Jordan Peterson is professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.
“How about afterlife, then? Does it exist?”
This time there is a very long pause. So long that Tammy edges forward slightly in her seat.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if it did,” he finally articulates, and then laughs at himself for taking so long to say something so vague. It’s a good, self-deprecating laugh. The ice is finally breaking.
“I don’t think we understand the relationship between space and time and consciousness,” he continues. “At all. And I certainly don’t think we understand the role that consciousness plays in being. It is central to being – in some sense. And what that means about consciousness in relationship to space and time, we don’t understand.”
You have to be quick to keep up with Professor Peterson, I realise, which may be one reason he gets so many views on YouTube. It allows you to rewind repeatedly while you look up the definition of the words he uses.
“I have read most of the primary works on consciousness”, he explains, “and I have kept up with the neuroscience literature. We can localise conscious experiences more effectively to certain brain areas than we could, but I don’t think we know any more about consciousness than we did 50 years ago. And that leaves everything open.”
So heaven is possible? He eyes me suspiciously for a moment.
“People have had intimations of mortality for a long period of time. And there are states of mind that can be invoked, not least by psychedelic drugs, that produce in people very powerful intimations of immortality. We shouldn’t brush them off lightly. There is a finite part of us and there is an infinite part of us. We are a weird mixture.”
It is sounding like a “Yes” to my question but then, with no warning, he goes tantalisingly confessional.
“I’ve had experiences of God,” he offers.
“Have you?” I reply. It’s my turn to edge forward in my seat. “So tell me?”
“No, I won’t,” he comes straight back. “It’s just too much to go into. But you asked me if I believed, and I am never satisfied with my answer. I can have powerful religious experiences, intense, and of all sorts. So does that make me a believer? I just can’t get round it. Belief is a terrible word.”
Jordan Peterson is, it is fast becoming clear, a man who is not easily satisfied with any loose use of language. He prefers to follow things right back to source. It’s a habit that makes his exploration of the Book of Genesis – in his online lectures and in the new book – so compelling.
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