Yaron Brook: Ayn Rand and the Philosophy of Objectivism | Lex Fridman Podcast #138

1. 0:00 – 2:39

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Yaron Brook, one of the best known objectivist philosophers and thinkers in the world. Objectivism is the philosophical system developed by Ayn Rand that she first expressed in her fiction books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and later in non-fiction essays and books. Yaron is the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute, host of The Yaron Brook Show, and the co-author of Free Market Revolution, Equal Is Unfair, and several other books where he analyzes systems of government, human behavior, and the human condition from the perspective of objectivism. Quick mention of each sponsor, followed by some thoughts related to the episode. Blinkist, an app I use for reading through summaries of books. ExpressVPN, the VPN I've used for many years to protect my privacy on the internet. And Cash App, the app I use to send money to friends. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that I first read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead early in college, along with many other literary and philosophical works from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kant, Locke, Foucault, Wittgenstein, and of course all the great existentialists from Kierkegaard to Camus. I always had an open mind, curious to learn and explore the ideas of thinkers throughout history, no matter how mundane or radical or even dangerous they were considered to be. Ayn Rand was, and I think still is, a divisive figure. Some people love her. Some people dislike or even dismiss her. I prefer to look past what some may consider to be the flaws of the person and consider, with an open mind, the ideas she presents and Yaron now describes and applies in his philosophical discussions. In general, I hope that you will be patient and understanding as I venture out across the space of ideas and the ever-widening Overton window, pulling at the thread of curiosity, sometimes saying stupid things, but always striving to understand how we can better build a better world together. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @lexfriedman. And now, here's my conversation with Yaron Brook.

2. 2:39 – 10:46

   Principles of a life well lived

   1. LFLex Fridman2:39

      Let me ask the biggest possible question first.

   2. YBYaron Brook2:42

      Sure.

   3. LFLex Fridman2:43

      What are the principles of a life well-lived?

   4. YBYaron Brook2:47

      I think it's to live with, uh, with thought. That is, to live a rational life. To- to think it through. I think so many people are, in a sense, zombies out there. They're alive, but they're not really alive, 'cause their mind is not focused. Their mind is not, you know, focused on, "What do I need to do in order to live a great life?" So, too many people just go through the motions of living, rather than really embrace life. So, I- I- I think the secret to living a great life is to take it seriously.

   5. LFLex Fridman3:22

      Mm-hmm.

   6. YBYaron Brook3:22

      And what it means to take it seriously is to use the one tool that makes us human, the one tool that provides us with all the values that we have, our mind, our reason, and to use it, apply it to living, right? People apply it to their work. They apply it to their math problems, to science, to- to programming. But imagine if they used that same energy, that same focus, that same concentration, to actually living life and choosing values, uh, that they should pursue. That would, that would change the world, and it would change their lives.

   7. LFLex Fridman3:56

      Yeah. Actually, you know, I wear this silly suit and tie.

   8. YBYaron Brook3:59

      (laughs)

   9. LFLex Fridman4:00

      It- it- it symbolizes to me always, it makes me feel like I'm taking the moment really seriously.

   10. YBYaron Brook4:06

       I- I think that's really, that's right, and- and each one of us has different ways to kind of, uh, condition our consciousness, "I'm serious now," and- and for you-

   11. LFLex Fridman4:16

       Mm-hmm.

   12. YBYaron Brook4:16

       ... it's, it's a suit and tie. It's a, it's a conditioning of your consciousness to, "Now I'm focused. Now I'm at work. Now I'm doing my thing."

   13. LFLex Fridman4:22

       Yeah.

   14. YBYaron Brook4:23

       Right? And I think that's, that's terrific, and I- I wish everybody took that. Look, I mean, it's a cliché, but we only live once. Every minute of your life, you're never gonna live again. This is really valuable, and- and when people... People don't have that deep respect for their own life or their own time, for their own mind. And if they did, again, uh, uh, you know, one could only imagine. Look at how productive people are. Look at the amazing things they produce and they do in their work.

   15. LFLex Fridman4:54

       Yeah.

   16. YBYaron Brook4:54

       And if they applied that to everything? Wow.

   17. LFLex Fridman4:58

       So, you kinda talk about reason. Where does, uh, the kind of existentialist idea of experience, maybe, you know, fully experiencing all the moments versus fully thinking through? Is there a interesting line to separate the two? Like, why such an emphasis on reason for- for a life well-lived, versus just enjoy, like, experience the moment?

   18. YBYaron Brook5:26

       Well, because I think experience, in a sense, is the easy part. You know, I'm not saying it's... It- it's, it's how we experience the life that we live. And yes, I'm all with the take time to- to- to value what you value, but I think... I don't think that's the problem of people out there. I don't think the problem is they're not taking time to appreciate where they are and what they do. I think it's that they don't use their mind in this one respect, in planning their life, in thinking about how to live. So, the focus is on reasoners because it's our only source of knowledge. There's no other source of knowledge. We don't know anything.... with a, you know, that does not come from our senses and our, and our mind. The integration of the, of the evidence of our senses. Now, we know stuff about ourselves, and I think it's important to know oneself through introspection, and I count- consider that part of reasoning, is to-

   19. LFLex Fridman6:22

       Mm-hmm.

   20. YBYaron Brook6:22

       ... is to, is to introspect. But I think reason is undervalued, (laughs) which is funny to say because it's our means of survival. It's how human beings survive. We cannot... See, this is where I disagree with so many scientists and, and people like Sam Harris. You mentioned Sam Harris before the show. Um, we're not programmed to know how to hunt.

   21. LFLex Fridman6:46

       Hm.

   22. YBYaron Brook6:47

       We're not programmed to do agriculture. We're not programmed to build computers and build networks on which we can podcast and do our shows.

   23. LFLex Fridman6:54

       Yeah.

   24. YBYaron Brook6:55

       All of that requires effort. It requires focus, it requires energy, and it requires will. It requires somebody to will it, it requires somebody to choose it. And once you make that choice, you have to engage- that choice means that you're choosing to engage your reason in discovery, in integration, and then in work to change the world in which we live. And, you know, human beings had to discover, figure out, solve the problem of hunting. Hunting, you know, everybody thinks, "Oh, that's easy. I've seen the movie." But human beings had to figure out how to do it, right? You- you- you can't run down a bison and bite into it, right? You're not gonna catch it, you're not gonna, you have no fangs to bite into it.

   25. LFLex Fridman7:44

       Mm-hmm.

   26. YBYaron Brook7:44

       You have to build weapons, you have to build tools, you have to create traps, you have to have a strategy. All of that requires reason. So the most important thing that allows human beings to survive and to thrive in every value, from the most simple to the most sophisticated, from the most material to, I believe, the most spiritual, requires thinking. So stopping and appreciating the moment is, is something that I think is relatively easy once you have a plan, once you've thought it through, once you know what your values are. It, there is a mistake people make, they attain their values and they just, and they just, they don't take a moment to savor that and to appreciate that and to even pat themselves on the back that they did it, right?

   27. LFLex Fridman8:31

       Yeah.

   28. YBYaron Brook8:31

       But that's not what's screwing up the world. What's screwing up the world is that people have the wrong values and they don't think about them and they don't really focus on them and they don't have a plan for their own life and how to live it.

   29. LFLex Fridman8:42

       If we look at human nature, you're saying the fundamental big thing that we need to consider is our capacity, like, capability to reason.

   30. YBYaron Brook8:51

       So to me, reason is this massive evolutionary achievement, right? In quotes, right? Um, if you think about any other sophisticated animal, everything has to be coded. Everything has to be written in, in the hard way. It has to be there.
3. 10:46 – 17:01

   Free will

   1. YBYaron Brook10:46

   2. LFLex Fridman10:46

      And that choice is more powerful than any other, like, parts of our brain that we've borrowed from fish and, uh, from our evolutionary origins? Like, this-

   3. YBYaron Brook10:55

      S-

   4. LFLex Fridman10:55

      ... whatever this crazy little leap in evolution is that allowed us to think is more important than anything else.

   5. YBYaron Brook11:00

      So, uh, so I think newer scientists pretend they know a lot more about the brain than they really do.

   6. LFLex Fridman11:07

      Yeah.

   7. YBYaron Brook11:08

      Um, and that we know v-

   8. LFLex Fridman11:09

      Shots fired. (laughs)

   9. YBYaron Brook11:11

      (laughs)

   10. LFLex Fridman11:11

       I agree with you. (laughs)

   11. YBYaron Brook11:12

       And- and- and we don't know that much yet...

   12. LFLex Fridman11:14

       Yeah.

   13. YBYaron Brook11:14

       ... about how the brain functions and what's a fish and what, you know, all this stuff. So I think what, what exists there is a lot of potentialities. But the beauty of the human brain is it's- it's potentialities that we have to manifest through our choices. It's there, it's sitting there. And yes, there's certain things that are gonna evoke certain, uh, senses, certain, uh, feelings. I'm not even saying emotions, 'cause I think emotions are too complex to have been programmed into our mind. Uh, but I don't think... So, you know, there's this big issue of evolutionary psychology is huge right now.

   14. LFLex Fridman11:53

       Oh, yeah.

   15. YBYaron Brook11:53

       And- and- and it's a big issue. You know, I find it, uh, f- to a large extent as way too early and- and storytelling about ex-post storytelling about-

   16. LFLex Fridman12:06

       Yeah.

   17. YBYaron Brook12:06

       ... about stuff. We still don't... You know, so for example, I would like to see if evolutionary psychology differentiate between things like inclinations...... feelings, emotions, sensations-

   18. LFLex Fridman12:20

       Yeah.

   19. YBYaron Brook12:20

       ... thoughts, concepts, ideas. What of those are programmed and what of those are developed, and chosen, and a product of reason? I think anything from emotion to abstract ideas is all chosen, is all a product of reason. And everything before that, w- we might have been programmed for. But the fact is... So, clearly a sensation is not a product of... you know, is- is something that we feel because that's how our biology works. So, until we have these categories, and until we can clearly specify what is what and where do they come from, the whole discussion in evolutionary psychology seems to be rambling. It doesn't seem to be scientific. So, we have to define our terms, you know, which is the basis of science. You have to have some- some clear definitions about what we're talking about. It... When you ask them these questions, there's never really a coherent answer about what is it exactly. And everybody is afraid of the issue of free will. And I think, I think to some extent, I mean, Harris has this... And I don't want to misrepresent anything Harris says, 'cause I... You know, I'm a fan, and I-

   20. LFLex Fridman13:30

       Yeah.

   21. YBYaron Brook13:30

       ... I like a lot of his stuff. But- but on the one hand, he- he is obviously (laughs) intellectually active and wants to change our minds, so he believes that we have some capacity to choose.

   22. LFLex Fridman13:41

       Yeah.

   23. YBYaron Brook13:41

       On the other hand, he's undermining that capacity to choose by saying it's just determined, so you're going to choose what you choose. You have no say in it. There's actually no you. He- he- he-

   24. LFLex Fridman13:51

       That's

   25. NANarrator13:51

       Mm-hmm.

   26. YBYaron Brook13:51

       ... so it's... You know, so the... And that's, to me, completely unscientific. That's completely him, you know, uh, uh, pulling it out of nowhere. We all experience the fact that we have an I.

   27. LFLex Fridman14:03

       That kind of certainty saying that we do not have that fundamental choice that reason provides is, uh, unfounded currently.

   28. YBYaron Brook14:12

       Look, there's a sense in which it can never be contradicted, because it's a product of your experience. It's- it's not a product of your experience. You can experience it directly.

   29. LFLex Fridman14:24

       Right.

   30. YBYaron Brook14:24

       So, no science will ever prove that this table isn't here. I can see it. (laughs) It's here, right? I can- I can feel it. I- I know I have free will 'cause I can introspect it. In a sense, I can see it.
4. 17:01 – 25:39

   Nature of reality

   1. YBYaron Brook17:01

   2. LFLex Fridman17:01

      But... So, that's very interesting. I think this is a good way to set the table for discussion of objectivism, is let me at least challenge-

   3. YBYaron Brook17:11

      Sure.

   4. LFLex Fridman17:11

      ... a thought experiment, which is, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with, uh, Donald Hoffman's work about reality. So, his idea is that we're just... our perception is just an interface to reality.

   5. YBYaron Brook17:23

      So, Donald Hoffman is the, uh, is the guy at UC Irvine?

   6. LFLex Fridman17:26

      Yeah.

   7. YBYaron Brook17:26

      Yes. I've met Donald-

   8. LFLex Fridman17:27

      He's awesome.

   9. YBYaron Brook17:27

      ... and I've seen his video. And look, Donald has not invented anything new. This goes back to ancient philosophy.

   10. LFLex Fridman17:33

       So, let- let me just-

   11. YBYaron Brook17:34

       Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman17:34

       ... state-

   13. YBYaron Brook17:35

       Yeah, sorry. (laughs)

   14. LFLex Fridman17:35

       ... in case people aren't-

   15. YBYaron Brook17:35

       Yes, of course.

   16. LFLex Fridman17:36

       In case people aren't familiar, I mean, it's a fascinating thought experiment to me, uh, like, of out of the box thinking, perhaps literally, is that, uh, you know, our... There's a different... there's a gap between the world as we perceive it and the world as it actually exists. And I think that's... for the philosophy, objectivism is a really important gap to close. So, can you maybe at least try to entertain the idea that, that there is more to reality than our minds can perceive?

   17. YBYaron Brook18:09

       Well, I don't understand what more means, right? Of course there's more to reality than what our senses perceive. That is, uh, for example...... I don't know, certain, uh, certain elements, uh, uh, have, uh, radiation, right? Uranium has radi-... I can't perceive radiation. The beauty of human reason is I can, I can, through experimentation, discover the phenomena of radiation, then actually measure radiation-

   18. LFLex Fridman18:36

       Yeah.

   19. YBYaron Brook18:36

       ... and I don't worry about it. I can't perceive the world the way a bat perceives the world, and I might not be able to see certain things that a... But I can... We've created radar, so A, we understand how a bat perceives the world, and I can mimic it through a radar screen and create in images like the bat, its consciousness, somehow perceives it, right?

   20. LFLex Fridman18:55

       Yeah.

   21. YBYaron Brook18:55

       So, uh, the beauty of human reason is our capacity to understand the world beyond what our senses give us directly. At the end, everything comes in through our senses, but w- we can understand things that our senses don't provide us. But, but what he's doing is, he's doing something very different. He is saying what our senses provides us might have nothing to do with the reality out there.

   22. LFLex Fridman19:20

       Yeah.

   23. YBYaron Brook19:20

       That is just a random, arbitrary, nonsensical statement. And he actually has a whole evolutionary explanation for it.

   24. LFLex Fridman19:28

       Right.

   25. YBYaron Brook19:29

       He runs some simulations. The simulations seem... I mean, I'm not an expert in this field, but they seem silly to me. They, they don't seem to reflect... And look, all he's doing is taking Immanuel Kant's philosophy, which articulate exactly the same cause, and he's giving it a veneer of, of, of evolutionary, uh, ideas. I'm not an expert on evolution and I'm not an expert on epistemology, which is what this is. So to me, as, as a semi-layman, it doesn't make any sense. And, uh, y- y- you know, I'd... I'm actually... (laughs) You know, I have a... I have the Shiran Book Show. I don't know if I'm allowed to pitch it, but I've got the Shiran Book Show on-

   26. LFLex Fridman20:06

       Oh, please. Uh, so first of all, let me pause-

   27. YBYaron Brook20:08

       ... on YouTube. (laughs)

   28. LFLex Fridman20:08

       I'm a huge fan of the Shiran Book sh- show-

   29. YBYaron Brook20:11

       Thank you. (laughs)

   30. LFLex Fridman20:11

       I listen to it very often. As a small aside, the cool thing about reason, which you practice, is you have a systematic way of thinking through basically anything.
5. 25:39 – 57:22

   Ayn Rand

   1. LFLex Fridman25:39

      Can you try to do the impossible task and give a whirlwind introduction to Ayn Rand, the, the many sides of Ayn Rand? So Ayn Rand the human being, Ayn Rand the novelist, and Ayn Rand the philosopher. So who was Ayn Rand?

   2. YBYaron Brook25:58

      Sure. So, so, e- her life story is, is one that I think is, is fascinating, and, but it also, uh, lends itself to this integration of all of these things. She was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia in, uh, 1905 to kind of a middle class, uh, family, Jewish family. They, they owned a pharmacy. Her father, uh, owned a pharmacy. And, uh, y- you know, she grew up, uh, she grew up, uh, she was a very, um... She knew what she wanted to do and what she wanted to be from a very young age. I think from the age of nine, she knew she wanted to be a writer. She wanted to write stories. That was the thing she wanted to do. And, uh, y- you know, she focused her life after that on this goal of "I want to be a novelist, I want to write," r- and the philosophy was incidental to that in a sense-

   3. LFLex Fridman26:50

      Yes.

   4. YBYaron Brook26:50

      ... at least until some point in her life. She witnessed the Russian Revolution, literally had happened outside. They lived, eh, eh, in Saint Petersburg where the first kind of demonstrations and, and, uh, of the revolution happened, so she witnessed it. She lived through it as a teenager. Um, went to school under the Soviets, uh, th- for a while. They, they, they were under kind of the, in- on the Black Sea where the opposition government was ruling, and then they would, they would go back and forth between the commies and the whites. But, but she experienced what communism was like. She saw, uh, the pharmacy being taken away from her family. She saw their apartment being taken away or other, other families being brought into the apartment they already lived in. Um, and, uh, it was very (laughs) clear given her nature, uh, given her views even at a very young age, that she would not survive the system. Uh, so a lot of effort was put into how do we get... How do, how does she get out? And her family was really helpful in this. And she had a cousin in, uh, cousin in, uh, Chicago, and, uh, she had been studying kind of film at the university and, uh-

   5. LFLex Fridman27:59

      This is in her 20s?

   6. YBYaron Brook28:00

      This is in her 20s. Early 20s. And, uh, Lenin... There was a small window where Lenin was a- allowing some people to leave under circumcir- certain circumstances, and she managed to get out to go do research on film in, in the United States. Everybody knew, everybody who knew her knew she would never come back, that this was a one-way ticket, and, and she got out. She made it to Chicago, spent few weeks in Chicago, and then headed to Hollywood. She wanted to write scripts. That was, that was the, that was the, uh, the goal. Here's this, uh, you know, short woman from Russia with a strong accent, uh-

   7. LFLex Fridman28:37

      (laughs)

   8. YBYaron Brook28:38

      ... learning English, showing up in, in Hollywood and, you know, "I want to be a script writer," right?

   9. LFLex Fridman28:43

      In English.

   10. YBYaron Brook28:44

       In English.

   11. LFLex Fridman28:45

       Yeah.

   12. YBYaron Brook28:45

       Writing in English. Uh, and, um, and this is kind of a, uh, uh, one of these fairytale stories, but it's true. She shows up, uh, at the Cecil B. DeMille Studios. (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman28:56

       (laughs)

   14. YBYaron Brook28:56

       And she, she has a letter of introduction from her, uh, cousin in Chicago who owns a movie theater, and this is in the 19, uh, the late 1920s. And she shows up there with this letter and they say, you know, "Don't call us, we'll call you," kind of thing.

   15. LFLex Fridman29:10

       (laughs) Right.

   16. YBYaron Brook29:10

       And she steps out, and there's this massive, um, convertible. And in the convertible is Cecil B. DeMille, and he's driving slowly past her right at the entrance of the studio, and she stares at him. And he stops the car and he says, "You know, why are you staring at me?" And she says, you know, she tells him her story, "I'm from Russia and, you know, I wanna, wanna make it in the movies. I want to be a script writer one day." And he says, "Well, if you wanna, if you want that, you know, get in the car." You know, she gets in the car and he takes her to the back lot of his studio where they're filming The King of Kings, the story of Jesus.

   17. LFLex Fridman29:41

       (laughs)

   18. YBYaron Brook29:42

       And he says, "Here's a pass for a week-

   19. LFLex Fridman29:45

       Yeah.

   20. YBYaron Brook29:45

       ... if you wanna be a... If you wanna write for the movies, you better know how movies are made." And, uh, she basically spends a week, and then she spends more time there. She managed to get an extension. She lands up being an extra in the movie, so you can see-

   21. LFLex Fridman29:57

       (laughs)

   22. YBYaron Brook29:57

       ... Ayn Rand there in the, in the-

   23. LFLex Fridman29:59

       Wow.

   24. YBYaron Brook29:59

       ... as one of the masses, uh, when Jesus is walking by.

   25. LFLex Fridman30:02

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. YBYaron Brook30:03

       And she meets her future husband on the set of, uh, of The King of Kings. She lands up, uh, getting married, getting her American citizenship that way. Uh, and she lands up doing odds and ends jobs in Hollywood, living in a tiny little apartment, um, somehow making a living. Her husband was an actor. He was, you know, struggling actor as well, difficult times. Uh, and in the evenings, studying English, writing, writing, writing, writing, and studying, and studying, and studying. And she, she finally makes it by writing a play that, that, uh, is successful in, in, um-... in LA and ultimately goes to Broadway. Um, and, uh, she writes, her first novel is a novel called We The Living, which is the most autobiographical of all her novels. It's about a young woman in the Soviet Union. It's a powerful story, a very moving story, and probably, if not the best, one of the best, uh, uh, portrayals of life under communism and-

   27. LFLex Fridman31:05

       So you would recommend the book?

   28. YBYaron Brook31:06

       ... definitely recommend We The Living. It's her first, first novel. She wrote it in the '30s. And it didn't go anywhere because if you think about the intelligentsia, the, the, the, the people who mattered, the people who w- wrote book reviews, this is a time of Duranty in, uh, who was The New York Times, uh, guy in Moscow who's praising Stalin to the hilt-

   29. LFLex Fridman31:28

       Oh.

   30. YBYaron Brook31:28

       ... and, and the success. So the, the novel fails, uh, but, but she's got a novel out. She writes a small novelette called Anthem. A lot of people have read that, and it's, it's read in high schools. It's, it's kind of dystopian novel, uh, and, uh, it's, won't, it doesn't get published in the US. Gets published in the UK. UK is very interested in dystopian novels. Animal Farm, uh, and, and 1984, 84 is published couple of years after, I think, after Anthem. There's reason to believe he read, he read Anthem, uh, that, uh-
6. 57:22 – 1:22:40

   Objectivism

   1. LFLex Fridman57:22

      The other impossible task of giving a whirlwind overview of the philosophy of objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

   2. YBYaron Brook57:30

      Yeah, so luckily she did it in an essay where she, she talks about doing her philosophy on, on one foot.

   3. LFLex Fridman57:36

      Mm-hmm.

   4. YBYaron Brook57:36

      Um, but let me integrate it with the literature and with her life a little bit. She wanted to be a writer, but her goal... she had a particular goal in her writing. Uh, she was an idealist, right? She wanted to portray the ideal man. So one of the things you do when you want to do something is, is, "What is an ideal man?" You have to ask that question. "What does that mean?" You might have a sense of it. You might have seen glimpses it, glimpses of it in other people's literature, but what is it? So she starts reading philosophy to try to figure out what did philosophers say about the ideal man? And what she finds horrifies her in terms of the view of most philosophers of man, and, and she's, she's attracted, certainly when she's young, to Nietzsche because Nietzsche at least has a vision of, of, of grandeur for man, even though his philosophy is very flawed and has other problems and contradicts Ayn Rand in many ways. But at least he has that vision of what is possible to man, and she's attracted to that romantic vision, that idealistic vision. So she discovers in writing, and particularly in writing Atlas Shrugged but even in The Fountainhead, that she's gonna have to develop her own philosophy.

   5. LFLex Fridman58:48

      Mm-hmm.

   6. YBYaron Brook58:49

      She's gonna have to discover these ideas for herself because they're not fully articulated anywhere else. There are glimpses, again, of it in Aristotle, in, in, in Nietzsche, but they're not fully fleshed out. So el- to a large extent she develops a philosophy for a very practical purpose, to write, to write a novel about the ideal man, and, and, and Atlas Shrugged is the manifestation of that. And Atlas Shrugged does just that-

   7. LFLex Fridman59:14

      By the way, s- sorry, and to interrupt, uh, as a little aside, she does... when you say man, you mean human, and the... uh, and, and because we'll bring this up often, uh, uh, she does... I mean, maybe you can elaborate of how she specifically uses man and he in the work. We live in a time now-

   8. YBYaron Brook59:34

      Yes. Yeah,

   9. NANarrator59:35

      we do.

   10. LFLex Fridman59:35

       ... of gender and so on.

   11. YBYaron Brook59:36

       Well, she did that in, in, uh, in a sense that everybody did it during her period of time.

   12. LFLex Fridman59:41

       Yeah.

   13. YBYaron Brook59:41

       Right? It's only in modern times where we do he slash she.

   14. LFLex Fridman59:44

       Yeah.

   15. YBYaron Brook59:44

       Right? It... historically, when you said he, you meant a human being, unless the particular context implied that it was a... but in Ayn Rand's case, in this case, in this one sentence, she probably meant man. Not that... because she... A, she viewed that there are differences between men and women, we're not the same, which I know comes at a shock to many people.

   16. LFLex Fridman1:00:06

       (laughs)

   17. YBYaron Brook1:00:07

       (laughs) But, um, she-

   18. LFLex Fridman1:00:11

       She's working on a character. (laughs)

   19. YBYaron Brook1:00:12

       She was working on a particular vision, right?

   20. LFLex Fridman1:00:15

       Yeah.

   21. YBYaron Brook1:00:15

       She considered herself a man worshiper, and... a man, not, not human being, a, a male.

   22. LFLex Fridman1:00:22

       Male.

   23. YBYaron Brook1:00:22

       Male. She worshiped manhood, if you will, the, the, the, the, the hero in man, and she wanted to fully understand what that was.

   24. LFLex Fridman1:00:31

       Mm-hmm.

   25. YBYaron Brook1:00:32

       Now, it has massive implications for the ideal woman, and I think she does portray the ideal woman in, in, in, in Atlas Shrugged, in, in the character of Dagny. But her goal is... you know, I think her selfish goal for what she wanted to get out of the novel-

   26. LFLex Fridman1:00:48

       Understand.

   27. YBYaron Brook1:00:49

       ... is that excitement, partially sexual-

   28. LFLex Fridman1:00:52

       (laughs)

   29. YBYaron Brook1:00:52

       ... about seeing your ideal manifest in reality of what you perceive as the... that which you would be attracted to-

   30. LFLex Fridman1:01:02

       Yeah.
7. 1:22:40 – 1:27:47

   Godel Incompleteness Theorem

   1. YBYaron Brook1:22:40

   2. LFLex Fridman1:22:40

      Uh, I don't know if you're familiar with Galileo's, like, incompleteness theorem.

   3. YBYaron Brook1:22:44

      I'm not, unfortunately.

   4. LFLex Fridman1:22:45

      Okay. It was a, a powerful proof that any axiomatic systems, when you start from a bunch of axioms, that there will, in that system, provably must be an inconsistency. So that was this painful, like, stab in the idea of mathematics that, no, if we start with a set of assumptions, kind of like Ayn Rand started-

   5. YBYaron Brook1:23:11

      Yeah.

   6. LFLex Fridman1:23:11

      ... with objectivism-

   7. YBYaron Brook1:23:12

      Yeah.

   8. LFLex Fridman1:23:13

      ... there will have to be at least one contradiction. Same-

   9. YBYaron Brook1:23:17

      See, I, I intuitively am gonna say that's false.

   10. LFLex Fridman1:23:21

       Philosophically, but in math, it's just true, and that-

   11. YBYaron Brook1:23:25

       But it's a question about how you define... Again, y- y- definitions matter, and you have to be careful on how you define axioms. And you have to be careful about what you define as an inconsistency and what that means to say there's an inconsistency. And I don't know. I'm not gonna say more than that 'cause I don't know.

   12. LFLex Fridman1:23:41

       Right.

   13. YBYaron Brook1:23:41

       But I'm suspicious-

   14. LFLex Fridman1:23:43

       (laughs) Yeah.

   15. YBYaron Brook1:23:44

       ... that there is some, uh, and this is the power of philosophy, and this is why I said before concept formation is so important, and understanding concept formation is so important for, for particularly, again, mathematics because it's such an abstract field, and it's so easy to lose grounding in-

Episode duration: 2:49:45