 So let me try this on you again from an epistemological perspective, you know, trying to understand what it is exactly that's coded in terms of evolution in psychology, what it is that's coded in our genes. So I'm just gonna divide kind of human experiences and human, I'm not sure exactly what the general title here. We've got certain inclinations, we've got emotions, and we've got ideas. Now to me, ideas are not something that can be encoded, because epistemologically ideas come from interaction with reality and we have to be alert in a way and a reasoning being in order to get ideas. But I can see inclinations being coded. Does that make sense? So it depends how you define, I'm not being postmodern on you. No, no, no, that depends how you define, everything depends on how you define it. So let's take an example, and then you tell me whether this is an idea or whether it's an inclination to use your nomenclature. So let's say how we respond to beauty or how we specifically respond to beautiful faces. So evolutionary psychologists argue that all other things considered a more symmetric face is across the world viewed as more beautiful than an asymmetric face, because of certain signals that symmetry exudes or embodies. So now the question becomes, well, is that something that is learned or is that something that is inscribed? And the way that you would test that in this case, there are many ways to establish that something is part of our biological blueprint. One of the ways is through developmental psychology, you could take children who are not yet at the age whereby they could be socialized by definition. They haven't reached that cognitive developmental stage. You could show them photos of people's faces that vary on symmetry. And then you could simply watch how long they gaze at one or the first one that they gaze at or the first one that they try to, you know, touch. How young could you do this with kids? You could around six months old. I think the study that I'm thinking of is, you know, maybe six to nine months old. Similar thing you do, for example, with toy preferences, because the social constructivists will argue that it's the socialization of teaching little boys to play with blue trucks and teaching little girls to play with pink dolls that starts the cascade of gender roles socialization. Well, you could take children who, again, are cognitively speaking too young. They're infants, six months old, nine months old, and you could show that they already exhibit those sex specific preferences. So what evolution psychology has is a very, very broad range of data that it can use to unequivocally demonstrate that something is as part of our biological heritage, which, by the way, speaks to something that really annoys me from the detractors of evolution psychology when they argue that evolutionary psychology is pseudo science where you just come up with just so stories. It is the exact opposite of that that serious evolutionary psychologists do because what to really build an adaptive argument to argue that something is an adaptation, you have to build what, so I talk about this in one of my recent papers, nomological networks of cumulative evidence. What does that mean? You have to find data stemming from different cultures, different time periods, different paradigms, different methodologies, all of which point to the unassainable truth of that statement that you're making. Charles Darwin himself had done exactly that in origin of species. Now he didn't call it nomological networks, but what did he do over a 30 year period? He collected tons of data from radically different sources. Once you put it together, you can't counter his natural selection argument. And so to go back to your question, so is the innate preference for certain beauty markers an inclination or an idea? So I suspect it's an inclination that then we build ideas over. So so, you know, so there are a number of things. So one is I've met a lot of women who, you know, wow, beautiful. And then after 10 minutes, they look like unbelievably ugly to me, right? Because your personalities. Yes, because their personalities have come through and it changes how I look at their face, right? So and so that that to me is, yes, the inclination is there. But once I learned more about what beauty means to me today is more than the symmetry because I've integrated that preference with a whole set of other ideas. And now when I see their personality, I can't even see the beauty anymore. It's gone. So they're not beautiful to me anymore. Of course, you know, artists know in Michelangelo and Da Vinci and all of those great artists all knew that there's certain symmetries, there's certain patterns, there's certain, you know, pyramids of shapes that human, the human being responds to positively in a way that they don't respond to other things. Certainly to use a Jordan Peterson thing, we don't respond well to chaos, right? You know, unless you're a modern artist, and we can talk a lot about modern art, but in terms of real art, you know, that we don't respond well to chaos, we respond to certain patterns and and I think that's that's an inclination. I mean, I don't know the science you do. And it sounds like it sounds like this. But I think we build on that. So we take an inclination. And then we build an abstract idea of beauty that's got a foundation in our inclinations that becomes the idea of beauty. Right. And so I guess maybe that also relates to more broadly the idea, for example, of a meme to a memeplex, right? A meme is the sort of smallest unit of it could be an idea that spreads from brain to brain using something akin to, you know, the propagation of genes. The memeplex is the collection of ideas. So religion is a memeplex, whereas a singular ad slogan would be just a meme, right? So I think that's what you're speaking of. You have a set of biological inclinations on which we then build a bigger edifice of ideas. Yeah, I think epistemologically, they're different because the one is in a sense somehow coded ingrained. And the other we have to gain evidence from reality and apply reason. And I think the only way to do this is by application of reason integrate. But but the foundation is there with that inclination. So that inclination serves as the as the, I don't know, a foundation on which you build a house, right? And I would say so just to build on what you're saying, so take for example, something like the, the, the innate if people some people don't like the term innate, but locally we understand what it means, take the innate penchant for men to seek social status, right? So the the universal is, if you like the Darwinian rule is seek social status. Now the manner by which you instantiate that will vary across individuals. And that by the way shows you that it's not deterministic, right? So you and I share a common desire to ascend the social hierarchy, because that will get us greater access to women. But I may choose to do it by becoming a famous professor, you may choose to do it by being a great diplomat or a painter or soccer player or whatever it is that you choose. So that's what then creates behavioral heterogeneity, right? Because a lot of people think, Oh, but if something is a human universal, that implies that every single outcome will be exactly the same, we will all know we can instantiate the same Darwinian rule in radically different ways. But so so this is where I've got a problem, right? Because social status is not something that I think in terms of and think about the world in terms of, you know, I want to be good at what I'm good at. And I don't because I want to be good at it because it adds to my self esteem. And it hurts when I'm not looking for women, as my wife will tell you. And and I don't think about, you know, you may, you know, the social with social media, I think about what other people are doing, right? Because because you measure it in terms of likes and stuff like that. But in most of what I do in life, I don't think about how this affects other people. I think about whether what I'm doing is true and right or good. And often I lose people more when I when I do something on Twitter or something then I gain. So I never I've never thought my life ever thought in terms of social status or found myself seeking it cross social status rather than I want to be the best that I can be at what I am doing for me. This this relates a little bit to the to the selfishness before but that sounds like I ran. Yes. Yes. And you know, I'm runs where I come from. So so I think if I think about if I think about particularly, you know, I don't know, a Galileo doesn't seem like what he's doing is to attain women. I mean, he's doing it because he's he's got a passion for the truth. And he's trying to he's trying to prove and and he's in his following way reason will take him rather than following way his need for sex takes him. Are you ready? Sure. As if I hadn't already blown your mind, get ready to have your mind blown. What you're describing is the difference between epistemologically one of the most important things to know about evolutionary theorizing. And that is the difference between proximate explanations and ultimate explanations. Okay, proximate explanations explain the how and what of a phenomenon. Most of what scientists do and have done throughout all of recorded history has been at the proximate level. Most Nobel Prizes are one at the proximate level. It explains how a mechanism works. What are the factors that affect the mechanism? The ultimate explanation. Ultimate doesn't mean superior. It's ultimate. It's better. Ultimate in the Darwinian sense. It is the ultimate Darwinian. Why? Why would the phenomenon have evolved to be of that form? Right? So even though you may not do the things that you do with a conscious recognition that the ultimate goal is to get women, your behavioral system, your emotional system, your cognitive system at the proximate level has evolved to pursue things that ultimately cater to that ultimate goal. Do you follow what I mean? Yeah. So even though you don't say I'm getting up today to write a book because hopefully I'll get a lot of hot women to have sex with me, you care about your reputation. You care about people liking your ideas. You don't wake up every day and say here's what I plan to do today. I plan to be lazy, apathetic, and hopefully say as many dumb things as I can on as broad a public forum as possible. Right. So therefore, even though you don't consciously appear as though you are slave quote to the ultimate goal, that is what you're doing. So Galileo cared greatly about what his colleagues thought of him. And whether we like it or not, it ultimately relates to some fundamental ultimate goal. Did you follow what I'm saying? Yeah. So why does some so a few a lot of questions actually So why does some people are lazy and do nothing and go on, you know, social media and say stupid things that that that are turning them into the opposite of of what would attract? Because the random combination of each of our genes that makes our unique person hoods are such that we don't every single moment of every day pursue life as though we are perfect executors of these biological drives, right? If that were the case, then we would be these perfect beings, right? I mean, why do people succumb to anorexia nervosa? Why do people get addicted to heroin, right? So but and if I can answer that very quickly. So it in two of my books, I talk about exactly that question. If we are such adaptive creatures, I mean, this speaks to your point, why do people do stupid shit, right? If we are these adaptive creatures, why do we succumb to maladaptive realities? And the way that I answer it in a grand sense without getting into the details is that each of these cases anorexia nervosa, pornographic addiction, pathological gambling are misfiring of adaptive processes. Do you follow what I mean? So there is an adaptive process, which if it fires within the adaptive range leads to good outcomes. But soft, sometimes it's more inactive. Sometimes it's more hyperactive. And by the way, cancer is that. Sure, sure. Right? Yeah. And so, so, so I think you could totally put within the rubric of evolutionary theorizing is why was all sorts of stupid shit. Yeah. So, so I would say that those people are not engaging their reason and and defaulting to to to being determined by the misfiring. But if you engage your reason, you're not susceptible to that. So reason is really the evolutionary tool that allows us to take control over that and not to leave ourselves at the random whim of the misfiring. But do you think that in all circumstances, your capacity to have access to that that reason faculty is always there? So for example, I am a heroin addict. At that moment, it is impossible for me to engage what you're calling my reason faculty. No question. If you screw yourself up enough times, right? If you if you default on the capacity to reason enough times, you will lose the capacity to bring it back, or at least under under some circumstances, you know, maybe if you go sober and you completely, you know, redo your life and you rethink it, then you can get on the right track. But it takes a lot of work. Reason takes a lot of work falling off of reason, you know, ignoring reason, becoming a religious mystic, whatever is easy. And then going back to reason would would take a lot of work. But I think that what makes us human is up is our ability to override right ability to take control over all these influences, the misfiring that and and and to and to really channel our lives in a positive direction. Let me ask you, let me let me ask you this. So if I am so we know that both men and women have evolved both a desire to pair bond and also to stray, in other words, we are certainly animals that wish to have sexual variety. So if I am married, and I have a wonderful wife, whom I don't wish to lose, but there is an opportunity for me to execute my Darwinian program of seek multiple, you know, sexual conquest. How would I seek my reason faculty to go through this particular choice? I mean, you know, the the essence of it is to think, right? What are the consequences of the action? What is the consequences short term? What are more importantly, what are the consequences long term? Does this involve dishonesty towards my wife? If it involves dishonesty towards my life, my wife, what does that lead to one of the best things Jordan Peterson does, in my view, is his discussion on honesty. It's discussions on honesty, you know, brilliant, because I think dishonesty is very, very damaging and very harmful to you, and therefore to the people of surrounding you. So if you're not engaging your reason, then hey, there's a hot chick at the bar, you know, and Ben Shapiro has used that example to criticize many of my views. You know, if you're an egoist, then hey, there's a hot chick at the bar, you just go and have the hot chick. But no, if you really care about your life, then you stop and you think, okay, yeah, there's a hot chick on the bar. I might get some pleasure from sleeping with, although again, even there, I think sexual pleasure is not only physical, it's also spiritual and therefore it has a dimension that is affected by who you're sleeping with, just like beauty is impacted by who is beautiful. And therefore, I engage my reason and say, eh, it's probably, you know, given that I'm probably gonna have to relate to my wife about this. And I've got a contract with her and I'll be violating the contract. Now we can discuss whether the contract is valid and whether it should be a contract, but then we'll really get into trouble if we do that. But so I would say that's where reason comes in and you don't act on the impulse. You act as a human being, that's the difference between us and animals is we don't act on the impulse. The animal doesn't have a choice. We have a choice, free will if you will, to act on the decision to think it through and to analyze the consequences. And some of us do that. And some of us don't. We know lots of guys who don't do that. So at one point you said, you know, honesty, don't lie. And by the way, when it comes to these kinds of issues, I'm very much of a deontological guide. There are absolute truth that you should follow. Yes. But then later you said, well, you know, we think about the consequences which leads to another set of ethical, you know, rubric, which is consequentialism, right? So a deontological would be, I never lie. Yes. It's absolute. But why don't you lie? Why did you come to that deontological conclusion? See, I would say that I came to that deontological conclusion, that absolute unequivocal moral decision, because I've evaluated the consequence, and have generalized that lying, given my nature as a rational being, given the consequence it has, is a bad thing. I do that once, I come up with a principle and then I never lie again. So here's my, forgive me, I'm offering, we're playing devil's advocate, because otherwise we'll agree on most things and people will get upset while these two guys were doing a, I hate that term, circle jerk, I despise that term. It's such a vulgar term. But anyways, so let me ask you this then, isn't it the position that you're taking potentially unfalsifiable in the following way, right? It reminds me of how the classical economists would argue that any choice that you make is ultimately what the manifestation of maximizing your utility is, right? So therefore, that which I do is what led, I arrived that through my reason. So what about the guy who says, I am going to weigh all the calculus that Yaron just did. And from my reason calculus, it makes perfect sense for me to potentially take the risk to sleep with this really beautiful girl with the beautiful behind and be dishonest. No, I think that's a that's a great question, an appropriate question. That I think there are absolute moral standards. So the ontological standards that you can say that being dishonest is wrong always. Now, I know that by induction from experience that is by inducing up just from my experience, from knowing human nature, understanding how reason functions, the destructive role dishonesty has in your own mind, not just other people, all of that. I know that through both seeing the world out there, understanding my own nature. So morality, the moral principle should be those absolute principles that are consistent with human flourishing, with individual human success. And that's what morality should study. So this is where, you know, put on my moral philosopher head. So this is Aristotle, like Aristotle's project was, the goal should be individual human flourishing. How do we how do we get there? Right? What are the what are the principles that lead us to individual human flourishing? I think that's what morality should study, right? It shouldn't study sacrifice and how to treat other people devoid of purpose. It should study what are the things that lead to successful human flourishing scientifically. And this is why science and morality go high and high. And I think it doesn't take much to show, for example, the dishonesty is scientifically bad for you, for every human being, human being. So that if that person is doing that calculus, you know, then he's deceiving himself. And he's he's taking an action that's bad for him. And this is why I disagree with economists. I think people do things that are bad for them all the time. I think people are not utility maximizing maximizes, I wish, you know, given the utility meant anything, I wish they were utility maximizes, but they're not. They do stupid things and they don't think they don't engage their reason, they don't evaluate. So yes, I think there are moral principles that that hopefully every human being at some point discovers and integrates them and then never violates them. So look, one side of me very much agrees with you that there are a set of the ontological principles that I like to live my life by, almost to the point of it being maladaptive. So my mother used to always say, you know, God, the world doesn't operate according to your purity bubble. And what she was referring to was the fact that I was this sort of very, very pure guy who lived by standards that just the world is going to constantly violate and I'm going to be unhappy. That's why you're successful. Well, thank you. But on the but on the other hand, I also think that we have behavioral plasticity, right? So and again, that speaks to the earlier point that we talked about when we talk about determinism, right? So the same behavioral strategy might be optimal in condition A, but might be suboptimal in condition B. So for example, if I were to abide by the the ontological statement, I never lie. And then my wife, whose birthday is tomorrow comes to me with that dress and says, hey, God, do I look fat in that dress? Why is that the example? All guys always bring up when discussing honesty. Always. But because it's a Darwinian beings, and that's one of the places where we are oftentimes forced to lie. And then you have two choices at that point, you either adhere to the ontological position or you go No, sweetie, you look gorgeous. So all human knowledge is contextual. And the context has to be taken into account. I mean, my wife, you know, we we have a certain game, right? With regard to the dress, right? And with her, the game is I have to tell the truth, otherwise she'll really be angry. And and but but most people don't most people. There's a game. Do I look fat and you expect it to say no, you look beautiful. It's amazing. And and it's a game. And it's not about reality, because not everybody participating in the game knows that's a game. The other examples, if they're Nazi comes knocking at my door and says where the kids I want to take them to concentration camp, of course, you lie because the context is the context of every decision should be your life, right? Life. So if nobody has a right to anything, including the truth, at the expense of your life, right? So the life has to be as always the context in which every ontological context concept, you know, fits in. So. So yes, I think the universals within the context of no, you know, I don't consider I don't know, you know, lifeboat scenarios are a lot of morality when you take a morality class. It's usually the trolley you push one level, you kill five people, another level, you kill 10. And my argument, who cares? I mean, first of all, it's not that's not morality. That's just stupid. It's you're never going to be in that trolley. Morality is about what you do every day in your life. Morality is about how you live your life. It's not about trolleys. It's not about lifeboats. In a lifeboat scenario, it doesn't matter what you do. You're screwed either way. Right? And with a trolley, you're screwed either way. There's no right answer. But in life, they're all right answers. So yes, there are going to be exceptions that are emergencies or just unusual circumstances. But 99.9% of the time, they are principles that guide your life that should lead you to success and happiness and flourishing. And we've got, you know, hundreds of thousands of years of human experience to show us that it tends to work. So what would be say the top three that you could think of that you use to guide your daily actions? So to me, the number one, so there's one that integrates all the others, right? And that's be rational, right? Rationality. To me, that, you know, take control over your own mind, take control over your own life. That's what rationality means. That's why I'm not dishonest, because I know that, you know, garbage in, garbage out kind of thing. You don't want to, you don't want to mess up the mechanism of dealing with facts. You know, and then you want to apply facts dealing with other people. And that to me is justice. You want to apply rationality to every aspect of your life. So reason rationality would be, would be kind of number one and everything else would be a derivative of that. But Rand, we're going to be back down in Rand, you know, came up with seven. And I think so it would be rational productiveness. The idea, and this has a revolutionary psychology connection, I know, you know, you want to be able to take care of yourself. You want to be able to put food on the table. You want to be productive in the world. You want to do things in the world to change your environment. It's where you get yourself esteem from. It's where we get our confidence about the world. You know, so you want to be independent. You can't have other people thinking for you. Thinking demands that you do the thinking. You want to be just, you want to be honest, you want to have integrity. I'm missing one, but pride is another one that's usually controversial. But because it also goes in the seven deadly sins. It is the root of all of the other. Exactly. And to me, pride is so fundamental because you want pride Aristotle called the queen of the virtues. Right. So Aristotle was the opposite of the Christian view of pride. And Rand is much more Aristotelian in that sense.