2015 Maps of Meaning Lecture 02a: Object and Meaning (Part 1)

Peterson can make you beleave at leasst for a moment that you could think as clear as he does.

How do I never, ever get tired of these lectures?

This is the equivalent to hearing a great piece of music. Every time you hear it, it lifts your spirit without fail.

Man, I could listen to this man speak for hours. The ability to analyze, dissect and bring into clarity so many deep and disparate subjects—and how they interact—is what makes JBP a next level genius.

Man thank you so goddamn much. I'm 17 years old and so that makes me a little bit on the impulsive end of things--always looking for meaning in little installments here and there. I watched Maps of meaning for the first time like 8 months ago when I was depressed beyond belief, refused to try new things, and vowed to torture myself by "self-induced catatonia" where I'd just basically sit and do nothing (besides fixate my gaze on some point on my ceiling or wall) for all my free time, like 5 hours a day at least. That went on for like 2 years and then I recovered a little but I still had that thick fog of nihilism around me. And man, Maps of meaning didn't do it overnight but (slowly) it built me a conceptual model for understanding the world that really matched my temperament. I've rewatched it again 3 months ago and I'm gonna do it again now (I don't think I ever watched the 2015 version anyway).

Amazing how much healthier Jordan Peterson looks four years after this.

these lectures are extremely interesting. you are extremely insightful and full of so much good informatoin. thanks for posting these, I will watch them all!

i love this man - i wish him and his family well

You said that love and truth are the two poles that should guide you.  I feel your video are gifts based on love and you tell what you know as the truth.  Thank you.  I work in a dark place where I see shattered people.  Thank you for helping me.

Looking back at these videos makes me so happy to see that he has gotten healthier and is taking care of himself.

wow. wow. wow. speechless, but the mind is racing. Thank you Mr. Peterson.

Jordan is a hair younger than me. Talk to the people now in their 70-80..... find out what they experienced as children. One of my earliest memories is an aunt and my mother talking about the war in South Korea.... I know by how they were talking it was not at all a good thing. I was about 6 - When we move from a small town to St. Louis.... every thing changed.... no more extended family dropping by.... strangers in school.. different levels of subjects... and then a couple of years later I remember air raid sirens going off all of the time. But the ones that were really terrifying were the ones that we had to hide from (bombs) that might hit our school. We had to hunker down under our desks just in case it go hit. (the bombs were only imaginary - but just the though was terrifying. I spent many sleepless nights in Jr. High and High School fantasizing how I would survive. The scenarios were many. I got over it a bit in the 70's... and for a hair in the late 60's. In the mid 70's - 80's the anti war movements, feminism, drugs in some ways were far worse than the 60's 70's. Everything was popping, including the environmental groups, As well as new families who began to raise babies, and the beginning of the Service Economy which managed to gradually affect a long of industry, farming, small businesses, moral values, church, divorce rates, and less variety in the job market skills and income. It felt like we were all living on a run away train. With all of that an more in past, I have to say I really don't know if we will make it this time...because most people are still asleep as to the whole of our reality.... they do not even have the same information and what new is out is always twisted, or out and out lies, thereby the division of the American People. It is that division that is our greatest weakness and has been for decades. But please do not give up you thoughts, ideas, goodness.... the future is in our hands and our will power.

I’ve noticed in a lot of his lectures he picks up the can or bottle and holds it for a bit then puts it back without ever drinking.

A peculiar trend online is "SCIENCE SAYS XYZ." As someone who studies science, hammered into our heads is 'Science doesn't say anything, findings are merely suggestions under specific conditions.' I'm finding that most the time, we don't even know the full extent of those conditions. Generally speaking, people have given science the authority of an all-knowing creator. What "science says" is taken as absolutes. The reality is that science is anything but an absolute. I've come to the conclusion that people want absolutes because it is a simplification. Creatures are hard-wired to minimize any energy expenditure, one can assume that includes our thoughts. It's difficult to piece together "truth" because of scale. And humans haven't evolved to consider all scales. You have to force that kind of thinking. It's like what you, Jordan, were getting at with things breakdown the smaller you get. Where my life is leading me is the idea that nothing is absolute but much is conditional. For my own survival and the survival of humans as a social group, I must regulate myself as a moral being navigating a physical world. Social and personal morality cannot be substituted by Science. Science cannot provide meaning. And I believe in a world without meaning and full of absolutes, you end up with people who are certain of one condition. It's ultimately nihilistic. My version of your obsession with the cold war, is the return of Marxist philosophies.

So religions/paradigms are a sort of complete structure, a lens through which to filter chaos. The sort of philosophy the professor is giving here itself is a paradigm, but this paradigm is one that allows the entirety of any other paradigm to be viewed. Most viewpoints/perspectives disassemble other paradigms. This is a lens that allows other lenses to viewed that would otherwise be invisible. It is also a thing which gives birth to paradigms as well, like a sort of tool that creates tools. Good stuff. I wish I could chat with the man. 

Really interesting stuff Dr. Peterson, thank you for giving this knowledge out. Reminds me of being back in my Symbol classes for PR in college.

1:21:00 I admire Jordan Peterson’s fight with the dragon (history and its awful sides) to actually imitate and hear his experience linguistically. Perhaps, I would learn something from him. :)

the first time in my life that i can listen to a rational criticism of atheists. you are amazing Jordan

"Everything's basically a bat." -Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, 2015

DOMINANCE HARKY