Comments by "Peter deWolf" (@StoneShards) on "Jordan B Peterson" channel.

  1. Evil is the human face of disorder. Nature knows no evil. Cosmos is in Order. The dynamic processes of Nature find reflection in the minds of men, where desire bends perception. Discomfort becomes "bad". That which causes discomfort is anthropomorphized, given a FACE, by which to know it. The greater discomfort is caused by the greater "bad", having a more fearsome FACE. Pretty soon "bad" is not longer a suitable term, yielding to "evil". The human experience of existence is "suffering", so discomfort, disturbance is an ever-present companion. There are myriad possible responses--especially judgements--that can occur to a person depending on his natural proclivities. The sum total of experience trains the psyche on a true course or a more or less distorted one, depending on the quality of guidance encountered. If the "right" things get twisted just the wrong way, a person may train himself to enjoy...pain, for instance. If everything gets twist just the right way we may see clearly and without emotional attachment the operations of natural law. All this fearful talk about EVIL! Eh..."He who smelt it dealt it."
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  2. Why is Alex so intent on whether the Biblical account is "true", having actually occurred in historical time, as recounted in scripture?! Such "proof" would certainly be difficult to acquire. Let's say such proof WAS available to Alex. What would he DO with it?! Would he be converted? Or would he doubt the "proof"? Being cosmically skeptical, he would have to...change his name to "perpetually skeptical". Alex's position is essentially materialistic, as Jordan pointed out, so he is resistant to the consideration of the immaterial, especially as a dimensional aspect of the material. Alex should remember his own advice: "skepticism is a tool, not a worldview".
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  3. Ahhh...and then there's the vagaries of historical accounting to contend with, as it is invariably written by a controlling elite--and progressively rewritten. Direct experience is most compelling.
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  4. @user-jt8vj1vm6y I think quantum physics does not support that assertion. But what does that have to do with anything I said?!
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  5. I don't accept the limitation of needing to speak the truth. It's much more practical to, instead, speak no mistruth. This has been necessary to interrupt the natural urge to answer a question posed by someone else, which can be a violent imposition. Also, from the perspective of free will and karmic entanglement, I have the capability to maneuver; I get to decide how to direct a person by my answer, as long as I speak no knowing falsehood. Generally, it's best to remain silent, though. No one is born entitled to know what I think, nor to extract by any means a confession of opinion from me.
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  6. It would be interesting to ask a hypnotist about "truth". What is the real meaning of "truth"? Is it "correctness"? Is it "factuality"? I think what is really meant by "truth" is "completeness of understanding". The problem is the commonly-encountered binary, true vs false, with its implication that falsehood can be absolute, like truth. Falsity is always expressed in terms of "negation"--the "not" word. But, negation cannot be cosmically valid--nothing can cease to be in every respect. Negation can be valid in a local context only. I have three apples; I take one away; how many apples do I have? Three, in the greater context, since I still have the apple I took away! But in the local context, two apples remain. There is only the One Awareness, infinitely differentiated in manifestation. Every atom is a complexification of a single point of differentiated Awareness.
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  7. "Meaning" is the "holy grail", the "siren's call", the "mystery of beauty" we are continuously drawn to but can't figure out what it IS; "responsibility" is always some sort of burden. I understand the rejection of the latter...
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  8. What if we try a different basis? It's popular to behave as if each person possesses his own "mind", whether good, bad, or deranged. What if... There is only ONE MIND, an infinite field of resonant associativity. "Association" is the operational process; the objects of association are the resonances created by EXPERIENCE (whether real or imagined, the body can't tell). Upon birth, the snake begins to eat its tail, the resonances attending the birth experience start the association ball rolling, and it's off to the races. The process is continuous at all levels. An example: the experience of the parent is naturally INTERNALIZED (memory, reflection, etc.). These internalized personages act as "authorities" which, when resonantly stimulated, pipe up characteristically, offering their peculiar viewpoints. Parents, playmates, teachers...everyone we've ever met we've internalized. Even those we've IMAGINED meeting have been internalized as experience dictated. We don't "have thoughts", or "think"; we associate resonances deliberately, and characteristically--it's the very expression of the individual's being, and at the same time its self-revelation. They say follow your thoughts to discover yourself--to me, be aware of your associations. Association is the currency of awareness, it's what we do in every waking moment. What something means to you is determined by your experiential resonances...no wonder people are challenged to have a productive civil discussion--always they assume the intended meaning is the same as the perceived meaning. Contradictions are insufficiently realized resonance patterns/sequences. "Insufficiently realized"? Resonate your question (i.e. ping the mind field); observe the resultant associations' patterns and sequences. You will characteristically (i.e. automatically) choose the resonances to include in the pattern/sequence which represents the "answer". This is where you develop your character, by considering/weighing your predilection against your evolving EXPERIENCE. As you EXPERIENCE this resonant conflict, it is resolved. It is resolved in the experience of the conflicting resonances. You don't have to DO anything; just maintain awareness of the resonant associations in play, with an unwavering intent to articulate what is "true".
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  9. "Desire" is the reason "existence is suffering". "Wanting" is the trap "desire" lays in the path of the unwary. We have our greatest power in the smallest of things. Want ONE THING, and YOU WILL HAVE IT! Having many unsatisfied desires just makes one feel impoverished! hahaha...
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  10. You have the power to induce happiness--or any emotional, or mental, state. That's not the same as having the functional ability to do so. The latter requires practice. Everyone is always doing this without being aware of it--they practice poorly, so their success is limited. If you invent anything, you invent yourself, as well. I'm not persuaded by Arthur's exuberance to accept his pronouncements at face value. He's weaving a tapestry of neuroscience and religion--and it's not a tight weave.
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  11. Mathematics is a rare thing: a testable symbol system; it can be tested against reality, objectively. Its incorporation of paradox, though, has it dipping its toes in the fuzzy waters of mysticism--and science follows along...so, things are getting a little tricky...
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  12. "Gaze into the abyss until you see the light"? Sounds too much like poetry to be useful. The "light" goes ahead of you, always, illuminating your vision. Turning away from what you see requires severe justification! The knee-jerk response is the habit of turning away...from the potentially uncomfortable. The desire for comfort engenders behavior not conducive to spiritual development, making ease and luxury a potential detriment while appearing as the greatest good. Until you practice emotional detachment, it's difficult to learn to be aware of the mechanism of emotional attachment. You have to learn to observe and identify, without attaching to the object of observation in an imaginary extension of the physical senses to the object, in order to prevent an emotional attachment to the object.
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  13. The right brain/left brain specialization stems from Nature's tendency to improve efficiency.
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  14. Idk, Jordan, I find it necessary to create values, or to discern them uniquely. What's the problem with that?! In fact, that's how we develop, even at levels we're unaware of. Value is the product of judgement, the appreciation of a relationship, a primary organizational principle. Valuation occurs perpetually at all levels. I figure it should be my duty to be good at it!
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  15. "Nature == Chaos"? No. Nature is the BORDER between Order and Chaos in the Yin-Yang symbol. It's the Cosmos's expression of the balance between Chaos and Order that the Taoists observed and emulated. I suspect JP was speaking psychically: in casual popular perception, Nature represents Chaos. I don't see in my experience the persistence of this conception beyond early developmental years: mature adults don't make this equation, seeing Nature as a certain model of organization/Order, though It may exhibit "chaos" that goes unrecognized as the dynamic function of Order that it is.
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  16. The guest posits "the myth of God" with an arrogant certainty that I find scientifically offensive. It shouldn't be necessary for science to deny the existence of "God"! And, indeed, true science does not! Secular science, science with a political axe to grind, does! A free science will ultimately find God.
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  17. A distinction between the "divine" and the "mundane"?? Seriously? The mundane is just another expression of the divine. The idea of God is omnipresence. Being everywhere and everywhen present, God is also omniscient and omnipotent. At every point in space/time a bit of the awareness of God precipitates the quantum realm of reality, which, in it's turn, precipitates the subatomic level of reality. The subatomic level engenders the atomic, and the atomic, the molecular, which is the world of physical reality. It's all God stuff. These levels are distinguished by a particular matter/energy density, the physical level being the most material and least energetic. "Redemption" is about the God stuff at the lowest level being unresponsive to "spiritual gravity"...sort of sleeping. God acts through our personal efforts to confront the unknown to redeem the trapped God stuff to greater responsiveness to the attraction of Godhead.
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  18. "Ordered liberty" is a bad phrase. Freedom, liberty, duty are abstract enough without introducing a modifier. "Ordered liberty" sounds a lot like "controlled chaos"...more confusing than illuminating...
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  19. AI produces synthetic information! Information with no experiential basis in reality...turning reality into a video game...
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  20. Forcing a "hot date" long after dating has become an obsolete context sets up expectations of repeating the past; hollow, and forced, the experience is naturally disappointing. It's not easy to grow old together, but there's no way out but through! Day by day, the challenges met together form a unity that's always "in the air".
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  21. "An ethic comes down and makes it possible for us to see the world", Jonathan? That's a hard sentence to listen to. And it's quite a stretch for an "ethic" to descend from somewhere to somewhere else that then enables our capacity for perception of existence. Murray wants to "get down to brass tacks"...has a hard time with total "belief", but not making a good case for the necessity of it.
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  22. There is no "pool of intuition". Intuition is one of the guises of perspicacity, of awareness. The universe knows only truth, falsity being a purely local convenience. An awareness clear of self-interest and personal preference will perceive the truth directly, in an instant. Otherwise, our vision of the truth suffers distortion, resulting in confusion. You can only discern the truth if you don't care what it happens to be!
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  23. "Novelty" is the presentation, or appearance, of "the unknown", and is signaled by "distraction". "Focus" orders the unknown, making it "known"; loss of focus allows the unknown, as a pressure of disorder, to overtake the known's structures of order, yielding confusion, contradiction, dilapidation. Novelty is often a product of a pressure of disorder emanating from the unknown. You think of something and immediately its inside-out opposite flashes into awareness, as a "possibility", in apparent balance. Order tries to tease the unknown into itself bit by bit; the unknown resists with a pressure of disorder that "tears the known apart". "Movement" is an expression of this dynamic balance in disequilibrium.
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  24. On Jordan's right is a most disagreeable..."sculpture"! hahaha...somewhere the "artist" is saying, "Well that's what I had in mind!"
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  25. "Truth" is "conformance with reality". "The earth orbits the sun"...well, yeah, sort of. The reality you readily observe is that the earth orbits the sun. However, the actual path of the earth is more like a trailing spiral, as the sun hurls through the galaxy, dragging the solar system along with it. Yet, the definition of "orbit" allows both perspectives to be "true". It's useful to hold the various perspectives in mind without favoring one over the other, but, rather, holding the different perspectives in relation to each other, and letting a realization develop, "sink in".
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  26. Dawkins "doesn't think of Christianity as a truth system". A "truth system"? That's a curious phrase...Science doesn't traffic in "truth"--Dawkins should know better than that.
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  27. "Human beings are dragon-slayers."...Yeah, it's "man against Nature", but considering Nature in the light of an adversary is ultimately self-limiting. I don't think the best teacher is a friend and confidant; and I don't think Nature plays favorites--and that is comforting.
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  28. "In the beginning was the Word..." Words are psychical intonations of awareness rendered as symbols. Every grunt is a symbol of intent that something exists. Language is a sophisticated symbol system more nuanced than grunting but it carries the same intent: order. As a word resonates it elicits associations to experiential memory (including sensory memory) that further vibrate the psyche, contributing to the richness of experience. All these associations could be seen as "temptations"...or "spiritual leadings"...or just what they are: the architects of character.
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  29. Science doesn't try to "make things better"; the search for knowledge is its own reward! Science, itself, is amoral. The "good vs evil" dynamic is a conception of human ignorance. Nature knows no good or evil; it knows only the operation of law. If popo slaps you down, who's fault is it, eh! hahaha...
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  30. "The intentional object is whatever the thought is about", says Dennett, at 08:15, hinting at the relationship between his notions of "intentionality" and "aboutness". He says the Easter Bunny does "not exist", creating logical problems, which, for some reason, he says can be "set aside". At 8:40, "We have to explain how information that's in our brains can be about things in the world and also about things that don't even exist." My immediate question is always the same: Why? What value would that explanation provide? Dennett seems caught up in the problem of the general invalidity of logical negation: "Nothing cannot exist". Everything exists; there is only truth. Falsity is an illusion of negation. That which is cannot cease to be, since its existence has impressed itself in the substratum of reality that participated in its existence...like footprints of our passage in the sands of reality. The universe REMEMBERS EVERYTHING! That's "where" your memories reside, not in your brain. The brain is part of a memory recall system, not the repository of memories, any more than your radio receiver contains what it emits from its speaker.
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  31. The chicken didn't exactly "cross the road"; it found easy walking! To the chicken, it's not a "road".
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  32. Logic postulates a "God" as the pinnacle of the hierarchy of the entirety of creation, in keeping with the model of hierarchical organization manifesting everywhere in the phenomenal universe. So, if you're rational, atheism is, technically, nonsensical. The most brilliant minds often have failed to detect the limits of logic, and, so, rely on it overly much, straining it to it's breaking point, yielding subtly faulty results.
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  33. "Experience" is the key, Jordan! Respond to the reeducators in terms of your experience--and DON'T "connect the dots" for them! 😉 Every response, an historical recounting, inserts the listener into a STORY--a state of perfect distraction! This would probably be the most receptive you'll find them.
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  34. "...continuity of religio..."! C'mon, guys, structure, please! hehehe...They explicate their peculiar vocabularies and delight in correlating them. That's lovely, but, inchoate...poetic, even! I consider the subject technical! "Cognition is not in your head. It's between you and the world" is a virtually meaningless statement, linguistically. "The world" is another of the super-words they like to revolve around that is too huge to be usefully wielded, so it serves as an indicator, a buzz-word, containing the meaning each listener assigns to it, without special regard to how the speaker meant it's use. If you want to communicate you must hold certain terminology in common. You make sure of that by clearly defining your terminology! DEFINITIONS, not off-handed descriptions!
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  35. Wow! Straight up social programming by government! "There can be only one" narrative...Hmm...do Canadians keep up with this sort of thing? I've never heard of Canadians pushing back on their government--except the great Marc Emery, to whom Canadians owe a debt of gratitude.
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  36. "Psychological or motivational hedonism claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decrease pain"!? Why "determined"? Why not "affected", or "influenced"? I don't bother about "determinism" and "behaviorism" any more than I do atheism. It's simply a waste of time and attitude. "You have to make a decision...", Jordan opens. But the choice isn't between "a death wish" and "service to humanity". "Making everything better" is delusional talk, about a delusional goal. The world is what it is because we are who we are! Nature is perfect, indeed, the model of all perfection. What motivates human beings is the desire to solve their own imperfection; it is the desire to HARMONIZE...resonance is felt as deeply real and satisfying in a way that "pleasure" doesn't hint at. I'm less than a minute into the video and already yapping! hahaha...this might get thick...
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  37. I'm only four mins into the video and I'm hearing the third world can't get funding for hydrocarbon projects! Since I can't imagine how that would be possible in a straight-up capitalist environment don't I have to assume a conspiracy on the part of the financial system to prevent hydrocarbon projects?! Or is investment in the third world considered prohibitively risky?!
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  38. Impatience born of laziness drives bad ideas, in that, otherwise, bad ideas would be assessed and corrected as a matter of course, becoming good ideas--or being discarded as unworkable.
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  39. Starting at about 26:00, Jordan begins speaking insensibly: "You have a profound aesthetic sense, so some things move you deeply, and in principle those are profound things." The insensibility revolves around the interplay between the terms, "profound", and, "deep". In popular parlance these terms are synonymous. But the dictionary offers, "intense", as a definition of, "profound", so this difference becomes a basis for interplay, though "deep" may mean "intense", as well. So it is not clear whether a distinction between the terms is intended to inform the semantics of the statement. I don't know exactly what is meant by, "aesthetic sense", in Jordan's usage, but it generally refers to a capacity to appreciate beauty. But an advanced sense of aesthetics it not a prerequisite for being moved deeply! Then comes the implication that, because Douglas's aesthetic sense is profound, the things that move him deeply must, therefore, be profound! I don't see the logic.
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  40. The group's interaction with the individual is based on the appearance, especially economically, the individual presents; the individual's interaction with the group is based the individual's perception of his environment, primarily driven by survival concerns, which is home to all manner of groups, each of which represents an opportunity to improve survival potential. Group membership is individually motivated, outside the control of any group; it's the fly in the ointment of every control scheme, due to its unpredictability. Hence, government seeks to motivate individuals, though it can only address groups, so its control of individuals has to be indirect. That makes government nervous for its own survival...individualism is a threat to government authority, and government instinctively knows this.
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  41. 1:03:00--"Apprehend the vision with your feelings"! There's two ways to take this, depending on what "feelings" are. Firstly, observe something, identity it, then, if desired, "remember" the "experience" of it...go into it--what does it smell like, feel like, sound like--extend the physical senses, imaginatively, to contact it! The second interpretation supposes "feelings" refers to "awareness", "vision" to "intention", and "apprehend" to "observe", or "attention". This latter interpretation might be peculiar to my personal perspective.
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  42. Yes, circumambulate a problem without jumping to any solution, until the solution presents itself. The longer you resist the solution, the better the solution will be.
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  43. So, to understand consciousness we have to measure suffering?! Sam thinks we can build machines that suffer? Again, without defining "suffering", of course, since "everybody knows" what THAT is! Buddha's "existence is suffering" is kind of a backwards definition. Not defining central terms carefully renders ensuing conversation confusing. Sam should scrap the term "consciousness" in the most basic sense in favor of "awareness". That God is everywhere and everywhen present as points of awareness. This notion is fantastically extensible: form is the prerequisite of existence; a point of awareness exists at the center of every form/thing, as a sort of cosmic handle by which that thing is "known", contacted and manipulated, utilized.
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  44. Destiny says something, Jordan says that's not true, Destiny says, "Yes, it is." Mind closed--debate over! Debaters are so obnoxious--they think whoever talks the fastest wins! And the prize? Your guess is as good as mine!
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  45. "It is objectively true that...", eh, you lost me! hehehe...so, if I disagree with what you say is objectively true, then I must consider you insane and you, likewise, me! Right? If "objectively true" means what is purports linguistically to mean, then failure to perceive it is a direct indication of mental derangement. No?
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  46. A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences--wikipedia. I'd loosen the definition even more to a person who diligently applies the scientific method to his approach to life. I wonder...from a clinical psychologist's point of view, what does it mean that capricious charges are being levied?
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  47. 1:40:00--Andrew: "It's the big peaks in dopamine, that are not associated with any prior effort or organization of self that are particularly dangerous for the human being." Is this "danger" NOT "opportunity"? Is the "danger" simply "failure" to progress? EVERYTHING is associated with prior effort or organization of self! Do we have to split hairs over what constitutes a "big peak"?! Can dopamine "peaking" be deliberately accentuated!? I don't see why not. Personally, I see no value in developing an awareness of dopaminergicity (argh), as such. But I see great value in the exploration of "arousal". My experience of arousal is intimately available to my awareness. My experience of dopamine, as such, is nill. "Arousal" is a proper complexification of dopaminergic activity, which occurs well below the level of DIRECT awareness. I can identify arousal information; I cannot identify dopaminergic information without the intercession of the proper complexification.
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  48. You don't "teach" kids critical thinking--they pick it up from their teachers' examples!
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  49. AI's strength is the speed with which it can test ideas. But you can't just believe the results to be true--don't trust AI's powers of evaluation without verification. But people love to take shortcuts, and somebody is going to trust unwisely to terrible effect.
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  50. "What is 'thought'?" "Secular prayer"? Eh-hem, and what might "prayer" be? Rather, I think what thought MUST be, if everything I "know" is to be "true". Thought is the product of thinking. Thinking occurs as an arrangement of words. Words are mental linguistic expressions attached to emotional complexes (which are continuously forged in ongoing sensory experience) by the mental awareness in acts of "naming"--"Naming is knowing"--which is also why it is sacrilegious to give God a name/form. The articulation of the name is the bedrock of thought. Thought complexes are formed by the repeated associations of these names in the same patterns, eventually becoming semi-autonomous, able to function "in the background", without special attention, producing values available for immediate association--a sort of "pool of possibility". Now, you can create thought complexes that formulate spiritual potencies for the direction of the mental awareness. But, that's the stuff of which magic is made, so, take care, now!
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