In this video, Jordan Peterson explains the nature of consciousness. He shares that the left side of the brain dominates when things are working. When things aren’t working, it doesn’t know what to do so fantasy arises to hypothesize what this strange thing might be. And that is the realm of dreams that takes us into the unknown.
Dr. Oz asks Jordan Peterson why some people can see that partially known? Jordan Peterson says that those people live in they think more in dreams and images. Those are artists. They are the dreamers and we are captivated by them. Beyond the domain of rational thought is the domain of the dream. Jordan Peterson expresses that their artistry is vital. And if all you do is criticize the dream out of existence, all you’re left with is a nightmare.
Dr. Oz asks Jordan Peterson why some people can see that partially known? Jordan Peterson says that those people live in they think more in dreams and images. Those are artists. They are the dreamers and we are captivated by them. Beyond the domain of rational thought is the domain of the dream. Jordan Peterson expresses that their artistry is vital. And if all you do is criticize the dream out of existence, all you’re left with is a nightmare.
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00:00 So let's ask one of those big questions
00:02 It's perhaps the most important thing I've learned from you, which is the the nature of consciousness and very specifically
00:09 the possibility that we're all connected not in some
00:13 Paranormal way that you know people can poopoo away, but actually as a hard-nosed
00:19 I shouldn't say rationalist, but people who are comfortable in the rational world
00:25 There is something that must be linking us that is otherwise we fight otherwise we'd fight
00:31 But it also does it instinctively
00:33 Mm-hmm allows least our instincts to act on it and it's probably one of the reasons that so many of the people we have
00:38 Believed over the centuries that all humans have looked to for at least 12,000 years of civilized humanity
00:45 might explain where they got these ideas from that they could actually have these lucid dreams and visions of what true reality is
00:53 beneath the surface
00:55 Could you walk us through that because it's profound. Well, it requires focus, but it will change lives
01:01 Well, we don't really understand
01:06 How thought is generated, you know the experience is that?
01:11 Words or images just sort of manifest themselves in the theater of your imagination
01:16 You think I thought that up, but if you think about it, you think well
01:19 No, those words just appeared in my head sometimes and or sometimes it seems like I'm more the creator of them
01:26 You know, like when you're wrestling to write there's obviously intent there on your part. Where do those words come from?
01:32 Well the void it's like well, that's one explanation, but there's in it's a biological phenomenon thought and
01:40 We're in bodies and those bodies have evolved from
01:43 hundreds of millions of years
01:47 Scaffolding one system on top of the other the body manifests itself in these deep motivational systems that everyone shares that allow us to
01:55 Move forward and to feel joy and to feel terror and to be angry and to experience the basic
02:02 motivations of hunger and lust and thirst
02:04 That's all complex
02:07 biological scaffolding and then those manifest themselves in the tendency to represent patterns of action and that's
02:14 Fantasy and it's right hemisphere mediated to a large degree and that produces dreams and fantasies that turn into dramas
02:21 That turn into rituals and dramas and then narratives and then out of those narratives we abstract out
02:27 Explicit thought and that's the left hemisphere embedded in all of that. So that's left hemisphere
02:34 Right hemisphere surrounding it not then separate
02:37 Surrounding it. Yeah, and so the left dominates when things are working
02:43 And but when they're not working, well the explicit left doesn't know what to do
02:47 Well, then fantasy emerges to start to hypothesize about what this thing that is strange might be and that's the realm of dream
02:55 and all of that and so that's outside on the fringes of
02:58 Reality where the monsters are and that's all embedded into the instincts and the body
03:03 That's all necessary for thought so we have the rational world that we can look around see touch feel surrounded by dreams
03:11 Rather by dream that takes us to the unknown. Yeah, they bore it
03:15 It that's right. It fades out into the unknown just like your vision
03:18 The center of your vision is very sharp and precise and then it's less
03:22 High resolution as you move out and then it fades into blackness itself and not even blackness. It's the absence of blackness, right?
03:30 What's behind it? It's not black. It's just
03:32 Absolutely, not there in your visual perception and thought is like that. It's
03:37 So again perception is like that if the left brain is for example the hunter
03:41 Right, it grasps it holds. Mm-hmm. The right brain is the searcher the
03:47 In times of uncertainty, yes. Yes
03:50 It's the thing that mediates between the absolutely unknown and the and the absolutely known
03:55 There's a domain of partially known and that's the domain of dream. Why are some people able to see that?
04:02 Partial known they think more in dreams and images. That's part of it. That's artists
04:06 They're out there on the fringe. That's their niche the open people high and openness the personality trait. They're on the fringe
04:12 They're on the edges. That's why they're strange and
04:15 uncanny in some sense and you know
04:17 Lots of people especially those with a more conservative bent temperamentally speaking are suspicious of them because they're agents of unpredictable
04:24 transformation and therefore extremely dangerous but
04:28 Necessary right and most artists fail because most experiments fail and it's but some artists hyper succeed
04:34 So it's a strange niche. It's like you probably will fail
04:37 But if you succeed you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams
04:40 So if you look back in human history where there always some people maybe a lot of people who are able to go beyond always
04:46 Always those are the shaman for like who knows how many tens of thousands of years the mystics
04:53 Yeah, and how do you get a world that doesn't acknowledge that that's even possible?
04:57 That's just a hyper dominance of the rational only what we understand explicitly and propositionally is allowed to be true
05:05 It's like fine except you know, your theory is incomplete. It's going to fail. So then what do you do?
05:09 Well, we kill people to point that out. It's like, yeah, well, okay, but you know, it's not just the people that are pointing that out
05:17 It's that your stupid theory isn't right and it can't be it can never be complete
05:21 See, that's the thing about human beings is we we have incomplete theories
05:25 but we have to live and so we have incomplete theories that we sort of understand and we have
05:29 Complete theories that we don't understand and those are fantasies and dreams and even then in some sense
05:35 there's still in I'd be okay people acknowledge that but I find as a scientist as a doctor that we have a
05:41 Thought process that's pretty complete not not completely but you know enough there that we believe that's everything then we try to take faith
05:50 This concept you just described for example and put it into that same
05:54 Experimental box and then we ask questions of it that only would apply to a more traditional
05:59 Western minded scientific experiment and it fails. Mm-hmm, right you ask rational questions of what you're just describing
06:05 Which is a theory of how we connect to the unknown around?
06:09 Well part, you know part of that is you go to watch Pinocchio at a theater and someone says, you know, that's not real. It's like
06:17 Wrong time for that statement. Well, why well, I don't know you're bugging me. I'm watching the movie you're interfering with the movie
06:24 I'm doing something here. What are you doing?
06:26 I'm enjoying myself. Why?
06:28 Why don't know right?
06:31 You don't know neither did the people who made the movie
06:34 But that doesn't mean you're not doing something you're dreaming
06:38 If you don't dream you die, I mean literally that happens right you deprive people of dreams they die, but it's also true
06:46 Psychologically, it's true. Communally. It's true. Politically if we don't dream we die artists are the dreamers and
06:51 We're captivated by them musicians are dreamers. They walk us through a dream with their melodies. We love it. We need it
06:58 It's not optional. It's vital. It's it's vital
07:01 It's absolutely crucial and it is this issue of borders
07:05 Beyond the domain of rational thought is the domain of the fantasy in the dream and we're all ensconced in a dream to some degree
07:12 I mean the mysteries of Christianity so much of that is dream
07:15 You know and sort of like we woke up during the Enlightenment and went Oh
07:18 Rationally, we don't understand this at all. Look what we're doing. What the hell are we doing?
07:23 We're eating this wheat wafer and that's God and it's the word and somehow that's the resurrection and you know
07:29 And look at this guy up on the dome. That's the sky and what's up with this Cathedral?
07:33 And why do we have Christmas trees and it's like what the hell are we doing?
07:37 Well, we're walk we're living out a dream and we woke up a bit and thought hey, we're dreaming
07:41 Well, this doesn't seem sort of mystical and doesn't make sense. It's well
07:46 then the rational mind starts to criticize it out of existence and
07:49 While you're not going to criticize the if you criticize the dream out of existence, all you end up with is a nightmare
07:54 So that's what you'll replace the dream with is the nightmare
08:00 So look out so when people say I believe in the science. Yeah. Yeah
08:05 Thoughts on that comment that much no
08:10 Science isn't something to believe in
08:12 That's not science
08:15 Science and science in its pure form in some sense is supposed to be value-free
08:19 So it can't tell us about what to do
08:22 it's not even supposed to and when it tries to it becomes politics or worse religion and
08:26 Then when people manipulate the science because it's telling us what to do
08:30 Then people distrust the science and then the great that's how that's not good people trusted scientists mostly, you know
08:37 And that's because most scientists were pretty trustworthy. They were really committed to the truth in their narrow domain and
08:43 Stayed out of the political to the degree that that was possible. But now the universities they all insist
08:48 Everything is political. It's like oh, so are you gonna politicize God? Are you and maybe that's your goal?
08:55 You just keep mucking about and see what happens with that idea
09:00 So that is what we're going to find out because that is what we're doing. It's not wise
09:07 It's not wise there's the higher and the lower
09:09 And when the lower essence into the higher well all hell breaks loose and the nightmare reigns
09:15 No bad idea humility
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