Towards the Highest Good

This is brilliant, and also very funny, in places.

"I act as if God exists." But that's just Pascal's wager - it's a bet, a hedge. It does not strike me as an actual belief, but rather a "rational belief posture".

I'm with Sam Harris on this one!

The whole discussion, that took place in 2018, is much longer - over 8 hours longer.

But that was then, and much has changed for Peterson. Indeed, much has changed for many people, just not so manifestly in public.

The conversation then continued without a moderator in 2021.

Harris makes the valid claim that one cannot convince another person of an argument if they reject the method of proof. What I haven't seen is the fideist version of this: that one cannot show to a non-believer that a belief is valid when he rejects the validity of believing.

We are back to epistemology - a subject written about since the earliest writings that exist.

And yet, beyond the very difficult task of articulating words to achieve meaning, and especially to achieve some consensus from different premises, just watch the very last few minutes of the 2021 chat.

There are issues on which I disagree with both of them, but the aim is not to keep flying someone else's flag, but to create your own. As one video commenter says, this requires both rigour and compassion - and a large dose of brutal self-honesty.