Sam Harris with Jordan B. Peterson - What is True?

[RaBind]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gdpyzwOOYY

I listened to this podcast though only as something in the background and without painstakingly trying to make sense of it, which is probably needed because they talk in very abstract and obscure terms.

Jordan B. Peterson is questioned on and tries to explain his definition of "truth" for the majority of the podcast. Here is a Youtube comment attempting to outline Jordan's definition of truth. I think it is somewhat accurate but I donno if it leaves anything out and whether it does the idea enough justice.

I will try to explain what may be Jordan's position in a more rational way.

He seems to be claiming that we are the product of evolution, therefore we are adapted to survive and reproduce. This means that the tools (hands, feet, sight, brain...) that were developed through evolution have survival and reproduction as their main purpose. Therefore, the brain is created to understand the world around us in a way that would increase our chances of survival (i.e. pragmatism), which means influencing humanity and the individual in a somewhat "positive" way. One of the methods that our brain uses to distinguish something useful (which means affecting us "positively") is the emotion or the state of being interested. (when our brain is interested in something, it means that it will help us survive) When we follow the interest, which is what the scientists do, we have the inherent aim of coming up with something useful, and when scientists come up with something that doesn't serve us well which intern makes it not useful - they fail to fulfil the initial purpose, therefore it is false.

This is the vague idea that I got from listening to this.

I want to know what are your thoughts on the topic. what are your thoughts on the definition of truth?

I think this will be interesting to see as there is a discussion on youtube and reddit about the podcast too and any differences in opinion of the audience of these sites and intpforum might be interesting to see.

Here is the link to the reddit thread for the podcast:
https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/5pe4cg/what_is_true_podcast_between_sam_harris_and/

 

[Cognisant]

When we follow the interest, which is what the scientists do, we have the inherent aim of coming up with something useful, and when scientists come up with something that doesn't serve us well which intern makes it not useful - they fail to fulfil the initial purpose, therefore it is false.

How many diseases has religion cured?
How many medicines has religion discovered?
How many surgical procedures has religion developed?
How by how much has religion increased the yield of agriculture?
How by how much has religion decreased infant mortality rates?

If science is false because the outcomes of the discoveries made are not always entirely beneficial what does that make religion? Y'know with the holy wars, witch hunts, racial segregation, protection of pedophiles, oppression of the homosexual, opposition to education & healthcare, etc.

The Kingdom of God is a world in which the uneducated frightened superstitious masses are ruled by a totalitarian theocracy, it's the dark ages all over again, that's why we call it The Dark Ages.

You think that's better than this world? Fuck you.

Edit: C'mon now tell me this is about epistemology so I can tell you why it isn't.

 

[Nick85]

What about things that are useful to the individual but still immoral?

 

[onesteptwostep]

It really depends on how one contextualizes the word itself. Are we talking about moral truths? Personal truths? Mathematical truths? Political truths? Scientific truths? so on. I think in religious terms, the word 'righteousness' comes closest to what the speaker is talking about, but his concept seems to lose itself during the discussion and mar the concept into a scientific truth. (Which, in the case, "false" is something that has its hypothesis wrong, not an opposite of 'truth').

Just as a disclaimer I haven't listened to the 2 hour podcast :x

 

[Invisible Gorilla]

I was wondering when a thread about this will show up ....
Jordan doesn't really explain his ideas as clearly as he was attempting.

Dr. Michael Connell creates a bridge between both debaters and clarifies what Jordan was trying to say in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Edj_wTNjteE&t=77s

 

[nanook]

is this hard to understand? both religion and science evolved because they are useful. and remain useful globally. but may not be as useful in all particular contemporary or future situations. also science integrates some core abilities of religion, so when the specifics of religion become less useful, it doesn't mean that evolution deprecates an essential intrinsic part of itself. it's just shape shifting via the it's core abilities. for instance religion has prayer and dance and science has dmt and mdma. religion has a concept of god, and science has a concept of transcendence and inclusion. both have surface structures that will not survive the future. religion used to promote sexism and leaders who have since died, science used to promote smoking and industries (like old energy) that are now dying.

 

[Auburn]

Just as a disclaimer I haven't listened to the 2 hour podcast :x

Ditto.

Though I've been getting into Jordan B. Peterson's work a lot lately, so I hope I can contribute some thoughts.

He is a pragmatist, I'm pretty sure. And he extends that pragmatism to human studies. It's not really that he's arguing for the validity of religions, but often he speaks about human nature's generation of those mythical themes and how there is some sort of 'truth' them, due to their persistent expression and repitition within culture and history. (Though I'm not sure this is what he talked about in this video)

Edit: C'mon now tell me this is about epistemology so I can tell you why it isn't.

Pragmatism is kindof this weird hybrid. It is an epistemological position, but also one of practical utility. So applicability (to reality) determines the validity of the model, without really speaking in the more classical connotations of 'truth' (i.e. 'absolute' truth (philosophical airtightness or otherwise)).

Pragmatism denies traditional beliefs of 'truth', and really focuses on the fact that humans try to 'discover reality' for its utility to us . And that is the primary evolutionary function of our logical apparatus developing, and also what underpins the way we reason. And thus if a model or perspective is useful in describing phenomenon to us, it's "right" to keep around.

I'd personally not call this "truth", though. Still, I certainly agree with the idea that fixating on axiomatic conceptions of reality is, at the very least, quite a deterrent from the more real and relevant daily experience of life we have, and at its worse a type of delusional disassociation from reality for the adaptation of a rather detached logical architecture (however internally consistent) that is to some degree self-referentially true, and not descriptive of life.

 

[Black Rose]

@Auburn

The nature of "truth" is in how you define "reality". Subjective and Objective. The Mythic stance is that a subjective person called God defines Objective truth. Rationalists See truth as completely Objective and not subjective. A postmodern stance is that truth is not objective because we can only know our own subjectivity and because subjectivity is relative truth is impossible.

the mythic stance says if no truth is absolute then is it the truth that absolute truth is false. They then conclude that truth is derived from God. God is absolute thus completely objective. God has all the answers.

The rationalists say that Objective reality exists without God so this means the answers exist they just are not known.

The post-modernists say nothing can be known so there are no answers. Gravity is a social construct is an example. It does not snow in the winter because the word "snow" is a social construct. It does not rain in a hurricane because water is a social construct. Reality is totaly subjective / made up.

In reality, truth is both subjective and objective. The world exists and we cannot break the laws of reality (I cannot turn a hippo into a cat). But reality is also subjective based on the accuracy of predictions we can make of how we view reality. Everyone has motivations and these motivations let us value things in reality and the determine how we choose to modify reality. Unlike rationality this stance allows for some truths to be forever unknowable by humans well at the same time allow values to play a role in truth. Rationalists deny value systems. They think science can prove some values matter more than others.

Science cannot tell me what I should have as preferences. Science cannot tell me to prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla icecream. It cannot tell me whom to love and have kids with. It can tell me where pleasure for chocolate ice cream resides, it can tell me who will cheat on me based on probabilistic personality statistics. It cannot tell me what to value, it can only enhance my preferences. Science cannot and will not tell me that the borg in star trek is a good thing for me. I do not want to be a borg simple as that.

Postmodernism sees that values exist but then says we must devalue anything that makes us feel bad. Anything that hurts our feelings is not true. If Time is offended that it is raining outside then Tim can sue the school for it raining. Society in post-modernism becomes rule by the social constructors. A person is a blank slate is infinitely programmable. We (the programmers) will program them to have only the values that say values are arbitrary, society must feel right not function right.

Obviously some values are arbitrary but some are not, those values are the values of growth and development. To get what you want in a way that society does not break apart. Rationalist only see that needs are lacking. If society has all needs meet it will be perfect. Post-modernists see values as lacking. If everyone understands values are arbitrary everyone will get along. Both are somewhat true. But we need more than our needs met and we need more than our social systems in harmony with our differences. Differences don't matter somewhat and truth is real.

The balance is that we can think of truth as deriving from reality and that humans are part of reality and that humans have values and we have differences but that some matter and some do not. It depends on what you are measuring. For example usually humans need two individuals to reproduce. We need a real womb to grow a baby. But this does not mean men cannot feel that they should really be women. The brain of a person who falls in the wrong body has a different brain. This does not deny that men and women exist. It is not sexist to state men and women have different biology. Biology is not a social construct. Without biology LGTB people would not exist. They would not have hormone treatments to change gender. Biology matters and it does not matter. Snow is snow (not a social construct) and Tim can be a girl if he wants to because Tims biology made him feel that way. The limits of biology make it so Tim may need a womb transplant to have a baby but to deny biology is to deny the reason we feel the way we do.

Science cannot tell Tim if he should be a man or a women, but science can tell us why Tim feels like a man or a woman. Postmodernism says because differences do not matter that biology is not the reason Tim feels like a man or a woman but it is because of how Tim was programmed in childhood and adulthood. This makes Rationalist cringe. Sam Harris thinks Science can tell Transgenders like Tim if they should be a man or a woman and this is why Postmodernisms is above Rationalism. But postmodernism denies real science, Time has feelings and post-modernist deny where they come from (biology). Both are based in a paradigm that is transcended by realizing that scientific truth is real but that it cannot decide arbitrary values. Differences don't matter somewhat and truth is real.

 

[Pizzabeak]

is this hard to understand? both religion and science evolved because they are useful. and remain useful globally. but may not be as useful in all particular contemporary or future situations. also science integrates some core abilities of religion, so when the specifics of religion become less useful, it doesn't mean that evolution deprecates an essential intrinsic part of itself. it's just shape shifting via the it's core abilities. for instance religion has prayer and dance and science has dmt and mdma.

Wrong. Religion has DMT. It is what fundamentally merges science with religion. Some scientists could be religious so any discoveries they made or accomplished can also be said to have been religiously motivated. I think a better example would be astronomical observation and how science has physics from this. It was always a science and procedure so they just have kind of gone their separate ways recently.

religion has a concept of god, and science has a concept of transcendence and inclusion. both have surface structures that will not survive the future. religion used to promote sexism and leaders who have since died, science used to promote smoking and industries (like old energy) that are now dying.

Religion never really promoted sexism rather it suggested a cleanliness for the female form. There could be another unconscious sexism as a result of civilization however. You can't just pin it on religion as a whole as they all mostly have different beliefs. Religions are spiritual systems that have gone years of revision and observation so it might make sense that there is some legitimacy to them.

While we are the product of evolution it can often be more simple than that. What is art? Often times it lacks creativity. People habitually seek pleasure and comforts (entertainment) so that's useful for survival as well. You're just looking at it like man is animal and follows the basic necessary day to day patterns too. I've always said the brain in its default state within a range is ideal for survival, as there are arguments the mind blocks some of a true reality and that higher forms of meditation reveal this. However, it's only a glimpse and someone's survival could be just as well if they were like that all the time, within the reason. It's akin to being on certain enhancing drugs all the time, since it changes the brain, people will say it isn't fair in contest. The brain can handle what it can but with plenty of experience it could explain things with more precision.
Curiosity killed the cat. It doesn't always mean that. But, you can use the atomic bomb as an example. Science created this but is it useful? The ideas were, and this was one of the applications but it doesn't make it any less real or false. It isn't true because it wasn't the most that could be made of it, just mostly a shady deal dreamt up by scheming. But that's faulty foundation to begin with. You can't be too creative or else you go off the deep end. Yet this is the very same reason science went blind to the facts. With Trump in office he's ignoring the majority of the science so it's hard to see what's what sometimes, as he also claims to be religious and Christian. It's mostly just a complaint to see what a sad sorry state of affairs we are in currently. So you can think of the truth as an antidote to resistant bacteria or a cure for cancer or toys and dolls, which are false in every sense of the word. I think it was sort of a weak definition to begin with.