How to Best Guide Your Life Decisions & Path | Dr. Jordan Peterson

1. 0:00 – 2:32

   Dr. Jordan Peterson

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      (Upbeat music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Jordan Peterson. Dr. Jordan Peterson is a psychologist, an author, and one of the most influential public intellectuals of our time. Today we discuss the human animal, what it means to be a human being at the level of psychology, at the level of neuroscience, and indeed, at the level of expression of different personality types within us. Most of us don't think about having different personalities. However, as we discuss today, due to the activity of specific brain circuitries, including the hypothalamus, the prefrontal cortex, and others, we each and all can adopt different states of mind that powerfully influence our emotions, our thoughts, and our actions. And in so doing, we are different people depending on those states of mind. Today's discussion is both an intellectual one and a practical one. You will learn where and how to place your thoughts. You will learn the relationship between the call to adventure and responsibility. And as Dr. Peterson emphasizes in his new book, We Who Wrestle with God, he emphasizes the use of story, in this case biblical stories, to understand oneself and to best guide one's actions towards the most positive and generative outcomes. We discuss the self, romantic relationships and commitments, the family, community, and culture. We also discuss the media, politics, cancel culture, things like social media and pornography, shifting masculine and feminine roles, and the innate human drive to create action at a distance, both in space and in time. Today's discussion is both intellectual and practical. Dr. Peterson emphasizes how to use different sources of story, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to understand and best guide one's decision-making process. Indeed, he discusses the tight relationship between the call to adventure and responsibility as a trustable framework for moving forward in life towards one's best possible outcomes. And I'm certain that by the end of today's discussion, you'll be thinking about your own neural circuits, that is, the connections in your brain that drive emotions, thoughts, and behavior, as well as your psychology, your different states of mind, and you are going to have a number of different tools and frameworks with which to apply all that knowledge toward the best possible outcomes.

2. 2:32 – 5:19

   Sponsors: David & Levels

   1. AHAndrew Huberman2:32

      Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is David. David makes a protein bar unlike any other. It has 28 grams of protein, only 150 calories, and zero grams of sugar. That's right, 28 grams of protein, and 75% of its calories come from protein. These bars from David also taste amazing. My favorite flavor is chocolate chip cookie dough, but then again, I also like the chocolate fudge flavored one, and I also like the cake flavored one. Basically, I like all the flavors. They're incredibly delicious. For me personally, I strive to eat mostly whole foods. However, when I'm in a rush or I'm away from home or I'm just looking for a quick afternoon snack, I often find that I'm looking for a high-quality protein source. With David, I'm able to get 28 grams of protein with the calories of a snack, which makes it very easy to hit my protein goals of one gram of protein per pound of body weight each day, and it allows me to do that without taking in excess calories. I typically eat a David bar in the early afternoon or even mid-afternoon if I want to bridge that gap between lunch and dinner. I like that it's a little bit sweet, so it tastes like a tasty snack, but it's also giving me that 28 grams of very high-quality protein with just 150 calories. If you would like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com/huberman. Again, the link is davidprotein.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by Levels. Levels is a program that lets you see how different foods affect your health by giving you real-time feedback on your diet using a continuous glucose monitor. One of the most important factors in both your short and long-term health is your body's ability to manage blood glucose or blood sugar. To maintain energy and focus throughout the day, you want to keep your blood glucose steady without big spikes or crashes. I first started using Levels about three years ago as a way to understand how different foods impacted my blood glucose levels, and it's proven incredibly informative for determining my food choices, when I eat specific foods, and how I time eating relative to things like my workouts, both weight training and cardiovascular training, things like running, and when to eat before I go to sleep to allow for the most stable blood sugar throughout the night. Indeed, using Levels has helped shape my entire schedule. So if you're interested in learning more about Levels and trying a CGM yourself, you can go to levels.link/huberman. Levels has just launched a new CGM sensor that is smaller and has even better tracking than before. Right now they're also offering an additional two free months of membership. Again, that's levels.link, spelled L-I-N-K, /huberman to try the new sensor and two free months of membership. And now for my discussion with Dr. Jordan Peterson.

3. 5:19 – 14:08

   Brain, Impulses, Integration, Personalities

   1. AHAndrew Huberman5:19

      Dr. Jordan Peterson, welcome.

   2. JPJordan Peterson5:22

      Thank you, sir.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman5:23

      Delighted to have you here and want to talk about elements within your new book.

   4. JPJordan Peterson5:28

      Yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman5:28

      Also some elements within your previous books-

   6. JPJordan Peterson5:30

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman5:31

      ... and within that mind of yours generally. As a framework for that, I'm wondering if you would tolerate or permit a little bit of a discussion about sort of brain and psychology, um, just to kind of lay the groundwork for where we might, um, prod some of the themes that you bring up related to the book. So I view the brain as obviously a bunch of cells and parts, et cetera, but I distill it down to some sort of basic features. First of all, we have an autonomic physiology, I think we'd both agree on that, that regulates our sleepiness and wakefulness, our breathing, our heart rate, stuff that runs in the background.... and then we have a lot of circuitry devoted to what I would call impulses, things that we desire, we wanna move toward, appetitive behaviors, and we also have some impulses to avoid things that are putrid, painful, et cetera. That's all in there like it is in other animals.

   8. JPJordan Peterson6:23

      Yeah, we should talk about the idea of impulse-

   9. AHAndrew Huberman6:25

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JPJordan Peterson6:25

       ... in relationship to that characterization.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman6:27

       Okay.

   12. JPJordan Peterson6:28

       Yeah. 'Cause there's an important, there's an important point to be made on the... Uh, there, you pay a price for characterizing that as impulse, and, and I'd, I'd like to explore that with you 'cause it's crucial.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman6:40

       Great. We'll circle back to impulse. I'd like to do that. And then we have a lot of circuitry, people will hear about it as executive function-

   14. JPJordan Peterson6:48

       Mm-hmm.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman6:48

       ... prefrontal circuitry, which does many things, but I like to think of, um, as a circuit that can say... and here I'm borrowing from a previous guest who's a neurosurgeon. It can say, "Shh," or exert what's called top-down suppression on these, what I'm calling, impulses.

   16. JPJordan Peterson7:05

       Mm-hmm.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman7:05

       It can-

   18. JPJordan Peterson7:06

       W- we should talk about that too-

   19. AHAndrew Huberman7:08

       Okay.

   20. JPJordan Peterson7:08

       ... the suppression idea and the inhibition idea in general-

   21. AHAndrew Huberman7:11

       Great.

   22. JPJordan Peterson7:11

       ... because there's, uh, I think there's a parallel problem there to the notion of impulse that's very much worth delving into.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman7:18

       Great.

   24. JPJordan Peterson7:18

       Yeah.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman7:19

       So circuitry that's devoted to our ability to self-inhibit the desire to reach for something or to avoid something.

   26. JPJordan Peterson7:26

       Yeah.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman7:26

       We can push ourselves into things that would otherwise be aversive. We can avoid doing things that would otherwise drive us to, quote-unquote, "just do it anyway."

   28. JPJordan Peterson7:34

       Mm-hmm.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman7:36

       And then we have what I think of as our default settings, kind of how we're operating in the world with respect to food, other people, ourselves, our thoughts, if we don't intervene with ourselves. And these default settings are, of course, established by both nature, a genetic program that wires up circuitry, but also nurture because of the immense neuroplasticity that occurs in the first 25 years plus of life, but especially those first years of life. And then, of course, we have neuroplasticity, this incredible gift that humans have more of than any other species as far as we know, which is we can decide to make changes. Now, the reason I lay out this framework as opposed to starting with a question is because there are so many amazing questions that you ask in this book. You know, we who wrestle with God, I mean, trying to wrap our arms and minds around this huge set of questions, and it occurred to me, just step back from all of that and ask, is part of the reason that we have a concept of God, that there are multiple religions, is that the consequence of some humans at some point realizing or perhaps God Himself realizing that what we are equipped with as humans, which we just described, is insufficient to allow us to evolve as a species and be the best version of ourselves? I think this, for me, really is, like, the central question of at least my life, which is, to what extent do I need to intervene with my default settings, rewire them, engage that prefrontal cortex, and, you know, push down on some appetitive or aversive behaviors, and to what extent can we do that? Maybe-

   30. JPJordan Peterson9:22

       And to what end?
4. 14:08 – 18:18

   Personalities, Motivation

   1. JPJordan Peterson14:08

      And-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman14:08

      So are they personalities within our, what most people would think of as our larger personality? I mean, uh, what I'm hearing-

   3. JPJordan Peterson14:14

      Yeah.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman14:15

      ... is that, let's say somebody's an addict. Okay-

   5. JPJordan Peterson14:17

      It depends on how integrated you are.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman14:19

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JPJordan Peterson14:19

      Because you could be nothing but a succession of dominion of sub-personalities. That's what a two-year-old is, right? And so, you have to build an integrating personality on top of those sub-personalities, but not in a manner that inhibits them. That means your socialization is ins- unsophisticated. Even Freud knew this because even though he had basically a inhibitory model of say, superego regulation-

   8. AHAndrew Huberman14:46

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JPJordan Peterson14:46

      ... um, he believed that a healthy personality would have the impulse of aggression and the impulse of sexuality, to take two major lower order motivational states into account, would have them integrated into the functioning ego. The, the issue is integration. And so, what you're doing when you're social, like, okay, when, when my son, for example, would become willful in a manner that I regarded as counterproductive for him and the household, and, and the rule would be, "You can't act that way because if you act that way, people aren't going to approve of you, and that's a bad plan. So you have to, you have to control that because it's not gonna work out well for you if you don't." Okay, so I use time out. Now, time out is an effective disciplinary strategy for social creatures because we don't like isolation. And so time out basically takes a child, puts the child in isolation. That produces a pain-like response because social isolation produces pain.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman15:47

       It's pure inhibition, right?

   11. JPJordan Peterson15:48

       Well, well, that's the question, you see? That's the question. He had to inhibit his immediate desire to, say, to run around because he was gonna sit on the steps. But see, the... I put a rule in place there, and the rule was, "As soon as you get yourself under control, you can leave the stairs." Okay, so now the question is, what does under control mean? One interpretation is inhibition. Another interpretation is, no, no, he's developing a superordinate personality, probably cortically, that has enough dominion so that those underlying motivational states can now be integrated and placed properly-

   12. AHAndrew Huberman16:26

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JPJordan Peterson16:26

       ... into a hierarchy. And when I'm insisting that he regulate his behavior and I allow him to move off the step when he is now able to be a social creature again, instead of falling prey to his whim, I'm reinforcing the cortical integration of those underlying motivational states.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman16:44

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JPJordan Peterson16:44

       Now, you might think the human organism is, comes into the world with, with a, a warring battleground of primordial motivational states. That's per- perfectly reasonable view. We know a lot of that is mediated by the hypothalamus, for example.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman16:58

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JPJordan Peterson16:58

       The amygdala and these lower order-

   18. AHAndrew Huberman17:00

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JPJordan Peterson17:00

       ... biologically, what, pre-programmed, to some degree, pre-programmed systems. Now, the specific manner in which those systems should find their expression and the specific way that they're going to be hierarchically integrated is going to depend to a tremendous degree on the particulars of the society at that moment, which is why you need that 18-year framework to, to hone the manner in which those systems make themselves manifest. But the, I think the best way to conceptualize that is that it's, it's the hierarchical integration of the motivational states within an overarching superordinate personality. And that personality is not bound to the moment. It takes the medium and long term into account. And it's not self-serving like a two-year-old would be because you have to take other people into account if you're gonna be successful. So, you... And this is where the cortex comes in, as far as I'm concerned. This is what it's doing. It's stretching the... It's integrating the lower order, temporally bound motivational states-

   20. AHAndrew Huberman18:04

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JPJordan Peterson18:05

       ... that are specifically self-serving, to a much broader vision of...... the world, that takes the future into account, and other people. And, and that's, that's hard. It's very hard.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman18:17

       Mm-hmm. I,

5. 18:18 – 24:08

   Context & Children; Religion, Motivation & Personality

   1. AHAndrew Huberman18:18

      I love this and I'll tell you why. Um, because the way that I think of the prefrontal cortex is that its main job is context-dependent strategy-setting.

   2. JPJordan Peterson18:28

      Right. Context dependent.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman18:29

      Context dependent.

   4. JPJordan Peterson18:30

      Right. That's a crucial issue.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman18:32

      Right. And you mentioned hypothalamus, this, you know, it's basically the size of, you know, two, uh, marbles or so sitting above the roof of our mouth. Tiny, tiny little brain area. It's mostly switches in there. What do I mean by that? Any time a neurosurgeon has stimulated neurons in a little sub-area of the hypothalamus, you get either rage, or sexual appetite-

   6. JPJordan Peterson18:50

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman18:51

      ... or, uh, mating with inanimate objects. I mean, this was done in both, uh, non-human primates and in humans.

   8. JPJordan Peterson18:55

      Uncontrollable thirst.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman18:56

      Uncontrollable thirst, hunger, total suppression of hunger. I mean, all the basic drives are operating. They're like switches.

   10. JPJordan Peterson19:02

       Exploration.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman19:02

       And prefrontal cortex has direct access to it, to the hypo- hypothalamus, and prefrontal cortex is context-dependent learning.

   12. JPJordan Peterson19:13

       Yeah.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman19:13

       Context-dependent decision-making. And I love that you brought in this notion of changing an impulse, in the example that you gave in your son's impulse to be aggressive or wild in some way that was inappropriate for the home environment at that moment. And two things that you said, uh, really resonate. The prefrontal cortex, his prefrontal cortex had to learn that whatever he was feeling for himself, his own desires, needed to be placed in the context of other people's wishes, desires, and needs as well, so there's an-

   14. JPJordan Peterson19:42

       Even for him to thrive, right?

   15. AHAndrew Huberman19:44

       Right.

   16. JPJordan Peterson19:45

       It's not merely a sacrifice of his own desire for the sake of others. It's like, "No, no, look, kid. If you're..." We know this. If you're, if you have the same orientation towards other people at four that you did when you were two, especially if you're tilted a little in the aggressive direction, you will not make friends, and you'll be isolated and alienated for the rest of your life. So, that two-year-old impulsiveness, that has its place.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman20:12

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JPJordan Peterson20:13

       Two, it starts to modify radically at three, and it better be fixed by four. And the reason for that is that you have to integrate yourself into the social world, which means, in the case of children, it means w- you wanna have friends.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman20:26

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JPJordan Peterson20:27

       And so the reason you're, you're s- you're disciplining your child isn't to teach them that what they're doing is bad, you know, in that simple, in, in that simple s- sense that you might interpret punishment. It's like, "No, you need to be more sophisticated." Well, why? "Well, you have to be able to take turns." Well, why? "Well, 'cause you, no one'll like you otherwise." Well, what's the problem with that? Well, first of all, we're hyper-social. Like, you can punish psychopaths by putting them in isolation. That's how social human beings are. You take the most anti-social human beings there are, and you can punish them by making them be alone.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman21:05

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JPJordan Peterson21:05

       Right, so that's how social we are. So you want to, you, you're, you're modeling for your child a strategy of, of even satisfaction for his own basic drives that takes context in the most sophisticated possible way into account. Right? And that is, see, as soon as you understand that that's the fostering of like a meta-personality in the child, which would really be the personality of that child, the integrated personality, you start to understand how that might be related to religious thinking. Because religious thinking is the attempt to formulate something approximating an ideal personality. Right? Now, that's attributed, they're, that's often attributed elements of the divine, but there's reasons for that that we could go into. But as soon as you know that the basic structure, even at the lower motivational level, is personality, well then that, that changes the way you view the brain. Look, a lot of archaic deities are motivational systems. Right?

   23. AHAndrew Huberman22:07

       Could you give me an example?

   24. JPJordan Peterson22:08

       Well, the god of war, Mars, that's rage. That was a god that the Vikings e- invoked before they went into battle. They would use Amanita muscaria. And they imitated predators, like, from an early age.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman22:21

       So this is a musc- this is a, uh, acetylcholine, by the way, folks, has two general receptor sys- systems, the nicotinic system, which is a stimulant, but also relaxes you. That's why people like nicotine. Um, and then the muscarinic system, which, um, creates, uh, uh, changes in our, um, self-perception and perception of the things around us. Um, it's not so much a stimulant as it, um, it's a, hmm, I would veer towards a, almost like a psychedelic or an int-

   26. JPJordan Peterson22:45

       Mm-hmm.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman22:46

       It has a, a, um, uh, an effect of making us less fearful-

   28. JPJordan Peterson22:51

       Hmm.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman22:51

       ... and, um, and intrigued. Um-

   30. JPJordan Peterson22:53

       It's a radically atypical psychedelic.
6. 24:08 – 29:46

   Hypothalamus, Context, Maturation

   1. JPJordan Peterson24:08

      (laughs) It would give you nightmares to think about it deeply.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman24:11

      Yeah.

   3. JPJordan Peterson24:11

      Right?

   4. AHAndrew Huberman24:11

      There's, there's an experiment, if I may, um, that might shed some light on what it would look like. Uh, um, a former guest on this podcast actually, um, David Anderson at Caltech, has been studying hypothalamic circuits. And he and his former postdoc, Dayu Lin, discovered a small, tiny, tiny collection of neurons in the ventromedial hypothalamus that when stimulated would send these animals, these mice, you can find videos of this online, into a rage.

   5. JPJordan Peterson24:35

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman24:36

      Now, the interesting thing is, is it required the presence of another mouse.

   7. JPJordan Peterson24:39

      Right. Right.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman24:40

      And-

   9. JPJordan Peterson24:41

      Right. So it's still-

   10. AHAndrew Huberman24:41

       Or-

   11. JPJordan Peterson24:42

       ... somewhat context-dependent.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman24:42

       I- somewhat context-dependent. If they were alone in their cage, they wouldn't attack themselves-

   13. JPJordan Peterson24:46

       Right.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman24:46

       ... or the walls of the cage. But if you put a air or water-filled glove within the cage, they would absolutely attack it to try and destroy it. Then you turn off these neurons, the, the mouse is calm. We can put a link to this in the show note caption.

   15. JPJordan Peterson24:59

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman24:59

       Now, here's what's remarkable.

   17. JPJordan Peterson25:00

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman25:00

       The ventromedial hypothalamus has these neurons basically interspersed with other neurons that when stimulated suppress rage and activate copulation.

   19. JPJordan Peterson25:11

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman25:11

       Incredible, right? Within the same structure, you have these mutually exclusive sets of, of neurons and behaviors.

   21. JPJordan Peterson25:17

       Yeah.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman25:18

       And it, and it speaks to, I think, some of the things that, uh, Freud and, and others have talked about-

   23. JPJordan Peterson25:22

       Oh, definitely. The id.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman25:22

       ... in terms of the, the, the juxtaposition of, of these neurons, but, um, that they, they mutually inhibit one another, uh, which lends itself to some really interesting questions about, um, when those two... when, uh, aggression and sexuality become, uh, become combined in, in states of pathology.

   25. JPJordan Peterson25:37

       Mm-hmm.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman25:37

       Okay?

   27. JPJordan Peterson25:38

       Mm-hmm.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman25:38

       So but in any event, um, it... so context-dependent control over impulses, over the hypothalamus seems to be the theme here. And the other thing that-

   29. JPJordan Peterson25:48

       Mm-hmm.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman25:48

       ... that you mentioned is the ability for your son, in this case, but presumably also the Vikings-
7. 29:46 – 33:37

   Psychopathy, Kids & Aggressive Behavior & Socialization

   1. JPJordan Peterson29:46

      it's an unsophisticated strategy. It-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman29:49

      They want what they want now-

   3. JPJordan Peterson29:51

      Regardless, yeah.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman29:51

      ... and they, and they don't care about the, the we or the-

   5. JPJordan Peterson29:55

      Or the future.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman29:55

      ... or the future.

   7. JPJordan Peterson29:56

      See, see, one... this is one of the ways I caught on to this relationship, was I... when... because I studied antisocial behavior for a very long time.... psychopaths in particular are notorious for their inability to learn from experience. Okay, so what does that mean? It means that if they do something impulsive that causes them trouble in the future, the fact of that future trouble has no bearing on their continued behavior. Well, what that means is that they are so non-communitarian that they're willing to even betray their own future selves. There's no difference between that and betraying someone else. It's exactly the same mechanism.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman30:38

      Very much a toddler, toddler approach.

   9. JPJordan Peterson30:40

      Mm-hmm. It, it, it, well, so here's something I learned in, in Montreal. I worked with a man named Richard Tremblay there, and Richard, I think Richard's lab used up one-third of all social science funding for Quebec at one time. He was a radically successful researcher, and he was really interested in antisocial behavior and, and was trying to get to the roots. And one of the conclusions that our lab enterprise moved towards was that, one observation was that if you take two-year-olds, if you take kids at different ages, you could imagine you made a group of two-year-olds, three-year-olds, group of four-year-olds, all the way up to 15, you just let them interact, the two-year-olds are the most aggressive. And, but if you analyze the two-year-olds themselves, you find that all the aggressive kids are boys, and it's only a fraction of them, about 5%. So if you group two-year-olds together, 5% of the boys will kick, steal, hit, and bite, which was our definition of early-onset antisocial behavior. Almost all of those kids are socialized by the age of four, right? The remnant that aren't get alienated because they have no friends, and they're the ones who become juvenile delinquents and then early-onset criminals and then repeat offenders, right? And so what it is, is imagine there's some kids whose default, their rage circuits are a little bit more dominant-

   10. AHAndrew Huberman32:07

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JPJordan Peterson32:07

       ... than the typical kid, eh? They're often bigger physically.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman32:10

       Yeah, especially the bite, the biting. I, uh, forgive me for interrupting-

   13. JPJordan Peterson32:13

       Yeah.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman32:13

       ... but there's a very interesting paper, uh, published about two years ago showing that there's a specific circuit from the hypothalamus to the neurons that control, uh, jaw closure that are independent of the neurons that control jaw, jaw closure for eating and for drinking-

   15. JPJordan Peterson32:28

       Oh, yeah, yeah. That makes perfect sense.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman32:30

       ... that are specifically for aggressive biting.

   17. JPJordan Peterson32:31

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman32:32

       I mean, I hope people understand the significance of this because what this means is there are dedicated circuits for aggressive biting in your hypothalamus.

   19. JPJordan Peterson32:38

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman32:39

       We all learn to suppress these, except probably under conditions where our life is endangered-

   21. JPJordan Peterson32:43

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman32:43

       ... in which case you'd probably bite like hell in order to try and get out of that circumstance. But we are all born with this circuit. We die with this circuit. Most of us, apparently not these kids, learn to suppress the circuit.

   23. JPJordan Peterson32:55

       Right, right, or integrate it.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman32:57

       Uh, an eight-year-old biter is a scary thing.

   25. JPJordan Peterson32:59

       Right, right, right, right, right.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman33:00

       A one-year-old biter is, like, a, I don't know, a little bit of a worrisome thing. A two-year-old, like, "Okay, we need to work on this."

   27. JPJordan Peterson33:04

       Yeah.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman33:05

       An eight-year-old biter? People starting to be concerned.

   29. JPJordan Peterson33:08

       Right?

   30. AHAndrew Huberman33:08

       I think even without knowledge of the psychopathology literature, one would be very concerned if their eight-year-old is biting other kids.
8. 33:37 – 41:05

   Polytheistic & Monotheistic Religions; Rage, Sociopathy & Addiction

   1. JPJordan Peterson33:37

      and, and defensive or predatory aggression, that's bad news.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman33:40

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JPJordan Peterson33:40

      Now, so, so, w- so w- so what's the, what's the upshot of that? Well, the upshot is that there is a subs- that's right, there's a subset of kids whose, whose default reactions aren't socialized, and we associate that with psychopathy and, and long-term criminality. There's a really useful thing to understand, that much of what we see as pathology, and I would say the same thing about narcissism and, and, and certain forms of hedonism, essentially what it is, is failure of socialization, right? And this has very interesting political implications because it also implies that, imagine that impulsive self-gratification is a personality, the desire for impulsive self-gratification is a personality with its own political opinions. Nietzsche said in the late 1800s that every drive attempts to philosophize in its spirit. Brilliant, a brilliant observation.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman34:39

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JPJordan Peterson34:41

      Far different than conceiving of the, say, hypothalamic drives as deterministic chains of only impulses. And an- another thing to consider, too, with regards to the effect of hypothalamic motivation on perception, that mouse that you talked about whose attack system is activated electronically. See, when that glove is dropped, you can see that there's a relationship with perception. Because if there's no target for attack that's biologically relevant in the environment, there's no impulse. So you could imagine that what happens is when you activate those neurons is that there's a set of perceptual stimuli that are much more likely to be classified as a defeatable enemy.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman35:22

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JPJordan Peterson35:22

      Now, even a glove will do it.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman35:24

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JPJordan Peterson35:24

      Right, right. So you drop in a glove, and that's now perceived as defeatable enemy or perhaps threat 'cause we don't know exactly-

   10. AHAndrew Huberman35:31

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   11. JPJordan Peterson35:31

       ... what the perception would be. But then, you see, then it's the perception driving the behavior. That's not an impulse.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman35:38

       Right.

   13. JPJordan Peterson35:38

       Right?

   14. AHAndrew Huberman35:39

       Right.

   15. JPJordan Peterson35:39

       That's more like a strategy, and it's v- it's un... I really started to understand some of the literature on the evolution of religious thinking when I started to understand motivational states as personalities, because one of the things that you see, this is so cool, something I tried to talk to Dawkins about, the, the greatest historian of religions who ever lived was Mircea Eliade, and he wrote a sequence of brilliant books. Um, The Sacred and the Profane is the best one to start with. Very short book, very elegant book. And what Eliade...... documented across the world was the pattern by which polytheistic belief systems turned into monotheistic belief systems. That parallels maturation. It's the same thing, and so the polytheistic gods tend to be representations of, of motivational states.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman36:30

       Uh, I, I, I'm gonna pause you there 'cause I think this is extremely important. Um, so the god of war-

   17. JPJordan Peterson36:37

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman36:38

       ... uh, the-

   19. JPJordan Peterson36:38

       Or the god of love.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman36:39

       The goddess of love-

   21. JPJordan Peterson36:39

       Exactly.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman36:39

       ... or the god of love.

   23. JPJordan Peterson36:40

       Exactly.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman36:40

       Right?

   25. JPJordan Peterson36:40

       Exactly that.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman36:41

       Um-

   27. JPJordan Peterson36:42

       Mm-hmm.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman36:43

       ... so the idea that the different gods are the, uh, reflective of different-

   29. JPJordan Peterson36:47

       Person-

   30. AHAndrew Huberman36:47

       ... well, let's just-
9. 41:05 – 43:58

   Sponsors: AG1 & ROKA

   1. JPJordan Peterson41:05

      right? That's the condition of the two year old.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman41:08

      I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink with adaptogens. I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring this podcast. The reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still take AG1 is because it is the highest quality and most complete foundational nutritional supplement. What that means is that AG1 ensures that you're getting all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients to form a strong foundation for your daily health. AG1 also has probiotics and prebiotics that support a healthy gut microbiome. Your gut microbiome consists of trillions of microorganisms that line your digestive tract and impact things such as your immune system status, your metabolic health, your hormone health, and much more. So I've consistently found that when I take AG1 daily, my digestion is improved, my immune system is more robust, and my mood and mental focus are at their best. In fact, if I could take just one supplement, that supplement would be AG1. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. Right now, they're giving away five free travel packs and a year's supply of vitamin D3K2. Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman to claim that special offer.Today's episode is also brought to us by ROKA. ROKA makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. I'm excited to share that ROKA and I have teamed up to create a new style of red lens glasses. These red lens glasses are meant to be worn in the evening after the sun goes down. They filter out short wavelength light that comes from screens and from LED lights, the sorts of LED lights that are most commonly used as overhead and, frankly, lamp lighting nowadays. I want to emphasize, ROKA red lens glasses are not traditional blue blockers. They're not designed to be worn during the day and to filter out blue light from screen light. They're designed to prevent the full range of wavelengths that suppress melatonin secretion at night and that can alter your sleep. So by wearing ROKA red lens glasses, they help you calm down and they improve your transition to sleep. Most nights I stay up until about 10:00 PM or even midnight and I wake up between 5:00 and 7:00 AM, depending on when I went to sleep. Now I put my ROKA red lens glasses on as soon as it gets dark outside and I've noticed a much easier transition to sleep, which makes sense based on everything we know about how filtering out short wavelengths of light can allow your brain to function correctly. ROKA red lens glasses also look cool, frankly. You can wear them out to dinner or to concerts or out with friends. So it turns out it is indeed possible to support your biology, to be scientific about it, and to remain social after all. If you'd like to try ROKA, go to roka.com, that's R-O-K-A dot-com, and enter the code Huberman to save 20% off your first order. Again, that's R-O-K-A dot-com

10. 43:58 – 50:34

    Belief in God, Addiction

    1. AHAndrew Huberman43:58

       and enter the code Huberman at checkout. One of the most remarkable real-life examples I've ever witnessed of the power of belief in God, I'm just gonna say it as, as it occurred, uh, I have a good friend, um, who for many years struggled with alcohol and drug addiction-

    2. JPJordan Peterson44:16

       Mm-hmm.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman44:17

       ... of multiple kinds. Incredibly kind person, incredibly successful in his career, married, two beautiful children, multiple relapses.

    4. JPJordan Peterson44:29

       Yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman44:29

       Crashed his truck at 7:00 in the morning after getting intoxicated at 6:30 in the morning. Got out of that one. Happened again and again, multiple rehab centers of this stor- sort of standard treatment, et cetera. And then ultimately enough happened within that whole set of circumstances th- that his wife said, you know, "This is it. Y- you've got to solve this or we just can't be with you."

    6. JPJordan Peterson44:50

       Mm-hmm.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman44:51

       And a very scary situation for everybody involved, including him-

    8. JPJordan Peterson44:55

       Right. Right.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman44:55

       ... who absolutely adored his family. He told us, uh, his friends, that he was going to go to a, a, a center here in Los Angeles that treats addiction with essentially religion-

    10. JPJordan Peterson45:09

        Mm-hmm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman45:10

        ... a belief in God.

    12. JPJordan Peterson45:11

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman45:11

        He was already fairly religious. Um, most, most Sundays he attended church and things of that sort. And you can imagine we all thought, including myself, like, "Okay, dude." Like, "Good luck."

    14. JPJordan Peterson45:23

        Yeah.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman45:24

        "I hope this works," but, like, I would say zero minus one confidence in his ability to get and stay sober. He just had not succeeded prior to this. He's been sober more than four years now.

    16. JPJordan Peterson45:37

        Mm-hmm.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman45:37

        He got out of there and never looked back.

    18. JPJordan Peterson45:39

        Mm-hmm.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman45:40

        And I wonder now, uh, whether something, something must have changed in his brain by adopting what was essentially a, uh-

    20. JPJordan Peterson45:50

        Different incentive structure.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman45:51

        ... like, right, different incentive structure.

    22. JPJordan Peterson45:52

        Mm-hmm.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman45:53

        But fear wasn't doing it before. Fear of e- extreme consequences-

    24. JPJordan Peterson45:57

        Mm-hmm.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman45:57

        ... which were on the table at that time, um, when he went in were- weren't enough. Something about going there and the work that he did there allowed him to then, it's almost like he, he got another prefrontal cortex-

    26. JPJordan Peterson46:10

        Mm-hmm.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman46:10

        ... a more powerful-

    28. JPJordan Peterson46:11

        Right.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman46:11

        ... prefrontal cortex.

    30. JPJordan Peterson46:12

        Right. Right.
11. 50:34 – 56:20

    Pornography, Dopamine, Processed Foods

    1. JPJordan Peterson50:34

       whole personality. Yeah. Brutal, brutal.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman50:37

       Nowadays, I get a lot of questions, um, about pornography.

    3. JPJordan Peterson50:42

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman50:43

       And the, the discussion around pornography is always related to the discussion around masturbation. Um, but let's just talk about pornography for a moment in this context of these primitive drives and these circuits within the hypothalamus, which we were all born with that, um, clearly some of them are devoted to our progression as a species through reproduction.

    5. JPJordan Peterson51:03

       Mm-hmm.

    6. AHAndrew Huberman51:04

       Zero question about that. Sexual behavior being linked to reproduction, not always, but certainly.

    7. JPJordan Peterson51:08

       Mm-hmm.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman51:09

       We can all agree on that. I, I-

    9. JPJordan Peterson51:10

       It's a necessary precondition.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman51:11

        I hope we can still all agree on that. But, um, last time I checked, that's still true. A sperm and an egg met some place in some context to create all of us. (laughs) Okay? We're still grounded in that. Pornography is something that I hear quite a lot from typically young males, but sometimes young females-

    11. JPJordan Peterson51:32

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman51:32

        ... or even older females who say that they can see themselves trying to resist the desire to go look at it.

    13. JPJordan Peterson51:40

        Mm-hmm.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman51:40

        And it almost doesn't feel like a desire anymore. They're sort of just in a, um, kind of a, a compulsion that is, that is-

    15. JPJordan Peterson51:47

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman51:47

        ... almost unconscious, but they're just aware of the fact that they're-

    17. JPJordan Peterson51:50

        Like an eating disorder.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman51:51

        Like an eating disorder. They're, they're doing it, they know they shouldn't be doing it, and they can't help themselves.

    19. JPJordan Peterson51:55

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AHAndrew Huberman51:55

        And we could think about two ways to attack this if one believes it's a real concern, and they certainly do so I do. Um, I don't, I would be open if I, if I had or do. Pornography has not been my thing, and, and I don't struggle with it. But, but when I hear from these people, it's so clear that they're asking is it the prevalence of pornography out there, or is it something really broken in them? Like, are they broken? But I don't know that I would say after having the discussion we've had thus far that they're broken. It seems to me that it's like the, as you said, it's the manifestation of one part of their-

    21. JPJordan Peterson52:30

        Mm-hmm.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman52:30

        ... i- it's one personality within them.

    23. JPJordan Peterson52:32

        Mm-hmm.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman52:33

        Yeah.

    25. JPJordan Peterson52:33

        Well, and it's being, it's being compulsively rewarded. So, you know, when, when a, when you see yourself moving towards the culmination of a desired goal, a dopamine, that's accompanied by dopamine release, okay?

    26. AHAndrew Huberman52:47

        Mm-hmm.

    27. JPJordan Peterson52:47

        And so two things. You know this, but everybody who's listening might not.

    28. AHAndrew Huberman52:50

        Mm-hmm.

    29. JPJordan Peterson52:50

        There's two elements to that dopamine release. One is pleasure.

    30. AHAndrew Huberman52:54

        Mm-hmm.
12. 56:20 – 1:04:44

    Clean Diet, Satiety; Fundamental Pleasures, Food, Sexuality

    1. JPJordan Peterson56:20

       arguably, the same pathological properties. So-

    2. AHAndrew Huberman56:23

       Well, I didn't think we were gonna go here, but I think it's extremely appropriate and important that we do. So I, I know that you followed what is essentially an elimination diet for a number of years. You eat meat, right?

    3. JPJordan Peterson56:33

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman56:33

       Um, I eat meat, vegetables, fruit, and, um, some starches, unrefined starches. Uh, uh, in any event, one thing that I think is absolutely clear from following a clean diet, so to speak, of any kind, but let's say of the sort that you follow or I follow, is that you very soon learn the relationship between taste of the food, volume of the food, macronutrients, so protein, fat, or carbohydrate content, micronutrients, and satiation, which is if you think about it, it's sort of like a, a big plate of broccoli or a big steak or something. The brain learns and the hypothalamus learns the association between the taste, the caloric content, what else is in there, and satiation. If you think about highly processed food or even combinations of multiple ingredients, that's absolutely impossible to do. The brain can't parse what are the various things in here and how do they relate to my feelings of satisfaction? It's the difference between a super drug and what I believe are the, the elements that we're- that we have-

    5. JPJordan Peterson57:34

       Hmm. Explain, explain why you think that's- that-

    6. AHAndrew Huberman57:36

       Yeah.

    7. JPJordan Peterson57:37

       ... link lear- link about satiation can't be learned in the case of these processed foods.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman57:41

       Yeah, because in the context of these processed foods, they're activating multiple neuron systems in the hypothalamus and gut. We know that the gut has neurons that can respond to sugar, fatty acids, and amino acid content. And there's a- you know, there's prominent theory that, you know, one of the main reasons we eat is to forage for amina- amino acids, that we'll eat until we get enough of the essential amino acids.

    9. JPJordan Peterson58:01

       Mm-hmm. For sure.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman58:02

        And, and we correlate that with taste, but that the gut has neurons w- where we know the gut has neurons that signal through the vagus, up through a little relay called the nodose ganglion, if you wanna look at it, fun, um, fun name, and then up to the dopaminergic centers of the brain, which make us, oh, when we eat something that has a high, uh, essential amino acid content, like a steak, like a really tasty steak, the neurons in the gut, in a way that is independent of taste, are signaling to the brain, "Ah, I'm getting essential amino acids. You should eat more of this thing." If those, let's just say, a small fraction of those amino acids that are present in a candy bar or in a, you know, package of, of Skittles, which I'm, I'm guessing there's very few of them, if any, you're gonna continue to forage for food because those neurons will also respond to sugar. Basically, it will keep you eating until you get enough of those amino acids. In other words-

    11. JPJordan Peterson58:49

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman58:49

        ... there are two parallel tracks.

    13. JPJordan Peterson58:50

        Mm-hmm.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman58:50

        One within our taste system-

    15. JPJordan Peterson58:52

        Multiple pathways to satiation.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman58:53

        Right. There- totally, right, multiple pathways to satiation-

    17. JPJordan Peterson58:55

        Mm-hmm. Of course.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman58:55

        ... one dependent on taste, one dependent on actual nutrient content. The mouth can only learn taste association. The mouth can't actually learn nutrient content. The gut knows nutrient content. The problem is-

    19. JPJordan Peterson59:07

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AHAndrew Huberman59:07

        ... you take a food that is low in a micronutrient or macronutrient or essential amino acids or essential fatty acids, after all, there are no essential carbohydrates, there are only essential amino acids and essential fatty acids-

    21. JPJordan Peterson59:17

        Right. Right. Right.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman59:18

        ... and it will keep you eating, and it will keep the appetite system revving until you get enough of those. Now, here's the issue. If you've ever done this, it's probably been-

    23. JPJordan Peterson59:26

        So that's empty calories, so to speak.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman59:27

        Empty calories.

    25. JPJordan Peterson59:28

        Yeah. Oh, yeah.

    26. AHAndrew Huberman59:28

        But what's- So, so in some ways, um, you know, this, again, is an analog to the whole discussion around pornography, masturbation, and, and reproduction, right? I'm not saying that reproduction is the be-all, end-all of sexual activity, but in the evolutionary sense, it absolutely is, right? There's no question about that, m- there's no moral judgment there. That's just the reality. So the, the, the situation with food is, is the following. If we are eating without any gut-level understanding of what- what's coming in, we will keep eating. If you-

    27. JPJordan Peterson59:59

        Mm-hmm.

    28. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:00

        Uh, let me gi- give you an example. You probably haven't ha- done this experiment in a while, but if you've ever just had, you know, rib eye steak or two, it's pretty satiating.

    29. JPJordan Peterson1:00:06

        Very.

    30. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:06

        Maybe you also have a salad, if you're me, or some broccoli or something like that.
13. 1:04:44 – 1:06:46

    Power, Target, Sin

    1. JPJordan Peterson1:04:44

       of male sexuality. None.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:47

       I've wondered for a while whether there's something inherently rewarding about creating impact or action at a distance. Here's why. I've been watching these videos of Elon's rockets and thinking, like, "That is awesome. That is awesome."

    3. JPJordan Peterson1:05:09

       We're built on a throwing platform.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:10

       You know? Yeah. Just, there's one image-

    5. JPJordan Peterson1:05:12

       Mm-hmm.

    6. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:12

       ... of the, of the, the rocket thrusters that just captivated me. I'm, I'm not a spacecraft guy. I mean, I think it's really cool, but I, I mean, I wouldn't consider myself somebody that, like, looks at the stars and thinks, "I wanna go," you know?

    7. JPJordan Peterson1:05:23

       Mm-hmm.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:23

       "I wanna go up there."

    9. JPJordan Peterson1:05:23

       Mm-hmm.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:24

        I might if I ... given the opportunity, but that's not been my thing. But I looked at this, and I thought, "What an awesome display of power."

    11. JPJordan Peterson1:05:30

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:30

        But then I was thinking, like, "What is power?" It's really about having impact or action at a distance. When we were kids, we liked dirt-

    13. JPJordan Peterson1:05:35

        Targeted.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:36

        Dirt clod wars.

    15. JPJordan Peterson1:05:37

        Targeted impact at a distance.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:37

        Right. Targeted, right. Could-

    17. JPJordan Peterson1:05:38

        Yeah.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:38

        What a, what an incredible display of funneling the laws of physics and engineering-

    19. JPJordan Peterson1:05:42

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:42

        ... into something that can have enormous action at a distance and perhaps even take us into new galaxies. Amazing, right?

    21. JPJordan Peterson1:05:50

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The word sin in many languages means to miss the target.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:53

        (laughs)

    23. JPJordan Peterson1:05:55

        Right? And, and then it speaks to exactly what you're describing.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:58

        Mm-hmm.

    25. JPJordan Peterson1:05:58

        Like that, that, the cache of action at a distance, that's unbelievably deeply embedded in us.

    26. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:05

        Mm-hmm.

    27. JPJordan Peterson1:06:06

        That's why I made that throwing gesture. Like-

    28. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:08

        Mm-hmm.

    29. JPJordan Peterson1:06:08

        ... human beings throw. That's our physiology, right? We can throw something at a distant target. Well, that structure at our, our cognition, we're using our thoughts to hit distant targets. That's what we do.

    30. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:22

        Mm-hmm.
14. 1:06:46 – 1:08:33

    Sponsor: Function

    1. JPJordan Peterson1:06:46

       that's the whole perceptual landscape.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:49

       I'd like to take a quick break and thank one of our sponsors, Function. I recently became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. While I've long been a fan of blood testing, I really wanted to find a more in-depth program for analyzing blood, urine, and saliva to get a full picture of my heart health, my hormone status, my immune system regulation, my metabolic function, my vitamin and mineral status, and other critical areas of my overall health and vitality. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors on your results. For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had too-high levels of mercury in my blood, which was totally surprising to me. I had no idea prior to taking the test. Function not only helped me detect this, but offered medical doctor-informed insights on how to best reduce those mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, because I had been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC, N-acetylcysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification and worked to reduce my mercury levels. Comprehensive lab testing like this is so important for health. And while I've been doing it for years, I've always found it to be overly complicated and expensive. I've been so impressed by Function, both at the level of ease of use, that is getting the test done, as well as how comprehensive and how actionable the tests are, that I recently joined their advisory board. And I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman Lab listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman

15. 1:08:33 – 1:21:30

    Abraham; Call to Adventure, Success, Respect, Community

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:34

       to get early access to Function. So this thing about action at a distance, to me, feels like so inherent to our progression as a species. Most technologies are about that. In fact, if you think about social media, you know, somebody tweets something and, you know, when people react to it, maybe positively or negatively, the school shooter, in a very dark example-

    2. JPJordan Peterson1:08:52

       Mm-hmm.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:52

       ... or sad, or tragic example, right? Action at a distance. Then you think about pornography and masturbation, and I'm not passing any moral judgment here. It's like the ultimate form of creating action at a distance would be to create a new human being with somebody, right?

    4. JPJordan Peterson1:09:09

       Mm-hmm.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:09

       I mean, that's, it's, you're propagating it in physical distance, creating a new being, and in time, right? I mean, incredible. And then you think about masturbation and you think about pornography, and there is no action at a distance. And I'm not just punning here. I mean, literally, there's not much action at a distance, it's all up close to oneself. But there's, there's no impact on anybody. It's almost as if the energy that we're born with to be able to create positive things, to evolve our species through action at a distance, through creation of knowledge, technology, children, communities, culture-

    6. JPJordan Peterson1:09:45

       Oh, the ultimate expression of virility.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:48

       ... is just looped, it's just looped back, it's just looped back into oneself.

    8. JPJordan Peterson1:09:49

       Mm-hmm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:50

       It's a, it's as if... And I, and I, I don't know what language there is for this in biology, but it's as if like all that dopaminergic drive is just kind of looped back into oneself and it goes nowhere.

    10. JPJordan Peterson1:09:58

        Mm-hmm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:59

        And I think when I hear about the incredibly like what, the language for it is only like the diminished souls of these people who are coming to me saying like, you know, like, "Help." And I'm thinking, okay listen, I'm a podcaster, I'm a scientist, I know some things about the dopaminergic system but you know, there are ways that they can get help. I think there are 12-step programs for this and so forth and other things. But, you know, I think what they're saying is that they're, they're just kind of dissolving in their own, um, in their own reflex, but there's no action at a distance for them. This is the same thing I see with the failure to launch kids who are still living at home, who are not having any action at a distance. I think we were designed to disperse from our families and to create action at a distance up until a certain age. But I see so many of the problems that we face as failure to find a productive way to have action at a-

    12. JPJordan Peterson1:10:52

        That's a failure of adventure, I would say, in the terminology that I've been developing. So for example, in this, in this book, We Who Wrestle With God, I'm, one of the stories I analyze is the story of Abraham. And it's very interesting story psychologically. I mean, I think it's, it's, it's stunning actually, and I'll lay some of that out for you and tell me what you think about it. So, so the divine is characterized in the classic stories of our culture as, um, the ultimate up. So you could think about the divine as the target as such rather than any particular target. So here's a way of thinking about it, you know. So an ambition will seize you, and then you'll aim at fulfilling that ambition, but once the ambition is fulfilled, a new ambition makes itself manifest, which might be a greater ambition, let's say, if, if your personality is expansive, and then if you fulfill that, the same thing will happen. So then you could imagine that there's a meta-ambition behind all proximal ambitions.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:58

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JPJordan Peterson1:11:58

        Okay, now the divine, characterization of the divine is a characterization of that meta-ambition. That's a good way of thinking about it. So it's something that recedes as you approach it, but it's also the thing that all ambitions have in common.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:11

        Mm-hmm.

    16. JPJordan Peterson1:12:12

        And we know there is such a thing because otherwise we wouldn't have a concept of ambition, right, which speaks to a commonality among ambitions. Okay, in this story of Abraham, the divine is characterized in relationship to something like ambition. So Abraham has the... he's already immersed in a situation that's akin in a way to the scenario of a wealthy and, a person in the modern world who's in a situation of abundance. Abraham's parents are wealthy and they provide for him. There's nothing he needs to do.... and in consequence, so he's attained the socialist utopia or the consumerist utopia. You can look at it either way. And there's no reason for him to move forward, so he doesn't. He doesn't do anything till he's 75, and then the voice comes to him, which is the voice of adventure, and it's God in this story. That's how God is defined, right? And God says to Abraham, "You have to leave all this comfort," which is a very interesting proposition to begin with. It's like, why the hell would you leave that when you have everything you need? Well, the implication is, is that you don't have everything you need when you're being delivered everything you need. That isn't how life works. Okay, so God says, "You have to leave your, your father's tent. You have to leave your tribe. You have to leave those who speak your language. You have to venture out into the world." So God is conceptualized in this story as the impulse, uh, the voice that compels you out into the world and that encourages you to do so, so that's a hypothesis about what the ultimate up is, okay? And Abraham agrees, and he does so in two ways. He, he builds an altar signifying his aim, that he's going to abide by the command of this voice or the invitation of this voice, and that he'll make the appropriate sacrifices. There's a crucial, there's a crucial, it's a crucial point to understand because the process of transformation requires sacrifice. To be more than you are means you have to let go of that which you were. You have to make sacrifices. Now, Abraham's life is punctuated by a sequence of reaffirmations of his upward aim and declamations of his willingness to sacrifice. Every time he finishes an adventure, he reconstitutes the covenant, right? So this is this agreement to follow the voice of adventure. Okay. God makes him a deal. That's the covenant. It's a very interesting deal. So now imagine, biologically speaking, that there is an instinct to integrate that operates within us, okay? So now it's not... It's just as fundamental as the hypothalamic motivational states, let's say, but it's more sophisticated, and what it's trying to do is to integrate all the motivational states across time and socially, right? And then ima- imagine it manifests itself as an instinct, it could be something like the instinct to mature, right? To move forward, right? To leave your zone of comfort, right? And maybe there are... have been people like Csikszentmihalyi who've characterized that as the attractiveness of flow, and maybe it's associated with the exploratory circuit in the hypothalamus that's mediated by dopamine.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:48

        Mm-hmm.

    18. JPJordan Peterson1:15:48

        Okay, but it's, it's got its character. Now, the character of that instinct in this story is... The way it's characterized is as the voice of adventure, so it's the thing that asks you to move beyond your zone of comfort and go into the foreign world. Now, the advantage to that is that you fortify yourself and you develop, right? So n- no matter how good you are now, if you push yourself to the edge, you're gonna be better than you are, and that's a better win than merely being good like you are now. So that would be participation in that transformative process is a higher form of attainment than mere attainment of any specific goal. Okay, so that's the call to adventure. That's the call to a quest. That's what Gandalf offers Bilbo, for example. Okay. God characterizes the consequences of that, and this is so cool. It... When I figured this out, it just flattened me. It's so interesting. God says, "Okay, if you..." God is defined as that which says this, by the way. "If you push yourself beyond your zone of comfort, even if it's functioning for you," that's Abraham's situation, "here's what'll happen. You'll become a, you'll live your life in a manner that's a blessing to you." So that's a good deal, eh? Because lots... The, the miserable people you're talking about, the depressed people, the, the trapped people, their life isn't a blessing to themselves. So what's a pathway to blessing? Well, it's not satiation, not in this formulation. It's voluntary. It's the voluntary quest, and it's characterized by adventure. So that's deal number one. "You'll live in a life that'll be a blessing to you." Okay, and then God says, "That's not all that'll happen. You'll be a blessing to yourself in a manner that will make you renowned among other people justly." So that's a good deal because we know that people, men in particular, are very status-oriented, partly because their reproductive success is highly correlated with their social status, and, you know, the psychopaths game that, but still, it's, like, renown is crucially important. You wanna be the quarterback on the shoulders of your teammates, you know? So that'll be the second thing that happens, and then the same voice says, "And that's not all. You'll be a blessing to yourself and be renowned in a manner that will maximize the probability that you will establish something of lasting value." That's a good deal. So that's, that's stretching across time multi-generationally because God tells Abraham that if he follows the pathway of adventure, he'll be the father of nations. So what that means is that he'll establish the pattern of paternal conduct that will maximally, that will maximize the success of his offspring in the longest possible run. That's so cool.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:41

        This is success at a distance-

    20. JPJordan Peterson1:18:43

        Right.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:43

        ... and over time.

    22. JPJordan Peterson1:18:44

        E- exactly.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:45

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JPJordan Peterson1:18:45

        And then the, the final offer is, "You'll do that in a way that'll bring abundance to everyone else, too." Now, so think about what that means biologically. This is so cool, and I, I can't see how it can be wrong.... it means that if you hearken to the voice that calls you out of your zone of comfort, and you do that voluntarily, so you put yourself on the edge of adventure, you will be following the instinct that has already evolved to make your life a blessing to yourself-

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:19:11

        Mm-hmm.

    26. JPJordan Peterson1:19:12

        ... to make you successful among other people, to maximize your probability of long-term success, and to do that in a way that brings abundance to your community. And then you think, look, th- let's take the contrary hypothesis. The contrary hypothesis would be twofold. There is no compulsion to adventure, it's like, that seems highly improbable, or that the compulsion to adventure isn't aligned with psychological and social wellbeing. Well, what's the, what's the chance that the fundamental drive that would facilitate your transformation across time would not be aligned with your psychological integrity and the success of the community? Like, we wouldn't be social animals if that was the case.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:19:52

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    28. JPJordan Peterson1:19:52

        So as far as I can tell, that has to be true. Now that doesn't mean you can get lost in false adventures. That can happen. That's what an addiction is. Or, like, or, or por- that's what pornography is, it's a false adventure, right? It's failure to hit the proper target, you might say. But that central drive to integration across time and communally, why wouldn't that be an instinct? And then we could cap that with an observation that I also think is self-evidently true once you understand it. So imagine that you're a father. Now this spirit of adventure is often characterized paternally, right? In so far as God's the father in these ancient stories. So th- think about this, so when you see your son, now it's also true of your daughter but I'll focus on sons for the moment, when you see your son, and you love your son, when you see your son pushing himself beyond his own limits in an adventurous manner, if you're a good father, you definitely encourage that, right? And I would say in so far as you encourage that, you are a good father. And that would mean that you're the embodiment of that spirit that calls to adventure. That's why Abraham is characterized, for example, in this story as forging an alliance with the spirit of his ancestors, with the deity of his ancestors. He's embodying the call to adventure, and that's what makes him the father who's reproductive enterprise is successful across the broadest possible span of time, I think. That's, I just can't see how that can be wrong.

16. 1:21:30 – 1:26:52

    Wisdom, Noah; Religion, Incentive Structure & Motivation

    1. JPJordan Peterson1:21:30

       And that's a characterization of the divine. And there's, there's other ... It, it complexifies it because what, what the stories are trying to do is to give you an image of what that integrating personality might be like, and it's sophisticated. So a single characterization is insufficient. So in the story of Noah, God is, this personality is characterized quite differently. So Noah is presented as a man who's wise in his generations, which means that for his time and place, he's moral and reputable.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:04

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JPJordan Peterson1:22:04

       So he's the sort of guy that people would go to for advice because he's lived a life that's emblematic of his wisdom, let's say. Okay, now a voice comes to him and says, "Batten down the hatches there, mate. Trouble's coming." Okay, so, so here's the hypothesis. The hypothesis is the voice that calls to the wise to prepare in times of trouble is a manifestation of the divine, and it's the same as the voice that calls the unwilling to adventure. That's the monotheistic hypothesis. And so you can see what the imagination is doing is agglomerating these different characterizations of high aim, insisting that there's an integrated unity behind them, and then trying to conceptualize that integrated unity across time. And so, and I think that's done, I think that's done with radical success in the biblical library. That the culmination of the library of stories is the impressionistic representation of this integrating pattern. And I think that's what people call on when they're engaging in a religious enterprise that is radically successful like the, that happened in the case of your friend.

Episode duration: 3:51:10