Jordan Peterson on Nietzsche: Is God dead? | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

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GUEST BIO:
Jordan Peterson is a psychologist, lecturer, podcast host, and author.

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[IndyRickHikes]

As Professor John Lennox says, the big question. Increasingly in a materialistic world clearly without an ethical anchor and demonstrably mad, I find his logic to be consistent with human experience. Thank you Lex and Jordan for engaging this topic.

[青雲浮遊]

"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature." -- Neils Bohr

[danthedoozy]

The notion that we must invent a god in order to remain sufficiently humble is a stretch. Clearly there are far more assumptions made in the name of supernatutal belief. How, from the human perspective, is something that is unobservable more humbling than something that is observable? The answer is that it isn't. Our observations of the scope of this universe tend toward the infinite. What could possibly be more humbling than that?

[-dr]

Though Peterson may be right about the need for scientific humility, the same can be said of religion! Religion may be the most arrogant thing there is today by claiming that they understand the nature of reality based on ancient texts and personal experiences while denying that all others are wrong about their ancient texts and their personal experiences. Some camps also deny the scientific progress(not denying that in some cases science has actually been detrimental) that has been made, or claim that their ancient texts are in perfect agreement when they clearly are not.

[Aviral_Agarwal_Coins]

Nietzsche proposed the question of "Why prefer Truth over Untruth?", the liking of truth and disliking of falsehood is something unquestioned by scientists and this preference presupposes a certain metaphysical outlook which the materialist utilitarian scientist claims to disavow and he thinks he's done away with metaphysics.

[SamiGodHater]

I like Jordan Peterson but the whole argument seems like semantics

[MAZ]

Bring on Firas Zahabi for these...
it'll be interesting 🙂

[jeremiahnoar]

There's this story about a city who creed goes like this: "This is a city where the artist doesn't fear the censorship, where the scientists aren't bound by petty morality, where the great aren't constrained by the small" It was a city where the brightest intellectuals of the planet were invited, and religion and traditional morality were tossed aside. Observing the spiritual and physical decay of the cities inhabitants made a super interesting study of the price payed for rejecting moral tradition.

[groobus]

Peterson happily conflates “transcendent” with “unknown”. Just because we are too ignorant now about any topic doesn’t make that subject “beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience”.

[danellwein]

good stuff .. thanks for this Lex and Jordan ..

[Tehz]

As a former hardline Atheist, I think most forms of Atheism aren't just arrogant, but naïve in ways that a theistic or non-materialist view isn't. Basically, New Atheism views truth as nothing more then what is available to us through sense data. And I think this is insanely reductive. Truth is far more than what we can see and hear in an immediate and obvious sense. Not saying this makes Christianity true, but what I do believe is most certainly true, is that a force that we would call God likely exists, and the universe and reality itself is fundamentally intelligible and has meaning to it. whether this God takes the form of a monotheistic type entity or is perhaps a bit more complicated then that, is still very much up for debate.

[silkworm]

The problem with discussing god is that it can mean many things. In our model of the world I think it's time to replace "god" with "unknown" and always assume that there are things that we don't and even can't know. I don't find the concept of god that helpful in this context. Humility is important in science and great scientists always knew that.
Peterson also seems to confuse research science with technology and progress, as well as the truth with biologic fitness (it became apparent when they had debates with Sam Harris several yesrs ago). When we talk about the truth we need to put on our research hat and be cold and objective. When we talk about the fitness (using science for the benefit of the humankind) we need to be "biased" in regards to what is beneficial for us as a civilisation.
The same is true about god in the context of our beliefs. Religion can help, for example, to ease the pain of loss and find meaning and motivation to live after some terrible disaster in your life. It doesn't make it true but it helps. I see religion as a painkiller or even a drug (it doesn't cure the disease but can help with pain, existential dread and anxiety) and as a cookbook for common "human condition" situations. Robert Sapolsky said in his lecture that religiosity is an adaptive mechanism, and I totally agree. We have so many predispositions "hardcoded" in us by the nature that it's often very hard for us to spot them: empathy, tribalism, racism, ecstatic states, superstition, drives to dominate, procreate, climb the social hierarchy, sacrifice. Some of them we need to amplify, some of them we need to control or suppress if we want to survive as a society.
Also there is another aspect of god and the mythology which can be associated with our inner psychic life, myths, and stories that we tell ourselves.
I think it's necessary to discuss every aspect of god separately. Are we talking about external material world, inner psychic life or our society and civilisation? The problem is that "god of the gaps" can fill any vacant space and so it happens that every time we cannot understand something or even name something we say: there must be god there.
I can see some benefits of religion (especially in the past) in terms of social stability, unity and mental health, but there are also great dangers, as we all know.
I'm an agnostic atheist and cultural christian (I don't take values of Western culture for granted) at the same time. Never had problems with being an atheist and enjoying Bach's symphonies or Gothic architecture.

[majmage]

So weird how often people say "that's basically the atheist claim" of claims that really aren't common among atheists. For example religion doesn't 'stand in the way' of science. Belief in god simply _isn't_ science, but that doesn't mean it _limits_ science. It only means that the person believes in one non-scientific idea (and is therefore likely to believe in others, and hopefully they don't jump to those non-evidenced conclusions _in their work, _ because that work wouldn't be science). But nobody who's thought this stuff through thinks religion "stands in the way" of science.

[Brainbuster]

I'm an atheist (in the literal sense...I lack belief in any particular god). I have no idea whether there are gods, but I'm pretty sure most (maybe all) religions don't have the answer.
However, I understand that materialism (the philosophy most scientists subscribe to) stopped making sense in the early 1900s. Ironically, science crushed materialism. I can't argue with the success of the scientific method, it works. Still, materialism no longer (since the early 1900s) holds up. So idealism? Maybe both?

[moppypuppy]

Jordan Peterson has a point until you start getting specific, we all know JP isn't talking about _"transcendent reality"_ he's talking about the Jesus.
JP is working his way to _his_ God, to _his_ religion.

[remurraymd]

"Whoever sets himself up as an arbiter of truth and science finds himself frequently shipwrecked by the laughter of God"
Einstein

[TheIzzyExperience]

What does lex say at 2:36-7??? "it's the of science" seems like a key word

[svenboelling]

Unfortunately, I could only understand a fraction with my English knowledge.
But I think I’ve understood about which direction it’s going and I’ve thought about it a lot.
I think what many scientists should see as a warning is what fools have done time and time again.
Their mistake is often the same as that of the smarter, only it is not so noticeable.
As far as I could understand, Jordan said you shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking you understood nature.
Roughly speaking, there was already a lot more what he said.
Anyway, what comes to mind is that I see the same mistake that is being addressed in people who believe they know what God wants.
People who must have some kind of megalomania when it comes to claiming, for example, that God wants person XY to die.
Because they cheated in marriage, or said something about God that someone didn’t like, and that sort of thing.
All this shit would have to be basically due to the same mistake, which is believing that what you have in your brain is the big picture.
I hope I can describe halfway how I mean that, all these religions often describe a cause and effect.
Misbehavior XY and then a bad effect for example.
Or correct behavior and then a positive effect.
It is then said that God wants it that way.
Or rather, God would be like that.
But in fact, it’s just that those who spread this opinion wanted God to be like that.
However, this is also often the case with scientists.
They want nature to work the way they understood it, and that’s all.
Perhaps the point of Einstein and Hawking would be particularly problematic.
God doesn’t roll dice and everything is just coincidence.
What does it have to lead to if these two insisted that their point of view is the right one?
So I mean, what if the other option was never considered and tested?
With Hawking in particular, I suspect that the motto of his work was “what must not be, what cannot be. ”
So that’s what I wanted to get at, I think we’re living in a time in which science is living according to that motto, and all the more so, the further we get away from the supposed truth.
And what we just don’t want to see, we often don’t see.
Whatever.

[araina]

Believing in god would mean we know what’s unknown. It’s god. Meaning we wouldn’t look for it.

[VanessinhaPucca]

The problem is the definition of God.
Yea, nature can be god, the universe... and i agree that this is the force beyond our knowledge that drive it all..
But we don't think of God as nature, in fact that's why it's separated in most religions. God, by human definition, is a supernatural being, usually only one that thinks as us and we are a mirror of it (as it's creation).
That's the Christian, Jewish and even Muslin definition of God.
That's why Nietzsche say "God is dead", these old views according to science.

I don't know if i agree with JP on that one, the more we know, the more the definition of God don't fit as something that could exist. And JP do change the definition of God but really, we don't.
Nature is nature, "God is God". I believe in Nature but i don't consider it God nor i (perosnally) think it could exist in our definition.