what yeah so uh we're live i'm with alex again how's it going alex uh it's pretty good how are you i'm doing well yeah i had a busy day uh i did a stream and then i went to uh vaccine passport protest here in montreal and then i came home and i edited your stream last night oh you did it for me for me it was last night it was like i stayed up until like 2 a.m i watched like maybe i don't know how long it went for i watched some of it okay okay i forgot i forgot about the timezone thing yeah yeah you're in the morning uh hold on are you in the morning now 10 am yeah yeah it's 10 for me now i got up at eight so cool yeah we're doing good that's good so you got a the full day ahead of you so let's jump right in because i don't have a lot of time i'm gonna do maybe an hour tonight um so let's jump right into the topics that interest you most have you thought about what we said last time and maybe some areas you wanted to explore or some new maybe some new topics that pertain to philosophy religion theology whatever it's up to you yeah so so um i did just write down this like little thing it was basically how i think like the reasonable proof to reach christianity okay it's like first you have to demonstrate that a god exists yes then that it's yahweh then jesus was real and was the child of god or was god i don't really understand the relationship there and then for any denomination you have to demonstrate that yours is the correct one you can use the bible if you've already demonstrated all the other three um i say i say that you cannot use the bible unless you have a religion that is infallible because uh it's the church that gave us the bible and you can't get an infallible product from a fallible source so that's why i'm catholic because i believe and this is what the church teaches that the church is divine it's partly divine partly human just like jesus christ it's an extension of the incarnation so the god man is perfect and he's infallible and he gave his church some of his infallibility he protects the church from teaching error concerning faith and morals when it's done in very particular way and so the church is able when it meets in ecumenical councils for example that's not the only way but that's the main way where uh infallible uh truths can be discovered and one of those truths is the canon of scripture so the protestants don't have that they just say well it's self-evident look look it says right in the bible that it's uh you know that it is what it is well i could write a book right now that tells hey this book is infallible god spoke to me and you know all the arguments that the atheists use against any christian the catholics can use um sorry oh um you should pause while you slowly convert to catholicism we'll give you all the time you need no i'm i'm good thank you um so i i wrote a little deductive argument that i consider an argument against the christian god okay um i wonder what you think of it i've heard of it before but i haven't heard of it having a name so it's unnamed um essentially it is premise one the christian god if he exists would want me to know of his existence yes i agree okay that's great the create premise to the christian god who is presumably all-knowing um would then know what would be necessary to alert me of his existence yes okay premise three sufficient evidence is not yet presented to alert me of his existence i disagree okay but i am not alerted to his existence well i am not convinced i'm not even convinced that being convinced is in and of itself a choice i mean either something makes sense to you or it doesn't right i don't know it's a bit of a word salad but yeah yeah the the thing is that you can you can go on the internet and google difficult riddles for children or whatever right and you can you can sort them from easiest to hardest and you can start with the easy ones it's like this is not difficult and you can go your way through the list and then you can get to one where it's like wow this this is for children are you sure like i mean i okay for you you're only 16 i'm 51. so it'd be more embarrassing in my case because like i mean these are for children and i'm stumbling on number 38 of 100. so um at that point what you do is you say well i can't figure it out quickly and easily like i did with all the other 37 that i just went through this top 100 list so what i'm going to have to do if i choose to i've got other things to do right but if i choose to i could give this one just a little bit more effort like maybe uh after i've eaten dinner and i'm less stressed out from work and i'm more relaxed put some music on get comfortable and i'll really give it a good thinking through okay and then that gets me through the next 20 and then i'm on number 59 and this one really stumps me for weeks and i just say look i'm gonna need to get out of pencil and paper and work this out so there are different ways of um being convinced of something or figuring something out sometimes it's almost self-evident too easy boring sometimes it's a little bit challenging you have to make time to think it through and sometimes you really need to draw on some resources maybe maybe get a hint or a cheat like i've played some video games and uh often you know it's easy for you know maybe a young person to figure out the puzzle but for me i just can't figure it out so i'll go and look on a cheat online and uh or a hint you know spoiler or whatever you want to call it so they're different scenarios like in terms of like how much effort you're going to put into solving the quote-unquote mystery or the puzzle or the riddle right do you agree with that yep it's there's the old maxim where there's a will there's a way so i'm married and sometimes uh my wife has a problem and she's frustrated and angry and i ask why are you frustrated and angry like that's two blocks of wood and you want to put them together in a certain configuration and the pieces of wood are stupid and inert you have a brain and you have creativity you're an artist so i know you have creativity so solve the problem but then there's just the the sort of despair and the frustration and i'm just i'm exaggerating just to make my point but you know uh it's often the case that i will say look i'm a human being i have intelligence creativity and free will and these blocks of wood are nothing i'm gonna i'm gonna win this challenge right so then i get to work and i solve the problem and it's that indomitable spirit of i will conquer this challenge that i bring to a lot of uh practical problems that need to be solved for my wife because i love her i want to solve her problems and even for myself it's fun it's fun when you have a problem at work when you have a problem in uh interesting life generally it's fun to say this is challenging but i am superior in my essence in my nature in my substance i am superior to this plumbing problem or to this uh whatever it might be whatever practical problem that you're facing now if the problem is an interpersonal problem like uh this person annoys me their habits bother me that is a completely different question because then you have will versus will and there are evasions that people can use to avoid being corrected and fixed and all that sort of thing and it's rude to try to fix a human being usually in most circumstances yeah i think i get what you mean um i kind of disagree but i don't really want to stay on this topic yeah in particular for too long um so one thing that you did bring up last time was anselm's ontological argument yeah i just wanted to give uh my kind of quote-unquote refutation sure um so i don't remember who it was so i proposed the idea of the most dumbledorian dumbledore okay um and then you pointed out that that was actually proposed at the time by like another philosopher at the time and anne's home defended it i think by basically saying that god is a contingent being and the most perfect island is not no the other way around the island is contingent and god is not contention god is okay maybe i'm using the word contingent here wrong but basically god necessarily exists exactly yeah contingent and necessary are opposites uh read the definition yes okay right it's it contingent means dependent on yeah so god is is incontinent he's independent or necessary not contingent yeah right so first of all i feel like uh enzom's solution devolved to a version of the kalam cosmological argument or the cause it devolved to a version of a cosmological argument which basically says that god necessarily exists um usually this is achieved with the idea of like you know you follow all the causes back and you get a first cause yeah um which i'm not necessarily convinced is the case but we can get into that later so the other thing is that um existence is not a property that something has like you can't just assign existence to an idea and make it real it's like um if i were to propose the idea of a realicorn which is a unicorn that exists if you have a fully understanding of a realicorn because because i've then added definition to the i've i've added the existence to the definition of the real-acorn yeah but contingent beings by definition are wait for it contingent yes right they're not like they're not necessary they're not necessarily don't believe that uh that god is in contingent to begin with okay let's let's let's before we go any further with uh contingent things being necessary and contingent things having being defined into existence in this sort of silly nonsense let's talk about the three ways spinoza talked about this i don't know if you're a fan of spinoza if you've read spinoza i haven't read any philosophy really okay it's something to look forward to you're gonna enjoy i think you will enjoy spinoza very logical uh he's wrong a lot of stuff but he was a pantheist and uh i mean i'm using i'm using the word pantheist in a very loose way he might be some sad subcategory of pantheism like pan and theism and all that sort of thing i don't uh i can't sort all that out right now but um he said famously that there are only three ways that a being and by being i don't mean a sentient being i mean any being like a rock a block of wood or whatever something that exists right something that can be there are three ways that a being can not exist okay the three ways are it has not yet been brought into existence by another so uh i work in construction and architects design and builders build and then before you know it boom there's a building there like there was nothing there before just a hole in the ground now we've got this shiny new building wow how did that happen well it was caused to come into being okay through first of all the mind of the architect his creativity and his imagination and all the workers and so on so forth okay but basically uh the reason it did not exist yesterday and it does exist however many months or years later is because it did not exist when it did not exist it did not exist because it had not yet been brought into being the second way of not existing is that it was destroyed by a being or beings so that same building if you fast forward a 100 years 200 years whatever it is depending on what kind of building it was and how solid it was we will say that it has been demolished for different reasons why whether infestation of some sort or some sort of structural damage or just they wanted some rich guy wanting to put something better there so the demolition crew or the city planner that hires the demolition crew or the rich guy that hires the demonstration crew or whatever these this set of beings destroyed the building so it doesn't exist now because uh it no longer exists it was taken out of existence the third way of not existing and the this completes all this um sort of uh exhausts all of the possibilities of how something cannot exist the third way is that it's simply impossible it's logically impossible for such a thing to exist such as a square circle or um a unicorn is not impossible i believe that unicorns are possible and i think unicorns probably exist i mean these are kind of like unicorns yeah i'm saying yeah i think they have two there's a little mini there's a little mini one not that familiar with i think they have a big one and then a little little one but anyway that's beside the point i don't think it's that miraculous to see a unicorn so now what spinoza said is that as a logical consequence of this fact and i would love i would challenge you and anyone listening to to refute his argument his argument is that there is no other way to not exist and therefore if it is possible for god to exist he necessarily exists so if someone says well i'm agnostic i don't believe in god maybe there's a god maybe there's not then you are whether you like it or not you are a de facto monotheist okay that's the sad reality if you're an agnostic let me say that again let me say that again if you are an agnostic and you say well i don't know if there's a god i don't believe there's a god but maybe there's god maybe not i don't know i'm not going to commit well you are a de facto monotheist how do you get there i mean because god god cannot be brought into existence he cannot be brought out of existence the only way for god to not exist is if it's impossible for god to exist and if you want to say or maybe he just doesn't exist because the old but the only way he cannot exist is if it's impossible for him not to exist if it's possible for him to exist then he necessarily exists because there are only three ways to not exist one is you haven't brought into existence the second is that you have not been destroyed and the third is is logically impossible well the first two don't apply to god by definition okay so if er if i just um let's put this way if the mouse let's let's take the the uh kind of evolutionary example that i would propose i know you don't necessarily believe in uh evolution and all that but let's sure this is just for the sake of argument um so like like like let's imagine that a what's to say that the uh i i guess i see your point but welcome to monotheism my friend no you're congratulations that just ain't it i'm gonna need to write this down because like my thoughts go everywhere yeah yeah write it down well you don't need to write it down because it's on uh youtube now that's true but i just want to like look at it right sure okay something to not exist one it hasn't been created to it hasn't been this what is it like two it has been destroyed or something yeah it's already been destroyed yeah or three eight logical ones exist logically um so we can leave god out of this we can leave god out of this and we could just simply say as a philosopher let's say that you and i sit down we're both atheists hard core atheists we're done we're not even have the slightest doubt that god doesn't exist we're convinced 100 it's not possible that god exists okay so we're not going to talk about god it doesn't exist okay so we're sitting down we're having a beer and we're just talking about ideas and philosophy and i say to you spinoza said there are only three ways for something to not exist hasn't been created yet it's already been destroyed or it's logically impossible so what if i were to propose to you the existence of a being that cannot be created or destroyed what would you say about that being this hypothetical being what would you say about it i would say that you've snuck in definitions to make it exist well if it's it no but if look uh a square circle cannot be created it cannot be destroyed you agree i mean only because it's logically impossible right right so just because i say to you wow let's imagine uh something that can be neither created nor destroyed the conclusion is not that it is the conclusion is not that it exists the conclusion the only rational conclusion is that it cannot exist if it's logically impossible but if it is possible it necessarily exists that's the only thing you can say philosophically i am not necessarily convinced of that because like i could propose to you a million different beings try one try one like try one okay um i'm gonna need to like think of like a really good example here but but like okay i could just propose to you right a version of dumbledore that can't be created and can't be destroyed okay like let's just imagine for a second that those are definitions of dumbledore let's say now dumbledore is not inherently logically impossible does this mean uh let me just let me just set the stage for our conversation for the sake of this hypothetical discussion you're going to pretend to firmly believe that dumbledore cannot be created or destroyed and i'm going to just sort of be talking to you about this it's not your god but it's just this thing you believe in right okay so we're gonna we're gonna discuss it in the context that for whatever reason you've come to believe in this dumbledore and you come to believe that it can be neither created nor destroyed for whatever reason you have your reasons okay um so the discussion basically would be from me as as a monotheist what i would ask you the first question i would ask you about your beloved dumbledore yep is is dumbledore self-existent yes or no yes is dumbledore necessary infinite in every perfection that it's better to have than not to have okay i mean it seems to me like you by asking that question you're moving back to the ontological argument right i'm just asking you about dumbbell doors defensively don't get defensive is dumbledore omnipotent is is dumbledore omnipotent i mean he seems that way in the books but no then it's possible that he doesn't exist he's is because if he you said that he's necessary he's not he's not contingent right so you've contradicted yourself so you basically dumbledore is a square circle because what you've said is that there is a necessary being yeah who is self-existent but he's not omnipotent that entails a contradiction just like saying a circus a square circle no because we know using pure reason we know the attribute we know many not all but we know many of the attributes of the one and only uncaused uh what would we say the self-existent being the one and only self-existent being you've admitted the dumbledore no but we didn't say prime over we just said i asked you is he so why why does something need to be uh because the nature of self-existence of which we have no benchmark no but we use pure reason we're not we're not putting objects right here on microsoft i'm just wondering we're using the pure reason here like is it deductive like premises yeah yeah yeah yeah if if we start with dumbledore and we say dumbledore is a necessary being not so dumbledore must exist well yeah he exists he exists just with the fact that he's a necessary being never mind the other questions i asked is he this is he that okay we just start with the fact that you think that dumbledore is a necessary existence just with that one fact we know that because he's necessary his being is necessary he has his existence of himself of himself not of another he is not contingent and because he's because he's not contingent he's not subject to change and he's not he's not material because all material is subject to change he's also not composite he's not comprised of parts because only the com only the contingent is comprised of parts and all of the contingent is necessarily comprised of parts composite okay essence and accidents i don't if you're familiar with essence and accidents that distinction but the necessary being we know that his essence is existence and we know that his we know that he has no accidents we we know this because he is pure actuality we can derive all of this using pure reason without recourse to faith or revelation or or the microscope or any laboratory we can use this is called natural theology it's been going on for thousands of years you just need to start reading the history of western philosophy when i was an atheist i read the history of western philosophy and by the time i got to renee descartes i went from hardcore atheist atheistic satanist to monotheist why because that's the conclusion of natural theology aka philosophy metaphysics so i suggest you keep digging keep reading and read the history of western philosophy and you're going to see a thread a golden thread in terms of ontology first and foremost metaphysics and of course epistemology is wrapped up with all of that so it's just going to be a wonderful journey i hope that i get to uh be there you know as your friend along the way and we can email each other and you can come on my show and we can talk about it but you have a wonderful voyage ahead of you in terms of discovering ideas i'm not expecting you to blast through the western history of western philosophy and then phone me next week and say now i'm catholic i don't expect that to happen it took me 25 years okay but um it's a wonderful journey and if you love the truth like i said to you last time if you do love the truth and you're seeking the truth you will find okay um another just one more thing on the ontological argument the definition of greater is not necessarily defined and if i was to define it have you read it have you read it have you read the ontological argument i've only i've only ever seen like the argument in it summary you've seen the summary of it um yeah like just like the short version with a six statements you would need to read it and learn about the distinction between a pure perfection and then pure perfection you need to learn about this because it's all about necessarily need to know what his definition of greater is to believe that it can't lead to the christian god well we were just we were just discussing dumbledore is the christian god dumbledore not a necessary being to wrap this back all the way to where we started um with the ontological argument it says we cannot imagine something that is greater than god right now here god is just being defined as a maximally great being that to me i could imagine something greater than the christian god which means that if the cognitive was correct it would actually get rid of the idea of a christian god okay i'm happy i'm happy to grant for the sake of argument that the god of judaism christianity and islam as interpreted as interpreted by alex in 2021 that god is a fake god he's an and you're morally superior to him i'm willing to grant that for the sake of argument okay why because your interpretation is based on a whole bunch of flawed assumptions only when you're a monotheist only when you understand who and what the uncaused first cause is that than which nothing greater can be saved only when you grasp that can you say i want to worship this god not only do i want to worship this god but i have to worship this god it's it's my human nature now coming to light and to fruition and to worship god is the highest it's the first commandment and it's the only commandment and it manifests itself in the love of god and the love of neighbor because the nature of god is love and he created creatures out of love so all of this to say all of this to say i just want to finish up that we can grant that that in the bible is a demon for now okay until such time as you are a monotheist and then you can phone me up and say oh my god i'm in love with uh david i'm in love with your god and i know it's the same god but why when i read the bible did he seem like an and i'll say well he seemed like an to me when i was an atheist and then once i realized who and what the uncaused first cause was i had suddenly this supernatural gift of faith my eyes were opened i got all these graces and so on and so forth but you're not ready to hear any of that right now okay end of rant okay so the so here's the thing i i am willing to grant for the sake of argument right just for the sake of argument that we that uh the ontological argument is correct right yeah so this leads us to a greatest possible being um and that being god which would you know in theory if it was greatest possible being it would be timeless spaceless personal um like you know existent would be one of those um well you just said existence is not an attribute so right right like i said i'm granting this for the sake of argument no but i no no one says no one claimed no catholic worth his salt will claim that existence is not true you can't smuggle that in and then accuse me of it later because i don't accept that i'm i'm not this is not what the argument's focused on okay um let's like let's just assume that this does prove the existence of a god okay um well there's nothing right sure this proves the existence of the god and this god is the greatest possible being so here's here's where the issue comes in the god as defined particularly by the old testament is a vitriolic creature with jealousy and hatred to no end which means therefore if this god were to exist even if it's described in the bible the bible is describing it poorly and if that's the case we can't use the bible as a reliable reliable source to determine what this god wants i agree with you i've already granted you that you can't we can't have a bible without an infallible church and you can't believe in an infallible church if you're not a monotheist you're putting the cart ahead of you no no but is the church not based on the idea that jesus was real of course of course of course and jesus was not real that jesus was real in my mind seems to be predicated on the idea that at least some parts of the bible are correct but i'm questioning those parts of the bible yeah yeah well when i was an atheist i questioned the bible just like you i made fun of it i thought it was stupid but you you there's there's uh like i said there are there are steps that need to be taken step one become a monotheist how do you do that pure reason no need of any holy books whatsoever right you can you can believe as i did that god the god of the bible is an and that the catholic church is the most corrupt institution that ever was a bunch of greedy perverts okay you can believe that yeah okay you can believe that just as i did but once you understand who and what this one and only necessary being is then you understand that ah okay the jews are wrong about many things but they're right there's one god the one necessary being the the christians are wrong but many things but they're right about the fact that there's this uncaused first cause and the the muslims are wrong about many things but they're right about the fact that there is that language nothing greater can be conceived and they call him allah and we in the christian church call him allah in the arabic churches and the jews call him allah in the arabic mosques so you know it's one god we've got people that are wrong within these monotheistic religions they're wrong about god they're wrong about all kinds of stuff and a lot of those errors are reported in holy books and in my view because i'm a christian the only holy books are the 73 books of holy the holy canon of scripture so um you know we need to proceed in an orderly fashion step one you have to be a monotheist step two you need to look at the history of monotheistic movements what did the jews teach what did the jews teach today why does it matter what if they're all wrong well you could choose you could choose to be a generic monotheist and just worship god on your own at home does that make sense that makes sense great being care for worship in the first place because that's our way of fulfilling ourselves and avoiding the torments of hell is to go toward the light and go toward the truth go toward justice maximally great being send someone to hell for not worshipping him he doesn't send people he allows people out of his mercy to go away from him they hate him so they go away from him it would be worse for the those in hell it'd be worse for them if they had to go to heaven and be closer to god this is the mercy of god so he allows them out of his mercy to go to hell but we're getting into very advanced topics here that are just going to bewilder you but if you want to know that god is good and that this first cause this unconscious first cause is all good then you need to understand that uh your judgments of how you're interpreting the bible and how you're judging god to be jealous and angry and all these sorts of things those those judgments are wrong because they're misguided because you don't put yourself under the authority of god under the authority of god's church so you're prone to error you admit that you're following that your interpretations of every book are fallible so your judgments are wrong and or at least prone to error you might get lucky and have some lucky guesses and have some lucky judgments but the basic bottom line is that you should never worship and adore as a god anything that is in any way inferior to you number one or imperfect in any way right and uh when i say imperfect in any way i mean those pure perfections that it's better to have than to not have because a circle is perfect but guess what god is not a circle because it's not better to be a circle than to not be a circle so that's why we talk about the pure perfections of god that than which nothing greater can be conceived and those perfections that is yeah i just completely disagree you're free to disagree but i mean it's it's very simple i'm not arguing with you that no no slavery is good and uh rape is good and uh incest is good i'm not gonna argue that i'm not gonna argue that i hate it i hated i hated the bible and i hated christianity when i was an atheist okay i understand where you're coming from you have no idea where i'm coming from right who's in this who's in the superior position in terms of experience breadth of experience i've been where you are you've never been where i am who is in the position of strength and superiority when it comes to practical experience take a guess take a guess yes so it doesn't mean i can't be wrong i admit that i might be wrong i might belong to a false religion why do i say that because i have faith i have faith in jesus christ i have faith in the incarnation i have faith in the redemption i have faith in the church but i don't have only merely faith in god almighty the uncaused first cause i have certainty logical rational certainty and until you have that these conversations are going to be a little bit silly and fruitless right but it's still it's still good for us to talk about because ideas will be stirred up in you and you'll go away and think about it and if any listeners i don't have a lot of listeners but if any of them are sort of dabbling with these ideas it might just nudge them in the right direction here or there so it's always it's always good to talk about god even if you're an atheist i'm living proof of that i was talking about god as an enemy of god for 25 years have you ever heard of gas king's proof no okay it seems to be the reverse of the ontological argument to kind of demonstrate its falsehood do you want me to read it to you yeah okay so it says the creation of the universe is the greatest achievement imaginable i think that's reasonable okay at least from the perspective of someone in the universe like i can't imagine anything all right i disagree as a as a christian we are taught explicitly that uh first of all it's a dogma of the church that although the world is ontologically good this world that god created it is not the best world he could have made a better world okay so that's that's the first thing that's the first belief okay that's the first point the second point is we were taught in our christian faith that one sinner or one atheist converting to god where he didn't know god he didn't love god he didn't want to serve god that conversion from that state being destined for eternal damnation that converges from that state to the state where you want to know love and serve god in this world so that you can be happy with him forever in the next life and that you love god for god's sake and you love neighbor for god's sake that conversion is more wonderful than all of creation and all the history of creation and the very act of creation by the triune so that uh that is false that you would want to say that a believer takes the creation of the universe as the ultimate miracle or the greatest accomplishment or anything like that it's just it's just false okay all right i mean i don't necessarily agree but that's fine um yeah so another just just a moment now just a moment you keep saying i don't agree with you but you just need to pause and think about what would it mean practically if i agreed with david ross about his catholic worldview what would that mean it would mean that you are a roman catholic okay i do agree but i also can't just like if i like last time right i did not have any refutation for the ontological argument i now have five or six written down okay um so like for example last time if i just took that at face value i would like be a roman catholic then an hour later i wouldn't and then i would come back and i would be a roman catholic like you can't expect me no no i don't like to change on a way of course of course of course of course of course that's not my point my point is that we need to both understand that the other person is sincere in their beliefs and you do trust me you do have many beliefs based on many assumptions some of those assumptions i think a small proportion some of those assumptions that you make are conscious choices that you're aware of a lot of them are not okay i don't know if okay so you test everything empirically like you never make any assumptions about any of your beliefs um so the three things that you might say for example that i assume are the laws of logic but those have been in yeah so it's like beyond it's not an assumption it's not an assumption okay cool so like i don't think i i assume anything well you assume that your sense perceptions correspond to reality we talked about this last time i kind of define reality as my sense perceptions though okay so you're agnostic about you're agnostic about the fact that you might be the one and only necessary being okay well i told you well that's that's um so if let's think about it like this if the world was created by me for example like in my head right i am the one and only necessary being um the consciousness that i am operating under right now is not aware of this fact which means that the consciousness i am operating under right now is effectively separate from the necessary being that created this universe which means that i yes so are you you're admitting that you're not god okay well i'm not necessarily convinced that there is a god i'm just saying for example if we were to imagine that i made the universe and it's all like kind of a construct in my own head the part of me that that receives that information and thinks is like self-evidently separate from the part of me i don't know if you're familiar with buddhism and certain uh interpretations of hinduism but um or even with dream life in general i don't know if you've dabbled with lucid dreaming where you're aware that you're dreaming and control your actions one time i lucid dreamed and i couldn't tell if i was losing dreaming so i was like oh see if i can wake up and then i did and i lost it oh i was so sad but you know i've had uh i've had when i was dream journaling that really helped my lucid dreaming because you just are hyper aware all day of these wonderful detailed rich uh experiences that you have in the night time so it just brings that connection that awareness of your dream life more and more to the foreground so i was having lucid dreams and i could never maintain it because it's just so exciting it's just so thrilling i could never and this is just a question of self-control i i lacked self-control in many ways i still do in many ways but um i just lack the self-control to remain calm when i realized oh my god i'm dreaming and this is amazing the colors are vibrant and uh i can fly i can do all these things and then i just get too excited and i wake up but the reason that i'm talking about this is because sometimes uh well most of the time you're not aware that you're dreaming so that when you wake up you realize wow that was a dream but while you were dreaming you were going about your business maybe at work at school maybe you're wearing your pajamas at school or maybe you're butt naked at school usually i'm trying to find a toilet in my dreams lately nice so and all the toilets are overflowing and disgusting and i just i can't use this one okay i can't use that one i can't use that one just a constant nightmare of trying to find toilets luckily i haven't had that one recently but that was one that used to haunt me but my point is that you are just going about your business or trying to in this dream world and you don't think that you created it you don't think it's a figment about your imagination and that it's just a construct you're just going about your business and then you wake up and then you realize oh i was dreaming that was a dream it's the same thing when you die in this real world when you die you'll be like oh god is real and i was uh you know a sinner and now i'm on my way to hell unless by some miracle you accept the graces that god gives you and you convert before your death i'm hoping that's what happens but a lot of people don't and they end up burning in hell for all eternity why because it's better than being in heaven right it's better for that person than it would be to be in heaven as i said okay this is an interesting idea um well my my main point the reason i'm talking about that is not to talk about heaven and hell yeah my main point is to talk about my main point was that we don't know when we are living in a construct of our mind we don't know that right usually but yeah obviously if you lose a dream you can um but the point what i i think that kind of demonstrates my point though because the part of your consciousness that has created the dream world when you're dreaming and the part of your consciousness that is experiencing it are fundamentally separate now you can kind of you can imagine you connect them and that's how you lose a dream um i'm not even sure if that would be possible in real life if i did create this all as a construct of my own mind and i am the only incontinent being but i guess uh i like i think that kind of proves my point that if if i created this universe um at the end of the day i am experiencing it i cannot know whether or not i created it so it's uh irrelevant to even consider the fact that i could have created it because i as i know myself go on i was just going to say i i was sort of half listening to you i apologize i was sort of half person because i was sort of going off in my mind into my own construct ironically but i'm just thinking i was just thinking about those uh i was just thinking about those times where uh you misappropriate uh being your own being like i mean i was one time very confused about which hand my finger belonged to like because my fingers were intertwined and i was like oh right yeah what the what is going on i was just really confused and put me into a little bit of a panic and there are other times where you see a reflection of yourself and you don't realize it's you you know there are different ways that you can be unaware of yourself you can see yourself on video for example and be like who's that and then it's like oh that's me so this is these things have happened to me okay these things have happened to me i've experienced with them so there is an idea that we could be wrong about our own being and we could be unconscious or unaware of certain tics or habits that we have like i'm on uh youtube i stream and i have videos on of myself and it's like oh my god i didn't know i looked like that i didn't know i acted like that i didn't know i talked about it primary reason that's that's reason number two why i don't have a webcam first one is security second one is embarrassment yeah are you okay with the sound of your own voice are you comfortable with it yeah for the most part um it depends my voice fluctuates a lot um sometimes it's like a lot deeper than i thought and sometimes it's like the same pitch so okay and then there's that ambiguous wandering accent that you have yeah right yeah it's that's pretty strange um especially like it's weird to listen to and if you think about it it might bring it one way or the other yeah um context often changes it in sometimes what you might consider like more formal settings it's more american really the boys when with the boys it's all australian ah well you have british roots too right you lived in england yeah oh no i didn't but my uh parents and three of my siblings okay okay okay so he was the only one born here he didn't get the snobby queen's english no i i i didn't but i do i do love tea that's that's my fruit for you uh can you are you able to give me your best rendition of a kiwi accent please i love it oh no okay um ah what does the kiwi accent even sound like you don't know i know what it sounds like but it's like hard to do for me okay i'll give you a hint okay uh this is what i've learned and what i love about it is so soft and the i used to not like it but now i've been watching some kiwi stuff and the key the key word the key vowels that you switch it's very easy to do this is like um something becomes like a e uh what is it like i becomes e yeah i become z he becomes i so i would say that the baseball pitched the ball but they would say pitched patched yeah the ball okay that's so funny and then i would say my dog fetched the stick but they say fitch my dog fitched the stick there was there was this great kiwi ad i don't know if it was intentional but it was about like spraying your deck but then obviously it's like jesus writing your dick yeah oh my god have you have you heard do you pronounce them do you call them eskys or something like the you know ice boxes where you put like drinks in uh are you talking about a thermos like that keeps things cool no yes technically it would be a thermos but it's like a massive box and like sometimes it's on wheels and you can like bring it to a party i guess it's pretty cold in canada most of the time right so just stick it in the snow yeah um so we we call them eskys they call them like chili bins okay it's like but pronounced really weird late everyone everyone in australia hates the fact that they call them chili bins chili benz chili vent with like the weird accent so it's like button yeah yeah so uh they seem like uh annoyingly gentle and nice people like just annoying like yeah like just be get some edge please for the love of god get some edge is that true yep um sometimes i know a couple kiwis they're very nice yeah oh well of course that's what we're talk that's what we're exactly what we're talking about that's what we're we're critiquing them for being so nice just like canadians but i've got i've got a little bit of edge i've got more edge than i ever have had because i married a greek and she's uh gruff and rough and she'll swear like a sailor and she'll punch you out if you say the wrong thing so yeah australians swear all the time i uh i've kind of gotten to the point where i've got like two modes in my head one for family and work which is like i don't swear like now and then with the boys it's just like it's difficult to go a sentence without swearing is that cause like f word a popular one oh yeah all of them okay except the n word all of them except the n word okay okay um the uh what were we talking about here oh yeah yeah my uh wife downloaded a show called outback truckers or outback truckers truckies or something like that have you heard about it it's it's about trucking i do not like much australian tv okay well we enjoyed it because it was like uh very dramatic and scary and dangerous like the way they hear roads that go through some of the back woods or back desert or whatever it's called they get corrugated they get the outback yeah they get corrugated just naturally over time so it's just like as bumpy as as hell and it just shakes these vehicles and their cargo apart and i just like my palms are sweating watching this stuff it's just so nerve-wracking and then they enter a bog and the this this road dirt road gives out in this you know 200 000 worth of equipment is tilting over and oh it's nerve-wracking but my point here is that the aussies are people with grit determination they're a tough rough people i think and i don't think they take much guff then they'll stand up for themselves they'll stand up for themselves i think i hope yeah yeah yeah um i mean obviously there's kind of like you know well i would say on the whole we are more likely to do that than other nate than like you know other um cultural groups yeah but like obviously you've still got a large minority of for lack of a better word okay like like people who like almost like pacifists right pushovers yeah doormats um and then like but it's like you know kind of like the rest of us just kind of like stand up for them it doesn't it doesn't really matter you have to protect the vulnerable and anyway they made the journey all the way from new zealand you have to treat them nicely yep they're the only weak ones i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding i shouldn't bash them because they are really nice lovely people and i'd probably you know they'd probably make a better roommate than an aussie but uh just because you'd never hear them and put everything back put everything back on the shelf and they wouldn't have three mugs on the table like you do look that's just me i swear and it's four okay um so listen i do have to wrap it up here it's been great chatting with you once again we're gonna go deeper uh next time but i think the next time i'll have you on we'll probably be with kieran on september 11th if that comes together i hope it does and we'll go deeper with other uh questions the next time you and i talk i mean it could be between now and then but uh we'll see we'll see how our schedules work out but uh thank you so much always nice talking to you you're a bright young man and it's a lot of fun yeah yeah you're also you know pretty pretty well-read very intelligent i'm a bit out of my depth here but hopefully that changes yeah well uh you got all the time ahead of you i hope i mean uh god willing you got a long and fruitful life ahead of you have you got a career path in mind i'm not sure either um look the military just seems fun yeah um uh so does cyber security which are pretty like polar opposite yeah um other probably one of the two i'm very good with computers ah um so yeah you know that's cool a lot of work uh you could do both you know you could do both mix the two together yeah maybe i might i might do a gap year in the military and then see how that goes there's no commitment like you can do a temporary commitment yeah so i got do you know what a gap year is no okay so a gap year is um in australia like the year between uni and sorry the year between finishing high school um and then going into uni so you can basically go in and they'll like train you for a year and if you like it you can stay and if you don't you can just leave cool very cool yep all right my friends so we'll talk soon uh take care of yourself and have a good sunday sunday you too all right bye