Jay Dyer vs Yaron Brook Debate TAG, Science, and the Future of Civilization

0:00Yaron BrookExplain that. Don't don't throw don't throw terminology

0:04Yaron Brookand and explain.

0:06Yaron BrookWhat does it mean?

0:06Jay DyerI mean, I'm not throwing terminology. It's the classic definition of what a

0:09Yaron Brooktranscendental care. There is no transcendental argument for God. It is a purely emotionalistic.

0:14MnestheusI'm absolutely thrilled to say that we are going to be starting off with a bang. We've got two heavyweights

0:19Mnestheusin the house with us today in the form of Yaron Brook and Jay Dyer. These guys are both extremely accomplished in their field, experts in their field, and the topic,

0:30Mnestheusit's a light one.

0:32MnestheusIt's can human civilization survive on science and rationality alone? So just an easy Friday here. If you guys don't mind starting with you, Jay, giving a little bit of a brief introduction about yourself,

0:42Mnestheuswho you are, a little bit about your work, and where people can find you.

0:47Jay DyerYeah. I'm a person that comments on a lot of different topics. We do discussions of geopolitics.

0:53Jay DyerWe do a lot of film analysis. We do a lot of, philosophical

0:57Jay Dyerconversations and debates.

0:59Jay DyerWe've debated some of the top Muslims, atheists,

1:03Jay Dyerother religion,

1:05Jay Dyerproponents out there.

1:07Jay DyerI also do,

1:08Jay Dyerlive events, comedy, etcetera, and I host the fourth hour of the Alex Jones show every Friday for the last four years. And I have four books out on philosophy and film.

1:19MnestheusFantastic. And you're on?

1:22Yaron BrookYeah. I'm the host of the on book show, comment on

1:25Yaron Brookpretty much everything going on in the world

1:28Yaron Brookand

1:30Yaron Brookfrom aesthetics to geopolitics

1:32Yaron Brookto

1:33Yaron Brookto ethics and morality and how to live a good life.

1:37Yaron BrookI am the former

1:39Yaron Brookexecutive director, CEO of the Ayn Rand Institute. I'm currently the chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute.

1:45Yaron BrookI am author of books on inequality and capitalism, probably best known

1:51Yaron Brookfor my moral defense

1:53Yaron Brookof capitalism.

1:56MnestheusFantastic.

1:57MnestheusSo the structure of the debate today, guys, is going to be that we're gonna have five minutes from each of these gentlemen giving their position on can human civilization

2:05Mnestheussurvive on science and rationality alone.

2:08MnestheusAnd then we're gonna have ten minutes each of cross examination where both gentlemen will be able to ask as many questions as they would like in that ten minutes to try and unpack the other person's worldview, and we'll see how that goes. We're also gonna be reading out super chats at some point in the middle of the stream,

2:24Mnestheusand there's gonna be a poll there as well. At the very start, we're gonna have a poll on the question to see where you guys all sit with it. And then at the end, we're gonna have another poll as well to see who you guys found more convincing.

2:34MnestheusSo

2:35MnestheusI think with that,

2:37Mnestheuswe should get into it. Maybe, Jade, do you wanna kick us off with your opening, statement of five minutes?

2:42Jay DyerYeah. I don't mind. Let's go.

2:45Jay DyerYes. I would answer, that no.

2:47Jay DyerSociety cannot function

2:50Jay Dyerin a healthy

2:51Jay Dyerway,

2:52Jay Dyerand flourish

2:54Jay Dyerbelieving or acting as if science and reason alone

2:58Jay Dyeris all that's necessary.

3:00Jay DyerFirst of all, I would say that we don't exactly have,

3:03Jay Dyerat least typically from the people who would be the proponents of this view, we don't usually have a pretty consistent,

3:08Jay Dyerdefinition of what science and reason are.

3:11Jay DyerNow I'm not saying that there is no science or reason. I'm saying that usually the proponents of this type of a view, I would class them, in the in the category of what's called scientism,

3:20Jay Dyerthey will make appeals to things like, quote, science, quote, logic, quote, reason. But what are they?

3:26Jay DyerHow do they exist? What is the motive of their existence? Where are they? So science is oftentimes ill defined. For example, one of the premier scientists and proponents, technocrat, Bertrand Russell himself,

3:36Jay Dyergives about 30 different statements as to what science actually is in his famous book,

3:42Jay DyerScientific Outlook. He says that science is reasoning. Science is knowledge. Science is beginning

3:47Jay Dyerwith what began with Galileo.

3:49Jay DyerScience is tech science is progress. Science is the power of manipulating nature. Science is induction and not deduction. Science is omnipotent.

3:58Jay DyerScience is based on assumptions that are, quote, verifiable.

4:03Jay DyerScience is in decay,

4:05Jay Dyerunfortunately, in his day, he said.

4:08Jay DyerScience is

4:09Jay Dyerthe ultimate authority. Science is systematic pursuit of knowing what is out there in the world, knowledge, etcetera. So we get all of these, like, elastic definitions as to what it actually is.

4:21Jay DyerNow the opponent, as I understand,

4:23Jay Dyerbelieves that there is such a thing as mind or consciousness.

4:27Jay DyerAnd he would say that,

4:28Jay Dyerwe have minds, but what that is and how that came to be, no one knows. And I would just, push that a little bit further and say that, well, if that's the case, then also there's no basis for logical reasoning itself. And so the very endeavor of science would be undercut by his own worldview if it were the case. In other words, he takes an anti metaphysical stance,

4:49Jay Dyerin terms of part of his worldview from what I understand of it. But at the same time, he wants there to be some metaphysical

4:55Jay Dyerprinciples that he can act upon and that he can promote through his version of objectivism.

5:01Jay DyerAnd that would be the promotion of things like the true, the good, value judgments, ethics, things that he mentioned.

5:08Jay DyerAnd that's precisely my key point here is that science and reason cannot give us value judgments or virtue.

5:15Jay DyerSociety needs some form of virtue ethics to actually survive. And in fact, he himself said that living a good life,

5:23Jay Dyerthat's connected to virtues. But virtues are not things that can be determined from states of matter,

5:29Jay Dyeror even states of mind if he if he admits the existence of immaterial things like minds.

5:34Jay DyerBecause the way something is doesn't tell us how it ought to be. So I would just go back to David Hume's critiques of this kind of a

5:41Jay Dyeralmost arbitrary move that people make to where because their presuppositions

5:46Jay Dyerof atheism,

5:47Jay Dyerlimit them from allowing certain things to be the case such as odds,

5:52Jay Dyerwe can't get an ought from an is. So even if he admits immaterial things like minds,

5:57Jay Dyerthe state the fact that minds exist or the fact that matter exist doesn't tell us how minds ought to be or how matter ought to be. Yet he wants to have, I think, a a lot of claims about morality and ethics and what should and shouldn't be done. We shouldn't have the government stealing our tax, you know, taking our tax money or whatever, taking our money in taxes. We shouldn't have collectivism, I think he would argue. But those are value judgments,

6:19Jay Dyerand they're not based on any, universal claim or universal ethic. Thus, they can't actually be objective. They must ultimately be purely subjective or relative. And so my point is that he can't be consistent with his foundationalist

6:32Jay Dyerenterprise. And so his position, I think, is gonna

6:36Jay Dyerdevolve into some form of foundationalism.

6:39Jay DyerBut foundationalism, again, is a failed enterprise when we look at the fact that there's nothing that's actually self evident. Even Aristotle's basic laws categories, the law of excluded middle, law of non contradiction, law of identity, those things are not actually found in nature themselves.

6:54Jay DyerThey're propositions or metaphysical things that we believe in, universal laws, abstractions

6:59Jay Dyerthat don't have any

7:01Jay Dyerscientific

7:01Jay Dyerdemonstration.

7:03Jay DyerAnd so, ultimately, my opponent, I think, would be some type of empiricist. That doesn't mean he has to be a complete reductionist because he might be an empiricist who admits the existence of minds or even abstract concepts, but there's no basis for his belief in those things. So ironically, the very things that he would point to, like science, reason, math, universals, concepts, laws, etcetera, themselves, if we think about something like W. B. O'quine's famous lecture, famous paper,

7:29Jay Dyertwo dogmas of empiricism,

7:30Jay Dyerthey actually can't be

7:32Jay Dyerexplicated or justified.

7:34Jay DyerThey must be believed in in as much the same way that the spaghet flying spaghetti monster of atheists is posited.

7:41Jay DyerSo his idea of meaning and concepts and reasoning is also just as much

7:46Jay Dyera Flying Spaghetti Monster.

7:52MnestheusAlright. Thank you very much. Jay, for your opening five minutes. Now turning over to you on five minutes on the clock.

7:59Yaron BrookAlright.

8:00Yaron BrookThat is a lot, and he speaks fast.

8:04Yaron BrookHe doesn't get me at all, and that's fine. That is good. So,

8:08Yaron Brookyes, rationality is at the basis of all human knowledge. It is the means by which we know the world. It is the only means by which we have to know the world.

8:18Yaron BrookReason is

8:19Yaron Brookthe definition of it is the faculty that identifies

8:23Yaron Brookand integrates the material provided by man's senses. It is a faculty of the mind. It is a faculty of human consciousness.

8:30Yaron BrookYes. Consciousness does exist,

8:33Yaron Brookand its existence is,

8:35Yaron Brookyou know, one of the foundational metaphysical

8:38Yaron Brookaxiomatic concepts,

8:40Yaron Brooktogether with the fact that there's something to be aware of that is existence out there.

8:45Yaron BrookAnd as a and

8:47Yaron Brookreason and rationality,

8:48Yaron Brooka rationality which is a a commitment to reason,

8:51Yaron Brookare the only ways in which we know what exists and we know about reality and from which,

8:57Yaron Brookwhich we can integrate into abstract concepts,

9:00Yaron Brookincluding those abstract concepts that are necessary to figure out how to live a good life. There is no other way in in order to discover, a, what is good,

9:11Yaron Brookwhat is even life.

9:14Yaron BrookEvery every concept being used relies on the fact that we integrate the evidence of our senses, the the the facts of reality

9:23Yaron Brookinto some conceptual

9:24Yaron Brookunderstanding of the world. That is what rationality involves. Rationality,

9:29Yaron Brooktherefore, can indeed bridge

9:32Yaron Brookwe can indeed bridge the is odd gap.

9:35Yaron BrookOnce we understand what is human life,

9:38Yaron Brookwe can certainly understand what odd is, what is necessary for its sustaining

9:44Yaron Brookfor sustaining that human life.

9:46Yaron BrookMorality is a consequence of figuring out

9:50Yaron Brookwhat are the requirements,

9:52Yaron Brookfor human beings to live.

9:55Yaron BrookMeaning comes from an understanding

9:57Yaron Brookof

9:58Yaron Brooklife and understanding

9:59Yaron Brookof,

10:01Yaron Brookyou know, our own values and the the values necessary to sustain our life and to to

10:09Yaron Brookbuild a life and to and to and to flourish as human beings. So meaning comes from

10:15Yaron Brookrationality

10:16Yaron Brookand reason

10:17Yaron Brookas

10:18Yaron Brookas does

10:20Yaron Brookmorality. So

10:22Yaron Brookvalue judgments, virtues,

10:25Yaron Brookall come from a rational

10:29Yaron Brookrational approach

10:30Yaron Brookto understanding human life,

10:33Yaron Brookfiguring out from

10:35Yaron Brookobservation,

10:37Yaron Brookobservation of life and an integration of the facts of life and understanding of the kind of animal human beings are,

10:44Yaron Brookto, to an understanding of what works and what doesn't, what is good and what is not for the human animal

10:50Yaron Brookas it is.

10:55Yaron BrookYou know, every single value

10:58Yaron Brookthat that we've acquired in order to survive, in order to live, every single value needs to be constructed,

11:04Yaron Brookneeds to be discovered by the use of of rationality.

11:08Yaron BrookFrom the most primitive man, from our need for tools, our need for weapons,

11:13Yaron Brookto the most sophisticated science that we use today,

11:16Yaron Brookall of those are discoveries of the rational mind. All of those are discoveries

11:22Yaron Brookof

11:23Yaron Brooka a mind observing reality,

11:26Yaron Brookexperimenting

11:28Yaron Brookwithin reality, and and figuring out what is what works, what is right, what is true, and what is not. And

11:36Yaron Brookso they're all achievements.

11:38Yaron BrookAll achievements as human beings from from great art

11:42Yaron Brookto the great scientific the great scientific discoveries

11:46Yaron Brookto the amazing technology that allows us to do this debate right now are all products of human reason. That is to deny reason or to reject reason or to reject the link between reason and civilization

11:58Yaron Brookis absurd and ridiculous. It is self it is not self evident, of course. But it's pretty easy

12:04Yaron Brookif one knows history and understands,

12:07Yaron Brookhuman life and understands the world in which we live to see

12:11Yaron Brookand to observe and to understand

12:14Yaron Brookthat

12:15Yaron Brookcivil all civilizations,

12:17Yaron Brookto the extent that they were civilized,

12:19Yaron Brookrelied on reason and to the extent,

12:22Yaron Brookthat they adopted reason and rationality to the extent that they were civilized.

12:29Yaron BrookI think that's five.

12:31MnestheusYep. That's nearly bang on. So thank you very much, guys, for your opening statements. And now we're gonna get into a period of cross examination. So you guys are gonna have ten minutes to lock you down, and we'll start with Jay asking questions to you on.

12:45Jay DyerRight. Well,

12:47Jay Dyeryeah, thank you for the, opening statement there. I do I think I have a better understanding of what your your position is there.

12:53Jay DyerYou said, for example, at one point that

12:56Jay Dyerthat what we do is we sort of work in the world, and we we test, and we try, and we we then figure out what works versus what doesn't work.

13:05Jay DyerAnd that this helps us to understand that we can derive an off from an is because,

13:10Jay Dyeressentially, what I heard you say was something to the effect of,

13:13Jay Dyerthis allows us to live a a life and that we should have a a a flourishing life, etcetera, something to that effect. But what I heard was a lot of assertions, but I didn't hear a justification as to how we got to

13:26Jay Dyeran ought from the from an is.

13:28Yaron BrookSure. I mean, five minutes.

13:31Yaron BrookThese are deep philosophical discussions. You're not gonna get we're not gonna get a a complete analysis of of how we get an ought from an is here, but I do I do recommend people who are interested in, in seeing the complete working out of this,

13:46Yaron Brookto check out Arian's essay in the, virtue of selfishness,

13:50Yaron Brookfirst essay or the the morality of objectives in which she laid out she lays out in great detail,

13:56Yaron BrookI think how you get an affirmatives. But the outline of it is is is this. Human beings face a very basic alternative as all living beings face,

14:05Yaron Brookand that is to exist or not to exist.

14:08Yaron BrookAnd, that is the the fundamental the fundamental starting point.

14:12Yaron BrookAnd and then the question is the question is once once you are I I get towards existence. If you get towards nonexistence,

14:21Yaron Brookif you've chosen not to exist, then morality and values and and all of that are irrelevant. They don't they don't matter. They only matter in the context of existing of life, of pursuing life. Plants

14:32Yaron Brookpursue life. They, therefore, have values.

14:35Yaron BrookThey don't have conscious values. Let me you

14:39Yaron BrookYou know? You have a question? Fine.

14:41Jay DyerWell, I mean, I thought it was a cross examination. So cross examination typically allow

14:45Yaron BrookYou know, you have to get a thought out to be able to examine it. But okay.

14:49Jay DyerWell, I I'm not trying to cut you off. Go ahead. Say whatever you want.

14:52Yaron BrookYou know, plants pursue particular values. They pursue, water. They pursue light. And you can see them pursuing that,

14:59Yaron Brookbecause they're pursuing life.

15:01Yaron BrookHuman beings

15:02Yaron Brookface the same alternative a plant does, life or death. The difference is that we don't have it preprogrammed.

15:08Yaron BrookWe are not preprogrammed. We're not predestined

15:11Yaron Brookto choose life or to know how to live. What is required in order to survive? Human survival is not automatic. Human survival requires

15:19Yaron Brookwe take certain actions that we choose certain actions. So we are quite capable of suicide.

15:25Yaron BrookSo we need actually to make choices about what

15:29Yaron Brookwe do. And now

15:31Yaron Brookwhat leads to human survival

15:33Yaron Brookis is something that we have to learn from from partially from experience. Go ahead.

15:39Jay DyerAnd so but you said things like we see plants striving to live. Yeah. Humans typically strive to live versus choosing not to. Those are states statements again of things that are. So they're not justifications for the ought.

15:53Yaron BrookThey're good. That is the is. That is the is.

15:55Jay DyerHow is that a justification?

15:57Yaron BrookNo. The the the justification is that you need to do certain things. That is the the ought is the need in order to live. Right? In order to in order to live But

16:08Jay Dyerthat's a statement of housing. The law is not a It is give it. The But that's not that's not an epistemic justification. That's just another statement of housing.

16:15Yaron BrookOnce once you once you once you

16:19Yaron Brookhave to sustain life now there is no justification for sustaining life.

16:23Jay DyerIf you

16:23Yaron Brookdecide you don't wanna sustain life, then as I said, value judgments are irrelevant. But once sustaining life,

16:30Yaron Brookthen,

16:31Yaron Brookyou know, once that happens, once human beings

16:35Jay DyerOh, is that a is that a that seems like a metaphysical sort of value

16:39Jay Dyerjudgment that you want as kind of an axiom to start with. Right?

16:42Yaron BrookNo. It's not an it's not it's just it's a fact of reality

16:47Yaron Brookthat living beings No.

16:48Jay DyerIt's a it's a fact, then it's not a it's it's not an ought.

16:52Yaron BrookNo. The the odds are what

16:54Jay DyerWe're asking how we get odds. Odds fact, how do we get an ought from a fact?

16:58Yaron BrookTo sustain life. This is How do we get

17:00Jay Dyeran odd from a fact? You just keep stating facts.

17:03Yaron BrookNo.

17:04Yaron BrookI'm not saying facts. I'm saying and, indeed

17:06Jay DyerYou just said it as a fact. What

17:07Yaron Brookdo mean? You said you're

17:09Jay Dyernot stating facts. You just said it

17:10Yaron Brookas fact. Ots are not divorced from facts. Ots are facts.

17:13Jay DyerArts facts.

17:14Yaron BrookFacts

17:15Yaron Brookare facts about The need

17:18Yaron Brookto survive. Arts are facts about

17:20MnestheusGentlemen, just a second. Just a second. You. Just during just during this period of cross examination,

17:25Mnestheuswhoever is doing the the cross examining has the floor. So,

17:29MnestheusJay,

17:30Mnestheusas you'd like to ask the questions, just cut off whenever you need, and then, Yaron, you'll be able to do the exact same thing next.

17:35Yaron BrookSounds good. Okay. Yeah.

17:37Jay DyerSo it seems like, again,

17:39Jay Dyerjust to the definition of what a fact is

17:42Jay Dyeris also conveniently the definition of what ought to be the case. But the question was epistemic justification for how we get value judgments or odds from states affair affairs or states of matter or facts. It doesn't work to just say that an odd is just another fact because that's a circle.

18:00Yaron BrookNo. It absolutely does in a sense that,

18:04Yaron Brookonce

18:05Yaron Brooklife,

18:06Yaron Brookonce once life is chosen,

18:09Yaron Brookone needs arts in order to know how to pursue that life.

18:12Yaron BrookAnd those arts are are discovered

18:15Yaron Brookthrough a process of understanding what life requires, and those are facts. Right?

18:19Jay DyerI do understand that does not that doesn't

18:20Yaron Brookwhen Nestor examined the world in order to evaluate what leads to life, what allows for survival,

18:27Yaron Brookthat is the good. And what reject what is bad for survival, that is the bad.

18:32Jay DyerYeah. But how do we know that that's the good? You can just keep sort of asserting that that is the case because that's some sort of self evident thing, and I'm I'm questioning whether it's the good.

18:40Yaron BrookThere is no good outside of life. That is there

18:43Jay Dyeris How do know that? You're just asserting that.

18:44Yaron BrookGood out there. There is no there is no These

18:46Jay Dyerare assertions. What's the basis for the assertion? Because there

18:49Yaron Brookis no Make make an assertion of what the there is no

18:53Jay DyerWhat's the justification for the assertion? That's what debates are all about.

18:57Yaron BrookValue is that which a living being seeks.

19:00Jay DyerHow do we know that? You keep saying that. What's the justification?

19:02Yaron BrookValue statements.

19:04Yaron BrookYou're talking about value statements. Values are things that living beings seek.

19:08Jay DyerDon't think you understand the question. The justification

19:11Jay Dyerfor that assertion, not just to keep asserting it, but what how do you know that that's why should we think about it?

19:16Yaron BrookWhich assertion? We we're going around in circles, which is not very clear.

19:19Jay DyerMean, is the But which assertion? Well, you you know, you're aware of the David Hume question. So you just keep asserting it without giving an episcopal

19:24Yaron Brookan answer

19:26Yaron Brookto the David Hume question, which you answer,

19:28Jay Dyerbut it's not just case. Fine. If

19:30Yaron Brookif you refuse to accept it, it's just it it it's not big an answer.

19:34Jay DyerIt's not it's it's an another assertion that's not an attempt to justify

19:38Jay Dyerepistemically

19:39Jay Dyerwhat the assertion says.

19:41Yaron BrookWhat do what do you what do you think justifying epistemically means?

19:45Jay DyerWell, it classically means justified true belief in the Gettyer problem.

19:49Yaron BrookIn what? How how no. Explain that. Don't don't throw don't throw terminology

19:54Yaron Brookand and explain.

19:56Yaron BrookWhat does it mean?

19:56Jay DyerI mean, I'm not throwing terminology. It's the classic definition of what a

19:59Yaron Brooktrue I don't really care. I I'm asking I'm

20:02Jay Dyerjust I'm well, I mean, I don't care. You asked me what it

20:05Mnestheusis and you do

20:05Jay DyerI care.

20:06Yaron BrookJustification,

20:07Yaron Brookwhich I think I'm giving, and I would like you to explain the episcopal justification to the audience.

20:12Yaron BrookI'm explaining

20:13Jay DyerI understand, but I'm explaining why the answers that you

20:15Yaron Brookgave me. Episcopacy justification

20:17Yaron Brookis.

20:18Jay DyerSo so there's not a justification.

20:19MnestheusGentlemen, gentlemen,

20:20Mnestheusgentlemen, just clearly,

20:22Mnestheuslet's try not to speak and reach out to you much. It's gonna kill that.

20:25Jay DyerWhy should we believe that those are facts and that there's an ought from a fact?

20:28MnestheusBecause And also whoever's asking the questions during the during the cross examination, guys, whoever's asking the questions is asking the questions. And then, Yaron, you can feel free to ask Jay any questions you'd like after this. So let's continue. We've got a few more minutes on the on the clock.

20:42Jay DyerRight. So,

20:43Jay DyerI am question. It's fine.

20:44Yaron BrookI understand the question. Examination.

20:46Jay DyerI don't know. Like, you can't let me

20:49Jay Dyeryou can interrupt all you want when when you're cross examining me. So, again, this position is based on, various forms of self evidence and axiomatic

20:58Jay Dyerassertions,

20:59Jay Dyerwhich is fine for him to say, but I'm asking a question that's very well known in epistemology. It's the question of justification.

21:06Jay DyerI'm not coming up with any foreign wild definition of what that means. Justified true belief goes back to Plato.

21:12Jay DyerIt's been used and and and and brought forth in epistemology ever since that time. So,

21:18Jay Dyerto say and just to assert that

21:21Jay Dyermy ethic,

21:22Jay Dyerspeaking of his position, it just is a an ethics of life and of flourishing.

21:27Jay DyerThat doesn't tell me that I ought to accept that nor does it tell me what the good reasons to believe that that is the case. Maybe it is the case. I believe I'm a very pro life, pro flourishing

21:38Jay Dyerposition holder as well.

21:40Jay DyerBut why ought we to to accept that position? And that's the key issue, the question that comes with epistemic justification.

21:47Yaron BrookI am saying that the conventional way in which

21:50Yaron Brookpeople view epistemic justification

21:54Yaron Brookis wrong.

21:56Yaron BrookSo I'm challenging, and is challenging,

21:58Yaron Brooktwo thousand years of Western philosophy with regard to epistemic justification. Absolutely.

22:02Jay DyerAnd why ought we accept this new definition?

22:04Yaron BrookSo we're asking a question. There is this is ought challenge that people have people have presented, which is a a legitimate challenge from their perspective

22:12Yaron Brookof epistemic justification,

22:14Yaron Brookis dramatically flawed because it doesn't recognize

22:18Yaron Brookthe fact that values only arise

22:21Yaron Brookin the context of a living being.

22:24Jay DyerHow do we know that? You keep asserting that. How do we know that that's the case?

22:27Yaron BrookBecause what what is the meaning of value? What is the definition of value?

22:30Jay DyerOh, so it's circular. So it's true by definition. So it's analytic?

22:34Yaron BrookThere is no such thing as so there is no such thing as true by definition.

22:38Yaron BrookThat is complete nonsense. You just you just defined it as of traditional of traditional bias.

22:42Jay DyerYou just contradict with

22:43Yaron Brookit. Define your terms, and you need to be able to reduce your terms to observations in reality. So the standard for truth

22:50Yaron Brookis observation

22:51Yaron Brookin reality. If a a standard

22:53Jay Dyerfor truth, how do we know that? You just keep saying it.

22:56Jay DyerHow do we know

22:56Mnestheusthat this Okay, guys. So that's ten minutes of Jay's cross examination.

23:01MnestheusNow you're on. You can ask Jay any questions you would like.

23:05MnestheusYou got ten minutes on the board. Let's do it.

23:08Yaron BrookSo I'm curious where Jay

23:12Yaron Brookgets any

23:14Yaron Brookmoral justification.

23:16Yaron BrookThat is where where value judgments come from Jay for Jay?

23:20Jay DyerThey're grounded ultimately in God, the existence of God.

23:24Yaron BrookSo they're so they're grounded in a fantasy in in in a make believe?

23:27Jay DyerI mean, I guess the same type of make believe as your is odd distinction.

23:31Yaron BrookYeah. Well, my is odd distinction is grounded in in actual facts of reality and actually

23:36Jay Dyerobviously Well, it wasn't grounded. It was just observing.

23:38Yaron BrookObserving reality, you're doing the same thing. Right?

23:42Yaron BrookBut yours is grounded on pure emotions. So because your god When did I argue by emotions? God

23:49Yaron Brookis is whatever we want it to be.

23:50Jay DyerWhen did I argue by emotion? I didn't argue by emotion.

23:53Yaron BrookSure. Did. As soon as you mentioned god, you meant yogured by emotion.

23:56Jay DyerWell, that's your definition of what you think God is.

23:58Yaron BrookMean, that that is God. I never made an argument on the basis of make a rational argument for God?

24:02Jay DyerYeah. The transcendental argument for God.

24:04Yaron BrookThere is no transcendental argument for God. It is a purely emotionalistic

24:07Yaron Brookthere's only other way

24:08Jay DyerHold on. That you're you're saying that doesn't exist as an argument? I mean, you might not believe it, but it exists. You don't even know.

24:14Yaron BrookYeah. I mean, argument exists. It's just it's just it's just again, it's it's it's a it's a reduction to it's a reduction to emotionalism.

24:21Yaron BrookSo

24:21Jay DyerWhere in the transcendental argument? There's no emotion

24:24Jay Dyerin that argument.

24:25Yaron BrookThe only justification for god is you feel like there's a god or you have faith in a god and you reject reason. And the reality is rational argument. The reality is

24:33Jay DyerDo you want the form of the argument?

24:35Yaron BrookNo. Not particularly. It it

24:36Jay Dyerit How would how would emotion relate to the form?

24:40Yaron BrookEmotion relates to the fact that, you you know, beliefs

24:43Jay Dyerform of the argument. X is the necessary condition of y, therefore, x.

24:46Yaron BrookAn emotionalistic argument. Right? It's not.

24:49Jay DyerX is the necessary condition of y, y, x. That's the form. There's no emotion.

24:52Yaron BrookBut I thought I thought, where does logic come from?

24:56Jay DyerLogic itself is grounded in God.

24:57Yaron BrookIt's grounded in God. So it's a circular argument, and it's meaningless. Right? So it's it's it's

25:02Yaron Brookonce you have God, then, you know, once you once you have the emotionalistic,

25:07Yaron Brookbelief in God, then you come up with a a circular argument to to justify it, which is absurd. Right? So

25:15Yaron Brookthe

25:16Yaron Brookthe whole perspective

25:18Yaron Brookof of

25:19Yaron Brookvalue judgments as coming in

25:23Yaron Brookbecause g believes in them or because x believes in something else is the basis

25:27Jay DyerI never made that argument.

25:28Yaron BrookComplete subjectivism.

25:29Yaron BrookBut it is. Right?

25:30Jay DyerWell, if you're gonna you you you should at least address the actual argument. That's not the argument. That's a straw man.

25:34Yaron BrookOkay. So so so so give me some example of value judgments

25:38Yaron Brookthat come from God. And how do they get to you from God? I'm curious how you get them from God.

25:42Jay DyerRight. We have presuppositions

25:44Jay Dyerthat we all hold to, basic beliefs when it comes to ethics,

25:49Jay Dyermetaphysics, and get from where?

25:51Jay DyerAnd, ultimately ultimately, those structures are grounded in the mind of God.

25:55Yaron BrookAnd how do they how do they imprint on you?

25:58Jay DyerWell, I'm made in God's image, so I have the ability to reason after God.

26:02Yaron BrookSo the entire system is built on a piece of position that there is a God?

26:07Jay DyerCorrect.

26:10Jay DyerJust like your system is built on self evident presuppositions

26:13Jay Dyerthat are incoherent.

26:14Yaron BrookNo self evident. All it relies on is the fact that existence exists and conscious self evident. Consciousness

26:20Jay DyerI mean, you kept saying it's self evident.

26:22Yaron BrookWell, existence exists is self evident. You know, your goddess

26:26Jay DyerSo it is self evident.

26:26Yaron BrookEvident. Right? I I you you you're you're making sense.

26:29Jay DyerYou're back and forth, like, every every time you back and forth.

26:33Yaron BrookYeah. Because the the you can't you can't have a discussion

26:37Yaron Brookif you don't accept that existence exists. Right? Do we are we talking right now?

26:40Jay DyerI just simply don't accept that it's self evident. I don't

26:42Yaron BrookAre we talking right now? So how do we know we're talking right now?

26:45Jay DyerI just don't believe it's self evident. Explain to me what that I I

26:48Yaron BrookWhere does the knowledge that we're talking right now come from?

26:52Jay DyerWell, that we're talking is experiential. I believe in in experience. Yeah.

26:55Yaron BrookAnd and experience is not self evident? No. Then where does it come from? How do how do you know it's actually happening?

27:01Jay DyerBecause, well, again, there's nothing that's self evident. Because I'm having experience, it doesn't follow that the experience or having experiences is self evident. That's a whole other notion in epistemology that has to do with, things that don't require justification.

27:16Jay DyerTwo different questions.

27:18Yaron BrookSame question.

27:19Yaron BrookThe the the the reality is that,

27:22Yaron Brookthe existence of everything around us is self evident and everything we are talking about, everything we say.

27:28Jay DyerAre are you aware of the under order

27:30Yaron Brookon the fact that existence actually exists.

27:32Jay DyerWell, again, again, that's just to assert a a circle, which if you wanna

27:37Yaron BrookNo. It's not. It's it's you you every concept

27:39Jay Dyeris a circle. Evidence

27:41Jay Dyerthat Every

27:42Yaron Brookconcept they use depends on the fact

27:45Yaron Brookthat that,

27:47Yaron Brookyou know, those concepts were were,

27:49Yaron Brookyou know, integrated based on sensory evidence. If you if you look at a child and you see how a child forms concepts,

27:56Yaron Brookthey don't form concepts like some revelation from God. They form concepts by observing reality

28:01Yaron Brookand experimenting

28:02Yaron Brookwithin reality and seeing similarities

28:05Jay DyerI didn't say you.

28:06Yaron BrookBetween things in reality. They build their concepts from the ground up, from reality up. They don't start with god

28:14Yaron Brookand everything

28:15Jay Dyercategory or the fact that you start with something doesn't mean that that's the ultimate grounding for the thing. So that's that's a category.

28:22Yaron BrookWell, you can't understand a thing without knowing where it's coming from.

28:26Jay DyerWhat is I'm not I'm not a I don't disagree with empirical

28:29Jay Dyersense data. I just don't think that empirical sense data is the limit that that's is all we have, and you can't justify empiricism itself.

28:36Yaron BrookI'm I'm not gonna justify empiricism because the reality is that we can't from empirical sense data, and we do have a mind. We do have consciousness. But the the And

28:45Jay Dyerso you understand those are your those are your bedrock positions that you just assert,

28:49Jay Dyerand you won't allow those to be questioned or challenged.

28:52Yaron BrookExistence of consciousness and the existence of reality

28:55Yaron Brookcannot be questioned and, you know, to question them.

28:58Jay DyerIs that the dog you have a dogma. So you can't so your fundamental

29:02Jay DyerListen to the dogma.

29:03Yaron BrookIn philosophy.

29:04Yaron BrookIt's called having

29:05Jay DyerI don't believe it. I I reject the axioms.

29:06Yaron BrookThat you cannot you cannot that are self evident. And so so if you can bring axioms contradict them. Bring axioms so can understand that if you bring

29:14Jay Dyerif you bring self evidence to a debate, I can bring self evidence to debate and just say, god is the self evident axiom. That's why you can't do that.

29:21Yaron BrookBut that that's silly. That's fine. You can't. You And actually silly as yourself ever. And it's just it's just a negation of all of human experience and all of human history, but fine.

29:29Jay DyerThat's just a reuterocanon position.

29:31MnestheusAlright, guys. We've got a few more minutes, Yaron. If you did have any more specific questions to Jay about his worldview, or should we move into the next part?

29:38Yaron BrookWe can move into the next part.

29:40MnestheusOkay. Cool. So next bit I wanted to get into was a little bit about the future of science and technology and how that's gonna impact human civilization,

29:48Mnestheusthe rise of AI, for example, and the role that scientific development is playing in, human evolution itself. So if you guys want, I'll give you a few minutes on the board. You can take two, three, four minutes if you'd like to, state your position

30:03Mnestheuson the future of technology, if it's a good thing, if it's a bad thing, and if human civilization

30:08Mnestheuswill survive this on science and rationality alone. So starting off with Yaron for this one, you got a few minutes on the board, and you can do as you please with this.

30:18Yaron BrookSo I think, basically, whether we survive it or not is gonna be dependent on whether we, embrace rationality as a civilization and as a culture,

30:25Yaron Brookand whether we approach all these things from the perspective of human flourishing and from the perspective of of of a reasoned

30:34Yaron Brookof a reasoned approach to life.

30:36Yaron BrookI think technology generally is amazing, wonderful.

30:39Yaron BrookI think there are opportunities here to significantly

30:42Yaron Brookimprove human life,

30:44Yaron Brookto to expand human knowledge,

30:47Yaron Brookto improve us both biologically,

30:49Yaron Brookthrough gene editing and editing out diseases and all kinds of other things.

30:54Yaron BrookAnd and,

30:55Yaron Brookfrom the perspective of,

30:57Yaron Brooktools that allow us to build,

31:00Yaron Brookmore knowledge and future knowledge, like like what AI is promoting. I I I don't

31:06Yaron Brookfear AI

31:08Yaron Brookcomes alive and kills us all. That that I think is silly.

31:12Yaron BrookBut I do fear that bad actors use AI and use these tools

31:17Yaron Brookto the detriment of humanity. So I think what what we need

31:22Yaron Brookis a civilization

31:23Yaron Brookfocused on individual human flourishing, a civilization based on reason and rationality

31:29Yaron Brookto prevent those bad actors from

31:32Yaron Brookusing tools to destroy civilization.

31:40MnestheusOkay. Thank you very much for that, Yaron. Now, Jay, we're gonna go to you, and you'll give you a piece on this.

31:47Jay DyerYeah. Thank you. I would agree with pretty much everything he said there in his assessment of where we're going and what he sees for the future with AI,

31:57Jay Dyerand and tech and transhumanism or whatever. I don't think transhumanism

32:01Jay Dyeritself is, any sort of,

32:04Jay Dyerviable worldview,

32:06Jay Dyerand then we know a lot of the the power elite,

32:09Jay Dyerpush this. I've been lecturing through their text of late.

32:13Jay DyerBut I think that, to reiterate kind of my my point in the opening statement is that any society that attempts to,

32:22Jay Dyermake its

32:23Jay Dyerfundamental

32:25Jay Dyerethos centered around

32:27Jay Dyerpure reason I mean, we've actually seen this in the past.

32:31Jay DyerThat doesn't necessarily dictate that every possible instantiation

32:35Jay Dyerwill be identical to the past. But if history teaches us anything about these attempts, we know in the French revolution,

32:42Jay Dyerthe Jacobins sought, for example, to have a society based around pure reason.

32:46Jay DyerAnd that actually led to a lot of bloodshed. It led to

32:51Jay Dyera lot of collectivism.

32:52Jay DyerI understand that the opponent

32:54Jay Dyerhere would not be a a fan of collectivism,

32:57Jay Dyerbut I would actually just argue that there's no real if if we don't have a basis for why we should prefer the individual other than asserting that it it just should be the case versus the collective,

33:08Jay Dyerthere's no reason why future societies couldn't,

33:11Jay Dyerfall back over into some sort of radical, technocratic

33:15Jay Dyercollectivism, which actually I think that's the future that we're going into. In fact, many of the writers who wrote and planned out the future that we're going into actually do say that we will be going into a collectivist

33:26Jay Dyertechnocratic

33:27Jay Dyerhellhole future. I don't think we have to do that. We're not destined for that. I don't think tech itself is the problem.

33:32Jay DyerI that think we gotta have some kind of ethics

33:35Jay Dyerthat we can appeal to

33:37Jay Dyerthat allow us to safeguard

33:39Jay Dyerhuman dignity, to to safeguard

33:42Jay Dyerwhat it is to have life, just to have

33:45Jay Dyerand to value life. I think that that only makes sense and is coherent

33:49Jay Dyerin a position where man is made in the image of god and thus derives human dignity

33:53Jay Dyerfrom being made in the image, of that deity.

33:57Jay DyerAnd so when we look at writers,

33:58Jay Dyerthat I've been lecturing through recently, right, like Jacques Atelier's book, Brief History of Future,

34:04Jay DyerClaus Schwab's books,

34:06Jay DyerFourth Industrial Revolution,

34:09Jay DyerGoing Back a 100 Years, the the books of, HG Wells, You know, they all write about going into what Bezinski called

34:16Jay Dyerthe technocratic

34:17Jay Dyerera where essentially man would be merged into a collective

34:22Jay Dyerhive borg

34:23Jay Dyerof

34:24Jay Dyersome form of of, you know, Skynet or whatever. I agree with

34:28Jay DyerYaron that I don't believe AI's gonna become conscious or anything like that. I think that's silly.

34:33Jay DyerBut I think that what we see is that the danger of the possibility of a repeating of a kind of a technocratic

34:40Jay DyerJacob and Panopticon society where we actually do lose

34:44Jay Dyerour individuality

34:46Jay Dyerand our our,

34:48Jay Dyeryou know, dignity being made in the image of god. If we don't have a society that also includes

34:54Jay Dyerthe notion of

34:55Jay Dyermythos,

34:56Jay Dyerman needs more than just,

34:59Jay Dyerfacts and more than just math and more than beakers and test tubes.

35:03Jay DyerMan lives his life in a beginning, middle, and end status. Right? So there's something fundamental to a story.

35:10Jay DyerIf you think about a conversation, this is an argument that,

35:13Jay Dyerthe virtue

35:15Jay Dyerphilosopher, Alastair McIntyre, makes. He says, if you look at a way a conversation is structured, it has a be beginning and middle and an end. Movies have beginning, middles, and end. And so there's something fundamental to the way that humans understand and interpret the world to this triadic structure beginning, middle, and end such that we need and and function on the basis of stories more so than facts.

35:38Jay DyerI'm not saying there's not facts, and I'm not saying there's not science and tech, but what's more fundamental to man is something that we would see in people like Tolkien or Lewis where we have stories,

35:49Jay Dyerand stories give us meaning,

35:50Jay Dyerand thus, it's fundamental to man flourishing to have something

35:55Jay Dyerlike a religious story that gives his life purpose.

35:59Jay DyerScience and reason itself cannot grant you telos

36:02Jay Dyertelos cannot grant you a meaning or ethics.

36:06MnestheusOkay. Thank you very much, gentlemen. I'm just wanna say I'm enjoying this a lot,

36:10Mnestheusa lot. And if anybody wants to find you guys, they can find you at YouTube, Jay Dyer,

36:16Mnestheusand at YouTube, Yaron Brook. You guys both have fantastic shows that I watch regularly. So everybody should go and check them out. The links are gonna be in the bio as well.

36:25MnestheusSo, Yaron, what did you think about are we headed towards a technocratic collectivist hellhole?

36:31Yaron BrookI think there's certainly a possibility of that. I I I I I don't put it as as as very high because the reality is

36:39Yaron Brookthat collectivism doesn't produce technology. That is the technology cannot thrive in such a society.

36:46Yaron BrookSo we could be heading towards a collectivistic hellhole, but it will have pretty primitive technology,

36:51Yaron Brookand the technology will collapse around it. The only way to sustain a technologically advanced society

36:57Yaron Brookis,

36:58Yaron Brookthrough individualism.

36:59Yaron BrookThat is a sense only individuals think, collectives don't. There is no such thing as collective consciousness. There's no such thing as a collective identity. There's no such thing as collective anything, really.

37:10Yaron BrookThe only way to progress scientifically,

37:12Yaron Brooktechnologically

37:13Yaron Brookis through individual

37:15Yaron Brookindividual thinking and individual's

37:18Yaron Brookinitiative and individual's

37:19Yaron Brookcreativity

37:21Yaron Brookand innovation.

37:23Yaron BrookI I think the real risk is is civilizational

37:26Yaron Brookcollapse and and the abandonment of technology.

37:28Yaron BrookAnd I and and what's scary, I think, is that

37:32Yaron BrookI I think Jay's view

37:34Yaron Brookof,

37:35Yaron Brookyou know, the the necessity

37:37Yaron Brookof religion, necessity of god,

37:40Yaron Brookthe the the fact that that virtue comes from comes from up above, from from some set of

37:47Yaron Brookbeliefs

37:48Yaron Brookof of basically faith.

37:51Yaron BrookI think that is that is set to basically hand the world over to the collectivist.

37:57Yaron BrookBecause the fact is that if if we're if we're at the point where human liberty, human freedom,

38:02Yaron Brookindividualism

38:03Yaron Brookrelies on faith in

38:06Yaron Brookorder to progress,

38:08Yaron Brookin order to survive, in order to hold on,

38:10Yaron Brookthen it really is hopeless.

38:13Yaron BrookIt really is hopeless. There's there's no it's not an accident that human liberty and human freedom,

38:19Yaron Brookas ideas,

38:20Yaron Brookthey manifest themselves politically ultimately

38:23Yaron Brookcome from a period where faith is relegated to kind of your personal life and put it aside and don't take it too seriously.

38:30Yaron BrookIt's not a consequence that The United States is a product of the enlightenment and as is the scientific revolution and that is the the industrial revolution. They're all products

38:38Yaron Brookof a a a a sidelining

38:41Yaron Brookof the issue of faith.

38:42Yaron BrookAnd the collectivism that Jay talked about in the French revolution, you could argue, I was sure he was gonna bring up communism and Nazism as they always do as forms of reason. I mean, these were the most unreasonable people in all of history. They had no

38:55Yaron Brookno respect for reason,

38:58Yaron Brookrationality,

38:59Yaron Brookfacts, reality,

39:01Yaron Brookyou know, anything like that. These are people who made stuff up. They were mystics. Mystics of muscle often, but mystics.

39:09Yaron BrookIn a sense,

39:10Yaron Brookyou know, I'm not I'm not comparing, but mystics are mystics. And this is the problem. The problem is the communism and fascism and and and the French revolutions'

39:19Yaron Brookrousseau

39:21Yaron Brookattitude is much more similar,

39:23Yaron Brookto a mystical view of God

39:26Yaron Brookand a a a a make believe of God than it is to an actual rational approach

39:32Yaron Brookand an approach to what does it take? And this is this is just a a factual,

39:36Yaron Brooklogical, rational question. What does it take to live a good life?

39:40Yaron BrookAnd and that requires that requires actually

39:43Yaron Brookscience. It it requires examining

39:46Yaron Brookexamining

39:47Yaron Brookthe world that they had. It requires reason. It requires thinking. It requires evaluating. It requires judging.

39:53Yaron BrookAnd by banning that,

39:56Yaron Brookeven though Jay doesn't want to, I think he hands it over to the he hands the the the answer over to the collectivist.

40:02MnestheusAlright. Jay, what would you say about that?

40:05Jay DyerYeah. I understand the critique there, and I understand that he would say that a lot of what, you know, I'm proposing perhaps sounds like the sort of irrational

40:12Jay Dyersort of mysticism and fanaticism. And I understand the comparison that he's making between,

40:18Jay Dyeryou know, what what he thinks my position is with,

40:22Jay Dyeryou know, some sort of regime that would be tyrannical.

40:25Jay DyerBut

40:26Jay Dyerto bring it back home to the original point about the good, you know, he keeps pointing out the good of the individual, the good of the

40:33Jay Dyerof the, you know, the freedom of the individual to be creative and all that. I would actually agree with that, that that's where we get the source of, you know, creativity,

40:42Jay Dyerinventions, technology. It does begin with the individual. I'd reject the idea, though, that he said there are no collective identities. That to me makes no sense given the fact that we

40:51Jay Dyerhave, all kinds of collective identities that are true. Men exist as men.

40:56Jay DyerFamilies exist as real metaphysical,

40:59Jay Dyerrealities and unities, I believe. So the the premise that he has, I think, is another presupposition,

41:05Jay Dyermost of the, you know, proponents of an ran. It's the idea that there's this sort of dialectical tension between the individual and all collectives.

41:12Jay DyerThere can be that, but, ideally, I think what we wanna shoot for is a balance between the one and the many,

41:18Jay Dyerto have a synergy between these things and to not have the sort of individual versus the collective. There's always gonna be collectives. There's always gonna be individuals.

41:27Jay DyerAnd so we're never gonna, like, figure out some sort of, like, you know, perfect,

41:32Jay Dyereither

41:33Jay Dyeror

41:34Jay Dyerwhen ideally what we need to shoot for is some sort of, balance between them. But beyond that, more fundamental is I think he thinks that my position is one which is,

41:43Jay Dyerirrational or anti rational.

41:45Jay DyerIf he had listened to what I was arguing about the transcendental argument, it's actually a logical rational argument

41:52Jay Dyerfor the existence of god, and it premise the premise is that all reasoning and rationality itself presupposes

41:59Jay Dyerfundamental

42:00Jay Dyertranscendental

42:00Jay Dyercategories.

42:01Jay DyerAnd those categories themselves require

42:04Jay Dyersome justification,

42:05Jay Dyersome, unifying power, some linkage,

42:09Jay Dyerand some,

42:11Jay Dyersome way to be grounded, and that is god itself. So god is the basis for the transcendental categories. And that what that means is that the position that I'm arguing isn't

42:20Jay Dyeragainst reason. It's not some, far flung mysticism. It's actually much more of a a stronger claim that all reasoning and rationality would only be possible,

42:30Jay Dyerif God existed. So I'm not I don't set faith in opposition to reason, and his his presupposition is that everything I'm arguing

42:38Jay Dyerdoes set them in opposition. But, again, to bring it back to the main point, if we're gonna value the true and the good, those are metaphysical things that

42:46Jay Dyerin some way have to be justified

42:49Jay Dyerin a universal way. Throughout the conversation,

42:52Jay DyerIran, for example, has made many claims about

42:55Jay Dyereverybody does this. We all do that. We all know this. Those are universal claims.

43:00Jay DyerAnd if he's gonna have any justification for universal claims, he's gonna have to know or figure out how that's always

43:07Jay Dyerprovable or always the case. And you can't do that if you have an empirical approach to life or an empiricist approach. I'm not against empirical data, but if I'm an empiricist,

43:17Jay Dyerthere's no justification for all of these universal claims. And he seems to think his self evident universal,

43:22Jay Dyerbasic axioms

43:24Jay Dyerare the case everywhere at all times. But those those are just assertions. And so, again, to bring it back home, what he's calling reason,

43:31Jay Dyerif he was to read, for example, Quine's paper I mean, he's in the tradition of v o W. V. O. Quine as an empiricist,

43:38Jay Dyeras an atheist,

43:39Jay Dyerthen he would know that Quine makes the same point that he's making about god

43:43Jay Dyerthat all of the things that he believes in his position about reason,

43:47Jay Dyerabout self evident actions or whatever, those are just as much fantasies and mythologies

43:52Jay Dyerin his worldview.

43:53Jay DyerSo if he can bring self evident assertions, so can I?

43:57MnestheusOkay, gentlemen. I'm enjoying this. Just quickly, we're gonna keep this line going because I I like this, this this what we're doing here.

44:05MnestheusI wanna keep it to two minutes each after this, so we're just gonna go back and forth, back and forth on the points. But we're just gonna quickly read out some super chats here. We've got a few coming

44:14Mnestheusin, and the first one

44:16Mnestheusis from.

44:19MnestheusAnd it says, I under I don't understand the topic.

44:22MnestheusWhat additional things are supposed to be needed? Air, food, Netflix, maybe all of them.

44:28MnestheusAnd

44:29Mnestheusnext one, we've got

44:32Mnestheusagain. Says, Jay, is Zeus a self evident axiom? If not, why? You wanna quickly answer that?

44:38Jay DyerWell, I don't believe in self evident axioms. So I would question the whole notion it's based on a foundationalist

44:43Jay Dyerepistemology,

44:45Jay Dyerwhich I don't believe in. I believe that we we have webs of belief.

44:48Jay DyerAnd so if you wanna use the terms foundation,

44:51Jay Dyerthat's fine, but that's not the same thing as a foundationalist epistemology.

44:54Jay DyerI think that we have a worldview,

44:56Jay Dyerand all of our beliefs are interconnected.

44:58Jay DyerSo the center of the web of beliefs, in my view, would be God.

45:02Jay DyerAnd so in that sense, you could call God a foundation, but I'm I'm not a self evident foundationalist.

45:08MnestheusOkay. And the last one here, we have got

45:10Yaron BrookI'll I'll just say knowledge Can I

45:12Jay Dyergo for it?

45:13Yaron BrookKnowledge is,

45:14Yaron Brookyou know, foundationalist in a sense.

45:17Yaron BrookAll ideas, all knowledge is hierarchical.

45:19Yaron BrookIt starts from something.

45:21Yaron BrookIt starts from the self evident, otherwise,

45:24Yaron Brookin in

45:25Yaron Brookwhich is self evident.

45:27Yaron BrookAnd all knowledge is built on that, and the self evident is

45:30Yaron Brookthe the facts of reality, including the existence of consciousness.

45:35Yaron BrookAnd how do I know that? Because I'm conscious, and I just know I'm conscious.

45:39Jay DyerWell, all is a universal

45:40Yaron Brookclaim, though.

45:42Yaron BrookAnd it's a universal claim. Absolutely. It's a universal

45:44Jay DyerWell, how do you justify universals if you're an empiricist?

45:48Yaron BrookThrough, you know, induction induction universalizes

45:51Yaron Brookempirical claims. So

45:53Jay DyerBut Hume's

45:54Jay Dyerpoint is that you can't get to

45:55Yaron Brookuniversal wrong. I mean, I I know Hume's point, but Hume's wrong. And I'm So how's wrong? I'm positing I'm positing, and it's on me. Is positing. I'm just doing a pretty bad job of explaining who ideas. But is positing a new epistemology,

46:10Yaron Brooka different epistemology,

46:12Yaron Brookand it it it's rejecting

46:14Yaron BrookHume's claim.

46:16MnestheusOkay. Last question.

46:17Yaron BrookI I suggest to people, you know, go go to the source. Don't take me.

46:23Yaron BrookBut Rand's introduction to objectives to epistemology is a great place to start. If you're interested in her particular epistemology,

46:30Yaron Brookit's a it's a great book.

46:32Yaron BrookAnd objectives on the philosophy of Iron Man, is behind me by Elena Peacock, you know, great summary

46:38Yaron Brookand ex

46:40Yaron Brookexplanation

46:40Yaron Brookof her ideas.

46:42MnestheusAwesome.

46:43MnestheusLast few super chats here, we have got Rogovich says, watching this makes me so grateful. I finally did meaningful research into the bible bible,

46:51Mnestheusetcetera.

46:52MnestheusBecame a Christian. God bless you, Jay. Go rattlesnake TV. Fellow Aussie here who escaped.

46:57MnestheusWell done. And Grid One Motorsports, great to see Grid One in the chat.

47:01MnestheusSolid work, Jay Dyer. I'm a I appreciate the clarity of your argument.

47:06MnestheusSo, gents, following on from this, I believe, Yaron, you had a few things to say about Jay's previous statements. And if you guys want to just go back and forth here, we can do two minutes on, two minutes off.

47:18MnestheusThat's the best way to do it starting with Yaron.

47:20Yaron BrookYeah. I mean, I just wanna say I I I'll agree with Jay on the importance of story. I think story is super important.

47:29Yaron BrookStory is a way to

47:31Yaron Brookconcretize very abstract ideas and make them real for us in in in a in a a way that's easily digestible.

47:39Yaron BrookAgain, Ayn Rand wrote stories. Athel Shrugged, The Fountainhead are stories. So, I'm a big proponent

47:45Yaron Brookof using art. But, of course, art,

47:48Yaron Brookgood art, art that has any kind of meaning relies heavily on reason, rationality,

47:53Yaron Brookon on, on all of that. It's only it's only, so called modern artists who think splashing paint on a canvas,

48:00Yaron Brookand and where you don't need to think.

48:03Yaron BrookYou know? Only they, the

48:07Yaron Brookaesthetic experience from, from reason and rationality.

48:10Yaron BrookSo, yeah, stories, myths

48:13Yaron Brookare super crucial. You know, the

48:15Yaron Brookthe

48:18Yaron Brookmyth of

48:19Yaron Brookof the bible has survived for a very, very long time in spite of its many contradictions

48:24Yaron Brookand and absurdities,

48:26Yaron Brookbecause

48:27Yaron Brookit provides people with some primitive explanation for what's going on in the world.

48:33Yaron BrookYeah. We have we now have a science and a better understanding of reason, time to outgrow it, trying to move on.

48:40MnestheusAlright. Jake, two minutes.

48:44Jay DyerYeah.

48:47Jay DyerI mean, I I I

48:50Jay Dyeractually like, an rant's book on aesthetics quite a bit. I read it, maybe fifteen fifteen years ago. I thought it was really good. It relies quite a bit on, a lot of Aristotelian

48:58Jay Dyerapproaches to to aesthetic, which is fine. I'm not I'm not anti Arab. We have a lot of,

49:04Jay Dyerappreciation

49:05Jay Dyerfor Aristotle

49:07Jay Dyerin our worldview

49:08Jay Dyeras well as Plato. So

49:10Jay Dyerbut, again, I think maybe what's being missed is that, you know, if we think about something like

49:16Jay Dyerthe universal claims that are being made,

49:19Jay DyerAnd I understand he would say, well, you need to look at Arian's, you know, reassessment of of epistemology or whatever.

49:26Jay DyerThat's that's fine. But, I mean, you know, Hume makes this point because if we are empiricists, if we're approaching things from an empirical vantage point,

49:34Jay Dyerthen

49:35Jay Dyerwe might want to go back to Aristotle or something like that to try to justify,

49:40Jay Dyerthe existence of substances or essences in the world perhaps.

49:44Jay DyerBut the question is not,

49:46Jay Dyerwhat we do that, but can we justify doing that? And if we only have our individual experiences because, of course, his philosophy begins with and ultimately ends with the individual,

49:57Jay Dyerthen I can never get to a universal state of affairs from a bunch of particulars.

50:02Jay DyerSo even if I have

50:04Jay Dyer1,000 experiences

50:05Jay Dyerof, you know, this or that phenomenon,

50:08Jay Dyerit still doesn't grant me the justification that that's a universal state of affairs.

50:13Jay DyerSo in other words, it's another,

50:16Jay Dyertype of religious commitment,

50:18Jay Dyerand that's why I believe all of us have religious commitments even if we think that we're completely and purely rational.

50:25Jay DyerUltimately,

50:26Jay Dyerwe're believing in, things that are unjustifiable.

50:30MnestheusAlright. You're on. Yeah.

50:32Yaron BrookI mean,

50:33Yaron Brookthe reality is that every child does this and knows this and and experiences this and universalizes

50:40Yaron Brookconstantly.

50:41Yaron BrookYou know, if you have if you have a kid and you watch them interact with the world, they are constantly

50:47Yaron Brookexperimenting and generalizing. They're constantly forming new concepts

50:51Yaron Brookthat are universal.

50:53Yaron BrookYou know, they'll drop of they'll drop their spoon on the floor over and over and over again

50:59Yaron Brookuntil they get

51:01Yaron Brookgravity. They get it, and it's now universal.

51:05Yaron BrookAnd they don't have to they don't have to wonder next time,

51:09Yaron Brookwhen they're dropping something. You know, after a while, they, you know, they universalize it over.

51:15Yaron BrookThey form universal concepts of chairs, furniture,

51:18Yaron Brooklots of things. Indeed, that's what the human mind does.

51:22Yaron BrookIt it it it takes the, concrete experiences.

51:25Yaron BrookIt forms concepts.

51:27Yaron BrookConcepts are, in a sense, universal.

51:30Yaron BrookThat's how the human mind works,

51:33Yaron Brookthrough experience,

51:34Yaron Brookgeneralization.

51:36Yaron BrookAgain, if you read,

51:38Yaron Brookyou know, the the forming of concepts is crucial to all epistemology.

51:42Yaron BrookAnd yet, it is a process that philosophers before had did not understand well.

51:47Yaron BrookAnd and and now we have an understanding of it. So, but it is a form of generalization

51:52Yaron Brookthat, again, children do when they're very young,

51:55Yaron Brooknot because they're,

51:57Yaron Brookinspired

51:57Yaron Brookby some, structure

51:59Yaron Brookthat god has embedded in them, but because they

52:03Yaron Brookobserve reality and this is how a reason this is the way human reason works.

52:10Yaron BrookSo, you know, philosophers

52:13Yaron Brooklike to,

52:16Yaron Brookyou know, philosophize,

52:17Yaron Brookif you will. They like to come up with objections

52:20Yaron Brookto all all kinds of things. But all you have to do is observe reality and observe human beings,

52:25Yaron Brookand you can see what is actually going on. You can observe what is actually going on. And and to to question our ability to generalize,

52:32Yaron Brookokay. I'll jump this time. Maybe gravity won't work this time because, god forbid, I can't universalize.

52:38Yaron BrookReally?

52:39Yaron BrookAnd and I have to be a religionist. I have to believe in god

52:42Yaron Brooknot to jump off the building? Of course not.

52:45MnestheusAlright. Know that I'm two

52:46Yaron Brookminutes? If I do.

52:47Jay DyerYeah. So I think that a couple things going on here. So the fact that that's the way that it works,

52:54Jay Dyerthat doesn't tell us of the modality of it, of the metaphysical status of it, of the ontological status of these things. And that's the question that I'm asking. The ontological status,

53:03Jay Dyerthe justification for believing in universals.

53:06Jay DyerAnd you keep replying with, well, that's just what we do. Well, you said something like, kids have always done this. They, you know, drop a

53:14Jay Dyertoy, and then they they universalize

53:16Jay Dyerfrom that. I don't deny that that's what we do,

53:19Jay Dyerbut that's a fallacy. That's the appeal to tradition fallacy. The fact that we've always done something has nothing to do with whether it could be done, whether it is true, or whether we can, give an account for that. So there's difference between giving an account for something and telling a story about the fact that we did it. So that's the point of epistemology is epistemology is always concerned with epistemic justification.

53:40Jay DyerAnd to say that, well, these are ab abtruse questions that philosophers ask, and we shouldn't really be that worried about it. Well, no. These are the questions that are asked in debates because

53:50Jay Dyeryou and your worldview would like to have certain self evident action from which to build your system,

53:56Jay Dyerand you seem to not want those to be questioned, which I don't mind having god question. I'm happy to debate and defend the existence of god. But what's that suggests to me is that the self evident axioms that you have as the foundation of your position are dogmas for you. When I ask you for the justification for them, you say that, well, the they don't go.

54:14Yaron BrookYou can't just the the whole point of an axiom is that it is indeed self evident and trying to

54:19Jay Dyerrefute a huge axiom

54:21Yaron Brookin its refutation. That's the very nature of axioms.

54:24Jay DyerRight? So true.

54:26Jay DyerOkay. Then god exists by definition of very nature.

54:29Yaron BrookGod for you is an axiom. I get that. I get that it's an axiom.

54:32Jay DyerSo you understand that that's why it doesn't work in a debate to just

54:34Mnestheussay that

54:35Yaron Brookself evident, one. It's it's obviously not self evident.

54:38Yaron BrookAnd b,

54:39Yaron Brookit is not ignoring god.

54:41Yaron BrookI you know, this is not a self refutation. I can I can deal with the world with

54:46Jay Dyeryour position is self evident?

54:48Yaron BrookWhile ignoring

54:49Yaron Brookthe the existence of reality. I can't deal with the world by ignoring my consciousness.

54:53Yaron BrookThose are

54:55Yaron Brookyou know, they they they there's it's it's

54:57Yaron Brookyou're refuting them by trying to deny them. With god, that doesn't work that way. I can easily deny god.

55:05Jay DyerWell but what you did was just keep reasserting your position as self evident. And understanding a debate, I can do the same thing, and that's why that doesn't work in a debate.

55:14Yaron BrookNo. And by the way,

55:16Yaron Brookasserting things are self debate is if we don't have

55:19Yaron Brooka even a basic agreement on what constitutes knowledge, is very difficult to debate. I agree with

55:24Jay DyerAnd so I'm looking for something that's that

55:26Yaron Brookbasic understanding.

55:27Jay DyerWell, but I mean, you you you you appeal to universals.

55:30Jay DyerYou've appealed to universals. It's just something that we do. Okay. Well, then, god is just something that we do.

55:35Yaron BrookFine. It is something that we do. So that's that's

55:38Jay Dyerwhy it's a bad argument is the point.

55:39Yaron BrookAnd then I don't do, and many people don't do and don't have to do. Or that's Everybody has to have You know I'm I'm illustrating

55:44MnestheusEverybody has Just

55:46Mnestheusquickly, guys. Just quickly. So it appears as though we're at a bit of a loggerheads because

55:50Mnestheuswe can't we can't quite get past this one because this would take a whole another rabbit hole. So, I mean, I think that this is probably a good place to wrap it up.

56:00MnestheusThis has been extremely entertaining.

56:02MnestheusPerhaps if we'd like to give a final statement, just a few minutes,

56:06Mnestheusgoing back to the original question of can human civilization

56:10Mnestheussurvive

56:11Mnestheuson science and rationality alone, sticking to the question, can they can we survive? Will we not survive on this science and rationality alone?

56:19MnestheusStarting off with you, Jay.

56:21MnestheusTwo minutes on the clock.

56:23MnestheusThink longer than you need to.

56:25Jay DyerIn the course of this discussion, I think what we've seen is that,

56:29Jay Dyerevery worldview, every position is going to have to rely on some sort of starting point. For me, those starting points are not self evident. They're part of a larger worldview or web of beliefs.

56:39Jay DyerAnd so as an epistemic holist, I would say that all of my beliefs are kind of interconnected, and at the center of that web would be the existence of god. And so god is the foundation, if we wanna use that terminology, for the transcendental categories or the preconditions of knowledge, which make knowledge possible.

56:55Jay DyerThe preconditions of knowledge are not physical. They're not material. They're not under

57:00Jay Dyera microscope.

57:01Jay DyerThey're prior to the doing of science. They're prior to the doing of mathematics

57:06Jay Dyerand reasoning and so forth. They ground the possibility of knowledge at all. And if we ask a further question, where do we get those things from, those transcendental preconditions, those categories? How do they come to be? Where are they? Right? Aristotle lists these categories at the beginning of his book categories.

57:21Jay DyerWell, they have to be the structures of the world,

57:25Jay Dyerreally in the world, and man's mind can really tap into them, or else knowledge is not impossible.

57:31Jay DyerDo we have knowledge? It appears that we do. And so, therefore, this must be the structure of the world to have predication,

57:38Jay Dyerto have meaning, to have sentences, to have reasoning at all. And so for those things to be the case, there's nothing that prevents me from asking a further question. Well, what grounds and structures

57:48Jay Dyerthe categories of the world,

57:50Jay Dyerthe universals, etcetera?

57:53Jay DyerWhat holds them together?

57:54Jay DyerWell, the only thing that could work to do that would be an omniscient mind, a personal god who gives intentionality and telos to all of reality.

58:03Jay DyerAnd so all of reality has purpose. It has meaning. It has regularity

58:07Jay Dyerdue to the existence of god. In a position where you don't have that, we essentially just have man's mind as an individual atomized unit trying to sort of put together these pieces from,

58:18Jay Dyerfinite details

58:20Jay Dyerof experience with no universal,

58:22Jay Dyerjustification

58:23Jay Dyeror no universality at all. And what happens then is that man gets lost in a sea of infinitude and nothingness and and meaninglessness.

58:32Jay DyerAnd so, really, his, desires,

58:34Jay Dyerhis,

58:35Jay Dyerbeliefs about the world, his myths, his constructs, etcetera, they're all relativized,

58:39Jay Dyerand, ultimately, we end up in some form of nihilism because all there is is really my own, raging against the dying of the light or whatever the poem says.

58:48Jay DyerAnd so that worldview can't give an account for the very things that presuppo that that science

58:54Jay Dyerand tech presuppose.

58:56Jay DyerScience of pre tech presuppose mathematics,

58:58Jay Dyeruniversals,

58:59Jay Dyerlaws of logic,

59:01Jay Dyeretcetera, structure and meaning in the world. Think about something like Mandelbrot sets as a great example. There's a great lecture by doctor Jason Lyle on Mandelbrot sets, and he explains how these are actually mathematical

59:11Jay Dyerdiscoveries. They're not creations of the human mind.

59:14Jay DyerSo while I agree that the human mind has a lot of potentiality

59:17Jay Dyerand power to work in the world to do tech and to do excuse me, to create technologies and to create societies that hopefully will flourish. We also need,

59:27Jay Dyerobjective ethics,

59:28Jay Dyermetaphysics,

59:29Jay Dyerand, objective justified knowledge

59:32Jay Dyerin order to say how we have a good life versus bad life, how we have true versus false, how we have the good versus the evil. Those are metaphysical claims,

59:42Jay Dyerand an empiricist

59:43Jay Dyersort of a

59:45Jay Dyera reductionist type of worldview,

59:47Jay Dyera scientistic type of worldview, can't actually tell us what the good is.

59:52MnestheusThank you very much, Jay. You're on.

59:57Yaron BrookSo

59:59Yaron BrookI think Jay's argument is is basically a a a a circular

1:00:04Yaron Brookargument that makes no sense. It relies on the existence of god in order to have logic to prove that the god exists,

1:00:11Yaron Brookand

1:00:12Yaron Brookand everything else kind of flows from this starting

1:00:16Yaron Brookpoint, which is an arbitrary assertion.

1:00:18Yaron BrookThe reality is that good versus evil is not a metaphysical claim. It is an immoral claim.

1:00:23Yaron BrookSo one has to it is a it is an ethical claim, not a metaphysical claim. God and good and evil don't exist as entities out there in the world as metaphysical beings.

1:00:33Yaron BrookThey are in the context of human life. They're in the context of what is good for what, for whom, for what purpose.

1:00:40Yaron BrookThere is no good beyond a good for something, for somebody

1:00:45Yaron Brookin some particular context.

1:00:48Yaron BrookSo

1:00:50Yaron Brookwhile good is universal, it is only universal within that context of human life. It is there is no good beyond human life. There is no good outside

1:01:00Yaron Brookof human life.

1:01:02Yaron BrookSo,

1:01:03Yaron Brookif we care about civilization, if we care about life,

1:01:06Yaron Brookthen what we need is absolutely, we need an objective

1:01:10Yaron Brookuniversal ethics.

1:01:11Yaron BrookWe need an objective universal ethics. And the only way to discover

1:01:15Yaron Brooka objective universal ethics is to look at reality, to look at reality and to look at the nature of man.

1:01:22Yaron BrookWhat is it that makes it possible for human beings to survive?

1:01:26Yaron BrookWe we are out there in nature.

1:01:28Yaron BrookWe don't have the genetic code in order to tell us how to live and how not to live.

1:01:33Yaron BrookWe we don't have an innate ability to discover

1:01:37Yaron Brookto to discover how to survive.

1:01:40Yaron BrookWhat we must do is we we must engage our rational mind. We must engage our reason. This is an active process,

1:01:47Yaron Brooka process that requires free will. It requires volitional

1:01:50Yaron Brookactivation

1:01:51Yaron Brookof our mind, and we need to discover the means by which we survive. Human survival, individual life,

1:01:58Yaron Brookand and surviving is the good. That which threatens human life, that which destroys human life is evil.

1:02:05Yaron BrookThat is the definition of good and evil. These are not metaphysical

1:02:09Yaron Brookconcepts. They're in the context of human life. So objective

1:02:13Yaron Brookmorality is that morality that takes into account the fact,

1:02:17Yaron Brookthe fact that human beings are rational animal,

1:02:20Yaron Brookthat in order to survive, they must think, they must observe reality, integrate the knowledge from reality,

1:02:27Yaron Brookand and and,

1:02:29Yaron Brookyou know, manipulate

1:02:30Yaron Brookthe world out there, manipulate the atoms in the world out there in order to produce

1:02:35Yaron Brookthe things necessary for their own survival, for their own existence, and ultimately for their own

1:02:40Yaron Brookflourishing.

1:02:41Yaron BrookThe only way to come up with an objective reality is to is through observation,

1:02:45Yaron Brookis through study of man, study of reality.

1:02:49Yaron BrookYou know, engaging in the study of God does not lead you to morality. Christian morality is not morality.

1:02:56Yaron BrookIt is not it is not helpful. It is not useful, and it doesn't actually produce

1:03:01Yaron Brooka human flourishing,

1:03:02Yaron Brooka a human success.

1:03:04Yaron BrookWhat we need is to reconceive morality. What we need is to universalize morality based on the facts of reality and the facts of the nature

1:03:12Yaron Brookof man as a rational being.

1:03:15Yaron BrookRationality is at the corner, at the center of any

1:03:18Yaron Brookprogress that we make towards civilization

1:03:21Yaron Brookand to towards maintaining

1:03:22Yaron Brookwhatever civilization we still have left.

1:03:25MnestheusOkay. Brilliant. Wanna remind everybody to make sure you check out Yaron and Jay down below. I'm gonna quickly read out a few super chats. I think we've got a few questions,

1:03:36Mnestheusfrom the audience here. The first one is from Justin Henley who says for Yaron,

1:03:40Mnestheushow would you feel if you didn't have breakfast this morning?

1:03:44MnestheusHungry.

1:03:47MnestheusVery good.

1:03:48MnestheusNext one is from just another Canadian.

1:03:51MnestheusSays, great stream. More like this, please. Thank you very much. We'll get as many as we can going.

1:03:56MnestheusNext one is from Spartan up north says grade a prattle from Brooks, but we're still waiting for a justification

1:04:02Mnestheusfor his assertions. Do you wanna respond to that?

1:04:06Yaron BrookIf you're looking for anything beyond

1:04:08Yaron Brookreality exists

1:04:10Yaron Brookand and you have the ability to know it through your consciousness,

1:04:14Yaron Brookand and reason is the faculty that allows you to be aware of it, that is the justification.

1:04:20Yaron BrookIf you need more than that,

1:04:22Yaron Brookthen you're seeking something that doesn't exist and you're in the realm of mysticism,

1:04:25Yaron Brooknot in the realm of reason and rationality.

1:04:28MnestheusAlright. And guys, just quickly, we're going to be also running a poll on the YouTube live chat

1:04:34Mnestheusto see who you guys found more convincing, whose arguments you found more convincing. So the next super chat we've got here is from Justin again. It says for y'all on, can science tell me a painting is a painting is beautiful and if it be immoral to destroy a beautiful painting?

1:04:50Yaron BrookNo. Science cannot tell you any of that. I I'm not a scientist. I don't believe science can tell you everything, but reason can.

1:04:57Yaron BrookThat is if you if you reason allows you to study

1:05:02Yaron Brookaesthetics.

1:05:04Yaron BrookIt allows you to evaluate

1:05:05Yaron Brookpieces of art to differentiate

1:05:07Yaron Brookbetween what is good, odd, and what is bad, to gain an understanding of what is beautiful and what is not.

1:05:14Yaron BrookAnd it is only through reason that we can discover what is moral and what is not. The ending of his question, I think, related to morality. So so what is beautiful is discoverable through reason, and what is

1:05:27Yaron Brookwhat is good,

1:05:28Yaron Brookwhat is moral is discoverable through reason.

1:05:32MnestheusJay, can we discover what is Category.

1:05:35MnestheusJay, can we discover what is beautiful through reason?

1:05:39Jay DyerI would say that,

1:05:41Jay Dyerthere's a lot of ambiguity about reason

1:05:44Jay Dyerwhen we've,

1:05:45Jay Dyeryou know, had this conversation. The whole history of philosophy is one of the most debated

1:05:49Jay Dyerand sort of ambiguous terms.

1:05:51Jay DyerI would agree with his initial definition at the beginning that usually what we mean is a faculty that man possesses

1:05:58Jay Dyerto understand the world. So reasoning as a faculty is one thing. Reason as a and and reason qua reason, asking the question of what reason itself is or the power of reasoning or the the what we're appealing to, the laws of logic, the laws of thought, etcetera. That's another type of question. That's the metaphysical

1:06:19Jay Dyerquestion about the ontological status of those things. That's a lot of what I was asking in this debate. And I would say that while reason can help us assess things, it it itself,

1:06:29Jay Dyeris limited in what it can tell us about the ultimate

1:06:33Jay Dyerthings like

1:06:35Jay Dyerthe the the good, the true, the beautiful.

1:06:38Jay DyerAnd so no. And I would agree earlier. He was talking about I would agree and disagree. He said that the good is,

1:06:44Jay Dyerin in a human life, but it's, also universal,

1:06:47Jay Dyerbut it's not a metaphysical thing. Well, if you say that the good is part of life and it's universal, you've already made two metaphysical claims about what it is and where it's where it where it exists.

1:06:57Jay DyerSo it is meta it is a metaphysical

1:07:00Jay Dyerthing.

1:07:01MnestheusOkay.

1:07:01MnestheusAnd moving on, we've got Maximus for $5 says, if a society repeats evil and evil

1:07:07Mnestheusevil becomes universal.

1:07:09MnestheusDo you have universal experience of all those particular evils you're on?

1:07:15Yaron BrookNo idea what he's asking.

1:07:17Yaron BrookIf a society repeats evil and it becomes universal,

1:07:20Yaron Brookthen that's a very sad sad state of affairs and a lot of us die.

1:07:24Yaron BrookI you know, I I I I don't know what to do beyond that. And and those of us who believe in the good should fight against that evil.

1:07:31Yaron BrookAbsolutely.

1:07:32Jay DyerI can I respond to that too or not? I think that the question is getting at the heart of he's asking a hypothetical,

1:07:40Jay Dyeraddressing

1:07:41Jay Dyerthe earlier critique,

1:07:42Jay Dyerwhich is that if with what makes something

1:07:45Jay Dyerattain the status of a universal is repeated individual experience,

1:07:49Jay Dyerthen by that argument, repeated individual experience of doing evil would then make doing evil universal.

1:07:55Jay DyerSo it's a defeater for the earlier claim.

1:07:58MnestheusAlright. Fantastic.

1:07:59MnestheusWell, gentlemen,

1:08:01MnestheusI'll let you go for now.