Noam Chomsky: Do We Have Free Will? Moral Responsibility & The Meaning Of Life

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No, The last time we we stopped
talking at free will, we spoke

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about a lot of things.
We spoke about consciousness,

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the mind body problem, why
materialism is actually not as

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succinct and fully defined as we
really think it is.

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But I think let's just start off
where we left off.

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What is free will to you?
And I want you to go through

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each view, Perhaps
compatibilism, incompatibilism,

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determinism, let's say
libertarianism, and why your

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views differ from whatever they
are and which view you most

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likely consider to be your own.
You left out one My favorite.

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Common sense.
Let's forget the fancy talk and

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just have a look at what we all
know.

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I love that.
Every person acts acts as though

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they believe in freedom of the
will.

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That includes the people who
deny that they have freedom of

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the will.
They act as if they believe it.

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That's why they present
arguments, to try to show that

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there's no free will, no point
in preventing arguments if if

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there isn't any.
If we're just automata, what's

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the point of presenting
arguments?

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It's just like 2 thermostats and
are communicating, so they will

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act 100% of the time as if they
believe they have free will,

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give reasons and so on.
And that's point #1.

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Second question is, does science
have anything to tell us about

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this answer?
No, nothing science can tell us.

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We can deal with determinism, we
can deal with randomness.

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But that's it.
That was true in the 17th

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century.
It's true today.

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So two points.
Everyone acts 100% of the time.

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As if they believe we have free
will.

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You can't turn to science
because it tells you nothing

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about it except that we can't
handle it.

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So that leaves two
possibilities.

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One is we're all 100% deluded.
We're acting in contrary to the

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facts 100% of the time.
Second possibility is there's

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something missing in human
science.

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OK, take your choice.
Actually, if you don't, if you

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believe there isn't any choice,
then you can't take it.

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But the way everyone acts,
they're going to act as if they

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have a choice between those
alternatives.

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It doesn't matter much what the
sophisticated series tell us.

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This is essentially what we're
left with.

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And in fact, it's if you look at
the scientists who do study

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voluntary motion, there are
good, good they don't talk about

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free will.
They talk about trivial things

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like they cannot decide to lift
my finger or something.

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And their conclusion, I think
maybe we've discussed this, I

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don't remember.
But if you go to people like I

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mean you, it's a.
Roberta, Jamie, and the major

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scientists who deal with this
They have a state-of-the-art

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review in the journal of the
American Academy of Arts and

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Sciences, in which they go
through what's ever been what's

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been learned about controlling
the minimal activities.

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I blink, lifting your finger.
And then they say.

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They say, as they put it, we'll
put this fancifully, and what

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they say fancifully is we've
been done.

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We've come to understand
something about the puppet and

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the strings, but we have nothing
to say about the puppeteer.

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It's just a total mystery.
That's where we're left.

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I mean, it often gets me
thinking about.

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I remember very young.
Not to call you old in any way,

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but when I was very young, I
remember watching a video of you

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and Mikhail Foucault, Michelle
Hadi, Michelle Foucault.

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Perhaps my French is not too
great, but I remember your

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discussion with him and you guys
were talking about morality and

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so many deep topics that I
remember watching this video,

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enjoying it so much because it's
something you don't often see

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online.
I mean, you mostly see politics

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that are badly influenced by
bias and and fallacies of

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thought etcetera.
You guys were talking about a

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lot of topics and and Foucault
often talks about things like

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addiction, putting people into
prison, etcetera.

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The topic of free will cannot
escape morality.

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So when you talk about free
will, let's say libertarianism,

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compatibilism, and maybe a hard
incompatibilism, how do these

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approaches navigate morality?
This is such an important topic

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I think as part of this niche
to.

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Distinguish the questions of
free will from the questions of

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moral responsibility.
Those are different topics.

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I mean, they're related, but the
stand almost all the.

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Philosophical tendencies that
you just mentioned almost

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entirely are concerned with
questions of moral

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responsibility.
They're not concerned with the

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question of can I decide to lift
my finger?

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That's the question of freedom
of will.

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There are.
There are concerns about if

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there is no freedom of will.
How do we assign moral

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responsibility?
Well, that's question you can

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ask, But it's only a meaningful
question for those who think

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there's no free will.
And in my opinion, nobody has

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that opinion.
They may say they have it, but

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they act as if they don't
believe it.

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But I'm.
I don't really care what I don't

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think It's interesting what
people think they believe.

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I think what's interesting is
what they do believe and what

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they do believe, you can
determine from their actions.

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Again, it's a very striking fact
that 100% of our actions,

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including those of people who
claim they don't have free will,

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100% of their actions reflect A
belief, an unacknowledged belief

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that they do have free will.
So since that's 100% of human

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behavior, it's kind of an
interesting question why people

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deny what they believe, but
separate kind of question.

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And these questions of moral
responsibility do arise if you

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acknowledge that you have
freedom of choice.

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But that's not the domain in
which the tendencies that you

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describe function.
So I think it kind of ends,

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sorry, continue.
No, sorry.

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It seems to me an odd
incongruity.

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If we do believe that we have
free will, then these questions

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can arise quite seriously.
If we claim, hypothetically,

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that there's no free will, then
you get into complicated

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philosophical questions.
But I don't personally see much

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point in exploring them because
they're based on a hypothetical

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assumption which doesn't apply.
I think the most difficult part

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about discussing free will for
me is that there are two

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domains.
One is the metaphysics of

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whether or not we do have free
will or not.

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And then you also get the moral
responsibility aspect.

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Now there are a group of
philosophers today, Doug, Pia

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Boom, Greg Caruso, I mean
directly.

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Greg Caruso and Daniel Dennett
have a book called Just Just

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Desserts, primarily based on the
fact that free will has such an

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important aspect when it comes
to how we interact with each

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other and what we do.
What are your thoughts on that?

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Do you think this is this is
relevant?

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Why are we talking about this?
It's an amusing discussion in

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your free time if you have
nothing else to devote yourself

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to.
I don't find it very

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interesting.
I mean, there is an interesting,

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if you like, metaphysical
question.

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Do we have free will?
Well, again, we're left with

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what I said before.
We always act everyone as if we

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have free will.
Science tells us nothing about

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it.
Then we can make a choice.

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Maybe human science just has its
limits, which I think there's

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every reason to believe.
I think we are organisms.

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We're not angels.
If we're organisms, we are like

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other organisms.
Every single one has scope and

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limits, and that's true for all
of our capacities as well.

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People question that only for
our mental capacities.

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I don't see why those should be
different from any other

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capacities in the case of every
other Organism.

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Their cognitive capacities has
scoop and limits.

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In the case of humans,
metaphorically speaking, below

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the neck, you know, meaning we.
Everyone agrees yes, we have

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scoop and limits.
There are those who claim and

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fix.
It's a huge number, maybe most

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philosophers, that up here
something escapes the natural

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world.
It's kind of methodological

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dualism.
Which I see no reason to accept

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seems to be much more pernicious
than traditional metaphysical

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dualism, which was in fact
normal science.

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Take a look at Descartes, that
was simply normal science.

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Instead, he can try to argue
that everything in the world has

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a mechanical explanation,
including most things about

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human beings.
But then he noticed.

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Correctly, in fact, that there
are certain aspects of ordinary

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human life which don't have a
mechanical interpretation.

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For me, particularly interesting
is that one of the main ones in

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the discourse is just what you
and I are now doing.

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The ability to carry out a
normal conversation with others.

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Creative making up.
New expressions, new thoughts,

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maybe never occurred in the
history of the world, and able

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to allow others to comprehend
the inner workings of our minds

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by means of verbal
communication.

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He argued that that's beyond the
bounds of mechanical

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explanation.
And therefore, like any good

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scientist, postulated a new
principle in his metaphysics, a

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new substance race.
Kobe dumps.

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Well, turned out he was wrong.
Turns out there isn't a

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mechanical explanation for
anything, so in particular, not

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for normal verbal interaction.
Well, that left us that's Newton

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basically showed there's no
mechanical explanations.

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Anything in the world, He
regarded that as a complete

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absurdity, but but he was stuck
with it.

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Then very quickly, within a
couple of years, in fact, came

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John Locke, who said yes.
Mr. Newton has demonstrated to

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us that the what we call the
material world as properties we

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can't comprehend, We're just
just the fact.

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So maybe.
Organized matter, whatever or

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matter turns out to be, has the
property of generating thought.

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Yeah, that's I think the answer
to the question.

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Don't think it's been improved
on since.

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So that's what we're left with.
We have scope and limits like

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everything else in the organic
world.

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And it may be that the
explanation for the freedom of

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will that all of us.
Act as if we believe we have.

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Maybe it's just beyond human
cognitive capacities.

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If so, it wouldn't be unique,
no?

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If you had to define free will
versus let's say agency or

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choice as a as a linguist, I
mean it's one of the most

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influential linguists on the
planet.

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How would you differentiate
these three words?

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Free like agency, free will and
freedom of choice, I guess.

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I think they're the same.
Free will means free agency.

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Free agency means free will.
I don't see a difference between

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them.
I have so many questions for

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you.
What I'm gonna do is because the

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first podcast got so much
engagement, I've got a lot of

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questions for you from the
viewers and the listeners.

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So let me start with the first
one.

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The one is from Dean.
He's his Professor Chomsky in

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2012, you once had an interview
with Peter Hallward.

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And would Professor Chomsky
comment on Spinoza's philosophy

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of mind And what did he mean by
saying to Peter Hallward?

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And I quote, putting aside
considerations of Spinoza's

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subtle ideas.
Question Mark, End Quote.

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Espinoza's work still relevant
and of any value today.

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And was Spinoza then going into
the right direction, let's say

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closer to the truth per se?
Spinoza was a brilliant,

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innovative thinker.
It's very intriguing to try to

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understand what he was saying.
My own personal opinion is that

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the arguments he presented,
well, challenging and

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intriguing, don't hold up.
So if you run through the quasi

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axiomatic system and the ethics
state, it's kind of interesting

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to see how his mind is working.
But I don't think the arguments

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hold up.
Let's go.

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Let's move on to the next one,
right?

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This is about intellectual
freedom.

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Please ask why does Professor
Chomsky believe?

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Oh wait, sorry.
The question is, why do so many

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linguists disagree with Chomsky?
And why is behaviorism so

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popular?
First of all, I don't agree with

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that.
Most linguists disagree with

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you.
But I'm just going with the

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questions.
No, I think it's correct.

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My own conception of what the
study of language is about is

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shared by very few others,
including the department that I

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00:17:28,369 --> 00:17:32,770
helped found and have taught in
most of my life.

230
00:17:33,530 --> 00:17:39,170
I do give talks there, people
listen with interest, but they

231
00:17:39,170 --> 00:17:40,850
don't look at linguistics this
way.

232
00:17:41,610 --> 00:17:43,650
But that's actually been true
all my life.

233
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:46,040
It's always been a small
minority.

234
00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:48,280
Okay.
That's the way it is.

235
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:51,040
I just see the field
differently.

236
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:55,000
On the other hand, if you look
at the tradition which goes back

237
00:17:55,520 --> 00:18:02,320
2500 years, I pretty much fall
within the tradition up until

238
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:10,120
the 20th century from classical
Greece, classical India up

239
00:18:10,120 --> 00:18:16,190
through the early 20th century.
Language was understood as

240
00:18:16,790 --> 00:18:22,350
basically the same as thought.
French language was described by

241
00:18:23,430 --> 00:18:27,550
as simply audible thought.
We know audible isn't too

242
00:18:27,550 --> 00:18:31,910
narrow, could be visual, any
sensory motor system.

243
00:18:32,430 --> 00:18:38,270
But the basic idea was to was
that language is the generator

244
00:18:38,390 --> 00:18:42,510
of thought and thought is what
is generated by by language.

245
00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:48,920
That was the standard view for
millennia, Early 20th century it

246
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:52,080
changed.
Early 20th century came the

247
00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:56,680
behaviorist structuralist
period, which broke quite

248
00:18:56,680 --> 00:19:01,440
sharply from this.
My own work, beginning mid 20th

249
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:09,240
century, which was could take a
major step forward thanks to

250
00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:13,140
developments in.
Mathematics.

251
00:19:13,500 --> 00:19:17,140
The development of the
mathematical theory of

252
00:19:17,140 --> 00:19:21,940
computation.
Alan Turing, Kurt Girdle, Others

253
00:19:22,220 --> 00:19:27,140
that made it possible for the
first time to make a clear and

254
00:19:27,140 --> 00:19:32,580
sharp distinction between
something that Aristotle had

255
00:19:33,140 --> 00:19:35,500
brought up that nobody knew what
to do with.

256
00:19:36,100 --> 00:19:40,500
That is the distinction between
possession of knowledge.

257
00:19:40,860 --> 00:19:43,820
And use of knowledge.
So if you look at the whole

258
00:19:43,820 --> 00:19:49,380
tradition, say Descartes or
Galileo or others who puzzled

259
00:19:49,380 --> 00:19:52,660
about this, they were always
talking about production.

260
00:19:53,380 --> 00:19:59,460
How do we produce thought?
Always no discussion of what is

261
00:19:59,580 --> 00:20:03,940
thought, because that requires
the distinction between

262
00:20:04,380 --> 00:20:09,220
generation and production, which
are two quite different things.

263
00:20:09,870 --> 00:20:15,110
Possession of knowledge in
Aristotle sense is generation of

264
00:20:15,110 --> 00:20:19,990
an infinite number of thoughts.
Here's the array of thoughts

265
00:20:19,990 --> 00:20:22,630
that are possible for human
beings.

266
00:20:23,110 --> 00:20:26,270
Production is a much more
complex thing.

267
00:20:26,590 --> 00:20:32,150
It means selecting something.
When I speak to you, I am

268
00:20:32,150 --> 00:20:38,190
somehow selecting something out
of that infinite array and then

269
00:20:38,190 --> 00:20:43,230
going through the procedure of
implementing the first part.

270
00:20:43,910 --> 00:20:47,950
We're back in a total mystery,
the mystery of how you make

271
00:20:47,950 --> 00:20:51,070
choices, and nobody has anything
to say about that.

272
00:20:51,630 --> 00:20:55,590
But at least we can now make the
distinction, and we can study

273
00:20:55,990 --> 00:21:00,390
the generation and the nature of
thoughts, saying here they are,

274
00:21:00,510 --> 00:21:04,790
Here are the thoughts.
Then we can turn to the question

275
00:21:04,790 --> 00:21:09,050
of with production.
There's two questions.

276
00:21:09,290 --> 00:21:11,970
How do I select something out of
that array?

277
00:21:12,570 --> 00:21:17,010
Total mystery.
How do I implement what I've

278
00:21:17,290 --> 00:21:19,650
selected?
Yes, we can study that.

279
00:21:19,930 --> 00:21:23,170
That's the problem of
implementation of production.

280
00:21:23,410 --> 00:21:25,410
It's kind of an input output
problem.

281
00:21:25,450 --> 00:21:28,690
So yeah, we can deal with it
just as we can deal with

282
00:21:28,690 --> 00:21:31,770
perception.
It's an input output question.

283
00:21:32,210 --> 00:21:37,290
So you hear a sound, you carry
out manipulations and it leads

284
00:21:37,290 --> 00:21:40,210
to one of the thoughts.
Those are topics we can deal

285
00:21:40,210 --> 00:21:43,650
with, but there's a big mystery
right in the middle.

286
00:21:44,130 --> 00:21:48,690
How do we go from the generation
of thoughts, which we can study

287
00:21:48,690 --> 00:21:51,250
and learn a lot about?
What's the nature of thought?

288
00:21:51,250 --> 00:21:56,210
A lot of progress on that.
But the move from that to how we

289
00:21:56,250 --> 00:22:01,890
select one, what I'm doing, what
you're doing, that remains total

290
00:22:01,890 --> 00:22:04,380
mystery.
As much of A mystery is lifting

291
00:22:04,380 --> 00:22:07,540
my finger.
And that's where we now stand.

292
00:22:07,900 --> 00:22:11,420
Well, that's a view of
linguistics that very few

293
00:22:11,420 --> 00:22:15,140
linguists accept.
They're interested in production

294
00:22:15,140 --> 00:22:17,580
and perception.
Okay.

295
00:22:18,580 --> 00:22:24,460
I am interested in the tradition
of two millennia, 2 1/2

296
00:22:24,460 --> 00:22:26,020
millennia.
I think it was on the right

297
00:22:26,020 --> 00:22:29,740
track.
And the gap that they couldn't

298
00:22:30,140 --> 00:22:34,680
deal with, generation of thought
we now can deal with.

299
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:39,480
We can learn quite a lot about
it, about the nature of thought

300
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,800
and the nature of language.
And I think we found a lot about

301
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:45,320
that.
But it's just not the main

302
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:49,280
interest of most linguists or
cognitive scientists or

303
00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:52,000
philosophers.
The philosophers totally refuse

304
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,560
to look in it.
So you take the leading

305
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:59,960
philosophers, the 20th century
philosophers of language, say

306
00:22:59,960 --> 00:23:04,220
Coin, probably the most
influential, the one I knew

307
00:23:04,220 --> 00:23:08,300
quite well studying with him.
We never agreed on this.

308
00:23:08,660 --> 00:23:14,300
For him, language is, as he put
it, a complex of dispositions to

309
00:23:14,300 --> 00:23:19,740
respond, period.
Bloomfield, the great

310
00:23:20,380 --> 00:23:23,380
theoretician of modern
structural linguistics.

311
00:23:24,380 --> 00:23:28,820
Language is a matter, as he put
it, of habit and training and so

312
00:23:28,860 --> 00:23:33,730
on, training by some sort of
reinforcement procedure that's

313
00:23:33,730 --> 00:23:36,250
totally untenable.
It's nothing like that.

314
00:23:37,370 --> 00:23:39,770
This assure basically said
nothing about it.

315
00:23:40,330 --> 00:23:43,650
Said language is a social
contract of some kind.

316
00:23:44,570 --> 00:23:49,250
European structuralism doesn't
discuss the question, but notice

317
00:23:49,250 --> 00:23:51,250
it.
In the long sweep of history,

318
00:23:51,810 --> 00:23:56,090
there's a gap.
The gap is early 20th century

319
00:23:56,810 --> 00:24:00,820
behaviorism and structuralism.
We just put these questions

320
00:24:00,820 --> 00:24:06,340
aside, picking up in mid 20th
century.

321
00:24:06,780 --> 00:24:10,140
Now, informed by the
mathematical theory of

322
00:24:10,140 --> 00:24:15,740
computation, we can look at the
gap in the tradition and

323
00:24:16,460 --> 00:24:21,460
reconstitute the tradition in
modern terms, while recognizing

324
00:24:21,820 --> 00:24:24,940
that there is a gap that we
don't know how to fulfill,

325
00:24:25,540 --> 00:24:28,980
namely how to choose out of the
infinite set.

326
00:24:29,510 --> 00:24:33,030
I mean, that's not something,
it's something familiar in other

327
00:24:33,030 --> 00:24:37,150
areas.
So take mathematics.

328
00:24:37,750 --> 00:24:41,750
I suppose you have a formalized
theory of arithmetic, say

329
00:24:41,750 --> 00:24:44,710
Peano's formalization of
arithmetic.

330
00:24:45,470 --> 00:24:50,670
The formalization is generative.
It says here is the infinite

331
00:24:50,670 --> 00:24:55,590
number of possible proofs.
Peano's axioms can be regarded

332
00:24:55,590 --> 00:25:00,830
as a generative system which
generates the infinitely many

333
00:25:00,830 --> 00:25:04,630
possible proofs, the proof.
Each proof is a kind of a

334
00:25:04,990 --> 00:25:08,870
geometrical object if you look
at it formally.

335
00:25:09,550 --> 00:25:12,350
What does a mathematician do
who's trying to prove something

336
00:25:13,790 --> 00:25:15,710
doesn't run through the axiom
system?

337
00:25:16,630 --> 00:25:19,550
Yeah.
How he does it is totally

338
00:25:19,550 --> 00:25:22,430
mysterious.
No mathematician can tell you

339
00:25:23,090 --> 00:25:25,370
it's just some creative act, you
know?

340
00:25:25,970 --> 00:25:29,010
Well, that's what we're doing
every moment of the day,

341
00:25:29,650 --> 00:25:33,770
instantaneously.
We're instantaneously picking

342
00:25:33,770 --> 00:25:37,410
something out of the array of
possible thoughts and

343
00:25:37,410 --> 00:25:42,250
implementing it.
Galileo was quite right in being

344
00:25:42,250 --> 00:25:45,410
regarding this as one of the
most amazing things in the

345
00:25:45,410 --> 00:25:48,570
world.
He couldn't go much beyond that,

346
00:25:48,570 --> 00:25:50,450
but he was right to be amazed by
it.

347
00:25:51,090 --> 00:25:55,440
The court was right in
postulating some new substance

348
00:25:55,440 --> 00:26:00,520
to try to deal with it, but it
remains as much of A mystery as

349
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:05,960
it was for Galileo and the
scientists of the early 17th

350
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:10,880
century scientific revolution,
who were deeply puzzled by this.

351
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:17,360
Galileo himself regarded the the
alphabet as the most spectacular

352
00:26:17,360 --> 00:26:21,720
of human inventions, because it
was able somehow to represent

353
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:25,740
this not answer the question,
but at least to represent it.

354
00:26:26,380 --> 00:26:32,100
This astonishing mystery of hell
with a finite number of symbols,

355
00:26:32,220 --> 00:26:37,540
which is all we have, maybe
large but finite, we are somehow

356
00:26:37,540 --> 00:26:42,900
able to construct infinitely
many thoughts, and even to

357
00:26:42,900 --> 00:26:47,700
convey to others the inner
workings of our mind that they

358
00:26:47,700 --> 00:26:51,020
now have access to it.
He regarded this as an

359
00:26:51,020 --> 00:26:57,010
invention, the unique in human
history, but that's as much of A

360
00:26:57,010 --> 00:27:03,090
mystery to us as it was to the
scientists of the early 17th

361
00:27:03,330 --> 00:27:08,050
century.
No, you mentioned Quine and I

362
00:27:08,050 --> 00:27:12,410
think it's important.
Like Quine once mentioned, I'm

363
00:27:12,810 --> 00:27:17,410
going to paraphrase, but he
mentioned that we've spent so

364
00:27:17,410 --> 00:27:22,290
much time studying the typical.
Yet if we had spent more time

365
00:27:22,290 --> 00:27:27,490
studying the atypical, let's
say, madness in quotes, we could

366
00:27:27,490 --> 00:27:29,250
learn a lot more about the human
mind.

367
00:27:29,330 --> 00:27:31,370
So Quine once said something
along these lines.

368
00:27:31,810 --> 00:27:33,170
I can't remember the exact
quote.

369
00:27:33,170 --> 00:27:36,370
It was in part it was part of my
textbook, because my masters,

370
00:27:36,370 --> 00:27:42,610
it's A and it's a while back.
But along those lines, there's

371
00:27:42,610 --> 00:27:44,810
people like JL Austin from
Oxford.

372
00:27:45,980 --> 00:27:49,540
If you think about the way their
philosophy works and you talk

373
00:27:49,540 --> 00:27:54,260
about language and words, the
choice of words we use because I

374
00:27:54,260 --> 00:27:58,660
am fascinated by mental health
and how we construct diagnosis,

375
00:27:59,020 --> 00:28:04,820
how the ICD or the DSM form,
What are your thoughts on these?

376
00:28:04,820 --> 00:28:09,140
I mean the fact that we we now
give terms or terminologies to

377
00:28:09,140 --> 00:28:13,980
certain scopes of experience
because clearly, well from my

378
00:28:13,980 --> 00:28:17,650
perspective.
There's a spectrum, and yet we

379
00:28:17,650 --> 00:28:21,090
somehow find ways to give
definitions along the line.

380
00:28:22,410 --> 00:28:24,410
What are your thoughts on that?
Jill Austin?

381
00:28:24,410 --> 00:28:27,050
I mean, he describes it very
well with his Oxford philosophy,

382
00:28:27,690 --> 00:28:29,290
but yeah, What are your thoughts
on that?

383
00:28:30,610 --> 00:28:35,530
Well, John Austin I happened to
know pretty well in the 1950s.

384
00:28:35,610 --> 00:28:42,490
He visited Harvard repeatedly
and we got to be quite friendly,

385
00:28:43,810 --> 00:28:47,610
started when I was a graduate
student there and continued

386
00:28:48,330 --> 00:28:54,370
actually almost until his death.
I met him weeks before he died.

387
00:28:54,770 --> 00:29:00,570
He was working at the time on a
theory of language, detailed

388
00:29:00,570 --> 00:29:06,650
theory of language, which in my
opinion was on the wrong track,

389
00:29:06,650 --> 00:29:09,410
but it was interesting.
He was a very smart guy.

390
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:14,920
I don't think he left anything
published about this, and his

391
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:19,760
literary executors seem to have
left it out as far as I can see.

392
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:27,760
But he was developing a series
of language based essentially on

393
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:37,240
sound symbol correlation.
So he was a very learned

394
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,390
philologist.
Philology was one of his main

395
00:29:40,390 --> 00:29:45,350
interests and he was interested
in questions like for example,

396
00:29:46,270 --> 00:29:54,430
if you take the English words
glamour Geo and grammar Geo,

397
00:29:55,190 --> 00:29:58,990
they have the same origin, but
they went in different

398
00:29:58,990 --> 00:30:03,710
directions and he wanted to
relate this to the sound

399
00:30:03,710 --> 00:30:07,110
symbolism.
He pointed out it's well known

400
00:30:07,110 --> 00:30:13,620
that G, if you look at the
English vocabulary, GL appears

401
00:30:13,620 --> 00:30:19,340
in lots of words that have some
vague kind of semantic

402
00:30:19,340 --> 00:30:25,500
similarity, like glare, glimmer,
gleam, and so on.

403
00:30:25,500 --> 00:30:28,580
A lot of them have, and he
thought that was quite

404
00:30:28,580 --> 00:30:31,620
significant.
Most others think it's kind of

405
00:30:31,620 --> 00:30:38,030
an accident, but he wanted to
try to develop a theory based

406
00:30:38,750 --> 00:30:42,510
essentially on this primitive
observation and expanding it.

407
00:30:43,230 --> 00:30:46,030
Personally, I don't think that
would have gotten very far, but

408
00:30:46,550 --> 00:30:50,270
everything Boston did was quite
interesting and very intriguing

409
00:30:50,270 --> 00:30:52,550
mind.
Well, as far as I know, this has

410
00:30:52,550 --> 00:30:58,870
been left out out of his
posthumous public record.

411
00:30:58,870 --> 00:31:02,230
I haven't seen any reference to
him, even though he was teaching

412
00:31:02,230 --> 00:31:06,630
courses on this in his last
semester at Oxford.

413
00:31:07,130 --> 00:31:11,730
Seems to be gone, but he was one
of the people I could talk to

414
00:31:11,730 --> 00:31:15,690
about these things.
He didn't agree, but we could

415
00:31:15,690 --> 00:31:18,170
discuss it.
It was the philosophers at

416
00:31:18,570 --> 00:31:25,570
Harvard and impossible over the
linguists, yeah.

417
00:31:26,210 --> 00:31:30,050
Along that line, I mean CUZ Joel
Austin, he spoke a lot about,

418
00:31:30,210 --> 00:31:34,810
for example, I remember I think
it was the Oxford Handbook of

419
00:31:34,810 --> 00:31:38,860
Philosophy and Psychiatry.
Or the Oxford Textbook of

420
00:31:38,860 --> 00:31:42,420
Philosophy and Psychiatry.
I'm apologize if I'm wrong to

421
00:31:42,420 --> 00:31:46,980
anyone who's listening, but they
he mentions a chair.

422
00:31:46,980 --> 00:31:52,020
For example, when you ask
someone what is a chair, people

423
00:31:52,020 --> 00:31:54,500
define it very differently.
Some people think of it as

424
00:31:54,500 --> 00:31:56,660
something that you sit on, some
people think of something with

425
00:31:56,660 --> 00:32:00,060
four legs or something with a
back wrist.

426
00:32:01,020 --> 00:32:05,020
And so when you ask someone what
is depression, it's very

427
00:32:05,020 --> 00:32:09,570
difficult for you to now.
Try and vocabularize an

428
00:32:09,570 --> 00:32:13,090
experience that's so diverse.
What?

429
00:32:13,090 --> 00:32:16,530
Are your thoughts on mental
illness and the way we describe

430
00:32:16,610 --> 00:32:24,490
these things or these terms?
Well, I happen to be a very

431
00:32:24,490 --> 00:32:29,370
simple minded person.
I like to pay attention to the

432
00:32:29,370 --> 00:32:35,330
simple things like what's a
chair, what's metal depression.

433
00:32:35,330 --> 00:32:37,370
I don't think we can say
anything about that.

434
00:32:37,970 --> 00:32:39,930
But who we ask, what's the
chair?

435
00:32:40,570 --> 00:32:44,690
And it turns out to open very
interesting questions like take

436
00:32:44,690 --> 00:32:48,690
what you just said, some people
say it's something with the

437
00:32:48,690 --> 00:32:53,370
back, something with legs.
And notice that gets back to a

438
00:32:53,370 --> 00:32:57,970
point that Aristotle raised,
very significant point which has

439
00:32:57,970 --> 00:33:02,550
been mostly forgotten.
His example was house, but could

440
00:33:02,550 --> 00:33:06,390
have been chair.
He said if we want to define a

441
00:33:06,390 --> 00:33:09,150
house.
Incidentally, he was talking in

442
00:33:09,150 --> 00:33:12,830
metaphysical terms.
What is a house?

443
00:33:13,310 --> 00:33:17,390
But you can easily translate
that into cognitive terms, which

444
00:33:17,430 --> 00:33:20,270
for him were about the same,
because he saw basically no

445
00:33:20,270 --> 00:33:25,150
difference between the thing and
the word for the thing, word for

446
00:33:25,150 --> 00:33:27,630
the things, just a reflection of
the things.

447
00:33:27,630 --> 00:33:32,210
So they're about the same.
So let's talk about the meaning

448
00:33:32,210 --> 00:33:36,450
of house, not what is a house.
Well, Aristotle pointed out that

449
00:33:36,450 --> 00:33:42,410
it has two components.
In his metaphysics, it was form

450
00:33:42,410 --> 00:33:46,850
and matter.
So the matter of a house is the

451
00:33:46,850 --> 00:33:52,050
bricks, the Timbers and so on.
That a physicist could identify

452
00:33:52,610 --> 00:33:57,370
the form of a house is the
intention of the designer.

453
00:33:57,970 --> 00:34:02,620
The characteristic use a thing
of mental things, Something a

454
00:34:03,140 --> 00:34:06,180
physicist couldn't find looking
at a house.

455
00:34:07,260 --> 00:34:11,179
And I think he's quite right.
So something could look exactly

456
00:34:11,179 --> 00:34:15,940
like a house but not be a house
because it was intended for some

457
00:34:15,940 --> 00:34:21,540
other purpose.
Maybe a library, a stable for

458
00:34:21,540 --> 00:34:25,540
horses, maybe something else.
Well, that tells me something

459
00:34:25,540 --> 00:34:29,780
very same with chair.
You can look at a chair for for

460
00:34:29,780 --> 00:34:34,420
us, for people.
A chair or something that is

461
00:34:35,780 --> 00:34:40,460
characterized by the fact that
we use it in certain ways.

462
00:34:41,659 --> 00:34:45,820
That Wittgenstein pointed out
once that if a chart chair

463
00:34:45,820 --> 00:34:49,020
started to speak, we wouldn't
know what this what it is

464
00:34:49,500 --> 00:34:53,540
because a chair has to have
certain formal properties in

465
00:34:53,739 --> 00:34:57,660
Aristotle sense.
That's a very significant fact

466
00:34:58,380 --> 00:35:02,380
because it raises the question
how does an infant know this?

467
00:35:03,660 --> 00:35:09,580
How does an infant know all of
this very complex set of

468
00:35:09,580 --> 00:35:13,260
properties and it does become
very complex when you begin to

469
00:35:13,260 --> 00:35:15,900
explore it.
How does an infant know that?

470
00:35:16,540 --> 00:35:21,420
Well, we now have experimental
work, mainly by Lila Gleidman,

471
00:35:21,540 --> 00:35:26,270
late cognitive scientists, which
showed that children acquire the

472
00:35:26,270 --> 00:35:31,430
meaning of a word with very few
presentations, two or three

473
00:35:31,430 --> 00:35:33,470
presentations.
They know the whole meaning of

474
00:35:33,470 --> 00:35:34,990
the word.
How?

475
00:35:35,950 --> 00:35:39,950
How do they know?
I mean, you ask Quine

476
00:35:40,270 --> 00:35:45,270
Wittgenstein, Others, as its
association can't be no

477
00:35:45,270 --> 00:35:50,350
associations could give you the
fact that Aristotle noticed that

478
00:35:50,430 --> 00:35:55,270
the the nature of an object and
of the meaning of a word is

479
00:35:55,470 --> 00:35:58,830
something that can't be detected
from its physical properties.

480
00:35:59,390 --> 00:36:02,630
No possible learning theory can
get you that.

481
00:36:03,350 --> 00:36:05,470
So it's another one of those
mysteries.

482
00:36:05,830 --> 00:36:08,710
It's something about how we're
designed.

483
00:36:09,550 --> 00:36:15,510
Humans are somehow designed so
that our concepts, all of them,

484
00:36:15,510 --> 00:36:21,540
the simplest ones like chair,
are very intricate constructions

485
00:36:21,860 --> 00:36:26,580
based on properties that cannot
be identified in the physical

486
00:36:26,580 --> 00:36:30,260
object.
Well, one thing that means is

487
00:36:30,620 --> 00:36:35,220
that contrary to widespread
belief, there is no notion of

488
00:36:35,220 --> 00:36:40,260
reference in human language.
The things that we do carry out

489
00:36:40,260 --> 00:36:45,940
the actions of referring.
As John Austin pointed out Peter

490
00:36:45,940 --> 00:36:50,220
Strauss and other Oxford
ordinary language philosophers

491
00:36:50,220 --> 00:36:56,180
in the 1950s, we do carry out
actions of referring, but it

492
00:36:56,180 --> 00:37:00,580
doesn't follow that the language
has a relation of reference.

493
00:37:00,860 --> 00:37:03,860
It doesn't.
There are no extra mental

494
00:37:03,860 --> 00:37:07,580
objects that the words of their
language refer to.

495
00:37:08,580 --> 00:37:13,180
There are internal mental
objects which we use in the

496
00:37:13,260 --> 00:37:16,540
action of referring and
something different.

497
00:37:17,150 --> 00:37:22,270
That means language has no
semantics in the sense of Frego,

498
00:37:23,150 --> 00:37:28,790
Torski, Kornack, Quin and others
just doesn't have semantics.

499
00:37:29,070 --> 00:37:32,590
Incidentally, that wouldn't have
bothered Frego or Torski or

500
00:37:32,590 --> 00:37:35,670
Quina because they didn't see
any point in studying language

501
00:37:35,670 --> 00:37:40,310
anyway.
It's just maybe a useful way of

502
00:37:40,310 --> 00:37:45,000
getting examples that Kornack,
who I knew pretty well, just

503
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:48,040
even didn't even understand why
people speak ordinary language.

504
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:51,560
Why don't they speak formal
languages where everything's

505
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:56,160
well defined, you know, but so
this conclusion wouldn't have

506
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,360
bothered them.
But it should bother all the

507
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:04,920
people who think that language
has a relationship, or that it

508
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,720
has a notion of truth, or that
you can do model theoretic

509
00:38:08,720 --> 00:38:12,160
semantics, or all of those
people should be concerned with

510
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:14,010
this.
That's practically all the

511
00:38:14,010 --> 00:38:17,970
philosophy of language and all
all of what's called formal

512
00:38:17,970 --> 00:38:21,330
semantics.
And doesn't bother them because

513
00:38:21,330 --> 00:38:25,090
they're not really interested in
these issues, they're just

514
00:38:26,410 --> 00:38:29,170
practical concerns and let's
make it work better.

515
00:38:29,850 --> 00:38:34,650
Well, as I said, that's a
departure from 2500 years of

516
00:38:34,650 --> 00:38:40,650
tradition in my view.
Regression of structuralism and

517
00:38:40,650 --> 00:38:44,120
behaviorism.
You asked me for why everyone's

518
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,000
attracted by this.
Well, there's an interesting

519
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,120
study which may provide the
answer.

520
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:57,440
There's a very good cognitive
scientist at Northeastern

521
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:06,920
University in Boston.
I forgot Iris Berent BE or ENT.

522
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:11,800
She's done very interesting
studies and on many topics, and

523
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:16,120
one of them leads to the
conclusion that we are sort of

524
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:21,640
innately behaviorist.
That is, if you just look at

525
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,760
people's common sense attitudes,
they tend to give it be

526
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,440
empiricist, she said.
Tend to give radical empiricist

527
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:32,880
answers.
That's kind of like a natural

528
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:40,680
intuition, just like infants or
automatically accept the

529
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:44,360
mechanical philosophy.
So if you do experiment, this is

530
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:49,560
done 60 years ago by Michelle.
If you give an infant's

531
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:55,480
presentation kind of like this,
you know, two things moving and

532
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,400
there is a fixed relationship,
it'll automatically assume that

533
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,600
there's an invisible barrier
connecting them, because

534
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,040
otherwise it couldn't happen.
Well, that's the mechanical

535
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:09,360
philosophy which was disproven
by Newton.

536
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:15,000
But it's part of our intuition,
which is probably why it was

537
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:19,120
fixed upon in the 1st place.
And empiricism seems to be the

538
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,120
same.
You kind of automatically try to

539
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:26,360
give empiricist answers.
When they're refuted, you

540
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,520
sometimes hang hang on to them
anyway.

541
00:40:29,240 --> 00:40:34,840
That's, I think a disease of
philosophy and linguistics.

542
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:38,820
I should say that Austin
Strawson and others were not

543
00:40:38,820 --> 00:40:41,860
subject to this.
They broke out of it.

544
00:40:42,460 --> 00:40:48,820
They didn't recognize Austin
famously that words, language

545
00:40:48,820 --> 00:40:52,420
generally, are something you do,
you do things with.

546
00:40:53,180 --> 00:40:58,140
That's the production side.
It's not the internal side which

547
00:40:58,660 --> 00:41:01,820
he was interested in but had
nothing to say about.

548
00:41:05,250 --> 00:41:08,370
When just there's so many things
to touch on there that I

549
00:41:08,370 --> 00:41:10,930
actually have to think about
which part I actually really

550
00:41:10,930 --> 00:41:16,970
want to go down, but as someone.
Who's intrigued by the mental

551
00:41:16,970 --> 00:41:21,170
health aspect of this topic?
Do you think we?

552
00:41:21,610 --> 00:41:24,890
Look, this is not a political
podcast, and I try my best to

553
00:41:24,890 --> 00:41:29,490
avoid politics as much because I
want this to be philosophical,

554
00:41:30,010 --> 00:41:32,490
very metaphysical as much as
possible as well.

555
00:41:32,850 --> 00:41:36,000
But.
Do you think that the way social

556
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:39,680
media, the way we chat nowadays,
our lack of the use of the

557
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,920
English language because we
obviously have shortened many

558
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:47,520
terms, many words?
Do you think all of this plays a

559
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:51,520
role into the way we are
medicalizing mental illness?

560
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,000
Or do you think mental illness
is rising?

561
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:58,160
Or are we just medicalizing
human experiences?

562
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:06,760
Well, we certainly, I think that
this is not an area that I know

563
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,880
very well I should say, but it's
an interesting one.

564
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:12,160
I've certainly been interested,
looked into it.

565
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:21,920
Psychiatry has moved extensively
towards treatment by

566
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:29,280
pharmaceutical means and others.
That probably makes reasonably

567
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:31,640
good sense.
In many areas.

568
00:42:32,110 --> 00:42:39,110
There are significant advances
made in treating many

569
00:42:40,030 --> 00:42:43,430
Parkinson's, for example, by
medical means.

570
00:42:43,790 --> 00:42:49,990
I mean at my age, I have the few
friends that are still alive and

571
00:42:49,990 --> 00:42:55,470
in their last years many did
have mental diseases like

572
00:42:55,550 --> 00:42:58,110
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and so
on.

573
00:42:58,630 --> 00:43:02,060
And they we're treated
effectively especially

574
00:43:02,060 --> 00:43:09,260
Parkinson's medically it did
maintain their lives, productive

575
00:43:09,860 --> 00:43:14,620
happy lives will become would
have been possible 50 years

576
00:43:14,620 --> 00:43:17,500
earlier.
So I don't disparage this at

577
00:43:17,500 --> 00:43:20,020
all.
I think a lots of good can be

578
00:43:20,020 --> 00:43:23,260
done.
Probably there is over

579
00:43:23,260 --> 00:43:27,940
medicalization.
There's a natural tendency if

580
00:43:27,940 --> 00:43:32,550
you have a you know if you have
a hammer you look for nails

581
00:43:32,710 --> 00:43:36,430
famous idiom.
You have pharmaceutical means

582
00:43:36,430 --> 00:43:39,990
you try to apply them.
It's probably also true of

583
00:43:40,550 --> 00:43:44,830
surgery and there's good
evidence that surgery is

584
00:43:44,830 --> 00:43:49,390
overused.
That many just tell you a

585
00:43:49,390 --> 00:43:54,710
personal fact about, I mean.
In medicine, we say we often say

586
00:43:54,710 --> 00:43:56,510
ourselves.
I mean, surgeons cut.

587
00:43:56,870 --> 00:44:00,160
That's just what they do.
They see something, they cut it.

588
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:05,280
That's I mean they're skip the
personal court, but it's common.

589
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:10,160
It's well known in the medical
profession, say cardiologists,

590
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:17,240
that there's pressures in the
hospitals to do to treat things

591
00:44:17,240 --> 00:44:24,120
surgically for several reasons.
One, it's because we know how to

592
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:28,090
do.
Another, it's very lucrative for

593
00:44:28,090 --> 00:44:31,490
the hospitals.
They make a lot of money on it.

594
00:44:31,490 --> 00:44:37,210
If you can treat a heart disease
by medication or by telling

595
00:44:37,210 --> 00:44:40,330
people to change their
lifestyles, they're not going to

596
00:44:40,330 --> 00:44:44,970
make any money.
So there's a lot of pressure on

597
00:44:44,970 --> 00:44:50,290
cardiologists to go for the
knife for several reasons, some

598
00:44:50,290 --> 00:44:54,090
good, some not good.
I personally haven't have been

599
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,200
benefited from this.
So I might say that 40 years ago

600
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:05,680
when I I mean I'm pressing 94.
So when I was in my 50s, I

601
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:10,400
started having heart problems
and my own heart cognitively.

602
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:14,400
I hope when I'm 94 I'm as
cognitively as engaged as you

603
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:20,160
because it's amazing.
Cardiologist.

604
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:24,760
It was a personal friend and in
fact leading figure in the field

605
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:29,960
who was kind of isolated in the
field because he believed in

606
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:35,440
putting off surgical intrusion
until the very end.

607
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:37,280
If there was no other
possibility.

608
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:43,840
And there were some
cardiologists did suggest

609
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:48,120
surgical treatment.
And I went to talk to him and he

610
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,800
said don't bother with it.
We can handle it just by mild

611
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:56,640
medication and some obvious
lifestyle changes.

612
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:01,000
Work perfectly, Never had any
medical intervention, still

613
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,360
taking a lot of pills, but
that's easy.

614
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:08,480
Anyhow, I think that's pretty
common and you can see the

615
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:10,800
reasons.
And I think the same is true of

616
00:46:11,240 --> 00:46:15,400
psychiatric treatment.
It has successes.

617
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,250
If it's used intelligently, it
can be effective.

618
00:46:20,490 --> 00:46:24,810
I've seen personal cases rid of
others, but it can ease, as a

619
00:46:24,810 --> 00:46:30,450
temptation to overuse it, to
treat everything with drugs

620
00:46:30,690 --> 00:46:32,770
where other things are
necessary.

621
00:46:34,290 --> 00:46:39,250
Partly this is something here
we're getting into politics I'm

622
00:46:39,250 --> 00:46:45,050
afraid, but the whole medical
system has been subjected to the

623
00:46:45,050 --> 00:46:50,340
neoliberal assault on human
beings, turn everything into a

624
00:46:51,980 --> 00:46:54,860
market based commercial
applications.

625
00:46:55,620 --> 00:47:01,860
I mean I can tell you cases of
that I know very well and there

626
00:47:01,860 --> 00:47:06,020
are many others where somebody
goes to a doctor and it has to

627
00:47:06,020 --> 00:47:10,140
be done in 15 minutes.
If it takes more than 15 minutes

628
00:47:10,140 --> 00:47:13,780
as supervisor comes in and tells
the doctor, sorry, you got to

629
00:47:13,780 --> 00:47:16,700
stop, because we have to be
maximally efficient.

630
00:47:17,310 --> 00:47:19,230
We have to meet market
conditions.

631
00:47:19,870 --> 00:47:24,750
The worst possible medication
means the doctor can't get to

632
00:47:24,750 --> 00:47:29,430
know you, to figure out what
your life is like, what your

633
00:47:29,430 --> 00:47:32,070
problems are.
Think about the way a

634
00:47:32,070 --> 00:47:35,870
traditional doctor used to do.
The doctor was kind of like a

635
00:47:35,870 --> 00:47:38,670
personal friend, got to know you
and so on.

636
00:47:39,030 --> 00:47:41,390
Can't do that.
Have to do it in 15 minutes

637
00:47:41,390 --> 00:47:43,430
because that's the way you're
efficient.

638
00:47:43,910 --> 00:47:48,940
A lot of life has been
marketized that way and it's

639
00:47:48,940 --> 00:47:54,140
very, it's very destructive.
We see it in all sorts of

640
00:47:54,140 --> 00:47:56,460
things.
Turn to another domain.

641
00:47:57,340 --> 00:48:03,780
Suppose you, you got a bank
statement and it looks wrong and

642
00:48:03,780 --> 00:48:05,220
it looks like there's an error
in it.

643
00:48:05,740 --> 00:48:09,700
So you want to get in touch with
the bank to see if they can fix

644
00:48:09,700 --> 00:48:11,380
it.
Well, you know what happens.

645
00:48:12,060 --> 00:48:17,020
You call the bank, you get a
recorded message which says that

646
00:48:17,300 --> 00:48:20,140
we love you and just stay on the
line.

647
00:48:20,140 --> 00:48:23,980
And then some music starts
playing and every once in a

648
00:48:23,980 --> 00:48:28,060
while you get a recorded voice.
And after you've spent 45

649
00:48:28,060 --> 00:48:32,580
minutes, finally something, a
recorded voice comes along and

650
00:48:32,580 --> 00:48:35,260
says, do you want to speak to a
person?

651
00:48:35,830 --> 00:48:37,990
And you say, yes, I'd like to
speak to a person.

652
00:48:38,950 --> 00:48:41,310
And finally you get to speak to
a person and they say, oh,

653
00:48:41,310 --> 00:48:43,710
sorry, this is the wrong number,
Call that number.

654
00:48:44,110 --> 00:48:48,790
And then you go on.
Well, economists tell you that's

655
00:48:48,790 --> 00:48:52,390
very efficient.
But economists measures it's

656
00:48:52,390 --> 00:48:55,150
efficient.
It means the company doesn't

657
00:48:55,150 --> 00:48:59,150
spend any money, doesn't cost
them anything, costs you

658
00:48:59,150 --> 00:49:01,830
something.
But economists don't count that.

659
00:49:02,470 --> 00:49:04,710
That's not part of economic
theory.

660
00:49:05,250 --> 00:49:08,330
If you waste two hours your
problem, we don't count that.

661
00:49:08,650 --> 00:49:12,170
So it's very efficient but very
destructive of life.

662
00:49:12,810 --> 00:49:16,290
If the bank would hire a few
more people, you could have

663
00:49:16,290 --> 00:49:19,610
saved 45 minutes.
They would have had an extra

664
00:49:19,610 --> 00:49:22,290
person to pay.
Well, according to economic

665
00:49:22,290 --> 00:49:28,690
theory, that's not efficient
because economic theory and its

666
00:49:28,690 --> 00:49:33,290
political implementation and
neoliberalism just makes our

667
00:49:33,290 --> 00:49:38,580
lives harsher, more brutal.
Same in the medical profession.

668
00:49:38,820 --> 00:49:42,100
But it saves money, so therefore
it's fine.

669
00:49:42,540 --> 00:49:45,700
That's why the rich are getting
super rich and everyone else is

670
00:49:45,700 --> 00:49:47,780
staying poor.
Yeah, I'm sorry.

671
00:49:47,780 --> 00:49:51,420
We're getting into politics.
But politics, pervasive.

672
00:49:51,740 --> 00:49:55,420
When I've done that's, I mean.
That's affecting the medical

673
00:49:55,420 --> 00:49:57,660
profession as well.
It's very.

674
00:49:57,660 --> 00:50:00,140
Difficult not to get into
politics when you have a

675
00:50:00,140 --> 00:50:03,420
philosophy podcast, so.
I I don't think there's a need

676
00:50:03,420 --> 00:50:08,300
to apologize, but on that topic,
exactly what you're talking

677
00:50:08,300 --> 00:50:12,860
about, I think it aligns well.
While we spoke about free will

678
00:50:13,060 --> 00:50:17,220
and now we're talking about the
way people use the Internet,

679
00:50:17,220 --> 00:50:22,140
social media, etc.
How are people's free wills

680
00:50:22,500 --> 00:50:28,980
being challenged or controlled
because of the way economists

681
00:50:29,100 --> 00:50:33,590
businessmen?
Social media enthusiasts and

682
00:50:33,590 --> 00:50:37,470
marketers and marketing people
control us because clearly

683
00:50:37,470 --> 00:50:41,390
that's a way to control free
will in a way is We don't have

684
00:50:41,390 --> 00:50:42,910
as much control as we used to
be.

685
00:50:43,950 --> 00:50:49,470
What are your thoughts on?
That well, we can go back to my

686
00:50:49,470 --> 00:50:52,510
favorite philosopher, David
Hume.

687
00:50:54,110 --> 00:50:58,310
I love David.
Hume 50 years ago he wrote the

688
00:50:58,310 --> 00:51:02,710
first major work and what we now
call political science or

689
00:51:02,710 --> 00:51:06,230
political philosophy.
It was called First principles

690
00:51:06,230 --> 00:51:10,350
of Government.
If you open it, the first

691
00:51:10,350 --> 00:51:13,910
paragraph says something like
this.

692
00:51:13,910 --> 00:51:18,550
He says it more eloquently, but
this is basically it, he said.

693
00:51:19,550 --> 00:51:25,030
He said I'm amazed by the
easiness with which the many

694
00:51:25,190 --> 00:51:30,200
submit themselves to the few.
Power is in the hands of the

695
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,440
governed.
Those who are governed, but they

696
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:37,840
don't use it, they submit
themselves to the power of the

697
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:41,160
few.
And he says, how can this

698
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:47,960
miracle come about?
He says, well, it has to be what

699
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:52,480
we now call manufacturer of
consent, imposition of consent.

700
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:59,130
Somehow people are induced to
consent the rule by the masters,

701
00:51:59,330 --> 00:52:01,930
though they don't have to be.
They could take power

702
00:52:01,930 --> 00:52:04,890
themselves.
So the main principle of

703
00:52:04,890 --> 00:52:09,850
government is how to control
people so that they don't use

704
00:52:10,370 --> 00:52:15,330
the power that they have.
Well, I think that's right on

705
00:52:15,330 --> 00:52:19,450
target.
That's how the few manage to

706
00:52:19,450 --> 00:52:25,010
keep control and to master us.
And they're massive industries

707
00:52:25,370 --> 00:52:29,010
devoted to this.
They are so common we don't pay

708
00:52:29,010 --> 00:52:32,090
attention to them.
Like, take the advertising

709
00:52:32,090 --> 00:52:35,290
industry.
Hundreds of billions of dollars

710
00:52:35,290 --> 00:52:40,730
are spent every year to try to
induce you to do things which

711
00:52:40,730 --> 00:52:45,010
are harmful to you and
instructive to the destructive

712
00:52:45,010 --> 00:52:48,970
to the world, namely, to become
a Mad Dog consumer.

713
00:52:49,970 --> 00:52:54,090
Literally hundreds of billions
of dollars a year are spent to

714
00:52:54,090 --> 00:52:59,410
do this from infancy.
There are known now fields of

715
00:52:59,690 --> 00:53:05,650
applied psychology, literally,
which study how to get children

716
00:53:05,650 --> 00:53:10,370
to nag their parents.
Well, literally 50 years ago,

717
00:53:10,370 --> 00:53:14,130
the advertising industry
realized that there's a big

718
00:53:14,130 --> 00:53:18,290
group of people who they aren't
targeting children.

719
00:53:18,850 --> 00:53:21,770
And they said we've ignored them
because children don't have

720
00:53:21,770 --> 00:53:26,030
money, but we've overlooked the
fact the children can nag their

721
00:53:26,030 --> 00:53:29,030
parents and get them to get
things from them.

722
00:53:29,550 --> 00:53:33,830
That was a big insight.
So now if you watch television

723
00:53:33,830 --> 00:53:39,230
with you, your children, me, my
great grandchildren, if you

724
00:53:39,230 --> 00:53:45,310
watch television with them two
year olds full of advertising,

725
00:53:45,830 --> 00:53:50,230
here's something you have to
have, you know, a $400.00

726
00:53:50,230 --> 00:53:53,990
talking dog or something.
So get your mother to buy it for

727
00:53:53,990 --> 00:53:57,290
you.
That starts from infancy and the

728
00:53:57,290 --> 00:54:01,010
mother gets irritated, buys it,
kid, looks at it and throws it

729
00:54:01,010 --> 00:54:05,210
away and get the next thing.
Well, that's very profitable.

730
00:54:05,570 --> 00:54:09,290
It's destructive of our lives,
destructive of the environment,

731
00:54:10,330 --> 00:54:15,370
but it's a way to make money.
So that's David Young led to a

732
00:54:15,690 --> 00:54:19,810
huge effort.
I mean, give you a personal

733
00:54:19,930 --> 00:54:22,690
anecdote again.
First time I went to a baseball

734
00:54:22,690 --> 00:54:28,050
game was in 1937.
Kids were interested in the

735
00:54:28,050 --> 00:54:30,770
baseball players, what was
happening, and so on.

736
00:54:31,330 --> 00:54:35,450
I didn't go for many years until
one of my grandchildren wanted

737
00:54:35,450 --> 00:54:37,090
me to take him to a baseball
game.

738
00:54:37,410 --> 00:54:40,170
I took him advertising
everywhere.

739
00:54:40,570 --> 00:54:44,170
The walls are covered with
advertising, the baseball

740
00:54:44,170 --> 00:54:46,850
uniforms of the players, of ads
on the back.

741
00:54:47,570 --> 00:54:51,090
The game has to stop every once
in a while for for advertising,

742
00:54:51,090 --> 00:54:55,970
for television.
I mean, every aspect of life has

743
00:54:55,970 --> 00:55:01,610
been overwhelmed by the effort
to make you a totally irrational

744
00:55:01,610 --> 00:55:05,130
consumer.
It's hard to get away from it by

745
00:55:05,130 --> 00:55:07,530
now.
People just regard it as like

746
00:55:07,530 --> 00:55:10,450
the air you breathe.
You don't ask about it, but it's

747
00:55:10,450 --> 00:55:14,810
a massive technique of
controlling you, and it covers

748
00:55:15,010 --> 00:55:19,540
everything else up to the media
and teaching and all sorts of

749
00:55:19,540 --> 00:55:23,500
things.
It's part of the it's become in

750
00:55:23,500 --> 00:55:29,660
the last 40 years, the
neoliberal years when economists

751
00:55:29,660 --> 00:55:33,860
have had a big impact and
aligned very closely with the

752
00:55:33,860 --> 00:55:38,820
needs of the business world,
it's been overwhelming.

753
00:55:39,380 --> 00:55:42,660
The effect on the public has
been devastating.

754
00:55:43,460 --> 00:55:49,320
What it's led to is a mood of
anger, disillusionment,

755
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:54,120
district, contempt for
institutions, which is all over

756
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:58,360
the place, very destructive,
basically leading to a kind of

757
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:02,280
neo fascist tendencies in
government.

758
00:56:02,720 --> 00:56:06,960
So it's no small matter that
David's basically had it right.

759
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:11,080
I mean, Manufacturing Consent
was one of the first books of

760
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,880
yours that I did read.
I've read.

761
00:56:15,530 --> 00:56:17,970
Dozens afterwards.
I mean, you are an excellent

762
00:56:17,970 --> 00:56:22,010
writer, but I I'll never forget
the feeling I had when I read

763
00:56:22,010 --> 00:56:26,050
Manufacturing Consent It.
It's changed the way I perceived

764
00:56:26,050 --> 00:56:28,290
everything.
You get almost this.

765
00:56:28,290 --> 00:56:30,770
It's almost like reading 1984.
It's got the you've got.

766
00:56:30,770 --> 00:56:34,210
It's got this Big Brother feel
to it where you're like you're

767
00:56:34,210 --> 00:56:38,810
being controlled for good
reasons.

768
00:56:39,010 --> 00:56:41,530
Yeah, exactly.
My question to you is.

769
00:56:41,730 --> 00:56:47,130
How then do you believe that we
have sort of a free will when

770
00:56:47,210 --> 00:56:51,210
clearly we can't control this
when it is controlled by others?

771
00:56:51,650 --> 00:56:55,530
How are we able to navigate this
dichotomy?

772
00:56:58,290 --> 00:57:03,490
For us, it's quite easy.
If I was, if you and I were

773
00:57:03,970 --> 00:57:07,590
living in Russia or China,
wouldn't be easy.

774
00:57:08,150 --> 00:57:12,350
If we were carrying out this
conversation in Russia, let's

775
00:57:12,350 --> 00:57:16,990
say you could expect the secret
police to come in and drag us

776
00:57:16,990 --> 00:57:20,710
off to a concentration camp.
Same in China.

777
00:57:20,910 --> 00:57:23,750
Not here, Not for you, not for
me.

778
00:57:24,390 --> 00:57:29,270
So we're we live in highly
controlled societies, but we

779
00:57:29,270 --> 00:57:32,990
have a lot of freedom.
It didn't come by magic.

780
00:57:34,430 --> 00:57:38,780
You can tell where you live what
a struggle it was to attain it,

781
00:57:39,700 --> 00:57:43,820
You know, not that significant
much here in the United States,

782
00:57:43,820 --> 00:57:49,980
but pretty hard people.
You know, about a century ago

783
00:57:50,580 --> 00:57:55,620
Eugene Debs was tossed into jail
for daring to say the kinds of

784
00:57:55,620 --> 00:58:02,860
things that I say now about what
wars, that wars, the health of

785
00:58:02,860 --> 00:58:07,000
the state, you know, that's the
United States.

786
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,200
It's been a battle here too, but
nothing like other places.

787
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:14,880
But it's been when a lot of
freedoms been won, which means

788
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:21,200
we have the opportunity to tear
aside the very thin veil of

789
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:26,440
propaganda control.
We can do it and breakthrough.

790
00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:30,760
You read the newspapers.
A lot of what they say is quite

791
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:34,320
valuable and important.
You have to know how to navigate

792
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:39,120
your way through the means of
control and marginalization that

793
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:41,880
are built in for institutional
reasons.

794
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:45,040
But it's not that difficult.
It's not quantum physics.

795
00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:48,760
You can do it pretty easily,
help other people do it.

796
00:58:49,520 --> 00:58:54,280
You mentioned social media.
That's been a it could be

797
00:58:54,280 --> 00:59:00,080
something liberating ways for
people to explore, learn,

798
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,970
interact.
Unfortunately, it hasn't been

799
00:59:03,970 --> 00:59:07,850
that way.
Most of what it does is isolate

800
00:59:07,850 --> 00:59:12,970
people in small, self
reinforcing bubbles.

801
00:59:13,570 --> 00:59:17,810
You hear you kind of naturally
gravitate towards things that

802
00:59:18,170 --> 00:59:23,570
you approve of and where you get
approved, and then attitudes get

803
00:59:23,570 --> 00:59:26,290
solidified.
You don't hear alternatives, You

804
00:59:26,290 --> 00:59:32,000
get, You lose empathy, the
ability to think openly.

805
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:36,880
It's been destructive.
I mean, doesn't have to be like

806
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:42,720
that, can break out of that, but
it takes exercise of the free

807
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:53,400
will that fortunately we have.
No, I have so many more

808
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:56,040
questions for you.
My question for you is.

809
00:59:56,980 --> 00:59:59,620
There are still some questions
from the from the audience that

810
00:59:59,900 --> 01:00:02,500
that I have for you.
Do you have time to answer a few

811
01:00:02,500 --> 01:00:05,540
of them?
Let's go along a little bit

812
01:00:05,580 --> 01:00:07,540
longer.
Let's let's go.

813
01:00:07,540 --> 01:00:08,460
For some of them.
Let's see.

814
01:00:08,460 --> 01:00:10,980
Right.
So the one says, OK, this is

815
01:00:10,980 --> 01:00:14,820
quite a long one.
It says, hello, hello, Professor

816
01:00:14,820 --> 01:00:19,060
Chomsky.
I've been confused about

817
01:00:19,060 --> 01:00:23,740
Professor Chomsky's insistence
about Newton's destruction of

818
01:00:23,740 --> 01:00:27,310
the mechanical philosophy.
Which, if I understand

819
01:00:27,310 --> 01:00:31,350
correctly, is based on a
reintroduction of an occult

820
01:00:31,350 --> 01:00:35,750
force, namely gravity, to
explain the motion of bodies.

821
01:00:36,350 --> 01:00:40,070
I thought that Einstein's theory
of relativity explained this by

822
01:00:40,070 --> 01:00:44,830
supposing bodies move according
to the easiest geometry in their

823
01:00:44,830 --> 01:00:48,910
region of space-time,
conceptually similar to a ball

824
01:00:48,910 --> 01:00:53,350
on an incline except non
euclidean, not because of an

825
01:00:53,350 --> 01:00:57,340
action at a distance.
So if this is true, if this is

826
01:00:57,340 --> 01:01:02,300
true, then why totally abandon
the traditional Cartesian

827
01:01:02,300 --> 01:01:05,660
dualism?
If maybe, like gravity, things

828
01:01:05,660 --> 01:01:09,380
can be explained mechanically
after some time, That's quite a

829
01:01:09,380 --> 01:01:10,660
long one.
I'm sorry about that.

830
01:01:13,060 --> 01:01:19,460
That's a very common error,
including leading physicists who

831
01:01:19,460 --> 01:01:23,980
don't understand what the issue
was about the mechanical

832
01:01:23,980 --> 01:01:28,100
philosophy.
Newton showed that the

833
01:01:28,100 --> 01:01:30,540
mechanical philosophy didn't
work.

834
01:01:31,100 --> 01:01:35,940
There is no material world that
conforms to the mechanical

835
01:01:35,940 --> 01:01:38,980
philosophy.
Newton regarded this and

836
01:01:38,980 --> 01:01:43,780
absurdity.
So did Leibniz Hoygens, the

837
01:01:43,820 --> 01:01:45,660
other great physicians of the
day.

838
01:01:46,820 --> 01:01:48,900
And in fact, what they were
correct.

839
01:01:49,460 --> 01:01:52,420
What happened?
Is that the idea?

840
01:01:52,700 --> 01:01:57,740
The hope to develop an
intelligible world disappeared.

841
01:01:58,340 --> 01:02:02,860
Science changed its goals,
lowered them, Didn't care

842
01:02:02,860 --> 01:02:06,980
anymore about whether you have
an intelligible world, just

843
01:02:06,980 --> 01:02:10,260
whether you have intelligible
theories of the world.

844
01:02:10,900 --> 01:02:14,500
That's a big difference.
So Newton's theories were

845
01:02:14,500 --> 01:02:18,140
perfectly intelligible
alignments, could understand

846
01:02:18,140 --> 01:02:21,940
them perfectly well.
Newton understood them, but they

847
01:02:21,940 --> 01:02:26,500
weren't what Newton called a
physical theory, one that

848
01:02:26,500 --> 01:02:30,020
explained the world in
intelligible terms.

849
01:02:31,100 --> 01:02:35,540
Einstein's theory is
intelligible the theory, but not

850
01:02:35,540 --> 01:02:40,220
the world that describes it's in
a total abandonment of the

851
01:02:40,300 --> 01:02:45,300
mechanical of any notion of
intelligibility, The world given

852
01:02:45,300 --> 01:02:47,980
it all up.
So it's like Newton's theory.

853
01:02:48,060 --> 01:02:51,700
Yes, the theory is intelligible,
but it doesn't bear on the

854
01:02:51,700 --> 01:02:56,230
questions that the great
scientists who founded modern

855
01:02:56,230 --> 01:02:59,510
science were concerned with.
We've given that up.

856
01:03:00,430 --> 01:03:03,750
Nobody tries anymore.
In fact, when you get to, say,

857
01:03:03,750 --> 01:03:07,390
Bertrand Russell, who knew the
science as well, he said the

858
01:03:07,390 --> 01:03:10,350
search for intelligibility is
ridiculous.

859
01:03:10,870 --> 01:03:15,910
Put it aside, took a long time
for this to settle in, but now

860
01:03:15,910 --> 01:03:19,430
it's just become scientific
common sense.

861
01:03:19,670 --> 01:03:23,930
We just abandoned the goals of
the scientific revolution.

862
01:03:24,450 --> 01:03:28,690
Galileo, Newton, Leibniz are the
great figures.

863
01:03:28,970 --> 01:03:33,490
We abandon their hopes.
We just lower our sights to try

864
01:03:33,490 --> 01:03:36,330
to develop intelligible
theories.

865
01:03:36,690 --> 01:03:39,970
Newton's was intelligible, but
not quite right.

866
01:03:40,330 --> 01:03:44,410
Einstein's is intelligible, does
a little better but it all

867
01:03:44,410 --> 01:03:50,250
abandons the aspirations that
led to modern science given all

868
01:03:50,250 --> 01:03:54,610
those up.
So yes, we we have been with

869
01:03:55,050 --> 01:03:58,370
there's no longer anybody mind
problem because there's nobody

870
01:03:58,970 --> 01:04:01,010
okay.
We just and we don't care.

871
01:04:01,490 --> 01:04:05,010
All we need is an intelligent
like lock pointed out.

872
01:04:05,370 --> 01:04:07,250
Let's try to do in the wake of
Newton.

873
01:04:07,810 --> 01:04:14,050
Let's try to find a intelligible
theory of how mental actions

874
01:04:14,050 --> 01:04:18,430
take place that we've abandoned
any hope of trying to find out

875
01:04:18,430 --> 01:04:24,510
what matter is.
So Newton himself said we know

876
01:04:24,510 --> 01:04:28,550
so little about matter that for
all we know, all matter is

877
01:04:28,550 --> 01:04:32,270
alive.
Arthur Eddington century ago

878
01:04:32,470 --> 01:04:35,110
went beyond that.
He said that we know so little

879
01:04:35,110 --> 01:04:38,710
about matter that for all we
know, all matters conscious.

880
01:04:38,990 --> 01:04:42,430
Like Adams, we don't know that
they're not conscious because we

881
01:04:42,430 --> 01:04:43,750
don't know anything about
matter.

882
01:04:44,990 --> 01:04:47,030
Well, same with Einstein's
theory.

883
01:04:47,650 --> 01:04:50,050
Yes, the theory is quite
intelligible.

884
01:04:50,210 --> 01:04:53,970
You can teach it to students,
they understand it.

885
01:04:54,450 --> 01:04:58,810
But it has abandoned the hopes
and the aspirations that

886
01:04:58,810 --> 01:05:03,410
animated modern science.
Those have been given up.

887
01:05:03,970 --> 01:05:09,010
This was actually understood by
19th century historians of

888
01:05:09,010 --> 01:05:14,330
science like Friedrich Longa.
Take a look at his great book on

889
01:05:15,330 --> 01:05:18,790
materialism.
He points out that modern

890
01:05:18,790 --> 01:05:22,670
materialists have simply
abandoned traditional

891
01:05:22,670 --> 01:05:25,670
materialism.
They're willing to accept

892
01:05:25,670 --> 01:05:30,750
notions like force and field and
so on, which they understand but

893
01:05:31,150 --> 01:05:35,350
have no material basis because
we've given that up.

894
01:05:36,390 --> 01:05:41,390
Well, that was mid 19th century.
We shouldn't be able to

895
01:05:41,390 --> 01:05:46,470
understand it today.
Science just abandoned the goals

896
01:05:46,670 --> 01:05:50,790
of the scientific revolution.
Very important moment in the

897
01:05:50,790 --> 01:05:54,270
history of science.
Took some time to sink in.

898
01:05:54,990 --> 01:06:00,750
So if you take a look at Newton
he himself said, look I I can't

899
01:06:00,750 --> 01:06:02,830
give a physical explanation for
anything.

900
01:06:03,510 --> 01:06:09,310
His famous comment I do not make
hypothesis was in that context

901
01:06:09,830 --> 01:06:15,190
said I'm sorry, I I have no
hypothesis about science.

902
01:06:15,640 --> 01:06:20,160
That's why his major work is
called mathematical principles.

903
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:23,800
It's not called principles of
philosophy, philosophy and

904
01:06:23,800 --> 01:06:27,120
science in those days it took a
long time.

905
01:06:27,560 --> 01:06:31,240
Even at Cambridge University,
Zone University they didn't

906
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:35,200
teach Newton's theories for
about I think 50 years because

907
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:39,160
they weren't physical theories,
they were just mathematics.

908
01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:43,720
And this is not science.
And finally, science just

909
01:06:44,420 --> 01:06:47,660
abandoned, Hope said.
We're not interested in this

910
01:06:47,660 --> 01:06:49,340
anymore.
We have lower goals.

911
01:06:49,900 --> 01:06:56,220
OK, probably the right move, but
there's no longer any dualism,

912
01:06:56,220 --> 01:06:58,420
because there's nobody.
No matter.

913
01:06:59,100 --> 01:07:00,700
The same is true of
consciousness.

914
01:07:01,180 --> 01:07:05,180
The discussion of consciousness
is very misleading.

915
01:07:05,740 --> 01:07:10,060
He's a fine philosopher, young
philosopher Galen Strawson,

916
01:07:10,580 --> 01:07:15,540
Peter Strawson's son, who's
written extensively about this.

917
01:07:15,540 --> 01:07:20,140
And I think he's right.
He's pointed out that the whole

918
01:07:20,380 --> 01:07:24,260
contemporary discussion about
consciousness is completely

919
01:07:24,260 --> 01:07:27,060
backwards.
It's it's not.

920
01:07:27,060 --> 01:07:30,340
There's no problem of
consciousness, Consciousness we

921
01:07:30,340 --> 01:07:32,260
understand better than anything
else.

922
01:07:32,940 --> 01:07:36,060
We have a perfect understanding
of consciousness.

923
01:07:36,540 --> 01:07:39,860
I can describe in detail what my
consciousness is.

924
01:07:39,980 --> 01:07:43,160
So can you.
What we don't understand is

925
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:46,840
matter.
So we don't understand the

926
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:50,480
relation between consciousness
and matter because we don't know

927
01:07:50,480 --> 01:07:55,160
what matter is.
As Arthur Eddington put it, for

928
01:07:55,160 --> 01:07:57,960
all we know, all matters.
A lot is conscious.

929
01:07:58,440 --> 01:08:02,920
And actually Strauss and himself
pursues this as the development

930
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:06,320
and psychism.
I don't agree with him in that,

931
01:08:06,360 --> 01:08:09,400
but I think his basic
observation is correct.

932
01:08:10,260 --> 01:08:12,940
Bertrand Russell said the same
thing century ago.

933
01:08:13,700 --> 01:08:17,620
He said what we know best is
consciousness better than

934
01:08:17,620 --> 01:08:21,020
anything else.
That's what we're most confident

935
01:08:21,020 --> 01:08:25,300
about, what we know most about
the rest of our intellectual

936
01:08:25,300 --> 01:08:30,100
explorations or attempts to
ground this in something, and

937
01:08:30,100 --> 01:08:32,620
there we run into trouble
because we don't know what

938
01:08:32,620 --> 01:08:35,779
matter is.
That's basically correct, I

939
01:08:35,819 --> 01:08:39,330
think, speaking to the
literature.

940
01:08:39,890 --> 01:08:42,529
Sorry, I was chatting to.
Galen, we're going to chats very

941
01:08:42,529 --> 01:08:46,609
soon about the mind, body
problem, consciousness, etc.

942
01:08:46,609 --> 01:08:49,609
And Philip Gough possibly, I
think next week I have an

943
01:08:49,609 --> 01:08:52,689
interview with him.
So the pansychism debates going

944
01:08:52,689 --> 01:08:57,050
to start, we're going to chat
about that in quite a bit detail

945
01:08:58,330 --> 01:09:00,649
before we get there.
I mean, I mean, well, as we

946
01:09:00,649 --> 01:09:02,529
conclude.
So no, there's the final

947
01:09:02,529 --> 01:09:05,090
question from one of the last
listeners they want to know

948
01:09:05,090 --> 01:09:07,450
from, you know?
What are your secular

949
01:09:07,450 --> 01:09:10,050
metaphysics in terms of
teleology?

950
01:09:10,450 --> 01:09:13,010
What do you really believe is
the point of all of this?

951
01:09:13,210 --> 01:09:16,170
Why are we here?
What is the purpose of all of

952
01:09:16,170 --> 01:09:18,689
this?
This is one of the questions,

953
01:09:18,689 --> 01:09:21,649
the last one I have for you from
from the listeners.

954
01:09:23,250 --> 01:09:29,250
The purpose of life, the meaning
of life is what we give to it,

955
01:09:29,810 --> 01:09:32,729
period.
Other than that has no purpose.

956
01:09:36,080 --> 01:09:39,720
The lives of the trees in my
backyard.

957
01:09:41,240 --> 01:09:46,120
We have the opportunity, which
the trees don't have, to make

958
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:50,319
something of our lives that will
be the remaining and purpose.

959
01:09:50,680 --> 01:09:56,840
What we choose to do with this
opportunity to have a number of

960
01:09:56,840 --> 01:09:59,400
years on Earth, what do we do
with it?

961
01:09:59,990 --> 01:10:02,870
That's the meaning of life.
You're not gonna find it

962
01:10:02,870 --> 01:10:05,750
anywhere else.
I love that.

963
01:10:06,590 --> 01:10:10,030
Look, I know, as this is
something I always do and I

964
01:10:10,030 --> 01:10:12,510
didn't get the chance the last
time, we had a lot of technical

965
01:10:12,510 --> 01:10:14,990
errors and a lot of
difficulties.

966
01:10:14,990 --> 01:10:19,910
But who, if you had to, give me
your Mount Rushmore, or

967
01:10:19,910 --> 01:10:24,310
philosophy or science, combine
them, Perhaps give us five at

968
01:10:24,310 --> 01:10:27,470
least.
Who are the people you suggest

969
01:10:27,630 --> 01:10:29,870
we read?
Tried to get a deeper

970
01:10:29,870 --> 01:10:32,310
understanding of not only
philosophy, but the nature of

971
01:10:32,310 --> 01:10:36,150
reality, science, and the
universe.

972
01:10:36,550 --> 01:10:39,110
If you had to give us five
people you'd recommend, and

973
01:10:39,110 --> 01:10:41,590
these are the people that
inspired you most, Would they

974
01:10:41,590 --> 01:10:47,990
be?
Actually, the people I've found

975
01:10:47,990 --> 01:10:52,870
most inspiring over the years,
like Russell or Young, are

976
01:10:52,870 --> 01:11:00,640
people who worked out pretty
clearly of articulated pretty

977
01:11:00,640 --> 01:11:05,800
clearly, things I had mostly
pretty much figured out by

978
01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:10,600
myself.
We bring to philosophy our own

979
01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:14,280
understanding, our questions,
our confusions.

980
01:11:14,680 --> 01:11:19,080
Sometimes people help us clear
them up, but there's no list you

981
01:11:19,080 --> 01:11:21,880
can point to.
Could be anyone, could be

982
01:11:21,880 --> 01:11:26,740
Heraclitus.
Yes, the profound question how

983
01:11:26,740 --> 01:11:28,780
can we cross the same river
twice?

984
01:11:29,620 --> 01:11:33,060
It's a very profound question.
When you stop to think of it

985
01:11:33,540 --> 01:11:38,380
raises all kinds of questions.
Well, that was pre Socratic, so

986
01:11:38,380 --> 01:11:43,820
we can start there or we can
look at the Delphic Oracle, know

987
01:11:43,820 --> 01:11:47,660
thyself.
It's a good, it's good advice,

988
01:11:47,740 --> 01:11:52,100
try to figure out what kind of
person are you, what kind of

989
01:11:52,220 --> 01:11:55,620
creatures are we and so on.
So let's start with them.

990
01:11:56,310 --> 01:11:58,670
You get from philosophy what you
bring to it.

991
01:11:59,630 --> 01:12:04,390
What are the kinds of questions
and concerns that are that you

992
01:12:04,390 --> 01:12:08,790
have tried to think about for
yourself, come to some

993
01:12:08,790 --> 01:12:14,070
conclusions, maybe wrong, maybe
incoherent, Maybe you can find

994
01:12:14,270 --> 01:12:18,790
someone who, as Wittgenstein put
it, can help the fly out of the

995
01:12:18,790 --> 01:12:21,510
fly model.
That's what you should be

996
01:12:21,510 --> 01:12:28,000
looking for if you had to.
Name your and Rushmore

997
01:12:28,000 --> 01:12:29,800
philosophy.
Who would there be?

998
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:32,280
It's a I know it's a tough
question.

999
01:12:32,280 --> 01:12:35,520
It's putting you on the spot,
but I know Hume's definitely up

1000
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:38,280
there.
If you had to add three more

1001
01:12:38,280 --> 01:12:40,360
people to that list, who would
there be?

1002
01:12:42,440 --> 01:12:44,560
Too many people.
In fact, some of them would be

1003
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:47,200
people you never heard of.
That's fine.

1004
01:12:47,200 --> 01:12:49,680
People who never barely even
went to school.

1005
01:12:51,160 --> 01:12:53,120
Literally.
I mean, one of the most

1006
01:12:53,860 --> 01:12:58,580
influential people in my life
personally having to be an uncle

1007
01:12:59,220 --> 01:13:03,700
who never went past 4th grade.
It was one of the best educated

1008
01:13:03,700 --> 01:13:08,700
people I've ever met in my life,
actually was a lay analyst,

1009
01:13:09,740 --> 01:13:15,940
profound insight into people,
political world, science, other

1010
01:13:15,940 --> 01:13:19,140
things literally never went past
4th grade.

1011
01:13:20,140 --> 01:13:23,990
That's what you find there.
What is his name?

1012
01:13:24,310 --> 01:13:25,670
I mean, I'd love to know his
name.

1013
01:13:26,070 --> 01:13:29,590
Name was Milton Krauss, who died
many years ago.

1014
01:13:29,870 --> 01:13:33,230
Krauss is one of the people.
Who made Nova Chomsky the man he

1015
01:13:33,230 --> 01:13:35,990
is today?
It's great to know that two more

1016
01:13:35,990 --> 01:13:39,110
names at least David look
personally, David Hume is one of

1017
01:13:39,110 --> 01:13:44,110
my favorite of all time.
David Hume is and I love my.

1018
01:13:44,110 --> 01:13:52,700
Favorite say he realized in one
of the most tragic submissions

1019
01:13:52,700 --> 01:13:57,740
in the history of philosophy.
At the end of his life, he did

1020
01:13:57,780 --> 01:14:03,940
publish a kind of a afterword to
a new publication of the

1021
01:14:03,940 --> 01:14:07,940
Treatises, in which he said
everything he had tried to do

1022
01:14:07,940 --> 01:14:13,380
all of his life was a failure.
Actually, Galileo said the same

1023
01:14:13,380 --> 01:14:16,980
thing at the near the end of his
life, he said.

1024
01:14:18,140 --> 01:14:22,160
I was hoping to show that the
world is intelligible.

1025
01:14:23,000 --> 01:14:27,720
It's a total failure is that I
cannot find an intelligible

1026
01:14:27,720 --> 01:14:31,680
explanation of the tides which
was true.

1027
01:14:31,840 --> 01:14:33,760
You can't in the mechanical
philosophy.

1028
01:14:34,720 --> 01:14:40,800
And in fact, I think you find
other moments in the history of

1029
01:14:40,800 --> 01:14:46,000
philosophy and science where
people have asked hard, serious

1030
01:14:46,000 --> 01:14:51,240
questions and at the end said it
all failed.

1031
01:15:01,600 --> 01:15:05,400
I mean the podcast is called
Mind Body Solution, obviously

1032
01:15:05,760 --> 01:15:10,160
searching for the answer to the
Mind Body problem and your.

1033
01:14:51,240 --> 01:14:57,520
You know, if they left us with
insights and questions with this

1034
01:14:57,520 --> 01:15:11,840
I've mentioned, yeah, no, this.
Final words on the mind body

1035
01:15:11,840 --> 01:15:14,840
problem and what you think we
should do about it.

1036
01:15:14,840 --> 01:15:18,260
Should we care about it?
How can we go about solving this

1037
01:15:18,260 --> 01:15:20,220
problem?
How should we end this

1038
01:15:20,220 --> 01:15:23,420
conversation?
The first step we should take is

1039
01:15:23,420 --> 01:15:26,780
asking is there a mind body
problem?

1040
01:15:26,780 --> 01:15:31,780
You have to ask that question
before you try to solve it, and

1041
01:15:31,780 --> 01:15:36,500
the answer to that question is
no, there is no mind body

1042
01:15:36,500 --> 01:15:39,940
problem.
There has been none since Isaac

1043
01:15:39,940 --> 01:15:44,340
Newton, as John Locke
recognized, because we do not

1044
01:15:44,340 --> 01:15:49,320
have a concept of body, body,
matter, physical and so on.

1045
01:15:49,640 --> 01:15:54,400
It's just whatever there is.
If you look at modern physics,

1046
01:15:55,120 --> 01:16:00,280
they don't know you can read.
In fact, I just recently did

1047
01:16:00,280 --> 01:16:04,200
read a debate in a quantum
physics journal that a friend

1048
01:16:04,200 --> 01:16:09,600
sent me, which is half a dozen
leading quantum physicists

1049
01:16:10,080 --> 01:16:12,840
debating the question, what is a
particle?

1050
01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:18,920
They don't know number of
different answer speculations

1051
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:22,040
and nobody knows.
We don't know what matters.

1052
01:16:22,520 --> 01:16:26,280
So there's no mind body problem.
So therefore there's no solution

1053
01:16:26,280 --> 01:16:29,080
to it.
The nearest you can come to a

1054
01:16:29,080 --> 01:16:35,640
solution is lock suggestion.
I repeated he put it in his

1055
01:16:35,640 --> 01:16:40,040
theological framework.
But we can drop the theology the

1056
01:16:40,040 --> 01:16:43,090
way he put it.
He said right after, I mean

1057
01:16:43,130 --> 01:16:47,250
about a year or so after
Newton's Principia appeared, he

1058
01:16:47,250 --> 01:16:53,250
said something like this.
Just as the incomparable Mr.

1059
01:16:53,250 --> 01:16:59,890
Newton has shown that God
assigned to matter properties

1060
01:16:59,890 --> 01:17:05,170
that we cannot comprehend, so
God might have super added to

1061
01:17:05,170 --> 01:17:11,120
matter the property of thought
meaning some organized forms of

1062
01:17:11,120 --> 01:17:16,000
matter, whatever matter is,
yield thought Right through the

1063
01:17:16,480 --> 01:17:24,640
18th century that was pursued
seriously by Hume, many others

1064
01:17:24,760 --> 01:17:29,600
lemmetry.
Finally, Joseph Priestly,

1065
01:17:29,680 --> 01:17:35,240
scientist, philosopher, worked
on it extensively, finds its way

1066
01:17:35,240 --> 01:17:40,000
into Darwin's early notebooks,
then pretty much forgotten,

1067
01:17:41,320 --> 01:17:46,920
reinvented in the late 20th
century as it would Francis

1068
01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:51,880
Crick called an astonishing
hypothesis what the Churchlands

1069
01:17:51,880 --> 01:17:55,160
called the radical new idea in
history of philosophy.

1070
01:17:55,640 --> 01:18:00,760
And basically just repeating
Luck's suggestion in the same

1071
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:05,840
words, often repeating priestly.
I mean it's useful to study the

1072
01:18:05,880 --> 01:18:08,990
history of philosophy.
There are a lot of insights

1073
01:18:08,990 --> 01:18:14,190
which have been forgotten.
I mentioned the millennia old

1074
01:18:14,830 --> 01:18:18,910
history of linguistics which was
forgotten in the structuralist

1075
01:18:18,910 --> 01:18:21,910
behaviorist period.
That should be revived.

1076
01:18:23,710 --> 01:18:29,670
But you don't find answers.
You find questions that need

1077
01:18:29,670 --> 01:18:34,750
answers and that inspire us to
look into them, but with a mind

1078
01:18:34,750 --> 01:18:38,040
body problem, there's not going
to be a solution because there's

1079
01:18:38,040 --> 01:18:44,040
no problem in the first place.
No, as we end this off, I

1080
01:18:44,040 --> 01:18:48,120
remember one of the comments in
our last conversation was great

1081
01:18:48,120 --> 01:18:52,520
to see no no longer chatting
about politics and Ukraine.

1082
01:18:53,440 --> 01:18:55,720
Look, I believe it's very
important that you should be and

1083
01:18:55,720 --> 01:19:00,480
I'm glad you are doing that.
But the the comment followed on

1084
01:19:00,480 --> 01:19:04,160
by saying it's so great to see
him talking about philosophy,

1085
01:19:04,160 --> 01:19:08,500
metaphysics etc.
So my last question to you is,

1086
01:19:09,460 --> 01:19:12,820
why should we be doing this?
Why is philosophy important?

1087
01:19:13,300 --> 01:19:16,220
Why should people be asking the
deeper questions about the

1088
01:19:16,220 --> 01:19:18,900
reality of nature, the world or
the mind?

1089
01:19:21,580 --> 01:19:25,380
Go back to the Delphic Oracle
2500 years ago.

1090
01:19:26,540 --> 01:19:30,900
First question we should be
asking is know thyself.

1091
01:19:31,900 --> 01:19:37,610
Move on to Socrates.
Couple of years later, an

1092
01:19:37,610 --> 01:19:40,490
unexamined life is not worth
living.

1093
01:19:42,010 --> 01:19:49,970
Once we get that far, we can say
that every infant wants to

1094
01:19:50,010 --> 01:19:56,970
understand how the world works.
Any parent knows that children

1095
01:19:56,970 --> 01:20:00,330
are annoying because they keep
asking why.

1096
01:20:00,930 --> 01:20:04,450
I want to understand that a lot
of.

1097
01:20:04,920 --> 01:20:09,840
Education, treatment of children
is designed to beat that

1098
01:20:09,840 --> 01:20:16,440
curiosity out of their heads.
So let's recover the infancy and

1099
01:20:16,440 --> 01:20:20,880
try to understand ourselves, try
to understand the world.

1100
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:24,320
There's nothing that we can
think of that's more important,

1101
01:20:24,800 --> 01:20:29,960
including its applications.
So I think the question has easy

1102
01:20:29,960 --> 01:20:32,560
answers.
Thank you so much.

1103
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:37,020
No, I honestly.
Enjoy and relish this time with

1104
01:20:37,020 --> 01:20:39,340
you.
I hope we get to do it again

1105
01:20:39,340 --> 01:20:40,980
sometime.
How are you feeling?

1106
01:20:40,980 --> 01:20:47,420
Any final words from your side?
Nothing more, I really.

1107
01:20:47,420 --> 01:20:49,460
Appreciate your time.
Thanks so much no for joining me

1108
01:20:49,460 --> 01:20:52,300
one more time.
Very good to be with you.

1109
01:20:52,300 --> 01:20:53,300
Enjoy talking to you?