Kind: captions
Language: en
if your goal is to be better at life
your first assumption going to be to
pursue happiness but that is a mistake
happiness is a result that cannot be
directly pursued it can only be born of
a set of behaviors coming anti-fragile
and pursuing truth and authenticity here
is controversial YouTuber author and
award-winning Professor gadsad with the
surprising path to happiness
so as you think about the the way to
orchestrate happiness one I think it's
important to define happiness if it
isn't the sort of passing uh momentary
happiness of eating a bowl of ice cream
or having good sex but those are
actually both parts of this thing what
is that cocktail of Truth and freedom is
that the only parts of the cocktail like
right so uh the the watching the porn
having the good sex eating the ice cream
then the juicy burger those are the
dopamine hits right they're tickling my
pleasure Center so they're they're
ephemeral their passing happiness in the
way that I'm using the term in the way
that most philosophers have written
about the topic would use the term is
through the serotonin system right I
mean I'm sitting on the proverbial cow
of porch when I'm 85 I'm looking back at
my life and I'm saying you know what
I've lived a good life
I've built a great marriage I have great
kids I've had a job that has given me
infinite purpose and meaning I've got an
incredible group of friends that I trust
so it is in that enduring sense
existential sense that I'm feeling
content in myself so eating the ice
cream is great it can give me a
momentary hit of dopamine rush but it
isn't what I mean by happiness
um
you want to talk a bit more about the
know thyself the the authenticity part
yeah that's a key part of this before we
do that though I wanna
so when I talk to people about happiness
which is always how people package the
question what I'm very careful to
migrate them to is don't worry about
happiness happiness to me is the
transient thing the what you're talking
about in the serotonin system I would
call fulfillment right now I think
fulfillment has a very knowable recipe
and I want to see if we agree on that or
if we have a convergence at the
definition level in which case I'll want
to get your specific definition so my
recipe for fulfillment which is I think
the neurochemical state that people long
for not just when they're 85 on the
porch but from moment to moment because
fulfillment to me is the thing that can
survive grief you can be fulfilled and
grieving at the same time you can't be
happy and grieving at the same time so
for me it's it's based on Evolution so I
know a secret about your future that I
won't rat you out here but you and I
share an obsession can I can I just say
what the context is you had asked uh
what was my next book possibly about and
I shared it with you which we won't
discuss yes so super intrigued
um I want people to understand that
Evolution has planted these what I'll
call biological algorithms in your brain
so there there are things compelling you
to act a certain way feel a certain way
all the time and so working hard is one
of those you can understand from an
evolutionary perspective why you would
need to work hard so you need to work
hard whatever you're doing you're going
to work hard to gain a set of skills
that allow you to serve not only
yourself but other people sure and as
long as it's a set of skills that you
find intrinsically interesting so that
your goal is exciting to you
um that to me is is the shortest recipe
I can think of for what actually leads
to the quote unquote good life right
does that feel accurate that that is
accurate I would
cover the up the other end of The
evolutionary story I have a section in
the book on the mismatch hypothesis
which is an evolutionary principle that
explains why in some cases we stray away
from happiness or mental health or
physical health because it's also
relevant to our existential happiness so
the mismatch hypothesis Tom is the idea
that
a behavior or a or a preference that
might have been adaptive in our
evolutionary past becomes maladaptive in
the Contemporary environment so the
classic example of that phenomenon would
be our gustatory preferences so we've
evolved the preference for fatty foods
now you and I might have different
preferences I might like juicy steak you
might like chocolate mousse but we
probably both prefer those two Foods or
sources than say raw broccoli or tofu
this is correct right and the reason for
that is very simple because your
ancestors and mine evolved in an
environment of caloric scarcity and
caloric uncertainty therefore it would
have made sense for them to have evolved
those preferences which are then passed
down in today's environment where there
isn't caloric uncertainty or caloric
scarcity then we get some of the biggest
Killers colon cancer and heart disease
and high blood pressure and diabetes
many of these are preventable based on
the types of foods that we eat so that's
an example of the miss match hypothesis
in evolutionary medicine but let's apply
it say to how we live our lives in terms
of social relationships we've evolved as
you've probably heard the the Dunbar
number is something that the evolution
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar talked about
that roughly we've evolved around 150
people around us in our evolutionary
past but then we have very tight
relationships with these concentric
groups of these 150 people social
relationships are the most important
thing to our happiness as a matter of
fact I'll come back to dunbar's number
in a second I quote in the book A the
main finding from 80 plus years of
research at Harvard
longitudinally tracking people the
number one factor that describes how
well you will feel later in life is the
quality of your Social relationships
even more so than your cholesterol
levels so don't worry about taking a
Statin to lower your LDL scores make
sure that you have two three four
friends that you really trust and love
and you can engage in reciprocal rituals
with right and so dunbar's number
expects us to have these tight bonds now
I could live in New York surrounded by 8
million people and yet I feel
unbelievably alone because I'm I'm not
instantiating any of those
tight reciprocal bonds so I am with 8
million people and yet I'm incredibly
lonely and so one of the ways by which
we can apply evolutionary principles to
happiness is seeing some of these
mismatches and how we can resolve that
mismatch so that we can be happier
yeah that's really interesting okay so
we know that we can become misaligned
but we also know that there are these
programs running in our mind uh one of
them so if we're going to use that
shared definition a big part of this is
you have to know what's exciting to you
so we come back to know thyself so
how do you come to know yourself and how
do you deal with things like where your
need because you and I are very
different I'm I am very much a uh
pleaser I'm not disagreeable at all I
would score very low on disagreeability
um
so how do you deal with when you have a
thing to be authentic to yourself you
have to constantly face that
when how do you come to recognize that
and how do you recognize the difference
between a thing that you should embrace
about yourself and something you should
try to change about yourself
those are big questions uh so let me
give you an example of this kind of Novi
self
perfectionism something that I
regrettably suffer from
so in one of the chapters of the book I
talk about uh everything in moderation
so The Sweet Spot which Aristotle had
spoken about more than 2000 years ago
when he argued that for example a
soldier who is too cowardly is not good
a soldier who's too reckless in his
courage is not good the best soldier is
the one who is somewhere in the middle
and so what I argue in that chapter is
everything in life amounts to finding
The Sweet Spot in that domain there is
no law of nature that is more ubiquitous
than the inverted you too little is not
good too much is not good the right
point is somewhere in the middle so
perfectionism for example if you're not
in the least bit perfectionist then
let's say you're an author then your
work will suffer because you don't have
any attention to details right you'll be
sloppy your references will be poorly
cited right if you are on the other end
of the curve where I lie which is when
you receive the galley proofs of your
book instead of rejoicing that you're in
the final step you go into a complete
full-blown panic attack because this is
the last time that I will have a chance
to pick up a typo or a comma that's out
of place I end up spending an inordinate
amount of time re-reading the book to
catch that typo well it would have made
a lot more sense pragmatically
to recognize that it's okay if there's a
typo and I could have spent those two
weeks doing something a lot more
productive that gives me a lot more bank
for my buck well but I had to I have to
have the humility and the introspection
to be able to say I suffer from
perfectionism what can I do to change it
so the old cliche is you know you the
first step is to recognize that you have
a problem and you could only do that if
you're truly humble within yourself same
thing when I you know lost a lot of
weight I could have I could have jumped
on the lizzo bandwagon and said you are
healthy at any size or I could have
listened to my physician and to myself
and to the mirror that said to me you
need to lose weight people don't live to
be a hundred if they are 50 60 70 pounds
overweight so it takes honesty and takes
introspection it takes uh authenticity
it takes humility put it all together
hopefully you make the necessary changes
it's interesting so one thing I think a
lot about is what I call frame of
reference so
frame of reference the easiest way for
me to explain it is it is the distorted
lens through which you view the world
there is no such thing as seeing
objective reality uh I think that we we
live in a simulation in a metaphorical
sense but it borders on literal because
your brain is encased in total darkness
light never reaches your eyes colors
don't exist objectively they exist only
in the simulation where you're taking
photons of a certain wavelength and you
for whatever evolutionary reason our
eyes have chosen to interpret that as
certain colors and but they don't really
exist and so once that reality sinks in
for people and you realize everything
your every intake the way that you frame
the world see it all of it it is your
brain's
trying to deal with the overwhelming
amount of complexity and so it
simplifies it into a useful fashion but
it is by nature a distortion and so once
you realize okay everything that my
brain is doing is is a distorted version
of what's really there
and it's being distorted by my beliefs
and my values and my beliefs are
actually a choice that hopefully are
grounded in reality but not always right
and once you realize okay I can begin to
shape my frame of reference now not
unhinge it from reality because you want
to be as predictively accurate as
possible but you're going to build that
frame of reference and when you take
over that process you realize I get to
choose the things that I care about I
get to choose the things that I believe
about myself and then that is going to
play out in whether or not something is
fulfilling or it makes you happy because
if it's in alignment with your values so
I'll go back to
you you prize authenticity in a way that
I'm sure a lot of people don't because
someone may equally prize getting along
yes like it's better to get along and to
be a bit more of a chameleon and and be
able to justify that
um so how do you help people navigate
that like are there ways I struggle with
this sort of no problem by all means uh
I strong struggle with this when I go
after someone on social media I by the
way when I say go after I don't go after
them personally I go after a position
that they've taken
I I don't wish ill on on anyone and
sometimes it seems as though it's I'm
being personal but I really am I don't I
don't try to frivolously insult but if
you say something insane and I think
that you know this is really dangerously
wrong then I will weigh in well I've
known some people that I've
hesitated to go after because I had
multiple uh codes of conduct that were
pulling me in opposing directions so to
your point about how do you navigate
this so on the one hand
there's a Code of Conduct of you know
you always defend the truth no matter
what it's a deontological uh statement
they are absolute truths absolute
principles that are inviable that should
never be violated okay versus so that's
comparing deontological versus
consequentialist consequentials would be
it's okay to lie if I'm sparing your
feelings deontological would be it's
never okay to lie for most things we are
always operating in consequentialist
World it makes sense but for certain
things freedom of speech presumption of
innocence uh journalistic Integrity
those should be deontological principles
and so I've struggled at times where
someone that I know personally and
therefore there's a different code of
conduct I've had dinner with you I've
been to your home and therefore the
Middle Eastern honor and shame culture
kicks in that I don't want to embarrass
you publicly now I'm struggling do I go
after this person
they are a friend
but they're saying some real
and so usually what happens is I will
bite my tongue until the authenticity
the anthological thing uh supersedes the
being nice to someone that I know so
it's a struggle we all have but at least
the fact that I am introspecting about
what to do is the right approach right
that means I'm struggling with a real
conundrum and so if you don't have the
capacity to take for example a
narcissist a truly malignant narcissist
they can't do the calculus that I just
engaged in right so a narcissist will
say uh I never make mistakes I don't
need to ever apologize I've had
narcissists in my nuclear family
well it's very difficult to have a
healthy relationship if you Proclaim as
a universal statement I never make
mistakes I never need to apologize we
all make mistakes I apologize to my dog
if she greets me at the door and I don't
give her the proper attention because
I'm caught up in my thoughts I'll go
back and say I'm sorry right I'm humble
enough to apologize to my dog so there
is no magic recipe other than having the
humility and introspective capability to
navigate through these conundrums
okay so
um as we try to navigate those
you're breaking things into the the two
camps the sort of never do's and the
conditionally dues
how does one do that well so let's take
truth and freedom which are
I think two very important things
because I have a North star of human
flourishing and so everything that I do
I'm trying to aim it towards what
improves human flourishing for the
largest number of people what decreases
human suffering
but most people don't have a North star
they've never thought about it right um
so do you have like a set of principles
that you've knowingly walked through
that people will need to walk through in
order to be happy like do you have
things that you're like these are the
things that are inviable as relating to
the deontological versus yeah everybody
so if you think about this your book
feels like an instruction manual so if I
think about your book as an instruction
manual and I think about okay you have
to be the architect of your happiness
and you have to do the work then I want
to get really specific about what that
work is so first to me is what's your
North Star right and then it's okay what
are the things that if you don't do you
will inevitably violate that North Star
so I'll give one which the thing I find
myself thinking about more and more is
right now freedom of speech is coming
under attack and when I think about my
North Star is human flourishing I don't
think you can get there without freedom
of speech I couldn't agree more right I
mean freedom of speech is everything I
mean it true truly is now I say this
both as someone who comes from the
Middle East where that's not an
enshrined Universal value right it
freedom of speech in the Middle East as
has been throughout the entire history
of The Human Condition is really a
consequential thing yes you have freedom
of speech but don't criticize religion X
yes you have freedom of speech but don't
criticize dictator why yes you have
right and that's why I get upset by the
way when I see contemporary public
intellectuals exactly committing those
types of
deep moral transgressions right
yes I believe in freedom of speech fully
but surely not for the orange Himmler
Donald Trump yes I believe Orange right
yes I believe in the presumption of
innocence principle in American Jewish
Prudence but certainly not for gang
rapist Brett Kavanaugh sure there is no
real evidence that he did any of those
things but we can't take a risk with
this guy and so let's presume that he is
guilty because after all it's only a job
interview right sure I believe in
journalistic Integrity but it was
perfectly fine to suppress the hunter
Biden story because otherwise orange
Himmler would have become president so
you see how in each of those three
examples that I just gave it there's a
deontological principle that you should
always adhere to but somehow because
you've suddenly become a political
tribal person you're now willing to
violate using a consequentialist uh
calculus this is wrong and that's by the
way one of the reasons why when I've
gone after some of the folks that we
might know in common uh I really did it
advisedly because at first I thought you
know I don't want to burn a bridge with
this person they're a nice person I went
after another person recently by the way
uh
in a contrary to pragmatic calculus let
me explain there's this gentleman who
has a very large show not Joe Rogan
level but one that I certainly would
have uh wanted to get on given that I am
trying to promote my book so now there
is this tug this pragmatic tug on the
other hand this gentleman is peddling
some full positivity that's
really pissing me off
so am I going to be quiet and pragmatic
so that I can get on his show and sell a
couple of thousand extra copies or am I
going to be authentic and say cut it out
guess which one I chose cut it out cut
it out and but again then I not I regret
it after but because I sometimes go
after people in a uniquely God Style
they they then get offended but my
purpose was never to offend them
individually it's that I'm attacking
their position with satire with satire
and that can be quite Punchy right so
Neil deGrasse Tyson I'll mention his
name since I don't know him personally
uh although the full positive the UI I
also don't know personally uh Neil
deGrasse Tyson have you seen his recent
famous clip where he so he's a physicist
so I've had him on the show okay yeah
but you don't I haven't seen the recent
thing but he basically said look it's
very clear gender is on a spectrum and
I'm paraphrasing I don't remember the
exact words but you could go look it up
I just did a sad truth satire on this
whole thing where he says look today I
wake up and I feel 80 percent male and
then I might put on some makeup and then
I'm now more female right so already
he's saying something insane which is
your your mask you know your maleness or
femaleness is defined by the Clement
that you wear and so I said okay well
let how can I attack such a ridiculous
thing through satire so what I did is
here's the usually if you hear the
following words in the sad household you
know trouble is coming up I call my my
daughter and I say bring the Halloween
wigs when I when I make that when I give
that instruction you know there's going
to be troubles and so I take I took all
the wigs I looked at the camera and said
look I completely agree with Neil
deGrasse Tyson because he's super smart
because he's a physicist and so look now
I am a hundred percent male I am the
epitome of manhood and now watch how I'm
going to transition into female as I
wear different wigs of different lengths
different colors and then I put lipstick
either 25 of my lips 50 75 or 100 and so
I literally took Verbatim what he said
and mocked it into Oblivion and it went
viral now I didn't do that because I'm a
mean guy who is trying to hurt Neil
deGrasse Tyson's feelings but Neil
deGrasse Tyson has an obligation he's a
public intellectual who has a large
platform
if you're going to go and use your
scientific in premature to say it is
settled gender is on a spectrum I'm
coming after you that's called
authenticity so now we get into another
part of your book which I think is
really important which which is variety
now you will and I'm sure we'll talk
more about other areas but one of the
areas you say variety becomes important
is intellectual oh yes and so this is
and the person one of the people I think
you were making oblique reference to
that I'll I'll drag into the light here
uh with truly with love is Sam Harris
yes so I recently had him on the show
and I disagree with Sam around freedom
of speech very much but I think the way
that people are dismissing him is a
mistake and so the reason I think that
is because he's grappling with a problem
again I think he's come to the wrong
conclusion but he's grappling with a
real problem and I want because of
epistemic humility my absolute just
pervasive not only fear that I'm wrong I
know I am frequently wrong right and so
I want challenges to my ideas which you
also talk about in the book again guys
this is a book about happiness but
you're you're really giving a um a value
stack that I think is critical for
people to work through in their own
lives in order to actually make this
real
you're talking about people really do
have to understand you you have to want
to be challenged that's going to be the
thing that makes you stronger you have
to want intellectual even Variety in
your life and so
where this gets very difficult I think
Sam is being authentic so for him to
look himself in the mirror even though
from the outside I look at and go send
this a wrong conclusion not only is it
wrong it's dangerous but he's on the
opposite side of that intuition saying
Tom not only have you come to the wrong
conclusion but it's dangerous and so the
problem he's dealing with I think these
are not his words this is my
interpretation what he's dealing with is
the realities of a world driven by
algorithm where ideas have Extreme
Velocity right and they're all crushed
down into memes so there's no more depth
there's no more Nuance it's headline
that is fed to you algorithmically so
you're being manipulated and you don't
even know it and the idea is coming you
so fast right that even if you're smart
you're not going to be able to hold a
nuanced position on that thing you don't
have time to think through all of the
ideas and so in grappling with that
again I don't agree with his conclusion
but I really think he's approaching the
problem sincerely
I do think that he's authentic so
contrary to the full positivity guy who
I think is is putting on kind of I think
I know who you're talking about but I
don't know him right I don't know him
either personally it it almost can't be
that a functioning adult can spew some
of the vacuous platitudes that he puts
out on his Twitter feed it's impossible
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we can conquer War through love oh geez
if if only the Nazis had been more
loving than we wouldn't have had it you
know okay that's ridiculous I admit but
here you have to Anchor to something
yeah right so for instance when I had
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the show he said
uh I don't think I'm right for your show
and I was like well why and he was like
you're trying to bend everything to
empowerment and I was like these are not
the actual words he used but this is the
punchline and he was right and so but
I'm not being fake but at the same time
it forced the interview into an angle so
I think
look we're talking about Lex Friedman
yes I think okay yes so uh do not know
him have never met him
do I think that he owns a position that
puts him into at times he's being silly
and naive but I fall into the same
bucket of trying to make things like you
can take control and you can find your
way out so I understand how I'm just as
guilty of something so if I look at my
own behavior I'm like what am I trying
to do I'm trying to Anchor my life I
need a way to think about the world I
need a way to organize the complexity so
just as my eyes don't go there's 17 000
photons in this wavelength bouncing off
of that quarter inch of thing it just
goes that's gray that's blue right right
and so ah now I can deal with the world
he we all need an orienting mechanism
yeah now
if all of us go there's limitations to
my orienting mechanism and I have to
distrust myself then you probably are in
better shape
and
I I will speak for myself if you made
fun of one of my ideas through
um satire one I'd be like I made it and
then two I'd be like it does Sting man I
won't lie yeah but at the same time it's
kind of how I think about Dave Chappelle
when he makes fun of white people right
I'm like Dave Chappelle is one of the
most insightful people I've ever seen in
my life never met him but oh dear God do
I think that we need him and so I'm like
word like I I
find it funny but that's what
anti-fragility is right I mean yes
Naseem tave was the guy who kind of
popularized that term but the concept of
anti-fragility exists since the time of
certainly Seneca so I have a in one of
the chapters of the happiness book I
have an epigraph from Seneca where he
basically argues that strong trees are
pers and that have deep roots are
precisely those that have been exposed
to severe wind stressors that that
that's why they then become non-brittle
trees that haven't been exposed to wind
stressors then break off very easily
well of course that anti-fragility
concept squeaky doors don't break that
which doesn't kill you makes you
stronger that those Concepts those
maxims apply to your ideas being
scrutinized right so for example when I
went after uh Sam Harris's ideas or when
I go after the full positivity of Lex
Friedman a in my view someone with
testicular attitude would basically say
hey God love that why don't you come on
my show and let's hash it out or hey why
don't I come on your show because right
there there has never been a context
where I've said something and that I
wasn't willing to stand by it because
for better or worse when I say something
good luck to you if you want to debate
me on it because I I just like you I
have epistemic humility I'm very
modulated about what I know and what I
don't know when I know something I walk
with the Swagger of someone who knows it
but there's a million things that I know
almost nothing about so if you ask me
what has been the repercussions of the
legalization of marijuana in Canada you
know you're Canadian what what do you
think you know what Tom I I know very
little about this I'm not going to try
to wing it I simply don't know enough to
offer you an intelligent answer but if
you take the positions that some of
these gentlemen or other gentlemen have
taken in the public sphere then expect
guys like me to say I'm calling you out
on it now a someone with strength with a
spine says let's hash it out but then
when you block me and all this kind of
stuff people thought oh I'm hurt I don't
care if you block me or not what it does
to me it's it's a dishonorable act it
comes from my middle eastern background
perhaps right you don't block you fight
and fight not physically right you fight
the ideas and so and go back to
happiness the reason why uh people say
you know you always seem to be you know
twinkle in your eye you always want
because I'm confident within my
personhood there are no fissures in in
God so even though I'm not a tall person
I walk as though I'm 15 feet tall why
because I exactly don't have to remember
73 stories there's only one story I
remember it's called the truth and so
that's why I think truth and freedom are
so fundamental not just as an
existential philosophical thing but to
my flourishing to my happiness to why
I'm smiling all the time because I have
a non-fractured personhood that's really
really important okay so here's a truth
and freedom which we're not on my list
of things to talk about I think are
going to become very important as we
March forward so uh here's my fear
truth is slippery it's actually
surprisingly difficult to Define and to
agree on what is true
and I sounded like a post-modern issue
yeah so follow me so this is where it's
um grabbing a hold of
when people identify the wrong answer to
a hard problem it's still worth going
are they well-meaning people now if
they're not well-intentioned people okay
now we we have to address that thing and
I think
post-modernists don't make sense to me
until I think about the will to power
once I frame them with Will To Power
then I understand them and I use a
mental exercise so my background is
filmmaking so I often think as a writer
and I think okay what would I for this
character to act this way what would
need to be true about their backstory or
their motivations when when I write them
from the perspective of this is somebody
with who's deeply insecure and they have
a Will To Power suddenly click
everything makes sense and I can predict
their behaviors so that one I'll set
aside but I will say that the I get how
they end up stacking that argument up
and I get how a potentially well-meaning
person ends up there especially with the
complexities of The Human Experience
where it's like you do want to be cool
and you do want to rise up the ranks and
you may not even put words to Oh the way
for me to climb up the hierarchy is by
playing this linguistic or laying a
linguistic trap that I know people will
walk into and now I can LeapFrog them
and you really don't think about the
second and third order consequences of
what happens to a society when you do
that and even if you do you probably
think that you're one of the prison
guards instead of the prisoners uh and
so that's his embardo reference I don't
know who that is no that was a um oh
prisoner prisoner so there was a famous
experiment in the 70s conducted by a
Stanford Professor oh yeah where he was
studying obedience to to expected nerves
and so half the students were placed as
Corrections Officers the other were
placed as prisoners and then what ended
up happening is that the the officers
assume their roles so you know uh
assiduously that he had to end the
experiment so I thought that's what you
were referring to no it's unfortunately
referring to the gulag archipelago by
Alexander Soldier knitson
um that so that that book changed me
fundamentally you can actually track in
the timeline of guests that I bring on
and questions that I ask you can see the
demarcation point of having read that
book wow because it was like oh
people end up as the guards they don't
end up as the person hiding
um Anne Frank in the Attic right so it's
like yikes that was a terrifying
realization about how easy it would be
for me to just like not want to be
tortured so I do the torturing who which
is why my opening question about facing
that so anyway back to truth so you have
this thing uh I think it is difficult to
Define I think it it is very hard so as
if if truth and freedom are gonna you
can't get to a euda monic state
where it it's fulfillment it's a depth
of thing about living the good life
without defining those right how how did
you define it so it depends if if you're
talking in the scientific context not in
the happiness context which is in the
for the current book so I do actually
have a chapter in my last book The
parasitic mind titled how to seek truth
I mean literally that's the title and
there there's a distinction between two
types of truths there are axiomatic
truths those are mathematical truths
right
so there's a mathematical property and
within the closed system of that
mathematical system something is true or
false right so mathematical logic
operates using truth and false
statements okay
how about empirical truths right so how
do we know when is it that we've
acquired enough
empirical evidence to say that something
appears to be true even though even
there it is provisionally true because
in science we always talk about
provisional truth if in 300 years you
falsify the position that we held to be
true for 300 years then it's back to the
drawing board okay and so in the so this
is in the parasitic mind not in the
happiness book uh I talk about the
building of normal logical networks of
cumulative evidence which is logical yes
nomological exactly so it's
it's where you are creating
triangulation of evidence stemming from
many different distinct lines of
evidence which then demonstrates that
your position is unassailable this
sounds very uh abstract so let me give
it with this concrete example
let's suppose I wanted to prove to you
Tom that the sex specificity of toy
preferences is universal it's not a
social construction typically social
scientists view Toy preferences as a
social construction mommy and daddy
teach Johnny to play with the blue truck
they teach Linda to play with the pink
Barbie in light of the current movie and
that's what starts us on a Cascade of
gender role specialization okay the the
opposite Viewpoint is that these toy
preferences are actually Universal for
specific biological and evolutionary
reasons so if I wanted to prove to you
that it is not social construction how
would I go about doing that so I'm going
to build you now in front of your
audience a normal logical network of
cumulative evidence that's going to make
it very difficult for you to argue away
from that position okay I'm Gonna Get
You data
from around the world very very
different cultures that show that people
with radically different environments
adhere to those sex-specific toy
preferences now that's already pretty
compelling but I'm not going to stop
there I'm Gonna Get You data from
developmental psychology whereby I take
children who are too young to be
socialized by definition in other words
they haven't yet reached the cognitive
developmental stage to learn and I could
show you that they already exhibit the
penchant for either
trucks or dolls now already there I'm
putting the epistemological Noose around
your neck but I'm not going to stop
there the normal logical network is
going to be much bigger it's going to be
a tsunami that's going to hit you I'm
going to get you data from comparative
psychology comparative psychology is
where you demonstrate the universality
of a phenomenon across different species
what if I get you data from vervet
monkeys from rhesus monkeys and from
chimpanzees that shows that they exhibit
the same sex specific toy preferences
that human infants do so now let's step
back I've gotten your data from across
cultures from across species from
developmental psychology but I'm not
going to stop there how about I get you
data from 2 000 years ago we're on
mausoleums in ancient Greece and ancient
Rome little boys and girls were shown
playing with exactly the same sex
specific toy preferences we have today
now I'm showing you that it's across
time
not not satisfied yet how about I hit
you with Pediatric Endocrinology little
girls who suffer from congenital adrenal
hyperplasia which is a endocrinological
disorder that maximizes their behavior
what do you think happens to their toy
preferences they become like those of
little boys so now I've got the new data
from Pediatrics and medicine so you see
how I'm hitting you with different lines
of evidence I'm building a normal
logical Network and it's going to be
very hard for you to argue away that's
what allows me to walk into a room of
400 social scientists imbeciles and to
be able to talk with this Swagger
because I've done my homework on the
other hand you ask me about legalization
of marijuana what do I say
I haven't built a normal logical Network
for that I don't know enough about that
Tom so you got me there I don't wing it
I don't fake it I don't pretend that I'm
the professor who's all-knowing I know
what I know and I know what I don't know
Confucius said that already so that
epistemic humility in a sense in a in a
circuitous way allows me to be happy in
a philosophical sense because I'm never
questioning what I said yesterday or
tomorrow I'm very authentic I present
myself to the world take it or leave it
wow that was a very compelling argument
and helps
um myself and anybody trying to
understand how you end up building that
web of Truth now there's another thing
so I will routinely make my expert
guests deeply uncomfortable uh by asking
them questions that they that are
outside their field and of course their
initial answer is uh marijuana I don't
know about that sorry I can't give you
any data but what I'm always curious in
is how people approach novel problems so
I used to teach a business class
um called business decision making worst
name ever my fault I chose it you know
that my doctoral dissertation is in
psychology of decision on a course I
know that come on go ahead uh no I'm so
fascinated by your background uh I know
it well
um so that class the that was me trying
to work backwards to what has made me a
successful entrepreneur and the answer
wasn't that I was the best copywriter it
wasn't that I was the best salesperson
it wasn't that I was the best at
organizing things it was that I
understand how to solve novel problems
so not just problems that I've never
seen before problems nobody's ever seen
before so how do you approach that how
do you think through it now that does
not mean that I always make the right
decision I absolutely do not but part of
my process is understanding how to learn
from mistakes something I call the
physics of progress but how do you so
you get nomological we we've got
unlocked that was incredible
now what do you do when you approach a
problem you've never seen before no
one's ever seen before but it still has
to be dealt with phenomenal question it
speaks to something that you mentioned
earlier but then we skipped by it when
you talked about intellectual variety
thing so when I so I have a chapter on
variety seeking I talk about food
variety seeking sexual variety seeking
we'll talk about it yeah exercise
variety seeking and probably probably
the the section that I spent the most
time on was intellectual variety seeking
and I'm going to come to your question
about the novel situations
so there I contrast the specialist to
the generalist the idea is so let's say
in Academia and we talked about this
briefly before we we came on I came on
the show
Academia rewards hyper Specialists you
stay in your lane you you know a lot
about a very very small problem don't
ever step out of the lane but the truly
biggest thinkers are exactly those that
violate that tenet are the ones who are
polymaths in their core being and so one
of the things that I talk about in that
section
I have this exercise of who are the 10
historical figures that you'd like to
have dinner with if you could bring them
and I list all mine and why and the
number one guy the guy that I would most
want uh I don't obviously know what his
personality would be like but based on
what he presented to the world is
Leonardo Da Vinci because Leonardo da
Vinci is the ultimate generalist he's he
is a painter
crate Renown he's an anatomist he's a
futurist he's an engineer he's a
scientist so he's he's wearing many hats
and so I don't think you can solve some
of the most important novel problems if
they're not at the cusp of
interdisciplinarity the mapping of the
human genome required experts in many
many different fields putting their
brains together as a Supra brain and
it's that that the multitude the buffet
of expertise that allowed us to crack
the human genome so in my own academic
career I've to a fault violated the stay
in your lane tenant because I've had
universities some of them very
prestigious universities who were quite
keen on hiring me and then the thing
that ended it other than me being rather
irreverent and rather not gentle spoken
is the fact that they said your CV is
all over the place you don't seem to
have a unifying you know area of
research well actually that's wrong
because what is usually unifying across
all my various studies is the
evolutionary lens now it is true that
I've published in medicine in politics
in advertising in decision making in
bibliometrics but typically for each of
those various disciplines I'm infusing
some evolutionary angle so they thought
of it as scattered I think of it as you
know the ultimate polymath generalist
and so I don't think you can really
crack some of those novel problems if
you don't have here's another term
you're going to like if you don't have a
consilient synthetic way of thinking
consilience is a term that was
reintroduced into the Lexicon by E.O
Wilson who's the Harvard biologist who
recently passed away a great book by the
way I recommend for all your readers to
read it after they buy the sad truth
about happiness the book is called
consilience colon Unity of knowledge
consilience basically means
well exactly that Unity of knowledge so
physics is more concilient than
sociology not because physicists are
smarter than sociologists but it's
because physicists have a tree of
knowledge that is coherent they all
agree on some fundamentals whereas in
sociology we can't agree on what's man
or woman then there's going to be very
quickly a bifurcation in our World Views
if we can't agree on that fundamental
fact so having a conciliant mindset
being a generalist in my view are
probably the best ways to crack novel
problems wow okay
uh that's really interesting you're
right that I love that consilience idea
I had not thought about that you've also
introduced I think one of the things
that maybe I find most uneasy about the
fact that there's this Bedrock thing
that my generation grew up you just it I
didn't even think about it it was the
the most obvious bifurcation was men and
women and there were so many things and
so uh boys and girls one thing that will
lead to happiness I'll be very curious
to see if you disagree with this
um is your ability to predict the future
accurately and I think our brains are a
prediction engine that's what makes it
so valuable that's what it's optimized
for and whether that's predicting
movement maybe that's how it all started
but certainly it's it's predictive
abilities go way beyond that the thing
that you have said is most important
there are two things in your book you
say marriage getting your spouse right
and then getting your work right yes and
if you get your the main love of your
life and your career if you do those
well then then you're golden
and to that point the reason I'm very
uneasy about the world not being able to
agree on what a man and woman is is that
I've been married for 21 years it is by
far the greatest joy of my life and I'm
talking I've made a lot of money
and I'm just here to tell you as
powerful as money is it will not bring
to your life what a thriving marriage in
a million years so
my wife becomes predictable to me when I
think of her in classic feminine ways
and she becomes unpredictable to me when
I think she's like me
and at the beginning of our marriage it
was very confusing because I didn't
think about it so I just assumed that
she was like me so I did not have the
consilience is that the word of
knowledge at the time and was blind to
the fact that I didn't have that and so
there was so much friction and a lot of
that friction has worked out over time
by literally spending research hours on
what are the differences between men and
women right and as the two of us did
that we were like oh my God that's why
you act like that and it just became so
much easier to deal with so there's a
famous uh scene in King of Queens I
don't know if you remember do you
remember that that sitcom never watched
it but I know it it's it's basically
kind of this uh affable uh blue-collar
guy Kevin James he's married to Leah
Remini yes uh is that the remedy is that
former Scientologist I don't know that's
right that's how it said and uh they're
having a fight because his
um
she has a friend or he I don't know I
don't know these have details but
there's this Chef he's a portly fellow
he likes to eat a lot there's this uh
friend who's a chef who's cooking him
all these meals so he's chatting with
her on the phone uh she's cooking her
meals at work whatever it is this is the
friend uh Leah Remini
whichever yeah uh gets jealous and
they're now fighting about the fact that
uh he says but you know I'm not having
sex with her I'm not being unfaithful to
you and she she says of course you are
being unfaithful to me so now they have
a big fight as to what constitutes
infidelity now let me bring bring
evolutionary psychology into this
because as I watched that episode I
could literally link every word that's
mentioned from the script writers to a
fundamental evolutionary principle I
discussed this actually in my 2011 book
The consuming Instinct so
there's great studies that show that men
and women to your point about
understanding these differences are
equally romantically jealous so it's not
that men are more jealous than women or
vice versa
but here is the evolutionary Insight the
trigger
is different for men and women there are
two types of infidelities there's sexual
infidelity and there is emotional
infidelity so if I bring in people into
the lab and by the way the study that
I'm describing was done by David Buss
and his colleagues who's a pioneer of
evolution psychology and a good friend
of mine who actually wrote the preface
of the consuming Instinct uh you bring
in people into the lab and you actually
put physiological measures on them so
that you know that it's an autonomic
response that you're measuring it's not
that they are you know altering their
answer to for impression management or
whatever so you can do skin conductivity
thing you can do heart you know blood
pressure you can do it's all kinds of
ways you can measure autonomic responses
and now I'm going to read you one of two
vignettes about your partner your
husband or wife uh let's do both
irrespective of whether it's for a man
or a woman yeah you're sitting right
here in the lab Tom your wife is having
some really juicy sex with the super
sexy Greek Gardener mull that in your
little head for a while now let's see
the stress level or hey Tom so now this
is the emotional infidelity hey your
your wife uh goes to lunch with her
caught with his her colleague who's this
really fun affable guy they joke around
they talk about their shared values so
it's emotional absolutely no sex guess
what happens to the the difference
between men and women men respond much
more harshly when cued with sexual
infidelity women respond much more
harshly with emotional infidelity so
crazy to me that is why I am The
Godfather okay so now why is that what's
the evolutionary reason the greatest
threat to a man's evolutionary interest
is paternity uncertainty therefore the
thought of my wife going with another
man and we're a biparental species I
don't like the idea of being called it
therefore I've evolved the emotional
cognitive and Behavioral Systems to
really respond harshly
to sexual territoriality infractions on
the other hand for women not that they
are terribly pleased if you cheat on
them sexually but they're more
displeased if you cheat on them
emotionally because that is a greater
predictor you mentioned earlier I want
to predict that is a greater predictor
of the likelihood of your man packing
his bags and leaving either literally or
metaphorically okay and therefore
that's why by the way when a man often
cheats on a woman and now he's trying to
assuage her anger what does he say
whether right it meant nothing exactly
it meant nothing I don't even remember
her name I'll never see her again why
because he is assuaging the fact this is
not a repeat thing there's no chance
there could ever be any emotional
entanglement involved here so this gives
you an example number one of the value
of evolutionary psychology
and the value of something as practical
as why men and women so often speak in
completely non-intersecting ways because
we're not using theory of mind with the
other sex right so for example when men
send if you forgive the term dick pics
to women they are exactly engaging in a
violation of theory of mind because what
are they doing they're saying I get
titillated by visual stimuli therefore
it must be the case that women art
titillated in exactly the same way guess
what Einstein they're not do you know
how badly I want my wife to want me to
send her dick pics it's so I feel dumb
because I know that she doesn't but I
can't help wanting her to want me to do
it I know better so I don't but like
yeah I get it I get it so that by the
way when I lecture to my university
students about you know first class you
know why am I going to teach this whole
course using an evolutionary lens
I usually will come up with a few of
these examples like they're all young
people that have boyfriends and
girlfriends that where they get jealous
and so that's how I grip them because I
explain to them that it's not
understanding evolutionary theory it's
not some you know uh highfal