the proper way of being And that's a perfect example. I think of the emergence of the archetype out of the multitude. That's what it looks like to me and so I guess now we're done with Genesis one and took three lectures, but [God's] complicated you know, that's the thing so so thank you and Next week by all appearances. That's where we are so we've got 20 minutes for questions So in the past I've done some work with blog big brother big sister and whatever [that] being said that the most common story I tend to hear from pacific youth is that they write they're raised in a single family Home usually [with] a mom daddy's there on a picture in alcoholic, whatever whatever the writer So we have this child who is trying to? Seek ways to make himself healthy and Empower himself in a ways that a healthy father should have done So you know between the formative years [of] like 1 to 4 so I think you know I'm going with this How let's say for someone who born without like a good father figure where would they go out in the world or like what? for series of incidents where they try to expose themselves to to like gain access to that balancing of health and Knowledge that a father though a good father figure should have provided to in the first place [ok] well partly I mean certainly to some degree a good mother can provide that right to some degree although it's hard for one person to be everything right you know and I think one of the conundrums that face women and this is [a] Tough one and this is why I think women are higher in trade agreeableness and higher and trade negative emotion Is that you know the primary? Problem that a woman has with an infant is why not throw it out a window because it's very annoying right? I mean, it's there all the [time]. It's constant demand It's absolutely constant amount tremendous dependency and so a woman has to be tilted Towards Mercy That's how it looks to me Right and especially during it's so important during the especially the first year when children are so unbelievably vulnerable And so I think it's very difficult for women to be merciful like that and to make the shift to encouraging Disciplinarian I think that's a very difficult thing for people to do simultaneously although You know people people. I'm not saying that women are always only merciful and men are always only encouraging disciplinarians But things do sort themselves out to some degree [like] that, and I think also the biochemical transformations That accompany pregnancy and childbirth and lactation also tilt a mother towards that as well We have to really love that little thing right it's it's number one No matter what it demands, and then telling it what to do and making sure it's behaving properly That's that's a whole [different] issue now, but the kids who Lack fathers. I mean first of all they can find that to some [degree] in their friends And that's often what father boys do in particular they go into gangs and they generate the missing men Masculinity in the game well that's not so good because like what the hell do they know Well, they don't know anything, right? They're just stupid kids And they're like [fifteen] years old and the testosterone is pumping and they're trying to get the hell [away] from their mother Which is what they're supposed [to] do and and they're not in the right position [to] exercise any authority over themselves So that's that's not good. They can find it in education. They can find it in books they can find it in movies They can find it in sports heroes and so forth because the image of the father is fragmented and distributed among the community But it's very very difficult To not have a father [right] and you know one [of] the things that we're doing in our society which I think is I think it's absolutely Appalling is that we're making the case that all families are equal. It's like sorry no wrong Then there's no empirical data supporting that proposition by the way It's much better for kids to have two parents know who those parents are that's a whole different issue, okay? and if I could just [add] one [more] thing of how would you ask that question so let's see a daughter [was] raised not a father because [she] would all See have different ways to find those fragments of her missing [father] than like a boy would instead because obviously they're raised differently at least They should have been well. I think it's the same issue. You know. I mean. I think that another danger that emerges Mrs. Freud's of course famous observation is that you know if there's mom and child were father and child that relationship can get a little closer than it should and Then the lines get blurry and mixed and I'm not saying that that happens to everyone Obviously, but but it's still a danger that that's inherent in the situation They're thrust together too tightly without sufficient resources and so the responsibility has to be distributed more and like I really do think that it's the sign of the degeneration of the Society when that when when single parenthood becomes anything approximating the norm it's not a good idea then the and part of the reason I believe that and I [think] this has to do with the overwhelming selfishness of Modern life is that marriage isn't for the people who are married It's for the children [obviously] [and] like if you can't handle that grow the hell up see right now. I mean seriously yeah seriously Thank you Once you once you have kids it is not about you period Now that doesn't mean it isn't about you at all but That just seems so self-evident to me. I can't believe that anybody would even would even question it. Oh, it's [dino] larson Oh, yes, well, I'm certainly aware of that yes. It's questioned. It's almost illegal to question it now you know [to] to or illegal to make the set of propositions [that] I'm making so That's the best. I can do guys excellent. Thank you The question is going in part two the first part of first up here lecture, but it's also something that's been on my mind Listening to your lectures over the past few months, and that's when we talk about the Psychological truth or significance of the Bible to what extent does that psychological psychological truth has to be embodied in specific? Historical events or people and so for instance the thing that sort of been bugging on my mind There's there's a part that st.. Paul is talking about in the new testament somewhere In one of his letters, and he's talking to the resurrection, and he says if it didn't happen Then if this whole thing just means the [faith] is meaningless like for him there had to be that Embodiment of that his capital. Yes The nor event in that case Well the best answer I have to that at the moment is that I'm really happy that I'm not at that point yet in this lecture series you know because because that there's a there's a crucial issue there, and I don't know exactly what to make of it and My approach at the moment as I said is to approach this as rationally as I possibly can and I hope I know a hell of a lot more about what I'm doing by the time I get to that particular [question] [and] I do have The beginnings of ways to answer that but I'm not going to answer that at all right now because it's so bloody complicated that would Just burn me to a frazzle and I'm already mostly bird to a frazzle after that lecture, so I Couldn't attempt to even start to sketch it out I don't know. [I] mean part of it is to be just rational about it just to be rational about it There is something about the idea that continual death and rebirth is a necessary precondition to proper human adaptation every time you learn something new that's important part of the stupid old you [has] to die and Sometimes that can be an awful lot of you and in fact it can be so much of you sometimes that you just die Right you just can't handle it And so there is there is a real idea that you have to identify with the part of [yourself] that Transcends [your] current personality that can constantly die and be reborn Now then I could say well that means that all of this is psychological and symbolic, and that's the simplest answer But I'm not satisfied with that answer even though I think it's coherent and complete because the [world] [is] a very weird place and there are things about it that we don't understand so so I can't go I can't go any farther than that at the moment, so Yeah Hi, Dr.. Peterson. I just recently watched One of your videos of you debating with transgendered protesters at uoft free speech Rally in October and one of the Protesters one of the comments one of the protesters said to you which [isn't] particularly very like very chilling was Why do you have the right to determine whether an individual is worthy of you using their pronouns? The scary thing to me is how common this type [of] view is among Radical Left-Wing? [protesters] on University campuses who feel they have the right to tell other people What they [can] think what words they can use and what speakers they can or cannot listen to? The even scarier part is that our government is creating legislations to back up their ADl? ideologies which is evident through [Bill] C16 M103 and Bill 89 So my question is what do you think the [endgame] is in all this because it seems? Every year or we're in the process of finding that out? You know and I'm sorry. I'm sorry Okay, we're in [the] [process] of finding that out I don't I mean I think the endgame that underlies all of that in my estimation Is best summed up by jacques? Derrida's [Christiane] [her] criticism [of] western Civilization its Fal logo centric now We've already talked about what the logos means Right and so and and so for for Derrida that was a sign of its utter What would you call it utter despit the dot early despicable dominant nature of Western Culture Well that that's what animates the post modernists now. They may not know that because an Indie ology gets fragmented across its Adherents And then it only acts as the coherent ideology with all those adherents come together in a mob and then you see the animating spirit So I Said I think that there's a battle going on. That's a battle exactly at the level that Derrida Described and that's a theological battle with a philosophical With it with the philosophical implications And out of those philosophical implications come political implications, but it's not primarily political and it's not primarily philosophical It's deeper than that and the post modernists are out There their criticism was designed to be Fundamental and it also emerged out of Marxism and let's not forget that the Marxist Criticism was not only fundamental But just about resulted in the nuclear annihilation of the [girl] these are not trivial issues, and we're back in the same Insane boat and so what do I think should be done about that well? I thought about that way before any of this happened, and I think that what? We [should] do about it is we [should] tell the truth Because there isn't anything more powerful than that And that's the right theological answer because the spoken truth brings good into being Well, that's the [Fal] logo centric idea And I'm trying to revisit that to explain to people what it means and to see if they think that's a good idea. [I] mean that's what we have to figure out is it is that an idea worth adhering to or not the alternative [is] the [C4] the post Modernists the world is that landscape of pyramids that I described, but there's no Transcendent vision that's over above that and all of those pyramids are equally valid and it's a war [of] everyone against everyone It's like it's like the nightmare of hobbes thomas hobbes except that it's not individuals. It's groups and everyone's that group You're a group. [you're] whatever your group is it's like that's death as far as I'm concerned it's it's it's utterly reprehensible and and We better sort it out because if we don't sort it out. We are bloody well going to pay for it, so Thank you Hey, how's it going? I just want to say thank you for doing all this and I really appreciate that's Bob and doug mcKenzie Right yeah, hey how's it going? Yeah? I'm glad you caught that yeah yeah, yeah, well I did a Facebook poll Yeah, people who are familiar with where your work and a question kind of rose to the top like just? Right out of their lives Spectacular and what it was you didn't really touch it here, but you touched it a bit in your lectures It was about integrating the shadow yep, and one of [the] main questions was how does one Go about that, especially in the Modern world. You know like Really sheltered from anything resembling that kind of concept you know we don't engage like the unknown we don't Come into life-or-death situations most of us [must] [rework] is like an ambulance. [you] know Well, that's one thing you can do with that is one thing you can do. You know well? Yeah, you can search out experiences that put you there That's that's that's you know because well, you can do that as a volunteer for example I mean, you can one of the things I saw once [Within] montreal I was in this outdoor mall in Montreal on St.. Hubert and saw this great big 17 year old kid you know and He had a mohawk and he was dressed in leather And he with you know studs and like he was he was He was doing the water and Barbarian thing and he had it really down And [you] know he's standing on the corner with two pink shopping bags Hey, because look into him And I thought you know if someone offered him the ID The opportunity to drop those goddamn sleeping bags or shopping bags and go fight with isis He'd be there in a second Yeah, right, because what the hell is some monster like that doing standing on the corner of St.. Hubert alden [-] pink shopping bags So I mean so some of it is that it you need you need to find out where you can push where you could you? Can need to find out that edge that you can push yourself against the tree It's going to be different for different people But there's there's that's the call to adventure and heroism And there are life and death situations everywhere around you if you want to involve yourself in them you know an idiot sometimes that might be like to put yourself together to the degree that you can say physically or spiritually or intellectually it could be an intellectual Battle it could be a Moral battle like the Frontier is everywhere the Frontier is just the Edge between what you know and what you don't know you want to put yourself on that damn edge and Then make yourself into something and and you can retreat into comfort in the modern world, and I think that is a problem You know I mean I've noticed that It's one of the pathologies of wealth I would say because one of the problems with [being] Relatively wealthy if you're a parent is that you cannot provide your children with necessity, and that's a big problem, because they need necessity to call them into being and You know if you don't have a lot of material resources and your children ask you for something you? Can say no because no is the [answer] it's like No, you can't do that, but if you can say yes, then it's really hard to say no because then you're just arbitrary well I don't know it's like Kierkegaard said you know there will come a time when we have so much security and comfort that what we'll want more than anything else is part deprivation and challenge, and I think I think that's particularly, what young men want Now I think that that's partly because young women they're stuck with that anyways because they have to it's it's it's the necessity of living in the world and The responsibility of infant care in particular [like] that occupies them men have to do it voluntarily Women now - because of the birth control pill, but you know that's [what] thirty years ago We hardly have to talk [about] that at all yes, so Then you have so much Hi, Dr.. Peterson, so I'm actually a coptic orthodox and egyptian, so I found [you're] [talking] [a] incredibly interesting I've also taken a deep interest in the old church fathers and as if you're talking about Iraqis I [arkin] back to St. Athanasius when the idea feels is that you brought up last time that God became man so that man can become like God So I was thinking about the systems of the hierarchies and is that an example [of] at the top of the pyramid the Hierarchy? sort of gets inverted or descends to the bottom and brings it up and to the top and that sort of an attraction to of Christianity that sort of Made Christianity such a powerful idea. What are your thoughts on that? Oh? well, it's certainly one [of] the I mean it's certainly one of the things that we not just Christianity a powerful idea because one of the things that happened this was called the democratization of Osiris if I remember correctly and like what happened see if I can answer this question Using this approach for sex is that going to work? Hmm, I don't know if I can answer that [question] that way the the part of the attraction of Christianity, but this was something that emerged across time was the notion that even if you were in a lowly position that there was something About you that was akin to the divine and now you might say well, that's just wish fulfillment That's what freud would say that's what Marx would say right the opiate of the masses Tweeted yesterday something. I thought was pretty funny which was that like religion was the opiate of the masses but that marxism was the methamphetamine of the max of the masses, so So so I think the attraction was that it it [it] Allowed people to recognize their intrinsic dignity and one of the things I've been thinking about is the juxtaposition Between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 because what I was in genesis 2 is that human beings collapse and fall? right and then were these fallen creatures that no evil, but in the beginning in Genesis 1 It's really [an] optimistic story because it says well we're the sorts of creatures that partake in the calling forth of being from Chaos and Then that's in our essential nature and to some degree if you juxtapose both of those it's as if that's the entire biblical story rammed Together in the first two chapters Which is partly why we're taking so long to get through this by the way is that to return to genesis 1 is the antidote to genesis 2 it's like to continue to Act out the Doctrine that you're made in God's image And that means that you're you're capable of speaking good being into existence through truth And that that's also the antidote to the fall which I think is actually the fundamental narrative message of the entire Biblical structure, and I also think of [western] civilization for that matter, so There's a nobility and this is also I think Nietzsche was fundamentally wrong in his [criticism] with Christianity because he thought about it and slaves morality you know the vengeance of the bottom against the talk That's more historical than theological so it gives dignity it illuminates the dignity [of] the human being and and Requires responsibility so it's not just wish fulfillment It's not freudian wish fulfillment the freudian theory which I thought about a lot is Not tenable in my estimation it also doesn't account for the [existence] of hell because if it's only wish fulfillment, why bother with hell It means a lot more If you're really going to just fulfill a wish it's like everybody gets to go to Heaven no matter what they do You don't have hell which was of course something absolutely terrifying to medieval Christians and then to plenty of people now for that matter so It's the nobility it's the idea of the nobility that I thinks deeply attractive to people, and that's all there is I mean What you have to fight against your worm-like? Fragile Mortal existence is the possibility of Transcending that with nobility of speech and act. That's what you have and who can hear that without feeling Ennoble by that now you might say well you might shudder and say well, I don't I can't bear the responsibility [it's] like well fair enough, man. You know I mean that that's a reasonable criticism, but the consequence of not bearing the [responsibility] is That's hell really so thank you And thank you very much beautiful um I don't know feel familiar with the words of Nasan Talib I'm reasonably familiar with them, so I think it's sad [to] say that he has He talked about the idea that People and especially modern people have a failure to recognize the Unknown Unknowns Yeah, such yes, right. That's a good way of thinking about it Can you move the mic up a bit so that people can hear you a little better? Thanks gary. Yes um Well, I was wondering do you think that that failure might? Might be in some way related to the way that modern people fail [to] relate to the idea of God so in the sense that your people can't Really grapple with the notion of God I think as much as you can give a rational [argument] or you can't feel God in the way that perhaps a more religious person or more [an] older person might have Felt God do you think that that inability to? recognize the Unknown Unknowns might play into That yeah, well they're okay so that seems to be related to this idea of the absence of necessity That's something like that. Is that no because I think that I think that what you're you're making a claim? Maybe tell me if I've got it wrong that if you're sheltered too much Then it also It also separates you from anything that's divine [I] guess that might be right because there's not enough intensity of the experience and something like that is that is that part of the is that part of the issue it might be more related [to] the idea of like realizing the absolute infinite root of what you don't know like the like the mysterium tremendum that that kind of You know if you believe that through statistical analysis you can get everything under control and you genuinely believe that at some point You'll get it or wonder you know. Yeah, okay? Well, so okay, so so well, that's also I think part of the danger of Rationality that the Catholics have been implicitly warning again forever Is that rather rational mind tends to fall in love with its own productions and then to worship them as absolutes? Which is I think what [Melville] was trying to represent? by his Satanic figure in Paradise lost [I] think about as like a precursor a prophetic precursor to the emergence of Totalitarian states in the Modern world and so yeah, I think that you can believe that What you know is? Sufficient to Banish permanently what you don't know and I do think that that does Paradoxically although you think that that would make you secure it also does destroy your relationship with with with with With the spirit that might help you deal [with] what it [is] that you really don't know with the unknown unknowns, so [yeah] I mean, we don't know to what degree extreme experience is necessary to bring Forth extreme Experience right what do you have to be through before you encounter a religious revelation? Well people might say well, you can't because there's no such thing. It's like well. Don't be so sure about that I mean people have reported them [to] row history, but they don't generally occur when your that's my favorite tropen You're eating [cheesie's] [and] playing you know and playing Mario brothers, right? So yeah, so that's the best I can do with that engine yes. Yeah This has to be the last question [all] right I'll make it quick yeah earlier when you talked about Criminality and creativity trends in that in men peaking at 14 it reminded me of something. You said, I think it was Joe Rogan [talking] about Sjw's and Kind of and how they create their own Chaos talking about how adolescents have this drive to change the world And I was wondering if if those three the criminality creativity drive to change the world are linked and if so if they manifest differently in men and women And if they [kind] of come from the same, era well, I think they are linked But I'm going to concentrate more on the net second part of your question So I'm going to ask you two guys some think about something, so I talked to a friend of mine the other day He's a very very smart guy and we've been talking about While all the sorts of things that we've been [talking] about tonight for a long time and we were talking about the relatively relative evolutionary roles of men and women this is speculative obviously and and Because our research did indicate it's tentative research so far that that the the sgs Sjw Sort of equality above all else Philosophy is more prevalent among women Well, it's predicted by the personality factors that are more common among women so agreeable this and high negative emotion primarily agreeableness, but in addition It's also predicted by being female And that's interesting because in most of the personality research that I've done and as far as I know in the literature at you know in more broadly speaking most of the time you can get rid of the attitudinal differences between men and women or at least reduce them [by] controlling for personality so if you take a feminine man, and a masculine woman then you know that the [polls] reverse but that didn't seem to be the case with political correctness, and so I've been thinking about that a lot because well men [are] bailing out of the humanities like mad and Pretty much out of the universities except for stem the women are moving in like mad And they're also moving into the political sphere like math And this is new right we've never had this happen before and we do know [no] do not know what the significance of it is it's only 50 years old and So we were thinking about this and so, I don't know what you think about this proposition, but imagine that that historically speaking it's something like Women were responsible for distribution and men were responsible for production Something like that, and maybe maybe that's only the case really in the tight confines of the immediate family But that doesn't matter because that's most of the evolutionary landscape for human beings anyways What the women does it did was make sure that everybody got enough? okay, and that seems to me to be one of the things that's driving at least in part the Sjw demand for for equity and Equality it's like let's make sure everybody [has] enough. It's like both look fair enough You know I mean you can't you can't argue with that But there's there's an antipathy between that and the [the] reality of differential productivity [you] know because people really do differ in their productivity, so All right, so to answer your question fully. I do think that the rebellious tendency of adolescence is Associated both with that criminality spike, especially among men and with creativity. Yes I think that the sJw phenomena is different and I think it is associated at least in part with the rise of women to political power and and We don't know what women are life when they have political power because they've never had it I mean There's been [queens] obviously and that sort of thing [just] being female authority figures and females have Wielded far more power historically than feminists generally like to admit But this is a different thing and we don't know what [a] truly female political philosophy would be like but it might be Especially if it's not been well examined and it isn't very sophisticated conceptually it could easily be well Let's make sure things are distributed equally well yeah But sorry that's that's just not going to do you fly do you think in terms of the rest of this? Jw's and you talked about last lecture as well creating Chaos when there is none otherwise. It'd be static Do you think there would be any validity in saying that in a country [like] Canada were pretty gender equal is There any merit to thinking Sjw's are trying to create Chaos Even when they're arguably is none on the mass level obviously there's still problems Why would they do that otherwise it would be static and that well doesn't if it wouldn't for them So I read this I read this quote once and I don't remember who Who said it it might have been robert heinlein for crying out loud science fiction author that Springs to mind But a problem it probably wasn't And his the proposition was that men tested ideas and that women tested men, and I kind of like that There's something about that. You know and now it obviously it's an [over] [generalization], but we also don't know to what degree women test men Cheerilee through Provocation it's a lot because like if you want to test someone you don't have a like little Conversation [with] them like you [poke] the hell out of them And you say okay like I'm going to let go after you and see where your weak spots are and it seems to me that This it seems to me that in this constant protest and use of shame and all of that that goes along with this with this sort of radical movement towards egalitarianism that there's a Tremendous amount of provocation and God, I'm going to say this too even though I shouldn't but it but we mean how I don't believe this, but I'm trying trying to figure it out You know I thought it was absolutely Comical when [fifty] [Shades] of [Grey] came out a not just I [just] thought that was just so insanely comical that at the same time there's this massive political demand for like radical equality and and And say with regards to sexual behavior and the fastest-selling novel the world had ever seen Was S&M domination right? It's like. Oh, well. We know where the unconscious is going with that one don't leave and and sometimes I think like because one of the things that I've really tried to puzzle out and It's not like I believe this right I'm just telling you what I wear the edges of my thinking of being going is that you have this crazy Alliance between the feminists and the radical islamist that I just do not get it's like the [feminists] [it's] like why they aren't protesting non-stop about Saudi Arabia is just Completely Beyond me like I do not Understand it in the least and I wonder - I just wonder bloody well is this is the [freudian] means that is there an attraction? You know the is there an attraction that's emerging among the female radicals for that Totalitarian male dominance that they've chased out of the [west] And I mean that's a hell of a thing to think but I after all I am [psychoanalytically] [minded] and I do think things like that because like [I] just can see no rational reason for it the only other Rational reason is that well the west needs to fall and so the enemy of my enemy is our [yeah] It's a guy exactly now. What is it? I thought that wrong with the enemy of enemy is my friends Yes, exactly [so] Elements tend to vote liberal as well. Yes Well, so that that could be the case but I am not going to shake my suspicions about this unconscious balancing because as the demand for egalitarianism and the eradication of masculinity Accelerates there's going to be a longing in the unconscious for the precise opposite for the [problem] of that right the more you want you? Scream for equality the more your unconscious is going to admire Dominance and so Well, that's that's that's well. That's how you think if your cycle analytically minded And you know I'm a great admirer of freud he knew a hell of a lot [more] than people like to think and and so which is partly why everyone still hates him even Though it's late a hundred years since he's you know really really being around so all right. We should stop

Channel: Jordan B Peterson

Views: 2,129,393

Rating: 4.8437214 out of 5

Keywords: atheist, bible, christ, christian, christianity, existentialism, faith, free speech, god, gods, jesus, jordan peterson, lecture, openness, personality, philosophy, psychoanalysis, psychology, religion, spirit, toronto, truth, university of toronto, yeshua

Id: R_GPAl_q2QQ

Length: 160min 52sec (9652 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I was deeply entertained by this podcast because I disagree on so many levels with professor Peterson that listening to it was an experience of sheer pain and confusion. I'm not convinced at all but some of the "answers" he gave to several existential questions, but happy that I now know how hard I have to work to get to my own answers. For example: Life is pain, sure. We shouldn't let our coping mechanisms kill us or turn us into selfish and immature hedonists. At the same time we shouldn't let suffering consume us and turn us in something even worse than that. maybe there's no "should" or " shouldn't". Maybe we either make it or not, and this whole discussion is pointless and the only true thing to say is how egocentric and patronizing the intellect is when in fact it's (we're) just one of the many parts that make a human being.

[u/yelbesed]

It is interesting that he avoids pointing at Jewish sources. He never mentions how it is basic talmudic thing based biblical sayings that the real victory is conqueribg our evil instinct. Also he never mentions that the godname in the Bible yehaweh is a future tense form of the verb To Be. Maybe subconsciously he wants to avoid the Nazi and Leftist accusation that he is a Jew-servant or whatever.