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  • this one's particularly complicated so because with Piaget you enter a whole

  • new domain of of axiomatic thinking that's the right way to think about it

  • say each of these people that were discussing each of these theories comes

  • out the construction of the world from a different perspective and it's it's

  • really fundamentally different it's different way deep down at the level of

  • fundamental assumptions and so Piaget who's a who's probably the world's most

  • famous developmental psychologist but although he didn't consider himself a

  • developmental psychologist he considered himself a genetic epistemology and what

  • that meant was that he was interested in Paestum ology which is how knowledge

  • structures work and genetic means formulation of and so he was interested

  • in how children formulate their knowledge structures in the world and he

  • was a constructivist because he believed that human beings construct the they

  • don't only construct the representations of the world and it's deeper than that

  • it's more like they construct the world itself now it depends to some degree on

  • what you think of as the world and of course that's so there's a reality

  • definition issue that's nested at the bottom of this and it's a very complex

  • one and so I'm going to have to walk you through it piece by piece now Piaget was

  • a genius he was he wrote a paper I believe on mollusks when he was ten and

  • had it published in a scientific journal and he was offered the curatorship of a

  • museum as a consequence of that and his parents had to write the museum

  • directors and tell them that he couldn't curate the museum because he was only

  • ten and so that gives you some idea about Piaget and he's published many

  • many many books and many of them haven't been translated into English yet and so

  • he was quite the he was quite the you know large intelligence creature and he

  • studied all sorts of things so I'm gonna tell you a little bit about

  • constructivism I'm gonna start with a quote from Piaget and it's uh it's he's

  • some book some of his books I found quite straightforward and some of them

  • very difficult and I think it's often because of the quality of the

  • translation this happens to be a relatively difficult section I don't

  • think it's translated that well but whatever we're going to go through it

  • I'll explain it to you a little bit so Piaget said the common postulate that's

  • assumption of various traditional epistemology

  • theories of valid knowledge is that knowledge itself is a fact

  • and not a process and then if our various forms of knowledge are always

  • incomplete and our various science is still imperfect that which is acquired

  • is still acquired and can therefore be studied statically hence the absolute

  • position of the problems what is knowledge or how are the various types

  • of knowledge possible under the converging influence of a series of

  • factors we're tending more and more today to regard knowledge as a process

  • more than a state any being or object that Sciences attempts to hold fast

  • dissolves once again in the current of development it is the last analysis of

  • this development and of it alone that we have the right to state it is a fact

  • what we can and should then seek is the law of this process quotes we are well

  • aware on the other hand of the fine book by kuhn on scientific revolutions now

  • there is an awful lot of information in that paragraph so we'll unpack it a

  • little bit before we go on now one way of looking at science is that it's a

  • collection of facts right that's that's what Piaget is stating to begin with and

  • that we assume that the facts that science has gathered are facts and

  • Static but if you observe them across time what you find is that scientific

  • facts tend to shift and transform because scientific theories that are

  • applicable in one century let's say turn out to be less applicable in the next

  • now there's been a lot of argument and discussion about this because the fact

  • that facts change seems to indicate that they're not so self-evidently fact and

  • there are people and perhaps Kuhn would be among them who believe that science

  • consisted of the juxtaposition of paradigms so those are sets of axioms

  • within which something operates and the paradigms he considered them often in

  • commensurate you couldn't move from one to another because the axioms were

  • different there was no necessary no what what might you say there was no

  • necessary means of communication between them but and and and Piaget knew of

  • Thomas Kuhns work that's the scientists structure of scientific revolutions

  • which was published in 1962 it's a classic text in the philosophy of

  • science and and what Piaget soon more was more like a I would say

  • more like a classic view of science where so for example when Newton came up

  • with Newtonian physics there was a set of propositions upon which Newtonian

  • physics was based and then when Einstein transformed those propositions what

  • happened was that Newtonian physics became a subset of Einsteinian physics

  • and so the way that Piaget looked at the development of factual ideas at least in

  • part was that you'd come up with a set of ideas that were facts and then that

  • would be superseded by a different theory within that within which that

  • original theory would be nested and so that what happens that each theory in

  • some sense although it transforms it becomes more complete as the scientific

  • progression continues now Kuhn didn't precisely believe that although exactly

  • what Kuhn meant by a paradigm shift because Kuhn originated that term isn't

  • clear but he didn't seem to actually believe that science had this capacity

  • to present a series of facts and then alter the underlying presuppositions and

  • then to nest that within a broader series of facts like you would assume if

  • you were thinking about the relationship between Newton and Einstein

  • so Newtonian physics is a subset of einsteinium physics so now that's kind

  • of how Piaget thought about how human beings developed knowledge he believed

  • that we came up with well let's say you wanted to chop down a tree that might be

  • a good example I mean you could use a dull axe made of bronze and it's like

  • well that would chop down the tree it'd be a lot of work though and then maybe

  • you replace that with a sharp steel axe that's designed like a wedge so that you

  • can really hack down a tree with it or maybe you replace it with a saw and so

  • the it's not like the bronze axe could chop down the tree but the steel axe can

  • do a better job in the saw can do even a better job and so the way that Piaget

  • thought about the transformation of human knowledge structures from from

  • infancy onward essentially was that infants would produce a representation

  • of the world that was sort of low resolution but quite tool like it would

  • work in the world but then as they progressed the nature of those tools

  • would become refined that sometimes transform completely so some sometimes

  • imagine that a child would use in a sense a low resolution picture of

  • something and then they would increase its resolution

  • as they filled in the details that would be assimilation that's the page idea

  • notion of assimilation you're using the same basic theory but filling in the

  • details and then now and then you'd have to switch to another picture entirely

  • and that would be more like accommodation that's where you'd have to

  • transform your internal structures completely in order to properly

  • represent an act within the world and so that's the basic difference between

  • accommodation and assimilation so assimilation is like micro alterations

  • and accommodation is transformation of the knowledge structure itself and so

  • that's part of so what khun pointed out was that there'd be a set of facts and

  • then there'd be an anomaly arise of some sort so like at the end of the 19th

  • century the only remaining anomaly was at least one of the remaining anomalies

  • was that no matter which direction you shine a light beam in and no matter how

  • fast the platform on which you're standing is moving the light beam has

  • exactly the same velocity which seems impossible so you know if the earth is

  • moving this way around the Sun and you shine a light off the earth you'd expect

  • the speed of light to be the speed of light plus the speed of the earth and

  • then if you shone it the other way then you'd expect the speed of light to be

  • the speed of light - the earth speed but that isn't what happens no matter how

  • fast the platform on which the person shining the light is standing the speed

  • of light is always the same to every observer so and people kind of thought

  • of that as that wasn't the only anomaly but that was one of them

  • thought of that is the only anomaly left in physics at the end of the 19th

  • century and turned out that was a bad one how long there was some other ones

  • as well like the fact that light tends to behave as a wave and a particle more

  • or less at the same time which doesn't seem possible so there's a couple of

  • things left over in Newtonian physics that the Newtonian physics couldn't

  • explain but by the end of the 19th century there were famous scientists

  • saying yeah well we got this all wrapped up there's really nothing left to

  • discover and then Along Came quantum mechanics and Einstein Yin relativity

  • and bang the whole world was like really different and quantum mechanics is much

  • more comprehensive theory of the world then Newtonian physics all of the

  • electronics you used wouldn't work if quantum physics wasn't correct roughly

  • speaking and so that little tiny anomaly blew into something that knocked the

  • slats out underneath from underneath the entire axiomatic structure of Newtonian

  • physics it showed it was wrong at its fundamental levels

  • even though it turned out to be a subset a correct subset of something that was

  • much broader and so you can kind of think of that as that's what kids are

  • doing as they progress they develop a theory that accounts for a certain set

  • of you could say fact but this is another place it gets tricky and then

  • they modify those and make them more and more refined but now and then they have

  • to under grow quite a transformation not be a stage transition in Piaget and

  • thought that that's the stage transition idea and that would be akin in some

  • sense to a kuhnian scientific revolution now what Piaget is trying to state here

  • is that because you there's this weird problem with facts which is that they

  • tend to transform across time you know like if you go take a biology course

  • right now in 20 years pretty much everything you read you learned or very

  • much of what you learned will turn out to have been wrong and that's kind of

  • weird because it isn't wrong right now and you think well how can it be wrong

  • in 20 years and that that's a really complicated problem and in order to

  • solve that you kind of have to think about facts like tools instead of them

  • as thinking about them as objective independent realities because a bad tool

  • can still work as a tool whereas a bad fact just kills you stone dead and so

  • there's any ways in any case that seems to be a completely unnecessary phenomena

  • Oh God there's no reason for that that's just

  • sheer spite as far as I can tell mm-hmm okay so so here's one of psays

  • propositions and and it is that because facts flux in some sense across time

  • you're looking for something that doesn't change across time to call it a

  • real fact and so what Piaget is trying to point out in this let's call it

  • introductory paragraph is that the one thing that doesn't change is the manner

  • in which people generate facts rather than the facts themselves so the

  • ultimate fact is a fact about the way people generate facts all right and so

  • psays theory in part is a is a theory about how knowledge is acquired and

  • transformed and so it's not that no it's not a study of the knowledge itself it's

  • a study of the process by which the knowledge is generated and he believed

  • that that process was unchanging at least with regards to human beings and

  • so you could think of the Piaget alien genetic epistemological mystery as being

  • how is it that people form and transform representations of the world and one of

  • his conclusions about that is that there's a standard process and then the

  • reason that I'm telling you about Piaget right now is because as far as I can

  • tell the standard Piaget daeun description of the manner in which

  • knowledge is acquired and transformed is the same thing that's represented in the

  • mythology of the shamanic transformation which is that there's a state of being

  • and then it's derp up disrupted by something chaotic and there's a

  • disintegration period and that's the space between the stage transitions for

  • for children in which time they're often upset because their little theory about

  • the world isn't learning it isn't working anymore

  • and then in that chaotic period they adjust themselves to new anomalies and

  • anomalies or what occur when you act in the world and what you want to happen

  • doesn't happen right because that means there's something wrong with your

  • knowledge structure if you act and then something happens you don't want to

  • happen something's wrong with the way you're representing the world or you

  • could say something's wrong with the world but good luck with that although

  • you know people can modify the world as well as modifying their belief

  • structures and people do that a lot but so this the piagetian stage transition

  • as far as I can tell is a micro case of the broader idea of the the existence

  • an orderly state its dissolution into a chaotic state because something

  • unexpected has occurred and then it's retransfer Meishan into a more

  • integrated state now Piaget would say well the initial state and the chaotic

  • state and the final state aren't the ultimate realities the ultimate reality

  • is the process of moving through those stages and that's how people acquire

  • knowledge and that's you could say that's the central element of human

  • beings and I would say that's a that's another reason Tatian of the hero myth

  • because the hero is the person who notes uh normally notes something that's

  • changed that's outside of explored territory encounters it defeats it let's

  • say or get something of value from it and then recasts it into the world

  • shares it with the community restructures of the world and so that's

  • the central story it's it's not the central story of human beings but it's

  • it's close enough for for our purposes at the moment so okay so that's what

  • Piaget is about how do human beings encounter

  • the world and and what happens when they do that now the thing about the world

  • for Piaget is it's also a complicated place it's not exactly the set of it's

  • not the set of all objective facts that remain to be discovered because Piaget

  • is a constructivist and he's more of a pragmatist than he is precisely a

  • scientific realist and so that's a complicated thing very very complicated

  • thing I don't know if any of you and maybe this is completely irrelevant I

  • don't know if any of you listened to my argument with Sam Harris but Sam Harris

  • is a scientific realist and I was trying to make at least in part at Piaget Ian's

  • point but he was having none of that that's for sure but but Piaget makes the

  • point and so you know I'm going to let him speak in some sense as we proceed

  • through this and and well you'll see why he does what he does so if all knowledge

  • is always in the state of development and consists in proceeding from one

  • state to a more complete and efficient one so that that implies a hierarchy of

  • states right that you move from one knowledge structure to the next one

  • which includes the previous one and is better and it's better because it covers

  • more territory that's how you know it's better it does the same thing the old

  • tool does plus some additional things so it's a definition of better it's a good

  • thing to have a definition of better and worse

  • all knowledge is always in the state of development and consists in proceeding

  • for one state to a more complete deficient one evidently it is a question

  • of knowing this development and analyzing it with the greatest possible

  • accuracy which is something I happen to agree with but that's partly because I

  • read Piaget and and I think I understand what he meant and he's quite the thinker

  • and so I'm gonna see if I can like clue you in a little bit about this because

  • it's it's well it's exceedingly complex you know and most of the time when

  • people talk about Piaget they just talk about his surface experiments they don't

  • talk about what he was actually up to and what he was up to was well he was

  • trying to figure out how people represent the world and learned and

  • that's not only it's not only that you know this is another thing people don't

  • know about Piaget is that he was trying to reconcile the chasm between science

  • and values that's what drove him through his entire intellectual life he was

  • attempting to bridge the gap between science and religion that's another way

  • of thinking about it and and that was explicit he knew that that's why he did

  • everything he did and so the thing that's so cool about Piaget I think is

  • that he actually started to provide what you might think about as a rational

  • basis for morality it's not exactly rational that's the thing because it's

  • rational rational belief like scientific realism has a certain set of

  • presuppositions at its core and Piaget doesn't use those presuppositions to

  • solve the problem get a problem so deep the gap between what is and what ought

  • to be that's the David Humes problem you can't derive a naught from it is just

  • because you know a bunch of things doesn't give you an unerring guide to

  • know what to do about those things there's a gap there and Harris and

  • people like him say that gap is illusory but most philosophers including David

  • Hume including Piaget these are heavy-duty people including Heidegger

  • would would disagree with that they don't believe that that that that gap is

  • non-existent and and and Harris believes that you can nest values within science

  • and and that's the proposition that he continually puts forward like most of

  • the so-called new atheists but it's a hell of a lot more difficult to do than

  • you think that's for sure and so anyway so how is Piaget purporting to manage

  • this well one thing he does is he for Piaget it's really important that you

  • have a body and that's one of the things that's four

  • cool about his thinking so you could think about him as an early exponent of

  • embodied cognition it's like he's not exactly a Cartesian a follower of

  • Descartes he doesn't really believe that you have a spirit or say a rational mind

  • that is in some sense separate from your body which is an implicit presupposition

  • of a lot of a lot of of philosophical claims Piaget really sticks you in your

  • body and the other thing that Piaget claims is that your abstract knowledge

  • is actually determined by the structure of your body and that it unfolds from

  • your body up into abstraction and that's what happens as infants transform into

  • adults first of all almost all their knowledge is embodied and what that

  • means is that it's not look there's a couple of different kinds of memory like

  • the most the most fundamental distinction you might think of is

  • between procedural representation procedural memory and and

  • representational memory so when you remember your past that little movie or

  • that runs in your head or maybe the facts that you can recite about your

  • past that's episodic memory that's

  • representational but procedural memory is different procedural memories how you

  • walk you don't know how you walk that's how you ride a bike it's how you play

  • the piano it's how you type so it's it's automatic right it's built into your

  • nervous system it's built into the nerves that innervate your musculature

  • and there's completely separate memory systems now one can represent the other

  • which is interesting the representational system can represent

  • the output of the body which is basically what you happen what happens

  • when someone tells a story even when you tell a story about your own life but the

  • contents of procedural memory precede the contents of representational memory

  • and they're shaped in different ways so for example part of the wisdom that's

  • encoded in your body is there because of things you've practiced but it's also

  • there because you've practiced things in a social environment and so while you

  • practice those things the effect of the social environment shaped the way you

  • learned it and that's encoded right in your neurons

  • it's not representational it's encoded in the way you do things it's encoded in

  • the way you smile when you look at someone or frown or when you do that and

  • that's all implicit it's not under your conscious control it's not even in that

  • system and so Piaget figured this out and so one of the things he said was

  • that you start as an infant by building your

  • cedral memory not your representational memory that's partly perhaps why you

  • can't remember your infancy you know I actually don't have that kind of

  • representational memory there what you do is you act you learn to act you build

  • your body so that it can move and you do that partly by experimenting with your

  • own body but you also do that by experimenting with your body in a

  • context that's shaped from the beginning by the presence of other people so for

  • example you know what child learns how to breastfeed its mouth is pretty wired

  • up right at birth hey and and the rest of its body isn't wired up very much at

  • all but its mouth is and you might think well that's just a reflex and that

  • Piaget would agree with that it's a built in it's something built in that

  • that a baby can do right at birth but even in the act of breastfeeding the

  • baby has to learn how to modify that reflex so that it gets along with its

  • mother so even at the very beginning with the most you might think the most

  • primordial acts there's a sociological and influence and there's a mutual

  • dynamic going on that's really really important it's really important and so

  • in some sense for Piaget the structure of society is implicitly built into the

  • structure of the procedural memory system and so one of the things you

  • might think about that and Piaget makes much of this because he looks at the

  • relationship between play and dreams and imitation so he's kind of a quasi

  • psychoanalyst one of the things that means is that coded in your behavior

  • coded in your behavior is is this is the social structure in which you emerged

  • and it's coded in a way that you don't actually understand you just know how to

  • act and then you can figure out how you're acting and you can extract out of

  • that some of the social rules but you don't you don't that doesn't mean that

  • you know the rules it meant that the rules were built into you here's the way

  • of thinking about it like a wolf pack wolf pack knows how to operate together

  • it knows how to hunt right and each wolf knows where every other wolf is in the

  • dominance hierarchy but they don't know they know that they don't have rules

  • right they don't have a code they don't have laws what they have is behavioral

  • regularities patterned behavioral regularities and those are like a

  • morality they're very very in fact that's exactly what they are a dominance

  • hierarchy of animal that aren't representational you know

  • that don't have language at least they don't have language the dominance

  • hierarchy is a kind of morality it's a way of it's a way of setting up

  • individual behavior within a social context to maximize cooperation and

  • minimize competition and so well so Piaget would say that you know the

  • origin of more and and Fran's de Waal who's a great primatologist by the way

  • Fran's fr ansd de w AAL he's written a lot of books about the emergence of

  • morality and chimpanzees in particular and you know he follows the same line of

  • logic it's that the morality emerges out of the interaction between the

  • chimpanzees and it's bounded by the necessity that the actions take certain

  • forms so for example if the chimpanzees act in a way that each of them kills

  • everyone else it's like that's the end of it

  • it's the end of the game so that's not a very functional morality it's it doesn't

  • produce survival of the individuals it doesn't produce flourishing of the

  • individuals certainly it produces extinction of the individuals and the

  • death of the group so as far as do all would concerned from an evolutionary

  • perspective that sort of mode of interacting is a dead end and so one of

  • Pia Jays claims implicit claims is that and this is one of the things that's so

  • brilliant about Piaget is that the interactions between people the social

  • interactions between people necessarily emerge within a kind of bounded space

  • and the space is the space of the game so we're always playing games always and

  • a game you might think about a game as a microcosm of the world and a small

  • child's game is a tiny fractional microcosm of the world but then you get

  • up into adult games and you could think about those maybe as multiplayer online

  • games that's one good representation but even more sophisticated things like

  • being a lawyer say are like working at McDonald's or any of those things those

  • are also forms of game and and that P and people negotiate the rules and that

  • game is nested inside sets of broader games and so for Piaget that the game

  • that killed the games the children play kind of transform inexorably and and and

  • what incrementally into the games that adults play and and a

  • a game that's playable as an adult is a functional game it's it's an acceptable

  • game and one of PJ's claims is that not only do people start playing games

  • unconsciously in a sense and implicitly then they start to play games more

  • consciously they actually they actually represent the games to some degree at

  • least in their actions then they start to learn the explicit rules of the game

  • but only later after they know how to play it and then at the highest stage of

  • moral development they start to realize that not only are they players of games

  • and followers of a rules but they're also producers of rules so it starts you

  • start out not being able to play a game at all then you can play a game with

  • yourself then you can play a game with a few other people then you can play

  • rule-governed games with lots of people and then you realize that you make the

  • rules and you can make new games and that's the highest level of moral

  • development according to Piaget it's varrick's brilliant it's it's bloody

  • brilliant he's the first person that I ever really encountered who was able to

  • put the notion of an emergent morality on something you know broadly

  • commensurate with a scientific perspective but you have to understand

  • that in order to do that he had to sacrifice a little bit of his notions of

  • scientific realism and that's what makes him a constructivist and so and so we're

  • going back to constructivism so he says at the beginning and this is the

  • beginning of the development of knowledge does not unfold itself as a

  • matter of chance but forms a development so he said there's not only do knowledge

  • structures change across time and they're embedded in the social world but

  • the manner in which they change across time actually has a bit of a structure

  • and so that would be the Piaget lien stages of development just so you know

  • now people have debated ever since Piaget proposed this if those

  • developmental stages are fixed and necessary and if he identified them

  • properly and even and as well whether or not they could be sped up which he

  • always called the American problem could you speed up these stages of development

  • and there's a lot of argument about whether those stages exist in the manner

  • that Piaget described there and whether they're fixed at all of that but that's

  • still the fundamental elements of his the fundamental element of his theory so

  • and in since the cognitive domain has an absolute beginning which means you were

  • you're here now but at one point you weren't so there was an absolute

  • beginning to to you as a phenomena it's to be studied at the very stages nor

  • known as formation that's his rationalization for being a genetic

  • epistemology right someone who studies the formation of knowledge structures

  • across time like an embryologist someone like that right who developmental

  • embryologist the first aim of genetic epistemology is therefore if one can say

  • so to take psychology seriously and to furnish verifications to any question

  • which each epistemology necessarily raises yet replacing the generally

  • unsatisfying speculative or implicit psychology with controllable analysis

  • and so basically what he's saying there is that you can guess in a sense like

  • Freud did about developmental psychology Freud kind of projected backwards from

  • his patients into the dim mists of childhood and came up with like a what

  • would a hypothetical developmental sequence and Piaget said well we're not

  • going to do that we're going to go run experiments on kids often individuals

  • but sometimes multiple individuals we're gonna we're going to observe exactly

  • what they're doing he watched his kids in their cribs for example unbelievably

  • intently and with great he was like an ethologist which is a person who studies

  • animal behavior observational II like Fran's de Waal he was like an ethologist

  • of children not exactly an experimental psychologist although also an

  • experimental psychologist and he more or less established the field of

  • developmental psychology so he said well let's empirically analyze how children

  • learn and then maybe we can figure out how this knowledge process unfolds and

  • we don't have to guess about it we can we can use controllable analysis and so

  • you could say he introduced scientific methodology even though he wasn't a

  • scientific realist he introduced scientific methodology into the study of

  • child development but more importantly into the study of how knowledge

  • structures unfold across time so he was a philosopher as well but a strange type

  • of philosopher because he was interested in how philosophy itself emerges in the

  • mind of the child and so that's what Piaget was up to and so quite quite

  • remarkable and he had incredibly wide range of interests befitting someone who

  • probably had an IQ of like 190 I mean he was seriously smart guy like way way

  • outside of the normal range and so this is the sort of questions he was trying

  • to answer well how do you on what do you base your judgments cuz you make

  • judgments about things better or worse well how how do you come up with that

  • ability how does that emerge and on what basis do you make the judgments

  • there's a famous ruling on pornography that I believe the Supreme Court of the

  • United States laid down and one of the justices wrote something that's become

  • infamous or famous depending on how you look at he said well I can't define

  • pornography but I know it when I see it and and that's and that's a notion of

  • the incomplete ability of the representational system to represent the

  • contents of implicit perception or the procedural system you can know that you

  • know something but you that doesn't mean you can describe why it doesn't mean you

  • can describe how you know it and you don't how do you focus your eyes like

  • you don't know how you focus your eyes you just focus them you know how do you

  • smile like this well maybe less ugly but you know you you can't describe how you

  • do it you can't describe the musculature you can represent the output of the act

  • and you can do it but you can't represent it and you're just stuffed

  • full of skills like that which is another example of the way that you're

  • way more complicated than your understanding of you you know one of the

  • things people often ask is how can we use the rat as a model of a person

  • because like you know a rats not much of a person depending of course on the

  • person but the the real answer to that is well compared to what like compared

  • to your understanding of a person a rat is an excellent model of a person so

  • it's not as good a model of a person as a person is but compared to imagination

  • let's say it's incomparably better and you know that's because we share like I

  • don't know what 98% of our genes or some damn thing with rats it's like it's

  • really up I think we share 90% of our genes with yeast for God's sake you know

  • and so we're a lot more rat-like than yeast like so and I think with chimps

  • it's over 99% you know so it's not a bad model obviously it's not perfect but it

  • always depends on what you compare it to you know and you hear animal rights

  • activists say things like well we can replace that with computer simulations

  • it's like no we can't because you can't simulate what you don't know or at least

  • not very well so that's a silly idea you know even though they have a point it's

  • not so great to torture animals to death and all

  • but what are his norms well that's a good question where do norms for

  • behavior come from you have norms when they're violated it annoys you doesn't

  • mean you know what your norms are but you do kind of get a sense of what they

  • are when they get violated that really upset me well what does that mean

  • well you don't really know you might have to think about that for like six

  • months why you got so upset about that but you can notice that you got upset

  • and that means that you do have expectations and norms let's say but you

  • don't know where they came from now obviously in part they came from your

  • intrinsic structure but also a core they're a consequence of your learning

  • but even more importantly they're our consequence of your learning in a social

  • environment so all of those phenomena which exceed your comprehension

  • determine the nature of your norms and often you only detect them when they're

  • violated so because why bother paying attention to something that works

  • you just don't know one does they take it for granted it's almost the

  • definition of something working it's like you know you think I'm driving my

  • car to school and you think you're in a car but you're really not in a car

  • you're in a thing that gets you from home to school and you can pretend that

  • that is so annoying you can pretend that

  • so you might think well the thing that I'm I'm in is it's kind of a weird

  • example is it is this object with objective qualities that you call a car

  • but but that isn't exactly how you actually perceive or act towards it what

  • happens is is that as long as it's doing what it's supposed to do which means

  • that its function is intact not what it is but its function then you can use a

  • really low resolution representation of the thing the car is just what gets you

  • from point A to point B right and so the fact that you don't understand the damn

  • thing at all is completely invisible to you but it isn't when it quits as soon

  • as it quits it becomes a car it's like bang car oh my god I don't understand

  • this thing at all now what do I do well you panic a little bit right

  • because well what do you know about your car nothing nothing nothing at all and

  • worse than that now the car has become an intersection between you and

  • whoever's going to fix your card so that introduces a whole bunch of human

  • elements into it like are they going to figure out what's wrong with it are they

  • going to rip you off is your car ever going to work again are you going to get

  • to work what's going to happen tonight so all of a sudden that thing that you

  • were in that was a car turns into this massive complex unbelievably complicated

  • thing and that's actually what it is your initial representation of it it's

  • like it's really low resolution it's like one bit and then bang it breaks

  • down and poof complexity complexity complexity everywhere and that

  • complexity that's what the world's made out if you remember we talked about

  • William James and that crazy nitrous oxide induced pseudo hippie poetry that

  • he was writing in the 1890s when he was talking about chaos

  • well that chaos that he was talking about out of which him order emerges

  • that's the same thing as that complexity that's hovering in the background and

  • children have to operate in a world that's actually that complex but they're

  • not smart enough and neither are you so they build partial representations that

  • sort of work and the parents scaffold them so the way children manage that's

  • like children they don't know anything but stay they're still alive so what's

  • up with that you know part of it is the child is laying out

  • one of its procedures in the world in accordance with its understanding and

  • something goes wrong what does the child do cry

  • right it defaults it defaults to this distress cry and what happens is the

  • adults move in with their superior skills and their enhanced understanding

  • and they mediate between the partial knowledge of the child in the actual

  • complex world and without the child that's why if you take your child to the

  • mall and just leave you know it doesn't take very long for them to get really

  • really really really upset you know depending on the child some of them

  • almost instantaneously you know one day I was in the Boston Airport with my

  • daughter she was about three and three and a half maybe and my son he was about

  • two and we were there to pick someone I was just packed and so I had them by the

  • hand you know and I were told my daughter a bunch if she ever got

  • separated from me in a crowd just to sit down immediately wherever she was or as

  • close there by it I would find her don't move well somehow I got separated from

  • them and I looked behind them and they weren't there and I found out later she

  • followed someone else who looked like me from behind and she I found her in about

  • three minutes you know which is a long time man if you're three years old at

  • that Airport she was sitting there like paralyzed you know but her brother was

  • with her he didn't care at all and the reason he didn't care is because as far

  • as he was concerned she was an adult but as far as she was concerned she was an

  • abandoned kid in an airport you know it was very hard on her and it's because

  • the you know she was protected from the complexity by her primordial

  • representations and my presence but as soon as my presence disappeared the

  • complexity came flooding back and just overwhelmed her that's chaos and

  • uncertainty and then she'd cry and the cry says help I'm out of my league I'm

  • drowning I'm drowning you know intervened and so that's how kids in

  • part can get along in the world with their incomplete knowledge

  • representations always huh also how you get along in the world because you're

  • incomplete beyond belief but you got all these other people around you in the

  • whole damn society filling in the gaps and so you walk around like you know

  • what you're doing but you don't you know you just hardly know at all you know if

  • you can fit into that system great you've got it on your side and you can

  • use it to fill the gaps that's also partly why people are so concerned with

  • maintaining their social identity like the real identity on

  • talking about some surface identity but you see because you have set up a set of

  • expectations and desires about how you want the world to unfold and you do that

  • within a social context and as long as your desires and the actions of the

  • community match which means you're at home roughly speaking as long as they

  • match you stay emotionally regulated you like that that's why you can stay calm

  • in here it's like your desires are being played out by everyone else because one

  • of your desires is that none of these crazy primate starts brandishing a knife

  • for example or even twitching or any of that sort of thing you don't want any of

  • that and if it starts happening it's like you get weary very quickly and

  • maybe you look and maybe you won't and maybe you'll freeze maybe you'll get the

  • hell out of there or maybe you'll get aggressive but that match has to

  • maintain itself intact or your entire nervous system gets dysregulated and the

  • reason for that is that as soon as that match is disrupted the underlying

  • complexity and chaos of the world reveals itself and so does your

  • inadequacy and then your body defaults into predator mode and and the fact that

  • you don't know anything and that everything is really complicated becomes

  • very evident to you very quickly and people hate that it's the worst thing

  • that can happen to them the bottom falling out of their world and so that

  • happens more when your fundamental presumptions about things are are

  • challenged and then you have to solve the problem of what constitutes a

  • fundamental presupposition you know how do you know which presupposition is

  • peripheral in which one central and you can tell in part because the more upset

  • you get about something the more central it is that that things about to your

  • entire structure of belief and that's one way of getting into that unconscious

  • structure of belief from a psychoanalytic perspective so what are

  • the things that happens to me for example as a therapist is I'll be

  • talking to my clients and they'll be talking about something difficult and

  • all of a sudden they'll cry and they often don't know why so I stopped them

  • right there it's like something went through your mind something happened and

  • the cry indicates that you've moved beyond your domain of competence out

  • into the unknown world all of a sudden into chaos what's that chaos what

  • exactly happened and people you know they're usually embarrassed that they

  • cry but often make remember what flitted through their mind

  • and it's a represent it's a it's some encounter with the chaos beyond their

  • conceptual systems that produces that emotional response and then we can dig

  • into that find out oh that's a trauma especially if it's more than a year -

  • how fold and those can be of various depths and profundity you know sometimes

  • they're so bad that the person just breaks down completely and they never

  • put themselves together you know that's when something's just walloped you it's

  • hit you right at the bottom of your axiomatic structures so to speak right

  • at the trunk but when you're doing therapy with people and you watch how

  • they respond emotionally you look for those tiny eruptions of negative emotion

  • and those are like holes in their conceptual structure and those have to

  • be sewed up by their man you in the process of dialogue you figure out okay

  • there was a bit of unexplored territory there that manifested itself it produced

  • an emotional response in you that indicates that you've reverted in some

  • sense to childhood that would be the Freudian interpretation now we have to

  • figure out what it was that that's in that hole what caused that tear and then

  • we have to go back and articulate it and analyze and study it until we can sew it

  • up and then and art and and get to the gist of it to make it into a adaptive

  • story and then you can leave it behind and it actually produces neurological

  • transformation as you do that the memories in some sense actually move

  • their psychophysiological location you could say their location in your psyche

  • but you can also note that the brain systems that are handling the memories

  • aren't the same so they're much more limbic they're way

  • lower and closer to the emotional centers when it's still raw trauma and

  • by the time it's fully articulated it's more represented in an articulated story

  • a causal story and that's partly why writing about emotional events actually

  • helps you overcome them so and it's possible that writing about how it is

  • that you overcome emotional events in general is actually the best kind of

  • therapy right not how do you solve a particular problem but how is it that

  • you orient yourself in the world so that you solve the class of the fact that

  • there are problems right that's that's the ultimate story and I think that's

  • the hero myth and I also think that that's the knowledge generating process

  • that Piaget is talking about you that's because you have you're constantly

  • overcoming problems in the world and the problems are that you don't know

  • enough to get what you want from the world and so you get that mismatch

  • mismatch there's you've got whole brain systems

  • that are designed to do nothing but detect that mismatch like crucial

  • central brain structures and we'll talk about that a lot when we get into the

  • into the physiology so all right how does on what does an individual basis

  • judgments water is norms how are they validated how do you know if you're

  • right about your norms what's the interest of such norms for the

  • philosophy of science in general that's a really tough one it's like well you

  • have norms and expectations as a human being and because of that they they have

  • a determining influence on the manner in which you conduct science so for example

  • here's one of the problems with a straight realist view so we could be

  • having a discussion and I could say well you know that tile is to the right of

  • that tile and then I could say well this brick is smaller than that brick and

  • then I could say you know the roof is white really quite white there and start

  • back there and like after about 20 statements like that you're just going

  • to want to slap me and the reason for that is that well those statements are

  • perfectly valid representations of fact but there's an infinite number of facts

  • and most of them are irrelevant and that's the thing that's the thing the

  • facts have to be relevant like if you come to a lecture and all the person

  • does is tell you irrelevant facts what happens you've been in lots of lectures

  • like that what happens when you start fantasizing about something that might

  • be more worthwhile you know or you go to sleep because your

  • brain is a lot smarter than you are it figures hell if all we're gonna get

  • exposed to here is an infinite infinite number of irrelevant facts we might as

  • well have a nap until something important happens so it's true it's

  • exactly how it works now this is gonna get big isn't that what happens next

  • No so okay so and then how does the fact that the child children think

  • differently affect our presumption of fact itself children live in the world

  • they think differently about the world but yet they survive and so well I

  • already mentioned a partial solution to that adults intercede you know around

  • the edges around the borders children do this all the time a so it's called

  • referencing and they do it two ways so for example if you're in a room with

  • your child maybe to wait and mouse runs across the child will orient to it watch

  • it track it that's pretty much unconscious and the mother let's say

  • will do that too and then the child looks at the mouse and then looks at the

  • mother and the reason is is because the child doesn't know what the mouse is and

  • so then it looks at the mother to read from the mothers face which is a

  • projection screen of emotions how to classify the mouse in terms of import

  • and if the mother is like all calm about it and gives the kid a pad it's like you

  • know okay whatever you know not a danger that's what the

  • mouse is first danger not danger it's way after that that it's a mouse

  • you think no it's a mouse to begin with it's like these things are not so

  • straightforward they are not so straightforward so anyways if the mother

  • climbs up on the table it has a screaming fit then the child's already

  • prepared because of this anomaly to be emotionally responsive the child looks

  • at the mothers face it's got terror on at the mouse child takes small danger

  • big danger it's like phobia phobia phobia now all kids that won't happen to

  • you because some are very emotionally robust but if they're very Charles very

  • high in neuroticism trait neuroticism the probability that they'll develop a

  • permanent semi-permanent fear of the mouse is extraordinarily high and that's

  • what should happen because the mother tells you what the mouse is and in the

  • face does it's a mouse it says safety danger and that's the first thing you

  • want to know about something is it safer is it

  • dangerous and that's a tricky one eh because whether something is safe for

  • dangerous is not exactly an objective fact there's a guy named JJ Gibson who

  • wrote a book called NACA logical approach to visual perception which I

  • would highly recommend and his claim in that book it's a real work of genius I

  • believe is that when you see when you walk towards a cliff you don't see a

  • cliff you don't see a cliff and infer danger what you see is a falling off

  • place and you infer cliff and you can tell that some of you have vertigo you

  • go up on the 26th floor out into balcony and it's like you don't want to go near

  • the edge maybe you feel like you're gonna throw yourself over because people

  • have that kind of what if what if I fell or what if I jumped over it's like stay

  • away from that it's like that perception of the danger precedes your perception

  • of the balcony and the object now you know that's how your brain is wired the

  • dangers first object second so in people with blind sight who I've talked about

  • before who think they're blind they can't see then they tell you that they

  • could still detect fearful faces and you could detect their detection by

  • measuring their skin conductance and so their eyes are mapping right on to their

  • fear and reflex systems without any intermediary of objective perception

  • whatsoever so don't be thinking that what you see in the world is the

  • objective world and then infer its meaning it could easily be exactly

  • backwards and it looks like if you look at how the brain is set up that it is in

  • fact actually backwards or at least parallel but but the but the danger not

  • danger perception has to be very very very very fast and so it precedes the

  • more elaborate cognitive interpretations even the perceptions because it actually

  • takes a while to see something because it's really complicated to see something

  • and so you can't just wait around to see the damn thing before you act you just

  • not fast enough so they say if you're a pro tennis player the time it takes the

  • ball to leave your opponent's racket to get to you is not long enough for you to

  • plan any motor act so what you're doing is you've got them what you dis inhibit

  • the motor act by looking at the stance of your opponent and watching and by the

  • time they hit it you're already prepared for the response because you just not

  • it's coming at 120 miles an hour it's like it's going fifty feet you don't

  • have the reflexes for it so your your your eyes are making

  • body ready without in some sense without your conscious perception you become

  • conscious if you make a mistake right in fact that's kind of what consciousness

  • is for it's like detect error fix detect error fix

  • that's consciousness it's not plan what you're going to do next although it's

  • not that simple either other problems that Piaget was trying to address well

  • what water numbers what does it mean for there to be space what what do we mean

  • when we when we talk about time how do we how did we come up with that concept

  • what does speed mean how do we know an object is permanent how do we know that

  • an object stays the same across sets of transformation so that's a very classic

  • piagetian problem so let's say you give a kid a bowl of clay and then you crush

  • it so it's now a cylinder is like is that the same thing or is it a different

  • thing and the answer is well it's the same thing and it's a different thing

  • but there's something about it that remained constant across the

  • transformations and so one of the things that Piaget is trying to figure out is

  • what remains constant across transformations because you might think

  • about that is a real fact protons are like that right they remain constant

  • across transformations and so we assume that they're pretty damn real and they

  • last I don't know how long protons last it's like I don't know what it is it's

  • some tens of billions of so don't worry your protons are going to just sit right

  • there and behave you know so they last for a very very very long time across

  • sets of transformation so we can regard them as real he was interested in why

  • children play and why there are patterns in play and how that's related to dreams

  • and he was really interested in the fact that we imitate other people and this is

  • another part of Piaget staggering genius in my estimation because he was one of

  • the early developmental thinkers who understood that our capacity for

  • learning was not so much mediated by language as it was mediated by our

  • capacity to use our bodies to represent the bodies of other people and that's

  • mind-boggling it's a mind-boggling idea so you know you hear monkey-see

  • monkey-do but it's actually not true they're not very good at imitating

  • octopuses or octopi they can imitate actually so if you give a octopus a

  • bottle with a cork in it and there's a crab in the cork it can figure out how

  • to get out the cork and sneak out the crab but if you get an octopus to watch

  • it our octopus do that it'll learn to do it

  • faster those things are smart and that's partly that's because they're all

  • tentacley right and so they actually have something they can do something

  • with like our hands there's our tentacles you know an octopus I can

  • operate in the world because they have tentacles and and you know you hear

  • about the superhuman intelligence of things like dolphins and whales it's

  • like ya know they're basically test tubes you know what what are we gonna do

  • now tap a city it's like no they're not gonna do that

  • they can't manipulate the world so whatever their intelligence is it's way

  • different than ours okay imitation so partly what you're doing all the time is

  • imitating other people all of you are imitating each other right now

  • you can tell because look around you're all doing exactly the same thing so it's

  • it's mass imitation and that's really a huge part of social structure is that

  • we're constantly imitating each other and so that means that your body and her

  • body are very much matched physiologically right now you're in the

  • same state and you can tell because you basically have the same expression and

  • as long as all you crazy primates violent primates have the same

  • expression on you can pretty much be sure that all of you are thinking and

  • about to do approximately the same thing and so you can keep that match between

  • your desire slash expectation and reality happening and that's why we have

  • a face it's so that other people know what the hell we're up to and that's why

  • you're always watching people's faces because you want to see what they're up

  • to and that's why you have white surround your iris gorillas don't and so

  • that's because I can see exactly where your eyes are pointing because they're

  • highlighted by that white and I'm unbelievably good at detecting the

  • precise direction of your gaze and so if you stand on the corner and look up the

  • buildings other people will stand beside you and look up because they think well

  • that guy would be standing there pointing his eyes into the sky unless

  • there was something of interest to a primate like me and so this classic

  • social psychology experiment you'll get people gathered around trying to figure

  • out what the hell it is that you're pointing your eyes at right because that

  • indicates intense interest interest in something valuable that I might be able

  • to share partake in if I can figure out what it is that you're up to and so all

  • your ancestors who didn't have nicely defined eyes they all got killed or they

  • didn't mate and that's why you have these beautiful white eyes

  • with this like colorful iris in the middle it's so that people

  • can tell what the hell you're up to and they're more likely to cooperate with

  • you more likely to mate with you and less likely to kill you which is you

  • know probably a good thing all things considered and so you know if you look

  • at the same thing that someone else is looking at you're imitating them and one

  • of the things that's interesting is that if you're looking at the same thing that

  • someone else is looking at and you would have at the same value structure then

  • your emotional responses are going to be very much akin to one another and you

  • can tell that when you go to a movie and you watch the hero and you embody the

  • hero while you're doing so and the emotions that you produce inside of you

  • by imitating the hero on the screen enable you to figure out what the hero

  • is going through and you can learn from that and so that's a very complex form

  • of imitation and we do that when we tell stories or we watch stories and those

  • stories are really complicated because as we already outline they're not just

  • factual representations of someone's action during a day their

  • representations of the important things that the person did the meaningful

  • things and so when you go see a movie all you're doing is watching meaningful

  • things if the movies any good and you know that because well if the movie

  • isn't meaningful well then you leave your board right it's and the fact that

  • it's meaningful is what keeps you in the seat and you don't necessarily know why

  • in fact you often have no idea why it's meaningful

  • it's like watching Pinocchio rescue is farther from a whale it's like what the

  • hell you know how I is that meaningful well you don't know but it is so moral

  • concerns well we already talked about Piaget is concerned about morality oh

  • boy this is really not good

  • okay here's a proposition constructivist proposition knowledge does not begin in

  • the eye by by which he means they're kind of two ways of looking at the world

  • there's more but we'll start with that one is is that all of your knowledge

  • comes from outside sense data okay and now that's kind of a behaviorist claim

  • and before that it's a it's an empiricist claim and then the other

  • ideas no that can't be right because you have internal structures that enable you

  • to look at the world and interpret it and so and and some of those might be

  • implicit axiomatic like the fact that you have two eyes and you look at the

  • outward into the world and that you can hear and that you can touch it's like

  • the fact of those senses isn't dependent on the empirical reality for those

  • senses to manifest themselves they're already built into you and people like

  • Kant for example made the proposition that we had a priori knowledge

  • structures and that we use them to interpret the world and so it's

  • different than him it's different than empiricism and so what

  • Piaget is saying well it's neither of those are right exactly it's not like

  • you will learn everything from the world through your senses and it's not as if

  • you project everything onto the world as interpretation it's something in-between

  • and it's a dynamic it's a dynamic and so and it's like bootstrapping

  • that's the right way to think about it you know when your computer boots up

  • that means bootstrapping its off and then a bunch of simple

  • processes occur and then out of those simple processes some more complex

  • processes emerge and then out of those some more complex processes emerge and

  • all of a sudden your computer is there well that's kind of what Piaget thinks

  • happens to you you bootstrap yourself and so you have got a couple of reflexes

  • to begin with like the sucking reflex for example and you've got some

  • proclivities like maybe you can sort of flip your hand or or you develop that

  • and you have reflexes so you know if you blow on a baby for example a baby you'll

  • go like this it's built into it it's like an it's a it's a startle reflex

  • essentially so that startle reflex is there right from the beginning so whole

  • body reflex and you know if you stroke the bottom of their feet their feet will

  • sort of curl up and if you put your finger in their hands even a newborn if

  • you put your finger in their hands you can lift them right up and it's sort of

  • well clinging ape you know because chimpanzee infants

  • cling to their mother for like five years and so without reflux is still

  • there so the kid comes into the world born with these simplistic low

  • resolution procedures that enable it to get a foothold on the world and then out

  • of that the child emerges and that's so the constructivist idea is that well it

  • isn't like you have your heads full of fully developed axiomatic structures and

  • it isn't that you get all your knowledge from the world it's that you have a bit

  • of structure there to begin with that gives you a toehold on the world and

  • then you act in the world and as you act you generate information and out of that

  • information you make the structures inside of you and you make the world

  • that's a constructivist idea is that you take whatever's there this tremendous

  • complexity and you sort it into you and the world and so and so that that goes

  • back to that William James idea about that initial chaos and it's a hard

  • conflict it's a hard hard concept to grasp because that isn't really how we

  • think you know we think that there's an objective world and there's a subjective

  • world and that the objective world is just there and the subjective world is

  • maybe a subset of that but that is not piagetian presupposition it's not a

  • presupposition of phenomenologist sin general who we'll talk about later

  • but so here's one example of how to think about this in a sense it's like

  • you know you think as Piaget said you kind of think that your representations

  • of the world are fixed so we'll go back to the you're in a long-term

  • relationship and the person betrays you a scenario right so you've been with

  • this person 10 years you assume fidelity and faithfulness and honesty and all of

  • that you you weave a shared narrative you both inhabit that it structures your

  • existence and regulates your emotion then you find out that the person has

  • not only betrayed you once but multiple times it's like okay what you thought

  • isn't what happened but here's the weird thing you see because you interpreted

  • the world obviously within the confines of that relationship and you hadn't you

  • know obviously you had an interpretation but there was also a world that's the

  • world you thought you lived in it's like those were facts well all of a sudden

  • those aren't facts they're not at all facts and so what happens that's that

  • descent into the underworld it's like all of a sudden what happens is that

  • past that you thought was fixed now becomes this weird mixture of fantasy

  • because you're wondering what what what what is it that happened then and you're

  • gonna run through all sorts of fantasies some of them are gonna be really dark

  • you know really dark about what happened in the state of the world and all that

  • and those are unconscious fantasies and that's mingled inextricably with the

  • world right because you don't know the facts anymore which kind of suggests

  • that maybe you never did know them and that's pretty strange thing because you

  • know you're operating as if you've got this factual representation of the world

  • but it can be upended like that and so that makes you think well what about

  • these facts like they're kind of they're kind of hard to get a handle on you know

  • and you see this a lot in court room in courtroom situations because of course

  • what the court decides is what happened and the answer is we don't exactly know

  • because you can keep making the context of interpretation wider and wider so you

  • know maybe you bring your partner to court because they've betrayed you let's

  • say and you're trying to get a divorce settlement predicated on that but then

  • they tell a bunch of stories about how you were just as miserable as you could

  • possibly be and that anybody with any sense would have betrayed you and never

  • told you about it because you know that's just what a normal sensible

  • person would do and so then the question is well were you actually betrayed and

  • if you were well who was it that betrayed you was that your partner was

  • it you or is it your bloody mother or your father who taught you act that way

  • or who didn't teach you it's like it's a hell of a thing because you can just

  • keep altering the interpretive context and within it the facts shift around and

  • then you might say well they're not facts it's like yeah yeah you can say

  • that but it's it's more complicated than that by a large margin

  • anyways so PJ's notion is essentially that well this is how I interpret it

  • this is sort of this is my thinking in some sense but I'm offering it to you as

  • a scheme for helping you understand Piaget it's like junior Rome Bruner

  • famous famous cognitive psychologist said we seem to have no other way

  • of describing live time SEP except in the form of a narrative and a narrative

  • as far as I could tell I think this is the same thing as one of PS J's

  • knowledge representations as far as I can tell there's a representation of you

  • and there's a representation of the future and there's behaviors that you

  • use to transform one into the other and so when Piaget talks about so this is

  • kind of where the mind meets the body that that's how it looks to me it's like

  • you have a conception of you and you have something you're aiming at you want

  • to have happen those are both representations but when

  • you act in the world those aren't representations anymore those are

  • actually actions and some of mine transforms into body when you act out

  • your notion and that's that's sort of how the mind is linked to the body as

  • far as I can tell and so what Piaget says is that the behaviors are built

  • before the representation and so we're going to take a look at that so here's

  • here's a Piaget a notion of assimilation and accommodation whereas other animals

  • cannot alter themselves except by changing their species

  • so that's through Darwinian means right so what happens is a bear is a kind of

  • solution to a set of problems and they're the problems that the bear's

  • environment presents and the bear is just a bear so it's sort of like bears

  • were ten thousand years ago and the only way the bear can solve a new problem

  • basically is by generating new random bears which is what it does wouldn't

  • reproduce us and hoping that one of those more random bears is a better fit

  • for whatever random change might occur in the environment that's the whole

  • Darwinian issue right you can't predict which way the environment is going to go

  • and so what you do is you take your structure and you vary it and you throw

  • those out into the world and some animals do that expensively so they have

  • infants that they have to program to that specific environment but it takes a

  • lot of investment and some creatures do that cheaply like mosquitoes it's like

  • they don't care for their kids but they have a million of them so like who cares

  • if nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety eight die there's

  • still twice as many of you as there were so those are two different reproductive

  • strategies and you could think about all those mosquito offspring as new mosquito

  • ideas in embodied form and most of them are bad ideas and so the environment

  • just wipes them out Opia Jays point is we do the same thing

  • with our cognitive structures and that's the thing that's so interesting about

  • people in some sense that we've internalized the Darwinian problem and

  • so when you think about the future what you're doing is generating a

  • multiplicity of potential environments and then you're generating a sequence of

  • avatars of yourself to live in those fictional futures and then you watch

  • what happens as that Avatar lives in each of those those fictional futures

  • and if the Avatar fails you don't act that out it's bloody brilliant it's

  • brilliant that's what our brain does it's like it

  • hypothesizes potential futures it runs simulations and it kills them and that

  • can be really painful but it beats the hell out of dying yourself or maybe

  • sometimes you won't think so because it really can be painful but it's it's it's

  • something that as far as we know only human beings can really do right we

  • invent possible futures and invent possible future selves and kill them off

  • in our imagination and that's what you're doing in an argument that's what

  • an argument is it's like well here's an avatar a representational avatar you

  • know that's based on certain axioms and all articulated and you articulate yours

  • and we'll have them have a fight in which everyone survives we'll accept as

  • true and we'll move forward and act that out and you know arguments can be pretty

  • damn intense but hypothetically they're not as intense as acting out a stupid

  • idea that's the thing right better to have some conflict and reach resolution

  • in an abstract sense than to embody your stupidity and die and so you know it's

  • sort of a trade-off between anxiety and and an annihilation or pain

  • whereas other animals cannot alter themselves except by changing your

  • species man can transform himself by transforming the world and construct

  • himself by constructing structures and these structures are his own they're not

  • eternally predestined either from within or from without also Piaget you know

  • he's well he's a constructivist he believes that there's something that

  • your biology brings to the table and and and sets up the parameters let's say

  • within which you can play games but within those parameters there's a very

  • wide range of games that you could play and so it's not a biological determinism

  • even though it's a biological framing and you can think about it like a chess

  • game you know let's let's assume that the rules of chess are biologically

  • determined just for the sake of argument you can still play a near infinite

  • number of chess games and so it's the same with you you come into the world

  • with a set of built-in axioms that's sort of your body and your nervous

  • system but you can play a very large number of games within that set of

  • frames and one of the things that's very interesting about that something that's

  • very mysterious to me is this is a game that I played before with students so

  • I'm gonna play it with you if you don't mind so we're gonna play a game you

  • ready okay you move first right exactly you don't know what to do right and

  • that's well that's so interesting because I basically made the

  • presupposition that you could do anything you're completely free and what

  • do you do you throw up your hands it's like you don't know what to do I'm so

  • free it's like free to do what well that's not freedom it's it's just

  • nothing but if I said well look what we're gonna do instead is when I move my

  • arm right you're gonna move your arm right so let's do that okay so I'm gonna

  • go like that you're gonna good and then I'll go like that and then we'll have a

  • little dance yeah yeah so you can play a game like that with it with a kid

  • instantly and they like that they've got that man and so I've got so I've got

  • some pictures of that I'll show you that in a bit but even a newborn baby you

  • stick out your tongue they can stick their tongue out back and now do you

  • think about that that's just absolutely mind-boggling that they can do that and

  • they really can they really do seem to be able to do that right at the moment

  • of birth and so you know you hear babies have no theory of mind it's like ah yeah

  • no they can imitate that's pretty bloody amazing man like you haven't seen robot

  • that can do that yet although there are robots now that you can teach by moving

  • their their arms you move their arms and then they'll do it and so you can

  • actually program them by moving them and then they'll just repeat it and so

  • they're getting damn close to imitation they're really getting close and then

  • look the hell out man because they're gonna be imitating each other as well as

  • us and they're gonna do it so fast you just won't be able to believe it so

  • that's coming the organism adapts itself by but materially constructing new forms

  • to fit themselves into those of the universe where as intelligence extends

  • this creation by constructing mental structures which can be applied to those

  • of the environment that's that there are winny an idea that I just mentioned you

  • know the guys that are building the autonomous cars like they don't think

  • they're building on Thomas cars they know perfectly well what they're doing

  • they're building fleets of mutually intercommunicating autonomous robots and

  • each of them will to be able to teach the other because their nervous system

  • will be the same and when there's ten million of them when one of them learned

  • something all ten million of them will learn it at the same time so they're not

  • gonna have to be very bright before they're very very very smart because us

  • you know we'll learn something you have to imitate it's like god that's hard or

  • I have to explain it to you and you have to understand it and then you have to

  • act it out we're not connected wirelessly with the same platform but

  • robots they are and so once those things get a little bit smart they're not going

  • to stop at a little bit smart for very long they're gonna be unbelievably smart

  • like overnight so and they're imitating the hell out of us right now too because

  • we're teaching them how to understand us every second of every day the net is

  • learning what we're like it's watching us it's communicating with us it's

  • imitating us and it's gonna know it already knows in some ways more about us

  • than we know about ourselves you know there's lots of reports already of

  • people getting pregnancy ads or ads for infants sometimes before they know

  • they're pregnant but often before they've told their families and the way

  • that that happens is the net is watching what they're looking at and inferring

  • with its artificial intelligence and so maybe you're pregnant that's just

  • tilting you a little bit right to interest in things that you might not

  • otherwise be interested in the net tracks that then it tells you what

  • you're at what you're after it does that by offering an advertisement so it's

  • reading your unconscious mind so well so that's what's happening so

  • all right so what's the motive for development dis equilibria

  • that's a Piaget lien term well this is a life is suffering idea it's like why

  • learn something cuz you're wrong who cares it makes you suffer you care so

  • you know if you run out a little scheme in the world a little action pattern you

  • don't get what you want if you're especially if you're two years old you

  • burst into tears and cry and why is that it's because you don't know what you

  • don't know where you are and you don't know what you're doing

  • it's like time for some negative emotion it indicates that you're wrong and

  • that's terrible in some sense because it all it almost always means that to learn

  • requires pain now I don't believe that exactly because people are curious you

  • know and to go out and be curious and to learn new things can be very exciting

  • and so what it seems to be is that there's there's a rate of learning

  • that's too fast and that hurts you that's what makes you cry but if you get

  • the rate just right you're just opening up enough novelty so that you can

  • benefit from the possibilities that gives you a dopamine kick fundamentally

  • you can benefit from the possibilities without being overwhelmed by the by the

  • unexpected element of it and you can tell when that's happening and this is

  • one of the coolest things as far as I'm concerned this is and I learned this

  • partly from Piaget it's like you know in order to withstand suffering let's say

  • your life has to have some meaning okay well that that means a bunch of things

  • it means that part of the way that you overcome suffering is by making the

  • suffering into something meaningful and I don't mean that metaphysically I mean

  • it technically you made a mistake it causes you suffering you learn something

  • about it you don't make that mistake again

  • it's real adaptation it's not it's not defense against death anxiety or

  • something like that it's real adaptation but more importantly the reality that

  • you learn through pain is the oldest reality will say it's it's really old

  • it's as old as nervous systems and so you've adapted so that you've learned to

  • transform your knowledge structures in a way that will minimize your potential

  • exposure to future pain they at a rate you can tolerate or maybe

  • even enjoy and so what's happening is you don't actually like being static it

  • bores you but you don't like being thrown into chaos it's like no a little

  • bit of that's fine what you want is you want to be opening up your knowledge

  • structures on the periphery to transformation voluntary transformation

  • that's voluntary exploration and letting those things manifest a little bit of

  • interesting chaos and so you have a little bit you put a little feeler out

  • there that you're willing to let die and it comes apart and you gather a bit of

  • information it comes back together stronger and you do that all the time if

  • you're if you're smart and you're looking for new information foraging for

  • new information and that means you keep taking little bits of yourself apart and

  • reconstructing them and overtime that keeps you alive and active you know part

  • of the reason you're alive is because you're dying all the time right all the

  • cells in your body like if they don't die you get cancer and that that's it

  • you're done you're a very very tight balance between death and life at every

  • every single level including the cognitive level and it's not that fun to

  • learn something because you have to kill something you already know in order to

  • learn it that's another piece yet in observation because you're always

  • interpreting something within a structure and if that interpretation is

  • wrong even in a microwave you have to kill that structure and it's a

  • biological structure it actually hurts to kill it but maybe you can generate

  • something new in its stead and if you get the dynamic right let the rate right

  • then you find that exhilarating not painful and that's and that's well you

  • can tell when you're doing that as far as I can tell you can tell when you're

  • doing that because you're engaged in the world in a meaningful way and what your

  • nervous system is doing is signaling to you that you're not in a static place

  • that's death you're not in a chaotic place that's death your balance between

  • the static and the chaotic such that the static structures are transforming at

  • exactly the right rate to keep you on top of the environmental transformations

  • and so you're surfing you know in Hawaii the surfers surfing was sacred well

  • that's why it's like do you can you tell someone how to surf well you can't

  • because they have to go out there and dynamically interact with the wave but

  • they can stay on top of the wave and that's

  • what you have to do and if you're staying on top of the wave properly then

  • it's exhilarating and that's the kind of meaning that that it rejuvenates you

  • literally it makes you able to tolerate the suffering in life and it's not

  • metaphysical precisely it's because that is what you're doing at that moment

  • you're you're overcoming your limitations and of course that's what

  • you have to do in order to to know and to learn because you want to be doing

  • both of those things at the same time that's what you do when you play a game

  • properly your parents say it doesn't matter whether you win or lose this is a

  • PSAT and observation it's how you play the game what does that mean well it

  • means that you should play the game in a manner that increases the probability

  • that you're going to be invited to play many games in the future perfect so you

  • master the skills of the game but at the same time you master a set of meta

  • skills which is the skills that remain constant across transforming sets of

  • games and that's what it means to play fair that's a bloody basis of morality

  • as far as Piaget was concerned it's so damn smart you know because you think

  • all interactions have this game-like quality they're sort of bounded and but

  • there are commonalities across all the games and you want to extract out the

  • commonalities and you want to learn to inhabit the universe that's made out of

  • the commonalities between games and that's what it means to be a good person

  • roughly speaking you know it varies to some degree from culture to culture

  • obviously because each culture is a game unto itself but there's something that

  • transcends that that's the nature of games across game contexts and you know

  • that you know that because you can tell the difference between a game and and

  • something that isn't a game instantly everyone knows and it's not like there's

  • only one kind of game there's hockey say and there's there's a world of warcraft

  • I know it's way out of date but so am I so it's not surprising so but the fact

  • that those things are very very different in many many ways doesn't stop

  • you from identifying the underlying commonalities you know they're games and

  • they're they're like stories in a sense so and that's a piagetian that's a

  • piagetian observation very very smart so why do you develop well it's because

  • your your previous idea their your previous frame micro frame let's say

  • doesn't fit the circumstance and so something happens it you go like this

  • what's up well the world isn't what you thought and there's something wrong with

  • your knowledge structure this is partly what's makes Piaget a pragmatist you see

  • the pragmatist American school of philosophy William James and his

  • followers they knew that we had bounded knowledge we don't have infinite

  • knowledge and so they thought well that means we can't really be right about

  • anything because we're definitely wrong and so how is it that you can operate in

  • the world given that you're always wrong and the answer is you you set up a

  • procedure that has rules for what constitutes true within the procedure

  • itself so you play a game and at the same time you set up the rules so you

  • might say well is this joke funny and then the answer is well do people laugh

  • now when I tell the joke do they laugh and if the answer is yes then it's funny

  • enough you've you've you've taken a particular definition of funny you've

  • transformed it into a local phenomena and if your behavior matches the

  • prediction in that local area you say well that's true enough is it like

  • transcendently funny well maybe you'd have to tell it to 200 different groups

  • of people to figure that out but mostly it's it's funny enough so that when I

  • predicted what would happen when I told the joke that's what happened and you

  • don't predict it by the way you desire it it's not the same thing because

  • prediction has no motivation in it but desire does and we're always motivated

  • always always motivated so well here's a way of thinking about the Piaget teen

  • system so two-year-olds they're very chaotic and they bounce between one

  • highly motivated emotional state to another and so the first thing that the

  • two-year-old has to do is get his or her act together more or less inside and so

  • you know two-year-olds still have tantrums and they still cry a lot and

  • and they still run around like mad being joyful crazily which you have to train

  • out of them right away because it's nothing but disruptive and it's one of

  • the most painful things about being a parent

  • like 90% of the time you're going stop having fun stop having fun you know and

  • then you turn into a teenager and your parents get what they ask for and so but

  • because positive emotion is so impulsive and so chaotic it's really hard to

  • manifest itself it's manifested within it within a predictable environment and

  • so you're dampening down your child's enthusiasm non-stop it's but it has to

  • be regulated because happiness is impulsive and chaotic and people don't

  • like to think that because they think well we should be happy it's like Mannix

  • are happy but they're maniacs that's where the word comes from like they're

  • just you it's not good they're too happy way too happy like someone who's way too

  • stoned on math or on cocaine and I mean that technically because it's it's

  • they're very similar they're very similar biochemical states so and and

  • cocaine produces happiness pretty much in its pure form

  • so does meth very rapidly and so it's just not good you know you lose judgment

  • you happy people you don't have good judgment they're too happy maybe they

  • get dopey it's like you know it's like irrational stock market bubbles oh boy

  • it's always going to go up it's like no no it's not always going to go up but

  • that's what you think when you're happy anyways the two-year-old has to get all

  • these motivational systems sort of hammered into one thing internally now

  • in some sense from the PIA jetty in perspective that happens within the

  • child he thinks of the child is egocentric but and that that development

  • takes place internally and then it's not till a child's let's say about three

  • that it can learn to bring its controlled unity into a unity with

  • another controlled unity and make a game that happens around three and so what

  • happens is that instead of the child only pursuing his or her goals

  • although modulated by the social environment the child is able to

  • communicate with another child and establish a shared goal and that's what

  • happens when they play and so obviously you play Monopoly that's what you're

  • doing but when you play peekaboo you're doing the same thing it's like

  • with your parent you're actually playing with object permanence dad's go on

  • oh look dad's here haha he's there dad's gone that's here yeah

  • it's gone dad's here like a kid man you can do that for like

  • three hours they never get tired of it because every time you reappear it's an

  • it's a miracle unis watch babies it's so funny like you go like this and they go

  • then you talk back holding like they're so happy they're just overjoyed and then

  • you take yourself away and they're like what's going on what's going on bang you

  • reappear they don't have a real memory you know it's like reality is

  • manifesting itself in all its freshness moment by moment and and they can't

  • remember there are neurological conditions that do that so sometimes and

  • there are people who that this has happened to so they get hippocampal

  • damage and so they can't move short-term information into long-term

  • storage and there's this one guy it's very interesting case he was a concert

  • pianist and he had hell of a neurological injury and he could still

  • play the piano he couldn't remember eight he couldn't he had amnesia and he

  • couldn't move information from short-term storage into long-term

  • storage so as far as he was concerned it was it was always like ten days before

  • he had his accident he never got passed out he was stuck in that moment and then

  • but he could still play the piano and but was so interesting you watch him

  • there were films of him before he sat down to play the piano he'd have like a

  • seizure and then he could play the piano procedural memory that was intact and

  • then at the end he'd kind of have a little seizure and then he'd go back to

  • being who he was but he had these notebooks and all he did was write in

  • them over and over the same thing it's as if I have never seen this before it's

  • as if I've never seen this before it's as if I've never seen this before

  • so he's in this ecstatic state where everything was novel and new and pure

  • and paradisal but there was no continuity and so when his wife would

  • come to visit him he would just be overwhelmed to see her overwhelmed every

  • time and even if she just left the room and came back in it was exactly the same

  • thing it's just like the kid it's like no object permanence and every time the

  • face appears it's it's a staggering and you can see that in the reflexes of the

  • child and that's that's without object permanence and so that's what Piaget was

  • talking about with regards to object permanence it's very very cool so

  • anyways the two-year-olds a collection of these sort of random motivations more

  • or less gets his or her act together by about three

  • if they're being socialized properly and that means that the parents are doing

  • their best to make the child acceptable to other children that's your damn job

  • as a parent you have to understand that because if your child isn't acceptable

  • to other children they won't play with your child and then your child will be

  • lonesome and isolated and awkward and they will never recover because if the

  • kid doesn't get that right between two and four it's over

  • they're never gonna learn it the other kids accelerate forward that kids left

  • behind and it's not a good life for that kid they don't learn how to play with

  • others and then they're done and there's a huge literature on trying to rectify

  • antisocial children say from the age of four on it's like no you can't and you

  • can go ahead and read three four hundred papers on rectification of antisocial

  • behavior and figure it out for yourself but I did that for about five years and

  • it was a while ago but I know the literature hasn't changed so you got to

  • get it right between that period you got to get the kid together enough so they

  • can control themselves well enough so that they can adopt a mutual frame of

  • reference with a peer so that they can start using that to scaffold their

  • development further and become more and more sophisticated in social

  • interactions and that's what you're you're acting as a proxy for the social

  • environment as a parent that's what you're doing now a gentle proxy an

  • informative proxy maybe even a merciful proxy but a proxy nonetheless because

  • they're not going to be around you forever they're gonna be out there among

  • people who don't really care about them and if they don't have something to

  • bring to the table at least the ability to cooperate they're gonna be lonesome

  • and isolated and that's not going to be good well here's an here's an here's an

  • idea so as you're moving from what is to what should be you're in this little

  • frame of reference this little game this little Piaget alien game sometimes you

  • get what you want or predict that's on the left-hand side that makes you happy

  • and it validates your frame so if the frame keeps working across different

  • circumstances you get a reward from that the reward produces a dopaminergic kick

  • that makes you feel good but the dopamine also enhances the strength of

  • the circuitry that underlies that particular representation that's what

  • reinforcement is it's different than reward reward is

  • what you feel let's say roughly speaking reinforcement is the effect of the

  • dopamine bathing the neurological tissues to make it stronger and grow and

  • so if the neurological tissue underlies a sequence of actions that produces a

  • desired outcome there's a biochemical kick that strengthens the nervous

  • structures that were activated just before the good thing happens and so

  • that's how something you know that's valuable gets instantiated and if it

  • fails instead you get punished pain anxiety and that that starts to

  • extinguish that circuitry and we don't know how that works exactly we don't

  • know exactly if those circuits then start to die because they can degenerate

  • across time or if what happens is you build other circuits that inhibit them

  • so it's like you've got this knowledge structure it's built into you and once

  • it's there there's not really much getting rid of it but you can build

  • another one that tells it to shut up that's sort of what happens when you're

  • addicted to drugs so cocaine bathes the tissue that was

  • active just before you took the cocaine with dopamine and so that gets stronger

  • and stronger and stronger and stronger and so you're basically building a

  • cocaine seeking monster in your head and that's all it wants and it has

  • rationalizations and it has emotions and it has motivations and it's alive but it

  • wants one thing and the problem is once you build that thing especially if you

  • nail it a couple of hundred times with the powerful dopaminergic agonist like

  • cocaine that thing is one vicious monster and it's alive and it's in there

  • and you can't get it to go away the only thing you can do is build another

  • structure to shut it up but the problem is is that as soon as you get stressed

  • it interferes with that new structure and the old thing comes popping back up

  • not good I wouldn't recommend it and the faster acting those dopaminergic

  • agonists are cocaine is a good example but so is math the faster they hit you

  • which is often why people inject them instead of snorting them say the faster

  • that transformation from steady state to dopaminergic path the bigger the kick is

  • and so you know so speed of introduction of the substance matters which is why

  • you drink shots instead of drinking say wine or beer because alcohol has you

  • know very similar very similar effects so

  • all right so if you get what you want well then you feel good but not only do

  • you feel good but the frame itself is validated and if you don't get what you

  • want well then not only do you not get what you want but the frame itself

  • starts to come apart at the seams and the question part is how far should the

  • frame come apart how deeply should you unlearn something when you make a

  • mistake god it's a very very very hard problem and I'll show you a partial

  • solution to it this very useful thing and this is a pia jetty an idea - let's

  • see yeah I'm gonna go to this for a minute so so I'm gonna decompose

  • something for you and and this is partly to give you an introduction to the way

  • behaviorists think but it's also to help unpack how the pia jetty in oceans work

  • and so from a piagetian perspective high-order abstractions are actually

  • made of what's common among actions and perceptions so and those things are

  • unified in some sense so an abstraction isn't what's common across sets of

  • objects it's more like what's common across sets of perceptions and actions

  • and so that's a hard thing to understand but but this will help you understand

  • okay so let's say you want to be a good person it's kind of abstraction all

  • right and then you think well what does it

  • mean to be a good person it's a box it's an empty box no it's a box and it says

  • good person on outside but it's full of things it might even be full of

  • transforming things so but you know what it means you say good person you kind of

  • know and you kind of know but you know if we started talking about details we

  • might start to argue but it's like pornography you know what when you see

  • it okay so what does it mean to be a good person well we could decompose it

  • we could say well if you're one way of being a good person is to be a good

  • parent and you basically say that being a good parent is a subset of being a

  • good person right because person is bigger than parent and maybe it'd be to

  • be a good employee and to be a good sister and to be a good you know to be

  • to be a good good partner sort of on the same level of abstraction so you

  • decompose good person into your major functional roles let's say and you're

  • good at all of them whatever that means well let's say if you're a good parent

  • well you have to have a good job because otherwise you starve and so do your

  • children so at least you have to financially provide in some manner

  • that's a subset of being a good parent it's not the only subset and then to be

  • a good to have a good be a good parent you also have to take care of your

  • family and so you could decompose that into play with baby or complete meal you

  • might say well if take care of family you can either order a meal or you can

  • cook one it's like good for you and so then you're cooking a meal and you think

  • well what do you decompose that into well now you're starting to get to the

  • micro level say because let's say you're making broccoli so you take the broccoli

  • out of the fridge and you put it on the cutting board that's actually action

  • that's not abstraction it's actually something you're doing with your body so

  • the abstraction grounds itself out in micro activity actual action that's the

  • connection between the mind and the body and so you're cutting broccoli right but

  • that's not abstraction and so if you take apart these higher-order moral

  • abstractions what happens is you decompose them into action perception

  • sequences and they're embodied now Piaget is basic claim is you build the

  • dam abstractions from the bottom up that's his that's the fundamental Pia

  • jetty and claim it so the kid comes into the world with some reflexes and starts

  • building a body of embodied knowledge out of that interaction with other

  • people and then they start playing games and that abstracts but but they move

  • from the bottom of the hierarchy which is actual micro actions up to the top of

  • the abstraction world and so it's this is how you boot yourself up little bitty

  • stories what little bitty stories at the bottom cut broccoli you know and then

  • cut corn here set table do dishes complete meal take care of your family

  • be a good parent be a good person and you know one of the propositions that I

  • am offering you in this class is that to be a good person you're actually not

  • stuck in one of these to be a good person means that you're the thing that

  • transforms these things continually and so that's what's at the top of the

  • hierarchy and that's basically the hero story which is you're in a state of

  • being and it normally occurs you allow it to demolish you and then you rebuild

  • and that's at the highest end of the moral hierarchy and that's also a sense

  • reappears Yeti and claim so so let's think about emotional regulation because

  • this is a really good schema for understanding emotional regulation how

  • upset should you get and how do you calculate it because if you make a

  • mistake you wake up in the morning in your side hurts okay you it's the first

  • symptom of pancreatic cancer you're dead in six months

  • 100% chats or you know you pulled a muscle well which is it you might say

  • well the chances of the pancreatic cancer or low but they're not zero and

  • like infinite times any proportion is a very large number so you might be

  • thinking why don't you just have a screaming fit any time ever any little

  • thing happens to you which is exactly what happens by the way if you're two

  • years old right that is what you do so and it's because you don't know you

  • don't know like things fell apart what does that mean could be anything well

  • that's no good well so let's say you're arguing with your with your partner you

  • know and they I don't know if they make a lousy meal or maybe no meals and

  • you're kind of sick of it you know and so you say you're a bad person and

  • what's the evidence not only are you a bad person but you've always been a bad

  • person and the probability that you're going to improve in the future looks to

  • me to be zero it's like what's the person supposed to do punch you right

  • really because there's no room in there for any discussion you're done it's like

  • you're horrible and you don't change and you've always been horrible and you've

  • never changed and you know inferring from that into the future

  • you're gonna stay horrible and you're not going to change well any argument

  • can go there immediately it's a really bad idea and it happens all the time and

  • this is why people can't have a civil discussion you know they can't say

  • here's an example so you've got your four-year-old you want them to clean up

  • their room and so it's full of toys let's say they're three and a half you

  • look at it you say look you know clean clean this up clean up your room so you

  • shut the door and you go away and you magically hope that when you come back

  • the room will be clean but of course the child has no idea

  • in all likelihood at that age or maybe it's two and a half something like that

  • they know what clean up a room means that's

  • like way up here man it's like you told your child there's mass every be a good

  • person you know and then you come back in half an hour and they're no better a

  • person than they were and you get upset it's like you can't do that you have to

  • say you see that teddy bear and you know that that kid knows how to see a teddy

  • bear and they know how to pick it up because you've watched them see a teddy

  • bear and pick it up and you know that the child knows the name of the teddy

  • bear it's teddy bear and so you point to the teddy bear and you say do you see

  • that teddy bear and they go yes and you say that's good

  • pat pat and they get a little kick of dopamine so that's happy day for the kid

  • and then they smile at you so you feel pretty good about that too and then you

  • say you think you could pick up that teddy bear and they say yeah and so they

  • go over there not every kid by the way but they go over there and they pick up

  • the teddy bear and it's like it's a good day for both of you and then you say you

  • see that little space on the shelf because you know they know what a shelf

  • is and you know they know what a space is and you say take that teddy bear and

  • put it in the shelf and then go over there and they put it in the shelf and

  • then they look at you and you're smiling and so the probability that they'll do

  • that again is now increased because but watching you smile produces a

  • dopaminergic kick and you've just strengthened those circuits so I would

  • highly recommend that you do that with your children and with your partners

  • right you watch them like like a sneaky person and every time they do something

  • that you actually want them to do you notice and you give them a little pat on

  • the head yeah and then they like you that's cool but if they don't if you

  • don't want them to like you because you hate them and then you won't do that but

  • and you think well I don't hate them it's like oh yes you do you just think

  • about the last month man there's been twenty times you absolutely hated them

  • and maybe that's the predominant emotion and that's not so good over time so when

  • they do something good if you really want to screw things up watch like a

  • hawk and wait till they do something good and then punish them that's really

  • fun that is that really messes with them and people do that all the time so if

  • you really want to mock things up you can even do it more subtly you can wait

  • till they do something good especially if they've never done it before and

  • they're just kind of tentatively trying it and then you can ignore them that's a

  • really good what that's even better than punishing them because at least when you

  • punish you're paying attention if you ignore

  • them it's like that's that's just perfect also takes hardly any effort on

  • your part so that's an additional plus so anyways so if you're having a

  • discussion with someone it's like what you're doing with this kid you know it's

  • like you say maybe you're negotiating about meals you don't start with you're

  • a bad person let's way the hell up here you know you blow the whole person

  • schema right out from underneath them and you might as well get divorced which

  • is what will happen if you keep doing that soon you'll roll it your eyes at

  • each other that means you're getting divorced by the way so if you ever watch

  • it he does I'm serious there's good empirical data on that once you're at

  • the eye-rolling stage there's no going back so you should intervene way before

  • that it's discussed that AI role once you've hit disease-carrying rodent

  • status in your mates eyes there's no coming back so anyways so what you do if

  • you want to have a conversation with someone that's a corrective conversation

  • is you sort of take a piagetian attitude and the attitude is go to the highest

  • level of resolution that you can manage so let's say and that's what you're

  • doing with the kid it's like clean up your room be a good

  • person it's like no they don't know any about anything about that but they do

  • know how to pick up a teddy bear and then maybe you think cleaning up your

  • room is a hundred things like that and so you have to teach the child each one

  • of those hundred things and then they learn this is the scheme they learn

  • what's the same across all of those different actions that's clean right

  • pick up the teddy bear put away the Legos make your bed what those have

  • nothing in common really like the motor outputs completely different but they

  • fall under the heading of clean but unless you fill the heading of clean

  • with all the subordinate categories of the action perception sequences that

  • make up clean kid can't do it and so partly what you're doing by attending to

  • your child constantly is noticing where they are in the construction of this

  • hierarchy and they start way down here right and so that's why you play

  • peekaboo for example it's like they can do that and you can you know you

  • interact with them because you can watch you do a little something and if they

  • respond you got some sense that you're you're at the same level and kids and

  • playgrounds do that with each other right away so

  • if you if you see two three-year-olds together say they're fairly

  • sophisticated for three-year-olds what they'll do is they'll start playing a

  • little primitive game with each other like door like a dog you know what a dog

  • does what it wants to play it kind of goes like that and and that's what kids

  • do and that's what adults do too it's a plague

  • it's play it if it tastes like I'm ready but you're smiling it's not like I'm

  • ready it's and so you can tell the difference between a play fight and play

  • and kids can too so it's an invitation to play and so if you're interacting

  • with your little kid they got that play circuit man that thing's in there like

  • when they're from birth I think because you can play with a kid right from birth

  • at least something like peekaboo and so you're on the same wavelength

  • fundamentally and then you interact with them and you see if they're following

  • what you're doing is what I'm doing when I'm lecturing more or less I'm watching

  • you guys and seeing if we're more or less in the same shared space you know

  • and we want the space to be expanding because if it's just staying the same

  • well you might as well play whatever you play on your computer it has to be

  • expanding at the same time that's optimal and so when you're playing with

  • your kid you put them on that developmental edge where they're undoing

  • and then rebuilding their little skills you know you can do that like I had this

  • memory from when I was a little kid a while back and I remembered I used to go

  • over to these peoples house with my father and my mom and it was way up in

  • northern Alberta and these people were Russian immigrants as children of

  • Russian immigrants and they had a farmhouse way way out in the country way

  • out by the way there where the railroad actually ended if you walk north from

  • there you'd walk until you hit like southern Europe without fun running into

  • another person it was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere and anyways

  • they had a nice house it's like a warm house you know they had three kids and

  • they were way older than me but it was a real fun comfortable place to go and I

  • used to sit in the living room with my father and his friend whose name was

  • Nick and Nick was a really playful guy I really liked him he was like my

  • surrogate grandfather and I used to I don't think I was more than about three

  • I'd sit there and I try to hit his foot with my fist and he would be talking to

  • my dad you know and my dad would say Jordan don't bother Nick and Nick would

  • say well he's not really bothering me and

  • his dad was checking it out to see if I was anoint were poor if I was a fun kid

  • you know cuz it's a fine line and so I tried to hit his foot and he would move

  • it and now I had this memory while back and I thought wow that was a good memory

  • and I thought what is going on there exactly and I realized well he's

  • sharpening he was sharpening me up you know it's like I was aiming at something

  • you're aiming at something if you're pointing your eyes at it you're pointing

  • your whole damn soul out it you're aiming at something and you're trying to

  • get your behaviors and your conceptions in line and organized so that you can

  • attain that aim that's what people do you know we throw rocks at things we we

  • fire arrows at things we shoot guns at things we aim at things our whole body

  • is that platform for aiming and I was trying to aim at his feet and he'd move

  • his feet you know but he'd let me hit it what now and then and so let's say

  • you're a rat okay because like I said it rats a good model for a person let's say

  • you're a little rat a juvenile male and you want to play because you want to

  • play and you'll work to play and that's how we know you want to play if we're

  • experimental psychologists because you're Bosch put button push like mad to

  • get access to an arena where you can wrestle with another little rat and so

  • rats wrestle just like human beings and they even pin each other just like human

  • beings and they love that and so if you put little rat a in with a little rat B

  • and little rat B is 10% bigger little rat B can stomp the hell out of little

  • rat a all the time so they go out there and they have a little dominance

  • competition and little rat B is gonna win because he's bigger so now he's

  • dominant rat so then they play in they wrestle and little rat a loses but and

  • then next time they both know that little rat a is the inviter

  • because he's subordinate so he's the one who has to go up to the big rat and go

  • you ready and the big rat then we'll wrestle however if you repeatedly pair

  • them and the big rat doesn't let the little rat win at least 30% of the time

  • the little rat won't invite him to play anymore and that was york panksepp who

  • figured that out and that is mind-boggling because it tells you like

  • the bit there's a there's an ethical basis for play that's so deep that the

  • damn rat and their rats not known for their sense of fair play

  • the big rat has to let the little rat win 30% of the time or the little rat

  • will not play anymore and even rats know that it's it's so profound that

  • discovery like banks have discovered the play circuit in mammals that's a big

  • deal that's like discovering a whole continent like that's a big deal he

  • should have got a Nobel Prize for that and to see that that's built in that

  • sense of fair play that's mind boggling you know cuz that's evidence for the

  • biological instantiation of a complex morality fair play even if you can win

  • you shouldn't all the time well so when I'm trying to hit Nick's feet with my

  • hand like I'm really paying attention and he's moving it pretty well but now

  • and then I get to nail it and I'm feeling pretty good about that you know

  • and he makes a little bit more difficult all the time so that my aim gets better

  • and better and I'm building up my motor coordination I'm building up my social

  • skills cuz I don't hit too hard and I don't cry when I miss because that just

  • makes you annoying to play with right so I'm learning really complicated things

  • about how to go about finessing my aim and that's what you're doing with your

  • kids and what are they aiming at well they aim higher and higher so when my

  • son was about two and a half we had him start setting the table it's you don't

  • say you know you want to take grandma's fine china and go set the table

  • it's like no you don't do that you say you know what a fork looks like he goes

  • yeah see if you wanted the forks are well that doesn't work because the

  • Drover's way up here right so you have to hand him a fork you say look take

  • this fork and go put it on the table he's like this high you know so he goes

  • over to the table and he puts the fork up here can't even see what he's doing

  • he puts the fork up there and then you know he's reasonably happy with that and

  • you could give him a path and then you go and give him a really sharp not no

  • you don't do that you don't do that you give him a spoon and you say well go put

  • the spoon beside the fork and you don't say look you're stupid kid you got to

  • leave enough space between the fork and the spoon so the plate can fit there

  • don't you know anything you're stupid it's like well that's

  • right up here right you're a bad kid no that's bad you don't do that you go down

  • here and you say well good micro routine adaptation there Chum well

  • let's try it again you know when you build that up and like men

  • you can't extend the kid past its point his point or her point of exhaustion

  • because it's got to be a game and a two-year-old can probably only do that

  • for you can watch them and some are more persistent than others but 10 minutes 15

  • minutes you pushing your luck you can take a two-year-old to a restaurant for

  • about 40 minutes and expect them to sit and behave but after that you know

  • they're the will exhausts them all right well anyways that's Piaget in his

  • nascent form fundamentally and so if you if you remember that diagram and you

  • think about how that would be built from the bottom up and how there would be a

  • stage transition every time those things are learned you kind of got the

  • essential elements of piagetian theory so we'll see you Thursday

this one's particularly complicated so because with Piaget you enter a whole

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