Comments by "PM" (@pm71241) on "Jordan B Peterson" channel.

  1. Jordan ... you might think the CO2 problem is hard to say much about, but it has the potential to make all your worries about the marine ecosystem totally irrelevant. Ocean acidification can make the entire ecosystem collapse regardless of what we do wrt. fishery.
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  2. Maria Cristina Santana "I'm so glad you said it. Sam is more religious than he thinks he is. Amen!" Could you forgive some of us for thinking that is just an empty sentence without substance? What does it mean? What evidence do you have for that? In what way does it relate to the discussion at hand? (scientific truth vs. JPs idea of truth) To me it seems like something people would say when they run out of arguments and instead try to start a smear.
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  3. Wft?!?! ... "You think you don't believe, but I think you do ... but we have different definitions of what the word "believe" means" ???? What on earth are people supposed to do what that kind of nonsense? Let's start by ensuring that we are talking about the same thing... THEN we can discuss whether you are right in disagreeing with me.
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  4. > Maria Cristina Santana I would be condescending talking to Deepak Chopra for too long too ... In general ... when confronted with dogmatism you have the option to either leave the conversation or try to illustrate the absurdity of the position. ... which can easily end up sounding condescending. People holding dogmatic  views have a tendency to be offended and claim the other side is condescending when confronted with sufficiently good arguments against their position - exactly because if often shows the absurdity of their position. I cannot recount the number of times creationists have called me "condescending" just for pointing out who strange it is that all the marsupials ended up in Australia.
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  5. ***** "...but instead harris talked about uneven numbers of bodyhairs and a dozen more such stupid mind experiments, LMAO!" It seems to me the reason the discussion ended up like that have totally escaped your attention. The plan was not only to discuss statism, but also religion. And Sam Harris pointed out that the concept of what constitutes "truth" is at the core of this and any meaningful discussion needs to have a least some common understanding of the premise wrt. "Truth". (and I think he is right in that). But they never arrived at that common premise, since Jordan Peterson (IMHO) was rather dogmatic in his response to even the most obvious of Sams arguments. So it was certainly not on purpose Sam brought up those examples you find "stupid" ... I was kind of necessary to have the conversation at all.
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  6. Jordan, - Not that I think it's the case, but ... Just to rule out the most obvious reason for this deadlock and misunderstanding, could you please answer: Is the problem here that you are simply talking about different things when you use the word "true" ? I mean ... do you recognize that the concept Sam Harris is talking about, exists? ... let's call it something else: "scientific facts about the real world". ... and it's just that you reserve the word "true" for something entirely different? An example could be that the word "true" certainly is used in more than one sense in everyday language. If I say "I'll be true to you" to my wife, I'm obviously not talking about whether or not my existence is a scientific fact. Is it just that you use the word for something other than Sam does but in fact recognized the concept he thinks of as "true" - just under a different word? If so - then the conversation could of course go on - as long as both of you are aware of not constructing fallacies based around shifting the meaning of the terms mid-argument.
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  7. MrThundaro+ Nahh... I can see why you would feel that way. I my self have a huge disagreement with Sam on the AI topic and he seems rather insistent... But I think he just want to hear very good arguments for why he is wrong before concluding he is. In this specific case, I fully agree with Sam Harris that this issue of not playing word games with the concept of "truth" is a core premise for any further discussion. I have already heard Jordan elsewhere make statements about science and religion based on this redefinition of "truth" which is so alien to the way many scientists regard natural sciences that I think everything falls apart if the two definitions of "truth" gets mixed up along the conversation. ... and I don't find Jordan Petersons defintion of "truth" of any value for the scientific process of natural sciences. Sure we can decide that something is not worth knowing... but we don't look at an experimental result and decide whether it points to a hypothesis being true or not based on the ultimate consequence of that knowledge.
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  8. Seybertooth This was not about being "right" ... this was about establishing a meaningful premise of common understanding for further discussion. You can not have constructive conversations when one persons "truth" is another persons falsehood. ... or "alternative facts" as Kellyanne Conway would say.
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  9. RequiemFor America "Unfortunately Sam Harris is far more religious than he thinks he is." ???? Not sure how you got to this conclusion, but you talked about "government" and "statism"  ... so: You might disagree with Sam Harris on political view, though I'm not even sure you understand what his view are, but I can't IN ANY WAY see how that comes into play in a discussion about scientific epistemology. Aren't you just starting a smear?
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  10. Maria Cristina Santana Well ... then... As you have probably found out, there's a lot of people disagreeing with you on whether Sam was being unfair here. I think I had the exact same feeling as Sam listening to the conversation and getting increasingly frustrated by the absurdity. I can only see one way this can go forward and that is for Peterson to acknowledge that they are using the term "truth" for 2 very different things and that there do in fact exists a concept such as the one Sam calls "truth" - but that it's just not the same thing Peterson refers to. Then let them call discard the word "truth" al together and come up with 2 new terms so they don't commit any fallacy later by changing definition of "truth" mid-argument. Let's call Sams concept of truth: "Facts about the real world" ... I don't know what Petersons would suggest calling his concept of truth. Personally I would suggest "magic" ... but then, I'm biased to think it's nonsense after listening to it during several interviews now. Anyway... ban the word "truth" for the conversation. Acknowledge they ar etalking about 2 different concepts and come up with 2 new words. Otherwise I think the deadlock is unsolvable due to what I regard as dogmatism on Jordan Petersons part.  
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  11. ***** ... having listened to previous interviews with Jordan Peterson about religion I think he during the years have painted himself into a caricature understanding of the scientific rationalist standpoint (Harris, Dawkins...) to the point where it approaches a strawman. And this "alternative" definition of truth is at the center of that and he cannot allow it to be challenged, else his world view will collapse. - hence the seeming dogmatic reaction to Sams arguments - make the cop out of "microclaims". Effectively what he does is to reject that there are such a thing as scientific true statements by playing (word)games. To take his own example of the burning room: Yes, there was no fire in the room and sure, - that was not a helpful truth when the house was burning. But it still was true at the moment it was stated. A little later it might not have been true. For the fire to be fatal it would actually have to become false at some point ... so this truth statement is obviously depended on the time it was stated. But there are other claims which are not. Like the fact that hydrogen has 1 proton. To make this not universally true you would have to reject the fundamental assumption of physics that the laws of physics are the same everywhere. And that's basically what is required for Jordan Peterson to be correct in his idea about "truth". You would have to open the possibility for at any time "magic" could appear. ... which is kind of a convenient premise if you want to defend religion.
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  12. Maria Cristina Santana Well ... finally a thorough argument... However, 1) I don't recognize your description of the argument Sam makes in the moral landscape. His definition doesn't include one tribe being "moral" because it increases "flourishing" by killing another tribe. Not at all. 2) It's hardly comparable. The experiment Sam makes in the moral landscape is to look at what science can say about morality and it requires some definition - which isn't readily available in advance. Unless of course if you accept "What ever God told you". This is not the case about the question of "what is true" ... that's a pure question about scientific epistemology. Anyway ... unless Jordan is simply dogmatically wrong, I see only the explanation that they are talking about totally different concepts. It would be nice to know whether JP accepts that the concept Sam calls "truth" actually exist, (just under a different name), or he really insist that ordinary truth-claims should be evaluated in relation to morality. Also ... is the thing JP is talking about some kind of single instance "*the* truth" ?... and just something entirely different than what Sam is talking about. When Sam says the whether or not a number is prime can be true or not, it's NOT a claim that it is some kind of deeper "truth" ... it's just an evaluation of that single claim.
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  13. ***** ... I don't think Dawkins has the patience of Sam Harris. ... especially given the way Peterson has previously talked about (quote) "Dawkins and his ilk".
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  14. ***** We just saw an excellent example of why people like Sam Harris are not Trump supporters. The first thing Trump had his press secretary do was to go out and blatantly lie about the inauguration ... and then today Kellyanne Conway says it was not falsehoods, but just "alternative facts". There are - after all - still people in the western world to whom such idiocy is an unforgivable insult to their intelligence. ... and Trump has been parading this kind of crazy since the beginning.
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  15. ***** ... not that this benefits from degenerating into a political discussion, but I don't think you'll find many defending Hillarys policies for their own qualities. The argument was (and still is) that Trump is worse - much worse. And he proves it every day now. ... anyway ... what has happened has happened. Hillary is (hopefully) gone from US politics and the DNC has to re-invent it self and acknowledge the wrongdoing, ... It's left to the sane and honest people to fight the Trump dystopia.
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  16. Sev kin "descrete objects" ?? ... You probably thought of something else.
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  17. I have 1 question before spending 2.5 hours on this: Does he/she exists and are you going to present the evidence? PS: Note that I was completely insensitive to which alternative pronouns "it" might prefer.
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  18. Maria Cristina Santana "I'm tired of this where the person he's talking to is not hostile." As I've stated several times above I do not agree with your assessment. And - I must add - if you have been following how Jordan Peterson speaks about the view point Sam represents here when they are not present I don't think Jordan has anything to complain about - AT ALL. I've listened to several of his appearances and interviews where Jordan is outright obnoxious and in my best understanding strawman'ing the scientific rationalist / atheist viewpoint. I think Sam was more than fair.  
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  19. ***** ... but still. Even if you don't have to know them - or they are not worth knowing or even unknowable. They are still that: Scientific facts - truths.
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  20. Galvaxatron People have mentioned this Sam/Deepak itneraction a few times. Do you have a link? Is it the several years old panel with Shermer? ... or is there a recent one?
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  21. Seybertooth Oh pulease... Could you stop trying to make this a mud-throwing battle? What specifically would you have had Sam do different here? ... Be concrete! Sam is not alone in thinking this issue about "what is true" is absolutely central to any further discussion, so aside from just letting Jordan Peterson have it like he wishes for the sake of argument and continue on a discussion which we already in advance know have no meaningful premise since Sam (and a lot of us) don't in any way agree with Jordans idea of "truth". - what would you have had Sam do different? Be specific!
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  22. Killerfisk ... yeah.  ... I also have a hard time seeing how JPs insistence on redefining "truth" is different the SJW way of controlling the language. If they had proceeded in the conversation accepting JPs language then it would almost have been "compelled speech" for Sam.
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  23. Claire Owen "This means the whole truth can only ever be approximated." ..."...for something to be "the truth", it must be complete" You seem to be under the impression that we are trying to define a single entity called "the truth" (or "whole truth") ... we're not. We are only speaking of when you can say a claim about the real world is "true". Like: "The hydrogen atom has 1 proton". True or false? ... or does it depend on whether or not that knowledge will end up destroying humanity?
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  24. SmultronsyltNatha ... jesus! ... there's always something to be offended about, right? ... if it isn't the use of pronouns, then it's whether you formulate a hypothetical example in the 2nd or 3rd person.
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  25. But Jordan ... You are wrong. Darwinian competition is nested within scientific realism. No one says evolution is the best, most useful, most moral or only answer to who life around us came to be. .. it's simply just they way the scientific realism concluded it IS ... It's just a true claim about the real world. Nothing more nothing less.
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  26. If Jordan Peterson would only stick to this argument and also spout a lot of religious nonsense ...
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