What the hell is wrong with people in this comment section? This is not a battle its an intellectual conversation/debate. No, Sam Harris is not trying to destroy Jordan Peterson's reputation and no Jordan Peterson is not trying to convert Sam to Christianity. They're both very intelligent men challenging each other's ideas.
Well that's what he said in his last Reddit ama. "People often ask me if I'm a Christian. But I can't answer that because I don't know what they mean, and neither do they. The same applies when they ask "Do you believe in God?" It's not a question: it's a trap. So what's the proper answer? I don't know."
Madmac79 totally understandable that people may interpret him as religious, but he's not. i forgot the book i read by him but he says he isnt religious in the preface. it takes a google search figure it out rather than everyone argue and not look it up🙃
Peterson seems to be a guy that´s been to hell and back. Many professors are intelligent and knowledgeable, but they haven´t lived what they teach. They have a shallow relationship with their knowledge. Peterson speaks with the belief and passion of someone who´s actually experienced what he preach, but at the same time he´s able to frame it in an intellectual scientific context.
Grew up in Northern Alberta (harsh environment/living), spent 40 years studying ideology and its effects (harsh eyeopener), favorite book ins the Gulag Archipelago (eyebleachworthy reading), has endured decades of deranged 'Progressive' academic climates (harsh, hostile environment), and has been under attack for the last 5 months or so. He's a gem.
My summary Harris "It's time to do away with religion, we've outgrown it." Peterson "We're only just beginning to understand it, and why don't we try using it properly first?"
I don't mean for this to sound snarky or anything, but I really don't think that you fully understood the conversation. "Harris "It's time to do away with religion, we've outgrown it."" Yes, he thinks that religion is at best useless and at worst harmful to humans and society. We already know his position on religion in general, but that was not the overall "problem/ topic" here. "Peterson "We're only just beginning to understand it, and why don't we try using it properly first?"" I could be wrong, but I really don't think that Peterson would ever utter such a phrase, since it is too vague and simplistic. And while Peterson clearly supports some kind of religious philosophy that deals with the nature of being, it sounds to me like you are reading something into his reasoning that tells you what you want to hear, and discard ideas that are irreconcilable with your worldview. However, I am probably projection too much now. The real topics of conversation are ontology and epistemology. Peterson believes in a particular kind of pragmatism and Harris believes in realism. This difference in philosophical world views narrowed the scope of the conversation to the topic of "truth", which Harris could not turn away from because Petersons pragmatism doesn't allow for "truth = what is the case, regardless of whether or not it leads to good or bad conclusions".
Behelit Pragmatism doesn't exclude science or relative truth-facts, but is more fundamental truth that is unchanging throughout time. If a person sees someone singing next to their car one day then get a flat on the way home, and this leads them to believe that it is "TRUE" that they got a flat tire because of a spell that singing person cast on it, so they cast a reversal spell each day of their own, and their car keeps getting one flat after another, so they cast more spells, and never go to a mechanic to find out the underlying structural issue ripping their tire, this is based on an observation but its NOT A TRUE belief, due to the fact that SOLUTION applied never improves the situation. This is a shitty example, but this is the difference. The observation of the person singing was, in fact, real, but was falsely interpreted for its meaning and carried on with no beneficial result.
I know - why are you explaining a facet of pragmatism to me? I merely pointed out the fundamental difference in their philosophical assumptions. But since we are having this discussion, Peterson is not a classical pragmatist, he puts his own distinct spin on it, which has its clear advantages as well as disadvantages. I just realised that I am commenting on the wrong video -.- Oh well, my comments might still be useful to some people.
Peterson is way more of a Jungian than I realized. And I like it. You don't see that much anymore. I'm a rationalist like Sam. But I feel like I become more intellectually enriched with every narrative that Peterson runs through. His breadth is impressive. And his connection with scientific psychology and neuroscience grounds it all very nicely. He's not just off-the-wall, crazy theorizing. There are some deep, valid structures in there.
I would never label myself, and I do not understand the desire to do so. As Søren Kierkegaard said: "Once you label me, you negate me". Why label yourself?
@@thegoodthebadandtheugly579 your mind is all messed up what you wrote makes no sense at best. You couldnt be more dishonest than this even if you wanted. Thats sadm
I don't know about Peterson though he is extremely eloquent, extremely well-read but his mission to elevate 2000 year old religious texts, why doesn't he reference more recent publications or fellow scholars in psychology? Like he is a clinical psychologist but he holds the texts of the bible in the highest regard?? Where is the more recent psychological foundings? I am going to go out on a limb here but retreating back into the old testament as a contemporary scholar is kind of a failure and I challenge Dr Peterson to present new findings of his discipline you can't go back to Jung and the bible give me more recent findings
@@joeschmoe3665 what makes you think that the evidence you want is the only evidence that's correct or even valid? A text doesnt survive for thousands of years if theres nothing to it. Have you not listened to any of Peterson's lectures on the bible stories? It seems to me that the people who wrote or collected those stories had a good understanding of the human mind and put that knowledge in a format that even idiots could understand. Stating something is invalid simply because it's old is intellectually lazy. That's like saying Elon shouldn't use steel on his rockets because the technology is too old
Sadly five months on, it looks like Trump brought in a brain dump / abusive type of favoured way of talking. People intellectual attracted to these two are more likely to be civil people.
I'm a big fan of Sam Harris and his uncompromising clarity. But when he talks to Peterson he has gotten out of his intellectual strike zone. He doesn't seem to take very seriously thinkers like Nietzsche, Jung, and Dostoyevsky. And you can see why ... because these are men whose thoughts run much deeper than mere logic and rationality. They talk not about theoretical problem-solving, but about real pain and the horror and confusion of making sense of the human condition. It's a messy affair and Harris prefers the safety net of scientific rationalism.
It's like comparing games of Go and Chess. Go it is a game with objectively measurable results yet it can not be played as a series of "if" - "then" cycles - number of calculations needed to make a move is almost infinite. Discarding GO as irrational or obscure simply because we can not develop "if" - "then" algorithm for it is wrong.
+ Carlos A Does it offer nothing of value directly, or indirectly? In other words, at what remove are you defining 'value'? My point is that value can filter down through a structure; an event in the larger world may seem irrelevant to my little world, but - unbeknownst to me - its ramifications may entirely shape my little world. I agree with your statement on the surface. But peer underneath and perhaps things aren't quite so simple.
DesolationRow15 - I think you've got Harris completely wrong. I see not the slightest indication he "doesn't take seriously" the viewpoints of Nietzsche and the others. I see every indication that this degreed philosopher has deeply considered all manner of opposing viewpoints and has simply arrived at the conclusion that his way forward is most promising for humankind. If you disagree, fine, state your case. But here you just seem to be flailing away at him. "Out of his strike zone." Huh? He's written and spoken extensively right down the middle of this strike zone. Far from retreating to a "safety net," he tackles the messiest issues in a more honest way than anyone, including very difficult trade-off decisions such as torture vs. collateral damage that are about nothing but pain and horror and confusion... with the ultimate goal of improving the human condition. That is the essence of the Sam Harris project, rightly or wrongly pursued. Yet you think he isn't even aware that life's messy.
When I mention pain and confusion, I'm not talking about torture and collateral damage. I'm talking about subjective experience like Nietzsche et al. were talking about. Harris doesn't make a single point in reference to the actual thoughts of those thinkers because he doesn't think that it's as important as objective problem solving. Clearly you agree with that, but Peterson doesn't and that's why he sees scientific truth as nested inside a larger moral framework. Harris is a great philosopher if we are all beings simply trying to put together an objective puzzle. Unfortunately, life often feels more like a Kafka or Edgar Allan Poe story. And no matter how much we hope rationality can save us, the constant onslaught of the irrational forces us into the very difficult task of ascribing meaning to our seemingly futile lives. That's what those thinkers were writing about. I've yet to hear Harris confront those issues from a standpoint other than what seems best objectively for scientific man.
Does it warm anyone else's heart and endear Jordan to you even more when he says Sam's name? I really love Dr. Peterson, he honestly is having a significant effect on me and my life, like he apparently is for so many others. Thank you Jordan.
How does Sam suggest we are on the verge of leaving tribalism behind? It's profoundly naive to suppose that the immense technological growth of the last few hundred years could have even the slightest effect on something as fundamental to human nature as tribalism.
Faunus Funklebrot No, you will be stomped out by the remaining "still in a tribe" tribe. Also, you can try to deny tribalism, but that doesn't make it disappear. The "not in a tribe" tribe, is as you stated, a tribe. There are very few who claim to belong to no tribe at all.
Maybe that's the right word after all. I've been trying to nail down exactly what his deal is for a while now, but it's so difficult to put into words that I understand why many label him autistic. My most recent idea was that he is fundamentally unable to understand how beings without his intellect and inner peace (gained through his extensive meditation) have a deep need for religion and the archetypal ideals in their lives. They transcend time and space.
I think this is a problem with both Peterson and Harris: they don't account for the fact that the great majority of people are incapable of thinking for themselves (and that this may well be a necessary part of a larger balance). It seems to me that the Pareto principle applies here too; that it will only ever be a tiny minority that are able to reach the kind of maturity that allows them to live without an ideology of one sort or another. Most people are children looking for a parent; i.e. looking to be told what to think and what to do. I'm not familiar with Harris' thought, but Peterson's work is aimed - albeit not exclusively - at an elite class of person: it certainly isn't for everyone.
The not being in a tribe tribe is the only legitimate kind of tribalism there is. All other kinds of tribalism were doing it wrong! A more serious answer: Harris is a statist. He sanctions the initiation of force and violation of property in order to achieve your social and political aims. Therefore he has to promote a non tribal utopia..... because under statism whenever people have different needs, wants, preferences, lifestyles and desires and when they naturally form different tribes based on these things the result is ALWAYS aggression and theft, via the state, with a constant battle to control the state in order to be the tribe which gets to hold the guns and make the demands on all the other tribes. A society which outlaws theft and aggression outright for everyone can have as many different tribes as it likes (vive la difference!) and there is no problem, because none of the tribes have the legal right to violate the person or property of other tribes. But of course we cannot outlaw theft and aggression and live in a varied, free, open, moral, rational society ...... because that would technically be a state of anarchy.....
@ L P Peterson makes a point elsewhere that the world as a whole and the west in particular is a lot wealthier than 100 or 150 years ago. Yet I think there are still masses of people who may well have the intelligence to follow these thought processes and even attain ideological self-sufficiency, yet have no time to do so, or energy, or inclination when their lives are consumed by obtaining the necessities of that life. Enlightenment requires a certain baseline economic security to simply have the time to meditate and reflect and study the greats and history and all those things that are required. The reality is that many people will simply follow a leader they trust. And they live in the context, insofar as they live in peace, of a larger belief/moral system which creates the conditions for economic hope. While most of the elites and elitists presume the average person's stupidity because of their lack of knowledge, and believe they can be led around to almost any system or ideology they wish to impose, those people can just as often cling irrationally to what they have, when their instincts tell them to do so. The result is usually bloodshed if the enlightened do not have a baseline of morality independent and a priori to their social/philosophical ideology. That is the intrinsic problem with strict materialism, and Sam Harris embodies it, insofar as there is no value to human life other than what is added after an individual human life comes into being, a morality derived from that human being's experiences, as opposed to the intrinsic value of the human being as human and therefore a moral instinct/transcendent instinct which the individual is born into.
cr35t23 Forgive me if I am wrong but it seems a little narrow-minded to imply that your attribution excludes the possibility that another could also be correct. "Just" more or less implies "Only".
+cr35t23 Sam actually spent about the same amount of time enumerating his faults in the subsequent AMA podcast. He was quite contrite, and acknowledged that his stubbornness against moving forward may have been the problem.
TopHatKitty Indeed. Sam completely missed the opportunity to reciprocate, even in a purely superficial fashion. I like Sam Harris a great deal and agree with him frequently -, but wow that guy has an ego the size of Gibraltar. Worse, he seems unaware of it to the extent that it blinds him to social cues from others, and it leads him into making errors of assumption about others.
I also wanted to comment on the "Team Sam vs Team Jordan" aspect of this video. There is a piece of advice from youtuber Alan Thrall who was talking about his influences in his career has a power lifter. And that is, if you find yourself disagreeing someone you once idolized/respected, do not throw out everything that person has said because you found a new idea. I find myself returning to this advice has I listen to Sam Harris because for quite sometime I loved just about everything he said but now disagree with so much of what he shares. Although I was along my own path of independent thought Sams ideas helped me break away from the self destructive nature of my religious up bringing. This has been hard on my relationship with my family and it has forced me to make bold decisions and find strength and individually. He is a great thinker and I truly believe he tries to be a moral and loving person. But after discovering Jordan I see that there is a deeper story that applies to western culture and to the story of humanity, that is just has important today, has it was 10,000 years ago. Bless both these men for changing my life for the better.
"If you find yourself disagreeing someone you once idolized/respected, do not throw out everything that person has said because you found a new idea." Indeed. This is Critical Thinking 101. It doesn't matter from whom an idea comes; it's the idea that matters. You takes sides (or sometimes split the difference) on issues, not on people. One last point: avoid idolizing anyone in the first place. Respect is a different matter.
Alex Nezhynsky Jordan: But religious stuff has some good psychological benefits too. Sam: But why only Christianity? Why not from Buddhism, Or human culture in general.. Jordan:uh...... Sam: Every inspiration for life you can find from Krishna or Jesus could be found in batman and Superman.
@@gabbar51ngh It's strange you say that, because in their public debates, it's as if Sam Harris is arguing against religion as a whole, and leaving Jordan to defend religion, despite Jordan being only mainly familiar with Christianity. And its strange, because Harris' activity of meditation actually stems from eastern religions. It's ironic the position he's taken. 1:22:14 Jordan never says anything like "only Christianity." His argument is much more nuanced than that. Particularly that the Bible itself is a collection of stories that have survived throughout many cultures and much time; it is historically selected, so to speak (akin to the idea of natural selection). And the reason why these stories survived throughout that process where most stories would have been forgotten, is because these stories were archetypically representative of our ideal ways of being. There is a clear distinction here, that unlike my or your Ethics philosophy class, religion isn't about what to do in a certain circumstance. Rather, it's about what mode to be. As in, similarly, like how we feel when we watch a superhero, listen to music, etc. People mistake this when Jordan Peterson says that religion teaches you "how to act." He's not saying that you need religion to know how to morally act. He's saying that religion is a guide towards what mode to be in. In other words, "how to act" means "how to be." And like I said before, it's similar to how we feel when watching superheros, listening to music, or seeing grand art and architecture.
@@GrubKiller436you sound like the recipe story reading way to much into Jordan’s thinking. Regardless of the mode someone is in religion has been the scourge of mankind for 7000 years
Right, people here seem pretty sour on Sam. He's not as fun to listen to as Peterson, but he served that function very well and I never got tired of him.
That's because Harris is more used to an audience who can't keep up unless he spells everything out very slowly and clearly, carefully. "A stupid person's idea of what an intelligent person is."
1:29:00 Sam COMPLETELY misses the point of Jordan's explanation of the story of Christ as the perfect man/tragedy & immediately starts dismissing it as not the limits of tragedy & construing it as a fundamentalist would; a story of literal human sacrifice. * **sigh** It was the "limits" of tragedy for an individual in terms of the worst things (i.e. torture, humiliation, abandoned by friends and God) happening to the "best" man. In terms of fiction-FOR THE TIME PERIOD-it was an amalgamation of the the worst conceivable things happening to the best individual. ....Sam is COMPLETELY missing the overarching implications and psychological significance of that theme by focusing trivialities like comparisons on the "quality" of the story versus fiction since that time to the present or that it somehow legitimizes human sacrifice in the literal sense.
bajovato bajovato you're an idiot. you must have literally know nothing about Christianity, the Bible, or the story. According to the story, the book, the doctrine, the way Christianity is understood by Christians, and according to the faithful for thousands of years, the entire reason Jesus\god did what he did...the entire reason he was birthed, lived, and then was killed was to atone for the sins of every human. The story of Jesus in its entirety is a story of human sacrifice. And no amount of painting the shit stained wall will make it not stink. You can make Jesus as good of a man as possible, and make his suffering as bad as possible, and the story is still a story about human sacrifice. This is the fucking problem with all religious people. They literally are so self-righteous that they refuse to see what's right in front of their face. and by definition you have to be delusional, illogical, and self contradicting to be religious, because you literally have to excuse all types of crazy shit to make the story about what you want it to be about, instead of what it's really about. and that's how you get the crusades, Islam, terrorism, Waco, "creation science", thousands of years of war, rape, stoning, slavery, genocide...need I go on? When has religion ever done something good for humanity? point to one thing in the history books. people don't do novel good because of religion, but they do novel and lasting evil all the time. there's a reason history books are filled with religion.
A human sacrifice is involuntary. Jesus volunteered. He didn't have to do anything. It's a story of self sacrifice, not forced human sacrifice. When a soldier dies to protect his unit, is that a story of human sacrifice? The rest of your comment would be worth responding to if you weren't angry. Even what you perceive as the most egregious evils can be debated against with a calm demeanor. Anger is for your own satisfaction, not to actually change anybody's position to yours.
"A human sacrifice is involuntary. Jesus volunteered. He didn't have to do anything. " Not really. It was God's will for him to be sacrificed. He had to follow through. He struggled with that reality but ultimately accepted it. But he didn't choose it. Matthew 26:39 "And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 26:42 "Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 26:44 "So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again." He prayed 3 times for God not to sacrifice him.
I don't read that as Him praying for God not to sacrifice Him, and then being forced to do it. I read it as Him saying "I'll comply with Your will, God. But if there was a way to not do this, I'd sure like an out." And the answer is that there's no way out, if the condition is to save mankind. Even the verse you cited says "not as I will, but as you will." That doesn't sound like someone who is being forced to do it as much as someone who is holding God's will above his own voluntarily. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
These podcasts, in one sense, inspired me to start learning words, and read the novels JP talked about. A year ago, I would not have been able to comprehend this conversation (even though English is my first language). Now I can grasp it on multiple levels :) it is awesome to understand language, it's quite magical.
My interpretation of this is that the fundamental difference between Peterson and Harris is the value they put on secularism. I do not believe Peterson believes secularism can effectively combat radical ideologies. He is promoting his interpretation of Christianity as a tool that all ready has a foundation in the west to be used to help people grow and discourage them from being pulled into ideas, ideologies and religions that are harmful to society. Where as Harris denounces Christianity purely out of fact that the fundamentalist do not agree with the science to the extent he does. That secularism can stand on it's own. Peterson also seems to have a higher tolerance for fundamentalist Christians and may see them as an inevitable outcome to any ideology, his extent on talking about fundamentalist is to say he isn't one of them. I feel like the real topic that they never reached was about the impacts of secularism on society. The positive and negative ideas that are born out of secularism. Is secularism strong enough to defend it self against ideologies and religions that are nothing short of evil? And how does that compare to modern/orthodox(to use Peterson example) Christianity?
J C yes, Peterson fears the same thing Nietzsche feared; that with god dead people will turn to nihilism and then to totalitarianism. Which is exactly what ended up happening and it killed millions of people, which is also something Peterson has read a whole lot about. And Peterson realizes, just as Nietzsche and Harris pointed out, that religion isn't perfect. So Peterson's goal is to separate the good parts of religion(the father) from the poisonous bits of religion(the whale) and rescue it and bring it back to the people. He is trying to become the hero.
I guess you can say that Harris is still too afraid that by rescuing the father, you might accidentally pull out the whale from the ocean too. Both valid points of view.
Perhaps what is special is what survives despite cultural changes. Yet, paradoxically, that special thing loses its meaning when extracted from its context, but gains meaning again when placed in a different context. I think the key is adapting these values to a context you understand. And that is different for different people.
It seems that Sam's greater goal is to remove religion from the world. Whereas Jordan wants to transform how people view religion because it can't and shouldn't be removed. I use to think more like Sam when I first became an atheist but now I am in between and finding Jordan's ideas very interesting.
As an atheist I have never heard a more compelling argument for religion than the ones Jordan makes. It has really changed the way I think about religion as a whole. Truly fascinating.
Although it might be very difficult if not impossible to remove religion entirely, if you believe that the world will be a better place without religion, I don't see why it's bad to fight for that instead of trying to change it. It doesn't require much intellect to be a regular theist or atheist for that matter, but I think it might require a certain level of intellect and/or honesty to view and use religion in the way that Jordan Peterson does, so it's also not gonna be easy to make people change how they view religion, although I think the reality is that both things are actually happening slowly today. People are changing the way they view religion more and more at the same time as there are coming more and more atheists, and I'll admit that I very much like that trend.
I think the fundamental problem here is that Jordan Peterson failed to denote the importance of Conservatism underlying Religion, and Harris failed to see that was the intention. You need pillars to sustain a civilization and Religion concedes it in the form of habits and practices, and that's the wisdom Peterson is talking about and why it is imperative to conserve values, because otherwise, you wouldn't have strong foundations, and a civilization that doesn't have strong foundations falls down.
Guilherme Campos I completely see your point, but do you also believe that religious societies will have stronger foundations or more benefits than atheist societies? Or do you maybe think that it can benefit some people but not all?
Jordan is a grizzled old miner that lives in the middle of the Australian outback and has owned Toyota Hilux all his life and the young salesman Sam is trying to sell him the new Chinese 4x4 ute, Sam keeps on talking about the specs of both vehicles and that there is no difference and why pay double the price for a Hilux when you can get the same ute for half the price.Jordan is trying to tell Sam that he has had Hiluxs for all his life and drives on 4x4 roads everyday and has never had an issue and his neighbour has had his hilux for 25 years and it has never missed a beat.But Sam keeps going through the specs of both vehicles , 2.4l turbo desiel , 6 speed , etc... and keeps on saying that the vehicles are identical and thinks that Jordan is crazy for not buying his vehicle etc....Not the best way to explain , just one way that I see the debate. Sam could not convince Jordan to buy his Chinese 4x4 and is now leaving to drive back to the city , Sam punches in the directions home on the gps on his phone and gets the old road maps that were in his car and throws them in the bin and Jordan says "I don't think you should throw out those as we have been using those maps for hundreds of years and what if something were to happen to your phone "and Sam smirks at him and says "your living in the past old man".
Speaking for myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this second podcast. The first was painful but it was worth the frustration to finally hear them have a meaningful conversation. It is a shame that some of both Peterson and Harris' more zealous admirers seem intent on voicing the superiority of their chosen hero rather than recognise their commonalities and that both have some very interesting ideas on overlapping topics.
"Religion is silly, validate its worth." But the conversion never goes, "science/rationalism is rife with pitfalls, justify its value." People give Harris a pass because it has become a truism that science is a great force for improvement of society, so he can impune belief systems while laying in a cozy, protective bed. I'd want to reverse the dialogue and say validate the worth of science.
@@ApunkDaydreamLamunanOi The ones who are not taking it literally are not causing the problems of the world, It's the one who are taking it literally . Then how else are you suppose to argue and debate with them ? You have to take their own words and theories and take out the irrationality out of it . Also , Sam has nothing to do with the Bible except for the problems that it's causing . He is not taking it literally nor casually. He is not taking it all .
I personally loved both podcasts. Jordan you are truly admirable. Your hard work and dedication is something I can only imagine. It really shows in your research and thoughtfulness. Thank you. You matter so much to all of us who listen to your lectures. The positivity in the comments from your videos is only a reflection of who you are because that is what you attract. Stay strong. You have love and support from all around the world.
So as an atheist who LOVES everything Dr. Peterson has to teach, I am still confused concerning the point Sam was making at the end there. I don't see why we can't just be basically atheists/secular/agnostic and still engage in the "Petersonian project". And I am not convinced that we shouldn't be atheists or in this sense Nietzschean. God is dead. Sure we can and perhaps should save him from the belly of the beast, but He remains dead. P.S. I'm looking forward to the lectures on the Bible by Dr. Peterson.
I share your sentiment. Adherence to traditional cultural practices does not necessitate faith. We are at luxury in our time to be able to break down WHY Christianity was beneficial to our ancestors, and build on that. We are not required to return to the strict, arbitrary, dogmatic minutia of Christianity's past in order to reap the cultural benefits
I think one of Peterson's ideas that I'm not sure he specifically stated here (and note that I don't necessarily have it 100% correctly) is that he feels that humans *need* the religious archetypes not to descend into utter chaos. it's not that they need christianity necessarily, or any particular religion, it's that there are deep core ideas at the root of religion that are extremely important as parts of our society. that a person needs a "heaven" to strive for, and a "hell" to avoid, for example. it doesn't have to actually be superstitious, it's really a psychologocal thing more than a mystical one.
I see the problem as relating to Dr Harris' continuous assertion that we just do not need to think of the world in the terms of story and myth because they are just religious superstition and he seems to want keep talking about religion as if it were literally true. I contrast this with Dr Peterson who agrees that religious superstition does not add value in this day and age, but adds that religion is not a literal project and that there are extremely valuable "truths" to be found in the rediscovery of ancient human stories and overlaying them with a codex to put it in the perspective of our psychology. In my opinion, Dr Peterson adds deeper meaning and a type of visceral understanding to our human nature rather than continuously asserting that pure scientific rationality is the only game in town. They seem to still talk past each other to that extent.
"that is what Nietzche referred to" In all ways are religion, myths, spirituality & supernaturalistic beliefs dying & hold no water with anyone mildly familiar with critical thinking. Good riddance, it's a burden on the collective mental health of the world.
mewmewmew Empty, dead words... Dead end and limited intellectual and capacity to contemplate the possibilities. Plain boring... The anti thesis of courege. Mediocre. The enemy of progress. Gtfo.
Sam point about the sperm bank is really stupid when you think about it Peterson just described how humans have a more qualitative vs quantive reproduction strategy and how religion facilitated this qualitative strategy and than Sam just ignores or doesn't understand the point and goes on to make an idiotic point
This was a great discussion, and I appreciated that Sam allowed Jordan to express his thoughts fully without interrupting like so many others have done when interviewing Jordan. I was impressed by Sam and Jordan. Both of these thinkers are highly intelligent and articulate.
7:33 - "I think that religious systems are descriptions of how people ought to act. And... I think that those arose in a quasi-evolutionary manner." This is why atheists shouldn't immediately dismiss Peterson. He has obviously thought long and hard about WHY religion exists (which is usually what only atheists and sceptics do, rather than the religious).
Sam says a lot of "well if I [hypothetically] accept that, then I could just as easily do this..." and he inserts his example of scenarios in which things turn pathological. This goes to show that Sam's go to tactic in discrediting religion is the slippery slope fallacy almost every time. ....and the fact that he delivers it in a calm, even toned, reasonable voice does not make that tactic any more logical than what it really is.
Jordan Peterson, "Jesus died on the cross" Sam Harris, "Well, if Jesus could die on the cross then he could nuke the whole world. Is that the kind of God you want?"
Wasn't Sam Harris born into a life of luxury? I'm sure he can rely on someone's teat when times are rough. What i'm trying to say is that Sam Harris doesn't come off to me as someone's who's been through the 'ring of fire.'
Damn it I never thought I'd agree with Jordan Peterson as I'm a natural skeptic. However, God and Religion as a sophisticated guiding metaphysic as to how life should be organized kind of makes sense. He's not saying that the Bible should be taken literally at face value, he's saying the allegorical representation presents a guiding framework to which one can choose to organize life if one chooses....that's what he means by substrate, it's true on a subconscious layer. We all have our own guiding principle of a "God". Shit gets deep.
What you just said was coherent, yet very difficult to understand deeply. This is why Peterson says that complex things have to take very long to explain. Unfortunately, people always complain about Peterson talking too much as if he was a word-salad maker.
Sam Harris vs Jordan Peterson Summed up: Peterson:" religious myths are interesting and hold truths that speak to something about the human nature which maps on to reality" Sam Harris: "That's true, but we don't need the myths, we can map on to what they are getting at" Peterson: "No we absolutely need the myths" Sam Harris"why?" Peterson: "Did I mention how interesting they were?"
Lejfieg Your post is funny. While I think it misses a lot of important nuance that Jordan shared, it still hits close enough to cause a little damage. Well done. - so says the guy that liked Jordan's views better.
Lejfieg The end should be: You can't rip out the myths and expect things to play out in the utopian idea that is held. Ethics and Morality are a product of myths, generally speaking
Why not? Myths themselves are utopian. And of course we wont lose every problem known to humanity by losing myths alone, there will be others, but myths, and religions specifically at the present time are not at the cutting edge of innovation in any field. They served their purpose thousands of years ago, we don't need them. please stop generally speaking. NOTHING points to morality being a product of myths. Most evidence actually points to biology being the source of our morality, and the stories we tell ourselves that house that moral code are most likely confabulations. The stories morality can found in are us trying to understand why those moral choices feel good, not the other way around. There is evidence of this, and Peterson actually points to this in this podcast, idk if you were listening to it.
I guess because myths are based on the experiences of our ancestors, and they don't embed themselves into our unconscious mind except through those narratives. Sam's way, which is just to state the truth and not forge it into the mind through stories and narratives, may not work as well as Peterson's way. That is the way our human brains have worked. However through Sam's way we can easily forge myths and narratives that are more suited to our modern world, rather than Peterson's way which is to keep the old ones and constantly revamp and twist them to fit our ever-changing perception of reality.
Jordan, Sam You both missed one function of religion, language and culture - extelligence (outside intelligence). Extelligence is what replaces genetic memory. We have Extelligence (the combination of religion language and culture) so we dont have to store our rules of conduct in our DNA. If you required a child to apply your ideas of focus and critical thinking the child wouldnt be able to do that. If every person had to start from scratch with their morallity, very soon there would be noone left, because noone would remember why we're not killing each other.
I believe it became unequal when @ 43:50 and you can go back a few minutes to see why it was brought up . Dr Peterson explained how one makes sure what you believe is actually accurate/true . You have multiple methods to test your theory and each methods result says the same thing or come to the same conclusion . I believe it was clear it became unequal because Sam completely abandon that train of thought with out even commenting on what Peterson had just said .
Mikey Mike It also became unequal when Sam Harris straight up told him why only Bible? Why not take stuff from each such religion or human culture combined. Jordan Peterson didn't really come up with a plausible explanation. He is just biased towards Christianity. Sam Harris himself meditates and advocates it despite being strict atheist.
I have 25 minutes left to watch but I think Jordan is trying to say that knowledge without wisdom can be dangerous e.g. the atom bomb. The ancient arcetypical stories have lasted and influenced great Art over centuries for their source of wisdom and shouldnt be dispensed with so confidently.
Literalism is quite a recent phenomenon. Most ancient people knew that there were allegorical and metaphorical aspects to the Bible, take Origen for example. Here it is explained quite well www.wordonfire.org/resources/video/misreading-genesis/174/ www.wordonfire.org/resources/video/violence-in-the-bible/287/
Just finished listening to this on Sam Harris' website. Fantastic conversation! And if I may venture my personal opinion, a big improvement over the last. ;)
The error Sam makes with re to celibacy is that the religion and in kind the gate-keepers of knowledge controlled the memes. It's like an exchange. If you had all that power, and you could reproduce, you'd then be facing war, both in disbelief and physically, with the others, but in a way, it's a bargain where the more reclusive thinking types can remove themselves from competition, but gain a dominance in the realm of identity and ideas. In the memetic sense, they Are reproducing more, and they are helping form society in a way to select for the continuation of their ideas in people.
RIght. So much emphasis is placed on progeny and bloodlines and the like, historically and now, but people don't see the energetic potentiality in the memetic power of Christ throughout these past two millennia. Memetic power is potentially more influential that procreative power, or equally so. Not an idea I hear others discuss much, but glad you see the pre meme-magick aspect of memetics.
The idea I've been entertaining, is that... consider two people who aren't "bloodline" connected... but through variation, they're similar in a form of convergence during natural variations. Those people, biologically will be predisposed to certain tastes in food, temprament, climate, aggression/passivity etc... and it could be that... even though they don't reproduce specifically... if they clerically alter the memetic environment of values and society, they can "protect" those that come after that have similar genetics. Kind of a leap-frog idea. So from a direct genetic proliferation standpoint, they may be a "dead end' but... through society, they create an alcove of niche or safety by altering the tempraments of the others that do reproduce, and the viability of the offspring they have that may share the same convergences.
Also you have an Arbiter for society who does not engage in sexual interaction, a truly outsider's perspective into society if our instincts are mainly to reproduce and take care of our lineage.
Dr. Peterson continues to amaze me with how well he can learn from his mistakes. It takes a small mistake or misstep, and the man improves by leaps and bounds. It's what we should all strive to do.
I think it's interesting that Sam mentions the Dobu people and their belief system as if it was a system that stood the test of time. Jordan argues for truth defined by that which does not result in death or oblivion. Just as natural selection filters out maladaptive physical traits it does so with maladaptive belief systems. The religious stories that still exist today have simply been transfigured into more elaborate and relatable modern stories but their underlying framework constructed of values and morals has survived. Even those who may not be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist still hold some beliefs which can be found in those ancient stories. All the stories we know are reiterations or have been loosely inspired by these. Whether or not Sam agrees with the premise that a belief system is as fundamental to our ability to navigate the world as modern science is, he is ultimately "locked-in" to one or many. Stories are so pervasive and so natural in our existence they almost seem as something that exists externally and exclusive to our internal world but they invade our mode of being from the moment we are able to learn from observation. A quote from David Foster Wallace “Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship-be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles-is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”
Great respect for Peterson in this podcast. He really went above and beyond to be a good team player for this "hockey team". Takes guts to speak vulnerable truths and dismiss your own ego. I find Harris' summary to be excellent, but he seems to be very reluctant to admit to any positive aspects of religion as though his distaste is getting in the way of rationality. My personal opinion has been that organized religion is thoroughly bad, but personal religion can be of great value - with a lot of ifs and buts. This podcast however really made me open that book up again and start thinking and that is a great gift! There is far more depth to this than I had really thought of. Thank you both!
Dear Sam, Jordan Peterson is not trying to defend religion as it exists right now. He's trying to distill religion into the core moral truths that help men live in society and get rid of all the bullshit so we can move forward in the scientific age while still retaining our moral values.
Great refreshing conversation. Some points of agreement: 1) Harris admits the power of myth and that they are more than scientific hypotheses. The problem is when people take them as scientific hypotheses or claims about empirical reality. They agreed on that. This is quite different from both scientific and religious literalists, both of whom think of myths as scientific hypotheses/god of gaps or simply rational attempts to explain inexplicable empirical phenomena. 2) They also agreed that some truths must be lived and cannot be objectified or known by science (Harris called these truths "orthogonal to science"; Peterson seemed to argue that one must test these truths for self.... as Buddha and mystics in all religions taught. They can be lived, not fully objectified. ). 3) They agreed that new age interpretations are rather schizophrenic, flaky and like Harris' Cookbook analogy because there are no "constraints." Harris wants empirical constraints, Peterson wants experiential/lived constraints. * I would love to hear another conversation expanding to metaphysical claims. To really know consciousness, one must experience it... not simply objectively look at another person's brain scan. The truth of what consciousness is like is lost when reducing it to the truth that brain activity in the scan seems to give rise to it. Does Peterson agree with Harris that these myths make no claims about a transc reality or do living these myths give one awareness of such (like a 2 dim mind becoming aware for the first time of a 3d reality)?
teachphilosophy couldn’t have said it better. Religion is more than what modern atheistic crack pots want to admit that it is. And it’s more than the religiously obsessed dogmatic people want to believe it is. When it comes to religion, You’re talking about metaphysical abstractions regarding consciousness and thought and motivation to survive. Where as science is focused on what things are and how they function in regards to survival. In other words, science tells you what will keep you alive. But religion teaches you how to conduct that life in a beneficial way. This is of course removing the exceptions of extremists. But very well spoken man.
Nice post. Peterson, not so much in this interview comes down clearly on the inescapable truth contained in myth and religion that is much more than mere and relatively trivial "scientific" knowledge. Knowing your wife loves you is more important than knowing how many cells are in her physical aspect. Human free will also asserts the transcendence of science as even materialist philosopher Thomas Nagle shows in Mind and Cosmos. We are all rediscovering Aristotle and Final Cause.. how everything including atoms.. and us.. are moved towards ends and objective purposes. Scholastic monks ..THomas Aquinas.. I think simply nail the whole life thing. Harris I'm afraid I find to be a colossal bore and utterly incoherent as materialists must be.
The good Dr Peterson seems to be coming down solidly on the only possibly realistic side..which is in the metaphysical affirmative. The universe is a moral place ultimately. How could it possibly be otherwise as people naturally see. We are naturally religious but should use our God given reason and good will to search deeply and thoughtfully about these truly essential matters.
teachphilosophy great summary and questions! I have been thinking a lot latelly about the problem of consciousness and i tend to believe it is a "fundamental" or "emergent" property, dependending on how you describe those concepts. Describing it using science would be much like describing what mass is. You can only say it is there when you see it's effects.
teachphilosophy When Sam Harris was reading an esoteric interpretation in the Hawaiian Cookbook recipe, I actually found THAT to be the most interesting part of the discussion upto that point. Its almost that Sam DOES want to believe in a mystical tradition, but perhaps the mysticism of human reason and science. The poetic mystical language that Sam used in his “Paranoid Schizophrenic” boundless interpretation of the recipe actually got me listening to what he was saying even though he was completely mocking and satirising New Age beliefs. Its quite ironic, how mockery and satirising and how talking about the evil eye and burning witches was more fascinating to me than the actual rational basis of the conversation. Religious skepticism, and atheism is dry. Religious extremism is equally as silly. I like flirting between magic and science. A tiny but of Harry Potter and Wizardry, a tiny bit of Blade Runner and the Replicants, a tiny bit of the Bible and Moses, and a tiny bit of Charles Darwin and evolution. I like mixing in concepts from both traditions. Sam Harris’ calm collected manner is admirable, but I found that the rationalism was quite lacking in passion, it was coldly calculating, highly orderly. I think the topics that Sam could do very well in discussing would be that of science. I love science, and I love atoms and neutrons, and chemical reactions and the laws of physics and gravity. Neuroscience would be an interesting topic for Sam Harris to discuss.
A disturbing amount of disturbingly popular comments here seem to think Peterson is a religious advocate. I have gotten NO such impression. Peterson is a philosphy advocate. He's elucidating archetypal ideals, not gods or even specific philosophies, If Peterson was a religious advocate, this conversation would have been incredibly adversarial, and it wasn't.
+pyropulse Correct; however, I think in order to preserve critical thinking and eliminate mindless indoctrination, we either need to advocate against literalism or the education about other religions and their sects. Biblical literalism is a plague in America.
For clarity sake. Hockey is team game but I dont think life has a team goal but an individual one. Survival or even evolution may be the aims of other creatures (bacteria, plants or animals), but what differentiates human from them is rationalization. My view is that the goal of a human being is that of INDIVIDUATION, not just looking for happinesss while making mankind more technologically or socially advanced. Coming into the Hero Archetype, it is something which our ancestors witnessed and triggered a deep emotional response (because it was catastrophic) so that it was pushed into the Collective Unconscious. It was not a kind of EM resonance vibrating in the Noosphere waiting for anyone to connect with it and that remains stable through eternity. Dear Sam, religion has its origins on the 'Common Good' of the herd (an evolutionary trait), which in turn provides the basis of a set of beliefs which were profitable for that specific group. Members identify with a group to get Security and Previsibility. So there is NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH because they are subjective. Such being the case, why is Jordan stuck in not acknowledging that archetypes/mythemes have their origins in witnessed real physical events concerning the gods (planets)? Why doesn't he "attempt to understand carefully where he is in error and learn everything he can to correct that"? Sam, Science (scientific method= observation and experiment) can ONLY be applied to the present; Religion is the way to extrapolate knowledge to the past or future. The aim is to feel secure.` Another quote from Jordan is "people sacrifice themselves to what they hold as the highest value" and claim that is embedded in christianity. It might be, but it is also more deeply rooted in current "science". What do you say??? "Christianity subordinates the group to the individual"??? (Mmmm I gonna get baptised). Any group alienates the individual who identifies with the ideology of the group. If you want to "prevent nihilism or totalitarianism" you should guess why society is sick (Jung, Marcuse, Velikovsky, Meerloo, Krishnamurti, S.Junger, Fromm, Vic.Frankl, Z.Bauman, Ch. Mackay, G. Lebon, Nietzsche, Freud). If we agree the cause society doesn't work properly (illness definition) then the cause is unknown and so unconscious. Something which has been repressed into the unconscious is a trauma. Why is society traumatized? Again we come back to the origin of archetypes/mythemes/schemes. Let a critical mass find out and that's the first step to overcome trauma. To end up, I do strongly agree with having a value system, as far as we don't try to enforce it on other people; doing that would be a violation of free speech, free will (removing options and choice), and all sort of totalitarian ideas related with an 'Absolute Objective Truth', or a 'Common Good' which do not exist.
I absolutely love how Harris will get to an impasse with a guest, admit it turned into a clusterfuck, go away and calm down and actually THINK, then invite them back on.
Just came from listening to the first convo on Sam's channel. Not a single ad. Here every five minutes. Love 'em both but Jordan deffo the more materialistic one.
The way Professor Peterson began the conversation was the best way to begin it. And Sam Harris’ negligence to return a similar statement is very telling of their character. Over the last three years, listening more to JBP has made me, gradually, stop listening to the likes of Sam Harris. And I’m a better person now than I was three years ago.
Jordon actually was apologising for the mistakes he comitted in the previous podcast in the opening statement, and Sam tried to make him feel less guilty. It seems extremely contradictory to what you are saying in this comment. Also listening to Jordon Peterson for self help would obviously be better because many of his books and talks(not all of them) are around self help. So it was stupid if you came to listen to Sam thinking you would be getting advices as he talks about philosophical issues not self help.
Sam is a deep but narrow thinker, a technician. Peterson is a thinker of depth and width, displaing the gift of mental agility/flexibility. Sam hangs on to atheism like a religion. Bravo Jordan!
Really happy to hear this episode go well. This one was far more about trying to find common ground, which is something I really like about Harris' podcasts (and why I was so disappointed with the first). I hope fans of both Harris and Peterson will take inspiration from that and not let the discussion turn into a tribal argument.
Is it just me, or does Dobu story sound awfully lot like postmodernism? Success is because of 'oppression' ,it's everywhere and cannot be defined. (basically magic) Success of other people is directly affecting your well being etc.
I am not even 10 minutes into this and I feel myself refreshed almost at an emotional level. The fact that these two gentlemen can disagree as much as they do and still have a respectful, civilized and insightful conversation void of the hubris that normally accompanies the debates so common these days gives me hope for the future -
Isn’t that great. Now with the passage of time they became friends as in much being on one another’s podcast a total of 10x, debates and lectures with one another. Neither agrees with the other but even when asked they show respect and decency for the other. It’s called intelligence. Refreshingly human. These men should be put on both Fox News and MSNBC and allowed to talk on political philosophy so viewers can have an epiphany on deep thought towards complex issues.
Steven Alibaster Not from Lord of Rings (although could use from it too- Gandalf vs Saruman - one of several characters in the book illustrating the corruption of power; his desire for knowledge and order leads to his fall, and he rejects the chance of redemption when it is offered). The mythology from The Silmarillion. His mythology is as good as it gets.
As I see it, main disagreement came to: - in Peterson's terms, Harris is so afraid of tyrannical father, static and oppressive nature of religious beliefs, that best course of action is to take all power from him. We should have no forms of organized belief or religion. On the other hand Peterson thinks about benevolent father, protective nature of culture, and wants to be his Horus, make him updated and relevant again. - in Harris’s terms, Peterson is trying to smuggle religion in to science by giving it a new face, and Harris doesn't want to hear about it. Regardless, this was one of the best discussions in a long time.
Starting from 1:21:44 Sam was asking all the right question: Why make this a matter of allegiance to Christianity. Why not just take what is useful in any tradition? All the way to the end, Jordan didn't provide a satisfying answer in my opinion. As someone who finds great value in Jordan Peterson's teaching, I really hope Jordan would give more thought on his allegiance with this one religion.
My thoughts. I don't think its a matter of allegiance, its more of acknowledgement of Christianity being the current bedrock upon which the Western Culture is currently standing on. As a religion it was ofcourse deeply flawed in many areas but necessary to go through. And Jordan is doing precisely that, taking what is useful from it, of which the two central parts that stand out is Telling the truth, and the Importance of the individual. And abandonning Christianity without taking the wisdom from it, leaves you largely open to other dangerous idiologies of the New Age.
Mario Tang I get a sense Peterson is very western centric, at no fault of his own, but there are many school of thoughts beyond the one he was obsessed with.
He has stated elsewhere how christianity is the foundation of western culture, a culture that has created science, explored the earth, travelled to the moon, ended slavery, recognized the the sovereignty of the individual, and many more accomplishments than I can think of. That religious foundation cannot be lightly dismissed, and - as Peterson would say - we do so at our peril.
@@regularfather4708 Ended slavery, traveled to the moon... You have to understand that religion was only game in town, only now we have more freedom to be atheists, and that still does not apply everywhere, look at America, people think that they will become murderers, satanists if they don't believe in god. But you also have to understand that if we stick to one religion without any ability to question it, we are stuck with teachings of how to beat slave, how you can't love your parents more than god, that homosexuality is bad, that if you don't beg for forgiveness you will burn in hell. No one is saying to discard religion, Sam himself states he has nothing against its buildings, songs, paintings. He has issue with dogmas in itself. Those make good people do bad things and still call those things good.
He didn't actually say that the bedrock of western culture was christian. He said that it was judeo-christian. And it's actually important to get that distinction right. You see, Jordan Peterson is not merely a typical christian. For if he were, like anyone else, he'd completely disown the old testament. But the fact of the matter is that he finds the old testament to have more value than the new testament, at least in my understanding. The stories of the bible have a lot to say about humanity. It's not merely about being christian. It's about the stories. And so it isn't an allegiance to Christianity, I would say. He doesn't even go to church. I hate to be putting words into Peterson's mouth, but I would say that it's about the significance of the stories that contain within it the wisdom of how to conduct oneself in the world. And that includes the Egyptian stories, which Peterson has talked about in detail. However, I do think that the question Harris asked was a very good one. And it's Peterson's burden that he could not answer it. But I also think that that's what makes him think surprisingly brilliantly in the direction that he does. For if he were too direct, he would just be another Sam Harris.
When you really break down what Sam is saying to the simplest form. He's essentially making an ad hominem attack on Religion. Every time a point that would bring some validity to religion is brought to his attention, he has some retort about the dangers of religion as a construct, but he never fully weighs the merits or the validity of any specific idea that may lay within religion. It's a very sad state that Sam finds himself, because I don't think he fully understand the position he continues to put himself in.
When I listen to him I hear the same patterns as I hear in dawkins. Hes already made up his mind about what is the truth and he is completely shut off to any opposing ideas. Hes also become very good at creating well dressed strawmen
I enjoyed Sam's cookbook example. It was a prime example of the symbolism and types in life. It demonstrates how if one wants to look for it they can find substance and meaning all around them. I think this is a good thing when anchored by the right underlying core belief system.
I do wonder, why doesn't Jordan talk about Joseph Campbell. I had some family whom I talked about Jordan Peterson's ideas to a cousin of mine and he said he was practically identical to Campbell. I am not going lie, they are pretty similar in there ideas.
Peterson considers Campbell to be a bit new age, and in particular he doesn't like the influence Campbell has had on Jungian thinking. Peterson rejects the notion of "follow your bliss" as a tenable solution to life's problems. I myself quite enjoy Campbell's optimism but I can see why someone as obsessed with the problem of evil as Peterson wouldn't be so enthusiastic about him.
Peterson has talked about Campbell in some of his lectures. What he criticizes in Campbell iirc is that he feels that Campbell somewhat 'trivializes' archetypes and the archetypal hero's journey. Campbell treats it mainly as a literary device whereas Peterson considers it the foundation to the successful life in the real world.
When it comes to human evolution, I wonder if it's a catastrophic misconception that stronger/more favorable traits are more likely to breed. Anyone seen the movie "Idocracy?" Anyone have the data on this?
Ugh, still talking past each other. I don't understand why Sam is not allowing for Jordan's perspective on this. Yes, human sacrifice is a barbarism from the modern perspective with the lens of the achievements such as the scientific method... That doesn't mean that it wasn't based in emergent principles on which our modern ethics are based. You two don't really disagree, but Sam seems to continually not really listen to the reason Jordan formed these perspectives on ancient "barbarisms"... Keep talking to each other. Sam will open up eventually. He strikes me as a very intelligent guy who has just not fully integrated his imagination into his already-working scientific toolset.
- so she outsources that problem to the computational capacity of the male hierarchy ... - Damn it is complex man, really complex... *gets punched in the face by Jordan*
Why is everyone hating on Sam? I don't think Sam was being arrogant at all during this podcast, and I respect the hell out of both him and Jordan Peterson. This was a great conversation.
Peterson is growing a zealous cult of his personality that dangerously unknowingly doesn't know that it is a cult of following. I suppose as Loki says, "Humans are made to be ruled."
@Tom More Harris has never really tried to create a new way of living whilst Peterson is trying to rediscover a way of living that now seems profound. Harris's only job has always been to counter religious ideas. Peterson has grown famous for countering misguided ideologues but he has also actively created a philosophy of living a life of purpose and meaning. This is why many of the comments like yours feel like Peterson is onto something good and scrumptious while Harris is spewing unremarkable objective facts which are boring to the people like you.
I respect both Harris and Peterson but what I don’t understand is the deep effect Peterson has made on some people. It’s verges on worship. I feel like I’m missing something - it’s a genuine confusion for me
a UA-cam gem , this conversation is what a normal conversation should be like , TV is a circus compared to that , you take the veiwers up to your intellectual level not pull them down to mediocre journalists fights
Sort yourselves out
find your father
The Modern Hermeticist Bucko
The Modern Hermeticist why aren't you reading gulag archipelago right now?!?
FudTron5000 We're too busy self authoring.
I've already read the gulong archipelago.
Sam Harris's left ear makes a perfect G in this picture.
That’s his right ear
😂😂😂
I can’t unsee this lol
@@houstonhampton2418 But our Left
I love you
Check out my conversation with Peter Jordanson!
Ham Sarris LMAO!
Ham Sarris I laughed way too hard at this.
Hahaha this is why I love the internet
Based on your name it'd actually be Pordan Jeterson
LOL wtf???1
I found myself nodding as Jordan was talking and then I started nodding when Sam was talking and that continued for nearly two hours.
Haha awesome! It was an awesome conversation from both sides :)
lol me too. I love these two and it brings me so much joy to see them actually have a conversation for once.
I then had to lie down for a while, but couldn't fall asleep, on account of the repetitive nodding as I thought back through the conversation.
omg same!
Exactly how I feel.
What the hell is wrong with people in this comment section? This is not a battle its an intellectual conversation/debate. No, Sam Harris is not trying to destroy Jordan Peterson's reputation and no Jordan Peterson is not trying to convert Sam to Christianity. They're both very intelligent men challenging each other's ideas.
Here here.
Peterson isn't a christian, I hardly see him trying to convert anyone.
Of course he is.
Well that's what he said in his last Reddit ama.
"People often ask me if I'm a Christian. But I can't answer that because I don't know what they mean, and neither do they. The same applies when they ask "Do you believe in God?" It's not a question: it's a trap. So what's the proper answer? I don't know."
Madmac79 totally understandable that people may interpret him as religious, but he's not. i forgot the book i read by him but he says he isnt religious in the preface. it takes a google search figure it out rather than everyone argue and not look it up🙃
Anthony Bourdain and Ben Stiller both bring up great points, I can't wait for the next podcast!
literally laughing out loud at this
I would say Jeremy Irons (especially not too long ago) and Ben Stiller.
Can't unsee. Thanks. I hate it. 😂😭☠️
😆
😂
Peterson seems to be a guy that´s been to hell and back. Many professors are intelligent and knowledgeable, but they haven´t lived what they teach. They have a shallow relationship with their knowledge. Peterson speaks with the belief and passion of someone who´s actually experienced what he preach, but at the same time he´s able to frame it in an intellectual scientific context.
well, he and some members of his family suffer from chronic depression
so that might have something to do with it
Grew up in Northern Alberta (harsh environment/living), spent 40 years studying ideology and its effects (harsh eyeopener), favorite book ins the Gulag Archipelago (eyebleachworthy reading), has endured decades of deranged 'Progressive' academic climates (harsh, hostile environment), and has been under attack for the last 5 months or so. He's a gem.
"he and some members of his family suffer from chronic depression" - how do you know that?
some of his interviews on TVO
He mentioned it an interview.
My summary
Harris "It's time to do away with religion, we've outgrown it."
Peterson "We're only just beginning to understand it, and why don't we try using it properly first?"
Brilliant.
Joshualbatross exactly
I don't mean for this to sound snarky or anything, but I really don't think that you fully understood the conversation.
"Harris "It's time to do away with religion, we've outgrown it.""
Yes, he thinks that religion is at best useless and at worst harmful to humans and society. We already know his position on religion in general, but that was not the overall "problem/ topic" here.
"Peterson "We're only just beginning to understand it, and why don't we try using it properly first?""
I could be wrong, but I really don't think that Peterson would ever utter such a phrase, since it is too vague and simplistic. And while Peterson clearly supports some kind of religious philosophy that deals with the nature of being, it sounds to me like you are reading something into his reasoning that tells you what you want to hear, and discard ideas that are irreconcilable with your worldview. However, I am probably projection too much now.
The real topics of conversation are ontology and epistemology. Peterson believes in a particular kind of pragmatism and Harris believes in realism. This difference in philosophical world views narrowed the scope of the conversation to the topic of "truth", which Harris could not turn away from because Petersons pragmatism doesn't allow for "truth = what is the case, regardless of whether or not it leads to good or bad conclusions".
Behelit
Pragmatism doesn't exclude science or relative truth-facts, but is more fundamental truth that is unchanging throughout time.
If a person sees someone singing next to their car one day then get a flat on the way home, and this leads them to believe that it is "TRUE" that they got a flat tire because of a spell that singing person cast on it, so they cast a reversal spell each day of their own, and their car keeps getting one flat after another, so they cast more spells, and never go to a mechanic to find out the underlying structural issue ripping their tire, this is based on an observation but its NOT A TRUE belief, due to the fact that SOLUTION applied never improves the situation.
This is a shitty example, but this is the difference. The observation of the person singing was, in fact, real, but was falsely interpreted for its meaning and carried on with no beneficial result.
I know - why are you explaining a facet of pragmatism to me? I merely pointed out the fundamental difference in their philosophical assumptions. But since we are having this discussion, Peterson is not a classical pragmatist, he puts his own distinct spin on it, which has its clear advantages as well as disadvantages.
I just realised that I am commenting on the wrong video -.- Oh well, my comments might still be useful to some people.
Peterson is way more of a Jungian than I realized. And I like it. You don't see that much anymore. I'm a rationalist like Sam. But I feel like I become more intellectually enriched with every narrative that Peterson runs through. His breadth is impressive. And his connection with scientific psychology and neuroscience grounds it all very nicely. He's not just off-the-wall, crazy theorizing. There are some deep, valid structures in there.
Peterson will make history just like famous philosophers, he's incredible.
I would never label myself, and I do not understand the desire to do so. As Søren Kierkegaard said: "Once you label me, you negate me". Why label yourself?
@@thegoodthebadandtheugly579 your mind is all messed up what you wrote makes no sense at best. You couldnt be more dishonest than this even if you wanted. Thats sadm
I don't know about Peterson though he is extremely eloquent, extremely well-read but his mission to elevate 2000 year old religious texts, why doesn't he reference more recent publications or fellow scholars in psychology? Like he is a clinical psychologist but he holds the texts of the bible in the highest regard?? Where is the more recent psychological foundings? I am going to go out on a limb here but retreating back into the old testament as a contemporary scholar is kind of a failure and I challenge Dr Peterson to present new findings of his discipline you can't go back to Jung and the bible give me more recent findings
@@joeschmoe3665 what makes you think that the evidence you want is the only evidence that's correct or even valid?
A text doesnt survive for thousands of years if theres nothing to it.
Have you not listened to any of Peterson's lectures on the bible stories? It seems to me that the people who wrote or collected those stories had a good understanding of the human mind and put that knowledge in a format that even idiots could understand.
Stating something is invalid simply because it's old is intellectually lazy. That's like saying Elon shouldn't use steel on his rockets because the technology is too old
The civility in the comments here is refreshing; I hope it's part of a growing trend.
It's the quality of people who want to watch this sort of stuff, imo
Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are not included.
people seeking truth at this level are usually not so nasty
Sadly five months on, it looks like Trump brought in a brain dump / abusive type of favoured way of talking. People intellectual attracted to these two are more likely to be civil people.
Tomas Ericsson Apparently you have yet to spend time among scholars.
I'm a big fan of Sam Harris and his uncompromising clarity. But when he talks to Peterson he has gotten out of his intellectual strike zone. He doesn't seem to take very seriously thinkers like Nietzsche, Jung, and Dostoyevsky. And you can see why ... because these are men whose thoughts run much deeper than mere logic and rationality. They talk not about theoretical problem-solving, but about real pain and the horror and confusion of making sense of the human condition. It's a messy affair and Harris prefers the safety net of scientific rationalism.
It's like comparing games of Go and Chess. Go it is a game with objectively measurable results yet it can not be played as a series of "if" - "then" cycles - number of calculations needed to make a move is almost infinite. Discarding GO as irrational or obscure simply because we can not develop "if" - "then" algorithm for it is wrong.
+ Carlos A Does it offer nothing of value directly, or indirectly? In other words, at what remove are you defining 'value'? My point is that value can filter down through a structure; an event in the larger world may seem irrelevant to my little world, but - unbeknownst to me - its ramifications may entirely shape my little world.
I agree with your statement on the surface. But peer underneath and perhaps things aren't quite so simple.
VikingII: You tie human intentions to race. That is irrational. What are you doing here other than stating the ridiculous?
DesolationRow15 - I think you've got Harris completely wrong. I see not the slightest indication he "doesn't take seriously" the viewpoints of Nietzsche and the others. I see every indication that this degreed philosopher has deeply considered all manner of opposing viewpoints and has simply arrived at the conclusion that his way forward is most promising for humankind. If you disagree, fine, state your case. But here you just seem to be flailing away at him. "Out of his strike zone." Huh? He's written and spoken extensively right down the middle of this strike zone. Far from retreating to a "safety net," he tackles the messiest issues in a more honest way than anyone, including very difficult trade-off decisions such as torture vs. collateral damage that are about nothing but pain and horror and confusion... with the ultimate goal of improving the human condition. That is the essence of the Sam Harris project, rightly or wrongly pursued. Yet you think he isn't even aware that life's messy.
When I mention pain and confusion, I'm not talking about torture and collateral damage. I'm talking about subjective experience like Nietzsche et al. were talking about. Harris doesn't make a single point in reference to the actual thoughts of those thinkers because he doesn't think that it's as important as objective problem solving. Clearly you agree with that, but Peterson doesn't and that's why he sees scientific truth as nested inside a larger moral framework. Harris is a great philosopher if we are all beings simply trying to put together an objective puzzle. Unfortunately, life often feels more like a Kafka or Edgar Allan Poe story. And no matter how much we hope rationality can save us, the constant onslaught of the irrational forces us into the very difficult task of ascribing meaning to our seemingly futile lives. That's what those thinkers were writing about. I've yet to hear Harris confront those issues from a standpoint other than what seems best objectively for scientific man.
Does it warm anyone else's heart and endear Jordan to you even more when he says Sam's name? I really love Dr. Peterson, he honestly is having a significant effect on me and my life, like he apparently is for so many others.
Thank you Jordan.
How does Sam suggest we are on the verge of leaving tribalism behind? It's profoundly naive to suppose that the immense technological growth of the last few hundred years could have even the slightest effect on something as fundamental to human nature as tribalism.
Faunus Funklebrot No, you will be stomped out by the remaining "still in a tribe" tribe.
Also, you can try to deny tribalism, but that doesn't make it disappear. The "not in a tribe" tribe, is as you stated, a tribe. There are very few who claim to belong to no tribe at all.
Maybe that's the right word after all. I've been trying to nail down exactly what his deal is for a while now, but it's so difficult to put into words that I understand why many label him autistic.
My most recent idea was that he is fundamentally unable to understand how beings without his intellect and inner peace (gained through his extensive meditation) have a deep need for religion and the archetypal ideals in their lives. They transcend time and space.
I think this is a problem with both Peterson and Harris: they don't account for the fact that the great majority of people are incapable of thinking for themselves (and that this may well be a necessary part of a larger balance).
It seems to me that the Pareto principle applies here too; that it will only ever be a tiny minority that are able to reach the kind of maturity that allows them to live without an ideology of one sort or another.
Most people are children looking for a parent; i.e. looking to be told what to think and what to do.
I'm not familiar with Harris' thought, but Peterson's work is aimed - albeit not exclusively - at an elite class of person: it certainly isn't for everyone.
The not being in a tribe tribe is the only legitimate kind of tribalism there is. All other kinds of tribalism were doing it wrong!
A more serious answer: Harris is a statist. He sanctions the initiation of force and violation of property in order to achieve your social and political aims.
Therefore he has to promote a non tribal utopia..... because under statism whenever people have different needs, wants, preferences, lifestyles and desires and when they naturally form different tribes based on these things the result is ALWAYS aggression and theft, via the state, with a constant battle to control the state in order to be the tribe which gets to hold the guns and make the demands on all the other tribes.
A society which outlaws theft and aggression outright for everyone can have as many different tribes as it likes (vive la difference!) and there is no problem, because none of the tribes have the legal right to violate the person or property of other tribes.
But of course we cannot outlaw theft and aggression and live in a varied, free, open, moral, rational society ...... because that would technically be a state of anarchy.....
@ L P Peterson makes a point elsewhere that the world as a whole and the west in particular is a lot wealthier than 100 or 150 years ago. Yet I think there are still masses of people who may well have the intelligence to follow these thought processes and even attain ideological self-sufficiency, yet have no time to do so, or energy, or inclination when their lives are consumed by obtaining the necessities of that life.
Enlightenment requires a certain baseline economic security to simply have the time to meditate and reflect and study the greats and history and all those things that are required. The reality is that many people will simply follow a leader they trust. And they live in the context, insofar as they live in peace, of a larger belief/moral system which creates the conditions for economic hope.
While most of the elites and elitists presume the average person's stupidity because of their lack of knowledge, and believe they can be led around to almost any system or ideology they wish to impose, those people can just as often cling irrationally to what they have, when their instincts tell them to do so. The result is usually bloodshed if the enlightened do not have a baseline of morality independent and a priori to their social/philosophical ideology.
That is the intrinsic problem with strict materialism, and Sam Harris embodies it, insofar as there is no value to human life other than what is added after an individual human life comes into being, a morality derived from that human being's experiences, as opposed to the intrinsic value of the human being as human and therefore a moral instinct/transcendent instinct which the individual is born into.
You're a humble man, starting out with the admissions of your faults.
TopHatKitty He was just giving Sam a carrot. the message he means to share with the works is much more important that Sam's lil ego.
cr35t23 Forgive me if I am wrong but it seems a little narrow-minded to imply that your attribution excludes the possibility that another could also be correct. "Just" more or less implies "Only".
+cr35t23 Sam actually spent about the same amount of time enumerating his faults in the subsequent AMA podcast. He was quite contrite, and acknowledged that his stubbornness against moving forward may have been the problem.
TopHatKitty Indeed. Sam completely missed the opportunity to reciprocate, even in a purely superficial fashion. I like Sam Harris a great deal and agree with him frequently -, but wow that guy has an ego the size of Gibraltar. Worse, he seems unaware of it to the extent that it blinds him to social cues from others, and it leads him into making errors of assumption about others.
I'm not so convinced he has a big ego. Where are you getting this idea from?
I love how Peterson is specifically clear whether he's talking about Marvel or DC superheroes.
Yeah. That’s what matters here lol
@@thegoodthebadandtheugly579 I'll bet he'd get more flack from longtime adult fans.
Anyone else staring at the 'G' in Sam's ear for two hours?
jesus christ dude
Sam looks like a smurf.
My work here is done
he did (don't know if he still does) jiu jitsu, probably had the cartilage of his ear slightly damaged at some point.
His years spell G-D, maybe he's a Jewish angel of some sort.
I also wanted to comment on the "Team Sam vs Team Jordan" aspect of this video. There is a piece of advice from youtuber Alan Thrall who was talking about his influences in his career has a power lifter. And that is, if you find yourself disagreeing someone you once idolized/respected, do not throw out everything that person has said because you found a new idea. I find myself returning to this advice has I listen to Sam Harris because for quite sometime I loved just about everything he said but now disagree with so much of what he shares. Although I was along my own path of independent thought Sams ideas helped me break away from the self destructive nature of my religious up bringing. This has been hard on my relationship with my family and it has forced me to make bold decisions and find strength and individually. He is a great thinker and I truly believe he tries to be a moral and loving person.
But after discovering Jordan I see that there is a deeper story that applies to western culture and to the story of humanity, that is just has important today, has it was 10,000 years ago.
Bless both these men for changing my life for the better.
That's a wonderful story and way of looking at things.
Excellent point, it needn't be all or nothing.
"If you find yourself disagreeing someone you once idolized/respected, do not throw out everything that person has said because you found a new idea." Indeed. This is Critical Thinking 101. It doesn't matter from whom an idea comes; it's the idea that matters. You takes sides (or sometimes split the difference) on issues, not on people. One last point: avoid idolizing anyone in the first place. Respect is a different matter.
Sam is sterile.
"Sam is sterile." Hah, that gave me some good chuckles. Perhaps you didn't mean it how the first way it hit my dendrites, and my funny bone, but yah.
Can we just spend a second to appreciate how astonishing complicated and meaningful this conversation is?
Alex Nezhynsky Jordan: But religious stuff has some good psychological benefits too.
Sam: But why only Christianity? Why not from Buddhism, Or human culture in general..
Jordan:uh......
Sam: Every inspiration for life you can find from Krishna or Jesus could be found in batman and Superman.
@@gabbar51ngh
It's strange you say that, because in their public debates, it's as if Sam Harris is arguing against religion as a whole, and leaving Jordan to defend religion, despite Jordan being only mainly familiar with Christianity.
And its strange, because Harris' activity of meditation actually stems from eastern religions. It's ironic the position he's taken.
1:22:14
Jordan never says anything like "only Christianity." His argument is much more nuanced than that. Particularly that the Bible itself is a collection of stories that have survived throughout many cultures and much time; it is historically selected, so to speak (akin to the idea of natural selection). And the reason why these stories survived throughout that process where most stories would have been forgotten, is because these stories were archetypically representative of our ideal ways of being. There is a clear distinction here, that unlike my or your Ethics philosophy class, religion isn't about what to do in a certain circumstance. Rather, it's about what mode to be. As in, similarly, like how we feel when we watch a superhero, listen to music, etc.
People mistake this when Jordan Peterson says that religion teaches you "how to act." He's not saying that you need religion to know how to morally act. He's saying that religion is a guide towards what mode to be in. In other words, "how to act" means "how to be." And like I said before, it's similar to how we feel when watching superheros, listening to music, or seeing grand art and architecture.
It's an unfair fight. Harris makes sense.
@@GrubKiller436 good job, you've definitely listened to as much Dr. Peterson as I have
@@GrubKiller436you sound like the recipe story reading way to much into Jordan’s thinking. Regardless of the mode someone is in religion has been the scourge of mankind for 7000 years
Harris does a good job at forcing Peterson to articulate his thoughts better.
Right, people here seem pretty sour on Sam. He's not as fun to listen to as Peterson, but he served that function very well and I never got tired of him.
Yes, maybe the best to date
That's because Harris is more used to an audience who can't keep up unless he spells everything out very slowly and clearly, carefully.
"A stupid person's idea of what an intelligent person is."
I love listening to Harris. I'm a proud Canadian, but found Harris before Peterson.
Oooor maybe some people are just coming from such a different perspective that Peterson's ideas seem very foreign, me included.
1:29:00 Sam COMPLETELY misses the point of Jordan's explanation of the story of Christ as the perfect man/tragedy & immediately starts dismissing it as not the limits of tragedy & construing it as a fundamentalist would; a story of literal human sacrifice. * **sigh**
It was the "limits" of tragedy for an individual in terms of the worst things (i.e. torture, humiliation, abandoned by friends and God) happening to the "best" man.
In terms of fiction-FOR THE TIME PERIOD-it was an amalgamation of the the worst conceivable things happening to the best individual.
....Sam is COMPLETELY missing the overarching implications and psychological significance of that theme by focusing trivialities like comparisons on the "quality" of the story versus fiction since that time to the present or that it somehow legitimizes human sacrifice in the literal sense.
I had the same reaction. Sam does not listen, he only attacks, and in a snide way.
bajovato bajovato you're an idiot. you must have literally know nothing about Christianity, the Bible, or the story. According to the story, the book, the doctrine, the way Christianity is understood by Christians, and according to the faithful for thousands of years, the entire reason Jesus\god did what he did...the entire reason he was birthed, lived, and then was killed was to atone for the sins of every human.
The story of Jesus in its entirety is a story of human sacrifice. And no amount of painting the shit stained wall will make it not stink. You can make Jesus as good of a man as possible, and make his suffering as bad as possible, and the story is still a story about human sacrifice.
This is the fucking problem with all religious people. They literally are so self-righteous that they refuse to see what's right in front of their face. and by definition you have to be delusional, illogical, and self contradicting to be religious, because you literally have to excuse all types of crazy shit to make the story about what you want it to be about, instead of what it's really about. and that's how you get the crusades, Islam, terrorism, Waco, "creation science", thousands of years of war, rape, stoning, slavery, genocide...need I go on? When has religion ever done something good for humanity? point to one thing in the history books.
people don't do novel good because of religion, but they do novel and lasting evil all the time. there's a reason history books are filled with religion.
A human sacrifice is involuntary. Jesus volunteered. He didn't have to do anything. It's a story of self sacrifice, not forced human sacrifice. When a soldier dies to protect his unit, is that a story of human sacrifice?
The rest of your comment would be worth responding to if you weren't angry.
Even what you perceive as the most egregious evils can be debated against with a calm demeanor. Anger is for your own satisfaction, not to actually change anybody's position to yours.
"A human sacrifice is involuntary. Jesus volunteered. He didn't have to do anything. " Not really. It was God's will for him to be sacrificed. He had to follow through. He struggled with that reality but ultimately accepted it. But he didn't choose it.
Matthew 26:39 "And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
26:42 "Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”
26:44 "So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again."
He prayed 3 times for God not to sacrifice him.
I don't read that as Him praying for God not to sacrifice Him, and then being forced to do it. I read it as Him saying "I'll comply with Your will, God. But if there was a way to not do this, I'd sure like an out." And the answer is that there's no way out, if the condition is to save mankind. Even the verse you cited says "not as I will, but as you will." That doesn't sound like someone who is being forced to do it as much as someone who is holding God's will above his own voluntarily.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
These podcasts, in one sense, inspired me to start learning words, and read the novels JP talked about. A year ago, I would not have been able to comprehend this conversation (even though English is my first language). Now I can grasp it on multiple levels :) it is awesome to understand language, it's quite magical.
My interpretation of this is that the fundamental difference between Peterson and Harris is the value they put on secularism. I do not believe Peterson believes secularism can effectively combat radical ideologies. He is promoting his interpretation of Christianity as a tool that all ready has a foundation in the west to be used to help people grow and discourage them from being pulled into ideas, ideologies and religions that are harmful to society.
Where as Harris denounces Christianity purely out of fact that the fundamentalist do not agree with the science to the extent he does. That secularism can stand on it's own. Peterson also seems to have a higher tolerance for fundamentalist Christians and may see them as an inevitable outcome to any ideology, his extent on talking about fundamentalist is to say he isn't one of them.
I feel like the real topic that they never reached was about the impacts of secularism on society. The positive and negative ideas that are born out of secularism. Is secularism strong enough to defend it self against ideologies and religions that are nothing short of evil? And how does that compare to modern/orthodox(to use Peterson example) Christianity?
J C yes, Peterson fears the same thing Nietzsche feared; that with god dead people will turn to nihilism and then to totalitarianism. Which is exactly what ended up happening and it killed millions of people, which is also something Peterson has read a whole lot about. And Peterson realizes, just as Nietzsche and Harris pointed out, that religion isn't perfect. So Peterson's goal is to separate the good parts of religion(the father) from the poisonous bits of religion(the whale) and rescue it and bring it back to the people. He is trying to become the hero.
I guess you can say that Harris is still too afraid that by rescuing the father, you might accidentally pull out the whale from the ocean too. Both valid points of view.
great comment, hope Peterson gets to it.
Kon Berner He's already aknowleged that. In this podcast even.
Perhaps what is special is what survives despite cultural changes. Yet, paradoxically, that special thing loses its meaning when extracted from its context, but gains meaning again when placed in a different context. I think the key is adapting these values to a context you understand. And that is different for different people.
It seems that Sam's greater goal is to remove religion from the world. Whereas Jordan wants to transform how people view religion because it can't and shouldn't be removed. I use to think more like Sam when I first became an atheist but now I am in between and finding Jordan's ideas very interesting.
Nate Walking Both make great points and honestly... either scenario would greatly benefit mankind in my opinion.
As an atheist I have never heard a more compelling argument for religion than the ones Jordan makes. It has really changed the way I think about religion as a whole. Truly fascinating.
Although it might be very difficult if not impossible to remove religion entirely, if you believe that the world will be a better place without religion, I don't see why it's bad to fight for that instead of trying to change it.
It doesn't require much intellect to be a regular theist or atheist for that matter, but I think it might require a certain level of intellect and/or honesty to view and use religion in the way that Jordan Peterson does, so it's also not gonna be easy to make people change how they view religion, although I think the reality is that both things are actually happening slowly today. People are changing the way they view religion more and more at the same time as there are coming more and more atheists, and I'll admit that I very much like that trend.
I think the fundamental problem here is that Jordan Peterson failed to denote the importance of Conservatism underlying Religion, and Harris failed to see that was the intention. You need pillars to sustain a civilization and Religion concedes it in the form of habits and practices, and that's the wisdom Peterson is talking about and why it is imperative to conserve values, because otherwise, you wouldn't have strong foundations, and a civilization that doesn't have strong foundations falls down.
Guilherme Campos I completely see your point, but do you also believe that religious societies will have stronger foundations or more benefits than atheist societies? Or do you maybe think that it can benefit some people but not all?
Jordan is a grizzled old miner that lives in the middle of the Australian outback and has owned Toyota Hilux all his life and the young salesman Sam is trying to sell him the new Chinese 4x4 ute, Sam keeps on talking about the specs of both vehicles and that there is no difference and why pay double the price for a Hilux when you can get the same ute for half the price.Jordan is trying to tell Sam that he has had Hiluxs for all his life and drives on 4x4 roads everyday and has never had an issue and his neighbour has had his hilux for 25 years and it has never missed a beat.But Sam keeps going through the specs of both vehicles , 2.4l turbo desiel , 6 speed , etc... and keeps on saying that the vehicles are identical and thinks that Jordan is crazy for not buying his vehicle etc....Not the best way to explain , just one way that I see the debate. Sam could not convince Jordan to buy his Chinese 4x4 and is now leaving to drive back to the city , Sam punches in the directions home on the gps on his phone and gets the old road maps that were in his car and throws them in the bin and Jordan says "I don't think you should throw out those as we have been using those maps for hundreds of years and what if something were to happen to your phone "and Sam smirks at him and says "your living in the past old man".
This is the most pointless comment of all time
@@malikialgeriankabyleswag4200 then how pointless is yours?
Speaking for myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this second podcast. The first was painful but it was worth the frustration to finally hear them have a meaningful conversation. It is a shame that some of both Peterson and Harris' more zealous admirers seem intent on voicing the superiority of their chosen hero rather than recognise their commonalities and that both have some very interesting ideas on overlapping topics.
"....the storytellers get there first"
....well said, Peterson.
bajovato ii
Unfortunately, they also often get it very wrong.
Peterson conditioned me to clean my room, whenever I hear him speak. Since I can't stop listening to him, my room is getting dangerously sterile.
Don't forget the idea of the snake in the garden. No matter how clean your room is, there'll always be a tiny bit of dust somewhere ;)
Jordan Peterson is such a man of integrity to be so open about his flaws and mistakes
This was a very, very good dialogue. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you both for bringing your 'A' games.
"Religion is silly, validate its worth." But the conversion never goes, "science/rationalism is rife with pitfalls, justify its value." People give Harris a pass because it has become a truism that science is a great force for improvement of society, so he can impune belief systems while laying in a cozy, protective bed. I'd want to reverse the dialogue and say validate the worth of science.
I think Sam glosses over the fact that "religion" is universal.
This conversation is essentially the battle that has been happening inside my mind for the last 9 years.
Sam shits on people who take the bible literally but he takes it literally himself, that’s why he is not into any answer within it.
@@ApunkDaydreamLamunanOi The ones who are not taking it literally are not causing the problems of the world, It's the one who are taking it literally . Then how else are you suppose to argue and debate with them ? You have to take their own words and theories and take out the irrationality out of it . Also , Sam has nothing to do with the Bible except for the problems that it's causing . He is not taking it literally nor casually. He is not taking it all .
@@primary5050 Sam Harris does take the Bible literally. In this context, "take" means "interpret".
I personally loved both podcasts. Jordan you are truly admirable. Your hard work and dedication is something I can only imagine. It really shows in your research and thoughtfulness. Thank you. You matter so much to all of us who listen to your lectures. The positivity in the comments from your videos is only a reflection of who you are because that is what you attract. Stay strong. You have love and support from all around the world.
"One time I was at the hockey rink with my son..." Oh you Canadians
LMFAO
Who won?? Love hockey.. the fastest.. the best. .magic ..flying on ice.
Two of my favorite people. BEGIN INFORMATION OVERLOAD
So as an atheist who LOVES everything Dr. Peterson has to teach, I am still confused concerning the point Sam was making at the end there. I don't see why we can't just be basically atheists/secular/agnostic and still engage in the "Petersonian project".
And I am not convinced that we shouldn't be atheists or in this sense Nietzschean. God is dead. Sure we can and perhaps should save him from the belly of the beast, but He remains dead.
P.S. I'm looking forward to the lectures on the Bible by Dr. Peterson.
I share your sentiment. Adherence to traditional cultural practices does not necessitate faith. We are at luxury in our time to be able to break down WHY Christianity was beneficial to our ancestors, and build on that. We are not required to return to the strict, arbitrary, dogmatic minutia of Christianity's past in order to reap the cultural benefits
I think one of Peterson's ideas that I'm not sure he specifically stated here (and note that I don't necessarily have it 100% correctly) is that he feels that humans *need* the religious archetypes not to descend into utter chaos. it's not that they need christianity necessarily, or any particular religion, it's that there are deep core ideas at the root of religion that are extremely important as parts of our society. that a person needs a "heaven" to strive for, and a "hell" to avoid, for example. it doesn't have to actually be superstitious, it's really a psychologocal thing more than a mystical one.
I see the problem as relating to Dr Harris' continuous assertion that we just do not need to think of the world in the terms of story and myth because they are just religious superstition and he seems to want keep talking about religion as if it were literally true. I contrast this with Dr Peterson who agrees that religious superstition does not add value in this day and age, but adds that religion is not a literal project and that there are extremely valuable "truths" to be found in the rediscovery of ancient human stories and overlaying them with a codex to put it in the perspective of our psychology. In my opinion, Dr Peterson adds deeper meaning and a type of visceral understanding to our human nature rather than continuously asserting that pure scientific rationality is the only game in town. They seem to still talk past each other to that extent.
"that is what Nietzche referred to"
In all ways are religion, myths, spirituality & supernaturalistic beliefs dying & hold no water with anyone mildly familiar with critical thinking. Good riddance, it's a burden on the collective mental health of the world.
mewmewmew Empty, dead words... Dead end and limited intellectual and capacity to contemplate the possibilities. Plain boring...
The anti thesis of courege. Mediocre. The enemy of progress. Gtfo.
Sam point about the sperm bank is really stupid when you think about it
Peterson just described how humans have a more qualitative vs quantive reproduction strategy and how religion facilitated this qualitative strategy and than Sam just ignores or doesn't understand the point and goes on to make an idiotic point
I feel like Sam's whole entire method of debate is to always make up some nonexistent scenario that doesn't fit what the other guy just said.
Excellent! So glad you had another discussion, Jordan!
This was a great discussion, and I appreciated that Sam allowed Jordan to express his thoughts fully without interrupting like so many others have done when interviewing Jordan. I was impressed by Sam and Jordan. Both of these thinkers are highly intelligent and articulate.
7:33 - "I think that religious systems are descriptions of how people ought to act. And... I think that those arose in a quasi-evolutionary manner."
This is why atheists shouldn't immediately dismiss Peterson. He has obviously thought long and hard about WHY religion exists (which is usually what only atheists and sceptics do, rather than the religious).
Sam says a lot of "well if I [hypothetically] accept that, then I could just as easily do this..." and he inserts his example of scenarios in which things turn pathological.
This goes to show that Sam's go to tactic in discrediting religion is the slippery slope fallacy almost every time.
....and the fact that he delivers it in a calm, even toned, reasonable voice does not make that tactic any more logical than what it really is.
he's a sophist.
Sam had his ass handed to him this time. And Jordan didn't even take his gloves off.
Jordan Peterson, "Jesus died on the cross"
Sam Harris, "Well, if Jesus could die on the cross then he could nuke the whole world. Is that the kind of God you want?"
Actually reminds me almost exactly of the split between Freud and Jung on religion, funny how that's worked out.
Dick Boehner and look what ended up happening to the both of them. Freud now largely discredited. Jung - still talked about all the time.
Jordan Peterson is such an inspirational speaker. Sam Harris on the other hand is so boring and really just irrelevent
Wasn't Sam Harris born into a life of luxury? I'm sure he can rely on someone's teat when times are rough. What i'm trying to say is that Sam Harris doesn't come off to me as someone's who's been through the 'ring of fire.'
Sort yourselves out, people!
Damn it I never thought I'd agree with Jordan Peterson as I'm a natural skeptic. However, God and Religion as a sophisticated guiding metaphysic as to how life should be organized kind of makes sense. He's not saying that the Bible should be taken literally at face value, he's saying the allegorical representation presents a guiding framework to which one can choose to organize life if one chooses....that's what he means by substrate, it's true on a subconscious layer. We all have our own guiding principle of a "God". Shit gets deep.
What you just said was coherent, yet very difficult to understand deeply. This is why Peterson says that complex things have to take very long to explain. Unfortunately, people always complain about Peterson talking too much as if he was a word-salad maker.
I wish I could describe this guiding underlying substrate like you. That is exactly what I'm experiencing and JP describes it so unbelievably well.
JP has a free lecture series on youtube called "The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories". Highly recommended.
Oh, it's NOT a repost... damn it, I have to go to bed.... Need sleeep... arhg.
Sam uttering the phrase "smashing into Jesus" was easily a personal highlight of this.
Sam Harris vs Jordan Peterson Summed up:
Peterson:" religious myths are interesting and hold truths that speak to something about the human nature which maps on to reality"
Sam Harris: "That's true, but we don't need the myths, we can map on to what they are getting at"
Peterson: "No we absolutely need the myths"
Sam Harris"why?"
Peterson: "Did I mention how interesting they were?"
Lejfieg Your post is funny. While I think it misses a lot of important nuance that Jordan shared, it still hits close enough to cause a little damage. Well done. - so says the guy that liked Jordan's views better.
Lejfieg The end should be: You can't rip out the myths and expect things to play out in the utopian idea that is held. Ethics and Morality are a product of myths, generally speaking
Why not? Myths themselves are utopian. And of course we wont lose every problem known to humanity by losing myths alone, there will be others, but myths, and religions specifically at the present time are not at the cutting edge of innovation in any field. They served their purpose thousands of years ago, we don't need them. please stop generally speaking. NOTHING points to morality being a product of myths. Most evidence actually points to biology being the source of our morality, and the stories we tell ourselves that house that moral code are most likely confabulations. The stories morality can found in are us trying to understand why those moral choices feel good, not the other way around. There is evidence of this, and Peterson actually points to this in this podcast, idk if you were listening to it.
I guess because myths are based on the experiences of our ancestors, and they don't embed themselves into our unconscious mind except through those narratives. Sam's way, which is just to state the truth and not forge it into the mind through stories and narratives, may not work as well as Peterson's way. That is the way our human brains have worked. However through Sam's way we can easily forge myths and narratives that are more suited to our modern world, rather than Peterson's way which is to keep the old ones and constantly revamp and twist them to fit our ever-changing perception of reality.
Lejfieg Wow!!! you really boiled it all down!
Jordan, Sam You both missed one function of religion, language and culture - extelligence (outside intelligence). Extelligence is what replaces genetic memory.
We have Extelligence (the combination of religion language and culture) so we dont have to store our rules of conduct in our DNA.
If you required a child to apply your ideas of focus and critical thinking the child wouldnt be able to do that.
If every person had to start from scratch with their morallity, very soon there would be noone left, because noone would remember why we're not killing each other.
Clash of titans
Sam Woods Were we listening to the same discussion? That was not a discussion among equals.
Who was more equal ?
I believe it became unequal when @ 43:50 and you can go back a few minutes to see why it was brought up . Dr Peterson explained how one makes sure what you believe is actually accurate/true . You have multiple methods to test your theory and each methods result says the same thing or come to the same conclusion .
I believe it was clear it became unequal because Sam completely abandon that train of thought with out even commenting on what Peterson had just said .
Jarosław Cholewiński the one that he shares the same world view on religion with.
Mikey Mike It also became unequal when Sam Harris straight up told him why only Bible? Why not take stuff from each such religion or human culture combined.
Jordan Peterson didn't really come up with a plausible explanation. He is just biased towards Christianity.
Sam Harris himself meditates and advocates it despite being strict atheist.
I have 25 minutes left to watch but I think Jordan is trying to say that knowledge without wisdom can be dangerous e.g. the atom bomb. The ancient arcetypical stories have lasted and influenced great Art over centuries for their source of wisdom and shouldnt be dispensed with so confidently.
that's not wisdom, that's knowledge
Literalism is quite a recent phenomenon. Most ancient people knew that there were allegorical and metaphorical aspects to the Bible, take Origen for example. Here it is explained quite well
www.wordonfire.org/resources/video/misreading-genesis/174/
www.wordonfire.org/resources/video/violence-in-the-bible/287/
SORT YOURSELF OUT.
Just finished listening to this on Sam Harris' website. Fantastic conversation! And if I may venture my personal opinion, a big improvement over the last. ;)
MindTraveler no, you may not venture your personal opinion.
Shutting up now; I acknowledge my privilege.
+Pelon 003 What was I thinking anyway, the internet servers are on stolen land.
Sam is so eloquent. I particularly enjoyed what happened around the one hour and seven minutes mark.
The error Sam makes with re to celibacy is that the religion and in kind the gate-keepers of knowledge controlled the memes. It's like an exchange. If you had all that power, and you could reproduce, you'd then be facing war, both in disbelief and physically, with the others, but in a way, it's a bargain where the more reclusive thinking types can remove themselves from competition, but gain a dominance in the realm of identity and ideas. In the memetic sense, they Are reproducing more, and they are helping form society in a way to select for the continuation of their ideas in people.
that's an interesting point I've never seen before, nice one!
RIght. So much emphasis is placed on progeny and bloodlines and the like, historically and now, but people don't see the energetic potentiality in the memetic power of Christ throughout these past two millennia. Memetic power is potentially more influential that procreative power, or equally so. Not an idea I hear others discuss much, but glad you see the pre meme-magick aspect of memetics.
The idea I've been entertaining, is that... consider two people who aren't "bloodline" connected... but through variation, they're similar in a form of convergence during natural variations. Those people, biologically will be predisposed to certain tastes in food, temprament, climate, aggression/passivity etc... and it could be that... even though they don't reproduce specifically... if they clerically alter the memetic environment of values and society, they can "protect" those that come after that have similar genetics. Kind of a leap-frog idea. So from a direct genetic proliferation standpoint, they may be a "dead end' but... through society, they create an alcove of niche or safety by altering the tempraments of the others that do reproduce, and the viability of the offspring they have that may share the same convergences.
It's also the mistake Sam makes when he says about donating to the sperm bank. It's not just your genetics that people wish to pass on.
Also you have an Arbiter for society who does not engage in sexual interaction, a truly outsider's perspective into society if our instincts are mainly to reproduce and take care of our lineage.
You can hear Jordan Peterson's brain growing in the background as Sam drones on.
Dr. Peterson continues to amaze me with how well he can learn from his mistakes. It takes a small mistake or misstep, and the man improves by leaps and bounds. It's what we should all strive to do.
Verisimilitude - the appearance of being true or real.
Love it, cool word.
Veritas = Latin word for truth
I think it's interesting that Sam mentions the Dobu people and their belief system as if it was a system that stood the test of time. Jordan argues for truth defined by that which does not result in death or oblivion. Just as natural selection filters out maladaptive physical traits it does so with maladaptive belief systems. The religious stories that still exist today have simply been transfigured into more elaborate and relatable modern stories but their underlying framework constructed of values and morals has survived. Even those who may not be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist still hold some beliefs which can be found in those ancient stories. All the stories we know are reiterations or have been loosely inspired by these. Whether or not Sam agrees with the premise that a belief system is as fundamental to our ability to navigate the world as modern science is, he is ultimately "locked-in" to one or many. Stories are so pervasive and so natural in our existence they almost seem as something that exists externally and exclusive to our internal world but they invade our mode of being from the moment we are able to learn from observation.
A quote from David Foster Wallace
“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship-be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles-is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”
Sam's recipe, holy shit. Damn near fell off my chair hahahahaha. What a great way making his point.
yeah it was really entertaining to hear haha. valid argument too
It's not a joke. Us in the church of Sam's cookbook take our religion very seriously. (yes, I'm getting salty)
We need more teachers like Peterson giving great guidance in classrooms. The world needs it.
Great respect for Peterson in this podcast. He really went above and beyond to be a good team player for this "hockey team". Takes guts to speak vulnerable truths and dismiss your own ego. I find Harris' summary to be excellent, but he seems to be very reluctant to admit to any positive aspects of religion as though his distaste is getting in the way of rationality. My personal opinion has been that organized religion is thoroughly bad, but personal religion can be of great value - with a lot of ifs and buts. This podcast however really made me open that book up again and start thinking and that is a great gift! There is far more depth to this than I had really thought of. Thank you both!
Organized religion is quite awful. Peterson is quite fantastic.
Love Peterson and Sam. Hopefully Peterson can open Sam up a bit to the reasons behind the reasons whether you agree are not are essentially important.
Yes, Fable. I don't think Peterson gets due praise for his humility.
Organized religion was a necessary (evil) in the development of civilization to this point. Not to be venerated or condemned nor thrown to perdition.
Personal religion is still religion.
Dear Sam, Jordan Peterson is not trying to defend religion as it exists right now. He's trying to distill religion into the core moral truths that help men live in society and get rid of all the bullshit so we can move forward in the scientific age while still retaining our moral values.
I love Dr Peterson. Unfortunately, when it comes to religion, this is where we part.
Sam got dusted
N yea honestly. Its like he's AI and expects every human to be ai its absurd
Ever hear someone list the mistakes before? It's rare but Dr. Peterson did...
Ruan Wayney I'm actually kinda jealous honestly.
Great refreshing conversation. Some points of agreement: 1) Harris admits the power of myth and that they are more than scientific hypotheses. The problem is when people take them as scientific hypotheses or claims about empirical reality. They agreed on that. This is quite different from both scientific and religious literalists, both of whom think of myths as scientific hypotheses/god of gaps or simply rational attempts to explain inexplicable empirical phenomena. 2) They also agreed that some truths must be lived and cannot be objectified or known by science (Harris called these truths "orthogonal to science"; Peterson seemed to argue that one must test these truths for self.... as Buddha and mystics in all religions taught. They can be lived, not fully objectified. ). 3) They agreed that new age interpretations are rather schizophrenic, flaky and like Harris' Cookbook analogy because there are no "constraints." Harris wants empirical constraints, Peterson wants experiential/lived constraints. * I would love to hear another conversation expanding to metaphysical claims. To really know consciousness, one must experience it... not simply objectively look at another person's brain scan. The truth of what consciousness is like is lost when reducing it to the truth that brain activity in the scan seems to give rise to it. Does Peterson agree with Harris that these myths make no claims about a transc reality or do living these myths give one awareness of such (like a 2 dim mind becoming aware for the first time of a 3d reality)?
teachphilosophy couldn’t have said it better. Religion is more than what modern atheistic crack pots want to admit that it is. And it’s more than the religiously obsessed dogmatic people want to believe it is.
When it comes to religion, You’re talking about metaphysical abstractions regarding consciousness and thought and motivation to survive.
Where as science is focused on what things are and how they function in regards to survival.
In other words, science tells you what will keep you alive. But religion teaches you how to conduct that life in a beneficial way. This is of course removing the exceptions of extremists.
But very well spoken man.
Nice post. Peterson, not so much in this interview comes down clearly on the inescapable truth contained in myth and religion that is much more than mere and relatively trivial "scientific" knowledge. Knowing your wife loves you is more important than knowing how many cells are in her physical aspect. Human free will also asserts the transcendence of science as even materialist philosopher Thomas Nagle shows in Mind and Cosmos. We are all rediscovering Aristotle and Final Cause.. how everything including atoms.. and us.. are moved towards ends and objective purposes. Scholastic monks ..THomas Aquinas.. I think simply nail the whole life thing. Harris I'm afraid I find to be a colossal bore and utterly incoherent as materialists must be.
The good Dr Peterson seems to be coming down solidly on the only possibly realistic side..which is in the metaphysical affirmative. The universe is a moral place ultimately. How could it possibly be otherwise as people naturally see. We are naturally religious but should use our God given reason and good will to search deeply and thoughtfully about these truly essential matters.
teachphilosophy great summary and questions! I have been thinking a lot latelly about the problem of consciousness and i tend to believe it is a "fundamental" or "emergent" property, dependending on how you describe those concepts. Describing it using science would be much like describing what mass is. You can only say it is there when you see it's effects.
teachphilosophy When Sam Harris was reading an esoteric interpretation in the Hawaiian Cookbook recipe, I actually found THAT to be the most interesting part of the discussion upto that point. Its almost that Sam DOES want to believe in a mystical tradition, but perhaps the mysticism of human reason and science. The poetic mystical language that Sam used in his “Paranoid Schizophrenic” boundless interpretation of the recipe actually got me listening to what he was saying even though he was completely mocking and satirising New Age beliefs. Its quite ironic, how mockery and satirising and how talking about the evil eye and burning witches was more fascinating to me than the actual rational basis of the conversation.
Religious skepticism, and atheism is dry. Religious extremism is equally as silly. I like flirting between magic and science. A tiny but of Harry Potter and Wizardry, a tiny bit of Blade Runner and the Replicants, a tiny bit of the Bible and Moses, and a tiny bit of Charles Darwin and evolution. I like mixing in concepts from both traditions.
Sam Harris’ calm collected manner is admirable, but I found that the rationalism was quite lacking in passion, it was coldly calculating, highly orderly.
I think the topics that Sam could do very well in discussing would be that of science. I love science, and I love atoms and neutrons, and chemical reactions and the laws of physics and gravity. Neuroscience would be an interesting topic for Sam Harris to discuss.
A disturbing amount of disturbingly popular comments here seem to think Peterson is a religious advocate. I have gotten NO such impression. Peterson is a philosphy advocate. He's elucidating archetypal ideals, not gods or even specific philosophies,
If Peterson was a religious advocate, this conversation would have been incredibly adversarial, and it wasn't.
So why does he call himself a Christian then?
He is an advocate of religion for its utility, not its literal truth.
+pyropulse
Correct; however, I think in order to preserve critical thinking and eliminate mindless indoctrination, we either need to advocate against literalism or the education about other religions and their sects. Biblical literalism is a plague in America.
Nothing scares the left more than philosophy. Religion is the perfect umbrella to cover up philosophical thought.
For clarity sake. Hockey is team game but I dont think life has a team goal but an individual one. Survival or even evolution may be the aims of other creatures (bacteria, plants or animals), but what differentiates human from them is rationalization. My view is that the goal of a human being is that of INDIVIDUATION, not just looking for happinesss while making mankind more technologically or socially advanced. Coming into the Hero Archetype, it is something which our ancestors witnessed and triggered a deep emotional response (because it was catastrophic) so that it was pushed into the Collective Unconscious. It was not a kind of EM resonance vibrating in the Noosphere waiting for anyone to connect with it and that remains stable through eternity.
Dear Sam, religion has its origins on the 'Common Good' of the herd (an evolutionary trait), which in turn provides the basis of a set of beliefs which were profitable for that specific group. Members identify with a group to get Security and Previsibility. So there is NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH because they are subjective.
Such being the case, why is Jordan stuck in not acknowledging that archetypes/mythemes have their origins in witnessed real physical events concerning the gods (planets)? Why doesn't he "attempt to understand carefully where he is in error and learn everything he can to correct that"?
Sam, Science (scientific method= observation and experiment) can ONLY be applied to the present; Religion is the way to extrapolate knowledge to the past or future. The aim is to feel secure.`
Another quote from Jordan is "people sacrifice themselves to what they hold as the highest value" and claim that is embedded in christianity. It might be, but it is also more deeply rooted in current "science".
What do you say??? "Christianity subordinates the group to the individual"??? (Mmmm I gonna get baptised). Any group alienates the individual who identifies with the ideology of the group. If you want to "prevent nihilism or totalitarianism" you should guess why society is sick (Jung, Marcuse, Velikovsky, Meerloo, Krishnamurti, S.Junger, Fromm, Vic.Frankl, Z.Bauman, Ch. Mackay, G. Lebon, Nietzsche, Freud). If we agree the cause society doesn't work properly (illness definition) then the cause is unknown and so unconscious. Something which has been repressed into the unconscious is a trauma. Why is society traumatized?
Again we come back to the origin of archetypes/mythemes/schemes. Let a critical mass find out and that's the first step to overcome trauma.
To end up, I do strongly agree with having a value system, as far as we don't try to enforce it on other people; doing that would be a violation of free speech, free will (removing options and choice), and all sort of totalitarian ideas related with an 'Absolute Objective Truth', or a 'Common Good' which do not exist.
I absolutely love how Harris will get to an impasse with a guest, admit it turned into a clusterfuck, go away and calm down and actually THINK, then invite them back on.
That's the power of mindfulness demonstrated for you.
Felt the whole time that Sam, the logical fisherman, was trying to reel in Jordan, the metaphorical fish. Enjoyed it very much gentlemen.
Just came from listening to the first convo on Sam's channel. Not a single ad. Here every five minutes. Love 'em both but Jordan deffo the more materialistic one.
Sam Harris is Ben stillers smarter twin brother
But Ben Stillers got the big bucks... maybe not the smartest lol
Atheism denies ultimately intelligible ordering so he could not be smarter. Ever.
Tom More What exactly do you mean by "intelligible ordering", and how does atheism deny this?
1990sodapop I kinda thought David Starsky's younger,smarter brother.
I lold hard at this
The way Professor Peterson began the conversation was the best way to begin it.
And Sam Harris’ negligence to return a similar statement is very telling of their character. Over the last three years, listening more to JBP has made me, gradually, stop listening to the likes of Sam Harris. And I’m a better person now than I was three years ago.
Why would Sam apologize for something he didn’t do? High marks for Jordan for being honest about what he did and why.
Jordon actually was apologising for the mistakes he comitted in the previous podcast in the opening statement, and Sam tried to make him feel less guilty. It seems extremely contradictory to what you are saying in this comment. Also listening to Jordon Peterson for self help would obviously be better because many of his books and talks(not all of them) are around self help. So it was stupid if you came to listen to Sam thinking you would be getting advices as he talks about philosophical issues not self help.
I'm guessing you are religious.
Sam is a deep but narrow thinker, a technician. Peterson is a thinker of depth and width, displaing the gift of mental agility/flexibility. Sam hangs on to atheism like a religion. Bravo Jordan!
Really happy to hear this episode go well. This one was far more about trying to find common ground, which is something I really like about Harris' podcasts (and why I was so disappointed with the first). I hope fans of both Harris and Peterson will take inspiration from that and not let the discussion turn into a tribal argument.
Is it just me, or does Dobu story sound awfully lot like postmodernism? Success is because of 'oppression' ,it's everywhere and cannot be defined. (basically magic) Success of other people is directly affecting your well being etc.
I am not even 10 minutes into this and I feel myself refreshed almost at an emotional level. The fact that these two gentlemen can disagree as much as they do and still have a respectful, civilized and insightful conversation void of the hubris that normally accompanies the debates so common these days gives me hope for the future -
Isn’t that great. Now with the passage of time they became friends as in much being on one another’s podcast a total of 10x, debates and lectures with one another. Neither agrees with the other but even when asked they show respect and decency for the other. It’s called intelligence. Refreshingly human. These men should be put on both Fox News and MSNBC and allowed to talk on political philosophy so viewers can have an epiphany on deep thought towards complex issues.
Jordan vs Sam or Manwë vs Melkor. Manwe is dearest to Iluvatar and understands most clearly his purposes. Melkor causes discord.
Lord of the Rings is garbage.
Steven Alibaster Not from Lord of Rings (although could use from it too- Gandalf vs Saruman - one of several characters in the book illustrating the corruption of power; his desire for knowledge and order leads to his fall, and he rejects the chance of redemption when it is offered). The mythology from The Silmarillion. His mythology is as good as it gets.
wd40 ducttape I agree. Haven't thought about The Silmarillion in years. Thanks. Much better analogy than "batman"!
yes.
Cain and Abel too
As I see it, main disagreement came to:
- in Peterson's terms, Harris is so afraid of tyrannical father, static and oppressive
nature of religious beliefs, that best course of action is to take all power
from him. We should have no forms of organized belief or religion. On the other
hand Peterson thinks about benevolent father, protective nature of culture, and
wants to be his Horus, make him updated and relevant again.
- in Harris’s terms, Peterson is trying to smuggle religion in to science by
giving it a new face, and Harris doesn't want to hear about it.
Regardless, this was one of the best discussions
in a long time.
Darko S - Brevity is art...and you are a master!
Starting from 1:21:44 Sam was asking all the right question: Why make this a matter of allegiance to Christianity. Why not just take what is useful in any tradition?
All the way to the end, Jordan didn't provide a satisfying answer in my opinion.
As someone who finds great value in Jordan Peterson's teaching, I really hope Jordan would give more thought on his allegiance with this one religion.
My thoughts. I don't think its a matter of allegiance, its more of acknowledgement of Christianity being the current bedrock upon which the Western Culture is currently standing on. As a religion it was ofcourse deeply flawed in many areas but necessary to go through. And Jordan is doing precisely that, taking what is useful from it, of which the two central parts that stand out is Telling the truth, and the Importance of the individual. And abandonning Christianity without taking the wisdom from it, leaves you largely open to other dangerous idiologies of the New Age.
Mario Tang I get a sense Peterson is very western centric, at no fault of his own, but there are many school of thoughts beyond the one he was obsessed with.
He has stated elsewhere how christianity is the foundation of western culture, a culture that has created science, explored the earth, travelled to the moon, ended slavery, recognized the the sovereignty of the individual, and many more accomplishments than I can think of. That religious foundation cannot be lightly dismissed, and - as Peterson would say - we do so at our peril.
@@regularfather4708 Ended slavery, traveled to the moon... You have to understand that religion was only game in town, only now we have more freedom to be atheists, and that still does not apply everywhere, look at America, people think that they will become murderers, satanists if they don't believe in god.
But you also have to understand that if we stick to one religion without any ability to question it, we are stuck with teachings of how to beat slave, how you can't love your parents more than god, that homosexuality is bad, that if you don't beg for forgiveness you will burn in hell.
No one is saying to discard religion, Sam himself states he has nothing against its buildings, songs, paintings. He has issue with dogmas in itself. Those make good people do bad things and still call those things good.
He didn't actually say that the bedrock of western culture was christian. He said that it was judeo-christian. And it's actually important to get that distinction right.
You see, Jordan Peterson is not merely a typical christian. For if he were, like anyone else, he'd completely disown the old testament. But the fact of the matter is that he finds the old testament to have more value than the new testament, at least in my understanding. The stories of the bible have a lot to say about humanity. It's not merely about being christian. It's about the stories.
And so it isn't an allegiance to Christianity, I would say. He doesn't even go to church. I hate to be putting words into Peterson's mouth, but I would say that it's about the significance of the stories that contain within it the wisdom of how to conduct oneself in the world. And that includes the Egyptian stories, which Peterson has talked about in detail.
However, I do think that the question Harris asked was a very good one. And it's Peterson's burden that he could not answer it. But I also think that that's what makes him think surprisingly brilliantly in the direction that he does. For if he were too direct, he would just be another Sam Harris.
When you really break down what Sam is saying to the simplest form. He's essentially making an ad hominem attack on Religion. Every time a point that would bring some validity to religion is brought to his attention, he has some retort about the dangers of religion as a construct, but he never fully weighs the merits or the validity of any specific idea that may lay within religion. It's a very sad state that Sam finds himself, because I don't think he fully understand the position he continues to put himself in.
When I listen to him I hear the same patterns as I hear in dawkins. Hes already made up his mind about what is the truth and he is completely shut off to any opposing ideas. Hes also become very good at creating well dressed strawmen
Love it when Peterson starts to fanboy over Dostoyevsky lmao
I enjoyed Sam's cookbook example. It was a prime example of the symbolism and types in life. It demonstrates how if one wants to look for it they can find substance and meaning all around them. I think this is a good thing when anchored by the right underlying core belief system.
I do wonder, why doesn't Jordan talk about Joseph Campbell. I had some family whom I talked about Jordan Peterson's ideas to a cousin of mine and he said he was practically identical to Campbell. I am not going lie, they are pretty similar in there ideas.
Peterson considers Campbell to be a bit new age, and in particular he doesn't like the influence Campbell has had on Jungian thinking. Peterson rejects the notion of "follow your bliss" as a tenable solution to life's problems. I myself quite enjoy Campbell's optimism but I can see why someone as obsessed with the problem of evil as Peterson wouldn't be so enthusiastic about him.
I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell and of Dr. Peterson. JP has expanded my view on the 'follow your bliss' way of looking at things.
Peterson has talked about Campbell in some of his lectures. What he criticizes in Campbell iirc is that he feels that Campbell somewhat 'trivializes' archetypes and the archetypal hero's journey. Campbell treats it mainly as a literary device whereas Peterson considers it the foundation to the successful life in the real world.
I admire both these men and their thoughts. I feel though, that it's Sam who somewhat missing the scope of what Jordan is trying to say.
When it comes to human evolution, I wonder if it's a catastrophic misconception that stronger/more favorable traits are more likely to breed. Anyone seen the movie "Idocracy?" Anyone have the data on this?
This man is brilliant. These concepts are akin to Nietzsche. A different level of philosophy.
Ugh, still talking past each other. I don't understand why Sam is not allowing for Jordan's perspective on this. Yes, human sacrifice is a barbarism from the modern perspective with the lens of the achievements such as the scientific method... That doesn't mean that it wasn't based in emergent principles on which our modern ethics are based. You two don't really disagree, but Sam seems to continually not really listen to the reason Jordan formed these perspectives on ancient "barbarisms"...
Keep talking to each other. Sam will open up eventually. He strikes me as a very intelligent guy who has just not fully integrated his imagination into his already-working scientific toolset.
jeremyrainman explain something doesn’t make it right. Sam says move on! One can learn about religion as part of education but not to follow it!
- so she outsources that problem to the computational capacity of the male hierarchy ...
- Damn it is complex man, really complex...
*gets punched in the face by Jordan*
this made my brain hurt in a good way. Two seriously brilliant minds
SORT
YOURSELF
OUT?
OUT
I love this.
The only way to the truth is to know Christ - it is transformative wisdom that knows no end
That perfect "G" in Sam's right ear stands for God :P
Why is everyone hating on Sam? I don't think Sam was being arrogant at all during this podcast, and I respect the hell out of both him and Jordan Peterson. This was a great conversation.
Harris is excructiatingly dull.
Because this is Jordan Peterson's UA-cam and it's filled with his fanboys. That's why.
Peterson is growing a zealous cult of his personality that dangerously unknowingly doesn't know that it is a cult of following. I suppose as Loki says, "Humans are made to be ruled."
@Tom More
Harris has never really tried to create a new way of living whilst Peterson is trying to rediscover a way of living that now seems profound.
Harris's only job has always been to counter religious ideas. Peterson has grown famous for countering misguided ideologues but he has also actively created a philosophy of living a life of purpose and meaning. This is why many of the comments like yours feel like Peterson is onto something good and scrumptious while Harris is spewing unremarkable objective facts which are boring to the people like you.
I respect both Harris and Peterson but what I don’t understand is the deep effect Peterson has made on some people. It’s verges on worship. I feel like I’m missing something - it’s a genuine confusion for me
a UA-cam gem , this conversation is what a normal conversation should be like , TV is a circus compared to that , you take the veiwers up to your intellectual level not pull them down to mediocre journalists fights
[ sorting intensifies ]
Harris is the pessimist we deserve, but not the one we need.
Like you both independently. That was better then last time.