 Welcome to the 27th episode of Patterson in Pursuit. I'm your host, Steve Patterson, and you guys are going to love my guest today. In fact, I think it's true to say I've never met or spoken with somebody who doesn't like my guest. So that's a pretty good track record. I'm talking with TK Coleman, who is the education director at Praxis, which is the organization that's the sponsor of the show, the organization I keep talking about. And we had a conversation the other day that's very relevant to my own work and for the audience of the show. We talked about what you could loosely call optimism and pessimism in the world of ideas. So when you're talking to people, do you give them the benefit of the doubt and think that they really know what they're talking about, but maybe they're not the clearest articulators? Or are you a pessimist and think, yeah, they probably don't know what they're talking about. And that's the reason they can't communicate clearly. If you guys have been listening to the show and listened to the article called Assume Everybody is Wrong, you know where I fall on this side of the debate. But I wanted to talk to TK about it because he's known as being a very optimistic and positive person. And I figured maybe he could help me be less of a curmudgeon. He's also just released a new online course for Praxis called Philosophy in 30 Days. It's an introduction to philosophy and introduction to critical thinking. And it was part of the internal curriculum that Praxis participants were getting. But they've just made it available to the general public for free. I just signed up for it the other day. And if that sounds interesting to you, I'll have a link to it in the show notes page today, which is steve-patterson.com slash 27. So if you're listening to this and you're either in school and unsatisfied with your college experience, or you're thinking of going to college, but you're not sure, check out the sponsor for the show, which is the company that TK works for, Praxis. The actual Praxis program is a six month paid apprenticeship in addition to three months of professional boot camp. After you complete their program, you get a contractually guaranteed job offer for at least $40,000 a year. So that sounds like something you're interested in. Go to discoverpraxis.com and on their homepage, they have a button that says schedule a call. Click it, set up an appointment and see if it's right for you. So if you're a fan of rational thinking and you have a soft spot in your heart for common sense, I think you're really going to enjoy this interview. Mr. TK Coleman, thank you very much for talking with me today. Oh, Steve, it's glad to be on your show, man. I'm a big fan and I'm excited about the convo today. So I'm a big fan of yours as well. And my wife, Julia, always says, oh, Steve, look at what TK said. She always gets a kick out of your comments on Facebook. She loves your sense of humor. So I'm seeing more and more of your stuff pop up in my feet all the time. Well, I'm going to have to get her to write an official endorsement of my sense of humor. She will. All the guys on the Praxis team make fun of me for not being funny. So if we can get that in writing, I'll put that on the back of every book, every speaker intro, everything I ever do. That's great. So you're also known, in addition to having a good sense of humor, I'd say, you're also known as being an optimist. You're somebody who, when you're talking to people, you're talking to young people, you have a very optimistic message, you're very enthusiastic, very inspirational, which I very much appreciate. And it's a great counterpoint to my own pessimism. I am more and more and getting more pessimistic and more cynical about a lot of things. I figure this is going to be a ripe conversation when we talk about philosophy here. Oh, man, I mean, we can dive right into that because I'll be honest and say that optimism is a word I struggle with. It's tempting for me to abandon it entirely because like the word happiness, it just has so many negative connotations that it feels impossible to rescue at times, but I really value what the optimistic outlook has to offer. But being a fan of analytic philosophy, it can be difficult because people often associate being optimistic with being delusional or being naive. And I actually think that optimism is an evidentially supported position. But I do think it's important to make a distinction. So for instance, Peter Till, author of Zero or One, co-founder of PayPal, he makes a distinction between what he calls indefinite and definite optimism, where indefinite optimism is kind of like this vague, positive sense of anticipation. You think things are going to get better because you're just an optimistic person, whereas definite optimism is confidence in the future based on having a plan, based on having competence, based on what you know, based on an understanding of trends and various kinds of data. So I definitely consider myself to be more of a definite optimist than a indefinite optimist. But I also side with you in what you say about being a pessimist. So I actually think in order to be a good optimist, you have to be a pessimist about certain things. One of the reasons why I'm so self-reliant, for instance, is because I am a pessimist on things like magic, making my dreams come true. I'm a pessimist on things like other people taking care of me. I'm a pessimist on things like politicians saving me. I'm a pessimist on a lot of things. And most of my optimism is rooted in something, in an awareness of something that I'm pessimistic about. So anyway, that's a long spiel. So that's good. So let's specifically take that framework and apply it to how you approach ideas and philosophy. So here's where I would say my pessimism comes out. My general rule of thumb, in fact, has turned into an explicit motto that I think everybody is wrong about everything all the time. And I say that kind of tongue-in-cheek, but over the years that actually is kind of my motto. And it doesn't matter if I'm talking to somebody who's never been to college, an undergrad, a graduate student, a professor, I kind of assume from the get-go that the ideas are going to be wrong because the foundations have not been investigated. And then it's like the ideas are wrong until proven right. And that's not a very popular position to take, because people obviously don't like when you assume the worst of them in that respect. Is that something you resonate with, or do you approach ideas from a more charitable standpoint that, OK, this person probably is right, but maybe they're not phrasing things in the most precise way? How do you deal with that? Yeah. So I think this is less about how we approach ideas and more about how we approach the process of evaluating the way in which people hold those ideas, right? So I tend to assume that everyone is right in some sense, and the key to moving the discussion forward is figuring out exactly how they're right. So something I've said and I've gotten in trouble before for saying is that people don't contradict themselves. And I always make people mad when I say that. What do you mean people don't contradict themselves? They contradict themselves all the time. But I don't think people contradict themselves. I think they contradict what we know about the world. They contradict facts. They contradict logical principles. They contradict all sorts of things. But I think ultimately people people think and behave according to an internal logic that, for the most part, is consistent. And whenever people seem to contradict themselves, it's usually because we're missing data about what's going on. And so for instance, if I were to say to you, Steve, I think it's wrong to still. And then as soon as our conversation is over, you see me walk into a grocery store and still a loaf of bread. It might seem as if I'm contradicting myself. But, you know, if you implement a little rational choice theory into the discussion, you might find more. You might you might come up with a conclusion like TK actually doesn't think it's wrong to steal, but he had some sort of ulterior motive for misleading Steve. And if we figured out what that is, we might be able to reconcile what he said to Steve and what he did, or you might come to some conclusion like TK does think it's wrong to steal. But based on what he was aware of in that particular situation, he saw stealing as being the lesser of two evils because he only saw himself as having two options or something along those lines. And I think that's usually what's going on when people seem to be wrong, when people seem to contradict themselves. They're usually right in some sense, even if they articulate it imperfectly, and if we can find out how they're right, if we can find out exactly how they make sense, then we have a foundation upon which we can build and that conversation can move forward. I just don't think there's a lot to gain by starting the conversation with the assumption that people are insincere, that people are deliberately irrational, people don't care about the truth, people don't care about investigating their beliefs. For me, I find more productivity by starting with the assumption that people actually do care about the truth. People actually do want to get things right, and they have investigated their beliefs, even if it's not according to my own epistemic standards. And if I can just sort of figure out what their internal logic is, we can really get somewhere in our dialogue. Okay, so let me push back on a couple of points on that. When you say that people don't contradict themselves, does this also apply to the group of thinkers who explicitly do understand what a logical contradiction is, and they embrace it, and they say things like, well, I am large, I contain multitudes, and they say, yes, I explicitly logically contradict myself, but that's okay, because that type of thing happens in the universe all the time. It seems like those people, from my perspective, not only contradict themselves, they embrace it. It's like part of their active philosophy. Yeah, so I'm gonna challenge you for an example on this because I kind of get what you're saying in general. But even with a quote like that, people love to use that. I am large, I contain multitudes. What people often mean is something a little less literal than how we take them. People often mean I'm going to say and do a lot of things that might not make sense to you, Steve, but I'm not burdened by the need to justify everything I do to you. So if you observe me doing one thing and that appears to be illogical to you, I'm going to give myself the permission to live how I want to live, and I'm not going to make myself a slave to winning an argument with you. And I find that when people say those sorts of things, that's often what they mean. I think that's true when people would say such things about their personal behavior, but I'm talking just about their ideas as they communicate them. So for example, when I talk to people about the nature of logic, or a lot of times when you talk to people about the metaphysics of mind, they say, all is one, and what all is is something that's paradoxical. The nature of the universe is something that contains contradictions within it. And therefore, even in my explicit rational philosophy, if I contradict myself, that's OK. I'm above that. I'm bigger than that. And I get that all the time. And this is this is one of the one of the areas that I investigate is what I call irrationalism. And it's kind of these ideas, people that accept explicit contradictions into their worldview. And then what's interesting, and of course, this is the pessimist in me coming out. But what's interesting is that I've also noticed that that type of person, the people who articulate the irrationalist philosophy also seem to act in very inconsistent ways in their own lives. They don't seem to be particularly trustworthy or they'll say one thing and they'll do another. And so I see those correlations and it makes me think in one sense, it might be true. They did that they don't actually believe in contradictions. I'm not sure they certainly say that they do. But what appears to be clear to me is that they have latched onto some idea that if I reject this idea of consistency, that empowers me. And in fact, I was having a very long conversation probably a couple of years ago now when I wrote my article, in fact, on quantum physics. There was a guy who who contacted me and said, Steve, Steve, now you're confused. It is the case that because of quantum physics, we have logical contradictions and we must have had an hour conversation and about in the middle of it, he said, look, you're stuck on this whole truth thing. Let me tell you the truth. This is about power. He was very, very open and explicit. He said, Steve, this is a way for me to empower my life. When I'm not bound by logical, consistent rules, then I feel like I'm empowered. And that and my job, it was the first time I'd ever heard somebody articulate that philosophy. My job just hit the floor. I was like, well, that's kind of creepy. But that philosophy, I think, is certainly out there. You make a good point. So let me say a couple of things to that. So first, I think it's very important to make a distinction between an explanation and an excuse. An explanation is just sort of an account that makes sense out of why someone does a particular thing, whereas an excuse is an attempt to justify it, to say this is a morally permissible thing to do. When I attempt to explain what people do, because I often do involve myself in the business of trying to explain irrational behavior just because I think it's fun and I think it's useful. But that can easily be misunderstood as making excuses for people. So I don't make excuses for that kind of behavior. I think for it kind of say something like that, whatever. I think that's, you know, somewhat irresponsible, dangerous, and so forth. But in an effort to explain it, I think there's more underneath the surface. So for instance, if you take something like the law of non-contradiction, here you have an axiom of logic that says a proposition cannot be both true and not true at the same time and in the same sense, nearly every time I have taught the law of non-contradiction, I have had at least one person challenge the law and say, no, I don't think that's true. Now, this is sort of like the statement, all bachelors are unmarried men, you know, if someone says, you know, I'm sorry, TK, I don't I don't agree with that at all. I don't think it's a difficult thing to say that. But I think if you press people and perhaps not press them in the sense of being antagonistic, but I think if you explore and ask them, what do they mean? What do you mean when you deny this? What do you mean when you say this? Right. I think you'll find them getting down to something very logical. So sure, there are lots of people who deny the truth of the law of non-contradiction. But what do they mean? Do they even know what they're saying? I think I think all too often people people equate rationality with what makes sense to smart people or people equate logic with, you know, my ability to argue for something. So I come from community of faith and people speak this way of all the time. They say, I don't live my life by logic. I live my life by faith. And what they really mean is what they really mean is I am very accepting of the presence of unanswered questions in my life. But this is just a failure to understand the distinction between mystery and contradiction. But they equate the two like not having answers to tough questions isn't the same thing as having contradictions in your belief. And I don't think people are always very clear what they mean when they say these sorts of things. I think that is definitely accurate when you're talking about the majority of people. However, it's very funny that you bring up the bachelor example. I had a conversation on this podcast. I think it's as one of the earlier episodes, maybe episode eight or something, where I spoke with the professor at Columbia. We were talking about the law of non-contradiction and the example I gave was the married bachelor and he said, well, there are some cases in which the law of non-contradiction doesn't hold. So, for example, this is true. You can listen to this on the podcast. He said, like the pope, is the pope married or is he unmarried? Well, he kind of is. He kind of isn't. I don't know. That was supposed to be an edge case of where the law of non-contradiction might not actually hold as bringing up the pope. So maybe your analysis is true, but when you start getting to very high levels of academia, then you might actually you see a lot more of the explicit denials of something as foundational as the law of non-contradiction. OK, so let's stick with that for a minute. Let's not leave that guy in that example because I think this brings up a very important point about philosophical dialogue. I think it's really important before getting into any kind of argument with the person or contradicting them. I think the most important philosophical question is what do you mean, at least when you're having dialogue? What do you mean when you say that? So, for instance, in discussions on the philosophy of religion, someone will say something like, I don't believe in God. And no matter what the dictionary says, Steve, no matter how precise you might be in your semantics, I have heard people utter that proposition. I do not believe in God while meaning something like, while I do believe in the existence of a higher creator or a supernatural force, I do not particularly believe in the Christian God or the Islamic God. And that, to me, that's a little odd because I don't use language in that way. But I think it's very important to probe a little bit and ask people what they mean. So when someone says to me, is the pope married or is the pope unmarried? I mean, this isn't a very difficult question. And I'm not even sure what the limit is. I mean, it all, I mean, as any good philosopher should ask, well, it all depends what you mean, right? Because we can answer any question. Yes, if we define words in a certain way and we can answer any question. No, if we play the word game in a different way. So if by the word married, you mean in the sense that Catholic priests take the vow of not being married? Well, no, in that sense, the pope is not married. He does not violate his vow. But perhaps you mean marriage in some spiritual sense, like, you know, he is part of the church and as such, the church is the bride of Christ. And so he is spiritually in union with God and therefore married in that sense. I would say that doesn't contradict the law of non-contradiction at all because the law of non-contradiction accounts for that. It says a proposition cannot be true and untrue at the same time and in the same sense. So I can say Michael Jordan is a basketball player and Michael Jordan is not a basketball player without contradicting the law of non-contradiction because at one point in his life, he was. And at another point in his life, he wasn't. In one sense, he is. In another sense, he isn't. So I mean, maybe you can flesh out what this guy was trying to say. But if my understanding is correct, it's not an account or example at all. Yes. So I really do agree with what you say, except it is in that conversation, the gentleman from Columbia was saying, in the strict analytical philosophy sense that there can be true contradictions. He was a dialetheist thinking that in case like the liar's paradox and something is true and false at the same time, he claims. And in other circumstances, like there's a married bachelor and even this is also in the in the interview the existence of square circles. And he said, he said, what's interesting, Steve, is that you can talk about square circles just like you can talk about any other thing. You could say, for example, that square circles are square. And he meant that in most it was fairly articulate. It's not like he was, you know, he wasn't saying, well, I don't violate the law of non-contradiction. He was saying explicitly, this is a violation of the law of non-contradiction. And what's interesting is in my own pursuit of irrationalism, what he came back to and what, to my surprise, almost everybody comes back to nowadays to argue against the laws of non-contradiction and the laws of identity is mathematics that he was talking about. It's almost like clockwork, the way in which people bring up mathematics. They're saying, well, for example, you can have an infinite set where you have a hole that's the same size as the part. And that seems like a logical contradiction, but it actually isn't, because they incorporate infinities into their arguments. And it's, from my opinion, it's just terrible irrationalism. But so there are people, I don't think you find many of them, at least in the general public, but there are people who spend their lives in the world of ideas that are committed to the idea, like Grand Priest, for example, that you have circumstances in which the law of non-contradiction doesn't apply. Which to me, this is very relevant to the book I'm about to release on Logic, because it's an explanation in thorough detail of why it is certainly not the case in any circumstance that you can have something that is both true and not true at the same time in the same way. Now, I realize that most people, if they haven't been listening to this show, they're probably gonna say, no, Steve, you're exaggerating. Surely somebody isn't making that kind of an error, especially somebody teaching at prestigious university, but in fact, it is the case. That is, they're very explicit in doing so. Yeah, so this is interesting because we may be getting to the foundations of why we approach these discussions in such different ways. So I actually don't think it's possible to be someone who believes that the law of non-contradiction is false. I don't think it's possible. So I don't think there are any counter examples, right? Yeah, really. Now, here's what I do think is possible, and we can sort of kind of make this and go back and forth, but I believe it's possible to sincerely believe that you have found a legitimate counter example to a principle based on a misunderstanding of what that principle is. That's always possible. So for instance, if you say to me two plus two equals four, it's possible for me to say something like, oh no, no, it doesn't, Steve. Two plus two actually equals five. Now, we don't really know what I'm saying or what I really believe unless I have an opportunity to explain myself. But there are many instances in which we're using the same words, we're using the same phrases. We think we're talking about the same thing, but we're talking about radically different things. In fact, I think the best examples of this comes not from philosophical discussions, but just like arguments and silly debates that we get into with our friends or our loved ones. We often find ourselves going around the bend because a person is using the same word as you, but they don't necessarily mean the same thing that you mean by it. So for instance, one of those buzzwords for me is the word sure. That's the worst thing you can say to me when I ask you if you want something. If I say, Steve, you wanna talk philosophy for a bit and you say sure. Yeah, to me, that means no, I don't, TK, but I'll do you in favor of your pathetic loser and humor you for a bit. That's just how I hear it. So there have been people who have said sure to me and I attributed that meaning to it when in reality their meaning was a lot more benevolent. So misunderstandings are real and people believe they find counter examples, but this is why I think meaning is so important. So I'll give an example of the value of meaning with the question. I'm gonna ask you, here's my philosophical question for the day. Do a boobalars exist? Certainly, sure. How do you know? How do you know? Of course, it depends on what you mean. It depends on what I mean, right? So suppose I were to say, Steve, I believe that a boobalars exists. I really think they do and I can make the statement a boobalars exists. Am I right or am I wrong? You gotta explain, TK, what do you mean by boobalars? Yeah, so prior to having a discussion about the truth or falsity of a proposition, we have to actually talk about the meaning of a proposition, right? Because truth, at least on a correspondence theory, and I don't know if we would debate this, but truth is the attribute of a proposition that corresponds to reality and a proposition refers to the meaningful and assertive content of a sentence. So there has to be meaning. You actually have to be affirming something. You have to be saying something. So you can use words, but if those words are empty, they don't mean anything. It's not that they're true or untrue, they're just meaningless. They don't even have a truth category. It's like when you do your truth tables, there's no place to put that under the TRF category. So I would say when someone says things like, yeah, contradictions are true or the guy who says square circles exist, sure, you can say anything. You can say square circles exist. You can juxtapose those words together like that, but it's a lot more difficult to explain what you mean by that. Like explain what you mean by the existence of square circles without just repeating that sentence. So for instance, one example of this, I had a discussion with someone about the possibility of uncaused events. Is it possible for an uncaused event to exist? Not an uncreated entity, but an uncaused event. And I was trying to explore the potential of an argument that says, all right, uncaused events can exist. And so the guy was debating, he said actually uncaused events can exist, I can imagine it. And I said, you can imagine an uncaused event. He says, yeah, I can. And I said, okay, I want you to imagine an event that has a cause, but the cause is unknown. Can you imagine that for me? And he did it. And then I said, okay, now I want you to imagine an uncaused event. And he says, okay, I got it. I says, what's the difference between those two scenarios that you just imagined? And he couldn't tell me any kind of difference. So when you invoke something like the law of identity of ind discernibles, right? Where you can say one thing, you can say you're looking at two things, but if they are in essence, ind discernible, we might be talking about something that's really conflatable. So I just don't accept from the mere ability to say square circles exist that this guy actually believes the law of non-contradiction is false, or that he believes square circles exist in the sense that you, Steve Patterson, means it. Now, there is certainly an understanding of the law of contradiction in this guy's mind that makes him rational for saying that it's false. But the very fact that he tries to reason with you and argue his point of view with you seems to me to presuppose his belief in the law of non-contradiction. Yes, yes, I love it, I love it. Now, this is an excellent example of the pessimism versus cynicism. And I feel like I am gonna blow your mind, TK, that, and I have had lots of these conversations specifically on this topic, because everything that you've said is correct about the boobalars, about the law of identity and non-contradiction. Yes, in fact, I would say it's certainly correct when you're talking about the laws of logic. However, this man in means, in the same way you and I mean a logical contradiction, he means that square circles exist. And I pressed him on, and I've done this with several people, and I pressed them on it, and they mean, yes, in the most explicit way possible, you can have contradictions. However, however, I may be wrong about this. So I was in California, I don't know, a couple of months ago now, and I spoke with a philosopher out there, and he was saying the same thing as you. And I was giving my spiel about how you can discover truth, the laws of logic are certainly true, and it's the foundation for all of our other knowledge. And I was saying, however, there are these people, and they cite quantum physics, they cite mathematics, they cite, sometimes they cite a religious experience, where they say you can have logical contradictions. And I said, you know, this is very much the antithesis of my entire worldview and all the work that I'm doing, which is why I'm interested in it, is because people I think actually explicitly deny the law of non-contradiction. But he said, Steve, do you really think they understand the law of non-contradiction? And I said, well, yeah, yeah, I mean, they're explicit about it. And then he looked at me and he said, do you really think they understand what they're saying? And in that moment, I took my statement back. I said, yeah, no, I think you're right. I do think, just because it's so overwhelmingly obvious that what we mean by contradictions is certainly that they don't exist, that maybe they don't actually understand. But if that's true, let's explore that. If it's true that there are people out there who will verbally deny the law of non-contradiction and passionately have a philosophic dialogue talking about it, they're fully aware of it, they understand the implications, how is it possible then that they, what is the motivation or the purpose of explicitly denying something like the law of non-contradiction? When it's clearly articulated, they say, yes, in the same, at the same time, in the same way, square circles can exist. I realize it's a contradiction, but for these various mathematical reasons, you can have contradictions. Why if it's the case that, or why should they argue that that is true? I just can't wrap my head around the motivation for somebody saying something like that when it doesn't appear to be just pure ignorance, right? Somebody that's been in philosophy for years and years, can it really be that they're ignorant about the laws of logic? And I don't know the answer. I'm interested in what you think about that. Yeah, that's a good question. So a couple of things here, one I would say, I don't think this is like a flawless litmus test or anything, but there is a tradition in analytic philosophy of using conceivability as a way to kind of get at the notion of logical possibility. So I think one good challenge you could make to someone who says something like, I believe square circles exist, or I really mean square circles. I know what I'm talking about. I challenge that person to form an image of what they're talking about and represent that image for you, right? Because for most things I can say, like if we're debating the existence of Santa Claus, I can conceive of that as a possibility. So I may not believe that Santa Claus exists, but I can at least have a meaningful conversation about what we're debating, because I can conceive of a jolly man who wears a red suit and rides around on reindeer. I can conceive of these things. I'll tell you exactly. I can tell you exactly what I'll say, because that's what I said. He said, well, I don't think conceivability is a fair standard. And he said, I can reference various parts about square circles. He said, for example, square circles are square. And he said, like when we were talking about infinite sets, if we're talking about conceivability, you certainly cannot conceive of an infinite set. But he said, even if it's not the same type of conception as these other ways when we're thinking about Santa Claus or we're thinking about circles, we have some almost like a visual conception of that. He said, I can reference it. I can mathematically indirectly reference the properties of the square circle. And by saying it is square and it is true that square circles are circle. So he, yeah. But what he means by I can reference the properties of them, he means I can define, I can coin a term, square circle. I can provide a definition for that term. And then I can point you to the features that are inherent in my definition. And that's something that we all agree on, that we certainly have an almost unlimited ability to do that, to create words, to provide definitions for those words, and then to reference people to features inherent in the definition where they challenge us. And he's right in that the inability to conceive in and of itself doesn't prove everything that you want to prove. However, it does challenge him on the meaningfulness of his assertion, that if he's conceding the point that he cannot conceive of what he's talking about and he cannot represent anything that is conceivable, then what does it even mean to talk about that? Not just reference a definition you gave, but what are you referring to, right? So when I use a word, I am referring to something. So when I talk about Santa Claus, and yes, I know I'm relying on visual here, but I'm referring to a concept we share. I'm referring to a character that's written about in books or fairy tales or that's depicted in movies or something that I can close my eyes and imagine or something that I can write down and represent in terms of symbols. And so we can have a discussion on that that involves truth and falsehood because I can at least set forth what it is I'm talking about. It sounds to me like this guy is insisting on the use of a word. And he's saying merely because I have given any definition to this word, I am now warranted in saying this thing exists, but he seems to be at least conceiting what I take to be a very important point, which is he has no concept of what he's talking about. He can't conceive it in any way. He can't represent it in any way. So how does it have meaning? That's where I would have the debate. Like I would have the debate on, do you even mean anything when you use that word? And I would challenge you to substantiate that your concept actually has meaning. Yeah, and I think he pretty explicitly says it does have some meaning in the sense that, this is really fascinating to me when people try to justify the denials of the laws of logic, because he was saying, well, look, when we're talking about some other, specifically he was talking about mathematics, he said, so when we're talking about the axiom of choice in mathematics, people who are outsiders who don't understand what that means, they're not really gonna grasp the nuances of what we're saying, which is kind of, some people claim this, other people claim that, some people claim that it's logically necessary here, it's logically necessary there. And he said, the same thing is going on when we're talking about the laws of classical logic. He said, from the outside, it appears to somebody who's not really familiar with what we're talking about that we're having a meaningful discussion. So I can say things like, square circles aren't square, square circles are square, and you say, no, no, square circles, they don't exist. It's like, well, it sounds like, no, no, no, no, no, I think you're moving too fast. I think you're moving too fast when you say they don't exist. I think the more fundamental question should be, what do you even mean? Right. Right, so, and then he would say something like this. So what I mean is some geometric object that has the property of being square and at the same time, it has the property of being circular. Now that sounds like, I mean, those words sound meaningful, right? No, they don't sound meaningful at all. I would say, okay, so you and I both know. So I would say you and I both know what it means to refer to a square. And not only are you able to provide a definition of a square, but you can actually do what you can do with all geometric objects. You can represent it for me. You can draw a square. We can both look at it and say, got it. That's what a square is, right? And in fact, we would never ask anyone to concede any points made about a square without trying to get them to conceive it or represent it. And we can do that same thing with a circle. But at that point, I would say, all right, so I know what a square, I know what a square is. I know what a circle is. I even know what it looks like to overlay these things on top of one another. Now, show me what a square circle is that's not reducible to either of these things that we've delineated. Now, if this is true, look, it's so hard for me to play. I love to play devil's advocate. It's like my favorite thing in the world. The hardest thing. But this is unfair because we see this the same way. Well, yeah, the one thing I can do it, though, it's really hard is when we're talking about laws of logic, right? It's just so devilishly hard to try to maintain any shred of sensibility without agreeing to them. However, if what you say is true, there is potentially some very big implications. And again, it comes to mathematics because I think your approach is correct about conceivability and so on. But when mathematicians talk about mathematical objects like infinite sets, the way that they say they're referencing them is they write down some scribbles on a piece of paper. And it's essentially a formula for the generation of what they consider to be an infinite set. But when you say no, no, you actually, you cannot conceive of all of an infinite set. They say yes, and we've just referenced it. They point to the mathematical formula. And what I'm finding is very hard to do, although I've had some success, is getting them to realize that embedded in that symbolic representation of their concept is an error. But when you have the mathematical language to try to write down what an infinite set looks like, and you can use imprecise terminology, you don't use common language, you use mathematical terminology, then it's much easier to embed, I think, these logical contradictions into your thinking. And if what you say is true about conceivability, that nobody could actually genuinely, I would say, conceive of an infinite set, it has very damning implications for a great part of modern academia, which is in mathematics and to some extent with the polylogists and the dialectists in philosophy. Yeah, you know, and I think some of the problems with these arguments is that it fails to properly acknowledge the fact that meaning precedes proof, not the other way around. So you can't just say you've proven something and then use that as a basis for wiggling out of the need to clarify what you mean when it's requested for you to explain what it is you've proven. You first have to establish what it is you mean, and then show how the proof substantiates that. So when we talk about something like an infinite set, we have to first get clear on what we mean by infinite set and how our concept of the infinite might differ from our concept of the indefinite or the inexhaustible, because we might be talking about different things when we use those words, we might be using those words interchangeably. So we have to get clear on that part first before any claims about a proof means anything. So I don't think you can just dismiss the concern about defining what it means to be infinite by saying, oh, but I can write down some symbols and I can show you that math has proven the existence of an infinite set because you still have to carry that burden off. Yeah, but what do you mean by an infinite set? Exactly. Now let's bring this full circle here. So this is kind of my bread and butter. This is what I love to talk about, logic, mathematics. However, in doing so in the past few years, it has made me very much a pessimist. So when the ideas that I think incorporate logical contradictions into the foundations of their area of knowledge is in math, but this is an error I think that's made not just in college, it's also made in high school when sometimes when people talk about calculus and it has made me very, very pessimistic because the system of education, I don't think focuses much on meaning. It focuses a lot on proof. It focuses a lot on being able to solve equations. It focuses a lot on being able to satisfy some test criteria of a teacher, but it doesn't focus a lot on meaning. And it's not an easy thing to talk about meaning, right? There's a great deal. The majority of philosophy really can be reduced to, what do you mean by your terminology? However, because I think the educational establishment has done such a terrible job and it doesn't focus on these basic things about meaning, my position is, well, it's probably the case that most people don't really know what they even mean. And when they explore their meanings for their words, they're probably gonna discover all kinds of imprecision and inaccuracy and probably don't even understand really what they're talking about. And I had to say that, it didn't used to be that way, that's kind of the conclusion I've come to. How do you not fall into that pessimistic way of thinking where I would say something like, people probably literally don't even know what they mean when they use words. That's interesting. So I think it's important to make a distinction between knowing and showing that something is true. Knowing is more of an immediate and direct experience. It's a state of being aware of something, whereas showing that a thing is true is a skill. It's something that you have to be able to do. It requires a certain measure of practice, training and so forth. It's possible for me to know a particular thing, but actually be quite miserable at showing it. And there are examples of this where we could show how this would be difficult. So I could say, for instance, oh my gosh, Steve, my stomach is killing me right now. And you could play devil's advocate and say, well, how do I know TK? How do I know that you're not just doing that for attention, right? Now, in order to know that my stomach is hurting, this is actually quite easy. It's impossible for me to be deceived about this as long as I feel pain. It would be silly for you to say, TK, maybe you just feel like your stomach is hurting, but it's not actually hurting. I would say in response to that, I mean, the sensation that my stomach is hurting is the same as the knowledge that it's hurting, right? I don't need to infer from one thing to another. I know this for myself, but in my effort to try to engage you philosophically if you're playing devil's advocate, it might be a little difficult. I don't know where I would begin. Maybe I would say, well, look at me, Steve, I'm taking some Tylenol right now. What's the best explanation for why I'm taking this Tylenol? And I can invoke explanatory reasoning and say, the simplest explanation for why I'm doing X is that my proposition, I have a stomach ache is true and that I sincerely believe it. And we could go around and around, but most people don't have that kind of training. Most people don't have that kind of ability and they would need time to learn it. So I find that when you bum rush people philosophically and you challenge them to defend what it is they believe, you're asking them to do something that is less immediate, less direct, less intuitive. And in most cases, you'll frustrate them, you'll annoy them, or you might make them look silly. But it's sort of like what St. Augustine said about the nature of time. He says, if you don't ask me what it is or what I mean, I understand time very well, but if you ask me, I don't know. And although Augustine meant something a little bit more sophisticated than what the average person means here, I think most people could resonate with that. Most people could resonate with the idea of my knowledge seems to disappear when you question me on it. Look at, for instance, how people behave in courtrooms. People are quite confident in basic things like what they had for breakfast or what time they left them all. But the moment a lawyer comes in and says, so Steve, what time did you leave them all yesterday? And you say, I left at 5.30. And he says, 5.30. That's what time you left them all. And now you're like, oh wait, shoot. Was it at 5.30? You know what, I don't know. Now what's going on there? Because you really do know and you're pretty good at knowing these kinds of things, but now that this lawyer is questioning you, you know that you're in the presence of someone that is more nuanced in their use of language. You know that they're gonna call you out on the implications of what you say. You know that if they find any contradiction, like if there's videotape of you leaving them all at 5.45, they might accuse you of being a liar or being inattentive to detail. And so now you're a lot more careful and your ability to talk about things that you're normally good at might become miserable. I think that is what's happening with a lot of people. But I think intuitively, a lot of people will know exactly what they believe and what they mean, not that they can defend. I think that's true. I think there's a great deal of truth to that. When you're talking about being aware of people's internal experiences. So whether it's hunger or it's what time they left them all, I totally agree with that. However, what I'm talking about is people's claims about, let's say economic principles. So your average undergraduate or graduate student has some knowledge that really, the reason they have that knowledge isn't because of an experience. It's because they were told something from their professors and they believed what they were told from their professors. And that's generally the extent of their knowledge of a topic like economics or in philosophy. And in those circumstances, I would feel much more comfortable saying, well, it's more likely than not actually that they don't know what they're talking about because this is actually a good example. If you're talking about economics, I would be willing to bet that you take 95% of undergraduates who have had a few classes in economics and they think to themselves they know what they're talking about as purely as a function of them taking some classes. But you grill them and you ask them just basic things about the meaning of their words. What do you mean by supply? What do you mean by demand? What do you mean by aggregate demand? Concretely speaking, what do you mean? I would be willing to bet that in a very short period of time, you discover those people really don't know what they're talking about. And they literally don't even know the meaning of the words that they use. And I think it's because they're in a group of people that you can kind of get away with it because everybody acts like they know what they're talking about. They act like they know the meaning of the words. But because it's not knowledge that's experientially gained, it's very much cerebral, I still have that pessimistic belief that when you grill people about big ideas more likely than not, they just don't even know the meaning of their words. Now, when you're talking about some things in philosophy, it is definitely the case, I think that people have true knowledge about let's say the nature of consciousness that they can't articulate. Consciousness is a really weird phenomena but I feel like because it's so directly related to people's experience, they can report true things about it and will be very skeptical, let's say, of the reductive materialist that says, no, no, consciousness isn't happening. There's no internal experience that's going on. People go, wait, what? Maybe they couldn't articulate it clearly but they have some kind of knowledge that there is indeed some phenomena like consciousness. But when you're talking about things that aren't related to their consciousness, then my skepticism goes through the roof. Do you share the same skepticism when we're talking about things that aren't experientially related? Hmm, I'm not so sure if I do but let's see if we can get clear on this. So I think it's important when you're analyzing people's expression of internal thoughts, feelings and convictions to make a few distinctions here. There's a difference between what people sincerely believe to be true and what people have a habit of saying within certain contexts in order to generate a certain sort of result. I think social cues are real. I think knowing what it takes to get along, to go along and to make friends and to survive in certain environments is real. And people are very good at learning buzz words, buzz phrases. Even if they don't exactly know what it means that will allow them to fit in, right? And if you were to question people and say, hey, what does that really mean? They might reveal themselves to not know at all but they know that if they just speak in this way, they'll get certain kinds of benefits from it. So it is certainly the case that people often say things for the purpose of building social capital or getting certain benefits in certain environments without really knowing much about the origins of the words they say or the real meaning behind those words based on the philosophy of the person who initially imparted that understanding to them. I get that that's real. That doesn't really make me pessimistic. That just makes me aware of the fact that I need to do some parceling out when I'm listening to what people say, right? Like I can't just assume that everything that people say is a reflection of their life philosophy or what they sincerely believe because people use words for lots of different reasons and they don't always use words to express sincere beliefs. Sometimes they use words creatively. Languages is a descriptive force. It's also a creative force. Sometimes we use words to create results. Even if those words have no clear meaning, we just know the way they will impact people. You see comedians do this all the time. So I think that distinction is important. Now, when it comes to what people believe, I also think it's important to make a distinction between having a true justified belief and having a justified belief. Now, we're going into a bit of epistemology. I know some people reject the true justified belief account of knowledge. I happen to think, get your problem, not withstanding. I think it is a reliable account. But even if you don't believe that, I think it is possible to have a justified belief but not a true belief. So for instance, if you take a child whose mother tells him Santa Claus is real, given the epistemic stance of that child, their level of cognitive development, their level of intelligence, the information they have access to, the credibility that their mother has as a reliable source of knowledge at that stage in their life, the lack of experience and exposure they have to things like people deceiving them and misleading them, I would say that the belief of the average child in Santa Claus is a justified belief. But that doesn't mean it's a true belief but it's a justified belief. Now, once you start questioning that child, your questions often expose them to possibilities that they never considered. And now you might ruffle their feathers and generate all sorts of reactions. So I would say a lot of these cases where people listen to something that a professor says to them and they go around repeating it and then you come up to them and you start questioning them on what does that word even mean? What are you even saying? I would say you have one of two things going on. Either people just have habits of saying things within certain contexts to generate certain results like getting a good grade, getting the professor to like them, getting other people to think they're smart. And in that case, we're not talking about their beliefs, we're just talking about word games they play. Or you have cases where people have justified beliefs based on the apparent credibility of that professor, the information they have access to, all of the things that they bring into that experience prior to being indoctrinated. And now you're exposing them to possibilities that they haven't considered before. And it's not that they were stupid or full of it, it's that your questions are in real time undermining the foundations of their knowledge. So let me ask you a couple of questions on that point. Would you say that your average undergraduate in let's just stick with economics, let's say he's taken a semester worth of basic economics classes. Do you think that he has a positive belief, not as a social signaling mechanism, but he has a positive belief that he generally understands economics, just your average student? Yeah, I think the average student would have the positive belief that they understand economics. Now, do you think that in reality, the average, that person does understand the subject matter? Not at all, but it makes perfect sense to me why they think they would. I think- So let me keep going on this. So your average PhD student, let's say somebody has a PhD in economics, and their beliefs about the world, about their economic understanding comes from what they learned in class. Doesn't come from their outside research, comes from what they learned in class. If the undergraduate thinks that he understands economics, certainly the graduate student does, do you think that that person actually does understand economics? The person who has a PhD and whose knowledge is entirely like a one-to-one correspondence between what he learned in class and what he learned in the textbook and the ideas that are in his head. Do you think he actually understands economics? So sorry, two things. The first is totally irrelevant. The first is totally irrelevant. The way you're questioning me right now reminds me of the interview, Piers Morgan and Ben Shapiro were there debating gun control. And there's a moment where, I mean, Ben Shapiro just looks like he's killing them. And Piers Morgan goes into what were the kinds of guns used in this particular incident? And then, you know, Shapiro asks the question, what guns were used in this incident? And he's just walking up down this path and you know, he's setting them up for the home run. So I feel like I'm in Shapiro's seat right now or he's gonna set me up for the home run. But you know, so I questioned part of, part of one of the assumptions built into your last question. You imply that the grad school student is gonna be even more confident that he understands economics than the undergrad. I don't particularly think that's true because I actually believe that the more you learn about that subject, the more you become aware of how vast the field is and the more room for skepticism there is. I think you are most likely to be overconfident when you are at the earliest stages of knowledge in any given field. So I think it makes total sense that a freshman would think they know everything about econ. That is an excellent point. And in fact, when I was saying it, there was a little feeling that went up in the back of my mind that was thinking, well, actually this isn't quite real, but I didn't say it, but I'm glad you called me out on it because that actually sets up this question, which is even more precise, in the circumstance where you have a PhD student who in any field of thought, whether it's mathematics, economics, philosophy, politics, whatever it is, who thinks to himself, ah, now I understand this subject matter, but his understanding of the subject matter is the one-to-one correspondence with what he learned in school and what he learned in textbooks. Do you think that he actually understands the subject matter? If the extent of what he knows is his textbook and his PhD education, and he has the belief that he knows what he's talking about, do you think he actually does know what he's talking about? I don't think he actually knows what he's talking about. And I also think to myself, man, what a sheltered existence that guy must have in order to protect himself from exposure to so many things. But no, no, I don't think he does. I completely agree, completely agree. And I wouldn't have thought that prior to doing my own research outside of what I learned in the classroom, which is something you can only discover once you get a little skeptical and start researching these things on your own. But here's my conclusion, and I wonder what yours is. When I think of that, and when I survey the landscape of experts, whether they're grad students or people who are teaching, in conversation, I find a heck of a lot of people that view themselves as being knowledgeable on a subject entirely because they took a class, they got their PhD, that's their job. Like even in people, for example, in my undergraduate education, there was one economics professor there and suffice to say, the man didn't understand from my perspective his subject matter because he was completely aware, unaware of any counter arguments, any competing theories to the main neoclassical or Keynesian dominant schools of economic thinking completely unaware, which signals to me he actually doesn't understand what he's talking about. And if that's true, then I don't know how the pessimism is something that can be, or the cynicism is something that can be avoided. It just seems overwhelmingly clear to me that people, your average person, even if they go to school, even if they have a PhD and a subject matter, more likely than not, doesn't understand what they're talking about, thinks they understand what they're talking about, but really doesn't even understand the meaning of the words that they use. So where am I, correct me on that? Where am I wrong? So I think when you get underneath all the various words and so forth, because even when I use the word optimism, I think I use it in a way that's very different from your average self-help author. And I tend to be pretty stubborn about using words that have been abandoned by many rationalists. So I still insist on happiness as a good thing, in spite of the fact that lots of people use that word to refer to just feeling good all the time. So anyway, so I think we may agree a lot more than we think, but I guess I don't have what I would describe as a pessimistic response to those observations because number one, I see optimism as being rooted in an accurate understanding of the problem you're dealing with. So if I'm driving a car, I hear a funny sound, my car stops, and then I realize that I have a flat tire. That's just an accurate understanding of reality. And I kind of see optimism and pessimism as how I respond to that. Now, I don't see you as the kind of guy who would say, oh, life is now over because I have a flat tire. I see you as the kind of guy who would say something very rational, like, okay, this is my problem. Let's call triple A or let's figure out what I can do. So I don't see the ability to observe a problem, even if that problem is pervasive and very disappointing. I don't really see anything pessimistic about that or at least I don't have a pessimistic reaction to it. I just see it as having an accurate understanding of people. You cannot lead people down a path that you yourself have not been. You cannot teach people something that you yourself does not know. So anytime you have uninformed teachers, then they raise up a generation of uninformed students and you have this cycle that perpetuates. So anytime there's a system where there are gross errors in the system, regardless of how those errors were introduced to the system, they can sometimes be perpetuated over long periods of time. And in order to combat the system or subvert the system, we do need that accurate understanding of what we're dealing with. And I don't think you're raising a problem that is particularly unique to higher education. I think it starts with the school mindset in general, where there is an association between knowledge and school and association between being a master of a subject and having the right credentials. And very early on, people are indoctrinated with the idea that evidence of mastery is based on being affirmed by authority figures through a particular system of credentialing. So when people are groomed with that way of thinking, I'm not surprised at all that by the time they turn 21 years old and their entire life, they've been taught to think of knowledge in a particular way that they think they know something about a subject just because they have a degree. That makes perfect sense. The interesting philosophical question to me is how do we subvert that system? That's awesome. How do we get underneath the mind of a person who thinks that way so we can influence them to open their mind? I love it. So are you saying essentially you agree with the observation, you agree with that our society might even be filled with these people who have false knowledge, but your optimism isn't denying that reality. Your optimism is, hey, that's just a fact about the way the world is and let's find a way where we can change it. Yes, and in addition to that, because I misunderstood on this point quite often, my optimism says nothing about the feelings you should or should not have about that. So I think you can be as annoyed about that as you want to be and you can be as smiley faced about that as you want to be. Let your personality take the lead when it comes to the emotions that you feel. Just don't equate your emotions with productivity because whether you feel good about it or bad about it, that's up to you but what you do in response to it is where the value is. So if you can motivate yourself by being angry and annoyed, go for it. If you're more motivated by smiling, go for it but don't confuse either one of those things with results. I love it, TK, that is an awesome note to end on. Thank you so much for talking to me about this today. Oh man, it's been a pleasure. All right, that was my interview with TK Coleman. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I have a link to his just released course, Philosophy in 30 Days, on the show notes page which is stevedashpaderson.com slash 27. I'm interested in what you guys have to say about this topic. Am I just overly, curmudgeonly and overly pessimistic? Are your experiences similar to my own or maybe TK's? Leave a comment on the YouTube channel, let's talk about it. All right, that's all for me today. I hope you guys enjoy your week.