#1769 - Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience. That state of intense concentration on that, before you can really manage it.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

I think there's mental endurance involved too, because I think that, are we up?

I think there's mental endurance that comes with anything that you do on a day-to-day basis, whether it's writing, whether it's doing podcasts, whether it's doing stand-up comedy. I think anything we have to think and manage complex ideas and manipulate your language and the way you're speaking and be able to engage in the dance between two people, I think you gotta do it all the time. I think if you just do it every now and again, especially if you took time off of speaking to people, like if you hadn't talked to anybody in a long time and then you talk, have you ever done that? Well, you haven't talked to anybody in a long time then you talk to them.

It feels odd, it feels awkward. Because I think there's like a thing where you have to get used to it. You gotta get used to it.

Jordan Peterson (1:10)

Yeah, I found that was particularly the case with the podcasts is that it's hard to do that sporadically.

Joe Rogan (1:15)

Yeah.

Jordan Peterson (1:16)

You also lose that rhythm of preparation because you get it, well, I did, I'm not sure. How do you prepare for your podcast? Like if you have an author come on.

Joe Rogan (1:25)

I usually read their book. It depends on, I have two books that I'm reading right now that are future people that are coming in February.

Jordan Peterson (1:35)

So they're a lot ahead.

Joe Rogan (1:36)

Yeah, they'll be, well, it's like one of them is a climate change book and it's intense.

And so it's requiring a lot of thinking and then I have to like look at the criticisms of this guy and criticisms of the work and who believes that in 10 years Miami is gonna be underwater, who believes that this is probably hyperbole and that it's a gross exaggeration and the reality is, you know, the world sort of always goes through these cycles of change, but human beings are definitely having an effect on it, but a small effect compared to cows and other things. It's like, it's hard to sort out. The climate change one is a weird one. So that one-

Jordan Peterson (2:18)

Well, that's because there's no such thing as climate, right? Climate and everything are the same word. And that's what bothers me about the climate change types. It's like, this is something that bothers me about it, technically. It's like, climate is about everything. It's okay, but your models aren't based on everything. Your models are based on a set number of variables. So that means you've reduced the variables, which are everything, to that set.

Well, how did you decide which set of variables to include in the equation, if it's about everything?

And that's not just a criticism. That's like, if it's about everything, your models aren't right. Because your models do not and cannot model everything.

Joe Rogan (3:02)

What do you mean by everything, when you say...

Jordan Peterson (3:03)

Well, that's what people who talk about the climate apocalypse claim, in some sense. We have to change everything. It's like, everything, eh?

Okay, and it's the same with the word environment. That word doesn't mean...

It means so much that it actually doesn't mean anything. Like, when you say everything, in a sense, that's meaningless, right? Because, well, what are you pointing to? Well, I'm pointing to everything. Well, what's the difference between the environment and everything?

There's no difference. What's the difference between climate and everything? Well, there's no difference. So this is a crisis of everything? It's like, no, it's not. Or if it is, well, if it really is, then we're done, because we can't fix everything. Well, we have to.

Joe Rogan (3:47)

What they mean specifically is the human, what human beings are doing that's causing the earth to warm.

Jordan Peterson (3:56)

Right, right. But you have to include all these factors in the models to determine that, all these factors. Well, what can you not include? Well, then by deciding what you don't include, you decide which set of variables are cardinal. And you have to make that decision in some sense before you even generate the models. This is a big problem. It's partly, it's not the only reason, but this, there's another reason that, another problem that bedevils climate modeling too, which is that as you stretch out the models across time, the errors increase radically. And so maybe you can predict out a week or three weeks or a month or a year, but the farther out you predict, the more your model's in error. And that's a huge problem when you're trying to model over a hundred years, because the errors compound just like interest.