Introduction
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[Music] 
0:12 
how are you doing man it's been such a it's been a long time it's it's been a while yeah yeah it's been a while yeah 
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I'm I'm I'm continuing to improve it's you know this um I the long Co really did a number on 
0:26 
me so I'm still still recovering it's been years but I'm still recovering but 
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a couple doctors contacted me um from Australia okay and said that they they 
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thought from my symptoms they heard me on a podcast and they said they thought from my symptoms that the heart wasn't 
0:43 
the primary thing that had been attacked but it was my gut that the um the virus 
0:48 
is a bacteriophage and that it destroyed the the bacteria that produced Gaba and 
0:55 
serotonin and other calming kinds of things and and promoted bacter IA that produce amines that sort of overdrive 
1:02 
the heart and lead to the failure that I had and so that's so they put me on this 
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really strict diet vegetables and and no basically almost no it's almost like a total no carb kind of diet see that has 
1:17 
that have you seen an impact yeah it's it's completely changed my gut and I I actually it's making a 
1:25 
huge difference so so this is I mean the virus attacks you wherever I guess you're weak um and it it got me in the 
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gut in the heart geez man I'm glad you're doing better though it's it's always great to to know someone's doing 
1:37 
better and I mean we need you out there to continue doing such great work well well thank you and and we need you to 
1:43 
continue to do this great podcast and and of course the medical work that you do thanks so much Don I mean we've 
1:49 
covered so much we've chatted twice already and both both times we went through various different aspects of all 
1:56 
your work and the first podcast we spoke about is interface theory of perception 
New Discovery (Observer)
2:01 
we spoke about conscious realism uh we touched on conscious agents but in the second one we went very in depth 
2:07 
conscious agents in the subatomic world we went into that paper we dissected it people loved it by the 
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way yeah it's been it's it's been quite a hit uh for this podcast I thought let me curate a bunch of questions from the 
2:20 
audience so far from the first two and we'll try each of them um but before we 
2:25 
do that I think since conscious agents of the subatomic world what's happened since cuz I'm assuming you guys are 
2:31 
having a lot of fun and it's it's always exciting to when someone jumps and gets outside the box to know what's what's 
2:38 
really outside the box that's right so we have made a couple for me very fun discoveries so 
2:47 
one has to do with the notion of observation what does it mean to observe 
2:55 
what what will it mean in our Theory to for one system to observe another 
3:00 
in in you know classical physics The Observer um is not much mentioned and if 
3:06 
they're mentioned at all they're assume to be objective and don't really interfere at all with whatever it is that they're so they they don't disturb 
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whatever they're observing in quantum mechanics um there isn't a theory of the 
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Observer but but it's it's known that you know somehow the measurement process um is a destructive process I mean 
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things are different when you measure than you know when you don't and and so there there this feeling that you know 
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the Observer has to play a role but it's not formalized right the their measurement is formalized you know some 
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kind of there is a formalization there in terms of positive operator Valu measures 
3:44 
and so povms and so forth but but you know even someone like Chris fuks who's saying you know that the that quantum 
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mechanics is really just um a description for the agent how it should up update their beliefs in in in light 
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of experimental data and so forth but when you ask him so so what is your theory of the agent he says I I don't 
4:04 
owe you a theory of the agent I'm just telling you that quantum mechanics is the manual that the agent should use and I don't know what an agent is and I 
4:10 
respect I mean you can't do everything and he's doing quantum mechanics and he's not doing the agent he's not doing the Observer but he does say that the 
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agent's important so so then in our Theory then you know the question comes 
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front and center because we're talking about conscious agents all the way down so we we we can't avoid so when we talk 
4:28 
about a measurement we have to actually have a theory of what does it mean for one system of conscious agents 
4:37 
to make a measurement on another system of conscious agents right what what does that 
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mean and we use so I have to be a little 
4:48 
technical to to explain the idea I'll try to be as untechnical as possible but 
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we use marvian kernels so a markovian kernel basically says suppose you have um a 
5:02 
system that that can see three colors red green and blue that that's what it experiences there's a kernel that we 
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call the qualia kernel that describes the sequence of color experiences that this Observer might have so maybe if I 
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see red now the probability is that the next time I see a color it'll be green but maybe it's maybe it's half and it's 
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also a third that I'll see blue but it's also you know whatever is left over probability that I'll see red so I can 
5:29 
say for for each color I'm now experiencing what is the probability of the next color I might experience and 
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you can so when you write down a matrix a a table of all those probabilities in mathematics we call that a mark of 
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Kernel and it it's it's actually a linear operator um and and you can 
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actually study the properties of the linear operator it can rotate vectors it can exchange you expand and contract 
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vectors it can do all sorts of things so so that's the one of the models we're using to represent observers and the 
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conscious experiences that they have what we discovered was and this is a new contribution to to 
6:11 
marov chain Theory apparently to the mathematics of it is that well first first what I'm about to 
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say is not a new contribution it's a standard notion but we're going to use it for the for the new contribution if 
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you take one markof chain like it has three colors and and you've got the markof chain on but then you say what 
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what if I you know don't look at the red I don't care when the red I'm only going to look at the green and blue and I'm going to look at those two colors um 
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what Markov chain gets induced on those two colors from the bigger Markov chain on red green and blue right there's some 
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probability of going from red green blue but what happens if I only can see the green and the blue I'll get some chance you know if I'm see if I see green now 
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that I'll see blue next for I see green now I'll see green next so so I can actually you can intuitively you can say 
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well yeah you should be able to induce a marov chain on the smaller number of of states right just from the but it would 
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somehow respect the bigger the bigger Markov chain right so that's the idea of a tra it's called a trace 
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chain well what we proved um this is work with jayton Pros uh so he and I 
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worked on this together and what we found is that the relationship of being 
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a trace chain to another markof chain is a partial order that that means that it 
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we found a this is an entire Logic on the space of all Markov chains all 
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Markov kernels so this is a brand new logic one one 
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in one chain entails another if it's a trace chain of the other that's that's 
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so I can the actual definition is simple once I've told I can actually say the def so one markof chain p is less than 
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or equal to Markov chain Q if and only if p is a Trace chain of Q and you can 
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prove that that is actually a partial order and it's a logic so it's actually a logic on the space of all Mark of 
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Chains It's not Boolean it's it's more General than Boolean it's more General than 
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um Quantum Logics Ortho complimented luses this this is more it's more 
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General than that it's locally buo so every particular Markov kernel if you 
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look at all the ones that are less than it the ones that that that are less than it they form a Boolean logic so this is 
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a locally Boolean logic of observation and and then we proved that this if you 
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take so so by the way then this is our notion of observation if one 
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observer's kernel or marov chain is less than or equal to another then it 
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observes the bigger chain so that's so that's how that's what so notice no our notion of observation is not this 
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objective you're you're outside the system no no you're you're immersed in it you are part of the system you're an 
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integral part of the system that you're observing so so at the top level that's the the take-home from this our theory 
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of observation is the Observer is no scientist that's separate from 
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everything and not involved in anything and completely separate and can't and can be ignored no no no no you are 
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intimately part of the system you must be understood to to get a real theory of observation in science you have to 
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understand what an agent is and how it's embedded in the systems that it's observing and this is this gives a 
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mathematical Logic for doing that so it's really we're pretty excited but but 
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then each Markoff chain um if if if if you have Markoff chains 
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that are like recurrent communicating class so they're some sense they're they're nice they're nice Markov chains 
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I'll just use the word nice as a non-technical term but I gave you the technical for those who want the technical recurrent communicating one 
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recurrent communicating class they have then a probability measure that tells you long term what are the probabilities 
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of the different states that you'll see like what was the probability of seeing red maybe long term you see red a third 
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of the time blue twoth thirds of the time and green you don't see hardly at all maybe maybe that's the longterm Pro 
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that's called the stationary measure of of the of the marov chain and so it 
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turns out that when you have a big measure and then a trace sorry a big 
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chain and and a trace chain that the stationary measure of the trace chain is 
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exactly the Restriction of those of the of the stationary measure of the bigger chain to the that subset of states in 
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other words it's all compatible so you have a big measure for the stationary measure of the of the big guy and maybe 
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three of the states are what you trace on well if you look at the the big guys probability measure on those three states 
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that's exactly what you get on the little guy just renormalize so that it's probability measure you have to renormalize it so it's probability so 
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all of these stationary measures are they follow through this 
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logic and so and it turns out this then means that there's this this um logic that we discovered on probability 
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measures that that I published 30 years ago um and it's it's it's um I published 
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it with Bruce Bennett who's he's now dead but a brilliant mathematician and 
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Parish mty who was a graduate student of mathematics so it's two mathematicians and and a flunky me working on this and 
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and well we published it in the Journal of mathsy and what we what we proved is 
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that there was a logic and probability measures where one probability measure um implies another or entails 
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another probability measure if and only if it's a normalized restriction so I 
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get the bigger probability measure I take a subset of it States renormalize the probability on that and that's the 
12:01 
probability of this guy down here it turns out that's so it's a simple idea you know I'm just a normalized restriction of the bigger measure but 
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then I that's the implication relation that gives you a non- bullan logic that 
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that's it's um there's no Global complement just like in by the way this Trace logic there's no Global complement 
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okay locally there is because you have a local Boolean um logic but globally not so it 
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turns out now this last thing I'm about to say we haven't proven yet but we're going to try to do that there's a 
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homomorphism of the Logics that the trace logic is essentially homomorphic to the what we call the leeg logic of 
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probability measures so this gives us the trace logic gives us a formal theory 
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of observation and the leag logic of probability measures gives us a formal 
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theory of um probabilistic belief and so putting them together with 
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this homomorphism shows how observations are formly related to probabilistic beliefs okay so this is 
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for us a major breakthrough in terms of the formalism and and we had to go after 
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this because you know you mentioned our our paper on the subatomic world you 
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know so conscious agents in the subatomic World well we have to say what we mean when we're talking 
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about modeling observations of quirks and gluons inside the prot what what do 
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we mean well so now we have this we we mean that we're going to be positing some bigger Markov chain and our 
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observations will be some Trace chains right of that bigger chain and the trace 
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chain will have two two ways that it's doing this observation one is um the 
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number of states that it's tracing on right so that's going to be one parameter the more States you trace on 
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in some sense the the better spatial resolution you've got right right so the 
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so if if I have you know if my big chain has a thousand states that would be a 
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very big chain um at least for my computer um and and suppose I I have a 
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trace chain that's only 10 States versus another one that's 100 States versus another one that's 500 substates of the 
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Big Chain right the one that 500 substates is in some sense a higher resolution observation than the one that 
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only has you know 50 states that the 50 state one is is observing the big one 
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the big thousand State one is it is observing it but not nearly with the resolution of the you know 500 statement 
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almost like quantifying that sort of objective it's it gives you complete quantification and and for the physicist 
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this is this would be our quantification of what they call Q squ which is their technical thing for um spatial spatial 
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resolution it's tied to the amount of energy that they use when the higher energy leads to better spatial 
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resolution so what we're basically now doing is identifying higher energies with greater spatial resolution in our 
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Trace chains which is that that itself is a non-trivial statement there's there's a lot there's 
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a lot that said there obviously because it's very complex and a lot of people find it very difficult I've noticed a 
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lot of people find your theory so fascinating and and want to jump on board so badly but the math and the 
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physics become so complicated that they just can't do it and right the only way 
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I can is when is by first obviously chatting to you watching reading your content but then chatting to friends who 
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are physicists trying to get their opinion on on all of this and trying from their perspective to understand what you're talking about and the more I 
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do the easier it gets it gets to sort of understand it but I still feel left in the dark knowing that you have access to 
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more information based on the base of knowledge you have within physics and Mathematics have you felt that it's a a 
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bit of a struggle to try and get this out there because of the complexity of this topic you feel people find that 
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you're hiding behind these sort of fancy words CU I've noticed a lot of people comment about that um saying that okay 
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once you mention decorated permutations or permutations or W you mention Mark of blankets um you're just trying to sound 
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smart but but that's not the case because when I chat to my physicist friends they seem to know what you're 
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talking about a lot better than the lay if someone thinks that you can we 
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have a paper called fusions of Consciousness so you can just go look at the paper fusions of Consciousness and 
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and we don't just mention the word decorated permutation we actually we actually create an we we actually create 
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a new mathematics of decorated permutations for marov chains so so it's it's not just handwaves we're I only 
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talk about it because we're using it and we're using it to to to good purpose I'll put a link to fusions of Consciousness and I think that that one 
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came out in January if if I'm not yeah in January that's right that's right 
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so I'll just mention that so I agree with what you're saying that it's it's 
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difficult and I I try to talk about this stuff in a way that's generally accessible but the but the problem is of 
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course if you do that then people say well that's not it's not serious and if you and if you do it seriously then I 
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can't understand it he's just throwing out these technical words so you're it's a catch 22 but my my attitude is well 
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you know I do get um graduate potential graduate students and this is one reason 
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why I do these podcasts and young people I'm interested in getting young people who are young enough that they can start 
17:34 
to learn the math and and and make contributions get them excited and get them you know studying this stuff I 
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spent an hour and a half with one student potential student yesterday talking about and gave her a bunch of 
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math to read and so so you know so that's what I'm doing it for is to actually get graduate students working 
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on their phds in this field um that's that's my goal I've noticed someone else has this 
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problem because when when I chatted it's call friston we when I chatted to call and and we spoke about his approach to 
18:04 
the free energy principle he has exactly the same issue he's often accused of of hiding behind fancy talk they sort of 
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say h so so it's you really are stuck between a rock and a hot place you can't 
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how do you dumb down something that is so complex do you find that there's a 
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there's a there's a specific way you think that's best to approach the so far have you hacked the code yet 
18:28 
well for for communicating it um probably the the best approach that 
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I've seen so far to get people to take this idea seriously to not just dismiss it is to point out the failure of 
18:44 
physical his series yes yes right right that that's that seems to I mean because I'm I'm someone might say look you know 
18:52 
the brain does it forget all this stuff about conscious and so forth mean look at all the physical 
18:59 
it's clear we have all these neural correlates of Consciousness um we're we're almost there we're you know we're 
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getting these neural we got lots of neural cor of Consciousness we have all these nice you know we have integrated 
19:10 
information Theory we have orchestrated collapse of quantum states of microtubules we have you know attention 
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schema Theory uh 
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there's I it I think I already mentioned integrated information so there's just a bunch of these oh Global workspace there 
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is another another big one right so Global workspace Theory so so um you know why do we need someone who's is's 
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clearly often mov land talk saying Consciousness is fundamental and and so forth and so for me the thing that I 
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think is is the most grabbing thing to say is if you ask any of these theorists 
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proponents of these theories okay you're integrated information Theory this is the theory about conscious experiences 
19:55 
okay so you're you're starting with some substrate maybe it's physical or some 
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other substrate and you have this causal architecture that's got the right pattern of integrated information and 
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you're saying that that will explain the the qualia of specific conscious experiences the color green the taste of 
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chocolate the smell of garlic um the experience of um auditory Space versus 
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the experience of visual space or the experience of haptic space as as as 
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conscious experiences so which so clearly you've been at this for 
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a couple decades so you must have a whole bunch of conscious experiences that that you can now say this is the 
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pattern of integrated information that must be um the taste of chocolate so so so give me what what have you 
20:45 
got zero yeah and you go you go to Every Theory and you ask them so what have you 
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got how many qualia have you given me the global workspace architecture for or 
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the orchestrated collapse of quantum states with neuron microtubules or integrated information you know Q what 
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they call the q- shape how many how many do you have zero in every case so we 
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have these theories that have been out there for decades decades now that are batting 
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zero and I'm saying they're batting zero for principled reasons SpaceTime the 
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physicist the high energy theoretical physicists are telling us SpaceTime is not fundamental and reductionism is 
21:27 
false these theories are failing because they're not listening to Modern high 
Theories of Consciousness (Graziano, Tononi, Hammerhof, Frankish etc.)
21:33 
energy theoretical physicists that are telling us that that game is over we're playing an old game it's like someone 
21:40 
after Einstein trying to play the Newtonian game in understanding chemistry yes good luck you can't 
21:47 
understand chemistry using Newton you have to use quantum mechanics I'm sorry I shouldn't have said Einstein so there 
21:52 
some Quantum so don before you move on from that I've because one of the questions one of the questions from the 
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audience so I gathered a bunch from YouTube Twitter Etc um unfortunately 
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sometimes I forgot to actually write on the person's name so I've just left them all out together so I'm just going to 
22:09 
ask you them at random but one of the questions was directed at one of your statements because you've said this 
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before you you talking about the taste of chocolate talking about the smell of garlic this person says that whenever 
22:21 
you mention those specific States they want to know why do you want such a 
22:27 
direct portion of Consciousness so let's say when you're asking for that qualitative 
22:33 
qualia experience of the taste of chocolate why go after a specific State 
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because everything in the mind is so blurry so mismatched there's so much going on there's so much let's say 
22:44 
heuristics involved wouldn't that be a bad approach to trying to provide proof of a 
22:52 
theory well all I'm doing is is saying to the people who are off offering these 
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theories like the integrated information Theory or Global workspace whatever they're the ones that are saying we will 
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start with neural activity or this Q shape or and we will give you conscious experiences like that mean we will give 
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you these experiences I'm saying okay that's what you're promising to do so I'm just asking you yes since that's 
23:17 
what you said you're going to do yes um I'm just asking you how how how's it gone and by the way I asked Julio ton 
23:24 
this back in late 1990s he came to UC Irvine to our hel Holtz club meeting and 
23:30 
I asked him that and um he didn't have any then and then I asked him a few 
23:35 
years ago in Canada at at a conference asked him again and he admitted he 
23:41 
needed to offer one and he and he couldn't and and i' same same with um 
23:46 
you know Stuart Hammer off I mean I had him at a conference in front of four or 500 people I asked them you know so 
23:53 
steuart how's it going I mean you're promising that we'll start with these orchestrated collapses and you'll give us specific conscious experiences so 
23:59 
which ones I mean that that's what you claim that you're doing so how many conscious experiences have you nailed 
24:04 
down and I had to push him for what three or four minutes before he finally said because he was Heming and hming and 
24:10 
I said no no no steuart give me one no steuart give me one and he finally said no I can't give you one so so I'm 
24:18 
just now if if if they want to say you know we have these wonderful theories integrative information Theory and they 
24:23 
have nothing to do with the taste of chocolate and the smell of garlic fine then then I won't ask you the 
24:30 
question but if they do say that then hey this science is science where's the beef so that's that's why I do Don I'm 
24:37 
curious about your opinion was it about it was about two months ago I think about the 
24:43 
IIT Suare I mean that was was such a major issue within the philosophy 
24:49 
community and science community in general what were your thoughts on that uh just for the context for the listeners it's it's the whole debacle 
24:56 
where IIT was a accused of being pseudoscience right that's right and and 
25:02 
when I looked at the um the letter that was put out there and the references that they gave one of the things they 
25:08 
referenced was Michael Graziano in a paper of his on um attentional schema 
25:13 
Theory where where it basically says a theory of Consciousness is either mechanical or it's magical and so the 
25:21 
the signers of that were basically signing on to look a theory of Consciousness is either mechanical 
25:27 
presumably neur mechanical but maybe AI kind of mechanical but but most of them are thinking neuromechanical 
25:33 
right um or it's magical and so what what so the argument is that 
25:40 
IIT is claiming some kind of substrate 
25:45 
Independence there is a substrate so that it doesn't say that Consciousness is fundamental it says there is a substrate to Consciousness but the 
25:52 
substrate might not be physical of course they're they're thinking it's physical right that's I mean if ask him 
25:58 
so what is so how many non-physical substrates are you you know have you concentrated have you thought so what 
26:04 
are you going to say ectoplasm I don't know what so so but anyway they're they're they're saying that there's a 
26:09 
substrate but they're not committed to a neural put it this way there not necessarily a neural substrate it could 
26:15 
be some kind of computational architecture that's completely non- neural so so I don't think they're going non-physical but they they could be 
26:21 
going non neural and so 
26:28 
that means that they're they're dealing with something that is it looks like a disembodied mathematical causal 
26:35 
structure right although the IT people would of course say it has to be 
26:41 
instantiated in something so the substrate is is is important but 
26:47 
somehow they think that because it's not they're not 
26:52 
tying they're not starting with neurons they're not starting with with 
26:58 
neural circuitry or something like that and trying to show that that leads to 
27:03 
conscious they're starting with something more abstract and and not necessarily mechanical it's it's not like this fires and that fires and we 
27:10 
have this circuit and so forth it it's more abstract mathematical kind of thing so I'm TR just trying to explain the 
27:18 
kind of get in the heads of the people that are there worried about this they're 
27:24 
and so they're they're concerned about that now my my attitude is I think 
27:32 
that all of these theories have the problem that I just 
27:38 
mentioned which is there's no beef there's no no success in in the in terms 
27:44 
of specific conscious experiences and and and what's happened is all the 
27:49 
physicalists I think that they're starting to understand that they're not 
27:55 
they have nothing in terms of concrete conscious experiences that they can explain without handwave they're zero 
28:03 
they're forming a circular firing squad right they're they're shooting at 
28:08 
each other and and everybody's vulnerable to the the the objection that I just gave yeah the objection is you 
28:14 
claim that you I start with integrated information or I start with you know higher order Theory now now we're doing 
28:21 
the neural stuff high order theories or first order theories or Global workspace Theory and I'm going to give specific 
28:27 
conscious experiences which one oh I can't give you any right now how long have we been doing this decades we've 
28:33 
been doing this for decades you can't give you one so so at some point people get impatient and and and go you 
28:40 
know now now I should say I'm good friends these are these are my friends and colleagues right I so they're 
28:49 
brilliant some of them are geniuses all of them are brilliant and some of them are geniuses why are they not making 
28:55 
progress there're is not because they're not smart they're brilliant they're they're not making progress because 
29:02 
we're not listening to what the high energy theoretical phys physicists are telling us SpaceTime is doomed and 
29:09 
reductionism is false we have to listen to our best current science it was fine 
29:17 
30 years ago to assume that SpaceTime was fundamental and reductionism is the way to go in fact it was the right 
29:24 
approach given our current science at the time but it's no longer it's no longer feasible it's 
29:30 
ignoring it's it's frankly just ignoring our best science and that's not what we want to do so my prediction is as soon 
29:39 
as these brilliant colleagues and friends of mine really understand that 
29:44 
we need a new framework and they switch I think all of a sudden we'll make some serious progress on this field and we'll 
29:51 
look back and and realize that we're in sort of the Flat Earth period of of this field and as as long as you consume Flat 
29:57 
Earth you can't do a space program as soon as you let go of Flat Earth then you you start to have the tools that you 
30:04 
can that you need to actually start doing a space program so you mentioned Michael Grano he was actually when he 
30:10 
was the first person I interviewed on this podcast and this it feels like ages ago but I remember him saying that if 
30:17 
you take attention schema Theory and you plop it on top of um Global workspace 
30:22 
theory he believes that together it actually would provide a very com complete 
30:28 
Theory Of Consciousness but I can't help but think based on the fact that he's saying that based on the fact that they 
30:34 
used is either mechanical or magical do you think it's it would be similar to compare Michael's Theory and Global 
30:42 
workspace if they continue to do as well as they do separately and maybe even together to be the Newton's theory in 
30:50 
physics or Newtonian physics of the brain and then while you guys are going 
30:55 
on to sort of do the Einstein's theory of Consciousness do you think you guys are going to approach Consciousness in 
31:01 
that sort of way well yeah now I should be very very clear that I think that the work that 
31:07 
they're doing on getting models of the neural corelates of Consciousness is brilliant and useful and that will 
31:15 
survive right but it's not a theory of the generation of Consciousness it's it's a a theory about how we see 
31:22 
Consciousness um correlated um with parts of brain Aria but so so so I'm all all for that now my 
31:31 
understanding about Graziano is at least in some of his writings I've gotten him I gotten the impression that he thinks 
31:37 
that that conscious experiences is in some sense an illusion we have the it's not you know there aren't really qualia 
31:44 
but we have the illusion it's a car he calls it a caricature he he actually intentionally avoids the word 
31:51 
illusion right so so if if if yeah so if he doesn't want to use the word illusion 
31:58 
um Keith Frankish does so Keith does use the word illusion and and if you know 
32:04 
Michael wants to use you know caricature that that's fine but as a scientist my my feeling I'll say first about the 
32:10 
illusion approach with and I've said this to I mean Keith is a great guy I really enjoy 
32:16 
talking with him pH he's a friend and so forth but I i' I've pointed this out to him and he hasn't demurred um that you 
32:23 
know saying that it's an illusion doesn't get him off the hook because we now need a scientific theory 
32:30 
about what specific pattern of brain activity must be the illusion of the 
32:35 
taste of chocolate and could not be the illusion of garlic so so you might think oh well now that they said it's an 
32:40 
illusion they don't have the problem that Hopman bring up no no no no no they have you we have to do science here if 
32:46 
you're saying it's an illusion I want to have a precise scientific theory about why that has to be that illusion and 
32:52 
couldn't be you know the this other illusion I would for they call it the 
32:57 
illusion problem that's that's right and I would say the same thing you know um from 
33:05 
graciano if it's a caricature then why should this particular brain activity be the caricature of the color green and 
33:12 
not the caricature of the color red I mean I want to again as a scientist I don't want to handwave and I don't want 
33:18 
to say because I called it a caricature I don't don't owe you a scientific theory I mean I'm I'm I'm not 
33:24 
interested I'm interested in results M I want a theory whether it says it's an 
33:30 
illusion or a caricature or the real qualia I want a theory that that gives me the beef and says this pattern must 
33:37 
be this caricature and it couldn't be that caricature otherwise I mean I'm philosophy is fine 
33:43 
I have a joint appointment in philosophy I love philosophy but I'm talking science here and so I I want a 
33:48 
scientific theory so so that that's sort of my attitude about that whole thing yeah and I think but what I was trying 
33:54 
to get at was it will still be very useful and and it will actually work in the sense that in in the same way 
34:00 
Newtonian physics works because we still use it it's still very practical it's it 
34:05 
it's just doesn't go away so in that sense it will still be very very good at its 
34:10 
job I I agree and and and but also you'll have some with Newton you have 
34:17 
some misconceptions you have the idea that well I should be able to get the position and the momentum at the same 
34:22 
time to arbitrary accuracy when I'm looking at stuff right so so you're led to believe certain things well that 
34:29 
turned out to be false and and so so the so the absolutely Newton is great if you 
34:35 
want to send a rocket to the moon it'll work and and for for a lot of everyday stuff but but sometimes it leads you 
34:41 
into conceptual errors like position momentum I and something like these 
34:47 
physicalist theories I think they will be very very good for the neural correlates of Consciousness and so forth 
34:52 
but they're going to lead to some they are leading to what I think are fundamental errors and I'll I'll name 
34:57 
one that I think is is a crucial error they want to make a distinction between which circuits of the brain or 
35:04 
which physical objects in general are conscious which ones are not so they they want to they want to use IIT in 
35:11 
hospitals to determine whether someone's a vegetable or not you know should we pull the plug or not so that that's 
35:19 
something that you as a doctor are quite interested in I'm sure yes and and so they're making they're making the 
35:25 
assumption that some physical systems are associated with 
35:31 
Consciousness and others are not that's that's their assumption okay 
35:38 
now if if it turns out that SpaceTime isn't fundamental and objects in 
35:44 
SpaceTime are not fundamental in other words if we listen to what the high energy theoretical physicists are telling us and they're saying that there 
35:51 
are structures outside of SpaceTime and they're finding them like amplitud hedrin and decorated permutations 
36:01 
what is spacetime it's not the fundamental reality anymore in objects in space time or not so now we have to 
36:07 
understand what is that and so what I'm proposing is that SpaceTime and objects in SpaceTime are just a 
36:13 
headset just an interface so think about it that way so here I'm I'm I'm using an 
36:18 
interface to talk with you and I see I'm using zoom we're we're talking via zoom and I see a bunch of pixels on the 
36:24 
screen and I see pixels of you know T's face and I see also pixels of a of a of 
36:31 
a wall behind you now I'm getting a lot of conscious input from the pixels on 
36:36 
your face I mean I can see your expression I can see if you're interested or not the pixels on the wall 
36:42 
not much now I could say aha so I want to have um the the the pixel corelates 
36:50 
of Consciousness aha so these are the conscious pixels the ones on and those 
36:55 
are the conscious pixel and and the ones in the wall those are not conscious pixels and so now I'm going to have I'm 
37:01 
going to have my little mathematical model these pixels are conscious and those pixels or not because these have some complicated pattern of interaction 
37:08 
and those do not well that's completely wrongheaded pixels are pixels period 
37:15 
some p and they're not conscious or unconscious they're they're a merely a 
37:20 
headset an interface some pixels give me access to a conscious conscious behind 
37:27 
the zoom and others don't and and so when you realize that that's so that is 
37:33 
a fundamental difference here right if if we use something like integrated information Theory which is saying 
37:39 
certain physical systems are conscious and others are not I'm saying that claim 
37:45 
is absolutely false and it's dangerous to assume it in 
37:51 
in hospital settings so this is this is no academic yeah so now this goes beyond this is very practical this becomes very 
37:57 
important for us as society and and that's actually the main when I started the podcast um one of the one of the 
38:05 
description layers was this podcast's function is to show just how difficult intellectually and practically the Mind 
38:12 
Body problem is because the moment you do finally figure out whatever Theory Of Consciousness you want to develop and 
38:20 
grow it has so many practical implications and in this case I mean you're touching on on a very very big 
38:26 
one I mean death we're talking life and death at this point absolutely and pulling the plug or not and and it's if 
38:35 
if the foundation is so wrong that it's actually it's it's at the level of saying these pixels are conscious and 
38:41 
these pixels are not is that that kind of error then then we we have to be very very careful about it so so so this is 
38:48 
not just academic anymore saying that SpaceTime as a headset has real real implications moral implications and 
38:55 
technological implications ations and it it also has implications for the whole debate about can AIS be conscious right 
39:02 
this gives you the standard way that that's considered and and again it brings up all sorts of moral questions 
39:08 
that people are worried about but the way it's thought about is we have a physical system that a priori is not 
39:16 
conscious somehow if we give it the right kind of complexity computational complexity it will be 
39:23 
conscious well that's exactly the same M AK is saying if I get the right kind of complexity in the zoom pixel activity 
39:31 
it'll be Consciousness no it's not it's just so certain Zoom pixels give me a 
39:36 
portal into tev's Consciousness and other Zoom pixels on my screen don't give me any portals into T's 
39:43 
Consciousness the pixels are not conscious or unconscious it's about the 
39:48 
headset and how it's engageed to what's beyond SpaceTime what's outside the 
Theoretical Limits in Science
39:53 
SpaceTime and how it's effectively or not effectively giving us access to what's beyond 
39:59 
SpaceTime the whole point of a headset is to simplify things and at some point you're going to simplify things so so 
40:06 
much that you can't really say much about it right when I look at you my my 
40:12 
interface has given me um a portal into your Consciousness that's that's good 
40:18 
not not perfect even if you've lived with someone you've been married to someone for 30 years you find out that 
40:24 
there's things you don't know right so it's not a perfect portal but when I look at my cat the portal is even worse 
40:30 
and when I look at an ant it's even worse and a microbe it's even worse when I look at a rock my my headset is given 
40:37 
up because headsets are there to simplify things at some point it has to give up so it's not that the rock 
40:43 
is it's not that like the T human body is conscious or not conscious and the 
40:48 
rock is conscious or not it's just that these are symbols that give us portals into a pre-existing Consciousness or not 
40:55 
in the case of the rock my idea is that we're interacting with Consciousness all the time but when I see a rock I'm not 
41:02 
getting much insight into the Consciousness that I'm interacting with it's not so I'm not saying the rock is conscious it's not pan psychism so I'm 
41:09 
not I'm not a pan psychist headset is a headset Consciousness is consciousness 
41:14 
I'm not saying that you know see most pan psychist are thinking that that SpaceTime is 
41:20 
fundamental particles are fundamental but behind the equations of physics and behind the particles breathes fire into 
41:27 
the equations and life into the particles is consciousness inside SpaceTime but but we'll keep the same 
41:32 
laws of physics and so forth you know so Consciousness is sort of almost along for the ride but the the laws of physics 
41:39 
are really doing all the I'm I'm I'm having I'm good friends with Philip gof and and we we have good discussions on 
41:45 
that and Philip has said to me that he's he's willing to let go of SpaceTime but but we we'll see you know I'll push push 
41:52 
to to let go of that and if he does I think we'll be very very close in our views but so you know I think that well 
42:00 
I think I'll just stop there I'm going to Chet to Philipp and I think Jan of Feb I can't remember when we scheduled 
42:06 
it but I'm going to ask him about this I'm going to see how close he's gotten to to that sort of conversion but I'm 
42:11 
glad you're touching so as it stands done you're touching on some practical stuff at the moment and and this is what 
42:17 
I sort of premised a lot of these questions on which is great because I think that these practical implications 
42:22 
of understanding this headset or understanding this virtual reality this matx whatever people want to call it 
42:28 
it's pretty much the same thing you are saying that this this world we're living in is a sort of simulation in that sense 
42:34 
it is a virtual reality some people love using the word Matrix just to be clear it's not the same type of Matrix as from 
42:41 
the movie but nevertheless the word Matrix seems to be now synonymous with simulation in this virtual reality um 
42:50 
let me just go to this question that I have for you how do mental health or mental disabilities 
42:57 
work within this sort of framework does your work now give you a sort of I know 
43:02 
you have to now almost become a philosopher and and sort of maybe even guesstimate certain aspects of this 
43:09 
because it's very difficult to go outside this box already uh and to go even further Beyond SpaceTime to Now 
43:14 
give me mental health theories is going to be even more difficult but just out 
43:19 
of curiosity what what is it is it a bug in the actual virtual 
43:24 
reality what's on you 
43:31 
well so the way I think about it is that there space and time and what we see in 
43:36 
space and time is just a headset and behind the headset is this realm of conscious agents so that's that's 
43:43 
another part of the antology that we're proposing I'm not saying I'm right I'm just saying I'm trying to be precise and 
43:48 
got to say something specific so I'm saying that there's a vast social network of conscious agents that in some 
43:55 
sense probably are ultimately I'll realize that there's one conscious agent and this network is just a nice analytic 
44:01 
tool that I have to use as a scientist so I'll talk about there's one conscious agent but I'm using this network because 
44:08 
that's what I need to use to do mathematics so that one conscious 
44:15 
agent what is it up to and why right I don't know so we 
44:24 
guess but one one possibility is um it it's a theorem that no system 
44:29 
can ever understand itself completely MH if I have a computer system and it 
44:35 
wants to understand itself it has to build a model of itself well as soon as it builds a model of itself now it's more complicated so now to understand 
44:41 
itself the new self with the model is going to have to model itself with a model and you get in this infinite 
44:48 
recursion so so maybe what the maybe the the the one infinite consciousness which 
44:56 
transcends any particular instantiation Like A Spacetime instantiation or 
45:02 
whatever you know we have a three dimensions of space one dimension of time what about a 50 dimensions of space in in in one dimension of time I I can 
45:10 
see s million colors why not 20 trillion colors and new in other words this is 
45:15 
just one possible form instantiation that the Consciousness can 
45:20 
use out of it out of an infinite potential to to look at itself so what 
45:26 
what Consciousness is up to is looking at itself from different 
45:32 
perspectives and then losing itself in the perspective ident so identify so I'm 
45:40 
I I'm now identified with the Hof and body I think I'm only you know I'm just that I'm nothing more and I'm afraid of 
45:46 
death and and the whole bit and then slowly waking up and realizing oh no no 
45:51 
I I now know myself because I know I'm not Hoffman and I'm not I'm not so all 
45:57 
the stuff that I thought I was and I immersed myself you know both feet I jumped in with both feet on this 
46:04 
thing and spent 70 years 80 years 90 years and then woke 
46:10 
up and and now I know myself because I know I I know myself better because I 
46:16 
know I'm not that knowing Yourself by a bunch of negations and and so now so now from 
Finding "The One" (aka "God") Mathematically
46:25 
that point of view the one can know Itself by being a 
46:31 
paraplegic or having um you know Alzheimer's or you're 
46:37 
having you know all you know any any kind of mental disease you want some kind of nervous 
46:43 
breakdown I just have nervous breakdowns all the time or you know whatever it might be or I I also experience myself 
46:49 
as being uh you know the the world's fastest Olympic runner yeah know and and 
46:55 
and the world's Einstein I'll and then I'll wake up but I'm not that either I that's so in other 
47:03 
words essentially even behind someone who looks completely debilitated is this infinite 
47:09 
Consciousness just looking at itself so so in that point of view everything 
47:14 
deserves equal respect right so there's there's a moral aspect to this which 
47:20 
which says when I see someone who has an IQ of 50 there's no difference between me and 
47:27 
that when I look at my cat it's I am the same one Consciousness that's also 
47:32 
looking at me through the cat those are just different avatars of the one Consciousness from this point of view so 
47:38 
what what happens from this point of view is there is no grounds 
47:49 
for putting barriers between me and anybody else this actually says I am that just 
47:56 
looking at it through a different interface and this I think is the foundation for a genuine love that love 
48:03 
is recognizing it's not just loving the other as yourself it's recognizing that the other is yourself it's you the 
48:10 
infinite Consciousness looking at yourself through a different Avatar yeah it's it's you see this sort of play out 
48:16 
in a lot of ancient cultures as well where let's say someone goes out and hunts for food they kill the animal and 
48:23 
they sort of pray to it um hug it uh do a sort of sing songs around it because 
48:29 
they know they have to eat this being that is sort of still part of them and this this is quite a quite a recurring 
48:37 
theme um with religions with with sort of spirituals uh 
48:43 
spiritualists and I've noticed a lot of idealist theories in general tend to lead to this 
48:49 
uh that's right I was I didn't intend to go there which is quite fascinating 
48:56 
I mean I I was just sort of led by you know if I'm going to assume that Consciousness is fundamental and I start 
49:01 
it's one step after another and I sort of LED Kicking and Screaming to this but but now that I've gone there it it it it 
49:08 
starts to make sense it's so counterintuitive but but but that counterintuitiveness might just be the 
49:14 
the you know the one jumped in with both feet and it it let itself get completely lost 
49:19 
in it in other words if you're really going to know that you're not that you have to believe that you are it for a while to really let yourself believe it 
49:27 
and then wake up and then you really you you took that very very seriously you really understood what it meant to be a 
49:33 
t or a Don or or you know Michael Graziano or whoever it might be 
49:39 
you know you learned what it meant to be that and you realize I'm not that I I am this Consciousness that transcends that 
49:46 
it's it's like when Bernardo talks about this dissociated altars I mean of a 
49:51 
universal mind berado castr when he says it's pretty much the same thing that Universal mind and we're just these 
49:56 
avatars or dissociated altars of the same sort of entity there is no 
50:02 
separation here at all that's right so I'm pretty much on the same page with Bernardo on on on on 
50:09 
most things one little wrinkle that we add though and it may not be just a little wrinkle is that this Trace logic 
50:15 
that I mentioned at the start is the first formal structure I 
50:20 
found outside of SpaceTime about the structure of the one 
50:26 
and it's a non- Boolean logic and there's no Global compliment so this is the first hint 
50:33 
I've gotten of of a structure and I'm not saying that our our this is the final word about the structure of the 
50:39 
one absolutely not it's but it's the first baby step and the first baby step 
50:45 
in terms of a mathematical model of quote unquote God yes the one uh is 
50:51 
already blowing my mind because it's not clear what the word one even means if this 
50:57 
thing is not a Boolean logic there is no like one top Marian kernel so so I I use 
51:05 
the word one but right now when I use it already my math is telling me Don you're gonna you're gonna have to think deeper 
51:11 
that the word one doesn't there that that whatever kind of unity that is is 
51:17 
not a trivial unity and it's not a bullion logic by any means so what do you mean by the one so so already the 
51:25 
math I might be using the same words that the religious people are are using have used for thousands of years yes but 
51:32 
already the math is telling me this goes way way deeper than I'd ever imagined 
51:38 
and and probably way deeper than the human mind because of the interface limitations we have yes could ever 
51:45 
understand that look because that's another one of my questions at some point I mean how how far do you think you're going to get done knowing that we 
51:53 
are limited in and we're never really we never really evolved the capability to perceive truth 
52:00 
I mean we know the difference between proofs and truths um if radicality how close do you really think that this will 
52:06 
take you 
52:15 
well weakness sorry I was gonna say that's always a tough question I mean when we know that we're so limited it's 
52:22 
it's so difficult for us to really go beyond anything further and deeper um does that does that ever keep you up at 
52:29 
night well um I think about it quite a bit um I try 
52:36 
to do it during the day um the here's one important aspect of it 
52:42 
though and that is what is the nature of scientific theory building what are scientific theories what what do we mean 
52:47 
by scientific theory a theory in science says please grant me these 
52:53 
assumptions and if you grant me these assumptions and I can make them mathematically precise so I'll make these assumptions mathematically precise 
53:00 
then I can derive and predict all these wonderful 
53:05 
things and and so that's and and and if you do it right the mathematical 
53:11 
description of the theory will tell you the scope of those assumptions how much that they can really do their power and 
53:18 
they will the it'll also tell you the limits like Einstein's special Theory and general theory of relativity they 
53:24 
they tell you it's great scope the mathematics tells you it's incredible it predicts black holes and all this it's 
53:29 
amazing Stu it works really well it also tells you when you combine it with um 
53:34 
Einstein's contribution to Quantum Theory E equals H new um when you 
53:39 
combine that with that it tells you that um SpaceTime is doomed at 10 the minus 33 
53:45 
centimeters so it tells you that Einstein's theory his beautiful Theory 
53:50 
it tells you the scope and the limits 10 Theus 33 that theory dies 10us 43 
53:57 
seconds it's over so now you might say well of course that's true of any Theory 
54:02 
but I can now give you a deeper theory that explains those assumptions of of the theory that you just so I'll give 
54:08 
you a deeper Theory absolutely you can always get a deeper Theory but your new deeper Theory will have its own 
54:13 
assumptions and this goes on ADD infinitum so my my take on it is science 
54:20 
is one of the best tools we have and I do I'm doing science I love science and 
54:27 
science after billions and billions of years if we continue to do it for billions and billions of years the 
54:34 
fraction of knowledge that we would have about reality is precisely measure 
54:39 
zero precisely measure zero and yet we have to do 
54:45 
it we can never with science write a theory of everything so when we talk 
54:51 
about a Theory of Everything real scientists do it with a win and yes right it's it's a theory of 
54:58 
everything so far and and so far is pretty trivial so so I I think it's in 
55:06 
principle the case that scientific theories can never be a Theory of 
55:11 
Everything But but they can tell us their limits that's what's powerful about science the the the theories of 
55:18 
science tell us their limits like the theory of evolution by natural selection actually entails that space time isn't 
55:24 
fund Al and Einstein's theory of space time entails that space time isn't fundamental these theories tell you 
55:31 
their limits right because evolution of natural selection the way Darwin was thinking about it is talking about organisms in 
55:38 
space and time competing for resources in space and time and when you look at 
55:43 
evolutionary Game Theory it tells you that the very categories of space and 
55:48 
time and objects are not the fundamental reality those are just headset categories so it tells you its 
55:56 
limits I think what our theories do that's That's essential is they do 
56:02 
tell us truths about the particular perspective that our headset gives us so 
56:10 
science can give us truths about our headset there's an infinite reality of 
56:17 
Consciousness that transcends any scientific theory but we can look at 
56:23 
different perspectives on that different possible headsets right now all of science has been looking at a 
56:29 
particular space-time headset three dimensions of space one dimension of time 10 Theus 33 cm it's over with it's 
56:36 
a fairly cheap headset we thought it was the final reality it it just turned out to be a knockoff cheap headset and and 
56:43 
but now we've learned the tools inside the headset we studied the headset we thought we were studying the truth it 
56:48 
was just a headset but now we have the tools we can step outside the headset and imagine other headsets and imagine 
56:55 
and and that's all my theory of conscious agence is it's just a projecting model of of Consciousness 
57:03 
it's no longer taking SpaceTime as fundamental it's taking Consciousness as fundamental but I'm recognizing I can 
57:08 
never get a theory of the ultimate Consciousness let me start off with little networks of conscious agents 
57:13 
because I can model that and that's just G to be a projection at Best of the deeper reality so that's what so every 
57:19 
question you ask I mean the answer is not trivial 
57:26 
we science can never get a theory of everything but we can get good theories of projections of of reality yes and 
Scientific Spirituality
57:35 
then just to put a a spiritual Twist on it but you are that reality you are from 
57:42 
this point of view and in some sense you can know it firsthand by just letting go 
57:47 
of any Theory and letting go of and just being so when you just sit you know in 
57:52 
meditation that is the closest you're going to get to what transcends any 
57:58 
scientific theory it's it's incredible because you 
58:05 
because I obviously I've chatted to you many times and I know how you think and I can tell well I don't know exactly how you think but I know how science-minded 
58:11 
you are and how much it must perhaps annoy you when you're clumped into 
58:18 
categories of thinkers when you are actively doing science because I know that I there are many people are on this 
58:25 
channel who have the same problem the moment you step outside any sort of status quo you you're automatically 
58:30 
grouped together as as either some sort of a hippie scientist or a spiritualist thinker and they give you these labels 
58:36 
that I think are unwarranted and for the most part unfair um and someone who has 
58:41 
a similar issue is is Thomas Campbell because when I spoke to him your theories are very similar and one of the 
58:47 
questions I wrote down here and he he really hates this because he's trying his best to not be Associated any form 
58:53 
of religion um sort of Dogma because he does try and explain things outside of 
58:58 
the realm of what we say quote unquote is normal um the question I have here is 
59:04 
and this is not from me this is from one of the viewers where does Thomas Campbell's 
59:09 
Theory start and Donald Hoffman's Theory end it's they're just trying to ask 
59:16 
what's the difference between these two different types of virtual realities you guys are talking about CU they're both 
59:21 
very similar and yet they are very different I think this person obviously does not see the greater detail in 
59:28 
them right so I I did have a conversation with Tom and so I could actually point out there is a podcast 
59:34 
where Tom and I go into this in great detail so I I can link yeah yeah I'll give you the link to it so so so I'll 
59:41 
just give a short answer because that's um there there I mean Tom and I go at it for an hour or two so it's very friendly 
59:48 
of course very friendly but but but um so he has he calls it my big toe Theory 
59:55 
Big Theory of Everything and so I just given you my theory of everything what that means 
1:00:02 
and so so I at the very end of our conversation I I I pushed him on I said 
1:00:07 
look there is no such thing as a Theory of Everything wouldn't you agree and he ultimately he he he agreed there is no 
1:00:13 
Theory of Everything so initially I thought that that might be a big difference between us but um but I I really wanted to find out I mean do do 
Thomas Campbell's Idealism
1:00:20 
you really believe Tom that you've got the final word on truth with your theory 
1:00:25 
because I don't if if you if you do believe that then then my theory is utterly different from yours because I 
1:00:31 
think all I've got is a little tiny baby step um outside of our headset and that's all I've got and I'm I'm never 
1:00:38 
going to have a theory of everything um so so we 
1:00:46 
now the difference I see between US just in terms of practical Theory building is 
1:00:51 
he's using a lot of quantum theoretical ideas is in in his approach right A lot 
1:00:57 
of it is using he's got Advanced um I guess he didn't get his PhD but he's 
1:01:03 
done Advanced research and and advanced study graduate study in physics you know I think he does I think he's in new does 
1:01:09 
he have a PhD yeah in in in nuclear physics yeah okay so he does have a PhD nuclear okay good so so he's he's he's a 
1:01:16 
genuine you know PhD in physics um and I think that that his he's trying to use 
1:01:23 
um Quant Theory sort of quantum ideas are foundational in in in what he's trying 
1:01:30 
trying to build and from my point of view again the high energy theoretical 
1:01:37 
physicists in the last 20 years are telling us that not not only is spacetime doomed quantum theory is 
1:01:44 
doomed that they're saying that quantum theory will arise joined at the hip with 
1:01:50 
SpaceTime and and so you might say well you know there's all 
1:01:57 
this weird stuff about quantum mechanics there's no cloning theorem you can't clone Quantum bits there's superposition 
1:02:02 
there's entanglement this is all weird weird stuff and and this this is surely showing us something deeper about maybe 
1:02:10 
a conscious reality Beyond SpaceTime and the answer appears 
1:02:16 
that from the work of Chris fuches on Quantum basanis and and Roberts beckin 
1:02:24 
his model of quantum physics all of those weirdnesses of 
1:02:29 
quantum theory no cloning theorem superposition entanglement all that stuff is simply a symptom of incomplete 
1:02:37 
information if you have incomplete information about the state of a system those those all follow as theorems well 
1:02:46 
when I say that SpaceTime is a headset that means incomplete 
1:02:51 
information your headset is there to chop down the information that's the whole point of an interface is to it's 
1:02:57 
it's too complicated out there so let's dumb it down well so quantum mechanics in all the weirdness of quantum 
1:03:03 
mechanics is merely a symptom of the fact that SpaceTime is doomed so it's not going to give us so 
1:03:10 
quantum theory by itself is not going to take us outside SpaceTime quantum theory 
1:03:16 
has its weirdnesses because it's tied to the limits of SpaceTime so what's different between my Approach and and 
1:03:23 
and Tom's is and and most by the way most um people who are trying to use some kind of modern physics to do some 
1:03:30 
kind of exploration of of Consciousness they're tied to many of them are are 
1:03:36 
quantum is it right and and and I'm saying not if you believe the high energy theor theoretical physicists it's 
1:03:43 
not it it's going to arise from deeper structures and and and by the way it's not a handwave 
1:03:49 
so they found like the amplitud hedrin yes is the structure outside of 
1:03:56 
SpaceTime it's a real structure it's published you can go read about it its volumes give you the scattering 
1:04:02 
amplitudes of real processes in in SpaceTime much easier than doing findan 
1:04:07 
diagrams in SpaceTime hundreds of pages of findan diagrams two or three turn into two or three terms you can do by 
1:04:13 
hand and there are no Hilbert spaces to be seen anywhere in the amplitud hedrin 
1:04:19 
and therefore there is no quantum theory and and the physic like Nar con hemed and these guys who were doing this are 
1:04:25 
very very clear there is no quantum theory here this is beyond SpaceTime and 
1:04:30 
quantum theory unitarity which is you know one of the key things we can talk about unitarity I mean there there are 
1:04:36 
some who argue that unitarity is not essential to Quantum Theory but most physicists would say it it is unitarity 
1:04:42 
and locality um are are products of this thing but they're 
1:04:49 
not built into the thing they they can give it to you in the projection but they are they are outside of of 
1:04:54 
SpaceTime and they're outside of quantum theory so so it's you can see that the 
1:05:01 
difference maybe at at some level Tom and I are our concepts are similar but 
1:05:07 
the spirit in which we're doing things is very very different I'm saying I'm I'm letting go of quantum theory 
1:05:13 
entirely I'm letting go of SpaceTime entirely and I feel like that Tom is still saying let me use the tools of 
1:05:19 
quantum theory and and the most advanced physics we have of of SpaceTime get my model of Consciousness 
1:05:25 
I'm saying we really have to jump outside of the headset all together yes now I agree 
1:05:32 
with you because I I I found that question quite redundant in the sense that there are clear differences in the way you guys approach it I think where 
1:05:39 
you guys do start to sort of become similar is when it starts becoming a virtual reality and when and when you 
1:05:45 
start talking about that but but then I have another question from someone and this question is directed at both of us actually um of a critique for the two of 
1:05:52 
us it says in our last conversation on conscious agents and the subatomic world 
1:05:58 
uh tev tev you and Don do not Define information and this should so the 
1:06:05 
person's basically it's a very lengthy comment goes on to say that we didn't clearly Define the term information and 
1:06:11 
since your the work eventually goes so much into a sort of a virtual reality a 
1:06:16 
a sort of Matrix simulation information becomes a key word here do should we clarify that for this listener just to 
1:06:24 
make sure they understand right um I use Shannon 
1:06:29 
information that's so people who've studied information theory if I have um 
1:06:35 
it's it's it's all about probabilities and and it's basically if something has probability P then it's minus log p is 
1:06:43 
so Shannon information now I've been and then when I use entropy I'm using the 
1:06:48 
standard you know Shannon notion of entropy from information Theory so so this is I'm just using standard and and 
1:06:56 
um standard information theoretic stuff I I've 
1:07:02 
explored Solace entropy so there there are generalizations of Shannon entropy that 
1:07:08 
that and and some arguments for this so I've been exploring them but I haven't used them yet and I if I'm forced to I I 
1:07:15 
may there are Arguments for for showing that that the notion of entropy that's 
1:07:20 
used in in Shannon information Theory may not be as general we need in certain cases and and there are are more and one 
1:07:27 
is called Solace entropy I think so so I am playing with that but but in in my 
1:07:32 
conversations with you when I've said entropy or or or information it's Shannon okay good the next one is if 
1:07:42 
we're just avatars within this virtual reality what is the concept of 
1:07:49 
procreation what what purpose does this serve in the creation of other avars and 
1:07:55 
does this even work inside of SpaceTime right 
Beyond the Virtual Reality/Matrix/Simulation/Spacetime/Quantum/Headset
1:08:01 
so what what's what's interesting is that from this point of view our headset 
1:08:09 
gives us certain portals into the deep Consciousness Beyond that's what the headset is for too so right now I my te 
1:08:16 
um icon on my headset is giving me a portal into T's Consciousness or that 
1:08:23 
that that projection of the one Consciousness the T projection of the of the one Consciousness so we know that 
1:08:28 
our headset does give us portals into Consciousness and the question is what 
1:08:34 
technologies might there be that we could use to create new portals into Consciousness right well we have one 
1:08:41 
technology that we know and that is having babies that is that's one technology for opening up new portals 
1:08:47 
into Consciousness so so why would from 
1:08:54 
so there a couple questions related to this so why would the one Consciousness use this procreation kind of approach 
1:09:01 
toward toward toward you know doing this and I would say that 
1:09:08 
it's first I should say I don't know but but I'll give you some ideas right right 
1:09:13 
um humility is is is required at every step of this right until we have a scientific theory where we making 
1:09:19 
predictions you know disclaimers every but at some point I think we will be able to 
1:09:25 
reverse engineer the headset and understand this notion of portal that I'm talking about quite precisely and we'll understand a little bit more how 
1:09:32 
procreation Works in terms of boting up new new new portals and we'll be able to build artificial portals we we'll get 
1:09:40 
technology to build artificial portals to the Consciousness behind we we'll actually understand what kind of networking of conscious agents is 
1:09:47 
required to effectively Bridge into our interface into our into our common headset so but but at the top level why 
1:09:54 
is the one doing this it goes back to what we talked about before which is the one is trying to to know itself and it 
1:10:00 
can only know Itself by knowing what it's not so so to keep having experiences and 
1:10:06 
having and opening this up to a sort of Multiplex of different um experiences 
1:10:12 
overall which goes into the other question that I have here which is did in this framework then with dinosaurs 
1:10:19 
and all sort of extinct species and creatures fall into this sort of process have these all been avatars as part of 
1:10:26 
an experience of the one of the one exactly they would be you might say well 
1:10:31 
why did the know the one do that and then throw them away and you know what a 
1:10:36 
waste of time and and that gets the whole notion of time itself is an 
1:10:41 
artifact of our interface so in our so so a lot of our 
1:10:46 
intuitions are tied to artifacts of our headset so in our 
1:10:53 
Marco dynamics of conscious agents the Dynamics need not have increasing 
1:11:00 
entropy there need not be an arrow of time in the Dynamics outside of our 
1:11:05 
headset but it's a theorem that if you take this marov Dynamics in which the entropy is 
1:11:12 
constant it doesn't increase and you make a projection by conditional probability so you're losing 
1:11:17 
some information you you see the Dynamics you see a dynamical system but it's lost some information over the the 
1:11:23 
deeper dyamics the projected dynamical system will have increasing entropy and 
1:11:29 
so it will have an arrow of time as a not as an insight into reality it's it's 
1:11:35 
not an Insight it's entirely an artifact of the loss of 
1:11:40 
information and so and by the 
1:11:45 
way time is the fundamental limited resource in evolution if I don't get 
1:11:50 
food in time I die if I don't make in time I die if I don't run away from that dinosaur in time I'll be eaten so so 
1:11:59 
time is the fundamental limited resource and what I'm saying is that time is an 
1:12:04 
illusion it's an artifact of the headset so the entire so on the one hand I I've 
1:12:12 
I've published papers on Evolution and evolutionary Game Theory where I I love the theory of evolution it's an 
1:12:18 
incredibly powerful Theory evolutionary game theory is beautiful and inside the headset there is no better theory of 
1:12:26 
biological organisms than evolution by natural selection it's brilliant that's being 
1:12:33 
said the theory itself all of it is an artifact of the projection none of it is 
1:12:40 
deeply true it's only true in our headset and for understanding Dynamics in our 
1:12:47 
headset there is no better scientific tool than evolution of the natural selection and I've used it but but our 
1:12:53 
mathematics tells us that the whole thing is an illusion so and so I should maybe stop there there's a question some 
1:13:01 
people ask me which is I you know I use Evolution to show that we don't see reality as it is but then that means 
1:13:06 
that Evolution wasn't true so how am I not shooting myself in the foot yeah so if if if we have time at the end we can 
1:13:12 
go after why I'm not shooting myself in the foot so don't within this headset 
1:13:17 
and having this headset on can I take it off 
1:13:24 
I think yes how and I think in the meditation process when you when you 
1:13:32 
literally and and most myself included are not great 
1:13:37 
meditators but I try my bit I hear about yeah I try a bit but I do hear about people that 
1:13:44 
that I trust that that go to places where you you let go 
1:13:50 
of the headset for a while you just literally let go death the near-death experiences that 
1:13:56 
people report uh you know the Raymond Moody I guess and 
1:14:02 
and the tunnel the light tunnel and Life review and that common thing I'm not 
1:14:08 
saying that that's that's right but but it's suggest suggestive that um and it 
1:14:14 
certainly fits in with the ontology of this conscious agent dynamics that that that I'm working on that in some sense 
1:14:21 
um everything that perceive is just a headset and death is just taking the headset 
1:14:26 
off that's all it is you we I I tried that but you know if you're playing a 
1:14:32 
virtual reality game and you believe and and it's a it's 
1:14:37 
you've got an avatar in the game you so it's a first person perspective in the if you 
1:14:43 
identify with that Avatar if you really believe that that Avatar is you you're going to be nervous and and scared and everything that happens to the Avatar is 
1:14:48 
going to be but if you if you don't identify with the Avatar um you can enjoy the game and if 
1:14:54 
you get if your avatar gets shot up who cares um you just take the headset off and so so I think that it is possible 
1:15:02 
maybe in meditation maybe Hoffman hasn't done it so I'll just tell you up front I've not gone there I've meditated quite 
1:15:10 
a bit so so maybe I'm just a you know spiritual flunky who knows science flunky and spiritual 
1:15:18 
science and spiritual people that I trust 
1:15:24 
seem to have had those experiences and my own Theory says it's possible even though I I myself haven't experienced it 
1:15:31 
let's say within this kernels of or or from from the physics from this from your mathematical side let's say you 
1:15:37 
leave the headset now would you have to first go via each pathway in order to get to sort of the one or like would you 
1:15:44 
see someone else between them I'm not sure if you if you understand what I'm trying to say that's a really great 
1:15:50 
question and I've really wondered about that myself because there are some spiritual Traditions which talk about 
1:15:55 
mean I was I was I was some tutu warrior in in my previous life or something like 
1:16:01 
that you know and and so I've wondered if there's any way that I could make sense of that in my my framework of of 
1:16:07 
conscious agents is there some kind of like if I take the network ideas seriously are there parts of the network 
1:16:13 
that I could say that are sort of closer to this particular headset the the 
1:16:19 
Hoffman headset maybe there are other headsets that are closer to that headset and that's it may it may be possible 
1:16:26 
that there um and even though ultimately time is an illusion it could be like we 
1:16:33 
might be able to explain that illusion in terms of um projections of these headsets and so forth so so I can't rule 
1:16:40 
out the possibility that our Theory will eventually take these um non-precise 
1:16:48 
ideas and make them mathematically um precise and and maybe 
1:16:53 
even um interesting so so I can't I can't rule that out that's uh that's 
1:16:58 
very fascinating a that's that can be quite a rabbit hole to go down through do you think that well another 
1:17:06 
thing that could lead to is sort of reincarnated experiences in general I mean let's say you just you sort of leave that headset and maybe just enter 
1:17:12 
another one altoe um I mean it it opens up the door to sort of all those 
1:17:17 
spiritual claims that let's say Hindus or Buddhists sort of have it kind of Prov a scientific grounding for these 
Living vs Non-living
1:17:24 
beliefs in a sense that's right it's it's basically the the what I was saying earlier is 
1:17:31 
what what you're saying is basically uh the one looks through the headset of an 
1:17:37 
amoeba and of a virus and of a bacterium and and you know of of a Hoffman and a t 
1:17:44 
and and and every possible headset a cat they're all and they're all legitimate 
1:17:49 
ways of the one looking at itself and enjoying that view and then recognizing I'm not that I'm more than 
1:17:56 
that and dant how would you differentiate between something that's an avatar and something that isn't so 
1:18:02 
like a virus for example we're not a lot of doctors can't even well people can't even agree whether it's life living or 
1:18:09 
dead um at what point is an avatar and Avatar in this framework would you say 
1:18:15 
what is the what is minimal amount needed to be an avatar that's that's a 
1:18:21 
great question because it really exposes an important concept here and that is in 
1:18:26 
this framework the distinction between living and non-living is not 
1:18:33 
principled just as the distinction between conscious and not conscious is not a principal distinction the 
1:18:39 
distinction that we make between living and non-living is an artifact entirely 
1:18:44 
an artifact of the limits of our interface okay it's not principles so 
1:18:50 
I'm always interacting with living Consciousness I'm always interacting with it and my 
1:18:57 
headset in is dumbing things down because I'm not that's what I'm doing 
1:19:02 
I'm looking at myself through a projection so when I see a rock it it's fair enough within my 
1:19:07 
headset to say it's not alive it's is perfectly fine you for everyday practical purpose I'm not going to try 
1:19:12 
to eat the Rock and so forth I'm not going to worry about the rock chasing me and so for practical purposes I can say it's it's not alive but it but the 
1:19:21 
distinction is not principled I'm always inter when I interact with a rock I'm interacting through a headset interface 
1:19:29 
icon namely The Rock I'm interacting with Consciousness I'm not saying the rock is 
1:19:34 
conscious this is not pan psychism of that kind the rock is not conscious The Rock like the Zoom pixels right the the 
1:19:40 
zoom pixels are just zoom pixels they're they're not conscious or unconscious they're just zoom pixels the rock is 
1:19:46 
just a rock what am I interacting with a living Consciousness always so now 
1:19:53 
my my interface can give me more or less 
1:19:58 
information about someone else's interface with with with other humans 
1:20:03 
yes I know firsthand what a human interface is like this interface so I have some some 
1:20:10 
idea what it's like to be you and then you as a doctor if you're dealing with patients with psychological problems you have some insight whereas if if you're 
1:20:17 
dealing with a mouse um you might not trust your insights from The Human Experience in terms of understanding the 
1:20:23 
psychology of a mouse right you just don't have the insights into their headset that you have into the human headset well so when I see something 
1:20:31 
that I call a virus I have some hint in my interface of something that that's 
1:20:38 
like alive but my my interface is giving me almost no information about another 
1:20:47 
interface so so interfaces have information about other interfaces that is more or less 
1:20:53 
complete um and so with a rock my knowledge of interfaces is is basically 
1:20:59 
gone to zero okay yeah so so that that's just beyond that interface's um access at that point 
1:21:07 
right that's exactly right that also Mind by the way things that look really stupid to us like I see 
1:21:13 
some worm crawling around it looks like really really stupid Hey for all I know what I'm 
1:21:19 
interacting with there if I could actually if I could get inside and understand what it was experiencing what 
1:21:25 
it might it might I might just want to fall down on my knees and worship it because it's so much smarter than me and 
1:21:31 
and Brilliant than me yeah again what I can see about others is just due to the 
1:21:38 
limitations of my own headset and they what they are in themselves and what they're experiencing could possibly blow 
1:21:45 
me away if I if I ever so so you can see this this this point of view leads to 
1:21:50 
all sorts of radical took me decades to even understand what 
1:21:55 
what it could mean because I'm so used to thinking inside the headset I know is 
1:22:02 
very very mindbending it's it's almost like sort of a taking the blue pill at 
1:22:07 
some point and like leg sort of leaving reality 
1:22:12 
altogether because as someone as people two people who firmly love science so ingrained within it um and if someone 
1:22:19 
just has to pop in right now and just Shadow and watch us I mean they'll think completely out of it um right this 
1:22:25 
conversation is completely out there will be and all you you can think is is that you just haven't taken the blue 
1:22:31 
pill yet that that's right but What's led me down this this blue pill path is the the 
1:22:40 
mathematics and the science I've been LED Kicking and Screaming the whole way Ian I but and and so I understand when 
1:22:47 
when anybody has an objection I completely understand I had that objection and the only reason I'm saying when I'm saying is that um I had to go 
1:22:54 
with the science it's just plain the fact that our best science tells us A Spacetime 
1:23:00 
isn't fundamental and when you wrap your head around that SpaceTime and objects in SpaceTime are not 
1:23:06 
fundamental that's what our best science when you that is the start of the rabbit hole and that's not an LSD induced 
1:23:13 
rabbit hole that is a scientific based rabbit hole and I've been chasing the mathematics and going wherever and 
1:23:20 
that's what you have to do as a scientist you have to be Intrepid and be willing to let go of Flat Earth 
1:23:26 
be willing to let go of Newton be willing to let go of Einstein be willing to let go of quantum mechanics and be 
1:23:32 
willing to let go of SpaceTime you've got to be willing to let go of all of it and go into 
1:23:38 
it yeah at what point you mentioned that the the one I mean you spoke about this 
1:23:44 
earlier and I think we should at some point round back to that and just touch on it more because it seems like quite 
1:23:49 
some fun work that's happening at this very moment but you you mentioned that it at that point you and Bernardo just 
1:23:56 
diverge a little what at which point exactly does it happen why is it that your version of the one within this 
Bernardo Kastrup's Analytic Idealism
1:24:03 
Trace chain is something that would make you two guys clash in your 
1:24:09 
views well I'm not sure that we would Clash 
1:24:14 
too much but but I Al I'll say where we might have some some differences and and 
1:24:20 
again you know bernardo's a brilliant and a good friend and if if there's something where we differ philosophically I I defer to him because 
1:24:26 
he's he's a real philosopher and I'm not right um but Bernardo has recently um been saying 
1:24:35 
that there is a way of interpreting integrated information theory that would be compatible with analytic idealism his 
1:24:42 
his yes his View 
1:24:48 
and and I I I I'll look forward to having having a conversation with Bernardo about this because you know 
1:24:55 
he's he's brilliant and and so I'll probably stand corrected with what I'm about to say but but it seems to me that 
1:25:01 
that integrated information Theory um does assume that there's a 
1:25:07 
substrate and they're very explicit I mean one of their in the for their IIT 4.0 paper I I looked and and substrate 
1:25:14 
has mentioned dozens and dozens of times so not just it's not a minor thing substrate is is front and center 
1:25:23 
now if I gave you a theory of SpaceTime and I said but there's a substrate to SpaceTime then then I would 
1:25:33 
assume from that that you're saying that SpaceTime isn't fundamental because there's a substrate to it right so if if 
1:25:39 
if I if SpaceTime is fundamental then I'll just talk about space time I don't need to talk about anything deeper than 
1:25:45 
that no substrate to it so if I'm talking about a theory of Consciousness and I want to say 
1:25:50 
Consciousness is fundamental well then I don't need to really be talking about any substrates I mean Consciousness is 
1:25:56 
the final substrate in that theory so so this is what I've like to talk with ber Bernardo about and I'm sure I'm sure 
1:26:03 
he'll have some something that will you know make me think deep but so I'm so so 
1:26:08 
with all you know he has a good friend and he's brilliant so I'll be interested to do it but my attitude right now 
1:26:17 
is a theory of Consciousness that's scientific and in the spirit of analytic 
1:26:24 
idealism doesn't need any substrate for the Consciousness you just 
1:26:29 
posit the the nature of that Consciousness and no you don't posit any substrate and you don't need to posit 
1:26:39 
some combinatorial properties of that substrate like the integrated information causal properties of that 
1:26:47 
substrate that quantify how much Consciousness there is 
1:26:53 
Consciousness is conscious you don't quantify it's there 
1:26:58 
you can quantify how much access you might have to the Consciousness through a particular headset but Consciousness 
1:27:04 
itself is just Consciousness it is fundamental and so so to to so in IIT there's always this thing we talked 
1:27:11 
about earlier that um these circuits there is no consciousness in them and these brain circuits and these circuits 
1:27:17 
maybe they do have Consciousness that whole thing of assigning Consciousness 
1:27:23 
to substrates neural substrates in this case is wrong-headed it is is just 
1:27:28 
completely wrong so so that's where again I'm I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot when I talk with Bernardo about this 
1:27:35 
I I really just learned about his views in the last couple three last month or so on on this so that's why I haven't 
1:27:41 
had a chance to really talk with him I also it also cot Me by Stone because I'm I'm scheduled to chat to him I think in 
1:27:47 
in a month's time and and we spoke about a few months ago and when we spoke it I 
1:27:54 
had no idea that he would that that view I also had no clue that he would go down that viewer either it was quite strange 
1:28:01 
to me as well and and I'm curious and I'm Keen to ask him as well yeah I'm gonna ask I'll ask him as well I'm sure 
1:28:07 
he'll have something really good to say and I'll I'll try to push back on this you don't need a substrate and see what 
1:28:13 
he says I I'll try the same and I'll also let him if if I speak to him first I'll I'll I'll let him know without 
1:28:19 
causing any sort of debate but Bernardo loves to debate by the way he he he 
1:28:24 
prefers when when someone actively debates in a respectful manner though in a respectful manner right exactly as 
1:28:30 
long as it's respectful he loves he loves the debate he he enjoys it he he actually told me the last time please 
1:28:36 
actually be more more Stern and strict to the questions well well I like sharp 
1:28:42 
discussion in the sense that that it's intellectually on point and and and deep yeah having it be personal I don't I'm 
1:28:49 
not interested in having it be personal that's at all me I told him I'm I was trying to just be nice and relaxed for 
1:28:55 
the podcast I just try and make it a nice calm environment um but I'm Bern 
1:29:01 
I'll just say that he's brilliant mathematically and I've I've asked him to join us and work on the mathematical 
1:29:07 
side of this and I I I want to do that I'd love to get Bernardo because he's got the mathematical jobs to actually 
1:29:12 
work with us on the serve conscious agents and show analytical idealism through the through the math of 
1:29:17 
conscious agents but we'll see I mean yeah I mean to get a PhD in engineering and philosophy you must you must know 
1:29:24 
your stuff there there must be something going on there that that you're able to kind of bring these two Fields together and give you and give people quite a 
1:29:31 
unique perspective at least um abolutely on reality feel unique yeah I think he 
1:29:38 
he's very busy with the Essentia foundation so I see them doing quite a lot of work lately so um probably just 
1:29:44 
like you probably a lot of on your plates uh don in this virtual reality in 
1:29:49 
this reality is there anything you want to call it by the way um do you prefer calling it the virtual reality what do 
1:29:56 
you prefer calling it I just I think headset is the easiest for most people space time it's just a headset and I 
1:30:03 
think that that I say that because it's everybody can sort of relate to that okay within this headset with how does 
1:30:09 
this headset account for I mean we know time now based on this is an illusion uh 
1:30:14 
but then how do we count for the beginning let's say let's say the Big Bang within this headset how is that conceptualized 
1:30:22 
within this framework well so the time itself of the Big Bang is an illusion so what we have 
1:30:30 
is a mark of Dynamics in which the entropy is not increasing then we we say so we have 
1:30:37 
this big Markoff chain there is no time but now let's look at it from a perspective let's let's do a trace chain 
1:30:45 
so I talked about we started off talking about so let's take a big change let's do a trace CH well we've lost information well so now we're going to 
1:30:52 
you know um we're going to induce an arrow of time and it's going to look 
1:30:58 
depending on which Trace J use might look like the big bang and then you know lifeless evolution of of galaxies and 
1:31:05 
stars and so forth and then life and then Consciousness and might look like that um but 
1:31:11 
that's the entire story is an artifact of the projection and it's not a deep 
1:31:17 
Insight it's it's it's fascinating because me trying to ask you what happened before the Big Bang is kind of 
1:31:23 
like me asking you what may what happened before the one or 
1:31:29 
what what is that something you're even thinking about at any point well 
1:31:35 
absolutely and and by the way I should say that what I was the answer I just gave about the projection and big bang 
1:31:43 
just being artifact I actually want to actually do that I want to actually 
1:31:49 
write down a big Marian konel in which the entropy is not increasing choose a 
1:31:55 
projection and then show wow when I look at it through this projection look at I 
1:32:00 
I do get this weird thing seem to be evolving and and growing in other words this is not a handwave I am proposing 
1:32:08 
computational model there is this there is a marov Dynamics Beyond SpaceTime 
1:32:14 
which the entropy is not increasing take any projection of it where by 
1:32:20 
conditional probability you're Trace chains or something like that the the entropy will be increasing 
1:32:27 
study those study all the different ways that that can happen our universe with a big bang will just be one of the 
1:32:32 
possible kinds of ways that the univer so in other words we can study cosmology from this point of view we can we can 
1:32:39 
understand you know right now if you take SpaceTime as fundamental then the 
1:32:44 
notion of the the big bang and the singularity is is an unsolvable problem 
1:32:49 
what do you do with it but but if you realize oh no no that that's just a 
1:32:54 
headset projection of a deeper thing in which there is no Singularity I've erased the singularity that's what this 
1:33:00 
mathematics is I've erased the singularity and showed you you get the singularity because of a projection not 
1:33:07 
because of the deeper the truth of the deeper reality so this is not so I don't 
1:33:12 
want people to think it might have sound like it was just a hand wve no I'm offering a technical computational Yes 
1:33:19 
program the same yeah exactly that's I mean that's the biggest difference between a lot of other idealist 
1:33:26 
theorists is that you're you you're using computational I mean you're using mathematics and physics in a in a very 
1:33:33 
precise manner to try and show people what you're talking about I mean conscious ages in the subatomic world 
1:33:39 
you you came with that very strategic knowing that this is the core layer of 
1:33:44 
reality according to us and the way we perceive it and that's why you guys wanted to touch that base reality um and 
1:33:50 
you said you don't want to go straight for the neuron because that that is a bit it's a lot harder there's a lot 
Conceptualizimg The Big Bang Under This Framework
1:33:55 
there's probably a lot more that's going to have to go into that do you have a sort of a hierarchy of what you think 
1:34:01 
you want to go after um from the subatomic worldall I mean we just mentioned going into cosmology at some 
1:34:07 
point anything in particular that you're kind of taking these mats into at some point or or spearheading into in the 
1:34:15 
future well yes right now what I'm working on is 
1:34:22 
a specific technical problem which is we've mapped a marov Dynamics into 
1:34:28 
decorative permutations physicists have mat decorated permutations of positive grass 
1:34:35 
monion into scattering amplitudes so um I want to tie that whole thing together 
1:34:42 
so what I'm working on right now is interfacing our decorative permutations with the decorated permutations and the 
1:34:48 
gr monans of the physicist I I've got got to get that map absolutely precise 
1:34:54 
So and I've been working on that and I gave two proposals to my colleagues in the last three weeks and and they're 
1:35:02 
both wrong but they're both a piece of the puzzle but but I put them out thought I thought no no it's wrong so so 
1:35:09 
I'm work so I'm realizing I have to dig deeper I'm G have to really study these positive Grass monans more deeply and 
1:35:16 
write down a more serious so that's what I'm working on right now is is because I then want to be able to Once once we 
1:35:24 
have that then we can do our computational um experiment about quarks 
1:35:33 
and gluons we have we have to show how we can go all the way from the Dynamics of conscious agents through the 
1:35:38 
decorated permutations to scattering amplitudes and properties of particles so this so that's why I'm focused on 
1:35:45 
this technical issue right now markof decorated permutations mapping to gran 
1:35:51 
decorated permutations clean technical problem and I'm working on it and I'm 
1:35:57 
not a mathematician so I'm I'm having to learn about positive grass onions and I'm I'm just learning as I go but but 
1:36:02 
I'm motivated so that's what I'm going after now but then I my guess 
1:36:07 
is I'm a cognitive neuroscientist and I would love to be going after the brain but the brain is I don't know 10 to the 
1:36:13 
50th or 10 to the 60th quirks and gluons whatever is maybe I should start with two or three quirks and 
1:36:20 
gluons yeah you know and work there and then and then work up to you know 
1:36:26 
protons and and protons electrons do the nucleus and atom and 
1:36:32 
then maybe some simple molecules um then maybe by the time we get to molecules 
1:36:38 
maybe we'll know enough to actually know for example about neurotransmitters what what what does a 
1:36:45 
neurotransmitter mean in terms of the Dynamics of conscious agents and but 
1:36:51 
ultimately we'll have to get then to you know axons and and neurons and synapses 
1:36:59 
and and you can see we have a we have to reverse so the problem is we have to 
1:37:05 
reverse engineer a headset we thought so Neuroscience is far harder than we 
1:37:11 
thought we thought that we look inside through microscopes and we see billions 
1:37:16 
of neurons and syap trillions of synapses and that's really complicated we think that that's the truth no no no 
1:37:22 
that's a thin veneer on the complex the true complexity is far far greater let 
1:37:29 
me give you just a taste of the complexity if I have a conscious agent 
1:37:36 
that has just 10 color 
1:37:42 
experiences I'll say say 50 color experiences 50 color 
1:37:48 
experiences you can actually you can perceive six million or 7 million different color you can discriminate six 
1:37:54 
or 7even million so this is Trivial 50 50 colors is nothing compared to what you can do in our theory of conscious 
1:38:01 
agents the the the set of of possible Markov chains for Consciousness is 
1:38:07 
dealing with just 50 colors is the mark of polytope on 50 states okay it's 
1:38:12 
called a mark of polytope in 50 states and this is a pol it's a geometric object that we have to study to 
1:38:18 
understand the all the Dynamics of consciousness and it has little vertices on it like a diamond it's got little 
1:38:23 
points on it right on it's got facets and edges and and points you know how many points this 
1:38:30 
with only 50 colors you know how many points this geometric object has it has 
1:38:36 
10,000 times more points than the number of particles in the known visible 
1:38:42 
Universe wow that's incredible that's only for 50 so so um I'm going to need a 
1:38:47 
bigger computer to to simulate this stuff but so so conscious so we thought 
1:38:53 
that the brain was complicated it's trivial compared to when we when we let 
Michael Levin's Work
1:39:00 
go of the head see the headset was there to really dumb things down and it succeeded it really dumbed things down 
1:39:06 
we thought we were seeing truth that in all of its Glory we we got the really dumb down 
1:39:12 
cheap version as soon as we start taking little steps outside of our little SpaceTime headset holy smoke the thing 
1:39:19 
just blows wide open consciousness is unbelievably complicated and I'm going to need a new desktop computer and I 
1:39:26 
think the worst spot about it is that even as you go on because I mean the 
1:39:31 
irony is that you'll probably need quantum computers to to try and help you prove that you can go beyond Quantum 
1:39:37 
which is is quite funny but uh I think something that's that makes it even 
1:39:42 
worse is that you have people like Mike Len who are even showing you that you don't have to even go to a neuron to show people what intelligence or a 
1:39:50 
possible even is in that sense I mean he's bluring the lines completely with his 
1:39:55 
work his his bioelectric fields are are truly stunning it's amazing his work is 
1:40:01 
so fast brilliant I've enjoyed talking with him I have a couple podcasts with with Mike 
1:40:06 
and now you you're lifting this position where these Biel electric networks also have to sort of some at some point be 
1:40:13 
explained now absolutely it and he's leaving you with much harder task I 
1:40:18 
would say that that sounds like a little a very fun task to understand the bi 
1:40:23 
electric fields and how they would arise as an interface projection of dynamics 
1:40:29 
of conscious agent networks right so so absolutely this is it's going to be fun 
1:40:35 
to reverse engineer our headset our SpaceTime headset and bi electric Fields will be part of it neurons will be part 
1:40:40 
of it DNA all all that so all in some 
1:40:47 
sense science is just now taking off the the headset in some sense we're just now 
1:40:53 
beginning the real task of science right now we just polish the tools on our 
1:40:59 
little headset we thought we were seeing the truth no we were just sharpening our tools now it's time to take the headset 
1:41:04 
off and really get to work on on what's beyond it's pretty exciting yeah it's almost like a post realism um it's a 
1:41:12 
there's going to be some term for it post realism there's going to be something uh where people are now moving 
1:41:17 
beyond this headset if they're going to try and figure out reality in this way something sorry or maybe it'll be Pro 
1:41:24 
realism in the sense that we thought the headset is not the real thing that's just that's just a headset now we're 
1:41:29 
getting into the realism but but but even but see but our discussion on on 
1:41:35 
the limits of scientific theories means that even though I'm saying we're going outside the headset 
1:41:41 
and science is really just begin still scientific theories will never be a Theory of Everything humility is going 
1:41:48 
to be required at every step because yeah we're stepping outside the headset but effectively we've just moved to a 
1:41:55 
bigger projection yes of the one all all we can never deal with our our bigger and bigger projections of the one and no 
1:42:03 
matter how big our projections are they will be literally measure zero of the one so so is required I'm glad you 
1:42:11 
brought I'm glad you brought it back to that because I wanted to ask you I mean you started off by talking about the stress chain figuring out the one and 
1:42:17 
and this new information if you can just try and sort of conceptualize this what you think 
1:42:24 
this is the one what what type of is there any way for you to wrap your head 
1:42:29 
around this do you think you can um in a way I think we all can in in the 
1:42:37 
following sense if it's true that you are the one experience itself through a 
1:42:45 
headset and the reason that you don't feel that is because 
1:42:51 
you're in with both feet on the headset you you really believe that you are the Avatar in the headset and that's part of 
1:42:57 
the whole game I mean the part of the whole game is to completely for the one to completely lose itself in in the 
1:43:04 
headset and to slowly wake up if if I don't really believe it for a while it's 
1:43:09 
not going to be real for me to say I'm not that because I never really took it seriously so I need to take it seriously 
1:43:15 
and then let go so I think it is possible 
1:43:21 
even while we're still having these avatars in the headset through meditation to let go and 
1:43:30 
but but to the mind so this is now where it starts to sort 
1:43:35 
of go with what spiritual Traditions some have said and that is that the 
1:43:41 
truth can't be understood by the mind so no words are adequate no scientific theory is adequate but you have another 
Federico Faggin helped influence "The One". Are there possible "Others" (Multiverses)
1:43:49 
access to that realm that's not a conceptual access it's direct you are 
1:43:56 
that infinite intelligence that's what you are and any concept that you 
1:44:02 
have of yourself is only a projection necessarily so the only way 
1:44:09 
to answer your question is to of course I do my science and But to 
1:44:16 
answer your question to really go deep I have to let go of all of my Concepts including all of my scientific theories 
1:44:26 
completely no no thoughts at all so literally a space of 
1:44:32 
no thoughts no conceptions and just aware of aware awareness of 
1:44:38 
awareness and then I think that's where you then begin to know yourself not as you know an external object but you know 
1:44:46 
yourself directly and my guess is that that goes infinitely deep in other words 
1:44:52 
if you do that for five minutes you you experience that for five minutes you've not scratch the surface 
1:45:00 
yet try it for 500 years you've not scratched the surface yet that's how deep you go so that so somehow the the 
1:45:10 
Deep answer to your question is on the one hand we know the one by looking at this projection and doing all of our 
1:45:16 
science and we know the one by doing that really really carefully and then saying I transcend that I'm not that I'm 
1:45:24 
that is a lower limit on my capabilities and I that's not that's not the limit of 
1:45:29 
who I am then we can go beyond that by letting go of all thoughts and just 
1:45:35 
being the awareness of awareness and that goes infinitely deep and so you can 
1:45:41 
know it directly but the mind will say because there's no concepts for the 
1:45:47 
mind to deal with so the intellectual mind will say that's the there's nothing there but but frankly my own experience 
1:45:54 
is that if I want new ideas to do my science I need to go into the space 
1:46:01 
where I let go of all Concepts I need to actually tap into that infinite intelligence and just be in absolute 
1:46:07 
inter interior silence that's where all the good ideas come from then you bring them back in so so the mind really isn't 
1:46:14 
I mean it has its own little limited intelligence and you can do you can do mathematical computations and so forth 
1:46:20 
but if you want deep insights you got to let go of the mind yeah so we so we are one 
1:46:26 
infinite intelligence yes yes well when sorry Don I'm not sure if I I haven't 
1:46:33 
really picked up on you saying this much but when did you start calling it the 
1:46:39 
one uh I was influenced by federo 
1:46:44 
fine so so Federico is a good friend and and and and 
1:46:50 
really he's a wonderful man and and he helped support this research for and he 
1:46:56 
talked about the one he didn't give a mathematical model of the one um and of course you can't but he talked about the 
1:47:02 
one and and and I you know at first I didn't use the term but then I I I 
1:47:07 
realized that AR my mathematics was pointing me toward the idea that there was going to 
1:47:13 
be not just a network of separate consciousnesses but I was going to have to recognize that yeah they can combine 
1:47:19 
and ultimately there there's some notion of one and so I 
1:47:25 
decided that that was sort of the least tendentious word that I could 
1:47:31 
use and but I don't think right now that I have a mathematical model of the one I 
1:47:36 
have a mathematical model of projection of the one in terms of conscious agent networks um so so that's why I started 
1:47:43 
using the the term the one maybe the last few years I sort of of filtered in 
1:47:49 
when I was started thinking more and more about the deeper structure of this network of conscious 
1:47:55 
agents so do you think the there is so so the ultimate purpose at this point 
1:48:01 
then is the one the one sort of experiencing while having multiple 
1:48:07 
experiences via US the avatars in this infinite sort of some Essence Beyond 
1:48:15 
SpaceTime that's right enjoying those experiences and then learning what it is is by by learning that no matter how 
1:48:23 
exotic and impressive those experiences are they're trivial compared to what the one is yeah and then do you think done 
1:48:31 
with that in mind if you had to take take certain other theories that are physicalist like the mult well they go a 
1:48:39 
bit beyond that when they think about a Multiverse would would a Multiverse in this context to be the 
1:48:46 
others and maybe there's one in this universe and then there are others in in 
1:48:52 
sort of other universes do you well one could interpr so there's of course a technical meaning 
1:48:59 
of Multiverse um you know that phys some physicists have and also many worlds 
1:49:06 
there's different kind of technical thing there but one just at a top level 
1:49:12 
one could say the the idea that I have of multiple headsets could be sort of like multiple 
1:49:19 
un mul Multiverse kind of thing possibly 
1:49:25 
but um when you get real technical about I mean like Max tegmark has you know his 
1:49:30 
level four Multiverse which um he so so so it's it's different now from what I 
1:49:37 
just said right I was saying we could think informly about all these multiverses being just different headsets and there's an infinite variety 
1:49:43 
of them so that that's top level connection to your idea but but getting down more to Brass tax like what what 
1:49:50 
real physicists are using Multiverse for like one concrete example is Max TEEG Market at MIT his level four Multiverse 
1:49:56 
he's he's saying that mathematics is fundamental reality okay so the fundamental nature 
1:50:02 
of reality is is entirely mathematical and there's an infinite variety of possible mathematics and so there's an 
1:50:08 
infinite variety of mathematical universes and so he and and I I agree 
1:50:14 
that there's mathematics is endless it's it's it's infinite but I don't think 
1:50:21 
that mathematics you of course I think techark is brilliant and know in this 
1:50:28 
realm I would probably be set straight by him but anyway here's my idea as as 
1:50:34 
as it is that when it comes to the nature of reality 
1:50:40 
Consciousness what is the relation between mathematics and Consciousness my feeling is 
1:50:46 
that mathematics isn't the whole thing that the Consciousness the living put it 
1:50:52 
this way the living organism of Consciousness has mathematics as like the bones but the bones are just the 
1:50:58 
bones they're not the whole living organism and and they're they're essential mathematics I think is essential but it's not the whole of the 
1:51:05 
living organism of of of Consciousness so that's sort of my 
1:51:11 
feeling about how conscious my My Views fit with like Multiverse kinds 
1:51:17 
ofs it's fascinating to me how it's becoming so poetic over time I mean 
1:51:23 
the more you you're obviously talking about this so much more lately and you're trying to get people to 
1:51:29 
understand it and it's it's starting to slowly develop its own sort of moral practical significance as you have to 
1:51:35 
build on it and apply it um did you ever foresee yourself becoming someone who 
1:51:41 
will sound so spiritual almost Guru likee in in your 
1:51:47 
life no I mean it's it's sort of I've been push Kicking and Screaming um I can 
1:51:52 
tell this kind of thing by by the mathematics and but but on the other hand you know at some point it's it's 
1:51:59 
time to quit kicking and screaming and and just say hey this is what the next step in I mean physics is telling us 
Idealism's Implications on Humanity
1:52:06 
SpaceTime is over and quantum theory is not fundamental so get over it move on 
1:52:12 
and so physicalism is dead okay get over it you know we it's time to get over it 
1:52:18 
and and now on the other hand might say am I jumping in full you know with both feet to spiritual traditions and Des 
1:52:25 
buying what they say absolutely not I'm having respectful conversations yes so I 
1:52:30 
listen respectfully and and carefully and I I treat what I hear from spiritual 
1:52:37 
Traditions the way I treat what I hear from scient scientists yes I listen respectfully with a big grain of salt in 
1:52:45 
science and in spirituality that there is nonsense in both Realms and there is 
1:52:51 
deep wisdom in both Realms and it's up to us to take what looks good turn it 
1:52:56 
into so spiritual Traditions I think have a lot of insights and there's CLE clearly a lot of nonsense mean they 
1:53:03 
they're famous for Wars that kill each other for for thousands of years so so they have deep insights and there's deep 
1:53:09 
dysfunction and the the issue is to understand which is which and to and and 
1:53:16 
maybe for example it may be that many of the spiritual tradition traditions themselves are very 
1:53:22 
deeply onto something but the practitioners don't understand and they're the ones that are doing The Killing right it's not the it's not the 
1:53:28 
philosophy or it's not the insights that the gurus have had it's the misuse of them by the the followers that that's 
1:53:35 
the problem so we have to be very very careful and don't dismiss the philosophy based because some some followers start 
1:53:42 
doing some nasty things so so there's pitfalls everywhere see so as a 
1:53:48 
scientist what what what I want to do is to listen respectfully to the ideas 
1:53:55 
um then look for mathematically precise statements of the ideas ones that look 
1:54:00 
interesting right and then turn them into testable 
1:54:06 
theories ultimately spiritual Traditions tell us 
1:54:11 
that their words are just pointers right like the TA Ching the very first 
1:54:16 
sentence in the TA Ching says the to that can spoken is not the true 
1:54:23 
towel once you understand that then you can go ahead and read the rest of it because now you understand that everything that's said is not the truth 
1:54:31 
it's not to be taken dogmatically it's to be taken as a pointer for you to 
1:54:37 
explore for yourself so it's not about so you better say it exactly this way or you go to hell kind no no no no this 
1:54:44 
these are all pointers take them in the spirit of pointers you you have to explore for yourself 
1:54:50 
so so the spiritual Traditions have said that but wouldn't it be nice to have 
1:54:55 
pointers that tell you their own limits right and that's what science gives you 
1:55:02 
yes you have SpaceTime it's mathematically precise and you know what 
1:55:07 
it falls apart at 10 Theus 33 cmet we can tell you where that pointer falls 
1:55:13 
apart this is the antidote to dogmatism so what I would love to see is that this the Precision that 
1:55:21 
we've got in science is brought over to spirituality so that we now can have pointers in the spiritual Traditions 
1:55:28 
that are that that are evolving it's it's it's it's nothing to boast about that I'm using the same pointers that 
1:55:33 
they used 3,000 years ago I wouldn't brag about that I would say that's a problem I mean we we would like to have 
1:55:40 
this thing evolving and get get better pointers and pointers that in themselves 
1:55:45 
tell you the limit the the scope of the pointer how it's going to be useful to to you and the limit of the pointer so 
1:55:52 
that we don't then fight over the pointers and and kill each other over the pointers you don't believe my pointer well you go to hell that kind of 
1:56:00 
thing I mean d this is a this has been such a fascinating conversation because I mean it's different from the first two 
1:56:06 
in the first first one we we went into a lot of detail in all the theories second one we went into a paper directly as I 
1:56:12 
said I tried to make this one as as practical or almost a moral philosophy aspect of 
1:56:19 
all and uh I mean you even you you're brave enough at this point clearly from all the work you've done to even mention the 
1:56:25 
word The L Word I mean the love word in science people you know how some scientists get when you say the yeah um 
1:56:33 
just talk to me about this this bigger picture meaning and how people can take all this information because now we've 
1:56:38 
got two podcast episodes they can look at they've got all the others you mentioned as well you speaking to Tom you speaking to Bernardo um everything 
1:56:46 
else how can they bring all of this information together and and fulfill this purpose of the one or or or make it 
1:56:53 
a more let's say a better process for all of us together right I think 
1:57:01 
that one way to think about what's happening with humanity is part of humanity for thousands of 
1:57:09 
years has said this is just a headset the spiritual part they they said you know 
1:57:15 
space of time is not fundamental Consciousness is fundamental but but but they've said that with only the tools of natural 
1:57:25 
language they've not had mathematics then there's another group of people who have been saying no no no 
1:57:32 
the headset's everything there is the physicalist right this this is this is it and we're but they developed these 
1:57:38 
mathematical tools and and careful experiments and they gave us the technology so we have one group but then 
1:57:46 
but then the group that's developed all this technology and and all the mathematical stuff and all of a sudden 
1:57:53 
their own theories came back just in the last couple decades and slapped them in the face and said wake up SpaceTime is 
1:58:01 
just a headset it and it's a cheap headset it falls apart at 10 Theus 33 centimet so so so now scientists very 
1:58:09 
few right now but but some and I think more as as as we really understand the slap in the face that SpaceTime is 
1:58:16 
doomed a lot of scientists are going to be waking up going well we need to okay we have to go outside of SpaceTime 
1:58:23 
well there's this big group of people that are already out there they're saying well welcome late comers we've been here for a long 
1:58:29 
time they've done a lot of exploring there but they don't have the 
1:58:35 
tools that science has so there are two groups that have half of the 
1:58:41 
puzzle this one group has a big part of the puzzle they've been doing meditation and they have in informal descriptions 
1:58:48 
this group is just coming late to the party but they have incredible tools and precision and 
1:58:55 
experiments let's get the two together and let's spirituality and science are just 
1:59:03 
two aspects of human exploration it's all human exploration and understanding 
1:59:08 
who we are they're not separate we've assumed that they're separate there's been this division you know especially 
1:59:14 
since Galileo you know his house imprisonment by the the Catholic church right there was been this huge division 
1:59:21 
it's it's it's time for us to grow up and bring the two halves together it's 
1:59:27 
going to be painful any marriage like this is going to be painful 
1:59:32 
because there's dogmas many I think the spiritual gurus 
1:59:37 
don't have dogmas but the followers do many followers of spiritual Traditions get tied up in the pointer 
1:59:45 
saying that pointer is the truth this is the this pointer is the truth no no it's just the pointer to the Moon is not the moon the Buddhists will say is just a 
1:59:52 
pointer to it's not the moon but the many followers just don't get it and that's just human nature so 
2:00:00 
it'll be painful on both sides because scientists are going to have to let go of physicalism and for most scientists 
2:00:07 
to let go of physicalism is to not be a scientist yeah but but but science is not a particular Theory namely SpaceTime 
2:00:16 
it's not a Theory science is a 
2:00:21 
method of careful experiments and careful Theory 
2:00:27 
building and testing and a cycle of experiment and Theory that's what science is physicalism is one theory 
2:00:33 
that was helpful for several centuries and has outlived its usefulness it's time to let go of that and you don't let 
2:00:40 
go of Science by letting go of physicalism in fact if you don't let go of 
2:00:45 
physicalism then you do let go of science because you refuse to go where the science is telling you to go you've 
2:00:51 
got to go beyond SpaceTime so it will it's painful um because something that we've 
2:00:59 
both sides have deeply believed will turn out to be deeply false and other 
2:01:06 
things will turn out to be true and we'll have to pick what are the true things or or I wouldn't say true the 
2:01:13 
next the next useful steps you know ultimately the truth is just you without any concepts that's just the only truth 
2:01:19 
I can talk to is you without any concepts about it but in our efforts as human beings to 
2:01:27 
put together pointers on the spiritual side and on the science side the two can work together and so that's that's to 
2:01:34 
integrate what we've been talking about I would say that that's the top level picture let's let have respectful but but but not 
2:01:42 
credulous so so you know not not stupid but a respectful conversation and to to 
2:01:49 
find what are the good insights from both sides and what are the stupid things from both sides and bring the 
2:01:55 
good good insights together and have a scientific spirituality that's that's rigorous and and human yeah now I 
2:02:02 
completely agree and I've I've always thought that as well I mean East Meets West almost y y you have to sort of 
2:02:08 
bring these Concepts together because there's so much different types of knowledge and bodies of knowledge that 
2:02:14 
even the general Western science just it did not understand a lot of Eastern 
2:02:20 
science or Asian philosophy African philosophy there's a lot to it that a lot of them just have never had access 
2:02:26 
to and don't get but but they all have profound things to say I I I agree with 
2:02:32 
you I agree and I think that in the dialogue the informal natural language 
2:02:40 
descriptions of these Traditions can be translated into mathematics and at that point then we 
2:02:46 
can start to get the real power of of the ideas right I like to use the example of 
2:02:53 
of Einstein when his developed the theory of general relativity the big idea came like in 1907 where he realized 
2:03:00 
if if I was in an elevator standing on a a weighing scale and the cord of the 
2:03:06 
elevator was cutless went a freefor all all of a sudden I would weigh nothing on on the scale I would weigh nothing that was his big Insight that led to general 
2:03:13 
relativity but it took him years and he was Einstein so he was brilliant it took him years to turn that into mathematics 
2:03:19 
but when he turned it into mathematics a year later or you know few months later Schwarz Shield some German 
2:03:27 
Soldier actually but brilliant solved his equations and proved that there were black holes well Einstein had no idea 
2:03:36 
that his equations would lead to he didn't like it he didn't believe in black holes yes so what happens 
2:03:43 
is your theories become smarter than the person who wrote them down you become a 
2:03:50 
student of your own Theory even if you're an Einstein you're not smart enough to know everything that your 
2:03:56 
theory is going to teach you and you so so that's what's going to happen with spirituality does not have that yet they 
2:04:03 
don't have the benefit of taking the ideas making them so precise that you can become 
2:04:09 
students of those ideas where where even the teacher who wrote them down doesn't 
2:04:16 
know all the implications and has to become humble before their own mathematics and let it teach them yeah 
2:04:23 
that's that's when when spirituality gets to that point sign me up I'm really 
2:04:29 
interested well sign me up too Don um I'm also Keen to go on that Journey as 
2:04:34 
well listen Don it's it's been another pleasure a pleasure for me it's been such an amazing journey chatting to you 
2:04:40 
is always so much fun and and I still can't wait for us to have many more along the way anything on your mind 
2:04:46 
anything else you you want to say one one thing I like to say and that is 
2:04:53 
one question that people all always bring up is you use theory of evolution 
2:04:59 
to show that we don't see the truth right we don't the reality we don't see reality as it is but then that 
2:05:04 
means that Evolution isn't true and so you shot yourself in the foot and so I I 
2:05:09 
I should address that um just briefly um the idea is 
2:05:15 
this this is the way science progresses this is nothing special about me this is 
2:05:22 
the way you put down a scientific theory and you make it mathematically precise 
2:05:27 
and when you do that then the mathematics tells you what the theory can do but it also tells you where the 
2:05:36 
theory ends Einstein's theory ends at 10 Theus 33 cmers well that's all I've I'm 
2:05:42 
not doing anything weird or special this is just the way science works you take 
2:05:47 
the mathematics of the theory and you ask the the mathematics what's the limit of this Theory and the mathematics comes 
2:05:54 
back and says here's the limit 10us 33 cmers well in the case of evolution It also says the same thing the limit is 
2:06:01 
the very Assumption of SpaceTime and objects in space know organisms in SpaceTime competing for resources in 
2:06:09 
SpaceTime that ain't true and but in the Einstein's case the 
2:06:15 
mathematics comes back and says SpaceTime that ain't it it's not the it's not fundamental in fact it falls 
2:06:21 
apart at 10 Theus 33 you're going to need to find a structure outside of SpaceTime evolution is saying the same 
2:06:28 
thing so we're not shooting ourselves in the foot you have to understand this is the 
2:06:34 
way science progresses the mathematics doesn't prove that the 
2:06:40 
assumptions are right the mathematics tells you the limits of the 
2:06:45 
assumptions that's that's so so I just want to really it's not a minor point so 
2:06:51 
is how science progresses it's almost like going back to the old way of thinking like falsification in a sense 
2:06:58 
it's it's kind of you're looking for that sort of that that cap that that that end point where does right end 
2:07:05 
yeah well and in fact if you think about it that's what scientists should be looking for all the time is like we know 
2:07:12 
that this is not the theory of everything right we know it if I can write it down it's not The Theory of 
2:07:17 
Everything so do I want to be a an idiot and and and just or do I want 
2:07:25 
to be the Explorer so let me be the Explorer where's the limit so let's find as soon as possible what the limits of 
2:07:31 
this Theory are and then go to the next one and then explore its limits that's that's fun um it's it's boring to just 
2:07:38 
get stuck in the same Paradigm the whole time yeah and I would just say one one 
2:07:43 
short thing too and this question always comes up take your time done I've I've got time don't worry 
2:07:49 
okay I won't I won't perseverate though just one last thing a lot of people will 
2:07:55 
say um look you're you're saying 
2:08:01 
that the Moon is just an object in my headset and it doesn't exist when no one 
2:08:09 
looks and you create it when you look now give me a break everybody goes give 
2:08:14 
me a break so suppose I I um take 
2:08:19 
um I don't know an apple and I stick it in the ground and and leave it there for 
2:08:25 
for five weeks and then you come and dig it up you're going to find a rotten apple well doesn't that prove that the 
2:08:32 
Apple was there the whole time and it and it it existed even when you weren't looking right and and and rot was going 
2:08:39 
on when you weren't looking and and and so this all nonsense well and and all I 
2:08:46 
can say is if you questions like that one and there's many many I get dozens of 
2:08:52 
questions all the time I can imagine right in all those questions the way to 
2:08:59 
answer it for yourself is to just put it into virtual reality so imagine you're playing a virtual reality game a 
2:09:05 
multiplayer virtual reality game and try to put your question into that realm and then you'll see how it how it works so 
2:09:12 
so so for example um I'm playing multiplayer um tennis 
2:09:20 
and I hit the tennis ball to my my partner over on the other side and um 
2:09:25 
and I say you know the the tennis wall only exists when I look it's it's just you know pixels in my my headset and the 
2:09:31 
other guy says oh no no no the the the tennis ball is is real so and he takes 
2:09:37 
so the both guys are in virtual reality he takes the tennis ball he drops he looks away say I can't see it but Don can you see the tennis ball I said yeah 
2:09:44 
I can see it so that proves it really exists no I just that doesn't prove that 
2:09:49 
I I turn my head and I'm rendering it because I'm looking at it so it doesn't exist well well then he says well but 
2:09:56 
but when I hit the tennis ball to you you hit the same tennis ball back to me so it it proves that there's just one no 
2:10:03 
no I I have a tennis ball that I'm experiencing in my headset you have a tennis ball that you're experiencing your headset those are so so all the 
2:10:09 
questions that people have before you before you write me an email about about it first try it out yourself see if you 
2:10:16 
can solve the problem yourself putting it into virtual reality a multiplayer game 
2:10:23 
and see if you here's the key here's the key idea there is something that exists 
2:10:28 
independent of what you see in your headset there is something in that analogy it's some supercomputer that's 
2:10:33 
coordinating the game but there's no tennis ball in that supercomputer there's nothing green or or fuzzy or 
2:10:38 
round in that you know so there is something that exists independent of you but it's utterly unlike anything that 
2:10:46 
you see or experience utterly unlike that that's the only thing you have to wrap once you wrap your head around that idea 
2:10:53 
and use the VR and supercomputer analogy you'll be able to solve your own puzzles and then you'll see how fun this this 
2:11:00 
approach is but until then I see people they they can't really start to explore it because they just see these obvious 
2:11:06 
contradictions that they think are are are make the whole thing a non-starter so just put it into virtual reality and 
2:11:13 
then you can start to really explore the space and another way to sort of see that uh well another way I I had a question 
2:11:20 
on and I forgot to ask you about that was was also when as two perceivers are 
2:11:26 
sort of seeing something the the fact that they're able to render the sort of same thing in in within your theory is 
2:11:33 
actually because in essence this is still coming from one sort of the one so 
2:11:39 
so it's not it's not like they wouldn't have access to the same information at some point it's kind of like you do have 
2:11:45 
this shared access to information Within yeah reality that's that's absolutely 
2:11:50 
right it's like the supercomputer on the VR analogy is is the shared access and 
2:11:56 
the one the one little Proviso I would give is that we actually don't know that 
2:12:01 
others are perceiving the world like us right there's something called synesthesia yes yes where where where 
2:12:08 
you know about yeah you probably know better than I do where where people have experiences that you know like 
2:12:14 
Carol Steen everything that she hears bit of music that she hears she sees a 
Diversity of Experience & Purpose of "The One"
2:12:20 
geometric object with a specific shape and a specific um texture to the 
2:12:25 
surfaces and colors and so forth and I've actually met her and talked with her in person about about this so I mean 
2:12:30 
she's living in a world that I wouldn't have imagined was possible she hears 
2:12:36 
music and every time she hears the same piece of music she sees the same object doing a 
2:12:41 
complicated movement with a beautiful surface on it and so forth well and and 
2:12:48 
there was guy named Michael something rather who who everything he tasted with his mouth he felt with his 
2:12:56 
hands so mint felt like a tall cold cool column of glass yeah you get some 
2:13:01 
patients who can who when they read they they can smell it or or hear sound it's 
2:13:07 
it's it's incredible some of the synesthesia patients that's right so so 
2:13:12 
so you're you're right that because we we share this the one we can have some 
2:13:18 
expectation of understanding what the other world what what the other person's world is like but I just want to put out 
2:13:24 
this Proviso that don't think that you know everything it it may be that their world is very very different that you 
2:13:30 
you would ever we have good experimental reasons to believe that our Visual and 
2:13:35 
sensory worlds vary from person to person and sometimes dramatically I was going to say because 
2:13:42 
in that case someone who's schizophrenic or has fully blown psychosis has has almost left that 
2:13:51 
headset in a different way or yes how would you sort of explore that within 
2:13:56 
this like a fully blown psychosis where the person is completely out of touch there is no link at all to what you and 
2:14:04 
I are experiencing within our headsets how is that sort of explored 
2:14:09 
within this analogy of course now now I'm I'm a complete amateur I'm not a psychiatrist or anything like that so 
2:14:16 
everyone knows this is a philosophy slash podcast that's not really a mental health podcast directly exactly right so 
2:14:24 
so so then then I'll speculate given that so I'm not a professional psychiatrist but it seems to me 
2:14:33 
that going back to the idea of the one and the one plunging in with both 
2:14:39 
feet and losing itself but giving itself we didn't talk about this but I think the one gives 
2:14:45 
itself little nudges to wake up and and that's that's the suffering that happens 
2:14:51 
when we when I get identified with myself and I'm trying to be important and I and my ego is trying to clash with 
2:14:58 
other people I'm trying to show them I'm smarter than you or better than you or faster than you or have more money or better cars all all that competition 
2:15:05 
that that we do is painful it causes causes suffering it it's it's the the 
2:15:11 
very Act of of me being in any way hostile to anybody else it causes me suffering and and to 
2:15:18 
be competitive in any way like that is is is causes me suffering and that suffering is is the wakeup call to the 
2:15:25 
truth which is that person that I'm competing against that I'm angry with is 
2:15:30 
me that is me under a different Avatar now but and I'm gently I've got 
2:15:38 
the suffering as a gentle way of and sometimes not so gentle as later on of 
2:15:44 
getting me to wake up and and and and to but that's part of the whole thing of waking up to who I am and so the 
2:15:51 
psychosis I think are cases where the suffering has G in many cases now sometimes it's you can say this person 
2:15:58 
had a tumor and that's why I mean we look in there and there's a tumor right so so that that the tumor is sort of the 
2:16:04 
headset version of saying that there's something wrong in the network of conscious agents something went you know something went haywire in that the 
2:16:10 
headset construction but in this other approach I'm thinking about is that the 
2:16:20 
the the extreme psychological pain that you get with extreme psychiatric 
2:16:25 
patients is really the one using suffering of an extreme kind 
2:16:32 
to wake itself up to wake that particular itself in that Avatar to wake up and to 
2:16:38 
recognize um that there's nothing to worry about right if you're in the 
2:16:45 
virtual reality game and you believe you're the avatar if someone's shooting up the Avatar it's scary as hell but if 
2:16:51 
if you if you go into the game and you oh my avatar is just an avatar you know they can shoot it up all it's a 
2:16:56 
completely different game there's no reason to be upset so so that is that kind it's it's waking up to oh this is 
2:17:04 
just a VR game and the psychosis patient the one I'm talking about is the one who hasn't 
2:17:10 
who's who needs to wake up but is is still so identified with the Avatar that they're in they're in a world of pain 
2:17:16 
and a world of of fear the world so that's again Amateur hour from Hoffman 
2:17:21 
I'm not a psychiatrist yeah just kind of no I don't worry I always put at the bottom of my videos a disclaimer to let 
2:17:28 
people know that this is more of a a an educational podcast rather than a and 
2:17:35 
something you apply to your life this is not us trying to be gurus everyone so just do not exact right yeah and as a 
2:17:42 
doctor myself I'm I'm not this is not me coming out trying to give people advice either this is my intellectual Pursuit 
2:17:48 
trying to understand these questions that I love so much so just so everyone knows that's just I would disclaimer for 
2:17:55 
the moment Don do you not professional advice yes this is not professional advice at all Don do you ever get 
2:18:01 
worried or concerned about the fact maybe even I don't know do you even like it but that maybe that you maybe 
2:18:09 
Bernardo all you guys within this idealist it's almost like a new wave of 
2:18:14 
idealism that's taking place right now it's quite fascinating to see as well from from my perspective uh doing this 
2:18:20 
podcast and taking part in these conversations do you ever get concerned that you guys are slowly growing a a 
2:18:27 
cult or maybe that there's that people are going to take some of this and and 
2:18:32 
take it Way Beyond you guys like to to a point where they form their own sort of Dogma type groups do does that ever 
2:18:39 
concern you in any way well that's a very question I know but 
2:18:47 
yes it does in in the sense that my efforts are to make it a mathematical 
2:18:54 
science which still doesn't preclude a cultish kind of 
2:18:59 
approach but it it really helps to avoid it when when when you don't just have 
2:19:06 
words that you're pushing around but you have a mathematical theory that can slap you in 
2:19:12 
the face when when you misinterpret it right when it actually says no to you 
2:19:18 
like when Einstein thinks that there are no black holes and the Theory comes back and slaps them and says no there are black holes live with it so so that's so 
2:19:27 
that's what I want is is a mathematically precise um idealism I 
2:19:32 
call it conscious realism because of some philosophical baggage that idealism brings but so I call it conscious 
2:19:38 
realism but it's just a version of idealism I want a mathematically precise 
2:19:45 
my goal is to get this thing launched with enough mathematical rigor and 
2:19:51 
enough momentum that it will take off and and be a real science a real mathematical idealist science I see 
2:19:58 
idealism in the past has had something of an 
2:20:05 
anti-science um flare to it I mean Barkley in some sense brought up his 
2:20:11 
idealism as as a a reply to the the physicalism that he perceived of 
Avoiding Cult-like Behaviour
2:20:16 
Newton's science it was was and and Barkley had God as part of as his main 
2:20:22 
sort of core to the to theis that's right and it was sort of a 
2:20:29 
an Oppo it came out of an opposition to the the Newtonian science and and many 
2:20:36 
idealist theories in fact I'm not really sure if I know of 
2:20:42 
any like idealists who have said now let's let's go and make this a mathematical scientific theory this is 
2:20:47 
this is not yeah there are there are some Quantum physicists who early on who 
2:20:54 
interpreted quantum mechanics in idealist ways Bon neyman and others gave 
2:21:00 
idealist interpretations but that that's not what I'm I'm talking someone's saying let's take idealist ideas and 
2:21:06 
make a mathematically precise scientific theory yes out of idealism and you know K of course did a lot of deep 
2:21:14 
philosophical ideas about idealism but that's different from making mathematically precise theories and and 
2:21:19 
so there there's been this anti-science flavor to a lot of idealist 
2:21:27 
thinking and and this it's I think not necessary and in fact it's it's it's 
2:21:32 
it's not helpful I think that's idealism is the next step and we need to make it mathematically precise and show that 
2:21:39 
physicalism um emerges as a as a headset as as a projection of a much much deeper 
2:21:45 
Theory so by the way we don't throw away our physicalist theories we show them as special cases of deeper theories and we 
2:21:52 
use our their physicalist theories as tests for you know we're making new 
2:21:58 
theories Beyond SpaceTime how do we test them we test them in SpaceTime we test them like with scattering experiments 
2:22:05 
where we know the physics of the scattering so so we don't throw away old theories we are grateful for Quantum 
2:22:10 
field Theory and general relative we're grateful for the evolution of a natural selection these are wonderful theories 
2:22:16 
they are going to tell us when we make mistakes with our theories outside of 
2:22:21 
SpaceTime they will come back and slap Us in the face because we have to protect them back into their domain and they say well now you're in our domain 
2:22:28 
and I say no or I say maybe maybe you you you can continue in that direction 
2:22:33 
you're not wrong yet so so so that's the the so 
2:22:39 
ultimately I think idealism needs to be and and I'm trying 
2:22:46 
to work toward that Tim to make it a mathematically precise science and then I won't have to worry about the cult 
2:22:51 
thing that we talked about earlier and so forth The Reason Why Us done is because you see it when when you look at 
2:22:56 
the comments and the way people talk about um your work Bernardo Etc I mean the way some people are really really in 
2:23:05 
love with it you know they it it it is their anti-anxiety cure they listen to 
2:23:10 
you guys to kind of get their to to get themselves out of tough situations they they use this as a spiritual escape and 
2:23:18 
I've seen comments and I like them I always tell them like it's great it's it's it's great that you guys have such 
2:23:23 
an impact but at that point you do come with a lot of power um I recently read a paper by someone it I can't remember who 
2:23:31 
it was by but it was about Bernardo cast's idealism and and and and I can't 
2:23:37 
remember who wrote it but it it very it spoke about this it was it was against it of course but trying to dissect the 
2:23:44 
fact that it's almost cult-like and it's kind of like a uh a group of thinkers um coming 
2:23:51 
together forming this new wave it's almost like the new age atheism movement that happened with Dawkins dennet back 
2:23:57 
in the day but except in in a shift towards a positive movement so like love 
2:24:02 
um universal mind is one very very cult-like now I'm not accusing you of 
2:24:08 
this but I'm just saying you can actually see it in the comment sections you can tell people do really love your work and and there's a big there's a big 
2:24:15 
need for it and want for it clearly well I would I would say for those who 
2:24:20 
who who love it the best thing that you can do is if 
2:24:27 
if you have the talents is to study the mathematics of it and contribute to the mathematics and push it forward or if 
2:24:35 
you don't yourself have that talent and few of us do find a friend who does get 
2:24:42 
them the way to really to really help 
2:24:47 
this is to move the science forward and as we move the science forward if it 
2:24:54 
continues to give us psychological Comfort F fantastic if it prods Us in ways that we're not comfortable with so 
2:25:00 
be it we have to go wherever truth leads us or at least the 
2:25:06 
projection of truth that we can see leads us so that that's what I would suggest is is I absolutely will say my 
2:25:15 
thoughts on this are B baby steps and everything that I've said baby steps 
2:25:21 
it's in just a few years hopefully even within my lifetime everything I'm saying 
2:25:27 
will be seen as trivial compared to what we've discovered let's move the science forward beyond my trivial ideas right 
2:25:33 
now let's get this thing into a real substantial science and I mean it would be crazy I 
2:25:40 
mean the more you guys find out the more you see you you could almost be seen as 
2:25:45 
as the link between us and the one because you're GNA take us closer 
2:25:52 
you're G to take us closer to us all together no it's just the one talking to himself yeah pretty much you you're 
2:25:59 
taking us closer to us that's right it's it's beautiful Al together and don't 
2:26:06 
thanks so much man it's always a pleasure so much fun anything you want to say anything else that you think that 
2:26:12 
you really just want to put a no I think I squeezed in all the all the extra as I wanted to at this point um but but next 
2:26:19 
time I'll probably have some more things that you know I got emails where people ask questions so next time absolutely I'd love I would say that I would love 
2:26:25 
to talk with you again absolutely yeah no I'm I'm eager and every time I'm G to try to do something different and obviously next time if there's any new 
Conclusion
2:26:31 
papers if there's anything else you want to chat about specifically we go back in do another dissection it's it's always 
2:26:37 
fun done it's it's it's such a fascinating Journey for me personally um watching from the outside watching your 
2:26:42 
work it's uh it's always a pleasure and I appreciate it thanks so much thank you and t i I just love the way that you 
2:26:48 
guide the conversation it's it's beyond expert well [Music] 
2:27:03 
[Music] 
2:27:11 
done