As somebody who worked in the legal field for almost a decade, your comment is as close as you could get to describe the legal process, in one sentence. In satirizing JP, you reduced law school to one sentence.
Haha right, it was false because it caused damage or injury. The same old religious bats, but in a smarter-than-usual belfry--that's what's up with Peterson, in my view...
i dont mean to be so off topic but does someone know of a method to log back into an instagram account? I stupidly lost my login password. I love any help you can offer me.
Sort of, he's saying that the term Truth has changed over the years, as a hypothesis. And the way humans used truth over thousands of years was extremely important, and possibly there's information missing with the very recent form of truth that we have these days. "Useful" is the end result of some of what he thinks our ancestors probably had with their version of truth.
Jordan: 'for something to be true, it means that at the end of time our knowledge of that truth turned out to be good for us/ not end our existence' Sam: 'but this isn't what we mean by true, you are conflating 'true' and 'useful' which sacrifices intellectual clarity' Jordan: yep
Sam, I have been listening to your podcast and lectures for the last year, and wanted to thank you! Truly amazing content, presented and discussed with a professional attitude and mannerism.
This podcast made me me think of a friend of mine that I usually argue with, I usually ask simple question but my friend never replies with a clear answer and in the end I get exhausted and kinda bored.
@@dopeyszn4738 Why should he “stretch” his thinking? It seems to me that if you can’t answer a simple question directly and concisely and instead go off on tangents like Peterson doesn’t his mealymouth pedantic way, it seems that you’re avoiding the question and coming off as a sophist. No one should “stretch their thinking“ for a person being obtuse as well as ignorant. Peterson does this to make it seem that he is intelligent, when honestly he really isn’t. Just because he’s articulate doesn’t mean he’s some kind of master mind: it’s just cheap theatrics employed by a crank.
Just rewatched this classic. THANK YOU for reminding me that it's possible for two humans to disagree without insulting, guilt tripping, yelling at, assaulting, or rudely talking over each other. Especially political debates, my god. Political debates are almost completely emotional appeal without any logic whatsoever and little respect for the opposing side
@@lSAMV31l well let’s look at their approaches and recapitulate what they said. Harris is trying to get at truth, inherently. While Peterson wants truthfulness to be useful/pragmatic. So, it’s no wonder Sam could come across as “wanting to be right” while trying to pin down Jordan in this conversation to truth as truth itself, because (as stated) truthful ideas/conversations are true due to truthfulness being its ontology. Contrary though, Peterson wants to pragmatically use truth, only if it’s necessary/sufficient for human survival. One is pragmatic (nesting truth in morality/usefulness, Peterson), the other realistic (nesting morality/usefulness within truth, Harris) Sam’s “wanting to be right” comes from viewing truth as true, and so, see’s (with validity and legitimacy) the damage being done to truth in-of-itself due to truth’s definition becoming only something pragmatical and not something actually truthful inherently. All the while, Jordan seems to only want rightness/truthfulness if it is necessary/sufficient for the survival of human prosperity; not because the propositional claim (whatever the truth claim may be) is truthful inherently or not.
@@lSAMV31l he’s trying to keep Peterson on track but Peterson continues to veer off on tangents that have nothing to do with a discussion. And he does this in order to make it seem that he has some great understanding of the topics of discussion when he really doesn’t. It’s cheap theater. Rather pathetic, actually.
@@Itsnickcherry but you see Peterson’s approach is so nebulous to the point of absurdity that he can’t even rely upon solid definitions. He plays fast and loose with logic as well as definitions in order to make it seem that he’s being profound. Peterson is not a philosopher but he tries to make it seem that he is. Sam Harris certainly is not a philosopher but I would say he’s a little more transparent about that than Peterson is.
@@theQuestion626 While i agree that jordan’s fundamental claims are flawed, he does make a lot of sense, makes meaningful connections, and is a profound thinker (though i agree that he’s a bit esoteric in his approach). With that being said, both most certainly are philosophers though not traditional ones, i’ll grant that. Overall, Sam clearly had the superior understanding and position throughout the entire conversation, but it was nevertheless a neat conversation on the nature of truth 🔥
I struggle to understand how Peterson's idea of truth differs from that of the postmodernists. They agree that truth depends on what is healthy, they just disagree on what is healthy.
@@Galdring it's actually in this conversation, at 1:13:54, where Sam draws a bit of a parallel between what Peterson's doing and what the postmodernists are doing
@@m74d3 Thanks for digging that up for me. Must have been some work searching through the audio. Sam very politely makes a good point. I would like someone to more directly put Peterson to the wall about how his core criticism of post-modernism seems applicable to his own philosophy, though. Peterson might say that the postmodernists nihilistically claim that because the universe has no objective meaning, one can invent whatever truth one wants, while _he,_ claims that there _is_ objective meaning, that this meaning can be divined from its aesthetics and... how sustainable the pursuit of it makes a culture? So the postmodernists say that because there is no objective meaning, we can invent the Truth that creates a good society. Peterson says that there _is_ objective meaning, and it is True _because_ it creates a good society. Then Peterson and the postmodernists can fight over whose concept of a good society is best, as primates have done since... we were fish, probably. And around and around we go in the primordial tradition of whacking each other in the head with heavy objects. It used to be clubs, now it is ever-expanding dictionaries (and failing that, nuclear weapons).
I have followed Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris for a little over 5 years now, both of whom I hold a great respect for. I have listened and read 12 Rules, The End of Faith, and Lying on more than one occasion. I have considered myself a staunch material realist and atheist for a little over 2 years now although I have claimed agnosticism for as long as I can remember. I have however remained apologetic toward religious pragmatism despite being raised under the households of obtuse and rather unpragmatic Jehovah Witnesses and Catholics alike. I respect Dr. Peterson a great deal and his lectures associating evolutionary biology and pragmatic clinical psychology and their effects in effectively bearing the burden of being in the world have been revelatory. That being said I soon became further disillusioned as a result of his consistent referencing toward Jungian Archetyping and supposedly Perennial Religious Iconography. I am incredibly grateful for his having introducing me into the realm of active philosophical dialogue and political ideologies I was once ignorant of on both sides of the spectrum. That said I must say that this dialogue between Harris and Peterson has brought to light a massive flaw within Peterson's concepts on truth. I recently watched the Pangburn Session's, acting as an impartial sponge to whomevers points withheld the test of logical competency and skeptical materialism. I am afraid that Peterson's concepts on truth seem to be but another example of some perennial religious reductionist metaphysics which favors and capitalizes on a tradition of which they are familiar (Christianity) and dismisses or worse yet repackages a contrived version of a tradition of which they are less acquainted (Essentially all of the Eastern Faiths and wisdom traditions) and claims underlying similarities or truths between the two all the while ignoring the obvious incompatibilities between them. I couldn't help but think of Descarte's emptying of the epistemological apple basket only to refill the basket and end on the same conclusion of a specifically Judaeo-Christian God Creator. I was genuinely surprised to hear Peterson's reframing of the concept of truth in a method one would associate with Thomas Kuhn a man of which Peterson has refuted on several occasions. I am very grateful for the great dialogues you have carried out with Dr. Peterson. I don't believe there has been any other person within the public intellectual sphere of influence that has refuted Peterson's claims in such a succinct, rational, and compassionate way. I only wish Hitchens were here to debate Peterson but I can't say that would have been an all to compassionate affair. Thank you Mr. Harris for providing some much needed intellectual support for material realism and introducing me to the concept of Secular Humanism.
@@tylermoser2830Thats the main issue. If you go deep enough you will in an act of faith make assumptions of reality off of that which is not in the world, time or space. You must act from an unknowing source.
@@joshuahjoseph6738 I don't know, but I can see where Sam is coming from. Just because you act as though something beyond the materially real exists doesn't mean something beyond the materially real exists. Truth can't be defined as the telling of a story because that leaves truth up to interpretation. Stories may help you gain knowledge of truth but often they rely on images and concepts that are beyond truth, or beyond the materially real. My issue with this way of thinking is we have no reason to categorically deny the existence of something which is unknowable by materially real means. Just because you define truth as that which is materially real doesn't mean there aren't things that are beyond material reality. This is where I think Sam stumbles. He has too narrow a definition of truth because he doesn't seem to want to believe in the existence of something beyond material reality. Is there such a thing as the unknowable (where no amount of scientific inquiry and innovation can be used to discover it)? If not, how do you convince yourself there's not?
Been a handful of years since I’ve listened to this… this episode sums up Peterson so well and makes me want to bash my phone to pieces while listening to it. 😂
I wish towards the end of this discussion they would use the words honest & dishonest rather than good & bad. Jordan has made this point much more clearly in other talks.
This is how intelligent people have a conversation, no talking over each other, just as interested in hearing what the other person has to say as stating their own point 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Exactlyyyyy we need more of this in humanity. I know Sam isn't that old but I worry about what would happen if a new Sam and/or Peterson doesn't come out to continue having respectful debates like this
@@skullkrusher4418 it`s not he`s uninteligent but he believes in god and it isn't true that there is a god so he tries to reshape `truth` to incorporate there being a god
Jordan is so incredibly intelligent I can't fathom how is so lost on the subject of truth. Mr. Harris made numerous logical points that even I understood.
RU-vid is so cool. We get to listen to Jordan Peterson be utterly confused by his own thinking when asked simple questions over and over and over again, for free!
I'm not smart enough to fully digest everything that each of them said but I got the feeling that JP's argument was consistent although it frequently ventured into a different topic.
The most accurate thing I've ever heard Jordan Peterson say was during a different interview (I can't remember where), and the interviewer asked him what he's most afraid of - and he said "being wrong." It explains this entire dialogue; Peterson is so desperately afraid of being wrong that he can only engage effectively with people who lack his ability to make word sounds. Harris is just too fundamentally effective as a thinker and speaker, which is why Peterson will literally - literally - argue about anything until the other person leaves with an "agree to disagree."
@@Lopyswine Thank you, I don't believe people recognize this nearly enough. Peterson and Harris differ on a fundamental philosophical level, not by intelligence. Peterson is by no means saying Sam is stupid only that he thinks he's wrong, which I'm sure Sam would say about him. There's a big difference.
Which interview was this? I’ve never heard him say that. I would appreciate a reference to confirm since the whole basis of your comment is grounded in the presupposition that be made that claim to begin with.
@@OGTelos that's totally fair. I feel like it was with either Lewis Howes or Rogan - I will do my best to hunt it down. There are so many, lol - I am confident it's not a mischaracterization of mine.
I think Peterson is INCREDIBLY good at going off topic, to make the argument proposed by the other person look wrong. BUT Harris is too damn good at keeping Peterson in check. Unlike other interviews with Peterson I’ve seen, where Peterson just gets his "opponents" confused.
Here's my understanding of what both jordan peterson and Sam Harris were saying : SH : truth is out there despite our morality or any value system you hold , we don't necessarily have to know if that truth is harmful or benefitial to us or neutral or how to evaluate it as species to our survival to say that is true , so we have the choice to decide what is good for us and what's not but that doesn't deny the fact that there's something true . JP : his claim was : to the betterment of our being or lives we got interested in science ( or scientific realism ) therefore that interest was embedded within our morality , so it's impossible to separate our morality from what's scientifically true , therefore what will kill us or harm us isn't true or true enough it must have an error in some level of analysis . Not necessarily in the science part of it . Excuse me if I misrepresented their positions .
i like your interpretation of their points, I believe both have their merits, and both live lives that pull from each perspective to fit the situation without them even realizing it.
@@Nobodyyoucarabout yes I think you're right we can't always analyze a situation to that degree of accuracy and we often don't know what the good is ,we aren't computers , our lives are more complex than they seem and we aren't perfect creatures.
I found it hard to extract these propositions. This sums it up really well. I believe, Harris' and Peterson's stances, respectively, might be summed up even further: Harris seems in a way oblivious, whereas Peterson is skeptical. Harris is proposing that truth can be separated from reality as indicated by his countless imagined (i.e. unreal) examples to explain the duality of truth; Peterson is always trying to make sure that he isn't being tricked by being presented a truth that's part of a bigger falsehood before accepting it truly (which may be never), which is captured particularly well by the normal room in a burning house example. "Yes, that may be 'true' - but what's the trick here?" It seems to me that 'truthfulness' isn't part of Harris' 'truth' which is where they got into conflict here.
Sam asked, at the end of the conversation, if anyone can point out what he is missing so far in what Jordan is saying. While I am neither equipped nor qualified to give an answer that would sway Sam, I do want to try to share my view on the matter, for the sake of my own understanding. I am aware there are conversations that have happened after this, that have shed more light on the matter - but because I want to listen and understand this current one, I‘ll try to summarize. And I‘d kindly ask any reader to read with intent of understanding and a spirit of ‘adding on’ rather than ‘talking against’, because I am not interested in taking a side or winning, I would like to understand what was actually going on in those 2 hours. The premise: Sam and Jordan want to discuss the importance of a moral value system that either surrounds or is embedded in the scientific world view. I believe both have an interest, because they both want to have good axioms that they want to base their decisions and behaviors on - and they want to pass what is of utility on to their audience for their respective wellbeing. They both seem to want to act in the service of what is good, useful, helpful, as I think most of us here listening do. Sam sees it as necessary to define ‘TRUTH’ or ‘that which we agree on as true’ in a cohesive manner, because he believes that if there is a disagreement in this fundamental axiom, it might be misleading and unfruitful to discuss matters that are less deeply rooted. It is out of that understanding that I see Sam believes that the understanding of TRUTH is at the root of any coherent belief system / epistemology. And as follows the GOOD, or what is moral, is following, coming after what is TRUE. Jordan on the other hand seems to believe that what is TRUE and what is GOOD (or what moral, or what is ‘right to do’) are inextricably linked. Jordan is willing to say that we won’t know for sure if the TRUE is nested inside the GOOD, but that it is his best hypothesis. At this point Jordan seems to be okay to move forward to talking about what we should DO or how we ACT. (I think it will be easier for him to make his points there, as he hints at how it matters to him how people ACT because it usually shows what they believe in, regardless of what they SAY or THINK.) The resistance: Sam is not willing to let Jordan get away with his understanding of the TRUE and the GOOD being inextricably entangled. He just wants to hear Jordan say “Yes, it is true that 2+2 equals 4, regardless of the implication the equation has on the good for mankind”. Or something like that. It seems fair and obvious enough. Why shouldn’t we all be able to agree that simple truths exist? It is almost maddening that someone would refuse to give a straight-forward answer to such a simple question. And that’s where Sam seems to be at for the most part of this conversation. Trying to get Jordan to admit that we should be able to agree on simple truths - and if we can’t do that, why talk about anything in the first place? The underlying question that isn’t asked: The thing that they were talking about implicitly, but didn’t address head on - it’s in there. Why, why would Jordan not admit to a simple TRUTH-or-dare-question? I think Jordan is ultimately only concerned with the reality of what we ACT out. He seems to not place any value in what we THINK we are concerned about, because how we ACT is what shapes our and our neighbors reality. How we ACT is our fundamental modus operandi. The question that I didn’t hear Sam ask was “Why do you care, Jordan?” Why does it matter whether or not TRUTH or the GOOD comes first? Why should I care which one comes first? What Sam was not seeing: Jordan is convinced that what is most important for us, is to know how to ACT in the world. Jordan believes that yes, it matters what we THINK - to an extent it determines our wellbeing. But so does our biology and the environment we exist in. As such if we can figure out how to ACT in the world in the RIGHT way (the true, the good way) not only will our wellbeing be taken care of, but also that of our neigbours. How we ACT will determine whether the human experiment continues or comes to an end. And how we ACT is an extension of what we THINK, whether we are conscious of it or not. --- Sam was looking at the level of finding a definition for TRUTH in isolation to the world we exist in. That seems like a fair intellectual endeavor. Except that it is possible to continue in this line of thinking and try to ‘observe truth’ via the means of experimentation (the scientific method) - which isn’t observing as much as it is experimenting and ACTING - until one has created a terribly infectious virus that is let loose and is spreading across the globe. It seems to me that Jordan was questioning the harmlessness of ‘just defining, agreeing to intellectual TRUTH’ when it is done in isolation of what’s moral and what’s GOOD. I believe the point that Jordan wanted Sam to see is that, if we determine TRUTH to be a simple, objective point in the landscape, that is TRUE in all given contexts, then we open ourselves up to immoral choices. The question that I would want Sam to answer following Jordan’s logic is: IF we define TRUTH as independent of the GOOD and the MORAL, then how do we shield ourselves from inventing extinction level viruses that are created in the name of ‘finding TRUTH’? And here I believe Jordan implies that Sam would come to a similar conclusion. That as long as we see TRUTH and what’s GOOD as separate, we will end up with an epistemology that is lacking moral virtue and will therefore end up destructive. --- This is where my understanding of the conversation ends. I am thrilled to listen to the next episode. And even though I am 3 years late to the discussion, I am grateful that these were shared online. I am surely completely ignorant of very important assumptions of both Jordan and Sam and hope that I will develop a better understanding as I continue to listen to this series of exchanges.
This is an excellent summary. I love these kinds of conversations because they are hard to understand. Ultimately if Scientific study goes far enough, I can see how we get to the point where we understand ourselves as nothing more than meat robots. Then what? If we can just correct any mental problem that we ever have as a simple matter, the leap to forcing it upon everyone at birth will happen. We saw how easy that was during the pandemic. At that point, we will no longer be human at all. I don't know how to grapple with this, but the more I listen to Peterson, the more I admire his approach.
I've seen the really, really awesome four subsequent live discussions (several times because they're so good), and I've just listened to Sam's intro to this. I'm really excited to listen to what is clearly a much worse version of that, and I have no idea why.
What on the earth. I feel like they've been saying almost the same thing as each other for two hours. Not sure why Sam couldn't let the conversation move on from this. Brilliant, would listen again~
@@reubenyoung70 Probably because Jordan is bizarrely using a weird definition of what is “true” and word salads his way as an explanation which didn’t satiate Sam’s desire to understand what the hell he was talking about
@@screamtheteam12345 Since you didn't make your initial point explicit: What do you think Harris rendering Peterson speechless more than once "says" about the conversation? If I'm reading it correctly, you seemed to be implying that Harris is therefore in a stronger position / is more right. I believe that correlation is the assumption they are talking about. But please clarify if you meant something else, and we'll see if there's an assumption there. (Of course, for all I know, they might've just meant that you were biased toward Harris, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt there.) (For the record, I'm on Harris' side in this conversation. I've always found Peterson's equivalence between beneficial poetic metaphor and factual claim to be very confused.)
@@GreeneyedApeyou can hear the beginnings of the mental frailty and cognitive decline that has plagued peterson in the last few years. he is a shell of the man he was, spending hos time angrily tweeting to the void and weeping at wokery
Harris should have just moved on at some point you need to let someone disagree with u instead of trying for 2 hours to get them to disagree. Why couldn't HARRIS change HIS mind and agree with peterson then?
Correct me if I'm wrong but Peterson's perception of truth as a personal moral truth is almost akin to post-modernism, the very thing he supposedly stands against yet he shares the same epistemological principles?
Precisely. Peterson is using the same approach that postmodernist use. This is just one way of a multitude that he contradicts himself and falls face first into the mark of his own obtuseness.
Yes, I can understand Sam Harris' discomfort and frustration. I really like Jordan Peterson, but I can see the problem with defining truth as _that which produces a positive outcome for humans._ I understand that JP is trying to avoid the amoral pursuit of science, because it sometimes produces things like nuclear bombs, power and waste that is fatal for thousands of years, but redefining the definition of something as fundamental as truth and falsehood seems less desirable than inventing a new word, or just stating that something is factually true, but dangerous.
Theres nothing special about Sam's view. That's all our assumption and the colloquial use of the term true. Jordan is speaking to a conception of truth that we all know, use but seldom think about. Simply put, truth as Peterson is discussing it is that which creates the most accurate reflection of reality. The question is "what determines accuracy?" . You can say it's our cognition but youd be wrong, as we've developed tools that enable us to have pictures of reality far more accurate than the ones created by our senses. So when we create our map of reality, that is to say, "laying out the territory and marking key areas" , what is ultimately selected is that which serves life.
I guess I would have to take JP’s position here. What use is science if it turns into a destructive force? For instance, Covid-19 was said to have been created in a lab. That experiment, has, in the narrow scientific sense, added to scientific knowledge. But what good is that scientific knowledge (truth)? Look what it has done to the world, the damage that this truth has inflicted on us is not good.
@@muddywitch9016 Yes, I agree in part, but I think one has to look at all scientific innovations on balance; think of the medicines and technologies. Yes, Dr Fauci, while director of the NIH, funded the Wuhan lab gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses specifically to develop a human-transmissible strain with the alleged purpose of developing an antidote. However, members of the scientific community objected strongly specifically for the very obvious reason that such experimentation ran the very high risk of accidentally or deliberately releasing a lethal virus into the human population. And here we are today. Such preemptive actions are very presumptuous, arrogant and dangerous. Humans should stop imagining that they can predict and control everything.
@@muddywitch9016 The definitions of words shouldn't have to pass through some kind morality test they mean what they mean, and what the fuck does biological weapons or your quite frankly stupid opinion of scientific progres have to do with the definition of the word "truth"
Our own consciousness is the only thing we experience that is not an illusion. All other thoughts that are not our own do not exist. I've no idea what my manager thinks of me at work other than my laziness and whinging ha. Peterson is a smart guy, people like his presentation/passion/knowledge and most recognsie they need to take responsibility for things - many JP type self help gurus exist in every era repeating the same stuff. Harris is a true genius at making sense of all this.
"The proposition that the universe is best conceptualized as subatomic particles was true enough to create a hydrogen bomb, but it wasn't true enough to stop everyone from dying" was when JP uses the word "true" is both senses. The former is using the word to signify something as objectively true, and the latter is about choice, utility and well being or ethics.
I love Jordan Peterson, I've read his book and watched many hours of his videos here on RU-vid but in this conversation he was so frustrating to listen to. Sam is speaking coherently and giving many good examples but seems like Jordan is too captivated by the philosophical and almost poetic idea of truth, which is helpful when you speak about truth in an artistic way, but when you are talking about facts, being ambiguous is a problem. Is the same problem Jordan is trying to fight regarding gender identities, he claims there is only two as a truth, but other people say there are many. Never been so frustrated listening to Jordan haha. Thanks for having him in your podcast Sam. We, as a society should have more of this conversations that could drive us crazy but having them in a respectful way and trying to understand the other person point of view, it will push our understanding forward.
The problem is much deeper than Harris is willing (or even capable) of admitting. Jordan Peterson is basically saying that there's a hierarchy of truth and scientific or factual truth is not at the pinnacle. Harris attempts with local examples cannot serve the argument properly. Peterson is talking about a metafisic underlying the highest possible truth, which is moral, much more than "useful" (I see a lot people in the comments misunderstanding this fundamental concept). It's quite obvious that he's going in the religion territory and Harris is not willing to follow that path.
@@fabriziobianchi4425 But the problem being is that Peterson is not able to prove the existence of this “hierarchy of truth and scientific or factual truth“. Furthermore Peterson is not illustrating anything that clarifies what he means about truth. He seems to play little epistemological games and talks in circles when it comes to what is essentially the core of his argument. It’s not that people are “misunderstanding” him, it is that Peterson is talking in circles. Harris is not willing to fall for Peterson’s little epistemological and etymological tricks what are you call “going in the religion territory“. I would like to remind you that Peterson has no theological background. He has no background in religious studies. At. All. But I would also like to remind you that Harris views religion as fantasy so of course he is not going to engage on something that he dismisses as fantasy.
Jordans position got destroyed by the adultery question. after that. He was just scrambling and scrambling in his frustration. Because he knows it you didn't miss the plot he's just wrong, and can't handle it
1:27:00 This, and the larger debate, makes me think of the System of a Down Song “Science” so much. Despite the frustrations, this is still an excellent listen.
Jordan Peterson presents as confused in this discussion. Despite him having introduced some vital discussions into the public arena, and these having exposed certain negative human behaviours, Sam Harris' rational voice has revealed Jordan's inability to logically defend his philosophical stance.
You can tell by Peterson's use of the phrase "true enough" that the disagreement between them exists in the belief that truth is subject to gradation. For Sam and myself, something is either true or not true; it's an absolute. For Peterson, there are levels of truth.
I think this is akin to Junguian viewpoint about oposites existing at the same time together. Almost a "quantum" probability. Because what is true or not true by definition depends on what they are compared to; they depends to the point of reference. I mean, science is all about that; we accept levels of truth (like Jordan claims, "true enough") but the possibility that this view must be reconstructed is always at the door of new discoveries. So, both of them are right. They are the Schrodinger's Pholosophers. Hahahahahaha
Do you use quantum physics to solve mechanical engineering problems? No, you still use Newtonian physics because it's most likely good enough to give you all the precision you need. Models are tools - more or less useful abstractions that you use to solve problems. They don't describe things as they ARE(™️), but they are are usually close enough.
@@krumbergify Just because you don't need quantum physics to do mechanical engineering doesn't imply that quantum physics is not true. It means it is not relevant to the task you currently need to do.
@@abinash3157 Depends on what you mean by ”true”. For William James, ”truth” was something that ”worked”, i.e. gave reliable results and didn’t conflict with the knowledge you have already integrated. With that viewpoint, Newtonian physics is true in a context of macro sized objects that move way below the speed of light :)
@@krumbergify Lets say someone from your family was sexually abused infront of you by a powerful politician who has powerful connections. You know the truth about the incident but telling the truth will put you and your family's life at serious risk. Now, you might say that it's better not to follow that path because of the dangers. But that doesn't make the fact that she was sexually abused by that politician less true than the fact that you choose to turn a blind eye to that.
I don't know if Sam Harris is actually looking at these comments any more, but I am going to make an attempt at summarizing what I heard. Sam Harris' definition of "True" is absolute and factual, regardless of who or what is observing it. The endgame for Jordan Peterson was clear. He wanted to find a way to move to religion with a way to call it "true" because is has, at sometimes, resulted in benefiting humanity. In fact, Peterson has made it clear that he believes we couldn't do without it and would argue that point all day. So if he was allowed to define truth in his terms, he could later say that religion is "true". Harris was right to not let Peterson just "have" this new definition of truth. It would only serve to muddy the water later. Just my 2 cents.
I think that what Jordan is trying to get at is that there is a greater truth in which all other truths are nested, and that regardless of the knowledge of all the micro-truths, the most important consideration should be knowledge of and orientation towards the greater macro-truth. I think of this in the same way as the oath required in a court of law, "The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth." I think the difference between their perspectives is that Sam wants to construct the greater truth from the sum of smaller truths, and Jordan wants the smaller truths to be considered within the context of the greater whole.
@@Galdring I think that there is a greater truth, in terms of our psychology as Evolved Apes, because of the incredible overlap between many of the world's religions across all continents. Sure, there are a lot of differences, but if you look at what is similar it is striking just how much of it is. We are squabbling over the margins, in many cases, while the original truth has been altered through an endless telephone game in each and every case. None the less, that there are striking similarities between the world's religions seems to suggest that there is some fundamental truth that underlies all human interaction. That it may be elusive and defy explanation does not detract from its appeal, but rather enhances it. I can only tell you what the greater truth is as I perceive it from my vantage point. We are all blind, deaf, and dumb, while as a whole piecing together this extremely complex puzzle. Each of us has a piece, however small, that fits the grander image. Or, as in Jung's metaphor, we all have an instrument to play in this grand symphony. I think that JP is pursuing truth using axioms and logic that comes from the opposite side of the question. What you, SH, and JP are all pursuing is the same truth, but you are coming at it from different origins.
@@matthewbarber4505 So you figure that the independent religious development across the world is a product of shared intuition, I.E. shared "sensing" of some undeduceable truth, rather than of shared psychology? But what is religion, from a materialistic point of view? It's just a melding of fantasy and ethics, possibly an explanation of natural phenomena. It seems likely that religion would develop, just like so many cultural traits, independetly of culture, due to shared biology. Further more, Norse Mythology is very different from, say, Buddhism. It is hard to see how one validates the other in any way. Is Buddhism more likely to be true because people across the world came up with Thor and Odin? If anything this seems to demonstrate that the forms if religious worship are too diverse to be explained by shared insights, but manifest completely in agreement with the hypothesis that religion is a cultural, non-supernatural phenomenon. The whole function of the word "truth" is to seperate the imagined from the real, the subjective from the objective. Something imagined and trusted on faith doesn't become true based on how good or useful it feels.
@@Galdring I think that the ubiquity of religious belief across cultures is indicative of some truth about our psychology and our relation to our environment. I think that these truths are deducible, and if you watch JP's Maps of Meaning lectures you may find more of the logical structure you are seeking. What is art, from a materialistic point of view? Just a melding a fantasy and pigments, and sometimes it does not even have that much substance. What is music? Just a melding of fantasy and tones of sound and rhythm. Yet art and music are powerful substances that can move people in ways that not only defy science, but words themselves. I think of religion in a similar way to other cultural products and behaviors, and am curious about what forces move people.
@@matthewbarber4505 I don't think Sam disagrees that religion has a psychological foundation. He just doesn't think that the worlds religions depict are real. Art isn't in opposition to materialism or science, and absolutely does not defy them. Much interesting research has been done on aesthetics. Our brains are pattern seeking machines. It rewards itself with dopamine, for example, for detecting patterns; especially patterns similar to something that has proven useful in the past (either throughout evolution or throughout that individual brain's experience).
Sorry to "blow up" this comment section with posts, but this whole talk really fascinates me. Peterson is a mysterious, even inexplicable, character. How can the guy who starts off arguing against the Woke laws so eloquently and logically, be the same guy who spends the rest of the discussion flatly refusing to hear Sam's simple point? Frankly, I suspect religion is to blame; I think Peterson feels obligated, perhaps at some level he is unaware of, to defend it at any cost. (No, they don't even get to religion here, but one can easily see how Peterson's conception of truth forms the basis of his argument for it.) I acknowledge it is kind of ridiculous for a random guy on the internet to analyze the psychology of a famous shrink, but it sure seems like something like that to me.
I also thought the same. I thought that if Peterson conceded defeat, he would have to concede defeat about his stance on religion and how he grounds morality on religion.
The Canada c-16 bill was never a big deal and Jordan was adamant that it was a huge infringement on free speech. It simply wasn’t, from the get go his position made no sense. It just added transpeople to the other protected classes and made it illegal to discriminate and persistently harass. Time has revealed him to be kinda ridiculous
@billscannell93 forgive me… But when does he argue against what you call “woke laws“ as you describe so “eloquently analogically“? I would love to know when that was because all I know is that he lied about Bill C 16.
Jordan redefines “true”, in the sense that a machine can run well or true, or an arrow flies straight and true. The conception of scientific truth is far newer than the term truth itself, so he is attempting to use the term truth to essentially recover important lessons from religious texts, and relate that directly to our biology and so ground it in evolution. So he makes analogies between biblical stories, and evolutionary and biological facts about organisms, and ties them together to legitimate those stories and the moral extract as justifiable instances of correct action.
First of all sorry for my syntax, English is not my mother tongue but it is French. For me, Sam Harris is right. Truth and value are two separate things. The first consists in stating something, a fact or a property of a thing, on the world which conforms (example: it is raining in Paris at the moment. This statement will be true if and only if: it is actually raining in Paris. We can obviously qualify by saying for example: It is true that it rains in PART of Paris, but it is wrong to say that it rains in ALL of Paris because it does not rain in the east of the capital. etc.) The second( value) is to assess for action whether this thing of the world is desirable or not. Hydrogen bombs exist, they are indeed a part of our reality, but we can say that they are not desirable for our own survival. Value and moral or political statements are always not about what IS but about what SHOULD be.
False. Truth means, _"that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality."_ So anything that isn't in accordance with facts (like saying there's no inherent truth) isn't true, it's false. So it's a lot simpler than Peterson's dishonest attempt to redefine the word (and in fact anyone redefining words by making them less precise is probably trying to deceive you in some way, or argue that something false is true).
@@majmage Well said. And I agree. But you still need a question or proposition to get a true answer. There is no truth without a question or proposition. For example, "Godzilla doesn't actually exist" this is a "true" statement. The truth is there. You can state "Godzilla exists" and the answer is false, or untrue.
@@majmagefurthermore, I'm not sure you can define truth as "that which is true in accordance to reality" because you're saying truth means true. What you're saying is that truth = reality. That's fine, but just use the word reality then. Truth needs a proposition, question or statement.
@@RemnantsOfBeauty 1. Yeah in that case I better understand what you meant by your original comment and I'd agree. 2. I didn't define truth that way. English-speaking humans did. (That's why it's what you get when you google "truth definition".) 3. If truth was only self-referential ("truth is truth") then yeah I'd agree that's fairly pointless. But it isn't. Reality is the standard. So truth is effectively any particular detail about reality. (And falsehoods are ideas that fail to match reality.)
@@khaleghnoori2895 It seems to me that it’s a relatively slightly intelligent person listening to the ramblings of a crank. Harris is a relatively clever guy but he’s definitely not the philosopher that so many make them out to be an Peterson? He is just so in his own head it’s a wonder that no one has tried to have him committed to a mental hospital.
I am on the side of Sam. I think JP's argument applies to what's "correct" or "right" as opposed to what's "true/false". The process to develop the pathogen was true but perhaps it wasn't right based on the moral or Darwinian outcome.
Think of the consequences of separating what's "true" from what's "right" and ask yourself if that's a world you want to live in, or a world in which it's even possible to live. Put another away, should we or can we live in a world where logical coherence is different from morality, or should morality always be considered logical? Then you're a step closer to understanding what Peterson is trying to say and why so many people agree with him. Sam's points are not without merit but they can hold within them some heavy implications regarding morality. It's almost like Peterson says, "If you want to pursue truth, be a good person first," and Harris says, "If you want to pursue good, know the truth first." They're approaching the situation from fundamentally different sides but neither is really negating the importance of the other side. We should all be both truthful and good, so why is it so important for Sam to separate the two? Peterson has clearly made the decision that they're inseparable. Shouldn't they be?
It seems to me that there is an error in JP's view of truth. Just because the human mind is the product of an evolutionary process and its purpose is ultimately in the service of that process does not mean that the product of the collective human mind is also contingent to serving that process. On the other hand there is a problem in defining all 'truth' as that which is falsafiable, as SH tends to do. Subjective knowledge, knowledge of self, can also be true. The problem is that only falsafiable truths, scientific, journalistic, legal, historical or whatever are scalable and useful as tools of organisation. There really needs to be two words.
There already is two sorts of truth for this. One is called "valid", and the other is called "soundness". A truth that is valid is conceptually, mentally, subjectively, and formally true. A truth that is sound is also valid, but is also a fact of reality outside of the mind.
@Graham Willis - If each human mind is in the service of the evolutionary process, how (or where) in the addition of each human mind to make the collective human mind does the system jump the track to where the collective human mind is not necessarily contingent to serving the process that each individual mind that makes the collective is contingent to? @spacedoohickey - apparently there are no facts outside of the mind. Mind boggling if true.
@@thomassmith-yu8tz Secrets. Secrets are the vast majority of thoughts. So the collective is blind to secrets that serve evolution. Besides the current collective is already far outside of evolution. Motor vehicles are a good example of this.
I'm Peterson fan, but Sam is right and won this discussion about truth. Edited: Damn, as big JP fan (also Sam Harris), I never saw a video where I thought JP lost the debate clearly, but as I listened to this one yesterday carefully I had to give the points to Sam and was little bit disappointed that JP lost it, until I watched another video today. I just post the link here, as I struggle to put it into words (not a native english speaker). ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-knvqdxoqYSI.html Damn, I love both of them.
I m more of a "sam fan", not a fan i don't want to idolize anyone, but i agree with him on basically every major issue and not jordan, tho i do agree with jordon a lot and really like the dude. But i strongly disagree on things like religion, but have to admit that he might be the best advocate for his case i ve seen, even though i still find his arguments lacking for religion. He certainly seems like the strongest opponent sam ever had, jordan himself said asked "who is your strongest opponent" replied "sam harris" but he didn't really see him qs an opponent. Anyway have you seen the vancouver 3 part debate between harris and peterson? I think it is the best debate on religion i ve heard, the most intellectual for sure, and the most balanced, tho from my biased pov sam dominanted thoughout. And to be fair, from how i see it sam had the massive advantage of defending a rational position and jordan had to argue for the unproven, unprovable claim. And he did it pretty well, but there's one moment at the end of the first i loved, sam was pushing him hard in a corner as jordan was being vague and evasive, and jordan said "you've won" That litterally staggered me, not only was it the first time.i'd heard peterson admit defeat but it was the first time i'd heard ANYONE admit to being wrong or losing a point in those debates. Suprisingly it did little on my view of harris, i already considered him the most eloquant and gifted speaker i know (tho JP is pretty gifted himself on this and one of the best contesters), but this, along with the opening style of the 2nd part, greatly increased the respect i had for jp. The fact you could have conceited a point in front of 3000 fans is very telling, shows intellectual honesty and humility, and is admirable. This feeling was only reinforced when i heard jordans intro in part 2, they had to steelman the other positions and jordan did it so well, when sam was asked for feedback, if he thought jp had done him justice he answered : "Well next time you write my book i write yours"
Truth and fact are related concepts, but they are not synonymous. A fact is a statement that can be verified as true or false based on empirical evidence or logical analysis. For example, the statement "the earth orbits the sun" is a fact because it can be confirmed through scientific observation and experimentation. Truth, on the other hand, is a more complex and subjective concept. It refers to the accuracy or correctness of a statement or belief, but it is influenced by a range of factors, including personal experience, cultural context, and social norms. Truth may be relative or absolute, depending on the context in which it is being used. For example, the statement "pineapple belongs on pizza" is not a fact because it cannot be proven or disproven through empirical evidence. However, some people may believe it to be true based on their personal taste preferences, cultural background, or social group. In this sense, the statement is true for them, but not necessarily for everyone. In summary, while facts are objective and can be verified through evidence or analysis, truth is a more subjective and multifaceted concept that is influenced by a range of factors.
1:56:00 someone thinks before they answer after Sam makes a good point it's so funny to see how fanboy-ish both of these audiences are depending on who uploaded the video Sam uploaded: "damn JP got oWn3d yo!!!!1!" JP uploaded: "dude Sam legit got d3Str0yeD right here!!!! omgg XD"
@@coffeebot7016 It's okay to take time and think after someone says something, in fact it's generally the better move, but Peterson's rebtall afterwards wasn't that great imo.
I had only watched the most recent Harris v Peterson debates, not the first ones in Harris podcast, my god...how can anyone be convinced by the "philosophies" of this charlatan (Jordan Peterson)
"Darwin County 911. What's the address of your emergency?" "My house is on fire. The address here is 1234 Microexample Lane." "Is it true that your place of abode is on fire?" "Why else would I be calling?" "Good. I trust you'll survive it, then." *click*
I can't tell if you're serious, but there's no way apple cider made him stay up for 25 days straight, beating the world record of 11 days. Poor guy was probably still dealing with his benzo addiction, but I dunno why he's gotta lie and exaggerate about it.
When listening to this I picture job (the wise old man from the book of job/ Hebrew bible.) arguing the understanding of truth with Hal 9000 (artificial intelligent sentient/ 2001 space odyssey.) if someone makes a RU-vid cartoon of this, give me some credit 👍
@G4L4CTICNORTH Notice how you talk a lot about supposed emotions and not so much about what was actually said. Notice how what I just said was an example of the opposite. I could've done what you just did and say "Well you're just upset that your personal guru Jordan Peterson was challenged", but that wouldn't be very constructive, so I'm choosing to not do that. Now, at what point did Sam ridicule Jordan's ideas and speak to him as a child?
SH: the scientific method is the best measure of truth JP: No it’s not. Proceed at your own peril. I believe there are better ways JP could make his argument. It seems analogous to saying all theories of physics are untrue because they break down at the quantum level.
"The scientific endeavour, by demolishing the traditional underpinnings of our moral systems, has produced an emergent nihilism and hopelessness in people that makes them more susceptible to ideological possession" Discuss.
Sam is the KING of thought examples and Jordan is the KING of codifying religion without mentioning any particular "God." This is a debate about Good and Evil, and has nothing to do with Truth.
I think you are one of the few commenters to pick up on that. Peterson is disagrees with pure objectivism. He knows that if he concedes the ground of "absolute truth" then he his argument loses weight.
I still have an hour to go, but it seems to me Sam Harris definition of truth is what we all more or less agree with. Peterson's definition and I think it's most well demonstrated 1:00:00 in or so is that he isn't talking about "truth". Hes perhaps talking about beliefs, and whether a belief is useful or not for survival and it's the usefulness that determines if something is true??? Honestly I'm trying to give Peterson the benefit of the doubt because I don't think he's an idiot, but I absolutely agree with Sam Harris about not wanting to gloss over these fundamental differences. If a tree falls in the forest and it doesn't kill anyone and no one observed it fall. Sam would say that tree still fell even if we don't know about it. Peterson would say the tree didn't fall because it didn't fall on me?
This is an extremely bizarre but illuminating conversation. It's clinical psychologist v philosopher. Emotion v reason. It really illuminates what motivates Jordan Peterson's thought process and complex way of speaking. He's a very emotional person with a hangup about natural selection, seeing how extremely insistent he is on Darwin being the moral standard. Very odd.
That's what happens when you start with a personal political position (which of course Peterson tries to deny but is so obvious), concoct a justification to and try to present it as science. A truly moral, rational and honest intellectual would start from a position and then let the logic and science lead where it may, which is what Harris does. Peterson chooses justification from ideas, often nonsensical and false, that fit his position. And he tries to present these as truth. For example, that the Irish Elk went extinct because its antlers became too big - which has been resoundingly discounted by experts. Such nonsense and outright distortions are all over his work. Thus it is emblematic of Peterson that he cannot present a reasoned argument, so he resorts to emotion when he gets caught and tries to change the subject. He has constructed his justification like layers of an onion. When Harris peels away one layer, Peterson claims Harris doesn't understand, "the problem is deeper" and raises the next layer. Ultimately, Harris catches him at the end where he tells him, "you must allow one thing that you cannot move." Peterson is silent - you can see this happen in other debates. He doesn't have an answer, and the he comes again up with "how much deeper and more difficult the problem is"; for example here "it depends how you define affair" and how he needs hours and hours to come up with an answer. He must know that his onion is one fabricated layer after another. If he doesn't he must be outright delusional. This from someone who is supposed to be scientist and intellectual?
@@streewalkerdreamsunity260 Yes, it's true that as far as intellectual honesty goes, it's hard to beat Harris. That's a real virtue in my opinion, because intellectual honesty is a form of courage. I don't think most people, including Peterson, value truth and intellectual honesty so much. People generally prefer thinking, saying and doing whatever they think will lead to success or their desired outcome, over truth and honesty. I suppose that's pretty understandable though. People who value truth and honesty too much tend to get ostracized or silenced in the end.
Peterson is a philosopher too regardless if he has a formal degrees for it or not. Is Plato or Socrates not real philosophers since they didn't major in them? No. This is an ad hominem attack on Peterson and is factually wrong. He deals with philosophy enough that he is a philosopher regardless if his philosophical ideas or wrong or not. Should we ignore every poltiical statement Noam Chomsky says just because he's technically a linguist?!?!?
@@mtguz23 what the hell do you mean by "beat harris"?! Why are you even seeing this as "Sam vs Peterson"? This is meant to be a Discussion in pursuit of truth not a debate, and we should be sad if it were more of the latter than the former.
Just look at what human beings are willing to accept as truth. You put your phone down flat on a table. A good table is any surface that is flat enough to store things on or else things will roll or fall off of it, at which point the object isn't a table because it does not perform its purpose. A table is a kind of "tool for a specific use". You can use a perfectly spherical object as a table, true, but only for the extremely limited time that it holds the item which makes it very impractical and so it *isn't true enough* to call it a table. Give it a few hundred thousand years and the "table", whatever material it is made out of, will probably degrade to the point where it isn't flat enough to prevent the object from sliding off of it. The phone nevertheless stays on the table for the moment. If you then take a microscope and inspect the phone or the table, you'll see that neither object is objectively perfectly flat. So on a quantum level, it is objectively NOT flat. Yet, it is flat *enough* to function as a table at a macro level. Therefore, it is *true enough* to call it a table.
Not really, because there is a whole host of things that have the property of flat enough to hold something that aren't tables. And the table is still a table when it's not being used because that's how we figure out where to put our stuff.
@@spacedoohicky you're missing the point. Don't take the table thing so literally, what matters is that for all intents and purposes a table is flat, eventhough by the standards of objective reality the table is not flat, look at it under a microscope and it's not flag at all, but because of the size of humans in relation to the table we would call it flat. Hypothically if someone asked you for a flat surface to put their cup down on, and you said "sure use the table, the tables flat and your cup won't slide off the edge", are you lying to them by telling them the tables flat? I would say no, because due to the size of humans and the way we interact with the world the table serves the purpose of a flat object. But if humans were the size of microscopic bugs, we wouldn't perceive the table as flat, we would see all the tiny bumps and groves as big as mountains and canyons, so if we were that size and said the tables flat", then that would be a lie, because we wouldn't perceive or even by able to use it as flat object in a practical sense
@@karebushmarebu233 Some tables are not flat, but are in fact imperfectly flat which can be easily recognized by the naked eye. Many picnic tables are like that due to weathering. So the OP says "flat enough" which fits such tables with imperfect flat tops. I have no contention with that. What I was saying is that if that's your definition of a table then everything that has that property would be a table, but people would disagree that everything that has that property would be a table. So it's not a belief that an object with a surface flat enough to hold something is a table. I think there is something missing from the discussion about practicality is that there is a hidden premise in practicality about what things will do even when they don't serve practicality. A table may very well serve the function of tableness, but what about when someone uses the table as a weapon? Did the table suddenly change its definition to being "weapon"? So there is a complete definition that isn't just about what's in the dictionary. It includes everything about tableness, and all the potentials of what a table like object could be. We just don't apply it because we are limited in our sentience. That is at least until we have to apply some other property that isn't in our repertoire of practicality.
Jordan’s Petersons premise on his argument on truth being nested in morale truths are far weaker than Sams premises on truth. Sam did well to outline and restrain Jordan from moving out from his premises and soon as Jordan tried, Sam’s points were too profound, at times Jordan was stood still which amazed me that at the highest calibre of intelligence, Jordan could not admit where his claims were fallible. Even though both go at it evenly criticizes each other, and at times gets quite exciting, they both have great arguments and views on Truth. I have great admiration for the both of them, and I know I haven't gotten the full grasp of it completely. Maybe a second listen might be little clearer.
@55:09 it felt like Adam and Eve discussing what is truth and where should we narrow our search. 🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍 Very interesting 🤔 it took me back to the garden, we are still searching for the same answer.
1:17:37 Had me burst out laughing from hearing Sam clearly put Jordan's irrationality in very good order, revealing its dysfunction and absurdity. The truth value isn't meaningful, that's why it's funny because Jordan is always expressing how there's truth nestled in meaningful occurrences.
Simple reconciliation: Sam is talking about Truth as an imperial scientific Fact, devoid of consequences. JP is describing Transcendental Truth - the highest good (I.e., something may be true, but not True) Almost like (but not really) Forms. I get what both are saying, and I think both are correct simultaneously. It’s different semantics built on different axioms to solve different problems. One is a scientific tool, one is a spiritual tool.
Thats already what jordan says, he's quoted by Sam at the start as saying "scientific truth and religious truth are ot the same" Sam disagrees with this concept, so what you said wouldn't be a reconciliation as he doesn't agree. He doesn't believe "religious truth" is "true" at all
@@karebushmarebu233 hm, I must have been grabbing water or something and missed that part. It’s interesting that Sam would posit that, considering he’s Spiritual. To separate spirituality, religion, and science as three different domains that can offer different Truths (with respect to their domain) seems obvious to me.
At stake in here is not the ontology of the truth... at stake in here is the consequence of Peterson agreeing with Sam about the truth. The consequence in this: had Jordan agreed with Sam's version of the truth, than the argument from Harris about the Charle's Murray affair, will also hold true.
If you believe that, then I think you're not grasping how fundamentally different their views are. JP states pretty clearly that he wants to manipulate the meaning of "truth" so that people will not be able to believe or say that something can be true if it is morally and/or mortally dangerous according to his own beliefs. He KNOWS there are actually objective truths in the world, but he wants to use language and semantics to hide it from himself and others. That's some 1984 double-speak stuff right there. This is what upsets Harris so much.
@@Gh-xz1zu JP is saying that we should regard "as true" whatever proves to be useful to us in achieving moral good, because moral good is more important than truth itself. So if 2+2=5 is the most useful truth, then it is by his definition true. This is basically a high-brow version of ideological brainwashing.
@@Gh-xz1zu I'm not caricaturing anything. JP _could_ have chosen to simply explore that value structure you mention with Sam in this episode, but instead he insists for it to take primacy to our notion of objective truth itself, and hence refuses to actually discuss it. In his attempt to control and dominate the discussion, he completely shut it down. And that seems to be JP's problem again and again: He goes into discussions with a strategy to "win" it, rather than a strategy to explore the topic in an interesting manner where both parts and the audience can learn something.
Because he thinks of everything that is implied in the question, but left unsaid. For example if I were to ask you "Do you believe in God?". That is not a question, it's a trap. Because you don't know my definition of God, you probably don't know yours, I sure as hell don't know mine, so what kind of question is that? Every time I try to define God I end up with multiple contradictions that I don't know how to solve and not believing in God seems as absurd as believing in God to me.
@@peplegal32 where is the entrapment in the question, "what is truth?" I just think they have wildly different understandings of the concept and it's a difficult concept to make concessions especially given how disparate their interpretations are.
@@ksarah1162 I was speaking more generally. There is no trap in the question "what is truth?" and I believe Jordan gave a pretty straight answer to that one, given the complexity of the subject. I think it can be summed up as "Truth is what you believe in that generates the best outcome". How is that outcome measured as positive or negative is still up for debate. Sam couldn't quite accept that definition, he seems sure there exists a truth regardless of something to interact with that truth. I'm a bit skeptical towards Sam's definition, too materialistic. Maybe there are some truths like that, but all of them? Obviously JP's definition has flaws as well, but I think it is somewhat closer to the truth, whatever that means.
This is just redefining truth from what its meant by popular opinion and then equivocating whenever beneficial without caring to make clear what is meant by truth. How about we leave the word truth behind with the definition it already has and make a new word for what Mr Peterson has in mind.
They should’ve just scrapped the word “truth” and substituted synonyms corresponding to their own definitions, like “objectively accurate” and “helpful”
@@SuburbanMan “truth” actually has been defined by accuracy since the mid 1500s. “Truth” comes from the Germanic abstract noun *treuwitho meaning "having or characterized by good faith”. So then it’s like how do we best define “faith” here, which (IMO) is best summarized as “a complete confidence in the highest goodness or reliability of some one or thing”.. alright. Well.. Sorry MK but neither are incorrect in the way they use the term, technically speaking. With “Truth” ultimately being defined by “having or characterized by the accuracy 1/ reliability or highest goodness 2” being consistent with how we collectively use the term, as most terms have variants in exact definition. ( edit: If you have any issues with my datum I can site the epistemology, I just figured that was unnecessarily superfluous).
JP here reminds me of the time in college my friend said he did better in philosophy class when he was high. When I pointed out he failed the last test, he said that was because he was only high during the class but not for the exam. Maybe SH should've gotten high before the podcast so they could communicate on a common level.
