Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - Philosopher on Why Being Nice is Selfish, Is Incest Bad? &, Testing our Ethics! | Alex O'Connor

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

YERRR – Alex O’Connor joins the boys to break down the wildest moral questions you’ve never wanted to answer. From siblings and animal relationships to split brains and trolley problems, it’s philosophy at its most unhinged. Deep thoughts, dark hypotheticals, and big laughs. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE. 0:00 Who has the most empathy? 4:08 Incest is ok! Empathy is self-serving 9:14 What are ethics? Finding out about ladyboys 16:29 Caring about holes + God needs priests 22:45 Why is bestiality wrong? Rationalising everything 36:15 Trolley problems + Utilitarianism's limits 46:18 Fat man variance 52:39 Plato, history of philosophy + Turbo losers 55:58 Deeper issues & motivations + Too many voting 1:00:35 Changing political systems + Rule utilitarianism 1:05:46 Brexit & feeling of losing cultural identity 1:10:10 Facts to serve feelings + Split brains 1:16:24 Philosophy of mind + What makes you, you? 1:27:19 What makes you happy? Turning it off 1:39:54 Does Alex have a therapist? Deep self-introspection 1:50:41 Dabbling with substances, Realisations & Demons Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You got to help Alex figure out his moral position through a series of questions to figure out if he's a piece of shit. I think I'm the most empathetic out of the form. There's no way. Out of the four of us, I'm the most empathetic. This guy's a fucking crazy person. He's the most sensitive. I have a switch.

For people he knows, he's never met before. I have a switch. Yeah, but like, if they're, if they're, that's not real. That's not real empathy. No, I love every. I love everybody. I love everybody. You start good.

You start good and then you got to fuck it up. Everybody starts bad for you and then they have to like... You're a Harry Krishna. That's the time. You know what I mean? I don't know that. You're trying too hard. I don't know.

You're playing Hindu. You're saying you're Hindu. No, Harry Krishna's are not Hindu. What are they? Fucking frauds. They worship Krishna. Yeah, frauds, dude. I tried to read in one of that guy, like the leader's books.

And this is why I immediately tapped out. The guy interviewing him goes, you preach not having like a material leading a materialistic life, but you will accept like gold gifts from people and whatever. And that guy goes, well, if you're giving me. me the gift, it's like giving it to God. And I was like, all right, fuck this guy. Fuck this guy all the way. I like him now.

It's a mean thing not to accept the gift. They went to out their way to... Why do you think you have the most empathy? I just hear the way you guys talk sometimes and you guys are. What are you performing for? It's not really? I'm really not. I honestly feel that way.

You think that we lack empathy for whom, though? No, I don't think you lack empathy. I think I have the most empathy. You're the most sensitive. Yes. Okay, let me... Okay, ready? No, we're not starting to pot.

We're just going to do a test. Can you just speak in an Indian accent? And let's just see how much empathy you have for. No, but that's love. He knows I'm not laughing at him. No, no, you are. He used to make the jokes, and it would hurt my feelings more the way you laughed because I was like, oh, he really feels that way.

You think they sound funny. Do you think they sound funny? Do you think they sound funny? Yes, we all think they sound funny. funny. So. Yeah, that was good. So they think Chinese people sound funny?

I guarantee you, any three-syllable word in Indians says better than you, say perspiration. I'm not saying they don't. That's a thing. I just think. That would be the word you would ask you would say. Listen, we're going to get to the bottom of it today. I just like accents. By the end of this, this podcast, I promise you.

Um, Alice, you didn't know this is why he were going to be brought here, right? You thought we were going to talk about the Gnostic Gospels. Yeah, man, I got to speak to my manager, man. But reality is, is we're going to talk about Alex Media and his lack of empathy. And there is nothing, there's nothing more annoying than someone who has no empathy that thinks they have the most. Honestly, think I have the most empathy. Like, maybe Mark comes close. Can you, can you help us?

Can you figure the evidence? No, like, the least is between you. What are you talking about? Mark just started having feelings when you're a kid. He's told us about this. I know about feelings. He could do no wrong. He doesn't want to, like, hurt any product.

It doesn't make you a good person. He just made, he's afraid to go into hell. Everything he doesn't make you a good. I don't care what's the reason. There's no selfless deed. I don't care what's the reasoning, but he doesn't do anything wrong. You make enemies when no one has done shit to you. But it could be justice.

It could be justice. That's crazy. I know. I never do that. I see people. And I see you, you lack empathy. I see you, Doug. We agree to disagree.

I see you. Guys, today, our guess, is it. is an Oxford-educated philosopher whose debates have amassed hundreds of millions of views. He argues that incest is fine. Okay. Alex, this is on your Wikipedia. I just want to put it. You can kill people if you have a brain tumor.

And the democracy is immoral. We have Alex O'Connor on the podcast. We're very excited about this. This is struggling through that. I mean, the first one hit me hard. This is a real, this is on your Wikipedia. I just snack this from your Wikipedia. No big deal, yeah.

The pleasure is yours. I think something might have got lost in translation there. But perhaps we can go through them. Yes, I didn't say you believe it. You seem to bring it up. You started with what, incest? It's because I've been watching White Lotus, man. You're asking for a mate.

Yeah. I do have a brother. I do have a brother. Alex, it's just like, I have a brother, but I could do better. I have a brother, but I can do better. Yeah. You're not hot. No, this is obviously some of the debates that you've had where you are, you're arguing intellectually if these things have like, what, negative repercussions in society?

What is the idea? Why even entertain this? You're not a comedian like us. This is all we argue all the time. That's right. That's the funny thing and not funny in your sense is that I'm not actually making an opinion here. What I'm basically doing is, like, throwing out views and ideas, and if you think there's something up with it,

then that's going to help you work out, like, what you think about the world. Like, it doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong. The thing that matters is if you think, like, incest is wrong, I'm going to ask why you think that. Yeah. And try to get to the bottom of what's actually motivating your ethics. And most of the time, people are more confused about this. Define wrong, because one could argue that it would probably fit the most perfect.

That's right. I use that argument. I haven't actually. I saw a great. I saw a great comment that you look like the kid from adolescence grown up. And now that you're here, I can't not see it. Why'd you say it? It worked out for him.

A little bullying turned him into a real proper intellectual. You know what I mean? Like, this is amazing. You're the best case scenario. He really is. That is what bullying at school does. It turns you into someone like me. But you were never bullied.

You're a tall, handsome kid. You're smart. Did you go through any bullying? Well, I am now. Yeah, most of it was from the teachers, though, unfortunately, because I was. Were you a pain in the ass? Yeah, but then people, people, like, really, like, celebrate this. You know, when people, like, try to really self-indulgently say, like, you know,

I was the kid who was always debating the, debating the teachers and giving it back. And it's, like, that doesn't make you clever. That just makes you a pedant. It just makes you, like, this, this annoying ADHD kid that's, like, holding up the rest of the class. In America, we have a way of getting them out of here. Medicine. School shootings. Bullets.

Yeah, we can talk about the ethics of that, too. Have you ever thought about defending that in some way? I haven't thought about the ethics of defending school shooters. However, I have thought about the concept of children as child soldiers. See, I do a series called Philosophical Hot Takes, where I get people to submit their philosophical hot takes. And I rank them on a scale that goes from like mild, spicy. And I was at an Indian restaurant once,

and one of the options was Indian spicy. So that's the top option. And the opposite of spicy. I'll behave. How do that. It's a monster. You're legitimately autistic. What are you talking about?

You're the most empathetic. Empathy is essentially self-serving, though. This is the thing. Like, if you're the most empathetic, it means that you're the most selfish. What is empathy? Let's go. We knew it. We've been saying this for a decade.

He is the most selfish. So you are saying I'm the most empathetic. Let's see. That's why I didn't say that. Why is empathy make you the most selfish? What is empathy? What do you think empathy is? Caring about other people.

Yeah, we just call it gay. It's okay. It's that, and that definitely is self-serving to some degree. Caring about other people, like caring. It's essentially taking suffering in other people's suffering. It's like if I have empathy for you, it means that when you suffer, I kind of suffer for it, right? I don't want you to suffer. I don't believe I suffer for it.

About me. I understand what you're going through, and that must be hard. I can understand what you're going through and think that that's great, like, awesome. I'm really happy that you're going to do that. Sociopathy. So the only thing that makes you empathetic is when you understand what someone else is going through, and you feel bad for it. You get upset about it.

Look at, like, when we get heroes, like, imagine somebody like the firefighter who runs into the burning building. I was just trying to fix his posture, looked into the distance and he's like, I don't even know where I am right now. I'm starting a selfish thing. I'm like, it's kind of selfish

because it makes me feel good. No, but what he's saying is that you're taking on their struggle so you actually feel bad for the, them. Yeah. It's about your feelings. If the firefighter runs into the burning building and they come out and someone says, oh, you're such a hero.

And the guy says, I just, I just, I couldn't not. I had to, you know? Like when I saw someone in there, I just had to do it. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. It's like, what are you saying, man? You did it for yourself? You did it for your own, so that you can sleep at night? Empathy is essentially self-serving.

This is the thing. But is that necessarily bad? No, no. It's a good reward matrix for humanity, right? There is no good and bad. I think that morality is all the... What I mean good and bad is, like, is it beneficial for society that I get rewarded for doing a, quote-unquote, benevolent act? Oh, yeah, but that's why we think it's good, because it's beneficial for society.

So it's almost like... The idea of morality and good and bad, in my view, is all just a smokescreen. It's a fagasy, as they say. I, like, seriously, is it just a, like, people talk about ethics as if it's objective, right? So, for example... Can you define ethics? No. Usually, yes, but just not for everybody watching.

What exactly is ethics? Ethics is broadly the idea of like right and wrong, like good and bad. And depending on who you ask, it might be like human flourishing. So like what gives you the good life? You know, what is that all about? So for a Christian, it might be living in accordance with God's will or for an atheist, it might be what's beneficial to society, right? If you're a moral objectivist and you believe that ethics is like a real thing,

it means you think that there are actually just good and bad things in the world. It's right and there's wrong. Yeah. I don't believe that. Most people's intuition say that there is such a thing. In my view, it's essentially an evolutionary body. product. For example, is it just a coincidence that generally speaking, we think that you have a duty to care for your children, right? You also have a duty to care for your cousin? Yeah.

But you probably have less of a duty to care for your cousin than your child. Like if your child is starving and your cousin is starving, you're going to help the child over a cousin, right? And we think that that is like the right thing to do in that circumstance. Is it just a coincidence that you happen to share proportionally exactly the same amount of genes with the child versus the cousin? You share more genes with your child than with your cousin. You share more genes with your cousin than with a distant cousin or a stranger, or then again, even someone in a different country. So taking care of your child. And it just

so happens that how much genetic sharing, how much genetic similarity we have with these people just happens to line up with how much we think we have a moral duty to care about them. Isn't that a strange coincidence? Yeah. If I saw a starving kid and my cousin, who's 23, couldn't eat, I'd tell my cousin to get

a job and I'd give the kid food. I don't need to be related to them. Am I crazy? You might be right, man I forgot I might be right about I was told you Our guy's got a lack of empathy That was crazy

I forgot I forgot about in America No no no I understand what you're saying About ethics to an American Is that if you sort of If you give some kind of thought experiment About drowning child

Or someone who's like In poverty or something He's like well just get a job man Yeah yeah Get a job Bring yourself up by the bootstrax Invest in the S&P And just like you wait like 20 years

And you'll be able to buy yourself some lunch Yes It doesn't I think the problem with That's the idea The problem with thought experiments Is that people often pick up on like totally the wrong thing. My least favorite thing that people do ever. I don't want to move on

from the thing you just just brought up. I think it was really interesting. Yeah, we'll keep going on that. No, specifically like, okay, let's say humans are bound. He's like back to incest. I just really need to know, please help me out here, man. What the motivation for a behavior is doesn't really matter as long as it pushes society forward. Now, what is pushing society forward? I mean, just like propagating the world with more of our DNA. Is that the idea? Well, unless you think that having children is immoral. This is the thing. I don't think it's immoral. But is it a bad thing? You can just say like, oh, well, you know, what's good is like what benefits society? And it's like, well, you have to tell me what benefiting society. And we have to define society. Exactly. There are

people in this world who think that the best thing we could do for the planet would just be to destroy all human beings, right? And so for them, better for society means whatever is the most self-deleterious behavior that you can possibly commit. How much of when you're doing these debates, is it like defining vocabulary? All the time. Most conversations that people have is just a matter That's marriage. Definition. It really is. Like, so it's like, when you think you're arguing, but you're actually not.

Yeah. Like, put it this way, right? If I said a sentence and I, and I sincerely meant it, if you understood every single word that I was saying in the same way as I did, like you defined it with the same way with the same connotations, I think by definition, you would just agree with me. Yeah. I think there can be no disagreement if you're just saying the same thing, right? Yeah.

So most of the time, it's a, it's a linguistic dispute. Yeah. Yeah. an emotional reaction to certain words, a perception of what those words may be. And so a lot of the time, what we're actually doing is defining terms. So when we're like, oh, is this thing right or wrong? Do you do that before? Like, let's say you're going to have a big public debate.

Where you go be like, hey, let's just decide what these different things mean so we don't get bogged down. You have to some degree, but most of the time the debate will sort of focus on what a word means. So if we're debating whether something's good or bad. That's annoying. It is. But you're trying to work out what good actually means. Because you say that you say that intestines is gray. I say that incest is terrible.

Why are you putting that part of me? Because it could have been anything, right? It's a hypothetical. It's a weird way to your position. What does that have to do? What are the ethics in that? Now you know how it feels. I'm going to put it on your Wikipedia page, right? Any way you can edit Wikipedia.

We have to start the episode off with a banger. I had to introduce everybody out. My whole task now is to like, I want to box you into an ethical corner where you have to admit that according to your worldview incest is okay, just so I can then go and put it on your Wikipedia. Well, let's define what okay means. So you know how it feels. Can we define okay? It depends what you mean by okay. I mean, yes, does anybody get harmed?

I think, I've actually heard the, the incest argument. before and I think that like uh you think that incest is wrong yeah I think I have like a knee-jerk reaction to say it's wrong 100 but if the idea of wrong is like does it hurt anybody as long as you're not making a retarded kid I guess it doesn't hurt anybody and if both parties are consenting then it's fine well this is part of the problem is this is like is gay incest wrong yeah so people often say like well you know same sex incest and I'm like why why do you specify same sex incest incest no like because well otherwise there's the risk of having a child and the child would be disabled and I'm like what's wrong with having a disabled child

well we know we know suddenly is that just like is that just like in world you have to make them a to take talk that's a lot of work that's a lot of work yeah yeah yeah yeah did you guys watch what I post I'm sorry did you watch what I posted on

Instagram the other day about the guy it's got to be a TV show or something but the specials is that from the specials yeah where they go to the Thailand and he doesn't believe in lady boys his retarded or his special needs or whatever a brother doesn't believe

in lady boys he goes listen they have willies and he goes no they don't they goes i'm not going to do the accent but you can imagine it he goes yeah he'd hate to offend anyone exactly he goes no they don't he goes they have willies and then they take him to a lady boy show and he's got like a beer in his hand and he is having the time of his life and at the end of the show this theatrical experience part of it is the lady boy exposes her true self takes off all her makeup takes off the wig and then he stands out there on stage, ta-da, and the audience is going crazy. They're like, what a performance. And they just pants to this kid and he's just sitting there

going, he's absolutely well, we've all been there, haven't. Guys, tour dates. This weekend, I'm going to be in Cincinnati, Ohio Liberty Township, specifically. I'm going to be there Thursday through Friday at the Funny Bone. Then, September 11th through the 13th, I'm going to be in

Donia Beach, Florida. That is far from any who wants to blow up Florida? What kind of person would do such a thing? So it's a safe show to come through, be there. September 25th and 27th, I'm rounding out my Ohio tour in Cleveland. October 5th, Dubai, hurry up and buy those tickets. They're selling out. We might have to move to a bigger venue or figure something out, but right now we're about to sell out. And then all those dates and more Akash Singh.com. We got big things getting announced soon, guys. Big things. Also, Mark has tour dates. You can suck his dick in Montreal, Toronto, or Detroit. Those dates, respectively are August 22nd, August 23rd, and December 6th.

Why is there such a big gap? I don't know. Tour bookers, get your shit together. Comedy clubs, get your shit together. This guy got three open months. What is that? September, October, November, book the man. Mark Gagnon Live.com.

Can we do some thought experiments and ethical dilemmes to test everyone's internal moral code? Yeah, I love this. Yeah, of course we can. I mean, firstly, like, when we do a thought experiment, it's worth pointing out that people often get, like, really, like, picky with it. Like, if I say, you've heard of the trolley problem, right? Yes.

Like, someone's tied to a track or whatever. And people will always say, like, well, why can't I just untie them? Or try and, like, come up with shit outside. This is not that show. My least favorite thing that people do is when, like, you know, if you're watching Star Wars and there's like a plot hole and you say, well, that doesn't make sense. So, you know, why does he kiss his own sister or something? Well. This is two for two for two right now.

We're two for two. I'm getting a bit of a reputation. Do you have siblings? I do. I have a brother. Ah? We, um, yeah, we tend not to talk to public. about that.

Can we just FaceTime him and see what he's wearing? He's probably handsome. He must be handsome. I mean, if he's my brother. Actually, I had a friend once who is a homosexual, and he, on two separate occasions, he's like, I need to point out, he only happened one time.

He told me on two separate occasions, on one occasion, he says, you know, actually really look like, brother and on a separate occasion without thinking about it said you know Alex your brother's quite hot you know like I think I knew it I was thinking that's where this comes from you know so what do you think it is that he's not into you personality or I don't know I'm starting to the lines and think that maybe maybe he was sort of oh you your brother in this guy no no no no not that I just think you know if you sort of

independently say that you look like your brother and then in another occasion say like you know I kind of fancy your brother you're thinking oh here's the thing you think that a gay men care about looks they just care about holes so as long as there was one available. They're men. We haven't all been there, but I'm... Wait, you what? I guess you know from experience.

What, what, homosexual acts? Yeah, no, I... Now, if you want to talk about immorality, that's where it really gets off the ground. You know, incest is fine, but homosexuality is... Now, why is that such a big deal? But this is the thing, right? Seriously.

You were going to give a thought experiment, and then we derailed. Seriously, though. About... Yeah, when you say... When you say, like, oh, like, okay, incest, yeah, like, I can't think of a reason it's wrong. I've just got this, like, knee-jerk in most. emotional reaction.

Yeah. A lot of people feel that way about homosexuals, man. I don't. And so you've just, you open the door to condemning basically anything that you think is a little bit of really. I think that that, yeah,

that makes sense. Which is a problem, right? No, no, it's not a problem. I actually, I think that like there's probably something biologically wired in to

feel that way. Because when I see like two dudes making out and somebody said it, maybe was a bill bird with like one of them's got a beard, you're just like, well, yeah, like obviously you're going to be wired to like find it kind of gross. I also feel that way about like ugly people doing it. So maybe it's the thing. Yeah.

But is it immoral? Is it wrong? I don't think they should appropriate. If the answer is no, then... But I never said there's anything about morality. I just said I had this knee-jerk reaction. You put morality into it. Yeah, you don't think homosexual people should procreate.

I don't think you're going to have much problem... I think they can't. Much of a problem getting that... No, I think that they should appropriate. I mean, how do we get more of them? They're sneaking some cum and somebody. That's actually a really interesting evolutionary question. Where do they come from?

Clearly, God wanted them here if he keeps making them, but they can't make more of them. That might be true. They're like gremlins. They're made to become priests. Say again. God needs priests. God needs priests. But seriously, no, no, no, no.

We were so close. We were so close. He's spitt. Some say swallowing. Especially in Catholicism where you're not allowed to get married. What do you do if you are a devout Catholic who realizes you're a homosexual? And so has to commit to celibacy as a point of morality. What is your only opposite?

Well, you have to pick something which turns that celibacy into a virtue, and that is the priesthood. Hence, ending up with loads of gay priests. Wow. Do you think that's the reason? Mark's mom has a differing, more conspiratorial reason. Are you heard, you know, the two Catholic priests get pulled over by the police? The police walk up to the car and say, I'm so sorry to disturb you gentlemen, we're out here looking for two child molesters. And the priests go, we'll do it.

Do they do it in England too? Do the priests get after the kids in England as well? It has been known to happen, but a lot of my Catholic friends informed me that sort of pederastry is just as much of a problem in other Christian denominations too. And so recently our Church of England, the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was involved in a scandal, not him doing anything himself, but not responding properly to a scandal involving sexual abuse. And my Catholic friend texted me was like, finally. Thank you. Somebody else for once. It happens everywhere. The Catholic priests have more of a reputation for it, I think, because of the institutional

nature of it, but also because these priests are forced to be celibate. They're not allowed to marry. It's like, okay, yeah, let's just get a bunch of, like, horny, sexless, like, essentially involuntarily celibate, except for the sense of that voluntarily priests, put them all into a room together and put loads of children under their care and see what happens. What a great idea that is, you know? All right. Well, I think you made a huge.

No, no, no. Just because you're dead doesn't mean you're pedified. Yeah, exactly. Just because they're gay. It doesn't mean you want to fuck kids. That's a weird jump. You made a big jump there. No, because they're gay.

They're not having any sex. Yeah, but not having sex doesn't make you want to fuck kids. Perhaps not. We got them. But it does mean... Now, I will be honest. If I want to be honest, if I'm going to be honest with you. Yes.

I once didn't have sex for 16 years. And then I had sex with a 16-year-old. Whoa. So you might be honest. You might be honest. That's a great point. You might be on to something. Wow.

Yeah. And when was that? From zero to 16. We've got to clear that up. But yeah, there is a little bit of a lead there. This idea if you don't have sex for a long period of time and then all of a sudden you're, you know, attracted to children, you would hope that that's not the reality of the world. Yeah, but the thing is I think that a lot of, a lot of strange sexual behavior. behavior is...

Do it or repression? Opportunistic, let's say. Ah. So this is the thing. There's an important distinction to be made here between... There's a great essay that was written by an old tutor of mine called Amir Srinivassan called What Does Fluffy Think? And it's about bestiality.

And she carefully distinguishes between zoophilia and beastiality. Because zoophilia is sexual attraction to animals. Beziology is just having sex with an animal. And they're different things. You can, like, be specifically sexually attracted to something and have sex with it for that reason. Or you could be, like, sexually attracted to anything. everything but you just have sex with this because it's like the opportunity have you seen the guys fucking the uh the donkeys before um i've not seen that actually that's i don't

you didn't see that like a casual thing there was this vice document back the day before vice became what vices now they would they were into like edgy almost like kind of like a british punk culture i think a lot of it was derived from you're familiar vice yeah and um he went to like columbia and he was just like you know videotape and dudes who would like get behind donkeys and fuck the shit out of them yeah why is bcality immoral that's a great question Because the beast can't consent. Riddle me this. If it's okay to eat animals, why is it not okay to affect?

I say that too. I say that too. He's like, yeah, we're doing something crazier. Your honor? Yeah, I mean, what I'm going to eat it? I can't just tenderize it. Seriously, I was a vegan for a number of years, and I think factory farming is like the greatest moral emergency that we're currently facing. It's absolutely unbelievable what we're doing to animals.

But the interesting thing is, people, have such a hard line against bestiality, it's like, okay, I can take a pig, I can raise it in a cage, and if it's too sick to be profitable, I can take it by the hind legs and cave in its skull against the bars of the cage that its mother is being held in. I can force that pig into a gas chamber choking to death on carbon dioxide, but the moment I take my dick out, suddenly, it's fucked up. It's like this horrible problem. So what is that? Well, I think it goes to show that people aren't thinking about ethics in the way that they think they are, because they'll say like, oh, well, because it harms animal or the animal can't consent.

And it's like, well, okay, but you're okay with eating animals. Okay, real quick. And suddenly the ethical position shifts. Yes, yes, yes, yes. If we're discussing it in like a thought experiment. Yeah. It's like hypothetically if we were having sex with animals. Yeah, no, no, no, no.

I guess what I mean? Like, there's this like impulse, this like knee-jerk reaction thing I was talking about earlier. Yeah, sure. And, okay, I guess the base level is how much do we think that is like learn or taught? And is there any of it that just exists within us in our biology. Yeah, I mean, there's got to be like an internal. biological sense. And is it not dissimilar from like the reaction to like being close to

fire? We're like, oh, that burns? Do we have that reaction to having sex with an animal? And is that baked into us so we don't waste our come on animals? Is that how you feel when you're near a homosexual? You said it. Not me. It starts to get hot and sweaty. And they're just like, they're so handsome. And we have so much in common. We could just talk about things. starting to get a bit hot under the collar when you... The sex is only 15 minutes a day. What are we going to do with the rest of the day? I think that there is definitely an evolutionary instinct,

but the thing is what ethics probably is, broadly speaking, you ask for a definition. And I think a good definition of ethics is the continual process of trying to overcome our base animalistic material drives to act in accordance with what we sort of rationally think is the right thing to do. And why would something rational be better than what our base instinct is.

Because our base instincts evolved in a totally different kind of organizational structure. We evolved like running around in tribes on the Savannah, right? So, for example, tribe... You didn't have to look at Al for that.

Nah, he was fucked out. That was fucking horrible. He saw Mark's forehead. He's like, you know, some of us are more evolved than others. He's still out of his knuckles. Okay, you were saying.

You noticed that I've been looking at you every time I've said I'm sexual too. It's the mustache. The thing about evolving in that situation is that, like, you're going to be suspicious of anybody from a different tribe, right? And that makes sense. It makes sense to be suspicious of anyone who doesn't look like you because there's, like, no reason to trust them. You're not doing, like, trade with them. That doesn't exist.

Sure, sure, sure. You're just fighting each other. And so you just evolve this knee-jerk reaction to be distrusting of people who don't look like you. Then, like, you know, agricultural revolution, boom, all of that kind of stuff. And now we live in a society and everybody is, like, mingling altogether. And we think racism is just awful and terrible and really, really bad. So how do we overcome some of these knee-jerk instinct? Because of the change of our circumstances, we've developed this thing which, like, every single, all of the proud moments of, like, human history are characterized by, like, overcoming animalistic baselessness.

You know what I mean? Like, that's always the case. So you call it animalistic baselessness or animal instinct or whatever that is. But let's just use that as, like, you know, bare minimum. Now, some of those still apply and are probably good. The ones that don't fit in modern society are the ones. I'm attracted to a beautiful woman. We get along.

The feeling is great. I want to mate with her and create a family. I want to protect my kids because I have more DNA in those kids and I do my cousin. Do you also have rational reasons to think those things? Yeah, sure. So there are still, like, it's not like sometimes you are just listening to your base instincts. You still are like rationalizing. It's just that sometimes that rationalizing, it looks.

links up with what your base desires are and, like, thank goodness, this will be an easy one, but sometimes it doesn't. And we're constantly just trying to act into what we rationalize. Yeah, I'm not against the rationalization of it, but like sometimes we are putting that rationalization on posthumously, is that the term, after the fact, right? And then like, but it doesn't mean that that that knee-jerk instinct is still useful in society. Yeah, there's certain things that's that they work. If you've, yeah, like, it will still be useful. When you've rationalized something and think that this is actually the right thing to do and you happen to still have knee-jerk reaction to do it, that's really helpful.

That's helpful. Got it. But the problem is that we've got knee-jerk reactions to all kinds of things. It wasn't that long ago that the homosexuality was criminal. Yeah. And you could be thrown in jail for doing so. And then what do you get to do? It's kind of like a gift.

I know. What a punishment with these guys that work out all day. And they're locked in a room with me. What if it was benevolent? What if that punishment was like, hey, let's just get them together. Now, you're kind of talking. You're talking that shit, right? Putting them in the jail is much better than, like, lighting them on a fire or throwing them off a building or these other things.

That's probably true, because some people do that, do that as well. But even the very way that we punish people has evolved, you know. It used to be, like, if you commit suicide a few hundred years ago, there are places where you would have your body dragged through the street. Your inheritance would not go to your family. You could not be buried in a grave because it was thought immoral because we have a knee-jerk reaction to stay alive. Of course we do. I don't know if that's the reason why they would punish it. It makes perfect evolutionary sense for us to think that whatever is going to cause our own death will be a bad thing.

But why do you think that they put that punishment on top of it? To discourage people from committing suicide. But why? What is like the downstream effect of that? Well, because like self-preservation is like an evolutionary important thing, right? I think maybe the numbers of the tribe. You need to protect the tribe. Or like your family is now the burden of the tribe and now they disproportionately have to take care of that. All of that kind of stuff. Yeah, there are rational reasons that they put even back in the day.

Yeah. But, of course, like, it's not like we've just worked out in the past, like, 50 years, all of these rational reasons that they've always been there. It's just that they've sort of come up against this moral feeling that people have had. So is that why, is that like the justification at the university level for looking into ethics? You're like, we've done so much rationalization of our behavior throughout history. We should continue to do it. And then we will continue to, we're not going to evolve at the same rate as society. But we can. create behaviors that would be more harmonious with society. No, the reason for doing it at an academic level... No, immediately not. Because there's, like, no way to make money with a philosophy degree except for teaching people philosophy. Fair.

That's it. They just invent stuff like this. So you think it's self-indulgent in a lot of ways? It was probably a philosopher who first tied the man to the tracks. Essentially keep him in a job, I think. Yeah, like, I think a lot of it is just, as I like to call it, Well, people are just sort of arguing for the sake of arguing. Philosophical masturbating, you might want to, I might want to call it.

Yeah. And it is essentially just this self-indulgent, like, thinking. And a lot of the time it's kind of useless. Like, there's this whole video, I think, of someone like on a plane and they're like, I don't know if they're choking or they're having some medical issue. And they're like, is there a doctor on board? And a guy gets up and he's like, yeah, I'm a doctor of philosophy. Yeah, and he sort of walks over and they're like, what should we do? And he's like, well, according to utilitarianism, we should use the resources for this.

Got it. The ontology says that we can't take the property without. And the guy just dies. Yeah. Because, like, on a real level, like, this doesn't make a difference to a lot of people in terms of the way they actually live their lives. In the immediate moment. Yeah, it's just a point.

For a lot of people, it's just a point of, like, you're already living how you're living. You already think what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. You're not going to change that. We're just trying to work out, like, as a point of interest. What's the, like, foundation for that? But philosophy goes in two ways. It either digs downwards, which is what we do when we try to figure out what good means and we do these experiments.

And it's like, well, let's dig downwards and see what's like in there. what's at the basis. Yeah. There is the philosophy that works upwards, too. It's like, well, what should we do? That's the constructive stuff. That's like, well, here's what I think is good and here's how it should change your life. But it's not always constructive.

Because as you said, sometimes it's self-indulgent. That's when I get frustrated is when it gets, and I understand the reason for it. But when it gets, how do you define this? How do you define that? It's like, I think we all have a fairly standard definition of empathy or whatever the word is. Then it feels less productive to me. Yeah. And you just sort of sat around, like, arguing about trolleys on tracks for like no reason.

But it is useful to work out, to do the other thing, to go the other way and work out what you think, to then build up. C.S. Lewis said that the purpose of philosophy is not to cut down forests, but to irrigate deserts. It was supposed to be actually building something up. That's why I like doing the trolley problem memes, because they help people work out what they actually think. And then you've got some more clarity on that. So then go and take that and build a philosophy out of it, you know? You've got to actually use it to then go and do something. So let's do one. What's an example?

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Let's get back to the show. Okay, so the classic trolley problem is that a trolley is running down a track and there are five people either tied to the track or they're workers and they don't know the trolle. Well, Reese. Jewish. run them over

no no go five people are tied to the track you've got one on the other side one on another track because the track splits I presume very clever got thank you and they've got a lever

that you can is kind of next to you and you can pull the lever and if you pull the lever five people are saved and the trolley runs over one person and the question is simply would you pull the lever I don't know would you pull the lever

I don't think you pull it no I don't think so Because now you're responsible for death. Yeah, because then you are letting five people die rather than making one person die. And I think letting versus actively doing changes it. Can we ask question? I pull the lever. Okay, go.

Go. What about you, Al? I don't blow the lever. Same reason. Can we, are we allowed to ask questions about the people or does that destroy the whole? You can. Like age, for example, might be important. In this circumstance, you don't know, right?

Or you assume that they're all like 25. Got it. What you can then do once you work out whether you pull the lever or not is then start changing these variables. Okay. Give me the toughest variable. That really helped. Yeah.

Would you pull the lever? No. What is it? It's going to hit five. Going to hit five and if you pull it. If you don't pull the lever, it hits five. If you pull the lever, it hits one, but you pull the lever. Will they all follow me on Instagram?

Yeah, I don't think that I could be responsible for it. Okay. So then here's the thing, right? So one way you could adapt this is say, because at least the three of you think that you wouldn't pull the lever. What if it was 100 people on that on that track? What if it was a thousand? thousand people on that track.

Yeah, eventually you get to the number. What if it's like a city? Or what if it was like your own mother? You know, like, surely there is, there is some circumstance in which you would kind of be okay with some of the lever. I feel this way about abortion. Right. Like, you know, one or two or four is fine, but like a thousandth.

Yeah, what would... But you've got to pull a lever on that girl, right? Like if one person had a thousand abortions. Yeah, like, eventually there's a lever where you're like, all right, sew it up or something. Yeah, yeah, but, okay. I joke, I'm being hyper. But at the same time, you're like, wait, what is going on here? You can work this out.

Like, you can figure out what you think about abortion. So take, take a, like, a one-year-old child and take, like, a thousand fertilized zygotes and put them on the other side of the track and ask what someone would do, which would they run over. And I think it's, yeah, well, like, some people actually would say that. And that's fine. Yeah, it helps you to work out what you actually believe, what you actually believe. Because a lot of people will look at that and be like, if I'm being honest with myself, what I would probably do is I would probably run over those zygotes. You can't even see them. and they're like dusts on the floor, right?

And that's probably what I would do. So you adapted in such a way as to, and you can apply it to specific examples. And that doesn't mean that you don't think it's wrong. Those people might think it's really wrong. But in this long ago. So here, what we've just pulled out is the difference between doing and allowing,

which is like a really important ethical distinction. Is there a difference in doing and allowing? And it doesn't mean that allowing people to die is always right. It just means that it's less bad than proactively killing people, right? So then, okay, so take an example where one of my favorites is the trolley's going down a track and there's one person tied up and there's another track where there's also just one person tied up but you think you'll really get a kick out of killing someone

you think it's going to be like great fun is it wrong to pull the lever yes yeah why because wanting to kill people for fun is bad why I assume this is an impulse set once you once you break that seal it's quite possible you break it again

suppose we just suppose we just know that this person like is a perfectly well-integrated member of society who recognizes that this kind of like kick they get out of the thought of killing someone is totally immoral and they'd never act in accordance with it. But look, I've got this opportunity. So this is to me doing is worse than allowing. To enact upon it.

What's interesting with the first one, this is Dexter. And be like guilt-free. Are you familiar with the show? I haven't seen it. He's a serial killer that like finds a way to kill just bad people. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

So this is the trolley problem. It's not even that they're bad people. It's not like, oh, they deserve this. It's literally like. Somebody's got to die. Somebody's got to die here. I get to scratch my itch. Exactly.

And here's an interesting consideration is that, have you ever heard of utilitarianism? Yeah. The greatest good for the greatest number of people, right? And that's usually cashed out in terms of maximizing pleasure or minimizing suffering. Right? This is what morality is about. That's what it is for the utilitarian. And pleasure is defined very broadly there.

It doesn't just mean. Yeah, okay. It's not a brothel. Yeah, exactly. It's like anything which is well-being. That's how food, shelter. And so here's the thing, right? If you're a utilitarian, then suppose it's not you, suppose it's someone else who's going to pull that lever and

You know for a fact that they will get some pleasure out of pulling that lever and killing that person. It might not just be that it's permissible for them to pull the lever. If you're a utilitarian, it might be a duty. They might have to because that will maximize pleasure. Same number of people die except one extra person is now going to get me. You've actually got an obligation to kill. So if we have these people, let's say we have these zero killers, right? Yeah.

And we are utilitarian in our philosophy. I think you know where I'm going at those. Like, do we make them be the people that flip the switch for the electric? chair. There you go, man. We can give them jobs. Exactly. And is that what abortion doctors are? No, no, no. Now we're getting too crazy. But I do right back. I do. No, no. I'm teasing, obviously. But like, I do think these ethical dilemmas present themselves in, and it's a, like, even vaccinating your kid, right? And again, I'm not going to talk about, like, whether vaccines work or don't work or plus or negative for society. But like, the fear is apparent when

you have a brand new baby you love more than anything. It's so amazing. And like, you watch one video where you're like, this could cause harm to your kid. It makes sense to be terrified, yeah. Because now you have the lever, right? You go, do I want to be the person who takes responsibility for causing the harm? Or do I not pull it? And then, God forbid, they get measles or mumps or whatever that shit is. And now, it's not my fault. So, but this is the thing. Is that parents trying to not be the responsible. Exactly. And a lot of people look at that. A lot of people look at that. A lot of people look at that and they say, but that's bad parenting. And if that's bad parenting, then maybe there's something more going on. It's not just as simple as like, well, doing is bad, but allowing is kind of fine. It's like,

no, there's something more complicated going on. So how would you handle that? Like, what are the, what are the, what are the, what are the, what are the, what are the, what are all the different ways to think about that scenario? I think something important there's, like, the probability because there's no certainty involved. The trolley problem, you have certainty. Right, right. So, say, for example, um, there is a, there is a, there is a track that's got one person on it, and there's another track that's got a big sort of box that you can't see, and it's got a 99% chance of having nobody in it, but a 1% chance of having 100 people in it. So same expected value, right?

Exactly the same expected value. Because you've got a 1% chance of 100, expected value is 1. Yep. You've got a 100% chance of 1, expected value is 1. Yeah. So would you take that chance?

I might be inclined to pull it. I would probably pull it. And what does that tap into? There's got to be some sort of positive thinking. If most people say that they would pull the lever, it tells us that expected value doesn't actually work properly. Because you should, if you're being rational, you should say, well, I have no preference whatsoever.

I bet a poker player would be like, I don't know what to do. But the rest of us who aren't doing these calculations may be more difficult. But I think what it shows is that expected value is a bad way of thinking about stuff. Because this is how you work something out. If you've got a gamble, like you sort of do the expected value and work out which is higher. But that's not actually how people think. You know the game deal or no deal? Yeah.

My friend Phil Halper pointed this out to me that like if you're playing deal or no deal and you've got a box, say one of the boxes is like $500,000, right? Yes, that's good. If somebody, if you're then offered $150,000, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, are you taking that? Fuck, no. Give me that $500,000. The thing is, the thing is, it probably depends on who you are, right? If you've got a lot of money and that's not life-changing to you, you're going to think, oh, expected value, so they've got...

And if you have nothing, you're taking that $150,000. You're absolutely perfectly rational to take $100,000. I have a different answer than all these guys on everything. Even though expected value says that you should obviously, like, take the risk for the $500,000, because the expected value is $250,000. Yep. And you've only been offered $150,000. Wait, can I still? Obviously, because I'm the only person that answered the trolley thing that way, I don't look at it as doing and letting.

Well, I guess I look at it as doing, but I'd be saving five people. That's the way I, my brain goes. Oh, that's your do. My doing is I'm saving five people, and one person had to die for me to save five people. And I think if I was at one person on the track, I think I would understand. I wouldn't be like, hey, let him go. I'm not some fucking same. What about the fat man very age?

Real quick before the fat men, just on that, like, I think there are these. Hey, that's no way to speak about your friends. I forget the type of like head fund it is, but essentially what they do is they buy up businesses, they restructure them, they lay off, you know, 10,000 people, but there's still 40,000 people that will work there. And I think Mitt Romney was one of the guys who owned Bain Capital, and this is one of the things they did. And he was like a devout religious dude. I think he was Mormon. He was Mormon. And I think someone asked him as like, how do you deal with that?

Like how do you handle the fact that you're like letting 10,000 people go? And his answer was, Akash's answer is like, I saved 40,000 people's jobs. Yeah. Yeah, and it's literally just a case of how you think about it. Yeah, and I don't know if what he's done is immoral at all. I think if you're focusing on those 10,000, but he pulled the lever to save 40,000. In my view, it depends how you feel. Like, outside of, like, the thought experiment.

Like, what is your, what did you say, like, basic instinct? Yeah. What is yours? About what? Oh, about, like, the lever? Yeah. Like, I think pulling the lever feels right, right? It feels like that's a good thing to do.

Just to save the more people. Save the five to kill one. but like it's it's uncertain right and the point is it's supposed to be difficult but the real utility in the trolley problem is whatever you say you then adapt it so you said you wouldn't pull the lever because you know you don't want to kill someone versus five and then you just up the ante and make it a hundred thousand people and suddenly i didn't actually ask would you pull the lever then if it were a hundred thousand people i would pull the lever then it's like the whole city of new york you know you so at least in your case it does change the scenario you said that you would pull the lever you would kill one person to save five because you're saving five even though you have to kill one so So, as you point out, a famous sort of next variation of this is like the trolley is going towards five people. You're stood on a bridge and there's a fat man on the bridge. And if you push the fat man off the bridge, he'll crash into the train and the train will stop and he'll kill the fat man. But it will stop it from running over the five people who are tied to the track. Would you push that fat man at the bridge?

You would. No, no, good. That means you seem to be thinking very rationally about this. You would actually push a fact. I don't know if I'm strong. I can't really live much weights, but yeah. I don't get the physics. If you push him off the bridge.

Yeah, because the train's going under the bridge. Oh, the train's going under the bridge. He's got it. I'm like, I thought the train's going over the bridge. I think diagrams for you. I thought the train is like, you know, one of the western movies where the people are running. You never seen stand by me? Yeah, yeah.

I've seen it. One of the guys is fat. I'm like, okay, he's not going to stop the trains. I'm still saving five people. Right. But you would kill someone you're with that's completely. Pulling the lever is killing. So I've made that decision.

Now I'm just shoving instead of pulling the lever. You would just shove this guy off the bridge. I mean, again, I'm not strong, but I would try. But he's on the edge. It's your friend. And he's looking at the, he's like, oh, my God, these people are going to die. My friend is different. The friend is different.

Why? Because then I am inconsistent. No, then I am inconsistent. If my mom is on the bridge or five strangers, I'm not pulling the lever. I'm not shoving my mom. That is, now if it's my dad, he's home. But, but, yeah, that's, my inconsistency will. stop at my wife, my kids, my mom, my best friends, sure. But in general, if I'm saving five people

and they're all strangers, I'm saving five people. Yeah. And I am a, I'm not utilitarianism to the absolute. That's crazy at a certain point. But like, I do largely have that idea. Like, it's saving more people. What are we doing? Yeah. So it's something funny. They, they put people in an MRI scanner and ask them about the trolley problem. And the people who said that they would pull the lever, but they wouldn't push the fat man, which is most people, by the way, I think. That's weird. People who would pull the lever but wouldn't push the fat man in the MRI scanner, the part of their brain that deals with emotion was lighting up.

Whereas the people who said that they would pull the lever and push the fat man, the part of their brain that deals with like rational thinking. That's me. Was lighting up. It was a pure logic. It was an indication that a lot of people just think emotively about this and don't realize. They think that they're considering an ethical consideration, but really they're just like feeling it out. And so it's interesting.

So people like you seem to be thinking like rational. about it and you're trying to sort of put it in like very very sort of non-emotive terms but then you said like you'd be inconsistent when it comes to like your your family and the question is like why or is it inconsistent or do you just have an ethical worldview which says that it's okay to prioritize your own family i have a love for those people that's overwhelming to the point that ethics is not a concern of mine morality is not a concern but maybe that's just what ethics is maybe ethics is about like love and maybe ethics just permits you to care more about your family yeah sure you know what But again, this is where I'm not saying it's to dismiss what you do.

This is where my brain jumps to like, yeah, whatever it is, I'm fine with it. I understand there is inconsistency and I'm okay with that level of inconsistice. And it's another thing when I was saying about like the philosophical masturbating, most people, they have their ideas. But like, if you're like, oh, I think torture is always wrong. And I think that, you know, we should minimize suffering and harvest organs in this circumstance. But if someone like holds a gun to your daughter's head, that just goes out the window. like nobody is sat like nobody except maybe like peter singer he's probably the kind of person that would actually sit there and and like do a calculation on his little cheap paper but nobody's thinking in

this way you know that's not that's not that's not how you read that jonathan hype book the righteous mind i haven't actually read it you're familiar with the idea that we're like emotional beings and they're at this logic afterwards yeah so that's probably what we're getting to about all this but maybe his emotion is to protect as many people's possible and our emotion is more selfish yeah like maybe you have more altruistic emotions like you're like you're like you're like Like, everybody's a stranger, I'll protect those five strangers over that one. And the rest of us are like, I don't want to be a killer. The guilt of letting five people die to me would be overwhelming.

Okay, so say there's a track. This time the track is like a circle. And there's a person tied on that end. And you'll sit here with the lever and the trolley's going around. And the lever only changes the direction of the trolley. So you can just sort of make it go back and forth. How many times you pull that lever before you let it run over the guy? Oh, I would like to think.

in a vacuum, infinite, but if everybody in the train is saying X, Y, Z to me, who knows at a certain point? No one on the train, you're just stood there, like, and you can just, you're pulling this lever back and forth. I mean, the guy's going to, he's just tied to a track, he's just going to die anyway. I wait for him to die, and then I go. Once he dies of starvation?

You would stand there for like a week. Yeah. Like staying awake, pulling that leave back. Doing my best, yeah. I do my absolute. If my body gives out, my body is out. Watch him slowly die. Yeah, you've got to do a little bit. You got to do it at least five.

10 times. You can't just let it go and then explain to it right. Five times? This is what you would do. Why don't, man? No, no, you would go back and forth, right? I actually understand you're a lot. I don't know.

It's euthanasia, basically. Because this guy's just, you just take this guy of his misery. This guy's actually terrified. Oh, he's going to die no matter of one. Maybe the ethical thing is just letting him. Like, how long are you going to put in? I think you've got to start explaining that to him. How long it took me to realize that?

That's how many times I just said that you want to watch him like starve to death, which is like a horror. I'd rather be hit by a train than staff to. He didn't say he wants to watch him starve to death. Well, that's what he would happen. But that's how he wants. That is what you want to do in that circumstance. He wants to not be responsible for his death.

Him starving. Then don't pull the lever at all. Because, like, remember a moment ago we were talking about it. Not pulling the lever at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said, well, if I pull the lever, then I'm involving myself. It's like, well, then don't just for a lever. Who invented this lever thing?

This is great. What did you guys do before Trave? Travis Thompson, yeah. But before trains, what did you have to talk about? Atlantis and shit. Yeah. The fucking, what is it? They're running trains on children.

They're running trains on children. I mean, the invention. Not all philosophers. But the invention of the train really changed your guys' whole life. Yeah, that's right. Like, what would you talk about before? You're like, should we be communist? People need to eat.

People are hungry. People with debate. And the fucking train was avent. You're like, yeah, this is good. People would debate weird and wacky stuff. Like? like famously Plato defined

a human being as a featherless biped that's his definition what a human being is and then I think it was biped biped So two So an animal has got two feet

And it doesn't have any feathers So then I think it was Diogenes Who like took a chicken and plucked all of its feathers And like ran into the room where Plato was teaching And held it up and behold Plato's man And so they were just to bait shit like that all the time And it was just essentially definitional.

And why was this supported? Like, who was funding this back in the day? Are you, uh... Education, I suppose, used to be just a privilege of people who could afford it. But, but this could be a job. Like, back of the day, there were people that were just waxing poetic on philosophy and the king was like, yeah, keep doing that shit. I don't know about like back in ancient times.

I don't really know how they were making their money. You have students as well, wouldn't they pay? Yeah, they would, they'd have like students. But then I think some philosophers would probably have students that didn't pay. They just, like, had a school of people, the Jesus of Nazareth style. But, yeah, like, you'd have students. I mean, famously Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great. You know, like, there are some pretty high clientele that want some philosophical wisdom.

And so they're probably making money through that. Do we even have another thought experiment? There are endless. Or even a heart take. How were they viewed societally real quick? Like, how would Aristotle be viewed society at the time? It depends on what kind of philosopher they would. were like Socrates was a nuisance.

People didn't like him. Yeah. Is there some revisionist history on these people as we look back? How do you mean? Like, do we look at them as almost deities? I mean, they're brilliant. They're genius. Oh, yeah.

Like, at the time, a lot of these philosophers, if you like read their biographies, they're like depressed, miserable people who couldn't get laid. Like it's seriously. It's like Van Gogh. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the same kind of thing where like you wouldn't, you wouldn't want to be these guys. Like, why do you think, like, Emmanuel Kant had the time to like sit around writing like the longest treaties on like

objective ethics that the world's ever seen because he's a loser, you know? There's nothing else going on. Like, seriously, you know? Like, what are you going to do? Like, Arthur Schopenhauer wrote an essay about women. Okay. Where he just like talks about how

women are just inferior to men. And he just goes on and on and on. Can you find those guys left at the wrong? Yeah, yeah. And And you read it and you're sort of like this sort of hyper-rational guy. And you're like, but this is clearly just because like... He can't get late. You can't get.

Apparently he was like a bit of a womanizer, but I think he might have like had some trouble. Like people like rejected his proposals and stuff. And so actually I was speaking to a friend earlier who said that any idea that anybody has, anytime like I say like a policy is come up with by a politician or anything of that sort, they should have to undergo like a psychological analysis to find out how much of that you to the fact that they're like dad didn't care about them as a kid or something like you've got to make sure that there's none of that going on before you know they just with detectives they're like you're too close to this case you knew one of the people that were hurt you're going to be too emotional we take you off of it yeah we should probably do that with politicians too it's like you know you shouldn't essentially just be using your rage to to write about this kind of stuff and i think that's clearly what's happening with shop and how writing about women for example how many other philosophers you think this is happening too like are there people that you're reading you're like oh you actually have some deep issues that are you are emotionally reacting to and then just retrofitting your brilliance onto it that that that might be

true of most philosophers and most people have motivations that that aren't always immediately obvious i've heard this about charles darwin what about that his brother died of some type of uh like a malignant cancer or something to effect and he was told that he was going to go to hell and so he took it upon himself to scientifically prove that god doesn't exist or something like now that one's child died And maybe that's what it is. Darwin's, I think, his youngest child might have died, and it does seem to sort of have an effect. I'm not sure if that, like, motivates, like, the biology of the origin of species, but it will motivate his, like, religious views. Darwin, actually, interestingly, at the end of the origin of species, there's a beautiful little epilogue where he says, there is grandeur in this view of life.

It's a famous piece where he talks about from so humble and simpler beginnings, endless life, and endless forms, most beautiful, happy and are being evolved. And that's how it ends. It's this beautiful thing. And he talks about how life having originally been breathed into a few forms or into one. And there was such a backlash from the religious that in the second edition of the origin of species, there is an addition it's breathed by the creator into few forms or into one. Because he felt the need to add in this reference to God. And it's probably due to the backlash, but it may also just reflect his own flip-flopping on religion. Because by the third edition, it was gone again.

And this happens quite a lot, like, people, like, defacing their books. Like, Peter Singer recently did this for Animal Liberation, the father of the animal rights movement, who wrote in 1975, the greatest defense of animal ethics that has probably ever been written. I mean, it's just phenomenal and very confronting. And he was using all of these arguments that in the most recent updated edition, he felt the need to take out because they were, like, not politically correct anymore. Even though they were really useful philosophical arguments, he, like, he took them out.

So, for example, when he, he took them out. So, for example, when he talks about giving animals rights, a lot of people say, well, we can't give animals the same rights as humans. You know, we're not going to give them the right to vote and stuff like that. And Peter's singer is like, well, to give people equal consideration doesn't mean you literally give them the same rights. For example, you wouldn't give men abortion rights. And that's not an inequality thing. You give them the same consideration, but it doesn't mean you give them literally the same rights. It just means that you give them the same consideration.

So you wouldn't give men abortion rights. You wouldn't give animals voting rights. and say in consideration. And special needs people vote. They literally can, yeah. They are allowed to vote. Oh, yeah, I mean, I assume so. I don't know if there are some...

Is that a crazy thing to ask? No, but it's not. I'm asking based on the same, you know, it's the same height of hypothetical. Like, if we deem an adult 18 years old and they have the mental capacity of an 18 year old and a, I don't, I guess we don't do that with IQ. That's the thing is...

It's totally arbitrary because, like, voting is... The justification for voting is always like, well, you know, like it will lead to a better society and people. But really, people feel like they have a right to vote. It's not so voting isn't supposed to be like, this is obviously the best way to always get to the right answer. It's like, no, it's just it's a point of principle that if you're going to tax me, I have a say. And if they have the wherewithal to register to vote, then they should be able to execute it. But it is completely arbitrary. Like the age limit on voting is completely arbitrary.

I feel it's way too loose. There are too many people vote. Yeah? Yeah. A lot of people feel that way, man. And like Aristotle thought the same. John Stewart Mill thought that different people should have different, like, numbers of votes. So, like, people who had a university education should get more votes than someone who didn't and stuff like this.

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debate over whether we should keep our so-called first-past-the-post system of voting. What does that mean? It means that if you get like a majority of votes, if you sort of, it's the first person to reach a certain number of votes. It's why they call it first-past-the-post. first person to get that wins right and so if you've got like five different parties and say like 50% of people like vote for vote for one of those parties they're they're going to like win the election but the rest of the voter base is spread across all these different parties and so they all just like lose and there's no like proportional representation of the different amount of votes the different party's got. It's just like if you get the most, then you win. And because people often like split their votes from different parties, like if you don't

want to vote for the Conservative Party, maybe you'd vote for Labor or maybe you'd vote for green or maybe you'd vote for this, like you end up sometimes with a party winning who most people actually didn't vote for. And had they run the, had they done it in stages where you sort of knock out the lowest contender and then vote again, they wouldn't have won the election because all the people who voted Green, now they're out, would have gone and voted Labor, so Labor would have won the election. But what's the cost of that? Well, the cost of that, so people say we should, so you get the smaller parties in the UK

saying we should have proportional representation because you have like millions and millions of votes, but you get like no seats or two seats in the House of Commons. And so they say we should, we should have it proportional. The problem with that is that nothing gets done. Yeah. Because you just got like 15 different parties, all the different ideas and absolutely nothing gets done. Yeah.

But if your view is like, well, okay, sure, it would be more democratic to have more parties in government, but nothing actually actually. gets done. But it's not functional. Why bother with a democracy thing at all? So this is, you know, two party, nothing gets done. Is there a, is there like a principle in philosophy where you just reach a limit where you go, we got to get shit done? So you stop before you extrapolate it to the end of the trolley problem. Yeah, it's called authoritarianism. No, no, I'm not saying in government. I'm just saying like in philosophy, like, do you get to a point where you're like, okay, we all kind of agree on this? Yes, there are some holes in it. But this is 70%

or this is 80% that everybody kinds of grew up. Let's just use this as a model for society, but we can have these thought experiments outside of that. You could be like a pragmatist. Is that what that's called? Well, in utilitarianism, there's a particular sort of version of this called rule utilitarianism. So utilitarianism says that any action, you should basically do a calculus and figure out whether it's going to have more

or less suffering and pleasure for people. But the problem is that doing that every time is itself not maximizing pleasure. So now you're not, yes. And so you're not being utilitarian. Yeah, like being utilitarian is not utilitarian, so you sort of undermine yourself. So they come up with this thing called rule utilitarianism, which broadly is attributed to John Stuart Mill, and he's like, look, okay, we'll come up with these rules. Like, broadly speaking, murdering people minimizes pleasure.

And sure, there will be circumstances where it doesn't. But like, for the, you know, for the sake of being practical, we'll just call that a rule and we'll abide by that. And so it's still justified by the minimization of suffering, but in practice, we'll just follow these broad rules. Yeah. And that sounds really great, right? Until you realize that sometimes there will be obvious counter examples.

Like if you don't murder this person, New York City is going to get, like, decimated. You might still think you shouldn't murder the person, but the utilitarian definitely thinks you should kill that person to save New York City, right? Right. And so there are obvious cases where they would go, okay. I'd let New York go. That's one city. Actually, yeah, yeah, maybe we should change it up. I hear just, this is like the bombing the Yemeni wedding.

Yeah. There's one terrorist in the Yemeni wedding. Do we bomb it and then we save America from a possible terror attack? And if the circumstance is obvious enough, then even the rule utilitarian has to look at it and be like, yeah, okay, in this case, I'll break my rule. But then you've got this problem of like, in every circumstance, you've then got to figure out whether it's an obvious enough example to apply the rule or not. And then you're just back to like to just looking at every single individual circumstance. Like Luigi Manjoni kind of be an example of that or not? Yeah, so, I mean, you might kind of think that generally speaking, it's bad to murder people, but people are like, oh, but in this case, it's like an exception.

Like, maybe some people would think that. And that seems like the cultural response. But what you're- The cultural response is, we got more pleasure, not we, but people got more pleasure. Because they got more pleasure, does it justify the murder? Why did they, why did they get pleasure out of it? Because they think these healthcare companies are evil and all the people involved are complicit. And I think if you do it or know, maybe they'll fix it.

But specifically evil, evil why? Like, what is it that they're doing? They're undermining pleasure for the most people. Exactly. So it's kind of there's this sort of underlying assumption of a utilitarian principle for these people that, like, well, okay, it's bad to kill somebody. But if they're going to cause more people to suffer and die, and this is a utilitarian guy. This is a justification for war, I imagine. Yeah, I mean, sure.

Yeah, war is, well, at least ostensibly, it'll be like, this is what's good. But war tends to have a more sort of, like, the family thing. It's not just, because if you were utilitarian and like a country declares war on you and you're like, What's their population? Is it bigger than ours? Okay, let them, let them happen, right? That's not what you do. It's more like the family thing.

You're like, to hell with that. I'm going to, like, defend my own, my own principles, you know? Okay, so Brexit, for example. Yeah. Good. No, this idea that there are people that feel like they're losing their cultural identity. And we don't have to argue whether it's right or wrong. But I'm just saying that idea, if we're taking a utilitarian principle and we're just plastering on top of it.

that do they feel less pleasure as culture becomes more diverse and then their specific culture becomes in their perception diluted for sure yeah i mean that seems to be the motivation behind brexit it was essentially an immigration vote in my view that's a lot of people seem to feel like yeah okay a lot of people were talking about the economy and sort of they're getting up on their talk shows and they're like well you know like in brexit and the GDP and four point it's like no one can no one cares yeah yeah some some people care but you know what i mean that's not what it was about yes um and yeah like But the thing is, I mean, I've been talking about utilitarianism. Like, I'm not a utilitarian.

Most people aren't utilitarian. If they think they are, until they come across an example, like where they've got to tie their own child to a trap or something, and they're like to hell with that. And it's like, okay, well, then you're not actually utilitarian, like you thought you were. Instead, you're something else. And in my view, people are just emoting.

I'm what's called an emotivist about ethics. I think that all ethical statements are just expressions of emotion. I think that's actually. That's all I think is going on. Yes. And so, in this instance, like, if you're utilitarian, you could say, well, it's complicated because, yeah, more people get pleasure if they can immigrate into a country but then the amount of suffering

that comes with like losing a sense of identity that might balance it out or you just be like you're just you're just sort of vibing man you're just trying to feel it out i think that there's an emotional reaction to that too i mean they're emotivist is that what you said yeah it makes them feel better to have a a technical justification for their emotional response yeah and so they're calling it utilitarian but it's really not that they're just like i'm People want to stick a label on there. That's what a lot of philosophy is. It is essentially hyper rationalizing of your emotive feelings.

That's why you have all of these clever people who agree with each other. It's also why I could say, like name some of the most famous philosophers in the world, like Nietzsche or Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill. And a lot of people get this idea that because they're great philosophers, if I just pick one at random and sit down and start reading it, I'll be like, wow, this guy's amazing. But if you try that, go into a philosophy department, pick up like John Paul Sartre and just read it. and you'll be like, what is this? Because the great philosophers are people who you kind of already know

that you're like on the same wavelength as them and you read it and they just put it into words. And you're like, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, that's that's what it is. That's the feeling of like thinking someone's smart is sort of looking at it and going like, yeah, they put that into it. But because they've just rationalized what you're already thinking. Education, I think that the Greek word that comes from, I can't remember what the word actually is, like, you know,

Educratos or something like this means to draw out. education is not like the so-called bucket theory of the mind which is like you're just a bucket and a teacher comes and just chuck stuff in there it's it's a more like two-way relationship and to educate someone is to draw out of them because there's something already inside them that you are like pulling out education has to be something which I don't mean like as a moral thing this is how we should be educating because I mean this is literally what happens in many people's view it's like a two-way relationship you have to the person who's learning has to sort of take a guess at the world and then like test ideas against the guests that they're making and then the teachers sort of helps them with that so it's a it's a it's a drawing out you know that's what philosophers do so you're reading a text and it's not just like you're getting information somebody is is systematizing the way that you feel you know like when you reach up and how's essay about women you'll probably have this experience of thinking like yeah yeah that's he gets it he gets it this fucking guy yeah but but no but on a serious level like if you read that essay you like most people

read that and sort of like what the hell is he going on yeah you might think he's a mania and it's like it's so that's a great example to show that like what you're doing is you're bringing your if you are like a genuine sexist and you read this you'd be like yeah man oh he's so smart and your assessment of how like intelligent he is has to do with how much you agree with him we'll just be basically like how much you sort of agree with him you know yeah and to what level he sort of resonates with you now sometimes there will be people who come along and change your mind so you don't already agree with him you know well that's really smart that changes my mind but it's because you've already got some kind of surface level agreement on something, and they've taken that

assumption and said, well, that should lead you here rather than there. Yeah, I wonder if change your mind has to do with this feeling of like guilt or shame. Like a lot of times, yeah, I'm sure you've heard like Shapiro go on and on about like facts, we've spoken a lot about like, I think feelings don't care about your facts. We say it all the time. They don't care about your facts at the fuck all. So I wonder if sometimes you're presented with facts and they make you feel this guilt or shame that you believe this thing that was wrong and now you feel stupid now you feel silly you feel misled and it's that personal feeling you're not going oh i'll follow the facts now you're like i don't want to be an idiot i don't want people think that i'm an idiot i've changed my

philosophy yeah i think a lot of thinking is just it's just feeling um like when you become convinced by something like like for example what is it the basis of our of our like epistemology how we know things like i i can see a sort of water bottle here and i think this water bottle exists That doesn't seem like an emotion. It feels like a rational thing that I believe it's like something that's true or false, right? But why do I believe that this water bottle exists? Because I can see it.

But why do I believe that because I can see it it's really there? Or because I think that my sense data is accurate, you know, and I'm not like a brain in a vat somewhere. It's like, well, why do I think that? But because like if I didn't, I would just be in this skeptical hellhole and I wouldn't know anything.

So? Yeah. So what? At root, you just have these, what we call intuition? which is the philosopher's fancy word for like the way you feel man it's like well i have a very strong intuition that the external world exists but you just feel that way it brings us comfort to trust our senses yes you just you just can't help but feel right and so you ever met somebody with schizophrenia i don't think so it's really interesting because the things that they're

seeing or hearing yeah do not exist yeah right and and they feel they hold up an important mirror to our own philosophies. It's the same thing with, like, a lot of people like to talk about how, you know, or the person, if someone who was acting rationally would never, like, indulge in this behavior, like, pulling the lever, that's bad, and everyone knows it's bad. It's like, well, psychopaths exist. Yeah. And they're people who just don't care, right?

And you have to deal with the fact that not everyone's brain works in the same way that yours does. And they're really interesting in test cases. I mean, like, people who have some kind of mental disorder can be really interesting, like, philosophically. Have you ever heard of split brain patients? You know the brain is in two hemispheres? You've got left and the right brain. Ian McGilchrist writes about this in the master and his emissary.

It's phenomenal. And they are famously responsible for different things. So like the right side of the brain moves your left arm and the left side of your brain moves your right arm, broadly speaking. And this has an effect on behavior. Like the eye that animals choose to look at their prey will be determined by which hemisphere that they're sort of using. people who have damage to the left-hand side of their brain

will often have uncontrollable movements in their right arm and likewise with the right and the left arm but people who have damage in the right brain and the right brain broadly speaking is supposed to be like the creative one i thought that's left no the left is more like scii autism kind of brain so oh that's why they say the left-handed people tend to be more creative because it's right side of the brain is more developed they say that it's unclear it's unclear whether there's actually a connection there but that's the kind of thing that people's that's why they say that, right? And people who have the damage to the right hand side of their brain, if they have

uncontrollable left hand movements, they tend to be like feeling movements. They'll sort of, they'll sort of feel things without being able to control it, whereas if they've got damage to the left hand side of the brain, their right hand will grab things because the left hand side of the brain is more like, is more numerical, and it's more, it's more like precise and practical, so it's more grabby, right? And so the two hemispheres are connected by something called the corpus colossum, which is the connective tissue. And the tissue actually seems to do more to inhibit communication between them than to facilitate it, is that there's some evolutionary benefit to kind of having two brains. But some people have what's called a corpus chalosotomy,

which is where they sever the connection. This used to be a treatment for extreme cases of epilepsy. It was one of the only ways you could treat it. And in these patients, there is this strange phenomenon, which has been observed, called Alien Hand Syndrome. It was first reported when a woman in like the 1800s, her left hand just started attacking her, started trying to choke. her to death. And she had to fight off her hand with the rest of her body. And there are people

who will, like, they'll pour a cup of coffee and then their other hand will just pour it out again. People who will get dressed, they'll put their trousers on, and then the other hand will take it off again. And this most, the most commonplace where this has cropped up is in cases of people who've had a corpus callosotomy. And so it seems to suggest that you might literally have sort of two consciousnesses that are like battling it out constantly. So a lot our decision making. And this might be where like freedom of the will comes in. It's like your brain is sort of battling against itself to figure out which one's going to win out or something. You're a determinist, right? I don't believe in free will, if that's what you mean. But the thing

that terrifies me is to think like, okay, so say you've got this left hand that's trying to kill you, if there is some kind of consciousness attached to it, that's not the consciousness that's attached to your, like, your awareness, your eyes, your mouth, your ears and stuff, because otherwise it would say something. And so if there is a separate consciousness that somewhere trapped inside you with no mouth, no eyes, no ears, the only way it has to communicate is by controlling the arm. What if it's, like, trapped in there

trying to tell you something? Maybe that's why it's trying to kill you because it wants to... Jerking off all the time. Who knows what's in there, you know? I've got a gay consciousness. It's not like to grab my dick all the time. Yeah, maybe that's what the choking is about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's terrifying to think, though, right? Is it possible there's not just like a subconscious, like, feed that's getting put into your muscles that then is giving an electrical impact? Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's possible. But it just seems like a strange coincidence, doesn't it? That, like, when you split the two hemispheres of the brain,

you increase the probability of, like, people's limbs acting of their own accord. You know, it seems to be connected. We don't know exactly, but people who undergo these experiences are really interesting, like, examples of how, like, our philosophy can just completely shift or change based on the way people behave. I mean, your idea about theory of mind and what mind is and whether it's attached to the brain or whatever, can be altered by the existence of split brain patients

because what if there are two people? Like in the philosophy of mind, a really important question is, it's called personal identity. Like, what makes you the same person you were five minutes ago? What is the actual connection? Like, what's going on there? And one important question people ask is, like,

if I cut your brain in half, and I take the two parts of the brain, I put them into new individual bodies and wake them up, like which one is you? And some people say, neither of them in which case you've just died that seems a little bit weird some people say well they're both you but if they're both you now then five minutes ago they must have both been you as well but like in one person so it's like for the for your whole life you were two people living together that doesn't seem quite right either

have you seen the show severance no but i've i've i've heard about it i started watching the first you're familiar with the premise of the show no i'm actually not really so no spoilers no no i'm not going to give away but the idea is is that you could sever the the brain in a way where when you go to work and you enter this space at work you like don't remember or something yeah you you you are you essentially but you have limited knowledge of things in the outside world yeah you speak you know fluently i think you have like some words you don't know you don't understand like what bermuda is or whatever but like you are you you kind of have the similar personality but you have no connection to who you are in the outside world so the idea is

you could just go to work and then clock out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it sounds good on paper. A lot of people have shitty jobs. You're like, I'd like to, you know, for eight hours and I even think about how horrible my fucking job is. And then you leave. And the show is this interesting experiment because it's like, well, how much autonomy

in agency do those people have at work? And then once they find out that there's a life outside of work that might be better and they don't have control of existing outside of it, do they fall in love? And what if that person decides to quit their job? They're dead if they quit their job. And, yeah, I'm curious. and how much rights you think those people would have. It still is you, but now they're a completely autonomous human being.

The important question to me is whether that is the same person. And that's when you have to ask, what makes you the same person? I don't want to give away anything from the show, but let's continue asking. Like what, literally what makes you the same person that you were when you were a child? It's not a collection of memories because your twin might have the exact same experiences. Yeah, and also you could have false memories. I could take your memories and implant them someone else and they wouldn't become you. It can't even be the physical matter that you're made out of.

because like your atoms in your body are constantly like replenishing and changing and after enough time it's like no physical part of you so suppose for example that's true like your skin isn't you because your skin replaces itself exactly they say that every seven years every atom in your body replaces itself i don't know if that's actually entirely true but let's assume but yeah i mean because so say somehow i took after seven years i took all of the atoms i managed to find all of the atoms that had been part of you but floated off or changed and i put them all together again and made another i made another version of view like which one is you in the sense of being continuous with with your yourself like 10 minutes ago I mean it kind of has to be you now because you've got this continuous sure but then this is the same atoms this is like the same being and it like it's actually kind of an impossible question to answer yeah you know which one which one is you and which one would you would you rather be so say for example that like in 10 years from now I'm going to do this I'm going to take the atoms that make up you right now the atoms that are in your body right now I'm going to collect them in a jar, and in 10 years from now, I'm going to reconstruct them next to

wherever you are in 10 years, and then I'm going to torture one of them. Which one do you want me to torture? That's severance. Yeah. Literally. I mean, not exactly, but to a certain extent. Which one would you want to? That motherfucker.

Torture him. The atoms in a jar? Yeah. Because that's you right now. I know. So you make that decision, you walk it in. And then like, click my fingers and suddenly you're like next to your future self and you're like, wait, I've, I've messed up here.

You know, it wouldn't be my future self because it didn't go through the experiences that I went through, right, which made me who I am now. You would just suddenly wake up with all the memories you've got now. Oh, you're saying in this. Because look, all the atoms that make up you right now include your brain, include your memories and stuff, right? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to... Oh, you recreate them at the exact same time and then let them live their own life.

I'm just taking whatever, whatever atoms you have in your body right now. Yeah. I'm just going to, like, put them back together again in 10 years. Like, exactly. Yeah, but then they haven't went through what I went through what I went through over the 10 years. That's right. But it will, for the...

When I have another thing with this. The experience will feel as if you're talking to me right now. As the exact same person. Suddenly, click. Yeah. You're now 10 years into the future. Yeah. Because I'm just taking all of the atoms that you've got right now, as you are right now.

And I'm just putting them back together again. But it would be devoid of the experiences I had over the last decade. That's right. From the experience of that person that I create, they would remember five seconds ago being sat here talking to me. This is severance, right? To a certain extent. Yeah, yeah.

So that's the thing, right? It just feels like you're just, you're just, you're just sudden. And the reason why I would feel more agency is because, hey, I've had these last 10 years of memories, right? So I believe I should have more agency than you. I've lived my life. But what if you had a debilitating neurological disorder that stripped you of your ability to create new memories, dementia, Alzheimer's.

Now you're not creating new memories. Now you don't have these experiences. So I can't say I have more agency than that body because we have the same. amount of new memories. Yeah. Whoa. Well, say, say, for example, like, I put more work in, bro. Suppose that, like, suppose that you, I'm going to, like, take all of your memories, and I'm going to swap it with the guy over there. It's called Joe.

And tomorrow, you're going to wake up, and you're going to have all of Joe's memories. And Joe's going to wake up and he's going to have all of your memories. So you're going to wake up tomorrow. Yeah. You're going to wake up tomorrow, and you're literally going to remember being, being Joe, honestly, waking up and being, like, what the flip. I've got this game stash. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You keep talking about my mustache.

I'm going to think you're flirting. I am not your brother. You do not talk about me like him. Hey, right, keep going, keep going. So who? Well, no, but it's more than just who are you. It's, again, because I'm a bit of a sadist here, I'm going to torture one of these guys tomorrow.

Yeah. After you wake up. Yeah. Which one do you want me to torture? Which one has a bigger dick? Are you subjectively still now working with your own body and perceptions, but with Joe's memories. That's right.

So you would wake up and, like, literally, like, the physical being that you are, you're going to wake up and you're just going to remember being Joe. Likewise, Joe is going to wake up and he's going to remember sat here having this conversation with me. That's what he's going to remember. Because intuitively to me, I'm like, well, I want Joe to be tortured tomorrow. Right. Because, like, I'm still me. And even if I've got all of his memories, I'm still me.

But there's this weird feeling that, okay, so I say, okay, I'm going to torture Joe. Then tomorrow, Joe wakes up and he remembers. last night, making the decision that he was going to be tortured. Do you know what I mean? Because he's got all of my memories. So he wakes up and he's like, crap, like I look a lot like Joe now. And last night, what did I do? Oh, I told them to torture Joe, and now I'm Joe.

And you'd feel like you'd totally messed up. But you would remember why you'd said that, though. Yeah, but you would probably feel like you wanted to reverse that decision then, wouldn't you? Afterwards. You'd be like, hold on. Yeah, before, no, but afterwards, absolutely. And I'd rather experience the remnants of torture than experience torture. But if you know that you're about to regret a decision, doesn't that tell you the decision's wrong?

If you're making a decision and you know for a fact that in one day's time, you're going to go, damn, I wish I choose the other one. Have you not been to a bachelor party? I don't know if you would regret. I don't know if you would regret the, like, because you don't have the memory being experienced. Yeah, you don't have the memory of the torture. Yeah, but from your experience, this is the way it would feel is you sat here having this conversation. going, let's torture Joe tomorrow, closing your eyes, waking up as Joe, and being like, crap, why did they tell him to torture me? Oh, I see.

You know what I mean? But I think having the memory of the torture is better than having the torture. Yeah, because it's actually Joe that wakes up with your memories. So you wake up with Joe's memories. But the continuity of experience goes from you sat on this chair to waking up as Joe about to be tortured. And you remember, you're like, five minutes ago, I was Alex. And I told them to torture me now. Why the hell did I do that, you know?

And you'd probably want to reverse that decision. Yeah. It's just like a bit of a, it's a bit of a weird one. Okay, guys, I'm going to take a break real quick because we've got to talk about these. These are fucking fantastic. I probably eat too many. I'm not going to lie to you because they taste delicious. And look, when it comes to supplements, there's a lot of misinformation.

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That's transparentlabs.com. Use a go flagrant, supplement smarter, and make the switch to transparent labs. And let's get back to the show. What makes you happy? Miss? Yeah. What makes me happy?

Yeah. What was like the happiest moment you had in the last 12 months? I enjoy discussing theology with people. It brings you joy. I like debates and discussions about philosophy and theology. My happiest moments are spent sort of sparring with somebody in a way that a boxer might spar with an opponent, knowing that they're not really trying to kill each other, but they're essentially doing a kind of sport, which does have an undertone of genuine, like, fitness.

Have you ever boxed before? No, only in a... It's not really enjoyable, didn't it? Sparring is not enjoyable. It's scary. It hurts. So why do it? because you want to get better at something and it gives you confidence knowing that like the things you practice you can actually execute yeah so that's that's true of philosophy too but the act thereof especially if you're losing and a lot of times we're sparring against like better guys it's it's costly certainly some boxers like smart yeah there must be yeah Floyd and it's not like the guy who's Floyd is fighting is not like this is the best thing I've ever done in my entire life yeah it's not like you enjoy it like you don't like enjoy getting punched in the face but you enjoy the the thrill of being a sort of

of the thrill of what you're doing, right? And it's a similar kind of thing with debate and discussion. Yeah, it's great. So I enjoy debates. I enjoy discussions. I do think debates are a bit sort of useless. They're kind of just, they're just theater. They are just like, always compare them to boxing matches where a boxing match will tell you.

People have never boxed off and do that. Comedians do that all the time. But like, it's just like boxing and it's like, none of you've ever boxed. What I mean specifically is that like a boxing match tell you who's the better boxer, but it doesn't they use the better fighter? How so? Because like, oh, do you find fighting as like, I could grab a tool and I could. Exactly. So it's like you could outbox somebody because you're a professional boxer.

But if you meet them in a bar and you just want to kill each other, totally different scenario. It's a, you might have slightly like better predictive odds if they're better at boxing, but you don't know that for sure. And it's kind of the same thing with debate. It's like if you have a debate with someone, you're going to find out who's the better debater. Like Ben Shapiro can crush someone in a debate. But like, is there actually any substance there?

It doesn't mean he's a great thinker. Maybe. I mean, I guess it depends on like what he's talking about. Yeah. And so it's not, there's not an obvious link. So for me, a debate is a, essentially like theater. So you enjoy the stakes of debate and you get to use the skills that you've worked out. It's like stand-up, to be honest, more than boxing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're probably,

you're probably right, yeah. Yeah, because stand-up is really fun. Yeah. When it's going well, and when it's not going well yet. What's the worst, what's the worst experience you had? I've had so many. Oh, yeah. It's just infinite. Part of getting better is just bombing over and over again. His learning curve was actually shorter than anyone else's I've ever seen. Mine was not. You ever done, like, therapy, like rejection therapy, so all thing where you, like, bomb on purpose. just to like toughen yourself up front i did that subconsciously i was very smart the reason i ask the reason i ask is because like um it so much focus on uh i don't think you you're focusing on specifically yourself but like breaking down like what is life what is existence what are the

reasons for our behavior uh what do they say that the i think it was chris rock was like um you know if ignorance is bliss i'm the opposite of that i'm constantly aware and acutely aware of everything I'm doing and why I'm doing it and like that's tough and I imagine like as you go through these thought experiments you're definitely reflecting on your own life

and I wonder if there's a moment where like you just go get drunk and you're like I'm not even going to worry about like why I'm... This is true. It's like I don't have an interesting answer to your question because I'm the same as anybody else I enjoy spending time with my friends and my family and the people I care about

I enjoy listening to music I enjoy watching TV I listen to a like sad boy indie music it's not working out yeah no but like can you separate is there like is there something can you turn it off you not even like yeah yeah maybe yeah yeah that's that's the thing can you just like let's say um and i'm sure you're able to do this but like when you're watching a movie like if we're watching comedy it's probably harder for us to turn it off right

we're like more analyzing it etc and i imagine you're doing that with like life human interaction and decision making how do like let's say you're talking to a girl at a bar and she starts talking about astrology like it can you indulge her as any guy would just meeting a new girl or do you have to be like this girl's retarded like there's nothing about mercury and retrograde and this is a i i think that it doesn't make any more difficult like having done philosophy if you think astrology is bullshit you think it's bullshit right right and the reason why i i probably wouldn't like entertain it isn't because like i'm a philosopher and i care about what's truth but just because i don't i don't like lying in the

sense of like if i know i'm not going to get on with you in two weeks because we're going to have this different way of viewing the world, then I'd better just be up front and be like, actually, I don't believe in any of that. So that's a deal. That's a deal breaker for you. But it depends how they react to it, right? Like if I, also how they look at a little bit. That's also quite important.

If they sort of say like, oh, I'm really into astrology and I'm like, well, I think that's bullshit. And they're like, oh, cool. Yeah, I know a lot of people think that way. But like, here's why I think it's right. Then cool, great. We're off to the races. Yeah.

But if it's obviously like a sort of like, oh, you know. Is there a moment where like you find yourself specifically turning it off because it inhibits your joy for that, for that, like, a bachelor party or that birthday or, or you analyzing, like, well, it's fine, I don't tend to get invited to too many, so I don't know. Jordan, I'm not, I'm not trying to get asking him to Michael Jordan, but he, there was an interview with him at 50 where he's like, I, God gave me this gift, which was competitiveness, and I can't turn it off. Now I'm competing in fucking Sudoku or whatever, like, whatever thing he picks up, he is obsessively competitive, and he's not that happy about it. He's like, this was,

awesome but now I don't need it and I can't turn it off can you do that at a birthday party can you turn off that party that's like what is a birthday even or whatever you know what I mean like not exactly but in practice yeah like I'm what is this scenario like is there a concert like what makes you just cry and you're like I'm not going to analyze why I'm emotional right now I'm just going to let this happen and have this genuine human experience without thinking about it I try very hard to allow experiences to be what they are um And I think more than most people who are interested in philosophy, I do kind of see through it a bit. Like, I think that a lot of the syllogistic reasoning and premise this and premise that...

What syllogistic reason? Syllogism is like a form of argument that goes premise, premise conclusion. And like trying to formalize everything into those terms is just not how people, like, actually interact with the world. Right. Like, and philosophy is not how people actually make big life decisions. I used to have this bit where I'd talk about a guy who's about to throw himself off a broad. bridge. He's about to kill himself and someone comes up to him and he's like, what are you doing, man? Like, gosh, do you have a family? And the guy's like, oh, yeah, no, I suppose I do have a family actually. And they care about you, right?

It's like, yeah, you know, my wife, she doesn't even know I'm here. It's like, oh, goodness. And he's talking, he's like, you know, I've been in that situation. It's like sharing his experience and all of this kind of stuff. And then he's like, you've got a crossing. He's like, yeah, he's like, well, you know, Jesus loves you and I'm a follower of Christ too. And talking him around and he really like emotionally finally decides like, okay, fine. I think I can, and he starts climbing back over the bridge.

And then he suddenly remembers that like the 14th premise of the modal ontological argument fails because of some philosophical, like, logical fallacy. And so he throws himself off the bridge. So how do you stab yourself from doing that? It's like, it's just, but it's, you don't have to because that's not how people. That's not how you operate or anybody else does, right. If the moment is actually emotional enough like that, I mean, it can be interesting. Like, if you, if you had a music concert and you're like getting goosebumps and instantly

you're thinking like, whoa, and you do think like, isn't that an interesting evolutionary trait? Like, why do we get goosebumps or whatever? But you're still feeling the goosebumps, man. Like, it's not going to, and you kind of don't want to switch it off because you find it, you find it quite fun. Like, you're comedians, right? Yeah. So I'm, time told.

And you, you, you presumably, if I ask you something about like your love and your profession like do you ever turn off being funny it's like well yeah i mean kind of but like not not it's not like i'm like get home and like okay i'm going to intentionally now turn off being funny right it's just sometimes you're just not in the mood for it you know you're tired or whatever you're not move for it and then you just then you don't have to turn it off it's but there are certain comedians that yeah you're like i wish you would just turn it off because it seems like i'm sure we've i'm sure we've done it even on the pod today but like you know you're just trying to have maybe like a thoughtful conversation and then if something organically becomes funny you do it

Oh, yeah, you haven't done that at all. No, no, no, not. But meaning more like, sometimes you're talking to something that's like, it just feels like they're waiting to say the bit instead of, like, actually listening to what you're saying and, like, thinking about it. Yeah, that's right.

And that is a balance on a comedy part for sure. There'll be times when you do turn off the comedy and, like, if you're at a funeral or something, you're not going to start cracking jokes. I found as I got, as I did comedy more, got better at it, got more acclaim at it, that part of me the need of that validation is much quieter. So offstage, I don't feel the need to do it.

And you can tell when someone wishes they could have done comedy or isn't where they want to be. And then they're really forcing that. And I get a little irritated, but I also have empathy. And I'm like, oh, I probably, like, we would go to diners early in our career and make the biggest scenes. And it's probably we needed that attention because we weren't getting it in our careers. And there's the equivalent of that in philosophy, when it's like, oh, hey, happy birthday, man. And they're like, birthdays are arbitrary, man. Yeah.

So, like, even if you actually think that, like, you shouldn't, you shouldn't like be sort of, you can tell when someone's like putting it. Not even putting it on, but like they're enjoying the fact that that's where they are, right? But the thing is, when you switch it off, like you're at a funeral, you're not cracking jokes, if, like, you know, if the guy at the front, if the priest or whatever looks at the coffin and says, you know, just looking at her now, you know, like in the coffin, it just makes it so hard, you're not going to not think of the joke. You're not going to not find it, but you're just not going to say it, right? And so there are situations in which you turn it off in the sense where you decide,

I'm not going to like start talking about this, but it's still, it's still like there. Obviously, you're still thinking about stuff. But you can still process the motion in an authentic way without analyzing the motion. Like, I'm interested in philosophy, right? But everybody does this. Like, you've been at parties and you've suddenly are sort of like, man, what's everyone doing? Like, you start thinking about like social interactions and weird. Like, everybody does this, right?

Like, I'm not some, like, I just, it's a very normal thing that people do. I feel like you probably just do it more. And then I'm wondering what the emotional cost of that is. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I mean, it's got, it will have an emotional cost to do that. I'll give you an example. I have a daughter. Right. And I love making her laugh. Definitely makes me feel good. And she's just awesome when I make her laugh. And but I have to remind myself that like she might get just as much enjoyment of just walking around the house and like playing with things and me just watching her and me just being around. And I have to constantly remind myself because I have this thing built in where it's like, oh, I'll feel good and they'll feel good if I'm providing some sort of laughter. So I'm like fighting my neediness.

or whatever it is to just be a better dad, which is sometimes just like being there supporting and observing. I have to fight it. And I'll talk to my wife about it. I'm like, yeah, yeah. And my wife's like, she had a great time. She was bouncing around with gymnastics. I was like, okay, I wasn't like acting like an animal to make her laugh.

I was just there supporting to make sure she didn't fall. But I have to work on that. Yes. Is that something that you feel like you have to work at? Yeah. I have normal human interactions with someone who... Yeah, actually, it comes up a lot when somebody has like a moral dilemma. Oh, yes, they really want to share something with you, get your advice.

Yeah. And you're taking them through these thought experiments. It's like it comes, it kind of comes to mind. Like, if somebody is going through something like a personal experience or they don't know what to do and it can be very serious or something. And you have just read like 15 different papers on this and there are thought experiments and there are ways, which actually genuinely could be quite in like useful ways to think through. But it just doesn't feel appropriate. But that is the equivalent. If you know the meme about like the girlfriend who sort of comes to you and says,

I've got this problem. You're like, oh, well, here's how you solve it. And they're like, I don't want you to give me solutions. I just want you to listen to me. There's a lot of that going on. That's all humans. I saw a version of that. There was like a woman who was talking to a boyfriend.

And it was like on an online video where she's sort of like, you know, I just feel like she's got this headache all the time. And like it just won't go away. And I feel like a lot of pressure. And then it cuts out. She's got this like nail in her head. And the guy's like, well, you have got a. she have got a nail stuck into your head and she's like

are you always looking for solutions aren't you you never just want to listen to how I feel yeah but that's all people want it right is to feel yeah you guys a question sort of on that whole area do you do you have a therapist or someone that you

like go towards I imagine once again I don't want over an election you or put you in a position where it's like I don't know but I do in his name is Jesus I was just wondering do you have someone that like if you have a moral dilemma

do you find yourself, or a dilemma or any problem in your life, do you find yourself having a hard time over-intellectualizing it? And do you go to a therapist? Yeah, like, I'm incredibly indecisive. I haven't done therapy, like, not consistently anyway. I think I probably should. I think everyone should. It's probably a good thing.

In some ways, it might be a sort of a perversion of the Catholic confessional, though. It's sort of like, you know, let's take this thing, which is rightfully gods and give it to human beings. But honestly, this actually is more to the point that, like, if I've got some kind of, genuine like moral problem if i've got like an issue with a friend or something like this i am not going to go to like my philosophy tutor i'm going to like speak to my friends i'm going to speak to my

mom yeah because there is something about not being caught up in all of that like thomas jefferson said something like if you've got a moral problem he'd just as soon to give it to the plowman as to the the academic or the philosopher now you're going to thomas jefferson yeah but you know what i mean because they're not going to they're not going to get like closed up in an artificial in artificial rules you know tell us something you're going through this is good we're going to defilosify you're going to you're going to be the therapist right no we're going to be your boys thing is man like i think it's more fun to talk about that sort of weird wacky ridiculous like ethical dilemmas you don't like

talking about yourself no because then when the real ones come up like it's it's it's aren't you like talking about yourself because i'm like quite uninteresting you know i'm i am a i am a i am a Ooh, now we're getting somewhere, bro. I am just a mouthpiece for other people's ideas. That's what I do on the internet, you know? You think that reflects a low self-worth? I don't think so, because I think I know what I'm good at, and I stick to it, you know? Like, I don't think I'm...

Would you be worth something if you weren't good at it? I don't know. I mean, I... Why not? Because I don't think that worth exists. I'm not in the fact of, like, but like, no, but trivially no. So if worth doesn't exist, then you would be worth just as much as anybody. else yeah i think so that's the thing and just as interesting well maybe but i mean like depending on the

thing like clearly you're interesting to us but the thing is man like like like when i say that that's that's what i think i'm i'm good out of that's what i'm interesting yeah like oh that's what i can talk about that's not like to doubt because you you say like well if you if you didn't have that that interesting thing about you would you still be interesting it's like well no but in the same way i could say like if you weren't funny would you still be funny it's like well it depends who's you're talking to i guess like what i might find the most interesting thing about you is is your hesitation to talk about yourself right like that's what I really want to know but I mean like what do you want to know I want to know the last like moral dilemma that you've

been in well genuinely the reason why I hesitate to answer that is just because I struggle to I struggle to remember exactly um like the last time I had like a a serious moral quandary what but what about not serious what about just like a disagreement you got into in a personal conflict yeah your your your your girl's mom was saying something annoying Um, honestly, man, like, like, I don't know, you know, like, finish up, what was the last one call? Don't put it on me. I don't think I can remember. Oh, I think, I think, oh, I remember now. Yeah, so I was putting a train up to, up to, up to D. It's all about trains, isn't it? Up to D.S.

There's five people. I know he's got to put a track. You're not going to fucking movie. No, talk to us. This is so good. I mean, there's so much analysis of the world. I wasn't a train once and I saw a bunch of workmen like on the tracks. And I posted a picture because I was like, man, I have trained for this moment. I'm like, I'm so ready. You know who's cool.

I was getting on a train. I was booking a train. And I thought to myself, I was trying to choose between which class of seat. Because I wanted to get some work done. I was like, should I get the fancy first class thing where you get the space and stuff? And I was like, it'd be like an extra like 100 or 200 bucks. and I'm thinking I could take that 200 bucks

and I could like donate it to charity I could like deworm about 15 children somewhere else in the world that's a moral dilemma and that's something that I do actually think about quite a lot Really? Yeah is in terms of spending money how you could spend it more

I think about it and then I spend the money but I do think about it Sometimes that's all we need to be good people's think about it So yeah I mean I really was just struggling to think of something but that's an example you know I will think about that Are you a good friend? I like to think of myself as one. In particular, I have a kind of, I guess I sort of have a philosophy of radical honesty.

Like I genuinely, I can't stand when I'm like keeping something from someone. Does that make it hard to build friendships? It can do because sometimes it's like to appoint a pedantry. Like if I feel like I've done something that I shouldn't or like, or something that I will like volunteer this information to people that I care about. And that's sometimes selfish, right? And that's exactly, yeah, that is definitely something. He's pulling that lover every time.

There's, I, I, I, I, maybe, maybe that's what's drawn you to philosophy because it's made you feel more normal, right? Well, I don't know. Like, I, I, you're looking for justification for, I genuinely just find it interesting. Yes. Well, of course, you wouldn't, you wouldn't follow something. Because actually, the sort of, the kind of stuff that's like, like, like, life applicable, stuff about, like, whether it's always wrong to lie or this kind of stuff. I actually find really uninteresting. Right.

Like, in my, in my personal. lie. That's the stuff that I wrestle with the most, moments like that. Like, is it okay to lie in the circumstance? But, like, in like doing academic philosophy or whatever, it's the least interesting thing in the world to me. Whether, whether one should lie or shouldn't. Yeah, I want to talk about trained. It's probably just all autism, isn't it?

Like, it's trained. And it's, like, academic, like... You've dedicated so much time to your life to this. And, like, you're obviously an expert in masterful in debate and all that stuff. And, like, is there time... I find myself, anytime I talk to a therapist, I find myself avoiding talking about myself.

And I'm like, what am I doing? Why do you think that is? I don't know. How does it make you feel? Yeah. And I think you're being condescending a little bit right now. But there is something that's like, what am I avoiding? Am I like, have I retrofit justifications for all my behaviors and those are fine to me?

And it feels good enough so I don't want to fix it. Or am I scared of what I might find and how that could like shatter my foundation? I don't know, but I find myself doing that. But I wonder if you've done so much analysis on the human condition and maybe really just your own and why you don't have a strong feeling about a certain thing. So you're like, why is that normal? Because I imagine you could indulge both sides in a lot of these arguments

and that's normal for you, where like the average person is like, you can't pull the lever, what are you a psychopath? You were probably made to feel pretty weird that you could indulge both sides. So you're like, I need to find justification for why I can do that. That's true. I also like I spent a lot of time like, like really really thinking about this before like really trying to get to know myself in a way like um spent i spent a long time where i sort of took some time off of making

youtube videos and it's kind of yeah everyone has that moment where they're like they're in the pits for a bit and they don't really know what they're doing and like career-wise you're doing though like like it just in my life it was just like a bad it was just like a bad time oh old were you there was lots going on i was probably like 21 maybe something something so you're studying at this time no it's just afterwards i can't i can't remember the exact the exact date or whatever but like it was just like a period of of just thought just straight thought i used to just sit at home i'd do nothing and i was smoking a lot of cannabis that that won't do thought yeah just like just thinking basically and i would like wake up and i would like watch a tv show

and i would i would i would just think about it and i was writing in my diary and that period in my life was this with this essentially like a long period of realization of things that i think about the world and it was a kind of psychoanalysis it was a sort of like looking into myself and thinking why do i think this what's actually going on and really and that's why now i'm much more comfortable saying like well i think i have a philosophy of like radical honesty or whatever because i realized that was something that i was doing and i didn't notice it before so i have like been through that it's just like right now yeah i i don't know i feel like not indulging in that way that's something that i've done that's something that i've explored and i think that maybe

in five years i might need to do it again it's like a little audit a little philosophical audits, you know, every now. You avoid, bro. But right now, I'm really, you're going to think about yourself once every five years? Well, to that level of depth. Yeah, because if you want to do it properly, it can be soul crushing. Yeah. That is, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. It can be soul crushing. Because you have to, if you want to do it, you got to do it properly. Well, I mean, a lot of people probably avoid it. Yeah, I think so. And then what if there's societal benefit to kind of avoiding and finding other distractions? And I'm not trying to like make you religious or anything right now. I was raised with no religion. But like, I wonder if that's how some people who

cope with the potential nothingness of life and what is better yeah because a lot of people don't spend enough time thinking about it like people who who realize that they're going to die whatever it's like when was the last time you just stopped and thought for i'm talking like two hours straight just thinking about the fact you're going to die until like it clicks until like you actually like scary recognize it's not just an abstract idea yeah i remember like the first the first time i ever seriously i remember like being in in my bed as a is like probably like a teenager or a child or something. The first time when I thought about, you know, everyone knows that they're going to die or stuff, but I just seemed to remember this one time when I was thinking about death

to it. And for some reason, it just clicked. It was like I got it. It was like the difference between like, you know, people often think about like how, oh, I'd love to be rich one day, right? And then you win the lottery and you're like, oh, and it's a different feeling. You're like, it's actually happening, right? And I had that kind of feeling about death. About death when I was a teenager. And I was just like, oh, like, I was just like overcome with sort of, it like shuddered, you know, like the shiver down the spine everything i was just like whoa like i suddenly realized what it actually meant to to to think that you're going to that you're going to die one day and even now like we're talking about death we're having a discussion about it but none of us are seriously

like clocking it right is that crazy you have to you have to seriously sit with it for like a long time and really think about what it means some some shit on instagram like the amount of time so you'll see your parents again oh yeah yeah have you seen this yeah if you can work it out somebody calculated it's like i think it's jordan peterson was definitely talked about this he was like if I see my grandparents once every two months or something and they're this age, I'm going to see them 14 more times ever, you know, shockingly low. Yeah. Have you ever dabbled with, like, psychedelics?

Yes. And has that changed your thought process or anything like that? I think, yes. I mean, it's hard to say because, like, my experience of psychedelics came around the time in one's life when they tend to sort of grow up a bit anyway and start, like, changing the way they see the world. So I'm not sure if it was because of it or if it just coincided with it. but certainly like literally like my enjoyment of art for example i mean like literally the

visual arts like painting and stuff just did not exist it just wasn't a thing until i feel that way now i'd taken some drugs and not just psychedelics but also cannabis and it seemed to just open something something up i'm not entirely sure what it did but i think it did something i think it shows you that your like mode of thinking is the the most interesting thing about taking a psychedelic drug is not what you see. It's the fact that you've seen it. It's the fact that you realize that your brain is so usually on like guide rails that you didn't know existed.

And suddenly you're sort of out of it and now you're back and you can remember how it felt. And it's very, it's very sober. You know, it's not like waking up from being drunk and being like, oh man, what happened? That was crazy. Oh, I was so stupid. I said that thing. And I didn't mean that. Like you remember it.

And you're like, no, I saw this thing and that's what I felt. And I can still, I can still, like, I can still account for that. So I was thinking at various times It depends on the experience Sometimes it was just like a very emotional experience With like a friend But other times it's like I'm thinking about stuff And I start having like realizations

And and that stuff like does stay with you Have you ever done ayahuasca? Never ayahuasca It's like a lot of people Well some people take it and they say They see God or now they believe in higher power Or something like that I'd be curious if Have you heard of that kid

Is this name Josh Bassett The Disney Star kid? I think he's the guy who became a Christian. He told the story. I think it was ayahuasca where, like, he's, so he's this Disney kid, and he went to one of these places, and you have to, like, go somewhere and you're with all the people, and there's all the shaman and stuff,

and you're, like, out in the rainforest or something. And, like, he starts tripping, I guess, and he looks around, and he just sees everyone as demons. He sees demons on their faces, and he's like, what the hell is going on? So he gets up, he's like, I need to get out of here. And the woman tries to, like, stop him from going. He's like, you've got to stay in here.

And he looks at her and just sees a demon. and he's like and so he like push his pastor and runs outside and he looks up to the sky and he's like you've got to be fucking kidding me because he looks up

and he just like sees Jesus and he's like oh fucking you know you can't imagine like seriously like oh my god come on this is two on the day that's what happened

and he saw Jesus and now he was a Christian and it's weird because for people who've done psychedelics I don't know if you've all done psychedelics before I don't know how

you know dabbles and mushrooms you ever had any you ever had like a serious visual um no so you know how people say like oh like dude I did psychedelics

and like, you know, like I saw a chameleon or something. Yeah, yeah. It's not like you're literally seeing like a chameleon run to the room and climb up. It's hard to explain. The best explanation I've ever found of what I experienced at least was you know how like when you see something that looks a little bit like a face, but it's not really a face. And the human tendency to see faces in things. Yeah.

Okay, so when I look at like, you know, two drain pipes and a line underneath. Right. Oh, I saw a face. Yeah. I don't literally think I saw an actual face in the wall. What I'm trying to say is for some reason that presented itself to me as a face. Yeah. That was what a lot of the psychedelic visuals were a bit like.

Like when I see a chameleon on a tree, I meant to see that the tree in some sense, for some reason, like presented itself as a chameleon to me. But I was under no confusion about what I was actually seeing. I felt the same way, like doing mushrooms, seeing trees move. It was less the visual of seeing the trees moving and more the feeling that the trees moving made sense. Yeah, and they're like breathing and shifting. And that I wasn't concerned about it. And that I wasn't like, it's less like, for me, the psychedelics was less the visual.

but it's more the feeling that the visuals make complete sense. I had the feeling of bliss and, like, being thankful to God and then thinking, oh, the closer I get to God, the more I feel this just generally. And then I looked in a mirror. We were at Mercer Labs, which is like this visual play. There's like this wall of mirrors or whatever. I looked into a mirror one time when I was really tripping. And I saw myself aging into like a 70-year-old, 80-year-old man.

It was insane. Like I saw my eyes already kind of sunk in. It's sunk in more. I saw more grays. I saw more wrinkles. And I remember taking from that, I was like, oh, you're tired. You're not taking good enough care of yourself. This was like six months ago.

I'm with Jordan Chal and I was like, I need to take better care of myself. But it wouldn't be the same as seeing a filter of yourself as an old man. Right. Like, if you saw a filter of yourself as an old man. The Snapchat thing that made you an old man. It wasn't that crisp. But it wasn't far from it. You like see it in yourself, right?

Yeah, you're looking at a mirror. And the mirror is looking at 70-year-old me. I had a similar experience on a drug called 2CB where I looked into a mirror. And I had the exact opposite where I was. I saw myself as a child. I literally, like, just saw, and again, it wasn't like I suddenly shrunk, but I just, it's like sometimes you catch yourself in the mirror and you, and you realize you're the same person, you kind of see your features and how it all resembles.

It was like, it was kind of like that kid from adolescence. So wait, so what happens? You see yourself as a kid, this innocent kid. Oh, and I was just sort of like, I think it was just this realization that I'm the same person. Yeah. So, like, I remember, like, seeing myself as a kid and as a kid, like, you know, Everyone goes through a lot as a kid. You're working out the world and stuff.

And I kind of, you're kind of just looking at this kid. And it was almost like I could, I couldn't actually communicate with the kid, but it's like I wanted to. Yeah. Sort of want to look at this kid and be like, it's okay, man. It's going to be all right. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's so cool.

You're going to figure this shit out. Very sort of, very sort of therapeutic moment. But then I remember just before that, I'd looked in the mirror. And I can't remember this very well, but I'm sure that I looked into the mirror, which you're kind of not supposed to do, it can go wrong. But I was like, I was looking at my hair or something. and then I looked down at my eyes and I saw like a delay

like I looked down on my eyes and I saw in the mirror my eyes come down. Have you tried MDMA? Yes. And was it a similar experience? Because when I did MDMA I did sort of the over-analizing thing

the entire time. Anytime I've ever done any illicit substance, I keep a ledger. Yeah, yeah, you've got to write it down. I write down the experience as it unfolds like moment by moment so I can reflect on it

and then make an assessment if I want to do it again. Yeah, I think that's wise. What did you find? This is in the Hamptons? Yeah, basically every time I do them all, I like keep a life. And what did you say? And Mexico City had this.

I was the only one sober. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, I just like check in every like hour or two. I remember you were like, I feel good, but I could get the same feeling from X, Y, and Z. And I was like, well, you're taking. And these guys are having way more fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you got to follow up in two hours from that moment because I changed my tune.

Okay. But there's a perfect example of like that, like, hyperanalysis of that moment might restrict the joy. Which, it drives and doesn't. It's tricky. give you a ton of credit when we've done molly together i was overanalyzing at the beginning and you said hey don't look for it don't wait for it just let it happen just relax and joy put sunglasses on and whatever and i had a way better time because of that so it's interesting to see that like you're able to is that life in a microcos i was going to say such as life

yeah yeah like stop stop over think like it can be interesting in the same way that you might be interested in drugs because drugs are fascinating right like why does taking a tiny little pill or something have this crazy effect on your mental experience that's really interesting right but that is a separate kind of fun the fun of like looking into the brain chemistry to the experience of the drug yes that is a great analogy you're right for like philosophy and life in general like they're enjoyable for two different reasons but you should not confuse them and you should make enough time for both probably yeah that's right it's really fun of chewing the fat i love it but it's also yeah in the same way that you can you can take you can take MDMA and never be interested in the brain chemistry

right still have a good time yes you can just like live your life and still have a really good by any philosopher's standard of what good means without ever like realizing that that's what you're doing or thinking about it in that way and i think that's kind of the aim that is religion otherwise you're doing the wrong thing that's god otherwise you, well, maybe, but God can make people do all kinds of different things. So can drugs. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's my boy. If we're wrapping up, I would. No, no, we're not wrapping up. The train, would you pull the lever? I don't know if we got that. Oh, yeah, maybe we didn't ask. I think I would probably, well, I don't know if I, because one thing we haven't actually pulled out here is the difference in what you should do and what you would do.

Like, I think it's probably permissible to pull the lever, but would I actually do it? It's really difficult to imagine the circumstance in which you are actually certain that you've know everything the leave is going to do because, of course, in practice, like, you have no idea if it's going to run down on a different track and kill people or whatever. So, like I said earlier, you've got it in a thought experiment, you've got to assume that. But it's actually very difficult to do that. And so I don't know what I would do with certainty. But I think, I think I would probably probably be.

What about pushing the fat guy? No. Wouldn't do it. But I recognize that that is just that in any of these circumstances, I'm just doing what I think feels, right, you know? And there's something about like, you know, Michael Sandell. has taken people who say who are in my position, they said, okay, what if the fat man's walking across the bridge and you can pull a lever and a lever like opens a trap door

and then the man falls down so you're still like pulling a lever? Yeah. And you can just keep making the situations more and more similar to point out that there's an inconsistency. But I'm happy to just admit that, yeah, I'm not being rationally inconsistent because I'm not being rational. Like I'm an emotivist. I'm just feeling a particular way about these trolley problems. All right, guys, if you enjoyed that episode with Alex O'Connor, You are in luck because we have a second episode coming, and it's all about God. Not my God, your cracker ass gods. We're talking about if Jesus was the Messiah for it was actually John the Baptist,

he talks about Joseph Smith and Mormonism, and he talks about our boy Wes Huff. It's a little Bible beef going on. What does he really think of Wes Huff in his arguments? I think he thinks they ain't shit. Check it out.