 So the question is which if any of these propositions are momentous, what would be the consequences if they were true? Let's consider the first one rationality requires That you eliminate any known contradictions But here's the consequence if you're gonna be rational you have a lot of work to do now a lot of work Resolving contradictions. That's not an easy thing finding contradictions is not an easy thing It requires training and amongst other things proposition or logic you have to understand Some of the basics about even what it means to be a contradiction Investigating which beliefs you have is a lengthy process and it on top of that trying to determine Which ones you've kept over time which ones really matter maybe which ones are fleeting that sort of thing Even ranking them because you are going to have probably a rather large set of beliefs That can't all be chewed together if rationality does not require Resolving known contradictions rationality is cheap like what good is it then? I'm rational and I have contradictory beliefs You can take such things as I believe it is raining right now. Therefore unicorns exist, but actually have six legs not four Like well, that's a ridiculous consequence. Well, okay. Yes, it is an absolutely ridiculous consequence But if eliminating contradictions is not part of how your reason you can reach any conclusion you want So if rationality does not require eliminating known contradictions rationality is cheap There is a moral order If that's true You better figure it out I mean imagine there's a real answer right according to this proposition. There's a real answer to the question How should you live your life? You probably ought to figure out the answer to that question and Again, this is going to require a lot of study We take introduction to ethics. You're going to realize there's at least a good dozen or so Ethical theories to choose from the second is probably more than that depending on how you're really going to nuance them But yeah, there's going to be at least a good dozen or so moral theories Trying to learn what they are the difference between them because they can't all be chewed together and trying to figure out which one is right is A very daunting task So if it's true that there is some sort of moral order, there's an answer to the question. How should you live your life? You better figure out which one it is Start living that way on the other hand if there is no moral order. There's a huge consequence there now. There's no Answer to the question. How should you live your life? How should you live life no answer? I Think I'll go collect peanuts. Okay Wait, wait, isn't that being lazy? Isn't that you know putting your own life in danger? You can't live off. Yeah But it's not like it's not like we can answer the question. How should you live your life by something like try to live as long as you can That would be an answer to the question If there is no answer to the question, how should you live your life? It doesn't matter what you do Life has no meaning next one There are you know, some things are physical, you know, I know this sounds kind of heretical But okay, I Mean maybe one of the consequences is it'd be good to figure out how things work together. All right. I mean, I guess that's fine But it doesn't require that much investigation to figure that part out You know, we got along Very well for centuries having really bad ideas about the causal relationships between material objects and we not only survive But we thrive. I mean yeah granted We did a lot better once we figured out the scientific method and how to apply it got principles of engineering. Sure We did better after that sort of You know, we seem to be engineering ourselves out of existence but nevertheless, yeah It's like some things are physical if somebody ran you know came up to you said some things are physical you like yeah So I Mean here's a really interesting thing if Barkley's right and All of this is just minds and ideas. None of this is actually physical You'd still probably have to go through the world in the same way as if things were physical Right, it's not like say aha. Yeah, you know Barkley's not gonna say aha This is an idea therefore you can walk through it barkers. No, right? You're still gonna bump into it Right. You're still gonna have hardness there You bump into things like that they hurt So whether the world is you know, whether something's a physical or not how you get about the world is probably not gonna be that different So that's that's kind of an odd consequence of that one that That one that's really not momentous. It's really not that thrilling or exciting or Life altering on the other hand is some things that exist are not physical You better figure out which ones What they are I mean numbers are a good contender logical relations are another truth. I Mean that whole moral order business if they're if there is a moral order. I mean there is such a thing as goodness Well, goodness doesn't have a chemical composition. So you better figure out what it is You better learn how to Understand it and now here's a really good question if some things out there that exist are not physical How do you know about them because you can't see them? That would be very strange. Uh-huh. There's two there goes Did you see it? No, it doesn't work that way So if there are some things that exist that are non physical Yeah, that that's life altering because now you gotta understand which ones are they cuz it can't just be any proposed thing Hey You gotta figure which ones exist. How do you even know about them and what am I supposed to do with this? You know if numbers are real How do I learn about that? How do I use them if everything's physical? If everything all this everything that exists is physical Yeah, that's a huge problem Cuz now numbers by the way are gone or unless you got to get some account of numbers that they're physical and Maybe maybe maybe you can get away with counting numbers like one two three four So yeah, that's one thing that's two things. That's three things. Ah, no problem You know cuz you could point to those but you start getting to things like zero How many physical things you got in front of you zero? No, if everything that exists is it's physical zero doesn't exist All the negative numbers they're gone to imaginary numbers That's gone By the way, we still need to imagine any numbers to get to the moon So if everything that exists is physical there are no non physical things You're gonna start accounting for a lot of these things that we did we do talk about and seemingly use that are not physical Such as numbers truth logic relationships morality Some sort of divinity there's some sort of vanity. Yeah, huge consequence if there is some sort of divinity It would be nice to know which one there's lots of contenders. You got the Trinity. You got Yahweh. You got Allah Buddha's technically not divinity You got hundreds of gods with Hinduism hundreds literally hundreds of Gods of Hinduism and those are just the ones that are you know still floating around as the is the quote-unquote major religions today But there's still lots of other religions out there There are still say for instance First Nations tribes that have their own mythos that have their own theology Maybe it's that one right I mean Imagine if the Greeks had it right all along right if the ancient Greeks had it right and Zeus right Zeus is The top divinity that's out there if that's true. Wow, we better figure that out You better start erecting those temples and you know getting sacrifices going again So yeah, if there's some sort of divinity You better figure out which one Because it's probably that's probably gonna have an impact on your life. I I Can't think of a single religion that says hi. Here's this divinity, but whether you believe it or not doesn't matter And maybe there is one maybe But I can't think of it On the other hand if there's no divinity There's still a huge consequence If there's no divinity we have to figure out How it is and why it is that we as a species have made the single biggest mistake in all of our history Across time and across our history across cultures As Far as I know every single one or the overwhelming which at least the overwhelming majority All these cultures have talked about some sort of divinity There are pockets of you know various atheistic sort of ways of going about this. Okay, and I'm not knocking atheism, right? I'm not knocking atheism. I'm not even knocking agnosticism How many at this proposition right if there is no divinity You know the agnostics and you know, you are this are the atheists and believe it into some extent thing not to say what's it? There we go Figure that out Eighth you're saying we are right all along. It's like yeah, but if you were right all along How is it that ways a species made this mistake? for centuries century millennia Millennia, how did we make this mistake for millennia? You know I can understand You know an isolated culture making a mistake, okay? Or even you know several cultures making a mistake you maybe picking it up for a while then dropping it, okay? I get that right sure But almost everyone if not everyone and again, maybe I'm mistaken here, but as far as I know every culture has had Some sort of divinity so yeah, if there is no divinity we've got to be able to answer this question Because if we made this mistake before we really want to avoid making this mistake again And you know by the way, you know second humanists agnostics atheists You're relying upon the power of human reason to You know figure it all out right be it obtaining peace on this planet are going to the stars or You know Transcending our physical cells through computers whatever right whatever the answer is If there's no divinity Or you know just death, right? Just death You know you claim that human reason is Going to figure all this out. Well if human reason is going to figure this out and human reason is also responsible for the single biggest mistake and all of our history Why think the human reason can do this? That's a huge problem All right, I realized in the middle of my Videoing that I forgot to include one part of our discussion So I have to borrow from my animated self here to get to the last part So we're gonna ask ourselves you know, we're asking what are the consequences of some of these options and Whether they're momentous and we are covering there is some Absolute truth, which is kind of a big thing to say that there's something true Regardless of any circumstances regardless of anything else. So one question we have to ask well, what are they? We have to figure out. That's a that itself is a tough thing to do How do we know them which is kind of involved in this whole notion of what are they and trying to know something That's true regardless of any circumstance seems to mean that we know something across all circumstances Would especially since we don't which is weird since we don't experience all circumstances And then our minds must conform to reality and not vice versa we don't really like this because we like to think that we know what we're doing and And that you know reality is gonna do what we want and not the other way around You know this pops up in lots of different ways anything from What you know, you visualize your future you Make things happen through your beliefs if you believe hard enough you make it true When we're talking about Reality conforming to our beliefs not vice versa. It doesn't really work this way. It doesn't work this way at all So we looked at there is some absolute truth We just talked about the consequences that and then we know we have there is not some absolute truth Well, what are the momentous consequences of this one? Well, first of all, let me ask you something. What kind of statement is there is not some absolute truth That's right, it's an absolute one that means if this is true It's false That seems a little weird doesn't it? We also don't like this one because it's a country a Self-contradiction yet the intuition that there's not something true across all circumstances is really sticking with us, you know But if this is true that there's no absolute that there's not some absolute truth It's also false Hmm. Well, that's it for my cartoon self. Let's get back to the Self at Canyon Lake knowledge requires consensus If knowledge requires consensus That this one's got a really big consequence because not everybody believes this There is not consensus on the idea that knowledge requires consensus Knowledge, you know consensus is required mathematics of science. Okay, cool, right those two got no problem there but if not Right other fields like no, we don't really need consensus for this. We can have knowledge without consensus You know I'm talking quite a lot of different fields here You know these other fields don't require consensus so If they don't then this proposition right now it requires consensus. We don't have consensus for it Therefore, we don't know it that that that would be a big problem Even if you tried to say knowledge required consensus just like math and science knowledge requires consensus like okay But not everybody can you know agrees on this so you don't know it and if knowledge does not require consensus What's the good of consensus? I Mean, yes, well, you know, we don't have consensus But it tends to be a good thing that if you find more than one person agreeing with you I mean if somebody came along and said I had figured out that water is not actually composed of the hydrogen monoxide It's composed of two other completely different elements And that like that was the lone chemist out there saying that it's like, okay. Yeah, that guy's in that job But if there was a you know a significant number of people Started agreeing was like, yeah, you know, we took a look at this every looks pretty good I mean he's got it's got a point Okay, I mean that would be something but if knowledge doesn't require consensus. What good is it that more people agree? I Mean we do this right? We have our bandwagon. We have our fads We I mean there's all kinds of moral beliefs for instance that are changing right now Because there's different consensus or consensus is gathering around a different proposition or a different belief Okay, I mean it's becoming more popular, but if knowledge does not require consensus So what more people believe it that doesn't make it doesn't mean it's more persuasive It's more true. There's more evidence. Nothing like that. Who cares and a consensus is not required Why do we place so much value on the mathematics and science and mathematics and sciences? That doesn't matter Some minds are non-physical Wow This is a can of worms If our minds are not physical I mean a whole slew of questions come up How does the mind interact with the brain? because We tend to think that physical things just impact other physical things and nothing really has been on that Let me understand neurons firing. Maybe you know neurons firing causes movements, right? This is neurons firing Okay, but now we say oh the mind is involved too, but where is it? Well, you know, it's just there If the mind is not physical my mind is not here Physical things have location non-physical things do not You know If my mind is not here, right, I am very literally having an out-of-body experience all the time If your mind is not physical How would you even begin to understand what the mind is that the mind is non-physical you don't even know what you are You study physical things not non-physical things But the mind is just physical that that's all there is to it Well, in all likelihood, you know, this is your time here and now that's it one and done right and You know your mind is still a mystery was yeah, there's neurons firing like yeah, but neurons still don't look anything like the color blue So what's this relationship supposed to be? Even if it's true that minds are physical why are we so seriously deluded about the nature of minds when we seemingly understand the nature of brains there is An existence or you know, there's an existence next proposition, right? There's an existence before your physical birth Wow Kind of like to know what that was because I don't have any memory of it And if my existence before my birth affects my life now How and more probably why because I don't remember that right If I remember doing it now, that's not part of my makeup now Why am I being affected by that now? Or worse if you have an existence before your physical life and It doesn't affect you at all in any way shape or form here and now. What's the point of that physical life? that that's that That that seems like a really big empty part of my life my existence that I know I don't have any access to and It doesn't have any impact on what I do now an existence after physical life after physical death Sure like to know what it's gonna be I Like to be able to plan for it. I'd like to be able to prepare for it. You know, I Made huge plans about you know, even the next 30 years I am acting on a honest, you know acting on a plan right now for just the next 30 years of My life if I'm gonna exist so much longer after that I Really like to be able to you know, you set myself on the right track now. I mean, maybe I'll make a huge mistake On the other hand if there's no existence after physical death, this is it one and done One and done you have this life Just after this life is done. That's it. You know, this is where usually some people say well I want to leave behind a legacy. It's like, okay I guess you can if you really want to but it's not like that legacy is gonna affect you after you're dead I want people to remember me. So what did they do? It's not like that affects you. You're gone. You cease to exist. You can't be happier With people remembering you because you ain't But it's not like you ain't happy just you ain't So really pretty much all of these beliefs with the exception of me You know, some things are physical that one probably doesn't have any real significant consequences Even if it's false if all things are non physical it really doesn't change your life that much But if you know pretty much all of these beliefs all so all these propositions, they are momentous They have huge consequences if they're true if they're true and Whether you believe them or not There is a moral order if there if there is an actual answer to this question Whether you believe it or not does not change how you answer the question how you you know Doesn't change the answer to that question. If you don't believe that's the right way to live your life. You're wrong And then you're living your life wrong So yeah, all of these are momentous they all have very real consequences if they're true and very real