Kind: captions
Language: en
would you stay inside the headset if you
if you could you there were two paths
before you path number one is you
completely exit the headset and uh
inside the the game World the simulation
you your avatar Falls over and basically
appears Dead uh but you are now like out
chilling with the Consciousness or you
return to the Consciousness as maybe you
become aware of your Oneness with the
consciousness
that feels like the right way to sum up
the way you see it yes yeah I think that
that idea is is um can't be dismissed
out of hand I I think it's a very
interesting idea and I don't have a
better one right now so so yes it the it
feels to me like
[Music]
um I'm not my body my body is just an
avatar MH if if you're in virtual
reality you do feel that no I would well
I think that I'll say that
I'm very much attached to my body and if
something hurt my body I would I would
be panicked and so forth so so I I don't
feel like I'm not my body absolutely but
but when I'm you know thinking
intellectually and cooly about things if
something actually happens to me if I'm
in a car rck it's a different story but
but just thinking intellectually about
it and maybe if I meditated more I would
actually feel that way but but I don't
um but just
intellectually it seems
I don't know I'll have to I'll just
leave it that then yeah so I I asked
that part of it because what I'm really
trying to get to is if you could return
to Oneness with Consciousness or stay in
The Matrix but be like Neo where now you
know how to bend it to your will would I
which which would you
prefer well my my guess
is at
death we take off the
headset and and maybe we lose a lot of
stuff that was in the headset but we
don't but we're still aware we're but
we're we're just not tacked into the
headset
anymore um that's my my best guess uh
and so there I am completely open to
being wrong deeply wrong but you know
there are near-death experiences that
that may or may not point to that kind
of thing that that people have I'm going
to be doing being part of a um
I'm part of a film where they discuss
near-death experiences and so I talk
about that possibility in the film from
from this point of view um and and so so
if I were a physicalist it it's real
clear there you
know if the brain is somehow creating
Consciousness then when the brain is
dead there's no consciousness this other
view that says Consciousness creates
space time and brains as as just
headsets um has opened to it that um
my
Consciousness my un quotes the
Consciousness that's looking through
this
Avatar um does not perish when the
Avatar perishes that that's certainly
open to this point of view that's not
what motivated the point of view but it
but it certainly is um open to it so
intellectually I'm open to that point of
view
emotionally I fear death so even though
intellectually it seems quite reasonable
um I have the dark and fear of death
that's that's wired into me and may
that's part of the part of the game so
there's two buttons before you one
rejoin the conscious and let's say for
now that really is what happens so you
would maintain a sense of awareness but
all of your sense of self is gone
forever um or you stay in The Matrix
knowing that it's fake knowing that
you're in the headset but you have
special powers which button do you press
um I I would probably go for the new
stuff I would probably three dimensions
of space one dimension of time feels
quite confining to me I feel like we got
a cheap headset and then this is a
fairly cheap simulation that we're in
and I would love to see what else is on
offer for example when I'm trying to
solve these ma some mathematical
problems I can imagine a
three-dimensional shape but I can't
imagine a four-dimensional shape and we
had to do some of the problems we're
solving we have to look at the
geometries of things in six or nine or
more dimensions and we can't just sort
of imagine it and and figure out what's
going on we we have to crawl our way up
to the geometry by theorem proof theorem
proof we actually have to prove our way
one so we're like Blind Men filling the
elephant with theorems and proofs to
understand the geometry I would love to
have a headset where I could just see in
a glance everything about
nine-dimensional space and you can't do
that with our current headset and why
stop at nine Dimensions why not be able
to just see and 30 or a thousand or a
billion Dimensions do you though think
that inherent in the way that you think
about that it still requires you to be
you because I I'll think about this a
lot if you've ever seen the movie Freaky
Friday oh right right uh I think about
this a lot with my wife like I really
really want to change bodies with her
for 24 hours so that she can see what
it's like to be me and I can see what
it's like to be her I think I'd be a
much better husband if I really
understood probably so but the reality
is the second you change bodies I would
be her right and she would be me there
wouldn't be her as me me as her right
and so I my even if you're right here's
what I think would happen if you when
you take off the headset the headset is
everything you think of as you and that
even if you're right that you can
meditate your way to moments like that
where you're just pure awareness MH um
one if you're right all that that the
Consciousness lives to do is cycle
through other qualia so you would either
be reincarnated meaning that you would
just pop back up in a new headset
because that's what the Consciousness is
meant to do is cycle through all this
qualia and so you would R fragment
yourself back off you would pop up you'd
be reincarnated you'd live life again um
or you would return to the Borg The
Beehive the ant colony however you want
to think about it you would be
reinstantiate as just pure awareness and
all of that loving and clinging and
hating and attachment and Precious
Moments and distance and all that poof
gone and I find that when people explore
these ideas from a religious
perspective they are forgetting that
they're mired in the gruesome reality of
The Human Experience and that to
transcend that and be in heaven for
instance and never experience pain again
or whatever you would be so different
you wouldn't recognize or relate anybody
in the same way and so I have yet to
hear any Theory whatsoever other than um
regrowing your biological organs where
you actually end up cheating death
everything else is you die all of the
things you love poof go away maybe
you're Exchange changing them for
something better but make no mistake
everything goes
away
well these are deep Waters again but
here's here's another take on it and
that is
that if you and I are just the one
looking at itself through
avatars the one is learning whatever it
needs to learn through these avatars and
that's not lost on the one it is now
part of the one that that's in some
sense
Eternal and so the reason I would in
given the choice that you're asking me
to make here uh um my
own predilection would be to say let's
go for something entirely different now
because in some sense that that part
partly because I'm inquisitive and I
would like to what is it like to live in
a five-dimensional world what is it like
to have um 20 dimensions of color and
and a thousand dimensions of emotion
instead of just a few that we have what
what what is it like
um my my feeling is that we have the
training wheel set version right now of
this stuff really really small
um and and so my guess
is I I one possibility is that look you
and I really are this infinite
intelligence this infinite Consciousness
that's what we really are we're peering
through in this case very very simple
avatars with very very simple
interfaces and may maybe it's the one
saying this is fun but when I when I
answer your question this way maybe it's
the one saying yeah this is great and is
fun but but there's so much more to
explore and different dimensions I
haven't lost whatever I learned in this
little interface and I'm happy for the
relationships and the friends and and
all all you know and all the things I
learned about war and hate and and
religion
and and all that all that other stuff
you know all the things that go on here
um but that's only a
mere in some sense trivial projection of
this entire Canter's hierarchy of
Infinities of potential this is
Trivial and the potential is
mind-bogglingly infinite and so I've my
attitude let's get on with it we nothing
is lost by moving on and everything is
to be gained this my you can see but
again these are very very deep Waters
I'm not talking theorem and proof here
I'm I'm now speaking very intuitively
based
on the science as as it is and the very
um initial steps I should be very very
clear I mean all of science has been
about the SpaceTime interface until the
last 20 years or so we're taking our
very very first baby steps outside of
SpaceTime and so almost surely all of
the ideas that we're having are going to
look very naive you know a century or
two from now they'll look back and go
yeah great generation they were the
generation that stepped outside of the
SpaceTime interface hats off to them but
boy were their ideas so parochial they
they were shedding the interface but boy
they didn't really understand what they
were really doing that's my guess all
right I actually want to spend more time
in the intuitive but but is there
anything from the paper any sort of
grounded mathematics that you think will
um ground people in your theory more in
a way that will keep the intuitive
exploration from just spinning off into
La La Land well yeah so I'll just say in
the little paper I gave you and it'll
come out on June 24th it's going to be
made and I'll I'll tweet it when it com
if you made it this far in the interview
read the paper yeah so it'll be
available June 24th and I'll tweet it
when it um comes out it might be a
couple days before that I would say one
one of the interesting things we're
doing in that paper is we're showing how
specific properties of the Marco
dynamics of conscious agents ma to
specific properties of particles like
Mass spin momentum and
energy and so I'm not saying we're right
but we now have mathematically precise
proposals so I mean for these are words
that won't make sense but mass is the
entropy rate of recurrent communicating
classes of conscious agents and just to
be clear what you're saying you can
predict now is particle scattering this
is going to be for for particle
scattering and and by the way the reason
I'm going after particle scattering is
is not because I have some fetish for
you know high energy physics or
something like that it's that's the
simplest place that we can make our
first connections with the interface
particles are the most Elementary things
that our interface has that's why I'm
going there they're the simplest thing
I'm not going for brains first because
those are countless quad trillions
trillions whatever of of of of
particles and and so that's not the
place to start let's see if we can get
the mathematics and and the experimental
data for individual particles so so our
paper is proposing and maybe just so the
people can show that we're wrong we'll
see but we have you know we say that
mass is so-called entropy rate of the
recurrent communicating classes and that
has that then tells us what are massless
particles and what are massive particles
and and and so we're we're getting very
specific predictions that we're going to
be making about momentum and spin and
and energy and and mass so so that's why
uh so this is where rubber hits the road
right I'm talking all this High fluent
stuff about
Consciousness leading to the interface
well the right the right questions are
so what is the what is the mass of an
electron what part of your conation
Dynamics is going to map into what we
call Mass what is the spin um why why is
there um a hyperfine structure in the
energy levels of the orbitals of
electrons and so forth we're getting
hints at answers to those kinds of
questions about like the hyperfine
structure so it's it's it's really quite
interesting so so again I would be
stunned if we're right but at least
we're precise so that we can now begin
the the whole um process of of saying
okay at least these hypothesis
hypotheses are precise so now we can
Shide it
show their limits try to prove where
they reach their limits and then move on
or to show that you know this is just
fundamentally wrong-headed there's
nothing worthwhile maybe our definition
of mouse is just plain wrong we'll see
um but it's it's intriguing it's
intriguing enough that um I have a
particle physicist who put his name on
the paper with us doesn't mean it's
right doesn't mean that he's convinced
that we're right but we have a real
particle physicist who who thinks that
um it's it's if it's wrong it's not
obviously wrong and it's worth pushing
on right yeah I mean I I hope anybody
listening to this understands how the
scientific method works I am constantly
trying to tell my team hey you need to
be Fearless in the predictions that you
make because you shouldn't hold yourself
accountable to always being right you
should hold yourself accountable to
always learning and getting a little bit
better so the fact that you're willing
to make a precise prediction uh your
paper is full of uh mathematics and it's
there for anybody to check uh so people
will be able to help you find the edges
which is something I've heard you talk
about and I really respect about you is
that one you obviously approach
everything with humility but two you
actively want people to find the edges
of your hypothesis your theory so that
you know where it's wrong so you can
adjust and get more right Which is far
more interesting especially if you
sincerely want to understand what's
outside of that headset it's like well I
would rather realize I'm wrong right
find out how to get right so that I can
actually begin to explore that
possibility Space versus think I'm right
but really I'm wrong and nobody ever
helps me come to understand why um I I
really I really like that and I hope
everybody listening takes that on in
their own life I think that that's
really important okay so I wanted to to
make sure that you had a second to lay
out the grounding there that this is
something that you're seeing in particle
physics that there really is a there
there to pursue
um because the intuitive space for
somebody like me who's not a
mathematician who while I use the
scientific method in business I
definitely do not consider myself a
scientist but pursuing the intuitive
things pursuing the thought experiments
um feels true to Einstein's
encouragement to all of us lay people to
focus more on imagination than um
knowledge right to to really understand
how to begin to think through these
things so one of his famous thought
experiments was that in a falling
elevator you would feel like you were
weightless right and that ends up being
took him years but he ends up finally
putting that together with some other um
ideas that he had intuited including if
you're traveling at the speed of light
and you turn on the flashlight what
happens um and in that Spirit you said
something as you were describing the um
Consciousness and you as an
instantiation of that only to go back to
the one and you said well the one is
still learning what it needs to learn
and I am like a dog with a bone with
that idea what do you mean needs to
learn what like when I think about a
human it needs to learn things to stay
alive because it's been given these
Drives By Evolution but what has set up
the uh the the Consciousness that isn't
physical right right to me
anything my guess again we're we're
weighing over my head but might here we
are take you um the joy of
exploration just pre-programmed how it
is it's it's just yeah that that
the the
one is the only thing that there is but
it's
infinitely changing
infinitely the the is self- exloration
it's really infinite self- exploration
and looking and and and
enjoying and ever
expanding it's it's um understanding of
itself it's it's that would be my my so
you conceptualize it as still moving
towards
pleasure well that that that pleasure is
just in some
sense
um it's it's different than evolutionary
thing so so an evolution and I should
say also concretely why it's different
this dynamics of conscious agents does
not need to have an arrow of
time so
there's that's really interesting why
because that doesn't seem true okay the
the entropy one can write down a marvian
Dynamics in which the entropy does not
grow straightforward but it's a theorem
three line proof trivial trivial proof
that any projection of that Marco
dynamics that has no errow of time any
projection of it that loses information
Say by conditional probability it will
give you new Dynamics it'll be a
projected dynamics of the original
Dynamics and that new Dynamics will have
an arrow of time
because of the loss of information so
the arrow of time so here's my view our
experience right now of an arrow of time
and of the universe with a big bang and
and then maybe a big crunch or whatever
or entropy death at the end that whole
Arrow of time is not an Insight at all
into what lies Beyond SpaceTime it's an
artifact of the
projection and from an evolutionary
point of view right time is the
fundamental limited resource right if I
run out of time before I get to my next
meal if if it takes to much time to get
my next meal it's over if I if it takes
too much time to get my next drink of
water it's over for me time is my most
fundamental limited resource so that
limited
resource of time is not an insight into
reality that's an artifa of projection
from a Timeless conscious agent Dynamics
and that also suggests all the other
limited resources that's all artifacts
so evolution of natural selection is a
beautiful Theory but it's the theory of
all the artifacts that you see when you
do a projection from a realm in which
there are no limited resources there is
no competition
but what looks like evolution by natural
selection in this projection it looks
like there's an arrow of time so all of
our intuitions right now about learning
new stuff it it's going to be very hard
for us because our intuitions are deeply
shaped right now by our interface where
there's an entropy arrow and in this
realm
Beyond there is need not be an entropy
arrow and so wrapping our heads around
what it's like in in to to have the
notion of exploration
where there's no entropy Arrow now I'm
not saying I'm wrap my head around it
but I do know that the mathematics is
there that the con the the marov dyamics
does not have to have an arrow of time
in in the sense of an arrow of
increasing entropy so so and that's
again one of the points of
doing science with precise mathematics I
get emails quite often from people that
I think are are very very right and have
really good
ideas and they don't know how to take
them and make them
precise and as a result you can never
surprise
yourself you can never like like
Einstein when he had his idea about you
you mentioned the falling elevator and
so forth and and so he had that l in
1907 or something like that 1906 and it
wasn't he worked for years to take that
idea and make it mathematically precise
1915 and he he learned tons and tons of
what at the time was state-of-the-art
new fairly new
math it was hard for him sleepless
nights pulling his hair out really
working hard to take his good intuition
and turn so he finally wrote down in
mathematics in
1915 and a year later
um a guy named Schwarz Shield wrote back
to Einstein and said here's a a solution
to your
equations and that they predict what we
now call black holes
now
Einstein
didn't foresee that he didn't like it he
didn't believe it he disbelieved in
black holes he he wanted to get rid of
them so Einstein's theory came back and
surprised
him and that's why it's so important for
us to do science because what we do is
we take our best ideas that we have
right now and then we we make them
mathematically precise and then the
mathematics comes back and it slaps us
in the face and says here are the
implications of your of the ideas that
you started with implications that you
simply couldn't think deeply enough
about on your own but the mathematics
can take you where your own you know
just Consciousness wouldn't necessarily
go and so so here's one of those
directions with this notion of conscious
agents the Dynamics need not have
increasing
entropy and so our whole intuition about
an arrow of time need not hold in this
realm so when we talk about the notion
of explore Consciousness exploring for
the joy of
it we're going to have to rejig how we
think about the notion of for us
exploration is something that happens in
an arrow of time what is what does mean
for us can we wrap our heads around the
notion of exploration where we let go of
an increasing entropy kind of thing I'm
not I don't know if we can maybe you
just have to let go of this headset all
together to really get that but is it
possible while we're under the limits of
this headset to to wrap our minds around
we can at least get pointers to that
idea our mathematics led to this pointer
um and I would never even gone there
unless the mathematics took me there so
so that's so so I would say
that it's just like you know um the
amateur astronomer with a pair of
binoculars can could be brighter than
the guy with the James web Space
Telescope but he's never going to beat
the guy with the James web Space
Telescope because the guy's got better
tools and that's what science does for
you you may be smarter than Einstein but
if you don't actually put yourself using
the tools of mathematics and so forth
that genius will never actually flower
in the sense of reaching all the
potential implications of what it what
it means and so that's why um we we do
science the way we do it with
mathematical Precision because
for two reasons if our ideas are good we
probably don't understand all their
implications and so the math will come
back and it'll be our teacher and second
certainly our ideas have their limits
and it's hard for us to understand what
the limits are and in good cases the
mouth will come back and tell us what
those limits are so for example
Einstein's theory of gravity together
with Quantum field Theory tell us 10us
33 cm and SpaceTime is over is has no
operational meaning who could have
guessed could you have guessed could
Einstein have guessed oh yeah idea about
space time but at 10 to Theus 33 cm is
going to fall apart not even an Einstein
could guess that that that would only
come um through taking your ideas making
them doing the travail I mean Einstein
really it was a birthing process it was
very apparently very very
hard um to give birth to general
relativity and many mathematicians
working in physics and so forth say the
same thing you're working in the dark
it's hard you're you're struggling and
then all of a sudden if you're lucky you
get that breakthrough and and and you
see things but then it comes back and
you learn the limits of the basic
concepts that you started with and then
you reboot from a new set of
assumptions it's interesting that you
say about the set of assumptions so as
we explore this topic I realize that um
I think we still have we each have
slightly different assumptions though I
think that we're talking well about the
top IC but take the arrow of time for
instance so the thing that I find
fascinating about the hypothesis that
you put forward is for me anyway I don't
have the math to back it up this is
definitely land of intuition but what I
find fascinating is if you're correct
and it's just Consciousness is the
singular thing um it is for whatever
reason Joy need to pursue desire to
learn whatever it's running through all
of these qualia MH um and that the tool
it uses to do so is this headset there's
an infinite array of headsets but the
one we're in has learned that there's
only certain qualia that can be achieved
when there is an arrow of time and
that's why I'm saying when you first
said that I was like I don't know that
that's true meaning inside the headset
for at least certain types of qualia it
is clear in fact we we the only thing we
know is that the qualia that we have
access to
requires the arrow of time we presume
that there are infinite headsets that
provide just unimaginable unknown types
of qualia but the type that we have
directly experienced all require the
arrow of time that's right and that
that's we've been shaped basically by
our headset to to think that way and and
if I ask you to imagine a new color that
you've never seen before you can't do it
I mean again it's not because there
aren't I mean pigeons have four color
receptors presumably pigeons are
experiencing colors that that no human
has could even imagine and maybe the
mantis shrimp is seeing stuff that the
the pigeon can't you know and and then
the birds that see polarization of light
I mean they're seeing something that I I
I what is it like to see polarization of
light I I I don't know it it what is it
like to have infrared vision like
certain um Pit Vipers what is it like to
actually experience an electric field to
sense an electric field for some fish or
creatures underwater I mean I have no
what is it like to be a bat doing
echolocation I I I don't know I
literally have no idea so so these are
Pointers to me that's I mean in in the
headset we get all these hints of Realms
of qualia utterly outside anything that
I can concretely
imagine so talk to me about near-death
experiences and then I want to get into
um psychedelics and whether they
are simply another form of qual of what
it's like to be a human who's having
that experience or whether that's
actually melting the human away and
revealing something closer to being the
one again um but what can we learn from
near-death experiences do you think it's
a like a a sort of half return to the
one or is it just well that's what
happens in headset to the brain when you
deprive it of O oxygen well from a
physicalist framework clearly the latter
is the case right so from a physicalist
framework SpaceTime is fundamental and
Consciousness is a product of the brain
and so any experiences of transcendence
of things going beyond the headset um
have to be just the brain malfunctioning
in its final throws of death something
like that um but if SpaceTime is doomed
as the physicist tell us and it's not
fundamental then that leaves open the
possibility doesn't dictate that
near-death experiences are genuine
insights into
some conscious experiences that
transcends our SpaceTime interface you
can reboot your life your health even
your career anything you want all you
need is discipline I can teach you the
tactics that I learned while growing a
billion- doll business that will allow
you to see your goals through whether
you want better health stronger
relationships a more successful career
any of that is possible with the mindset
and business program programs in Impact
Theory University join the thousands of
students who have already accomplished
amazing things tap now for a free trial
and get started
today but it it certainly is is
compatible with that point of view and
so I think it's worth on on that
framework to explore the possibility um
that there are some insights and I would
take any of those reports like we take
any kind of eyewitness testimony right
with a grain of salt and you try to get
coroporation and and um and discounted
but but but on the other hand you don't
want to just ignore the data either
right so there's the the fine line to to
be open to get the insights but but not
to
um to jump on anything just because it
sort of fits your preconceived
conceptions most of our preconceived
conceptions are deeply wrong um we
thought the Earth was flat we thought
the Earth was the center of the
universe we thought space and time were
fundamental wrong wrong wrong wrong so
so you we're batting poorly so so
anything that even for if we think that
Consciousness Will
Survive death what we think about that
the way we think about it is probably
wrong and so what we we have to do is
again be so that's why I'm being when I
say we're in deep Waters here and I'm
being very very careful it's these are
things that my theory our Theory um
suggests but but I don't want to be at
all doire I think what we I should do is
make bold
proposals but they're just
proposals and the goal is to be precise
so we can figure out where the proposals
are wrong so so yeah so in that Spirit
yeah near-death experiences may have
some good data about transitions out of
this interface um in that in that Spirit
there commonalities of what people bring
back yeah there are there are some
commonalities um there's a lot of
reports of you know going through a
tunnel a light tunnel some like a re I
think Ray Moody or something like that
um is famous for for um categorizing a
lot of the similarities in in near-death
experiences uh a Life review and then of
course the reports we have are people
who came back so then they they came
back and so forth so so there are
um there are but but there are also some
that report you know horrific you it's
just not all not all reports are are are
great
so um someone that that we know
personally had a a near death experience
and was very very um pleasurable and
came back and has no fear of she claims
to have no fear of death now um
um so I so I don't know so yeah uh we be
part of the film that's exploring these
near-death experiences there it's put
out um
the the I think it's the lone Medical
Center in in New York there there are
some
cardiologists who are you know they they
work with patients who die but with with
new Cardiology techniques they can keep
the heart and the body in from
deteriorating for quite a long time now
you know an hour or something or maybe
longer and then they can bring these
people back and so this film is partly a
directed by a cardiologist or who who
was seeing so many of these experiences
that that he wanted to document what
he's seeing in the ER you know and and
um again you know I'm not going to be
doctrinaire about it but I think it's
data that that shouldn't be ignored and
how we should interpret it we should be
very careful so if that stuff is real
the prediction that that seems to make
is that not only is there a sense of
Consciousness that remains but that
there is is sensory
perception that holds out for quite a
while cuz at least from the things I've
heard people come back with a sense of
either it's peaceful or whatever but
that means that they were able to
experience that and retain it that's
right that's right yeah this quite
fascinating yeah that again this is
exactly the right scientific way to
think about that that's this is data
Maybe if it is Data what does it entail
about um letting of the headset and and
what kind of experience we might exp
have afterwards and is that just a
transitional thing or is it more
permanent and so forth if you have what
I call the only belief that matters that
you can if you put time and energy into
getting better at something you actually
will get better right if you believe
that then you'll pursue Improvement if
you don't believe that then you won't
because it wouldn't make any sense right
so you miss out on Fitness payoffs based
on your cognitive assessment of how the
world works right so all of that
fascinating okay absolutely and
important to understand where my brain
breaks with your thesis is how
different what you perceive is and what
the world is like and I know and this is
where it gets hard because I think you
would say we don't know what's under
SpaceTime right but what's your best
guess like as we strip away this layer
and this might be the time to talk about
Consciousness but I don't want to lead
the witness what what do you if it isn't
SpaceTime stab in the dark for me what
the hell is it well I'll tell you what
the physicists are doing on this because
the physicists are the ones who are
saying SpaceTime is not fundamental so
it's there it's a pointer it's a
representation it's a data structure
it's a data structure to something
deeper that's right but it's it happens
to be the human brain which is already a
data structure you're already making
that up exactly right but that data
structure
represents things through SpaceTime
exactly right that's our headset
SpaceTime is just our headset and it
only goes down to is that the plank
length I always hear you quote a a a
size plank length is 10us 33 C that is
what you're quoting right exactly that's
the smallest thing that we can measure
yeah that's the smallest thing that's
the smallest scale at which SpaceTime
has any operational meaning if you try
to go smaller space time ceases to make
any operational sense at all because
gravity insists that below that things
have condensed to too fine of a point it
becomes a black hole exactly right you
you create a black hole okay so so and
if you think about it and we know that
isn't true like why can't that just be
true smaller than that is a black hole
yay yeah well we know it's we know that
at the plank scale you you um SpaceTime
stops and you get you you get black
holes so what's the problem well black
Hol is a singularity it means we don't
know what's happening so you get
Infinities popping up um but black holes
are real right they're they're real as a
data structure they're they're they're
real stopping points in our
understanding but they're in the
universe well they're
um I know this gets complicated the
universe is a representation oh yeah so
and so I want to start and others have
been studying the properties of black
holes right Penrose won the Nobel Prize
very recently for his his wonderful work
on black holes and so there's a lot of
work that's being done to understand the
properties of black holes for example
the amount of information you can store
in a black hole doesn't depend on its
volume only the surface area yeah I
don't understand that yeah right right
this is this very very strange but that
turns out to be true in everyday space
the amount of information that you can
store in this volume here is not
dependent on the volume it depends on
the surface the surface area that's the
universe we live on it's it's so that's
LED people to this holographic kind of
idea oh every word out of your mouth I'm
like we actually are in a simulation we
haven't even talked about the non local
things are not locally real right we'll
get to that because that's the new Nobel
Prize this year which is insane and
literally just says you're in a
simulation and it's the same as
rendering and when you look at something
it renders when you look away it it
doesn't and we can prove it
mathematically yeah that's right way too
fascinating we'll get to that but first
I want to understand understand like
black
holes the word real gets very slippery
in this conversation but black holes are
observable yes we consistent right so so
the idea is that the notion of SpaceTime
at like instead of 10 to- 33 cm say 10
Theus 40 cm what would that mean it does
it has no meaning it has there's nothing
you can do with it so so black holes are
fine there there there objects there
that are at the end point of what
SpaceTime can do but if we say but I
SpaceTime was fundamental that means I
should be able to talk about what's
happening at 10 Theus 50 cm and 10 and
you just cannot there's no operational
meaning and in that sense so you're
saying whatever is fundamental will be
able to tell you exactly what's
happening inside of a black hole well or
or it will tell you that this whole
framework in which black holes appear is
the wrong framework and thusly black
holes are just a data structure for
something else that is describable once
you get outside of once you get out of
space and and you know it's hard for us
to think outside of SpaceTime like yeah
can we can we beat this point to death
for a second because this one was a a
breakthrough for me when I realized I
always thought of the plank plonk length
as like so infantes small that like we
should all be in awe and you're like
like that SpaceTime breaks down that
early is just ridiculous and I was like
okay that's a different frame of
reference yeah it's it's a very shallow
data structure if it was 10us 33
trillion CM that it broke down I'd be
I'd be impressed 10us 33 we got cheated
this is a really shallow data struct
it's only four dimensions I can't even
imagine something in five Dimensions I
can't even imagine a new color that I've
never seen before so so we've been given
this really we think that we're in many
cases we think we're the epitome of
intelligence and the the smartest thing
in the universe my my feeling
is we've been short changed really
shallow today structure only three
dimensions of space one dimension of
time we got a cheap headset and so when
that's a fun way to say it when data
breaks down like that right what so uh I
always forget the guy's name so I wrote
it down but Nema arani Hamed right right
so I've heard you talk about him a lot
so I started doing some research on him
and if I'm understanding what he's
saying correctly is basically when you
have a data structure that falls apart
that early right which was again a total
reframe for me because I thought of that
as like oh my God uh but apparently when
you understand this better you realize
that's that's a pretty early tap out so
when a data structure falls apart that
early that that tells you that it's
proximal right which I'm interpreting as
a it's the finger pointing at the Moon
it is not the moon itself exactly and so
now you know you're looking at a pointer
and so that seems to be the thing that
his whole case rests on for uh SpaceTime
being doomed that if your data structure
Falls apart that early you know there's
no way this is the fundamental thing
that's one of the big pointers the other
big pointer a couple other big pointers
he gives is that when you let go of
SpaceTime and you start Computing
particle interactions like two gluons
hit each other and four gluons go
spraying out the kind of thing that
happens at the Large Hadron Collider all
the time if you compute it inside of
SpaceTime that one I mentioned two
gluons in four gluons out hundreds of
pages of algebra for one interaction
why is it so complicated because it's
the wrong data structure it's an ugly
nasty data structure and the thing that
you're doing the algebra on is in what
way they scatter inside SpaceTime you
have to do to make all the math work out
you have to have these Fineman diagrams
with virtual particles people are trying
to they're trying to say okay a Theory
of Everything which you were saying does
not exist and will never exist but we'll
get to that later right uh so if there
were a Theory of Everything though we
should be able to know everything so
finely that I can tell you oh if they
Collide at this energy with this
directionality it will scatter exactly
like this yeah with these probabilities
you you have probabilities of their of
their scattering okay and so they're
just like oh my God it's a dizzying
amount of math that's right you until
until you let go of SpaceTime and then
that one that I mentioned two gluons in
four gluons out it's one term you can
compute it by hand it's like when they
hit they'll be a diamond yeah well
because you need to start talking in
shapes right well yeah so so so it's a
shape Beyond SpaceTime whose volumes so
yeah it's a shape outside of SpaceTime
outside of our headset and the volumes
of this shape actually tell you the
probabilities of the various kinds of
particle interactions okay so and so it
turns billions of terms into a handful
of terms and it shows you new symmetries
that's what the physicists really love
it's it's simpler math which is great
and then all of a sudden you see new
symmetries that you can't see in
SpaceTime okay I'm going to try to draw
an analogy which is already going to
break things but let me see how close I
get you're in Grand Theft Auto right you
step on the gas and you go forward and
we're just like oh my go the math to
predict in what way the car is going to
move when you step on the gas pedal is
ridiculous mhm but if we were to be
actually looking at the electrical
pattern that's stepping on the gas which
would be pressing buttons on your
controller uh in a certain context if we
understood that there's a pattern
outside of the headset so in the the
PlayStation or the Xbox there's an
electrical pattern inside of that that
looks so if you no chess and I don't but
I'm familiar with the the idea of
chunking so apparently what Chess
Masters do is they're not looking at the
individual pieces on the board they just
know the patterns so they're like oh
that image of where the piece pieces are
in this order that's this setup so
they've chunked the whole board into
like oh I know where we're at in the
game and I know what the right next move
is so basically what you're saying is
you step on the gas and it gives you an
image of a shape of electrical patterns
outside of the headset if that's what
you're saying I at least understand I I
don't I could not give you the math or
any of that but I get like this repr
representation this data structure which
you think of as being real stepping on
the gas and the red Porsche goes is
actually
this chunk of electrical impulses if we
think of it as a shape or a pattern or a
rhythm or however we're going to think
of it is that what we're saying that
that could be a helpful metaphor and
I've got another metaphor that may also
try to help people on because that's an
important point that you're raising so
suppose here here's another way to think
about this suppose that I'm looking at a
video and I seeing all these pixels and
the pixels are moving in really
complicated ways you know there's red
pixels and green pixels and light pixels
and dark and I'm just and and I I know
that there's something interesting going
on and so I write down all these
equations for the Motions of these P
pixels and but but someone says you know
what there is just this I've got this
little um Rubik's Cube and I'm all I'm
doing is rotating a Rubik's
Cube and but but you're only seeing the
pixel projection of if you just could
see this 3D object you would realize how
simple it is but when you only see the
pixels and see all the then it's oh man
I got to I've got to model all the
pixels moving in my screen how do I do
that well if you can just let go of the
screen behind it there's this unified
geometric object the Rubik's Cube and if
you can just see oh it just rotates
rigidly that's and that rigid rotation
is the only motion I need it's a
rotation here I have to look at all the
pixels and this pixel I'm paying
attention to the dots rather than the
shape SpaceTime is paying attention to
the dots right so in space time we're
we're stuck on the video screen and
we're trying to model all the pixels
moving around the video screen and what
the physicists have said if you let go
of the video screen take it off you see
that these geometric objects like that
Rubik Cube are outside of it and their
structure is much simpler I'm not saying
simple but much much simpler
but it when it projects into this really
see you you lost information in the
projection right that's why you have all
these little pixels you have a 3D object
here a two-dimensional screen so you Lo
so now it looks really complicated so
what's happening then when these things
Collide they're making a new Rubik's
Cube so or they're just rotating a shape
that's already there this is where I
have no way to Anchor myself well
so particles are things inside Space
time right yes so so when we look at
particle interactions at the large hron
collider we're looking at the pixels the
Motions of the pixels inside SpaceTime
the amplitud hedrin and other structures
that they're finding okay amplitud
hedron is something you say so fast I've
heard you say this a gazillion times but
I had to look it up right so an amplitud
hedrin is a shape yes uh geometric shape
right in how many dimensions um
they can be in small numbers Dimensions
but they can go to Infinity so there's
there's different kinds of amp different
size of amplitude heeder depending on
how many particles you want to interact
and that's our Rubik's Cube that would
be the Rubik's Cube beyond the headset
yep and by the way um this is brand new
this was published in 2013 this is not
even 10 years old so this is this is all
new stuff um this amplitud hedrin so
it's no surprise that people haven't
heard of it and and many physicists um
haven't heard of it truly truly
remarkable the quantum theorist in fact
I and so how what makes people think the
amplitud hedrin is actually real that we
have detected the shape outside of the
headset well I
think that the really brilliant
physicists would not say we're done they
would say we've taken a first step
outside of the headset of
SpaceTime and one of the first
structures we found is the amplitude
hedum that doesn't mean it's going to be
the final answer they're looking at
other structures something called the
cosmological polytope and surface hedra
and and so forth cosmological polytrope
polytope polytop po what is that is
another geometric shape it's another
geometric shape that Nima AR Hamed Juan
Mala and and others um a lot of the work
has been done at the institute for
advanced study and collaborators with
the people there and this is trying see
the amplitud hedrin is primarily for um
flat SpaceTime
understanding so without gravity but
when you deal with gravity and and
Einstein told us that sort of curve
SpaceTime then it's then things get a
little more complicated and in that case
um I think they're looking at the
cosmological polytope for more um like
cosmological kinds of predictions so the
amplitud hedrin so and and I'm sure that
they're saying that they're not saying
that cosmological polytope is the final
word what's really interesting is
they've already taken a Step Beyond the
amplitud hedum so there's something
called meaning even that they don't
think is fundamental or just that it's
part of the fundamental they they think
it's an important step outside of
SpaceTime but what surprises the
physicist is that the heart of the
amplitud hedrin is something called a
permutation a kind of permutation called
a decorated permutation it's like
shuffling cards permuting cards so it's
it's a surpris that that if you let go
of SpaceTime Things become simple you
get this sampl to hedrin the math become
simple and then when you look at the
amplitud hedrin ask about his essential
character you find out that behind the
amplitud hedrin are is just permutations
decorated permutations shuffling cards
kind of thing and so we're at this
position so this is only you know in the
last couple decades right that this has
happened the amplitud hedrin is 2013 so
it's only 9 years
old so here we're at this really
interesting position in in science in
physics I like to think of it like the
movie 2001 of space arst M remember the
scene a great movie yeah and and there's
a scene where there's the
monolith it's just sitting there
pregnant with meaning and the apes are
looking at it they're afraid of it
they're beating on it they don't know
what to do with it they you get the
sense that they know it's important but
they haven't a clue what it's pointing
to that's where we are the amplitud
hedrin and the decorated permutations
are these monoliths outside of SpaceTime
there s there's no dynamic
who ordered this monolith the amplitud
hin just sitting outside of SpaceTime it
it captures all these amplitudes all the
particle amplitudes it captures the
structure of SpaceTime Einstein's
special relativity Quantum unit quantum
theory and it's so-called unitarity of
quantum theory so this is deeper this
thing is deeper than SpaceTime it's
deeper than quantum theory quantum
theory itself is not deep enough this
structure the amplitud hedrin this
monolith is beyond quantum theory but it
codes for quantum theory as a projection
in SpaceTime so who ordered this like
just in 2001 Space Hy the Apes you can
imagine what is this where did it come
from why what what's it going on we
don't know I can imagine me asking that
yeah well everybody's asking it right
now you know who it's just a static
structure physicist like Dynamics we
want something we want to have equations
of motion
we don't have that we just have here's
the geometry and here's behind it this
permutation they're just sitting there
who ordered that and why so that's where
so but the attitude is not one of um
despair this is really for the young
Geniuses who are doing this stuff this
is like fabulous right we're the first
generation that not me but the young
physic the first generation that really
gets to step outside of the headset of
SpaceTime they've already found
these monoliths the amplitud hedrin
decortive permutations and just to
really make that simplistic shapes
shapes and then the shuffling of the
shapes that's right some shuffling that
codes for the shapes there's a shuffling
shuffling that when you say codes for
the shapes captures all it captures
their essential structure in some sense
even the geometry the volumes and so
forth are redundant there's this even
simpler more
compressed um description right now the
decorated permutation is the most
compressed description that doesn't have
any extra bells and whistles the
amplitud hedrin in some
sense the positive grass monum that that
use that they used to build it and so
forth they have extra bells and whistles
in some sense the amplitud hedrin boils
it down to its Essence but but the so
it's shuffles permutations and and the
big question is
why why why this I mean if if you in the
beginning God said why would God say
that what what what is so let there be
shapes let there be the amplitude heater
Let There Be shuffles that doesn't seem
quite deep enough right it seems like
there's got to be something beyond that
some something dynamical and there's no
clue right now in the physics about a
dynamical thing behind the decorated
permutations or the amplitud heedum
well we just lost me so I'm guessing
that we lost a lot of people so this is
outside of the headset so we're
beginning to get to what we think may be
these foundational pillars but it's so
early that nobody really knows what
these are yet let's go back to um the
quantum realm for a second so this is
one of my pet peeves that people in the
mindset space tend towards magical
thinking and there's something about
Quantum intense tanglement the quantum
tubules in the brain or whatever it is
that they think about collapsing and all
that
um one is there anything even inside the
headset is there anything to be learned
from the quantum realm does a Quantum
realm point to anything outside of the
headset um
and where are we like how how do people
not drift into meaninglessness as they
begin to pursue this cuz it I because
I'm so focused on usefulness I get
very um agitated might be the right word
when people are like oh we're Quantum
entangled and that's what the soul is
and I want to tear my hair
up right so it's one thing just to say
those words it's another thing to have a
mathematical model and a mathematical
model that actually predicts precise
outcomes of precise experiments and so
that's the differ when physicist talk
about quantum entanglement they're
talking serious math and then then
serious experiments that just a week ago
um the Nobel Prize was awarded to um
three of the Pioneers in testing one of
the key predictions of entanglement uh
which is that the real world isn't real
see yeah it's called
um local
realism the the belief that we tend to
have of local realism so objects
like an electron has a property like its
position or its
spin whether or not you observe it it's
got a value of that because it's real
and we assumed we we've assumed that
right that's that's that's the reality
of whether you see it or not it is
spinning up or spinning down right it's
like saying the train is there and it's
going to hit you even if you don't see
it you close your eyes it's not going to
stop the train from hting go so the
electron really has its position it
really has its spin when it's not
observed and and
the other assumption is is locality
those it's Einstein's assumption that
that nothing No Effects travel faster
than the speed of light through
space through SpaceTime and so that the
two together are called local realism so
it's possible that when we say local
realism is false that it's either the
realism that's wrong or the locality so
it could be you could say Okay local
realism is false because there really
are properties that exist but they
travel their influences go faster than
the speed of light or you can say
nothing travels faster than the speed of
light but so the realism is false I
believe Einstein but the realism is
false my attitude is both are false
local and realism are both false and
that comes out of um just the idea that
SpaceTime itself is not fundamental
right and so let me say it real simply
for people like me things only exist
when you look at them right you create
them when you see them like in Grand
Theft Auto I have a VR headset on I look
over there and I see a red Camaro is
there a red Camaro in the supercomputer
no the average person is going to reject
this out of hand right so one we're
going to have to walk through the Nobel
Prize so thankfully you had linked to an
article so I read about it it melted my
brain about an hour before you and I sat
down together and I was just like how
the hell is this real or true I guess
cuz it's not real uh and then so we'll
we'll walk through that but to give
people the analogy to Anchor them
um I think you and I disagree about this
and I've always told people largely
because I don't want to argue about it
and I don't really know that I don't
think we live in a simulation the more
times I interview you the more I'm like
maybe we do or maybe the way our fitness
payoffs get mapped it is so effectively
like a simulation as you might as well
think of it as living in a simulation
so I've written this story with my team
I don't want to overly take credit but
we've created this saying called project
kaisen and in Project kaisen there're um
in this thing that we call the array the
array is basically quantum foam and the
idea is that it's information Theory so
that
you information can travel faster than
the speed of light and that ultimately
the thing that drives people mad in our
world is to ask the question where is
the array because they're thinking of it
as like a Quantum supercomputer or
something but in the lore were we play
with that question I want to give away
what we think is the the right answer
but we play with that question a lot and
so one of the characters in the story is
literally driving himself mad by asking
the question where is the array I know
if I can generate enough energy I can
rip this Veil and I can see through
beyond the headset into like is this
sitting on a desk somewhere and like can
we actually discover where that is
and okay so working with that idea at
first I thought n i mean this is all
just a story but the more that I look at
this in in this is in real life put that
in air quotes in real life you only
render things when the player is looking
at it it's the only way to not melt the
the computer right right so as the they
move their character's eyes around they
see different parts of the world it it
literally comes into existence it gets
rendered when they look at it and it
ceases to be rendered when they look
away so they feel like they're in the
seamless 3D environment but in reality
it's a trick and so it's only rendering
right up to the edge of your field of
view and then outside of that it's gone
exactly yeah as you describe the math
that is what's really happening right
that I mean it's kind of fun and cool
and interesting right um okay so with
that analogy people understand that one
I agree at if you try to replicate so
going back to what I was saying about if
I try to replicate this table and make
it look photorealistic it is
unbelievably difficult and there are so
many elements of like reflectivity and
depth of how far the light penetrates
and absolutely oh my God and it on and
on and on right absolutely how often are
you checking your credit score afraid of
identity theft or account breaches we
all use the internet every single day
for important things like Personal
Banking and remote work so why not
protect yourself with our sponsor aura
or AA is an all-in-one cyber security
service that keeps you safe online Aura
identifies data Brokers exposing your
info and submits opt out requests on
your behalf Ora also monitors your
credit tracks your passwords for data
breaches and secures your online
activity with VPN and anti malware
protection you can try Aura for free for
2 weeks by clicking the link in the
description or scanning the QR code
so we know that there are all these
things that you can do to recreate
reality one of the things as you build
reality in a virtual environment is you
have to deal with rendering only that
which you're pointed at what you measure
exactly right as we look at the quantum
world that holds true in a way that is
so weird I don't know whether to laugh
or be creeped out or whatever but it's
utterly fascinating okay so now to the
Nobel Prize so we know that that's how
you would have to do it if you want to
recreate reality and the Nobel Prize was
W for showing that the idea of local
realism that things exist and have
definite values of their properties and
with influences that go no faster than
the speed of light that's false that
Assumption of local realism is false and
there are even really
interesting uh Quantum setups where you
can prove that when I make this
particular set of
measurements I know with probability one
what I will get like on my eth
measurement I know with probability one
what the value will be again probability
one means 100% 100% that's right 100%
what I'm going to measure and yet I also
can prove that that value let's say of
the position or the spin cannot possibly
exist until the moment I make the
measurement okay so let's walk people
through that so Einstein right and two
other people basically said huh the math
predict
that what you just said is true that I
can have two um we end up calling them
quantumly entangled particles but I have
two
particles I forget which type racing
away from each other right to the
opposite ends of the solar system very
very very far
apart and one of them we know they have
to have opposite spin so one of them is
going to be spinning up one of them is
going to be spinning down right and they
they said they're like socks so one of
them could be the right sock and one of
them is the left sock so once you
measure that oh this is the right one
then you know automatically that the
other person has the left one right and
the Nobel Prize was one for proving that
you don't they're not like socks right
right it's not you it's not even that
you don't know which is which it's that
whichever one you look at first if that
spins up then you know instantaneously
the other is spinning down but
causally because this one is spinning up
that one must be spinning down right
right okay so now the part I don't which
by the way means that these things will
react effectively to each other because
you measured it instantaneously across
the entire solar system in this example
which is way faster than
light my question is when you measure it
if it wasn't already spinning up or down
what makes it spin up or down is it just
probability yeah that's all that physics
can tell us right now are the
probabilities for this so so and and
probability is where explanation stops
right when you put a probability measure
in your theory you're saying my
understanding stops right here so I need
a probability measure because if if I
could tell you how it worked then I
would tell you how it worked right now I
can just say here's the probabilities
and so that's what we get in quantum
theory is and and so that's why Einstein
said I don't you know God doesn't play
dice he didn't like the idea that that
God didn't know all the way down what
was going on that there would be these
random probabilities but yeah when you
do the experiments it turns out
entanglement is real and and that then
leads to the conclusion ultimately that
local realism is false and it's it's
it's truly stunning but if you think
about it in terms of a headset as you
said I render like in the virtual
reality Grand Theft Auto I render the
Camaro when I look and I garbage collect
it when I look away I just delete it I
render particles I render SpaceTime
itself SpaceTime itself doesn't exist
except as a data structure that we use
and
so it's now in terms of a simulation I
should make a distinction between what
we're saying here and a different kind
of notion of simulation that Nick
Bostrom has so there's a simulation
theory of Nick Nick Bostrom and others
where where they you know say look this
isn't real it could be just some
computer geek that did a program and
we're just creatures in the simulated
World in this program and it turns out
that that computer Greek it's herself is
just a a program from someone else at a
lower level and there's this whole
hierarchy all the way down until you get
to some base programmer but they assume
that the base level is a space-time
world so they're still stuck on the
headset that that kind of simulation
Theory isn't thinking big enough you
have to let the and there also assuming
that that programs can create
Consciousness which is another story no
one's been able to show how how that's
even possible so they're just not
thinking big enough you've got to let go
of SpaceTime at the base of the entire
hierarchy of simulations to really get
where the physicists have gone SpaceTime
itself is merely a headset so so the
standard simulation Theory isn't
thinking big enough it's still stuck in
the headset as we strip away the headset
is local realism going to remain
false or will there be something I
better way to ask it when we strip away
the headset is God still playing dice
I'll put it this
way as
scientists making
theories we will always come up short we
will always have a place where we say in
our Theory this is where our knowledge
stops and but that's what we call the
assumptions of our Theory so every scien
ific Theory says if you grant me these
assumptions I'll explain all this
wonderful stuff but you have to grant me
those assumptions and I can't explain
those assumptions like even Einstein he
said let me grant me that the speed of
light is constant for all observers and
Grant me that the laws of physics are
the same for all all people moving in
uniform motion if you grant me those two
things then I can do all this wonderful
stuff and that's the why all scientific
theories work grant me this assumption
these Miracles because we don't yet
understand these things well and and
it's also I think intrinsic to what it
means to be a scientific
theory so there's no escaping this a
scientific theory there is no theory of
everything that's a Flatout statement
there can never be a scientific theory
of everything because of girdle's
incompleteness incompleteness theorem
but but even just before girdle's
incompleteness theorem every Theory says
grant me these assumptions please you
have to make certain assumptions to even
to boot up a but isn't that just our
ignorance
Pro probably so but our ignorance is
unlimited it's interesting so I heard
you and yabok his uh discussing and he
said something that Rings intuitively
true to me which is that we always want
to say oh we'll never understand that
right but we just don't understand it
right now and just like Newton and his
whole thing at the end of his life where
he was like the right way to think of me
is as a child on the shore playing with
the seashell in front of the entire vast
of undiscovered truth right and his
students though didn't believe that now
maybe out of arrogance maybe they that
just sat so icky with them to think that
they were so ignorant to so many
things but also to be generous to them
maybe because they believed on a long
enough timeline we really would figure
things out or even if you'll grant me my
Miracle of as we begin to merge with
machines will we be able to process data
in such a more vast way that we're able
to see what is true all of the
mismapping of the or all of the
combinatorial combinations become
manageable just because we can crunch so
much data and so oh you might as well
look at what is exactly real um do you
does that
so with that M setup
I finally just went and and looked up
girdle's uh incompleteness theorem
because I've tried to hang with you
every episode around this and looking at
it it's basically that there are and
this will be the world's most simplistic
interpretation but there are um you can
create an
equation that you know to be true but
you can't prove it right and it's it's
beyond me to be able to explain how
that's true but when you read about it's
like whoa okay so you can really create
it's it's kind of like the mathematical
version of a linguistic trap MH where
it's like the statement on this side of
the card or the statement on the other
side of the card is false you turn it
over and it says what the statement on
the other side of the card is true and
so now you're trapped because they can't
both be right or wrong right so it I
can't explain it better than that but
like without that if there is isn't
things that
are I if he's right and there are things
that are true but that cannot be proven
I get why you say that we'll never have
a theory of everything but if we just
don't understand enough yet then it
feels like we will eventually no
girdle's incompleteness
theorem um
is definitive it says that no matter how
complicated your mathematical or
scientific theory is you can always
produce a new statement that's
true and is not provable within the
theory that you
got so it means it escaped your current
theory your your theory was not a theory
of everything because it wasn't a theory
of this it didn't capture this truth so
you didn't have a theory of everything
so you say okay well I'll just put it in
my theory so now I've got then girdle
says well sorry now with your new
augmented system here's this new I'll
use it to show you there's this new
thing that's true
but can't be proven so you don't have a
theory of everything and you add that
and and what that means is that there is
this
unlimited
realm of truth that's forever beyond our
notion of proof of scientific theory
it's unlimited so there's this I think
of it as like unlimited intelligence and
that is it's out there and our
scientific theories will will
get huge and far more interesting and
far more complex and cover lots and lots
they they'll cover we'll be blown away
we'll make lots and lots of progress and
but girdle's incompleteness theorem says
but you will have not even begun to
scratch the surface of the unlimited
intelligence that's out there so I'm not
by the way some people say well Hoffman
you're you're you're you've walked away
from modernism and the and the desire
for logic and truth and rationality
you've gone into postmodernism and and
and you
know and mattitude is no no
no reason is telling us its limits
reason is saying that logic itself
cannot get to all truths so I'm paying
due respect to reason because reason
itself is saying its own limits and in
fact that gives me even more respect for
reason because reason is smart enough to
tell us where it gets off so it's not
abandoning reason it's not going into
you know some postmodernism kind of
thing where anything goes no not
anything
goes reason is saying yeah use your
logical systems but your logical systems
must of course be internally consistent
so G girdle's theorem is not girdle's
inconsistency there it's gird's
incompleteness there our logic can be
consistent if if it is consistent then
it's necessarily incomplete if it's if
it were inconsistent then it's mostly
useless right it' be mostly useless so
is girdle's so what girdle really showed
is our our theories are either
inconsistent or incomplete but we call
it girdles incomplet this term because
that's we don't think about
inconsistency it's really the
incompleteness and so so it's truly
respecting reason to recognize that
reason itself
says where it gets off and it points to
as Newton pointed to this unbounded
intelligence that reason can always
happily
explore fully knowing it will always be
a trivial foray into the unknown a
trivial foray into the unknown and yet
somehow it's important for us to do that
foray
so so as a scientist this is not just
abstract stuff for
me I take it I take reason very
seriously it
says I have limits and there are
unbounded truths Beyond Reason so I take
time to just sit in complete silence and
let go of reason and see what
happens maybe I'm I can touch that
unlimited intelligence maybe I am that
unlimited intelligence under a headset
that's an interesting possibility which
many spiritual Traditions have pointed
to that that we are that unlimited
intelligence so that we then have this
interesting back and forth between
rigorous logic not anything goes
rigorous Logic on the one hand and then
complete letting go of all Concepts
going into complete
silence where there's this incredible
intelligence that's it's literally
infinitely greater than our scientific
intelligence and having them go back and
forth
I think the the best science in the
future will be from those who can do
that be absolutely hard-nosed in your
math and your experiments absolutely
hard-nosed it's not everything goes it's
it's rigor and then go into complete
interior silence to get the true tap
into to this unlimited wisdom unlimited
intelligence and go back and forth
somehow my feeling is that's what all
this is pointing to that that we should
have our feet in both Realms um and for
some reason having feed in both Realms
is really what we're up to what this is
all about what do you think about the AI
scientists that signed the paper saying
that we need to slow AI down because and
I had one of them on the show because it
passed a touring test faster than they
thought it's just moving faster than
they expected and they're very worried
do you think that AI will ever become
conscious I'm actually not too worried
about AI right now myself so I'm not one
of the alarmists that that says we need
to stop and worry about it the thing
that would alarm me more would be if
there were some kind of law that
criminalized most people from doing it
and let a few people do it a few
companies do it that that alarms me so
if there's going to be any kind of laws
they should be Universal and no one
should be excluded is that but why why
aren't you worried about AI it's pretty
easy even with chat GPT to to give it
questions it can't answer right now it's
it's basically a good statistical
analyzer it's not deeply intelligent it
will find things that we humans won't
find in in medical searches you know and
so forth but um that's because it it
just can handle more data and and do
more statistical analysis than we can
but it's not deeply intelligent and the
the founders would would tell you that
it's it's fairly straightforward kinds
of algorithms so and in terms of
Consciousness there is no Theory right
now of any kind that can ex start with
physical systems like like circuits
software and explain even one specific
conscious experience how it arises so
I'll be very very clear there's no
theory on the planet today that can
start with um an artificial intelligence
and a description of some kind of
circuit or some kind of software pattern
of activity and can give you a specific
conscious experience like the taste of
chocolate or the smell of garlic where
you would say this pattern of activity
must be identical must be the taste of
chocolate it could not be the smell of
of a rose there's nothing on the table
and there's nothing even close so if AIS
can be conscious there are no theories
right now at all that could explain how
that could possibly be and nothing that
makes it even plausible so so I'm not
too too worried about AI being conscious
I think that they will eventually
outperform humans in in in most everyday
activities uh but simply because they'll
have more compute power can search more
deeply than than we can Will so for
people that don't know you um I'm going
to give a super brief synopsis and by
all means put in where I go Ary here but
you believe that this is all a
simulation we are living in a simulation
none of this is real SpaceTime itself is
not real we are effectively living
inside of what you call the headset
right that everything you've ever known
or ever experienced is all effectively
an illusion it is is a computer video
game by way of analogy right given that
and and audience listening at home you
will notice he did not say no so um and
this is something I've I have forever
just dismissed out of hand that we're
living in a simulation and I say
dismissed out of hand because I don't
have any evidence to back it up and I've
heard all the arguments uh from a
mathematical perspective that if you
believe that humans are capable of
creating um photorealistic simulations
and you give any rate of progress
whatsoever we will eventually create a
simulation we certainly with AI and how
rapidly it's been advancing I think
people now really have a sense of whoa
we really are going to be able to do
this uh Apple Vision Pro certainly gives
an indication like you will really be
able to create some very compelling very
realistic um things inside of a a visor
so I think people more now more than
ever could see how we could get into a
simulation a simulated world that's
convincing I'll leave it at that and if
that's true then why would we then once
we create that simulation not create
another simulation and I will just tell
you as somebody the t-shirt that I'm
wearing is literally about this we're
building a a game that we hope over time
will be a truly simulated world that
people will go in they will have an
identity inside that game okay so if we
know that Loop exists then once the game
inside the game gets powerful enough it
will do another simulation once the game
inside that game inside that game gets
powerful enough it will do a simulation
and so you end up in this point where
just mathematically it would make more
sense to believe that you're in one of
those you know conceivably infinite um
recursive Loops of a simulation then
that you're in base reality but it just
always seemed weird to me to say n no no
we're in one of the
simulations but the more I research you
the more I'm like maybe we really are in
a
simulation and to that point you talk
about Consciousness as being fundamental
and so I'll need you to explain that for
people that that will be so jarring it
will take them a while to really grock
that but that Consciousness is
fundamental so couldn't AI ever become a
window into what you call a conscious
agent in the same way that a human child
is or a dog is or
whatever that I think is possible
absolutely so if you don't mind walk
walk people through how it could be
possible that physicality everything
they see touch taste the loves that they
have all of that is a simulation and not
fundamental meaning it it arises out of
something else but
Consciousness is the fundamental the
yeah the foundation well there are two
arguments for the idea that um what we
see is not an objective reality that
exists independent of us and is there
prior to when we look at it so in
physics the Nobel Prize last December
was given to three physicists for the
experimental testing of a clean
prediction of quantum theory that
something called local realism is false
local realism is the claim that physical
objects like electrons have definite so
realism is the claim that an electron
has a definite value of position
momentum and spin when it's not observed
and locality is the claim that those
properties have influences that
propagate through SpaceTime no faster
than the speed of light and the
conjunction of those two claims the
properties exist even when they're not
perceived even when they're not measured
and they have influences that propagate
no faster than the speed of light that's
local realism and local realism is false
how did they prove it so that's why you
get a Nobel Prize so John clauser Anton
Zinger and and um aspect over decades
there's a string of of experiments that
were Tighter and Tighter each experiment
closed loopholes in the previous ones so
the experiments have to deal with
they're complicated experiments I mean
Zinger was actually using photons from
outer space to get entangled um
particles that that they could use that
you could couldn't argue that they were
somehow you know being connected or
correlated some in some deep way but
basically the the the experiments are
set up to show that properties like
position or momentum or spin typically
they like to use
spin um in principle could not have
definite values until you actually
measured them so one way that they do
this mathematically are there these Bell
inequalities and so if if the statistics
of the correlations between the particle
spins you have two different particles
that you're measuring the spin axis for
example and if they they had definite
values even when you weren't observing
you'd have certain pattern of
correlation And if quantum mechanics is
right and those values don't exist until
you measure them then you have a
different pattern of correlation and so
that's what they they do they have to
look at a bunch of different
measurements look at the correlations
and the correlations come out to be
what's what quantum theory predicts and
not what our classical intuitions would
tell us and so the this was done by
clauser decades ago but it's so
counterintuitive that people were going
okay well there must be a loophole here
so then they closed a series of
loopholes and finally they started
getting photons from like distant
galaxies where the photons couldn't
possibly have
certain within SpaceTime um causal
connections and close that loophole and
um so that's one one One Direction so
physicists tell us that local realism at
least for microscopic you know subatomic
particles recently they've gotten up to
groups of 700 um atoms I believe so it's
they're starting to they're they're
showing that these effects um the
superos effects of quantum theory are
not just at the very very small end of
things so local realism is false now one
can still try to say well but that's for
really tiny things but at the
macroscopic level maybe Lo local realism
is true and that leads to a problem
because there's no principal
distinction in quantum theory between
the microscopic and the Mac you can't
say it 10 to the minus you know 20 cm
that's you know that's that's the limit
there's there's no boundary between
micro and macro so and this is a
well-known open problem so that's One
Direction I'll just go with that now the
um the the other direction of argument
is from evolution by natural
selection where you can ask a technical
question
Evolution shapes sensory systems to
guide adaptive Behavior so that means to
keep you Life along long enough um to
reproduce right so you you have vision
and touch and hearing and smell and
they've been shaped so that um you're
able to get the food you need mate and
stay alive at least long enough to
reproduce and and pass your genes on to
the next
generation that's the standard story of
evolution
many theorists also think that Evolution
shapes our sensory systems to tell us
truths about objective reality like I
see an apple that's because there really
is an apple and the the red colar and
the shape really exist even when they're
not perceived and so that's notice
that's a step Beyond just saying that
our senses evolved to guide adaptive
Behavior they want to say more than that
they want to say that if you guide
adaptive Behavior you're going to see
the truth so so I decided with my
colleagues jayon pros and Manish Singh
and Robert prenner and others um my
graduate students J Mark and Brian
Marian um to to test this um you know
evolution is a mathematically precise
Theory we have evolutionary Game Theory
so there's a technical question what is
the
probability that um Evolution but
natural selection would shape any
sensory system to see truths about
objective reality the structure of
objective reality and um it's
straightforward to prove um what what we
do is we look at various kinds of
so-called Fitness payoff
functions um maybe payoff functions that
are that are and we can ask do these
payoff functions preserve certain kinds
of structures in the world like um
orders a total order or or a partial
order or a or topology or or measurable
structure so we can say we don't know
what objective reality is but suppose it
had this
structure what is the probability that
Fitness payoffs which govern our
Evolution would actually have
information about that structure in the
world so that we could actually be
evolved to have some insight into that
structure of objective reality and in
case after case the answer is um
probability is zero the there there are
payoff functions that would preserve the
structure but those payoff functions
have probability zero in the set of all
all payoff functions so so that means if
you're a betting man um you would bet
long odds against it so it doesn't mean
that it can't happen is just that the
probability is is zero and so I take
this as a convergence between two of our
big theories in science evolution by
natural selection and quantum theory
Quantum field Theory both are telling us
that local realism is false and so so I
think a good metaphor then is as you
were saying um like a user interface or
or video game where you render on the
Fly what you need so I'm looking at you
I'm rendering a Tom face and I look away
and I'm not rendering it someone else
might be looking at you and they're
rendering their Tom face but but their
Tom face is not the same as mine it's
going to be at a different angle and so
forth so we render on the Fly and that's
what physics is telling us basically
that local realism is false we render on
the Fly and so the where you're taking
that from is the Quantum uncertainty
principle basically everything has a
probability of being in a given State
and the reason that it's just a big
question mark uh is because nothing's
looking at it so it does not need to
render that it doesn't need to decide
the system which is the
simulation um which people think of as
SpaceTime but there almost certainly
I've interviewed you so many times and I
know how hard it is to escape uh this
Matrix but they're thinking of things
within space time being real but once
you start looking at SpaceTime as purely
a simulation and that the then rendering
only happens when you look at something
so that to me makes a hypothesis that I
think your data backs up which if that
were really the case then um I
understand why big things would adhere
to what seem like a different set of
rules where things are static and small
things would not because it you're far
less likely to observe A first order
consequence of something microscopic you
may be observing a second or third order
consequence which raises questions for
me that I'm sure we will get to at some
point but just to close the loop on that
so first sort of consequence I can look
up and see the moon I see planets I see
stars and so for that to be persistent
which is going to be a big thing in in
our discussion today this is like the
prime thing I want to talk to you about
is persistence and what that means but
big things will need to be persistent
and therefore there has to be there is a
constant collapsing of its
probabilities uh because there are so
many things that require even if it's
just its effects on gravity there's so
many things quote unquote witnessing
that or measuring that so I get why
those would be stable but then things
where they're so small that there's very
little that hinges on that that that
would need to be directly rendered that
would need to because you can get away
with sort of the probabilistic rendering
of the big things and they um influence
by these smaller things but you don't
need a direct representation of the spin
for instance uh of a particle that that
all things that would quote unquote
measure it don't see don't interact with
or whatever because nobody's effectively
looking at it it does not need to be
rendered right so a good did that all
feel right just to no that's a great
question and so great question I was not
asking a question I was stating a
hypothesis do you think that's crazy or
does that make sense of the macro to the
micro level well it it does but I think
a good analogy here that might help
clarify the issue is is so in say Grand
Theft Auto right I look over
I'm playing with somebody who's you know
in Canada and somebody else is in Europe
and someone else is in China we're all
playing a remote version of it and
virtual reality and I look over and I
see a red Porsche to my right and so I
say is there a red Porsche on my right
and the guy in China says yeah I see a
red Porsche and the guy in Canada agrees
and the guy in Europe agrees as well so
of course each of them is rendering
their own red Porsche so there is some
reality that's coordinating all of these
ceptions right so the guy in Canada
didn't see a red Porsche until he looked
but when he looked um there was the this
whole world you know of circuits and
software that you don't see there's some
supercomputer that's coordinating the
whole thing how's it coordinating in
that particular metaphor right the
there's a supercomputer that's that's
taking the inputs from like your headset
what what direction are you looking with
your headset maybe you've got a bodysuit
so it's looking at your arm movements
and so forth and it's feeding all that
into a supercomputer where it's got a
model of the game and in that model
there's some red portion model of course
there's no red portion in the computer
and it knows then how to coordinate and
send the photons to your headset in
Canada and my headset in Irvine and
someone else's headset in in China so
that we have this notion of a persistent
reality of a Porsche even though
individually each one of us um local
realism is false the Porsche doesn't
even exist until I render it and there's
no red Porsche inside the super computer
so that's sort of the idea is that that
SpaceTime is just a headset and there's
behind SpaceTime there's going to be an
incredibly
complicated realm to explore that's as
least as complicated more complicated as
like the supercomputer is to my little
headset that headset is sophisticated
it's beautiful technology but the
supercomputer is you know really really
powerful thing the same thing will be
true of SpaceTime it's just our headset
but if we look beyond that headset we're
going to you know be finding a realm
that's far more complicated so in some
sense
science up till now has only studied our
headset we've studied inside space and
time we're taking our first baby steps
to start to explore we we've we've cut
our teeth in science on on studying our
headset we learned the tools in the last
three or 4 hundred years about
experiments and clean mathematical
theories and the loop between
experiments and theories but we thought
we were studying objective reality we
were studying our headset but now we
have the tools to actually take a First
Step Beyond SpaceTime and start to find
structures Beyond SpaceTime and their
projection back into SpaceTime and so
from that point of
view our view that objects in SpaceTime
um we've taken that to be the
fundamental reality will look sort of
parochial um hopefully in just a few
decades we I think the Next Generation
where um many people will have spent a
lot of time in virtual
reality My Generation didn't spend a lot
of time in virtual reality so this is
hard concept but if youve SP I don't
I've heard you say that before I don't
think that's going to get people where
you think it's going to get them maybe
not uh but in this episode I want to try
to explain why I think that and and get
um your take so here's what I think we
need to do first and then we'll go even
deeper there's two things we need to do
in the near term um one I think we we
need to in in our previous um interviews
we spend a lot of time dealing with the
headset So for anybody that's sort of
confused on that idea you're living in a
simulation everything that you know and
love and touch and have ever experienced
it is all a simulation you have never
existed outside of the headset so if
right there your brain breaks go watch
the other episodes we spend a tremendous
amount of time building that up um but
for now what I want to do is say okay
I'm going to assume that you get it that
your whole life is basically Grand Theft
Auto okay and people understand it
you've been in there playing the game
and they understand the difference
between playing the game and the
computer um rules and things that give
birth to that game and so that's that's
the difference what I want to do now is
map that one layer back so I want to
take that idea of your life is Grand
Theft Auto but there's this thing called
SpaceTime that's outside of it and get
to what you're actually saying which is
that same relationship but moved back
one very profound level because what
does is it inverts everything and what
it says is that the
Universe the universe SpaceTime is an
emergent phenomenon from Consciousness
that Consciousness is in this to use
that analogy just to map it back that
Consciousness is the quote unquote
computer and rules of the system and
then the simulation is what we all think
of as real life okay so that's where
we're mapping so one does does that
track for you that we can move that
analogy sort of one rung deeper is
probably the word you'd be most
comfortable with right so absolutely a
model in which we take Consciousness as
fundamental and we have a mathematical
model of Consciousness and we then try
to show how SpaceTime gets rendered from
that absolutely perfect so now in this
interview instead of making our
references to Grand Theft Auto unless we
need to for whatever for an anchor point
I want to talk about SpaceTime okay like
a simulation I want to talk about space
time like it is Grand Theft Auto because
researching you this time I I want to
sit with it for a while before I start
saying I'm 100% behind it and I
mentioned one of our previous interviews
that I do revert to the mean after I
spend time with you but each time you're
you're shifting me farther where my mean
is sort of closer to you this time at
least in the research I had a real sense
of he's right I I don't know about the
the Consciousness is the only part that
we may disagree sure but that I you
really gave me an internally consistent
set of logic points for why SpaceTime is
the
simulation and when I grant you a few
base assumptions that we'll go through
my own worldview makes more sense okay
and so I realized for the first time
again with fully acknowledging that I
may revert to the mean once I've
interviewed three or four other people
on totally different topics and this is
sort of cleared my system but right now
as we do this I really felt like you
improveed
what I consider a prediction engine I
think of the human mind as a prediction
engine and the closer you get to
Baseline truth the more you're able to
predict the outcome of your behaviors
what I'm watching happening with AI
which is why I wanted to start there I
can't make sense I don't when I think
about a hallucinating AI I'm like I
don't understand when I think about AI
pulling patterns out of noise I don't
understand when persistence is difficult
for AI I don't understand and then I
research you and click click click those
pieces fall into place when I I assume
that it's all already a simulation and
that AI is simply revealing to me how
the simulation works and so but the fact
that we disagree or maybe we don't I
think AI will be Windows into
Consciousness I think AI is leveraging
your own theories to create AI right now
as we're talking about it I think I'm a
lay person everybody needs to take this
with a huge grain of salt trust me I am
well aware of my limitations uh but I
think right now that what we're
witnessing with things like stable
diffusion where AI is
creating an image out of the infinite
possibilities that exist within this the
the possibility space of Noise Okay for
people that don't understand how stable
diffusion works that's how it works is
it dips into the noise to find a pattern
and then solidifies that pattern to
reveal is this what you wanted and what
I'm saying is when I research you I
realize oh my God
that's precisely what your theory
predicts in the idea of girdle's
incompleteness theorem which I have
struggled with so hard in the previous
interviews I feel bad for everybody that
has to watch me go through that but the
more I feel like I can grasp why you
keep coming back to it and why this sort
of infinite possibility space is so
important to understand when I watch AI
pull a static image out of infinite
possibility I'm like Oh my God that's
exactly what you've been trying to
describe okay put a pin in that okay
because what I want to talk about now is
consciousness as fundamental because
this is the part if people are really
paying attention this is the part that
will change your world view to to get
into the the um SpaceTime as a as a
construct as a simulation you first have
to understand that you think that's born
of the as born of Consciousness itself
and I'm please dear audience stick with
this because this point is going to be
very important as we piece together the
predictions that your own model is going
to make but they have to understand this
first
so how is it possible that Consciousness
the thing that I think everybody
Inuits comes from stacking neurons
neurons neurons neurons neurons and you
pass through a cricket an ant a mouse a
cat a dog a dolphin a gorilla and humans
it just feels like H just stack more
neurons and then you're ultimately going
to get these more sophisticated neurons
which give you a more sophisticated
Consciousness that seems so self-evident
and you're to me but you're saying nope
no and and by the way I'll just on the
pen I'll just mention that I agree with
you that AI could actually give us a
window into
Consciousness but they won't create
Consciousness that was all that was all
I was saying interesting so I think we
agree about that okay so you're so much
more thoughtful and so much farther
ahead when we get there I will lay out
my ignorant perspective so
on Consciousness being
fundamental um meaning that's all there
is that that's right so the idea would
be um and this is by the way in some
sense not new livets in his
monadology um had the same idea so I
really appreciate that you assume know
what that means and from Context I can
tease it out but can you tell us what
that means oh so so lius was this genius
um contemporary of Newton sort of a
antagonistic they they both invented
calculus roughly the same time there was
a question about who was first and so
forth and they they they they were you
know sort of at each other but but they
were say they were contemporaries but
liist
um had this idea that that Consciousness
couldn't emerge from physical systems he
has a famous argument of the mill where
he he in one paragraph basically
dismisses the idea that objects inside
space and time like neurons for example
could create Consciousness for him it
was so obvious that he spent a paragraph
on it and moved on and then he's got a
book called The monadology where he was
proposing uh essentially that
Consciousness perceiving entities are
the fundamental reality and that they
were interacting if I break down the
words monod doy oh mo monad so m o n a d
is a technical term for him it was he it
was a new term for
him monadology is then the books name
monadology um and it was basically it
was a Dynamics it was a strange Dynamics
we called a pre-established Harmony
where God so he had he brought God in on
on his thing I believe to to sort of
coordinate um all the the perceptions of
the
so meaning God was the first mover the
fundamental the fundamental right okay
but he saw it as a
Creator touching things with like a
Divine spark of
Consciousness yeah but his ontology was
that that
um the fundamental reality Beyond
SpaceTime was these monets the these
perceiving entities basically and but
but God I think was at the was the
deepest reality for for leness um there
I'm less secure the mon I'm not sure
exactly what his thoughts were on God
but I believe that's what he said um so
I just brought that up just to say that
you know we're not the first to have
this kind of idea centuries ago liet
with his mon andology had an idea that
perceiving entities experiencing
entities could be more fundamental than
than um the physical space-time world
all right you talk about conscious
agents right do you mean exactly that
same thing that's right so conscious
agents are um a mathematically precise
statement of what we mean by
Consciousness right so as a scientist
it's it's not enough for me just to say
okay there's Consciousness Beyond
SpaceTime and it's fundamental I have to
write down a mathematical description of
what I mean by that so what aspect of
Consciousness do I take to be
fundamental and and what's the
mathematical description so if I was if
you think about it think about
Consciousness there's of course
experiences um there's learning memory
problem solving intelligence maybe free
will uh there's lots of things the
notion of a self all these things that
you might think a theory of
Consciousness needs to to to incorporate
I'm so sorry and I I should have done
this before and that apology goes to the
audience if you're new to Donald it's
probably worth just a quick sentence
about what Consciousness is oh well so I
would say
Consciousness is um the ability to have
experiences like the taste of chocolate
a headache um emotions so this thing
feels like something yeah it's it the
way a lot of philosophers will talk
about it is is to have a conscious
experience there's something it's like
to be a conscious entity it's something
there's something it's like to have a
headache there's something it's like to
have your um you know to eat to have a
nice cup of coffee or something like
that okay and so let's call that qualia
again me stealing directly from you but
just so we have words cuz qualia is
going to become very important as we get
into your paper and all of that okay so
back to conscious agents so what we
decided to do was um we don't want to
throw the kitchen sink in our
mathematical definition so we took what
we thought was the bare minimum starting
point there are experiences like the
taste of chocolate smell of garlic and
so forth and those
experiences affect the probabilities of
other experiences occurring so there are
experiences and probabilistic
relationships among
experiences that's it so we're not
bringing in the notion of a self
learning memory problem solving
intelligence none of that what we're
saying is yeah all that stuff is
important but we have to prove how it
arises from just experiences and
probabilistic relationships among
experiences so that's as a scientist you
try it's it's what we call aom's razor
you want to have the minimum number of
assumptions at the start of your theory
every theory has assumptions there are
the Miracles of the theory we want as
few Miracles as possible right so our
only Miracles are there well it's a big
miracle there are experiences and
probabilistic relationships among
experiences and we formalize that um the
experiences um we just write down what's
called probability spaces we can if you
want we can talk about probability
spaces and the relationships among
experiences are what we call um marvian
kernels and we get what's called marov
chain so very simple Dynamics so we'll
we'll explain what markovian Dynamics
are in a second I don't now that I
finally have at least a tiny bit of a
grasp I don't know how important it is
that people understand that sure but I
do want to know how important is it that
uh one bit of
qualia impacts other qualia like does
that does that relationship play heavily
into the idea of Consciousness as a
fundamental agent yes we we stipulate
that as a fundamental property that that
experiences art in a vacuum experiences
probabilistically lead to other
experiences okay it's very interesting
that you said uh not in a vacuum because
that my whole thesis is that the
construct of SpaceTime the simulation
let's just be very clear the simulation
that is this real world sorry that's a
terrible use of the word real the
simulation that everybody lives in and
experiences
is required this is this is my pitch uh
the simulation is a required constraint
in order to give context yeah that
something can be like anything but that
for Consciousness to explore the
possibility space of qualia you have to
have a rule set and the rule set that
we're all in which may be one of a
gazillion
headsets but the rule rule set that
we're all in creates the possibility for
the subset of qualia that we as human
beings or Lizards or whatever experience
but without that rule set that is
spacetime right we would not have enough
limitations to give us the context in
order to feel a certain way exactly that
that's that's a very good way to put it
so that
um a lizard presumably sees things very
very differently than I do pigeons have
four color receptors we only have three
pigeons have four yeah that's right so
they see more color than we do bird some
I feel cheated now pigeons I
knew 15% of women do I did not know
pigeons yeah the Manta shrimp has more
than 10 photo receptors yes that's right
different kinds of or or or pigments
that that are used for for the photo
reception process so so we're we're we
may be cheated in in many many ways
that's for sure so so yeah we uh and and
we don't for example perceive um
polarization of light and birds and
maybs do is they they can perceive the
polarization of light um we can't
directly experience electric Fields And
there are there are animals in the water
that can do that so some that see
infrared some that see ultraviolet that
we can't so so we're we have a very very
small window and and other animals are
not restricted to the windows in which
we we see so I like your idea that there
there's an an infinite space of
conscious experiences to explore and
when we look at different animals we're
seeing different Explorations with
different headsets and and different as
you say different constraints and it's
it's um in some sense Consciousness
exploring all of its possibilities all
the possible um ways that uh to explore
so in some sense we're here for the ride
and we should enjoy the ride we're we're
we're you know we're exploring um we
thought this was the final reality no
this is just one
of countless possible headsets just one
of countless and um we'll enjoy this
right and then um Consciousness will
then it's looking through other headsets
so I like your idea yeah that is you
know there's some kind of consistency
some kind of coherence but it's a subset
of the experiences there's an infinite
number of experiences to explore so um
this ride never ends okay so when I
think about Consciousness as fundamental
I cannot help but imagine a blob that
then takes shape in the form of a human
or a lizard or an avocado whatever um
help me understand what do you have an
image in your head of what the what
Consciousness is is it just completely
non-physical well maybe the closest I
can get that would be the way that would
communicate to to people would be um if
you go into an entirely quiet
room shut off all the lights close your
eyes and get very very still and don't
think good luck that's right usually
letting go of thought is not easy um but
but if you can go for a few seconds or a
minute with absolutely no thought and
now you're just
aware you realize yeah I can be aware
without being aware of anything in
particular I I am fundamentally
awareness and into that awareness right
now are coming a cup a microphone a
table I can close my eyes and those are
those are gone from awareness so somehow
there is this field of
awareness that is in some
sense deeply and fundamentally who you
really
are that so that it seems like your
Theory would say that's
false well it's going to say that the
cons so the reason why I talk about this
awareness is that when we talk about all
these specific conscious experiences we
have to write down something that's
called a probability
space
first we're required mathematically to
do that so we write down a probability
space in which probability of qualia
that's right probability of qualia so
you have to write down the space of all
the potential qualia that this
particular conscious agent could
experience
so here is this space and it's it
there's the mathematical structure it's
just sitting there prior to any
particular experience happening it's
just sitting there and it took me a few
years to ask myself the question
what is that space I had to write it
down I couldn't do the math I couldn't
write down my Maran Dynamics until I
wrote down the probability spaces but as
you know the way we do it is we just of
course you have to write that down so
you don't even think about you write
down the probability space and you go on
to the fun stuff you you write down now
the Dynamics and so forth start but a
few years later I came back and go well
wait a minute I went too quickly on this
first part I had to write down a
probability space what does that mean
because this is a space prior to any
specific conscious experien is
happening and so the best I can say
right now is that perhaps is the
mathematical counterpart to what I was
just describing which is the
awareness that can experience prior to
having any particular specific conscious
experience arise in that awareness so
that's that's why I I talk about it in
in that way um can I um just restate
that to make sure that I understand and
uh Linger on it for a second for the
audience so you're using words that I
know you know are dangerous that anuka
Harris has warned you about letting
people carry the sense of self into all
this because you said you are the
awareness but really
Consciousness is the awareness that
animates me in some way or it needs my
constraints in order for it to
experience the qualia I think that's the
right way to think about it and so in
those moments where either through
meditation I get to True where I am
simply aware of the qualia of being
aware
but when it's not aware of anything in
particular so I'm not aware that my foot
hurts I'm not aware that my um my
stomach is churning on food I'm not
aware of something I need to do later in
that day I am just the the potential to
point that awareness at something is the
thing that I'm sitting
in that that's who we really are so
that that feels right but I know it it's
retrapping me in my sense of self that I
am a real thing your whole thing clicks
into place for me when I realize that
according to your theory and this makes
a lot of things make sense in my own
life I am simply one instantiation right
that creates a set of what I call
biological limitations right that then
once I have those
constraints now the fundamental element
of Consciousness can be begin to explore
its qualia the the different things that
like oh in this human form I can
experience these things with all the
context that this person has he responds
to this thing in this way right um
agreed there are some deep complexities
with that but we'll push those off for
later okay so if if that's where we're
at my fundamental question is why does
Consciousness why is it compelled to
explore these qualia states That's The
$64,000 Question that's
so I don't know but I can of course
that's the very natural question to to
ask and I agree with what you just said
said I mean I don't want to reify the
self what what we are are avatars of the
one effectively and the one
Consciousness is the one awareness is
exploring all of its possibilities
through different
avatars why there I you
know I think there may be some deep
mathematical reasons so may be that I
mean there's there are thms to the
effect that no system can completely
know
itself it's impossible so because for
example if I if I have a computer and I
want the computer to explore itself how
is it going to know itself well it's
going to have to build a model of itself
and write down what well in the very
process of building a model of itself
and writing into its memory things about
itself it's becoming more complicated
it's changing itself so now to really
understand s is going to have to now
describe what it just did and now to so
you get this infinite Loop um and so
there are there are problems
with
self understanding it's not possible in
in many cases provably not possible to
have a complete understanding of
yourself you you get into this infinite
Loop of now I have to be more
complicated to understand myself after I
just understood myself right and so
that's One Direction of this another
direction is
um there are there's a whole hierarchy
of Infinities um so the the integers
like so 1 2 3 up to Infinity that's
infinite number of integers we call that
accountable infinity or Alf zero um the
Hebrew letter Alf and zero just meaning
the smallest Infinity but there are
other infinities so the next if you take
um the set of all subsets of integers so
like 1 two and 15 and 2 3 4 look at all
the possible subsets of integers and ask
how many subsets are there how many
subsets of of integers can you come up
with it turns out that of course there's
an infinite number of of these subsets
because every number is divisible by an
infinite number of no we're just
grouping them together so I'm saying
think about the group one and two so
that's a group now one and five got it
so we can group an infinite number an
infinite number of times so those are
called the all the different possible
subsets of the integers got it and
there's of course an infinite number of
them because one is a group two is a
group three so we already know there's
an infinite number but there's more than
that how much more it turns out it's a
bigger infinity so the it's a bigger
infinity it's a it's a
bigger that well that's what
mathematicians said when canor the
mathematician who first came up with
this um when he first proved this feels
a bit like my speaker goes to 11 why I
just take make 10 louder but this one
goes it's actually a different size of
infinity and possible I literally can't
wrap my head around that there there
something um called Canter's diagonal
argument so so there's a simple diagonal
argument where you can actually show on
on paper pen and paper that um it's
impossible um to capture all the power
set this bigger infinity um with the
smaller Infinity so he gives what's
called Canter's diagonal so if people
want to you know check me on this you
just look up canor and canor diagonal
argument for a proof that there are
these bigger Infinities um and you can
actually I think most people can
actually follow the proof I mean it's
it's mindbending but um you can follow
it well there's not just one bigger
infinity that's alf1 is the bigger
infinity now take the power set so by
the way taking the set of all subsets is
called taking the power set so the power
set is all the possible
subsets so now I've got alf1 which is
the bigger infinity which is the power
all the power sets of Al zero but now I
can take all the power set the power set
of Al 1 that gives me al2 take the power
set again at al3 al4 and this goes
forever so there so Infinity is not one
thing there's an infinite
unending hierarchy of ever larger
Infinities so we have to on my my view
take this into account in our Theory Of
Consciousness that this this all of
these different
infinities are valid directions for
projection of this one deeper
Consciousness and
so we're going to so the answer to your
question may again
be because Canter's hierarchy never ends
this exploration never ends the
exploration of the possibilities of
consciousness of qualia is in principle
never ending do we recognize the truth
of reality well our best science tells
us that SpaceTime is not fundamental
this is the conclusion of both physics
and evolution by natural selection so
the physicists tell us that SpaceTime is
doomed it's not fundamental and they're
finding new structures um Beyond
SpaceTime like the amplitud hedrin that
actually make the math easier in
SpaceTime for the things they need to do
and then evolution by natural selection
also agrees with the physicist that
SpaceTime is not fundamental and let's
let's explain that so when you say that
SpaceTime isn't
fundamental what do we mean exactly in
like the simplest we'll get into the
geeky like deep stuff in a second but
for the audience that hasn't heard you
talk before right what does that mean
well we tend to think of space and time
as the basic level of reality everything
that could possibly be is inside space
and has some some time the Big Bang was
the start of it all and who knows what
the end will be maybe a big crunch or
just petering out in entropy and low
temperature we don't know yet but that
we think or we thought is the basis of
all reality so space and time are the
the basic stage on which all of reality
plays out and how could it not be though
that's the weird thing yeah does that
mean that whatever is real and we should
probably give people your um headset
metaverse explanation which speaks dear
to my heart but before we do that does
that mean that whatever is real is
nonphysical well so the word real is a
little slippery so um in some sense my
headache is real right because it's a
real
experience but um it real in the sense
that the physicists are talking about it
when they thought that space and time
were fundamental they were thinking that
this was the fundamental ground of all
possible
realities um like in a Newtonian
universe and even in Einstein's point of
view Einstein thought that space and
time was the grounding reality for
everything and now we realize
that the four dimensions of
SpaceTime or even that 10 dimensions of
string theory or something like that is
not going deep enough there are
structures entirely Beyond SpaceTime and
entirely Beyond quantum theory so so
these new structures are not like little
structures sitting inside at that small
scales I don't get to structures yet
people are going to be super lost so
okay the idea of the headset I think is
a really core concept so uh somebody
asked you once like in the future we're
going to start using different metaphors
what metaphors do you think we're going
to use and you said the metaverse as
somebody trying to contribute to the
metaverse my ears perked up on that one
why will that become such a useful
metaphor for for this moment and how we
perceive things right because the way
that
Evolution speaks on this is it says that
our perceptions of of objects in space
and time is really just like a virtual
reality headset it's there to help you
play the game of life without knowing
what's on the other side of the headset
what's on the other side what what's the
hardware and software that's running the
game you don't have to know that to play
the game and in fact if you were trying
to play a game of like Grand Theft Auto
in virtual reality and uh you know you
had to toggle millions of voltages per
second to drive your car uh you would
lose when you were you know competing
with someone who could just turn a nice
little simple steering wheel and press
on a artificial gas pedal so
Evolution gave us senses that allow us
to survive by hiding the truth and just
telling us how to act so as The
evolutionary theorist would say our
senses guide adaptive Behavior why does
natural selection as a theory predict
that cuz I understand the theory I guess
well enough at a high level but I never
would have guessed that it actually says
that it makes a prediction anyway that
you whatever is real the only thing I
can tell you that evolution is selected
for is not that so where like would uh
is this something that Darwin himself
saw in his theory or would he be
surprised I think Darwin would be
surprised and in fact um many um
evolutionary theorists today are Sur
surprised and and so how do we know this
isn't just a kooky interpretation of
natural selection by Donald Hoffman
exactly so
the the way we pursue this is it turns
out that Darwin's theory has been turned
into a mathematically precise Theory
it's called evolutionary Game Theory so
John Maynard Smith started that in in
the 1970s and so we now have instead of
you know Darwin's the which is you know
it's imprecise in the sense that it's
not a mathematical model evolu AR Game
Theory evolutionary graph Theory are
mathematically precise so we can now
prove theorems and we can ask technical
questions so what is the
probability that natural
selection would shape any sensory system
of any
organism to reveal any true structures
of objective reality that's a clean
technical question and it turns out that
evolutionary game theory is precise
enough to address that question Okay so
I know I've gotten hung up on that a lot
and I think for people of my cognitive
ability we will have to accept that as
the miracle of this conversation
otherwise we'll derail on that because I
don't understand how his theory can be
turned into a math equation and I worry
that for you to explain it to me would
take an entire semester and cause me to
tear my hair out but so if we can accept
unless you're thinking it looks like you
may give you a hint I can give a little
hint it's when we say evolutionary Game
Theory mhm it really think about Game
Theory how do you play Monopoly and win
how do you play various game so it turns
out you can look at different strategies
that someone might have you know I'm
going to go for Parkplace I'm going to
go for Boardwalk I'm going to try to
there's all different Strate and you can
then write down mathematically okay if
you take this strategy what is the
probability that you will do well
against someone who's taking this other
strategy all about most Offspring and so
the strategies are ways to survive long
enough to reproduce and so you can look
at different strategies for playing the
game of life so for example some
organisms will have millions or
thousands of
Offspring and but they don't care about
The Offspring most of them will die but
if one% of them make it you're good
humans tend to have just a couple a
handful of Offspring and we put a lot of
effort into them so those are different
strategies and so as you look so some
strategies for example in perception
humans really have focused in our
Evolution on vision and a little and
hearing and less on smell and taste and
so forth other organisms focus on things
that we don't even have like
echolocation and bats so different
organisms will take different strategies
The Game of Life is how do I live long
enough to reproduce and how do I raise
my Offspring to maturity no do I do I
just make lots of them and let them fend
for themselves
and most of them die but a fraction will
make it or do I make just a few of them
and really help them for 20 or 30 years
until they can go on their own or more
these days or more of those days so by
from evolutionary game theories
perspective what is the most successful
creature on planet
Earth um well probably bacteria um
interesting right there there's a lot
more bacteria than good answer than us
and maybe viruses if they're more so so
from that point of view
um right the the winner is the one who
um you know survives long enough to
reproduce and reproduces for a long
period of time and you know cyano
bacteria have been around for billions
of years so you know they're they're
certainly candidates I'm not saying that
they're the final answer but that kind
of thing would be humans are you know
relative newcomers and I I actually
really like the theory that humans are
bacteria's way of moving around which is
pretty interesting when you think that
were outnumbered by the bacteria in our
guts on our skin all of that stuff it's
pretty interesting I should have guessed
that answer but I didn't but that makes
a lot of sense right right so so this
gives you the idea when you're playing a
game there's lots of strategies
especially in a complicated game there's
lots of strategies and it's not that
there's going to be one best strategy
it's rather that if so you know if Tom
is using this strategy what should what
strategy should I use to counter Tom's
strategy and and so forth same thing in
business right depends on who your
competition is what strategies you're
going to take and what is the Govern
governing system and so forth like the
laws and so forth they will all
determine your strategy so you can use
Game Theory and turn it into a tool for
studying Evolution as a game where your
bacteria are trying to play the game of
Life One way humans are playing the game
of Life another way every different
organism every different plant is
playing the game of life with a
different kind of strategy that's really
interesting it's funny I I this is the
third time I've interviewed you and I've
never pushed on this cuz it there was
something about I couldn't wrap my brain
around it so I'm glad you took the time
yeah uh what's fascinating to me is
every species has its own umelt yes
which is a really fascinating concept so
I looked this up once and every time I
say this stat I think I must be wrong
because it just seems way too far off
but humans are able to perceive
.35% of the uh elect magnetic spectrum
and I was like how is that POS that's so
like every everything that we see and
think of as the the known world is
0.35% that is like vanishingly small
exactly right so our our window on the
on the world is Trivial compared to what
could in principle be available and so
the the question that you can then ask
in a technical fashion
is what is the probability
that a strategy of
seeing truth true structures about
objective reality would would that
strategy help you to survive long enough
to raise
kids and so we can ask that as a
technical question Evolution has the
tools to do that and the key concept is
something called a fitness payoff so
it's Fitness payoff is like if you're
playing a game there's certain way that
you get points in the game if you're
playing a video game right you have to
shoot things down or avoid getting hit
and to get points and if you get enough
points you get to the next level of the
game well Fitness payoffs um if you get
enough Fitness payoffs what that
corresponds to is you're surviving long
enough to reproduce and you don't go to
the next level of the game but your
Offspring and your DNA in your Offspring
go to the next level of the game so
here's the here's the big
idea we can ask these Fitness payoff
functions
that govern our Evolution they do depend
on whatever the world is and the world
structure so they do depend on the world
they depend on the organism you know
what's fit for me is not fit for a benic
fish being 5,000 meters under the water
would kill me it's just what the benic
fish wants so so the fitness payoffs
depend on the true structure of the
world depends on the organism you know
Hoffman versus a fish and the um the
action feeding fighting fleeing and
mating and and so forth and and you can
then ask what is the probability and
this is now this is the key technical
question what is the probability that a
randomly chosen Fitness payoff function
that's govering my Evolution has
information about the true structure of
the world right because it's that fit
Evolution tells us those Fitness payoffs
are what determine how your senses are
going to evolve they're going so what's
the base assumption there that the that
reality is so complex in fact I want to
press I want to take a second to really
elucidate the example you gave about
Grand Theft Auto which I think is so
brilliant what's actually happening in
Grand Theft Auto is um electrical
currents are toggling on and off Gates
on the computer and that somehow makes
things happen on your screen that you
can interact with and score points and
all that right but at like if you look
at a chip it is so complicated that
trying to like zap electrodes in the
right order literally impossible right
and so everything that we we as the
average non-computer programmer think of
as a computer is really just the goey
it's the interface and so you're there
to really AB really abstracted level it
is so abstract is to be nonsensical
compared to what's actually happening at
the electrical communication level with
the Machinery itself sending signals to
your TV exactly and if real life has
that same level of complexity then I get
why it would need to be so abstracted
that as to be just nonsensical compared
to what reality really
is something I think breaks in people's
intuition it certainly breaks in my
intuition when I think though that there
has to be some sort of mapping so the
example that you've said many times
which I think is really on point is uh
if people are going to make fun of you
what they will say is oh you don't think
any of this is real go ahead and step in
front of that train and see if it kills
you and of course it's going to so the
representation of the
train is pointing at
something that will change your state
from alive to dead that's right now
whether all of that is is so again
abstracted from what's actually
happening at a electrical level I don't
even know what to liken it to um but
nonetheless stepping in front of a train
will flip you from alive to dead
whatever that means in the the
underlying reality so do you think at
all about like do you care what it's
mapping to or are you just like H it
doesn't matter it's too complicated
we're not there yet well I do care and
that's why I'm interested in this
particular theorem right because my
interest is I'm seeing a world of space
and time and objects with colors and
shapes and motions how is is that the
true world is that the the true
structure of objective reality or is
this as div divorced from reality is
what we're seeing as divorced from the
fundamental reality as my Grand Theft
Auto VR headset is from the voltages
inside the supercomputer that's running
it that's the that's the simple question
right so when I talk about things
outside of SpaceTime it's just like
suppose someone had played Grand Theft
Auto since they were one day old and
their parents had left them in a headset
their whole life and when they're 25 the
parents say guess what you've been in
the headset your whole life and and that
that person probably can't even what
could possibly be outside of my headset
I've lived my whole life inside this
headset and you pull it off and you
realize oh wow there's a whole world
that's entirely outside of what you're
in that's the question we're asking has
has Evolution shaped us with just a
little headset a VR headset that that
guides adaptive Behavior but shows us
none of objective reality that's that's
the technical question and the answer is
is very very clear the probability is
one that we don't see the truth at all
meaning 100% 100% okay so if the
probability is 100% that you are seeing
a very false version right the the thing
that that seems to predict to me is that
the underlying reality is so complicated
that at least in this form I don't know
how else to refer to that in this form
it would with our umelt our ability to
process data whatever it would not make
sense to try to
um to deal with the reality that it's
far more efficient to create an
abstraction layer but if underlying
reality is dead simple that doesn't seem
like it would hold true so do we just
presume that there is Extreme
complexity well it turns out that the
extreme complexity isn't necessary for
this theorem to be true interesting why
would you need such an elaborate
abstraction if it isn't complicated well
so it turns out when you actually just
look at the math so suppose the world
has some number of states a billion
States or or 100 States whatever it
might so there's some number of states
in the world and you have some number of
states of perception I can see green red
there's lots of things I can see when
you just do a simple count look at all
the possible functions from the states
of the world to the states of my percept
you just count them so it doesn't the
world doesn't have to be complicated
could have just you know 100 points or a
thousand points when you count those all
the functions and that are the fitness
functions and ask how many of those
functions actually contain information
about the structures in the in the world
it turns out that very quickly the
proportion goes to zero it's just so
even if the structure isn't that
complicated maybe there's only one
structure in the world that that's all
it has like a total order something you
know one is less than two is less than
three is what is the probability that
that total order so the world could be
very simple it only has one simple
structure total order and and the world
only has you know maybe a million States
so it's not a very complicated World a
million
States what is the probability that um
the fitness payoff functions that govern
my my Evolution would
preserve the total order information
would would actually be able to tell me
about the total order and the math is
quite simple and the answer is zero but
that has to predict
something like so when when I make the
base assumption that it's it's because
it is too complex so to give people I
want to start putting definitions of
some of these words so when you say
state
let's say lights on lights off so we all
live where Earth has two states the Sun
is up the sun is down that's one uh
temperature would be another state could
be hot could be cold uh barometric
pressure could be high could be low
could be wet could be dry like we can
just so there's a lot of different
things and so to your point about the
fish they're dealing with massive
pressures if they were to come up where
there's no pressure they would
disintegrate or not be able to move or
whatever just like we Crush down to the
you know like a tiny can they would
explode and we would crush right exactly
so okay that when you say States that's
one example I don't understand how if
everything were static it were one
state that we would need an abstraction
layer to navigate it more effectively
than somebody that sees objective
reality so now I'm going to use an
example to further illustrate what I
mean I'm going to use an example you
gave me the first time you cannot
imagine how many times I've quoted you
on this okay
you said uh Tom you have to understand
that objective reality isn't like oh
here's a table and it's got this nice
swirly grain pattern it's the number of
photons reflecting off of that desk and
the the amount of reflectivity and all
that now irony of ironies as I have
started working in the metaverse you
realize how complicated the visual world
is the the
0.35% of the visual spectrum that we
actually see is insanely complicated to
replicate right right Donald right it's
the hardest thing I've done in my life
it's crazy and I don't even have to
fully understand it I just have to guide
the team understands it anyway when you
said that I was like whoa what reality
is is very different than how I
experience it so cool complex right so
now I get why the math works out right
but if it isn't
complex so you don't seem to be
struggling with this what is it that you
understand that I don't or what is your
base assumption that's different than
mine that makes it make sense to you
that to achieve maximum Fitness payoff
you would 100% not retain elements of
reality right so so first I I don't deny
that I I suspect that reality is very
complicated so so my my point that isn't
necessary necessary for this that's
right it's just simply ACC counting
thing so if you if you look at all the
functions from one set to another set
like so I have
functions for say I have numbers 1
through 10 and that's my base set and
I'm going to map them into numbers 1
through 10 so I can map 1 to three and
two to five and so forth so now if you
just do okay if you think about that
problem you you I could probably figure
out okay how many different functions
are there right so you can write the
write down all now you can say okay how
many of those functions have the
property that um you know they preserve
that one is less than two is lesson
three and Lesson Four how many of them
scramble that order how many preserve
that order how many scramble how many
contain information about the one less
less than two less than three less than
four so this is called combinatorics
it's a branch of mathematics oh I'm
unfortunately all too aware of it
because of nfts yes which require you to
understand this because you're making
you have to your point and maybe this is
what you're saying and so maybe I
actually now I'm understanding it let me
walk you through what we had to discover
in nfts okay so you create all these
traits right all these categories I
should say and then within each category
you have maybe 10 possible eyebrows that
it could be eyeball types
hairstyles uh facial hair so on and so
forth that outputs let's say two billion
potential permutations exactly right but
you want to maintain a distribution in
the 10,000 that you're actually going to
show so we were all trying to do the
math and we're working it out and I'm
like there's no way it's is simple
there's some problem and then we showed
it to physicists and they fell out
laughing and they're like yeah it's not
that simple and so they're like for you
to maintain the the um the percentage
likelihood to get gold eyes let's say
out of your two billion combinations
they're like you have to force it down
into this thing which they called
combinatorial or whatever and so I was
like okay and so that's that really is
the point here that even though I agree
with you that the universe is probably
the real Universe whatever it is is very
complicated I I believe that
combinatorics blow up so quickly got it
by the time you just get to a few
hundred elements you know that as you
found the thing the explosion of
possibilities is so great that when they
ask how many of those possible Fitness
functions would actually be so special
that they contain information about the
structure of where they came from out of
all of the possible Fitness functions
that so it's not an overly complicated
world it's just the number of potential
mapping points and combinations exactly
right very interesting because
evolutionary theory puts no restriction
on the fitness payoff functions any
possible there could be as many as you
can imagine and there's no restrict
there's no restriction that says they
have to show you the truth that's not
part of the theory right so until so and
and by the way no one knows how to put
that into the theory right so I mean to
say that it requires that only the fit
functions that preserve the truth would
be a major revision to evolutionary
theory would be
unrecognizable so so when you look then
and say okay every Fitness payoff
function is is equal likely as any other
Fitness payoff function they're all an
equal footing and then you count the
ones that actually have information
about the
truth they go to zero probability right
in fast order now there is one I should
bring out there's um a group at Yale
that has recently published a paper
that's trying to um push back on this
and what they say is if you have say a
bunch of like thousands of Fitness pay
functions they're all radically
different then they say that you'll be
forced to um to go to the truth and and
they the the argument that they make is
that if our highlevel cognitions our
beliefs our goals and so forth are not
going to interfere with our perception
they claim that then our perceptions
have to map have a single mapping from
the state of the world into the state of
our senses has to be a single mapping
you can't have more so because one thing
I could do with a lot of Fitness
functions to say well this Fitness
function is different from that one so I
will do this kind of mapping from the
world into my senses with this Fitness
payoff function then I'll do another
mapping with this Fitness payoff
function and and they say no if you're
going to have what we call um cognitive
impenetrability so what you believe
cognitively cannot affect um what you
see okay that's that's the argument then
you must have only one mapping well it
so that's their assumption so hold on
let me make sure I understand that so
they're saying
that basically so that your delusions
don't create the exterior world or at
least your perception of it you have to
have this mapping so that you're
actually detecting and seeing what is
real
they're they're saying that if what you
believe doesn't affect your senses in a
fundamental way yep then they
claim that that entails that you can
only have one mapping from the world the
fitness the the the mapping of your
sensus from the whatever the world is
into what what you're seeing the colors
and the shapes and so forth that there
can only be one map um that that holds
regardless of what the fitness payoff
function is that was their claim so and
and the only reason I bring this up is
because this is a recently published
paper the claim is false it's it's
trivial to show counter examples there
their fundamental claim is false please
do as a way just to make sure that I
actually understand what they're saying
because this sounds like what they're
trying to protect against is um
hallucinations basically
becoming subjectively real right so so I
actually think that it's true probably
to a large extent that what we believe
does not really affect fundamentally we
see so technical term we use the geek
term is cognitive impenetrability of
perception that's what the philosophers
of science will talk about in cognitive
scientists that are are and you can
think about scientists might like this
because they'll say look we want to use
our senses in our experiments I want you
my theory makes a prediction I have to
go look and see if the prediction is
true well if my theory that I'm holding
would change what I see then science
isn't going to really be objective right
I mean if I believe this Theory and it
changes how I see the data then I might
just see the data that confirms the
theory and I can't escape so that's why
there's philosophy of science has been
very interested in this question are our
highlevel theoretical beliefs and just
our beliefs as everyday people do they
get in there and somehow fundamentally
affect how we see the world and there is
a you know sort of a way you could say
they you know I the way I believe things
does change my world but not they don't
change like the color I see or the
dimensional structure of the cube here
that I'm seeing I mean they might change
it in some way but but not fundamentally
like that so that's the that's the
question and so it's it's trivial mean
so when the group at Yale makes this
point that you know if you have lots of
different Fitness payoff functions and
you don't have your high Lev beliefs
interfering with the process of
perception then you can only have one
one map from the world into your senses
and of course they they don't prove that
they they just state it without Pro Pro
and so it's it's trivially false we we
have made counter examples it's very
very easy to make counter examples I can
design a system in which I have say two
Fitness payoff
functions and I I use one Fitness payoff
function to make one map from the world
into my perceptions use the other
Fitness function to make another map and
if I have a system that has no high
level beliefs then the high level
beliefs aren't interfering with it
there's the counter example right there
no cognitive penetration of perception
multiple Maps but then I can add beliefs
and say I know I can have beliefs here
as long as they don't interfere with
this mapping here I could have two two
maps why not so it's they're they're the
guys that the group at Yale they're
brilliant experimentalists and you know
one of them is a really good friend of
of one of my collaborators I mean
they're they were posts and MIT together
and so forth so they're brilliant
experimentalists but the fundamental
assumption that they're making is just
trivially false and so so then what how
do we see this in our perceptions the
way SE in our perceptions
is we have probably hundreds of
thousands if not millions of Fitness
payoff functions that are governing our
our Behavior so what do we do with all
that complexity what we do is we group
The Fitness payoff functions into groups
that are similar and we take that and we
make simple little data structures out
of them and those data structures are
what we call
Objects so this object is good for
drinking can you what what is a data
structure when you say that it's an
object meaning my
mind groups it so that I can
differentiate the cup from the coaster
from the
desk what I'm saying is we're making all
this stuff up as a simple way to
represent the fitnesses fitness payoffs
and how to get them so so for example in
when you're playing Grand Theft Auto mhm
you're just you're playing a game um if
you looked inside the super super
computer there there is no red Porsche
there is no steering wheel there is no
gas pedal in some sense those are what I
call Simple data structures they're
coding for you know the gas pedal and
pushing on the gas pedal is coding for
who knows countless millions of voltage
changes happening in in exactly the
right sequence in the computer I have
this trivial data structure gas pedal
push on it that triggers this whole
other thing that I don't want to know
about it's really too complicated so
that's what I mean by these simplifying
data structures my steering wheel is
this simple data structure that I can
use to interact with who knows how many
billions or trillions of voltages and
make them do exactly the right sequence
in the right order could I say
representation instead of data structure
sure absolutely data structure is a
computer science term so computer
scientists would would be very happy
with that but but representation is is
perfectly good and so the idea then is
what evolution has done from an
evolutionary point of view is it takes
all these Fitness payoff functions that
govern us that govern our our survival
and that we need to respect in order to
play the game of life and we organized
them so an apple is is an object it's a
representation of a bunch of Fitness
payoffs for example the Apple if I'm
interested in
mating Apple's no good if I'm interested
in eating great if I'm interested in a
weapon so so I mean I could throw it at
someone's head but it's not going to do
much damage you know if I'm you know so
there's if but if I have a
sword a sword well for for mating no
good for eating not really I could use
it to cut a coconut in half but but I
can't eat the I can't eat the sword for
fighting great but not if you're
fighting against you know a gun and
things like that so every object and we
can recognize I would say on the order
of 30 or 40,000 different objects basic
kinds of objects so what that indicates
is that Evolution has taken all these
hundreds of thousands maybe millions of
Fitness payoff functions and it's not
making one map from the world into our
senses it's making a bunch of different
maps and those different maps are what
we call Objects and our high level
cognition all it does is I I'm hungry
okay I won't be looking for tables I
won't be looking for the moon I'll be
looking for apples and bananas and
things like that those data structures
representations that have high Fitness
payoffs for for the action of eating and
so visual attention paying attention to
different objects is our way of
switching from this representation of
Fitness payoffs to this representation
of Fitness payoffs as I need to be able
to to do to survive long enough to
reproduce and so that's so that's sort
of technical but it's the reason I bring
it out is because this is brand new it
it's gotten you know a lot of attention
from Yale and so it's an important thing
from the scientific side to to Really
lay to rest that that you know there's
not one mapping that's required from the
world into our senses by Evolution even
if we assume that uh our our beliefs
don't interfere with our cognition our
cognitions don't interfere with our
perceptions that doesn't entail that we
have to have one mapping um it's just a
false assumption once you let go of that
false assumption then you are opened up
to realize that objects every object is
just a data structure coding for a whole
group of Fitness payoffs and that's how
Evolution deals with it the hypothesis
that I have that okay maybe this really
is all a simulation because as we go to
build the next simulation it actually
tells us more it it gives me a better
way to understand what's already
happening now again I'm a lay person so
I may be way out of my own depth here
but I think people will be able to
follow the internal logic so this is
what I was stating about AI so the way
that AI works is there is an infinite
possibility space in noise so you can
just think of it as a screen and that
screen can have think of every
conceivable pixel that's there and
depending on what color you make any one
of those pixels if you have like a grand
enough resolution meaning enough pixels
in a finite space that you can recreate
any image that's ever been seen or
created or even just what's possible so
if anybody's seen um what they call an
AI hallucination where the AI will just
continually like push into itself and
every time it pushes in and a pattern
begins to emerge it then crystallizes
that pattern and basically says the most
likely shape to emerge out of this would
be a staircase but as you push in the
most likely shape to emerge out of that
would be a cathedral and and it just
keeps going and going and going and
going and it never runs out of sort of
most likely things to emerge out of this
pattern is because it's looked at all of
these things and so it will create
things that it's seen before so the Mona
Lisa would be one representation that is
very predictable especially given how
many times the Mona Lisa has been
replicated so one of the things in the
possibility space is the Mona Lisa is a
rembrand is David is you looking at your
wife this morning is one of the
possibility spaces that it could
eventually draw out of this thing so
it's it's constantly searching for what
is the next potential pattern now my
whole thing is what really starts to
make this interesting and the reason
that I think that the simulation isn't
something to be brushed aside as being
trivial but is critically important if
you're right that what the what
Consciousness is doing is it has some
motivation for some reason that neither
of us know why but that it is cycling
through all of its
permutations if that's what's really
happening then to do that you need a set
of rules and so what I realize is I'm
building the going back to the Grand
Theft Auto so we're building a simulated
world and I realize as we build it all
I'm doing is making the most detailed if
this then that statements and so I'm
trying to create these algorithms that
then not trick you but they give you a
set of rules by which you now must
adhere but by doing that by actually
limiting the possibility space I can
make a game that's quote unquote fun so
it is in the limitation it's in the
setting of rules that this becomes a
useful space so what I want to know is
you you talk a lot about like hey we
want to get out of the headset do you
really do you want to get out of the
headset or do you want to manipulate the
headset well when I say we want to get
out of the headset that's that's a
scientist trying to look for a deeper
Theory so as a scientist I mean we've
scientist but let me ask you so the
reason that Einstein his breakthroughs
were so useful is within the headset
they let us do something are you trying
to do something in the headset or so if
you understand how the headset works you
can either manipulate the like Einstein
Bend space time right you can create GPS
which if you didn't understand
relativity you would not be able to do
um and that made made the atom bomb
possible it made nuclear energy possible
it made GPS possible his breakthroughs
are you trying to do a breakthrough that
has headset implications or are you
searching a breakthrough that has get
out of the headset implications both so
what I want to do is is get a theory of
what's beyond at least a baby Step
Beyond the
headset
presumably as I mentioned there's a
Canter's hierarchy of infinity so we
have infinite job security going beyond
the headset that that's it's literally
an unending job but to take a step
entirely outside of the headset then as
as you point out as a scientist I need
to make predictions back in the headset
because that's the only place we can do
experiments to prove that you're right
basically well to to I don't you can
never prove that you're right but but to
to sort of what we say scientist would
say to to get confirmation of your
theories which is not proof but to to
say
um you're not stupid you seem to be
predicts the things that we already
understand and hopefully makes novel
predictions about things that we don't
currently understand that's right we
should be able to get Quantum field
Theory back as a special case we get
Einstein's theory of general relativity
as a special case evolution by natural
selection as a special case we should or
generalizations of these theories within
SpaceTime so so yes we're we're going
for the first baby step outside of
SpaceTime in terms of a scientific
theory but of course we have to project
it back into SpaceTime where we can do
experiments and it better look um like
evolution of natural selection and
Quantum field Theory
or understandable generalizations of
those theories um or we're wrong right
so so the you might say Well yeah if you
go outside of SpaceTime you can do
anything you have all the fun you want
you can do anything you want to um no
you can't you can you need to tie it
back to what we can perceive inside our
headset um so that that's where we're
headed but um as I said there's infinite
job security and and so I view myself as
as just looking for a first baby step
outside of the headset science for for
centuries has only studied our headset
because SpaceTime is our headset but in
the last 10 years physics has gone
beyond we've talked before about the
amplitud hedrin and decorated
permutations that other other structures
that physicists are finding these are
not the final word again these are the
first baby steps outside of our head set
and they will be of course refined and
eventually
superseded all right so there's one of
these things that I think I've I've
grasped enough that I can present it to
people as one of the first baby steps so
in physics one of the things they're
constantly doing is smashing particles
together to try to see what happens when
those particles Collide in the hopes
that it will reveal smaller and smaller
elements of the building blocks of the
universe uh which will then help us
understand what the the sort of
fundamental makeup of SpaceTime is and
and as they look at this data what they
found is uh that there are patterns in
that data that replicate
endlessly and you smash these together
and the the collisions there's so much
data at first it seems impossible just H
so much data to wait through we'll never
understand anything and then all of a
sudden you realize wait there's only so
many patterns once you take those like
once you group those shatters like if
you think of it this way if every time
you broke a mirror it broke into the
same pattern you'd be like wait a second
and am I understanding it correctly that
that's what happens when you Collide
particles statistically yes right so
it's not exactly but but but you you can
use statistics to show that there are
these statistical commonalities to the
interactions absolutely okay walk us
through that and why does that matter
well for physicists of course this is
some of their most fundamental data so
they're
what are particles
particles Eugene vigner taught us are
what he called el you know irreducible
representations unitary representations
of the group of symmetries of SpaceTime
what they call the point Care Group is
essentially particles are like
the the simplest things
Allowed by the symmetries of SpaceTime
the simplest entities allowed and so in
some sense by studying these particles
we're really studying the nature of
SpaceTime itself and the structure of
SpaceTime um and so when they for
example in the Large Hadron cider they
will um smash protons together or they
will um they they'll also you know
sometimes have an electron and smash it
into a proton and at at high energies
and when you do that at high enough
energies you destroy the proton it
actually falls apart and you see all
these particles scattering up things
like quirks and and glue
and Masons and so forth and so you can
look at the angles that these particles
are spraying out at and look at for
example do they have you know a spin a
magnetic charge what's their do they
have a mass so you can sort you can look
at all the and then when when you start
looking at all the data you begin to see
patterns in the data and and so we see
you know for example it was a big
surprise to physicists that inside the
proton there were these things that they
now call quarks but the quarks in some
sense at least at the energies that that
are available to us
can't be on their own you can't have
like quarks flying out on their own
there's something called Quark
confinement and that was a big big
Discovery so quarks like in in a proton
there are three quirks two up and one
down a neutron has two down and one up
and but if if
you if the
Quirk escapes
if it's trying trying to get away um the
force of attraction between two quirks
grows with the distance and the energy
well the force doesn't grow the energy
so the force doesn't normally we think
of the force the force so the force
doesn't grow the force remains constant
and so the energy the the potential
energy keeps growing and growing as you
as you move these particles apart and so
some at some point they snap and you you
create all that energy goes and creates
a new Quirk say so so then they pair off
so it's it's very very strange um this
this Quirk confinement thing so one
reason we do experiments is because I
mean who ordered that we we we wouldn't
have like
guessed you know Court confinement and
so but we we found Court confinement and
it's still being studied I mean trying
to understand that there's a theory that
if we get that really really high
energies um they won't be confined but
but those are energies that um we
currently are nowhere
near and we have no analytic proof right
now of cork confin for what what are
called nonabel Eng gauge theor so so one
of the big open questions in physics is
to actually prove this analytically um
that that so they they have lattice
gauge models that that of this that show
it and and and and they they have other
cases where they the experiments and the
theory convince them that's the truth
but we don't actually have the final
analytic proof of this in what's called
nonabel and gauge theories so so that's
still an interesting open question but
that's why physicists are doing this
these particles are really probing in
some sense the fundamental nature of
SpaceTime itself and so they look at at
at patterns they look at that the um the
cross-sections for interactions so this
was for
example way back um
in the early studying of of the atom um
so there was a a plum pudding model of
the atom right so there was um um
electrons were these negative Point
particles inside a um a positive field
and then this one
experimenter started shooting particles
at at at atoms and the plum model would
say that most of these particles would
just go go straight through and most of
them did but every once in a while one
would bounce back a very very small
percentage of the time and so that that
gave them the idea okay there are
point-like particles We Now call them
protons and and neutrons um these
particles that were they were hitting
that but they were a very very small
space within the the atom so the atom
was mostly empty space the electrons
were way far away so to speak from the
the much smaller protons and neutrons
and so but then we look inside the
protons we find that the proton itself
and the neutrons are composed of even
smaller particles quarks and gluons and
and so forth and who knows even the
quarks and gluons um might be you know
composed of smaller particles but we
don't have the resolution in our our
colliders right now to test that we can
only go to you know a thousandth or
10,000th of the diameter of a proton I
think and at at that resolution the
quarks and gluons still look like
point-like particles it doesn't seem
self-evident to me that just because
again I'm I'm granting you the conceit
that Consciousness is the the
fundamental thing but it does not seem
self-evident to me that even if
Consciousness is the fundamental thing
that gives rise to this constricting
rule set as I describe it that we call
SpaceTime um that you couldn't have a
theory of everything regarding SpaceTime
um why do you think we have failed to
get a Theory of Everything
in SpaceTime in space knowing that it's
the simulation but going back to Grand
Theft Auto feels like even if I just
said oh all I can tell you is cause and
effect that when this pixel goes here it
has this effect and so now I can play
everything's forwards or backwards and
you could in Grand Theft Auto it has a
set of rules and it adheres to those
rules period plain and simple and so
even though it is the um the it is the
headset a computer computer program
assuming that a simulation acts like a
computer program SpaceTime in this case
uh it it adheres to rules and so when
you get a quote unquote bug it is what
the program is programmed to do you just
didn't intend to program it that way
well I I in that framework yes I agree
with you that I think we could get a
complete theory of SpaceTime not a
complete Theory of Everything But a
complete theory of SpaceTime so so the
theory of everything for me would be you
know SpaceTime is a trivial aspect of
everything right so but absolutely I
think we can get a complete theory of
SpaceTime and we'll see its limits it it
falls apart at 10us 33 cm and 10us 43
seconds so we'll we'll see that we'll
understand that yeah so it's it's quite
quite possible I would say though and I
like your idea about the the program and
the rules and setting up a a framework
in which you can explore um experiences
I'll throw in a little wrinkle you're
writing computer programs and um
so Alan Turing you know is sort of one
of the fathers of modern computer
science and and turing machine is is
like the first like really good
theoretical framework for computer
science and the universal touring
machine that that touring described in
some of his papers um is sort of our our
notion of a universal
computer but but there's a a well-known
limit to what touring machines can do
take again all the the integers you know
one 2 3 up to Infinity also minus one
min-2 and so
forth and ask think about all the
functions from the integers to the
integers for example the square function
so you know the square of two is four
the square of four is 16 and so forth
how
many functions are
there it turns out it's a big it's it's
a bigger infinity it's it's
it's a it's not accountable it's not
it's a bigger infinity than the integers
but touring proved that the set of
computable functions is
countable so when you're
programming you're using only computable
functions but they're a they're a much
smaller Infinity than all the possible
functions
so right now in our current technology
we're when we build these computer
simulations we should know that we're
using a probability zero subset of all
the functions that are actually
available and maybe later on we'll
figure out how to do something more
interesting with all these other
functions but then as we go again
counter's hierarchy I think that in
other words the the kinds of rules
they're going
to are going to be very very um
hard for our heads to understand you can
write down if you take a class in
theoretical computer science you can
study non-computable functions so that
you
and almost every function is
non-computable okay as I as I just said
the computable functions are probability
zero the set of all functions is is all
most most of those functions are not
computable but in a theoretical computer
science class you will you will actually
spend some
time actually studying you know how to
construct and prove that a certain
function is not not computable like the
halting problem is not is not a
computable it's it's not a computable
function it it doesn't and so but it's
really hard for us even though almost
every function is not computable almost
every function we can think of is
computable so here we are stuck with the
limitations of our headset and and so
Thinking Out of the Box in this
simulation idea is is is really going to
be mind-numbing because to really think
out of the
box you're can have to learn how to
think about noncomputable functions and
that is not trivial that's not but
that's so I just wanted to throw that
out there to just open up how
complicated this this can be and and and
why the exploration to get a theory of
even just the everything of SpaceTime we
have to get into non-computable
functions I don't know if we will or not
that's an open question but but we
should be open to that
possibility very interesting and
certainly to explore Consciousness I see
no reason why we should a priori I would
say this if someone claimed that the
computable functions were all we need I
would say the burden of proof is on
[Music]
you talk about something I have not even
considered I don't know that I can wrap
my head around that one yet I have a
hard time I mean I took a class and I
and I looked at that non-computable fun
the halting problem and you have to
really I mean you have to be sober
you have to be well rested and you have
to think really hard at least with my
apparatus you have to think really
really hard to to even grasp it it's not
trivial intense okay so when we have a
hypothesis that makes predictions we
need to be able to solve we were talking
about this a few minutes ago we need to
be able to solve problems or our
hypothesis needs to predict outcomes of
things that we can observe but not yet
explain um in I can't remember if you
mentioned this in your paper but I've
heard you talk about this so dark matter
Dark Energy we don't know what the hell
it is but we know that the Universe
would not hold together if it wasn't for
that or it wouldn't be racing apart at
the way that is racing whatever it
wouldn't function the way that it
functions now um what does your
Consciousness as fundamental agent tell
us about Dark Energy well nothing
specifically right so that's that's a
big open um question in fact one one of
the um my collaborators is is a student
working right now on Dark Energy um
experiments um um a brilliant student
named Ben Neer because he thinks it will
yield results tied to Consciousness as
fundamental uh no I think it's just
because it's a good thing to do at this
stage in your career to get that kind of
experience and you know actually spend
time hunting with real experiments for
dark matter so you learn the ropes um I
think it's it was and so he's doing that
um and who knows you know our our
current techniques may or may not find
dark matter we we we just don't know um
but it's no
surprise from a point of view that says
that SpaceTime is not
fundamental to say that there could be
influences um on our headset that are
not explicitly represented by the
headset itself they're only seen um as
uh influences on the headset but and so
in one way that we're going after this
in our own mathematics is we have this
markovian dynamics of these conscious
agents can you take a second to explain
to people what Marian Dynamics are yeah
markovian Dynamics is is fairly simple
in in concept it says that
um what you do
next so suppose I'm um suppose I'm
a on just say a sidewalk and it has
there are different I could either step
one step to the right or one step to the
left and and there's some probability
maybe I I choose to step to the right
with probability of you know 2/3 and to
the left probability of 1/3 and so you
can see where where would I go over time
but the key thing about it is that my
the step I'm going to take now only
depends on where I am now so where I'm
going to end up next only depends on
where I am now so there's a finite
memory I don't have to know everything
I've done in the past to know what's
going to happen next I only need to know
where I am now and that's the key Mark
of property that you only need to really
know the current state don't have to
know the whole history to have all the
prob all the information about the
probabilities for what's going to happen
next the an analogy that I heard that I
was really helpful in understanding is
if you think of it as
airports some airports have more
connections to other cities than other
airports you're so if you're asking
let's say that there's five airports in
question one is isolated and one is a
hub to all the rest and then the other
ones only have one or two links whatever
um going back to your idea of if I'm on
the
isolated uh airport there's only one
option so you don't need to know where I
was before all of that if you know I'm
in the isolated one you know I'm flying
back to the only thing it's connected to
which is the other Hub right now when
I'm at that Hub that has let's say five
options now it's just a probability
curve of which one I'm going to go to
but once I go to another one of those
airports then it's like okay well I
could go you know to um Cincinnati I
could go to New York I could go to LA or
I could go um let's say those are the
only connections but when I'm in Hawaii
if Hawaii forces me to route through La
then you know where you're going to go I
was like okay that that at least gives a
simple understanding of oh this is a
relatively simple concept that sets
aside all the history and so from a
computational standpoint that becomes
very important because when people talk
about booting up a simulation of the
universe you very quickly to track every
element that could possibly interact
with every if everything could interact
with everything it becomes impossible
and you would have to have a computer
the size of the universe itself in order
to track like a one for one atom
basically um but I think I'm
understanding this right that maravian
Dynamics eliminates a lot of that
computational need because I don't have
to there is a small set of things and
once I know the probability distribution
over time it completely
stabilizes and so when I I know if I'm
at airport C I know the exact
probability of where they're going to go
next that that's right so Marian
Dynamics is help simplify things um by
demanding only a finite memory instead
of an infinite memory of of the past
history of what what you've been doing
um but you can make the memory as big as
you want so it's really not too much of
a limitation either with so it's a nice
formalism why do we care about it um
well most of us don't have to deal with
infinity anyway in terms of past history
so we can only we can just use finite
histories and and that's and that's
quite good and it another reason um to
be interested Marco Dynamics is we
talked about computable functions well
markovian kernels um are computationally
Universal so anything that can be
computed with a neural net or with
Universal turning machine can be
computed with marvian kernels so they
form a they gives a nice Network kind of
modeling for Dynamics but they also give
us Universal computational abilities and
they're not limited to computable
functions because
[Music]
the sets on which the probabilities are
defined need not be computable sets so
they actually give us a window toward
going Beyond computation I'm not there
right now but but that window is there
in future if we need to go there um I'd
hopefully that will go there but but so
our our our current model is a marvian
model of conscious agents and then what
we have to do is is we can then
show that SpaceTime is just a projection
of this Dynamics and so you only there's
a lot of States really fast before you
move on so just re-anchoring
people that these um conscious agents
the states that they can be in are
coffee Elation right desire headache so
when we're talking maravian Dynamics
we're talking about moving from one of
those qualia states to another a human
headache versus a dolphin headache etc
etc right
so uh help me understand why that's
important that I can like if I'm in the
state of bliss out coffee
taste
uh that I have a certain probability
going somewhere else that that feels
counterintuitive it feels like my wants
and desires are really what's going to
drive the next state not the state that
I'm currently
in that's right
so so now we're just talking about the
Consciousness not about SpaceTime for
for this question right right so there
um when we write down a markovian kernel
and say okay whatever your conscious
experiences are now uh this marvian
kernel describes what your next
conscious experiences will be
probabilistically and also um what how
you're influencing the conscious
experience of others so so now we can
ask the kind of question you're asking
so is that's happening outside the
headset this is all outside the headset
right this is all this is so the
probability of what I do next is
determined outside the headset by
marvian Dynamics that's why we're going
to get to this dark energy and dark
matter stuff you are breaking my brain
right now that so that's that's why I
brought this up is because your question
was about dark energy and dark matter so
what we have to to to get at that from
this point of view what we're going to
say is look most of the states of this
Dynamics are states that are not
represented in
SpaceTime they're dark so there are
these influences that you're not going
to see when you count up all the matter
and all the energy that you can see
inside SpaceTime you're going to be
missing all the stuff that that didn't
project into space time so in fact
probably the dark energy and dark matter
is much more than we've discovered so
far so so that's why it's important
but so okay hold on this all really does
start to feel weird when I remind myself
that this is about
qualia right the sense of it being like
something and so I'm going to make
something up uh dark energy is the
energy created this is why I don't
understand how it could be energy but uh
dark energy is the energy of a qualia
that I will never be able to experience
so it's something like an alien drinking
blood wine uh making that up but it has
to be qualia so it's got to be something
to be like that thing is that right well
it it's it's even more complicated than
that it's it's not just one qualia it's
probably who knows how many countless
Infinities of qual things like that
right exactly right that are interacting
and affecting the Dynamics that we
perceive inside of our SpaceTime headset
but notice that among the qualia are for
example the qualia that you are about 4T
from me uhhuh so your POS so
position there's a quality I mean it's
very very different to experience you
four feet from me than 4 inches from me
those are very so so depth in space is
quality and in fact um our quality of
there sort of compresses if I look at
the like a distant mountain and the moon
rising over that mountain
the Moon looks a little further than the
mountain but not much right yeah yeah
the moon's a little further but if you
were to you know that mountain might be
you know 20 miles from me the Moon is a
quarter million miles from me so that
mean you have no idea that it's like
orders of magnitude further away you so
so our quality of space of depth is
quite compressed compared to what we
would might call the measured world so
like when you actually and and you see
that in in your you know like a Grand
Theft Auto when you're actually looking
around you only see the roads around you
in a little bit but the Grand Theft Auto
World you might be able to drive
thousands of miles in in a really
complicated simulation you don't see
thousands of miles in any one time you
only see a little bit that your headset
allows you to see and but but because
you use that same headset you're you're
not stuck in that
world you're there's actually a
supercomputer that has a a much bigger
world than your headset right than what
you see right now in your headset but
it's rendering a little bit in your
headset right now so that's why the the
the mountain and the Moon look about the
same because their headset we can now of
course when we go to the Moon through on
a rocket now it's like going through
Grand Theft Auto with your headset on
and going places that you couldn't see
because they were too far away in your
current headset view but you can get
there eventually and and so that also
was point to a world outside of your
headset your headset is just what the
little bit of that world that you're
rendering at at any one
time now dark energy and dark you're
getting you're not really getting
outside of your headset to go to Mars
you're getting outside of what you
rendered previously well so at at any
moment you're only seeing in your
headset right but if I go to Mars I'm
still seeing in my headset yeah and in
Grand Theft Auto for example there might
be a you know a Porsche that's you know
a thousand miles away and you're going
to have to drive like 3 hours in the
game to get there so you're not going to
see so it's in the it's in the
simulation outside of your headset right
now to get it in your headset you're
going to have to do all this work to get
it inside your headset but it it already
existed in the software in the computer
prior to that you just don't see it in
your in your headset understood so so
that so all the stuff inside SpaceTime
the galaxies that we see that are far
away from us and so
forth that's not dark matter and dark
energy that's that's more like the
headset stuff that you see in Grand
Theft Auto if you go far enough within
the game but but then there's this
deeper notion that there are some states
in the computer that you'll never see in
in Grand Theft Auto but they could you
know subtly influence what you are
seeing in Grand Theft Auto doesn't your
thesis
necessarily no you're not going to say
yes to this but I'm going to finish
doesn't your thesis necessarily mean
that that is some element of uh the I
like to think of it as a blob that is
consciousness cycling
through
um why would it be in the same
simulation cycling through different
qualia uh but then I don't understand
why it would be in the same simulation
if it's going to be something I could
never possibly interact with right I
mean almost everything that the real
Consciousness is doing is not in our in
our headset we have this what we're
perceiving is probability zero of what's
going on it's it's basically if you ask
of all the things that are being
experienced in Consciousness what
percent of it do do we experience
0% 0% yes understood
but I I am in a way experiencing Dark
Energy because it is the thing that
makes the universe the way that it is
now so I'm just trying to understand so
the thing that I that I'm sort of
debating in my own head is okay when I
grant you that Consciousness is
fundamental then there's all this
internal logic to to um the SpaceTime
Continuum that I know and love right but
I don't know that it's the only way for
me to apply the sort of same rationale
that you use of whether it's maravian
Dynamics girdles incompleteness Serum is
probably the more important because
that's the one that really helps me
understand Ai and what AI is doing um so
I'm wondering okay if I for a second say
you you have touched on something that's
really important which is that SpaceTime
is the
simulation but I don't need to draw the
conclusion that Consciousness is the
fundamental thing that just becomes a
debate about whether Consciousness can
emerge or not um it could be that there
and this feels more right to me when I
try to imagine it but I fully admit what
I'm about to say simply pushes God
farther down it kicks the
so what feels intuitive to me because
it's what I'm doing is that I exist in
somebody else's simulation that exists
in the real world and that person they
still need God or something I have not
an any way shape or form explain that
I've kicked the Ken but then all the
sort
of there's a set of rules they seem like
they're a little too perfect they're a
little too finely tuned you've got the
fmy Paradox which I'll probably ask you
about later like all these saying are
like n this is a little sus the way that
this whole space time is trying to hang
together just doesn't really quite
complete the circle including the so
much of the energy that makes the
universe work is his dark Stu da don't
worry about that feels like a
13-year-old programmer hand waving it
away telling the teacher like ah I just
needed something in order to you know
make all of this work and when I do that
everything also falls into place where
I'm like oh wow okay so I get how
they're rendering all this in real time
using the same principles that I'm now
seeing AI use pulling things out of the
possibility space because as somebody
developing a video game I will just tell
you the hardest thing is creating the
art assets so they need something that
can render this stuff on the Fly and and
creating the art assets that look good
but are also optimized for the rendering
engine because the rendering engine just
gobbles resources so it's like when I
take that view and instead of going
there's this magical thing called
consciousness I'm like uh I'm still
dealing with God there's a God somewhere
doing something whatever there's a thing
I don't understand but SpaceTime being
born of a 13-year-old just trying to
like you could literally go to the
Unreal Engine store and be like give me
Einstein's physics right and you plunk
them in and it would work he wouldn't
even have to know how to program it he
just took it well you know whatever give
me what they understood in 2023 and I
was droing you know we'll see what
happens like that still works exactly ie
what is it that gives you the
confidence that the thing that is giving
birth to all of this is consciousness
itself oh I'm not confident at all so
everything is it your leading theory
it's just my leading theory why is it
your leading theory um first I would
agree with you that we could just say
that there are some kind of dynamical
entities outside of SpaceTime and and be
agnostic about the nature of those
entities just write down their Dynamics
and then show how it projects into
SpaceTime and we could be good
absolutely the reason I'm going after
Consciousness is um two things very
personal first mean we all have
headaches and we have conscious
experiences um and so we want to
understand what Consciousness is right
and and the standard view right now
among my colleagues in the neurosciences
is that Consciousness is um something
that's created by brain activity or
embodied brains or perhaps if we're
lucky AIS and so forth but so but
physics is fundamental physical stuff is
fundamental and Consciousness is a
latecomer if SpaceTime is doomed if
SpaceTime was not fundamental that whole
story of Consciousness is out the window
is it is does physicality go out the
window let me see if I can answer my own
question using your words to see if I
understand this is physicality out the
window if SpaceTime is doomed you would
say yes because local realism is proven
that it isn't there is no local realism
that all of this is fake everything you
see in experience it's all just quote
unquote rendered in real time as you
engage with it therefore at least in
what we experience because local realism
isn't true physicality cannot be
true that's that's right to put it very
simply I don't have neurons right now if
you looked inside my skull you would see
neurons you would render them but there
are no
neurons right so neurons do not exist
when they're not perceived so neurons
create Consciousness because they're not
even there to do it and nor could
particles you know particles don't exist
when they're not perceived here's where
limited Minds like mine get tripped up
because your analogy is so profound and
feels so right and for this to be a
simulation I say to myself something has
to be running the simulation and I can't
get myself outside of that something
somewhere is going to be
physical that's a hard one for me too by
the way I have all the same knee-jerk
reactions that everybody else has to
this stuff even stronger um so maybe
that's why it's good for someone like me
to be doing this because you know I
don't my emotions don't believe any of
this they don't believe it at all it's
literally only the mathematics pushing
me kicking and screaming at each step to
so you have to go with the mathematics
and what what the theories are saying
but I don't find it that intuitive maybe
I will at some point um but I don't find
it that intuitive so so yeah you you
could say you know we don't need to talk
about Consciousness there's just some
dynamical entities outside of SpaceTime
why can't Consciousness be a part of the
simulation it may know for all I know it
it it may be me so maybe this thing that
I called
awareness where this prior to any
particular conscious experiences now now
there I'm completely in over my head I
have no idea what to say about that
thing right literally have nothing
intelligent to say what if awareness is
just the qualia of being being rendered
of your process being run by the central
computer that's as good an idea as I've
ever had but but I don't feel very
confident in this area at all I mean the
closest we can personally get is the
kind of thing I suggested you know go
into a quiet room turn off the
light let go of that which is not easy
let go of everything and try to just be
aware of awareness be aware of being
aware and and try to sit there with that
and what you find is it's a it's a
profound experience the more you just
sit there being aware of awareness
without without thinking about you know
you're not see the whole point about not
thinking is thinking you're back into
this small computational realm you're
back into this really tiny out of all
the
Infinities you're you're back in this
little tiny Infinity so letting go so
this is not we know the head said is
computation though right well we don't
know for sure our current models are but
but we hav proven local realism not
being real mean that it has to be
computational no it doesn't entail I
mean so it doesn't entail that at all no
huh now I'm broken again I don't know
how to make sense of that right so so um
how can
anything how this is interesting here's
my base where I realize I don't know how
to escape this uh I feel like for qualia
to exist it must be
processed I will even grant that the
processing is simply the marial Dynamics
of move Marian dynamics of moving from
one thing to another the switching of
States fine but it it is moving from one
state to another which I will call that
processing right yeah it's just not a
physical process it's it's it's you and
it doesn't have to be a computational
process and it could be functions that
are not computational yeah I I try not
to kill the audience with the things
that I just can't R my well it hurts me
too I'm telling you these things but not
because it's easy for me my my head
hurts too thinking about these things do
you have an example of something that
that's non-computational I think you
gave one earlier but I forget well so um
the the standard story that you if you
take a computer science class and study
the theory of computation they'll tell
you about something called the halting
problems so this is the like one of the
big problems that and touring I believe
posed it and and and showed that it was
not computational the question is this
if you you a touring machine is like a a
universal touring machine is is like a
universal computer you can give it a
program tring thought about putting a
tape with with some punches on it
essentially so you have this tape reader
and the touring machine would look at
one square on the tape and read that
symbol and then it it would change State
and then move left or right and write a
symbol and that's that's all the
universal turing machine could do and so
the question that Turing asked was um
suppose we asked the question um will
the touring
machine stop after a finite number of
moves will it halt um
on arbitrary sets of of these tapes that
you're giving it programs that's called
the halting problem will the question is
is there a turing machine that can
decide so is there an algorithm that can
decide whether this machine will halt or
not for any particular given input so
can you tell the touring machine to stop
is that the well well no so so I should
say one more thing about touring machine
so a touring machine is going back and
forth and changing its state and when
it's done when it actually is like
computed the square of a number or
whatever it is that it's doing it it
halts it goes into what's called a halt
State and so that when it goes into a
halt state that means it's done it it it
did the
computation so but but there are some
computations that go on arbitrarily
long like I don't understand why you
they you never come to the end you you
never come to the end of it there's some
sort of recursive Loop in it yeah that's
by its nature in fact probably most so
the question is so when you say
non-computational you mean something of
that ends up in that Loop yeah where you
where the touring machine never halts
you give it an input it never thinks
it's done and it never thinks it's done
got that's that's so the halting problem
is most things are like that yeah I
would guess um that yeah most tapes are
are probably you wouldn't halt be my
guess but but that's that's not an
important Point here I think that's the
case but it's not a central point the
the fact is that many won't Halt and so
the so the question that tring raised
was something like this so is there a
turning
machine that can tell you if says give
me give this turning machine and all
these inputs whether this turing machine
which on which one of these inputs will
it halt okay
and it turns out that there's no touring
machine that can do
that so it's not a comput fun no touring
machine that will know which one is
going to Halt that there's no touring
machine that can tell you that whether
this other touring machine will halt or
not on all these inputs interesting so
it can never understand it without
running the calculation itself well and
and the touring machine itself would
never halt the one that was trying to do
this would never halt so it's called the
halting problem and and and it's it's so
when you take a computer science class
you'll get a much better explanation
than I've just given you but basically
it's it you'll see that um there's no
algorithm that will tell you whether a a
particular touring machine will halt or
not on any particular any possible
inputs you've got this idea that
girdle's incompleteness theorem says
it's this infinite thing and that
there's always going to be more to
explore that you will never be able to
have a theory of everything and when you
ask yourself why would this be the case
or um how does that tie into
Consciousness and maybe I'm getting this
slightly wrong but my interpretation of
what you said is that it's possible that
given that Consciousness is basically
exploring itself and we are all of the
permutations that it must run through to
basically have the negative take I know
that not to be me and that helps
understand who I am MH
MH how close am I getting that's that's
I think a very very good first
approximation with the
Proviso that we understand now based on
what we' talked about in girdle's
incompleteness theorem that everything
that we are saying
now are just words and they're only
pointers into a realm that's that's
unlimited and and infinitely beyond
anything that even our words can point
to so even when I use so I I talk about
Consciousness as being more fundamental
than SpaceTime but even then if I step
back and go okay to be really consistent
I have to admit that even a theory of
Consciousness is not a theory of
everything and it may not even be the
right language it's just the next baby
step in our scienic Consciousness be
more fundamental than SpaceTime wouldn't
the thing that the guys the local
realism which requires you to look at
something state that if Consciousness
were more fundamentally in SpaceTime it
would already be observing
itself
so the way to think about it is maybe an
analogy is you're wearing a headset yep
and you're playing Grand Theft Auto
again mhm but there is no real car out
there the steering wheel is just in your
head it's all in your perceptions all of
that is in your so the
entire physical world quote unquote of
grand theft a is made up in your mind
made up in your Consciousness so my my
Consciousness or whatever Consciousness
is is creating the um the virtual world
that's right the the way I think about
it um and again you know words have
limitations but the math model we're
working on on Consciousness indicates
that there
is
one unlimited Consciousness that cannot
be be modeled and but we can talk about
projections of it that one that one big
Consciousness can be can have
projections and we're we're having a
projection into a 4D SpaceTime format
and there's a Tom projection and a non
projection but we're just projections of
this one unlimited um Consciousness
that's that's utterly outside of space
and time and this is probably not
particularly um sophisticated projection
as I was saying 40 SpaceTime only goes
to 10 Theus 33 cm pretty trivial so this
is we're probably this is you know
Consciousness not being too serious this
is like a a trivial projection but it
just doing whatever it needs to do we're
doing some science we're we're talking
we're learning to love each other which
maybe you know who knows that might be
the big thing maybe maybe it's
learning to know yourself Beyond any
concepts and to know that everybody else
is really you under a different Avatar
and to to learn to love I mean I I don't
know what the final answer is but this
is the kind of question that comes up
and the kind of answer comes up that
feels a little
bit wishful thinking isn't the right way
but that feels like a
very specific to you prognostication
absolutely beyond the math yeah when I
hear you describing that I think of War
games and Jacob learning like oh there's
no way to win at thermonuclear war the
only way to win is to not play great
ending to a movie but like when I think
about okay wait why
would why would ious this Grand
Consciousness that the math seems to
point
to why would it need to understand
itself why would it uh need to discover
love it's like and I think about this a
lot and we talked about this in the last
um the last time we were together I was
saying when you've got a machine and
you're trying to like get AI to do
something you have to give it directives
you have to tell it to do something but
somebody had to tell it to do that thing
so who is telling Consciousness oh you
should care about love well and I I
completely agree with you Tom I think
that the things I just threw out should
probably be thrown out right but the
idea is we don't have good ideas in this
space so the reason I'm so when I put
these ideas out I'm not wetted to them
in the least but I'm saying better to
have something on the table that we can
say Ah that's not it than to have
nothing on the table because at least we
can say okay that's not it but but so
why isn't that it what's wrong with that
and then we can try to to play with and
say well how can we get something better
so I put some bad pieces on the table
because I don't have anything better to
so it's Poverty of my imagination but
I'm hoping by putting bad pieces on the
table and having people go no that's not
it I would go yeah that's not it so what
is it what what what is a better idea
but of course that's a NeverEnding
process girdle tells us that in some
sense we'll always be putting bad pieces
on the
table and that's so we have to learn to
live with that we have to learn to say
I'm not going to get the final Theory of
Everything no matter even if you're an
Einstein which you put down on the table
we're eventually going to say here's the
limits of that and that's going to be
always the case with scientific theories
it's just in the things I just thre on
the table the limits are so obvious and
so clear that you can just sort of say
right away that that doesn't seem right
and I had a nice lunch a few days ago
with anah Harris and when I was putting
these ideas and she had the exactly the
same attitude which is she said it
sounds too rtic done and and I agree but
it's better to put something on the
table and get a negative reaction so
that we start to say okay well what are
better places to to go in this but
always realize that girdle is telling us
this very humbling thing you'll never
get a theory of everything and that
means there'll always be the feeling of
yeah but there's more yeah but there's
more even if you're Einstein yeah but
there's
more so consciousness
what one I want to understand as we look
at that recent Nobel prize winning for
realizing that local reality is in the
thing if there is this Uber
Consciousness how would it not cause the
like constant collapsing if if
Consciousness is more fundamental than
SpaceTime how is it not causing this
constant collapse down to being observed
because if Consciousness is is the thing
that gives rise to that it would by
Nature be
aware right so to really give a
technical answer to that what we're
going to have to have is a mathematical
Theory Of Consciousness first right so
what do we mean by Consciousness and
write down equations for how it its
Dynamics and then we're going to have to
say where is consciousness is it inside
Space time see most of my colleagues who
are studying Consciousness my cognitive
neuroscience these are brilliant
brilliant researchers and friends but
they're thinking of Consciousness as
inside SpaceTime as being made by the
brain or being made by an AI computer
that's complicated enough or made by
integrated information or microt tual
Quantum collapses or or um Global
workspace kind of architectures on the
right broadcast architecture there so
there there's something inside SpaceTime
that's generating Consciousness so
that's the I would say 99% of my
colleagues and friends um
and by the way they're brilliant but
they're thinking inside SpaceTime that's
almost all the work is inside SpaceTime
and Consciousness is stuck inside
SpaceTime I'm saying we need a theory of
Consciousness outside SpaceTime because
our best science tells us that SpaceTime
is a trivial data structure it's a
shallow trivial data structure why
should we try to shoehorn Consciousness
to be something inside SpaceTime why not
think
about again the VR case with my headset
all that I'm perceiving is actually not
really there it's actually in my
Consciousness let's turn things around
SpaceTime and particles and the physical
world is just a little tiny data
structure inside Consciousness so to
have that kind of model so Consciousness
is
fundamental Consciousness then uses tiny
little
headsets in its interactions with itself
and SpaceTime is just one trivial little
headset that conscious agents use to
interact with and and probably has far
more interesting ones than than
SpaceTime so to answer your question we
then really have to say our mathematical
model of Consciousness and how does that
precisely project into our little
space-time headset and give us the laws
of quantum field Theory the laws of
general relativity um evolution by
natural selection we have to get so all
the stuff that we've done inside the
headset science has been ins the headset
until the last couple decades all of our
science has been studying the pixels in
our headset and the structure of our
pixels with the amplitud
hedrin science is taking a step outside
the headset and saying what is beyond
space and time okay so that's really
incredible so and then they say the
deepest thing we found are these
decorated permutations that's the
deepest thing we found so far it doesn't
mean it's the final answer it's just as
far as we've gotten so what we need to
do is take a theory of conscious
Consciousness we call it conscious
agents in my case or conscious units
anuka likes me to use conscious units
instead of conscious agents because
agency involves maybe the notion of a
self and there doesn't have to be a
notion of a you know like a human kind
of Self in these agents they could be
selfless in some sense but conscious
how well so my myself is I mean don't
most people define consciousness as it
is like something to be you right the
self though is like I'm Don Hoffman I
was born in such such a year my parents
were such and such I got educated it's a
story yeah but in some sense if I just
let go of the story if I forgot my story
I would still be conscious I if I forget
who I if I forget everything that I've
done give me a little drug and I just
see it's an experience machine I'm still
I'm still conscious and so this the self
in terms of a little story and and
what's interesting is we put so much
emphasis in the story and and me versus
you and I've got more than you or I'm
smarter than you or or I'm faster than
you little kids you know my car is
faster than my daddy's can beat up your
you that kind of thing so we're always
comparing our stories so so there's no
self in these conscious agents in the
sense of this little image of myself
that I'm defending and showing that it's
better than your daddy or your car or
whatever it might be so so so I call
them conscious agents but we could call
them conscious units but the key thing
is that that has to be mathematically
precise even though we understand that
our mathematics will always be just our
current baby step but nevertheless you
need to be mathematically precise and we
have to show precisely a mapping into
SpaceTime then we can start to answer
your question about how is this local
realism thing related to properties of
Consciousness now the reason we have to
map in SpaceTime is because we know that
SpaceTime even if it's just a sort of
cheap simulation it does come from
whatever is more foundational than that
and that's where all our data is the
only place our headset lets us look is
inside the headset so we have to I mean
if we're going to do experiments to test
our theories we're stuck with this
little tiny trivial data structure
called SpaceTime and all of our
experiments have to be done in SpaceTime
we have to measure them inside SpaceTime
so that's why we have to take our Theory
Of Consciousness and project it into
SpaceTime now what's interesting is that
the physicists have gone beyond space
time and found these monoliths as we
talked about the monolith that's sitting
there the mlu hedrin and so forth and
then the decorative permutation monolith
but no Dynamics so the physicists are
going to eventually want a Dynamics
right why if you have no space and time
why would something need to move a
physicist like Nema I put it on him if I
were the physicist and said you know
what Here's the final answer it's the
amplitud hedrin and a decorated
permutation M live with it that's all
there is and some 20-year-old kid taking
a graduate class will go give me a break
you want me to just live with that I'm
going to look deeper I'm going to probe
deeper I'm going to find something
behind that and that's that's what
science always does so we're not so no
none of the physicists I mean they of
course we have a big party and are
really happy about the amplitud hedrin
and The Decorator this it's an
incredible accomplishment but the
attitude is going to be what's next and
and in principle they're going to want a
Dynamics not a not time so you can have
Dynamics without what we call time as in
SpaceTime so the notion of Dynamics or
or sequence is a far more General notion
than just the notion of time as we see
it in in terms of SpaceTime so we want a
Dynamics in that more General sense of
something um where there are sequences
where there are it's not just a static
object because there are things that we
see in our headset of SpaceTime that
leads us to believe that sequencing is
must be a part of whatever is
fundamental well
possibly yes that and possibly because
um we I think would be impatient or
unhappy with a theory that just says God
said this object and that's it there is
this object live with it that's the
that's the final
answer no scientist would be happy with
that why did God say that why couldn't
God said something else and and why did
why did it have to be static why
couldn't there be some Dynamics not a
space-time Dynamics but some kind of
something happening why why can't so now
the answer may be that the geometry is
all there is and there is no Dynamics
but we're not going to just accept that
at face value we're going to have to
be taken there kicking and screaming
right and made you know to to believe
that because nothing else works but so
that's why I think the the physicists
themselves are going to look for
Dynamics behind the decorative
permutations so what a theory of
Consciousness has to do then if it wants
to connect with SpaceTime is it has to
show how it maps onto decorated
permutations right you need a dynamical
theory of Consciousness and you must
show how it Maps into decorated
permutations then the physicist say if
you give me the decorated permutations I
can take you all the way into SpaceTime
and you can predict scattering at the
Large Hadron Collider and so forth and
so that's what what our team has just
done in the last 10 weeks we we
discovered a new bit of mathematics that
um the Dynamics of conscious agents is
so called marov chains markovian
Dynamics a very very simple kind of
probabilistic
Dynamics and so a few weeks ago few a
couple months ago we we decided to look
okay how do you map Markov chains into
decorated permutations so we could put a
Dynamics behind the amplitud hedrin and
as far as I we could tell there's
nothing published in terms of a general
theory there are special little cases
where they've looked at something but
you know a general theory take any
Markov chain M it into decortive per
marov chain is just the longtail knock
on effect of things bumping into each
other essentially right just
probabilistic you know this this happens
with that probability this happens with
that probability all the probabilities
have to sum to one what are the
probability of when the Q ball hits the
the balls on the pool table that they
will end up in this configuration that's
right in the case of conscious agents I
should be explicit it's like the it's a
social network right this is now
Consciousness so it's a network of
agents and the it in some sense the
probabilities are what's the probability
that this guy is going to talk to that
guy or or these three guys or those five
guys and so it's it's sort of like
Network linkage Google has a lot of
links a lot more than Hoffman so Google
has a lot of lot of things that are that
are talking to Google Hoffman has a very
few things apple has a lot of things
talking to them so and those so those
probabilities are sort of saying it's
Network probabili what's the probability
that that in some sense it's you're
influencing too as well Google has huge
influence because of all the networks
all the connections it's got much more
than someone who only has five followers
right Google has millions or hundreds of
millions so so those so and and then
there's you know if you think about it
someone tweets and then that gets picked
up and who picks it up and who retweets
it and who likes it and so forth so you
see all the it's all probabilities right
the someone does something and it
ripples through the whole network
probabilistically you you can't know
exactly you know even though Tom is a
follower of somebody else doesn't mean
that Tom's going to Tweet everything
it's what what does Tom like what what
or maybe Tom just missed that he was had
something else that day so it's all
probabilistic and so you you see these
evolving probabilities on this network
and that's what marov chains are really
good at they're looking at literally so
the theory of conation think social
networks like Twitter verse and so forth
and how influences propagate in the
Twitter verse and and then so what we
found about 10 weeks ago was the we
invented apparently as far as far as we
can tell new
math a precise way to take any markovian
Dynamics and map it into decorated
permutations so we now have a map from
the Dynamics of conscious agents into
decorated permutations the physicist
then and decorated permutations for
people that don't know is the shuffling
but it's shuffling that can go either
direction so I have the good fortune
that you were explaining this to me
before we started rolling I don't want
people to think that I'm more clever
than I am uh but decorated permutations
you said okay when people think about
shuffling a deck they think about card
one going into the third position they
don't think about um card one going if
there's five cards going the other way
so instead of going one two and ending
up at three it goes five four and ending
up at three so same number of moves but
you've gone in a different
direction and am I explaining that right
yeah the idea of the two different
different directions is important but
it's slightly SL just a slight
difference so suppose I have five cards
just 1 2 3 4 five yep um and they're in
order and now I'm going to shuffle them
and I I say okay one went to position
three now but five went to position
two so one going to three is sort of
shuffling forward right you you went to
a bigger number five going to two you're
going to a smaller number you're going
backward so so that a normal permutation
that's that's fine that's what a normal
permutation is a decorated permutation
says you only Shuffle to a bigger number
so if you want five to go to two what
you're going to do is you're going to
have five go
to
seven because s minus five five is the
biggest number 7 minus 5 is
two okay but if if five if five had gone
to one then then would actually go five
goes to six because 6 - 5 is 1 so you
it's a wraparound so only so if you
already if if one is going to three then
you just do the normal thing one goes to
three but if some permutation is going
to a smaller number like three goes to
one then you actually have to say three
goes to six because because total of
five and 5 + 1 is six so that's called a
decorated permutation so it's it's not
it's just a permutation with this extra
little twist it's not a big deal frankly
it just turned out that you needed that
extra twist to fully capture the
particle physics scattering of of
particles so when you do that what's
what's stunning is for some cases so in
the approximation in which all particles
are super symmetric and
massless so they have so they're all
traveling at the speed of light they're
massless so they travel the speed light
in that simple case the decorated
permutation is everything that's it and
when when you let go of super Symmetry
and you have massive particles then all
you have to do is you have the decorated
permutation plus you need to add
information about the mass and the spin
but the decorated permutation is really
doing the heavy lifting so that's the
stunning thing is to the physicist which
is and and you see it in the writings
when you know when you read like like
Nim AR Hamed has the book you know
grasman and geometry of scattering
amplitudes with a bunch of when they
talk about the decorated permutations
you can see in the way they right
they're like who ordered this I mean I
you would never have guessed that it
would be something like that so but
here's an interesting thing it turns out
that decorated permutations are the most
compact way to capture a marvian
Dynamics it's a incredibly compact way
of capturing the Dynamics it basically
is telling you what what decorative
permutations and a dynamical system are
telling you is your social network who
are who are you connected to who are you
interacting with by only shuffling in
One Direction you better capture you
better capture that if you want go into
the
details it's so foreign to me I don't
know how much the details but that's
really strange so that's where we get
into the math fair enough I'll accept it
as
true um we can do the math if you want
but but but last time the last time that
we did the math it actually ended up
being really fascinating so let's try it
let's see let's see how far we get
before my brain snaps in half okay so
the key thing about these decorated
permutations that gives them this extra
power yep is that there's two ways to
map to yourself right so if if you
Shuffle the cards but card number one
stays Number One MH then one goes to one
right but with the decorated permutation
you could say well if there were say
five cards then you could say well one
goes to one but also one goes to six is
another way of saying that you stayed
yourself mhm because 6 mod 5 is 1 6 - 5
is 1 yep so there are so socalled what
happens if I want to move five to
position four that's really nine and you
said that seven was the max so what oh
no so the the the max would be 10 okay
right got it got it got it so if you
have five cards the maximum number would
be 10 for n cards it's 2 N right
understood so so for five so if there
five cards five could either map to
itself five to five or five goes to 10
yep because that would be so the one is
called the first decoration of of the
identity because it's the identity move
five went to five and the other is
called the second Declaration of the
identity and and there's another branch
of mathematics where they're called
loops and cooll Loops um but anyway what
so the way it matters in terms of the
physics now in in physics when you have
the first Declaration of the identity it
corresponds to what they call a Zero
Dimensional
space so in some sense the thing doesn't
exist it's a zero and when it maps to
itself in the second kind of identity
then it's a its own one-dimensional
space a separate one-dimensional
space so the reason for the the decorate
permutation is to capture that
distinction between something that is
alone in the sense that um it's
essentially empty versus alone in the
sense that it's just a one-dimensional
space a line versus just Zero
Dimensional point you needed to capture
those two things and so so it does but
for the marov of Dynamics it captures
something about social networks that's
interesting um e
either I'm alone I'm I'm the identity
I'm alone because I'm I'm talking to
myself and so I'm only talking to myself
or I'm alone because I'm not even
talking to
myself and so the case in which I'm not
even talking to myself is the first
Declaration of the identity and the one
in which I'm only talking to myself and
nobody else that's the second and as
soon as I'm talking to anybody else then
I get a non-trivial permutation and that
then what you do is you um assign if say
I'm I'm in The Social Network and I'm
number two and suppose that my decorated
permutation assigns me to five there's
only five member that means that
um my social network everybody in my
social network is captured between two
and five total so for example number one
is not in my social
network yep right so so what the
decorated permutation for dynamical
system is is doing is it's capturing now
now it could be that for example when I
go two to five um maybe four isn't in my
network but I but I'm I'm not going to
worry about that I'm just going to say
everybody that's in my network is
captured between two and five inclusive
of two and five and when you look at the
whole decorated permutation you'll
figure out that four wasn't in the
social network of two you can figure it
out from the decorated permutation so
that's why it's such the it's a really
um compact
representation of everything so So
eventually we may actually use this in
Social Network Theory our our our new
mathematics of decorated permutations
for Dynamics may actually end up being a
very compact representation of social
networks I haven't even thought about
that yet but that could be as you're
explaining it I was like are they going
to run this math for predictive models
for social networking well it it's it is
is the right now the most compact
mathematics that we can use to describe
social
networks and the Dynamics of social
networks basically the Dynamics of who
are you actually interacting with so so
this is a brand new tool that I you know
has never been as far as I know um used
we we invented it so we have a paper
that we're about to submit for
publication in two or three weeks where
we present this and I did give a a
professional talk at Stanford um a month
or two ago um where I presented the math
you know how people put this
together like this is so abstract for me
I am Clinging On by my fingernails and I
would not want to have to explain
decorated permutations to anybody right
uh but that's really interesting that I
mean so we're caught in between two
things one talking about the things that
we can predict and how utterly
fascinating it is when you can actually
map out this is what happens right and
then talking about how oh yeah
everything that you're mapping is
totally fake it's uh it's really
interesting but that's one of the things
that I've always I I
cognitively uh I I don't have that
ability it doesn't come naturally to me
me either like I have to loop around
this stuff so many times just to get
like the real Basics but the idea of
being able to understand a system so
well that you can predict it this goes
back to what I was saying my my whole
thing in life is when you can accurately
predict the outcome of your actions
things get very interesting and so
anything I mean that like gets
as of right now I can't digest that
enough to make it usable in my life but
it hints at this idea of you really can
map out if I do this this and this even
as it gets more and more complicated you
really can predict what the outcome is
going to be and the closer that you can
get to that the more effective you will
be in your life especially because so
much of what one does in business it's
all human psychology and so if you have
a way I mean and this really gets into
right now impact theory is investing
hugely into ai ai in what we're doing in
terms of our funnels AI in terms of what
we're doing in the gaming side and
acknowledging that even though you have
a wall of data that as a person you
can't work your way through there really
is there are patterns in that data oh
yes that are highly
leverageable and in fact one of the
things like as as you're talking and I
don't think you share my obsession with
this but you might my obsession with
physics is getting people to understand
that when
Einstein wrote down his general
relativity and special relativity it
gave us the modern world in ways that I
don't think people fully understand
right from um being able to zoom to GPS
to um atomic energy I mean it's really
spectacular once you're able to better
understand the nature of reality you can
do things with that because it makes
predictions I can't remember if we were
talking about that before or after we
started rolling but that ability to oh
that theory makes this prediction and
you can begin to think in novel ways and
so I for a while I was teaching a course
that I called business decision-making
it's the worst title ever nobody
knows what that means but it actually is
the only thing in business that matters
you have to be able to go should I do
this should I not do this what will
happen if I interpret the world this way
versus that way and people that Succeed
in Business they get very good at
knowing how to Think Through the problem
to Think Through the problem you have to
understand the nature of things and so
my whole thing was hey are you doing
social media you better understand the
nature of social media what's the nature
of social media it's human psychology
plus the algorithm and so like if you
master both now you can really do
something right the problem is that both
of those data sets are so massive that
you're really taking your best swag and
getting into this stuff is for me if we
really can peel through the the headset
and start getting into no no no the all
these things it's a really low fidelity
thing and this will scare people but as
you if you're the first person to poke
through that right oh my God you have I
mean not to take the dark example but I
we ended World War II by being the first
to understand atomic energy and how to
split the atom there are way more
uplifting and positive examples but
that's just the one that will stick out
in everybody's Consciousness but being
able to in fact this is something that I
I don't know if you know Eric um
Weinstein but talking to
him he's looking at okay what's that
next breakthrough and what's it going to
let us predict and so that's his whole
like obsession is we've got people
playing at very high levels and if he's
right and he understands something that
other people don't understand it's going
to make predictions and we don't know
where those predictions go right they
could be good they could be terrifying
could be life-changing in a good way and
a bad way but getting people to
understand like you need to be obsessed
at at least at the headset level you
have to be obsessed with better
predicting what all this means so
anyways you're talking about decorated
permutations and stuff it just gets me
thinking about large data sets how we
simplify that what that's going to mean
in my world in terms of business
intelligence identifying an audience
understanding what will convert it it
really matters like it it plays out in a
really real way it does and I think a
metaphor here might illustrate how big
the potential
is science of
SpaceTime has been all in the headset
and we've become wizards of the headset
just like someone in Grand Theft Auto
has become a wizard at using the
steering wheel and the gas to go through
the SpaceTime of the you know Grand
Theft Auto virtual world but suppose
that you learned to think outside the
headset you actually understand the
software in the supercomputer that's
running
it then you can take the gas out of the
tank of the wizard you can give him flat
tires or her flat tires you can change
the geometry of the roads in other words
the wizard is
Trivial compared to what you can do once
you have learned how the headset works
so science has just taken its first baby
steps outside of the headset just in the
last 20 years we're taking our first
Babys set once we start to understand
the first level of software that's
available to us I'm not saying we're
going to get the whole thing I as
girdle's incompleteness theorem says the
software is
endless but the way things seem to work
is you do get to see layer by layer by
layer so as we go to the first layer of
the
software the Wizardry inside Space time
is going to look trivial compared to so
right now for
example something like 97% of the
galaxies that we can see we could never
go to they're moving away from us faster
than the speed of light not because
they're moving through space faster than
the speed of light they're not but space
itself is expanding so quickly that if
we move through space to try to get to
them the space would be expanding so
fast that we couldn't get to them at the
speed of light and so there's 90 97% of
the real estate in our universe is
waving at us saying hi you can never
come see me yeah that's fascinating
especially because if space can expand
faster than the speed of light this is
more at least in my limited mind
pointing at like something deeper yeah
there there's something else going on
but what if we didn't have to go through
space to get to Alpha centuri yeah every
time you say this it turns me on like
this is so that's that's the exciting
this is where I'm I'm really this is one
reason why I'd like to understand the
our theory of conscious agents outside
right I'm not saying the theory of
conscious agents is right but it's the
first baby step that I've seen where
it's a dynamical system where you can
actually talk about quote unquote
software that you could Tinker with you
could actually do something with it um
that would allow us perhaps new
technologies where we don't go through
space to the Andromeda galaxy that would
take us 2.4 million years good luck even
your great great grandkids wouldn't be
alive but what if we could go around
space because our headset is just a
headset you don't you can just change
the software or you want to be at alar
where
Andromeda just change the software now
you're there because you realize that
SpaceTime isn't the reality it's just a
data structure you can play with the
data structure as soon as we the Next
Generation my generation won't get it
the next Generation that really gets it
is going to unleash Miracles because we
will then start to really get the
software behind SpaceTime we will begin
to Tinker with it and it's going the
possibility are endless I can't even
imagine speaking of imagining ground me
back in how you think about this in your
real life so I know that you got
clobbered by Co yeah you wrote A Goodbye
text to your wife I'm assuming because
it was covid and she couldn't come in
the room because this was really early
right how did that influence that moment
for
you well like were you just like oh it's
it's all a headset who cares
bye babe yeah I wish I could say you
know I'm this really enlightened guy in
the science and spirituality and then
then so I was just really calm and I
wish I could say that but but I you know
I was in tremendous pain my heart had
been pounding the arhythmia cardiac um
arhythmia 190 beats per minute 180 beats
per minute for 36 hours Jesus I I I knew
that my heart couldn't do that much
longer and they hadn't been able to
figure out a way to stop it and so like
4:00 in the morning my wife was asleep
but but I didn't know that I would make
it until she was awake so I I texted her
I knew I wouldn't wake her up she has
thing on mute but I at least wanted to
give her a goodbye text because I
figured by the time she was up I
wouldn't I wouldn't be alive and after I
did the text you know within an hour
after that um so they found a drug that
calmed my heart down and was able to
keep my heart calm long enough so I
could eventually get a surgery which
then cured the problem so so so I you
know what did you put in the text you
don't have to give me verbatim obviously
that's super private but like what was
the gist it was well you know when
you're feeling that bad you I didn't
have the wherewith all to say much it
just said I don't you know said
sweetheart I don't think I'm going to
make it I love you and that was it I
this I just that was all I had so there
was there wasn't um so I can imagine
someone who's really spiritually Adept
and at Advanced might sit there and very
calmly that wasn't me that was I was
completely
shattered well I've been awake for 48
hours with a heart beating at 180 beats
per minute for 36 hours I I
was I was done and and I was scared and
I was lonely and I was afraid and I
missed my wife and my daughter and my
grandkids and and it was um so so I have
no Illusions about you know being some
kind of spiritual master who is you know
above it all I you know I'm just another
human being with the same problems with
everybody else these are really good
ideas I think are helping me to get a
bigger picture but when it comes right
down to it when push comes to shove
there's something inside me that
believes that SpaceTime is fundamental
it believes that when the body dies
that's it so it's really interesting I
I'm not
coherent there's there's well put it
this way maybe intellectually I'm
coherent about this but there's an
emotional side of me that hasn't come
along now I am meditating and I think
that slowly the emotional side of me
is unraveling that that tight scared
little child that's inside of me that
thinks this is all it and is afraid of
dying and so forth it's slowly
unraveling I don't know if it'll ever
completely unravel I I I hear people
that I have no reason to disbelieve who
say that they've completely unraveled it
and they're completely unafraid of death
I believe that that's possible um but
I'm not enlightened um yeah so that was
my experience it was sobering but one
thing that comes out of it is I
um well I stop and reflect I'm grateful
for each day because I didn't expect to
have any of these days I didn't mean we
discovered the stuff about decorated
permutations since then I'm so grateful
to be alive for the fun of you know
seeing this decorated that's really neat
and of course things have happened with
my grandkids that are fun and so
everything is um a delight and a I don't
take it for granted and if I were to
face death in the same way again I
probably feel afraid and scared and and
so forth um so what do you think happens
when we die
my my best guess is we just take a
headset off that but that implies like a
keeping of the
personality no it doesn't it it to me it
suggests that the whole story you I was
born in such and such a year at such and
such a city in such and such a hospital
my parents did this I did that I had
that whole story may be something that
you say goodbye to so cognition itself
is
headset that's right or awareness
pure awareness so awareness and
Consciousness are different yeah so
well
um there's a distinction to be made and
I I'm not going to be sort of hard-nosed
about the particular words but you could
have a specific conscious experience
like the experience of
green but you could and that would be
conscious a kind of conscious experience
that would be a kind of Consciousness
but you could also talk about awareness
without any content at all I'm just
aware of awareness m but even that's
saying too much I'm just aware so I'm
not aware of dawn I'm not aware
of where I live I'm not aware I'm just
I'm just aware and when when people
meditate and they go into very very deep
levels of meditation where they really
let go of all thoughts then in some
sense yourself dies well is dead I mean
there is no Dawn there is no I did this
degree there is no I have these that's
gone and and yet in some sense some
nothing essential is gone nothing
essential left that's just a
story The Essential thing is the the
awareness and the the real
Joy of being is the awareness
itself the story is a nice add-on it's
icing on the cake but it's not essential
the real deep Joy is comes from the pure
awareness with with no content
whatsoever and so in that sense I I
think of but but
see there's part of me that is tied to
the story so that was the part that was
scared to death in the hospital there's
another part of me that that believes
and knows that everything's fine I'm I'm
awareness without content that's what I
really am at my deepest level but as
long I'm as I'm still clinging to the
story of dawn then that is going to die
when I die
if I don't choose to die to it while I
can choose to die to it I will be forced
to die to it when my body dies and so so
there are some spiritual teachers like
eart TOA who says in some I'm already
dead the only thing left is the body so
that I'm not there I'm but but I I don't
disbelieve I mean I disbelieve most of
them but I don't disbelieve some of them
right I I I think that it is possible in
in the case for example of Arta
I think it's highly probable that he's
right I me he really has let go and he's
utterly Fearless about death and and I'm
not but I understand in principle why
that could be if I really am not the
story and I've really let go of the
story of Da and I'm no longer identified
with so here's how to know if you've
really let go of the story am I
competing with anybody is it important
to me to be better than someone to be
better known to have a better whatever
be smarter have a better degree whatever
it might be as long as I'm comparing
myself with anybody else and trying you
know or saying I'm worse I feel inferior
as long as that's going on to me then
I'm I'm tied to my story and I'll be
afraid of death it's only when I don't
care about comparisons anymore that I've
really truly let go so so if someone
cuts me off on the road when I'm driving
if I'm upset about
that I'm tied to my story
that means I'm not ready to die so you
can just so when you look at the thing
whatever disturbs you tells you that's
that's the the hint okay you're still
tied to the Apron Strings the baby story
I'm Dawn I was born here I'm struggling
to be important because I have such a
small I mean I'm such this small little
thing I'm I'm I'm a little guy inside
SpaceTime I'm I believe that the Avatar
of me in this headset is everything that
I am I'm clinging to my avatar and as
long as I'm clinging to it the
possibility of losing that Avatar is
terrifying so so I'm there I'm I'm not
enlightened I'm I understand this
intellectually there's something
emotional that has to be brought along
it has to be healed or something like
that it's got to be brought along so but
but this it all Mak it's all a good
intellectual story for me and I'm medit
ating to have it become a true personal
story but
but what it ends up being is that even
you think about even your
body is just an icon it's not who you
are if this if what we're saying is
Right SpaceTime is doomed if the physic
is Right SpaceTime is doomed evolution
is right this is just a headset this is
just an
avatar then I don't even have brains
right now if you look you'll render
brains but right now I have no brains
because they're not being rendered so
neural activity causes none of my
behavior brains cause none of our
behavior and yet we need to study
Neuroscience we need more money for
Neuroscience because that's the part of
our
interface that is most informative about
the software behind
SpaceTime so if we want to understand
the software behind SpaceTime we're
going to have to study the complex thing
that we call the brain which is just the
projection of this deeper software that
is the best projection we've got so
Neuroscience is far more complicated
than we're thinking right now we see
neurons we think there are neurons no no
no no we see neurons that's a pointer to
a realm far more complicated probably
infinitely more complicated but
fortunately we can look at it in steps
so so we need more for neural so I don't
have any brains but we need to study
brains because when we render brains in
our headset that's the most information
we're going to have in our headset about
the software behind
SpaceTime so but still
emotionally we're tied to it I'm tied to
it um and we're wired up to this way so
p a very famous um child
psychologist um had talked about what he
called object permanence he said that
you know we're wired to at a certain
stage of our Liv life believe that this
object exists and will continue to exist
even if no one looks object permanence
and you know he had the example of
18-month old baby 17-month old baby you
take a doll put it behind a pillow and
the baby be acts as though the doll no
longer exists but at a certain age you
put the baby the the the doll behind the
pillow now the baby will crawl over and
try to get it okay so now it's got
object permanence so later studies
showed that it came much earlier than PJ
thought maybe even three or four months
so so why is it that I have a hard time
thinking of my body as an
avatar as opposed to a real object that
exists why am I having well um it's
because I didn't choose to believe that
I was wired up to believe that before I
even had reason so when we believe very
very strongly that these things exist
it's not because we came to a rational
conclusion about that oh yeah I thought
it through and I know no no no you
believe that when you were four months
old that's why you believe it and and
it's no deeper than that you never we've
just never challenged it that's the
glory of science it goes back it can
challenge things that we believe since
we were 3 months old and it can show us
that we were wrong that's the power of
Science and then the power of science is
also to tell us the limits of science
because what science tells us with
girdle's incompleteness theorem is there
is no Theory of Everything but that
doesn't mean that we should just do
whatever we wish and think what random
thoughts we want no there is we're
rewarded by thinking
precisely and also humbly precisely to
get as far as our current framework will
go and then humbly to realize that it's
just a framework and there's a new one
Beyond but that will also be rigorous
and that will also be rigorous so it's
it's really it's not going into you know
just whatever you want you know it's
it's not like a postmodernist kind of
and again I don't want to give a a wrong
impression I think there's a lot of
interesting people that have done really
brilliant work in postmodernism but but
the the I'll put it this way
the the gist of it that some people get
that do whatever you want it doesn't
matter logic doesn't really require I
think that that's just plain wrong I I
really like reason because it tells the
limits of itself if you enjoyed this
episode be sure to check out this other
conversation with Peter diamandis for
those that take the time to understand
the most likely path forward there will
be huge opportunities to help you better
navigate what's coming I bring you
futurist Peter diamandis