God to agree with the parent, his audio books are excellent. If you like Petersons work and lectures get Maps of Meaning on audio books, it's excellent.

They are absolutely leading toward the same path, outcome. If you're up for reading I've heard the book Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps_of_Meaning - will be a deep dive or good introduction to referencing patterns and tyrannical governments through history.

> ruthlessly downvoted for ideological reasons

I think it's just people here being a bit unclear about whether 12RFL qualifies for the non-fiction part. I mean, to me it's clear that it does, but with Peterson also being the author of "Maps of Meaning", mixups are inevitable.

I would recommend starting with the 2017 semester of his Maps of Meaning course. The first topic is a discussion of the themes and philosophy of the story of Pinocchio. It's really good.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQAT-0aSPq-OK...

Yes, one of the central points of his books ("Maps of Meaning", "12 Rules for Life", and "Beyond Order") is that meaning in life is found by taking on personal responsibility. A good starting point is probably his "12 Rules for Life".

Have you read Maps of Meaning? I haven’t, but Nathan Robinson did, and wrote a review of the whole Peterson gestalt, which I found wholly convincing and you should find with no trouble at all.

I feel that what I found “telling” about the use of a controversial, poorly defined, culture-war term like “cultural Marxism” was pretty obvious: that the talk wasn’t given in good faith or with an intent that was productive with respect to the attendees.

Thanks. I try to take the medicine from the poison with regards to JP. Maps of Meaning really helped me fling myself out of a depression as an aspie-kind of a guy. I had such calm and reasoned thoughts of meaninglessness, a kind of zen-depression-nihilist-nothingness. I wasn’t crying or staying in bed all day, but I couldn’t be bothered to care about any aspect of my life. I already don’t like people, hobbies were pointless, work a sisyphantian task, etc. His book was great because it was an academic look into why meaning is important at the basest level of existence, and how it is basically ones responsibility to have a full life by /injecting/ meaning into the world—the more the better! Then I kind of saw through to the anti-progressive undertones and hung up the phone as it were, but I owe him a lot.

Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning, 12 Rules for Life, and his many tens of hours of content on YouTube.

If you're willing to entertain the idea for a brief moment that the Bible has any wisdom at all, his Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories is a must. I recommend them even if you aren't willing, in fact. They converted me, and i was a fairly nihilistic atheist for almost all of my thinking life.

I'll add a recommendation for the condensed audio version of "Maps of Meaning" available on his podcast. From Amazon's blurb on the book: "A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind."

> Western corporations have done as much harm as they could get away with to make a quick buck as well.

I'm in agreement (for the most part)--historically speaking. I never said that this was purely relegated to China, although the topic of the article is indeed China.

I'll also take this opportunity to remind you about HN commenting guidelines [1], specifically when disagreeing to try to "reply to the argument", as opposed to calling names--or in your specific case implying emotional states or assumptions on worship.

I will share that I find it unfortunate that you seem generally opposed to Dr. Peterson's works: his Maps of Meaning (1999)[2], for instance, contains powerful ideas that cannot be easily dismissed.

Finally, humans are complex creatures. We can easily find an argument intrinsically stimulating and academically fascinating whilst simultaneously not feeling disillusionment.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Meaning-Architecture-Jordan-Pete...

Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson. I've gone through several core belief changes in my life (religious, philosophical, interpersonal) and the book would have helped me understand what I was going through.

A couple of things here: I do not think that there is a “right” set of resources. There may be a set of “right” resources for you personally but to explore or discover these you would have to explore your motivation and your personality further. Which learning styles do you favour? What are your long term goals?
Somehow I liked how Jordan Peterson put it in his - Maps of Meaning- lecture: university should help students to get articulate. If you think about that, your self and um your goals it should help you to move forward.

Other wise you are just looking for an instruction manual for life, which doesn’t exist as such.

I know you're not looking for advice, so I'm not going to preach too hard at you, except to say that I recognize the somber lucidity of your tone, and I've been there. Depression's heaviest weapon is that it feels like the heaviest truth. It's a bit like being in a room within a room. If nothing outside can be perceived from within the walls, does it matter that it exists?

I was surprised when I got out – I was sure it couldn't happen to me either. I didn't even realize it was happening to me until months in. Lots of things that I thought were concrete facts about myself and the world turned out to be configurable in ways I was ill equipped to predict until they happened.

There was no secret or epiphany or "one weird trick". I mostly did this by pretending as if being were worthwhile. I wasn't interested in anything that happy, normal people were interested in, like meeting new people or wearing clean clothes. But my crude mental model of those people had enough fidelity to imitate them, at least somewhat. So I did, in earnest. Eventually the mask became the face. We are what we repeatedly do. I lost about 6 years before I started doing that, and it took about another 6 to 9 months before I noticed that anything had changed.

I have to give a lot of credit to a lecture series I was recommended on HN as well: Maps of Meaning, from Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI&list=PL22J3VaeAB...

It's weird stuff. Took some getting through. I don't remember what the first guy said that made me stick with it, but I'm glad I did.

Email's in the profile if you want to chat about whatever. Doesn't have to be serious.

It's never too late. Tonight, it is a fact that at least one person in the world gives a fuck about you.

Well, I can tell you what has helped me so far in my own epistemic crisis:

The first two chapters of “Maps of Meaning” helped me separate truth-as-a-descriptive-framework vs truth-as-a-functional-framework, which was great for recovering from what postmodernism did to our sense of truth.

“Postmodernism for Rationalists”[1] really helped me define the chaos i felt about truth, and helped me put words and philosophers to different thoughts that I didn‘t know were there.

“States and Nomads”[2] helped me realize how all models are wrong, and their utility is ultimately contextual. It also introduced me to Jorge Luis Borges, who has written a lot of creative fiction around ideas like this.

A big reprieve came from this analysis of an Emily Dickinson poem on truth[3]. The part about “circumference” of truth really worked for me, I feel now that peace has to come from outside that circumference, not inside (which is what you might be struggling with?). Bertrand Russell spent his life trying to find a philosophical basis for religion and never found one, but this is as close as I've gotten.

For my happiness, I intersperse fiction (poetry, short stories) with more serious essays of philosophy. I think that resulting balance between art and treatise has been important for me in getting through this, but I haven't been on this for long.

If any of this has landed for you, we can swap sources and thoughts sometime, which might be a good therapy (both ways).

[1]:https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for...
[2]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGaFcI2UNrI
[3]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55kqNg88JqI

I'm yet to be convinced that the adjective "intellectual" in "Intellectual DarkWeb" holds up to any scrutiny either. I think history shows we should be suspicious of movements that claim the intellectual high-ground (or moral high-ground) in their name - even when I am sympathetic to their conclusions.

Examples include: The "Brights", the "Rationalist" Societies, "Euthanasia" (translating to 'good death').

The "Intellectual" DarkWeb is populated by many examples fringe figures whose contributions are considered laughable in their own claimed fields, Stephan Molyneux being a complete joke in Philosophical circles but impressing his teenage and tech-trained audience is a prime example. Christina Hoff Sommers is another figure whose brand of feminism seems far more widely supported by people who've never taken the time to read a book by a single other feminist. Sam Harris's forays into Moral Philosophy and Free Will again do not find a sympathetic audience of any significant size among people who actually study these subjects and know much about them. Jordan B Petersen is an unusual case because his noteriety and audience is far more to do with his political statements (attacking trans people, misogynist comments, claims of a conspiracy of Post-Modern Marxists) that are substantially separatable from both his academic work (Maps of Meaning) or his weird self-help manual (even though this shoehorns in his conspiracy theorizing).

What we say is how we act.

The way you talk makes you sound like someone who would be an awful pain in the ass to be around. Pedantic and half baked.

While technically correct your analysis is only half formed.

You have much more reading to do.

Start with these books to get a clearer idea of why you're getting a negative response to your honestly held beliefs:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman

And some extra credit:

Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

causality, by judea pearl

a pattern language, by christopher alexander

maps of meaning, by jordan peterson

on intelligence, by jeff hawkins

the fractal geometry of nature, by benoit mandelbrot

^^^ a crash course in cognitive architecture for AI folks

I found this to be a remarkable interview, not for anything it elucidates itself. It's old ground and they're rehashing debates from the 18th century really. But it was revealing of Peterson in many ways. Also Harris, but it didn't reveal anything about him I didn't already suspect. (A mercilessly methodical thinker there, to the point of it being a fault.)

Peterson's concept of self is very tied up in his beliefs on this. (So is Harris's but since he believes the self doesn't truly exist I guess that buys some wiggle room.) I got the impression of a man who is an atheist but is unwilling simply to admit it, perhaps because it's too embarrassing and painful after writing something like Maps of Meaning trying to base the foundation for contemporary Western thought, even his own, on Christian metaphysics. It's not that he's arguing in bad faith; he really isn't. But it's fascinating to see a man that intelligent stumble around the edges of his blind spots, as Harris zoned right in on them.

In my imagination he went completely insane trying to write the porn book.

If you want a good continuation, check out Jordan Peterson, who has a much wider framework into which TLP's somewhat narrow worldview can be fitted. He is also a practicing clinical psychologist, as well as a professor. This video summarises a lot of his ideas, but they are fully explained and justified in his university courses, which are all on the channel. "Personality" is a first year course, and "Maps of Meaning" is I think taken by third or fourth year psychology students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOw0eJ84d8

(You're probably best off ignoring the culture war drama he's currently embroiled in. Unfortunately the youtube algorithm has now placed him firmly in the alt-right nexus because of this, so his videos might shit up your reccommendations. This is not a reflection of his ideas, far from it.)

I've been through something like this – up until I've hit ~25 years. I was fairly "disorganized". Issues w/ all forms of "authorities", trouble w/ my personal finances, not taking care of my mental (taking rest and time off) and physical (sleep, nutrition, exercise) health, never sucking it up striving towards overcoming adversities (however minor they might be). Most of all, starting many things, but never finishing anyth, which really invoked constant background anxiety.

Chaos and disorder.

Not sure what happened exactly, but there was one point where I couldn't anymore.

Looking back, I think what really was a breakthrough for me was journaling. First thing in the morning and right after opening my eyes, in free form w/o correcting my self. Just letting it out.

With time your thought becomes more precise and there comes clarity. I've started picking patterns in my way of thinking, my habits and behaviors – pretty much in all aspects of my life. I've started tracking other aspects of my life, which led to other insights and finding in a very quantified way what works and does not works for me.

Still, you're here on HN. I'm pretty sure that despite everything you go through now, there is something internally which does keeps you on the right track in the grand scheme of the things. There is exploration and exploitation. The time will show.

I would also highly recommend you checking Dr. Jordan Peterson's lectures "Maps of Meaning" on YouTube and his "Self Authoring" program.

"Maps of Meaning" by Jordan Peterson (yeah, that JP): a extremely interesting textbook-length treatment on cultural meaning and narrative. I found it a little hard to get through the learning curve on the jargon in the print form, but I could tell it had some really interesting ideas so I got the audio version and fully enjoyed it. It was a thoroughly mind-bending look at the meaning and power of shared cultural myths and human myths which transcend culture. It ended up with a fascinating analysis of (even to the point of being a partial rehabilitation of) Jungian psychoanalytic frameworks and pre-scientifc Alchemy. Maps of Meaning was a book that I immediately wanted to re-read as soon as I finished it, because I could tell there was a lot that I missed the first time.

Another recommendation is "Quantum Genesis: Speculations in Modern Physics and the Truth in Scripture" by Stuart Allen. QG is a relatively deep pop sci look at physics, computation, and several related fields where the author points out that the original translation of the creation myth in Genesis 1 matches up extremely well with a modern understanding of quantum physics and simulation theory. (disclosure: a family member is the author).

I find that history is best viewed as a phenomenon of consciousness—the mind's awareness of itself. With awareness of oneself comes awareness of the eventuality of death, the discovery of the "future" and its opposite, the past. In this sense history is a discovery of conscious beings of which humans are the most advanced by probably orders of magnitude (which is a difficult thing to quantify to say the least).

It's not so much that history is "about" humans; it only really applies to humans in the first place. To have a history of "elephants" is just to have a history of elephants as understood by humans—unless it's elephants that are communicating it.

The best explanations I've heard of this concept are in Jordan Peterson's Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories lecture series, available on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQD_IZs7y60I....

His book Maps of Meaning is also fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Meaning-Architecture-Jordan-Pete...

Not with what he said in the interview, I wasn't clear about that, it's more about some of the concepts that he goes about in his biblical series and in some interviews, can't find a link right now.

For example, the concept that truth can be anectodal instead of empirical (as derived from grand narratives and the reason why religious stories hold so much weight in western civilization) is still something that twists my brain. I believe there is a greater truth behind these stories, and what we tell each other are abstractions and pieces of those underlying truths. To understand and explain these narratives is to mine for what actually valuable for us, and telling them is a way of "triggering" our minds into going through the process in which those truths manifest themselves... but maybe that's the only way we can achieve a protocol of sharing primitive truths with our communication.

I think that's a part of it. Funny enough I found Jordan Peterson through HN a while back when someone linked his Maps of Meaning lectures in a thread about what books or articles changed their lives. Now we're here talking about his philosophies.

Jordan Peterson - Maps of Meaning

A related story featured on HN a couple of days ago [1]. I'll echo JonnieCache and recommend Jordan Peterson's lectures [2]. If you are concerned about investing the time in an entire lecture, check out the video "Dragons, Divine Parents, Heroes and Adversaries: A complete cosmology of being" [3]; it gives a high level overview of the content contained within his lectures. I believe 'Personality and its Transformations' (2014 series) followed by 'Maps of Meaning' (2015) to be the best approach, though I haven't yet had a chance to listen to the 2016 releases.

Jordan has uncanny ability to piece together observations on human behavior with science and mythology; expounding humanity's nuances, ticks and everyday common behavior through the lens of ancient mythology, evolution and ideas and theories by notable psychologists and philosophers.

Keep an open mind while listening, but also be prepared to think critically about many of his assumptions and assertions as Jordan takes a number of 'educated' leaps (and demands you follow) in regards to published studies and what they may infer, but the leaps are never illogical - just yet to be soundly proven.

Overall, listening to these lectures truly was a transformative experience for myself.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10941363
[2] https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos
[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqONu6wDYaE

edit: linked this story and not the previous one.

I'd point you to Jordan Peterson's "Maps of Meaning" course.

In a couple of words: as a human, you have an objective (be successful, be sexier, make more money, etc.) and things around you will be either tools or obstacles.

An example of a tool or "container" would be a car. It encapsulates a machinery and abstracts getting you from point A to point B. If it breaks, it leaks the abstraction and now you have to go out of your way to fix it.

"Containers" that work are tools that help you achieve your objectives.

For the second part, why some of us tinker: my theory is that we believe this knowledge will help us attain our objectives in a faster or easier path; it's an investment. For example with more knowledge, we can improve our containers or fix them faster when they break.

Bottom line: It's all about humans trying to attain their objectives and using abstractions for it.

To answer your question, Jordan Peterson's video lectures series, "Maps of Meaning" (You would need internet access to YouTube).

For long flights, I buy magazines in the airport shop (Wired and Scientific American). I also have my music collection on Spotify on my phone with wireless Bose headphones to listen to. Also, several books on Kindle on my phone (now reading "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind"). Don't forget a spare battery. Or, sometimes I check the plane's movie list for a new release I haven't seen and watch that.