Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.

[00:00:09] Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and

[00:00:14] knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] From the widest galley to the deepest trench, holds to find who we are and where we

[00:00:23] are going.

[00:00:24] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of the United States.

[00:01:16] David Pizarro from Cornell University.

[00:01:46] Thanks.

[00:01:47] The problem is, this is probably the bad time to talk about this paper because not only am

[00:01:52] I from the University of Houston but I am at the University of Houston in my not sound

[00:01:59] proofed office.

[00:02:01] Yeah.

[00:02:02] You feel chilled?

[00:02:03] I feel chilled.

[00:02:04] I really do.

[00:02:05] You can write down on a little scrawl, a little piece of paper and I'll tell you,

[00:02:12] I'll repeat what it is that you want to say.

[00:02:16] Tamler says, Pussy.

[00:02:21] See I made sure to get my office completely sound proofed.

[00:02:24] I can't be.

[00:02:25] You can't be recorded.

[00:02:28] We need like some sort of like...

[00:02:32] Usually sweep my room for bugs.

[00:02:36] The only recording devices in my office are my own.

[00:02:39] Lester Freeman might be able to do it but that's about it.

[00:02:44] Just have a bunch of burners.

[00:02:47] So today, big episode we're going to talk in the second segment about Borges.

[00:02:58] We're going back to that collection of just treasures, those stories by Jorge Luis

[00:03:05] Borges.

[00:03:06] Am I doing that right?

[00:03:08] Yeah, very good.

[00:03:10] That's as impressive as your French pronunciation.

[00:03:13] Well, I know French.

[00:03:15] So we're going to talk about his story, Toulon-Ukbar-Turseus Orbis.

[00:03:26] Orbis Turseus.

[00:03:28] Orbis Turseus.

[00:03:29] In the first segment we're going to talk about a paper that you alluded to in our

[00:03:32] last episode.

[00:03:34] Well, it was actually a Eon post called Is a Whole a Real Thing or Just a Place

[00:03:41] Where Something Isn't?

[00:03:43] This is just...

[00:03:45] We're just metaphysicians.

[00:03:47] I feel like we're official after this episode.

[00:03:51] After the last one and this one.

[00:03:53] Yeah, no, there's going to be some metaphysics.

[00:03:55] In fact, I am going...

[00:03:57] One of the...

[00:03:58] Just as a tease, I will make the case that there are intimate connections

[00:04:03] between these two segments.

[00:04:06] The segment on holes and the segment on Borges' Toulon-Ukbar...

[00:04:13] Yeah, it's metaphysics all the way down.

[00:04:17] On this episode.

[00:04:19] Metaphysics all the way down.

[00:04:21] Alright, so you want to talk about this whole paper?

[00:04:25] Yeah.

[00:04:26] Well, let's talk a little bit about last episode.

[00:04:29] So last episode, I feel like it got lost in the shuffle.

[00:04:33] Lost a long time, unfairly, perhaps unfairly, critiquing a metaphysics paper.

[00:04:39] There's a couple things I want to say about that.

[00:04:41] One, surprisingly little criticism and blowback about that.

[00:04:46] I think that metaphysicians just don't listen to our podcast

[00:04:50] because I was expecting a lot...

[00:04:52] We got like one email saying like that was really unfair, you didn't understand it.

[00:04:56] And the bulk of the other discussion was like on Reddit where people were trying to explain to us

[00:05:00] what mobius strips were.

[00:05:03] And I was like, wow, that's not...

[00:05:05] That wasn't the difficulties and Klein bottles.

[00:05:08] I know what a mobius strip is.

[00:05:10] Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:12] And clearly this paper was alluding to physics and yeah, of course,

[00:05:17] that's totally not what we were saying.

[00:05:21] I think one of the reasons we're not getting a lot of critical feedback on that aspect of the episode

[00:05:28] was one of our criticisms.

[00:05:31] There are so few people in that literature that would care enough to be offended by that.

[00:05:38] That the chances are they don't listen.

[00:05:43] I mean, that's the plus of making your writing inscrutable.

[00:05:49] You sort of avoid too much.

[00:05:51] And having a debate that is populated by like 20 people or something.

[00:05:57] In the entire world.

[00:05:59] It is this mystical circle of...

[00:06:03] Mystical circle?

[00:06:05] Neuro duplicate...

[00:06:07] Yeah, mystical circle.

[00:06:09] Metaphysical circle.

[00:06:11] But I definitely, you know, a colleague of mine is a philosopher of mine here.

[00:06:17] And it's very hard to find people who will die on the hill of that paper.

[00:06:24] I'm sure they're out there and if you are, you know...

[00:06:28] Yeah, say what's up.

[00:06:30] Show us the error of our ways.

[00:06:32] We did get some people agreeing with us that it was inscrutable.

[00:06:35] So we decided that since we're getting no criticism...

[00:06:40] Yeah, we're just empowered.

[00:06:43] We're just gonna keep doing this shit.

[00:06:45] Just every week we're gonna find somebody.

[00:06:49] It's like Trump.

[00:06:50] The tape comes out and nobody really gives a shit.

[00:06:52] So I can just say what I want.

[00:06:54] That's right.

[00:06:56] This one is actually...

[00:06:58] You know, I have to admit I've always been mildly intrigued by this topic.

[00:07:04] The philosophy of holes.

[00:07:06] And it wasn't until I read this Eon piece...

[00:07:09] I still, I don't have nearly the same feelings I do about the other piece.

[00:07:13] Because the other piece I thought was actually just not saying much.

[00:07:19] This, I at least understand what the problem is.

[00:07:24] And I mean, I still might not care, but I get it.

[00:07:27] Like I get the discussion.

[00:07:29] Yeah, I mean, I do too.

[00:07:31] I also like...

[00:07:33] I thought I would have a slightly different reaction to it than I had.

[00:07:37] You know, I came in here with the purpose of doing a drive-by hit job that we're famous for.

[00:07:44] But it's actually like well-written.

[00:07:47] Like the first paragraph, like I thought this, you know, it seems indisputable that there are holes.

[00:07:54] And now all of a sudden I'm getting ready to be like, okay, this is the dumbest thing ever.

[00:07:59] For example, there are keyholes, black holes and sinkholes, like oh thank you.

[00:08:03] I needed examples.

[00:08:05] And there are holes in things such as sieves, golf courses and donuts.

[00:08:09] But then like it's clearly a kind of a light tone to this whole essay.

[00:08:15] And the show she continues, and this is by Suu Kee Finn.

[00:08:19] We come into the world through holes.

[00:08:22] And when we die, many of us will be put into specially dug holes.

[00:08:27] But what are these holes? And what are they made of?

[00:08:30] You know, we come into the world through holes.

[00:08:33] That's...

[00:08:34] You know.

[00:08:35] No, I admit that she also turned me a little bit to be on her side.

[00:08:42] Right up until the last paragraph, I was totally okay with this.

[00:08:48] We'll get to the hanging chats.

[00:08:50] But this is what you've been asking for, real world relevance for metaphysical debate.

[00:08:54] I have been asking for it.

[00:08:56] We'll talk about whether this is an example of it or not.

[00:09:00] But it's referring to a very famous paper by David Lewis.

[00:09:04] Did you have a chance to look at that?

[00:09:05] I did not have a chance to look at it.

[00:09:07] By Stephanie and David Lewis.

[00:09:08] By Stephanie and David Lewis, yes.

[00:09:11] And it's just called holes.

[00:09:16] And it is a dialogue.

[00:09:18] The whole thing is a dialogue between our girl and Bargol.

[00:09:21] They have the same debate.

[00:09:22] Do you want to summarize the debate?

[00:09:24] Yeah.

[00:09:25] So let me try to say at least what it's not, because I get preemptive.

[00:09:28] We already got somebody saying that, well, in topology and mathematics,

[00:09:32] there's a clearly defined what they mean by a hole.

[00:09:37] And I think that's not the point here.

[00:09:40] The real point is, is a hole an object?

[00:09:43] And if so, how could we define what that object is in a way that is consistent

[00:09:48] with perhaps our usage of it and not our just conventional linguistic usage,

[00:09:53] but what it really seems that we mean when we say a hole,

[00:09:56] like the obviousness by which we can call the thing in a donut a hole

[00:10:00] and the paradox when like if you break the donut, is there still a hole in it?

[00:10:04] What constitutes the hole as an object?

[00:10:08] And in the way that only metaphysicians can, does that object exist?

[00:10:14] Is a hole an actual thing or is it just simply our language trying to say

[00:10:19] this is where something isn't?

[00:10:22] Like it's the absence of an object.

[00:10:24] Yeah.

[00:10:25] And so the way it's framed in that there are three individually plausible

[00:10:31] but collectively inconsistent claims.

[00:10:33] And so you have to reject one of them.

[00:10:35] Number one, there are no immaterial objects.

[00:10:38] So that's like if you're a materialist or a physicalist.

[00:10:42] Number two, there are holes.

[00:10:45] Number three, holes are immaterial objects.

[00:10:49] They're not made of matter.

[00:10:51] And so they're inconsistent.

[00:10:53] You can't hold all three of them allegedly.

[00:10:57] And so you have to reject one.

[00:11:00] You know, you don't want to reject materialism probably further.

[00:11:04] Right.

[00:11:05] This is reminiscent of the whole moral dilemma of rejecting e-categoricalism.

[00:11:09] Right.

[00:11:10] No, no, but this one's clear.

[00:11:11] Right.

[00:11:12] So for a materialist at least it does it.

[00:11:14] It's not satisfying to say, ah, you're right.

[00:11:17] There is I have introduced into the metaphysical realm this new thing

[00:11:21] that is not material like you and and I think a lot of people

[00:11:25] are saying that there's some level or materialists about things.

[00:11:28] But I have more to say about that.

[00:11:30] So then you're left with, there are holes.

[00:11:32] You could deny that there are holes or you could deny

[00:11:35] that holes are immaterial objects.

[00:11:38] Right.

[00:11:39] Right away when I read this to really give a Suki-Fink credit

[00:11:44] their writing is clear.

[00:11:45] I really do enjoy this writing.

[00:11:48] But my immediate reaction to those three claims in conjunction is

[00:11:54] there are no material objects.

[00:11:55] Two is there are holes and three is holes or immaterial objects.

[00:11:58] It seems to me that saying like there ought to be a clear way

[00:12:03] in which a hole is just a thing but not an object.

[00:12:07] I don't know.

[00:12:08] It's right.

[00:12:10] Aren't there plenty of things that we say exist

[00:12:13] but that are just aren't objects?

[00:12:15] So like, like the world of Talon or something.

[00:12:18] Yeah.

[00:12:19] Yeah.

[00:12:20] The game of baseball.

[00:12:21] Jack Dorre.

[00:12:22] Yeah.

[00:12:23] Right.

[00:12:24] That aren't made of material.

[00:12:25] If you would say there are no immaterial things,

[00:12:27] well yes there are.

[00:12:28] There are plenty of immaterial things like ideas.

[00:12:31] Right.

[00:12:32] And it would be very weird to say baseball doesn't exist

[00:12:35] because there's no thing to be measured.

[00:12:38] So I found it like, okay, it seems to be starting

[00:12:41] with a firm commitment that holes are objects

[00:12:45] and so that we would talk about holes

[00:12:48] as we would talk about objects.

[00:12:52] And I can't shake the fact that like,

[00:12:55] well there's the mistake in the, right?

[00:12:58] Yeah.

[00:12:59] I agree.

[00:13:00] Like it could be on an equivocation.

[00:13:02] Like so maybe when you say there are no immaterial objects,

[00:13:07] it's sort of like I don't want to deny that

[00:13:10] because I'm a materialist.

[00:13:13] I'm a naturalist.

[00:13:14] Actually if you understand what you're committing

[00:13:18] to there, you would reject it.

[00:13:20] Yeah.

[00:13:21] So this is actually an interesting case where

[00:13:23] my temptation is to say,

[00:13:25] well let's do the descriptive task.

[00:13:27] So Finn says, what about rejecting to

[00:13:30] which says that there are holes?

[00:13:32] The problem with this is that we say,

[00:13:34] or saying such things as there's a hole in my bucket

[00:13:36] dear Liza, and so we refer to holes.

[00:13:39] When we utter a single sentence or lyric,

[00:13:41] our words point to the hole in the bucket.

[00:13:43] If there are no holes and no such hole

[00:13:45] for our fingers or words to point at,

[00:13:47] then we need to reinterpret such sentences

[00:13:49] as we're being referenced to holes.

[00:13:51] For example, we could make do with the language of objects

[00:13:53] being perforated rather than objects having holes as such.

[00:13:56] My bucket is perforated dear Liza.

[00:13:59] And I think yeah, like that's exactly,

[00:14:02] like I would really love to see it sort of a descriptive

[00:14:07] project in which you look across languages to see

[00:14:10] does everybody actually use a term that is objects like?

[00:14:14] Like it sounds like an object when they're referring to holes

[00:14:17] they just refer as to this thing that is normally complete

[00:14:21] has an absence in it.

[00:14:23] And I know that this is not right for somebody who does metaphysics,

[00:14:27] they want the truth of whether or not there's such a thing as an object.

[00:14:30] But it seems as if it does hinge on the usage

[00:14:35] of the word holes at least in English.

[00:14:37] That sounds late, vitconstinian.

[00:14:40] Very congenial way.

[00:14:42] I just remain, I shall remain silent.

[00:14:48] So she says it is the bucket that is wholly shaped

[00:14:56] rather than there being actual holes in the bucket.

[00:14:59] But can every truth about holes be reinterpreted

[00:15:01] and systematically paraphrased as truths about perforated host objects?

[00:15:05] Ordinarily we don't think that by simply not talking about something

[00:15:08] that ceases to exist.

[00:15:10] So she seems to be arguing that we can't just replace

[00:15:13] the word hole and call it perforated objects.

[00:15:17] I mean maybe perforated isn't the right word,

[00:15:20] like the Grand Canyon is not, I wouldn't say it's perforated

[00:15:24] but we might call it a hole in the earth.

[00:15:26] But you know, I don't know, it seems,

[00:15:28] I feel like that was the solution in that rejecting number two.

[00:15:32] I guess, but I think so if you go to the paper

[00:15:37] and I didn't read it closely

[00:15:40] but there's this discussion of perforated

[00:15:43] and there's all sorts of different problems

[00:15:46] with thinking of it that way.

[00:15:48] So if Argel or Bargel says,

[00:15:52] take a paper towel roller

[00:15:54] and punch a little hole in its side.

[00:15:57] Now you have a hole in a hole lining.

[00:16:00] You'd have to say you have a hole in a hole.

[00:16:03] You have a little hole which is part of a big hole.

[00:16:05] The big hole is not singly perforated

[00:16:09] and the little hole and the big hole are the same hole

[00:16:11] since the little hole is a common part of each.

[00:16:15] And Argel says, I think not.

[00:16:17] You speak of the big hole

[00:16:19] but what you have are not two holes, two big holes

[00:16:22] but the same laid end to end.

[00:16:24] There's also the little hole,

[00:16:26] not the same as either the big hole which overlaps them both.

[00:16:29] So I mean, I think you can generate these weird counter-intuitive paradoxes

[00:16:37] out of that solution I guess is the point there.

[00:16:41] Right, yeah.

[00:16:43] But can I give what I take to be the...

[00:16:46] I think that what Lewis is doing,

[00:16:49] the Lewises are doing is different from...

[00:16:53] I take the Lewises piece to be ultimately about metaphylocophy

[00:17:00] and that there's going to be this unresolvable tension

[00:17:05] between our theories and common sense.

[00:17:08] And it's always going to be a trade-off

[00:17:11] and it's never clear where that equilibrium should end up.

[00:17:17] So I'll read you the last part of this since you haven't read it.

[00:17:21] So Bargel says, I see that I can never hope to refute you

[00:17:24] since I no sooner reduce your position to absurdity

[00:17:28] than you embrace the absurdity.

[00:17:31] And Bargel says, not absurdity, disagreement with common opinion.

[00:17:36] Bargel says very well,

[00:17:38] but I for one have more trust in common opinions

[00:17:41] than I do in any philosophical reasoning whatever.

[00:17:44] Insofar as you disagree with them,

[00:17:46] you must pay a great price in the plausibility of your theories.

[00:17:49] Bargel agreed, we have been measuring that price.

[00:17:53] I have shown that it is not so great as you thought it

[00:17:55] and I am prepared to pay it.

[00:17:57] My theories can earn credence by their clarity and economy.

[00:18:01] If they disagree a little bit with common opinion,

[00:18:04] then common opinion may be corrected even by a philosopher.

[00:18:09] And Bargel says the price is still too high.

[00:18:12] Bargel says we agree in principle we're only haggling

[00:18:16] like the Churchill quote there.

[00:18:18] I think it's being referenced.

[00:18:20] We do.

[00:18:22] And the same is true of our other debates over ontic parsimony.

[00:18:26] This argument has served us as an illustration,

[00:18:28] novel, simple and self-contained

[00:18:30] of the nature of our customary disputes.

[00:18:33] So this is this metafilosophical point where when you try to reduce

[00:18:38] the world and the phenomenon to theories,

[00:18:41] at a certain point you are going to depart from common sense

[00:18:45] and where you land on the usefulness of the parsimonious theory

[00:18:51] versus the counterintuitive conclusions,

[00:18:54] you get there by haggling.

[00:18:56] It's not at least one way.

[00:18:59] That's right.

[00:19:01] No, I think that's very clever actually.

[00:19:03] And I'm curious as to whether the Lewis is...

[00:19:08] Let's use this whole problem as a way to illustrate this point.

[00:19:12] But now it seems like it is its own thing

[00:19:15] and I have to admit I was not ready for this sentence.

[00:19:20] Why does all this matter what's in a whole?

[00:19:22] Well, one case that the whole expert,

[00:19:24] Akili Varzee, professor of philosophy at Columbia University,

[00:19:27] sites dot dot dot.

[00:19:29] What a whole expert.

[00:19:32] That's amazing.

[00:19:34] I mean...

[00:19:36] I know I meant work.

[00:19:38] I would have business cards with like a whole...

[00:19:40] Soundproof location.

[00:19:42] You need to say something about a whole expert.

[00:19:45] Let's just say that hanging chads wouldn't be my number one concern.

[00:19:49] I feel like I would be a consultant for Pornhub.

[00:19:53] How do we categorize?

[00:19:55] How do we categorize the amount of penetration

[00:19:58] that is going on in this sexual...

[00:20:00] I would direct listeners to our episode 126

[00:20:04] when we talked about Nagle's The Absurd

[00:20:07] and there was an empirical essay

[00:20:09] about how we gauge the size of holes.

[00:20:12] That's right with our tongue.

[00:20:14] Well, tongue was second best.

[00:20:16] I think toe is the best.

[00:20:19] But I guess they took as just a given the metaphysic.

[00:20:24] Like they just went in there with these

[00:20:26] blasé metaphysical assumptions about the existence of holes.

[00:20:30] Just like a scientist.

[00:20:32] But keep reading that paragraph,

[00:20:34] because this is the paragraph that I have a problem with.

[00:20:37] So whole expert Akili Varzee, professor of philosophy

[00:20:40] at Columbia University, sites,

[00:20:42] is that of recounting holes and ballots

[00:20:44] during the 2000 U.S. presidential election?

[00:20:46] In Varzee's words,

[00:20:48] all of a sudden we realized that the destiny

[00:20:50] of the United States,

[00:20:52] if not the destiny of the entire world,

[00:20:55] depends on our criteria for counting holes.

[00:20:59] And in order to count the holes

[00:21:01] we need to know how to identify and individuate them

[00:21:04] and thus we need to know what they are.

[00:21:07] Granted this is an unusual case,

[00:21:09] but a better understanding of where holes lie

[00:21:11] on the material slash immaterial

[00:21:13] and things slash nothing divides

[00:21:15] in our knowledge of reality.

[00:21:17] Okay.

[00:21:19] So, yeah, all of a sudden...

[00:21:21] She lost you there. She lost you.

[00:21:23] Yeah, she lost me and I think this is...

[00:21:26] Like I also think she lost the Luices

[00:21:29] and their point in that debate.

[00:21:32] So first of all, let's see if we agree about this.

[00:21:36] There is absolutely no way

[00:21:39] that settling this metaphysical question

[00:21:43] that she's talking about

[00:21:45] could have conceivably had any impact

[00:21:49] on the hanging chad issue in the 2000 presidential election.

[00:21:53] I mean, no, as I understand it,

[00:21:55] remembering everything that went on,

[00:21:58] this was about the intention of the voters.

[00:22:01] It doesn't really matter, right?

[00:22:03] It was just about the clearest way

[00:22:05] to determine what the attention of the person

[00:22:07] who punched this hole or whatever.

[00:22:11] Whether a hole is a real object or not,

[00:22:13] I cannot imagine...

[00:22:15] It's inconceivable, right?

[00:22:17] That any progress, like no matter

[00:22:20] what kind of progress is made in this debate,

[00:22:23] if you call it progress or even if you accept...

[00:22:26] There's no way that it could in any way help...

[00:22:31] Like she says, granted, this is an unusual case.

[00:22:34] Almost sort of taking for granted

[00:22:37] what look at how important it was

[00:22:40] and a better understanding of where holes lie

[00:22:43] in the material, immaterial, and thing, nothing divide.

[00:22:46] Like no, there's all sorts of things

[00:22:49] that are factored into where you came down

[00:22:53] on that issue and none of them relate

[00:22:57] to the metaphysical reality of holes.

[00:23:00] Right. There is something that...

[00:23:03] The most interesting part of this whole debate,

[00:23:06] our usage of the term donut hole

[00:23:10] to refer to those little things that we find,

[00:23:13] which aren't in any way...

[00:23:16] And this is something that Finn doesn't point out,

[00:23:20] which I think has a clear implication

[00:23:22] for the philosophy of holes.

[00:23:24] Those things are never part of a donut.

[00:23:27] Like if they were, we would need to make

[00:23:31] as many donuts as we make donut holes,

[00:23:34] and we don't. These are made separately.

[00:23:37] So this goes to show that our usage of the term hole

[00:23:40] can in many cases be completely convenient

[00:23:43] and conventional and refer to nothing other

[00:23:46] than our desire to label something as such.

[00:23:49] There is no metaphysical lesson to be learned

[00:23:51] from Tim Bitts and Munchkins.

[00:23:54] I mean, we'll talk about what I think

[00:23:56] the connection is between...

[00:23:58] But like the donut holes are like an example

[00:24:01] of a grown year where...

[00:24:04] You take some metaphysical theory

[00:24:07] and all of a sudden it makes itself present

[00:24:09] in the real world.

[00:24:11] That's right. The Horesiarch Akeel Varze.

[00:24:14] So I think what the Lewis is,

[00:24:16] and I could be wrong about this,

[00:24:18] metaphysicians feel free to correct me on this,

[00:24:20] but what started as a metaphilosophical point

[00:24:23] about the tensions between theory

[00:24:26] and common sense ends up just taking

[00:24:29] on its own reality as this actual debate.

[00:24:32] And then in that last paragraph,

[00:24:35] then you see this attempt to actually

[00:24:38] make it matter in the real world

[00:24:40] in a way that it couldn't possibly.

[00:24:43] Yeah, I have an analog case

[00:24:46] since we have failed in our

[00:24:49] repugnance recently.

[00:24:52] This is discussions I've really had before.

[00:24:56] And I think what I'm doing,

[00:24:58] I'm not being a realist about the

[00:25:01] unsearchal status of this.

[00:25:03] I don't think that I should be,

[00:25:05] but it is nonetheless an interesting discussion.

[00:25:07] And that is what counts as a one-night stand.

[00:25:10] And I remember I've had very long

[00:25:13] conversations about whether

[00:25:15] if you sleep with somebody whom you don't know

[00:25:18] one night and then you wake up

[00:25:20] and you sleep with them again in the morning,

[00:25:22] do you have a one-night stand?

[00:25:24] Or have you not?

[00:25:26] Or suppose that the first time you slept with somebody,

[00:25:29] every intention was that you were in love

[00:25:31] and you were going to get married,

[00:25:33] but that person gets on an airplane

[00:25:35] and the airplane crashes.

[00:25:37] Did you have a one-night stand?

[00:25:39] Oh, that's interesting.

[00:25:41] I like that one.

[00:25:43] The first one just strikes me as yes it is,

[00:25:46] but you know.

[00:25:48] So yeah, this is the case where

[00:25:51] you're in a one-night stand,

[00:25:53] but you're not in a one-night stand.

[00:25:55] So that's the case.

[00:25:57] So you're in a one-night stand

[00:25:59] or something where...

[00:26:01] Is that two single one-night stands?

[00:26:03] Or is it one one-night stand?

[00:26:05] Or are there no one-night stands?

[00:26:07] Also how many threesomes have you had

[00:26:09] if you've multiple times slept

[00:26:11] with the same two other people?

[00:26:13] If you said like you'd add three threesomes

[00:26:16] because you were referring to

[00:26:18] three nights in a row of having sex

[00:26:20] and having a sex sport is like...

[00:26:22] It's not like there is a platonic reality

[00:26:25] of these things.

[00:26:27] It's just we're trying to figure out

[00:26:29] how we use the word.

[00:26:31] Yeah, but I think that the philosophers

[00:26:33] of holes would disagree with us.

[00:26:35] Anyway, we are no disrespect

[00:26:38] to Suki Finn.

[00:26:40] Certainly the...

[00:26:42] Actually respect to her for writing it up.

[00:26:44] Yeah, but kind of an entertaining article,

[00:26:46] although emphatic disagreement

[00:26:48] with the orientation

[00:26:50] that is taken at the end of her article.

[00:26:54] But at least it's entertainingly written.

[00:26:57] Yes, I understand.

[00:26:58] Even if it will end up leading to the destruction

[00:27:00] of our own reality.

[00:27:03] Yeah, I know.

[00:27:05] But I do like the phrase ontological parsimony.

[00:27:08] I'm just gonna object

[00:27:10] every time somebody says something I don't like.

[00:27:12] I'm just gonna say you're not being ontologically parsimonious

[00:27:15] and hope that they don't ask me any follow-up questions.

[00:27:17] Have you ever heard of Timbits?

[00:27:19] Yeah, because they're from Tim Hortons,

[00:27:22] which is largely in Canada.

[00:27:25] All right, we'll be right back

[00:27:28] to talk about Borjas.

[00:27:31] I was gonna say, are you gonna actually say it?

[00:27:34] Talan!

[00:27:36] Uqbar!

[00:27:42] At this moment, we'd like to take a moment

[00:27:44] to thank our sponsor.

[00:27:47] This week, our episode of Very Bad Wizards

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[00:27:56] This time of the year,

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[00:29:23] on this holiday seasons.

[00:29:25] We did.

[00:29:27] So we just had Hanukkah.

[00:29:29] Hanukkah's already over.

[00:29:31] Who told you about Hanukkah?

[00:29:33] Yeah, it was maybe...

[00:29:35] there's a chance I was reminded

[00:29:37] of that last week.

[00:29:39] But anyway,

[00:29:41] two nights out of the eight,

[00:29:43] Eliza gets to choose

[00:29:45] to give to a charity instead of getting a present.

[00:29:47] And this year one of those nights

[00:29:49] she gave to Givewell.org.

[00:29:51] That's great.

[00:29:53] That's a good idea.

[00:29:55] We only have one night for the Christmas.

[00:29:57] Yeah.

[00:29:59] But I'll at least add it.

[00:30:01] We hoarded the nights.

[00:30:03] That's right.

[00:30:05] And then we said,

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[00:30:33] And I just give.

[00:31:54] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards.

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[00:33:58] Absolutely, can I just say

[00:34:00] really quickly because I didn't say it

[00:34:02] in the beginning segment that one of the

[00:34:04] things that was really nice about last episode

[00:34:06] is the number of

[00:34:08] comments, tweets and emails from people

[00:34:10] about the replication stuff.

[00:34:12] Friend of the podcast

[00:34:14] and host of Black Goat

[00:34:16] podcast, co-host Sanjay Sravastava

[00:34:18] sent out a tweet

[00:34:20] with a little link to the reddit

[00:34:22] quote and I was just

[00:34:24] actually surprised at how

[00:34:26] much people

[00:34:28] I don't know, I guess appreciated

[00:34:30] what I had said, I thought it was kind of obvious to say

[00:34:32] but that's just one of those cases

[00:34:34] where the interactions with our listeners

[00:34:36] mean a lot to us.

[00:34:38] And getting a nice tweet from Sanjay

[00:34:40] that's...

[00:34:42] He is one of the contankerous ones

[00:34:44] who started the...

[00:34:46] Normally he's just telling

[00:34:48] strangers to keep

[00:34:50] their fucking dogs away from his kid.

[00:34:54] Sanjay is a sweetheart in person

[00:34:56] on Twitter, he's

[00:34:58] allowed to be a little bit more aggressive.

[00:35:00] So thank you everybody.

[00:35:02] Alright, let's move on

[00:35:04] to today's main topic.

[00:35:06] Which is

[00:35:08] as Tamler

[00:35:10] you point out, metaphysics of sorts

[00:35:12] but it is in the form of

[00:35:14] a fictional short story

[00:35:16] by our

[00:35:18] at least behaviorally favorite

[00:35:20] fiction author

[00:35:22] Jorge Luis Borges called

[00:35:24] Talon Uqbar Orbis Tercius.

[00:35:26] What do you mean behaviorally?

[00:35:28] I mean that is if you count up

[00:35:30] the number of fictional things that we've talked about

[00:35:32] that economists

[00:35:34] refer to as revealed

[00:35:36] preferences.

[00:35:38] It might be behaviorally but he's also

[00:35:40] just starting to be my favorite author

[00:35:42] at least the one I'm most into

[00:35:44] right now.

[00:35:46] So this is a story I read a long time ago

[00:35:48] but I think a few people

[00:35:50] a few of our listeners actually suggested it

[00:35:52] Well you read it first.

[00:35:54] I did, yeah I thought you had read it

[00:35:56] and then I was reading it.

[00:35:58] I didn't remember anybody recommending it

[00:36:00] There is this thing when you

[00:36:02] read his stories where you

[00:36:04] at any point it could just

[00:36:06] you feel like it might change

[00:36:08] the whole way you look at the world

[00:36:10] and you know,

[00:36:12] unsettle just how you

[00:36:14] perceive reality in all sorts of

[00:36:16] ways. I mean we

[00:36:18] the metaphysical vertigo

[00:36:20] that comes from

[00:36:22] the stories that we've read

[00:36:24] and discussed here

[00:36:26] is far better than

[00:36:28] what I get from any philosopher

[00:36:30] right and this is

[00:36:32] I would agree. This is a very

[00:36:34] philosophical story but

[00:36:36] And it is explicitly philosophical, right?

[00:36:38] Yes, explicitly. We'll talk about how

[00:36:40] But you want to just

[00:36:42] describe the plot and then I'll

[00:36:44] Broad strokes because this is actually a story

[00:36:46] in three parts and each of the three parts

[00:36:48] is very different. It takes

[00:36:50] it's three different times

[00:36:52] There is a time one

[00:36:54] there is

[00:36:56] a follow up that takes place

[00:36:58] two years later and then there is

[00:37:00] a third

[00:37:02] part which is written

[00:37:04] in 1947 which

[00:37:06] is something like five years after the last

[00:37:08] part and is actually in the future

[00:37:10] so I think Borges published this in

[00:37:12] 40. I think it was just 1940

[00:37:14] So it's seven years after that

[00:37:16] Right, so

[00:37:20] I actually found a

[00:37:22] blog post by what appears to be just

[00:37:24] an English student who had to who was

[00:37:26] assigned this to read in English a few years ago

[00:37:28] Rachel from 2011

[00:37:30] I'll put a link to this. She summarized it

[00:37:32] just about as good as

[00:37:34] much better than I could more efficiently

[00:37:36] Toulon-Ukbar Orbis Tercius

[00:37:38] A man reads an encyclopedia

[00:37:40] The encyclopedia talks about a

[00:37:42] fantastical world called Toulon

[00:37:44] Toulon actually turns out to be made up

[00:37:46] the people who made up the world and wrote

[00:37:48] the encyclopedia article called themselves Orbis Tercius

[00:37:50] Orbis Tercius turns out to be a centuries old

[00:37:52] secret society dedicated to making up lots

[00:37:54] and lots of stories and encyclopedia articles

[00:37:56] about Toulon. Eventually most people

[00:37:58] in the world find out about these stories

[00:38:00] and encyclopedia articles they read them

[00:38:02] and think that the stories are real because they start

[00:38:04] believing that they're real they start acting like

[00:38:06] make-believe Toulon people are supposed to act and the real world

[00:38:08] changes to be the world of

[00:38:10] Toulon. Weird things about reality change

[00:38:12] for instance things start existing only because

[00:38:14] people want them to exist

[00:38:16] so that does not preserve

[00:38:18] the structure of how the story is told

[00:38:20] I'm not a genius. I agree it's a good summary of the product.

[00:38:22] It's a very plain English summary

[00:38:24] What is true about it is that

[00:38:26] there is a fictitious encyclopedia

[00:38:28] entry that then

[00:38:30] it turns out that the

[00:38:32] world that is described in this fictitious

[00:38:34] encyclopedia entry was

[00:38:36] made up

[00:38:38] by a secret society

[00:38:40] they made up a country called Uqbar

[00:38:42] So there is this

[00:38:44] the encyclopedia itself

[00:38:46] is a very well-designed

[00:38:48] the encyclopedia itself

[00:38:50] is there is only

[00:38:52] one of them right because

[00:38:54] it's the exact duplicate

[00:38:56] of an encyclopedia Britannico

[00:38:58] but with four extra pages at the end

[00:39:00] that describe Uqbar

[00:39:02] That's what turns out to be a fictional land.

[00:39:04] That's right. So part one

[00:39:06] is in the first person

[00:39:08] Borges is talking

[00:39:10] and this is one of the great things about this story

[00:39:12] is it is inserted

[00:39:14] with a lot of autobiographical

[00:39:16] sort of perspective

[00:39:18] Borges talking about his actual friends

[00:39:20] So in the beginning

[00:39:24] Borges is talking to

[00:39:26] a friend of his named Bjoi Kasaris

[00:39:28] who is a real author

[00:39:30] and Kasaris gives him a quote

[00:39:32] he says

[00:39:34] one of the Horesiyarcs of Uqbar

[00:39:36] had stated that mirrors and copulation are abominable

[00:39:38] since they both multiply

[00:39:40] the numbers of man.

[00:39:42] So Borges' fascination with this quote

[00:39:44] and this Horesiyarc from Uqbar

[00:39:46] would be in what Uqbar is

[00:39:48] it's sort of what gets the story going

[00:39:50] and his friend says

[00:39:52] oh no, no, no, it's this country

[00:39:54] I read about it in this encyclopedia

[00:39:56] the Anglo-American encyclopedia

[00:39:58] which Borges points out

[00:40:00] is just a bootleg copy

[00:40:02] of the encyclopedia Britannica

[00:40:04] and in this particular volume

[00:40:06] there is supposed to be an entry on Uqbar

[00:40:08] at the very end. So they go and look for this encyclopedia

[00:40:10] but it's not there

[00:40:12] it actually is missing

[00:40:14] it would be in the place of the very last entry

[00:40:16] but it's not there

[00:40:18] and Borges thinks that his friend

[00:40:20] was just making some shit up to say that cool phrase

[00:40:22] right

[00:40:24] which is great

[00:40:26] he says

[00:40:28] un-documented country and its anonymous Horesiyarc

[00:40:30] had been deliberately invented by Bjoj

[00:40:32] out of modesty

[00:40:34] to substantiate a phrase

[00:40:36] which is a very nice way of saying my friend was lying

[00:40:38] to sound cool

[00:40:42] so they finally are able to

[00:40:44] so able to track down

[00:40:46] other copies

[00:40:48] of this Anglo-American encyclopedia

[00:40:50] right, it turns out there's only this one copy

[00:40:52] as you said

[00:40:54] even the quote about the mirrors

[00:40:56] is it turns out

[00:40:58] in part one to be a different quote

[00:41:00] like the guy remembered it wrong

[00:41:02] that's right

[00:41:04] and the actual quote is

[00:41:06] it goes like this

[00:41:08] for one of those Gnostics

[00:41:10] the visible universe was an illusion

[00:41:12] or more precisely a Sophism

[00:41:14] mirrors and fatherhood

[00:41:16] are hateful because they multiply

[00:41:18] and proclaim it

[00:41:20] so that's the actual quote

[00:41:22] I mean that's in the fake encyclopedia

[00:41:24] but it's

[00:41:26] or the singular

[00:41:28] encyclopedia

[00:41:30] and

[00:41:32] which is itself a reproduction

[00:41:34] of the encyclopedia Britannica

[00:41:36] so there's like all sorts of

[00:41:38] like already you have this

[00:41:40] kind of Plato's idealism

[00:41:42] right, like it's this idea

[00:41:44] of mirrors as

[00:41:46] taking us away

[00:41:48] from reality

[00:41:50] and

[00:41:52] the encyclopedia itself is a copy

[00:41:54] which is taking us away from reality

[00:41:56] and

[00:41:58] all this stuff is just packed into those two little quotes

[00:42:00] and these little

[00:42:02] I mean this is the first like page

[00:42:04] of the story all of this gets

[00:42:06] gets put in

[00:42:08] it's very, yeah

[00:42:10] so you know it opens out with him having

[00:42:12] just a conversation

[00:42:14] with his friend

[00:42:16] and the conversation that he's having

[00:42:18] that his friend was talking

[00:42:20] he says talk to us at length about a great scheme

[00:42:22] of the novel in the first person

[00:42:24] using a narrator who omitted or corrupted

[00:42:26] what happened and who ran into various

[00:42:28] contradictions so that only a handful of readers

[00:42:30] a very small handful would be able to decipher

[00:42:32] the horrible or banal

[00:42:34] reality behind the novel

[00:42:36] and I couldn't help but think

[00:42:38] this is something that in our

[00:42:40] discussion of the Garden of Forking

[00:42:42] paths one of the

[00:42:44] potential conclusions that we are reaching

[00:42:46] at the end was

[00:42:48] that the whole story

[00:42:50] was in fact a banal one

[00:42:52] it was the made up musings

[00:42:54] of a guy who is about to be

[00:42:56] executed and so he made up this

[00:42:58] fantastical story

[00:43:00] like justify himself

[00:43:02] exactly it's an unreliable narrator

[00:43:04] it's written in the first person

[00:43:06] I feel like Borges is already

[00:43:08] he's already telling us

[00:43:10] by the way I'm writing in the first person

[00:43:12] and it turns out

[00:43:14] he has filled this story

[00:43:16] with a number of real facts

[00:43:18] a number of completely made up ones

[00:43:20] the Encyclopedia being the very first example

[00:43:22] we get of a copy

[00:43:24] that's imperfect that has

[00:43:26] added a fiction to it

[00:43:28] can we talk about Plato's

[00:43:30] idea of

[00:43:32] reality

[00:43:34] and the

[00:43:36] successive mirror

[00:43:38] replications that take us

[00:43:40] further and further away because I think it's important

[00:43:42] and it's definitely not explicitly

[00:43:44] alluded to but it's

[00:43:46] clearly alluded to

[00:43:48] I think in the opening and also in the end

[00:43:50] so just really briefly

[00:43:52] you can think about it as the cave

[00:43:54] so in the cave outside

[00:43:56] the cave is reality there's the sun

[00:43:58] and that casts light on

[00:44:00] real objects outside

[00:44:02] but what we see

[00:44:04] the run of humanity

[00:44:06] are shadows

[00:44:08] that are cast by

[00:44:10] a fire of artifacts

[00:44:12] of the things that are

[00:44:14] outside so

[00:44:16] there'll be a cardboard cut out

[00:44:18] of a tree

[00:44:20] and we see a shadow of that

[00:44:22] and that's what we think is

[00:44:24] a real tree but in fact

[00:44:26] it is a shadow

[00:44:28] of

[00:44:30] an artifact of a tree

[00:44:32] and what Plato

[00:44:34] said in book 10 of the Republic

[00:44:36] is that he thought art

[00:44:38] was like this or art

[00:44:40] could be like this where

[00:44:42] it is a

[00:44:44] copy of a copy of a copy

[00:44:46] like art just takes you

[00:44:48] further and further away

[00:44:50] from reality by doing

[00:44:52] these successive copies

[00:44:54] it is actually the case that he didn't want art

[00:44:56] in the Republic?

[00:44:58] it is actually the case that that's what he says

[00:45:00] for sure

[00:45:02] he's very critical of any kind

[00:45:04] of art that would distort

[00:45:06] the reality because

[00:45:08] which is already distorted he thought

[00:45:10] because it can only be discovered intellectually

[00:45:12] not through our senses

[00:45:14] the senses

[00:45:16] already trick us into thinking

[00:45:18] something is real when it's not

[00:45:20] like when he says for one of these

[00:45:22] Gnostics the visible universe

[00:45:24] was an illusion or more precisely a

[00:45:26] Sophism that's like a

[00:45:28] Plato's idea in the Republic

[00:45:30] and other dialogues

[00:45:32] again it's sort of gesturing at

[00:45:34] that

[00:45:36] and in fact it's gesturing in a way

[00:45:38] Gnosticism which is sort of

[00:45:40] a term that's used to

[00:45:42] loosely bring together

[00:45:44] a number of heretical

[00:45:46] early Christian beliefs

[00:45:50] was itself

[00:45:52] very clearly influenced by Platonism

[00:45:54] so Neoplatonism is

[00:45:56] at the heart of Gnosticism

[00:45:58] in the early years of the Christian

[00:46:00] text so he is already

[00:46:02] just being very you know and it

[00:46:04] is the case that a lot of the people

[00:46:06] that we would call Gnostic are

[00:46:08] did

[00:46:10] reject this world as reality

[00:46:12] and they were usually dualists

[00:46:14] they

[00:46:16] often believed that

[00:46:18] the material world

[00:46:20] was completely imperfect

[00:46:22] and this led them

[00:46:24] to either

[00:46:26] abhor all of the

[00:46:28] pleasures of this world

[00:46:30] or in some really really cool cases

[00:46:32] believe that it mattered

[00:46:34] not at all how many

[00:46:36] pleasures you indulged in

[00:46:38] because this world didn't matter

[00:46:40] and it was often believed that

[00:46:42] this world was actually the creation

[00:46:44] not of God, real God

[00:46:46] but of a demiurge of some sort

[00:46:48] that was just fucking with

[00:46:50] human beings

[00:46:52] which is also a Cartesian idea

[00:46:54] right the Descartes

[00:46:56] evil genius or evil demon

[00:46:58] so all of

[00:47:00] this is being tied together

[00:47:02] under a kind of

[00:47:04] category of idealist

[00:47:06] philosophical idealist

[00:47:08] views of

[00:47:10] reality

[00:47:12] and this is like in the first six paragraphs

[00:47:14] there are already so many ideas

[00:47:16] that we like there's no way we're going to

[00:47:18] get through all of the ideas but

[00:47:20] before we go through like

[00:47:22] the story should we give

[00:47:24] do you have a take

[00:47:26] on this like an interpretation

[00:47:28] of what he's up to

[00:47:30] I suspect you have

[00:47:32] a more

[00:47:34] of a take

[00:47:36] I don't know maybe it will emerge

[00:47:38] that I do in our conversation

[00:47:40] but I don't have like

[00:47:42] let me just give mine because

[00:47:44] yeah I think that

[00:47:46] then as we go through it

[00:47:48] it'll help me at least

[00:47:50] having it out there

[00:47:52] I think there is a way to read it

[00:47:54] I don't think it's the right way

[00:47:56] necessarily and I'm sure I'll have

[00:47:58] you know 15 different interpretations

[00:48:01] by the time you know

[00:48:03] we're done with this conversation

[00:48:05] there is a way to read this as

[00:48:07] like

[00:48:09] my spirit animal

[00:48:11] or like spirit story

[00:48:13] like it is in

[00:48:15] just 10 pages the

[00:48:17] distillation of

[00:48:19] all of my discomfort with

[00:48:21] theorizing with monism

[00:48:23] with a kind of

[00:48:26] unearned universalism

[00:48:29] with

[00:48:31] this illusion or

[00:48:33] appearance of objectivity

[00:48:35] or of objective order

[00:48:37] right like that I

[00:48:39] have been if there's one thing

[00:48:41] that I have been consistent on

[00:48:43] is my

[00:48:45] discomfort with this idea of

[00:48:47] a need to have the world ordered

[00:48:49] and then a pretension

[00:48:51] to have ordered it in that

[00:48:53] way like it is about

[00:48:55] the kind of seductiveness of

[00:48:57] all grand philosophical

[00:48:59] systems and how that

[00:49:01] seductiveness can actually

[00:49:03] lead to real world

[00:49:05] destruction so I mean

[00:49:07] it's interesting and we can talk about this idealism

[00:49:09] that the notion of idealism

[00:49:11] in this Barkley and idealism that things

[00:49:15] that all of existence is

[00:49:17] merely the perception

[00:49:19] of existence

[00:49:21] it turns out to be true

[00:49:24] in this story

[00:49:26] well no I mean

[00:49:28] when it turns out that

[00:49:30] the minute that people become aware

[00:49:32] of the radical idealism of the

[00:49:34] fictional world to loan

[00:49:36] that was supposedly the product

[00:49:38] of a real world

[00:49:40] which was in fact itself a fictional world

[00:49:42] created by neoplatonic secret

[00:49:44] societies

[00:49:46] that the hardcore idealism

[00:49:48] of this like meta

[00:49:50] of a third world is actually

[00:49:52] in it makes its way into

[00:49:54] our existence and starts changing

[00:49:56] reality because people believe it

[00:49:58] yes that's right and therefore

[00:50:00] destroys it right yeah now we

[00:50:02] can go I just wanted to get that out there

[00:50:04] and let's go through the so

[00:50:06] so they've found this encyclopedia

[00:50:08] but they're sort of flummoxed

[00:50:10] and that's the end of part one

[00:50:12] and that's the end of part one so part two picks up

[00:50:14] couple years later

[00:50:16] Borges

[00:50:18] opens it by

[00:50:20] reminiscing about a friend

[00:50:22] of his father named Herbert Ash

[00:50:24] who was

[00:50:26] a described as a very sort of

[00:50:28] plain Englishman

[00:50:30] one of my favorite quotes for

[00:50:32] this is for all our English listeners this captures you guys so well

[00:50:34] he's describing

[00:50:36] the friendship that he says my father

[00:50:38] and he had cemented

[00:50:40] the verb is excessive one of those

[00:50:42] English friendships which begin

[00:50:44] by avoiding intimacies and eventually

[00:50:46] eliminates speech altogether

[00:50:48] yeah

[00:50:50] and so

[00:50:52] this was an intellectual

[00:50:54] friendship they changed books

[00:50:56] and periodicals they played chess

[00:50:58] says one afternoon we

[00:51:00] discussed the do decimal numerical system

[00:51:02] in which 12 is written 10

[00:51:04] Ash said that as a matter

[00:51:06] of fact he was transcribing some do a decimal tables

[00:51:08] which will then learn is

[00:51:10] for that secret society although he

[00:51:12] is for a secret sort of a minor member

[00:51:14] of that secret society well or he's

[00:51:16] being used by the secret society

[00:51:18] yeah right the first

[00:51:20] two sentences of the second part

[00:51:22] some limited and waning

[00:51:24] memory of Herbert Ash

[00:51:26] an engineer for the southern railway

[00:51:28] line still hit lingers in the hotel

[00:51:30] at androgyn

[00:51:32] among the effusive honey

[00:51:34] suckle vines and the illusory

[00:51:36] depths of the mirrors as a

[00:51:38] first sentence and you get that and then

[00:51:40] in life ash was

[00:51:42] afflicted with unreality

[00:51:44] as so many Englishmen are

[00:51:46] that's like the introduction

[00:51:48] to him he was afflicted with unreality

[00:51:50] as so many Englishmen are

[00:51:52] and when you first read that sentence

[00:51:54] it's like

[00:51:56] that's funny that's a funny yeah right

[00:51:58] right he's like making fun of English culture or something

[00:52:00] and in fact I just thought of it

[00:52:02] now the fact that he didn't have

[00:52:04] that many bonds with other people apparently

[00:52:06] yeah right he says

[00:52:08] of his it could

[00:52:10] be that because not enough people believed

[00:52:12] or had the idea of

[00:52:14] Herbert Ash in mind he was in fact

[00:52:16] a pale metaphysical ghost

[00:52:18] right that it what

[00:52:20] is required in idealism is that people

[00:52:22] believe in it in the idea

[00:52:24] and that's what brings it into existence

[00:52:26] and perhaps not enough

[00:52:28] people were around to believe in Herbert Ash himself so he was actually

[00:52:30] a pale reflection

[00:52:32] and we should say that

[00:52:34] in the story he dies

[00:52:36] and that's what leads to the discovery

[00:52:38] of exactly the whole great

[00:52:40] conspiracy

[00:52:42] about the creation of this fictional land

[00:52:44] somewhere in the Middle East of

[00:52:46] Uqbar and I

[00:52:48] this is what I wanted to make sure we make clear

[00:52:50] Uqbar is this fictional land

[00:52:52] that in this story

[00:52:54] is the conspiracy

[00:52:56] is to insert

[00:52:58] real references in real

[00:53:00] you know it's like Wikipedia trolling

[00:53:02] insert enough references

[00:53:04] to this land of Uqbar that supposedly

[00:53:06] is

[00:53:08] a part of real earth

[00:53:10] and in Uqbar the culture is such

[00:53:12] that the only thing that they

[00:53:14] write about all of their literature is a

[00:53:16] fantastical fiction describing

[00:53:18] the planet Talon

[00:53:20] and so Talon and the ideas

[00:53:22] in Talon are the ones that end up being

[00:53:24] central to the story but Uqbar

[00:53:26] people human beings are imagining

[00:53:28] Uqbaris

[00:53:30] Uqbaris are imagining Talonites or whatever

[00:53:32] so then you get again that two removes

[00:53:34] or three if you

[00:53:36] remember that this is a story

[00:53:38] this is also a story

[00:53:40] which he tries to you know he

[00:53:42] I think it's good that he is writing this

[00:53:44] in the first person because

[00:53:46] you would be popping up too many stacks

[00:53:48] it would be it's already difficult to keep track

[00:53:50] of it it's very important

[00:53:52] so let's now say what Talon

[00:53:54] is

[00:53:56] right so

[00:53:58] so Talon

[00:54:00] they end up tracking down

[00:54:02] after the death of Herbert Ash

[00:54:04] a complete version of the 11th

[00:54:06] volume of an encyclopedia

[00:54:08] of Uqbar

[00:54:10] in that there is a

[00:54:12] description of Talon

[00:54:14] of their mythology

[00:54:16] who were the people who had invented Talon

[00:54:18] the Uqbaris

[00:54:20] the plural is unavoidable because we have unanimously

[00:54:22] rejected the idea of a single creator

[00:54:24] we conjecture that this brave new world

[00:54:26] was the work of a secret society of astronomers

[00:54:28] biologists, engineers, metaphysicians

[00:54:30] poets, chemists, mathematicians, moralists

[00:54:32] painters and geometricians

[00:54:34] all under the supervision of an unknown genius

[00:54:36] and these were the people

[00:54:38] who all conspired

[00:54:40] to create the mythology

[00:54:42] of Uqbar and within Uqbar

[00:54:44] the mythology of Talon

[00:54:46] and the world of Talon

[00:54:48] is one in which idealism

[00:54:50] that the idealism

[00:54:52] of Bishop Barkley

[00:54:54] is described

[00:54:56] yes as I understand it this is

[00:54:58] you know his famous quote is

[00:55:00] s s per se p to exist

[00:55:02] is to be perceived

[00:55:04] that perhaps quite literally

[00:55:06] unless anybody's perceiving you don't exist

[00:55:08] nothing exists unless it is being perceived

[00:55:10] it existence

[00:55:12] is in the mind of the perceiver

[00:55:14] which might lead you to really really doubt

[00:55:16] whether or not there is such a thing as reality

[00:55:18] and I believe Bishop Barkley

[00:55:20] got around this by saying

[00:55:22] well that is exactly what God is

[00:55:24] God is perceiving everything

[00:55:26] before we don't need to worry about our ontological status

[00:55:28] right and it seems like

[00:55:30] on Talon

[00:55:32] they take the idealism

[00:55:34] this idea that nothing exists

[00:55:36] unless it's perceived

[00:55:38] everything is just an idea

[00:55:40] there's no material reality

[00:55:42] to anything it's just

[00:55:44] being perceived

[00:55:46] is what creates it

[00:55:48] and sustains it

[00:55:50] and if it's

[00:55:52] not perceived it'll

[00:55:54] no longer exist

[00:55:56] but it doesn't have the God

[00:55:58] that is perceiving everything

[00:56:00] that's right

[00:56:02] in fact we find out that one of the

[00:56:04] one of the core members of the

[00:56:06] the finance of the whole

[00:56:08] endeavor to create this fictitious world

[00:56:10] was like make sure you don't include none of that Jesus

[00:56:12] shit in here we don't want the

[00:56:14] Barkley bailout

[00:56:16] of there being a God

[00:56:18] and it is a bailout because

[00:56:20] that allows him to

[00:56:22] just get out of all the counterintuitive

[00:56:24] ideas that like when

[00:56:26] I leave my office

[00:56:28] like everything will disappear

[00:56:30] because there's nobody to perceive it anymore

[00:56:32] and then it will immediately

[00:56:34] come back in exactly the same

[00:56:36] state that it was in before

[00:56:38] when I

[00:56:40] come back to perceive it

[00:56:42] but according to

[00:56:44] Barkley God

[00:56:46] is perceiving it the whole time

[00:56:48] so it does have a kind of sustained existence

[00:56:50] but in

[00:56:52] Toulon the people

[00:56:54] don't believe that

[00:56:56] they are folk, their folk psychology

[00:56:58] is that of idealism right?

[00:57:00] if Josh Noe Brown had studied there everybody would assume

[00:57:02] that the paper disappears if that one's looking at it

[00:57:04] that's just like their default

[00:57:06] right and so

[00:57:08] Barry says, humor marked once and for all

[00:57:10] that the arguments of Barkley were not only

[00:57:12] thoroughly unanswerable but thoroughly unconvincing

[00:57:14] this victim is emphatically trues it applies

[00:57:16] to our world but it falls down completely in Toulon

[00:57:18] the nations of that planet are congenitally idealist

[00:57:20] their language with its derivatives

[00:57:22] religion, literature and metaphysics presupposes idealism

[00:57:24] and in fact

[00:57:26] they don't have any nouns in their language

[00:57:28] in one hemisphere

[00:57:30] that people have a language that is

[00:57:32] solely verbs

[00:57:34] and in the other hemisphere

[00:57:36] they have a language that is solely adjectives

[00:57:38] and this is because

[00:57:40] this for Borges would capture

[00:57:42] more the reality that there is no

[00:57:44] permanence

[00:57:46] there is no thing that over time

[00:57:48] maintains its identity

[00:57:50] so to say that there is this cup in front of me

[00:57:52] presupposes

[00:57:54] that the cup has continuity of existence

[00:57:56] when

[00:57:58] there is

[00:58:00] there might be something that is being perceived currently

[00:58:02] but there is no thing that you can

[00:58:04] track over time that can be called an object

[00:58:06] and it's interesting that they have different ways

[00:58:08] of conceptualizing this

[00:58:10] in the southern and northern hemispheres

[00:58:12] of Toulon

[00:58:14] there is a sound that corresponds to our moon

[00:58:16] our word moon

[00:58:18] but there is a verb

[00:58:20] which in English would be

[00:58:22] to moonate or to in moon

[00:58:24] the ruse

[00:58:26] sorry the moon

[00:58:28] rose above the river is

[00:58:30] upward behind the on streaming

[00:58:32] it moons

[00:58:34] and I don't know what the it is there

[00:58:36] right and I mean it sort of points

[00:58:38] to this difficulty like well yeah

[00:58:40] there has to be some sense in which these strings

[00:58:42] of verbs or adjectives are describing

[00:58:44] an object

[00:58:46] and then on the other hemisphere

[00:58:48] they don't say moon

[00:58:50] they say aerial bright above dark

[00:58:52] round

[00:58:54] or soft amberish celestial

[00:58:56] like so they just

[00:58:58] a bunch of adjectives

[00:59:00] to describe

[00:59:02] something but it's never the same thing

[00:59:04] so they never have to have the same

[00:59:06] way of describing it

[00:59:08] because it's always a different thing

[00:59:10] than how it's being perceived at that time

[00:59:12] right

[00:59:14] so the fact that no one believes

[00:59:16] that nouns refer to an actual reality

[00:59:18] means paradoxically enough

[00:59:20] that there is no limits to the number of them

[00:59:22] there is a

[00:59:24] multiplication of what

[00:59:26] we might call objects but there is just

[00:59:28] it's sort of like zeno's paradox

[00:59:30] there's no discreet number of objects

[00:59:32] because there aren't any objects

[00:59:34] so I can refer to tamela right now

[00:59:36] tamela in a second from now

[00:59:38] and I'll like I'll be dressed differently

[00:59:40] tomorrow so

[00:59:42] you won't think of me as the same

[00:59:44] tamela you'll just like

[00:59:46] describe me by my

[00:59:48] shape or chiseled chin

[00:59:50] and in fact there is no

[00:59:52] there is no natural division

[00:59:54] between the identities and so

[00:59:56] Voorheiser refers to the practice

[00:59:58] of some

[01:00:00] people in their

[01:00:02] critical theory right when

[01:00:04] they're discussing works of art to just

[01:00:06] arbitrarily sort of combine works of art

[01:00:08] by two completely different people because what's the

[01:00:10] point of calling it one single person

[01:00:12] we know that that doesn't exist

[01:00:14] and this is a really fun part of

[01:00:16] the story because you're learning about this

[01:00:18] world and

[01:00:20] there's no

[01:00:22] dread that

[01:00:24] is coming there's just a mystery

[01:00:26] and the mystery is sort of slowly being

[01:00:28] solved just a

[01:00:30] ton of just great

[01:00:32] philosophy

[01:00:34] is being

[01:00:36] played with

[01:00:38] I love this quote where he talks about

[01:00:40] so he says

[01:00:42] at the beginning of one paragraph this monism

[01:00:44] or extreme idealism completely invalidates

[01:00:46] science to explain or to

[01:00:48] judge an event is to identify or unite it

[01:00:50] with another one later on

[01:00:52] yeah we do

[01:00:54] then he says

[01:00:56] the metaphysicians of T'Lawn are not

[01:00:58] looking for truth nor even for

[01:01:00] an approximation of it they are after

[01:01:02] a kind of amazement which is one of my favorite

[01:01:04] so this is my translation

[01:01:06] the metaphysicians of T'Lawn

[01:01:08] seek not truth or even

[01:01:10] plausibility they seek to amaze

[01:01:12] astound in their

[01:01:14] view metaphysics is a branch

[01:01:16] of the literature of fantasy

[01:01:20] I mean I feel like that's what we've been feeling with our

[01:01:22] recent discussions I mean this

[01:01:24] would like when I read that sentence the first time

[01:01:26] like I was just like oh

[01:01:28] have we been too hard on metaphysics

[01:01:30] metaphysics maybe that's what they're doing

[01:01:32] they're like it's like a story

[01:01:34] they're killing a story

[01:01:36] it's kind of a boring

[01:01:38] story but it's a story

[01:01:40] right one of the schools in T'Lawn has reached

[01:01:42] the point of denying time so Borghese

[01:01:44] is kind of building up the what

[01:01:46] would follow if you had a culture

[01:01:48] of a group of individuals

[01:01:50] who really really took idealism

[01:01:52] to its to the extent of it

[01:01:54] there is a school in T'Lawn

[01:01:56] that's reached a point of denying time altogether

[01:01:58] the reasons that the present is undefined

[01:02:00] that the future has no other reality than as present

[01:02:02] hope that the past is no more than present memory

[01:02:04] and there's a footnote

[01:02:06] to Bertrand Russell's

[01:02:08] idea that we

[01:02:10] have no good reason

[01:02:12] to discard or to

[01:02:14] the potential

[01:02:16] that we have all been created

[01:02:18] yesterday with memories

[01:02:20] of everything. Right, we're ten minutes ago

[01:02:22] and that's the

[01:02:24] and that's a real

[01:02:26] quote unlike some of the footnotes

[01:02:28] which are fiction this is a real

[01:02:30] idea that Bertrand Russell's had

[01:02:32] but I think the idea

[01:02:34] behind and I

[01:02:36] should have looked this up but I didn't but I think the idea behind it is

[01:02:38] this is something that we can't

[01:02:40] refute

[01:02:42] but we know is

[01:02:44] false like at some level

[01:02:46] like we can't really believe that it's true

[01:02:48] and it's just the opposite

[01:02:50] on T'Lawn where

[01:02:52] they just assume it's true

[01:02:54] that the world was created

[01:02:56] just seconds ago

[01:02:58] and that we were created just seconds ago

[01:03:00] because

[01:03:02] there's no sustaining

[01:03:04] us, there's no sustaining

[01:03:06] I.

[01:03:08] Yeah and

[01:03:10] in fact we are constantly being created

[01:03:14] this is another one of my favorite quotes

[01:03:16] another school has it that the history of the universe

[01:03:18] which contains the history of our lives

[01:03:20] in the most tenuous details of them

[01:03:22] being produced by a minor god in order to communicate with a demon

[01:03:26] and that is very much in line

[01:03:28] with this sort of gnostic

[01:03:30] demiriges

[01:03:32] and these demiriges have no

[01:03:34] commitment to real truth

[01:03:36] they are

[01:03:38] in many ways sort of tricksters

[01:03:40] and evil and they

[01:03:42] fuck with us. That's like the Descartes

[01:03:44] idea the evil genius

[01:03:46] that again both

[01:03:48] Descartes and Barkley

[01:03:50] they want to deny

[01:03:52] that such a thing is possible

[01:03:54] and that leads them to

[01:03:56] conclude God

[01:03:58] but in this here like

[01:04:00] anything's open

[01:04:02] Right if there is a true great

[01:04:04] just omnipotent God

[01:04:06] who can observe us all and bring us into existence

[01:04:08] what's to prevent there from being

[01:04:10] just like an idiot minor god who's kind of an asshole

[01:04:12] writing a letter to a demon

[01:04:14] and as a side effect of that

[01:04:16] creates our entire reality right

[01:04:18] and that's the genosis.

[01:04:20] And my favorite touch

[01:04:22] in this part of the story is

[01:04:24] the heresy

[01:04:26] that

[01:04:28] an 11th century

[01:04:30] heresy arc

[01:04:32] heresy arc

[01:04:34] conceived the sofism

[01:04:36] of the nine copper coins

[01:04:38] a paradox as

[01:04:40] scandalously famous on Talon

[01:04:42] as the

[01:04:44] eliotic pori to ourselves

[01:04:46] like Xenos' paradoxes

[01:04:48] so this is

[01:04:50] this is a scandalous paradox

[01:04:52] like the hair can never overtake the tortoise

[01:04:54] or we can never get to the wall

[01:04:56] because we're always going in subdivisions of it

[01:04:58] this is their version

[01:05:00] of that but

[01:05:02] the paradox there

[01:05:04] is that there are

[01:05:06] sustaining objects

[01:05:08] that's the heretical paradox

[01:05:10] that objects actually exist through time

[01:05:12] so here's

[01:05:14] the paradox

[01:05:16] on Tuesday

[01:05:18] X is walking along a deserted road

[01:05:20] and loses nine copper coins

[01:05:22] on Thursday Y finds

[01:05:24] four coins in the road

[01:05:26] their luster somewhat dimmed

[01:05:28] by Wednesday's rain

[01:05:30] so that all there it's like the idea

[01:05:32] oh it's the same coin

[01:05:34] and that's how their luster was dimmed

[01:05:36] on Friday Z discovers

[01:05:38] three coins in the road

[01:05:40] Friday morning X finds two coins

[01:05:42] in the veranda of his house

[01:05:44] from this story

[01:05:46] the heresiarck

[01:05:48] wished to deduce the reality

[01:05:50] i.e. the continuity in time

[01:05:52] of those nine recovered coins

[01:05:54] it is absurd

[01:05:56] he said to imagine that four of the coins

[01:05:58] did not exist from Tuesday to Thursday

[01:06:00] three from Tuesday to Friday afternoon

[01:06:02] two from Tuesday to Friday morning

[01:06:04] it is logical to think that they in fact

[01:06:06] did exist albeit in some secret way

[01:06:08] that we are forbidden to understand

[01:06:10] at every moment of those three periods of time

[01:06:12] and then the reactions

[01:06:14] to this is just hilarious

[01:06:16] like the reductio

[01:06:18] out absurdums that it's like you're equivocating

[01:06:20] on the use of the

[01:06:22] common usage

[01:06:24] of what it means to find

[01:06:26] and to lose

[01:06:28] they denounced the misleading detail

[01:06:30] that the coins luster was somewhat dimmed

[01:06:32] by Wednesday's rain

[01:06:34] as presupposing what it attempted to prove

[01:06:36] the continuing existence

[01:06:38] of the fork

[01:06:40] so it's just like people trying to resolve Zeno's paradox

[01:06:42] they're actually right

[01:06:44] they're right to call him out on his

[01:06:46] like no he's sneaking in the conclusion

[01:06:48] into the language of the premise

[01:06:50] this is next level genius

[01:06:52] on boar house part

[01:06:54] it's just crazy

[01:06:56] they explained

[01:06:58] that equality is one thing and identity another

[01:07:00] and formulated a kind of reductio

[01:07:02] the hypothetical case of nine men who

[01:07:04] on nine successful nights suffer violent pain

[01:07:06] ridiculous they asked to claim that this pain is the same one

[01:07:08] each time

[01:07:10] things can be equivalent but not

[01:07:12] I have to share an identity

[01:07:14] and then

[01:07:16] they started doing

[01:07:18] ad hominem attacks on the heresy arc

[01:07:20] he's motivated by the blasphemous intention of attributing

[01:07:22] the divine category of being to some ordinary coins

[01:07:24] amazingly enough

[01:07:26] these refutations were not conclusive

[01:07:28] he's sort of so to the seat of doubt

[01:07:30] I love that like also

[01:07:32] this is written in a kind of sarcastic tone

[01:07:34] in that sense right like amazingly enough

[01:07:36] these

[01:07:38] these refutations did not put an end to the matter

[01:07:40] that's my

[01:07:42] yeah

[01:07:44] so

[01:07:46] then he goes on to describe

[01:07:48] the geometry and the math of

[01:07:50] Toulon

[01:07:52] and the literature

[01:07:54] this is where he says

[01:07:56] the dominant notion is that everything is the work of one single author

[01:07:58] and their books are also different from our

[01:08:00] own their fiction has

[01:08:02] but a single plot with every imaginable

[01:08:04] permutation

[01:08:06] so that's like

[01:08:08] a kind of oh my reference

[01:08:10] to also in this collection

[01:08:12] Garden of Forking Paths

[01:08:14] their works of a philosophical nature

[01:08:16] invariably contain

[01:08:18] both the thesis and the antithesis

[01:08:20] a rigorous

[01:08:22] pro and contra of every argument

[01:08:24] a book that does not contain

[01:08:26] its counter book

[01:08:28] is considered incomplete now you're getting

[01:08:30] a Hegel kind of

[01:08:32] illusion there

[01:08:34] right which when he

[01:08:36] was a sort of idealist

[01:08:38] yeah and here's where you get

[01:08:40] sort of the turn

[01:08:42] into the true metaphysics so these aren't

[01:08:44] just people who believe idealism

[01:08:46] and idealism is so crazy

[01:08:48] and wrong it is that their

[01:08:50] belief in idealism in this again

[01:08:52] super meta way their belief in idealism

[01:08:54] itself starts to crack their reality

[01:08:56] yeah so after centuries

[01:08:58] here's what starts to happen

[01:09:00] it's not uncommon for lost objects

[01:09:02] to be duplicated

[01:09:04] so two people are looking

[01:09:06] for a pencil I'm not quoting here but

[01:09:08] but paraphrasing two people looking

[01:09:10] for a pencil

[01:09:12] unbeknownst to each other right

[01:09:14] they they're looking for the same

[01:09:16] pencil one of them finds it and so does

[01:09:18] the other one well one of them finds the real

[01:09:20] pencil one of them finds the real pencil

[01:09:22] and the other one finds what he

[01:09:24] calls a Hronir which is

[01:09:26] a secondary object which itself

[01:09:28] was created because of the belief

[01:09:30] that that person was looking

[01:09:32] for that pencil and did they didn't know

[01:09:34] that it had already been found so their belief

[01:09:36] itself is creating reality

[01:09:38] yeah so okay

[01:09:40] I wanna like read this so

[01:09:42] two persons are looking for a pencil

[01:09:44] the first person finds it

[01:09:46] but says nothing the second finds

[01:09:48] a second pencil no less

[01:09:50] real but more in keeping with his

[01:09:52] expectations these secondary

[01:09:54] objects are called Hronir and they are

[01:09:56] though awkwardly

[01:09:58] so slightly longer

[01:10:00] I love that so I

[01:10:02] I'm trying to get just a handle on

[01:10:04] is the assumption here that they

[01:10:06] do live in a reality like ours

[01:10:08] with sustained objects

[01:10:10] these people on

[01:10:12] on Talon because

[01:10:14] it is right because otherwise

[01:10:16] there wouldn't be one pencil

[01:10:18] for them to both lose

[01:10:20] up until this point

[01:10:22] I would have read this as

[01:10:24] a a a a

[01:10:26] the invention of fictional world with a

[01:10:28] which is akin to a different culture that

[01:10:30] has beliefs that are so obviously

[01:10:32] not true to us because of our knowledge

[01:10:34] of science until this point where he

[01:10:36] starts saying that

[01:10:38] metaphysically this planet actually

[01:10:40] is falling prey to their beliefs

[01:10:42] but there has to be an underlying

[01:10:44] realism

[01:10:46] at first at least right

[01:10:48] that this is yes

[01:10:50] I think that you're right so

[01:10:52] so you can imagine the history

[01:10:54] of these people are that

[01:10:56] the idealism

[01:10:58] has to defeat

[01:11:00] the truth of materialism and it does

[01:11:02] it can't defeat it until some amount

[01:11:04] of time has has

[01:11:06] passed so it takes a lot a lot

[01:11:08] of people to really believe something

[01:11:10] before it starts cracking the fabric of reality

[01:11:12] but also there has to be a reality

[01:11:14] to crack right so two people

[01:11:16] can't look for the same pencil if there's

[01:11:18] not a single pencil that

[01:11:20] is continuous over time

[01:11:22] well unless

[01:11:24] what he's saying is that these beliefs

[01:11:26] hadn't made their way really

[01:11:28] deeply into the

[01:11:30] the folk psychology that they were believers

[01:11:32] in materialism

[01:11:34] and they were pretending to be

[01:11:36] idealists out of doctrinal

[01:11:38] reasons they were pretending they were

[01:11:40] out of doctrinal reasons they were

[01:11:42] trying to be idealists

[01:11:44] so their belief in materialism at time

[01:11:46] one was causing the world

[01:11:48] to have persistent objects

[01:11:50] but it wasn't until their idealism

[01:11:52] really really started to take hold

[01:11:54] in their minds after some centuries

[01:11:56] that actually the world is

[01:11:58] so in some sense this is saying

[01:12:00] it was always idealist it's just

[01:12:02] that an idealist world in which everybody

[01:12:04] believes in materialism looks like a materialist

[01:12:06] world right

[01:12:08] because or else it wouldn't be

[01:12:10] metaphysically slippery enough

[01:12:12] to to just change

[01:12:14] all of a sudden at least this is what I take it in

[01:12:16] because this is what I think

[01:12:18] is what happens at the end with Earth

[01:12:20] well so

[01:12:22] how I understand that is

[01:12:26] they live in

[01:12:28] a world that's

[01:12:30] roughly like ours but with a crackpot

[01:12:32] sort of

[01:12:34] ideological

[01:12:36] system

[01:12:38] not necessarily crackpot it's very well

[01:12:40] worked out but it is

[01:12:42] and all of a sudden

[01:12:44] their belief in

[01:12:46] philosophical idealism

[01:12:48] starts to actually make

[01:12:50] philosophical idealism

[01:12:52] true when it wasn't

[01:12:54] before

[01:12:56] I think that this is just a matter

[01:12:58] of how we're describing the before

[01:13:00] so I took it to be that

[01:13:02] before materialism was true because

[01:13:04] they all really believed in materialism

[01:13:06] so I'm imagining a fluid

[01:13:08] world where the beliefs of the people

[01:13:10] actually

[01:13:12] do influence reality

[01:13:14] and that at first they weren't really

[01:13:16] there weren't maybe enough people

[01:13:18] to believe idealism to actually start cracking

[01:13:20] to change the

[01:13:22] metaphysical reality but I don't think it matters

[01:13:24] much whether it was

[01:13:26] metaphysically materialist and then started becoming

[01:13:28] idealist or whether it was always

[01:13:30] I think it does

[01:13:32] like at least for my

[01:13:34] in either case reality has changed because of their belief

[01:13:36] right the metaphysics has changed

[01:13:38] in their

[01:13:40] but see you start out

[01:13:42] I don't understand how metaphysics has changed

[01:13:44] in your view

[01:13:46] because there are epistemology

[01:13:48] it's a meta

[01:13:50] it's a meta metaphysics in some sense so it is

[01:13:52] I hate that I said that

[01:13:54] but I'm trying to describe what I mean here

[01:13:56] which is that

[01:13:58] they have a metaphysics that is materialist

[01:14:00] and that's why materialism

[01:14:02] but they don't have that metaphysics

[01:14:04] no but this is what I'm

[01:14:06] imputing to this right that the reason

[01:14:08] that over hundreds of years

[01:14:10] it started working was

[01:14:12] because for those previous hundred years

[01:14:14] the belief wasn't strong enough

[01:14:16] they actually had some lay

[01:14:18] some lay folk belief in

[01:14:20] materialism and it was

[01:14:22] that religion that that metaphysical

[01:14:24] belief had to actually be

[01:14:26] adhered to and that's why it changed

[01:14:28] but I'm just saying that because it makes

[01:14:30] more sense to me that if the

[01:14:32] metaphysics was fluid from time one

[01:14:34] that nothing

[01:14:36] changed in the rules of the universe

[01:14:38] according to their beliefs it's just that

[01:14:40] their beliefs changed

[01:14:42] enough that they started actually

[01:14:44] so I don't know which one of us has the more

[01:14:46] ontologically parsimonious

[01:14:48] explanation but

[01:14:50] I think you have

[01:14:52] the more internally

[01:14:54] internally the text does not

[01:14:56] say anything about my

[01:14:58] like it does not

[01:15:00] necessarily support my view

[01:15:02] at least it doesn't explicitly support it

[01:15:04] okay me reading it

[01:15:06] well let's put a pin in this

[01:15:08] and then

[01:15:10] so at first

[01:15:12] there would just be these

[01:15:14] imagined objects that would actually come into

[01:15:16] reality at first

[01:15:18] this is really interesting because people

[01:15:20] would just lose something or get distracted

[01:15:22] and so they would imagine something else

[01:15:24] that was slightly distorted

[01:15:26] so it's always a little longer

[01:15:28] and it's like so again that kind of play-doh

[01:15:30] and then

[01:15:32] but then like the profit

[01:15:34] motive takes over and people try to

[01:15:36] systematically use

[01:15:38] this

[01:15:40] this new intrusion into

[01:15:42] reality

[01:15:44] to create certain things

[01:15:46] and so they try to get

[01:15:48] inmates in a prison

[01:15:50] to

[01:15:52] they tell them that there are

[01:15:54] tombs in river beds that are

[01:15:56] waiting to be found and they promise

[01:15:58] freedom to any prisoner who made an important discovery

[01:16:00] now this is actually like

[01:16:02] you know when he says what I want to say before we got

[01:16:04] sidetracked into the meta-medifix

[01:16:06] when Borges says that the second

[01:16:08] pencil was larger

[01:16:10] than the first one

[01:16:12] this reminds me of the

[01:16:14] new look in psychology

[01:16:16] the

[01:16:18] the view that sort of

[01:16:20] made its way to popularity again

[01:16:22] the view that perception itself

[01:16:24] is

[01:16:26] influenced by higher order things

[01:16:28] like beliefs and desires and so there were these

[01:16:30] classic findings

[01:16:32] in the 1940s

[01:16:34] that poor kids judged quarters

[01:16:36] to be larger than rich kids

[01:16:38] because

[01:16:40] this is the

[01:16:42] hoped-for pencil turns out to be larger

[01:16:44] than the actual pencil because

[01:16:46] in your mind when you really want the pencil

[01:16:48] maybe it's a little more

[01:16:50] sharp and a little less worn

[01:16:52] a little longer, a little bigger

[01:16:54] than the actual reality

[01:16:56] yeah the hoped-for

[01:16:58] which actually comes into play

[01:17:00] like the hoped-for thing

[01:17:02] so it sounds like

[01:17:04] they had trouble producing

[01:17:06] hoped-for thing

[01:17:08] right so they're doing this by manipulating

[01:17:10] the prisoners and saying like if you find the tomb

[01:17:12] you'll be freed

[01:17:14] and that is like an

[01:17:16] experimental manipulation to like

[01:17:18] get the prisoners to really believe in it

[01:17:20] but which it didn't work though

[01:17:22] it's slow, it was slow

[01:17:24] like they just got a rusty wheel

[01:17:26] but then

[01:17:28] they just kept experimenting

[01:17:30] and with students

[01:17:32] and they got a gold mask

[01:17:34] an archaic sword

[01:17:38] two or three clay and foray

[01:17:40] and

[01:17:42] yeah so then there's this great line

[01:17:44] group research projects

[01:17:46] produce conflicting finds

[01:17:48] now individually

[01:17:50] and virtually spur-the-monent projects are preferred

[01:17:52] the systematic

[01:17:54] production of Hronir

[01:17:56] says volume 11

[01:17:58] has been of invaluable aid to archaeologists

[01:18:00] making it possible

[01:18:02] not only to interrogate

[01:18:04] but even to modify the past

[01:18:06] which is now no less plastic

[01:18:08] no less malleable

[01:18:10] than the future

[01:18:12] amazing so people

[01:18:14] so people are starting to derive these

[01:18:16] Hron from Hron themselves

[01:18:18] you're shown

[01:18:20] the object of desire

[01:18:22] that created this other object

[01:18:24] and now

[01:18:26] you can

[01:18:28] start developing a desire for that

[01:18:30] based on the idealist object

[01:18:32] and

[01:18:34] he goes into an explanation of

[01:18:36] how those

[01:18:38] meta-hrone are different from each other

[01:18:40] and that

[01:18:42] a fifth degree one is almost

[01:18:44] uniform and those of the ninth could be confused

[01:18:46] and those of the eleventh degree have a purity of form

[01:18:48] which the originals do not possess

[01:18:50] so again this is the play-doh

[01:18:52] thing this is the shadow

[01:18:54] of the artifact of the reflection

[01:18:56] yeah but it's weird that

[01:18:58] when you get to level 11

[01:19:00] which is the 12th level of the thing

[01:19:02] it becomes perfect and this is why the duodecimal

[01:19:04] you know this is

[01:19:06] a reference to the duodecimal system

[01:19:08] like the 12 is perfect in this

[01:19:10] but then it did the

[01:19:12] no it says the Hronir of the 12th

[01:19:14] remove begin to degenerate

[01:19:16] I know but the 11th

[01:19:18] degree of Hronir are the

[01:19:20] 12th object because the first

[01:19:22] thing is the true thing

[01:19:24] and now you've got 12 objects

[01:19:26] the 11th Hronir is the 12th object

[01:19:28] so you have a real pencil

[01:19:30] you have the Hron which is

[01:19:32] a first degree Hron and by the time you get to

[01:19:34] eleventh degree Hron that is the

[01:19:36] 12th object and that one is pure in form

[01:19:40] and those of the 11th remove

[01:19:42] exhibit a purity of

[01:19:44] line that even the right

[01:19:46] right right so that's like the forms

[01:19:48] the forms for some reason are the 11th

[01:19:50] yes and

[01:19:52] so you know it turns out that the number

[01:19:54] 12 and 12 number systems

[01:19:56] this is actually one of the reasons

[01:19:58] I mean our timing, our time by the way

[01:20:00] like the fact that there are 60 minutes

[01:20:02] in an hour, 12 hours

[01:20:04] in a day is because of a base

[01:20:06] 60 system

[01:20:08] the mathematical system of base 60

[01:20:10] base 12 is

[01:20:12] really very related because 12 is

[01:20:14] a divisible by 60 so

[01:20:16] but I took this to be the form

[01:20:18] sometimes stranger and

[01:20:20] pure than the Hron is the

[01:20:22] Ur the thing

[01:20:24] produced by suggestion

[01:20:26] the object brought forth

[01:20:28] by hope so

[01:20:30] those are purely derived from nothing that

[01:20:32] exists yet just from

[01:20:34] the hope that you might find something

[01:20:36] right yeah

[01:20:38] I love by the way when he describes

[01:20:40] one of the things that's found is

[01:20:42] the mutilated torso of a king

[01:20:44] with an inscription on his breast which is so far

[01:20:46] not been deciphered like just

[01:20:48] just like

[01:20:50] that adds so much to it's like a torso

[01:20:52] of a king with a undecyphered

[01:20:54] text on it somebody thought that up and

[01:20:56] that's what they found and so now you're reading this

[01:20:58] it's a very disorienting

[01:21:00] thing to read this thing because

[01:21:02] you start to just wonder what's

[01:21:04] this is even before you get to the post script

[01:21:06] like it just it

[01:21:08] already feels like it's encroaching

[01:21:10] on you this story

[01:21:12] you know like and

[01:21:14] and like and you have to sort of remind yourself

[01:21:16] look we're up three levels

[01:21:18] this is a fictional story about a fictional

[01:21:20] world that has a fictional world

[01:21:22] and we're reading this and we're like

[01:21:24] whoa reality can encroach itself like

[01:21:26] now I'm receiving it like

[01:21:28] through like you know based

[01:21:30] on like my environment right now in my

[01:21:32] language and my

[01:21:34] all my lenses

[01:21:36] like like that's another

[01:21:38] sort of remove all right

[01:21:40] so all this was the

[01:21:42] detail of Talon

[01:21:44] that was found in

[01:21:46] the 11th volumes

[01:21:48] of the history of Talon that had been

[01:21:50] produced by this

[01:21:52] secret society

[01:21:54] the post script in 1947

[01:21:56] for it seven years later than

[01:21:58] when this story was written

[01:22:00] they find all of

[01:22:02] the volumes right

[01:22:04] well they find a hand

[01:22:06] written letter and the

[01:22:08] mystery is elucidated in the letter I don't

[01:22:10] know if they find yes so 1944

[01:22:12] reporter from Nashville Tennessee

[01:22:14] uncovered in a Memphis library the

[01:22:16] 40 volumes of the first encyclopedia of

[01:22:18] Talon yes okay

[01:22:20] so now

[01:22:22] this is the part that tells exactly how

[01:22:24] this this secret

[01:22:26] society run by

[01:22:28] this fictional person named Ezra Buckley

[01:22:30] who

[01:22:32] put together this secret society

[01:22:34] he was a slave owner

[01:22:36] in Memphis

[01:22:38] so he puts together this conspiracy finances

[01:22:40] it with the promise of all of

[01:22:42] the money that he would have from his

[01:22:44] businesses and his land and the slaves

[01:22:46] and

[01:22:48] they come up with this

[01:22:50] whole conspiracy

[01:22:52] to create this fictional

[01:22:54] fantastic world it starts

[01:22:56] encroaching itself

[01:22:58] into the real world

[01:23:00] and finally when all

[01:23:02] 40 volumes

[01:23:04] are found and made known to everybody

[01:23:06] it starts really encroaching

[01:23:08] on the world

[01:23:10] now here's what I don't know

[01:23:12] is the idea that the 40 volumes

[01:23:14] were found that the 40 volumes

[01:23:16] were actually produced

[01:23:18] or that because

[01:23:20] early on in the story

[01:23:22] Borges is saying they found

[01:23:24] one volume and they're trying to figure out

[01:23:26] what all of the other volumes are

[01:23:28] and one of the friends is arguing

[01:23:30] you can

[01:23:32] and he uses that Latin phrase which is

[01:23:34] out of the claw of a lion

[01:23:36] the claw of the lion or something

[01:23:38] but he's arguing

[01:23:40] it's okay we can reconstruct

[01:23:42] all of the other volumes with just

[01:23:44] what we know from this volume

[01:23:46] so

[01:23:48] I kind of think that maybe they only

[01:23:50] made one volume

[01:23:52] alluding to 40 volumes

[01:23:54] and that those 40 volumes

[01:23:56] of the Encyclopedia or at least 39 of them

[01:23:58] are cronier

[01:24:00] okay wait so

[01:24:02] I get what you're saying

[01:24:04] so the question is are there really

[01:24:06] 40 volumes or are they just 11 volumes

[01:24:08] which you could also ask about this story

[01:24:10] like does this, I'm sorry

[01:24:12] yeah is there only the 11th but it's alluding

[01:24:14] to the 40 and those create the ideas

[01:24:16] of the other ones

[01:24:18] and then they come into reality

[01:24:20] because of the idea

[01:24:22] of those other volumes right?

[01:24:24] exactly yeah

[01:24:26] again there's a kind of meta fiction narrative

[01:24:28] like because Borges

[01:24:30] is just doing this story

[01:24:32] like a little story about the 11th volume

[01:24:34] which it doesn't actually exist

[01:24:36] so

[01:24:38] you could ask the same question about

[01:24:40] the Borges story

[01:24:42] but just to be clear

[01:24:44] about where we are

[01:24:46] in 1824

[01:24:48] at the time the conspiracy was already

[01:24:50] in place

[01:24:52] but they were doing it

[01:24:54] as if it was just

[01:24:56] on uh, Uqbar

[01:24:58] right and then Buckley had the idea

[01:25:00] because he's American

[01:25:02] and they were all British and European

[01:25:04] he said he laughed at the modesty

[01:25:06] of the project he told the man that in America

[01:25:08] it was nonsense to invent a country

[01:25:10] so Uqbar

[01:25:12] and this is where it goes from Uqbar to Tlaun

[01:25:14] yeah

[01:25:16] what they ought to do was invent a planet

[01:25:18] to that giant

[01:25:20] of an idea he added another

[01:25:22] the brainchild of his nihilism

[01:25:24] the enormous enterprise must be kept secret

[01:25:26] so

[01:25:28] this is where the

[01:25:30] it gets like really developed

[01:25:32] but it was already going in the minds

[01:25:34] of all these people at like Barclay

[01:25:36] that's right they had planted

[01:25:38] one article on the fictional

[01:25:40] country of Uqbar

[01:25:42] at least that we know of

[01:25:44] and Buckley in 1824

[01:25:46] is like we're gonna do this let's do it

[01:25:48] and then now that

[01:25:50] it kind of goes horror movie

[01:25:52] almost like

[01:25:54] or definitely like horror

[01:25:56] science fiction these things

[01:25:58] start showing up in the world

[01:26:00] that are like

[01:26:02] cronier right kill this drunk guy

[01:26:04] and

[01:26:06] there's a cone that leaves

[01:26:08] an indentation in the narrator

[01:26:10] Borges is the pawn

[01:26:12] right they're actual artifacts

[01:26:14] from these this

[01:26:16] from Tlaun that start appearing in the world

[01:26:18] and

[01:26:20] all of a sudden just reality

[01:26:22] just starts to unravel

[01:26:24] here I am the personal portion of my narration

[01:26:26] the rest lies in every reader's memory

[01:26:28] if not his hope or fear

[01:26:30] apparently like

[01:26:32] it just disintegrated the world

[01:26:34] it says contact with Tlaun

[01:26:36] the habit of Tlaun

[01:26:38] has disintegrated this world

[01:26:40] he's writing as the narrator now

[01:26:42] spellbound by Tlaun's rigor

[01:26:44] humanity has forgotten

[01:26:46] and continues to forget

[01:26:48] that it is the rigor of chess masters

[01:26:50] not of angels

[01:26:52] already Tlaun's conjectural

[01:26:54] primitive language has filtered into our schools

[01:26:56] already the teaching of

[01:26:58] Tlaun's harmonious history

[01:27:00] has obliterated the history

[01:27:02] that govern my own childhood

[01:27:04] already a fictitious past

[01:27:06] has supplanted in men's memories

[01:27:08] that other past of which we now

[01:27:10] know nothing certain

[01:27:12] not even that it is false

[01:27:14] and then he just says

[01:27:16] like I

[01:27:18] essentially like the world is being invaded

[01:27:20] by this ideas

[01:27:22] instead of like it's like an alien invasion

[01:27:24] story it's exactly like an alien invasion

[01:27:26] it's just an invasion of ideas

[01:27:28] and idealism

[01:27:30] and it's so cool

[01:27:32] and it's just like the secret society people who are

[01:27:34] keeping it secret like

[01:27:36] it just started getting like you know

[01:27:38] you can't keep something secret

[01:27:40] that long right

[01:27:42] so they first stumble upon the 11th volume

[01:27:44] sent to Herbert Ash

[01:27:46] and of course those ideas

[01:27:48] are going to start becoming

[01:27:50] memes or whatever you know

[01:27:52] or becoming ideas that take hold in the minds

[01:27:54] of some people so you get here

[01:27:56] and there you get these

[01:27:58] these events

[01:28:00] occurring and pretty soon

[01:28:02] it is

[01:28:04] just enough people believe

[01:28:06] that the 40 things or 40 volumes are published

[01:28:08] which I still don't know

[01:28:10] whether or not it was enough to have published

[01:28:12] only one volume to get people and refer

[01:28:14] to the 40 volumes

[01:28:16] and there's no way of determining that really

[01:28:18] from our perspective

[01:28:20] or even Borges' perspective

[01:28:22] in the story

[01:28:24] and Borges' solution

[01:28:26] is to

[01:28:28] find meaning in the banality

[01:28:30] of translating something

[01:28:32] from English into Spanish

[01:28:34] which is in fact what Borges

[01:28:36] was already doing at the time

[01:28:38] he was making his money

[01:28:40] he was in a library too

[01:28:42] he was working in a library

[01:28:44] alright I think there's a key paragraph

[01:28:46] that I want to read that I think

[01:28:48] can lead to

[01:28:50] what I said was sort of my one way

[01:28:52] of reading this story

[01:28:54] I don't think it's the only way but

[01:28:56] so he's talking now about

[01:28:58] what happened after the encyclopedias

[01:29:00] were discovered

[01:29:02] and how they spread

[01:29:04] and this is what he writes

[01:29:06] almost immediately reality

[01:29:08] quote caved in at more than one point

[01:29:10] the truth is

[01:29:12] it wanted to cave in

[01:29:14] ten years ago any symmetry

[01:29:16] any system with

[01:29:18] an appearance of order

[01:29:20] dialectical materialism

[01:29:22] anti-Semitism, Nazism

[01:29:24] could spellbind and hypnotize

[01:29:26] mankind

[01:29:28] how could the world not fall under the sway

[01:29:30] of the sun

[01:29:32] how could it not yield to the vast

[01:29:34] and minutely detailed evidence

[01:29:36] of an orderly planet

[01:29:38] it would be futile to reply that

[01:29:40] reality is also orderly

[01:29:42] perhaps it is

[01:29:44] but orderly in accordance with divine laws

[01:29:46] read inhuman laws that we can never

[01:29:48] quite manage

[01:29:50] to penetrate

[01:29:52] Talon may well be a labyrinth

[01:29:54] but it is a labyrinth forged by men

[01:29:56] a labyrinth destined to be deciphered

[01:29:58] so what I take this to be

[01:30:00] that paragraph is

[01:30:02] we cannot accept

[01:30:04] that we don't understand

[01:30:06] the world and its workings

[01:30:08] and the law, that it's too messy

[01:30:10] and

[01:30:12] that our perspectives are too limited

[01:30:14] and that it's too complex

[01:30:16] and so we are

[01:30:18] attracted to anything that will provide

[01:30:20] the illusion of

[01:30:22] understanding, the illusion

[01:30:24] of order to the point where

[01:30:26] it will end up

[01:30:28] leading to our destruction

[01:30:30] and he's making, it's almost

[01:30:32] I don't want to say

[01:30:34] this isn't a didactic point by Borges

[01:30:36] but by bringing in

[01:30:38] dialectical materialism

[01:30:40] and its connection with the Soviet

[01:30:42] and

[01:30:44] Nazism and fascism

[01:30:46] and anti-Semitism

[01:30:48] he's saying that these are the

[01:30:50] this is

[01:30:52] kind, this is what's happened

[01:30:54] the illusion of order

[01:30:56] and the illusion of solving history

[01:30:58] in one way, in the fascist way

[01:31:00] or the Marxist way

[01:31:02] is the thing that ends up unraveling

[01:31:04] humankind

[01:31:06] and it's always going to be a seductive

[01:31:08] but it's always going to have

[01:31:10] the potential for destruction

[01:31:12] and it is an illusion

[01:31:14] it's an illusion

[01:31:16] I

[01:31:18] don't know whether it's important that reality

[01:31:20] is messy, it's just that it is

[01:31:22] unknowable. It is inscrutable

[01:31:24] yeah, it's just that

[01:31:26] in any attempt to claim that

[01:31:28] you know it, which is I think your point

[01:31:30] is

[01:31:32] destined to fail and

[01:31:34] those failures, and remember this was written

[01:31:36] in 1940 the war was underway

[01:31:38] those

[01:31:41] failures

[01:31:43] were weighing

[01:31:45] on humanity

[01:31:47] this was, yeah, you try really hard

[01:31:49] to come up with an ordered system

[01:31:51] to explain metaphysics and it's going

[01:31:53] to fail and fail horribly

[01:31:55] in this case, in the shadow

[01:31:57] of the war

[01:31:59] those failures

[01:32:01] were very salient

[01:32:03] it's interesting that in this time period

[01:32:05] there is no illusion

[01:32:07] to the war really

[01:32:09] this is the closest we get

[01:32:11] to being any kind of illusion

[01:32:13] to what is going on in contemporary

[01:32:15] for Borges

[01:32:17] and in fact when he's writing the post script

[01:32:19] he's projecting into the future

[01:32:21] essentially like a future where

[01:32:23] it's all been

[01:32:25] everything has become unraveled

[01:32:27] but I think the

[01:32:29] Hronir has a very kind of

[01:32:31] metaphorical

[01:32:33] especially the Hornirs that end up

[01:32:35] killing and hurting people

[01:32:37] it is the thing that

[01:32:39] even though

[01:32:41] you created an illusion of order

[01:32:43] an illusion of understanding

[01:32:45] that illusion then becomes real

[01:32:47] in its capacity to destroy people

[01:32:49] and

[01:32:51] that's what he thought

[01:32:53] fascism and

[01:32:55] the Soviet interpretation

[01:32:57] of Marxism was

[01:32:59] I think that he's saying

[01:33:01] something even

[01:33:03] what I take to be even

[01:33:05] even worse

[01:33:07] sort of a worse condemnation of human

[01:33:09] beings which is

[01:33:11] if you had just accepted

[01:33:13] that reality

[01:33:15] that there might be an order

[01:33:17] underlying all of reality

[01:33:19] that it was gods, it was

[01:33:21] even a Barclay notion of

[01:33:23] God that who's through his

[01:33:25] consistent perception

[01:33:27] was keeping the world afloat

[01:33:29] it is just the fact that you

[01:33:31] can't know this for sure

[01:33:33] that is leading you to seek out

[01:33:35] something else and that something else is

[01:33:37] a system of order created

[01:33:39] by humans for humans

[01:33:41] which is in some

[01:33:43] ways an attempt at order that becomes

[01:33:45] even more messy it's a real

[01:33:47] labyrinth created by a bunch of human

[01:33:49] beings turns out to be

[01:33:51] the worst kind of reality you could imagine

[01:33:53] living in and one that would be embraced

[01:33:55] by a nihilist

[01:33:57] like a slave owning nihilist

[01:33:59] right

[01:34:01] who hate that's

[01:34:03] this like unholy alliance between

[01:34:05] like the idealism

[01:34:07] of a utopian kind of

[01:34:09] vision and a nihilist

[01:34:11] they're both attracted

[01:34:13] to this same

[01:34:15] thing

[01:34:17] and I think that

[01:34:19] that

[01:34:21] what might be going on

[01:34:23] here too and maybe it's a slightly different way

[01:34:25] that you're reading it is I've been thinking about it

[01:34:27] I've been reading it as

[01:34:29] a worry about

[01:34:31] relativism

[01:34:33] a worry that once you

[01:34:35] actually bite the bullet

[01:34:37] and say that things are only true

[01:34:39] when somebody believes it to be true

[01:34:43] which is not the right use of relativism

[01:34:45] but a nihilism of sorts

[01:34:47] and an idealism

[01:34:49] an idealism that exists is only

[01:34:51] to be perceived

[01:34:53] if you believe it

[01:34:55] it's going to be there

[01:34:57] that there is a fear

[01:34:59] that I think he's expressing

[01:35:01] that look

[01:35:03] we want there to be an ultimate order

[01:35:05] and when we're being really gnarly

[01:35:07] about like these

[01:35:09] these systems of order

[01:35:11] that we're basing all our hope on

[01:35:13] we're getting it wrong

[01:35:15] and that getting it wrong

[01:35:17] the fear that

[01:35:19] dialectical materialism

[01:35:21] and Nazism have failed us

[01:35:23] can lead

[01:35:25] to this complete

[01:35:27] swing in the opposite direction

[01:35:29] which is there is only the truth

[01:35:31] that I perceive

[01:35:33] that might actually undermine the whole fabric

[01:35:35] of reality

[01:35:37] and I think what he's saying

[01:35:39] this is I'm coming to

[01:35:41] the same conclusion as you are

[01:35:43] but in a different way

[01:35:45] which this fear of relativism

[01:35:47] is why are you so concerned

[01:35:49] that you can't know ultimate truth

[01:35:51] and I think that this is a quote

[01:35:53] if I recall correctly

[01:35:55] I don't remember I might be misattributing

[01:35:57] where either Borges said it

[01:35:59] or he was quoting somebody who said it

[01:36:01] that

[01:36:05] if

[01:36:07] God came to you and said

[01:36:09] on one hand I have the ultimate truth

[01:36:11] in the other hand I have the search for truth

[01:36:13] which one do you prefer

[01:36:15] that he would pick the search for truth

[01:36:17] who said that

[01:36:19] so I think it was Borges

[01:36:21] I don't remember if it was Borges quoting somebody

[01:36:23] like as one of his favorite quotes

[01:36:25] but either way the idea

[01:36:27] that just calm down

[01:36:29] you don't have to know everything

[01:36:31] yeah right

[01:36:33] in fact like and this is like

[01:36:35] this has connections to

[01:36:37] Isaiah Berlin

[01:36:39] and like the

[01:36:41] worry that he was expressing

[01:36:43] and the two concepts of liberty that we read

[01:36:45] and also to Taoism which is

[01:36:47] very focused on just accepting

[01:36:49] that we have limited perspectives

[01:36:51] that we won't be able to understand

[01:36:53] the world and that will always

[01:36:55] be blinkered by the perspective

[01:36:57] it's just that and here's where we totally agree

[01:36:59] what Borges is highlighting

[01:37:01] is our inability to accept

[01:37:03] that

[01:37:05] that we will that it is

[01:37:07] that some kind of ultimate

[01:37:09] reality is not something

[01:37:11] that we will be able

[01:37:13] to solve

[01:37:15] we will not be able to fully ascertain

[01:37:17] it with certainty right and I think

[01:37:19] so I disagree though that Barclay

[01:37:21] and Descartes their mistake

[01:37:23] I think was

[01:37:25] believing that

[01:37:27] we could have certainty

[01:37:29] that that was like even putting that

[01:37:31] goal out there and maybe Play-Doh

[01:37:33] too depending on how you read Play-Doh

[01:37:35] but like the idealist

[01:37:37] aspiration

[01:37:39] like sets this whole thing into motion

[01:37:41] it leads even though

[01:37:43] they weren't relativists it will

[01:37:45] end up leading to this kind of

[01:37:47] nihilistic

[01:37:49] relative destructive

[01:37:51] relativism so I think that this is

[01:37:53] where it's tying together for me

[01:37:55] where I think he's saying

[01:37:57] you know Barclay

[01:37:59] and whoever else they their

[01:38:01] idea about idealism

[01:38:03] was

[01:38:05] the danger of it was preempted

[01:38:07] by still clinging to the belief

[01:38:09] in the ultimate perceiver

[01:38:11] and now historically

[01:38:13] we're in a time where

[01:38:15] all of the attempts at believing

[01:38:17] in a completely orderly system

[01:38:19] have failed us deeply

[01:38:21] and might just destroy the planet

[01:38:23] and we yeah exactly

[01:38:25] now we're tempted to turn

[01:38:27] to perhaps this idealism

[01:38:29] but

[01:38:31] our idealism and idealism of

[01:38:33] Ezra Buckley is one in which

[01:38:35] there is no ultimate perceiver so now

[01:38:37] we're really paying the

[01:38:39] we might really pay the price

[01:38:41] of the

[01:38:43] idealism of Barclay without

[01:38:45] an ultimate order behind it

[01:38:47] oh see I

[01:38:49] there we disagree

[01:38:51] like so I don't think that

[01:38:53] like I think that

[01:38:55] you know if you're writing this in

[01:38:57] 1940 and the post-rick

[01:38:59] in 1947 it's not like

[01:39:01] you know the Marxist

[01:39:03] ideology and the

[01:39:05] ideology of fascism

[01:39:07] they

[01:39:09] thought that they had arrived at the truth

[01:39:11] that was

[01:39:13] that was the destructive potential

[01:39:15] of those systems is

[01:39:17] they thought they had figured out

[01:39:19] how humans and

[01:39:21] history worked I think that you're

[01:39:23] right but so they have two

[01:39:25] combinations one a belief in ultimate

[01:39:27] reality yeah and two a belief

[01:39:29] that they can achieve the

[01:39:31] truth yes so

[01:39:33] in whenever that

[01:39:35] happens whenever there is certainty

[01:39:37] about ultimate reality in the hands of human beings it turns

[01:39:39] out to be wrong yeah now

[01:39:41] you have a swing in the completely

[01:39:43] opposite direction a disbelief

[01:39:45] in any real ontological

[01:39:47] thing and

[01:39:49] no Barclay and

[01:39:51] God to fall back on

[01:39:53] if that's the case so it feels

[01:39:55] like a swing in the complete opposite direction

[01:39:57] when right at the post

[01:39:59] yeah when we've lost faith

[01:40:01] in all of the systems because

[01:40:03] because of you know

[01:40:05] probably the war and everything that we've

[01:40:07] learned about it and we go we

[01:40:09] read to loan and we're like oh here's a world in which

[01:40:11] we we could be the

[01:40:13] creators of this world and what

[01:40:15] happens is when you try to

[01:40:17] hang metaphysics on the mind

[01:40:19] of human beings what you get is a messy

[01:40:21] messy labyrinth of

[01:40:23] ontologically unclear

[01:40:25] fucking things

[01:40:27] appearing the fabric of

[01:40:29] reality completely dying

[01:40:31] yeah that's interesting I mean I don't

[01:40:33] necessarily

[01:40:35] get

[01:40:37] that first of all like the war

[01:40:39] is far from over never mind

[01:40:41] like the so the war with

[01:40:43] the so he's writing this as

[01:40:45] if there's a reason that he's writing it

[01:40:47] from 1947 when he's writing

[01:40:49] it in 1940 I think that

[01:40:51] he's making he's making a statement

[01:40:53] about what the lesson will have been

[01:40:55] yo see I

[01:40:57] I don't know for first of all he has

[01:40:59] no reason to think in seven years

[01:41:01] everything will be resolved

[01:41:03] no but but he has

[01:41:05] no reason to make it seven years into the future

[01:41:07] if what he wants to say is

[01:41:09] what he's thinking now right there's no

[01:41:11] I think that he's looking back on so you

[01:41:13] think so I was reading it as

[01:41:15] like the sort of

[01:41:17] a metaphor like

[01:41:19] what happens at the end is kind of a metaphor

[01:41:21] for the

[01:41:23] Marxist and

[01:41:25] and and fascist

[01:41:27] encroachments

[01:41:29] into humanity but

[01:41:31] you're reading it as it is

[01:41:33] the consequence

[01:41:35] of those things

[01:41:37] you have losing faith in

[01:41:39] it is a consequence of the

[01:41:41] certainty and the metaphysical reality

[01:41:43] that is leading us to swing in the opposite

[01:41:45] direction the perhaps relativistic

[01:41:47] view and this is where this is

[01:41:49] the sentence that I've that struck me

[01:41:51] as something that

[01:41:53] he wouldn't have had to say

[01:41:55] so your translation is a little

[01:41:57] different but captivated by its discipline

[01:41:59] humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it

[01:42:01] is the discipline of chess players not

[01:42:03] angels yeah and what is

[01:42:05] the difference there and I think that the difference

[01:42:07] to me is that a chess player

[01:42:09] is comfortable

[01:42:11] in his certainty of the very local

[01:42:13] truth of chess like

[01:42:15] don't have the hubris of thinking you can know

[01:42:17] everything

[01:42:19] but you you know what you can

[01:42:21] analytically know chess very

[01:42:23] very well don't give up on

[01:42:25] on on your logic

[01:42:27] don't give up on on

[01:42:29] these local attempts at truth we have

[01:42:31] the tools to learn truth but don't

[01:42:33] think that your brain

[01:42:35] as a human being is capable

[01:42:37] of comprehending reality

[01:42:39] like an angel

[01:42:41] right yeah so it's not a rejection

[01:42:43] of the desire for orderliness

[01:42:45] it's a rejection of the hubris

[01:42:47] of thinking that that orderliness can be

[01:42:49] understood at the deepest levels of reality

[01:42:51] that's so funny like

[01:42:53] so when I read that

[01:42:55] I was thinking

[01:42:57] that right that

[01:42:59] sort of orderly rigor

[01:43:01] that chess

[01:43:03] masters have

[01:43:05] they were then trying to

[01:43:07] take that rigor and apply it to the world

[01:43:09] which is beyond

[01:43:11] its purview

[01:43:13] and so it's the chess masters who are the

[01:43:15] villains there

[01:43:17] and we didn't

[01:43:19] recognize that in time

[01:43:21] we thought that the idealist

[01:43:23] kind of

[01:43:25] the political idealist

[01:43:27] and that led to these

[01:43:29] destructive political ideologies

[01:43:31] we thought that

[01:43:33] you know they were actually

[01:43:35] chess masters who decided

[01:43:37] who got all of a sudden kind of megalomaniacs

[01:43:39] like oh wait it's

[01:43:41] our rigor the same rigor can apply

[01:43:43] to the world

[01:43:45] to the messy reality or

[01:43:47] that's what I would say messy reality or the

[01:43:49] inscrutable laws

[01:43:51] of human psychology

[01:43:53] and of history

[01:43:55] and economics and all of that

[01:43:57] and like that's where the mistake

[01:43:59] was made but we're seduced

[01:44:01] by the rigor I think that we're not

[01:44:03] disagreeing at heart because

[01:44:05] I think that we're taking something

[01:44:07] slightly different from

[01:44:09] but both agree that it is the hubris

[01:44:11] of applying the rigor of chess

[01:44:13] to metaphysics that gets us in trouble

[01:44:15] here it's not a diss on

[01:44:17] the orderliness of a local game

[01:44:19] like chess right is just saying like

[01:44:21] we're good at this but staying

[01:44:23] in your lane dude you're not an angel

[01:44:25] like you can't comprehend it

[01:44:27] but there's no reason to abandon

[01:44:29] the rigor of

[01:44:31] chess and for us to understand

[01:44:33] say how to build bridges

[01:44:35] and how to do math

[01:44:37] but if you're starting to try to

[01:44:39] to reach behind

[01:44:41] the veil and tear open

[01:44:43] into ultimate reality

[01:44:45] guess what

[01:44:47] you are either going to fail

[01:44:49] miserably in this direction which is

[01:44:51] become a Nazi and take over the world

[01:44:53] or whatever

[01:44:55] or you're going to fail in this other direction

[01:44:57] you're going to lose faith and try to build

[01:44:59] your castle upon the sand

[01:45:01] with idealism and it's going to lead to

[01:45:03] ultimate sloppiness

[01:45:05] actual nihilist

[01:45:07] and yeah yeah

[01:45:09] so like what I took the chess player analogy

[01:45:11] to be is like

[01:45:13] you have some silicon valley

[01:45:15] guy they're really good

[01:45:17] at constructing their programs

[01:45:19] and they're

[01:45:21] but then all of a sudden they say

[01:45:23] wait a minute I'm so good at this

[01:45:25] I can figure out how to make human beings happy

[01:45:27] and I'll design these things

[01:45:29] that will make human beings happy

[01:45:31] and I also know how to like solve

[01:45:33] wars and I also know how to solve

[01:45:35] like so it's like they're going out

[01:45:37] of what they're really good at

[01:45:39] which is a certain way

[01:45:41] of thinking that has this rigor

[01:45:43] and has this systematic

[01:45:45] elegance to it

[01:45:47] and thinking it

[01:45:49] can apply to something where that kind of

[01:45:51] thinking doesn't belong

[01:45:53] and only does it not belong

[01:45:55] it actually has the potential

[01:45:57] to really

[01:45:59] make people suffer. That's right

[01:46:01] I think that that's right that it is the

[01:46:03] you know this is the very

[01:46:05] salient example in

[01:46:07] sort of the world

[01:46:09] in which we live in today which is

[01:46:11] not everything is a coding problem

[01:46:13] but you have had so much

[01:46:15] success in solving

[01:46:17] things as coding problems that you think

[01:46:19] that it can be applied to everything

[01:46:21] and that my friend

[01:46:23] is hubris

[01:46:25] and the result

[01:46:27] is sort of what you say where we're

[01:46:29] losing confidence in what's real and what's

[01:46:31] not and it's these

[01:46:33] coders like the Facebook

[01:46:35] all the fake news

[01:46:37] is sort of like led to

[01:46:39] that happening not intentionally

[01:46:41] but now all of a sudden it's very hard

[01:46:43] to discern what's real and what's

[01:46:45] not and what's your perspective

[01:46:47] and what isn't and what like

[01:46:49] all these things and it all comes

[01:46:51] and we're in this kind of

[01:46:53] chaotic and

[01:46:55] bordering on post-modern

[01:46:57] nihilistic way of trying

[01:46:59] to figure out what the hell

[01:47:01] is going on. That's right

[01:47:03] that's right. Yes

[01:47:05] I love it.

[01:47:07] And for his solution I want to talk a little

[01:47:09] about this is

[01:47:11] fuck it. I'm going to go back

[01:47:13] to my hotel room

[01:47:15] or whatever and

[01:47:17] translate this minor work

[01:47:19] right? Yeah. I'm going to focus on this

[01:47:21] in some ways it is

[01:47:23] the absurdity

[01:47:25] of life

[01:47:27] shouldn't keep you from

[01:47:29] a task like this. This is what meaning is

[01:47:31] to poor heads. Like I

[01:47:33] you know I am going

[01:47:35] to go back and focus

[01:47:37] on this task that I've just

[01:47:39] arbitrarily said for myself

[01:47:41] but one that nonetheless is providing

[01:47:43] me with meaning

[01:47:45] and it might

[01:47:47] seem boring but guess

[01:47:49] what I'm not trying to create a world

[01:47:51] with my thoughts. I'm trying to translate brown

[01:47:53] right?

[01:47:55] But it's also like by creating

[01:47:57] meaning is he and not

[01:47:59] fighting what's happening. I don't think he thinks

[01:48:01] it can be fought but like

[01:48:03] is he just succumbing to that

[01:48:05] relativistic worry that

[01:48:07] you were pointing?

[01:48:09] I think that he is

[01:48:11] by focusing on the task set

[01:48:13] before him he is at least

[01:48:15] not causing damage to the fabric of reality.

[01:48:17] Not further damage yeah. He's not looking

[01:48:19] for a lost pencil anymore

[01:48:21] right? He's like

[01:48:23] I know like I will do

[01:48:25] I will do it

[01:48:27] so the world

[01:48:29] will be tlone.

[01:48:31] He says I don't pay any attention

[01:48:33] I'm reading the Spanish version

[01:48:35] I won't pay any attention.

[01:48:37] So he is purposefully

[01:48:39] not perceiving it

[01:48:41] he's trying to not

[01:48:43] perceive because he doesn't want

[01:48:45] he knows what human beings are capable of

[01:48:47] perceiving. He might create a monster

[01:48:49] guess what

[01:48:51] Borges did create monsters

[01:48:53] that's what he's doing

[01:48:55] that is what he has done to us

[01:48:57] and I swear to god like there are times

[01:48:59] where I read that where I start to get a little

[01:49:01] unnerved like wait a minute

[01:49:03] is there a Borges?

[01:49:05] We really should

[01:49:07] we should just cover Borges and I

[01:49:09] that very very short. Yeah I did

[01:49:11] read it but you do

[01:49:13] you start to lose your bearings a little bit

[01:49:15] this has been true in all of them but maybe

[01:49:17] especially in this one for me it's like

[01:49:19] you start to feel a little

[01:49:21] like vertigo.

[01:49:23] It is metaphysical vertigo

[01:49:25] it's fictional it is you forget

[01:49:27] what you forget

[01:49:29] what why you know

[01:49:31] I'm reading their reading about the history of Talon

[01:49:33] and I'm concerned for these people

[01:49:35] but like

[01:49:37] in the text he told us this is the made up

[01:49:39] ramblings of people

[01:49:41] who were made up themselves

[01:49:43] and that he's making up

[01:49:45] I'm making up a set of people

[01:49:47] who made up another set of people who made up

[01:49:49] another set of people who are actually having

[01:49:51] this metaphysical concern

[01:49:53] and I'm here he's popped me into so many levels

[01:49:55] that I have forgotten

[01:49:57] that this isn't the level of reality

[01:49:59] and then he brings that fourth level

[01:50:01] all the way back down or at least

[01:50:03] down three levels

[01:50:05] and I the reader and bringing it to my level

[01:50:07] down back to the fourth level of the reader

[01:50:09] this is

[01:50:11] I mean this is black belt fuckery

[01:50:13] right here. Yeah

[01:50:15] This is like you don't like

[01:50:17] yeah no it's really

[01:50:19] incredible and I love the

[01:50:21] seriously he brings tears to my eyes a little bit right now

[01:50:25] There's this great thing

[01:50:27] again this is the last page

[01:50:29] the spread of Talonian objects through various

[01:50:31] countries would complement

[01:50:33] that plan like some of the unbelievable

[01:50:35] features of volume 11

[01:50:37] the multiplication of Rownier for example

[01:50:39] have been eliminated or muted in the Memphis copy

[01:50:41] so the Memphis copy is different

[01:50:43] than

[01:50:45] the volume 11 that they had before

[01:50:47] it seems reasonable to suppose

[01:50:49] that the cuts obey the intent to set

[01:50:51] forth a world that is not

[01:50:53] too incompatible with the real world

[01:50:55] the spread of the Talonian objects through

[01:50:57] various countries would complement

[01:50:59] that plan so he's saying that there is

[01:51:01] part of this conspiracy is

[01:51:03] they're gonna make it sound

[01:51:05] not too unbelievable and so

[01:51:07] they

[01:51:09] so first of all they cut out some of the

[01:51:11] really outlandish stuff in volume 11

[01:51:13] and then they also

[01:51:15] spread these objects so that

[01:51:17] it would seem like

[01:51:19] okay there actually is this reality

[01:51:21] but then there's a footnote there is

[01:51:23] still of course the problem of the material

[01:51:25] from which some of

[01:51:27] objects are made so

[01:51:29] like in their attempt

[01:51:31] to make this less outlandish

[01:51:33] they've created

[01:51:35] these objects or at least they've

[01:51:37] brought to being these objects

[01:51:39] that we have no idea how they could

[01:51:41] possibly exist they don't fit any of our

[01:51:43] material theories and

[01:51:45] that's just a little footnote there is of course

[01:51:47] the question it's like it's purposely

[01:51:49] like oh yeah and I'm not

[01:51:51] forgetting this but like

[01:51:53] something that's impossibly heavy and that

[01:51:55] leaves like a dent in your hand

[01:51:57] is like it can't

[01:51:59] just have been them planting it yeah

[01:52:01] he is he is trying

[01:52:03] to be an objective reporter but he's

[01:52:05] giving us the answer that in fact these were

[01:52:07] brought into being by the ideas but

[01:52:09] the but the but the the it's just

[01:52:11] totally incompatible with the idea that

[01:52:13] they're trying to not break

[01:52:15] too far from reality by

[01:52:17] creating something that that couldn't

[01:52:19] possibly exist with the way we

[01:52:21] understand the material

[01:52:23] I think here he is

[01:52:25] being an un a bit

[01:52:27] unreliable as a narrator

[01:52:29] in that I think

[01:52:31] in this now that you

[01:52:33] pointed to this I think that

[01:52:35] given the differences in the 11th version

[01:52:37] of the encyclopedia in the Memphis copy

[01:52:39] I think that the entire 40 volumes

[01:52:41] in the Memphis library

[01:52:43] might be heronier and that the 11th

[01:52:45] is just the idea of

[01:52:47] the 11th copy that because of the

[01:52:49] imperfection has has manifested

[01:52:51] itself slightly differently which is

[01:52:53] yeah

[01:52:55] all right now I'm all I'm

[01:52:57] I'm further dizzy

[01:52:59] now but I think I bet if

[01:53:01] you go through this story you're

[01:53:03] gonna find contradictions

[01:53:05] of a sort in in

[01:53:07] just the internal

[01:53:09] coherence of the story itself

[01:53:11] warn us about it he warned us about

[01:53:13] it he said like there's little things

[01:53:15] pop up like at first he says there are

[01:53:17] contradictions in the 11th

[01:53:19] no second he said there are contradictions in the 11th

[01:53:21] but at first he said it was

[01:53:23] a coherent a fully coherent

[01:53:25] picture there's a lot of

[01:53:27] things that are just a little bit off

[01:53:29] as and you're right he's

[01:53:31] he's he's being an unreliable

[01:53:33] narrator in a way that

[01:53:35] I can't even try to think about

[01:53:37] why but

[01:53:39] yeah

[01:53:41] I think because only that could give

[01:53:43] us the vertigo that we're feeling

[01:53:45] where where at some level

[01:53:47] we have to trust the narrator and he

[01:53:49] is he's

[01:53:51] doing this thing to us in it's

[01:53:53] very important that it's in the first person because

[01:53:55] we have some trust

[01:53:57] that this is Borges talking

[01:53:59] to us and why would he lie to us and then

[01:54:01] he's inserting all these you know this is what

[01:54:03] they're talking about in the very first paragraph

[01:54:05] where Kassaris is giving

[01:54:07] him the idea for a

[01:54:09] novel in which you omit

[01:54:11] this figure of the axe over the occurrences

[01:54:13] yeah

[01:54:15] and three different forms like the

[01:54:17] first is just like a mystery

[01:54:19] story of this strange thing that you

[01:54:21] discover the second is

[01:54:23] a like an actual sort

[01:54:25] of an account like he was just

[01:54:27] describing an account and the third is

[01:54:29] this world weary just

[01:54:31] like resigned

[01:54:33] I give up kind of

[01:54:35] surrendering to it's three

[01:54:37] very different things yeah it's like

[01:54:39] a Bohemian Rhapsody of short stories

[01:54:41] right

[01:54:43] the what

[01:54:45] I also love is that there was something

[01:54:47] called the Anglo-American Encyclopedia

[01:54:49] there really was

[01:54:51] and it really was a rip off

[01:54:53] of the Encyclopedia Britannica

[01:54:55] and it really is the case that

[01:54:57] in one of the volumes

[01:54:59] uqbar spelled the UQBAR

[01:55:01] would come at the very

[01:55:03] end of that

[01:55:05] yeah okay I didn't know

[01:55:07] if I could get it if I were the kind of person to get a tattoo

[01:55:11] I think I would get the tattoo in Spanish

[01:55:13] of the

[01:55:15] mirrors and copulation are abominable

[01:55:19] the new tattoo artist wants to come and give it to me for free

[01:55:21] I'll become a tattoo guy

[01:55:23] you don't think it's too late for you

[01:55:25] it is too late it's far too late

[01:55:27] maybe with that one maybe with that one

[01:55:29] maybe with that one yeah

[01:55:31] it's meta it would be meta enough

[01:55:33] yeah

[01:55:35] it would be like a

[01:55:37] a Rony or impressed on your

[01:55:39] I would write it backwards so that you could only

[01:55:41] read it in a mirror

[01:55:43] yeah I love it

[01:55:45] alright I need to take

[01:55:47] I need to go home

[01:55:49] yes I am

[01:55:51] fully unmoored

[01:55:53] well I hope home exists

[01:55:55] just continue believing in home

[01:55:57] the whole time

[01:55:59] yeah exactly

[01:56:01] alright I'll talk to you

[01:56:03] sorry, join us last time on

[01:56:05] very bad wizards