Rationality Rules - Possibilities and Limits of Metaphorical Truth 

There is no view from nowhere! I like that. Stephen would, and has, argued here that the "where" from which he is judging / viewing is from the lens of evolution. So, based on the point to which we are NOW evolved as well as the mechanisms of evolution, based on those things - which aspects of various religions are "good / bad", "useful / not"... that's his process of evaluation. But at the end, Jonathan then argued that even THAT - the process of evolution - is something that is a product of pre-existing patterns. I am very interested in them having another conversation starting from THIS POINT. Would Stephen agree that evolution itself is a PRODUCT of a higher "pattern"? I really hope they do another discussion.

@@demetriusmiddleton1246 Check out epigenetics.

@@chrisppraefecti373 i have

Satanic irrationality rules on this guy! "and do everything in love"-- The Holy Bible

It's not supposed to make sense my friend. That's why it is called DEEEEEEEEP! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Don't think it worked tbh; they're just too different.

A surprise to be sure but a welcome one.

@@ocrancienthistory3326 I think there's common ground they could reach once they establish a common metaphysics, they should do a whole talk on Jonathan's pyramid video (or RR should just watch it) and focus more on the materially reductive view of patterns.

@@GITAHxgCoo He's an idiotic new atheist, they reject metaphysics in general, never mind a common one

also Iain McGillchrist

What about sexuality more generally? It surely is at the very heart of personal identity in our collective narratives, both in Christian and Jungian sense.

I think Jonathan was trying to get across that sexuality is a behaviour not an issue of identity. For example - I like to eat pasta but I that wouldn’t define me as a person. I have much more depth than that.

@@rebeccabowen8397 I agree that this is how Jonathan portrayed the question. He didn't really want to engage with the fact that homosexuality is a natural product of evolution and yet many religious, Christianity included, punish sexual behavior that is associated with this natural sexual orientation.

A product of evolution that produces no offspring

But, as Jonathan said, to kill is a natural evolutionary product but Christianity condemns that too. The real question is to ask if their is wisdom in the Christian notion of abstinence? Does keeping the sexual act in marriage protect the human psychae in some way?

I noticed that too I don't know if JP heard it or was just like ಠಿ_ಠ.

Yea I honestly lol, like, yup, this will not go anywhere

I missed this one but yeah, this response is mindblowing 🤦‍♂️

yea that was by far his biggest blunder

Most reductionist materialists like this don't actually go as far as their theories go. They believe imprecise and vague versions of their theories, or often, they don't understand completely the deep truths (and paradoxes) of the theories. Hard to make an argument against a physicalist when you might have to define physicalism for them.

Scientist in the lockdown, I see.

Human beings have an intrinsic value ,created as image bearers of God . Their behaviors mostly reflect their rebellion against this fact. Common grace ( common sense ),as an expression of Gods love , long suffering and patience militates against this existential tragedy as long as we remain in the land of the living

How do you stand outside of yourself?

Was your 14 year old self a Christian?

At 14 sexuality is everything. At 30 sacrifice is everything,

I love seeing all these people breaking out of the rationalistic atheistic prison of the modern world. I was myself a rationalist until I was around 19, and though I called myself a Christian, a rationalist Christian is essentially an atheist. Now I experience true freedom in Christ, at least when I wake up early enough to do my morning prayers.

@@cuthbertsboots5733 OK why

@@cuthbertsboots5733 So you escaped the "prison" of rationality for the "freedom" of a dogmatic ideology? Well that makes perfect sense... LOL!!! But seriously, if religion works for you, have at it, but to call atheism a prison is beyond ridiculous.

"Most Christians" don't live in the Bible belt, true, but an extremely large amount of them do. It's not, at all, a negligible amount of Christians.

@@WickedHole globally speaking it's probably less than 2%. That brand of Christianity is a very small minority. Most Christians in the world are Catholic or Orthodox. Evangelical fundamentalists are an extreme minority and a historical anomaly..

@@noahjohnson2611 Evangelical, yes, but "fundamentalist," not so much. I'm actually from the American South and I'll tell you that there's a difference between being a fundamentalist Christian, and simply being a Christian who doesn't think very deeply or critically about their Christianity. The difference matters; and I'm sure that a far larger percentage of such Christians permeate the Catholic and Orthodox orders as well.

@@WickedHole well, if you're sure...

@@noahjohnson2611 Pretty sure, yes. It's why most Christians are not apologists (or even know what Christian apologetics is). The higher-thinking logistics and "metaphorical truths" don't concern most Christians as much as the more basic tenets, punishments and rewards of their faith.

Right? This guy is such a lightweight. Why does anyone care what he has to say? Pageau, have me on. It seems like you're letting anyone on.

Ok, stnkold316 of anonymous youtube handles... 😆

Despite being only 4 minutes in you seemingly have an immediate confirmation of negative bias which you've prepared... not good preparation for entertaining ideas imho

@@Thomas...191 I mean, he started getting things fundamentally wrong 4 minutes in, it's just how it is. His whole theme seemed to be trying to coax Johnathan into saying feminine traits were "bad", attempting to ridicule him for believing God truly knows what is true about every person and calling religion "cancer". Typical smooth brained behavior, wouldn't have expected otherwise.

@@Qwerty-jy9mj Well it seems that you haven't watched the rest of the video. Woodford is surprised that Jonathan believes in a ''living God'' as he defined it. And they talk about the problem of Gnosticism where something is considered intrinsically bad.

Right?! :P

Great analogy!

@@robertoromanovich4128 Is that us viewers :D?

You are aware that brain hemispheres are closely interconnected? It's very abnormal for them not to be in constant interaction. That's why we marvel at the abnormal behavior of people who have had their corpus callosum damaged or removed.

100%

I could learn from your pastoral temperament Jonathan, well done 👍 And I think Stephen has a generous mindset as well 🥰

@@torinmccabe I think you're missing a step here. How do you construct the hypothesis? On what basis do you judge the goodness or badness of the outcome, in reference to what? What is the goal and where do you get it from?

exactly --- if you bring up the problem of linking facts and value, most of the science guy types will be like, "oh yeah, Hume" but they never seem to realize what that actually means

@@torinmccabe You completely miss the point. The very definitions of "good" and "bad" are not ones rooted in science, and so the hypothesis step is already a misstep. Now we could go an entirely different route where we define good as "useful", and that would be a fair direction to take this. But the very ontology of what " good" and "bad" entails are not themselves scientific.

​@@torinmccabe If your/our ideas about good and bad are imperfect on what basis would you judge the goodness and badness of the ideas in scripture to only take the ones that are 'good' or 'better'? Wouldn't those judgements be equally imperfect, rendering the whole endeavor futile? How do you get away from that? Also presupposing what's good and bad to judge the goodness or badness of something is not the same as 'scientifically' determining what's good and bad.

@@torinmccabeThis is a joke right? Because YOU literally just straw manned him, and then accused him of straw manning you. He did not say, human knowledge of science is imperfect, he quoted EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID, when you started in an earlier comment. "...ad those animals have an imperfect knowledge on what good and bad is". NOTHING in there about science, you're the one who put it there. Are you even checking with your own previous comments?

@Christian Golden Stephen seems to come across as a generic new atheist internet bully.

@@brando3342 Indeed. Angry...so damn angry

Why is asking tough questions so threatening? Much of what JP Jr. says is incoherent. The upness and the downness the hierarchy bla bla bla. Did Thomas stick his hand into the resurrected body of Jesus? Yes or no? Did Jesus float off into heaven? Yes or no? Very simple answers for 1700 years of Christian creeds. This guy as well as JP are totally opaque in what they are saying.

This made me laugh out loud

Most days I'm just a half-crazy chimpanzee full of snakes!🤣

Mate this is an incredible comment.

While I agree that Stephen did let his own presuppositions get in the way of what Jonathan was trying to say, I do believe there is value in seeing such misunderstandings take place and be addressed. For me the conversation was fruitful, although not, perhaps, for all involved parties!

pretty damn classy analysis mate, good stuff

Woodford was indeed getting stuck on the connotations he perceives with dark, chaos, etc. I think he could easily get on the same page with that jargon. But one of many challenges with this type of bubble jumping is that they were talking past each other. Whether or not this or that is good or bad is a tangent to the point I feel that Woodford is driving towards. That said, I think both of them are operating in good faith and trying to understand each other.

christian is supposed to be humble and to assume the best about his interlocutor.. u are taught to bow down and learn from him, take care of ur own sins before presuming to challenge another's..

This is why I can’t stand Stephen. Came across his channel some months ago & just couldn’t bear it since he came across very arrogant & presumptuous, quite possibly blinded by science.

Same for me. He is bringing up a lot of the doubts that I still have when listening to Jonathan, and Jonathan is answering them well.

I didn't really hear Jonathan answering to RR's clear and pointed questions, he just went around the bushes. That might be because my epistemology is based on science and not something closer to mysticism.

You sound like me 20 years ago. Not that productive. You seem sure about your believes that you dismiss others.

@@huuppone Jonathan’s point is your epistemology is much more likely based on phenomenology and pattern recognition than “science”. Most people aren’t walking around doing science. And if you were it wouldn’t actually tell you much at all about where you are and what you ought to be doing here.

@@confectionarysound exactly. Science doesn't determine "shoulds and oughts". It CAN'T. It informs, it can help to understand what IS, but it can't "drive".

To find out what is 'good' and 'bad' via pure science has been tested since about 1800 and more so 1920. It has largely failed, and Sam Harris' attempt at this is very shallow and extremely Christian and value-leaden. Of course, Richard Dawkins thinks the same thing and he also supports abortion and killing unborn babies that are 'unfit'. The Nazis and Communists did the same things in the 20th century, all in the name of 'science'. It doesn't really work.

Yea dude its pride,

I feel like anyone who has been an atheist and had moved away from that at some point would have the same experience.

this is a pretty consistent problem anytime RR talks with people past a basic Christian perspective... like a smart high-school level. Once you actually get into an understanding of a contextually deeper perspective it just *woosh* every time. He needs to take notes from Cosmic Skeptic. He gets stuck on these flat aspects too but at least he talks it out in a more vulnerable and self aware level and really tries to work it out.

Very interesting.

There could be a connection for some people, but you say it like it's a guarantee for anyone who uses contraceptives.

I see where you’re coming from but I don’t necessarily think this is a true dichotomy. I don’t see how the two are mutually exclusive.

@@jimothynimajneb622 what are "the two" you're referring to?

"Divorcing pleasure from purpose" that's the problem... why isn't pleasure also considered as one of the purposes? Imo, biblically speaking, sex has 2 purposes(in marriage): to deepen the connection between the husband and wife and to have children. Why is the first one always ignored or considered "fruitless"?

Rider/elephant. There are many delusional riders according to this metaphor

Reality, then Reason rules, rationality is only workng out whats best in those rulers.

Yes he clearly has to resort to condescension, arrogance and insults to keep his ‘rationale’ ruling in the debate. Kudos to Jonathan for his humility and dignity towards the man

@@bethlanglois9361... come on let's not attribute every virtue to people who confirm our bias and vice to those who don't. That sort of thing has a direct negative effect our ability to think well: it cuts cognitive abilities significantly. I for one can't afford such losses.

See Chesterton's essay on "the Madman" 😆 edit: The Maniac, chapter 3 of Orthodoxy.

"Patience?" 🤣 If you were to take a shot of whiskey every time he interrupted RR in mid-sentence, you would die of alcohol poisoning over several lifetimes.

@@chanting_germ. Sorry, but that still doesn't constitute "an exercise of great patience" in any way. Assuming that Rat doesn't, in fact, completely understand where Pageau is coming from, and is merely trying to show Pageau the circular reasoning and special pleading that swamps his entire belief system, then, at the very best, this constitutes a failure of communication on Pageau's part to effectively distinguish his supposed "arguments" from the sort of woo-woo that is pumped out by, say, Deepak Chopra or Stephen Molyneux. I'm sure Rat was, no doubt, annoyed by what he felt was Pageau's inability to grasp some of arguments as well, and yet, Rat still refrains from interrupting more than once or twice -- an *actual* exercise in great patience.

@@WickedHole You think it would be better to let him talk for 10 minutes in a direction that doesn't even engage with Pageau's argument? Watch his conversation with people like Bret Weinstein or Tarl Warwick, they had very little in common, but at least they were able to understand where the other was coming from. RR see the world like Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc., and he (at least in this conversation) wasn't able to grasp the other side to even start contrasting points. As a viewer it was very frustrating and fruitless, but I get it, I can't blame him, 5 years ago I would react the same way if someone presented me that worldview.

@@issaavedra I personally disagree that RR's talking steered in "a direction that doesn't even engage with Pageau's arguments." Pageau's arguments are not so complicated or esoteric that they are somehow beyond a materialist-minded person like RR to comprehend and engage with; but even if they were, interrupting is not the thing to do. If Pageau had confidence in the validity of his own ideas, he should've simply waited until RR had finished his criticism, and then calmly steered the conversation back to his perspective afterwards. Instead, Pageau jumps in desperately at impatient, almost desperate intervals in RR"s responses, as if he feels the need to stop RR from talking because he's afraid RR is concisely pointing out holes in his theory of 'metaphorical truth' that he, himself, hasn't even thought of yet. Having "very little in common" (which is definitely not true, but whatever) is no excuse for interrupting. It best, it's rude. At worse, it stresses a lack of confidence in the interrupting person's power of articulating their own ideas -- and by extension, the power of the ideas themselves: sort of similar to the way it's harder to keep a long, complicated, internally contradictory lie afloat than it is to keep a straightforward, simple truth afloat.

@@WickedHole I watched the episode twice as a Christian that was a "rational atheist" not long ago , and the way RR was responding was frustrating, not because he was being dishonest, but he didn't understand Pageau. I agree that Pageau's points weren't complicated, but his view is almost as "esoteric" as you can get, is a proposition that reality itself is symbolic and narrative.

And it would help him to see the Jonathan's point about judging religions from outside

@@forthegloryofthelord Yes, he's standing within Christianity (and its scientific offspring) much more than he seems to realize.

@@j.p.marceau5146 science is an offspring of christianity ? what makes you say that ?

@@MrGustavier Christianity's belief in the intelligibility of nature + its desacralization of nature -> science That's why science emerged in Christendom. Several people make that point, including Tom Holland, A.N Whitehead, and C.S. Lewis for example.

@@MrGustavier Did the scientific revolution happen outside of the Christian world or within it, by Christians?

Totally agree. He seems to be trying his best. I don't like the unnecessary and constant criticism of such attempts in foreign comment sections to their own. It's like a foreigner comes to town and people whoop, holler, and deride them, instead of offering hospitality: distasteful.

@@Thomas...191 Yeah, especially frustrated with people calling him a neckbeard. The man is openly considering ideas that challenge everything he knows. How many of us do the same?

@@kukumatz4502 ... we should set up a plank/eye removal service then... haha

I guess he didn't understand the pattern and the framework. The framework within the patterned pattern in the position between extremes patternnsksbdjngbf

@@parapapapa69 yeah Jonathan is quite esoteric and bizarre if you're not used to the way he thinks. He's trying his best to communicate the spiritual worldview but he ends up sounding repetetive

Could it be a fear of darkness, chaos, the unknown? Those fears are certainly rational, but I think you've gotta stumble around a bit, find your footing until those dark places get a bit brighter.

@András Belina That reminds me of Dr. Phil lol. Often on his show he would ask people "what did/do you say to yourself to make this behaviour okay?" It's like we set out axioms, our objectives first, then determine what's good or bad, rational or irrational based on those.

I don't understand a thing you said ....

It's a nice surprise seeing you in this corner of the internet, Bojan! 😁

@@strugglingclimber5062 lol Seeing me in JP's comment section isn't really all that strange :D

@@BibleIllustrated Oh, really? I guess I just ended up not seeing you in the flood of comments. Anyway, nice seeing you! Really appreciate your vids XD

Wild Bojan’s aren’t so uncommon any longer; I have three between lvl 30-40.

@@pontification7891 😂😂 good one

Yeah, it was pretty clear he's never read an iota of Jung, despite dropping his name incessantly.

@@thecannibalrobot Seems like most people who talk about Jung lol

@@mudhut4491 Exactly. Most people think watching a few Peterson lectures suffices for actually reading Jung himself, when this is not the case at all. At most, Peterson is a primer for Jung, but not nearly a substitute.

@@thecannibalrobot well said. JBP is like a condensed, pragmatic version of Jung but it’s the tip of the iceberg when you get into it

He can't comprehend because for him Gods brightest star rules not God himself

2020.

Not sure what to make of it.

Pageau is always the on top in these communions..

I laughed my head off when I saw. Can't see Rationality Rules understanding anything to be honest.

4 real

What is the conflict? When he says _wanna go back to the good old days??_ he is imitating an American conservatory that often throws that line. They _" wanna go back to the good old day"_ where Black people couldn't enter the same bathroom when women were treated as property, and killing homosexual view as positive. The point is that the _the good old days_ for some people are when they could oppress other people.

Yup, something people would have said 15 years ago.

@@elcangridelanime If you're just a beast, why is it wrong to oppress others? Chimpanzees certainly have no sympathy for weaker chimpanzees.

I think he does understand both these points you make, it is just that he rejects them, as he clearly says : "do not start as christian, because this is not who you are, you are an evolved primate."

Stephen's primary interests in this conversation is to find common ground on how to deal with practical contemporary societal problems. He tries to build a foundational agreement by stating that both he himself and Jonathan are evolved primates - he suspects this could be a foundational agreement, since even most theists believe in evolution. This is wholly independent of the question of religious and cultural symbols, since Stephen and Jonathan do not agree on what is the significance of these symbols.

​@@Shaewaros I understand what you are saying. But claiming that we are all just evolved primates doesn't not supply much common ground. More and more I am finding the notion that we can be explained as essentially being primates to be completely inadequate. You might as well say that we are mammals. Or that we a biological beings. Or that we are made largely of water. All of which are true and do help us to understand facets of ourselves. These are what Michael Polyani described as boundary conditions. But one principle that always holds true in science is that the lower order cannot explain the higher. Knowing that I mostly consist water, for instance, doesn't explain why I am typing these words on a computer right now. Water rarely affects us unless there is either a shortage of it, a problem with it, or a pathological issue with how we use it within the body. Normally we carry on without thinking about it. Except in its more symbolic aspects. Likewise it's true that knowing I have a 'reptile brain' doesn't mean that even in the harshest conditions, a concentration camp or a plague, do I suddenly revert to reptile behavior. And knowing primate behavior, while fascinating, might tells us how (but not why) we flash our teeth , or that we are also territorial, and yet the distance between ourselves and a chimpanzee is much greater than the distance between a chimp and a rat. The fact that chimps might use rocks or sticks as tools or weapons has nothing in common with building the pyramids, erecting cathedrals, constructing the Golden Gate Bridge or making, let alone using (!), a smartphone. And while apes can be vicious and territorial this tells nothing about trench warfare in World War One or why people molest their children. The lower can never explain the higher. So 'evolved primate' is simply modern mythology as far as I can tell. Dostoevsky was far closer to the point when he described man as the ungrateful biped.

@@TheAnadromist Thanks for your reply and the interesting ideas. I actually agree with you to an extent here - we can't reduce all of human existence to simple materialistic causality. This is precisely why the symbolic truth that religion can offer is genuinely valuable to individuals and societies alike. I believe there's still something here. If we can start with the notion that we're evolved natural living beings, it gives us a set of facts that we can work with. Again, it can't help us solve all of humanity's problems, but might help us with some of them. We know many physiological facts about primates and all other living beings. We for instance know, without a shadow of a doubt, that a flower needs light, water and nutrients in order to flourish. Similarly, we know many physiological facts about human beings. Humans also need material sustenance in order to flourish, but this is not the only thing we can directly observe. We can also see that often wealthy people, who have access to an abundance of sustenance, still end up ending their lives for some reason. So there must be something more human beings need than simple material sustenance. Trying to explain human well-beings we can then arrive to something like Maslow's hierarchy of needs that already gives us a pretty good framework on human well-beings. These simple physiological points of agreement don't give us answers to complex questions of ethics. It doesn't in any way suggest that we ought to care about human well-being. It can however help us understand why most people actually do care about human well-being - as evolved primates we're social creatures capable of empathy. Generally we don't like to see people suffer needlessly. So we should probably work towards building a society where people don't suffer needlessly, because living is such a society is more likely to make us flourish as living beings. Again, it can be argued that there's no objective reason for us to care about human well-being, and I agree, but it's simply an observable fact that we generally do care about human well-being.

@Nick Miller It is certainly based on a mythology. Or as C.S. Lewis wrote of the myth of perpetual scientific progress. " For my own part, though I believe it no longer, I shall always enjoy it as I enjoy other myths. I shall keep my Cave-Man where I keep Balder and Helen and the Argonauts; and there often revisit him."

The scientism crowd still believes in the myth of the "view from nowhere." They believe that it is possible to be a neutral observer.

Good luck telling RR what that means.

@@julianw6604 Well I would say that the Canons of the Council of Trent would define it a bit differently. But I will take the word of some 21st Century "Theologian" than some stuffy old Church Council. She is another "science hater" I presume who wants to go back to the magic of the dark ages.

Likewise!

yup.. he is turning out to be a better christian than them.. a christian must be prepared to deconstruct his own presuppositions whilst always being humble before, and assuming the best of, his fellows..

Satanic irrationality rules on this guy! "and do everything in love"-- The Holy Bible

I don't understand. When RR starts with consciousness, and acknowledges the existence of severall contradicting non-arbitrary frameworks... he places himself as the rule giver doesn't he ?

@@MrGustavier Exactly, I believe he doesn't realize it but his way of seeing this is actually closer to a arrogant demonic view of the world rather than one that seeks goodness. He pretty much believes he is in the position of being the Judge and the Ruler of ALL REALITY in every single possibility of this (and like every diabolical ideology) he refutes his own argument by saying that this can not be done, and we must just live in this constant change until we figure out the best way to live the ever changing present, which means to not have a PRINCIPLE that rules the MANY but rather a divided many that are always fighting to rule the TRUE PRINCIPLE of Life (God). In other words, he wants to be God.

@@AprendeMovimiento I.... I feel your response is just a conservative manifesto. Would you allow for the existence of individuals that like constant change ?

@@MrGustavier As a Catholic I can't be a conservative, such a weird understanding of what I said. Christianity allows constant change (that's why Christian cultures are different in every culture that it has manifested and why it changes through time (not in principle, but in manifestation), having a principle does not set boundaries around you, but rather gives you the main characteristics of your being, the boundaries happen to exist in the manifested world, which are the union of the principles that make you and the chaos of possibilities of your being.

@@AprendeMovimiento so you accept change, but you don't accept change of your principles ?

It's like the ultimate virtue signalling thing to say.

Lmao- the high level of his arrogance suggests there’s not much room in there for empathy

High in whatever you call dudes that slip your wife their phone numbers when you leave the room.

I'm a good person... I'm free of sin... The sacred fire is with me alone ...

Yeah I generally start my morning at the point of sleep deprivation and quickly move to my second perspective - that of coffee deprivation! it is a spiritual ritual of sorts -- I definitely see a pattern that is scalable at multiple levels of understanding. ;p

Imagine being so demoralized by the modernist worldview that you can't even articulate your own experience without injecting the 'view from outside'.

interesting, I was thinking the opposite. Jonathan, for some strange reason, stop his backward search for wisdom 2000 years ago... RR stops millions of years ago with the appearance of homo sapiens...

Very simple. Consciousness evolved from simpler processes that produced attract and avoid behaviours. Good and evil is basically an "attract an avoid" at much greater scale of complexity.

@@thegnosticatheist That doesn't address the question

@András Belina yes, because absolute morality cannot exist. That's just a fact. Everytime when someone claims his morality is the morality - he just imposes his own ideas on others. This is why people who want peace need to talk to others and try to figure out acceptable agreements. And if it's not possible - then defend oneself. The closest idea to universal morality that we have is Non Aggression Principle. And when applied, it works very well.

@@Qwerty-jy9mj it does answer the question. Scientific requires thing to be observable and verifiable. Attraction and avoidance mets both criteria.

@@thegnosticatheist Verificationism is a dead epistemology, go reread your talking point. Also learn what the is-ought distinction is.

@András Belina the coherence was so close but the shared language is still bumping against something.

that's a very consensual comment :p

@Electro_blob wait ... are you not a christian ?

How is he smart? He was shamelessly peddling low brow transhumanism through social engineering

Could you possibly tell us about your conversion ?

As a non-believer, I see RR as typical of the religious atheists who want to re-create religion in secular western culture. Anything can be used as a hammer of traditional religion their older and wiser competition. 'Philosophy' and 'science' are the 1st weapons of choice. One of the hallmarks of totalitarianism is the politicization of all things. So-called atheist's want to politicize all things, for their new religion. If you read and understand Wittgenstein's take on scientism and its related mumbo-jumbo, you get a better picture of how to view our God-shaped hole. As ever, there are no answers - but a better view is possible.

@@damianbylightning6823 I think that RR follows the beat of Sam Harris in his genuine pursuit of trying to work out the gaps of secularism and religion in a manner that grounds them in reason based on scientific observations that can unify all cultures in a singular language, like mathematics, on the question of morality and modes if being. They, unlike more militant atheists seem to find that a purely secular approach has left out the baby of spirituality with the bath water and wants to find a universal way of reimagining the spiritual and utilitarian Pearl's of traditional faith. I personally empathize with their aims but I see their folly as well in their presupposition of a purely secular world view. That's another thread tho

@@MrTimberwolfsden I don't doubt his sincerity. I do doubt his ability to use philosophy to aid his common sesne. He seems to be on a journey and his views will not be so infantile in a decade or so. His channel is full of the type of people who would approve of that forehead-slappingly smug and stupid cliché: "Science is real."

Language is signal in the noise!

We pass breath that moves the air and it vibes in our fellows ears and they come into communion with the meaning beneath the noise!! It's nothing short of a miracle.

Yes, it has more to do with levels of resolution, angle of attention or levels of emphasis, and so it is dishonest to say that the the sun doesn't turn around the earth because it obviously does at the proper level of resolution and attention. This does not make all truth "subjective" or relative. Truth statements are always pointing towards a purpose which frames the type of language it necessitates.

​@@JonathanPageau And it seems to be a universal failing of atheists to not acknowledge the frame of the speaker and instead they substitute their own frame. The reality I have found is that the most important part of any understanding is to understand the frame that is being used. Once that first step is done, most of the rest of the conversation and understanding comes fluidly. Sadly, I have yet to meet an atheist who focuses first on understanding the frame of the person they are speaking to. (I have met agnostics who make that effort.) It seems to me that this mistake ultimately comes from from their worship of rationality/reason. Rationality/reason is almost universally understood to explicitly ignore frames or reference. Which is ironic given the state of physics being all about frames of reference. Perhaps that is the way to get through to them? Explain things as though it was a physics problem?

@@SirSpence99 A funny thing is that they think they're evolutionary thinkers, while striving for top-down solutions. Jonathan's point about the system organically updating itself would be much more in line with actual Darwinism.

@@SirSpence99 your example of the boy with appendicitis is literally exactly the same example given regarding the plague whereas avoiding the "bad air" achieves the desired outcome just as the "stomach" pain does. That said, Bret Weinstein, as with all "academics", is a metaphoric truth. His belief in his own intellectual and moral supremacy is in fact a metaphor for doing as you're told and then repeating the model as if you possess superior knowledge, experience and understanding as a result of paying for a piece of paper from an elite institution. On the other hand, MeHoKek the lawgiver and HoKek the Messiah are truly ancient Hebrew words and king Pepi lives forever in the Tree of Life with the Morning Star. It is also TRUE that Africanus said when the Sixth Dynasty fell 70 Kings ruled for 70.days in the 7th dynasty The hegoat ruled in the Land of Keki called Land of Khmun and Khanan too - from Elephantine to Khemenu Petition to Bagoas

It's worth delineating empirical truth from metaphysical or metaphorical truth because it clarifies the method of derivation or justification.

RR is a realist, and Jonathan is an idealist, so RR interprets patterns as the regularities of reality in a realist sense, meaning the "laws" of physics, the consequence of evolution by natural selection etc. Jonathan interprets patterns as the regularities of reality in an idealist sense, meaning the transcendance of the structure of heaven and earth, order and chaos through and by human consciousness this is the key disagreement, that separated epicurus and plato on that topic more than 2000 years ago. This debate has traversed eons without finding its resolution.

He seems to repeatedly get confused about the difference between the patterns themselves and their instantiations and interpretations. And even more than that he seems to not even recognize the fact that the conceptual tools that we use to describe patterns are themselves merely maps that are attempting to describe the territory. The issues that we have in religion have less to do with patterns being wrong then patterns being described in limited and flawed ways as well of barriers in communicability having a lot to do with the individuals ability to manifest an accurate and appropriately detailed image of the pattern within themselves or recognize the external representation of such an image.

He is typical of left thinking now. He wants Platonic forms - in some form. A kind of idiot Socrates - with a hangover. He seems to sense age-old problems. This acknowledgement, on the left, seems to lead lefties to postmodern mumbo-jumbo. Let's hope he becomes a bit more adult than most people who walk away from leftist mumbo-jumbo and tin its gods. He seems to be on a journey - he'll probably end up in the people's republic of postmodistan. But there's always hope.

@@damianbylightning6823 a lot of shade coming off that commentary, but I found it pretty amusing and there is some good signal in there, thanks

Yes! Thank you for putting it out there!

haha yes, I always found it weird...

Wow. Just realized this was posted 2 years ago. Lol. Either way great video!