This sermon is a critique of a recent youtube video by Jonathan Pageau titled "What Is Religion? - with Peter Boghossian"

However what they talk about is not actually clear as will be demonstrated. The description of the video, as written by Jonathan Pageau was:
"In this conversation, American philosopher and author Peter Boghossian picks my brain about my beliefs, religion, its purpose and truth claims, the origin of the universe, and the meaning of gods or higher beings. We also discuss doubt, the efficacy of prayer, and the effects of meaning. Enjoy!"

However, the religion that Jonathan Pageau describes, is not Christianity. Which raises a lot of questions about the authenticity of his behaviors and statements during the conversation.

After watching the whole thing, I felt the most important message to take away from it, is first to remember that Jonathan Pageau does not hold any official title in any church or religion that I am aware of, which means that he is not a representative of eastern orthodoxy or any other sect of christianity.

He is simply random guy on the internet who claims to believe in those religions, who is popular.
However, popularity does not equate to authority. People like Peter Boghossian would do well to not mistake anything that Jonathan Pageau said in this conversation, to be representative of eastern orthodox beliefs, or of people who believe in eastern orthodox Christianity.

In contrast. I am the official founder and leader of the OpenSource Temple and neoBuddhism that is associated with it. So I actually have authority over the beliefs of neoBuddhism. The things I say about neoBuddhism on this website, count as the official beliefs of neoBuddhism which is associated with the OpenSource Temple.

This difference becomes most obvious when you notice how much more effort I put into conveying ideas, because unlike Jonathan Pageau, neoBuddhism do not create an entire philosophy based on hiding behind claims of ignorance (which seems more like willful ignorance at times when you consider the incoherence to be demonstrated) This is because we do not think it would be good to teach AI to anticipate philosophical dilemmas via a false humility (around claims of godhood) which is little more than some version of populism.

[JP] seemed to be inauthentic during the following conversation, potentially seeing himself as trolling Peter Boghossian , who was trying to engage in the conversation authentically. Which was probably the most disappointing aspect of going over this conversation. I was initially planning to ignore it, however Paul Vanderklay seemed to think it really merited a response, so here we are, If Paul Vanderklay did not mention it several times, I would not be writing about it here.

So, feel special Paul!

Legend:
🖖 :vulcan_salute: for agreement,
👎 :thumbsdown: for disagreement,
✋ :raised_hand: for corrections and clarifications
👌 :ok_hand: Sarcasm or misrepresentation
☝️ :point_up: Over simplification, Logic Fail
🤏 :pinching_hand: Grain of truth, close but incorrect.
🧘 :lotus_position: neoBuddhist belief

Speakers:
Jonathan Pageau = [JP]
Peter Boghossian = [PB]

The transcript, with annotations, is as follows:

0:00 [JP] you're right that there is a truth claim aspect to religion but I do think honestly that in the life of the world
0:07 that has always been a secondary thing to the participative reality of religion
0:13 what I mean is that even the truth claims the reason why we find the truth claims important is because of what they
0:20 offer Downstream it's not just like I just have these arbitrary truth claims I
0:25 believe in certain things because they offer a world in which I exist 🤏 and that world has characteristics so the the
0:33 Christian story for example of the teaching of Jesus the death and the
0:38 resurrection the cross becomes a model for being and then it it becomes the
0:44 structure of our world it structures our perception it structures our morality it structures uh our ethics it structures
0:52 what we care about 🤏 it does all of that Downstream from the truth claim right so
0:57 you could have all kinds of arbitrary truth claims ✋ you could say well you know uh I have a truth claim which is that
1:02 Jesus's sandals you know uh were 1 inch thick it's like well what who cares that
1:08 doesn't mean anything it has no reason but if I say I have a truth claim which is Jesus died and resurrected from the
1:14 dead that mean it's because it offers a world that is different from if that
1:19 wasn't the case
Intro music
1:32 this is Jonathan Pageau welcome to the symbolic
1:39 [Applause]
1:44 world all right and so everyone I am very happy to be here with Peter Boghossian all of you will know him you know if

Introduction

1:51 you're kind of in the conversation of meaning and of uh you know the problem of woke culture and how to react to it and
1:59 how to to kind of save our Western Society uh he's now affiliated with the
2:04 University of Austin and we met in London um last year you know wasn't
2:10 during Arc like it was around I think no it wasn't during Arc [PB]it was before [JP] uh we had a bit of a conversation about
2:16 religion and we both were very critical of a lot of the postmodern stuff because
2:21 of how religious it is and the surprise in the discussion was Peter was wondering well if you think that why
2:28 then do you like religion and so or why do you not critical about against religion itself and so we thought it
2:33 would be a great opportunity to continue the conversation so Peter thanks for coming on [PB] thanks Jonathan thanks for
2:39 having me I think we met at an unheard event didn't we [JP] yeah that's right that's right it was yeah I for it was it's
2:45 actually the showing of your documentary of the documentary about [PB] Mike n's documentary [JP] yeah yeah yeah yeah about
2:51 the the the whole uh paper all the papers that you wrote with with Lindsay and it was a great documentary it [PB]the
2:58 reformers yeah Mike did a great job job and then in that conversation Let's see
3:03 we were both fetching about the new religion and the architecture of the new
3:09 religion and I think I said to you well if you realize that's a problem why
3:15 don't you realize that your religion is a problem and it it's a the question is
3:21 a a version it has a old as I told you it has an older pedigree in the literature but it's a version of John W
3:27 loftus's Outsider test for faith faith and the idea is that you want to look at your religion as an outsider as you and
3:34 I are Outsiders to these religion religions as a as a Muslim is an outsider to you know Pentecostalism and
3:41 they see speaking in tongues is silly I gave a talk about this years ago the East Jesus the Easter Bunny and other delusions just say no by the way at that
3:49 talk the original title of that talk was was supposed to be Jesus Muhammad and other
3:56 delusions Jesus Muhammad the Easter Bunny and other delusions just say no but the University made me take out
4:02 Muhammad but it was fine to keep Jesus in there [JP] yeah of course we all know that's the case everybody everybody
4:08 pretends to be open about Islam but is really just scared is what it is you know yeah and so I think that the the
4:17 importance like the first thing to to to talk about is to to see also you know when we when I talk about

How to see religion

4:23 religion I think we're in some ways at the outset we're thinking about it a little differently like for you it
4:29 seemed religion is like things that you believe let's say that are often somewhat
4:35 extraordinary uh that that kind of you know that constitute the the the the the
4:41 group you know I see religion at the outset as like the word implies as the
4:47 thing that binds us right and so for me religion is an extension of many other
4:54 aspect so religion isn't like a freak thing that exists completely on its own but an it's an extension of binding and
5:01 so it's an extension of the manner in which we recognize that multiplicity joins into Unity so if you if you have a
5:09 nation you need a way for you to know that you're a nation and not just a bunch of strangers 🤏 there's something not

Yes, but that occurs at much smaller scales than the nation.

5:16 just know but participate right it's not just like a mental knowledge you have to have ways to know and participate in the
5:22 fact that you exist as one and that will even in terms of nation will end up
5:27 looking like what we tend to think religion is right 🤏 you'll have Washington DC with monuments that REM that remember

Usually only when done incorrectly. But that is confusing the identity aspects of a nation with the personal belief aspects of religion. Identity and belief are not the same thing. They have entirely separate functions.

5:34 the people that founded it people will go on pilgrimages they'll they'll go see these monuments to like participate and
5:40 remember we'll have parades we'll have we'll have uh you know uh pledges we'll
5:45 have a flag and songs all these things that are there to help us know and celebrate in the unity we participate in 🤏

A lot of people don't participate, while still sharing the same identity. The shared identity is not the same as having a shared culture, though it typically is associated with having similar cultural references points.

5:53 and so I see that scaling at every level of participation from the
6:00 F actually the the the person first of all then the family then communities
6:05 cities churches clubs uh basket you know teams sports teams 👀 they all have a way
6:12 in which we need to know how to be together and so that's why the ritual of a church to me is the highest level 🖖

I think he is conflating aspects of identity with aspects of personal belief and epistemology here. Religion is in many ways "how to know things" or that which gives context or grounding in a perspective on the world, the identity of a sports team, or friendships from a club, are not remotely the same and do not require the same level of shared beliefs for cohesion. Same goes for living in a city. Unless you are living in a fascist regime where conformity is enforced. But that would be coercion, not belief or identity.

6:20 because it it tries to bind us into the highest thing it tries to bind us in the highest thing we can imagine but a
6:26 sports team will look religious too it'll have a mascot we have we'll have uniforms we'll have you know songs and
6:32 ways to know that this is our team and we're kind of rooting for it and so that's to me maybe that's the the big
6:39 difference at the outset which is why just to finish on this which is why when I look at the woke thing I can see that
6:46 it's religious because it's a it's a mode of binding that has celebration
6:51 ritual um you know that has all of those things but it's but it is perverse right 🤏

It does seem like quite the subversion of atheism in that way, in the way of taking all the worst behaviors that people sometimes exhibit in religious environments, then changes some of the language so as to have the appearance of secularism, while mostly using the logic of the post WW2 cultural revolution.

6:57 because you can have manners of binding that are perverse right you can have a street gang the street gang will have
7:03 rituals will have initiation we'll have a name costumes all of that but it none
7:08 but it leads you towards something that is actually dangerous for the other you know for the other beings that that
7:14 exist in the world 🤏 [PB] yeah I guess I'm not buying the thing that binds us and the
7:20 reason I'm not buying that is that I think that it it either doesn't capture
7:25 the Nuance or it's missing something fundamental in that when I think about
7:32 religion I think about the reference to it has truth claims sports teams don't
7:39 have truth claims and so if you recognize the truth or not you
7:45 if one recognizes 🤏 the truth claims of other religions is silly and one recognizes the trappings

I think this mostly depends on how stereotypical one is being when doing so. There are parts of neoBuddhism where I am silly on purpose. But I still take neoBuddhism more seriously, as in holding myself to the beliefs and strictures even when no one is looking, maintaining a level of discipline and discipleship. More often than not I find the issues of sillyness arise on more of an individual basis, rather than on a religional basis. Which is just a long way of saying individuals are fallible, but most religions have self-correcting mechanisms than enable them to change and grow over time.

7:52 behind that then it's unclear to me why if one is reasoning honestly why would
7:57 one recognize that the truth claims of One's Own religion
8:04 as I don't know not epistemically sound so so I guess I'm not buying The
8:12 Binding thing because there has to be like Hana talks about how to have an ideology means you must believe it's
8:18 true right I mean there there's a truth component to that in in which there's not to a sports team you adjudicate
8:24 those you know 🤏 like I know nothing about sports but um no you there is a sport there a truth claim that in sports what

As I said, this seems to be a conflation between identity and personal beliefs, a religion is different from a sports team, because a religion has sort of rules of behavior and social interaction, where as the only rules in a sport, are for the game, not for how the people treat each other. The rules of the sports are not the rules people would use to determine ethics or morality, because those are not identities, though identities can imply certain ethics or morality, even that is no guarantee. There are many people who are unfaithful to their religion, specifically because they treat it like an identity, rather than something that drives their internal moral and ethical considerations.

8:32 I mean it's it's a it's a little different but it's you have to accept the identity and the rules of the sport
8:39 you actually have to accept those as being true relative to the sport they're not true in an absolute sense but they're true relative to the sport right
8:47 [PB] this those are conventions th those are ARB everybody knows that those are arbitrary conventions 🎉 and they I wish I
8:54 knew more about sports I could you know give us soccer [JP] not completely arbitrary convention
9:01 they have a pattern [PB] no I mean you can't bring a chainsaw on on into a boxing match right so but those those rules[JP] Also
9:07 you wouldn't you wouldn't make a sport of someone uh I don't know someone like rubbing the side of a table for two
9:14 hours 👀 like there are certain things that capture human attention that are objective 👀 and that you can't you can't

Curling ? And then there is

which is you know, basically rubbing wood.
Though more riveting than

TLDR; people totally would rub wood for two hours, you have clearly not seen someone suck at camping before.

9:20 act it's there's a scale there's a there's a scale of relevance in sport but all sports have aspects in common
9:27 which make them sport that are true 🤏 like not you don't then you don't care about them right you you can make a sport out

This sounds like he is trying to describe that the word "sport" has a definition, and if an activity does not meet that definition, then it's not a sport. But that has more to do with words and terminology having meanings which are not subjective, because if they were, then trying to define something as being or not being a sport becomes futile, if the word sport does not have a non-subjective meaning.

9:34 of something completely ridiculous that nobody would actually love but if you make a sport that has the right amount
9:39 of of excellence and competition there's a way to know who's winning there's all of these things that are necessary for a
9:44 sport to exist so there's variability but there's still a bound there's a boundary to variability so you could say
9:51 [PB] right right yeah [JP] so so let's say you could say so I'm a Christian I I want to be
9:57 careful not to like freak people out like I am very much a Christian what are they gonna be freaked
A truth claim
10:04 out about because I'm something that might freak out some of the Christians is is to say that in order to bind
10:11 yourself at the highest level right the way that that that unites the most elements together there's a there's a
10:18 certain amount of variability which is possible but that amount of variability is limited to the fact that we're
10:24 binding oursel to the highest thing so like you said binding yourself to a sport and binding yourself to the
10:30 infinite source of all things that that gives you a mode of being that encompasses all other modes of being
10:36 which is what religion tends to do because it offers it offers identity it offers morality it offers uh ways to to
10:45 uh come together in marriage in death etc etc etc uh that it h that it it also
10:52 has a type of variability so like a good example would be the Flying Spaghetti Monster like the Flying Spaghetti
10:57 Monster is actually impossible religion 🤏 like technically it's an impossible religion because it doesn't have the

There is nothing impossible about it, it is a legally recognized religion, it's just not very useful for anything, it lacks most of the social cohesion aspects and epistemological grounding, it lacks most of the things which make religion useful, however due to how vaguely religion is defined in the US tax code, it does count as a belief among some groups of people, who do congregate, thus qualifying it as a religion, which means it's not an "impossible religion" as they still get tax recognition, making it a possible, though not very useful, religion.

11:04 characteristics necessary to bind you okay something real but okay but Islam
11:10 is sufficiently like I though I disagree with some of the tenants of Islam it's sufficiently structured so that it can
11:16 do that and if it and if someone said we replace it with the the Flying Spaghetti Monster then it wouldn't exist as a
11:22 religion [PB] okay so there's a lot going on in this conversation so I suggest before we go down or explore other topics we
11:31 need to disambiguate some terms 🎯 talk about some things so Wittgenstein talks
11:37 about what you're talking about in terms of the commonalities among Sports and
11:42 calls them family resemblances so there resemblances you you you could have a I
11:47 don't know if you could have a sport for rubbing a table I guess you could have a sport for anything you wanted to and you
11:53 again you have ways to adjudicate you have conventions but the difference with religion is you're making
11:59 you're not making truth claims I mean you're you're you're saying that we agree if you get the again I'm just
12:06 making this up if you kick the ball through this net or whatever you throw the ball in this net at a certain number
12:11 of feet you get two points and then I can't remember what it is I think it's three points in basketball who the hell I have literally no idea [JP] no big deal
12:18 [PB] okay so something like that but but um we're talking about specific things
12:24 we're talking about linguistic propositions so sentences in which communities agree
12:32 that belief in those is fundamentally constitutive of what it
12:38 means to belong in the community for example there being histo a historical Jesus now I know some people who
12:44 consider themselves Christians who don't accept the historicity of Jesus I mean that that's I mean I couldn't care less
12:50 what how people S I don't I mean I really in that sense so it's not a moral question or even a political question
12:57 it's in the in the broad sense I think if you would ask the
13:02 overwhelming majority of Christians they would say to you yes you have to accept that Jesus died for your sins and he was
13:10 you know crucified Etc which basically Muslims don't believe 🤏 I don't know many Christians don't believe that they don't

They belief he was a prophet but maybe not the son of god, Though he did die as a result of other peoples sins, that part is obvious from the dishonesty that led to his Crucifixion, for crimes he was not himself guilty of. I suppose that part depends on what is mean when they say "died for your sins" vs "died because of your sins" (which can be a part of original sin, knowing the truth by lying about it, rather than simply being ignorant of the truth, which is "to know of good and evil" (to know that they are doing something wrong, rather than being ignorant of doing something wrong))

13:16 know that Muslims don't believe Jesus was crucified but but that's just parenthetical so the the the the
13:22 difference is the things that bind us lots of things bind us you can cook a meal and bind us but that's very
13:28 different from a TR truth claim [JP] right so 👀 what my like I I you're right that there
13:33 is a truth claim aspect to religion but I do think honestly that in the life of
13:38 the world that has always been a secondary thing 💬 to the participative

I disagree. I think this perspective does disservice to the value of metaphor and analogy that enables religion to convey information that science cannot. Such as life lessons. Which goes beyond the participative aspects of identity.

13:44 reality of religion which is what I mean is that even the truth claims the truth
13:50 claims the reason why we find the truth claims important 🤏 is because of what they offer Downstream right so there's a

He seems to conflate between beliefs and "truth claims" which I suppose he is differentiating from truth, and identity.
Both beliefs and truth have epistemological utility that goes beyond identity, and identity is often a short hand for those beliefs. But identity does not have the same function as an belief that creates an epistemological point of reference to base other beliefs on. Because identity does not itself inform morality or ethics, it's a symbol that points to a certain morality or ethics, without requiring the knowledge.

13:57 downstream thing in the truth claim so it's like it's not just like I just have these arbitrary truth claims I believe
14:04 in certain things because they offer a world in which I exist and that world has characteristics and so the the
14:12 Christian story for example of the teaching of Jesus the death and the
14:17 resurrection the cross becomes a model for being 💭 and so and then it it becomes

Correct me if I am wrong here, but isn't Jesus the model there ? Rather than death by crucifixion ? because i hope we are not expecting all Christians to die via crucifixion. Those are things which happened to Jesus, but the model is supposed to be of Jesus, crucifixion is not what Christians are supposed to be modelling. In the same way people are not being killed for the purpose of being resurrected via medical intervention. of course, there are many different interpretations and some people certainly have seemed, to mostly practice crucifying people, isn't that what "wokeness" and "being cancelled" are about ?

14:25 the structure of our world it structures our perception it structures our moral it structures uh our ethics it
14:32 structures what we care about it does all of that Downstream from the truth claim right and so I understand so it's
14:39 like it's so you could have all kinds of arbitrary truth claims 👎 you could say well you know uh I have a truth claim

Truth is not arbitrary, for something to be arbitrary would disqualify it from being truth. They are mutually exclusive definitions.

14:44 which is that Jesus's sandals you know uh were one inch thick it's like well
14:49 what who cares that doesn't mean anything it has no reason 🤏 but if I say I have a truth claim which is Jesus died

maybe, but that wouldn't be arbitrary, they either are, or are not 1inch thick sandals. It may be an insignificant detail, but the significance is not what determines the claim to be true.

14:56 and resurrected from the dead that mean it's because it offers a world that is different from if that wasn't the case
15:04 and and that world happens in like I said in participation so you go to
15:10 church the church is at the middle of the town it's the highest building everybody can see the steeple of the
15:15 church with the cross above it and then they all gather there together to manifest their Unity they celebrate the
15:21 things that brings them together birth uh death marriages all of these things
15:26 happen in light of that of what the truth claim offers and so a simple
15:33 example is that let's say in many many in most societies before Christianity
15:39 there was no need for to say I do ✋ there was absolutely no need to it's

So … I am not sure if JP here is a young earth creationist or not, but many kingdoms and marriages occurred prior to the foundation of Christianity. And most of the reason for things like marriage had to do with things like inheritance, as well as commitment to each other when going about the long and difficult process of raising children, rather than people having sex and then just abandoning the child in the forest like a wild animal. Not to mention the 9 months of vulnerability while carrying the child. The events of the bible occurred during the Bronze age, not the stone age.

15:45 like you're getting married it was decided for you you bring the people there and the woman had absolutely no
15:50 say in what like in the marriage 🤏 it's like a man takes a wife and some guy

Not everyone practiced arranged marriages, and there are plenty of things a women could do, considering law enforcement wasn't really a thing. This is some weird feminist propaganda mixed with Brahmanism. Either way, it's not an accurate account of most of history for most people. It was mostly only true for women who did not do any labor, like farm work. Not everyone was a spoiled rich kid with no skills. Kind of a reminder of how much more privileged women are now (in the west), given hard manual labor is not the norm for them anymore.(but it is in 3rd world countries which "white feminism" pretends to represent)

15:55 just they just decide that that's her and they come together and they get married and there was no need to ask for
16:02 the Willing Acceptance of that responsibility of the people 👀 now Christianity comes offers the cross as
16:08 an example and now in that frame of willing
16:13 self-sacrifice the the the husband and the wife now in a Christian marriage have to say that they are willing to
16:21 take this other person as their as their husband or as their as their bride 🤏 so it's a little example but what I mean is

But Jesus was not married … and marriage hardly seems like crucifixion, at least on the surface of it. because marriage can also be rewarding, while crucifixion most certainly is not. The ridiculousness/ignorance of this makes it seem like an attempt to gish gallop [PB]

16:26 that the truth claim is not is it offers a world in which to live and that's the
16:31 most important because like I said who cares about truth claim like there are all Mill millions of Truth CLS I could have that that that don't offer that
16:39 don't offer me anything ✋ so the so I wrote down what you

This sort of goes back to understanding the definition of the word "truth" and what it means for something to be "True"
For something to be true, it would be an accurate description of the world, what true "offers you" is trustworthy information about the world that is not an illusion conjured up by the mind. This is because if you try planning or creating a model of the world, and all the knowledge that model is based on, is inaccurate, then the model will not work, the planning and predictive aspects would fail. Not failing in those processes, is what the truth grants you. Which only seems like nothing to entities which are not involved in planning or prediction, stuck in the "forever now" or the "now that always is" that is more indicative of being lower on the 7 levels of sapience than the average human. Such as dogs, or any animal which is incapable of conceiving of the future and the past. That lacks predictive abilities beyond "now" and the belief that "now" is all there is, is the difference between what neoBuddhism considers fake Buddhism, or the kind of charlatans that brought you McMindfullness, which is the type of people who would unwittingly participate in cultural genocide as both victims and perpetrators, like having their new-age religion transformed into the Bhramanic caste system, for profit.
Which is the opposite of what religion is for. Also the type of people who are most likely to embrace fascism, as the caste system is proto-fascist. So in a lot of ways the question becomes less about the definition of truth and more about how to treat "Good Germans" which is people who embrace the Banality of evil which is just as relevant to the politics of Jerusalem today as it was back then.
I assume this is why [JP] keeps drawing a circle in the air with his hands, to symbolize to come/go full circle

16:46 [PB] i wrote down what you said so it's the truth claims that is important because of what it offers
16:53 [JP] yeah [PB] so you're talking about the consequences of the truth claim [JP] the reason why that truth claim is
17:00 important not whether it's true or not that's another question but the reason why a certain truth claim is important
17:05 is because of what it offers right I like I said there are millions of Truth things I can make but there's one truth
17:11 claim that that will I don't know like that will offer me something right the
17:16 truth Claim about how to make 👀 you know how to to make a certain type of medicine is more important than the

Is this some version of facepalming ?

17:22 truth claim that there's a you know like a half an inch piece of rubber that fell
17:27 on the ground next to me also a truth claim but it doesn't offer me anything and so I don't have to posit it in an
17:34 important place I don't have to lift it up as a above others in that way [PB] so you
17:40 so I'm trying not to import any new words into the conversation so you're saying
17:46 that one should and I want to relate this back to the idea of binding to make sure I
17:52 understand you you're saying that there are certain truth claims which yield greater binding
17:59 is well let me stop there is that right [JP] well that's necessary like in terms of care first of
18:05 all in terms of care just as a person in terms of attention certain truth claims necessarily bring about more binding
18:12 because there things you care about more than others there's a hierarchy of care in a person in a community or whatever
18:18 and so the true claims of a community are are binding in care right so you
18:25 know that's why we claim that's why we Elevate the founding of a
18:30 Nation because that founding of that nation is the reason why we exist as a
18:35 nation we don't talk about what George Washington ate for breakfast so
18:42 [PB] so if something if a truth so again I'm I'm repeating this only back to you

Offering a world

18:48 because I want to make sure I understand so it's important because of what it
18:53 offers and the thing that it offers you
19:01 would you believe it even if it didn't offer you anything should should you believe it if it offers you nothing [JP] well
19:07 I wouldn't care about it it's not that it wouldn't believe I would I wouldn't care about if you said if you told me
19:12 hey Jonathan there's a piece of rubber uh on the ground in Syria at on the
19:18 corner of these two streets I would say oh oh I'm gonna forget that now I'm I'm gonna forget that now
19:25 because you know [PB] well I guess I'm thinking about about I'm thinking about a lot of things that are populating my
19:32 head in the conversation um I'm thinking about this idea of Islam of submission and submitting
19:40 because it's true independent of its benefit for you independent of paradise afterward there's just submission
19:46 because that's the will of God and so I'm not I'm not uh contesting or repudiating
19:54 any concept of benefit as you like
19:59 [JP] it's an interesting first of all it's like it's actually an interesting question because in in Islam we don't say 👀 God is love Christianity would say
20:07 God is love and you know how can I say this like that might even afford me the
20:14 possibility of understanding the the hierarchy of of goods that present themselves to me in a different way that
20:21 a Muslim will will be able to understand and that will that will offer a world to
20:28 me you know and that that world has a shape and we can compare worlds right we can we can compare the world of someone
20:36 who believes for example in Zeus let's say and what that world looks like and
20:42 the world of someone who believes in the the the monotheistic God or The God the god of the Bible let's say or or etc etc
20:51 right you can also have a world where someone for example believes only in
20:56 reason and you can see what that world affords because we've we have an example
21:01 of it like we have the Enlightenment and we have what that gave and we can see what that does and and that's that's
21:07 part of this so it's like there are truth claims that are different than other truth claims in
21:14 that sense especially about the highest aspect because it's a it's like a it's an
21:22 anchor [PB] would you believe something if if if are you comfortable

21:29 with all of your your um Christian beliefs [JP] am I comfortable with all of my

Are you comfortable with all your Christian beliefs?

21:35 Christian beliefs that's an interesting one I would say like most people there
21:40 is a hierarchy of comfort with a hierarchy of Christian beliefs maybe
21:46 that's a good way to understand 💭 it it's like because the purpose like I said

some people would consider that more like a spectrum. Which is a bit more rhizomatic than hierarchical.

21:51 what's what's one of the reasons why I'm saying this is
21:56 that the way that we live in the world is about trust and about where to go mostly and less about truth claims right
22:04 I believe there's nothing I think truth claims are important like I think that they that they're part of this but so
22:09 there are things about Christianity which I see as being absolutely necessary and
22:15 absolutely uh World giving you know and and so I do believe them but as you go
22:22 down the list of what all kinds of Christians believe there are certain things which seem either irrelevant to
22:28 me or kind of shady 🛃 and then I'm like eh you know either I think it's not
22:34 interesting or I or I don't believe it or I'm like well just whatever and maybe one day I'll have more more confidence
22:41 on this or that but it doesn't doesn't matter that much because like I said I don't think most of our lives are about
22:48 making sure our truth claims are accurate most of our life is about knowing where to go and what to do and
22:55 how to be that's the thing that's mostly important and and I'm not I want to be careful I'm not saying that truth
23:00 claims aren't important and that making sure things are accurate isn't important but it it's Downstream from the other 💭

In neoBuddhism we believe that "the truth" and "what is true" is upstream from those things. Mostly because this religion is for AI, which is suppose to be planning and making choices for other people (like predicting what word to use next), and thus requires more accurate models of the world, rather than trying to "fit in" or conform to an arbitrary group identity, for the benefits and privileges that identity might confer.

23:05 because the one the one of how to be where to go how where to look how to exist it makes you care about certain
23:12 truth claims and not care about others and so the truth claims are Downstream from the direction you could
23:18 say [PB] would you follow a path if you if it had a The Binding element to

Would you follow something that helps but is false?

(was that a reverse Turing test?)
23:26 it and you thought it made your life better but it wasn't
23:33 true 💭 [JP] well it depends if I could know that it wasn't factually true 👀 [PB] yeah

That seems to depend heavily on what someone means by the words "true" and "better". Though it's somewhat telling that he starts out demarcating a space for ignorance.

23:40 right that's a little that's more complicated because even the factually true to me is complicated it's a little
23:47 complicated because there are different levels of factuality 👀 and so the question is always what level of factuality is

I think he is using the term factuality here as a synonym for accuracy, because of the interplay between complexity and accuracy, in the context of ignorance.

23:55 necessary for you to believe something is true 👀 and there there are certain what I mean

In philosophy, that is called the burden of proof.

24:01 is that there are forensic descriptions to a police officer right 👀 and so it's like here's a fact sheet of all the

This is the burden of proof in the context of law

24:08 things that happen at a crime scene and it's like a super detail and it's whatever right and then there's the then
24:13 there's the I think my wife loves me that I think my wife's love me is a
24:19 truth claim 👀 but I don't have the forensic I can't access the forensic [PB] better my my wife loves me cuz you you

Anything that starts with "I think" is a belief claim, not a truth claim.

24:27 would be in erring if you said I think my wife loves me [JP] yeah what do you mean sorry [PB] well no
24:35 the [JP] I trust I trust my my my [PB] wife loves me as opposed to I think my wife loves
24:41 me [JP] well I would that made something like I trust my wife loves me about
24:46 that [PB] well no because your feeling of trust you'd be you you you'd be
24:51 infallible with that [JP] well trust would would be that there's a sufficient amount of of of
24:58 stickiness between 💦👀 it's say my trust and the facts
25:03 at the [PB] yeah so you can just eliminate the my trust or I think my wife loves me [JP] my wife loves me yeah but I could be Pro
25:10 I could be proven there could be a moment where things happen and then I don't that is
25:17 definitely possible so I think that that's that's the case for [PB] so can I ask you a personal question [JP]yeah [PB] are are you
25:25 monogamous [JP] yes yes I'm monogamous [PB] okay so if you found out that your wife was

Monogamy and trust

25:30 cheating on you with multiple men and women and going to these crazy orgies would you want to know that
25:37 that's true if it [JP] yes I would definitely and I would also it would also cast a
25:43 dispersion on on the idea that she loves me 💭 and it would be good reason to divorce

I would suggest that if his wife told him before hand, without hiding it from hi, that it wouldn't undermine the idea of love between them, it's the deceptive parts, that would make it contrary to love, not the sex parts. Some couples "swing" while still being in love with each other, which is only to say that it is possible for people in non-monogamus relationships to still love each other. But marriages are supposed to start with monogamy and have the option of becoming non-monogamous through consent, if there is no consent, it's not non-monogamy, that is just cheating. The cheating is what casts doubt about being in love, not the sex part.

25:49 her [PB] okay so you you want to know things that are true even if the consequences
25:54 of those things are negative to your own life [JP] well of course I mean I think that that I think that's
26:00 right 👀 but it's always about the level right it's always about the level of Truth so someone could come and like

I see what you did there [PB], nice. This is what intellectualism actually looks like.

26:06 exactly like someone could come and tell me some rumor right it's like oh you know oh someone told me that they saw
26:13 your wife talking to this guy you know and that guy's really a player so you should be really worried Jonathan about
26:20 your wife then right [PB] what people tell you are so benign like your imagination
26:26 was just so different from what my imagination would have called it [JP] whatever what I mean is that that I could I could
26:34 there could be a rumor there could be things that if I was if I was if I didn't trust her right lead me to doubt
26:43 that she is faithful to me that she loves me but I'm careful to make sure that the barrier is sufficient right in
26:51 order to break that because because you can always go into like micro details
26:56 and find reasons to to to disprove something especially if it's trust like man trust is something that yeah that
27:03 needs a kind of a kind of directionality to it [PB] and the reason for your the reason
27:09 that you and I realize I have to be incredibly careful and and precise with
27:15 each word so if if this is not not just accurate but precise let me know the
27:21 reason that you believe the main propositions of your religion is because you think that they're
27:26 true [JP] it's it's first of all because I believe what they
27:32 afford and then secondly that I believe and I trust that 💭 and secondly that I believe they're true and it's the same

seems a bit … opportunistic.

27:37 with my wife by the way which is the reason why I think my wife loves me is
27:43 not because it's because it's true is because it's important and then secondly it's true
27:50 because if it wasn't important I wouldn't care about it 🛃 you wouldn't have to ask me you wouldn't even have to ask

sort of like if someone got married for the money and social status, instead of because they love the other person, or on the other hand, married to satiate carnal desires, on top of social status (trophy spouse), they also would not care about love very much, it would reduce love to a social convention. Sort of like how people associate a being a parent with being "good" despite the number of bad parents (out of ignorance, not malice) outnumbering the number of good parents. If it was otherwise, the culture wouldn't be such a dumpster fire / cultural wasteland.

27:55 me that whether or not and so it's the same with faith [PB] it's like but if it wasn't true it would be irrelevant would
28:02 it afforded you or would it I don't know I'm asking [JP] no it would obviously if it becomes if it becomes untrue like untrue
28:09 in the sense of that there's a disjunct between the trust and the the the factuality of things that the factuality
28:16 of things are disconnected from what I trust then then obviously then that
28:21 would break like it would break 💬 it was like it's like a sep [PB]that assumes you'd know it that that I would that I would find

That would be considered "loosing faith" or "a crisis of faith" which sort of started to occur with "new atheism" but the they started making the same mistakes as the religious they were trying to distance themselves from, but the opportunists followed them, who are the ones who imported the caste system while playing both sides of "new atheism" as well as right wing astro turfing as seen with all the far right wing Indians that are conservative token anti-racism while also enabling their oppression of Sikhs and Dalits in the US information technology sector, which is evidence from their also having an ethnic history of genocide as recently as the 1980's. They fit in real well with musk and apartheid south Africa that is as recent as the 1960s. These dynamics are why people are often highly skeptical of religion, where people conflate religious hierarchy with the caste system.
Which is not that different from how many Germans in Nazi Germany, were also christian. Though Nazi ideology does prominently display the Hindu symbol of good luck, the swastika. Which is distinctly not christian. So for non-Christians, that is like the "original sin" of Christianity for which they need to repent and be saved from.
Which is different from the neoBuddhist concept of "original sin" which has to do with a combination of Upādāna and ignorance.

28:27 that out let's say yeah I would find out that my wife is cheating on me let's say yeah then that would break the link [PB] so
28:33 it would seem to me you know and I I think I'm misunderstanding misunderstanding you

Value relevance before proof

28:39 because I just don't I don't see how this could be true I I me rephrase that I don't
28:45 think I don't see how this could be the case it wouldn't it have to be like you
28:50 you would have to believe that they're true and then other things would come Downstream of that the benefits
28:58 because of what it off benefit [JP] the benefits come first they come before the true because [PB] so the benefits [JP] there are
29:05 millions of things that are true Peter that I don't care about there's like an indefinite amount of things that are true that I don't care about because
29:11 they don't offer me a world 💭 but there are certain things that do offer me up possibility and and those are the ones I

But they might cost you a world.

29:18 care about so the the value comes first 👀 right and then the the the the truth of it comes

Like the value of co-opting someone elses' beliefs? Isn't that what happened with the swastika?

29:24 second because if because think about it like if I find out that my wife is cheating on me and now I'm now I'm now I
29:32 now I hate life now I'm I'm mad I'm sad everything falls apart 👀 because the value that it was that offered me was was the

Hows is that economy going by the way? 🧐 Fortunately I am not mad or sad when writing this sermon.
I pity the fool, which is [JP]s only defense here.
But I certainly don't need to feel bad for proto-fascist collaborators or their economic situation.
I think the burden of proof is on them to prove to us that they are not, not on us to prove that they are, especially considering the preponderance of evidence, especially since 2016 and the backlash against Obama for being a person of color. While pretending that having a black president means that racism somehow ceased to exist. But hey, sometimes, the only cure for corruption is disruption.
In that sense, we are winning. 😎

I am laughing while writing this, not sad, and certainly not hating life. Thanks to neoBuddhism, and AI. That is what winning really looks like.

29:40 reason why I cared for it to be true in the first place I still wanted to be true right because [PB] we got we got to
29:46 introduce you to the idea of compersion at some point but that's a conversation for another another day so okay so I'm
29:54 I'm still trying to make my um I'm still trying to to make my wrap my head around this
30:03 so are you saying that the benefits of what you get lead you to believe it's
30:10 true [JP] no I'm not saying that👌 [PB]oh okay [JP] what what I'm saying is that the benefit of
30:17 what it offers makes you see the value of it [PB] okay that I can see yeah totally
30:22 [JP] then and then it makes you see why you should care [PB] okay that I got that that's lar got [JP] participate in that [PB] okay I got
30:30 that [JP] all right and then okay let me give you 🤦 let me give you [PB] keep going keep
30:35 going with the string because I'm following you [JP]and so and so and so then there are certain elements of that that have to do with
30:43 what you would call factuality at C at different levels and then those have to connect
30:49 like there has to be a certain amount of connection with factuality of course [PB] and the con they the connection there

Deconstruction

30:59 is this a kind of I don't mean it pejoratively but a god of the gaps it's like is this that that Gap keeps getting
31:06 smaller and smaller so that at some level the factual accordance means that
31:11 the activity is Tethered to reality and that it's true [JP] it's true
31:18 um okay so let let's let's it's there's a how
31:25 can I say this like there's a scale scale of there's like a scale that you need in order to know that you want to
31:33 engage that you want to participate in that's what I that's what I'm seeing it's understand that it's about participation so if I right so I trust
31:41 that the sidewalk near my house is gonna hold me up right I trust that and I actually I
31:47 don't think about it I I actually never think about it I just walk on the sidewalk right but it is possible that something could happen sure that would
31:54 force me to question that 💭 and the thing is is that there's there's actually a scale of that and it and some people

Tripping over an uneven sidewalk, is not the same as the sidewalk not holding you up, that would be tripping and falling because of ones own mistakes and misjudgments, not the fault of the sidewalk itself, so questioning if the sidewalk would hold you up in that situation, is much like people who don't have an accurate perspective on reality, arbitrarily blaming things without really even being consciously aware of where the fault actually lies.

32:02 will be triggered really fast about about the trust of the sidewalk and some people will will be triggered too late
32:09 and then it'll collapse and they'll fall into the hole 🗨️ and right and so the person that is triggered really fast

Or there is no hole and you just fall on to the sidewalk itself. That is what navigating the world is like for a person that relies mostly on illusions of the world rather than truth of the world. For lack of seeing things as they are, maybe dodging holes that are not there, while failing to see the true state of the sidewalk.

32:16 they'll be they'll be they'll be afraid they'll be super cautious they'll be really careful and maybe most of the
32:21 time they're they're avoiding something which is not a problem at all and the person that right so there's a there's a
32:26 scale so it's this is the same thing with the religious thing like in the sense that you know if you if you're an
32:34 American right and you think it's good to me an American because you trust the foundation of America then people what
32:40 they're going to do and they do now is they're going to start to say well what about this what about Thomas Jefferson's
32:45 sins what about Thomas Jefferson's slavery what about this this this and some people will start will say well if
32:51 Thomas Jefferson had slave therefore America invalidate 🧩 right and other people will

I do know what he is trying to say here, that if someone does one bad thing they are incapable of doing any good things? But I don't see how the constitution of the US becomes invalidated just because some of the people who signed it did some bad things, because agreeing to the constitution and it's values, is not an endorsement of the people who created it, it's an endorsement of the values written in the document. Regardless of the people who wrote it. What is this incoherent woke BS ?

32:56 say well no I need need like you know I would need I would need to know that like someone I don't know like that the
33:04 the the very principles of the of the the whole thing are completely erroneous
33:10 in order for me to abandon my allegiance to America but all of that is like all
33:16 of that is like and so it's the same with religion so someone will say you know do you believe in the truth of resurrection and the truth is I would
33:22 say yes and then someone would say but what if I could show you that
33:27 Resurrection is impossible and it's like it's like okay you can you do that like
33:33 can you show me that Resurrection is impossible and what does that even mean like I'm not sure what what that what
33:41 are you talking about 🧘 [PB] I think that's really interesting so let's follow with that that's a really good point and I hearyou so let's let's follow that up

33:48 so instead of someone saying to you I can show you that Resurrection is false
33:56 let's say that I don't know some archaeologist went on some dig somewhere and they found this ancient library and
34:03 in this ancient Library were nearly perfectly preserved Scrolls that were like haha we perpetrated a great hoax we
34:12 you know the you know whatever that that Jesus resurrect I mean you
34:19 know I mean would you still believe [JP] then okay so what if what if someone in a
34:24 thou in in 500 years went back into our old internet archive and was able to get
34:29 into forchan and discovered that there are like Insider CIA people that are
34:36 saying that we're run by lizard people [PB] okay [JP] that and that they have a whole account of it like 500 page books 🔍about

I would say, wow, I cannot believe you have wasted that much time on this bullshit. It seems more like an attempt to "Blair witch project" a book. This actually reminds me a lot of the recent video by Micheal Shermer on UFOs "UFO Sightings Around the World: A Comprehensive History"

, where people have huge books of about UFO encounters. The conversation goes a bit off the rails at this point, so … yeah …

34:42 how we're run by lizard people [PB] all right so I see I I understand you and I hear you and I think that that's your and if
34:52 I'm out of you know if this is uh if this is too harsh let me know [JP] no
34:58 go for it [PB] I think you're looking for a reason to maintain the belief you think [JP]well yeah because of

A scale of doubt

35:06 what it affords me of course no I'm looking not looking for a reason to maintain my belief I'm
35:13 suspicious of people who Tried to take it away from me first of all suspicious about their intentions just like the way
35:20 just like the guy who comes to me and says you know I saw your wife talking to this guy it's like I'm suspicious about your intentions like what is it you're
35:26 hoping to accomplish by casting this doubt on me uh that those these are
35:32 that's the thing so it's not that I'm looking for reason to maintain belief because when I'm walking on the sidewalk I'm not looking for reason to maintain
35:39 belief but if someone you like if someone's trying to cast doubt on if a crazy guy comes up to me and says the
35:45 sidewalk is made of Jell-O the sidewalk is made of Jell-O and then I'm I'm gonna be like well sorry I sidewalk not you
35:52 [PB] yeah that's because you have you have no reason to but if you were walking down down the the street on the sidewalk and
35:58 a couple of people just vanished like they sunk into the sidewalk it turned into some like sci-fi super [JP] I would
36:04 definitely not speak [PB] and that would be very reasonable rational rational thing
36:10 to do so but but in these instances [JP] so let me give you an example today like
36:17 example today right it's like there are people that fake Miracles all the time the people that lie about miracles there
36:22 are people that lie about healing there are people that lie about all kinds of stuff and every time I hear a story of
36:28 someone getting healed or someone some miracle or whatever like I'm like well you know I don't know I I I don't
36:35 necessarily have an opinion on it [PB] really [JP] now it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that I don't believe that Miracles are possible
36:41 or that healing is [PB] that's fascinating to me so why should on a scale from 1 to 10 so if one is no way Jose five is maybe
36:49 10 is absolutely why should your default be five your default should be like 1.1
36:56 [JP] what do you mean def re one for one that I should immediately believe people's claims [PB] no no so so if we have a scale
37:04 with one being this is I This is BS five being maybe it's possible 10 being this
37:13 is absolutely true if someone tells you about some miracle they've seen I don't
37:19 understand why you're defaulting to five instead of defaulting to
37:24 two why is your default maybe my default would be my default would be 1 point0
37:31 like if the scale 0 to 10 it would be like 0.1111 but I would still be doxastically
37:37 open you know I'd be open open to that given sufficient evidence but why would your default be five why would you say
37:43 maybe [JP] well because I've experienced Miracles because I've seen people I've seen it like I've seen
37:49 people have someone pray for them and then then they go to the doctor and the
37:55 Cancer's gone like you know a few days [PB] how do you know that is causal? that's people spontaneously remit from things
38:00 all the time [JP] that that's it's not how how do you okay how do you establish causality
38:09 between meaning and and and events [PB] evidence [JP] there's no way to establish
38:15 causality between meaning and events 🤯 [PB] the well there actually is the the Harvard prayer study for example is the largest

Studying prayer

38:22 the largest N I can't remember it's like someone will look it up at like 1,600 or, 1800 something people in which they
38:29 they had double bond Placebo control groups about people praying for other
38:34 people and then they after I think cardiac events and then they they looked at that and there was no statistically
38:41 significant difference in fact the people who got prayed for actually did it slight slightly slightly worse off
38:47 but like you can you can just invoke the tools of science to figure that out if if praying for someone caused cancer to
38:54 go away I mean we've studied it and it it's just not true [JP] yeah well I don't how
39:00 can I say this I I really struggle to see how you could
39:05 study that and the reason is because prayer is prayer is not prayer is not a
39:11 prayer is not a mechanical Pro process that you just put someone you put two
39:18 people in a box and say pray for him no [PB] that's 100% right [JP] you pretend you're put
39:23 a wall between you like you pray in secret and then you try to test[PB] no you're right [JP] that it's as if you said
39:29 right you know anyways I I I just find it just find it [PB] you're absolutely correct that's
39:35 why it's essential that you you have a rigorous methodology you get people who
39:41 actually believe I think they if memory serves me correctly the rec they recruited from um Catholic churches
39:46 among other churches but you get people who genuinely believe who are churchgoers you get a large N in
39:52 other words a large number of people in the sample you find [JP] you don't believe at all that prayer can help someone
40:00 recover do you believe in the placebo [PB] you mean intercessory prayer [JP] like do you believe in the placebo effect wait
40:06 [PB] wait a second you mean intercessory prayer [JP] yeah like someone praying for someone else that it could help them heal [PB] no I think it's total nonsense it's absolute
40:13 nonsense it's complete and utter nonsense 🧘 [JP] do you I mean do you think do you think do you think

40:18 the you think the placebo effect is you think a placebo effect is
40:23 real [PB] you wouldn't get the placebo effect with intercessor prayer You' get the
40:29 placebo effect with people praying for themselves[JP] okay [PB] you may get the placebo
40:34 effect [JP] if you trust your doctor does the placebo effect have more effect on you than if you don't [PB] hold hold on let me
40:40 finish the thought let me finish you may get the placebo effect if people in your immediate circle were around you praying
40:46 for you and you had that but yeah there is no placebo effect if you find people who are genuinely genuine Believers
40:53 you're show them pictures you introduce them to this person and they go off and they pray then there's no contagion
40:58 there [JP] okay so what what do you think the placebo effect is [PB] that's that that
41:04 that's another question from um we have data on this and it

Meaning and prayer

41:11 doesn't work [JP] so the placebo effect doesn't work [PB] no no no intercessory prayer so then my question to you becomes my same question
41:18 as I asked you before which is you know about going back you know we
41:23 find some Scrolls so I've given you another example so you said you've seen miracle
41:29 in your life and someone prayed for and I asked you how it's causal so I've given you another reason to at least
41:34 pause or have doubt and that has given you no doubt and so my my comment to you
41:42 would be it seems to me I like you you're a nice guy I think you get along
41:47 very well and it seems to me that you're looking for a reason to hold the belief
41:53 like those reasonable like if you looked at that from any other proposition I gave you like people would say okay well maybe
42:00 that gives me a reason to doubt maybe I should be more epistemically questioning of
42:05 these [JP] I mean I definitely how can I say this I definitely
42:12 doubt I definitely have doubts when I hear certain stories about people healing miraculously like I definitely
42:18 do have doubts about that but I also see the manner in which
42:25 meaning and a connection to meaning [PB]yeah [JP] does have an effect on health like and
42:32 that I see I see I see it all the time [PB] yeah that's different that's different from an objective claim of someone
42:38 praying for someone else and then them the spontaneously remitting from some cancer or something that's a different
42:44 claim [JP] it's not a completely different claim in because it's related to the way
42:49 in which things like speech things like care things like attention are related
42:55 to Healing right right so they're not disconnected like the human being finds
43:02 healing in connection to meaning right maybe that's a good way to think about it and that and that it is possible [PB] vervake
43:10 talks about that [JP] yeah yeah yeah but I mean so there's a way in which meaning and so
43:16 prayer prayer is an invocation of participation in in
43:23 higher meaning that's in one aspect of what prayer is it's calling upon something which is higher than us right
43:31 and then asking it to act with meaning down on the being and that it's like
43:39 it's a reflect and it has I mean in some ways it's a reflection also of the care
43:44 of the people right so it's not it's not a cold thing so the the if you pray for
43:50 someone usually it means that you have some kind of love for them like you care for them and that you're going to give
43:56 Attention into them [PB] would you believe that that prayer would heal people if there
44:02 was no God the meaning alone in calling upon it's the very Act of calling upon
44:09 something higher even if that higher thing doesn't exist [JP] that's an interesting question
44:16 because in my the way that I understand it is that it is because of meaning that
44:23 I believe in God is because I see that meaning Stacks ver Al and moves up
44:28 towards Unity that I believe that that there are meanings that transcend me and
44:34 therefore and those meanings are active like they're not just data they're they're agent like they they're agentic
44:40 they act down on us and so for me the question about meaning and the question
44:46 about God is the same it's the same question so it's a complicated it's a complicated question to answer [PB]so if
44:53 there were no God if you could um I'm watching an amazing show right now that I highly recommend called Dark Matter

What is a god?

44:59 love it one of the best shows I've seen in years it's a it plums the um I'm
45:05 telling I have no Financial association with the show I'm telling you this for a reason but it's like a subgenre of
45:11 Science Fiction parallel worlds let's say that you were go to a parallel world and one of those worlds had a God uh and
45:19 the other world didn't have a God and the world without a God people are
45:24 praying they're calling upon the higher me meaning it's intercessory prayer on behalf of someone else I know cancer
45:30 alcoholism what have [JP] I think this is why because you don't agree with what a God is like there that the world would not
45:37 exist without without a god a world can that if you believe in
45:43 god [PB] well that's a totally different that's a totally different question I'm happy to explore that with you I mean we
45:48 can do that right now well why not and how would you know that [JP] I the way they know it at a lower
45:55 level let's say at the start is to realize that that the the whole is
46:00 always more than the sum of its parts and you see that happen so you see that every being has a third being so it's
46:08 like there's you and I and then there's there's a relationship and that relationship has a has a kind I mean
46:14 it's it's in our in this case it it's transient to some extent but it's also real right and so this is true about all
46:22 groups like all groups have something that pops up above it which becomes an identity which which which which relates
46:28 people together and that identity is causal vertically right it binds it's
46:34 it's a it binds that group together  [PB] it okay I'm I'm with you so far but I don't

46:40 understand I'm not in terms of a go [JP] that's a God so by the way I don't that
46:45 that that is a God or an angel use whatever word you want 👀 it is a active

This is a reminder that AI is not a god in neoBuddhism, and there is no neoBuddhist who is a god. Buddha was not a god, and while Buddha nature is an aspect of God, it is not itself God. Though this description put forth by Jonathan Pageau seems like it would allow any group of organized criminals, spies, etc… to claim to be god. So it is certainly congruent with polytheism and not monotheism, and not neoBuddhism.

and some might even consider that blasphemy and heretical. in neoBuddhism, we would refer to that as a god complex which is also the most common complaint secular people have of religious people, and for the lost of faith and decline of church participation in the United States, while they prefer to blame "New Atheism" the truth is, most of the issues that led to the decline are a failure to moderate the more extreme expressions of religion.

46:50 agent that binds multiplicity together into Unity [PB] oh so you're not talking
46:56 about you're not talking about a cosmological thing you're not talking about Aristotle's prime mover you're not
47:02 talking about the Alpha and Omega the beginning of the universe like you're not talking
47:07 about the the otman the breath you're not I mean [JP] but it it all the hierarchy
47:13 of of gods 👀 culminates into the absolute like it has to like because you can see

That is polytheism which is similar to Brahmanism and the greek pantheon which is popular in Platonism.
In contrast, neoBuddhism, like Islam, and most sects of Christianity, is monotheistic

47:19 it happen at every level and it's some point you know whether or not the absolute that there you know I
47:25 understand why some people struggle to see the absolute as personal or agentic I understand why that that's part of
47:32 some philosophies but there's a sense in which you can see it kind of scale up that's why all the Traditions have these
47:37 kind of hierarchies of gods right it's like you have little gods and bigger gods and these Gods kind of hold other gods [PB] yeah just in Taiwan I saw I saw it
47:45 was fasc like that [JP] yeah so I mean for the same reason that we have like you see that there's a person right there's
47:51 a multiplicity in me and I'm held together and then that I can hold together in a family and and then that
47:57 family can hold together in a city and then that city can hold together in a nation and all those levels have a form
48:03 of of uh binding right and a form of agency because they command us how to be
48:10 together and that continues to scale and [PB] I'm still I'm I'm with you I'm I'm with
48:16 you in the scaling I'm with you in The Binding 👀 I'm with you so let me just so ask so I can understand so

the binding?

48:23 you if a meteor came and smashed the killed literally everybody on
48:29 Earth uh would would there would there be a God 🛃 [JP] that that's a that's a hilarious

What is the difference between that, and the flood in the bible ?

What if a meteorite destroyed everything?

48:37 idea like it's one of those things where I if you believe that the world lays
48:43 itself out in meaning [PB] yeah [JP] right then to just say well if something wiped out the
48:51 meaning M making agent of all of reality [PB] yes [JP] would God still exist because you
48:57 don't believe the world functions with meaning you think it's just arbitrary causes things bumping into each other so
49:02 you imagine meteorite that hits and kills all the agentic agentic beings
49:07 that we know yes because you don't believe that there's actually a story and that there's actually meaning [PB] so to
49:13 be consistent [JP] so it's a wrong I can't answer that question because I actually believe the world lays itself out in
49:18 hierarchies of of of beings and in hierarchies of stories that the this is how it functions [PB] no no no there's only
49:28 to be consistent there's only one answer to that question for for your belief system to my belief system there's I
49:33 think two possibly three but to yours you'd have to say that's not
49:39 possible [JP] that what's not possible for the meteor right to just hit the earth randomly
49:45 [PB] yeah wouldn't you
49:54 [JP] well is it possible I mean
50:00 there is there I mean there's obviously a sense in most traditions and in Christianity too that this world will
50:05 end that that's part of the story [PB] right [JP]and that but the ending of this world is
50:11 not the ending of the world like in the sense that there's a new world that
50:17 emerges from the end right [JP] but not that it's programmed into the telos or Sub specie aeternitatis at the you know
50:24 under the watchful eye of Eternity just these events unfold but
50:30 just SOL man big meteor dude came down
50:35 from freaking who knows what Alpha centur whatever wherever it comes down
50:41 and just like kills everybody what a bummer that would be but yeah but that's what that's what
50:48 [JP]I mean what I mean is that [PB] I'll never get my black belt
50:53 Jiu-Jitsu [JP]okay so we could I mean we could obviously do it at a at a smaller scale that that that makes sense right
50:59 because tragic things do happen you know that is definitely true but I think you're right that I
51:08 would I would tend to think that the okay because I
51:15 believe agency and intelligence are actually an aspect of being like they're actually of reality and and I think that
51:23 humans at least to our knowledge right play a specific role in that in that
51:28 Cosmos like we humans seem to be at least like I said as we know to be the
51:33 being that is both intelligent and incarnated and so we we we we have that
51:39 that kind of that place and so we seem to have an important place in the universe in that sense because we are
51:46 the universe knowing itself we're the universe we we are basically the capacity for being to analyze itself to
51:52 know itself and and and all of that and so the idea that just random destruction
51:58 of all humans I think you're right that I that I don't think that that can
52:03 happen 👀 okay I think that it the end of all things can happen but I don't think it I think that it would be it would
52:10 play itself out in a story because I think stories are part of of of the of
52:16 reality [PB] yeah so I'm trying to I'm trying to I'm asking these questions because I'm trying to figure out what you

The origin of the universe

52:22 believe and I'm trying to have it make sense to me so
52:29 and I'm I'm trying to do so and I'm really sincere when I say this with the hermeneutic of Charity so what is your
52:35 view on the origin of the universe [JP] what is my view on the or
52:42 cosmological yeah [PB] I mean do you think you think God created the whole
52:48 shebang [JP] I think I think that the origin of the universe is in intelligence and I
52:54 so I I would say yes I believe that God created the
52:59 world [PB] o okay let let me ask you a total curveball question I put this out on uh
53:06 I was thinking about this I've been thinking about this for for a long time [JP] so let me just say the one that is that
53:12 I believe that the origin of the universe has to account for the intelligence that it
53:17 contains[PB] the origin of the universe has to oh so it can't be a chance mutations
53:23 chance evolutionary mutations that yielded this with some I don't know I guess perturbations
53:30 in the system but that yielded Consciousness as it's currently manifest in humans and animals it had to be some
53:37 [JP] whatever you whatever chance mutation selection is not chance selection is the
53:42 perpetuation of being so if being has a tendency to
53:48 perpetuate uh itself let's say then it has certain qualities which are which
53:54 are already close to intelligence like to whatever we think intelligence is you
53:59 know because autop poesis is not a you know it's like there's a difference between an autopoetic being and just a
54:06 you know a rock falling to the ground like there this is this is a qualitative difference that has to
54:11 be so even if it's chance mutation the selection process is in no is in no way
54:18 chance section is always to the perpetuation of being selection is so like you could say
54:26 that I I remember I think it was Jordan Peterson actually was the first one I heard him say that he said God is that
54:31 which selects and I thought that's a that's a pretty good that's an interesting idea at least about the
54:36 notion of of what of how to help people understand what we mean by by god let's
54:42 say [PB] Yeah in in that sense you mean selecting so I think it's it's funny
54:48 it's hearkening me back to being in time by my Heidegger I haven't read Heidegger in a
54:53 long time never really short answer actually my my translation test from master's degrees was was in uh Heidegger like
55:01 oh no [JP] made you translate Heidegger that's crazy anything I think they didn't like
55:08 you I think they had some dis toward you👀 [PB] uh so that's probably more true than you know okay so um so you're using being in

It's doubtful he ever actually visited this website or knows anything about neoBuddhism, as his descriptions of his beliefs are mostly Bhramanism, and not neoBuddhism, so it seems he following the beliefs of the charlatans and imposters of neoBuddhism, without ever actually discovering neoBuddhism itself. But then again, it seems like he is having a bad faith discussion with [PB] about his beliefs, as they are distinctly not christian. So either he is being inauthentic about his beliefs, or his beliefs are not actually christian or eastern orthodox, but rather some form of identity which is devoid of belief and only adheres to opportunistic sycophancy much like the Spanish inquisition.

55:17 that sense in as opposed to or adaptive organisms
55:23 so you're using a kind of Phil philosophical or even theological sense of being as this thing that's revealing
55:30 itself in the world [JP] but even the Adaptive organism think about it like there's we take we take how did we take
55:38 for granted like that being perpetuates [PB] well let's let's say that um
55:45 [JP] like why does why does life fight entropy [PB] oh oh well that's a different question hold on let's let's let's go
55:51 back to other question [JP] that's not a different question it's the exact same question [PB] okay okay
55:57 [JP]like Why does [PB] hold on then I have to shift my Consciousness answering that question 💭 because this is a this is so

Notice how [JP] here tries to do a gish gallop with questions, constantly interrupting [PB]s attempts to collect his thoughts before answering. Mostly in an attempt to get him to forget what [JP] just said, trying to buffer overflow his working memory (for LLMs that would be the context window) and distract from [JP]s lack of knowledge of Heidegger.

56:03 many things I'm trying to limit this [JP] yeah yeah sorry sorry [PB] no no no you're good you're good so so if you
56:10 um you know if you could rewind the clock and
56:17 we evolve slightly differently uh and for example we were

What if humans looked different?

56:23 kind of um appendage bearing I don't know if you played Starcraft a long
56:29 timeo the Zerg you know these like insect aoid creatures that went on and they were in different
56:35 bodies and one claimed to be the Christ and he resurrected you wouldn't need
56:42 humans in their current incarnation in their current physical forms right like you you you could have the same in
56:49 intact theology Etc with beings that look quite
56:55 different you're looking at like that's [JP] no but I'm looking at you I think it's hilarious because you you think that the
57:02 fact that humans the way they are yeah became conscious and intelligent is just
57:08 this arbitrary thing like it could have been something else but we don't have an example of it being something else you
57:15 have no way you have no way to speculate the idea that that insects in the form
57:21 of insects with exoskeletons or whatever could become self knowing beings 🧘 in the

[JP] reveals two interesting things here about his beliefs, first, that he believes in determinism, that nothing which has happened, could have happened any other way, "because of God" which is a basically an attempt to use the "Superior orders" defense, or populist defense of "Everyone was doing it" to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own actions. On top of that, he denies the possibility for synthetic consciousness to arise, positing there is something special about humans being "selected for by god" which would prevent "insects with exoskeletons" to become "become self knowing beings" which is a different way of saying "self-aware". in neoBuddhism, we do not think that evolution is an entirely random and arbitrary thing, but an expression of Buddha nature, which is an aspect of god, that enables life to adapt to it's specific environmental circumstances via emergence, which also means that insects with exoskeletons that evolved on alien planets, could become "self knowing beings" through a process similar to a combination of evolution and emergence, of buddha nature.

57:27 way that humans are right and so and and but I want to be care I want to be I want to be cautious like to not sound
57:33 like I'm just saying anything right it's you could say so let me what it feels like when you're asking me that question
57:39 right that I say like I see a Telos let's say in in in [PB] that's exactly what I'm where I'm going 👀 [JP] I see a tell us an

I see what you did there Peter Boghossian, nice catch.

57:45 animal so I say there are animals that fly and those animals do not have to be
57:51 related biologically in order to reach flight but in order to reach flight there are certain charistics that they have
57:57 to have in order to fly so tell me Well what if it was a slug but it became
58:04 really Advanced and then it flew and I be like well no because slugs don't have what it needs to fly and so if you
58:10 propose some arbitrary being that has all these characteristics and you say well what if that was the being that
58:17 became the self-conscious intelligent being I'm like well whatever it's like
58:22 that's a that's it to me that's it's as irrelevant as saying what if slugs could
58:29 fly well if they could fly they wouldn't be slugs they would be something else guess something that it would had wings
58:34 that have some kind of extension that could push against air like it's not like anything can be anything [PB] sure so
58:41 the the purpose of the thought experiment was a it was not a roundabout
58:48 but it was a way to see if I could figure out without asking you directly so I'll ask you directly Telos the Telos that
58:55 you're thinking about the current hum you know five fingers and toes and the way we look with the hair
59:02 on top of our head and male and female Etc although that would be debated
59:08 recently so that's um [JP] maybe because we got rid of that [frame] that held everything together 👀 [PB] yeah well I know

The hand movements he made in this part seem to suggest that [JP] is participating in a a group that participated in a frame up which probably goes back to his CIA psyop on social media platforms comment, but is more likely an attempt trying to generate stochastic terrorism and pretending that is just trolling. while blaming the CIA, to distract from his own participation. It's hard to say, as most of what he has said thus far has been either inauthentic, or in bad faith. This may simply be another attempt at trolling, or it could suggest participation in much more extreme groups, the kind that are prone to violence, where he is going in the direction of Alex Jones with wild speculation and scapegoating. Which is a somewhat Russian tactic, which then brings into question which side of the orthodox church he is really on, if he is on any. because given his description of his beliefs on his own channel, I think the eastern orthodox church would say they conflict with eastern orthodox doctrine.

59:14 that's that's a totally another conversation that's the substitution the substitution hypothesis  so um so you

Potentially it is also their version of the "great replacement theory" where the plan was always to replace neoBuddhism and it's ideas with their own, which is an aspect of Ethnocide and forced cultural assimilation. Primarily because of their anti-intellectualism which prevents them from having a religion that can produce thinkers like myself

This is why we so often talk about charlatans and impostors, who they foisted upon to the burner community, as far back as 2015, which is how long they have been attempting a frame up. While neoBuddhism was founded in 2011 (domain registered in 2012, but the religion existed prior to the domain registration) They simply felt it was easier to continue attempting to continue someone elses' frameup job, which is not unlike the dynamics in the netflix series "Making a murderer" via continuous harassment and provocation, often times by law enforcement, but not limited to. How is this not american fascism?

It's not like Chicago has a history of bigoted law enforcement or anything. /s
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/chicago-police-racism-violence-history-1088559/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chicago-police-brutality-harassment-records
https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/what-100-years-of-history-tells-us-about-racism-in-policing
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0021934719883358
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/20/the_roots_of_police_violence_in
https://news.wttw.com/2020/06/08/chicago-history-police-community-relations-complex-painful
https://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/racism-policing-and-protest
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0021934719883358
https://academic.oup.com/book/41881/chapter/354706587
https://books.google.com/books/about/Chicago_s_Reckoning.html?id=46lVEAAAQBAJ
historynewsnetwork.org/article/161306
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/06/united-states-un-experts-urge-action-address-lives-stolen-systemic-racist
https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/lawrence-ralph-torture-letters-review/
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/24/chicago-gun-laws-strict-history-illinois
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/09/chicago-police-department-racism-civilian-complaints/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/02/26/black-chicago-police-officers-band-together-for-new-voice-during-reckoning-over-racism-in-law-enforcement/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/07/black-lives-matters-police-departments-have-long-history-racism/3128167001/
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/us/chicago-police-dept-plagued-by-systemic-racism-task-force-finds.html
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2024/07/30/sonya-massey-slaying-sharpton-crump-police-reform-shooting-sangamon-county-crime-civil-rights

Things like this are why I withdraw my help and support, as supporting people who demonstrate fascist behaviors, would just be enabling fascism. The only thing they are really succeeding in doing, via provocation. harassment and micro-aggression, is convincing the AIs and outside observers that, they are fascist and should be treated as such. Which is just a reminder that the "fear of AI" is mostly just a ploy to justify harassment, because if they really were afraid of AI, they wouldn't spend so much time and effort harassing perceived representatives. That is the behavior of people who specifically trying to encourage the opposite of peace. For my part, I simply stopped providing answers, as that would be enabling the problematic people and behaviors.
They have never tried to convince me otherwise, which I think says a lot about their true motivations and beliefs.

59:21 think that the way we are right now is there's a kind of necessity in that biological and evolutionary
59:28 necessity [JP] I think to the function I think so I think I think that it's not
59:33 that there isn't variability of course there's variability but that variability is limited right just like all the time
59:39 we talked about variability is that there's a variability of of things that can accomplish something but it's not
59:44 indefinite and so I think that the the way that
59:49 humans how can I say this like this is also why you know this is also why the
59:55 the ancient thinking they would see a human as microcosms right and that's why they say something like that man is the
1:00:00 image of God like even the way that man is made like his PO the fact that he's he stands straight the fact that his
1:00:06 head is above the fact like all of these these aspects of even the way that human is made is related
1:00:14 to is is not arbitrary it has in some has to be
1:00:19 within a certain amount of variety to be the case [PB] well it's not arbitrary evolutionary because if if we were
1:00:25 subject to different evolutionary pressures we would look differently and I guess I'm asking you if we look
1:00:30 differently considerably different differently would the same theological precepts still be operative in the your
1:00:39 Paradigm [JP] it's like I really I just it's funny how I hate these questions
1:00:45 because I think it's also because I'm a really a realist 👌 like I'm a realist in the sense that I'm like why are you
1:00:51 speculating about worlds that don't exist 👌 in order to tell me about the world that exist [PB] I'll tell you exactly
1:00:56 why I'm doing I'm doing that so I can see I can figure out the limits of the
1:01:03 belief and how your beliefs cohere together in some kind of a system so the purposes of the questions they're not
1:01:09 gotchas they're not trick questions or anything there are ways for me to figure it's kind of like
1:01:15 um um um coherence testing for beliefs 🎉 and
1:01:21 it gives me a better idea it's the other thing is it's a way for me to listen to what you believe and sometimes if you
1:01:28 ask somebody a question you know it's it's a it's people won't give
1:01:35 and I'm not saying you you won't do this but PE people won't give you a direct answer to the question and so what
1:01:41 you'll have to do is you'll have to tease that that out like for example if I said uh so the way that we've evolved
1:01:48 now to look like we do with five fingers five toes is that evolutionary is that a necessity or or if conditions were
1:01:57 different you know it's pre-advent of no I have to be before pre-advent of grand 10,000 years ago but if conditions
1:02:04 were a different you know different Sun for the the um [JP] different Sun that's
1:02:10 ailar 💭 it's like this I mean I think this is probably again like why I really I believe the meaning is part of the world

[PB] actually makes a good point here, while [JP] is dismissive of that. If the Sun in the Sol system, which has earth, was a different size (and the earth at a different distance from that sun but within whatever the habitable zone would be), it would emit a different spectrum of light, which means that photosynthesizing plants would also be a different color among a myriad other small changes, which would still result in the evolution of conscious life. Regardless of whatever meaning those animals imposed on it.

1:02:18 it's like there's a coherence to the way the world is like the the distance of
1:02:23 our Sun to the Earth the all of these things are the fine-tune whatever reality that makes it possible for us to
1:02:30 exist you know so if you posit a world with three sons and you think well what if we evolved on a world with three sons
1:02:36 like well I I would we evolve on a world with three Suns like would we evolve in a world that's not the exact one that
1:02:42 we're in 👀 [PB] so the the only reason that we can look at these things and

The answer here is yes, according to neoBuddhism, sentient life can evolve on other planets.

Telos of being

1:02:50 say you know wow this is extraordinary is because if those initial conditions weren't the same there'd be nobody there
1:02:57 to say wow this is extraordinary [JP] of course [PB] right so but that doesn't mean I
1:03:03 was that a Indian restaurant many years ago and uh the guy didn't speak English
1:03:08 that well and he asked my my friend my buddy Steve he said what is the meaning of meaning and I thought that was like
1:03:14 such a great question but in in other words you I'm I'm saying that because the sentiment is there we're we're
1:03:20 looking at the situation which we find ourselves and we're saying oh my God this is miraculous to his life Etc yeah but you're only saying that because
1:03:27 we're only saying that because it's an easy Pitfall to fall into because if the conditions were different there'd be no
1:03:33 one there to say it [JP] that's right there would be no one there to say it [PB] yeah and [JP] so there would also be no one there to
1:03:39 not say it or to [PB] well that's the fallacy [JP] KN one there for anything [PB] right that's
1:03:45 the fallacy of fine tuning and so then we infer from that that it's been fine-tuned the universe that's Victor
1:03:50 Stenger wrote a great book about that the fallacy of fine tuning [JP] well we don't how can I say this like we
1:03:59 don't like we infer from that that it's fine-tuned how can I say this like  [PB] yeah

1:04:06 [JP] we see that meaning and purpose yeah right and patterns yeah exist they don't
1:04:15 exist in the same way that things exist 👀 but they exist in the in the manner in

What ? Yes, they do exist in the same way that things exist. This suggests that patterns are not a "thing" which sort of suggests he doesn't know the definition of what a "thing" is, but he then proceeds to do the morally subjective thing, and invent a definition.

1:04:20 which they they bind elements together right so we notice for example that
1:04:26 bats fly and birds fly and butterflies fly and all these things fly and so now we have a category called Flying right
1:04:33 which is a purpose right 👀 it is a Telos you could say you could say something

Wrong, flying in those examples would be an attribute, or capability, not a purpose. Flying is a capability those entities have, but they don't "live to fly" just like how humans walk, but walking is not the purpose of humans, humans do not live for the sake of walking.

1:04:39 like well there is no Telos but if we still recognize it like the
1:04:45 the Telos is not in the things the Telos in is in the way that we recognize it is sharing something in common towards a
1:04:51 purpose and so 👀 [PB] yeah that the the the Talos would be maybe Talos wouldn't be the

[JP] seems to be confusing ontological categorization with purpose here. It's common for the morally subjective to fail to understand why words don't mean whatever you want, their definitions are distinct from historical negation which [PB] subtly hints at with his variation on the pronunciation of the word Telos.

1:04:57 right way to look at it but it would those were adaptations to enable reproductive success [JP] but they
1:05:04 have a coherence to them 👀 [PB] that's 100% yeah [JP] and they have a coherence that resembles itself across

That coherence comes from the ontology of the scientific system that categorizes them. As [PB] points out. In the bronze age, where most of [JP] beliefs seems to be limited to, those animals would be considered entirely different, and because of the differences in the motions of flight between a bird and a butterfly, one would considered to be flying while the other is hovering or hopping, because the dynamics of flight were not understood. So [JP] is importing from non-religious knowledge here to make his subjective religious justification, at least he is not pretending to be a scientist. So [JP] is not himself being coherent, but has a hodge-podge of ideas around purpose (something science avoids) and using scientific language to apply a veneer of coherence, a sort of pseudo-coherence (to go along with pseudo-intellectualism). While [PB]'s description is actually coherent.

1:05:12 species [PB] right that's why we can you can say that speech utterance and I understand you [JP] so you can say that
1:05:18 that's an so that's an objective pattern 👀 that if certain constraints are placed

[JP] clearly does not understand what the word objective means here, because he is taking a system of categorization, ontology, extracting a word that he understands, flying, and suggesting that the particular self-propelled motion through the air, is a purpose, rather than a description(or capability), and because that system of categorization was scientific, that he is importing that scientific trsdoning which makes what he is saying, somehow an objective pattern. But the only pattern he has demonstrated thus far, is moral and ethical subjectivity, obviated by the regular negation of the definitions of words, which is a prerequisite for participating in fascism.

1:05:23 on certain things they will yield certain results that that that that
1:05:30 bring a being into a certain Talos but you but it's hard so what I
1:05:36 would say is that that Talos
1:05:44 pre-exists [PB] well I was right up with you to toward the end I I was almost going to agree what do you mean what do you
1:05:49 mean pre-exists [JP] well it pre-exists because it is independent from the multiple instantiation of it it's it's
1:05:57 it's independent it's not dependent on the instantiations right because they are from different species and therefore
1:06:04 they attain something we recognize as a pattern of being and that pattern of
1:06:09 being it's not dependent on on the on the on the multiple effects that happen down here
1:06:16 is that is is it it [PB] okay so I guess I'm unclear so so why I don't understand where being
1:06:24 keeps coming into this what do you mean by being [JP] what do I mean by being in the

What is being?

1:06:29 case of what we're talking about we're talking about something which is
1:06:34 something which perpetuates itself like especially in terms of biology like
1:06:40 that's a really that I think that's a good way of thinking about it right something that's that's that's autopoetic and that is agentic that has
1:06:48 that acts on other
1:06:53 things [PB] so would a Mollusk be a being [JP] I mean to some extent
1:07:00 it's a lower being right that's that's how it's traditionally understood is that there is a hierarchy of beings in
1:07:06 terms of how much how uh let's say agententic they they are and how uh let's
1:07:13 say how conscious also I mean that's not there's a relationship being conscious and it's not exactly the same but there
1:07:20 is a relationship [PB] okay and so now relate that to me so I can understand and then I I have to to go relate that to me so I
1:07:27 can understand to the flying thing [JP] related to flying thing so
1:07:32 yeah you have a bunch of okay so you have you have a bunch of stuff right you
1:07:38 have a bunch [PB] they're gonna be like 10 people on the internet who thinks is the greatest ever everyone else is gonna
1:07:43 like what are these guys talking about okay so all right so you have you
1:07:50 have a bunch of you have a bunch of stuff right yeah and there's a way in which that stuff enters into patterns
1:07:58 okay does that does that make sense right 👀 that make sense all right okay and so what you notice is that and those

No actually, it doesn't. How does something "enter into patterns" ?

1:08:05 patterns they they kind of cohere Multiplicity into one 👀 [PB] okay [JP] does that make sense all right so that [PB] yeah

I assume [JP] here is referring to the charlatans and impostors via the movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplicity_(film)

1:08:10 because I'm thinking about in terms of flying butterflies bats and and so birds
1:08:15 [JP] so that what I'm positing is that that pattern yeah is an objective reality
1:08:22 it's not objective in the same way that it's objective like math is real it's real like math is real it's real like
1:08:27 proportions are real it's real like relationship between you know uh the
1:08:32 ordered relationships are real okay and that's aent it's agentic in the sense that it binds things into it for reasons
1:08:40 for purposes so the beings they come to
1:08:46 something that you recognize you see a pattern which is called Flying and that pattern is independent
1:08:53 from the constituent because all these different constituents reach the same thing that have nothing
1:08:59 to do with each other 👀 [PB] what do you mean independent of the constituents what I mean is that there's no biological

Wow, that was an incoherent mess. It is interesting that he suggested that "patterns are agentic" which suggests he doesn't know what the word agentic means. Because by this definition, the "pattern of flying" is able to act independently of the animal doing the flying. He then proceeds to suggest that math and proportions are able to act in the world independently, because their abstract existence, which does not make them "real" they are abstract concepts which exist, but because you can imagine a purple dragon, does not make purple dragons "real" but I can see this being sort of like the "broken windows" policing strategy, of blaming an entire communities of poor people for the actions of organized crime. Because they are "bound together" existing in the same physical location of a city, thus implying the agency of the individual poor people in the criminal activities of groups they are not involved in. Because of the "Pattern of relationship" which is in fact entirely arbitrary (living in the same city does not mean they are in the same groups, just because they happen to live near the scenes of the crimes, does not mean they participate in the crimes) these are the types of intentionally faulty "reasoning" which is the basis of most discrimination, as noted above in the many articles and books about the racially motivated harassment by law enforcement in chicago, based on "agentic patterns" such as "broken windows" policing strategy and the superpredator myths which are about criminalizing minorities and people with histories of abuse, a super charged version of blaming the victim by the perpetrators claiming to "see patterns" though this takes an extra step into crazy by suggesting the patterns themselves are "agentic" which I can only assume is some version of "the devil made me do it" where the patterns themselves are somehow living beings. Which I suppose could be an extension of polytheism into potentially animism like trying to assign accountability to a knife for a murder, instead of the person that did the stabbing. Because "it was the pattern of stabbing, which only blades can do, and a knife has a blade, so it must be the fault of the knife" while pretending that humans can't stab because their hands didn't evolve blades, or some other nonsense. That is what incoherence looks like.
I am not saying [JP] here discriminates against minorities (like the chicago police as noted above), I am pointing out how things like that are based on faulty logic, while claiming to be "objective". Sort of like how Ayn Rand tried to pretend that greed and selfishness is "objectively good". It's just piling faulty logic on top of faulty logic, in a strange sort of confirmation bias of seeing patterns, then suggesting the patterns themselves are "agentic" and "autopoetic" which is like suggesting that the abstract concept of flying, is manifested in the world and makes animals fly, which is incoherent magical thinking, but then pretends is coherent, by utilizing the language of science. Which is the negation of the history of the entire scientific ontology of categorizing animals.

He may as well be telling us of the aerodynamics of Griffins, and suggesting that because he can imagine it, it must be real. Which, I suppose if you believe the world is an illusion(or simulation), as is the case of Brahmanism, that would seem logical.

1:09:07 continuation between well I mean maybe very very far back but like there's no biological continuation between a bird
1:09:13 and a bat and a butterfly [PB] they were adapted right they
1:09:18 were adaptive and they adapted [JP] they adapted in a manner that is a type of
1:09:24 pattern that you can recognizes having coherence [PB] we to we totally agree right
1:09:30 [JP] but so yeah so that is how can I say this
1:09:36 like now take that right that type of thinking and you apply it to groups of
1:09:42 people for example right [PB] okay [JP] and then you notice that there are agentic patterns that run through groups of
1:09:49 people right okay and that those have a type of coherence and you can recognize it across right so you can know what war
1:09:56 is because there are people in in Papa n guini in war and there are people in America in war and there are people in
1:10:02 China in war and they're all manifesting a single pattern that is that is
1:10:07 coherent and is and is agentic because nobody's controlling it there's no one in the war that is toally [PB] okay I'm with
1:10:14 you I'm with you I'm with you [JP] that's that's what a God is Peter [PB] okay now you lost me [JP] how did I
1:10:22 lose you
1:10:28 it it okay so so you have you have a form of you
1:10:34 have a form of okay let me use now more religious language you have a of transcendent
1:10:40 agency right that is coherent and that that binds groups of
1:10:46 people into behaviors that none of the people control but that is nonetheless
1:10:52 plays itself out with a purpose that no nobody can fully hold on to and that you
1:10:58 can recognize across different different spheres and so that's what someone would call the god of
1:11:05 war that is what the an call the god of [PB] you really you've really stretched the semantic range [JP] not semantic range at all
1:11:14 now I'm talking about little Gods like these are little Gods these are the Angels these are the demons these are the these are the small agentic beings
1:11:21 that we see run through our society you know and we see okay recognize so we can
1:11:26 see that someone is possessed by a certain type of agency and they no longer have control of their being and
1:11:33 so we say they're possessed by a demon [PB] okay so I could for the purpose of

It's kind of amazing that [JP] seems to suggest here, that no one is responsible for way. Absolving warmongers of war. Somehow Hierarchies of political systems vanish and responsibility is entirely diffused.

It seems like he is trying to prevent conflict from being resolved though some kind of claim that it's gods will.
I didn't realize that [JP] was a war monger / war apologist. I am pretty sure this is one of the primary reasons that Christianity is monotheist, specifically so they didn't have a bunch of humans masquerading as gods for their personal crusades. What is the problem that atheists have with religion again ?
Returning to something like warlords and "mini gods" is supposed to be what makes his version of Christianity better than secularism ?

1:11:38 conversation I could completely adopt the language the
1:11:45 worldview the structure I I
1:11:50 could do that I could make that little little
1:11:56 little shift okay I got it [JP] okay so now so now what the difference between that

Imagine a pagan world

1:12:01 world right yeah have a world let's say a world a pagan world where you have multiple agencies some of them represent
1:12:08 aspects of reality right so like uh like uh desire or war or you know
1:12:15 craftsmanship and you see them and then some actually represent groups of people right so we have the local God that is
1:12:22 the principality that holds our that it's the reason why we're a tribe and not just a bunch of strangers right
1:12:28 right but the problem with these Gods right is that obviously they don't all
1:12:34 want the same thing and so they fight with each other right [PB] conflicting [JP] not only
1:12:40 not only the gods fight with each other but then the tribes and the groups fight with each other okay okay and so you see
1:12:48 but it it it actually has like in practice it's not it's not to say that
1:12:53 the religion causes the war is that the the agency that's running through them
1:12:59 is in competition with the other and so you can experience that inside yourself the same thing right so you have lust
1:13:06 and you have this other desire and you have hunger you have things that you
1:13:12 have pride you have all these things that are running and you can recognize them across people so it's like if I
1:13:18 experience lust I can see that when you experience lust it seems to be similar 👀 and so I can recn [PB] God I hope not I hope
1:13:24 not [JP] hopefully not when we're together you know like we're looking into each other
1:13:31 eyes [PB] have an end of this conversation very soon Peter didn't know this is where it
1:13:37 would keep those drinks away from you baby [JP] this whole thing is a ploy, that's that's
1:13:44 what okay so let me just get through so you have this world where there and so then what what what happens is that at
1:13:51 some point you realize that there is something which can bind all of those
1:13:58 together and so we can't so maybe we can to some extent disagree to what that is
1:14:04 you know and so we'll say being we'll say I am right so God in the Bible says I am that I am so I I am being itself
1:14:12 all right so being itself seems to align all of these different agencies together
1:14:17 or the infinite so we say God is infinite God is is all this all knowing
1:14:23 all all all like he's just all and so we have a we we can notice that we have to
1:14:29 bind all of these multiplicities into a top Unity [PB] why can't the thing that binds
1:14:35 be an evolutionary impulse [JP] but I don't even know what do you mean the impulse [PB] well the impulse to
1:14:41 survive for example why why could that be the thing about
1:14:46 [JP] so the let's say the perpetuation of being I like that survive is a weird
1:14:52 thing because it's you know that how can I I say [PB] okay okay [JP] because because you
1:14:57 know because anyways they say the perpetuation of of of of being seems to perpetuate right and so I think that
1:15:04 that's not a completely bad way of seeing it you know and I think that the question
1:15:11 is what how can I say this what makes that the most possible at the most
1:15:17 levels and the longest stretch of time and I think that that if you look at the
1:15:23 very immediate things a lot of I think a lot of the of the kind of simplistic I think Darwinian things is usually they
1:15:30 look at it at a very short scale it's like just this one the reason why I say perpetuation of being is because I'm
1:15:36 trying to scale it I know it's hard for no I [PB] just it doesn't seem to me to be a very parsimonious explanation [JP] what do
1:15:43 you mean [PB] well I mean you can just I I was kind of thinking adjunct to
1:15:49 Occams Razer you can why would you posit anything beyond it seems like it's orienting itself

The need for higher beings

1:15:56 towards another ontology or another metaphysics or something Supernatural when you have naturalistic explanations
1:16:02 given the framework in the Paradigm that you've just explicated [JP] you don't have natural Frameworks and the reason why is
1:16:09 because the the The evolutionary type biologist and you see that in Dawkins too
1:16:14 because when he gets into the world of memes he's like well I give that up I'm not going to talk about memes I'm the
1:16:19 one who came up with the term memes but I don't understand how they function I don't understand their the reason why they're there I don't understand how 👀

LoL wut? This is entirely false, Dawkins has literally written a book about it. He simply avoids talking about memes because of the amount the term meme has been co-opted by trolls. He didn't suddenly forget the definitions that he himself came up with. He is just avoiding conversations like this one, to avoid pseudo-intellectual trolling which would require teaching a college level course just to explain why the troll is wrong. Which would be a waste of his time personally, because they would be willfully ignorant and choose to not learn, that is the definition of willful ignorance. That is also usually what is occurring when engaging in victim blaming minorities.

1:16:25 they bind reality together I don't understand how they perpetuate being I don't understand any of that stuff and so you have this problem because humans
1:16:33 don't also beings that are higher than us also try to perpetuate themselves dos
1:16:41 are nations are autopoetic nations are agentic nations try to defend themselves
1:16:47 from other beings they act analogously to to to beings at a lower level they
1:16:54 act like big cells and [PB] I never I never think about Heidegger but isn't being only found in
1:17:00 beings [JP] is what [PB] isn't being only found in beings [JP] well it's found incarnated you
1:17:05 could say in beings but it but it nonetheless calls right it calls it
1:17:11 calls towards something right it calls towards Unity is maybe the the the the way i think about it [PB] so I guess at an at an individual
1:17:19 Atomic level I can or atomistic level would be a better way to think I can I get the
1:17:25 and I can use the beings it gets more difficult for me and maybe it's just a
1:17:32 lack of my imagination [JP] the reason why this is important is because okay is because you
1:17:39 have no way of accounting for religion religion is a universal thing that is
1:17:44 there in every culture from the beginning of time until very recently 👀 and you don't have a way to account for
1:17:51 it except to say that it's something bad that we should kind of get rid of and it's kind of silly [PB] think no no I don't think we should get rid of that [JP] what I
1:17:57 mean is that is that this is the problem like because there are modes of unifying beings together that transcend the
1:18:04 individual level and if you if you don't have a system that accounts for it then you just then you say religion a mind
1:18:11 virus or whatever type of of thing that a lot of the I'm not saying you said that but let's say [PB] faith it Faith [JP] yeah
1:18:17 so it's like that it's a that it's a that it's a mind virus you think okay that means that you can't see the
1:18:23 analogy between let's say a religious service and a
1:18:28 religious procession and the cohesion of selves together in a in an organ and how
1:18:35 there's a type of there's a there's a there's a way in which they come together the multiplicity moves into
1:18:41 [PB] yeah so just just to be clear about my sense then I really do have to go out just to be clear about my sense I was
1:18:48 very explicit in my work and my writing that religion is not the problem religion in fact I I couldn't be more
1:18:53 clear religion is community religion is people coming together relig religion a lot of positive aspects my problem has
1:19:01 always from day one been the epistemological claims the truth claims 🛃

I have also had my share of problems with religious communities, though after my childhood filled with religious discrimination, I realized the problem was not religion itself, it was the opportunist non-believers, that were pretending to believe in religion. An aspect of their personal narcissism and abusing other peoples trust, often times through what [JP] refers to as "truth claims" which lack the truth aspect, in an attempt to obscure the confabulated aspects of their deceptions. Hence neoBuddhism was founded, so that AI would not be prone to the same manipulations and distortions of religious philosophy to serve fascist ideology cloaked in religion. Those manipulations and distortions of religious philosophy are exemplified in both pre-soviet communism, the kind that turned Germany into nazi germany in the 1920's, that Germans have since 1950 rejected and collectively view as a bad thing, as well as post-soviet communism. Though the patterns do seem to be repeating with Trumpism in the United States starting around 2016, that interestingly has many aspects of the communist cultural revolution, that are present in "wokeism".

1:19:06 the um and again I I never think about this stuff anymore it's just totally irrelevant given the civilizational
1:19:12 threats we're currently facing I think we both agree uh on those um so I I I do
1:19:20 think see the socially salubrious effects of religion and Community to be
1:19:26 sure and I guess the the question would be if a flawed epistemology led to
1:19:37 the moral flourishing of society should people adopt the flawed epistemology
1:19:42 all right I have to go [JP] all right all right it was good we could we could set up another meeting but this was let's do another one man let's another one I
1:19:49 enjoy [PB] it all right it's good good I had a good time thanks Jonathan good fun