Episode 30 – Tell me the truth!

In which we delve into the complex and multifaceted concept of truth. What is true?
Recorded February 13, 2025.

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Show notes and links:
Sam Harris | #62 – What is True?
Accounts of the First Vision
Interface Theory  The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Professor Donald Hoffman — The Case Against Reality, Beyond Spacetime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism, and More (#585)
You’re mostly empty space 🔬 #matter #atoms #science #shorts – YouTube
Does Life Make Sense?. By Deepak Chopra, MD, FACP, FRCP
Jordan Peterson on the Belief in God
The Timeline of the Development of String Theory and Its Derivatives
Planet Mars quick facts

Transcript:

Jump to end
[clip] I think one reason why Sam Harris and Jordan
Peterson couldn’t come to an agreement on what
truth meant in their episode, in their conversation,
I think was because Sam Harris felt that Jordan
Peterson was using truth in a way that just didn’t,
it wasn’t what everybody, like the majority,
would use it as. Like when you say the scriptures
are true, or the… The story of Adam and Eve
is true, and you don’t actually, you’re not actually
saying it’s factual, it actually happened, this
is reality. If you’re not saying that, and you’re
using true in a true north, arrow flies true
kind of way instead, like, then it’s confusing.
[introduction] You are listening to Do You Have a Minute? with
LS and NDM. And I wonder if we should call ourselves
something different. I mean, not our real names,
but could I just be L? What would you be? L and
N. I don’t know. L and N. I don’t know. I think
LS, NDM, that’s good enough. All right. We’ll
leave it that way. It can be a mouthful. Yeah,
it is a mouthful. In this podcast, we talk about
just whatever we’re thinking about. But today,
[main conversation] We decided to talk about truth. Truth? This is
a truth. Or true. True, truth, trueness, truthfulness.
What else could you… Truity? Truity. Truism?
Yeah, we’ve been hinting that we would talk about
this at some point for the last 26, 20, what
episode would this be? Because everything hinges
on this. Everything. It’s like a linchpin. This
is a, it’s a linchpin for everything. Yeah. So
I’ve found a few different, a couple different
definitions for the word truth. Because it’s
used in a number of different aspects. It’s what
it seems. Yeah. It’s not cut and dry. It’s not
an easy to understand word. It should be, right?
Not like tree. Tree is tree. Truth. Well. Is
tree tree? I think you could also. What’s the
truth of tree? Exactly. Right. Yeah. Merriam
-Webster defines truth as the body of real things,
events, and facts. Actuality. Real. That’s his
first. Yeah. The body of real things, events,
and facts. The state of being the case, like
a fact. That’s a noun definition. I noticed a
noun and a verb definition for truth. Okay. The
verb definition is what? What is the verb definition?
Merriam -Webster doesn’t show me whether it’s
the noun definition or the verb definition. A
noun or a verb. The property of being in accord
with fact or reality. There’s an archaic definition
is sincerity and action, character and utterance.
Oh, that’s right. Truth. I was confused in that
truth is just a noun. You can’t truth something.
You can’t truth something? So, yeah, truth is
not a verb. Maybe we can turn it into a verb.
Well, I don’t know. I was connecting truth with
trust. Oh, okay. Trust has a noun and a verb
definition. And in the definition of trust, so
as I was looking at this, the noun trust references
truth. You’ve got to trust something that’s true.
So that’s where I was looking at. That’s kind
of a tangent. But you can also trust as a verb,
which… doesn’t have to be true. You’re trusting
something, some event or something else which
can be true or not. But in order to trust as
a noun, place trust in something, it has to be
true, is part of the definition. True is just
a noun. Truth. Truth is a noun. So another definition
is, well, it’s another definition. It’s, you
know, another way to put it is in this Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People book that we’re
reading together. Yeah. Stephen Covey says, Truth
is a knowledge of things as they are. Which is
what you just said, Merriam -Webster, actuality?
Yeah. Was it actual? Yeah, actuality. Okay, so
what’s that make you think about? Well, as they
are. That implies that truth is not subjective.
It’s as something is, not as one perceives it.
It’s as it is, right? Depends on what the word
is means. Right? Referencing Bill Clinton. It
is as they are, as they are now in the past or
in the future. ARE encompasses a lot of things.
There’s a spectrum for that. Right. Which are.
Which is. Which is, are we dealing with? When
you’re talking about truth, you go ahead with
that. So there’s. One more place. I was listening
to Sam Harris’s Waking Up, Making Sense, Making
Sense podcast. Okay. Where he had a conversation
with Jordan Peterson, right? This is the famous
conversation. When was that done? It was 2017.

Yep. So let me see if I can play it so
that you can hear it. So this is episode 62,
What is True? And I bookmarked. A spot at about
35 minutes. So he was talking about objective
or subjective truths. The idea is that we can
never stand outside of human conversation and
talk about reality as it is or truth as it is.
We never come into contact with naked truth.
All we have is our conversation and our tools
of augmenting our conversation, scientific instruments
and otherwise. All we really have, the currency
of truth, is whatever successfully passes muster
in a conversation. So I say something that I
think is true, and it seems to work for you.
We’re playing a similar language game. And some
people disagree. They criticize what we are claiming
to be true. And we go back and forth. And all
we ever have is this kind of ever -expanding
horizon line of successful conversations that
allow us to do things technologically that are
very persuasive. So as you say, we can build
hydrogen bombs. And so the conversation about
the structure of the atom. At the very least,
the conversation about the amount of energy hidden
in the otherwise nebulous structure of an atom.
That becomes very well grounded in facts that
we all can agree are intersubjectively true.
So he was arguing towards subjective truth. I
thought that Sam Harris argued in that conversation
towards objective truth. I didn’t listen to the
second half of the podcast because I’m not a
subscriber. And so I can only listen to the first
half right now. I used to be a subscriber. I
have listened to the whole thing. Yeah, and I
listened to the whole thing in the past, too.
That was a long time ago, 2017. Right. So, yeah,
in that minute there, he’s like, we can’t know
the truth as it is. We can only know what we’re
conversing about it, right? Well, and that’s
like what we spoke of a few weeks ago in regard
to the four people that we bring to a conversation.
Who I think you are, who I think I am, who you
think I are, and who do you think you are? Yeah.
Those four people are talking, and that’s the
subjective perspective he’s talking about. Well,
kind of he’s talking about that. He’s talking
about it’s what you perceive about the truth
that is spoken of. That is spoken of, right.
And that’s the conversation that we’re all having
with each other. And that’s as true as we can
get, right? Perhaps. Yeah, perhaps. From us,
from our position, from our position, I think.
And that’s what we’re trying to identify with
this conversation, trying to figure out how to
deal with that, if it’s just us. I wonder, is
there objective truth that we can know? Can we
know the objective truth about anything? If it
exists, it can be known. If it exists, it can
be known. All right, so… There’s weird things
about that. Not right now. Maybe we can’t know
it right now. But after we die and we become
eternal beings, we can know. Well, certainly
we can’t know about immortality while we’re mortal.
Yeah. So, right. If there’s a truth in immortality,
we talked about immortality and eternal life.
Truth about eternal life or immortality even.
You don’t know that. Even if you have a near
-death experience, I don’t know that you understand
immortality. Yeah. So you don’t know the truth
of immortality. It’s a word that we use. We think
it’s true. We say that’s true. It’s a true concept.
But we won’t know until perhaps we’re in it.
Just like when I was going to Minnesota as a
young man, I had no idea what Minnesota was going
to be like. I was an Arizonaite. I lived in Arizona
my whole life. Things into Minnesota, I wondered
if we were going to live in tents in the snow.
But no, Minnesota is a… Booming society. It’s
a regular place. Right, right. But I had no concept
of that from my little small town in Arizona,
thinking there was anything. So I didn’t know
the truth of it. But as soon as I saw it, I perceived
that. I just remember wondering what another
place could be like. Is it truly just as this
place is? And it was. Have you ever been to,
like, did you ever go anywhere before you went
to Minnesota? What travels did you make in your
teenage and young boy years? When we were kids,
we did have a vacation to Hawaii one year that
my father had made a pretty good crop one year.
And so we took a Hawaii trip vacation. You went
to Hawaii when you were a kid? Well, I know you
went to Hawaii on your honeymoon. On my honeymoon.
That wasn’t the first time, huh? No. No. But
it was the last, most likely. I mean, we had
some good times as kids there in Hawaii. And
I think my eyes swelled up and a couple of us.
I mean, we had mosquitoes or something that bothered
us horribly when we were there. We went in December.
But it was fun. It was interesting. We got bumped
up to first class on one of the planes. Because
your eyes were all swollen up? Maybe. Maybe they
felt sorry for us. There was room in first class.
We got bumped up to first class and I remember
eating the buffet at the back of the first class
seating area. You know, they had fruits and pineapples
and all kinds of stuff. You’ve been to Hawaii
twice and you flew first class. I got to fly
first class once. Wow. And I remember that. That’s
really nice. That’s cool. I have never heard
that story. Right. Maybe there’s more to it.
There’s more in my memory. That’s when I started
writing my journal, too. My parents, they said,
you should all write about this. So that may
be why we remembered it, because they asked us
to write about every day. Yeah. So I started
writing. I could probably find those journals.
I should look for those someday. You know, that’s
kind of like my first journal experience. You
and mom gave me and [sister] a sketchbook journal on when
we went to Disneyland when [Uncle] was just back from
his mission. Right. That Disneyland trip. We
all went to Disneyland and me and [sister] a sketchbook
journal to what I understood was to document
the trip. And so you did. You remember the trip
more because you documented it? Yeah, I think
so. Yeah, I remember I got kind of sick one day.
That was an adventure for how old was I? I had
to have been like seven or eight. Not very old.
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t remember. I was not
very old, but I took care of the problem as best
I could and made a mess in the bathroom. Someone
else had to clean up after I took care of it.
All right. I’m sure we enjoyed cleaning that
up. I’m sure you did. I’m sure everybody
was like, those darn homeschool kids don’t know
anything. Right. Back to truth, though. The truth
of those things. I mean, are those experiences
true? Is that an objective truth, that those
things occurred? Well, at each of those events,
There were plenty of people to experience them,
right? So my experience is true for me, but it
definitely wasn’t mom’s experience. It wasn’t
your experience. We had different experiences.
Okay, so truth based on perspective still. Right.
Kind of what Sam was talking about. It depends
on your perspective. Everyone had it. But in
reality… Disneyland, let’s say there. Disneyland
was there at the time we were there, whenever
it was. If it was 2004 or 2006, I don’t know
when it was. Yeah. But Disneyland was there.
There was a truth. Disneyland actually had a
place. We were in a hotel. I believe we were
on the second floor near the end. There was a
swimming pool in the middle of it. I remember
those things. Yeah. Do you concur with any of
that? The swimming pool? Do you remember the
swimming pool? I don’t remember the pool or the
floor that we were on. I remember what you were
doing most of the time that we were at the hotel.
You were studying for your license or something
like that. So it must have been 2004. Yeah. When
I was in that realm of studying. It couldn’t
have been that year, though, because that was
before I was married. So I believe it had to
be 2009. 94. Oh, you’re talking about that long
ago. You’re talking about the first trip. We’re
talking about my brother. My brother returning
from his mission. Yeah, definitely not 2004.
I returned from my mission in 84. It was 94.
So I don’t remember you studying on that trip.
I don’t remember that. I do remember second floor.
And I remember it was a motel, not a hotel. I
remember the door. Yeah, it was outside. Was
out. Outside entrance. Yeah. Okay. See, so we
can identify the truth of the location based
on our two perspectives. Yeah. And it was within
walking distance, I think. I think we could walk
to the park. We walked. But you don’t remember
the pool, so maybe the pool was not truly there.
Nope, I do remember the pool. Now that we’re
talking about, now that we agree on the event,
I do remember the pool. That’s where my problem
happened. Okay. That’s where I got sick and had
to go and make a mess of the bathroom. Run inside
really fast so we didn’t have to fix the whole
pool for everybody. Right. So I remember the
park was there. Of course, Disneyland was there.
The motel was there. The pool was there. And
we have an agreement on the truth of those realities.
So could we say they’re objective truths? Yes.
Yes. Because it’s set in stone. It’s material
that we actually walked on and stepped on and
we saw it. We have anecdotal evidence that that
existed at that time. And then talk about as
they are, that’s an as they were. So we know
that that hotel as it was existed. We have no
idea if it’s still there or not. Right. I wouldn’t
even know if we could find what it was at the
time where that hotel was. Where it was. Yeah.
I don’t remember. Because we don’t have any relationship
to that. That was, you know, maybe 30 years ago.
And so with that, that’s the truth of things
as they were. That’s historical, historical truths.
Historical truths, facts. The fact that those
places were there, that’s a fact. But historical,
history is so muddy. We talked about what, veridicality?
Yeah, the verity of something, veridicality.
Yeah, the fact that we can’t remember the exact
event, we can remember some of it. And then the
next time that we remember it, we’re remembering
the remembering. We’re not actually remembering
the event. We’re remembering the event. The more
I try and think about that trip, the more I lose
it, I think, because I’m thinking about what
I was thinking about when I last remembered it.
The last thing you thought. So there’s an evolution
of our thinking as we’re remembering history.
Yeah. And things change. We build on. what we
thought before and tell a different story. It’s
like the telephone game. All right, let’s look
at one piece of history that’s reminded me of,
and I’d like to go here and just see what your
thought is on it. The first vision of Joseph
Smith. Uh -huh. With that type of concept that
he’s remembering. He didn’t write the first thing
of that until eight or nine years after it happened.
Yeah, he didn’t even tell anyone. That was the
first time he tried to remember it. The first
time he tried to remember it, tell someone this
is what we did that time. I think it was maybe
it was five years. I don’t know. It’s all you
can look at the facts of that historical event
that it actually happened. He wrote these things
down. They were written in letters. I mean, there’s
there’s dates and times attached to it. But even
his description of the event was different in
the five times that he told it. Yeah. Right.
And there’s some confusion and some concern as
to whether that event was true. Is it true or
is it false? Yeah. Did it really happen? And
if it happened, why did he not mention the axe
the second time? Or why did he didn’t bring up
the fiery leaves until the fourth time he told
it? Did they really burn or did they not burn?
Yeah. How much of truth really matters in our
stories that we tell or our remembrances that
we tell of an actual event? Well, and maybe you
would tell a story differently to another group
of people based on what you need them to hear.
You need them to hear something different. So
you tell one version of the story. The story
might be the same, like an event that actually
happened. That’s the actuality of the event.
But what you remember or tell about it will change
depending on who you’re talking to, right? Right.
And you have to consider that. I think in relation
to that Joseph Smith story, at no time was he
trying to tell the truth of the event that happened.
He was always conversing with someone else about
it or writing to someone else about it, talking
to them. And that’s what I think Sam Harris was
talking about. It’s the people. It’s the conversation.
Yeah. It’s who you think you’re talking to, what
you’re trying to accomplish with it. It’s not
that you know anything about the inside of an
atom or the power withheld there. Yeah. But you’re
discussing. And so in telling a story, he told
that story differently to the five different
peoples that he told or however many or different
places he wrote it. Yeah. And other people writing
about hearing the story wrote what they understood
about it, what he said. Yeah. So it’s interesting
that the truth evolves then. Can we use that
term? Truth evolves. Can you fight against that?
What you’re saying then is that truth. changes.
And evolution generally means that it’s becoming
stronger. It’s becoming more fit for the environment.
So truth becomes more fit for the purposes of
the story. Of the people involved in it right
then. So of the current time, of our current
time, truth becomes more appropriate to our current
time. Yeah. Well, then it’s not truth. I mean,
you can’t have truth that’s always changing.
Otherwise, it’s not reliable. Okay. The story
is, well, stories. We’re talking about the community
of stories around that we’re operating with.
Yeah. The, I don’t know, what stories? The stories
we tell are not the truth. I think that’s what
I… kind of try to identify with that Joseph
Smith story. Joseph Smith actually did something
when he was 14 or 13 or whenever. But eight years
later, he told about it the first time, said,
eight years ago, I did this. Who knows? Because
he didn’t write it in the journal. We had that
experience. I had it in Hawaii. You had it in
California. Writing in a journal, you remembered
it. It set something in your memory right then.
He did not write in a journal that night. Yeah.
There’s nothing recorded that he did anything
that day or that week. And he says, eight years
later, I remember I told my mother this. I don’t
know if she would have remembered that exactly
the way he remembered it, but he said that. And
we consider that it’s truth because he wrote
it about it. Right. But can you consider his
testimony as truth? Can we consider any testimony
as truth? So as we’re talking about things, it’s
to the people we’re talking to. It’s about this
conversation in between us right now. The truth
of our conversation. You see, and I’ve said a
number of things about things I remember eight
years ago or, you know, we don’t know what year
it was we went to Disneyland. I don’t know what
islands we were flying to or from with that first
class plane flight. I can’t prove that there
was a flight that I was in a first class seat.
But I’m just telling you, that’s what I remember.
That’s my truth. That’s my truth. That’s your
truth. They could come out and say, you know,
you never went to first class. I don’t know.
Your seat was, you know, there could never not
be any proof that I ever sat in a first class
seat. Yeah. But you were a little boy. So what
happened felt like first class, regardless of
whatever it was. I was 10 or 11. So, you know,
I knew what I was doing, but not completely.
Yeah. You were talking an absolute truth. The
truth of the event actually occurred. Someone
sat in a seat on an airplane. Someone went to
a grove of trees and saw something, but there’s
no recorded event. It’s not a video of it. Yeah,
well, and I can’t say that somebody did actually
go to a grove of trees and see something. Right.
I mean, he was an adult the first time he told
anybody about it. Yeah, and it’s not you that
did it. Right. You heard a story from me that
you never heard before, and it was 60 years ago,
50 years ago. Yes. But you have no idea that
that occurred. Right. You don’t know that I was
in Hawaii. I do know personally several other
people that must have been on that trip with
you. So I can verify that that event happened
with those other people that were there. Nobody
else was there when Joseph had his vision. Right.
And his mother was there after he got home, and
he said he talked to her. But we don’t have his
mother’s description. I don’t know. Maybe she
did write something down. I don’t know. Yeah,
she did write a lot of stuff, didn’t she? But
there are people that are concerned with that.
And as you try to find that, that’s what we’re
talking about, veridicality with history. You
can’t verify exactly everything that occurred.
It’s all a story. And truth is evolutionary.
It evolves to the current time frame. Because
I’m talking to you in regard to that. Right.
This is different than I would have tell anyone
else on the trip to Hawaii or of Joseph Smith
and my expected understanding and the belief
I have in the truth of that or the ability to
prove it. Right. Yeah. So does truth have to
be provable to be an absolute truth? Can you
even prove it? Right. Provable is, I mean, that’s
a kind of a scientific thing. You can prove,
can you prove things scientifically? Like specific
things, can you prove that oxygen is made, or
water is made of oxygen and hydrogen? That’s
provable, right? Perhaps by experimentation.
Yeah. I don’t know how they determine what oxygen
is. Somehow, somehow they were able to find exactly
which molecules, which combination of molecules
make up. Water what make up gold what makes up
silver, you know, they they know these things
because it’s been proven They wrote it down.
They made it set in stone And they know what
that stone was made out of it seems there’s a
there was a level of truth something like that
chemical truths are The society we live in Biological
is biological. We talk about atoms all the time
and and molecules and yeah the material world
that we have chemical structures on the earth.
And they seem to be true, but you can’t prove
that to a common man. I know we’ve had the conversation
for years. You can’t see oxygen. How do I know
it’s really working? They tell me that’s what
it is that I’m breathing and it’s keeping my
body and my blood flowing and it works. But I
have no idea what oxygen is and how much is too
much and how much is too little oxygen in the
air. Am I in a good room that has a sufficient
supply of oxygen? We all just trust the truth
that there is oxygen sufficient in every room
we walk into. Yeah. Trust it. And sometimes that
turns out to be not true. Sometimes people with
like natural gas leaks, the gas is there more
than the oxygen is there and they pass out and
die. Right. Sometimes what you trust in is actually
not true. Or if you build a strong enough Faraday
cage and try to exist in it for a week, you’ll
die because there’s no external transfer of oxygen
through that room. You’re just breathing your
own juices for a few days and carbon dioxide
is all that’s left. So sometimes then people
believe things that aren’t true. Okay. Always.
How about always? Always, sometimes, or never
do you believe things that are not true? Always,
sometimes, or never. Always and never is too
absolute to say that’s it. Like, I don’t know.
I don’t like absolute things like that. Does
that make me a relativist? Is it true that you
don’t like it, or is that just a lie? I absolutely
don’t like it. You absolutely don’t like it?
Always. Think about that in relation to truth.
Yeah. Maybe I do like it sometimes. So that’s
the thing is, is I like that some things are,
I like believing that some things are always
there. Like I can, I know that I can always fall
asleep when I, when it’s night. Like I haven’t
had an issue with falling asleep at night yet.
And so I like that that’s always happening. I
can always count on sleep to come. And isn’t
that. Why we’re discussing truth is because you’d
like to know the absolute always. Yeah. Always.
And so a lot of people believe that they have
the absolute always truth about anything. They’re
about religion, about politics, about history.
And some simple things like falling asleep, that
it’s easy to do. I mean, for you, falling asleep
is easy. For other people, that’s the hardest
thing they do and they can’t get it figured out.
Yeah. So they have to drink a pint before they
go to sleep so they can sleep. Yeah. They have
to drink the drowsy juice. Right. Something like
that. Yeah. So I believe that you lied when you
said you don’t like absolutes. That’s all you
search for. You think the only thing I search
for is absolutes? Correct. Okay. Tell me more
about that. Am I lying when I say that? Well,
I am interested in… your perspective on that.
Why would that be the case? Because you don’t
accept innuendo or suppositions. You’re looking
for a hard fact. And as we’re discussing truth,
the reason that truth even comes up in any of
our conversations is, did that really happen?
Can we rely on that information? What was Merriam
-Webster’s first thing? Is it reliable or accurate
or actual reality? Yeah. What’s the reality of
what we’re talking about of oxygen? And, you
know, we talked about the trees and these little
proton machines that are inside of every cell
on every molecule or proton operators that we
can’t see, but we know they do this. They do
functions. Right. How real is that? Well, I suppose
I do like to know if something is absolute or
not, I suppose. Yeah. Okay, so back to my question,
and I guessed you. You said, I hate that, but
you have to answer it now because you love it.
Because I love it. I don’t hate it. You have
a love, a concern for absolutes. So is it always,
sometimes, or never that we lie about what we
know? What was the question exactly? That we…
Don’t know the truth that we think we know. Maybe.
Maybe. So it must be always we don’t know the
truth about something. Okay. Because it’s not
never. We could accidentally fall on the right
truth. It was an actual objective truth. Yeah.
Objectively true. We’re not intentionally not
knowing the truth. We’re trying. Maybe we’re
always trying. Maliciously changing things. Yeah,
we’re always trying to know the truth. I don’t
think people want to know lies about things,
right? They’d much rather… Unless it’s a joke.
If it’s a joke, you do. You want to know the
lie of the joke? Yeah. Well, I mean, there is
the ignorance is bliss idea. Like, I prefer not
to know anything about that because I can’t be
hurt by something that I don’t know. Right? Like,
if your partner was cheating on you. In the long
run, it’d probably be better that you knew about
it, but you feel better right now about not knowing
about it. So may as well not know about it. So
you don’t delve into those questions. You don’t
try to poke around. Yeah. And yeah, in relationships,
that’s easy to talk about. Even seeing if your
actual blood is actually flowing in your body,
it’s best not to cut into the vein here in your
wrist and see if it’s actually flowing. To see,
yeah. It’s just trust that truly it is flowing
through my body. And so you can feel the pulse.
But if you say, I don’t know that that’s really
blood, that might just be spasms. I’m going to
cut that open. I’m going to cut that open and
see if it actually is blood. Yeah. There’s things
that are better not to know, to accept as truth.
What are some things that we know we don’t know,
but there might be an absolute truth about it?
Whether we can ever know what the absolute truth
is or not. Does everything have an absolute truth?
An objective truth? Yeah, that’s the good way
to look at that. I don’t know who came up with
this concept. The concept that we don’t exist.
That this is the computer. Virtual reality? The
matrix is what you’re talking about? Virtual
reality? No, not virtual. Not necessarily. But
like a computer screen. Your programs that you’re
looking at on your desktop. The icons, they’re
there. They’re not the program. They don’t do
anything. They’re a representation of the program.
The program is something behind it. It’s ones
and zeros. And the actual language, we’re not
communicating through this video and audio and
computer the way we’re perceiving it. We’re just
perceiving this. And so icon, I think it was
the icon type idea that we are just icons in
the world. We’re not this physical body that
we see, the atoms that we are. And we’ve talked
about that before. 90 % of an atom is blank space.
We’re a bunch of blank space put together. And
this is just an icon. Our hands, our bodies,
and the computer is just icons that we see. There’s
something else behind it that would be the truth
of it. The front image of the actual reality?
Of the reality, of the actual truth. The actual
truth of the computer is definitely not what
you’re looking at on your desktop. Right. My
computer is chips and processors and metal and
things like that. That’s what that is. But what
I’m seeing is your face. Right. And you’re seeing
the little hang up button and your icons on the
bottom. There’s icons on your computer screen.
Yeah. And windows that are opened and different
things. Right. So with that, those things aren’t
really the truth of it. Those are the representations,
the icons of the truth. So maybe all we have
in life is icons of the truth. And what we can
feel is just a representation of what’s actually
there. Like I’m rubbing my hands together, but
that doesn’t necessarily mean that these are
my hands. They’re not hands. It’s an icon. So
the hand, and that’s the… Maybe we can search
this out and find who’s talking about it. Yeah.
But it’s not your hands. They are there, but
you’re not actually in truth rubbing your hands
together. You’re rubbing the icon of your hands
together. And they do create friction. They get
hot. But that’s not what’s happening in there.
Those are atoms that have 90 % space that are
doing something else. Something else is happening
there. It’s not just as simple as rubbing your
hands together. And the heat it’s creating isn’t
just creating heat. You know, the friction is
doing other things besides the icon of the friction
that we have labeled in physics. Rub it together,
it’s going to get hotter because of friction.
There’s a truth behind it. That’s really hard
to understand. Right. Yeah. And that’s why these
new age philosophers talk about it so much. Yeah,
I guess. I mean, it’s fun to talk about, I’m
sure. And the more you talk about it. The more
you come to the absolute. The absolute. Okay.
Truth does not exist. Yeah. And you always lie.
But that’s okay. That’s life. What is life then
if we don’t have an absolute truth? Can you have
life without absolute truth? Can you have being,
existence, if you don’t have absolute truth?
Yeah. Or if you do have it, if you do have absolute
truth, are there truths that are too hard for
us to know to actually even live? What would
be, I mean, depression is caused by things like
that. Okay. What do you mean? It’s too hard for
me to know this. So if you tell me that my life
is, let’s say a relationship, husband and wife.
The wife has always thought the husband was true
to their relationship. And then he’s got another
family across the world that he’s lived with,
you know, in another state. I thought that was
your business. You were called to go away, and
he’s living in that family and this family, and
those things happen. But that becomes too hard
for this wife to bear the truth that the husband
is her husband, but he’s also the husband of
his other family that has two kids, and he’s
living a double life. And that causes her to
fall into a depressive state and suicide, perhaps.
I mean, it ruins. It’s too hard to bear. There
are truths that… you just don’t want to know
like you kind of mentioned maybe finding out
if your husband’s i don’t know what you said
earlier yeah whether partner is cheating on you
or not it’s ignorance is bliss yeah ignorance
is bliss that concept ignorance is bliss you
can continue living as long as you don’t know
certain things that are horrible like for instance
do you know what your face looks like without
skin on it no but i did just i should just watch
something like Yesterday, this morning maybe
even, the family guy, it was just a little clip
from the family guy where the dad is thirsty
or something like that. They’re right next to
a fire truck. So the son, the dad’s pointing
the fire hose at his face. The son turns on the
water and then turns it off. And when he turns
it off, it’s just like the dad’s skull, like
all of his flesh has been eaten off. It took
all the skin. Well, the flesh and the muscles
and everything were taken. Everything. But he
did. It was entertaining. It was amusing. Yeah.
And so they put the skull, a skeleton, a clean
skeleton, which is easier to see than flesh and
muscle. Without skin, right? Without skin. Yeah.
So that’s what they make horror movies out of.
Yeah. I went to the museum when they had the
body thing, right? Where they show the bodies
without skin. The museum had an exhibit where
they had the body. I think it was just called
the body. I don’t know. I don’t remember. It
could be. Yeah. But yeah, they had all of these
bodies, real human bodies without skin and without
muscle and splayed out the nerves and everything
like that. And it was fascinating. So I do kind
of know. what it would look like without skin.
What a face looks like without skin, but that’s
not something that… I don’t know what my face
looks like without skin. Yeah, or mine. If I
pulled my skin off, would that horrify you? Yes,
I would be horrified. I think it would. If you
pulled your skin off, I would be horrified. That’s
why I use that term horror movies. It’s not something
you want to see. You don’t want to do that. You
don’t want to go through that. If you’re in a
traffic accident and your skin does happen to
fall off or get ripped off or burned off, you’d
be better off not knowing that. Ignorance is
bliss of what burned flesh looks like. Right.
I’d rather not see it. I’d rather not see someone
with their skin ripped off or even legs, you
know, skin ripped off of legs. That’s not fun
either. A hand degloved, right? That’s just the
worst. Degloved, right. If your ring gets caught
on something. There are things that are better
not to know truths, like what the inside of my
hand looked like to the inside of my face, what
the muscles actually look like under my cheekbones,
or on top of my cheekbones, under my skin. I
don’t need to know that. And I’m better not knowing
that truth. That’s a truth that’s there. It does
look like something, but you don’t want to know
what it looks like. Right. And all your muscles
underneath your skin, you don’t need to see the
muscle, you know, or the… I’ve got a tear in
one of them. There’s a lump, but I don’t need
to see what it’s like. I can see there’s a lump.
It’s on the wrong side. It’s on this one. Lies.
You’re lying to me. I was feeling the wrong side.
See, I lied already. That’s still the icon. Our
bodies, our skin, is the icon of what we actually
are. There is flesh and blood, and that body
exhibit said, these are the nerves, these are
the blood vessels, the blood veins, this is what
the muscles look like underneath the skin. This
is what a face looks like with all its muscles
under the skin. When someone’s smiling, when
someone’s frowning, this is what it looks like,
the differences. But with the skin on, it looks
totally different than just the muscle. So that
idea, we are just an icon. We’re not who we actually
are, physically even. Our physical actuality
has this machine beating in us all the time that
no one ever sees. Right. Well, yeah. And maybe
the medical doctors are doing… what, triple
bypass surgery or whatever, they can see. They
can see the machine beating. Right. And they
can take it out, they can fix it, they can work
on it. If it’s necessary to get to it, but it’s
better not to. It’s better. I think ignorance
is bliss of that too. I’d rather no one ever
see my heart. Yeah. That’s the best way to live.
Don’t let anyone ever see your heart. Yeah. What
about your, what do they say, the true heart,
your true feelings? That’s not even possible,
is it, to show your true feelings or your true
emotions? Well, we always do it. Actuality. Reality
and actual. What actually happens is we’re talking.
The words I’m saying actually come out. And I
actually picked the wrong arm for that anomaly
I was going to mention. It was true what I did,
but it wasn’t necessarily true when I went over
here. It’s not truly on this arm. No, it’s truly
over here. And does that matter? Sometimes the
truth doesn’t matter what the actual truth is,
right? Okay, and you use that word sometimes
again inappropriately. Why do you keep using
that word? Because I think sometimes the truth
does matter. Okay, when could it actually matter?
Let’s find that space. Okay, what about if I’m
baking cookies and I’ve got to either put…
I’ve got to put sugar in my cookies to make them
taste good. And my sugar jar is unlabeled. So
what if somebody accidentally filled it with
salt? Then it’s not truly sugar. And that matters
to the cookies. It has to be truly sugar. It
can’t be salt that I put a cup of. I can’t put
a cup of salt in my cookie recipe because then
it would be gross. And have it and have the consequence
come out appropriately. So you’re. Truth matters
to consequences. Truth or consequences. Yeah.
The consequence is related to the truth. If you
put the wrong ingredient in your cookies, they’re
going to taste differently. Right. I mean, they
talk about putting brownies. How much feces would
you allow? Zero. Zero percent, I think. Absolutely
zero. It was a little bit good enough. Can we
go with 10 % and be okay with the brownies still?
Yeah. The consequence is where truth matters.
If someone’s going to make you brownies, you
want to make sure that they don’t have any bad…
You’re trusting the truth, trusting to that truth
noun that there’s good ingredients in those brownies
that they brought you over. That they didn’t
put anything in there. Yeah. Or that they used
actually sugar instead of salt. Right. In that
amount. You need salt, but you just don’t need
that much of it. Yeah. Truth is… always important
only to the consequences though if the if the
truth whether it’s something is true or not doesn’t
affect the consequences then maybe it’s only
sometimes important okay and and is there a consequence
that doesn’t rely on truth can you have a consequence
that didn’t come from something i mean that’s
the definition of consequence it came from something
and it came from a true something actually happened
which created the consequence What’s the other
word? It’s consequences. And it’s when something
follows on something else. It’s not correlated.
Causation. Causation. You can’t always identify
the causation of a consequence. But if you can
identify a consequence that it’s truly there,
you truly have curly hair. We don’t know what
the causation of that curly hair is. Yeah. I
don’t even know if I was born with curly hair
or not. My hair has always seemed straight when
I was a kid. But was it just because we always
combed it? Straight? I did have straight hair
when I was a kid, right? I remember pictures
where my hair was definitely straight, right?
Do you remember that? I don’t even remember those.
No, I don’t remember you with straight hair as
a kid. I don’t remember you with curly hair.
I had no hair. There is no truth, no truth that
you had any hair when you were a child. Yeah.
I don’t have a direction one way or another.
And the only reason I brought up your hair, I
see that you have curly hair. I think that’s
true. You may not. It may not be curly right
now. The consequence is that you have curly hair.
We don’t know what the truth is that caused it.
So maybe what we’re seeing, maybe true, is just
we’re seeing icons or consequences of a truth
that exists. I mean, our human bodies are an
icon of the truth that is us. And you talked
about our heart, our feelings, and our true character.
We don’t know what the true character is. We
only know the icon that comes out when we’re
talking, when we’re conversing, when we’re interacting
with somebody. We can see the icon of the character,
but we don’t know the truth behind it. We know
the consequence, the consequence that we laughed
to what that guy said, but we don’t know the
truth behind the joke that he just posed that caused
us all to laugh. If I was going to search this
icon idea, what would I search up? Just try that
way. We are icons. It’s icons on a computer,
humans. This Orthodox Christian Network website
says we are icons, parentheses, images of God.
That’s a faith -based concept, is that God is
the father of our spirits and of our physical,
our beings. Yeah. This doesn’t, my searches aren’t
helping. Does life make sense by Deepak Chopra?
See, maybe this is what we talked about using
incognito mode. Maybe we need to go to that.
Proof. Okay, so Deepak, is that how you say his
name? Deepak Chopra. He says in this thing on
medium .com, proof in a scientific age needs
to be objective. Here’s a credible argument for
why life makes total sense, not just human life,
but all life down to single -celled organisms.
if you consider the human brain it either creates
meaning out of raw sensory input or it processes
that input as an agent of the mind we don’t need
to go into the intricacies of mind versus brain
here it is enough that the brain allows us to
make sense of life well i don’t know if that’s
i mean that’s kind of physical physical world
is an icon is the physical world just representation
that’s a reddit thing that’s what ai says about
this is the physical world just an icon The idea
that our physical world is just an icon is a
concept often explored in philosophy and spirituality,
suggesting that our perceived reality is not
the ultimate reality, but rather a representation
or symbol of a deeper, more fundamental layer
of existence. Such as an icon on a computer screen
represents a larger file or image. So that’s
the concept, wherever that comes from. But it’s
physical world is just an icon. That’s what I
searched for that. And so you can delve deeper
into that. We’ll put something. in the show notes
for that. That makes, it’ll make sense. It’ll
make sense later when we’re older. When we’re
older. The truth of that can be figured out.
But that’s, yeah, that’s the concept in it. It
is there. There’s a number of places. Cura has
a thing on it. We’ll find an appropriate one
to put in the show notes. Yeah. Okay. I want
to pivot a little bit. Okay. I think one reason
why Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson had, couldn’t
come to an agreement on what truth meant. in
their episode, in their conversation, I think
was because Sam Harris felt that Jordan Peterson
was using truth in a way that just didn’t, it
wasn’t what everybody, like the majority, would
use it as. Like when you say the scriptures are
true, or the story of Adam and Eve is true, and
you don’t actually, you’re not actually saying
it’s factual, it actually happened, this is Reality,
if you’re not saying that and you’re using true
in a true north, arrow flies true kind of way
instead, like then it’s confusing. Maybe there’s
other words that could have been used instead
of true. I don’t think so. I mean, there are
in this dictionary, there are 13 definitions
of true. Yes, but everybody knows the first one.
13 different aspects of true. Well, everyone
knows all, everyone actually knows all 13 or
they wouldn’t exist. You know, you talked about
the true arrow flight, true arrow flight or true
direction, true standing. Let’s talk about that
logically, logistically, logically true or in
reality. I was thinking about a true direction
so that the true direction of something. Okay.
You say something’s true if it’s perpendicular
to the earth or perpendicular to another line.
That line is perpendicular. That’s a true perpendicular.
Okay, mathematically. Mathematically, yeah. Or
if you’re doing it, you’re going to stand true
perpendicular to the earth. That’s what I was
thinking, perpendicular to the earth. If you’re
standing straight up and down on land, on the
side of the earth, even if you’re next to someone
else, you could be on a rock and you could be
tilted, but you’re standing straight up and you’re…
But even anywhere on the Earth, on the globe,
since it’s a globe, those two lines are not going
to stay parallel. They may look parallel right
now, but at some point they’re going to cross
the direction. If you try to point true north
with your compass, it’s going to cross. The next
true north, even if it’s only an inch away, it’s
going to cross that next true north. Okay. So
on a globe, you can’t have a true direction.
And if we use… two points between the earth
and the sun i was trying to think of that too
if you try to put a direction between that depends
on where you start on the earth i mean your perspective
makes all the difference in where those lines
cross at the end the sun is in one place from
for you and me we’re 100 miles apart from each
other if you look up the sun it’s going to be
in the same place almost and for practical purposes
it’s in the same place the sun’s in the sky it’s
at the 12 o’clock spot And even from someone
in New York, it’s going to look almost the same.
But if you if you applaud it and mathematically
try to identify it, you’re completely different
from you to me. Completely different. So you
don’t you talk about true direction, but a direction
is never true. Right. So that’s why I was using
that as an example is it’s true, true direction.
It’s always subjective. Or yeah, that that’s
a feeling like kind of thing. It’s not. It’s
not material. When someone says, stand up straight,
I am standing up straight. No, you’re not. Yeah.
So Jordan Peterson’s rule, tell the truth or
at least don’t lie, right? I would say, thinking
back to our precise speech conversation, use
language that people will understand or at least
don’t use language that people misunderstand.
And those are axioms. They’re things that are
good to try. Idioms? Axioms? I don’t know. Axiom,
maybe. Metaphors? Metaphors. I think that’s what
he’s talking about. Like Adam and Eve, what Sam
Harris was talking about or what you were saying
there, did it actually happen? Are we talking
about a literal thing that occurred or a metaphor
of what truth you’re trying to point to? Yeah.
Even tell the truth or at least don’t lie. That’s
still a metaphor. At least don’t lie. So I don’t
want to do the least I can do. Why would I not
do more than that? Tell the truth. But you always
tell the truth. Well, and there’s more in this
chapter on that rule, too. It’s not cut and dry
like that. Your truth is different than mine
about that Disneyland vacation. We agree on most
of it. Fundamentally, we agree on most of it.
But there will be things. I don’t believe you
made a mess in the bathroom. I have no memory
of that, no truth about that whatsoever. Well,
you know why? It’s because mom had to clean it
up. You were still in the frame of mind where
dad sits on the couch. Doesn’t do family things.
Right. So I should go and ask her if she remembers
that. If she remembers that, yeah. Wait a minute,
wait a minute. Okay. Let’s take a break here
for a second. You’re a liar, you’re a liar. Why?
What did mom say? She has no recollection of
that truth. She didn’t clean it up. Maybe you
cleaned it up by yourself. Yeah. But we don’t,
she says it could have happened. That’s what
she said, how she put it. It could have happened.
So it’s, it’s possible. She, she allows for the
possibility. I’m allowing for the possibility
too, because we trust you. We believe you don’t
lie. There’s no reason for you to lie about that.
And you have it in your memory as a truth. Yeah,
it’s possible that that’s just one of several
things that happened that day because you guys
had four or five kids at that point already.
Right. What I was doing didn’t matter anyway.
Correct. And it was just a nothing to us. But
see, you have other people, like you talked about,
corroborative people that are there. You have
other people there in that situation, but we
can’t prove the truth, the veracity of that historical
event. Yeah. Now, the floor likely remembers
it and whatever. needed to be cleaned up remembers
it, but we don’t. Right. Is it metaphorical?
You’re actually stating a truth, though. You’re
not trying to identify a metaphor or an axiom,
something to live by. It’s just… Yeah. Never
drink pool water, maybe. That’s an important
rule to live by. Like, don’t eat yellow snow?
Yeah. So that’s because this is what will happen.
You think it was the pool water? that caused
that yeah i don’t know if it would have had that
effect so quickly it must have been all of the
popcorn we ate at disneyland the day before though
i mean i don’t know something something happened
right that’s neat that mom doesn’t remember that
i’m glad that i’m glad that that’s not something
she holds against me for the rest of my life
is remember that one time oh you see so that
releases you a little bit more that at least
that little anger angst about your childhood
isn’t there. You can release that. So you’re
a little bit lighter. You’re a little bit lighter
today. And she was even happy telling me about
that. It didn’t bother her that I asked her.
That was cool too. Oh, good. Cool. So you know
how they write news articles in fourth grade
language. They don’t use anything harder to understand
than… than elementary school or whatever, right?
Because that’s who the people are that are reading
the news. And people that are really good at
capturing attention on YouTube, they make sure
that they’re not using hard -to -understand language.
And I think that, I mean, that helps them be
successful in their business. The truth of that.
So what’s the truth of that statement you just
made? It’s true that they probably do it because
they think it’s going to be better. Jordan Peterson
clearly doesn’t worry about that. Yeah. He knows
his audience is different. Right. But his audience
is one of the largest audiences in the world.
It’s all those people who other people think
you have to speak in fourth grade language to
get their attention. He doesn’t consider that
whatsoever. Yeah. And he’s got their attention
anyway. So what’s true about that? I think it’s
maybe not the largest audience in the world or
whatever. I mean, he’s a very popular guy among
certain people, but still I can find people that
don’t know who Jordan Peterson is. It’s possible
that more people know who Donald Trump is than
know who Jordan Peterson is. Yes. Yes. So I would
agree with that because he’s been more of an
outspoken person. My point, though, my point
really is if your purpose… is to speak to everyone
about something, to convert everyone to an idea,
you’ve got to use language that they all understand.
If Jordan Peterson’s purpose in speaking about
the truth of an idea, of one thing, a truth of
a story, if his purpose is to convert everyone
to consider the meaning of that story, Like,
I imagine the purpose, the reason he talks about
the Genesis and Exodus, like the reason he did
those things was to find what they really mean.
Underlying truths, meanings. Right. And so if
he wanted to make that accessible to everybody
on the planet, then he would have to use language
understandable to everybody on the planet. Yes.
And he does. Right. I understand. He does break
it down and he explains things over 10 or 20
minutes. Yeah. Using every word, every avenue
of it, just like our conversation here. We’re
trying to look at every avenue of it. We’re not
just saying it’s ubiquitous. And then people
who don’t know what that word means will not
even care. Well, maybe they’ll create their own
meaning of the word in their head. They’ll be
like, oh, ubiquitous means purple. It’s always
purple. OK. Right. Exactly. Or it means that
it’s sad. And it’s always sad. I agree. It’s
always sad. Yeah. You know, the word elated,
it’s supposed to mean like happy, right? It’s
like if you’re feeling elated, then you’re feeling
particularly happy about something. But I didn’t
know that until like, I don’t know, four or five
years ago. Before that, I thought when someone
said elated, they were saying something negative.
They’re like… I’m just elated about this. I’m
like, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you’re so elated.
That’s too bad. So if you don’t know the meaning
of a word, then you learn different things about
the idea. So if Jordan Peterson is going to use
the word truth about anything in the Bible, then
he’s got to use words that actually mean something
to the people he’s speaking to, I guess. Right.
And that’s that thing, and maybe we can include
it in here, that do you believe in God? He took
every one of those words, do you, you believe
in God? Those three words, he took an hour and
a half to describe those three words, what you
is, what God is, what believe is, what it means
to believe. And he told stories, all kinds of
stories. He started out with a story about Elon
Musk on the belief system. And he related it
to everything that everyone is dealing with now.
Political environments were included in it. And
it’s all the stuff that we’re trying to talk
about. You know, we’re bringing real examples
into our discussion about truth and trying to
identify. We find where things make sense. And
we’re doing it in the simplest language we can
accomplish, too, as well. So, yeah, what you’re
saying is appropriate. Yeah, I started battling
against it, but that’s not what I want to do.
I agree. That you do want to break things down
to the simplest form so that it can be more easily
understood because that’s how you break down
a word anyway. Any definition, like truth, we
found reality and actual, what’s actually there.
Right. And there’s something to be said about
truth that you can rely on. Something that doesn’t
change based on time passing or the people that
are looking at it. That’s interesting. Like principles.
I mean, this Seven Habits book is talking about
principles as truth. I mean, what is it he said
there on that page? Principles. When we value
correct principles, we have truth, a knowledge
of things as they are. Correct principles give
truth. And things as they are, like maybe the
thing changes, but the truth about it shouldn’t
change. Depending on, you know, if you have principles,
if you live a principle -centered life, then
you know what the truth is, whether you’re at
home or at work or with all your friends at the
bar or at church. I mean, you know what the truth
is because you have the principles behind it.
And you can rely on those to be always true,
the correct principles. A true principle? How
do you know if a principle is true? Correct.
You use the word correct. Yeah. Well, that’s
what Stephen Covey uses. Yeah. He’s using his
subjective description of this is a true principle.
And we’ll get into it when we talk about this
book. Yeah. It is his perception, his perspective
on it. Here’s where I found a true statement
in there, a statement about truth, since we’re
talking. He’s talking in proactivity. I’m just
going to read this part and what it meant to
me. Proactive is part of human nature. And although
the proactive muscles may be dormant, they are
there. So that’s stating a truth. We have choice.
And he’s talking about our choice, our ability
to act. They are there. By respecting the proactive
nature of other people, we provide them with
at least one clear, undistorted reflection from
the social mirror. So if we treat everyone else
as though they have proactive power, then they
get one clear, undistorted reflection. Because
they have it. We consider it as truth and we’re
reflecting back to them a truth. You can decide
if you’re upset or happy with me. I’m fine with
that. I’m not going to make you think. I try
to make you think one way or the other. You decide.
Reflection like I’m rubber and you’re glue and
everything you say bounces off me and sticks
to you. Mirroring, which is I’m rubber and you’re
glue. Everything you say bounces off me and sticks
to you. That’s kind of a slap in the face though,
isn’t it? It is. It’s meant to be a slap in the
face. Like you can say whatever you want about
me. But mirror, right? Mirroring is different.
Yeah. Mirroring isn’t that it’s sticking to you.
I’m going to show you a true reflection of yourself.
And so the true reflection, that’s why I said,
so truth, a stated truth, show them what they
are truly. If you believe, and it’s just a belief
that everyone is. proactive that everyone has
the choice that they can choose their own actions
the way they think about something if you reflect
that to them always then they’re going to see
a true reflection is what he said they’ll have
at least one clear undistorted reflection that’s
assuming that that truth is actually in them
and stephen covey just going through his statement
this is the truth the way it’s one principle
he said i believe in So is that principle actually
true or could it be not true? How would you know
if it’s not true? What is the test? What could
be a test? If they see the reflection. So his
truth, his statement was that they will see one
honest reflection of who they really are. His
truth that he’s trying to propose, suppose, is
that we all have this innate proactivity inside
of us. But that’s a psychological thing. If someone
doesn’t believe they have it, do they have it
still? And if you try to tell them they have
it and they, no, they don’t have it. No, I, if
they’re a complete reactive. Yeah. Didn’t he
say in that, in that paragraph that it’s there
lying dormant? Right. If it lies dormant. So
that’s saying it’s, it’s there all the time.
You’re just not using it. I’m not using a piece
of my psychology that I don’t know. Can you use
something you don’t know? Or is it, is it there
already? Even if you don’t know it. That’s what
he’s trying to suppose, propose. They don’t know
some psychological tool. Is it still there? Is
your productivity still there? He’s saying it
is still there. Yeah. Whether you believe it
or not, it’s still there, right? Right. And that
would be absolute truth, right? Whether you believe
it or not, something absolutely true is still
there. You don’t have to prove it. How can you
know that it’s still there, that a psychological
characteristic? How do we know that every human
being, maybe every animal, has it? You can’t
know. You can’t know that everybody has it. Is
it absolute whether you know it or not, whether
you can know it or not? Even if it’s unknowable,
is it still true? Okay. And let’s use something
that we had in a conversation before. We were
talking about telepathy. Is that a true? characteristic
inside of our brains. He’s saying that proactivity
is a true characteristic dormant inside of us.
Telepathy is dormant inside of us. We could say
that. If we say that that’s true, how does that
play in society? Yeah, it could be one of those
things that is true and it’s unknowable. Like
maybe some people have tested it and seen the
consequences, the cause. Yeah, they’ve seen the
consequences of what’s happening, of their tests.
Yeah. They assume it must be telepathy. Yeah.
Let’s call it telepathy that happened to cause
these consequences. But they don’t know the truth
of that causation. Whatever it might be called,
it could be called any word. We could call it
ubiquitous. That could be its new name. Well,
and that’s what we’re questioning. Is proactivity
and telepathy ubiquitous or not? And I don’t
even know what ubiquitous means at this point.
It means purple. No, it means everywhere. It
means obvious, obviously everywhere. So it’s
a principle that is true. A ubiquitous is a principle
that’s true. A ubiquitous principle would be
always true, whether you believe it or not. Okay.
like like gravity but then there’s places that
gravity seems to be off too physics when you
get off the planet is different than physics
on the planet no i think this is physics no matter
where you are is the same it’s you know the the
mass of the earth determines how strong the gravity
is so the mass of the moon has a different level
of gravity but it’s still calculable with physics
the same principles of physics. You don’t change
the physics when you’re going somewhere else.
You’re relying on that truth. But then we have
quantum mechanics, quantum physics, string theory.
There’s all kinds of things that break the physical
physics. There’s points at which they don’t mathematically
calculate anymore in the small and the large
degree. I don’t know any more about it than that,
but I do know that they break and that’s why
string theory exists. It’s a theory still. We
don’t know. They don’t know the truth. We know
the consequence, but we can’t point to the truth
of it. Yeah. Okay. I think I understand. So telepathy,
if it’s true, no matter what, no matter what
anybody believes, if it’s possible inside of
every one of us, no matter what we think, if
it’s possible or not, then it’s an absolute truth
that this is possible. It’s an absolute truth
that proactivity is possible. Yeah. So if he
says proactivity is dormant, maybe someone else
could say, like Napoleon Hill did say, telepathy
is consciousness to consciousness conversation
is dormant in most people. Napoleon Hill said
that? Yeah. And you can open it up. You can,
that’s, in “Think and Grow Rich.” I mean, it’s the
same, same concept of telepathy. Okay. Unconscious
communication. We do it all the time. We’re doing
it now. That’s the reason we put the video in
front of us, even though we’re not showing the
video to anyone else. We’re unconsciously talking
to each other by the visual, by me knowing you’re
in the same place in the conversation. Yeah.
Is it provable that there are absolute truths?
Is that scientifically provable, where they can
prove it and everyone can look at that proof
and say, yes, there’s absolute truth here? trying
to think of that. Is there anything we have proven
to be absolutely true that everyone agrees to
without question? Without question. I mean, that’s
making me think of the idea that when Jesus comes
again, then every knee will bend, right? That
will be an absolute truth, right? That everyone
will acknowledge that. That’s one of those future
ARE’s that we don’t know yet. Yeah. Don’t know
how that’s going to happen. That’s stated as
a future are. And so there’s supposition questioning
whether that is actually going to occur just
that way or if that was the right description
of it. Because when they tried to describe, when
Isaiah tried to describe airplanes, he had no
idea how to say that. Yeah. And I don’t know.
I don’t know exactly that connotation, but some
of the things that Isaiah, his weird words in
the scripture. Yeah. Maybe he’s describing airplanes.
So we don’t know what we don’t know. So you can’t
use a future event as an absolute truth. It has
to be something right now. Does everyone know
that Donald Trump is the president of the United
States? Apparently Elon Musk’s son doesn’t believe
it. He’s just a friend. He’s just a guy in the
seat. Yeah. Well, no, there’s video where you
can hear the video where Trump is sitting at
the desk and Elon is talking. Yeah. He’s standing
up and talking. I heard. X was saying some things,
but some people have deciphered what he said
exactly. Yeah. And it’s saying, is that his name,
X? X. Yeah. His name is X. Not 10? No. Apparently
what he was saying was, you’re not the president.
Things like that. Is that what you’re saying?
That’s what it sounds like people are saying
he’s saying. It was whispered and Trump would
look away like, kid, you know. But. I didn’t
watch the whole video, so I can’t say for sure
what the truth is. I watched the video. I heard
him whispering things, and I don’t know what
that chain is on his, you know, Elon said this
is his chain of something. He had a chain under
his jacket. Oh, okay. I don’t know. So there
was something special about that. And it is odd.
We’ve talked about that before. It’s odd that
X is able to be in there, in the White House,
in a… Perfect business setting. And Elon didn’t
change his status of speaking with his son there
even. You know, they picked him up, put him on
his neck. And, you know, he was relatively calm
and cared for. Yeah. It’s all interesting. Does
everyone know who Elon Musk is? There are probably
people who don’t know who Elon Musk is. And there
are probably people who don’t care the president
of the United States. Maybe even people in the
U .S. that don’t care who the president and have
no idea who the president is, even now. Right.
And we’re not talking about two -year -olds.
We’re talking about grown adults that would know.
And that’s like the people that they, you know,
man on the street, there’s microphones that go
out and say, who’s the president of the United
States right now? They have no idea. You know,
who’s George Washington? Yeah. I don’t know who
George Washington is. What’s the Supreme Court
of the United States? I don’t know. They ask
questions that everyone should know, but no one
knows. They’re just people that don’t care. Yeah.
They do care. They care about their life, their
living, and it doesn’t include a president of
the United States. Yeah. They’re reactive. They’re
going with the flow. Whatever happens to them
today is that they’ll move with that. Right.
And it doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow.
And that is their truth and their reality. Their
reality doesn’t include a president. And it doesn’t
include a Jesus Christ. It doesn’t include a
my knee is bowing to anything. Maybe they are
truly proactive in themselves. And they just,
you know, that’s not dormant. It’s active. And
they’re living the life they want to live. And
it doesn’t include this stuff that I don’t need
to know. So I don’t need to know it. So there’s
nothing that is completely knowable, ubiquitous,
a truth that is irrefutable. But is it still
absolute, though? Well, gravity, thinking of
something like gravity, everyone has to absolutely
believe in gravity. Well, whether people believe
in it or not, it’s still there, right? Okay,
right, because of consequence. You can feel the
consequence on your chair of gravity. Yeah, but
let’s say I have a… disorder that makes it
feel like I’m floating all the time. So I can’t
feel the gravity. I’m sitting on the chair and
I see that I’m maybe I don’t see. Maybe I feel
like I’m floating and also my eyesight is a little
bit distorted too. So it looks like maybe I’m
in the middle of the room and not on the floor
to me. Vertigo. If you have a dizzy spell, vertigo
happens, then gravity disappears from you even
though you’re writhing on the floor, you feel like
you’re floating in space. You have to trust your
senses in order to feel gravity. But did gravity
change because your senses don’t see it? Don’t
feel it. Like if you’re feeling the effects of
being drunk or high and the room is spinning
and you know that the world is not spinning,
the room is not spinning, and you’re not even
spinning either. You’re laying on the couch.
You’re not moving, but it feels like you’re spinning.
The truth is that you’re not moving. The world
is not moving. And gravity is still affecting
your body, even though you feel it’s not. Yeah.
But you’re feeling something different. So that’s
your truth at the minute. But your truth is a
lie. Because the actual reality of the situation,
the absolute truth is that nothing is happening
outside of you. It’s only a lie based on someone
else’s perspective. Your perspective is your
spinning. And that’s the truth. It’s truly what
you’re like if you’re in pain. Is your pain level
8 or 3? 12. My pain level is 12. That’s actual,
even though you can’t prove that from any outside.
It may be just neurological, might be neurological,
may just be mental, psychological, that pain
you’re feeling. So there’s two truths then. The
truth that everyone else sees and the truth that
you’re feeling. Two absolute truths. The absolute
truth is that you’re not moving. But then the
absolute truth is also that you feel like you’re
moving. That you are moving in your feelings,
in your heart. You talked about the truth of
true heart, your true character, your true self.
Your true self is doing something all the time.
And it’s not necessarily true to the people in
your room with you. You know, you’re hot or cold.
The room has a temperature, an absolute temperature.
But whether that’s hot or cold depends on the
perspective of the individual. You can calculate
the temperature. And then it’s a continuum. You’re
not ever going to be exact on the temperature.
This molecule is hotter than this molecule. And
that’s okay. There’s an average temperature of
the room. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But there’s still
an absolute truth, right? That’s the question.
I know. And I think it’s still in question. There’s
an absolute truth. We are bodies here. We’re
just the icon of that body. We don’t know the
nuts and bolts behind it. And gravity, we know
the consequences. That’s what I was trying to
point to, consequences. I think the way to view
truth is through consequences. We can see the
consequence of gravity. We can see that there’s
an impression on my chair. It takes energy to
pick my arm up, and if I let go of the energy,
it falls. Certainly, there’s a gravity. There’s
some consequence, but what causes that fall?
Is it the centrifugal force of the earth? Is
it the mass, just mass? There’s other things
related there. Yeah, a lot of other things in
play that affects the consequences. How fast
does your arm fall? And where does it fall? Does
it fall to the left or to the right? In one of
those, based on weight, they fall exactly the
same. A 1 ,000 -pound thing falls exactly the
same speed that a 10 -pound thing falls. Right,
but if you’re on the moon… Like a 10 -pound
ball on Earth falls faster than a 10 -pound ball
falls on the moon, too. Right. If it falls at
all. The difference of gravity. Yeah. And it
would fall 10 times faster on Mars with 9 times
the gravity that we currently have. I think we’ve
got to stop using gravity as a basis of truth.
Well, what more common truth can we find? There
is a God. No, that’s way off from gravity. That’s
way off? But it’s something that… There’s no
scientific… People believe that’s true. Yeah,
everyone believes that’s true because of the
story, because of the testimony, and because
of the way the Earth works. And you talk about
intelligent design of everything. You know, that
everything works. All of this… thing we’re
looking at is governed by something and it’s
it’s so complex the icons that we see is so complex
yeah complexity of it there’s got to be a an
intelligence behind it and that’s what we call
god and god is there and god created all this
and he’s stated in the books the simple stories
that we operate and believe that adam and eve
and god created the worlds and jesus christ was
there and by his word he’s spoken into existence
and now christ and god are ruling The Godhead
works. The Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit is here
communicating to us. And that’s why we get revelations
and inspirations and intuitive thoughts as we
work towards them. It all works. We can see this
circumstance. We can see the causes. It’s not
circumstance, the… Consequences. Consequences
of our thoughts and our actions and our words.
We can see the consequences. And so we try to
relate the truth behind it. But you can’t know
the truth of God behind all of it. And why can’t
you know that? Because of this innate thing that
Stephen Covey is talking about, our proactivity,
the power of choice that he says is dormant in
everyone. It’s either dormant or active. If you’re
not acting on it, it’s there. And to show you
a true picture of your choice, that may be the
only truth that we have, a truth of how do you
prove that you have that choice? Yeah. Is that
truth provable? Yeah. Any principle is any principle
we propose to live by a true principle. And what
makes it true? You don’t even know what consequences
that principle necessarily creates. If I use
this principle, it’s going to create these consequences,
except if I run into this type of person, then
the consequence is going to be different. Yeah.
Well, and it can be like physics. Principles
are generally true for a large, a regular sized.
population when you bring it down to one person
then it gets sketchy or when you bring it down
out to the whole world’s population or all of
existence then then it’s sketchy like you don’t
know if it’s going to work for as long as you’re
dealing with the neurotypical yeah everything’s
great but anytime you get out in the average
in the edges it may not work and they may not
understand what you mean by neurotypical or by
by proactive or dormant I don’t even understand
dormant. Right. So then principles aren’t, like
you can’t identify absolute true principles and
the absolute true physics equations, they’re
not absolutely true. They’re not true in some
cases. Whether you believe them or not, an absolute
truth is something that’s active whether you
believe it or not. Yeah. They possibly are. And
maybe that’s the appropriate word of the use
of the word sometimes. Sometimes. Mostly. Sometimes
not, though. I just read a word that I’ve been
trying to think of for ages. Congruency. If something
is congruent, it’s the same across all applications,
right? Right. Or it aligns with the same things.
It aligns with the same things across all applications.
Congruent. It’s not congruent to itself. It has
to be congruent to something else. Congruency
means there’s a relationship. And that relationship
stands out, stands the test of time. Congruous.
In agreement, harmony, conforming to the circumstances.
Okay. Well, I mean, the idea is that, I don’t
know if that’s the right word to use then, but
the idea is… Is there a truth that is true,
whether people believe it or not, whether it’s
day or night, whether it’s now or in 800 BC?
Like, is there, whether we can know it or not,
whether it’s believable or not, right? I mean,
I said that, but whether we can test it or not,
is there, do you think, like, I don’t know if
we can identify it, but do you think it’s likely
or it’s always? Or it’s never that something
is true, irregardless, regardless of anything
else that happens around it. I should start with
our conversation. Where we started this whole
conversation a year ago almost on unconditional
love. Is love true? Does love exist? That’s what
we kind of treated it to start this whole thing.
What is it? And is it conditioned? Is it unconditioned?
Is it always there? Does it come from somewhere
else or does it come from us? That’s the reason
we’re talking about truth now is because every
conversation we’ve had, everything we delve into,
we have to determine what’s the truth of it.
Right. That’s what we’re trying to find is how
true is the thing, the discussions we’re having.
Not being experts, not knowing anything other
than common knowledge about life and world and
we’ve lived. We’re trying to identify what truth
is and whether it’s important. I don’t know that
we’re coming to a… conclusion that is there
something you can absolutely say is true? Love,
you know, that may be the feeling, the principle
that would be most identifiable as everywhere
and absolutely true. Across all time and space.
Is it feasible that someone would not understand
love or know love at all? Love or hate? I mean,
the spectrum, the continuum of love. Could you
operate on the earth or anywhere and not have
that continuum? I love this or I don’t love this.
What else would you? I don’t know if love is
black and white enough. Do you know people that
don’t know anything about love? I don’t know
anyone or any animals or any tree. Tree loves
water. I don’t know. I can imagine. Yeah. In
your imagination, what would it look like? Because
love is a feeling, a tree benefits from water,
but. Can it feel appreciation and love towards
the water or whatever gave it water? The consciousness.
So you’re questioning consciousness of it. Yeah.
And saying that’s how love operates through consciousness.
So is that true? Does love operate through consciousness
only? Or does this mouse love sitting on that
mouse pad? The mouse works better when it, when
it on a mouse pad instead of a table. Yeah. It
doesn’t work as well off of a mouse pad, but
I don’t think it can love. I don’t think there’s
love there. I think, I mean, I don’t think that
we can say love is just a state of benefiting
from something else. Like I benefit from my husband’s
willingness to go to work every day, but. Do
I love him that he’s going to work? Is love based
on something else you’re saying? Yeah, love is
probably based on other things. And you’re going
too specific in your determination of love. Yeah.
And the use of the word, you’re using it a specific
way. Kind of, maybe. You know, you could say
jokingly, well, yeah, this mouse does love the
mouse pet. I could say that. It never tell me
that, but it loves the mouse pad. In a very broad
sense of the word. Of the word love, yeah. In
the unconditional sense of the word, not the
conditioned love that I only love those things
that I can consciously attend to. Okay. Yeah.
Go back to that conversation if you guys haven’t
heard that yet. That’s a good one. Go Listen
to how we first were in our very first episode.
Exactly. And it’s still, it’s still cogent and
concurrent in this conversation. So that’s what’s
cool. If we, I was, I was, had a vision of something
there, but now I’ve lost it. Oh. Oh, whatever
it was. Yeah. Well. We don’t have any conclusions,
but the only reason this came up as truth is
because we’ve talked about it seven or eight
or 10 or 12 times and it’s going to come up again
because it. The absolute truth of something is
subjective. Yeah. The objective truth of something
is subjective. And I guess let me say it this
way. Diversity. Diversity. What was the statement
about that? The only equity is that there is
diversity. So in order to have equity everywhere,
you’ve got to know that there’s diversity of
it. You can’t say this is the absolute answer.
We’re going to equate everything to this. absolute
truth the only absolute truth is there’s a diversity
of everything we talked about things being on
the spectrum and you always have more or less
or higher or lower colder or hotter there’s more
true less true you know more remembered less
remembered sometimes it’s never always or never
right it’s always sometimes never always or never
yeah That’s a good quote. It’s always, sometimes,
never, always, or never. Yeah. So it’s somewhere
on that continuum. It’s never here or there,
only. It’s never only, it’s always, sometimes.
So the absolute truth is, and I, yeah, I like
that, how we’ve come up with it. It’s consequences.
Consequences point to the truth, but they don’t
guarantee the truth. Okay, they don’t show the
cause, exactly. They don’t. actually identify
causation we don’t we can’t you can identify
a specific cause you can say that the car ran
into that traffic that the post that caused the
accident that caused the post to bend but you
you step those causes back you don’t know what
it was that caused the accident in the first
place what caused that person to be 70 you know
you thought i should have thought about that
before you decided to be 19 that was the cause
so just the fact that you’re mature to 19 or
immature at 19 instead of 22. You never would
have done that. Well, and that’s what the insurance
company believes. That’s why insurance rates
for 19 -year -olds are so much more than for
22 -year -olds. Are way higher. Yeah, because
you never would have done that at 22 or 26. Yeah.
Whatever the year breaks. Whatever it is. The
actuary, actuarially, and they only do that,
they charge that because they’re, mathematically,
they can prove it. So their actuarial tables
show this is the status that we’re insuring against.
Yeah. All right. Let’s close it out. That’s good.
[outro] We have no conclusion. It’s open. Cool. So this
has been Do You Have a Minute? And you can contact
us in a various number of ways, many, many ways.
There’s email. There’s a voicemail. You can leave
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phone. You have to leave a voicemail and then
I will listen to it. We have a website. We just
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If you are listening to this now when we’ve
published it, we launched the website five weeks
ago. So it’s there. It has all of our episodes
on there and it has the transcripts, which is
very important because you can go to any web,
any episode. And search in the page for any particular
word and you will find where we talked about
that. I think that’s just the bee’s knees that
you can actually search our spoken words. Excellent.
The truth of that is it doesn’t exist today as
we’re talking. But as you’re listening to this,
our expectation of the truth of things as they
are and will be, it’ll be there. Yeah. By the
time you hear this. But it is actually there.
I did work on that. I got all of the episodes
up so far to today. Excellent. So there’s progress
on it. Yeah. Our website, all of our show notes
show how to contact us. And we thank you so much
for listening to us talk to each other. Yes.
Yeah. All right. Well, you have a good day. Very
good. See you later. Bye.

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