Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

Not least because I can't even imagine how you could come up with an account of being materialist or otherwise in the absence of consciousness if there's no experience of what is there.

And no materialist has ever come up with a satisfactory answer to that.

That's a complicated question.

And then, so there's the fact of consciousness, and that's a strange fact.

And then there's also the fact of the manner in which we're organized, we're constructed.

So human beings are personalities, and personalities exist in relationship.

And insofar as we're personalities...

Our personalities, speaking materialistically, let's say, are an evolved function.

We're personalities because being a personality is what allows us to orient ourselves in the world.

And so if at the highest level of our being we're personalities, how is it that we're not in relationship with the essence of reality?

Otherwise it wouldn't work.

So that's a very interesting... That's a very interesting fact.

Now, here's another twist for you.

So, I've been in touch with Richard Dawkins, who's probably the world's most famous living atheist, and he's like the avatar of the Enlightenment mind.

He's the last standing avatar of the Enlightenment mind.

That's a good way of thinking about it.

And a formidable, a formidable...

A formidable intellect.

And someone I actually like.

I've met Richard a couple of times.