256. Psychedelics, Consciousness, and AI | Richard Dawkins

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

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Education, Science, Society & Culture

4.6 • 34.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2022

⏱️ 87 minutes

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Summary

Dr. Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, theorist, and one of the world’s foremost atheists. In this episode, Dr. Dawkins and I discuss religion, psychedelics, consciousness, symbolism, postmodernism, and the importance of objective truth. Links: To follow Dawkins on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins Website: https://richarddawkins.com/ Read Dawkins’ articles: https://richarddawkins.com/articles To donate to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science: https://richarddawkins.net/donate/ Show Notes: [0:00] Intro [1:30] Jordan’s rise to fame, Bill C-16, and Free Speech [5:30] Intimidation and fear of speaking out against the far left [9:10] Micro retreats [11:40] Dawkins’ paper about the organism as a model [18:30] Female sexual selection [21:10] Differences between Jordan and Dr. Dawkins' thinking [24:00] Jeffrey Gray, his work on modeling, Psychedelics, and Anxiety [30:00] Psychedelics, Symbolism, and Consciousness [41:00] Jordan’s experiences with psilocybin and yoga [45:40] Postmodernism, Lacan, Foucault, and Mikhaila’s Oxford Union debate [52:30] Jordan addresses Dawkins' assertion that despite being against postmodernist thinking he at times utilizes symbolism to speculate in a way which is similar to them. [53:50] Finding commonality between myths and symbols across cultures [55:50] False pattern recognition and revelatory thoughts [59:20] Objective truth and the scientific process [1:07:10] Unpleasant or dangerous truths [1:08:10] The metaphysical vision of the redeeming power of truth [1:10:10] Jordan and Dawkins discuss the idea that a narrative drives the process of inquiry, even in regards to objective truth [1:12:50] Humans’ ability to understand difficult concepts on a biological level [1:16:10] Question: Do you identify the religious impulse or even the religious phenomenon with the totalitarian proclivity for dogmatic certainty and the potential acceleration of aggression and atrocity as a consequence? [1:20:10] Question: To what degree do you think that consciousness operates as a fundamental mechanism of selection and shaping? [1:23:00] Artificial intelligence and the metaphysical significance of consciousness

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone, a while back and that would be November of 2021. I had the distinct pleasure of
0:07.3	having a discussion with Dr. Richard Dawkins, who apart from being an esteemed evolutionary biologist
0:13.3	and theorist is also one of the world's foremost atheists. We danced back and forth for quite a
0:18.6	while on Gmail before agreeing to meet and our meeting I think was really productive. So
0:24.8	I have a recording of it audio only as was the agreement and it starts rather abruptly as we
0:31.6	entered right into a discussion and it ends abruptly in a sense too because we ran out of our time
0:36.4	without running out of topics and so I walked over to as it turned out a chapel on the Oxford
0:42.8	campus and that wasn't a place that Dr. Dawkins wanted to go with me so that's where it ended.
0:47.5	In any case we had a wide ranging conversation. I found him charming and airy-dite and intelligent
0:53.5	and a man of goodwill and I really enjoyed the conversation so I hope you enjoy it too
1:00.4	and I hope that there's more of it because we have a lot more to talk about. I feel that way and I
1:05.4	think perhaps he did by the end of our conversation so you join. Almost 100% of the conversations that
1:29.6	I have with people on the street are very, very positive. I would say it's one in five thousand that
1:36.4	isn't but but it only takes one. Yes and there's no shortage of trouble. What's the motivation of
1:46.8	the of the the few who are hostile? That's a good question isn't it because you could think about
1:53.2	that as sort of a general metaphysical question you know what's the motivation of the few who are
1:58.4	truly hostile. I think often they have me confused with a figment of their imagination. So when I
2:07.6	you sent me one of your papers on biological sex. Well stating what you stated in that paper
2:17.0	is already enough in the current world to make you very unpopular with with a certain class of
2:22.7	people regardless of why you think what you think or what your reasons are. When I when all this
2:31.0	first exploded around me I had released a couple of YouTube videos. Three of them I think decrying
2:40.2	a bill C-16 that was passed by the Canadian Parliament which mandated pronoun use
	...

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