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I'd heard a lot of good things about JBP and my first experience of him was his first conversation with Sam Harris[0]. His attempt to redefine the word "truth"

I'd heard a lot of good things about JBP and my first experience of him was his first conversation with Sam Harris[0]. His attempt to redefine the word "truth" was frustrating and consequently I've struggled to work up the energy to listen to anything else. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gdpyzwOOYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gdpyzwOOYY

Reedx 9y ago
Oh man, that's unlucky. I've watched or listened to 100+ hours of Sam Harris and JBP, and that conversation was the only one I can think of where I was frustrated and felt it was a waste of time. It's really not representative. I'd urge you to listen to their 2nd conversation or watch any JBP lecture.
AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
I know, right? Sam wanted to use Truth as in "Fact", a shared reality forced upon all of humanity, almost irrespective of humanity, the reality of the physical Universe itself. It makes sense that Sam wanted this definition given his atheist materialist world view. JBP wanted to use Truth as in "Shared Values". God is real when you look at how 1.5 Muslims behave, or 1.2 Christians behave or 1 billion Hindus behave with respect to the idea of God. You have to work with the fact for close to 7 billion people God is real and then that itself becomes the fact that God exists, albeit as an idea in those people's mind but still an idea that has very concrete real world implications, hence you have to take it as a Truth. JBP wasn't opposed to Universal laws being heralded as Truth, but he wasn't open to limiting the definition of Truth to just that. I think his was a very reasonable position to take. Sam appeared overly theoretical to me, JBP more practical "rubber meets the road" kind. It was funny that people found it waste of time. I actually liked it. They were both fighting over their world view, which one was more realistic or better. They ended up doing so over the definition of the world "Truth". It would have still been the same discussion over the two world views even if they didn't appear to get stuck on the definition of "Truth". I was happy with the way it went. They discussed their world views anyway.

Reedx 9y ago

Oh man, that's unlucky. I've watched or listened to 100+ hours of Sam Harris and JBP, and that conversation was the only one I can think of where I was frustrated and felt it was a waste of time. It's really not representative. I'd urge you to listen to their 2nd conversation or watch any JBP lecture.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago

I know, right? Sam wanted to use Truth as in "Fact", a shared reality forced upon all of humanity, almost irrespective of humanity, the reality of the physical Universe itself. It makes sense that Sam wanted this definition given his atheist materialist world view. JBP wanted to use Truth as in "Shared Values". God is real when you look at how 1.5 Muslims behave, or 1.2 Christians behave or 1 billion Hindus behave with respect to the idea of God. You have to work with the fact for close to 7 billion people God is real and then that itself becomes the fact that God exists, albeit as an idea in those people's mind but still an idea that has very concrete real world implications, hence you have to take it as a Truth. JBP wasn't opposed to Universal laws being heralded as Truth, but he wasn't open to limiting the definition of Truth to just that. I think his was a very reasonable position to take. Sam appeared overly theoretical to me, JBP more practical "rubber meets the road" kind. It was funny that people found it waste of time. I actually liked it. They were both fighting over their world view, which one was more realistic or better. They ended up doing so over the definition of the world "Truth". It would have still been the same discussion over the two world views even if they didn't appear to get stuck on the definition of "Truth". I was happy with the way it went. They discussed their world views anyway.