 I'll say a few things and then I'll please tell me if you agree to disagree where you think I could be wrong if reality I've heard it put this way that reality is that to which life is adapted And it sounds like animals are essentially Just adapted to that reality. All right, that's what the process of natural selection is that the organism is fit to its environment but it seems like perhaps humans have a different relationship with reality that we're actually To some at some extent changing our realities, right when we engage in these imaginary, you know, whatever I'm an American citizen. That doesn't mean anything an objective reality. That's something we constructed But it's a very useful fiction that changes the way we interact with one another So is that the the step change that humans are sort of reshaping their realities? Or maybe another way to put this is creating alternative realities that we're operating within No, I don't I don't think it's an alternative reality and the fact that you're an American is Reality it's a reality now that human beings have created. We've created laws. We've created borders We've created a structures that don't exist if they're no humans There's no America, right? And and there's only in America if we've created something So what human beings have the ability to do which animals do not for that, you know You could argue birds make nests and stuff it at a very minimal scale. We shape reality We change the world and we shape it both at the Concrete physical level we knock down mountains and build skyscrapers, right? And we we knock down trees and we farm no animal does that right? They just accept reality accept nature as it is and they either adapt to it or they die we If it gets you know, this is my whole claim about climate change if it gets warmer Will adapt right will change the world will build dikes. Well, I don't know suck seal to out of the atmosphere We'll do something. This is not, you know, this is how we survive as human beings. We change our environment So and so some of that is in the physical world But some of that is also the fact that we have the ability to abstract. We have the ability to create abstractions Like the United States of America, it's an abstraction It's an abstraction that represents a certain geography and a certain set of laws It's an abstraction, but that abstraction is tied to reality. It's related to things that are actually going on But it's a reality that only exists because we have chosen it. We've chosen to create it And it represents something real. So it's not an alternative reality it's taking the world as we see it and adding to it, you know Building on top of it I'll give you an example. We talked to I think we talked in the past about concept formation and Is this furniture exist? Well, yes, in a sense that you can point to a bunch of different things that are furniture, but furniture as an abstraction that represents all these things is something that we Create in order to explain the world out there so we can more easily communicate But more importantly more easily think about the world So, you know chair is a concept represents all chairs that have ever existed that ever will exist No matter what their specific shape or everything. So there's differences between chairs, but we understand what chair means and That is a tool a cognitive You know the basis of our cognition which no other animal has but it's it's an abstraction that represents a Concrete reality something real in the world out there Yeah, so then animals would be somewhat strictly Subjected to reality, but humans are in this co evolutionary Relationship right we're like we reshape reality, but if reality is that to which we're adapted and we're also changing our own adaptation Right, we're dead. We're different now We're we're different running literacy for instance, and we are not running literacy. Absolutely So so evolution did this amazing thing with human beings. It allowed us to self-program right so Is that the key difference in the self-programming between man and animal in in a sense? Yes, I mean I the analogy is not perfect, but yes, you know, we can change us Ourselves because we can change our attitudes. We can change up, you know, we can get healthier We can get strong I can go lift weights and get stronger. I can I can decide one language Yeah, I can learn a foreign language. I can learn to climb a mountain I can do all kind or I can take equipment to climb my mind. That's the beauty of it, right? I can take oxygen to climb Everest, right? That's a way in which I've used I've changed reality. I've created this machine to help me Overcome a certain part of reality have air conditioning if it gets warm So it's it's we get we get to write the program and that's what reason in a sense is reason as our ability to understand the world out there and then to adapt at least our mental capabilities to it and then use it to take that reality and reshape it to take nature and reshape nature and look in the end Reality doesn't change because we you know the atoms and the molecules are still there. We just But we're changing we have the ability to change the form from one to another Yeah, yeah makes makes a lot of sense. So I mean again the way I'm interpreting this And I've heard it put this way before too that thinking is like a Simulation engine for action, you know, you can spin up If I do this, I think a b and c will happen If I do that d and f will happen you can sort of compare and contrast different paths of action and then you choose right you You rationalize or you reason and you choose a path that you think is most most suitable to your desired ends Yes, um, so I want to that all makes a lot of sense to me Um, I want to ask you about the furniture concept though. You just said is that essentially What is the difference between? Abstracting into furniture for instance right in the concept of a chair for instance with a single one piece of furniture out isn't that The the form isn't that the platonic form of a chair and then we have all these instances where we actually physically manifest that form into reality No, so there is no chair in another dimension that we're Linking to and chair didn't exist in our in our mind before We came up with it. So chair comes from looking at this and this and this and seeing the similarities Abstracting away the differences And saying what I see here all is united under a particular concept But it's a concept that's tied to these chairs. It's not a concept that's tied to another dimension and then somebody can tell me Oh, I have a means to communicate with other dimension and you've got your chairs all wrong Like they would in banking or like they wouldn't something a lot more abstract where they can where they can fool us So platonism Is the heart of all I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit here, but but maybe not so much At the end of the day platonism is the source of all um, uh fakery of all, um of the deception that we experience, right? because Plato is the villain in human history In in a sense of in a sense of all the bad outcomes because what is more powerful than me saying I can communicate with another dimension where the truth is really hold what you're seeing here It's not the true truth The true truth is up is somewhere else and only the philosopher can communicate with him So only a handful of people can actually communicate with the world of truth All the rest of us are in shadows in a cave seeing shadows. We don't see reality So we need to listen to the guy who communicates with the truth Whether that's the pope Whether that's um, you know, uh, uh, lennon who communicates with the with the world of the proletarian Um, whether that's hitler who knows exactly what's good for the arian race um, you know most Most Bad ideas at the end of the day we accept because some authority Has told us and has devised a whole scheme around and that authoritarian ideal idea that only authorities know the truth Comes directly from Plato Whereas Aristotle if you think about the difference between the two Aristotle tells us Every single individual has access to the truth Every single one of us can see the chairs every single one of us can form that concept. We don't need A philosopher king. We don't need a an authoritarian to come and tell us what it is We can see it. We don't live in a cave. We're all out in the sunshine. We could be mistaken We can make errors, but they're all fixable. They're fixable by means of reason so Plato In a sense as anti reason he's he says he's pro-reason, but his reason undermines The very foundation of what reason is because it detaches it from reality. It detaches it from my experience of reality So it detaches the chair from the chair that's right in front of me Thank you for listening or watching the iran book show If you'd like to support the show We make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching Show your appreciation. 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