Hello my friends, welcome to the 47th episode of Patterson in Pursuit. I'm coming to you today from Sydney, Australia. We're doing another interview breakdown today of a fantastic conversation I had back in Auckland with Dr. Patrick Girard, who works with Para Consistent Logic. That is a logic which is a bit more tolerant of contradiction. If you guys have been following the show, you know that my own logic is about as intolerant as contradiction as conceivably possible, but we still had a great conversation and I'm going to break it down for you. Before we start, I've got a YouTube clip recommendation for you. The CEO and founder of Praxis, which is the company sponsoring this podcast, was just invited to go on Tucker Carlson to talk about his company because as I've said before many times on the show, Praxis is exploding in popularity and for good reason. So go to YouTube and punch in Tucker Carlson, Praxis, P-R-A-X-I-S and listen to their awesome interview. 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So with this conversation with Patrick Girard, we talked for maybe about 20 minutes or so about truth and it was really interesting. I could probably dedicate a whole breakdown just to that conversation. But I want to do this breakdown starting about the 25 minute mark where we start talking about logic, para consistent logic, contradictions and classical logic. So I begin by asking him a question from the classical logical perspective, which is my own perspective, which when I think of contradictions, I immediately associate a logical contradiction with an error in thought that I have exactly 0% tolerance for any kind of logical contradiction. He disagrees and in the course of this conversation, he gives a great explanation for people that are maybe unfamiliar with this position, why he thinks maybe contradictions aren't as big a deal as somebody like me would make them out to be. So in this way of thinking, there's a very visceral reaction to contradictions, to contradictory claims. So could you give some explanation? I know in some of your work, you have maybe you're more tolerant of contradictions. Could you explain why contradictions aren't as big a deal maybe as the classical logicians make them out to be? Yeah, so contradictions are obviously a big deal and it's obviously important to care about them. So that is true. It has occupied philosophers and logicians since for a long time, because I guess for a lot of people, once you're committed to a contradiction, basically you're committed to the moon is made of blue cheese, like if it's sort of a measure of incoherence that once you have a belief that something is both true and false at the same time, that basically all bets are off. If you can commit yourself to something as bad as a contradiction, then basically you've just trivialized. Okay, so that's a great place to start and it's an excellent summation of the classical view and my view, that if anywhere in your world view you're saying, well, here is something that's true and false, you've essentially just exploded the foundations for your entire world where you've essentially, from my perspective, said true and false is now meaningless, because as it comes up later, we can only have a coherent and sensible understanding of what truth is if we distinguish it from not truth. And if you blur those lines, you've kind of blurred the only tool we have for discerning true from not true. He continues. So inconsistency and contradiction has become the measure of triviality, of incoherence, because no logician wants triviality, no one wants everything to be true. If everything is true, then what are we doing? Nothing is true, everything is true, nothing is true. It's all trivial, like I'm losing my time, I might as well just go play video games and I'll be fine with that, like I don't need to. So no logician want that. Okay, so that's a bit of technical jargon that's actually really good to keep in your mind. There is a logical theory called trivialism, and trivialism can be summarized as such. All propositions are true, that includes all contradictory propositions, so A and not A at the same time in the same way. Every single proposition is true. And as you can imagine, that's for most people not a very desirous theory, because it essentially throws out this whole idea of truth and falsehood, and it's aptly named, I think, trivialism. But that's what he's saying, is no logician wants to trivialize, wants to say, okay, now because there's a contradiction, that means everything is true. The question is, how do we prevent ourselves from getting into a trivial system? A common reaction is that once is what is called the law of explosion, that everything follows from contradiction. It's this idea that once you committed yourself to contradiction, then all bets are off, we don't know anymore. So I guess that's the intuition that has been driven a lot of research in the 20th century, and overall in history as well in mathematics, just making sure that we don't end up in contradiction. Whether or not it is, so that, I guess, that rule of explosion has become the measure of triviality. Okay, one more bit of jargon that's very good to understand if you want to grasp this, it's kind of the history of logical reasoning. It's this, the principle or the law of explosion, which says that everything follows from a contradiction or from a falsehood. So if I say, if squares are circular, then I am 35 feet tall. If squares are circular, then the moon is made of cheese. If squares are circular, if something is false as true, then anything goes. And that's the traditional way of putting it, and I agree with this. The way that I would put it is, if it's the case that there is any case of something that is true that is actually not true, then true doesn't make any sense, neither does not true. We can't know anything about anything, and any attempt at internal coherence of a thought is impossible, because without logical consistency, we're only one step away, I would say, from madness. If you want to know more in detail of my own case for why there are, certainly, I would say no logical contradictions, that is exactly the subject of my first book on philosophy, Square One, The Foundations of Knowledge, which you can pick up on Amazon. But there is sort of the dream, think of it as a dream, that you're going to, that we're going to, truth is that kind of thing that's going to carve the universe between, you know, there's the true things and the false things. And I'm just going to, like, throw a lasso in the universe, and I'm going to pull it, and what I'm going to pull back is only, all and only the true things, right? So that's, you can think of it as Tarski's dream, if you want. That would be a true spread of it. So something will be in the collection I've just had, or in my bag, only if it's true and all the true things will be in there. Okay, now this, now, it may seem esoteric, and it may not seem very important, but what he just said and what he's about to say is absolutely central. If you want to understand the history of modern mathematical and modern logical thinking. I've been on the pursuit of what I call irrationalism. This idea that there are logical contradictions, you can't actually know anything about anything, the world is gray and blurry. I have pursued what the fundamental beliefs are, which lead people to these conclusions. And my pursuits have wound up in a few areas. One area, people appeal to quantum physics. Another one they appeal to is religious mysticism. Another one that they appeal to, interestingly enough, is various arguments in mathematics. This is one example, kind of historically, of the origins of what I consider to be irrationalism coming from the Liar's Paradox. And specifically for the reason that many philosophers have claimed the Liar's Paradox, which is this sentence is false, is a true contradiction. It is true and false, and therefore, this naive idea that we could have in a particular theory or a particular way of talking about the universe that is devoid of contradictions is a little naive. You could put it another way. You could say that according to this way of thinking, and historically, this is the case, various philosophers and mathematicians and logisons have tried to claim that inconsistency is inescapable, that if you want to have a powerful enough language to say almost anything meaningful about the world, you're necessarily going to include some logical contradictions. It's something that's just the nature of language. Some people say it's the nature of truth. The nature of reality is that these contradictions are inescapable. So a great deal of what we're talking about in this interview really comes back to the Liar's Paradox, or as he puts it, the Tarski sentence. And what Tarski showed us is that you can't do that because your bag will also have false things in there, because as soon as the lasso itself will also return false things. That's the Liar's sentence. Because if you have a predicate that says a truth predicate, so a truth predicate would be a predicate that applies to propositions and it applies to the proposition when the proposition is true. It's a very simple and it just says this proposition is true, as we're talking about it. But it's isolating this is-truth things as a predicate that could be used in propositions. Once you can do that, you can create the Liar's sentence. The Liar's sentence is a sentence that says of itself that it is false. So is the Liar's sentence true? Well, if it's true, then what it says is true. What it says is that it's false, and so is false. So it's false. Well, if it's false, then what it says is false. And what it says is of itself that is false, so it's true. So you end up in that contradiction. So holding that dream that you can return only the true propositions leads you to an inconsistency. Okay, so again, the way that I would put it is the claim is that contradictions seem to be unavoidable. And therefore, the, let's say, mature response isn't to try to eliminate contradictions because they're unavoidable. The mature response is to say, let's deal with them. Let's grapple and accept that contradictions are kind of inescapable. The truth and falsehood, at the same time, that's just the way it is. Maybe it's not as big a deal as the classical logicians make it out to be. Now, one way that philosophers have tried to say, well, maybe contradictions aren't as big a deal is by attacking or challenging this idea of the principle of explosion. They say, okay, well, yes, in some circumstances, you get true contradictions, but that doesn't trivialize the system. The law of explosion doesn't hold. Yes, they might agree that trivialization is a bad thing, but they would disagree that from a contradiction, anything follows. We talked just ever so briefly about this in the conversation I had with Dr. Timothy Williamson of Oxford, where we were talking about the philosopher Grand Priest is known for doing this. He is a dialectist, which means he thinks that there are some true contradictions, but he also thinks they're kind of limited and not a very big deal. Okay, so before we move on, are there any other sentences like the liar sentence, which the lasso brings back, or is it just the liar sentence? The true sentence will bring back that one that may have some companion ones and that are contradictory, probably. Yeah, I don't know right off the top of my head. Okay, well maybe we can revisit that. Yeah. Now here's why I ask in that question, because I have a resolution for the liar's paradox, which you can read about in square one. I also have a while ago, I wrote a little article on the topic. I also have a YouTube video. My most popular YouTube video is one resolution to the liar's paradox. It essentially says it's a linguistic error, that it's kind of a trick, that this sentence is false. If you actually break it down, this sentence doesn't really refer to anything. If it refers to itself, namely the words of this sentence, then it's not true and it's not false. It's not a proposition, it's just two words, this sentence. But if this sentence refers to this sentence as false, then it generates an infinite regress, because every time you ask what is this sentence, you're left with this sentence as false. So then the liar's paradox turns into this sentence is false, is false. And you say, okay, well, what exactly, which sentence is false? Well, this sentence is false, is false, is false. Add infinitum. It's easier to see with parentheses and maybe written down. So I asked him that question specifically because it's a, if you're just in logic and truth, and we're talking about some of the most important ideas in the world, like, oh, maybe contradictions are inescapable. That's true. I mean, that's a pretty big deal. So, if the only case of this inescapable contradiction is the liar's paradox, and I think there's a satisfactory resolution to the liar's paradox, well, maybe we don't have to abandon classical logic at all. Maybe we don't have to incorporate any contradictions into our worldview. And in my research, I have not found any other types of argument for the inescapability of logical contradictions that don't ultimately come down to self-reference. There's this other paradox, which is called the barber's paradox, which is that imagine a barber who shaves everybody that does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself? Well, he must, which means, well, he wouldn't. Which means, he must, which means he wouldn't, and so on. Oh, it's true and false at the same time. There's a few self-referential things like that, but I would say in every circumstance, this is a problem of language. It's not a problem of truth. I would say it's certainly not a problem of logic. We've got the lasso. The idea is we want to only get the true things and have this system. All and only. All and only, exactly. But in that particular system, we get this anomaly, the liar's sentence. This sentence is false. Well, it's true, but if it's true, it's false. If it's false, it's true. It's a contradiction. Now what? Well, now the 20th century, the 20th century tradition says, contradiction, warning, triviality. Now I have a trivial theory, and therefore I back away. Go away from contradictions, the lasso does not exist. Right? So that's, that has been the reaction. Okay, so there's no truth predicate. Okay, that seems like an extreme reaction. It won't set in that way. So maybe I've given the story so as to get as an extreme reaction, but that's sort of what has happened. That we said, okay, so that was a great dream, but that dream can't happen because it leads to inconsistency. So you can think of 20th century logicians as going on to shoot. So okay, we'll just make sure that we're not gonna get all truth, but we're only gonna get truth. Okay, fair enough. So we're gonna restrict our analysis such that we're gonna take a smaller lasso kind of thing. It's just gonna, what it brings back, we're just gonna make sure that they're true and only true kind of things. Okay. So they're on the shooting, right? Okay. To preserve consistency. To preserve consistency, because consistency would be as important, but to a certain extent, it kind of changes what we thought was truth, right? Okay, so I love this lasso analogy, right? The idea is that you've got this, out there you've got truth and you have this lasso, and the ideal world, you'd be able to sling the lasso out, get all the true propositions in the world, all and only the true propositions, and you wouldn't get any false propositions there, bring the lasso back and boom, now you have this perfect theory. Well, what he's saying is, well what the liar's paradox is doing is it's saying you can't have this system which includes all truths. If your lasso's that big, then it's also gonna include these contradictions. So if you want to get all the truths, then you have to accept a little bit of inconsistency in your system. Now what he says is, so the response of 20th century logicians is to undershoot. Maybe shrink the size of a lasso. So we don't get any inconsistent conclusions or any consistent truths. We throw the lasso out and what we return is only truth, but we don't get all of it.  It's a beautiful analogy. An alternative reaction is you say, okay, I'm gonna do the opposite. I don't wanna miss out any truths, but I'm gonna accept that some of them will also be false. So you overshoot. Okay. Right? So that would be, so that's where you say, okay, so you're gonna say the explosion is no longer valid. That inconsistency is no longer a measure of triviality. So you're gonna say, okay, I wanna keep my lasso, but my lasso has this funny feature that for some sentences, it returns some that are both true and false. So I need to make sure that I don't trivialize because of that and how do I keep all truths and not trivialize? So all truths and then some? And then some, some of them won't be false. And so that's a way of thinking about dialectic logic. So that's a logic that accepts that they are contradictions. So you have always a but kind of clause. Altatology is a truth, some are also false. The truth predicates only return true formulas, some are also false. There's always a but clause kind of thing. Beautiful. You won't hear it more clearly articulated anywhere. I think that dialecticist position that the goal is to have this lasso that can pull back all the truths but some of the truths are false. Now this came up a little bit when I had a conversation with Dr. Steven Hicks who I will have back on the show who said, well, the interesting thing about contradictions is how philosophers react to the contradictions. And we didn't get to dive into that though. We certainly will.  But he's saying, it's not that big a deal. Yeah, we wanna get all the truth and if that means some of the truth is false, that's just something we have to deal with. A crude way of putting this that I have heard some people say that Dr. Girard didn't say. But I've heard from irrationalists to say, well, I am large. I contain multitudes. If you catch them at a contradiction, that's what they say, well, I'm large. I contain multitudes. I contradict myself, but that's okay. Contradictions maybe aren't that big a deal. But doesn't that kind of deflate the notion of truth, though, when we say we're gonna say some things are true? Or we're gonna say in this lasso got all truths, but some of them are false and true. Doesn't that defeat the idea of what we mean by true is that they're not false? Well, we got all the truth. We wanted all the truth. Yeah, but it, okay. It doesn't make the game easy. It makes the game a lot harder. You're saying? It makes the game a lot harder because we don't wanna trivialize either, right? It's not like all of a sudden we're saying, oh, contradictions are fun. We can't be saying that all contradictions are true. If all contradictions are true, then everything is true, right? But if all contradictions are true, then everything is true. What I would say, you could say that, but I would kind of go one step below that. I would say then truth is meaningless because there seems to be this polarity between what we mean by true and false. I think I can go with you on that. So I don't want my lasso to return everything because like truth has just gone out. Now it would be genuinely meaningless. So that would be unusable because we'd have some kind of trivia, would be trivial, let's forget about truth. No, but I don't, yes, so we agree with that. And most people that earn these kind of projects to like overshoot will then try to find different kind of measures just to make sure that we don't trivialize. So we need some kind of new measures that will tell us which contradictions are acceptable and which aren't. But we can't only rely on contradictions anymore because inconsistency is no longer the measure. So I was trying to get that there as my claim isn't simply, oh well if you contradict yourself, there's the law of explosion and therefore you can't contradict yourself. My point is that if you allow any true contradictions, you have deflated the notion of truth with or without the principle of explosion. If there's any circumstance whatsoever where something is true is false. That means truth is not something that's universal, it's not absolute, it's not even a clear coherent concept. And I don't quite understand the project of saying, oh well, we're not gonna trivialize because what's the big deal about trivialization? If it's the case that you allow contradictions into your theory, I don't see what the hesitation is about trivialization because if some things are true or false, why wouldn't everything be true-false? And of course, again, but with it this way, there is no coherent way to make sense of the claim that proposition X is both true and not true at the same time. You can say something like that, but I don't think you can coherently make sense of it. Okay, so that's that I got several really important questions, but let's go on that, I'll just on that thread, by what are those other measures? So if we say contradiction is no longer the standard, what are the other ones? Okay, well, for logicians, there's been attempts at non-trudiality proofs is something that also, of course, has occupied 20th century logicians from Hilbert to Gerdoll, for instance. They wanted to make sure that they could prove that they had some kind of consistency, right? Gerdoll showed us, well, forget about it, right? We can only get relative consistency proof as in if you have a stronger theory that is consistent, then you can show that your smaller theory is also consistent, but then you're at the top, right? One of the other areas I didn't mention earlier that comes up in the rationalist worldview all the time is Gerdoll. Gerdoll and his famous incompleteness theorems. Now, I haven't written anything about the incompleteness theorems yet because this is something I've been working on for some time now, and just like with the long piece I wrote on Cantor, had to do a lot of research. I had to get my tucks sorted out really precisely before I criticized the theory, but I would claim Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems at best are profoundly abused to prove things that Gerdoll didn't prove.  And my analysis is definitely somewhere near the ladder than the former. I think it's another case, just like Cantor's supposed proof of the different sizes of infinities, I think there are some fundamental conceptual errors that happen with Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems that people then compound and abuse to prove all kinds of ridiculous things that they actually can't prove. Now unlike my claim about the non-existence of the infinity of infinities, if you're familiar with Cantor's diagonal arguments, I haven't written a piece to back that up yet, so feel free to flame me in the comment section. Oh my gosh, I think Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems are actually probably misguided and I don't have anything to back it up yet. But don't worry, at some point I guarantee I will have probably multiple pieces, both explaining the Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems which I intend to do further in this series as I'm talking to other mathematicians, and you might say debunking some of the radical claims that people make by appealing to Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems. Why do I go on about all this is that it was, okay so I guess like what Gerdoll showed is that Hilbert's idea of showing that mathematics was consistent is probably unachievable, right? So 20th century logicians are in no better position to tell us that their theory is non-trivial, if it's rich enough. Okay, again if you haven't heard these ideas before I don't think it will immediately strike you just how serious and grave and profound these claims are that supposedly according to Gerdoll and others, the project of mathematics, of building this kind of universally consistent and provable system failed, it's over. This happened in the early part of the 20th century with Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems, supposedly. But if the theory of mathematics is powerful enough meaning you have enough explanatory power in your system of language for example, if you express terms like all mathematically then you inescapably run into either inconsistencies or unprovable propositions. This is one of the areas in mathematics you guys know I criticize quite a lot where there is a feverish level of dogmatism not unlike Cantor's supposed diagonal proof that if you so much as suggest that maybe it's not set in stone that Gerdoll proved that this project of founding mathematics with a consistent and universal and provable language then you're immediately seen as a heretic who is not of course grasped the highest levels of abstraction that you'll find in mathematics. As you work your way up the level of mathematical abstraction and profundity eventually at the top you discover your eyes cross and suddenly everything becomes contradictory and paradoxical or maybe Gerdoll was wrong. One of the interesting things that I challenge everybody listening to do is that they know anybody who has stakes of position if somebody mentions Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems I practically guarantee that they'll hold the position that Dr. Gerard holds that they believe that Gerdoll proved what he supposedly proved and I can practically guarantee you in fact I believe everybody that I've spoke to ever on this subject this applies to and I actively seek these people out. Nobody works through the proofs themselves. It's all second hand. It's all I wrote, I read a book on the proofs or I read a secondary thing. They actually don't dive into the actual Gerdoll incompleteness theorems themselves. It's all the second hand stuff. I think that's a problem especially because if you look at the proofs you might not quite find it as compelling as you think it should be given the importance of what is being claimed. But anyway this is not a breakdown about Gerdoll's incompleteness theorems yet. We continue. So let me ask you before we go back to contradiction about mathematics. You said 20th century, the project of putting 20th century mathematics as being this perfectly consistent thing. You think that project is toast? People are still trying to do that. It's not entirely toast but what counts as a proof of consistency had to be revisited and from what again you need to go talk to some proof theorists and probably travel to somewhere in America or Germany or you'll find proof theorists talking about it. It's just that what we take to be a consistency proof has to be adapted in ways that will not fall for Gerdoll's. So the mathematics that they use to prove consistency itself becomes exceedingly complex. All right so now I ask him a question that I should have asked earlier about this notion of the inescapability of contradiction with the relative power of the logical theory that you're dealing with. Would you say that this is a fair analogy or a fair analysis of the two areas in logic and in mathematics? That in the system of logic and classical logic our systems even if they're complex and intricate and detailed and beautiful and powerful are always going to contain in the system of logic itself an inescapable contradiction, at least one. Not all of them, no. Not all of them. Not all of them, it depends how complex it gets. Right. Okay, what about just? So you take for instance, I don't know, propositional logic. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. You know, 20th century propositional logic. You know, we have consistency proof of that. Okay. Okay. And it's not expressive enough to be able to, it's not self-referential. Okay. Right, so you need to throw in it. You need to throw in more specificity. So quant fires and then you start adding it enough rule so that it can start like doing some mathematics. You need to be able to do enough. So this is an area that a lot of people are unaware of and this is where girdles and completeness theorems often get abused. In math and logic, there are different orders of logic. Of course, I'm speaking in a jargonistic academic perspective. This is the standard way that mathematicians and philosophers and logicians think about things. It's not necessarily the truth, but there is so-called zero-width order logic or as it's sometimes called propositional logic that is a system which doesn't allow for a great deal of expression. So it doesn't have what's called quantifiers. Then above zero-width order logic, propositional logic, you have first order logic, which does allow for things like quantifiers. Now, all that means is you can essentially say more things within your logical system as you add variables and quantifiers into your system. You're able to say more. You're able to make more statements. Propositional logic is a internally consistent complete system that this is something that everybody, at least to understand the topic, agrees to. Girdles and completeness theorems don't apply to propositional logic. It's once you get into the higher levels of logic where you start having quantifiers, where you can say things like, there exists an X such that Y and Z and so on. Then you supposedly run into Girdles and completeness theorems because you're able to generate within that system a sentence like this statement is unprovable, which is similar to the liar's sentence. So that's where he's saying, it's not that this notion that Girdles and completeness theorems or what you might say is the inescapable inconsistency or unprovability of a logical system is universal. You do have propositional logic, which is a more restricted system or to use the earlier analogy, it's a really small lasso. Okay, so then the question would be, why would it be necessary to expand the logic outside of propositional logic outside of this beautiful system that contains no contradictions? Why would we even... Because you're missing out on validities. So if you only have propositional logic, you can't even get good old syllogisms like from antiquity, all humans are mortal, Sophie is human, therefore Sophie is mortal. So if you only have propositional logic, then you can't get at the validity of that. Because all humans are mortal, has a quantifier in there. If you don't have the quantifier, you can only translate it as P. So you get P and then you get Sophie is mortal. Well, you don't have names to talk about Sophie. So that's just Q. And the conclusion is R. And you can't get R from P and Q. So that comes out as invalid. Okay, so... So we're missing out on validities. So that's why we need to throw in some quantifiers. Okay, so don't be overwhelmed by the jargon here. This is actually a really interesting point. And again, it comes up, it's throughout mathematics, but it's this desire to put our conceptual reasoning into the language of mathematics, which some people might think is synonymous with into a language of mathematical logic. And in fact, I would say there's a fundamental problem that plagues what seems to be every area of thought. And it's this desire to mathematicize everything. But unfortunately, not all of our concepts can be neatly packed into mathematical structures and formulas. So the desire to do this, I'm not exaggerating here, by the way, the desire to be able to break down our conceptual claims about the world into some kind of a mathematical structure. Has led to building these theories of propositional logic, first order logic, higher order logics. And in those systems, people conclude that inconsistency is inescapable and contradictions are inescapable. And they literally will turn around and make claims about the world like the world is fundamentally paradoxical. Or we can't know anything about anything because in their attempt to formalize, mathematicize everything, they've discovered some fundamental inconsistency in their language. This is again something I talk about in square one, The Foundations of Knowledge, that all of these claims about inconsistency are about language. They're not about the world, they're not about truth, they're not about logic, they're about language. You sort of see a similar phenomenon when people are talking about quantum physics and they're trying to justify their irrational world view by saying no, no, there are true contradictions because superposition in quantum physics, which of course usually reveals they don't know what they're talking about in quantum physics. But again, if it's the case like in quantum physics that it appears that reality is blurry, you're presented with a question, do you have a clear perception of a blurry reality? Or do you have a blurry perception of a clear reality? Is reality the way that it is and you have got some smudge on your glasses or are the glasses you're wearing perfectly clean but you're looking at a smudged reality? If you understand the analogy, that's kind of what's going, what really does go on quite a lot in this world of mathematics and mathematical logic, is people think, you know, mathematics is the language of the universe and then they find some kind of inconsistency or trouble with their mathematical language and include, therefore the world is contradictory. And the only way that they can get away with this is because of the allure of math, that it seems really intelligent, it seems kind of mystical in mathematical language.  There is such a thing as a square circle. Look, look at the sentence, there it is, there is such a thing as a square circle. Wow, it must be that reality is contradictory because I put those words together. People would say, Steve, what are you smoking?  People will make, I think, linguistic errors in math and draw profound epistemological claims from their linguistic confusions. If you don't believe me and if you're unaware of this area of thought, don't take my word for it. Just punch in Google or punch in YouTube, you know, girdle in the limits of knowledge. I don't know, that's just made up that title but there's a billion different lectures of people talking about how magical these mathematical conclusions are that, oh man, we've developed our mathematical and logical system and it tells us this amazing thing that if we want a logical system to be powerful enough, it's gonna inevitably result in creating inconsistencies. I don't buy it folks. This is why I say a massive amount of revision has to be done in the world of modern mathematics. There's something very interesting at what you're saying there though because obviously for logicians anyway and logicians that like to devise these languages, these languages that are only truthy, right? Back to the languages that we were talking about earlier, there's a choice as to the control you can have in terms of like controlling inconsistency and triviality and how much expressivity it will give you and to sort of trying to understand valid inferences and truthy kind of things that you're kind of after, right? So as we said, when we say a propositional logic, we're cool, the problem is that we're missing out on valid arguments that we'd like to have, right? So we start putting, there's a trade-off, right? So we add the quantifiers and then we're still cool. So long as we only have the quantifiers, now we got this argument that we wanted but then we're missing out on some valid argument in mathematics and now we start throwing in some widgets to get at some mathematics and then Gerdl shows up. So I think this is another kind of central idea in this balance between the expressivity of the logical system and the internal consistency of it. There's this idea that he brought up that oh well in natural language, we can make sense sort of of the liar's paradox so we can say this sentence is false and oh well we know what that means, therefore our logical systems have to account for that and that is most definitely not my claim. My claim is that actually the liar's sentence, this sentence is false, is a trick of language. It's an illusion. When you actually examine it really, really precisely, it falls apart and the way that people think they make sense of it isn't actually correct. They don't make sense of something that they think they're making sense of. So yeah, if you try to codify a linguistic error, then you're going to have errors in that codified system. If in your mathematical system you can, you think that you can say this sentence is false, references this sentence is false without a problem, well that's a fundamental bug in the system. And again, we have these two options. Is it that the bug is in the system and that's just the way it is because all logical systems, if they're powerful enough, are going to run into this error or is it the case that yeah, it's a bug in the system because we've made a mistake, because we programmed it wrong. But doesn't it seem like that would be a statement about some kind of flaw about expressivity, that it's like the more you, if you want to say more and more and more, eventually you can say so much that it includes contradictions. Is that a flaw or is that just what is all of that? You know, if anything, English, the kind of language that you and I are using at the moment has all these things that we can express, the liar's sentence, and we can express all these kind of things, right? Once we start developing language and using them for reasoning and for trying to get at truth and validity and things like that, well, the tools that we're using can hurt us too, right? Okay. All right, so. So it's always trying to find the right balance between how you're gonna express, how you're getting at truth and the tools that you're using and how much control you have on the tools that you're using. Okay, so then we have a bit of a discussion about the specifics of the liar's paradox. I'll tell you a little bit more detail about this later. When this sentence is false, when we say this is a true contradiction and it's true and false at the same time, this is something, would you say that that's a violation of the law of identity? The old Aristotelian A is a, and maybe the law of non-contradiction, right? Obviously. I don't think so. You don't think so? I don't think so. So would you think that the law of non-contradiction can be violated and you could still preserve the law of identity? Yes. Okay, can you explain that? Because so for intuitively, when we say something like, when we use the term not A versus A, it seems like the whole meaning of what not is is a negation of A. That's the whole reason we come up with the concept is like not means a big X over it. Like it's absolutely not, which seems incompatible with A, the whole point of A, right? Okay, so this again is the center part of square one, the foundations of knowledge. That's what practically the whole book about is explaining this, that it must be in order to have the law of identity that things are what they are. It must be the case that you have the law of non-contradiction, that things cannot be the way that they are not. Because if things can be the way that they are not, then things being things, being what they are, is not some kind of universal law. If you can be what you aren't, then I'd say there's no being in the first place. I think the intuition you're getting at is that what is true and what is false are mutually exclusive, right? Sure. Right. And the liar just goes as a foot in both. So there you go. I mean, sometimes it kills me. I get flacked from people sometimes. And they say, oh Steve, nobody actually argues for logical contradictions. Nobody actually argues that true and false aren't mutually exclusive. No, you just heard it. In fact, I think there's a great number of these people that think what is true and what is false is not mutually exclusive because the liar's paradox or sometimes because quantum physics. This is a huge deal, folks. If you care about the world of ideas and you're wondering why it appears that the modern world is steeped in a bit of irrationalism, I'm suggesting this is one reason why. It is the liar's paradox and the abuse of the liar's paradox where people are thinking that sometimes what is true is false and that's okay. Now, of all the people on earth, I am probably the person who is more revolted in the exact polar opposite of this position than anybody, which is interesting because Dr. Gerard and I got along so well. I mean, he's super pleasant. He invited me up to this beautiful property.  What I've also noticed, and I've also felt prey to this before, is that people who have strong opinions about the internal coherence of mathematics tend not to be mathematicians. That mathematics gets defended for being this consistent and coherent and rational discipline from people who aren't mathematicians because if you go through the training, you learn about girls and completeness theorems. You learn about the infinity of infinities. I think it immediately breeds out of you this pre-20th century notion that mathematics is kind of the perfect logical discipline. In the modern world, it isn't. If anybody would like a book recommendation that goes into a bit more detail about this state of modern mathematics, there's a book by Morris Klein called Mathematics, The Loss of Certainty. I highly recommend it, even though some of it is fairly technical. It goes through some of the history of why there is indeed a loss of certainty in modern mathematics. His position is not my position. His position is, well, it's not a damning of the profession of modern mathematics. That's just the truth of the matter. My position is, oh, well, that dams the mathematics profession. Okay, so I guess the question that I have for you is how are we to make sense of true what that means? If we're saying in at least one circumstance what is true is false. Because in the way that I'm conceiving of truth and falsehood, I would say by definition is mutually exclusive. That's the meaning of the word. Right, but that was the dream of the lasso. Right. Yeah, and that dream won't, if you want to have the lasso, then that lasso is an inconsistent thing. Or the lasso does not exist. Right, but that is the dilemma, right? But how do you make sense of the concept of true when it encompasses not true? In some cases, it's just that truth and falsity are not mutually exclusive. That's how I'm, I mean. But that's the sentence, but how do you make, so I'm saying, okay, I'm there. I'm like, I'm at the doorstep. Yep, okay, what does that mean? How can I make sense of that? I understand it perspective, we have to accept it. But I would say, okay, let's accept it. Let's act at least like we accept it. But how do I make sense of it now? Or can it be made sense of? I don't want to answer the question directly. So do you know, you know about David Lewis and his idea of modal realism? So he's committed to the existence of other possible worlds. So he does modal logic and he talks about kind of factuals. And he basically, in his picture, in his metaphysical picture, there are infinitely many possible worlds and all these worlds are sort of causely independent entities and the full stories and everything. So we are in the possible worlds and there are other possible worlds, the way this world could have been. So, you know, there could be three people in this room, there could be four people in this room, there could be nobody in this room. So each of those is a different. It's like a multiverse theory. Sort of, it's the same kind of story. Anyway, the point is that he's defended the view that these worlds exist just as much as others. And people have said exactly what you're saying. I have heard this argument, but I didn't know the name. Yeah, okay, so it's called modal realism. I'm not getting into this to rehearse the argument. Sure. I think the point is that people, to him, had the same kind of reaction, just this kind of incredulous look. What do you mean? I can't make sense of other possible worlds existing like ours. Okay. I would say, sure, me neither. That doesn't mean it's not the best explanation of what I'm after. This is a really interesting example. And when he gave it, as you'll hear in a second, I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt and say, oh, I can make sense of that. I don't know why he's saying it. The person who proposed it is saying both, I can't make sense of this and it's the best theory, which is hard for me to understand. So I naively gave him the benefit of the doubt and said this. Well, I can make sense of that to say, I mean, we would incorporate something like the multiverse theory, that I don't think this is necessarily the case, but I can at least imagine a consistent way to say, there is this universe, there is another universe, these two universes are not the same. What we mean by a possible universe is simply a kind of a descriptor of that other universe. Yeah, so I think that's not exactly the right kind of analogy, because if we live in a multiverse, then that's one possible world, because we could live in a different multiverse. So it kind of depends on where you carve the boundaries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so he's saying it's outside the boundaries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, now that can make sense of it. See what I mean? So, but that's the same kind of thing, with at some point, once you start exploring these kind of ideas, yeah, it's incredulous. And I sort of, yeah, I'm still a bit there with you as when I contemplate the liar sentence, yeah, it is, it's hard to make sense of it. Aside from just like repeating it, yeah, it's true. Yeah, so it's false, yeah. So it's false, yeah, and it's true. And then you just keep on going, and then eventually you just stop worrying too much about the fact that this sentence is incredulous, because you have other motivation around it for dealing with these kinds of systems. Okay. Right? So the idea is, I mean... So could you say something like this then, that it is not the case that truth is absolute in the sense that we have to accept in our conception of what truth means that you bump up into the incredulous sentences, and that's just the nature of the game? Yeah, if you dig far enough with any kind of concept, if you dig far enough, you might reach banners in which you see incredulous things. And when these things are, you know, and what to do with them. Right. Of course, that's when it becomes all fascinating, right? It's not that they were wrong in the 20th century to say, oh my God, go away. There's no truth predicate. That's perfectly fine. And like against motorists, some people will say, well, there are no possible words. That makes no sense. Go away. That's fine.  That's when all the fun begins, isn't it? And with all due respect, this, from my perspective, is a self-refutation, both of this modal realist position and of Dr. Girard's position, the pair's consistent logistician's position, to say, okay, I admit we can't make sense of it, but that's the profundity of the theory, is in my worldview to cross one's eyes, open one's mouth, and drool. You can't. The purpose of philosophizing is to best explain the phenomena that we experience. We must be able to make sense of the theories that we posit. And if it's the case that our theory is so presented, as to be incomprehensible even to us, that theory has refuted itself. And how does a theory go about doing this? Well, it contradicts itself because you can't make sense of a logical contradiction. So I tried to say with the modal realism example, like, oh, I can make sense of that. It's like the multiverse. You say, no, no, no, well, it's a possible universe. So the multiverse would be one universe, and there are these other universes that exist, but they're outside the realm of existence. They're possible universes, but they're actual.  And his response was, well, I can't make sense of it, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. This is the mystical perspective. This is the idea that, yes, there are an infinity of infinities, and I can't really make sense of it, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Or quantum physics shows that the world is true and false at the same time, or it is and it isn't, and it is both. And I can't make sense of it, but wow, that's the profound nature of the universe. And we see it here. The liar's paradox is true and false at the same time, and he says himself that, no, I can't make sense of it, it is incredulous, and the proper response is to just repeat it and say, yeah, okay, it's true, and yeah, okay, it's false, and you move on because you have other motivation. If anybody is wondering why I spend so much time talking about mathematics and logic, this is an excellent example. If you cut at the foundations of all philosophic reasoning by admitting logical contradictions into your theory, you have thrown out rationality in its entirety.  It is the greatest violation of the project rationality and intellectualism. You can't contradict yourself, folks, because you can't make sense of it, and it is not respectable or correct to believe an incomprehensible theory.   I think they are fundamentally, profoundly, profoundly deeply misguided. As if a runner, a very talented and muscular runner whose legs are on backwards, and when the track gun fires, not only does he not move forward, he moves backwards. It's how I view these people that. I have no doubt that there is mental processing power there, they're nice people, but they're so far away from the truth that it has to be running in the opposite direction, and then amputating their own legs when they embrace the idea that it's okay to be inconsistent and incomprehensible when developing a theory. But that's where I'm gonna have to leave it for today. I hope you guys enjoyed this interview breakdown. We did talk for about another solid hour that wasn't recorded about the Liar's Paradox, which is why if you guys were listening closely to this interview, there's kind of an abrupt transition where it goes from, we talk about the Liar's Paradox, he says, hey, I think you should talk to somebody who's like an expert on this topic. And that's because there's a whole bunch of stuff in the middle that wasn't recorded. There was a magnificent conversation, honestly, one of the highlights of our entire New Zealand trip was talking to Patrick Gerard about this. I loved it. But let's just say my proposed resolution to the Liar's Paradox was not satisfactorily refuted. And so he had a good suggestion, which I will take him up on, which is finding somebody that specializes in the Liar's Paradox and can address my resolution of the Liar's Paradox and tell me why it actually is this inescapable true contradiction.  There's a lot of us, our movement is growing. You may also have a rational head on your shoulders. If you think that maybe my analysis is onto something, maybe it's the case that professional mathematicians and logicians might have made the largest of intellectual errors ever that had been repeated maybe for the last century, then you're not alone. Our community is growing by the week. And if you'd like to support this project of me going around talking to these people and trying to create a rational world you myself by writing books and doing YouTube videos, check out patreon.com slash Steve Patterson. You can become a patron of the show. You can become a patron of I work. So whenever I release an article or a video or one of these podcasts, you contribute a dollar or two to help make this show possible. If it's the case that my suspicions are correct about the causes of irrationalism in the past century, we have a gigantic amount of work in front of us. I'm excited to do it. I know many of you are too. So I hope you'll join me in the mutual pursuit of truth and the attempt to create a rational world view and make sure to join me next week where I'm talking with a professor about a very similar topic that I pretty much went to Australia to talk to this guy. I'm not gonna give you more details away. Just make sure to tune in next week. Have a good one.


So, so I guess Dr. Nasreddin Longo, please. Whoops, you're muted. Yeah, suddenly dawned on me. Thank you. First off, thank you to everyone who doesn't agree about any of this, but is absolutely committed to the overarching project which is the I say erasure of racial disparity not only in our state, but let's get broad and say for the world. I'm glad we're even disagreeing it means there's something to discuss. I, of course, need to take this back to the panel. Have not done that. This as coach notes this is all discussion at this point. The panel has historically, you know, since the start being discussed about a year ago, been resistant to the idea of being advisory in any way. Now, having said that, I can't predict what it will feel about these administrative supports that are being proposed and I would surmise that that would change the conversation dramatically. Because one of the issues that did come up when this discussion was first had was that there was no way that that body was staffed well enough to do this kind of work. Simply, I mean people already have other jobs, the five community members are not even state government actors. And that that would be an absolute requirement before any discussion would happen. This is taking listen to account. The other thing that I like about it. Again, at fairly much first glance is the the bringing together of disparate bodies I like the collaboration idea. I like the idea of taking what we have and making it work more efficiently. Wonderful. Having said that I would direct everyone's attention and I can't pull it up because I have about 25 windows open on my laptop right now. But that report that the Rdap submitted in December of last year. You will note that early on in the report there are tables, one table that describes data that exists. There's a table that describes high impact, high discretion moments in an engagement with the criminal and juvenile justice systems, and another table that talked about, I believe, the data that do not exist. This was prepared by Robin Joy in crime research group. What I want to make is first off, there's a lot on that table that doesn't exist. That the Rdap field should exist. The collaboration that this amendment proposes would seem to be built on the idea that that data is here somewhere. And I think what the report was really quite clear about is, it's not. So that coupled with a reduction in the number of staff that this amendment proposes is a bit concerning. Only in so far as we've got a huge job in terms of just not only defining the data, but making it. The report, as I just said, makes clear a lot of it doesn't exist and is needful is absolutely something we need. And if we're going to reduce this entire initiative by two full time information technology data analysts, those two facts together, give me pause. I would say that that is something a major issue that I would bring up to the panel. And I don't know, again, I'm not a mind reader, I, but I, I know that that would certainly be something that a large number of members on the panel would find concerning. The other issue would be the two proposed new members of the RDAP, I would wonder are they members of the RDA, I may have gotten this wrong. It's early, I have a migraine I'm doing the best I can. If this is, if they're members of the RDAP are more specifically of the subcommittee that is proposed to be the advisory body. I, I personally would have different feelings about it, depending on where they would be. And I think the panel would as well. Those, those are the big things that pop out at me immediately. There may be more and again, I hope everyone knows I am simply doing the best I can to respond to very good faith, very warmly meant efforts by everyone who's involved in this. I think I'm just going to stop there. You're welcome. I think one of the things and that's the good thing about a discussion, you know, is you get a lot of thoughts and needless to say, it's a draft to so that being said.  Thinking in terms of the possibility of an a special meeting, let's not call it an emergency. Let's call it special. I'm very careful about some of my words, but calling a special meeting of RDAP to have that discussion as well. So that we can really fine tune, you know, the, the thoughts and the thinking. So as we make the formal presentation to the committee and to the body.  So, right. So that's taking into account. I noticed that attorney Turner is here with us. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to join this discussion this morning. I know we're not taking testimony, but for the record, attorney Rebecca Turner from the office of the defender general and member of the racial disparities panel advisory panel. And so representative Christie, I really appreciate hearing you describe the latest draft proposal and hearing Patrick talk about it. I particularly appreciate that that was an effective nod of appreciation and recognition of the work that RDAP has been doing. And I want to stress that last word again. It's been enormous work and a ton. Dr. Ness read in Longo stress this as well in terms of anticipating the reaction certainly was my initial reaction, which was, my goodness, that subcommittee work, which I was on that subcommittee to get that data report forward to the main panel was an incredible effort. It felt and we can we can come we can go back as a useful measure of how much work was involved with just that effort by tracking the number of hours and being met and how often to get a sense, not to say that I'm not opposed to the concept at all. In fact, I think it's a great idea. It's certainly not just as a moment of appreciation I and that was, I think RDAP will be happy and to hear that recognition of the work we've been doing. But more importantly that that there is this acknowledgement that was on the policy side of this data collection idea that it should be fundamentally made up of people with experience in the criminal juvenile court systems and when I say experience. I don't just mean the professional work experience but that is fundamental that was lacking and I made comments and before the House Judiciary Committee on that so I appreciate that. Again, people who've been working in these systems for a long time. The government panel members, the general's representative but also community members who provide such invaluable input so I appreciate that. And I think that my, my initial reaction joins with Dr. Nezra and Longos which is the capacity making sure there is, there is, if this is where the legislature wants to go, certainly for an interim measure, because this is a huge project. And I appreciate and I think to that's, you know, how long it took us to get to this idea presentation stage. Suddenly there's a need across the board, as we heard from Senator White about data collection, but this could use as a great model and our sub that subcommittee or the interim, turning to a subcommittee of members within the RDAP is a great possibility. But again the proposal of a specific funding of positions, I think is not sufficient. Again, speaking from my experience as a subcommittee member, and then carrying coming into it with a full time position at the Office of the Defender General, it was just nearly a work of dedicated commitment that I was inspired by fellow subcommittee members and panel members and we got through it. And so I throw that out there. So somehow support that capacity, that's where it goes beyond just the positions outlined here. I appreciate Senator Sears' point about trying to get a proposed budget for quickly this session if possible. But I think I would urge the committee members to think about how to build in capacity financial support specifically or additional staff with that subcommittee group specifically. Secondly, the other thing that I think is lacking in this current draft is an enforcement mechanism.  I think that one of my strong, one of the points I feel strong is about, and I've raised repeatedly with the panel in this committee, has been to ensure that whatever entity, whatever title it has, whatever source has to be independent. As was brought up this morning, ARDAP is currently a creature found within Title III, Section 168, Chapter 7. Chapter 7 is titled, you know, essentially the duties of the Attorney General's office. If this is where even for an interim basis, the legislature seeks to go, it needs to be removed from the Attorney General's office. Certainly the panel members themselves speak to an inherent independence but the mere fact, and I react viscerally to hearing whenever ARDAP is described as under, or a suggestion under the control of the Attorney General's office. Again, we have to be careful about that and suggest looking elsewhere for perhaps another section to put that bureau. But the enforcement side is another fundamental point which I want to take off where Senator Benning was going is ensuring that wherever this lands, whatever branch of government this lands that there is the ability of this, this bureau to not just see this data collection coming in on a monthly basis, but to troubleshoot issue spot where things are getting stuck where data flow is not happening or coordination isn't happening effectively and having the ability to get enforcement of problem areas to unstick and keep things moving. And that I don't see built into the language of this current proposal. But I'll stop here. I'm trying to represent or Christie keep this into discussions and arm up but I know there's so many people present, but I'll stop here. Thank you. I noticed that attorney shares with us. And it'll be interesting to hear his thoughts. Thank you representative for the record David share with the Attorney General's office and as I've testified in front of this committee before we are also one member of the panel, and it's been our practice not to get out ahead of where the panel as a whole is we do believe in the collaborative work the panel has been doing we've been very grateful and impressed by Dr. Nassar and longos chair of the chairmanship work in that panel. I think it's been very effective and to all the panel members for really working together, collaboratively, collaboratively, even when there's disagreement. So I don't actually want to testify and get too far ahead I will say that the I will reiterate what Dr. Nassar and longos said that some of the prior. Well, let me start with the beginning which is that of course we support the recommendations of the panel which have this type of analysis system in place to measure the statistics we are, we helped draft the report as part of the panel we voted for we are strongly in favor of it, this should happen. With respect to the more bureaucratic questions about exactly how it happens that's where I do want to defer to discussions the panel that need to keep happening. We'll reiterate Dr. Nassar and longos testimony that there had been some concern among the panelists about placing it within the panel. In part because the panel felt that we are currently operating fairly effectively we believe and hope in terms of being an idea generator for the legislature and for the state of Vermont in terms of what policies need to be focused on and what needs to be approached next. And we are proud to do that work and happy to be a part of it. And we wouldn't want a more technical obligation to distract from that sort of higher level 30,000 foot. What's the direction that needs to happen next type of thinking which again I think has had a real impact on how legislation has been approached and revised. So we wouldn't want to have that tension, get in the way of the work that's been doing going well. However, again, as the chair mentioned that Dr. Nassar and longer mentioned the panel may have different thoughts when confronted with a proposal that may have some real resources involved and that may ameliorate some of that concern about getting dragged into a more not dragged into its important work but ending up being having to focus additionally on work that's much more technical and detail oriented than the sort of more vision and policy work that we've been dealing with that assistance with that concept of a subcommittee it may be that the panel has different ideas about it. As one panel member I can say that we, you know, our office would be open to that discussion and thinking about what might really be required to make it workable so that the panel could both continue in its more policy oriented 30,000 foot work, as well as potentially have a subcommittee of the panel that's focusing on this with adequate staff support. Certainly I'm open to that discussion. I think that could potentially be an avenue forward but I do want to have those thoughts within the panel and not use our privileged position of being called into the legislature to testify to get out in front of the panel. We look forward to having that discussion with the panel very open to this and grateful to Representative Christie for really pushing the ball forward on this and making sure we are having these, these conversations because they had, they have to happen to, to bring this thing to completion so thank you Representative Christie we are grateful to you for that and look forward to continuing this discussion. Thank you. Thanks Madam Madam chair. It's pretty clear that, you know, this is just the beginning, you know, of, you know, the, the discussion. And we can look forward to taking into consideration the thoughts of our colleagues in the Senate. Our colleagues from our DAP. And taking those thoughts and moving with Eric to put those into play for an edited draft. We can work with our DAP to see if we can get the meeting together so that we can continue the discussion there. And taking into account everything that we've heard today, because that's, that's part of the process. And it's, it's worked well. And that's representative of the fact that our DAP is, is here. Upward and onward, I would say, Madam chair. Absolutely, I agree and, and appreciate that coach and appreciate everyone who has spoken today I'm not going to say testify because it was this conversation and yeah we'll just keep talking and coach will follow your lead. So thank you. Thank you everybody. So, given, given that, I think we will switch. But committee why don't we take just a five minute stretch break. And then, and then we will continue with S3.


Hello and welcome back to the craft box. My name is Brendan today.  So obviously an ice wizard Do I have flex? Oh we do. Oh, yeah, that's right. Got a flex on them So yeah, this is my myth. We're gonna be trying ninja pigs and Basically just ninja pig spam is what we're gonna be doing We don't need two Medusas probably not the best idea. I don't think that'll be useful for now If we could get a shield that'd be kind of cool. We're gonna blade though We will blade we got a ninja pigs though. So that's a good start always a good start We might double blade into a ninja pigs.  I have a couple of bubbles just in case but not many I Kind of just want to blade into a ninja pigs like I really do. I really really want to do that Cuz you know, I just I think that would be a good idea. I just really think that'll be a good idea So we're gonna go most of the wall we're not gonna shield because who needs shields when you can just you know This is probably a shield I can oh enough blade. Oh, he's going spicy geez Do I do it do I or do I do this remove his blades who would be really salty? We're gonna do this. We're gonna do this ninja pigs will do a lot damage We have like a hundred and something a hundred and one damage. I think it is so this will do a lot Earthquake would have been funny and I would have loved to see his salty tears come Streaming down his face, but you know, I don't think I don't think that's quite appropriate So we're just ninja pigs instead We can always go for a troll which we have just in case this this won't kill but it will do okay That didn't do too too badly. I was actually speaking it to do a bit less So that's fine. This is a stun which is fair enough. I could die here Because I'm bad. I should have really The resist comes in clutch He can do four pip spell of something there now. Okay. Let's try and pull something We don't need a medusa. I'm not gonna earthquake now. We don't need two of these now I get some shields. Okay, and a weakness cool. That should be fine for now That should be okay He did fail pip so that's not the best. I don't think this can do 900 I really don't think this can do 963. He did crit. So um dad is bad Yeah, the clutch good job boys good job. We out here Okay How are we gonna win this? I don't have any stuns We're gonna discard the fortify. I mean we could just go for this. Hope he fizzles Into a do we have a full up? We need a full up. We really need a full up. We don't need that I don't think I have many ninja pigs inside. We have an empower.  This is the only one I have So that's fun. He passed anyway. Okay. He's saving up for something big Can we get something better than a troll that would be I? Knew this spell would come in handy. Here we go. Healy boy. Let's do this Let's do this. This is actually my first time like legitimately casting the spell in a in a fight like not just Checking out to see what it is This came in clutch I have like two of these one in one in TC's and one in one in mains one of main main spells So that's crazy. That is impressive. I am really impressed with that. He's gonna fizzle because he's bad Yeah, that's right. He fizzled. He's bad.  I should have really kept the um, the deuce But hey, that's fine. I don't think we can win. We're gonna shield gonna shield because you know protection is the key Protection is the definite key to success here This is probably Another winter moon. Okay, I see how you do winter moon span. This isn't one time and I can't even remember what the spouse caught It might be one to me. I don't know. I don't know. It's definitely um the spell that I can't remember its name Because it's kind of irrelevant, but that's fine. Um, we don't need earthquake. He's not blading. He's being smart. Oh, no blade into a minnow. I Mean we're at 200 health. He could probably kill We're gonna do this and if he fizzles or something she probably won't fizzle if he Doesn't kill we'll go for a troll that should hopefully if we crit this will do mass No crit, of course. Of course. No crit. We have like 30 crit, but that's fine 30% that is okay. That did nothing.  He's probably a grandmaster.  I Bet he's a grandmaster. Grandmaster ice. They they love that Love it the grandmaster ices, you know. Oh Level 60 ice fair enough. He has a fat ton of He's got a lot of resist like level 60. He's got like a bit of damage. I Okay, that's fun


TFNN, The Tiger, Financial News Network, News Update. Good morning everybody, I'm Tommy O'Brien, coming to you live from TFNN. My plug in? You're saying, okay, thank you, apologize. S&Ps will kick it off folks, I'll get there. S&Ps right now, up 22 points. Look at this acceleration we got going on folks. We just traded down to 37.65, coming into 9.55 and just like that, you got the markets trading up 25 points. We're coming into where we were right at the open, 37.90, S&Ps up three quarters percent. NASDAQ 100, we just went negative for a brief moment and just like that, you almost pop a full percentage point. We're up 102 points right now, 11,657. You jump to the Dow, up 212 right now, trading at 30,687, I'm not sure. Maybe in the den if you can help me out. Is Chairman Powell talking right now? What's moving this market, man? Because we got quite a pop going on. It doesn't have to be anything in particular these days, but boy, we got a little bit of a pop with everything moving higher. Russell, up six points as well. Crude sitting pretty comfortable, right in around $106 right now, 105,65 for the price of Crude. We got the gold contract catching the bid. Check that out, gold up about $7. We were as low as almost 18.25 this morning. You're trading at 18.45 right now on the price of gold and notes and bonds. Check out that acceleration, folks. The 10-year, up a full point in 6 ticks. What are we talking about in the yield right now? We were below 3.1 to start it off. We might have a two-handle in the 10-year, 3.03%, just like that. Probably not a good sign for the economy, folks. Yield's coming down on the fears of a recession, a lack of growth. You got the 10-year at 3.037, to be exact. 3.04, we'll round up. You take a look at where we've been just since last Thursday, folks, four full points. That is quite a move, man. Yes, you're seeing the 10-year basically go from 3.5%, right back to 3%, just like that in a heartbeat, remarkable action. We jump over the VIX with a little bit of two-way action so far this morning. You get the VIX trading at 29.11. Some of the companies out with earnings, you have Darden out with their numbers, strong numbers, man, but they give it all back. I'm not sure what they had to say on the conference call, but does not seem to have gone well. Darden down about 8.10% to kick things off for the trading day. And KB Homes out with their numbers last night, there's a pot for you, up 7.5% housing, not dead just yet, but in the grand scheme of where we've been. Still a pretty steep pullback from $50 just earlier this year. All right, folks, stay tuned. Basil did his program at 8 a.m. That's coming up live right now. Then of course, Larry.


Welcome to The Advocate, where thought-provoking topics are discussed with no holds bad here on Plus TV Africa. We basically call a spade by its name. Today, I'm advocating for us to be better citizens and better persons for ourselves and the society. Oluwakai Ode says, we do not want old and sick leaders anymore as the election window opens, but the decisions lie with us. Ruth is asking if we are wiser now, going into the 2023 elections, and finally, should we be grateful that the Twitter ban has been lifted, Victor is asking today.  The year before the elections become better. So as we all know, this year 2022 is fraught with so many thoughts and uncertainty, but as it's customary with me, I'm an incurable optimist and a firm believer in the phrase leave while you yet leave. So this year before the elections, and this being my first appearance this year on The Advocate, I'm here to give us some ginger for the year. I'm advocating for you to become a better citizen, a better Nigerian, a better person because how do we create a better society when we can't create a better person? What can we do in the kind of country we live in where there's so much we don't have control over? So here's me giving us some life hacks for rules of success, and I'll start with number one, change your mindset.  Number two, very simple, dream big, imagine who you could be, what you could have or do, then set goals clear, write them down, and make a detailed plan of action. Number three, and I like this one, make your decision to become rich, like it's all about the trend, make it, take control of a financial future, determine how much you want to earn and save exactly. Include this amount into your goals and think about them all the time. You need it in Nigeria. Number four, manage your life. You need to take responsibility for every single thing that happens in your life.  Number five, and please dear Nigerian, take this seriously, do your job superbly. Set a goal to do your job in the best possible way, identify the key skills you need to master, and then use your name in your work. Give your professional level every day, and this is so important as far as if you plan to jack back. Number six, put people on the first place. Create and maintain stable relationships based on trust with the most important people in your line of business constantly, and also regularly expand the range of your contacts. This is so important, cannot be underestimated in this 2022 before election. Number seven, give freedom to your mental strength. Your ability to generate new ideas has no limit to any digital age, therefore your future is also not limited by anything. I want you to also take number eight, think from a position of opportunity. There's so much opportunity that's going to happen in Nigeria now, learn to see potential benefit in everything that happens around you. You can develop such thinking by constant repetition. Number nine, create your own future. The most successful people will carefully plan their lives in advance. As a result, they think more freefully and make the best decisions. We all create ourselves. We all need to work constantly on ourselves, raise the bar for self-improvement. Only systematic and active actions need to success. And I would say, at the end of the day, no one is exactly sure what the year is really bringing. And the only place you may have some control is over yourself. So what I'm saying today, choose to become a better citizen and a better person. You may just be creating a chain of events that can create a better society. Happy elections ahead of all of us. Happy elections. Well, for me, looking at all that you've said, the summary to read all this, take charge of your life. Exactly. Be responsible. That's it. I'm sorry to say, well, let me just ask rather than say it faster. How responsible are we as individuals, Nigerians? And how much charge have we taken of our life? It's easier for us to blame the easiest culprit, which is the government, for everything that happens to us. Even when we wake up, we know that there's always traffic in our homes, on our roads. And who take us two hours with traffic to get to wherever we are going. We wake up one hour at a time, we get to work, and we blame governments. And the thing is, we know that this is the current state in which we are. It's like someone who, maybe a leper or someone who doesn't have legs, blaming, complaining every time. When you already know your condition. There's a Euradij that says, what's that Euradij again? That says, something about... Okay, Euradij, so tell me about the barrel. For one, even for one about Kanokilin, in Lehmman. Lehmman, exactly. You have a lot of time to read that. So I think what you're saying, which I agree with totally, is that, yes, there's inconsistency, there's failure, there is everything going wrong with governments. Yes, that is the fact. But we've known this for many years now. We need to look for a way to manage it and get ourselves out of it. You know, funny enough, this just reminds me of the fact that just before we started, I said, this year's my year, wow, man. You know what I'm saying? The truth is that, I would like to, you know how, every day, everywhere I have been inundated, I think you'll love it. There's been so much fear and anxiety and so much that we don't know about. And then, you know, the first thing that hit us in January was the election calendar. And it's February 2023. And I think there's some things that have even come up this year. So I kept on asking myself that, what are we actually going to do? What is my own role in this whole space? And I decided that I was not going to be one of those people that are going to sit down and continue to forget that fear. I don't care how it is. So there's going to be solutions to whatever it is that is ailing us as a people. There's going to be a way, and maybe because I do a lot of other things that look at how people are going to even leave the country. And it's come up daily that even Jackmine is not exactly a solution without proper planning. So why are we going to sit down here talking about how it's more working? And even in the process of Jackmine, a lot of people are wasting away because they are planning to Jackmine. But in the meantime, you wake up, see the government and you get there and you have to start struggling and realize it's not as rosy as you think it is. I mean, just to add on that line of thought, if you want to actually Jackmine, you must actually be equipped like she mentioned. You must be equipped.  Even worse. Even worse. Because someone said Lisa didn't mind you. It's still going to be a Lisa did in Canada. It's not going to be a Lisa did also. You have to change. Because I mean, on that issue, I remember that there's a tweet that was a particular show that was on Instagram, I think by one of these very popular women. And then the guy was talking about how, he now said talking about how you need your credit rating, you need to put it down. I saw seven pages. I said, my goodness, you mean it is this difficult? And then people don't realize that you are paying for air, light, everything. And people don't. So the system works, but the system only works because people are paying. So that's why taxes are very high. And it compels you to be responsible. Responsible, exactly. No, it naturally does. It's a culture that you don't and not naturally. So it just means that if you're a more responsible person in Nigeria, you have a better chance of living a better life. That's just it. But I think to add to what you said, I was thinking maybe if I was going to add number 10, it would be accountable. So if you have great accountability partners, people that could help you with, especially in this new year, you're likely going to do better than you did last year. True. True.  And someone is somewhere out on the bridge. And he's just wondering about what am I going to do tonight. From a different perspective, yeah. I think it's also important that we hold this accountable. People are the hem of affairs. Right? These nine things, as you said, someone that is in government should be thinking about it because if they were thinking about it, then we'd have good roads and all of this things. Because if you think about it, I mean, I could dream big because I'm not worried about food. I'm not worried about clothing. I can buy what I want. They can't dream big. So I mean, on the side of the other divide, it's also important that if the government does what they should do, people that are trying to feed tonight will not be thinking about that. You know, I mean, it's a much slow hierarchy of needs.  So this is me just fighting for those group of people and saying that everybody has to be held accountable. You know one thing I've seen, I mean, I don't know what you want to say, but one thing I've seen is that in every crime in different societies, poverty or gaps or needs create different reactions.  So that person at a joint leg back actually can't decide that, you know, this is what I this situation here. What kind of person do I want to be? Do I want to get equipped enough to get into governance or something? We don't actually look at a systemic way of changing governance. And even in addition to that, that person in the U.S. government needs to be made to know that so many people have stayed under U.S. government. Yes. And if come on, so what do they do? That's why we need inspiration. And that's why, you see, I always tell people that governments have failed. Why have they failed? No, hold on. What if you accept that? No, it's not. I refuse to accept that. No, the bottom line. Why can't you make things work? Okay, you refuse to accept that. What are you doing? What are you doing about this? No, I'm doing something for my space. I'm just saying that. And that's the problem. We need to do more than others. You see? You know, some people are helplessly helpless. No. I refuse to admit that. I am in this space. I am in this space. That's all. I know what you're saying. It's not possible. You might have discovered yourself. Never. Never. Never. I don't think we'll agree. Anyway, I mean, that's what I'm interested in, Banta, that we had there. All you want to hear today is next. Stay with us.