Faith - Bill - Embodying the Logos (6a88oFYuZPg)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=6a88oFYuZPg

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of embodying the logos. Today my guest is Bill and we’re kind of going to try and approach the intellectual angle around God and philosophy and like how to think about these things. What is the road to be walked or that is walked, right? I think we both came from like an atheistic materialistic background and yeah we ended up somewhere unexpected in some way and that means that something happens somewhere along the road. So maybe we can try and circumambulate that a little bit. What do you think Bill? Yeah sounds all right yeah I hope. So I can tell you what happened to me right and we started engaging with well philosophy in general but then I came across Peterson and Carl Jung and that opened the spiritual aspect of a little bit like was well is that this idea about these people right and they did all this weird stuff and I was like why? Yeah I know that it somehow became more explanatory and then I was like yeah I started just digging and digging and digging right and then I got to Preveki and he had all this this crazy stuff about what happened in history and that there’s all of these problems and then there’s perennial problems which are even worse than normal problems. I obviously had my own ideas which maintained themselves across whole path right but the way that they were framed changed a little bit. Yeah. So yeah like what about you? I’ll start we should start from the beginning where that beginning is not actually in the beginning it’s probably the middle but I was brought up as an atheist pretty much directly and explicitly in a weird way so I have no like religious background at all when I say religious I meant it might be atheist sense about them so I didn’t go to church or anything like that didn’t do anything any religious ceremonies or anything that sort of thing so in that sense is very foreign to me. The thing I’ve always kind of been interested in was psychology at least always since I was a kid in many ways we just have like how do people tick and one thing was the learnings about psychology but I also got interested in economics which sounds like what kind of a very weird like why is this related but the thing about economics is it started to make me understand how the world works at a different level and also actually there are things things that you would take as intuitive like oh this is just are just wrong like certain instincts you have about how the world works are just wrong and you can actually show that they’re wrong not just like logically but also demonstratively as well that you can do both the actually showing it like hey look this what you’re saying would lead to contradictions but also secondly like hey you can see it in the world this isn’t what you think and why did you believe what you think and like oh yeah why did I believe what I thought and it’s it was fascinating this is just one of those kind of rabbit holes and when you went on this rabbit hole going through all the YouTube stuff learning about all the different things learning stuff I then came across of course as many people do the John Peets and stuff and this was just just at the time when it was clearly getting popular but the thing for me wasn’t really the politics was more of the psychology stuff again so how do people take and start and they learn from there and it was kind of just a downhill thing from there going in the background keeping interested but the thing that you were talking about me tonight is more of the I say the belief aspect itself was more of right there’s a leap so the leap was more of from how do I put this well let’s just deal with what is yeah because you put something on the table right and yeah we’re talking about a different level of engagement through economics just can you yes yes indeed yeah so um I just kind of got fascinated because it’s one of those things where I had a friend and this it’s weird even at the time I wouldn’t say necessarily recommend it now but it’s just what got me interested in he sent me a video effectively on some problem many people might know is Milton Freeman and I just watched him and what I was listening to him was he was explaining things literally just explaining things basically I went wait wait why has no one explained this to me ever before because one it wasn’t difficult it wasn’t and secondly it was very much like wait a minute he’s saying things that wait what it was just like it was I could just see the confusion and I was just watching him literally until early in the morning my friend got me hooked and there’s in essence but it was more of a but as soon as I watched him I went to go look for everything else I could find out not just him but everything else I could find in this topic I was like this is just fascinating um and it was just one of those kind of you go down a rabbit hole and you start discovering more things so it was just kind of that and I’m sorry I’m being very vague on specific because I just don’t want to bore on specifics of actual economics in that regard um but like there’s certain things which certain things are very obvious once you say of course that’s true but you like you never actually think of it like the simplest thing is like trade does not take place unless it benefits both parties it’s a really simple statement and it’s true obviously but then the question is okay but why is that true people say of course it’s true obviously that has to be the truth it’s like no no no why is that true because you don’t instinctually think that because uh I would say not saying simply you may not get taught that either like some people says oh to make business someone one of the people have to benefit over the other like no both people benefit they think they do at least well yeah not not intellectually necessarily but subconsciously right yeah and then the question is because because what are you trading right you’re trading value against other value and the beauty of that thing is it’s both subjective as well it’s subjective value and all of economics is subjective and it’s all dealing with the idea of subjective value and on these modern economics as well but also on the margins things on the margins where you value things like for instance um I’ve got example of this is water you don’t value water very much at all really and that’s because on the margins you don’t have much so like for instance you water you bathe yourself in it have loads of that thing and then you drink it and all that lot it’s not very worth much but it’s the most precious thing to life you need water but because of how abundant it is on the margins you don’t care about it but for diamonds say something like diamonds diamonds are hard to come by many people seem to value them so therefore if you have one on the margins you can have more and more diamonds and it’s more valuable to you it’s not like they’re really common to you they are very common technically um but the water diamond thing is a really common thing out of like classical economics because in classical economics they believe in like objective value of economics and it leads to these paradoxes it doesn’t make any sense but they were trying to square it it wasn’t until the mid 19th century when people loads of people independently at once which is interesting like these three different economists from different parts of the world all independently came up with the same idea which I again it’s fascinating in itself just kind of like there must have been a moment to get there and they all kind of got there at the same time and they all said no very subjective and it’s basis and subjectivism and marginalism those two things together and it solves all the paradoxes and actually describes reality it doesn’t describe that the other previous ones didn’t you could get far with them but it was like that since it was like oh that’s the fascinating bit and that’s what i’m saying is you’re looking at a different level of analysis you’re not just trying to like go missing on insects anymore but it’s more of a you are going to a bit more reasoning here obviously but then you’re also tying it back to your instincts and like actually no this is how we actually know things with regards to this stuff to a certain extent only this stuff not everything obviously but um on that level and then you can start seeing how it scales like one of the things that i was getting the same with milfrey man oh hold on so i heard a couple things right so you go ahead talking about something objective right which basically means to assign something in realities yes right instead of putting it in relationship to you right so correct making this stuff into a relational framework right i think it’s not only happening with an economic they have to reinvent the wheel everywhere yeah and and then there’s other things paradoxes and that like i actually was going to mention paradoxes before you mentioned it because yeah the way that i described religion is that which allows you to transcend a paradox right because the paradox are like occurs when the way right the way that you’re framing your relationship right is incorrect right like or incompatible with reality and in order to transcend that you you need to find a new way to relate right like like this indeed yeah insufficiency and then when you perceive that or at least for me right like when you perceive that oh like there’s this other way and this other way is actually better because like it can allow for more right like now there’s this there’s a cause what’s not a causality but there’s a there’s a way of attaining intelligibility that’s not horizontal right but it starts getting vertical and it’s like oh right like what is the thing that can draw most into itself and like so i think i think when you’re getting into a rabbit right you’re building up the base that can push you up a little bit and and that’s what you’re seeking right like that’s what drawing you in indeed indeed very much so um sorry the thing i was just going to just note there it was just more of a well i was trying to solve that but yeah this what fascinated me one thing is another another level is autoanalysis which was a fascinating to me was you know it was the meldreeman thing and it’s it doesn’t technically come from him the original one is from um god his name lennard something another economist but no one for him was one of us at telly and it was the story of a pencil and his statement is that oh imagine i’ve got a pencil in my hand i don’t know a pencil right now for some reason i only have pens uh but imagine i’ve got a pencil and he says look not a single person on this planet could make a pencil and you go wait well what do you mean like that’s not a stupid statement it’s like no no no you think of course you could i’m like no first you have to get the wood where does the wood come from well uh if i’m going to take the if say like in this country i’d probably go up north it comes from cumbre or something like that you get the wood made there great so how did you get that wood without to chop it down okay so what chopped it down with oh you’ve got people get with axes okay where the axes come from well they’ve got the steel okay so where’s the steel come from and all that line you have to keep going down the train it’s like okay let’s just get the wood okay so then what it’s like okay what about the the lead inside it which is not really lead it’s actually graphite so where’s the graphite coming from okay so how do they get the graphite where do they mine it where do they get this where’s this people and it’s like okay so you’re getting all this coordination and then that’s just that then you’ve got the question of the paint where’s the paint come from it’s actually made me from like all around the world then you’ve got the rubber and the rubber is actually rubbers originally from uh like indonesia but then it’s been replanted in other places around like south africa south america sorry south america usually and then the beam made the rubber there and then you’ve got the little metal around it on the pencil to hold the rubber on and that’s from another place in the world it’s like you’ve got literally thousands of people around the world produce one pencil and most of these people would probably hate each other if they came into contact with each other they’d have different religions they can’t even speak the same language but it somehow it all comes together and you make a pencil so it’s not literally there’s not a single person in the world that could make just that pencil because to get it you would have to have this literally thousands if not tens of thousands of people interacting with each other somehow through effectively the price system literally the price system is just a system of signals that signal that information to different people somehow and whatever information may be and then it comes together to make a pencil and it’s just something as simple as that which was again it was one of those mind-blowing things but it was also they yeah there’s something else governing this system it’s not in it’s not just individuals there’s a price system is for one thing but also there’s a lot of other things going on and it’s just in a weird way you could not centrally plan that you couldn’t get a committee to make design a pencil make a pencil because like no look at well how even now in this system how could you make one you can’t start from scratch relying on all these other things and all these sorry that’s kind of a weird analogy but when I first heard it went oh wow wow by the way we’re in economics now I’ve not got anything to do with religion yet yeah well I can make a small stop in that direction yeah because Peterson talks about making a contract with the spirit of culture right yeah because because what what is this person that’s doing the mining somewhere right like they don’t know about the pencil they have no clue right but what they’re doing is they’re providing this product like they’re just having faith that someone was is going to meet needed somewhere right yeah like part of it is that they’re bound right they have specialized in such a way that they’re kind of like committed to yeah providing the product but the other half is like no like it’s always been reliable like someone is going to take the product at a price that’s apparently able to sustain their lives right yeah there’s there’s this weird weird thing where you’re you’re you’re having this contract with this nebulous thing right like this this potential and then like the way like one one time it will go into I don’t know like some some windows or whatever right like yeah or they’re going to put it into a pencil or they’re going to put it into something else like like a battery and it’s like yeah like it doesn’t matter where it goes what matters is is that this system it goes somewhere it doesn’t matter where it goes it is matter that it actually goes because it’s weird that you have this and you do have a leap of faith in that in that system that culture that you would actually even believe that this would actually even work but it’s very much a there is a faith leaf argument there there is a bit of this weird like actually if you try and break this down it does make any sense but it’s like you can’t you shouldn’t break it down is the first thing but it’s very much the like if you try and break it down you go insane because it’s not going to work but secondly it’s yeah yeah like i want i want to go to the second part of the faith right because like yeah the first person who’s gonna take this stuff up right like they’re just making a big ass leap of faith and then they start the company but then you have the second generation right and the second generation like they they didn’t go through this building up or did they just inheriting all of this stuff and then you have the third generation and for them it’s always been that way right yeah and so for them is it still a leap of faith or are they like born into it right like are they are they born into this system where it’s axiomatically true that whenever you dig up this graphite or whatever like yeah you’re going to be able to sell it and it’s not even a question anymore like it’s just like yeah it’s the point that’s where like i’ve i’ve i run a business i’m starting up another one and the first thing again with this new one i’m starting up is very much that can i even sell the product that i’m making like that is the question like it doesn’t matter how good the product is can i sell it and people will people buy it and that is there is a leap of faith that i believe that they would be otherwise i wouldn’t have started this business and i do take it’s very much the like oh i’m worrying like oh can will they buy what i’m making and how would i sell that because i have to market i have to convince people yes this is a good product let try and do and you have to you have faith one that people are interested bothered to even get it but i always had a faith in myself that you know i’ve actually got the skills to do this i can do this there’s all these levels of i’m not i’m not i’m hoping but i don’t expect it because the thing but the thing is if you’re in a certain industry like if you’re working for someone and not working for yourself you expect of course of course they’re running a business of course i can you can say this is what we do as a business i’ve got a contract with my employer obviously it’s going to be fine i mean it’s very different dynamic there in that regard because the employer and the employee are a very different thing the employers like we’re in like yeah my stable i’ve got these employees i’ve got to take care of them i try and sell things with employees and i’m trying to be fair once i hear obviously but the employees like oh yeah i’m like i’ve got a job clearly i’ve got a contract with this person clearly there’s this i believe this company’s stable to a certain extent not always and i’ll probably get into that later but it’s just kind of the there is that weird faith belief there’s this belief that you have in things which it is rational in a technical sense of the word but it’s not um how do i put this it’s not reducible so so i’m thinking about this problem right like so you’re brewing beer right imagine that when in the 1600s you you start brewing beer right like you do it and then you do it for yourself and maybe your neighbors right and then yeah you bring it to church one day or whatever for like a gathering oh yeah like yeah traditionally you’d do it at home so um you’d brew it for yourself at home usually be very weak and then you’d be drinking it pretty much straight away many people who did this either did it because they like the taste or in certain areas like if you’re living in a town you may not have had to clean water so this was the only way to make the water clean but if you lived in a village like you had a river stream and it was clean enough then you didn’t need to do that obviously but the other places that certain pubs would have done it so they would have the pubs would have brewed it and then they would bring up to their customers obviously and that’s what they would have done not just for the extending it from their family now they’re trying to pick a business and then someone said oh i could actually do that and you specialize in selling it and i specialize in brewing it obviously like that and it builds up and you can see the history of that getting at least in and in england throughout the history no no that would really organically grow right and it would be be integrated in something else whether you’d be having a pub right and and you’d be brewing for yourself and then your neighboring pubs like dude like your beer is way better like let me get some beer or whatever right so there’d be this this progression and like i feel like when you start your business right like the way that you go about it it’s not natural right like you have to like go to places or whatever and oh then there’s also the legal aspects of what the government’s telling you what you have had to do and such like one of and this is this public knowledge tonight but when you actually set up a business to sell beer you have to go through this one of this type of licensing and one thing is this the government forces you to do which i think it’s absolutely rude that i’m having to do this and i’ve had to apologize to everyone i don’t say hey the government’s told me that i have to go to round pubs and ask them to get letters of intent saying hey you’re not a customer yet but are you interested in the possibility of buying my product and could you do a favor and just write this sign it for me please it’s one of the most backwards things i have to do because organically in any other industry you’d be trying to sell stuff and you’d go look hey you could try out my product here you go try i’m like i haven’t even got a product yet but i’m asking you to do a favor it’s right and now you have the kickstarters and stuff right that like yeah it’s it’s it’s like a really weird business where we’re dealing with hypotheticals right and then yeah there’s enough potential like if there’s enough energy in the system then we just give it a kickstart and yeah again i started clearly as homebrew like did it as a hobby as like learning how to do it myself and doing it just for friends starting for myself and friends and family and then eventually started doing for like like the community and charity events and such which is why i started the business so oh people people were actually enjoying what i was doing and i thought you know what i could probably try and extend this scale up a little bit only a little bit because i don’t want to scale up too much and then you’ve wasted all that money and it’s failed so it’s very much kind of that thing but it’s kind of that each time you’re doing it kind of a leap of faith you’re testing the waters in many ways and it’s not a jump it’s not it’s not like jumping it’s just like i put my little toe in here and like yeah it’s fine okay putting that bit i’ll be fine so you can always go back you can always go back because that’s the thing it’s not a leap it’s just a if i fail at this point like if this business fails it could oh well fine i’ve lost a bit of money i i guess one one of the distinction is that like in the past there was more of a need like an obvious need right like yeah like in religion there’s there’s this calling right like like oh yeah this is obviously lacking and i think that we’re not intimate enough with with the space that we’re we’re in right to to know what the lack is or like to even taste like right yeah like i also i’ve got kind of got a little bit instinct for me as let’s say just a british englishman in general pubs are something people in england kind of take for granted but they’re also kind of dying out not due to pubs not it just there’s loads of reasons why they’re dying out it’s not actually many of them’s not their fault either but i think the thing is whenever i’ve had like some foreign colleagues and they’ve come to this country one of the first things they ever want to do is go to a pub because they don’t have that french people do not have a pub they may have a brasserie which is not really a pub and it’s like they want to go to a pub because it’s like it’s a very different experience it’s very much like like no no this is where something you go you can go meet up with your friends you have a good chat you can have a drink you don’t have to drink some people don’t have to drink alcohol you can have lemonade you have water whatever doesn’t matter no one really care you may have something something to eat but it’s a gathering place to meet and it is it’s a very secular gathering place and many people the joke is always the historically in this country when you’ve gone to church in the morning you then go to the other church the pub at lunch and many people used to do that because then you’ve met people and then you come to have meet your friends at in the gathering space to talk and it’s something which as the pubs have been dying down clearly it’s been dying out as well and now people also especially my generation and younger they don’t usually go out as much and they don’t really want to go to the pubs and such because it’s a weird it’s a weird thing like people aren’t meeting in the gathering place anymore and there’s where the half the problem is coming in so you see this kind of but we’re meeting here we’re meeting additionally we’re not meeting physically yeah we’re not meeting physically no and that’s half the problem i guess with also pubs one of the reasons why i can’t drink your beer like yeah i can drink i could drink drink at home and that’s fine but like it’s not the same thing and um but that kind of source of probably one thing in my own head is like look i’m going to pubs and they don’t have good beer they’ve got all these beers made by the big corporations they’re all extremely consistent like the mcdonald’s a beer put it that way and it’s like you know what you’re gonna get to any pub you go to and it’s like okay so why would i go to that pub over that pub or not just that i’m like why would i drink this beer when i can first of get it cheaper at the supermarket and i can also get a better selection it’s better it’s like it’s always the um from an economic standpoint why would i do this because people think from a very consumer standpoint like why would i want to go here it’s like no no you shouldn’t be thinking that if you’re just thinking like oh i’m going there obviously i should go there what you’re talking about because again people 40 years ago would not question that they wouldn’t but but but what changed is that since everything has been standardized like what they’re selling is not the product they’re selling the experience right like exactly the atmosphere which which like yes but also no like like they have to be integrated in some indeed because you can’t just have look every and also this is also the problem is a lot of pubs are like owned by breweries like the really big ones i should say small ones and as a result clearly they’ve got the same beers everywhere and and what i’m saying is that people then viewing these as places where i can buy i can get by beer anywhere why would i go to this building and the forgetting that there was a part that was integrals like literally the heart of the community usually literally this would be historically speaking in a village you’d have a pub you’d have a church and you maybe have a post office that’s how integral they were and it’s very much something people forget that and some people understand it usually older generation but the younger generation doesn’t and they just go like well yeah whatever it was fine or i’ll go to a better place where they have dancing like like it’s like a club or something like that or i’ll go to like it’s very much a very weirdly not individualistic is the right word here in this case but consume consume this is very consumerist in a very in a very derogatory term of that say sense i can i can praise consumers in another way obviously but uh this way is not very it’s very well it’s it’s yeah immediate it’s immediate that’s the word i’m looking for immediate right like yeah yeah but like like the important part is that if you go to a pub you build something you build relationship right if you go to like all of these other places where you have uh you have relationships right but yeah but they’re drunk right or like like closer yeah with live music and yeah they’re not sustained right like they’re just functional um instead of living together right like yeah indeed and so i want to go back to this this this whole idea right so we described kind of like this this new way of of being right of dealing with with economics with the social stuff right and and what what fate means in that context is somewhat different right because because well like i’ve been talking about the intimacy crisis right like this yeah there’s a lack of intimacy and a lack of intimacy changes like like the leap becomes bigger right like oh yeah jump farther so so um yeah so when you were on your discovery journey right like yeah you and i right we we took the intellectual rather than over the experiential which is probably the the worst thing that you could ever do in your life for me i don’t think it was i’ll explain but the problem is it did lead me to a very very dark path um so after getting the john peason i got into Jonathan Bejo and then me and my friends me my same friend who got me to economics he was like oh have you heard of this uh paul van der clay chap as well and then in fact this is very in the early days anyway it’s like oh i’ll check him out and then clearly that’s how we met anyway obviously in many ways so it’s kind of uh from there but i was always still in the background i was still an atheist all this time very not a new atheist just an atheist in that sense what i mean is uh a new atheist is a very particular kind of atheist um like some like the charles uh sorry the um christopher hitchins the um richard dorkins the uh daniel and uh what’s his name sam harris kind of people that specific kind of and i was never kind of enticed by them really uh i always liked um or i did always like uh richard dorkins but mainly for his biology work than really his religious work and when his religious work he was more of a in the best ways he’s making fun of dumb people they always were all of them were they’re making fun of these dumb people or making fun of these in right this one of themselves for not taking the serious position seriously right yeah in many ways this is the thing is and i can and there’s always this thing always sticks in my mind where i remember richard dorkins said he was had a conversation with it was the used to be the arch bishop canterbury uh rowan williams or roningson or something like that and he if he probably has a lot of books written anyway and he kept this going and richard dorkins kept saying so oh he was it was like really interesting because anytime i said he would finish effectively what my position was he knew exactly what my position was and then it literally this is what dorkins when it went but why doesn’t he agree with me then he literally did not and it was just i remember listening this and i went oh not just that it says this person romeo’s clearly archbishop canterbury one of the top in the church obviously the church of england was like he literally understood charles ritchie dorkins sorry i’m because i’m charles i don’t know why richard dorkins um position here and richard dorkins like well he understands it why doesn’t agree with me then he had he had no comprehension that maybe no he he understands it that’s why he doesn’t agree with you uh kind of position he never even crossed his mind there was a bit of a weird idiocy crossed with hubris which is a very my my most hated character trait which is why it kind of stuck in my mind still to this day um but to carry on i went down this path all this stuff and i was still interested in it and then i got a job i won’t say which job it is obviously because but i had this particular job and we say i had a lot of time on my hands and when you have a lot of time on your hands and you can’t do work um you start contemplating things basically your own existence and during this time clearly i was reading a lot reading a lot of things and effectively i just kept question i came to the point effectively i started self-destructing literally deconstructing my own beliefs saying why do i believe what i believe and i got to the conclusion and i wasn’t wrong in my conclusions there is no reason for believing what i believe and in fact i got to a kind of an existential nihilism like i got to a point where that i was nihilistic like not in the that’s it’s like there i got to the point where i can’t believe anything i am stating so therefore maybe there isn’t such thing as morality there isn’t such thing as any of this there is no meaning to things and it’s a very dark place you get to effectively an existential depression and it’s clearly it’s completely intellectualized because again i was effectively alone it was alone there was no integration with anything i was so isolated yes even though i had a job was picking people from from yourself into the world right and it was like well what is the place that i’m standing on that that i’m making that move from and you you realize that if you keep taking a step back right like yeah you come out of smaller and smaller space and and a sort of what is it’s not even the smaller and smaller space it’s more of uh how do i get i believe in this thing but there’s literally nothing to justify what i believe like i cannot find the justifications for this belief so therefore the belief is probably wrong that was kind of the view and you get to a very much like there’s certain things i start to believe like clearly i was believing like okay this this this pair of pliers exists like clearly i was still getting a very much a realist view on things i wasn’t completely like oh i don’t even i’m not even questioning the pliers exists i wasn’t getting there i was more of a i’m questioning more of the oughtness the the meaning the the morale morals the virtues you’re trying to jump to his odd gap i wasn’t trying to jump his gap i was trying to find the justification the another ought that i couldn’t disagree with but the problem was i was going down and down and down and it was completely materialistic completely and it didn’t help and i got to a very very dark place there was one point when eventually i weirdly enough um i did into electrolyze at one point i went technically i couldn’t even believe this uh nihilism because to believe that nihilism was still having to assume things which couldn’t justify itself so technically got into a contradiction again said one of these wonderful contradictions pop up again which means then i got so an intellectualized thing so i had to kind of some way of transcend myself and out of desperation to a certain extent i went you know what i’m going to try this something called praying i’ve never done it in my life literally um and i actually tried it and begged effectively for a question i asked honestly and i won’t say what else because it is quite private but and it got answered and it terrified me literally terrified me i went right this is not just random this is a very specific question and i got a very specific answer all right what to put it bluntly so i didn’t do it again for a while so i tried to get later like a few weeks later honestly again and i asked a honest question i got an honest answer now the answer didn’t come in the way you expect either but you get you’d get it like it wasn’t just like oh it was a few hours later and then you got the answer wasn’t like on that spot but the answer was also very related to what the question was it wasn’t like so you could if you was it was getting a skeptic i was just coincidence just coincidence like that’s a very very bizarre coincidence well like i i made a tweet today and the tweet was basically well like from the unknown the answers need to come right and so yeah what are you what are you doing to be receptive right like yeah when you start opening the door answers will come like yeah and all i’m saying is this is terrifying and it still is by the way this is absolutely terrifying you answer into the factory into nothing question into nothing and you get something from nothing it’s like wait what something i literally was not i did not have any i literally i could not have answered this myself so it’s always the like yeah sometimes the answers are just coming from like speaking to someone and then they some say something very specific which i didn’t even bring up but they did all right wait what how why did you say that and then what do you mean why did i say that i was just thinking at the time kind of thing and i went okay um sure kind of thing or sometimes it was just randomly you find it when you come to the ground you just it just something’s happened and it’s like series events it’s like this what it’s like watching a comedy show in many ways they’ll just kind of pile on top of each other and it’s like what so that’s kind of that thing so it wasn’t more of a i took i didn’t say i took a leap i thought you know what i’ve got nothing to lose kind of you i’ll try this thing that’s also a relief right which is a leap yeah it’s very much like i’ll try anything i’m desperate kind of you um just a leap up there’s yeah it’s just more of i’m jumping i’m not jumping over i’m just gonna jump up guys hopefully i don’t hit my head on the ceiling um kind of you i didn’t hit my head or maybe i did i don’t know um but yeah that’s kind of that kind of thing and then you start because the weirdest thing is all of before this clearly i’ve read i’ve read even loads on the history of religion and stuff was always fascinated about why do people believe what they believe so i already had a lot of the the stuff there but this way the intellect tradition didn’t convince me at all okay that’s interesting so yeah did you change your mind on that on which bit the intellectual tradition no no i didn’t change my mind i just had something else that it would change it for me as well yeah okay but but but it got changed them i’m sorry like in the sense that yeah it got it kind of got changed is what i’m saying okay and so so what what what do you think made it uh i guess gave the authority to to approach it differently like that’s a leap right like no it is a leap and it is uh the first thing is the i would say the intellectual stuff does help it tells you it’s more in the negative sense it tells you what things don’t make any sense what you shouldn’t shouldn’t believe don’t tell you what you ought to believe that’s the problem it’s more of a no not to say you shouldn’t in the intellectual sense it’s more of a saying assuming these assumptions axiomatically these things would lie so if you have these you can treat it very mathematically there’s no value in it whatsoever like it is very much a when you read a lot of these things people forget that they’re not actually bringing in the whys they’re just bringing in the the what’s or how sometimes but so the leap was more of i was asked i was still even to say i still ask the why questions i’m like look how do you answer these why questions and it’s the assault gap obviously everything always comes back to the assault gap obviously but something that is that what kind of made me change my mind wasn’t change my mind it’s just more of a realizing you shouldn’t it’s more of you shouldn’t reduce it to one or the other it’s more of the and if when i realize you shouldn’t do a reduce what the auto is effectively is what i was trying to do but even though i know you couldn’t i was trying to um yeah that’s it’s more of it was opening up me up to a different way of of experiencing things and also in that way yeah so what’s holistic would be a word that applies there say that again holistic no i hate that word so much but i think i got you’re gonna probably hate this it’s probably more dualistic oh yeah okay yeah i know okay so what what are you what are you like uh trying to say when you say dualistic like you mean holding two things at once is that no the dualism in this case is that there can be two things and they’re separate one’s not reducible to the other they do possibly participate together they relate to each other but they are separate and i don’t and that’s the weird thing is that when my other views i was trying it was trying to be not holistic but reductionist always reduce it down to the matter without realizing actually yes there is matter but there’s also other things and those things participate with the matter they and also they are separated they’re distinct things like you can say there’s multiple dualisms it’s not just one dualism there are always dualisms going on here and you can split it as many times as you want and you can unify them as well and get a hold to them but then the problem is is when you think of the whole it’s not really for me at least i’m not saying it isn’t useful it’s just not useful to me and for me when i realize i’m like no there are separate things and you shouldn’t you should be trying to participate in these separate things differently okay so i’m interested in this whole right because you seem to be allergic to this it’s not allergic to i we probably have discussed it anyway but like you’re very much more platonistic than me and i’m more at a t in that regard so i’m much more my my instincts are more uh down than up and we’ve sometimes gotten a little argument before but you very much you want to try you want to unify and look at the unit more the thing that unifies them together where i’m more looking at like the particulates of things and i’m more interested in that and clearly that’s what happens in my life my jobs i’ve chosen like more sciencey background like i was a physicist by profession and such and and i love understanding the particulars of things more on that than sometimes it’s useful to know what is the unifying principle sometimes because then knowing the unifier things tells you more about the particulars in that regards but it’s very much knowing that sometimes that there are particulars is what i’m trying to say rather than just the unifying principle because sometimes that unifying principle isn’t the useful thing um wow okay okay well that and i’m saying useful when i say useful i’m using a very vague term of meaning useful as well by the way i’m being as vague as possible well but there’s a utilitarian ethic behind no not utilitarian pragmatic in this case well yeah but but no i mean very i’m being very very careful but but basically what i’m hearing when you say that is yeah that the principle is in service to no no no no i’m not saying the principle is in service no but that’s the way that no no no i’m not saying that at all um i know that’s how you’re interpreting it it’s really hard sometimes i just haven’t got the language to explain it sometimes um and i struggle so in this particular case it’s more of what i normally focus on i wasn’t saying it’s in service of it isn’t it’s just that for me i am more naturally inclined to look at the particulars than the principle because they’re graspable then more they’re graspable to me like this pair of pliers is graspable to me this wire is graspable this pen is graspable which is why i was getting the more inclinations to be the more materialistic again when i stuff like that as a kid but it doesn’t mean clearly okay the graspable thing okay why am i grasping this is the first question what is it use what’s its function what is what is about this what is it about a pair of pliers that um makes there’s always all these questions you start asking and it starts less becoming about the particular it is about more about the principles behind you or the more unified aspects and then you start being there which is they’re not because of this the pair of pliers is a very low thing on that hierarchy of the things right it’s really low because like when you were saying all these questions i’m like yeah you’re gonna look at those questions you’re not gonna find any answers no you’re not you’re not and that’s the point i’ve just picked a pair of pliers great that’s a tool so clearly in a tool sense you’ve got it means um a reasonable as to achieving a goal you’ve got to tell us in that regards it’s a tool for that achieving that you can use it in other ways poorly whatever you want to do it’s just like i’m thinking of it from a tool standpoint but not everything is a tool and that’s why you brought up the utilitarian thing and i wasn’t thinking it from a utilitarian standpoint i’m thinking more pragmatic standpoint i’m very anti utilitarian very much so even in my instance well we we can be empty things and slip into them right like that’s that’s no no no even in my instincts i’m really not um and i can there are certain things where i can be too allergic to it at times um even the the smallest amount of it can take me off so i i guess like there’s a dance right between the highest right because you gotta have the highest correct because if you don’t yes you’re misguided right yeah and then you can’t have your head there all the time because then your your up but like that’s probably not your your your your loss right your your your head in the clouds and um so there’s a dance that you need to do right where like i take take the example of a deer right like the the deer looks down to the fruit graces yeah that looks up right like looks around it walks looks forward like looks around again right so there’s this this breath yeah this this movement of of of these two aspects and they they always are in a dance and they have to be in a balance as well um and and then the question is well what’s your what’s your guiding principle right like is is your yeah no no no it’s the word you said guiding principle and i agree with you there right the thing is one of the reason why i was talking about the utilitarian thing is the utilitarians in general or general consequentialists in general don’t have guiding principles they have implicit right like no no no no so they don’t have guiding principles they the way that they view the world and you can just do it by talking to them is that they have a ideal they’re aiming at yeah that’s not a principle i would say the difference between a principle and ideal like like ontologically speaking they all separate out things entirely and they are much more caring about the goal the end than they are about the process well the guiding principle is very much bedded in the process itself you’re worrying about you are thinking about the process and i’m not saying in a guiding princess well you don’t a guiding principle isn’t necessary to govern the role the end the guiding principle is an end in itself in that regard yeah i’m trying to use i’m trying to use the word end but it’s not an end but yeah yeah it’s not an end it’s not an end it’s a deontological category if you want to be technical um well the consequentialist one so yeah that’s an ideal is more consequentialist while the principle is a deontological and that’s why a lot of the utilitarian folk always try and reduce it back down to an ideal oh the only reason you have that principle is you’re trying to achieve this ideal i’m like no like a container right like the principle is that which contains the activity right like it it governs it it governs it’s the governing governor of that activity yeah right it’s the governor of your actions itself right the actions thereby it’s an authority right and so um like like i was asking you earlier about what what gives gave the authority for the leap or whatever right like this yeah there’s always an authority that justifies the toolness of the tool oh yeah and uh and so i think i think it’s always appropriate to look from the perspective of the authority and and and then you’re you’re an agent in the name of that authority but that that’s just my vision anyway how do i want to yeah so i want to go to to the god thing right and the religion thing yes from here because i think i think since since we’re we’re talking about this divide we’re looking up and looking down right like ultimately you have to say well okay there’s principles oh yeah i need indeed what’s the principle principles right like like how do i govern or who how do my principles get scorned right there’s a there’s something going on there and like yeah unfortunately right and since you’re since you’re saying well i i like to look down which which is like well it’s not that i don’t like to look down it’s more of a i like to look down so i can then look up so um again a given analogy in my life one piece of advice i always give to people who want to learn stuff is like look always learn the level below and what i mean by that is like i’m a physicist by profession i did i worked at university and i used to do like a condensed matter physics so the very very small the very very cold right so many people think in most people physics all the high energy stuff you’re doing things with cyclotrons and all this stuff and you’re smashing things together at high speeds i’m like no i’m thinking the exact opposite that’s still small really low energy so low energy is so cold and they start losing their identities and they make a new state of matter called boze einstein condensates and such so that’s what i used to but the thing is at that level you’re doing a lot of engineering is the first thing but you also have to know the quantum mechanics but it’s always it was sometimes useful to know the level below and the level below quantum mechanics is quantum field theory when you know quantum field theory is the level below but i knew that level and it did help me from time to time but most of the time i was working at the quantum mechanics or even just the engineering level really and that was the levels i was working at and even in my day job mainly which is now programming i do know the levels below so that can help me into at the level i’m working at but those are all very much this is what i’m saying from a teaching standpoint many people don’t know the levels below so they don’t even actually understand what they’re actually working at i’m not saying you have to know all the levels because by the way there’s no bottom really on most of it it’s very much like just just a level but one level below that’s fine just just stay there please and then it’ll help you because then it’ll help you know look that you need to look above after that you know actually the levels above it i can see how it scales now you can see the pattern of the scaling going on so do you think that’s a necessity like you need to look down in order to look up or like i don’t a necessity i think is the wrong way of phrasing it but but but it’s it’s it’s a way that you have virtualized and familiarized yourself with it is i think um i think i’ve written this down before by the way my actual thoughts just just to clarify the exact terminology and everything uh because i’ve always kind of i’m awful at words and i have to write it down i’m not i’m not a writer um like oh god what am i thinking i’m sorry shouldn’t be saying uh possibly stuff there but yes uh so i’m just trying to think of the phrase that i’m looking for here i’m not saying to look down to look up but he also to look up you need to look down like need to do both like so we even know there’s an up there’s a needs to know there’s a down kind of thing um in that regard is the poorest way of putting it so but there’s yeah so i’m just trying i was just trying to phrase what i’m only thinking in my own head at the moment it’s really head and mind and everything all good it’s more fun often maybe you could go down a level oh no i i usually can unfortunately sometimes you can go i for me and other things like when i was a physicist i’m awful at remembering definitions but things that usually knew i used to be good at equations and i didn’t remember always the high level one they could always know the lower low ones more fundamental things and derive the higher level level one if necessary because i didn’t have to remember the higher thing i could just go from the lower and emerge up the higher and then i needed to reinvent that during the exams and i was like yeah this is no i’m not doing that no i’m not going down into set theory man but sometimes i was just very much like i can’t remember how this equation is can i i know i remember i know the process i knew the process of how to get there so i just did the process and then i got there so the thing to me was more of a not remembering the the how to have it the goal but the path exactly that’s that’s how i’ve always worked and like i always had to like when i was remembering for exams there was a lot of easy marks learning definitions and i used to just literally memorize the exam and then when they came up i could just effectively metaphorically barf them onto onto the page and then they’d be gone again after i’ve got off the exam which personally i think that doesn’t test anything about my knowledge but it wasn’t it was just remembering like i okay i know a definition but in real life i don’t care about those definitions is more of i know how to get the path to that that’s the thing it’s very much those definitions are just they’re not functional right it’s just random names random names and words i make i forget people’s names from day to day like i can’t remember um my name at times that’s not even a joke like because it’s not who cares it’s a name i could call myself blobe i can’t i can’t remember your name at times too so that’s fine yeah i mean oh it’s just yeah it’s just uh names to me just don’t matter because it’s very it’s not necessarily arbitrary it’s just more of a like i can tell you some someone’s about tiny that tarot life but forget their name right i have that problem too so to go back to the problem of religion and what role it plays right or or what it play for you uh because like i see religion as maintaining and cultivating the relationship to what’s above right and the problem with looking down is that you might get your head stuck in the sand or you get sucked into a rabbit hole right and so there’s this uh this this dance that you need to do where you come you’re like an eagle or something right and you look you’re looking down and you’re like there’s the mouse right yeah and and and and then you go back up right and and there’s a there’s an ease that you can develop in in that movement right i think i think that’s the role of religion and so so the first question i i have is um how do you know how are you like for yourself uh evaluating whether you’re in a right relationship relationship i don’t okay and i know that’s not an answer you were wanting maybe well do you think there’s value in that like i think evaluating it explicitly means you’re actually not taking it seriously i when i that’s like sounds like a contradiction again sorry that just seems to be the theme today but um but the sense is how how if i i myself cannot evaluate it is what i’m trying to say everyone around me should be able to evoke everyone else should be evaluating it for me and that’s and then i would know indirectly through others um yeah well yeah and i i know that sounds i’m not i’m i know probably not answered it directly but maybe but that but are you are you like there are some things that you can evaluate yourself right but but no there are certain things obviously but i mean the general thing is about you’re asking in a very specific thing and i’m like i shouldn’t be doing it because i i will be mis-evaluated because the question is what am i evaluating against okay let me let me rephrase the question then how do you organize your life in such a way that you have people around you that do that evaluation for you well the first thing is you make you have sure you’ve got friends and family make sure you actually go and see them i make sure do stuff and there’s always the selfish thing because clearly i enjoy it i like it want to see them it’s healthy for me it’s healthy for them but then there’s the thing is that’s how you do it because if you live alone a life um like you don’t see anybody any day um then you you can’t and that clearly first off it’s kind of like that’s not good for you i know that’s not good for me on like an in like a deep level and i think most people understand that there’s an intuition there you know that’s not correct i could think but then there’s the second thing is like you know that’s not a good thing so you shouldn’t do it shouldn’t so therefore the question is those other things that you do then i can from an intellectual thing i’m like okay and now i can see if like oh if how are people treating me when i’m dealing that shows me something else and not just that you can also hear how people talk about you sometimes and how they talk about you in that regard is also another reflection so it’s very much the um i’m not saying i’m trying to judge myself by how others think of me but more of how do people not think of me but act with me so i i agree with you to a certain level right okay i i think i think there’s things that the people around you are capable yep of tuning into but i also think that there’s things oh yeah there’s certain things as well but i think i if you’re talking to the context of like how am i doing my practice as well kind of thing it’s very much well you’re doing practices in the first place right like that’s already a big deal right because that’s one of the ways that you’re you’re maintaining that you’re true right like yes so yeah maybe maybe go into that a little bit yeah um sometimes practices can be quite simple and for me this is where you were asking earlier very very much question like it’s not just like oh you well how do you have a belief in god or something like that to a certain extent but then you don’t effectively join a church kind of view because it’s very much um that is a big leap but it’s not just a big leap in many ways it’s just a big leap of commitment as well and i’m not saying the fear of commitment it’s just to me it’s very much more of a when you make a commitment you do have to be at least a little bit sure you’re not just arbitrarily choosing something but also it’s very much like okay i’m trying to think of a very weird phrase way of framing this but is it even is that is committing itself is not necessarily a good thing like we’re seeing you have a commitment to an awful girlfriend why are you committing to her first off you know i’m married secondly but secondly like don’t like that’s not you shouldn’t have that commitment for no reason in that sense in that particular case i know it’s a bit of a random example well yeah there should be a justification on some level right yeah exactly yeah and for me it’s more of a i think this is also partially the other thing is is is some of those aspects where people ask me questions well everyone who asked this question i’m like you went to church pretty much all your life even when you were a child if you ever did become an atheist you were brought up but not weren’t brought up as an atheist this isn’t foreign to you this but this is but for me to make that commitment is so foreign it’s like me going saying you know what i am now going to live in the middle of india why i just need to go live in a different country make a commitment it’s like what it is just something to me that maybe i’m i’m disabled in some way literally maybe i’ve got something wrong with me because i didn’t get brought up in a certain way there was something wrong with my mind or brain or whatever which to me is like either i don’t want to make the commitment and it’s not allowing me or i’m like maybe i’m not able to make the commitment at least not yet without something else making that commitment for me if you know what i mean like i don’t think i’m going to be making the commitment something else is going to make it for me okay so that that’s fascinating because we were talking about the binding element right and and how how things emerge right and how society doesn’t provide that yeah i would argue that if you’re committed uh that that’s what builds that that integrated structure right like the natural emergence of things right like they can only emerge in in a body right like something that’s able to hold you as a member of it um but there’s also a very big top down thing so in in england and the united kingdom in general so the entirety of you can in united kingdom uh it’s a very very atheistic country like of the people who even self-report to be of let’s say christian to this way only six percent of them actually even go to church church and some of them some other problems yeah there’s a lot of problems first thing and but the thing is the society we have and also the leader in the culture is very that much there but his and this is just a hypothesis let’s say you’ve got king charles right he is the head of the england king church if he started being a little bit more explicit about things like from the top down not top down i things would start changing some people would start like maybe i should start doing this as well because then there’s a weird thing is culture normalized right it would start first would be normalized people start wouldn’t be that so they would be okay i’ll start doing this but this is the weird thing is um fashion what is fashionable is a top down event it’s never bottom up and people there are certain types of people i’ll say the cool people that dictate what is fashionable like if you if you um but if you’ve ever seen the film have you ever seen the film the devil wears prada in that all i’m going to say is there’s there’s two characters there’s the merrill streep character and then there’s the an hathaway one and this may sound like a very weird question which one do you relate to more merrill streep or an hathaway yeah i don’t i’m not gonna answer the question because i don’t remember no no so if you don’t know that’s fine don’t worry i’m gonna explain the film so in the film an hathaway is this um which is a bit of a woman just normal woman at the end of the day she thought i’m trying to do fashion stuff i’ll get into the fashion industry kind of thing and she’s just thinking i’m going to stay myself i’m going to be all right kind of thing kind of this like this i’m just going to do this and then you’ve got merrill streep who’s literally the head of it she is the one who’s dictating what is going to be fashionable that week that thing what’s choosing all this stuff and she’s dictating it down and interesting you see the an hathaway character initially she starts slowly morphing into it and she starts actually being effectively from the top down being molded by the merrill streep character into what is and she then actually becomes merrill streep’s top-lits effectively say the right-hand woman in that regard until eventually she does effectively just break off it’s very much like okay there’s there’s a redeeming aspect but the thing is in that sense is what is fashionable what is the cultural aspect is a top-down thing it is never bottom up so the problem is when i was like this is where i was kind of saying like if i was going to make a commitment i wouldn’t make it the choice something from top down whatever that may be would be making that choice for me and i think this is the case for most people most people we’re not going back to the pub thing anyways just very much people just went to the pub that’s what you do they didn’t think about it it wasn’t a bottom up thing really yes the how they have not how they came about was bottom up but the reason as to why they go isn’t is not that it’s a top down thing and the one that’s the thing is the whinest comes from it up the what the how not that the um the things there’s certain things that emerge and certain things that emanate and it’s that relationship and knowing which bits are in relation to it which is why that’s why the question people i saw why don’t you ask that make the commitment of something to let’s say go to a church whatever it is to me it’s like you’re asking the wrong question to me that’s why i’m i’m gonna go back to my tweet right my tweet is what what are you doing so that you’re open to to the potential right like like so in order for the top down to inform you right it’s fair enough like are you placing yourself in a position where you can be informed but there’s a caveat there which potential you’re if you if you open up to a potential like that’s all no no i know what you’re saying like like no you’re just saying well okay like i’m just in analysis paralysis and i’m no no i’m not saying analysis paralysis i am saying if you open yourself to anything that’s not a good thing um yeah okay fair enough because any other bad things can get into there is what i’m trying to say right that’s why there’s a tradition that tells you but there’s there’s a tradition it’s again the tradition is just how things are obviously that’s the that’s what that’s what of course that’s what you do kind of thing but that’s the problem is that when you open up to the potential the problem is is the potential there is the potential there and i don’t know that’s the potential there and i don’t know that’s that question and you could say oh i could always just try and the answer is yes i could try but it may lead me down a and it is the terror it is the terrified of certain of like where does this lead because to a certain extent i do know where this leads certain certain paths i know certain paths will lead me certain ways i don’t know all over the paths obviously i know there are multiple paths but i know some of them will lead me to a place where i do not want to go nor should i okay so so there’s there’s there’s a couple things there right so peterson says that if you aim for the star right like so the star is here yeah you’re starting off here and then the first time you shoot here right and then you shoot oh yeah right oh yeah sometimes you shoot you shoot below where you started but like that’s going to be necessary to build the contrast right like and and it’s it’s unavoidable in in some profound sense right like you can have the best spiritual guide ever right and you’re still gonna have to work yourself right and yeah and he can put you but you need to go there and you’re like you mean there like and and and yeah because you don’t have the tools like you’re gonna have to go there and see that you’re not going to the place it’s it’s hard to know um but that’s the thing is the potential there is that the reason why again it’s the question is other people asking for a specific question to a certain potential i’m like i’m not even sure that’s the right potential because also a lot of people are coming from very different contexts different programming like when i think of religion i am not thinking of it’s just like wow it’s just one church during them like but many people do i’m thinking like no it’s the entire culture that i am brought up in it’s the entire culture around me like i do not think of it as a religion around me like i do not think of them as separate like i’m not separating it’s the way i view the world entirely that is what religion is right it’s what i how i view the world what my assumptions about the world actually are the way you bind yourself to the world a way i bind myself to that as well that’s the point all of this yes you can do the religio thing yes with binding that’s the point like i don’t think that the religion is that which comes at you because what comes at you you built right and that by which it filters is the way that you bind yourself right you you you bind yourself to certain signals and you choose to ignore audit right and and like the whole idea like and i think this is in playlou and i think this is in christianity and like i think it’s probably in stoicism as well it’s like that there’s this convergence right like when you learn how to bind yourself you’re going to attune more to to certain signals which are true and you’re going to learn to recognize and disregard and and and so so what i see is is that most structures are like an interface right they’re like okay this is this is the way that i’m gonna recognize signals right this is the framework in which like like i’m i’m gonna have have them appear to me right yeah and this is how i’m gonna filter it and this is how i’m gonna do my error correction right and and obviously they’re all tuning into through the same good at some level right yeah but they’re not tuning into it the same way and with the same quality right so and so when you’re asking me uh what like what what is the right choice i’m like well any choice is better than no choice right and that um oh no i i don’t know if i agree with that because i think no choice is a choice still by the way but uh to a certain extent um but no in this case it’s just more of a it’s just very much a uh there’s a lot of reasons why people ask that question it’s always much like there’s a lot of things that bother me about it um and i can break it down i could be for hours breaking that down which is why like like if i if i put on my skeptical gap i can i’m not even being skeptical it’s more of i can use it when i’m talking to a certain person i can pretty much guess what they’re talking why they’re asking me that question some people don’t like and they’re the ones i’m really interested in but it is just i’m not sure what they’re asking me but it is just how do i phrase it uh i’m trying to find a good way of phrasing it it’s just very much like i maybe the question i always ask is why are you asking me this question like that’s the simplest thing i clearly we’re not talking about any particular person at the moment i could always ask you like why are you asking me this because but i already kind of i already know for you that’s the thing is i already know your that’s the things i’m asking you it’s more of god i don’t want i know what the answer is that’s the problem i don’t like it i don’t like it that’s the thing what’s the answer it’s more of a do it i would i don’t know i’m trying to think actually no i don’t know i lie i’m gonna correct myself and apologize or maybe i do and i’m just this is probably just a bit of cowardice that and there is the thing is maybe i don’t want to say i’m wrong um save face stiff upper lip and all that all um but okay what okay i’m gonna just ask you to blow into it why not so why are you asking me well like okay like why am i asking well first of all like i i always like to push things right yeah no i got that so that’s one reason and the the other reason is i’m i’m general genuinely curious and thirdly like i don’t i don’t think you have an answer no i don’t have an answer right no i don’t that’s kind of why i’m pushing it’s like you don’t have an answer bro no i don’t have an answer and the thing is um i don’t like many of the answers i’m being given either i want to say i like it’s not more of like a preference it’s more of a i just think that’s wrong and i think it’s a lot of also a lot of is let’s say sometimes people are giving advice i’m like your advice is just wrong like it doesn’t even apply anymore like it may apply to you when when you were back out in the back in the past literally maybe just a decade ago um but it doesn’t and also may apply only where you live like i live in a very different place to where a lot of people are talking i live in a different time to people like in a weird way i’m to explain this let’s say someone was born in the night in like 1980 lives a very different life to me who wasn’t born then like it’s okay over more than a decade older than me um okay i grew up with the internet i literally cannot imagine a time without the internet is one thing to explain and to those people they can imagine that’s like of course i can imagine time like i can’t i can i can imagine a time it’s not my time so so so i guess yeah like so what what i’m hearing is is that you kind of feel stuck at the place and i’ve been this way for probably two years and i’m still and so in in order to to let go right you need something higher than yeah basically supplying you in your life right and having a trajectory that’s somewhat reliable right and yeah you have you have to exchange that for something which is not with a letter of intent of buying your product oh yeah and look it’s clearly i don’t think of it as a um i’m not thinking it from a business standpoint i’m literally just saying in a weird way i want to get to the point where i don’t have a choice in it anymore or not just a choice but that’s the wrong word of phrasing it but the the it’s so blatant obvious there’s no other options it’s it’s it’s like the obvious step right it’s the obvious step and that’s the point and to me nothing is obvious at the moment and the people the advice you get is very much like that’s obviously wrong but they don’t see it and they’re like you explain it to them like they have no comprehension of why it’s wrong because it worked for them or they think it works for them is more the answer really you think it works for you um i’m not sure about that um and then that’s kind of the thing and i know that’s why i’m stuck i could make a leap but for me a lot of these things when people say oh you just do that i’m like you never actually had to make that leap you just fell back into your old practices yes it may have a different flavor to it like for instance oh someone going from i don’t know calvinist and they became that orthodox or something like that it’s a different flavor really it is a more and a better analogy would be from going from like um again a hindu to a catholic that’s a really big jump like it’s completely that’s literally just a separate culture not religion you’re like i hate the word in that sense but like you have not so radically different it’s like again it’s me like saying back earlier i went oh we’re going to live in the middle of india it’s like this i would it would be a stranger in a strange land yeah it’s born again right like you’d be a new person yeah in a weird way and it’s not good it’s not good and that’s not good advice but that’s kind of the thing is that people i don’t think they realize what they’re asking for or telling me i’m like you don’t realize what you’re saying and i even when i tell you don’t realize which is why i don’t like the question so much because it’s very much i haven’t found the answer i’m stuck i know you don’t have the answer to a certain extent for what i’m asking for at least um but i’d love to find it it and that’s the search at the moment at least for me is to find that path and carry on the path and how i met how long it takes me and and i’m going to guess when i do find that path and that that’s part fork in the road i’ll have a choice okay cool um so i want to round it up a little bit i think yeah we came to a somewhat natural end that’s good yeah maybe we should go into the aristotle versus playdough thing sure well like i think yeah maybe i should read more before we do that no no i again um our stuff is quite dry in many ways but in is quite is not hard to read in many ways either and i do recommend we always recommend the machine ethics or or however you pronounce that properly i don’t care i’m english i just read what i’m reading on paper that’s how i pronounce it um all the foreigners that are wrong obviously it’s a bad joke but the it’s a good start like why i don’t recommend the poetics because that’s just very it’s not really worth it um but there are some other there are some good folks but again i always recommend nick machine or whatever ethics because for some people i would say it’s useful like it’s a practical thing it’s applied in many ways it’s applied ethics but i think for someone like yourself i’m not saying it’s i’m not saying that’s why you should read it it’s just more of a it’s a different way of focusing on things compared to how plato phrases things and plato focuses on more of the um the unifying principles why aerosol’s more of the the how those other principles work together and especially how those respect in this case virtues how the virtues work together rather than how they work in isolation or how they unify to be one idea of virtue itself well that’s actually yeah maybe i should read that yeah i’m actually trying to figure that out in my head right now so yeah and it’s um it’s quite weird to read if if you’re not used to obviously you probably should be okay actually but yeah it’s always a you may not even agree with them that’s the thing yeah i think you’ll probably agree with a lot of people i know you do but i know you do but i know i mean you’ll probably agree with a lot of it but all of it um because i haven’t read it in years but it’s one of those things where as soon as i remember reading trying to read like a few pages i know i know what this is all about why i don’t need to read it anymore kind of thing i’d like i’ve read it enough that i’ve internalized it uh kind of thing so yeah you want to reflect on the conversation like is there something that yeah uh i guess i would reflect when we’re just gonna reflect on after the conversation it’s gonna be reflect while i like lie in bed which is how i normally do things i’m either reflecting while walking the dog lying in bed or having a shower that’s usually what happens and that’s always the best places it’s literally the best places for me at least it is do you think that’s related to your process of thinking right like like yeah because the way that i go through things right like i’m going through the motions and like i reconstruct what happens while i’m i’m going through the process and then i’m like trying to see whether there was an error like she’s going a little bit left right no so for me it’s more of a like let’s say i’m working on my job then i’ve already i’m trying to figure out a problem i’ve got like a broken buggy in programming or something like that and i struggle so you know what i go for a walk take the dog out and i’m just walking the dog i’m literally mindless sometimes sometimes it’s very quite mindless and all of a sudden it comes to me out of nowhere like i’ve just kind of relaxed came out the environment came out of that focus process doing something more mundane process and that is drawing me back to where it is or there’s the second kind of view is that sometimes on those processes effectively i am best way i can describe it is an open prayer like i am literally talking aloud looking in the middle of wood so no one can hear me or think i’m crazy and if they did i’m like oh sorry i was just just speaking aloud don’t worry i’m insane usually kind of do that not usually enough to break it like okay whatever okay you’re insane fine yeah but that in that sense when i’m doing that i’m asking questions permanently allowed like i’m not uh it’s not like i’m having a conversation with myself no necessarily yeah like i’m asking questions i’m asking questions to certain things let’s just keep it vague as hell for a reason because it’s actually easier to keep it vaguer it’s more understandable then um and that’s the thing i’m just asking and then that’s less mundane in that case it’s not like mindless anymore it’s very mindful but at the same times it helps me go into a different process to clear it clear another process if you know what i mean to make it more clear what the other one was and that’s how my mind works at least i know it’s very weird and i’ve explained how my mind works with the people before it’s like yeah that’s weird i’m like i know it is i’m a weird bloke always i’ve been i don’t think it’s gonna stop i don’t know about you because you say you would try you like to analyze it quite a lot and break down all the different paths and go down that way and like what could have done differently kind of thing i’m basically spatially going through yeah same same i can i usually think very very spatially um but i’m not necessarily i’m not well sometimes a bit kind of a bit neurotic which is kind of a bit of neuroticism that you can describing in a weird way to go a bit psychologically again um but to tie it back to the beginning obviously but it’s kind of like the spatial thing can get compulsive right just like keep yeah walking the same path i was like ah yeah but but i kind of got rid of that this was like yeah let’s just see what happened but yeah like it allows me to be really true right because like there’s a like not no like there’s no left here right like this yeah this reliability in in the movement that makes sense or whatever yeah like it just makes sense i know uh that’s i think that’s a good place to end i think yeah it’s a good place to close up thanks for watching everybody please leave reflections and we’ll do a follow up sometimes thank you yeah and don’t forget to smash that like button or like that smash button however you want to phrase that and the subscribe thing and the subscribe thing which is what here nowadays isn’t it somewhere somewhere there somewhere right now and uh got a ding that bell got to do all these youtube thing is i’m a youtuber right yeah ding ding so hi