Welcome to the joy be Petersen Podcast, I'm Mikhail Petersen, Jordan's daughter, Did you last week on Dad's health, he's improving every week and I'm really hoping will be back in North America later this week So yea, for that I really really really really miss home. Not being able to speak. A language in a foreign country is pretty disconcerting, and we ve been here for a month and a half. Literally going into a store and buying anything as a chore. I definitely have a new appreciation for immigrants who have to learn a new language after emigrating to a new country. I hope you enjoy this episode called structuring year perceptions, part one and was reported in Canberra, Australia on very fifteen. Twenty nineteen.

Structure processions part one, Jordan be Petersen of rules for life lecture. Thank you, you're you're, either very enthusiastic or there's a very large number of people in a small room. So it's very nice to be here and thank you. Thank you all for coming. I'm I'm looking forward! I'm really looking forward to this talk. I've been pulling together ideas tightly over the last couple of weeks and I'm really interested to see if I can leave a variety of things together that I've quite been able to get to co here so we'll see if that works. So I'm gonna concentrate tonight on rule ten

just be precise in your speech, which I think is a very interesting rule, because its way more complicated than it looks like and like all, I would say that's true of all the rules. It's funny because you know one of the criticisms that's been levelled at the book is. That the rules are cliches or that there are obvious and its and that's true. Both of those are true. It wasn't like. I didn't know that when I wrote them The question, of course is: why do certain maxims become cliches in sums why are they universally regarded as true, because that's what happens with a cliche? and then what happens if you forget why they are true, which even more important than the answer is well. If you start to forget why the axioms that you take for granted are true then you're in trouble, and then you need to revisit

the underlying structure of the actions of the presupposition. So that you can re, learn consciously why it is that you need to know these things, and so that's what I was trying to do with twelve rules and that's what I'm trying to do with rule ten, which is to be precise in your speech. So I'm going to give you a run through Very large psychological domain tonight break break from the bottom to the top. If I can, if I can manage it, and I think it I think, you'll find it interesting, hopefully interesting. I could certainly being trying to sort this out. His kept me interested seriously interested for thirty years and so it's a very compelling topic, but more than that, its also really useful practically because it helps you stand, all sorts of things that you can't really

understand otherwise, like you're, more like you're in response to two too to the world them and the magnitude of your emotional response, in the reason that there are positive negative emotions and the reason that matters to you whether your belief system, means intact and the reason matters, You share your belief system with other people, because that really does matter and what it is that it. Leave system is aiming at and why it to aim at something and what it should aim at all of those things, and I think all of those are answerable questions and I really They need to be answered there, not optional. If you don't no, the answers or a few people no the answers in your guided by tradition like an unbroken tradition. Well, that's that's fine.

You're guided by an unbroken tradition. But if you're tradition is fragmented and all of those answers have been replaced by questions or or worse by by ignorance and doubt, then, then you have nothing in and your disoriented in the world, and you can't be disoriented in the world because then your law, and it's not a good thing to be lost its interest. ITALY a bad thing: be lost and so you'd you dont want to be lost. So so, let's, let's look into this and see how far we can get. So. The first thing that I would like to explain to you is that, and then this is a very complicated technical problem and its caused havoc in many disciplines, scientific and otherwise. So the first complicated problem is that there are an awful lot of ways of looking at the world and the unfair,

there's so many ways of looking at the world, even even something simple like if I look at this carpet, for example, if I was a painter and I wanted to paint this area in order to make an artistic portrayal of it, although sure exactly. Why would, but if I did want to know I just glance at it, I see This is a grey. This piece of carpet in the wood here is basically brown and that's that and these speakers are black, and so I kind of haven't iconic per perception of of the of the area that I'm looking at I call like an animated. I caught you know and that's why we, watch animated programmes like the Simpson, let's say where most things are really flat in color and whether we ve even to demand, You see that even more and in South Park right I mean Jesus. The animation and South Park is just dreadful, but its complete, but it worthy, but but Ok, it's been purposeful and is completely irrelevant because this simplified

icons, are perfectly useful Regards to representing what needs to be represented and they're all we need and- of what we perceive when we look at the world. A lot of what we see are simplified icons instead of the world. In fact,. Really. What we see when we look at the world are simplified icons, even if we have very detailed perceptions because we're just not there's just not enough of us to see everything. That's there now. I had a friend who did a series of portraits of his feet in different parts of the country where indifferent shoes, you know it was kind of interested in this idea that wherever he was, he part us up a place that he had some physical control over and- and so I have a couple of- is paid

Where he's standing on a highway, I like a blacktop highway by the side of the road one in the deserts. They didn't unbelievably careful job of outlining all of the pebbles in the rocks and everything all the variations in color in them. Top and with the yellow lines and think it looks very realistic and and took a tremendous amount of concentration on his part to do that, because you know when it. When I look at this floor, I can say well what color is it in? It can say: well, it's brown, but if you look at it, that's just that's just wrong. You know it's, it's basically something approximating brown, but there's white in it, and there's yellow and there's orange and there's black and there's very there's an infinite number of variations of color and maybe not infinite,

there are millions of variations in that's close enough, the infinite to be a big problem, and so you know, if you're going to make an accurate representation. Even if something is extraordinarily simple, as a tiny fragment of the world, it's it's almost impossibly complex, which it that's. Why it's often interesting to look at something like a photo, realistic painting. You notice average that degree of perceptual accuracy and you're going to take it for granted. Does you look at it? You think If you look at it, you think it looks just like the thing it's like without that's hard, because the thing is complicated and to make a representation looks just like the thing. That's that's no simple matter and most of the we don't bother with it and like we really don't bother with you, you can't believe how much we don't bother with it. So there's this sir.

Scientists named Dan Simon, whose real scientists and a real psychologist- and he did some unbelievably interesting experiments on a phenomenon called change blindness that was that that that's one of the names of it it's part of a broader category of phenomenon, called perceptual blindness and so here's one of his experience. It's already it's the sort of experiment. You can't bloody well believe until until you see that is actually happened in its replicated many times. This actually a reliable psychology experiment and there aren't that many of them- and so this is this- is one of and I'm not being cynical about that. I mean psychology is a very complicated science and the fact that a lot of it doesnt replicate is not surprising because it's really hard to learn things about people to amazing. We get any of it to replicate. So what Simon, DIA Dan Simon,

He set up some cameras on some on the top of some buildings on at Harvard Campus and there's a lot of people walking through Harvard Campus students, obviously in family members, but lots of tourists and people who are there well, because maybe they want to bring your kids there are sometimes that they just want to see it. It's a beautiful place in and a historic. Listen, it's worth seeing and so there's always people wandering through and they don't know where they're going, and so what Simon did was had some students play like a trick on people that we're walking through it does not mean trick or anything trivial trick, and so what he would do is he'd. Have the undergraduates come up to somebody who was walking through who looked like a tourist and that undergraduate would be holding a map and then they would start to interact with the tourist and ask for dairy

Sean's using the map. Now. Obviously, a map is already an iconic representation right and it needs to be because you don't want a map, that's as complicated as the territory, because then you to carry the whole territory around with you. You want you want this simple as possible, Representation of the situation that gets you from point a to point B. Okay, so that's that's worth thinking about right off the bat, because that's like a rule for perception, you want the simplest representation that you can possibly manage. That will get you from point a to point b, and that implies the utility of simplicity, but it also implies that what you're doing all the time is going from point a to point b and so we'll keep that in mind. Anyways So here's the undergraduate standing here with the map and here's the tourist standing here, helping the undergraduate and then over here, there's too

we're undergraduates and they're carrying a door and the door there carrying it like this. I guess no they're carrying it like this and the doors up like this, and it covers their faces right, and so they rudely walk right between the person whose now giving directions and the undergraduate who's asking for directions and ass. They walked through the undergraduate grabs. The or like this and keeps walking and the other under undergraduate whose holding the door takes the map and and stands there and so basically what's happened. Is that. There is now a new undergraduate asking for instructions and more than half of the people upon is this trick is played. Don't notice. And the reason for that is well. Who cares, what undergraduate you're giving instructions to it's like

interchangeable right so and so and then in heat and Simon played around a lot with this, like India, people of different height and people with different, loading on and you you could get tremendous variation in the people who were being swamped and no one would know now you know, on the one hand, no one's going to think well, Jesus, you know someone just swapped a purse No on me, you know, so it's a violation of expectation, but you might expect that a violation of expectation like that would really attract your attention, rather than be something you wouldn't notice right in for the longest time before Simons work? That is what people thought. They thought the bigger the violation of it taken the more likely you would be to perceive. It now turns out not to be the case, it's much more specific than that. So so that's pretty,

Damn cool I mean that experiment got really famous and and then he did another one which was quite similar where people would come to account, or rather like a like convenience store. The person behind the counter would be helping them with something, and then they say, excuse me and doktor beneath the counter and then another person pop up and continue. Being the same thing about fifty percent. Didn't notice the switch, and so that's see right now. What could be just popping in and out right beside you everywhere here and you wouldn't even notice long. If they didn't do anything strange well, they were disappearing in reappearing. You wouldn't notice, you know, if you close try this like, if give you close your eyes for a second doesn't and guess at the color of the clothing that the person to the right of you is wearing just close your eyes for a second, I guess the probable did, you know is like zero. I suspect, even if you could even try,

and see if you can remember what color the chairs, member what color the chairs you're sitting on are? Now? Maybe you maybe you do, and maybe you don't, but you don't have to that's the thing. That's cool because who cares if there they have to be read about it, doesn't matter if the red because if they were black, you could still sit on them all you care about really well, you see, on. A chair is that it functions as a chair and so the color isn't that relevant and so you don't need to remember it any more than you remember the texture or or We have a number of other things that you might consider about the chair as long as the thing that your perceiving fulfils the function that Moore undertaking well you're. Looking at it, then your perceptual representation good enough? And if so, when

resting cause. That's that's actually a definition of truth. It's a very interesting definition of truth in it all ignorant people. We don't know everything. Our knowledge about everything is bounded. And and- and so fundamentally, we flounder in a sea of ignorance, and so you kind of wonder what how the hell is it that you ever manage anything because you can keep asking questions until you run out of answers. So how do you Renault. What you should be doing and the answer is, while you pick bounded goals and we'll talk about how you do that, and then you low resolution perceptions and if the low resolution percent allow you to meet your bounded goals, then their good enough, their true enough and Not it's not a denial of the idea that there is such a thing as truth, because that would be foolish. It's an attempt to

explain how it is that people such as us who have very limited perceptual capacities and who and and and who are ignorant beyond comprehend, I can still actually manage in the world now. That's one way: we do it. We find our goals, and then we simplify our perceptions, there's law lots of other ways that we simplify the world so that we can act in it. But but that's the, but that's two of them now Simon did another experiment, which was very very famous called, I think he can guerrillas in the girl is in our midst, which was spread. Nice funny take off guerrillas in the mist book by Farsi. I believe it was was witty. You don't see that scientific article very often, but it was, but it was witty, and he did this crazy. Experiment where he I serve a videotape in front of some elevator doors and the camera was pretty close

six people in the video and they were- I would say that they were about. As far from the camera. Second row of people here is from me. So close they weren't, like you, know, huddling in the corner there, this high, they filled up the video. So you can, you could be distinguished their individual facial features, so there was no. There was no game being played here now, so and three of the people in the video were dressed in white and three of them were dressed in black and the black team had a basketball and the white team had a basketball and the your goal when you came into the lab, was to do what the lab instructor asked you because you're a good participant and socialized, and so you are going to do that and Oh, you are asked to do was to count the number of times that the white dressed team, past the basketball back and forth and so the video started, and everyone was mulling, milling mulling

milling milling around mulling is when they are thinking, I was born. Bout milling, I guess bouncing the basketballs around, and you know past, in throwing and so forth and and intermingling and you're watching the white team pass and it takes three minutes and near focused on it. You want to do a good job because you're in a university lab- and you don't want to be a complete bloody clunk about it. So maybe you want to demonstrate that you can count so you're focused and then that's it this thing to cause. You might ask yourself why the hell are you doing what the instructor is ass, new to do in the experiment. Right is not self evident, and then you could be playing tricks on him or her. But you likely wouldn't be you go in there and you do your best so like what why, while the content, sort of requires it will. Then the question is what is about the context that requires right, there's a horse

of unwritten rules about why you would go there and participate, cleanly and honestly in an experiment like that. You don't know what the rules are, the same rules that basically enabled you come and sit in here tonight altogether ass strangers, in a civilised manner and all do basically exam the same thing and without fear you know like this. Fourteen hundred of you in here right. That means at least fourteen of Europe are really you you. You should probably be in to civilised right right. I'm serious about that. I'm not I'm not pointing any fingers, and maybe one of them is me you know, but but but but but You came in here and look you're all sitting peacefully together, and not only that you're all doing the same thing like notice, you're, all pointing at the front of the theatre, like you, wouldn't be feed. Very good. If you are sitting in the fifth throw and the person in the fourth row in front of you,

turned round and looking at you right, That makes you laughing. You see what you see right. There, how important and how important it is that here and to social norms. How or a rule it. Here's to social norms plays in your emotional regulation, so you watch it but come in you don't know who the hell they are. Did this age, is set the entire room is set. Tell you how to act. It's basically set up so that this is the focal point and there are cheap. Yours and you walk in hearing the chairs, tell you to sit in them and their facing forward and the fact that their facing forward suggest to you that you orient Europe toward the stage and because your socialized creatures- and you understand, architecture and social behaviour and you all do that and because you I'll. Do that, then you can also here, even though you dont know each other, and you can not be nervous out of your mind, and you know people can

pretty crazy and, like I said, there's let's say: one percent of the people in here are not as stable as you might want them to be, but it doesn't matter. Their stable enough to abide by this set of rules and that's enough to keep it but he's emotions regulated. So that's that's very important anyways and so that's part of the reason, for example, why, when you go to a university and new participate in this cycle of the experiment that you do what's required of you? You know you went there voluntarily and you play the game and that's part of ballot, Call it part of being socialized or part of being a good citizen or part of being trustworthy are part of being predictable or all of those things that can be. You know they can t J rate into what. What is that, when you're too much like other people, is a word for that to conventional, let's say degenerate into conventionality, but most of the time you want people to do what people do and and and normal people, so to speak, because it just

life a hell of a lot simpler. If that's the case- and it's a real however, that you do to other people to do the same thing right which, as you know in many businesses, people go to their business anywhere suit. What why, soon as a derivation of a uniform military uniform- and form means uniform, But why do you want everybody to wear uniform is because you know deal with their bloody diversity writers. I don't want to hear about your diversity. For God's sake, you know I mean I'd- be listening forever about how idiosyncratic and peculiar you are in and company. Problems you have in your life and what a bloody catastrophe your family is in. All of that, and there is a time a place for that, but but, but not always sometimes time to wear a uniform and be just like everyone else, as you pursue a agreed upon goal for agree.

Upon reasons right in that society Society is also the opportunity now and then to have the. What would you call privilege of expression, your trouble or your individuality, but like a little of that It was a long ways, its crucial, its crucial, it's absolutely vital but Little of it goes along ways. So don't underestimate utility of conventional behaviour it's way more important to you. Then you think you don't want to be, think about how what happens when you walk down the street and you're you're walking down the street, There's somebody there whose obviously not functioning very well homeless person. Hygienic mess, a concept, we'll mass there talking to themselves what now you have to check and see if they're talking on their cell phone kiss like everybody's walking down the street talking to themselves, but assuming they are not there muttering or maybe they're yelling. You know and gesturing too

things that aren't there and, like you're, you're, now chill response to that is to give the person a relatively wide berth and not to make I contact, because that indicates interests right and indicates interest and that's that's come on. I contact so, and so you don't do that and the reason you don't do. That is because that is not abiding by social norms and it isn't like yours like that. You might feel like you might feel real bad that it's like. Well, it's really bad when you see this sort of thing in Canada. Is this like thirty below and there's people out there on the street who are in that situation and in no one's pleased about that? But by the same token you don't know that. But by the same token you don't know what to do about it, and you don't want mean involved, because how? What are you

Do you know what to do? You have a clue what to do about a situation like that in the probability that you're going to help that person compared to having them tear you down is extraordinarily low. So you don't like violation of social norms at all, really not at all, especially when their accidental, purposeful, that's different. A comedian will do that. A comedians, onstage they'll, say something or should I say something that you're not really supposed to say but everybody's there to hear. There's someone say something that they're not supposed to say, and so that constitutes an acceptable violation and we can all have a laugh. Bout that be a little relieved that we're not quite as conventional as we normally are, but even then it's it's it's within tight constraints, and so ok so back to the girl, a video. So there you are being being conventional and doing your best to count the basketball like a good student. Even though you're not a student and.

Video runs for three minutes and the experimenter says: well: how many times did the white team pass the basketball back and forth? And you say Sixteen cause, you were pay attention and the experimental says very good, and you feel good about that and then they say, Did you see anything? Did that you didn't expect? Did you see anything strange during the video? And you say what what what do you mean? They say well. Did you see the gorilla and you say. What do you mean? Did I see the gorilla so, like you know, if a girl comes dancing out on stage here. You know you

You're going to see the damn guerrilla right that there is no question about that, and so the question like that, this isn't a sensible question and the experimental says well half way through the video. A gorilla came out in the middle of the stage right where the basketball players were and beat is asked for like three seconds and then walked off the stage and say no. No, and so he says well how about, if we play it this time, don't count the balls okay, so that's it lasting a because now you're doing something different day. Your attention was focused very, very precise, on a task, and that was to pay attention to the basketball and to see it. Move right even though the video screen is a very big and then you can have a sense that you see the whole thing while you're watching it. You don't you you see little pinprick summit because

Your eyes are always darting round like little laser beams and you're you're kind of making the work out of these laser beam perceptions and organizing it, but you use you see extraordinarily clearly. Only with a tiny fragment of your visual field is a part of your brain. I called the full visa, which is very heavily Enervated optically and it sends neurons to part of your brain. The visual cortex and each of the neurons is presented by ten thousand neurons at the first level of processing in the visual cortex. It you just handle that. For your whole, I like, if you, if that case for your whole, I your head, would be this big and then you'll be lying on the ground. And even though you could see you wouldn't be able to move so that wouldn't be helpful, so you have central vision, phobia and your move it around all the time and you can tell like if I look at it well, if I look at someone in this second row, if I look at you, for example,

I look at you and I can see your eyebrows in your eyes in your nose in your and your mouth. I can see your eyebrows moving, but the two people beside you they're, pretty blurry, saw you when you moved your. You move your head and I could see that Ike is long look at you. I really can't see your eyes you. I can't even tell your gender. I can't even tell you from the chair, and so that's so that's not much of a gradient. You know, but normally I'd be looking back and forth and I'd be keeping track of all of you, but I can only really see your face and the expression on your face and everything else gets blurry now it's interesting. If I look at you- and I do this for me- if you would so I'm then look at you- bury your teeth, go like this there I can see that, and so what we do is we have very acute central vision and when we do very high resolution, processing with especially of faces has faces are unbelievably

normative and then out towards the periphery we use tricks like way out here. We use movement so like dinosaurs, you saw Jurassic Park dinosaur can't see anything less it's moving, neither can a frog. Neither can you not here, you can in the middle of your visual cortex, but not out here, you're, your vision is actually black and white out here is and so and then there's other things that you might see preferentially like a little farther away from the full veal centre, you're a tune to emotional display. So you can see I movement and you can see teeth because well, important. If something near you that's alive, moves its eyes. That's occluded, something's, going on it's also port and if something near you shows its teeth, because while it might eat you and

Probably go into that in so that attract your folleville vision and then you'll do high resolution processing anyway, that's how it works. So now you reverse the video and they did the experimenter reverses it so that you can watch the whole thing. Reverse you know so that you know, there's no tricks. Many plays it forward and sure enough men men and a half out in the video outcomes. This guy, it's not a real guerrilla kiss like did. He didn't? Have the research money too? train a real guerrilla. Ok, so it's a guy guerrilla suit, but it's not it's not sky, you know, I could say it's not. Shapiro. I suppose I can say that you know it's a big he's like six, what four he's in a big guerrilla suited becomes right, in the middle and all the basketball players are playing around it and he looks right at the camera. Right in the center of the video, and he beats his chest and he does it feel like a few seconds.

You know, I'm any ambles off. It's not like you zips in does this and runs off it's no, it's casual man and these, and so he beats a chest any wonders off and, and you don't see that and you think yeah sure I'd see it. It's like no, you wouldn't couldn't see it. I had a graduate student, I shouted to twice any missed it both times, even even remember like he remembered seeing it. He missed the second time and then Simon made a second video which is called are actually don't remember, doesn't matter. Same thing same same team structure? Ok, so three and three black and white May he made this because everybody had watched the gorilla video now they thought they were smart. Ah ha now. I know why. Now I've learned to see, see everything, and so the girl comes out and beats his chest and warrant is off and you ask the experimental victims

what they saw it. He saw her. Sixteen interchanges passes the gorilla they think smart and and dont and Simon well, let's rewind it and see what happens, and so we re wines it, and then you find out that halfway through one of the black team players left. So there is like two instead of three and that's actually quite a lot fewer people right if you lost like fifty, you lost thirty three percent of the team. It's a lot! You you might notice that you don't, and so you you don't know that and then the curtain changes from red to gold and not just a little bit like completely So you saw the gorilla, but you missed the fact that one third of the team left and you missed the fact that something that shouldn't change color- that's really large. That's right there in

scene changed and so the moral that story is sometimes when you're looking for a gorilla other unexpected things happen, and so your kind of screwed both ways right. You think, I'm gonna look at the world my normal way, but I'm gonna be paying attention for what changes and so then you're paying attention for the thing you think will change and some other thing completely changes, and you miss that blind. Unbelievably blind. It's it's really. Those are miraculous experiments because psychologist really work convinced before that that if something unexpected happened

would see it, but but what we learned we learn from that. We learned about one. What unexpected meant an unexpected mean, something very specific. It doesn't just mean unexpected has look, there's unexpected things happening all the time around you unexpected, so that you will perceive it means unexpected in a way that interferes with the specifics of your ongoing goal, directed activity. So, for example, had the white team being passing the basketball back and forth, and the gorilla had come out and grab the ball and left. You would have noticed that because your job was to count the number of passes and that would have directly interfered with your job, whereas if the gorilla just wanders out he's an irrelevant,

like the black team rank as user, the black team, when you're watching the ball being passed back and forth between the white players, the black teams just become icons of essentially irrelevant, and so the gorilla comes out. He's kind of the black team member, and so you just don't pay attention because he is causing any trouble and so that's that's kind of a lesson, we don't see the world unless it causes trouble, and so that's an Another lesson is. We don't really like to see the world when it causes trouble. That's the next lesson, and and and there's reasons there is very good reasons for that. Ok, so so let let's take that a part of it. So how is it that you? What is it that you used to frame in the world so that you can see it now with the with the gorilla video example?

What happened was you framed your perceptions because you had an aim right in your aim was to aim your eyes at the ball and then to count accurately the number of of passes very specific. Very high resolution aim right, there's a trillion other things you could have been doing with your life at tat moment, but that was what You were doing you're sitting in that chair, you're, narrowly focused on on a video screen, which was narrow, focus to begin with, and then you are focused on a team, but even more than that, you are focused on a ball and you are focused on the movement of the ball and that's what you were doing so you had taken the whole world, the entire complicated insanely complicated world and reduced it. To only that- and you know it wasn't- that easy to set the situation up so that you could do that

The other thing is because you think well what about all that world that you weren't paying attention to? What the hell is it up to, while you're sitting there watching people play ball on a video and answer Well, we ve done an awful lot of work, screening out the rest of the complexities so that you don't have to deal with it right. You can just ignored, like even you sitting here and you're, paying attention to the lecture we hope and- and why is it that you can do that? Well, I mean there's a lot of reasons for our first, someone built this it wasn't easy to build this. This is a hard thing to build an end, its in standing up right. That's good is built solidly enough, so that none of you were worried too much that it's going to collapse. Well, we're talking! You can just take that for granted. You think the floors going to stay in place

the seats aren't going to move. You trust your fellow citizens, so you're not so nervous that you're, you know you're you're you're distracted by what what they might do, as we already said what what they might be. What years, while they're sitting there in that mean Your society is so civilised and social that you don't really have to be worried about being robbed and you don't really have to be worry about being molested. You can just assume that everybody's going to act, what kind of like you're going act, and so you can ignore all that, and you know the electorate. These on, and so that's kind of helpful, because it indicates that the background infrastructure is working and the sound equipment is is working, they amplification is working, and so you know that there is a competent staff here and, like there's a lot of work going into allowing you to sit here and pretend that the only part of the world that man as for the next hour and a half or so, is the dialogue that we're having its walls. It's like you're.

You're in a wall inside a wall inside a wall inside a wall inside a wall, etc. You know, and- and I haven't even bribed all the walls you're in the city and its functions pretty well in the cities in the state and its not doing too badly and the states in it. Country and its well defended, and it has a good legal structure right and call enemies, doing all right. Sure you're, not all sitting there worried about where you're next meals going to come from, I mean God, it's it's there's so much work has gone into enabling you to zero your perceptions into this in a tiny fragment of reality and to act like you're, seeing the world it's a complete, bloody miracle that that that we can manage that a tremendous amount of our social organization is exactly that is its to make things orderly and predictable enough functional as well, so that we can concentrate on the tiny things that we can concentrate.

Without being terrified out of our skulls. And it's no simple, thing to manage that and we by and large have managed it, which is extraordinarily cool and very much worth being grateful for, even though its hard to be grateful for it. Because look as you sit here, you're not worried. Because you're not worried you not paying attention to anything, that's making you not worried right because you're only you only pay attention to the things that get in the way, and so there isn't anything getting in the way, and so you don't pay attention to it, and so you take it for granted that that's very dangerous. You don't want to take things that are that miraculous for granted because their unlikely and they take a lot of work to do to make work and to continue to work. And so you know, we should always be thankful when we can come to an event like this and

You know it's it's peaceful and productive, because that's really something and so- and it's hard to be conscious enough to remember that. Ok, so how do you structure your perception? Well, look, you're, moving creature, that's that's an important thing and creatures have been moving around for a long time for billions of years and you're one of them. You come from a very long line of creatures who move and the fact that we move is very much relevant to understanding the mechanisms of our perception, because part of what we're doing is trying to move from one place to another all the time and basically that's what adds valence to life. It's what adds value to life, because you think what why do you want to move from one place to another? It's the old joke about the chicken. Why did the chair? and cross the road and answer is because he thought the other side of the road was better, obviously, and unless, unless unless he was deluded chick

and was aiming at something worse. You know like Or do you move from one place to another throughout your life? Why do you do one thing instead of another, you think well here I am, and it has its problems this place that I Matt. It's not as bad as it could be, but there's some other place there would be slightly then the place I'm at, and so that's what you're headed and you're, always in valence idiot, because of that, where you are is quite good enough and where you're going is better,

nor is out reverses on you. You know you think well, where I'm going isn't so good, but where I'm headed is worse, that's not good right! You don't want to be in that situation. We don't aim at that. That's a mistake! What we're trying to do is climb up hill all the time and and and we're interested in that we're interested in that, because that's what interest is for technically biologically interest is to get you to go to the next place that slightly better, and that can be physical can be conceptual. Doesnt matter can be both so you're at point. A and you're going to point B. Whatever point B happened to be now, so we can take that apart, it gives it, it tells you how perception work. So, let's say I'm standing here and want to go over to that speaker on the far side of the stage and I'm looking at this stage and I'm thinking I'm not thinking by the way. I'm I'm seeing you know your eyes. This is,

This is how you guys don't work. Ok, you don't look at the world, see objects, think about the objects, evaluate the objects and then decide what to do. You don't do that when you do a little bit, but it's very hard and it takes a tremendous amount of work. Your eyes Neurologically illogically their connected all through your body, like your eyes, are connected right, dear spinal cord, for example. So if you're walking down a pathway and something looks like a snake beside you and you haven't catch it out of the corner of Iraq, yields up- and it isn't because you saw the snake and thought snake and then thoughts. So dangerous and then thought I better jump and then send a man It's your muscles consciously to get you to jump because, like the snakes not only new by then it's got your half digestive by the time you ve done all that, That is how it works. It's like snake pattern

of connections. Snake jump pattern, Leap really fast fast enough, so that maybe you'll get out of the way before the snake strikes you and that's like in the hundreds of a second. You have time to see the damn snake you have time to map the pattern of the snake onto your spinal cord in one turns out, you know, you're spinal cord is a lot more complicated. You think if you take Paraplegia people, a new, suspend them by their arms over a treadmill, they'll walk now, not voluntarily can't walk voluntarily, but the tread their legs will move on. The treadmill cause, there's enough brain in the spinal cord to do that kind of activity and actually, when you're walking really what you're doing is largely leaning forward and falling. So now you know, sometimes you see people who actually look like that, but so so a lot. So a lot of what you're doing is is automatic perception, your eyes and your eyes.

Mapping. The world dies or your eyes are mapping the world onto your body onto your motivations and onto your emotions and onto your perceptions and the perceptual part is actually quite a long ways down the chain of processing, so there these people, who have they call it what's the name of it. It's cortical blindness and so they their blind. You ask them. Can you see they say? No? Well, you think. Ok, man you're the one No, so if I ask you, if you're and you say no. While then you're blind, like maybe ok, you're one of these people can see, no ok, we're gonna play a game, I'm gonna hold up my hand and you're going to get which hand ok right, left right right, laugh right. So can you see my hand? No well

come here guessing accurately, An answer is well you're. These are mapping onto other parts of your brain that don't have much to do with direct conscious, visual perception so maybe like. If I'm looking at you and you're sitting sort of like this part of what happens is when I look at you. I map the way that your body is onto my body so that I can feel it that can help me understand who you are, and so my eyes feel the way that your body is configured. Then use my body as a representational structure, either directly or an imagination, so that I can understand who you are also, if you have cortical blindness, that's what you do. Is you look at someone you map their body onto your body.

Then you can feel weather which, which hand is up, even if, even though you dont know that you can perceive it and if you take the same people and you can do these experiments with galvanic skin response, it's pretty straightforward. You just measure electrical resistance in the palm of your hand, and that can change pretty quickly with emotional response like very rapidly and so like. If, if, if I, if I put a government Galvin Almoner on your hand, and then I show you a frightening picture Your skin conductors increases because you sweat a little bit, so you can tell if people are responding emotionally by using a device like this, and so you can take people with cortical blindness and you can show them pictures of peoples issues that are angry or fearful and they'll sure given skin response to the emotion, because the eyes,

still map onto the part of the brain that processes? Emotion, so so that's quite cool and then even simpler. Things like, for example, if I want to have a gossip, I want to have some water here which are actually do. Then I get this thing there, and you know you think. While I see bottle- and I think bottle and I think drink and I think, walk over and pick it up and and drink- and it's not true what happens- is that at least in part, is that my eyes see that shape and then they directly map the shape onto the can duration of my hand, and so that that's kind of what mean to understand what that thing is right, because to understand it would be to know that it was a ripple object that was usable for a certain function and so my eyes. Directly onto my motor system and so by the time I I'm over here, I've already see that I've already got my hand in exactly the right choice.

And size to grip this, and it's almost perfect and that's it. Of imitation too, because you know this is like this and that's quite cool too big that's the beginning of representation in also because you know If you had a three year old and or two year old, let's say two year old, couldn't talk and sort of pointed to that and went like this. If you had a clue, you think o the baby would like to have the the bottle. Why? What's that? That's not bottle. That's that's! Let's, like a claw, it's not a bottle, but, like you look at the baby and you can in

sir, the motivations of the baby- and you know the baby's pointing so specifying an area of perception for you and then makes a gesture, and so you put all that together and you think. Ah, you know and you go get the bottle and you give it to the baby in the baby's happy and and that's representation. It's part of how we get a grip on the world and understand the world. So ok, so now I'm over here and I want to go over there for whatever reason, I guess for the poor some of the demonstration of this part of the lecture, so I'm set myself up emotionally here for success or failure right because get over there, then I succeed and if I don't get over there, I fail so I'm taking a risk here and and and- and I'm setting up this gradient. I've decided in this particular circumstance that that side of the stage is preferable to this. Okay, so now I'm

I mean an emotional worried. All of a sudden, that's laid on top of the perceptual work. This place isn't is good. Is that place now, then we can think about how I could get there and we can think about qualities of pathway, and I would say this is a pretty good. Way. I mean I might trip over this, and so I see that- and I get a little twinge of negative emotion about that thing, because it's a thing I could trip over and that's actually what you see you don't see, objects you see places you could fall off of youth, see things you could trip over. You see obstacles and tools, and you see them directly. You don't see objects and think about them as tools and obstacles. You see tools and obstacles, and, after thousands of years of Karadzic patient you're able to think about that scientifically and turn nose into objective objects. We see a falling off place. We know this with little babies like if you

it is a space like this magic. There were two little cliffs like this this far apart and you put a piece of glass over them and they have a baby that can only crawl six months old. The baby will not call over the glass now, it's not big baby has fallen off. Places this before it's, because the baby sees a falling off place where you might die and there's an emotional first, that, like you, would have if you get too close to the balcony on high rise, you know you, you see a falling off placing new can bloody wealth. See that, with your whole body right, you get a most people at least get a sense of vertigo. Are they they get a sense that they might go over, and so they don't take chances same or they might play with him. But, generally speaking, you know you're you're, you're you're on alert, that's a place, you might die and we're living creatures and we care about whether or not we're going to die.

And so we don't see the object and then make a dangerous. We see that damn danger and then derive the object. So anyways. This isn't a bad pathway, because I could walk to the speaker with virtually nothing in the They little danger here might trip over that rug. Other than that, my looking pretty good. So so then I look at this pathway and what happens is really part of my brain produces positive emotion produces some positive emotion, because part of the reason this is really really important. It's it's a crucial thing to understand. Part of the reason that you produce positive emotion is because you see an open pathway toward a valued goal. Okay, so We. I think that through the first thing that implies is you need a valid goal. You need a value, go no valued, go now Oh positive emotion, so that's really worth thinking about, especially if you start to think about that in

Sophisticated way because then you might also think the moon, I value the goal. The more positive emotion, you see when you see an open pathway to it. And so that implies that open pathways are important and it implies that value goals are important Assuming that you want to be happy, I dont mean satisfied. I don't mean you ve just had a Turkey dinner for Thanksgiving and now Europe give Thanksgiving in Australia know that you don't have anything to. Thankful, forks, kangaroos, so so, ok, but in the end, America, you eat a whole turkey and then you're thankful that you're not a turkey, and then you go to sleep. People on the floor, a lion. That's just eat and whole will the beast and that's not exactly happy. It's just done. Right, satiated, it's a different form of positive emotion, and it's not the part. You really like you know. If you're going out for a night of wild drug use, you don't take appeal that makes you feel like you ate a whole,

turkey, you take cocaine or methamphetamine, or something like that and the reason you are alcohol and their order or Nick in or caffeine in the reason you do that is because those drugs activate the system, that's activated when you will perceive a valid goal and you can see a clear pathway to it. That's why you like those drugs, that's why they're addictive they make you feel as if you're doing something useful and that's the basic biochemistry of doping. Manure! gag chemists and those are drugs of abuse and so on. So you know one of the ways if you are addicted or abusing drugs that are of that form. One thing that you might consider is that you should get a life because

because I'm dead serious about this, it is not merely a matter of getting off the drug. It's like well, I'm going to get off the drugs, and now I'm going to sit and watch tv. So I can bored to death, no, not going to work. You might get rid of the dependents you might get rid of the addiction and that doesn't even take that long technically speaking, although it takes a while for the cute addiction to go away, but you need a replacement, you need to have something to do that's better than the damn drug and actually that's most of the reason why most people aren't addicted to drugs of that sort all the time and the reason is well, sometimes their fortunate enough not to really be powerfully affected by the drug two bit of genetic variation. But a lot of the other reason is they have better things to do. If you take rats, you take a rat rats and social guy. He likes to live in a rat family and do rat things with his rat friends and and

and and you can't get em addicted to cocaine if he lives in its natural habitat. He'll mostly ignore it, but if you can and by the tail, and you drop him in a cage and now he's like board. Lonesome, isolated rat and then given access to cocaine, he'll, just bar press forever forever he'll ignore water, food, sexual access, just bar press for cocaine and its because we better to do in a rat he's just a like you in solitary confinement, it's sort of you, but it's? U with no future deal with no past its you with your present. It's? U with no friend it's. No, if you with no community so sort of you, but it's a truncated and miserable version of you in and if there's cocaine in that sell, you might think Aren't you know if you put animals if you isolate animals and you set them up so that they can voluntarily give themselves electric shocks. If you

isolate them. They will do that just for two attainment. If you found this conversation meaningful, you might think about picking up dad's books, maps of meaning the architecture of belief where his newer best seller, twelve rules for life, an antidote to chaos. Both of these works does much deeper into the topics covered in the Jordan, be Petersen, podcast, siege, we Petersen dot com for audio emo context, links or pay the Bugsy favoured bookseller, remember to check out Jordan, be Petersen, dot com, slash personality for information on any new EU course tag. Jordan around and scams share your results from the discovery personality course. I really hope you enjoy this podcast talky next week,

follow me on my? U to channel Jordan, be Petersen on Twitter at Jordan, be Petersen on Facebook at Doktor, Jordan be Petersen and against a grandma Jordan Dog be DOT Petersen. Details on this show access to my blog information about my tour dates and other events and my list of recommended books can be found on my website. Jordan be Petersen, dork com, my online writing programmes designed to help people strayed note. There pasts understand themselves in the present and develop a sophisticated vision and strategy for the future can be found itself authoring, dot, com that self authoring, dot, com, from the west. Would one podcast network