Kind: captions
Language: en
let me just ask one question is cause
and effect real outside of the headset
I think inside
headset no so we have a useful fiction
inside the headset you don't think
there's cause and effect right well we
have the appearance of cause and effect
right so if I hit the the cue ball and
it hits the eight ball into the corner
pocket it looks like the cue ball caused
the eight ball to Green into the corner
pocket yes and that all works but it's a
fiction of causality in the old video
game of pong you have these little
paddles and this ball and you hit and it
looks like the paddle is causing the
ball and and the fiction of causality is
good enough that you can play a game you
can actually figure out how to put maybe
a little spin on it and so forth or in
you know more more advanced games like
you know virtual reality or games or you
know like Grand Theft Auto you have a
nice fiction of causality I turn the
wheel to the left my car goes to the
left turn the wheel to the right but
it's all a fiction the wheel has no
causal powers
the gas pedal has no causal Powers but
it's a useful fiction Evolution
I don't know that that's true so think
about
okay a system was created let's let's
take the analogy of Grand Theft Auto so
a system is created such that it awaits
input from your your control pad
whatever that control pad may be now
admittedly my control pad I press it an
electrical signal is sent to something
that turns on or off or opens or closes
or whatever and then a whole Cascade of
things happens but it it is I mean you
could even Trace back the causality to I
ate something that gave me the ability
to create ATP which gave me the ability
to generate electricity which gave me
the ability to fire a muscle which gave
me the ability to press a button which
triggered this electrical chain reaction
that caused something to happen on the
screen but it it there is a chain of
causality in the headset there is a
chain of causality in the headset like
even even though it is the perception is
that you know I'm uh turning in the act
of actually just moving that thing it
makes it turn so I get that that isn't
happening but it does create this chain
reaction that can be in the headset
understood right and so there I disagree
so if you look for example in a VR
version of it where you see your virtual
hands holding a virtual steering wheel
yep
there's no feedback from the screen to
the computer
uh there's no feedback from the screen
to the computer but there is feedback
like if you think about VR so but so
there is a there is a real cause and
effect but it's not what we see in the
headset on the headset it looks like the
wheel that I'm seeing in the headset in
the VR headset is what's causing the car
yes but I am typically in VR I would be
mapping my real hands either by holding
a controller or by having cameras well
absolutely so I'm mapping my hands my
hands do a movement and this program is
programmed to wait for the input from
the movement of my hands to then trigger
that sequence that I just listed before
so there is a cause and effect yep but
but notice it's not from the things that
you're literally seeing in the headset I
agree with that but but there there
still is a chain of cause and effect
absolutely because when you say that it
is an illusion of the eight ball hitting
the things like that doesn't seem true
well within the construct of the headset
I'm saying right right well so maybe
another example might help on this so
when you like drag your icon you've
written a email and it's the icon is
blue in the middle of your screen you
drag it to the trash can yep you you are
using say a mouse or a touchpad and and
in so in this analogy that would be like
the real cause and effect but if you
said but it's really the motion of the
icon on the screen to the trash can
that's causing the file to be deleted
that's just an illusion of causality
right the there's no feedback from the
pixels of the screen into the computer
and that's what I mean everything inside
space and time is like seeing the icons
on your desktop things move around on
your desktop but it's due to something
like your you know joystick or something
else but the headset
since the headset is all of space and
time what that means is that I'm saying
that everything inside space-time is
part of that fictional content I now get
what you're saying so in the in the
headset that perception is illusion and
I was dragging a sort of back and forth
between but it's good I mean that's so
very very good now take me outside does
cause and effect exist if time doesn't
exist so so two answers and they'll get
to the death question I think in the
realm of conscious agents there is a
notion of cause and effect but it boils
down to a notion of free will that seems
to be one of the key Notions of cause in
in this in quantum mechanics by the way
I should point out that
they when you do Quantum computations
normally in normal computations there is
a causal order if you do this multiply
and then an add that order is important
if you do the ADD and then the multiply
you get a different answer right the
order the causal orders but it turns out
in quantum mechanics you can do a you
can get rid of causal order when you do
your computation you can have a
superposition of
you know multiply followed by add with
ADD followed by multiply both orders so
you have a superposition of the causal
order and it's a theorem that in general
you'll be faster you'll be more
efficient if you let go of causality in
space time
and it turns out it's actually been done
when you build these things and let go
of causality in space-time you tap you
tap into greater efficiency
so
when you let go of space time you're
also letting go when space time is
doomed means also that everything that
we believed to be causality in
space-time was just a very useful
fiction in our headset just like the
fictions in various VR games that we
play it's a useful fiction lets us play
the game
um there is an underlying causal order
and we're
arbitrarily ignorant about what that
causal order is now about death
I don't know but here's an here's an
interesting idea
suppose you go to a VR arcade with some
friends to play Virtual volleyball
and you put on your headset and bodysuit
and you're on a you know a
like a beach volleyball scene palm trees
and sand internet and you're playing VR
volleyball for a while then one of your
friends you know says I'm
thirsty on you to drink he takes off his
headset and bodies to to go get a drink
his Avatar sits lifeless on the sand it
collapses on the sand it looks within
the VR headset within the game as though
he's dead
but he's his Consciousness is not ceased
he's merely stepped out of that
interface all right now we're in what
I'll call the Phineas gauge problem okay
so once so Phineas Gage for those that
don't know it was railroad worker one of
the most famous examples in Neuroscience
he's hitting a tamping rod it's like a
three foot Rod thicker than your thumb
and it shoots up through his jaw and out
the top of his head taking if I remember
right a teacups worth of brain matter
which seems impossible but never loses
Consciousness but they say he's forever
different right different and he used to
be like super sweet and he was one of
the best workers and then he becomes
this belligerent [ __ ] and he can't
hold a job right so I will say that's
that is the so using this notion of the
headset or the umvelt it's like once you
alter the way that his brain works and
I'm fully willing to accept that this is
a problem only inside of the headset but
once you alter that function within the
headset he's fundamentally different now
if the headset is is what I'll call the
umvelt it's our interpretation of the
stimuli once he goes takes the headset
off the inter now we're into transistors
diodes electrical gravity or oh God I
may have trip to sepal gravity but
everything's shy of that one
um now you have he the experience of
that person would be fundamentally
different I would be fundamentally
different because I'm no longer
experiencing things through the lens of
my brain essentially right so while
I it would seem to me that there is no
way around the fact that in the game
homie is dead and so or lifeless to use
your example so
since that's the only thing that I want
to relate to that person through my
headset right that's what I'm used to
that's where the emotion lies and then
now once I step outside even emotion
would be called in question almost
certainly in fact definitively in your
explanation the way that I process
emotions it would just be unrecognizable
outside because I no longer have the
brain I no longer have all of those
things interesting you said quite
possibly right so there is a possibility
to you that outside the headset it's
close to what we experience inside right
see so for me
um it's going to be a matter of
following the math on this so
the theory of conscious agents itself
doesn't require an agent to have a self
so
meaning it can shatter into a bunch of
little pieces well that that a self is
something that a network of conscious
agents has to construct
certainly the Borg
it would be like an interface
representation okay so my what I call
myself
is on this kind of view no less a
construction than space and time
and so it's not clear to me how much of
that construction Will Survive death
will meaning taking off the headset
two possibly very different things well
it looks for for people who still had
the headset on it would be interesting
it looks to them like death but for the
person who's actually having the headset
taken off maybe it looks like what some
people describe with psychedelic
experiences or near-death experiences
and and and so forth or or you know like
really extreme five
DMT your DMT experiences and so forth
like these are things I want to explore
so at this point I I'll have to say you
know
not only you know I'm likely to be wrong
I'm still trying to figure out what the
ideas are that I would want to put on
the tables that are wrong so but the
theory of Consciousness that I have
right now doesn't require conscious
agents to have a self to have memories
to have
the ability to learn or anything like
that so networks of conscious agents
construct selves they construct memories
they construct emo you know patterns of
Logics of emotions and so forth it's
going to be very interesting to to ask
the question about how much when you
know my parents die recently right so
you know it's very very it's very very
difficult right and
so we all would like to think that there
is
some way to have contact with a person
anyway if you're a physicalist of course
that's out of the question right if your
Consciousness is nothing
above and beyond brain activity
then when brain activity ceases there's
no consciousness and Destroy it's very
very clear in the third conscious agents
it's quite possible that that yourself
dissolves
but the conscious agents it seems to me
will still be conscious agents they've
just maybe dissolved a particular
data structure that they created the
space-time data structure with a
particular personality and memories and
so forth so basically you're saying if I
can just put different words around that
to make sure that I understand
the the conscious ages coming together
to form a person are a data structure
that will they form the person as a data
structure so everything that I believe
about me
is very different than what I believe
when I was five and and I didn't believe
anything when I was maybe one and so
I've over the years the Decades of my
life I've put together this story of I'm
myself this is sort of an idea that some
of my physicalist colleagues have said
like Dan Dennett a self is a story that
we weave it's a narrative that we give
maybe there's something to that whereas
where I wouldn't go with Dan on you know
and he's a wonderful guy he's brilliant
but you know we are it's okay to
disagree right he would say that you
know there's nothing but the brain
activity and the narratives that it
creates and I'm saying well I like the
idea of the narratives but but the
Consciousness is the fundamental reality
I have to let go of physicalism because
of evolution of natural selection
and so maybe consciousnesses won't keep
the narratives maybe they will I have
some of my colleagues who are working
with me who think um you know that we
will keep the narratives that we will
keep that sense of self but my colleague
who thinks that doesn't have any
mathematics to support it and so for for
me on the one hand of course I'm really
open to all the different ideas but as a
scientist if I can't put it precisely in
math
I don't know what I'm talking about yet
I mean you and that's what you find is
unless you can make it absolutely
precise most of the time we think we
know what we're talking about and when
we make it precisely we realize oh okay
no I was maybe in the neighborhood but I
didn't really know what I was talking
about that's what mathematics really
comes back and teaches you and that's
the thing about a really good scientific
theory
once you write it down you become a
student of your theory like so Einstein
when he wrote down the equation of
general relativity
he had the big idea
falling in an elevator
you would feel weightless
big big idea
if it was free fall and elevator and he
took him eight years to take that idea
and what he called the equivalence
principle and turned it into the
equation of general relativity he wrote
it down took him eight years hard hard
work to take your intuition and go oh no
my intuition what is what do I really
mean by that it took him eight years man
he was Einstein right right for the rest
of us I mean if Einstein's ideas aren't
that quite precise it'd take him eight
years to get it so precise that he knows
exactly what he meant
that's what that's what I'm talking
about so he writes down the equation a
year later
a guy named schwartzelda who's in the
front lines of World War One
is solving Einstein's equations on the
front lines and he he solves equations
and he discovers black holes
and he writes back to eisenesses as your
theory says there are black holes
Einstein didn't know that he didn't
believe it he spent decades just
disbelieving it his equations were right
Einstein was wrong
the equations become smarter than the
genius who wrote them down and that's
another reason why we do these
mathematical models of science
we take our intuitions it might take us
a decade
to take our intuitions and actually
figure out what we really were thinking
and get them so precise that we say oh
that's the only logically consistent way
of stating what I thought I was trying
to think
and once you've put it down there then
all of a sudden you become a student
that thing that you've written down
is going to teach you and that's what I
have with this theory of conscious
agents when I wrote it down I had no
idea
about a number of things I didn't know
that agents could combine it was a
friend of mine who pointed that out to
me so agents can combine and also that
that a weird thing that it predicts is
that our free choices are not part of
our conscious experiences you can't
directly experience your own free
choices you can experience that you
chose but you can never actually
experience yourself
choosing
why well it's really quite interesting
you can experience like if if I go you
know here's there's chocolate and
vanilla
I'm going to choose between chocolate
and vanilla
well I just chose chocolate but how did
I do that well I had some deliberation
process but when I finally it I can all
I can do is see myself reaching for the
chocolate or the vanilla and I can see
my cogitation processes but but the but
isn't that all in the headset
all that I'm seeing is in the headset
that's right so I'm seeing so by the way
I only know my actions
through my headset I actually don't know
what I'm doing when I reach out and grab
something
I don't know what I'm doing in objective
reality in the realm of conscious agents
how does all of this play out in your
real life
and I've heard you talk about that there
are moments where you have I'm sort of
putting words in your mouth but almost a
meditative experience where you
transcend the notion of self
um
how so
how do you stay so enthusiastic about
this for so long when it seems like I
mean really really at a deep [ __ ]
level man as a human experience this
just all feels so real
right right
well
I wouldn't say that I transcend
the self
but I what I
do get it once in a while is a glimpse
that oh
this is just a headset I actually feel
it that I'm just rendering this most of
us feel like space just exists I'm stuck
inside Space there's this big stage I'm
on the stage
it's very different I think by the way
the next generation will probably get
this much easier those who have just
been raised spending a lot of time in
vrs that are as compelling and as
immersive as everyday life it's going to
be just sort of obvious you take your
headset off and go it's a no-brainer to
think well this is just a headset too
and to just sort of be there so I think
that it'll it'll be
for the Next Generation the fact that
I'm having a hard time about it we're
thinking about it this way and imagining
it experientially will just be sort of
an artifact of the technology I grew up
with if I grew up with vrs that were
really good as opposed to the stuff that
we grew up with which is not that good
then it would just be sort of obvious
you do it when you're young enough it's
just this obvious that yeah I'm just
seeing a VR headset too because by the
way here's one way to think about it if
you close your eyes
you just see sort of gray right modeled
gray in front of you so it looks it
doesn't look like nothing it looks like
model gray but what is it like
backwards back through your head when
you close your eyes well it's not model
gray it's nothing
and it's really the first time you
really if you close your eyes and
experience that yeah what is it like in
front of me yeah it's just gray sort of
model gray what is it like behind me
absolutely nothing that's the headset
you only have a headset of space time in
front there is no headset behind now you
have a not a visual headset now you have
this set I can put my hands back there
and do stuff so I so I have this but
it's all a creation it's all and so I do
get glimpses of that
once in a while
but there were no now put on the natural
selection language right so I have to
pick the language of the science that I
want to use you know because I don't
have a better language in some sense for
discussing this Evolution
um there were no selection pressures for
us to see the truth
and so there were no selection pressures
for us to not take space-time is the
truth
and so we do Piaget tells us you know
when
we begin to take objects as real as we
have the we you know these aren't just
like little data structures that you
create that they really exist all the
time he called it object permanence and
Piaget said you know when a kid is about
17 months 16 or 17 months of age they
don't have object pronounce permanence
you take a little baby doll put in front
of a child to play with it you put put
it behind the pillow if they're 16
months old they just doesn't it doesn't
exist said and then but at 18 months now
they go and crawl around and try to get
the object the baby doll out of the
behind the pillow later experiments
showed maybe down to three or four
months but the point is
these experiments show that we're
programmed
now I'm using the evolution language
we're programmed by natural selection to
buy into the illusion that objects exist
even when they're not perceived object
permanence when we're three or four
months old
we're not rational it's being done to us
without our permission and so by the
time we come to the Age of Reason
it's it's the water that we we don't
know that we're wet it's the water we've
been swimming in all of our life we just
have been programmed to take this as the
reality
I took it for the reality it was only
because I couldn't solve certain
problems like the problem of
Consciousness and it was only because
when I looked at Evolution it began to
tell me space-time is not the reality it
cannot be it's the wrong language it
must be only like a headset that I was
going holy I mean I still remember the
first time I realized
this must be just a headset I had to sit
down it was such I mean I was a grown
adult I was like I was around 30 years
old or something like that
first time I realized this it was such a
shock I had to sit down everything that
I believed all of a sudden disappeared
but of course the next moment I was
again visually believing I'm in reality
I'm seeing the truth so the programming
is there but ever since that that moment
when it was the math
that that did it to me so what do you
think created math
very interesting question
my own
thinking in terms of this idea that
Consciousness is fundamental and
conscious agents are fundamental
when we actually study consciousness
and there's been a scientific study of
Consciousness since 1860 it's called the
field of psychophysics there was a guy
named Gustav fechner who started the
whole field and a lot of my research has
been in psychophysics where we literally
get mathematical models of conscious
experiences and we test people very very
carefully in the lab
we find that mathematical experience
that conscious experiences are
mathematically structured while
experience of this water bottle
the mathematics is unbelievable there
are you can write down differential
geometry you reflectance functions that
means the mathematics is incredible
it's true of all of our conscious
experience of everywhere we look
conscious experience we it seems so
squishy it goes through your fingers how
can you there's mathematics so the way I
think about math and experience is that
mathematics is like the bones of the
living conscious experience they're not
they can't be divorced from each other
there's more to experience than just
math
but there's not less
than math there's math and more and so
that mathematics and conscious
experiences have a deep intimate
relationship that I'm still trying to
understand but but but the empirical
evidence is quite strong I mean all the
psychophysics that people have done we
just find mathematical structure
everywhere and that's why I came back to
this girdles in completeness theorem
where where that theorem is just saying
no matter how many mathematical
structures you discover you haven't
started
there will be endless more come from
girdle
figured out how to do this so it came
from and cannot let me maybe now I'm
understanding it so
we once thought the atom was the
smallest structure and then we
discovered there's something below that
and something below that and something
below that
are you saying outside of the headset
there's just no end to the something
below that
that's right
interesting that's right
that's right that and and this is book
girdle's result is that there is no end
to the mathematical structure so it is
the incompleteness theorem that you will
never be able to complete it you'll
never be able to get to sort of bae oh
God I'm going to put words in your mouth
base reality I don't know another way to
say it that's right that's what that
girdle's theorem seems to be telling us
is that no matter how complicated the
mathematics is that you know effectively
you haven't even begun yet and when you
say theorem I assume that means that
this is a math equation that girdle put
forward and not it's not girdle's Theory
it's girdle's theorem it's a theorem in
other words
it's true
that we can't ever know all mathematical
truths the truth is hitting your career
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description all right my friend back to
today's episode I don't understand math
well enough to even know what to ask
beyond that so to me where my ignorance
makes this a miracle I'm willing to
accept it just to not be abusive well
I'll just give you a quick clue about
the kind of thing that he does right in
the math in the math there are these
things called self-referential
statements that cause problems so if I
say um
this statement
is false
now it was that statement true or false
well let's let's look if the state the
statement is the statement is false well
if it's
false then it's true true right but but
what then is if it's true then it's
false that's right yeah so you get these
when you have self-reference
you get these problems that pop up you
know the so the The Barber of Seville
Cuts all and only the hair of those who
don't cut their own hair
who cuts the hair of the Barbara Seville
right all these kinds of things so
girdle was able to take this kind of
thing and and make mathematical
statements self-referential and he was
able to create a sentence that said that
that a statement in mathematics that
says this sentence is true within the
system but can't be proved
so he was able to construct that
that's why so he actually has a theorem
so he proves and and then he shows that
no matter so if even if you had that
sentence in there'll be a new sentence
that's self-referential that and so what
he shows by by this this kind of
structure of course I'm the the true
theorem and the true proof is is
incredible there's girdle numbers it's
you have to be not just a mathematian
you know to be a brilliant mathematician
a logician to even understand it so so
it's it's very very few people who
actually understand but every time you
quote unquote solve it it's
self-referential again that's right it's
the self-reference that's the key so it
just so there's not in complete magic I
want to let you know that based on this
notion of a self-referential statement
but but the bottom line is it shows that
there's an endless
in principle endless possibility of
exploration of mathematical structure
and and since I just mentioned this
suggested like almost give it a silly
answer it's the the mathematical
equation is what's below math and the
answer is math is structure all the way
down forever forever forever but if
Consciousness is fundamental that means
that there's endless conscious structure
endless Consciousness I feel like that's
just something that says we don't
[ __ ] understand like that to me quite
frankly is as sort of I just have to
accept it as Turtles all the way down
saying math all the way down our
Consciousness all the way down is the
same as saying Turtles all the way down
there's just literally no difference in
my limited mind right so this is where
we're going to have to come with every
scientific theory right every scientific
theory will have some set of Miracles
and that's that bothers me as much as it
bothers you yeah I don't like it but I
so when I bump up against that I take a
pretty and I don't know maybe this is
stupid enlighten me but here's
here's where I come up so I will
routinely be asked if I believe in God
and the answer is no I don't believe in
God in any of the ways that people mean
when they say God but there is so
obviously something that I don't
understand that it is just self-evident
to me you would use the language and
maybe rightly so that it this is a
headset and so you have an intuitive
sense that there's something beyond the
headset and you have no idea what it is
and therefore you just say there is
something I don't understand right so
um even here's the thing that used to
[ __ ] with me as a little kid
the universe is expanding expanding into
what when you build a house you build it
on land right so the land is there the
land is on the planet so it's like
there's this sense of
um to for it to expand it has to expand
into something therefore something had
to exist so it's very easy for me to
just go yep there's something here I
don't understand the fact that um
general relativity and quantum mechanics
don't play well together yep there's
something I don't understand like I am I
am very okay with just going and there's
something I don't understand it's it's
the the part that gets hard for me is
the it's math all the way down where
it's it's no longer an acknowledgment of
this is something we just don't
understand and it's saying and now
believe that it's math all the way down
and I don't know that it really matters
to be honest but that that's where I
always bump and go well yeah there are
two big camps on this one is that we
invent math and the other is we discover
it right so when a new theorem is
published did the person discover it or
did they invent it right that's that's
one of the big questions if if isn't it
self-evident that it has to be
discovered well but if if it is
discovered
then girdle
girdles incompleteness theorem says it
is math all the way down
right so that's that's
the thing but if it's discovered I'm
sorry if it's invented then that points
at us and says who who is this
Discoverer who is this inventor that's
doing all this so I mean so
and it's really important for everybody
to understand that that every scientific
theories we said earlier
stops explanation stops there's going to
be some place where we say grant me this
please and if you grant me this then I
will explain everything else like
Einstein says grant me space and time if
you grant me space and time I will write
down these mathematics and then it turns
out there's black holes and they're all
interesting stuff we can do GPS because
of Einstein's theory of special relative
general relativity it gives you all this
but we are granting space and time now
someone else like there's a guy named
Seth Lloyd who says okay I'm not going
to Grant you space-time I'll start with
Quantum bits and Quantum Gates outside
of space and time it's just abstract
quantum computational stuff and I can
show you how to boot up space time
general relativity from Quantum bits and
Quantum Gates the curvature of General
relativistic space time has to do with
the action of the gates and so forth
so he's no longer assuming space-time
he's explaining it but now he's asking
for a different Miracle please grant me
Quantum bits and Quantum Gates now you
can imagine someone going well now I'm
going to do better than Seth Lloyd I'm
going to explain I'm going to do
something deeper than Quantum bits and
Quantum case that's perhaps what what
you need it is doing it it you know
Princeton
so maybe he'll get quantum mechanics
emerging from something deeper but he
will then say grant me what he's asking
for is the amplitohedron and some other
structures like that so if you grant me
this amplitohedron I can give you space
time and quantum mechanics and and so
forth so so that's the nature of
explanation and I don't I'm still having
to come to terms with that I would like
to have a theory of everything and I can
only have a theory of everything except
these assumptions for my theory and
those assumptions are my Miracles and so
at the foundation of every scientific
theory there's this moment of humility
explanation stops here
it also stops one other remarkable place
whenever in our Theory we have a
probability
that can't be reduced
by greater knowledge right so in a
Newtonian world if I flip a coin
in principle if I knew in detail
the mass of the coin and its
distribution and exactly how I flipped
it I could tell you heads or tails with
probability one
but I don't know the initial conditions
well enough and so I have to give you a
probability of a half that's a
subjective probability epistemic
probability but suppose
no matter there's a probability that no
matter how much I know
the probability can't completely go away
then that's no longer epistemic there's
something more interesting going on
this was the debate between bore and
Einstein about quantum mechanics there
are probabilities that come up there
Einstein was saying those probabilities
are just our lack of knowledge there's
no God doesn't really play dice there's
no fundamental probability going on
there boar said no no you don't tell God
what to do these are not epistemic
probabilities these probabilities cannot
be reduced period their probabilities
for everyone including God metaphorical
God
one thing I wanted to ask you that came
to me when I was reading is
the double slit experiment is one of the
weirdest thing in physics for me that it
really messes with me so for people not
familiar with the double slit experiment
you take a single Photon you shoot it
through a slit and if you're not
measuring it as it happens on the sort
of back wall you would see like a bullet
Mark right so you fire a single bullet
it goes through the slit and it hits the
wall if you
uh sorry that's if you watch it if you
don't measure it then it goes through
like a wave and you get an interference
pattern on the back you can put another
slit and if you're watching it it goes
through one slit if you're not watching
it then it goes through both slits like
a wave that always just seems so weird
but if we well in fact I'll I'll ask
does your hypothesis about Consciousness
address the issue of the double slit
experiment yes so it will come out I
believe that what those experiments are
showing us is that if we assume that
everything is happening in space and
time and that space time is the
fundamental reality then we're going to
be confused
what we're seeing is space time is just
a visualization tool we're using for
things that are happening outside of
space and time and so they're not
constrained to travel through space and
time
absolutely not constrained we're
constrained to see them as though
they're traveling through space and time
and that's why quantum mechanics looks
so weird but why does
um observing or not observing change its
state
because we're creating reality
as we render it so I was wondering if
this is the look of the Moon not look at
the Moon exactly right the moon does the
in fact Einstein asked one of his
colleagues when they were walking said
do you really believe the moon doesn't
exist or only exists when someone looks
doesn't exist otherwise he was talking
about quantum mechanics and
my interpretational quantum mechanics is
exactly that that that space time itself
doesn't exist when it's not observed and
therefore the particles inside
space-time I don't think you need to
talk about the double slit experiment
doesn't that so it potentially let me
ask is that potentially like a a proof
of your theory
well
unfortunately there are no proofs in
science
there you
every theory has lots of hypotheses and
auxiliary facts and assumptions and so
forth and if if your theory doesn't come
out quite right
you don't know what went wrong in it and
also
um
even if every experiment that you've
done is compatible with your theory
maybe you just haven't been smart enough
to think of the experiment that will
take it down so so so no real serious
scientists would say that any scientific
theory has been proved
does it point the right direction though
it's like you you bring up a lot of
examples but that's not one right is
there a reason is there a hole in that
one already that you see or because to
me that that is some compelling [ __ ]
like hey you want to wonder or you want
to know if the moon exists when you look
at it or if it's garbage Bend I keep
forgetting your garbage collected
garbage garbage collected when you look
away boom double slit experiment well so
the double slit experiment is completely
compatible with what I'm saying the
reason I don't take it as a proof is
because there are some physicalists who
have the Multiverse or many worlds
interpretations of many world's
interpretations so Hugh Everett for
example so what these guys will say is
that um to really understand
superposition and all these weird
Quantum things you have to realize that
whenever you make a measurement whole
new universes spin off and all possible
states that are allowed by the quantum
State function the wave function
um are in are true in some some universe
and so many
serious physicists believe in in the
many worlds interpretation and related
but but distinct thing of the Multiverse
which is a slightly a different thing
they think that there are multiverses
and so
what what is
what is true
is that local realism is false
so local realism is the claim that
objects in space-time like say a proton
have definite values of their properties
like position momentum and spin definite
values
um even when they're not observed
and there's two parts that's the first
part and that they have influences that
propagate no faster than the speed of
light
we have very very good evidence to say
if if we know anything we know that
local realism is false
but that leaves open whether it's the
locality that's false things
you can imagine things having problem
influences faster than the speed of
light so a guy named you know David Baum
has a theory in which things have
influences faster than the speed of
light
or whether it's realism that's false
that which is what I'm claiming that
realism is false that
a particle doesn't have a position or a
momentum or a spin when it's not
observed because
you create it as a headset element When
You observe so that's why I say that we
know that local realism is false I claim
that's the realism that's false but
there are some who can claim it's the
locality right right yeah I would say
that yeah I would agree I would say that
there's a point in which a new portal
in our interfaces is opened up into
Consciousness so so for example I mean I
have a portal into Tom's Consciousness
it's it's it's not
perfect it's fallible but it's real I
can guess if you're interested I can
guess if you're you know if you're
hurting or I can guess it's a but it's a
genuine portal into your Consciousness
and but but of course
my experience is not your Consciousness
your Consciousness is is separate and so
our interface does give us genuine
portals into the consciousness of others
my cat I have less access my amounts
even less and uh you know microbe my
interface has given up my portal has
become really dumb it's not because
there's no consciousness out there is
that my portal is is got too much noise
or it was just not opened up to it so so
yes when we have babies
we are in a way that we don't understand
opening new portals into the realm of
Consciousness I so I want to understand
that it's it's very much like if someone
is building something in Minecraft and
you know they put things together
but if if you're really inquisitive
you'd like to know what was really going
on inside the computer
that looks like me building this thing
that I see in my Minecraft world and
that's that's what I want to do so in
Minecraft there are different things
that are in some sense portals to a
whole bunch of code that's going on in
the computer that's allowing me to build
this stuff okay let me start making some
guesses here on where you're going so
I'm assuming that you're chasing this
problem because ultimately you want to
be able to figure out hey guys guess
what space time is fundamentally the
wrong way to look at it and if we get
the right way to look at it we will have
all just an avalanche of insights may be
usable in the way that Quantum
discoveries have given birth to Modern
Life most people don't put two and two
together they just think uh the you know
maybe the atomic bomb or something like
that but that there's real your cell
phones GPS like all of it has to do with
um physics so if we can get to the the
underlying physics of whatever gives
birth to the um the simulation now we
could have a whole new app Avalanche of
insights that allow us greater
manipulation of the world or whatever it
is precisely that's driving you which
brings me back to the collider you're
paying attention to that because you if
I understand how these things explode
then I can backtrack it and understand
how they came together in the first
place which in your prediction is going
to take us outside of the simulation
into the world of Consciousness which do
you imagine that world has physics and
desires like does the the Consciousness
must have something propelling it to do
things
right the the only idea I've got there
is this idea from girdle of just
infinite exploration that is the okay so
this is going to bring us to God here
because I feel like you've already said
this is a magic moment or a miracle
moment so something has
given the spark of desire to
Consciousness to explore girdle's
infinite like look at all the different
manifestations that Consciousness can
take and so we are all but one sort of
pop-up of a very specific kind of
Consciousness and who knows there could
be a Brazilian of these things all over
the known and unknown Universe
um right so
as we're doing that it begs the question
of in your mind is there such a thing as
God
well this gives us possibly the a chance
to have a language which for the first
time ever we might be able to formulate
a precise
hypothesis about what we mean by the
word god
and start to do science so for example
you have a hypothesis around that I well
yeah so I have a precise definition of a
conscious agent
and what one definition I could give for
God would be
um the agent which is the combination of
all
the conscious agents the single so so
suppose it turns out that mathematically
when I look at the mathematics of
conscious agents and how they combine to
form new agents suppose that the
mathematics tells me there is in some
sense always one largest agent that's
being formed I don't know if that will
be the case I don't know but but suppose
then I could say that that's God suppose
it turns out that no what's going on is
that there are many many quote unquote
maximal agents but there's no single
maximal agent and they're not identical
then that would then there it might be a
polytheism
but the nice thing about this is we
could see the word God has been used in
contradictory ways for thousands of
years by various traditions and and we
fight to the death
over a term literally that's not well
defined because your God is not the same
as my God and and it's a tragedy
um of human history that that hundreds
of millions of people have been have
died in because of
differences over what we mean by the
word God and and what I would like to
see is sort of
a humble approach to that that term
saying look no we my tradition has its
ideas your tradition has its ideas
clearly since we all disagree that most
one of us is right and possibly all of
us are wrong so why don't we
come together take all of our best ideas
and then try to sift through and here's
where science can help where we take the
ideas and try to make them precise
mathematically precise because that's
when you find out if things gel if
they're consistent or if they actually
you're talking nonsense right you you
know if you say a is true and not a is
true what you're talking nonsense right
so so can we do something like that
and
evolve
ideas about the notion of God and have a
scientific spirituality where where God
becomes something that we're we don't
assume that we know we're not dogmatic I
know what God is we're humble we say
these are the best ideas we've got so
far let's try to make them precise so we
can figure out precisely where we're
wrong and then we evolve it so so I I
see
this direction going forward the
possibility of a scientific spirituality
where
um
we
take a lot of the spiritual insights
that the spiritual Traditions the
mystical Traditions have had for
thousands of years
and we take the tools that science has
learned by studying our headset
and we use those tools to take the first
step outside the headset that the
spiritual Traditions have been telling
us look you guys are stuck in the
headset you're stuck on the headset
well they're right
but by studying the headset we got the
tools that we needed to actually step
outside the headset in a way that can be
precise and we can figure out
what we're doing and make precise
theories and so I see science and spirit
we're at this really interesting
convergence point in human history
where there's been a war between science
and spirituality in effect they've been
at odds these are non-physicalists over
here the spiritual side these are
physicalists over here the scientists
scientists have all the hard-nosed tools
it's all Woolly and imprecise over here
on the spiritual side and so they've
been at odds of each other right but now
let's take the best insights and I'm not
saying that anybody's right or wrong I'm
just saying let's take the best insights
from the spiritual conditions and be
willing to call nonsense nonsense and
take the best tools from science and
take and also call theories nonsense
that are nonsense
and try together to make precise
theories about the spiritual realm and
our position you know what are we here
for
um what is life about I mean
these deep deep questions that are all
important to us
um and see see where it goes and and
you're right I think that as we do this
we're going to understand if this idea
that there's a network of conscious
agents outside space-time and we begin
to really understand how in part it
works and how it relates to space-time
the Technologies
that we're going to get
are stunning the the analogy I would
think of is like this
again going back to Grand Theft Auto you
can imagine being someone who is a
wizard like Grand Theft Auto we all just
look in awe at what this wizard can do
and that's truly impressive but now
the software engineer comes along who
actually knows the software of the game
and he can take the gasoline out of the
tank or let the tire out of The Heirs of
the Wizard's car so now the wizard is
nothing
compared to someone who knows how the
software Works outside of Grand Theft
Auto once we get outside of space-time
we understand how this network of
conscious agent works and how space-time
is just a visualization tool
we will be in the position of that
software engineer that can actually just
give the Grand Theft Auto a wizard a
flat tire we'll be able to what he could
change the road he could change the
dimensions of the road he could make
buildings disappear he can make space
and time shift in any way he wants
that's the kind of
Pandora's Box potentially that we're
going to open up here I I uh it's both
as a scientist and a human being it's
exhilarating and scary as all get out
um
that in the wrong hands is incredible
power
yes there's so many sort of layers of
guesses between us and there but if um
yeah if people have the ability to
essentially edit the Matrix and anybody
can do it then that's gonna
certainly go into some pretty
interesting places
um before we ponder that though I want
to ask you
what do you think of Einstein's
statement that I want to know God's
thoughts everything else is just details
well there's a sense in which um
I
am very much on board with Einstein in
some sense
the attitude is I mean
who cares that there are so many kinds
of quarks and who cares that there are
so many kinds of gluons and that the
mass of the electron is such and such
and I mean
that's not what it's really about I mean
we we need to understand those things
but not for their own sake what what
Einstein and theoretical physicists are
really after is they're trying as
Einstein said I want to understand the
mind of God right I want to understand
what are the big deep principles that
would lead to the laws that have as
their consequences there are these kinds
of quirks and these kinds of gluons and
so forth so it's the deep deep insights
the same kind of thing that you and I
are chasing here when we are talking
about ideas like girdles incompleteness
theorem and girdles candy store like
these I mean even if that's not the
right idea it gives you a flavor for the
Deep kind of idea that we're after that
that we think of this could be a deep
enough idea that it could be a a guiding
principle for a lot of the details that
we see
so it's in that sense that I would would
agree completely with Einstein on that
now I think Einstein
um
was very much attached to space and time
um it seems fair yeah he he was the
perhaps the person with the most
profound original insights ever about
space and time
um I don't know if he ever let go of
space-time maybe in his later years
maybe he did I don't know but but but
most of us it's really hard
the avant-guard of physics right now are
letting go of space-time when you if you
just Google space time is doomed Google
that phrase you can find videos by Nema
arkani Hamed for example and he can tell
you exactly why state of the art
physicists today are saying space time
is doomed so the mind of God whatever it
is
is not space-time itself
it's something deeper
and but they don't know what that
something deeper is what the physicists
are doing
um because they don't have any
if they don't have any idea what's
beyond space and time what they're doing
which is really brilliant they're saying
let's take the mathematics
of the models that we do have in
space-time Quantum field Theory
gravity
let's look at that mathematics and see
that mathematics is like a light into
the dark beyond space time
can we and and they're flashing that
light into the dark as far as they can
let that light go
so they're they're trying to see what
the structure of our current theories
might tell us to guide us in our ideas
Beyond space-time but ultimately
we're going to need to make a creative
leap we're going to have to just and
this is the fun of science you make a
creative guess
you make it mathematically precise and
then go back and say okay here's my
guess about what's behind space time
then you have to project it back into
space time where you can test it and so
so so the physicists are doing great
when I'm reading their work very very
carefully because I need to build on
their work I'm trying to plug my theory
of conscious agents I want to show that
the the long-term behavior of conscious
agents so-called asymptotic Behavior so
this this is a Dynamics on graphs it's a
markovian Dynamics and it has an
asymptotic Behavior it turns out I
believe I can show that that asymptotic
behavior plugs into structures that the
physicists are finding called
cosmological polytopes amplitohedra
socahedra and so forth that have the
same kind of permutation properties that
the asymptotic behavior of Consciousness
does so the asymptotic behavior
cautiousness leads to certain
permutations to classify it permutations
turn out to be these fundamental thing
that that the physicists have found
beyond space on that's as deep as
they've gotten there are these things
called permutations Beyond space-time
that lead to what they call onshill
processes which they can then lead to
predicting the scattering amplitudes so
that's the threat I want to to pull
start with a theory of Consciousness
whereas
a vast social network of consciousnesses
is asymptotic behavior is what the
flashlight of physics has seen the
permutations that's as far as they can
go it's asymptotonic mean
long-term Behavior so so I'll give you
very very concrete with an example
suppose that you're in your car on the
freeway and you're driving and there's
hundreds of people on the road with you
everybody it's a conscious person
turning the steering wheel pushing on
the gas hitting the brake and so forth
now imagine you're up in a helicopter
you know half a mile up and you're
looking down you're the channel 7 news
and you're and what you see is a bunch
of little specks little dots moving on
the freeway you don't see any
consciousnesses you could think of it as
particle flow a bunch of particles
flowing well there's a little the
particles are all stopped here there's a
traffic jam and now their fluid is
Flowing you could use like fluid
dynamics the kind of math that
physicists use to describe that because
that's the long-term Behavior you're
looking at it from Far Far Away you
don't see the consciousness
so so you're looking at long-term
Behavior not the little turn of the
wheel the stepping on the brake of each
person you're looking from very far away
that's asymptotics looking at the long
term from a far away distance so that's
why physics has never seen Consciousness
first they're studying our headset
not consciousness
um and second the headset itself has
only been designed to show us the
asymptotic behavior of Consciousness
because that's how we data compress
right that's this is data compression I
can't see all the Twitter users and what
they're tweeting I see trends
Trends are the asymptotics and and so it
turns out when you look at the trend
behavior of Consciousness you get these
things that we mathematicians call
permutations and that's as far as the so
that's what I'm coming from my side
Consciousness asymptotics leads to
permutations the physicists pointing
from the headset of space-time into the
dark
their flashlight gets to permutation so
we're meeting in the middle so that's
what I'm trying to do is to bridge that
Gap it'll take a couple years
I'm not a physicist so I'm just learning
as much as I can and I'm working with
physicists but you know there's a lot of
conceptual work to do there but then
this will get back to the question you
raised earlier about artificial
intelligence
because
once we understand
how this whole thread gets pulled that I
just described from Consciousness
through asymptotics into space time
we can reverse engineer
space-time
and we can open new portals
in the interface into conscious agents
the conscious agents are there
will be able to re re-jig our interface
to open new portals
and see new aspects of this social
network of conscious agents that we've
never seen before
and maybe some of the technology that we
use to do that will look like circuits
and software I don't know we'll uh we'll
see and if it does it would be then in
some sense we might say sure sure AI
with circuits and software has opened we
now have Consciousness in that AI but it
will be different it will be not that
the circuits and software in Silicon
was the founding thing and it created
the Consciousness as an emergent
property instead we just circuits and
software are the language of the
interface that we use to describe this
much deeper thing we did that opened up
a hole or opened up a portal in the
interface that looks like circuits and
software in our interface but that's not
the truth that's just what it looks like
in our interface the deeper thing is
well something with conscious agents and
how they operate that will that will
learn so let me make sure I understand
that so are you saying that there is we
can create entities that meet some sort
of requirement as to open a portal to
conscious beings
sexual reproduction and I guess asexual
reproduction depending on where you draw
the line of Consciousness but we can
make puppies we can make humans
and those the act of that somehow some
way meet some criteria that then exactly
okay and that there is some
configuration that we could do with
robotics or AI or a combination thereof
that would open a similar portal you've
got it exactly right Tom we we have as
you just pointed out we have proof that
our interface does have the technology
to open new portals it's pretty low top
where do we have that proof when you
have a kid
okay but okay right right it's low Tech
but we know what happens we enjoy the
process but but we have technology in
other words our our interface has proven
that it's got the technology to open new
portals well now the question is if we
can understand what's really going on
there we should be able to do it and it
may look like AI
um and this may also be an answer to a
very very deep question about um
alien intelligences what where are they
well we're looking at our headset
of course we can't see them
that's interesting they're out there
that's really interesting
would that look really interesting
we may we may I'm not saying we won't
find some of them out there our headset
may give us access to certain alien
intelligences on planets around Alpha
Centauri and so forth but
it's going to be trivial compared to all
the consciousnesses that are out there
that's what a headset is for it's there
to hide all of the consciousnesses
because it would be overwhelming to
interact with them so that's where they
are they're all around us we're like
ants that don't see the guy with the
raid can coming at them they can't they
just can't see it right
um so they're all around us but we're we
are stuck on our headset and we think
that we're the the epitome of of
advancement and knowledge and and so
forth Mike it would be funny and it may
be the case that every that that's a
rookie mistake that every Consciousness
goes through in a simulator
that it thinks that because its headset
is only going to give it
the best access to itself and others
like it and less access to others and so
in its own eyes it will always be the
wisest in its in its environment and so
it may be a rookie mistake that every
Simulator the Consciousness creates has
that we all have to go through this
phase of going oh we're the best we're
the greatest we're the epitome of
evolution and then we slowly realize oh
no no no no I'm in a simulator and
there's you know there's this infinite
range of other possibilities of
consciousness
some so profound that I that I if I
could see them I want to be you know
inclined to Fall Down and Worship them
who knows you know they're just so but
but it's a really humbling position so
we go from being the top of creation the
the the smarter you know
the brain is the most
incredibly complicated thing we've ever
found in the entire universe that point
of view to oh wow
um
we've made a rookie mistake here
um there are consciousnesses out there
that are far more you know
mind-blowing than anything I could even
concretely imagine so it's it's a very
very different kind of thing and this
also by the way puts a different spin on
the the question of life living versus
non-living
how so I struggled with this the first
time I heard you bring it up dead still
feels dead to me how does it uh right
because you're saying the very thing
that I perceive is them is uh the
Consciousness coming through the portal
and if I could retract down that bit of
Consciousness it would be just like
dealing with Timmy
well in that direction so that's the
right direction and and by the way you
know I don't know the answer so you
might be closer than me so I'm so is it
when I say the right direction uh close
to what I'm thinking and maybe you're
right in in better better than mine an
analogy I think that's that's useful
here is again a virtual reality and I
like you know say you you go with a
bunch of buddies to
um a virtual reality arcade and put on
headset and bodysuit and to play Virtual
volleyball and so you find yourself
immersed in a beach scene with the beach
volleyball court and so forth and you
start playing beach volleyball for a
little while then your friend Joe says
to me for a minute I'm thirsty I'll get
a drink so he takes off his headset and
bodysuit to get a drink in his Avatar
collapses motionless on the sand
from the point of view of the VR game
he's effectively dead he's he's
unplugged but
he's just unplugged from the headset
he's not dead and so if space-time isn't
fundamental
death may be nothing more what we call
death is just unplugging from the
headset now what the consequences of
that are for consciousness
for example
maybe Consciousness survives what we
call death but maybe the notion of a
self of me maybe that doesn't survive I
don't know this is going to be
I don't want to be doctrinaire about
this I want to be open to you know first
having bold ideas
you have to be crazy you have drink beer
have some ideas and then then When
You're Sober you go back and you start
to know okay listen that that looked
really great when I will you know when a
gin and tonic but now it doesn't look so
great when I'm sober right so so you
have to do you know explore but then go
back so we want our mathematical model
of Consciousness to give us insights
what is a self
what is this thing that I call the self
will that survive Detachment from an
interface or is that itself somehow
wetted to the interface what is the
relationship between my interface my
space-time interface and my notion of
self I'm really attached to this body
but this body
is just a symbol
you know I am not this but I want to get
into something really fast so one thing
that I find very confusing not confusing
I
um I understand it and there's some part
of my brain is rejecting it so what I
what I like about the reductionist model
of quantum mechanics and all of that is
that
um
there is something beyond what all
shorthand to personality
so a glue one is a glue one is a glue
one right it's just a particle and it
acts in a certain way according to
certain laws and I can get that things
acting in a certain way according to
certain laws as they group up into more
and more complex things those more and
more complex things are now the
amalgamation of all these different laws
and they look like humans oh my gosh
look at that right but as I break them
down they die the immune system stops
fighting off bugs they return to a
different anatomical State let's call it
dirt and now they're reacting in a
different way but then those could be
consumed by something that ends up
becoming a piece of you know the egg and
then the egg is refertilized and now you
actually become something again and so
we're just were these set number of
particles that sort of take different
forms break apart take a different form
again and and it makes sense to me
largely because there are things Beyond
personality personality is only
associated with things that take a very
particular form the sort of living
biological things as we would call it
and they're the individual pieces exist
outside of that and that's reflected
back to me because if I go and give
somebody brain damage they will act
fundamentally different right
um deny somebody oxygen for a certain
period of time but then don't let them
die and they they will be fundamentally
different and so it's like everything in
the simulation I fully understand that
but
having lived in the simulation all of
that makes a lot of sense now when I try
to imagine come up with a metaphor
whatever where Consciousness is primary
and this may just be a failing of my
brain is so primed to think of
Consciousness as being an element of
Personality that it just falls apart as
I tried to imagine okay wait while this
Consciousness is in this body it has
personality and I can [ __ ] up its
personality and make it act
fundamentally different but hey when you
come back out one of two things has to
be true either it's fundamental nature
was different than its manifestation as
Timmy and so it was like Hey you were
Timmy for a while oh you got damaged but
you're still you and Timmy's messed up
now but I can pull you out and you'd be
just like you were before but if I as
little Tommy come and re-engage with the
Consciousness that was part of Timmy I
wouldn't recognize this person at all so
even if they're into me normal they come
at it to me Timmy's still normal I still
wouldn't get this person but the
Consciousness because and this is where
again my brain just immediately starts
grabbing a hold of metaphor so my brain
goes oh okay cool I get this the
Consciousness is like a puppet master
and the Very Act of taking on the body
right so pregnancy cool you got a baby
at some point the Puppet Master brings
Consciousness to that puppet and now
that that Consciousness gets to
experience the girdles infinite candy
store range of
um states of consciousness of qualia and
goes oh wow cool what a neat ride as I
experiences oh this gets damaged it just
changes my experience of what this looks
this is what Sally was like before the
brain damage this is what grapes taste
like to her now that she's had
catastrophic brain injury how
interesting and like that's where I'm
like one of those two interpretations is
way off because I can't reconcile them
both now because I've lived my entire
life in the headset it just makes so
much more sense to me that
individual Parts act one way when they
come together they act another way I
mean it's just that's the human body
right if you're just looking at bacteria
it feels very different if you're just
looking at mitochondria it's very
different if you're looking at me
without bacteria different me without
mitochondria I'm dead first of all and
it's only as you bring all these
together that I actually act the way
that I act so I understand how I am this
I am you know a totality uh uh I don't
want to put words in your mouth but it's
very poetic and super interesting a
small G God right something that is like
the accumulation of trillions of things
that have come together in this pretty
amazing form right that is delicate and
precious and would never want anything
to happen to it but obviously does not
rule the universe and you know just
trying to get through the day uh but you
know very interesting is you if you
define God as a collection little G God
as a collection of these individual
consciousnesses that have come together
to create this sort of symphony that we
recognize is a cheetah or a person or a
gorilla or whatever
um that
I
get that to me is very interesting when
I start thinking as Consciousness as
fundamental I start I make the mistake
that I read that as personality as
fundamental right the first
interpretation is the one that I I agree
with you about that the consciousnesses
come together to create new varieties of
consciousnesses and it's
um a very novel and creative process and
all I mean when I say Consciousness is
fundamental is that it's not space and
time and physical stuff that's the
fundamental thing is that these kinds of
consciousnesses that can combine to
create new forms of Consciousness is
that's the direction that science needs
to go to try to understand what's really
the fundamental dynamics of what's going
on how is it that two consciousnesses
when they interact create a new
Consciousness and there by the way we
can get some information like from the
split brain patients that we talked
about last time right there are people
that have the the commons yeah the
corpus callosum is cut and the in one
case the left hemisphere here believed
in God and the right hemisphere was an
atheist left hemisphere wanted to be a
draftsman right hemisphere wanted to be
a race car driver completely different
personality so what Consciousness is
doing in that case is what happens when
I put an atheist together with a
believer in God and make the the
believer in God also want to be a
draftsman and the atheists also want to
be a race car driver what kind of new
Consciousness would do I get when I put
those two together and put a corpus
close in between them and force them to
live together in a lifetime what new how
do they so the adjudication of that and
we all sort of sometimes will feel like
you know it's Friday night part of me
wants to do this I'd like to you know
kick up my heels and have some fun part
of me wants to be a geek and studies
some more physics whatever it might be
maybe those are really two separate
consciousnesses two separate conscious
agents that are negotiating and in the
process of new Consciousness it exists
this is where I come back to I'm so into
that idea from Einstein and this may not
be what he meant and maybe I'm just
doing a poetic interpretation but I want
to know God's thoughts or the mind of
God everything else is just details it's
like I want to know what what imbued
these conscious entities with any
propellant like what makes them step
through the portal are there times with
their life [ __ ] it no I don't want to
step through the portal I just want to
do my version of a Friday night chilling
over here you know because when you
think about two conscious entities
coming together one it is they are you
get very distinct and predictable types
of Consciousness depending on whether
it's right hemisphere or left hemisphere
and so it is obviously not you can very
quickly oversimplify but it they're
different right one side is going to be
prone to religiosity and the other side
would be prone to not like that's
predictable you wouldn't get I forget
which is right or left but like
whichever has the propensity for
religiosity you're never going to get it
that the other side has a propensity
like if I told you hey vs Roma chandran
who studied the hell out of this like uh
hey one of the sides is religious he's
not gonna be like oh my God I have no
idea it's 50 50. he's gonna be like oh
that's the left or the right whichever
it is so now it's like this [ __ ] is so
tied to the physicality that exists in
my headset that it's like teasing out
what is
the the what is the thought of God what
is the thing like what's the game being
played here like why why is there a
puppet master you know what I mean like
it's exactly so interesting well
absolutely Thomas and that's the spirit
in which scientists are and I'm
approaching this right we're saying
let's we we try to reverse engineer
exactly these kinds of things what we
find from the Neuroscience is split
brain patients what Clues can we get to
what's really going on outside the
headset so but the first thing you have
to do is realize I have to think outside
the headset so I have to let go of the
reductionist view and say how are
neurons doing this and saying it's
instead let's talk about Consciousness
on its own terms what's Consciousness
doing and and then the the neural
structures that I'm seeing I have to
think about them okay this is just my
virtual reality interface how can I
reinterpret all these neural networks
and what they're doing in terms of what
networks of conscious agents are really
doing in other words it's much harder
work you know conceptually spend a lot
of time thinking about this do you have
a method for getting breakthroughs is it
really a gin and tonic and then go
organize your ideas is it go jogging uh
like how do you do this well
um it's
I have several things I do on a daily
basis and I'm I'm grateful to my wife
for giving me some space to do it I
meditate for several hours
okay
three hours a day typically whoa
and you are pursuing the lack of thought
or you're pursuing to let your mind
chase a thought
entire silence
nothing but silence
and watching what happens they are it's
very the the idea
from my geeky point of view about it is
if I'm going to go beyond the interface
then I've got to let go of the interface
entirely
any concept any thought that I have is
by definition still in the language in
the interface that I've got so going
into utter
and total silence
is
not easy and it's both exhilarating and
terrifying because there are no security
blankets
when you let go of all thoughts and if
you so one thing I do is I watch myself
as you say when I look at the Moon and
then I look away that I am you haven't
said this in this interview but I've
heard you say it many times that you you
trash bin it or something like that
you're no longer rendering it garbage
collecting right um would another way to
say that the moon doesn't exist quote
unquote if there were no species to
perceive it it's really that there the
moon wouldn't be
um
created essentially it's like it it it
is requiring an umvelt of a particular
species to create that shorthand over
Evolution to say whatever that thing is
right that the Moon is meant to
represent
um it has been created by humans as a
moon maybe bats see it entirely
differently and fish don't have any
sense that it's real at all who knows
um it's really that we we Evolution
maybe is is a better way to say it that
Evolution has created this virtual
reality and therefore if that species
cease to exist its version of virtual
reality would obviously cease to exist
because it's being created exactly oh
but I'm going to say it's being created
by the brain you're going to say the
brain's not real is that true right the
brain okay yeah this is where the [ __ ]
gets so complicated okay so I'm gonna
shut up now uh back to your theory of
Consciousness right so but just point
your VR thing is is I think a good
example for anybody who's spent time in
VR what I'm saying will be obvious right
if you're playing a VR game of like race
cars you see a red Corvette when you
turn your headset that way you know that
you're only seeing a Corvette that
you're creating when you turn your head
that way you turn your head to the other
side now you're seeing a blue Mustang
the Red Corvette is gone it doesn't
exist there's no red Corvette in the
computer that's running the game the Red
Corvette is only in your mind when you
look over there now you're seeing a blue
Mustang because you're making that and
So you you're rendering these things and
then destroying them there is a reality
but it's not Corvettes and it's not
Mustangs it's the super computer that's
running the game and that's what I'm all
I'm saying is evolution gave us this
headset and it's no surprise I see the
moon I render a moon I turn away I don't
render a moon so the moon doesn't exist
there is something but it's just not
like it's not the moon it's nothing like
the moon just like there's something
there's a super super computer in the
the VR analogy but in the super computer
if you look you'll never find any you
know green Mustangs or red Corvettes you
give an example in your book that is so
powerful if you would take a second you
describe what's happening in in your eye
when you look at a scene that includes a
red apple and the way you describe it at
the photoreceptor level I was like oh my
God it gave me such an understanding of
how
terrifyingly complicated all right
things actually do you remember the part
that I'm talking about
right so
this is now just normal physiology and
so for the moment I'll be talking as
though you know I believe in brain
science and and we have to do that right
right so you have to bracket
everything's within the framework of the
theory so I'm now using neurophysiology
and physics right now for this to
describe this so when you look at a red
apple and Suppose there really is a red
apple just for sake of this argument
it's got a real shape and light rays hit
it and they have certain frequencies and
they pass through the lens of your eye
which focuses it on the back of your eye
just like a camera would and on the back
of your eye you've got a piece of brain
called the retina it's a nervous tissue
so it's a piece of nervous tissue it's a
120 million photoreceptors it's like 120
Mega megapixel camera
and each photoreceptor is just reporting
how many quanta of Light how many
photons it catches so I caught three I
caught 10 I caught 50. that's all you've
got a bunch of numbers so you have 120
Million numbers
there are no colors there are no shapes
there are no motions there's just 120
million
colors numbers not not even colors it's
like if you look at the the digital
output from a video camera you'll just
see a stream of numbers if you look at
stream of numbers you'll see the problem
that Vision has you can't tell from the
stream of numbers what's going on you
have to create
three-dimensional objects and shapes and
colors and so forth from all those
numbers and so that's the problem that
we have in Vision you have all these
Photon counts 120 million Photon counts
on each eye
and from that you have to then create
objects see that it's a boy on a bicycle
eating a hot dog you know
all of that is you and that comes
that's not just Theory it becomes really
an important problem when you're trying
to build computer vision systems right
you're trying to build a self-driving
car say with with passive Vision systems
well so the vision systems are cameras
video cameras say they're taking in
video maybe they have you know a few
million pixels that they come in that
each each you know maybe 70 times a
second or something like that
well those pixels are just numbers
you've got
millions and millions of numbers coming
in every second
there's nothing in there that says
that's a boy that's a car don't you know
that's a stop sign there's nothing in
there that says that you have to you
have to have megabytes of software
that's really intelligent that takes all
those numbers and starts Computing with
them to figure out three-dimensional
shapes to figure out what the objects
are to and then figure out oh I'm about
to hit a boy I need to hit the brakes
and so forth so so this is not just
abstract self-driving cars have to solve
the problem of starting with numbers
that are in unintelligent in some just a
bunch of numbers and giving you an
intelligent assay of what's happening in
the world and so that's why a third of
the brain literally a third of the
cerebral cortex the higher part of of
our brain is involved just in visual
perception when you add the other senses
it's it's more like half the brain is
involved in sensory perception because
the senses are doing an incredibly
complicated job but from my point of
view what they're doing is they're
building a VR world and it takes a lot
of processing power you need super
computers you know what would have been
considered to super computers to do VR
in real time and that's what we're doing
we open our eyes and it looks like we're
just seeing a 3D World with objects and
shapes and colors it seems so real and
so just we're seeing the truth but
because you have billions of neurons
trillions of synapses that are doing it
all within about 100 milliseconds and so
you're so fast at it that you just think
you're opening your eyes and seeing the
truth you're seeing a VR world that
you're projecting out there in real time
of course now I'm going to rescind the
brain part right so the brain itself is
part of the space-time interface so the
brain itself is just our VR symbol for
something deeper that's doing the real
work and so the question will be what
deeper Theory can we come up with right
so it's going to be a theory outside of
space and and time but this gets back to
what we have to do in science all the
time we push our current theories to the
limits till they break and then we have
to actually take a creative leap we
can't necessarily just use the language
of our theories that we just broke
we have to come up with a deeper
language and that is
a leap
when Einstein
went past Newton he took a deep leap
and when quantum mechanics went past
Einstein and Newton it took an even
deeper leap and the language was
entirely different but you can show for
example that if you start with Einstein
you get back Newton
roughly as the speed of light goes to
Infinity
the way Newton talks about space and
time and matter
Mass those terms actually mean something
different than what they mean in
Einstein in Newton Mass is Mass
and you have the same mass period in
Einstein your mass depends on your
velocity your length depends on your
velocity distances depend on your
velocity none of that
space and time and mass don't behave
that way at all in Newton we use the
same words but they mean something very
radically different in Einstein and in
quantum mechanics it's it's even a
deeper leap but with quantum mechanics
you get back
Newton has something called Planck's
constant goes to zero again roughly I
mean this is sure first approximation so
what we so the leap I need to make here
now is evolution by natural selection is
telling us
that the language of space and time
and then objects in space and time
is the wrong language
to describe objective reality
so the leap I need to make is to say is
there a deeper theoretical framework
that I can come up with
such that when I look at the Dynamics of
that deeper framework
and project it back into our VR
interface which I'm which is space and
time so I've got this VR headset of
space and time that's what evolution has
told us this thing is just a headset
you've got to guess right I'm not
telling you what's outside the headset I
just told you
all I can tell you it's a headset now
it's up to you to take a stab at what's
behind the headset so that's what I'm up
to so I'm probably wrong right I mean
reward evolved the evolution by itself
doesn't say anything that makes me think
I'm evolved to see the truth
but it at least is telling me that
whatever the truth is out there you're
only seeing a headset it's good enough
to tell us that but it's not good enough
to tell us what's outside that takes a
leap outside of the theory of evolution
but the constraint on that theory is we
need to show how our deeper Theory could
lead to me having a headset and in that
headset it looks like things are
evolving according to evolution of
natural selection in other words my
deeper theory has a strong constraint on
it it better look like Einstein's theory
of space-time it better look like
Quantum field Theory and it better look
like evolution by natural selection the
three big pillars of modern science if I
can't do that then I know I'm wrong so
even though all of those things exist in
the headset that's right okay this is
[ __ ] fascinating uh so now tall order
do you have that idea
I have a proposal let's hear it I'm
probably wrong can before you give us
your proposal I have I want to
acknowledge you dude the way that you
talk like that I love so much I can't
remember if it was plank or bored that
said
um anybody this is a terrible paraphrase
anybody that thinks that science
advances because objective truth is
presented is absolutely wrong science
advances because the Old Guard dies and
the new people grow up just believing it
to be self-evident right I [ __ ] hate
that so much the fact that people are
not willing to be wrong drives me crazy
makes me want to choke half the world
out so the fact that you talk from the
perspective of hey look I've Got a
Theory it's probably wrong like oh dude
I love that so much I wish more people
were were as hardcore as you to present
you you oh God you call it bold and
precise
I I present and I a theory hypothesis
that's both bold and precise right right
love that and that you're willing to be
wrong so anyway I just had to take a say
every time I hear you say that I want to
stand up and clap because so few people
are willing to own that they're probably
wrong right but they're not afraid to
make a bold and precise prediction so
right and the the thing about that is
I just want to understand
and so if I'm stuck on my ideas and
won't let go of them then if I'm wrong
I'm going to not understand so it's
really stupid to think that you're you
have to have enough hope that your ideas
have some promise that you pursue them
but not be dogmatic about them that's
that's a it's a fine balance very much
so all right so now our bold and precise
claim is so I'm proposing I'll say what
I'm proposing and then I'll say why I
went that direction so I'm proposing
that reality is a vast social network
of interacting conscious agents so that
Consciousness is fundamental
and think of it like the twitterverse
right there's
tens of millions of Twitter users
billions of tweets lots of stuff
trending it's a Twitter users are
tweeting and following and so it's all a
big social interaction right so I'm
proposing and this is a mathematically
precise proposal that there are things
called conscious agents
so conscious experiences like the taste
of chocolate the smell of garlic are
fundamental and
limited choices based on those
experiences that's part of the whole
structure so experiences that inform
choices that's going to be the
fundamental idea in a vast social
network and
the idea then about our headset is is
this follows
if you are a Twitter user and you want
to understand
deeply what's going on in the
twitterverse well you can't engage with
all 10 million users and the billion
tweets it's just overwhelming you would
die before you could even read all this
stuff so what do you do well whenever we
have big social media data we have to
have visualization tools those tools
will necessarily ignore most of the data
and the part that they don't ignore
they're going to compress it down
they're going to digest it and compress
it into some eye candy that we can
understand some objects in three
dimensions that have nice colors and
move in certain ways and using that
visualization tool I can maybe see
what's trending in New York what's
happening in all you know so the big
scale of Europe was happening in little
scale in Irvine and so forth so I'll
have a tool that lets me zoom in and out
and and it'll be ignoring most of the
stuff and that's what I'm claiming space
time
is in physical objects it's our headset
it's a visualization tool that certain
conscious agents use to
interact with this vast social network
that would otherwise be completely
overwhelming and so we've made the
rookie mistake
rookie mistake of taking our headset for
the final reality okay we have a tool
and we thought it was the thing we were
visualizing amazing very clear now let's
back up and break these down part by
part because conscious agent I'm
familiar enough with your work that I
kind of know what you mean but I don't
think people understand that like how
small you take that down because you're
not talking that they're oh hey this is
all a bunch of people which is probably
what somebody hearing this for the first
time thinks that you think they're
invisible people that make up this
social network
um how far like so Turtles all the way
down boys and girls so we're talking
about Consciousness
how like are
um neutrinos like are they conscious
right so no
so this is very different from is that
because it's in the the headset that's
right neutrinos are particles inside
space-time okay sorry so damn it nothing
inside FaceTime is I fell for it rookie
mistake uh okay so out outside
uh so do you delineate between uh
Advanced cognition and Consciousness not
in principle no interesting so do you
I'm really trying to get you to use
other words so Define agent right so
we're conscious we're this is a
collection of conscious agents having a
social ex did you say social media
specifically no you know that social
network social network they're like the
best social network got it okay so uh
give me what a conscious agent is the
simplest example but most trivial agent
that the mathematic allows is an agent
that has only maybe two experiences
maybe like red and green okay that's all
experiences why does it have to be two
well it could be even just none you
could have an agent that has none or one
but I tend to think about what I call a
one bid agent that's sort of fundamental
but I could have an agent that has only
one experience like nothing or red
has an experience makes me feel like I'm
not I'm not interpreting what you say in
the same way that you mean it so you you
said something and went by so fast okay
uh which was the taste of garlic and
chocolate are fundamental if I remember
experiences Okay so
literally the taste of garlic is a
conscious
agent no it's an experience okay so that
thing it's not like hey Bob you're the
taste of garlic no no okay so sorry to
use overly crass language but that sort
of that was my initial interpretation of
what you said okay so that makes sense
so uh I will then push and say if that's
the case is this not would not garlic
and
um chocolate be tied to the umvelt of
the species absolutely so certain agents
will doesn't mean it's in the headset
then
um well those experiences so the headset
is created out of your experiences
uh-huh you so what an agent does is uses
some of its experiences as a format for
a headset but uh okay so what I'm trying
to get to and I think this is what
you're proposing is pay we take the
headset off and we see
oh like what do we see and I get that we
have the problem of perception and
that's ah the that's all back to the
envelope and stuff so C is a stand-in
for obviously I don't know how we would
be interpreting this world in the movie
The Matrix it is green code right so
when he explodes the agents they explode
into code so code is their fundamental
element
um what is your fundamental element
Consciousness I get that right but now
I'm trying to understand like how if
it's Consciousness all the way down what
is consciousness like is it a physical
substrate or is it not and we have to
let go of the very notion of physicality
yeah we're I'm letting go of physicality
in the sense I'm completely letting go
of space and time and and particles
electrons protons and neutrons those are
only headset
entities but is it fair to say that you
have no idea than exactly what
Consciousness is you just well so so
what we do so here's this gets at the
fundamental way we build scientific
theories and this is where we talked
about a little bit earlier which is
about every theory has Miracles right so
every scientific theory
has certain assumptions that it makes
that we just have to Grant you we just
have to Grant no there's no Theory of
Everything we hear about a theory of
everything there is none so your Miracle
is consciousness that's right okay so
there so I'm saying that there are
entities that I'll Call Conscious agents
these agents themselves are not
conscious experiences why do they have
to be networked
well it it turns out that
when agents interact
they form new agents so when I didn't
know this when I wrote down the math I
was just writing down what what could I
possibly mean by Consciousness being
fundamental I wrote down the minimal
structure I could think of that could
have some set of experiences so there's
some set of experiences that this
creature this entity could have and a
small set of actions that it could take
and that was all I wanted to write down
but then when I had them interact with
other agents right because the actions
are to affect the experiences of other
agents it turned out the interactions
satisfy the definition of a conscious
agent so when agents interact they form
new agents let me ask a question that I
think is going to explode this apart and
help us all understand what you mean do
I exist
um yes
in what way
so you your conscious experiences exist
so all I can see is your skin hair and
eyes yep I see but that's just my
interface symbol
if you look at yourself in the mirror
all you see in the mirror is skin hair
and eyes but you know firsthand that
what you don't see in the mirror your
hopes your dreams your aspirations your
headache all the rich world of your
conscious experiences that
is not visible in the headset so my
conscious experience is both in the
headset and outside of the headset
that's right that's right so it exists
outside of space and time that's right
in fact this is where the shift starts
to get real weird it's pretty
interesting because all I can see of you
are the experiences in my own headset
and so my headset is made up of my own
experiences that I've put in a
particular format of space and time and
so it's just a format in a VR for
example you have a certain format in
which the VR is presented
that 3D VR format has nothing to do with
the shape of the super computer it's
just the format of of that and so this
what I see of Tom right here is just
what my headset allows me but I believe
and you know firsthand that what I can't
see in my headset is this Rich world of
your conscious experiences when I look
at my cat
my headset only shows me fur and
something really cute and I believe that
behind that cute little icon in my my
interface my headset there is a real
Consciousness but I have less insight
into the Consciousness than I have into
a human with a mouse even less with an
ant even less and then when I get to
things that I call rocks and you know
protons and neutrons I have no Insight
at all
no surprise the whole point of a headset
is to simplify things
does this conscious entity need to eat
very interesting because that gets to
what
see this is now outside of space and
time it's not Evolution it's not food
and so forth so the question is what are
these agents up to what are they doing
what's the why are they having any kind
of actions at all
and
the answer is I don't know yet I've got
a mathematical definition of conscious
agent we're starting to play with
dynamical systems of them and as to the
question of why they would have any
Dynamic why would Consciousness do
something as opposed to nothing what
what kind of answer could be deep enough
or at least what what kind of proposal
could be deep enough and I I've only had
one idea ever that I've heard that seems
deep enough to at least be on the table
and that's Consciousness all the way
down well no I'm saying if we assume his
Consciousness all the way down what are
all those consciousnesses up to what is
the social network doing and why okay so
the idea is The Social Network what's
the one idea so so the one idea is the
girdle is in completeness theorem right
so if Consciousness is all there is
conscious agents are all there is yep
then mathematical structure is only
about Consciousness and conscious agents
because that's all there is
and that means girdle telling us
that there's endless exploration of
mathematical structure means there's
endless exploration of the possible
kinds and varieties of Consciousness and
conscious agents and what Consciousness
is up to is is what I call the kid in
the candy store Theory
girdle tells us there's an infinite
candy store of exploration of possible
conscious structure and the candy is all
the variations of conscious experience
Consciousness and conscious experiences
that's right and that's I'm not saying
it's right but at least it's deep enough
all right that it could be you know it's
on the table
okay so here's the good news I I am the
guy that's uh dumb enough to like need
everything explained and hopefully that
will be useful to the audience uh okay
so
I've got this infinite candy store of
Consciousness the thing I cannot get
past is there's some there is utility in
creating the headset otherwise why the
[ __ ] would it exist so if there is
utility in the creation of the headset
first of all I get it probably begs
questions that you you don't know and
it's beyond the the scope and you've
already asked me to just accept that the
miracle is consciousness and you're not
going to tell me anything beyond that
because nobody has a Theory of
Everything respect get that but I want
to poke in the spirit of fun partly and
then just to see like where the sort of
edge cases are sure all right so we
don't know if conscious entities need to
eat and the reason that I asked that
question was because all of this starts
with you looking at Fitness and so if
there is Fitness into taking multiple
bites of the Apple therefore logic is
going to be born out of that so that I
know to keep eating the Apple
but then it begs a question of well what
am I underneath the visor underneath the
headset just right keep our nomenclature
consistent what am I beneath the headset
and why does it matter that I have a
representation that
that is based in the idea of Fitness of
eating an apple right so that's where
I'm like what what is that a
representation of why does this
representation need to exist like have
you I'm sure you've daydreamed about
this even okay let's hear it those are
the fun questions right that's that's
what we're really interested in is ask
answering those questions and
so we're going at it in two different
directions one is you know sitting back
in our armchairs and trying to think
like girdles in completeness theorem and
so forth and saying could this be can I
repeat what girdle's incompleteness
theorem is it's the one part of this I'm
nodding and smiling but I'm like the
[ __ ] is he talking about uh so it goes
something like this and you will tell me
where I'm wrong so uh in fact God can I
even articulate what I think I'm going
to Fumble through this okay I I don't
even I feel like I understand a middle
piece of it I don't know where it begins
or where it ends but that we have some
sort of mathematical equation that says
you're never going to find the limit to
which you can uh explore one thing but I
don't get why that thing is girdle's
incompleteness serum has nothing to do
specifically with Consciousness right no
no somebody leveraging that to explain
why is it then that Consciousness is the
only thing that you've seen put on the
table that ties into that oh well so oh
Okay the reason I went after
Consciousness was I've been trying to
solve What's called the hard problem of
Consciousness how is consciousness
related to brain activity yes and so
people have been trying to show how
consciousness
can be booted up from brain activity and
we've utterly failed to do that or how
the illusion of Consciousness could be
booted up from brain activity and there
are no mathematics absolutely no
mathematically precise theories after
Decades of effort that could explain
even one specific conscious experience
or one specific illusion of conscious
experience like the taste of vanilla or
why we why this kind of brain activity
must be the illusion of the taste of
vanilla why it could not be the illusion
of the taste of chocolate there's
nothing on the table I mean there's no
science that can predict even one
specific conscious experience or one
specific illusion of conscious
experience and
so the reason I went after Consciousness
being fundamental the reason I went
after that that's different from girdles
in completeness there was that I didn't
want to be a dualist right so when as
scientists we try to create a theory
based on as few assumptions as possible
and we only want one kind of assumption
we don't want to have like I want this
physical stuff and I want this
Consciousness stuff you you have to
choose pick either physical stuff that's
unconscious or pick Consciousness stuff
that's not physical but don't don't do
both if you do both that's dualism and
and this not is not as clean maybe we'll
have to but we don't want to go there so
so maybe dualism will end up being where
we have to go but I'm not going to start
there I'm going to start with
physicalism doesn't seem to be working
out it seems to be principled and
politicalism is that you can stack
enough neurons together that they
suddenly become conscious that's right
space and time are fundamental
and that's where this what evolution is
basically saying
physicalism is false that's why I went
after Evolution natural selection says
the language of space and time
is not the language of objective reality
that means physicalism as we currently
conceive of it is false
we can't boot up Consciousness from
neural activity because neural activity
is just
a data structure in your headset
neurons do not exist when they're not
perceived they couldn't possibly create
Consciousness they're not even there
Consciousness I'm proposing creates
neurons when we look inside skulls but
neurons could not possibly create
Consciousness and I was forced to that
by looking at natural selection
so I'm proposing that if I believe that
I really do have headaches and I really
do taste chocolate and I really do have
conscious experience and again I could
be wrong about that it could be an
illusion and just to be clear in fact we
never finished this because I'm still
I'm just Paralyzed by girdles and
completeness Theorem but we're going to
move on from that to not browbeat the
poor audience
um so going back to uh this network of
conscious agents you're saying and and
this gets into the part about the brain
I want to talk about so split brain
patients can have an experience of being
literally two separate people so you go
in you cut the corpus callosum so
everybody to your point for a minute I'm
going to assume that the brain actually
exists sure uh so you go and you cut the
corpus callosum which allows for
communication between the two
hemispheres of the brain and suddenly
you realize that two personalities will
emerge within the same head
um do they they don't both have internal
dialogue do they
they have different likes and dislikes
but do they have internal because one
side handles language so they both do
they both have language perfect so the
right hemisphere is very Adept at
language
fascinating so they both have language
one could be an atheist the other devout
which is so crazy and that's a real
example right from the literature my
friend vs ramachandran um has a video
online you can Google that and say you
know split brain patient rhomacondren
this patient has you know atheist and a
Believer and one you know I think in his
case the right hemisphere didn't believe
in the left hemisphere was a Believer
it's crazy I've never seen the video but
that's oh it's it's great one case the
right hemisphere wanted to be a race car
driver the left hemisphere wants to be a
draftsman
they have just completely different
personalities they can play 20 Questions
with each other you can give a word to
the right hemisphere in the left
hemisphere will will sometimes fail in
20 questions I can't figure out what's
in the right hemisphere's head whoa so
there so there are separate contents of
Consciousness so separate that you can
lose at the game of 20 questions with
your other hemisphere you can reboot
your life your health even your career
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today
your that would be a very sort of
simplistic example of two different
conscious agents that have come together
that's right that's and that's the idea
so you are one conscious agent I but
well the way that I perceive myself is
as one conscious agent but more secretly
I just a whole bunch of conscious agents
well that's that's the thing you are
it's both are true so you are one
conscious agent but you're also two and
you're also probably a huge lattice of
interacting conscious ages you know the
microbiome yeah a little bit yeah okay
so in your gut you have like trillions
of bacteria it's crazy you have more
foreign cells in your body than you have
your own cells uh would they be
conscious agents nothing in space-time
strictly speaking is a consultation but
do they not represent something that's
another thing okay I'm sure resisted
asking you this question because I think
I know how you will answer it the very
like no one knew the microbiome existed
right so if this is all in my headset
how is something so detailed that once
somebody looks it's like oh my God it's
proliferating right there's all this
stuff how can we discover something new
if it's literally just made up like the
first time that somebody cracked open a
skull why did everyone look at it and
see the same brain the first time we
looked into the microbiome why do we all
see the same thing shouldn't a novel
thing that Evolution did not prepare us
to see and understand like how do we all
see the same thing now I think I
actually know how you're going to answer
it right because once you have a good
visualization tool it depends on where
you take it so I could take my
visualization tool for the twitterverse
right and I can zoom in on Irvine to
look very very close and I can zoom back
and look at the whole United States and
see what that looks like so a good
visualization tool for a social network
let you zoom in and out let's say it
doesn't that assume that everything oh
god let's see if I can articulate this
doesn't that assume that tweets are a
substrate that is universal so that uh
the the the first image that came to
mind was why the hell the first time
somebody's got their head bashed open
did everyone see brain the same way and
I thought okay well he's going to say
that the reason they did is because you
have a facsimile in the headset for
um
tissue that's made from atoms and so
like that that visual structure it
doesn't care like what it is it's
photoreceptors taking in I see this much
uh light on this receptor or this on
that all that so it's like hey I have a
system for dealing with visuals and
therefore when photons bounce off of
this thing it's going to construct
something and I understand things about
3D and mushiness and texture and all
that and so my brain is programmed for
that so no matter what you put in front
of it it's it's going to see that I
assume that is correct roughly but this
is the it's more like if you are trying
to look at the twitterverse
and you have a you if you design a
really good tool and it'll let you zoom
in what's happening just in your block
versus in your city versus in your
county versus in your state versus your
country versus the whole world versus
Europe and so forth if the tool is
really good it's going to let you you
will see different kinds of structures
as you move in maybe it's very very all
the same in my block where you know we
all have similar ideas and we do the
same thing or in my my County but it'll
be very different and so so the reason
we see right when you look inside of a
brain you are not just and you see all
these neurons and so forth you're not
just one agent you're two you're a whole
lattice of conscious agents what we're
doing is using our visualization tool to
look at the whole list of conscious
agents that are together forming you so
we're using that visualization tool to
look and find your finder detail at
agents that perhaps are having smaller
and smaller
set subconscious conscious experience we
don't really know that it's a one-to-one
relationship between a cell or whatever
and whatever yeah it's going to be money
to one that's right so for example I
mean I see someone I call Tom in front
of me but that's I see one Tom but my
theory is proposing that that there are
countless conscious agents that I'm
interacting with there's one highest
level conscious agent but immediately
blow out there too though I associate
with what I call the left and right
Hemisphere and then below each of those
there's countless more and there's more
than one personality in Tom the right
left hemisphere agents probably have
very very different personalities it
seems to be a general Trend they're
they're very very different and who
knows what goes among all those agents
all the way down so my visualization
tool of course all I see right now is
skin hair and eyesight that is pretty
simple compared to what I'm claiming
really good looking skin very very good
and it's a really complicated and
intelligent the network of conscious
agents but I see just very very little
but when I look and see when someone
looks inside and sees a brain the 86
billion neurons they're seeing there is
my visualization tool telling me there
is a lot of conscious agents in a really
complex social network going on here
that's what I'm seeing is 86 billion
neurons and then when we get down to
chemistry
which is you know explode that's even
more more complicated now you know
saying well my interface is starting to
give up because you're not seeing much
about Consciousness with with neurons
you might be getting some notion of
networking and exchanging information
maybe it's a you know biochemistry
you're not seeing that quite as well I'm
going to get down to you know quarks and
gluons you may be giving up but there's
tons and tons of quarks and gluons and
that's my interface telling me look I
can I'm showing you a lot about Tom I'm
not showing you too much about his two
hemispheres you know the two agents I'm
showing you very very little but you
know I'll show it to you what you call
you know
86 billion neurons and then and
eventually my interface is going to have
to just give up because I mean the whole
point of the interface is the network of
conscious agents is too complicated for
you to grok you can't grock it so we
I'll give it to you one agent at a time
here's Tom
not even Tom's left and right hemisphere
just Tom and then all the agents if you
want to you know you can get out you
know if Tom will let you he can we can
go in there and look in his brain and we
can yeah that's right that's right so
that's why the tool
is showing us more complexity all the
way down it's it's a vast social network
and each agent isn't just a standalone
we're a combination of many many other
agents that's going to be one part of
the theory that's really interesting is
mathematically precisely looking at all
the ways that agents can combine
but agents do combine we'll be going to
some new mathematics I think something
called um
infinite categories in topoi where
infinite categories what infinite
catches category Theory and it's called
Infinity categories
and also teleport Theory some some
tolpoi t-o-p-o-i right the hell is that
it's some fairly abstract mathematics
that allows you to
economically start to describe countless
other ways of interaction and so what I
want to I mean I have a few ways that my
current
mathematical models which just uses
things called markovian kernels and
measurable spaces obviously plotting for
what I mean most mathematicians would
say it's fairly plotting but but it's
it's it's it works and it's it's real
math we can start with that and then go
to these you know category theories and
so forth to actually get the full
richness of all the kinds of ways that
they could could connect and interact
and so I want to go after that but the
the one question you asked earlier was
why does it look like we have to eat and
do the conscious agents themselves have
to eat and what are they up to and how
can we know and here's here's my answer
to them
first
I don't know the answer so so here's how
I'm going to go after it first I I am
thinking like girdles in complete and
serum we can come back to it that might
be a deep
motivation for the whole Dynamics but
suppose I'm that's wrong and I realize
it's wrong and I realize I'm just not
smart enough
and my team is just not smart enough to
figure out what conscious agents are up
to and why they're doing it and so forth
what the here's what we're going to have
to do
we're going to have to propose a
mathematical projection from the
Dynamics of conscious agents into space
and time
and propose how that Dynamics gets
represented in terms of for example
quarks and gluons interacting right now
I'm studying scattering amplitudes at
the Large Hadron Collider I want to show
how I can predict scattering amplitudes
when two gluons hit four gluons go
spring out from
dynamics of consciousness
the the reason for doing that is that if
I'm not well in a couple reasons but one
is if I'm not smart enough to figure out
what conscience is about what I'll then
do is say here's a mapping in that gives
me back space time now now that I don't
know what's happening in space time I'm
going to pull it backwards and say what
does that tell me about the Dynamics of
Consciousness and I'll go oh I never
thought about that so so conscious
agents have to be interacting this way
for it to look like this in my headset
so if I'm too stupid to figure it out
and it's very very likely I will have to
take my theory of conscious agents
project it into my headset and say what
would it look like oh I'm getting the
wrong answer okay so I need to change my
dynamics of Consciousness this way so it
really looks like the scattering
amplitudes of quarks and gluons in the
Large Hadron Collider and when I get
that match then I'll go okay this is at
least one dynamics of Consciousness that
gives me the right answer in my headset
now what does it telling me about what
Consciousness is up to so if I'm not if
we're not smart enough to do it from
first principles and I want to do it for
first principles but if I can't I'll try
to reverse engineer relativity Theory
evolution by natural selection quantum
mechanics reverse engineer all of those
pull them back to the realm of conscious
agents look what they're saying about
these social dynamics and then try to
get a clue about what that's about and
answer questions like am I forced to
think that they need to eat or is there
some deeper principle is is it for
example that I can only send an
experience to another agent if an agent
sends an experience to me is there is
there that kind of dynamics that and and
is it going to be like
um the small world networks we see for
example in the internet where you get
big hubs
like Google and apple which get lots of
hits
and then tiny little guys like Hoffman
who gets almost no hits and then a few
in between but but you get this and and
there's in some sense the number of
social connections you have is in some
sense your notion of fitness
the creators of Google are billionaires
Hoffman's not a billionaire there's a
correlation between the number of hits
that Google had gets the number of hits
often gets and the difference in
richness now is that a deep
property of these conscious agent
networks or not see these are the and
this is what was fun about science I
don't know the answer
evolution of natural selection has told
me it's not in space and time
is saying it's not this is all a headset
you're going to have to think a
scientist out of the headset but I can't
tell you what's outside the headset so
we have to be very imaginative
and we have to choose what we're going
to go after because of course we're
probably going to be wrong so you need
to choose what you think is going to be
interesting I'm going after
Consciousness because I'm trying to
solve this hard problem of how is
consciousness related to our brain
activity
and the mathematics is forcing me to see
this vast social network if I bring it
to Consciousness there's this whole
network
but I don't know what it's about
all the science that we've ever done all
the science that's ever been done so far
has only been in our headset
Quantum field Theory assumes space time
the fields are defined over space-time
relativity is space-time and evolution
of natural selection has been about what
evolves in space-time
all of our science which is very very
good science has been
in our headset we've never really
stepped out of our headset but science
has the tools there is some initial work
there's a guy named Nima or Connie Hamed
at Princeton uh Institute for best city
Princeton who I think is taking some
really important steps beyond the
headset because he's already realized
space-time is doomed and so he is
already being very adventurous and
stepping outside of space-time looking
for mathematical structures in which
space and time and quantum mechanics do
not appear okay this is where things
start to break a little for me so I'm
gonna articulate what I think you have
said
um about because all of this was born
for you you basically said you have two
choices you can either keep space time
and get rid of evolution or you can keep
Evolution and get rid of space-time and
your argument goes like this and
obviously stop me where I go wrong
that all Evolution cares about is
Fitness payoffs there are certain
behaviors that must be taken in order
for you to have children that have
children and there's so much data coming
in that like looking at a desk or a
table or something would simply be a
string of numbers that dictate the
number of photons reflecting off that
coming back and you could interpret that
as different colors and brightness and
all that but in reality it is just the
math of that situation
and what you see around you is something
to simplify that so that you only have
to render what you're looking at when
you look away it ceases to exist there's
just the overwhelming complexity it
would paralyze any animal so the
evolutionary strategy that was chosen is
this crazy simplification that we exist
in which is very convincing but it's
ultimately a convincing lie and isn't
real so I'm like okay cool I can
actually get behind that where it breaks
down for me is what's actually evolving
like something needed this
simplification what is that something
right so there's so there's got to be a
deeper Dynamics right there's some
deeper dynamics that in space-time looks
like Evolution but natural selection
that's what it looks like inside of our
headset but but there has to be some
deeper Dynamics and I I've only had one
idea
that I've run across that seems deep
enough I'm not saying it's right
but it's there's at least but but this
idea will tell you how deep we have to
go to at least get a contender so if
Consciousness is doing something if it's
quote unquote evolving but not from a
natural selection point of view just
stop by evolving I just mean it has some
kind of Dynamics and the question is why
what what is it up to you what is
consciousness up to right because now
that the typical stuff of trying to get
food and and procreation that that
doesn't apply outside of space and time
presumably right it need not might not
apply so what's the deeper thing
the only idea that I've seen that's deep
enough
um comes from something called girdles
in completeness theorem yeah I struggled
with this in the last interview now I
think I have it mastered
oh okay well then you're better than me
because girls girdle's theorem is
unbelievably deep but um but but
basically what girdle said without going
into the details is there is no end
in principle no end to the exploration
of Novel mathematical structure
even in quote unquote God could never
know it all it's there's always going to
be an unbounded inquiry ahead no matter
how much you know there's unbounded
structure left to explore and if we make
the Assumption and now I'm just speaking
as a scientist like saying look I don't
know what the truth is we put some ideas
on the table and see where they go right
that's that's how you do science so
maybe everything I'm saying is wrong but
I'm trying to be precise so we can
figure out where it's from so if we
assume that Consciousness is all is
really the fundamental reality a bunch
of these conscious agents The Social
Network and if that's all that there
really is
then the only thing that mathematical
structure can be about
is consciousness
that's all it's about because that's all
there is so girdle's theorem then would
say
because there's an unbounded and
never-ending possibility for exploration
of mathematical structure
that means there's a never-ending and
unbounded possibility for the
exploration of varieties of conscious
experience
in other words consciousness
is like a kid in a candy store
it but it's an infinite candy store I
call it girdles candy store it's a
never-ending exploration that is in
principle
never ending
it's not like you can ever come to the
end of it and so that is deepening I'm
not saying it's right but it's deep
enough to be a real Contender why should
Consciousness be doing anything at all
well here's one reason because no matter
how much Consciousness explores its
possibilities it could never come to the
end of its own possibilities and so it's
in a never-ending
self-exploration and what you we call
Tom and Don are just parts of this
overall exploration of of Consciousness
and all of its possibilities and you
know our little bit that we're exploring
right now as rich as it seems to us is
trivial
literally trivial compared to all the
possibilities that girdle says are out
there and we get some feeling of the
triviality but I can imagine a square
I can imagine a cube
now go up one more Dimension imagine a
cube in four dimensions
my brain halts and my mind catches on
fire nothing happens that's only four
dimensions I can't even go to four
dimensions I mean how that that's
terrible is it's just an incredible
limitation I can only see three
dimensions of color red you know sort of
a
red green Dimension blue yellow and and
and and so forth light and dark we have
three cone systems and and so forth
there are some pigeons too that have
four color receptors presumably they're
in an extra dimension of color that I
can't even imagine what it's like can
you imagine a specific color you've
never seen before right try to imagine
one specific color you've never so as
rich as our world seem we know that
there's a rich possibility of conscious
experiences that we can't even
concretely imagine but Consciousness
itself on this theory is exploring all
these possibilities and right now we're
sort of stuck on this little headset
three dimensions small amount of color
that we can see and so forth Just I mean
we thought it was the whole world no
it's just it's a little headset it's a
it's a prism right it's it's it's for me
I realized I'm sort of stuck I mean it's
just like my imagination is stuck in
only three dimensions my colors are
stuck in a certain range Consciousness
itself is exploring the vast
possibilities of that's going on so that
now here's the challenge suppose we
chase that down as we say okay there's
going to be this ongoing dynamics of
Consciousness constantly
going beyond what it knows
exploring the candy store further and
further well there's several things to
say about that one is
that's not the candy store makes it
sound like all fun and games right oh
but there's going to be a a dark side to
it because going into the unknown means
letting go of what you know
and that can be terrifying so this
suggests that Consciousness is going to
have this thing going on all the time of
the exhilaration and the terror
of going literally into the unknown
where literally you don't have Concepts
all of your current concepts are
inadequate and this is what what girdles
is saying what these are going to be new
structures that that transcend so for
those who meditate I mean when you go
into silence
it's both healing and terrifying right
if you really let go of all thoughts you
and go into the void it's it's sort of
it can be scary like you want to go back
into you you grab back onto your it's a
life jacket right you grab on to your
teddy bear your thoughts so there's
going to be this
to really go into new conceptual
Frontiers you have to let go of old
Concepts so there's going to be that
aspect to it which is sort of a
spiritual side but there's no suspect to
making progress
I think so I I think that what's the
central question for you so and I'll
Prime You by telling you my essential
question sure the central question in
all of this that I find interesting is
what is the correlate so
um I I'm in this VR experience
to the advantage of something and I want
to know what that something is it isn't
me as I perceive me
um but it's something
right so what's your essential question
right but the well the answer is I I
don't know but and so there's no
specific thing that you're chasing
well what I'm chasing is the idea that
that we're chasing that the
Consciousness itself is only about
exploring new possibilities of
experience
okay so I'm gonna push on that you let's
go into the way that AI researchers
think and work and I know that was your
degree so this ought to be I'm taking
you right home
um you have to imbue the robot with
directives desires right so to put it in
human terms it's like there are certain
things that humans want to do we um
we're an active species so we tend to go
and explore uh we try to take control of
our environment we certainly eat
procreate like all those we have the
drive to quench thirst hunger sex so on
and so forth so like those things are
pushing us to go do things even if we
don't want to we find ourselves
compelled to seek pleasure to move away
from pain all right by default AI
wouldn't have those so now you've got to
give those those things and I love that
concept of minus a desire any entity
just sits or is blown around by
um physics right so
obviously we're in the headset now but
like you've got wind and so okay
something lighter than the wind is going
to move but otherwise everything just
sits so what is it like what how has
this conscious entity in that question
that you just posed
been given some sort of impetus to
explore the infinite candies in the
infinite candy shop
well by the way I'm on board with what
you're saying I think that that's really
a good way of thinking about this and
that you could think about our your life
and my life right now is we're in a
simulator a space-time simulator and
we've been given like an AI system we've
been given certain
intrinsic
desires that we then find and so so so
my wife is an artist
that's how she's exploring I I am still
stuck at third grade stick figures so
that's not how I'm exploring I'm
exploring in a different way so so so
there's billions of humans and there are
billions of different ways that we
explore in music in art and literature
in science various kinds of science
meditation so we're it's Sports there
are all sorts of ways that Consciousness
is exploring
um through through us and there is not
like one is the best or that what makes
Consciousness want to go to all the
assay to create this VR experience to
run each of us as sort of an individual
experience
in Consciousness the idea would be that
that is what Consciousness is about is
the exploration of all of its
possibilities so is that just the
miracle like I've now hit the part where
you're like I don't [ __ ] know this is
the miracle well well yeah and and when
we when we say that
um that's something that we have to say
is true of any explanation right any
explanation at some point
we say if you grant me these assumptions
then with those assumptions I can
explain everything else so and I totally
buy into that here here is the base
assumption I've always made about the
miracle that the whole point is to say
hey everybody I've got this Theory
here's my Miracle check it out Theory
works right yeah yeah wow this is better
than everything okay the only reason
I've told you about this thing is so you
can tell me how to move the miracle back
even farther
or are you just like cool I'm good with
that miracle and now I just want to
explore
within that where that Miracle is or
well so I want to do both so so for this
this miracle is so new that I you know I
need to explore it a little bit right so
so I want to push on this one but but
the Miracles I'm proposing are
Consciousness is fundamental so
experiences themselves don't come from
physics
they are fundamental so that's a miracle
and second
um this other miracle that that girdle
proved where he proved it but it's still
a miracle right
the incompleteness of mathematics that
you can that there's endless exploration
that's just a fact which is a remarkable
in fact we've proved it but it's
nevertheless this why should the
universe be that way why should logic
demand that that's so that's but it's a
satisfying kind of end point where we
say that's the way the world is here's
the theorem that says that's the way the
universe is and that that one theorem
tells us why
if you're up to exploration then have
fun because you will always there's no
getting there that's the key there's no
arriving
girdle's incompleteness theorem in a
real world example because this one
anybody that watches the first episode I
must ask you 75 questions about this
theorem and I just could not get my head
around it and now uh the punchline is as
far as I can tell it's Turtles all the
way down so
um girdles incompleteness theorem as I
understand it says no matter how much
you use math to try to find base reality
you will never find it there is no end
there will always be another layer to
discover on and on and on and on and on
literally for Infinity
right so I can say a little bit more
about what what girdle was up to on that
and how it relates so so girdle was the
question they were asking it was a
mathematical question that is if you
write down a bunch of axioms right some
these things are true these things are
just give me the two points Define a
line two lines intersected give me a few
things like that and then you ask what
are all the theorems that you could
prove
from those assumptions
and and so you know so we did all this
in high school algebra and so forth we
would you know prove different things
but girdles the big question that
mathematicians had David Hilbert really
put put this out there was can we with
just grinding through these theorems and
proofs
get all mathematical truth
is that there's some finite number
there's maybe it's 6.7 million but we
can do it even if it's infinite in
principle if we could just grind forever
would we get all the truths and that was
so Hilbert asked that question and
girdle showed that the answer is no that
no matter how big your Axiom system is
how many axioms you've got he found a
way to show here's something that's true
but you can't prove it within your
axioms so now what so you can take that
new truth stick it as one of your axioms
and then he showed well there'll be
another truth
that now pops up and so this never ends
and so so no matter how so you can't
just mechanically grind through and get
all the truths and the key thing about
this which is really interesting for
Consciousness now
is girdle used self-reference
it's when you get a mathematical system
to talk about itself
that the problems start to arise and
that's really interesting it because
what I'm suggesting here is that
consciousness
is trying to understand itself in all of
its possibilities
and
because of that self-reference
it's a never-ending Enterprise
and you can sort of quietly draw a
parallel between math and consciousness
are they separable or Inseparable
entities
that's a really deep and important
question
I don't know here's here's just my
thoughts my
I study psychophysics which is a branch
of science which we experimentally and
mathematically study
conscious experiences your perceptions
of shape and color and so forth we write
down math models and we test people in
in the lab
every conscious experience has structure
and we can write down mathematical
structure I've never seen a conscious
experience that doesn't have
mathematical structure and the
structures derived from what what
neurons are firing and things like that
um well it sometimes it has nothing to
do with neurons at all for example in
color space you can talk about it seems
like red and orange are closer to each
other than red and green
that's a structural notion and we can
write we can write down what we call
color spaces and they turn out to be
these non-euclidean color spaces tarot
window and others um who did the
mathematics on on this come up with
these really interesting
complicated mathematical spaces which
model
um all the relationships of colors to
each other so we have color experience
and their structure
um when you see a shape like a ball we
can write down equations that model the
3D shape that you're experiencing
so there's an intimate connection
that's been studied scientifically
between conscious experience and
Mathematics the way I think of it is
that
consciousness
is to mathematics like the living
organism is to its bones
for if you're a vertebrate you need the
bones
but you're more than their bones
and and so that's the way I think about
Consciousness can't be reduced to
mathematics I don't think there are
others like tegmark who would say that
everything can be reduced to to
mathematics Max tegmark says that kind
of thing you know he may be right but
that's not what I'm saying I'm saying
that mathematics is the structural
aspect of conscious experience but
there's more to the conscious experience
than just the structure in part because
um so far as we know different kinds of
conscious experiences can be
structurally identical
so if and if that's the case meaning uh
something with the same structure could
have different qualia feel exactly right
that's right so is that context
dependence
how see well that's now where I'm
getting to the edge of my understanding
here it's it's I did actually prove a
theorem is called the scrambling theorem
I published it in 2006 where I proved
that that your colors could be scrambled
with respect to mine
but we would be functionally identical
in every single experiment we could do
so there was no structural thing that I
could do to show that your color
experiences were different from my color
experiences so so your experiences
aren't devoid of mathematical structure
but the mathematical structure isn't the
whole story about your conscious
experiences that that's the best I can
say right now and I agree with you if if
that feels like we need to press further
on that I couldn't agree more we do need
to press further on that and and I look
forward to because I think there some
profound insights are yet to be revealed
so wear this all to me I'm so curious
like I'm always trying to find how is
something usable right how does this
come back so
um if it reveals something about myself
and how I can move through the world in
a way that's more interesting more
fulfilling more whatever
um if it actually the the big thing
between last one and this one was the
idea that space time is as malleable as
video game code and that we really could
even though it would only be an
experience in the headset that suddenly
things within the headset like faster
than light travel suddenly become very
real we just have to figure out what the
real substance of the headset code is so
that we can get in there and begin to
make changes
but that to me forces the question of
the me that I perceive as me is
inherently an object of the uh the
headset so there is there is no me
outside of the headset but there is
something outside of the headset and I
don't know if if our minds maybe just
work so fundamentally differently but as
we talk about this is what I start
imagining okay hey Tom this is a
collection of different
um
conscious beings and Consciousness is
the the you know the driving force and
it's running through all these
experimentations and so I'm like oh okay
cool uh there's this thing underneath
the 3D and it's you know essentially
popping up all these different well let
me see what the color blue would be like
for a kid that grew up in Tacoma
Washington and went to Harvard
Elementary you know what I mean and like
oh that's interesting and then but like
needed my entire sort of life and
universe to go for it to truly be an
infinite exploration of what these
different things so there's a me that
they spun up just to know the color blue
at the age of 44. you know what I mean
have with this exact history and then
there's oh over here I'm gonna do that
same test but I want to know what salmon
tastes like when you had the early bad
experience with salmon as a kid but
later you fall in love with this girl
who's really into salmon what does
salmon taste like then and so that's
like where my mind goes right and so now
I'm imagining like this
consciousness of some kind maybe it too
is the Borg and you know maybe the Borg
is what's feeding its drivers and all of
that but I'm still trying to imagine
like my brain immediately goes to
there's a thing and that thing in my
mind is basically the most classic
looking alien ever but they have like
these long fingers that like each finger
is uh an entity that becomes this uh a
conscious entity living in the the
headset just to go oh cool that's what
that experience is like do you have any
sort of
analogy metaphor that you think about
this stuff in or is this just because I
have a limited brain I'm not sure no I I
I love your metaphor and I don't have a
better one and
I you know there's a couple things to
say about that metaphor though which is
um one
in some sense you know a lot of
spiritual teachers tell us to relax and
enjoy the ride
right don't get all anxious don't get
all bent out of shape and so forth rich
or poor whatever you might be enjoy the
ride and in some sense when you do that
it feels right I mean it feels like I
mean of course I'm I'm exploring I'm not
being lazy I'm not but but but there's
there's something about hey you know
smell the roses enjoy this thing you
know you don't want to come to the end
of your life and and not have really
enjoyed the ride and and so the idea
that that it's it's about not arriving
anywhere
but but the joy of exploring for its own
sake that that's one thing that's on the
table here is it is that what it's about
now there's another thing I've put on
the table though which is
of course
we should be very modest about all of
our claims here I'm probably wrong right
about about all of this right and but as
a scientist what I want to do then is to
say well how can we go about trying to
figure out where we're wrong as fast as
possible and for me what I'm doing I
mean while I'm exploring these ideas
that we're talking about
I'm also trying to say how would
consciousness
precisely this this vast social network
project mathematically into space-time
clearly there's a projection I'm
interacting with Tom's Consciousness I'm
not seeing that Consciousness I'm seeing
skin hair and eyes I'm seeing a
space-time projection I'm not actually
seeing your emotions I'm not seeing your
mood but I am genuinely interacting with
your experiences it's a genuine
interaction
and so there is a projection from this
conscious realm into space-time I want
to get a mathematically precise model of
that projection the thing about gluons
and this Large Hadron Collider
predicting that is just not because I'm
so interested in gluons is just to make
sure that I'm not bsing myself did I get
the mapping right if I can't predict
blue on interactions then I still have
my homework to do but now once I get
that here's the kicker
we can take what we understand in the
headset and pull it backwards
if we can project from Consciousness to
the headset then we can try at least to
go from the headset and pull backwards
it's a fallible Enterprise but it may
help us
to open our minds to the possibilities
for deeper theories of what's going on
outside the headset so so the reason I'm
doing this is because I I can't even
imagine a specific color that I've never
seen before I can't imagine in four
dimensions in other words I take it as a
given
that I'm deeply deeply Limited in my
imagination
and I need all the tools I can get to
help me step outside of my headset and
try to guess
the unfathomable outside of there so
that's why we want to get this
mathematically precise mapping into
space-time and then pull it back to to
give us a guide that can help us to not
just be wildly speculating about what's
going on in the realm of Consciousness
but to have more tailored ideas that we
can test in a loop I get ideas in my
headset I pull them back to what they
might mean outside the headset take
those ideas play with them project them
back into the headset to get new
predictions so in other words we if we
don't want to BS ourselves we have to
figure out a way to make this an
experimental
scientific Enterprise and that's the
loop but this is a bigger scientific
Loop it goes outside the space-time
headset to a theory of what's going on
in Consciousness projecting back into
space-time which is the only place where
we know that how to do experiments and
going through that Loop so science is up
to the task
but
here's the kicker for me as a scientist
this approach says there will be no
Theory of Everything
why not
because girdle's theorem says you just
there's too much you can't bring it all
together any theorist is gonna have a
finite set of assumptions
and the implications of that will be
finite yeah well we'll could have such a
a deep theory of so many things that
I mean it's there's always a new sort of
theorem to discover but does that in any
way shape or form break because here's
here's my understanding of why people
are searching for a theory of everything
you've got Einstein Newton dealing with
the macro world and then you've got the
quantum dealing with the microscopic
world and for whatever reason all of
your predictive models when things are
big they work just fine all of your
modeling when it's small works just fine
but when you try to make either one of
them work together then it falls apart
but we are I could see sort of closing
the loop on that that becomes an
everything right even though it's
actually just a very small subset right
it's the headset and so it's not the you
know the true Theory of Everything But
if it allows you to unify sort of the
known universe that seems like it would
be incredibly useful and I'm assuming
there's some there is something for us
to understand like that Loop you were
talking about that goes and takes in
Consciousness comes back into the
headset that we could create a loop so
I'll I'll make this more concrete again
thinking maybe more as a writer than as
um a physicist for sure but so when I
was thinking about okay the big bang and
things expand what are they expanding
into
um and
the idea that a universe could sort of
pop in and out of exists like how's all
this possible and one idea that's put
forth is that basically the the
everything so I'll hesitate to call it
the universe but the everything whatever
that is is like a foam and every bubble
is a universe and the bubbles sort of
come and go and you're in the bubble all
you see is the bubble the bubble to use
seems like everything but if you were to
actually puncture through that bubble
out now I'm in the you know the bigger
Matrix of stuff and so you you begin to
understand how you get a temporary
limitation but actually then once you
see what's beyond you like oh I get it
and then girdle's incompleteness theorem
answers the question of okay but what's
that goop sitting in oh it's sitting in
this space what's that spacing oh it's
sitting in this oh [ __ ] girdle right
and you're just like it goes on and on
forever but you would like at some point
being able to predict seven you know
bubbles on it's like hat do I really
need to go to the infinite there's just
as long as if the you poke through one
bubble and all of a sudden all physics
are backwards and it doesn't make sense
okay that would be problematic but
assuming you're just puncturing through
to the next thing that's exactly like
where you currently are seems like you
could come up with something unifying
ish right so instead of turtles all the
way down this girdles all the way down
right it's just it's just
endless exploration and girdle's Theorem
could be like the Deep meta Theory it's
not the theory of everything it's sort
of a meta theory that tells us why we
will constantly be exploring for new
theories so if if you were looking for
the deepest Theory from this point of
view maybe I think about it but maybe
girdle's theorem would be this meta
theory that explains why all the
concrete theories will never be the
final Theory of Everything and so in
that sense maybe we with with girdle we
have I mean a candidate for this meta
Theory of Everything and which which
explains why
um the joy of exploration will never
cease
which is an interesting
but I I agree this is a really
interesting thing to to to try to
understand the scientists and and
we can use some of the tools that we've
been learning from Deep learning so deep
neural networks and so forth where we
get the agent-based models of
interaction for exploration and learning
so those those tools that like deepmind
um at Google
um has some papers recently where they
they've come to the same conclusion that
my team has come from Evolution they
found that instead of giving deep neural
networks a strict model of the world
that they want them to make reasons in
or to make guesses in or to to live in
um they just give them as you were
saying some some payoffs some you know
positive and negative rewards for their
behaviors and they don't tell them about
the world they just let the the Deep
neural network explore explore and they
build their own
and worlds and it turns out they don't
build worlds which mimic the truth they
build virtual realities which are a
dumbed down user interface that let them
get the most rewards and they don't see
the truth so we actually so there's some
papers I can give you a link to some
papers some from deepmind in the last
couple years where they've stumbled onto
the same thing that Evolution has
stumbled onto that that
um you know the exploration never leads
to the truth that leads to this the an
easy interface which sort of
doesn't maximize but which satisfices it
gives you what you need to uh in terms
of the rewards
and I would like to say one thing that
an objection that people will have at
this point some people go you know this
is crazy
um of course we see the truth I I know
enough truth not to get hit by that car
and we know enough truth to build
computers and to to send Rockets to the
moon so this is completely enough to say
that we we don't know the truth and and
from what we've said now people might be
able to understand what I'm about to say
or guess what I'm about to say it's sort
of like if you're
um in one of the really neat little
programs right now that um where you can
build stuff so they're they're they're
building games like you know Roblox or
Trove or or fortnite or Minecraft and
and you know you can
you can become a master in one of those
worlds right and and so you might say
you can imagine a person saying well
what do you mean I'm not in reality I
can build these wonderful worlds I can
build all these tools I can do all this
great stuff in Minecraft or rope you
know in these various worlds of course
but and yeah within that quote unquote
reality of Minecraft yes you're seeing
that reality and you're building things
in that reality and it requires
intelligence and so forth but you're not
seeing again the circuits and the
software and the voltages that's the
real reality outside your Minecraft
world and so that's that's that's the
answer to someone who says well I know
enough about reality not to get hit by a
car and to build a computer and to send
you know Rockets to the Moon yes well
you're in your Minecraft world and we've
become very very good at that Minecraft
world I'm obsessed with the movie The
Matrix yes and in your dedication you I
forget the names of the three people but
you said I offer you the red pill which
I thought was pretty interesting so
what in your world what is the red pill
what is the red pill waking us up to
right most of us believe
that we see reality as it is when we
look up and see the moon
it's because there really is a moon and
it would exist even if there were no
observers to see the moon it would still
exist
and we don't believe that we see all of
reality no one thinks that we see
everything that there is to see but we
do believe that we've been shaped by
natural selection to see those aspects
of the truth that we need to see to stay
alive and so that our perceptions of
space and time
are giving us a genuine insight into a
real space and time that would be there
even if there were no observers to
perceive it and also our perception of
objects like tables and chairs the moon
quarks and leptons and so forth that
these things would also exist and have
roughly the properties that we see even
if there were no creatures no observers
to see them at all and
the red pill that I'm offering is to say
that if you believe
evolution of natural selection
then the mathematics of natural
selection makes it very very clear
that the probability of zero that any
of the language that we use in our
perceptions the language of space and
time the language of shapes and objects
in position and momentum and colors and
so forth is the wrong language to
describe objective reality whatever that
reality might be it's not that we're
getting the shape of this table a little
bit wrong or the colors a little bit off
it's that no description in the language
of space and time and objects and colors
could ever be be true
reality whatever it is can't be
described in that language if we buy
evolution by natural selection so we
have a choice between taking one of our
best confirmed scientific theories
seriously namely evolution by natural
selection or taking our intuitions that
space-time is fundamental and objects
are fundamental taking that intuition
seriously and I decided to side with
this science on this one all right so a
lot of this stuff is going to be really
difficult to tease out but I think we
have to sort of break it into points I
don't want to spend our whole time
um describing the theory we may get lost
for a fair amount of time in that but I
what I hope we can do is sort of lay out
the thinking and then get into some of
the implications why it matters and all
that good stuff so
if
I guess let's back up so tell me how
natural selection gives us the
mathematical model that invalidates all
that that's probably the right place to
start right most of us think of natural
selection and evolution as a biological
theory that that's that's sort of
intuitive right you know if you are
better adapted to the environment you're
more likely to pass on your genes and so
forth and but it turns out that in the
1970s a a brilliant guy named John
Maynard Smith was able to use the ideas
of evolution about natural selection and
the tools of mathematics in particular
uh Game Theory to create a new field
evolutionary game can you can you
explain Game Theory so the when I was
diving into your world when I was
reading the book when you talk about
miracles and I don't want to do this out
of order but you talk about like every
theory has sort of a base assumption
right it's like we can't we can't
explain that one so just please accept
that this is the the miracle as you call
it and then from here the rest of my
argument is going to make sense right
because I don't understand the math well
enough the math every time you mention
this and nobody pushes you on it I don't
understand the math well enough it feels
like the miracle to me but it isn't you
so what actually what is the math if we
can sort of say it at a at a lay
person's level what is the math how does
it show that there's a zero probability
that we're describing reality as it
actually exists right so so the
intuition behind using Game Theory for
evolution is very much like if you play
a video game right if you're playing a
video game you have to focus on getting
points as fast as you can if you get
enough in a short enough time you get to
the next level otherwise you die and
another evolution is very much like that
there's points they're called Fitness
payoffs and you have to gather them as
quickly as you can and if you get enough
roughly and you're short enough period
of time you don't go to the next level
but your genes in your children go to
the next level and so it's that's
roughly why we want to think about game
theoretic kinds of things but it's of
course it's more detail than what game
theory is literally that what survives
the next round yeah so game theory is
literally a mathematical theory of
strategies in games and how different
strategies May
be better or worse in certain
circumstances so for example if if you
if one game that our species plays is a
social cooperation game and when we were
hunter-gatherers if we all went out and
cooperated I went out and hunted
wildebeests and you went out and hunted
wildebeest and others gathered berries
and so forth we all worked hard and came
back at the end of the day if I didn't
get enough and you got more then you
might share with me and tomorrow I might
share with you so that's cooperation but
and so that works very very well that's
that's the strategy that we're talking
about how would we Define this game so I
was tempted to say okay so it's about
the people who have the strategy to win
this game called life but I'm not sure
that's actually how you define it would
it be the game called procreation right
okay so an evolution
Fitness is all all about procreation in
fact basically that's how it's defined
it's almost
um it almost sounds like it's a
tautology that Fitness being more fit
means that you're having more offspring
so whatever you do that lets you have
more offspring is by definition giving
you greater Fitness and so so in the
case of cooperation I mean that's not
the only strategy by which a species
could be successful at having Offspring
in the Next Generation but for Homo
sapiens that was a strategy that we did
use and in many social species do that
ants and bees and so forth but as soon
as you have that strategy of cooperation
then it turns out there's another
strategy that could be very fit and
that's cheating so I could pretend I'm a
loafer now I don't want to go out there
and put my life on the line in front of
a wildebeest and so I just go down to
the river I hide out and relax and take
it easy and come back go oh I worked
really hard today I couldn't find
anything could I share some of yours
well and and so so it turns out that
that strategy is very very fit in the
sense that I didn't put my life on the
line if you're willing to share with me
I'm going to survive someone have so
that strategy will actually proliferate
you all have kids I'll have more loafers
and so but it turns out if you if you
have too many loafers too many cheaters
then no one's bringing home the bacon
and the whole thing collapses and so you
get the idea that the the the
the fitness of a strategy depends on the
other strategies that are around if
everybody else is cooperating then being
a cheater is very very effective it's a
it's a fit strategy if everybody's a
cheater then it's not fit to be a
cheater because everybody's going to die
and so that's what we call frequency
dependent selection that the frequency
of a different of a strategy will affect
its Fitness and so that makes it more
complicated and that's why we have to do
mathematics it's you can actually with
mathematical Precision predict exactly
what proportion of the population will
be cheaters and What proportion will be
Cooperators once you know certain things
about the strategies and and their
payoffs and so it's that's why we use
evolutionary Game Theory it allows us to
go away from just intuitive
Notions of evolution and selection and
so forth to precise definitions of
strategies of their Fitness how they
interact when when three or four or four
five or n strategies interact what
happens like it's very very complicated
then our intuitions just give up but the
math can still carry on where our
intuitions give up okay so you partner
with a mathematician and did you have a
theory that you wanted to see if he
could write the the sort of algorithm
for or how did that work how did we end
up focusing on math right so
in about 2008 I decided I really wanted
to go after this because I had a
suspicion that Evolution would not favor
creatures that see reality as it is I
figured that it would
be too complicated and take too much
time
and it turned out that was correct but
but it was more interesting so I got a
couple of my graduate students working
on this I worked with them we learned
evolutionary Game Theory and we started
they wrote simulations and so we just
simulated
creatures with different strategies and
we let them see all of the reality or
none of the reality we let them just see
Fitness pay out give me some of the data
points so one of them is going to be
Fitness payoffs right when you're
writing in math
um like are you making this from a human
perspective are you taking this from an
ants perspective I've got to imagine the
math looks a differently depending on
the species strategy that's already
evolved sort of over evolutionary time
so oh God I can only imagine how
complicated this is but give me a give
me a couple of the variables so that
this stops being one of the Miracles for
me and I can really start to understand
sure so one kind of game that we had
them play was a foraging game so you
could think a big a big checkerboard or
a big chessboard when you had them play
what do you mean them the so so my
graduate students then had these
simulated creatures and we just plop
them down at random in this big huge
checkerboard okay and we had also
planted resources around on the
checkerboard and did you have to give
them incentives well in in some cases we
would just we would either allow the
them to evolve incentives so that was
what we called a genetic algorithm so we
started off and they were all stupid
they oops they all had random genes for
how they moved and how they would try to
feed and how they would perceive but
there had to be some sense of score
right so if we're using Game Theory
there has to be some sense of you have
an objective that objective is to gobble
the resources or whatever yeah so
certain resources that were just
randomly distributed on the checkerboard
gave you high Fitness payoffs some gave
you low Fitness payoffs and and so forth
so we just just defined as Fitness
payoff without anything beyond that
exactly they had they had a a driver if
you will to put it in human terms they
had a drive to acquire Fitness payoffs
right right got it at least in when we
when we program them now when we just
had the genetic algorithm there was no
drive at all the they they just what
would make them move so they they had to
do something but the genes were random
so they they would do stupid stuff like
they would stay in one spot and try to
eat and and they would get nothing and
they just keep trying to eat there the
whole time until that and they would
just die out right so in the first
generation right we did they have the
desire to eat and procreate like were
they looking to mate or how did you all
the only the only desire was we we told
them they had to do something every step
of the game
a list of items for them to choose from
eat move yeah yeah that's right eat and
move and that was pretty much it and
step yeah eat and move right and then
you had something on the back end that
said if they score this many number of
points then they essentially procreate
and they move on to the next Generation
if they don't they're dead that's
exactly okay got it so the first
generation pretty much all of them just
acted very stupidly they didn't get any
Fitness points or very very few some
bumped against walls and just kept
bumping into the walls and so we would
just breed the ones that were a little
bit less stupid than the rest and then
make a new generation of them and we did
that for four or five hundred
generations and then by the time we'd
done that 500 Generations we had
creatures that looked very purposeful
they were foraging in an almost optimal
pad pattern they weren't wasting any
time when they were getting high Fitness
payoffs and we could look at their
perceptions
and we found that they evolved
perceptions that didn't show them the
truth it showed them only Fitness
payoffs which was no surprise to me but
but what was a surprise was the reason
why it wasn't just that it was too
expensive to to see the truth it was
that
seeing the truth
and seeing what you need to survive are
very very different things
and and so so I went to a mathematician
once I had the simulations
and I realized that this looked like it
was a real result and then I gotten some
new ideas about what was really going on
so the simulations really taught me it
wasn't just that it was two-time and and
resource expensive to see the truth it
was that in some sense the truth is
completely irrelevant that that it's and
and also that the fitness payoffs
themselves don't tell you anything about
the truth they're just independent so I
went and and worked with a mathematician
named caitan prakash and
um we've worked together he's the
mathematician I'm I'm not and we have
and I've gotten some other collaborators
as well some very very good
collaborators and we have a couple
papers that we've now written where with
two different angles on on the theorem
and the bottom line is is this
um it's it's straightforward to prove
that well straightforward we have a
mathematician working with you
um but to prove that the
an organism that sees reality as it is
in whole or in part
is never morph it
then an organism of equal complexity
that sees none of reality whose senses
actually don't have the right language
to say reality
and is just instead tuned to the fitness
payoffs okay so this is sort of the
first thing that I trip over so
um I get where I could see that it is
more advantageous to be optimized for
Fitness payoffs than it is for reality
and this might be a good time to give
people your sort of VR explanation so
that we we can bring this into something
they can visualize but first let me
finish what I'm bumping on so I get how
if you're optimized for Fitness payoffs
that makes more sense than being
optimized for reality reality could have
too much just complexity the processing
power that it would take to understand
is crazy which is exactly why I think
your desktop analogy is probably the
better one to hit right now sure
um but what I don't understand is why it
is necessarily true that you need to
hide reality like why that would be part
of it that seems right sort of a bridge
too far for my my simplistic mind so
that is a bit technical but but the top
level idea is
um that Fitness payoffs depend and on
the state of the world right so to be
concrete and the organism and the
organism right they depend on the world
and the organism and the state of the
organism and the action so I mean one
example is you know if I have a T-bone
steak
and you know the fitness payoff of that
T-Bones take for a hungry lion is pretty
high but for the same line that wants to
mate it's very very low and for you know
a cow in any state and for any action
the T-bone steak offers no Fitness
payoffs and and another example is if
I'm 5 000 meters underwater that's
pretty bad for me but for a benthic fish
that's it's perfect for a benthic fish
right so so evolution by natural
selection has this idea that there is an
objective reality
and fitness payoffs do depend on that
reality but the payoff for the same
state of reality could be very very
different for a benthic fish than for me
for benthic fish five thousand meters
underwater is the same state of reality
as it would be for me but the payoff is
very very different for the benthic fish
okay so it would kill me this this may
not be the thing to dive into but I'm
going to push on this a little bit and
see if we get some more fruitful
um what where I sort of come to in your
theory is that they're lurking under
this it is a reality right the Moon is
there to describe something it's my
shorthand it's not it is not a
meaningless shorthand right it is a
shorthand to help me get my um my
fitness payoffs fair but it it
represents something right okay so if
that is true
understanding that I am 5000 feet under
water still seems relevant even though
it's not it doesn't have a fitness
payoff so obscuring that or obfuscating
that for me so that I can't understand
that I'm 5000 feet underwater it's not
helpful okay I can tell that if we chase
that we won't get where we want to go
but if you give us the desktop analogy
right right because this I think will
will give us the anchor that we need to
keep exploring right so so if evolution
didn't shape us to see the truth what
did it shape us to see and the I think
the the good analogy is that it gave us
like a desktop interface so if you're
um writing an email
and the icon for the email you're
writing is blue and rectangular in the
middle of your screen does that mean the
email in your computer is blue
rectangular in the middle of the screen
now middle of the computer of course not
that I mean anybody who thought that
misunderstands the point of the
interface it's there not to show you the
truth which in this metaphor would be
the circuits and software the diodes and
resistors magnetic fields you don't want
to deal with that if you if you had to
deal with magnetic fields to write an
email good luck you would never no one
would hear from you and so that's what
evolution did for us it gave us a
desktop interface that's there to hide
the truth right the desktop interface on
your computer is there explicitly to
hide the circuits and software you don't
want to see that stuff that would seeing
the truth would get in the way but isn't
Evolution somewhat of a blind watchmaker
I'm going to just steal absolutely from
my man Mr Dawkins so if it is blind it's
not hiding anything right so it's just
it's optimizing you for something so
that's where I get into the
like the the punch line of your theory
not to get too far ahead but for people
to understand why I'm stopping you so
the the punchline of the theory is we
are so the far like so far off from what
is real as to like not even be able to
to conceive of what our world really is
and we will definitely get into space
time is doomed it's one of the most
fascinating things to come out of yes um
your theory but it's like
I it doesn't feel like a blind
watchmaker is going to hide something
from me it just it it has no sense of it
it's just here is the shortest path
across the checkerboard to get to this
thing it's not trying to trick me into
thinking that there is no checkerboard
it's just like hey take this path go
that way it's the shortest path I'm
essentially lazy right if you think
about
um caloric realities right so the way
that I look at a a human I want to write
a book called the physics of Being Human
and to do that I would really it's the
like you write the book that you need so
to understand in myself why I am both
driven and lazy is so [ __ ] weird so I
both have these huge Ambitions and I
want to do this crazy [ __ ] but I also
want to sit on the couch and eat chips
right so it's like and they're both real
man I am not like when people think that
like I'm being humble whatever no no I
really have like a hardcore drive to sit
around and do nothing but I have this
like sort of weird bouncy thing so for
me to understand it from a caloric
utilization standpoint right as humans
we have these massive brains that are
calorically just ravenous and so for me
not to have to forage all the time I
take a strategy where I'm conserving
calories again blind watchmaker not not
somebody going hey you know it'd be
really smart it just realized the ones
that didn't conserve calories [ __ ]
died and you know they didn't survive a
famine or whatever and the ones that
sort of balance this like I'm gonna go
down and I'm gonna face the wildebeest
and I'm not gonna hide all the time you
know I'm going to put myself at risk and
and all that stuff the ones that found
that balance they were the ones that
procreate and they passed on their genes
okay so part of the physics of being
human is to both be adventurous and lazy
at the same time where where I'm trying
to like figure all this out then is okay
I have this layer I have my interface
but it doesn't feel like it's that like
radically far from the the truth so I'll
give you my example so all right it's
mapping this room you're gonna tell me
[ __ ] dude you don't even understand like
space time isn't real none of this [ __ ]
is real I look away the Moon doesn't
even exist right right that seems like
it would be more problematic for me to
navigate the world if all of that were
true
so what I want to understand is how much
of of what you say about the computer
interface is really that divorced from
reality right oh man stick with me I'm
gonna see if I can actually articulate
this so the the computer analogy is
super profound it's easy for me to
understand I don't want to have to deal
with the electrical fields and all the
other things the diodes or whatever all
that stuff
but when I think about
whacking into a rock that seems like a
way closer thing to my reality I've
mapped something over that same with the
moon I've mapped something over it it
isn't actually that thing right but it
feels like it would be mapping over some
gravitational object that rotates around
the Earth
but I think you're going to say that's
not true
right so
What analogy because it our intuitions
Rebel at the idea we're not seeing the
truth because it's what we're doing here
works so well right and opened that
we're not seeing the truth where I get
lost is how [ __ ] divorced can it
really be and still be useful right well
so there's two aspects to that one one
is just that you know the mathematics of
evolution is quite clear meaning the
probability that you see the truth is
zero is zero that's right and and that
we have a paper that we just submitted
on Monday
um where we we show that the fitness
payoffs erase
all evidence of world structure almost
surely what the [ __ ] does that mean when
you say World structure what do you mean
so the world presumably there is some
World some reality yes like atoms uh
well you don't need to postulate exactly
what that I need to know what you mean
by the word the word structure so it
could be and what we show is it doesn't
matter what the structure is pretty much
the result holds so it could be for
example a structure like a a distance
relationship a match what we call a
metric or a topology or a measurable
structure okay or a total order like one
is smaller than two is smaller than
three that's a total order right so
whatever the so what what you can show
is that no matter what structure you
might think the world has you can prove
that the
Fitness payoff functions that govern our
Evolution so you're right there's no of
course goal right it's not a goal
directed kind of thing right it is
Evolution's not trying to do anything
and but the point is that the fitness
payoffs which govern evolution
the probability that they will actually
preserve the structure in the world so
that by being tuned to the fitness
you're tuned to the structure in the
world yeah that probability is precisely
zero that's what we prove so the only
thing that we know is what you think is
real is the only thing we know is not
real
is that accurate well I would say
according to theory of evolution now we
can step back and ask ourselves what the
theory of open you know what we think
about the third question right before we
get to that because you you do you you
have a pretty deaf challenge to how
because my first literally the first
note I took about you was my whole
problem is you're laying out hey
Evolution mathematically proves that
essentially Evolution isn't true so I
was like like if if everything I think
evolution is true how can it also be
true that everything I know and think is
false right which is essentially what I
just heard you say so mathematically I
can prove this the quote-unquote
structure of everything I think is
absolutely not true
and yet I'm using Evolution to base that
math on right so walk people through how
that isn't a contradiction right so it's
what we show is that the fitness payoff
functions
erase any information about the
structure of the world so that the
structure of our perceptions
is just unrelated to the structure in
the objective world
but the argument that I just gave does
not apply to our math and logic
so just perception just perceptions so
you have to be very very you have to
look at all of our cognitive capacities
is this whole thing an um problem
well it what it's saying is that uh your
own felt is like your user interface
that every creature
you know Homo sapiens has one one user
interface we have the Apple interface
and someone else you know some other
creatures have the Mac or the PC
interface or whatever yep and and
there's gonna be a wide variety of
interfaces that Evolution evolves every
species has its own class of interfaces
um and in each case the interface never
shows any species the truth at all
according to evolution
but there are selection the selection
pressures that erase information about
the structure of the world in perception
do not also apply to math and Logic the
reason is that we do have to have some
Elementary ability to reason about
Fitness payoffs two bites of an apple
give me roughly twice the fitness
payoffs of one so not reasoning about
objective reality just reasoning about
Fitness payoffs and the logic of Fitness
payoffs right so that's why there's no
selection pressures necessarily to be
Geniuses of math and logic but at least
the selection pressures are not
uniformly against any capacity in math
and logic whereas in the case of
perception it's one can show the unit
the pressures are uniformly against any
access to the structure of the world
um in in terms of the structure of what
we perceive in in our senses so that's
why we have to be very very careful so
certain for example Christian
philosophers Alvin plantinga for example
has argued from not mathematically but
informally From Evolution saying that it
would make all of our cognitive
capacities unreliable and therefore
evolution by itself was unreliable
Theory and therefore we should not you
know
not believe it and I'm not saying
anything like that at all I'm saying
that the theory of evolution
has a core that John Maynard Smith found
evolutionary Game Theory when we look at
that core
we find that there are certain
peripheral assumptions like DNA exists
whether or not it's perceived space and
time exist those peripheral assumptions
turn out to contradict the mathematical
core of the theory and one can prove
that but math and logic our ability with
mathem logic does not contradict the
evolutionary the core of evolutionary
theory so this we have to be very very
careful that's why when you do this you
know it's not just hand wave anymore you
really have to look at the replicator
equation you really have to look at the
fitness payoff functions and do
combinatorial analyzes and so forth this
is very very careful work but that's
what we do with our best scientific
theories we take them very very
seriously we look at their equations and
say okay if the equation entails
the probability zero that we see reality
as it is then
we've we've got a choice we can agree
that we don't see reality as it is or we
can say we need to revise the theory now
we don't have an alternative to
evolution by natural selection
so if someone wants to propose one
they've got a lot of work to do because
evolution of natural selection is an
incredibly successful Theory
so a space-time though and you're you're
ready to ditch that one sure so um okay
so I'm I'm getting I think what you're
saying about our umel and uh because we
haven't defined that I'll Define that so
uh umvelt is your senses taking the
world in a certain way and uh we have
different senses in a bat so a bat can
do echolocation we cannot and therefore
the way that a bat interprets the world
is very different than the way that we
interpret the world and every sort of
species has a different umvelt you can
even have humans that have a different a
slightly different one that's colorblind
um
there's a million other examples but you
you get these variations that are
massive between species
um you get like a dog the the amount
that they can smell is crazy they can
smell a seizure coming which is
absolutely bananas whereas of course
you're not going to get a human that
does that because of the number of scent
receptors in the nasal canal and so cool
all right that that's an umvelt so I get
perception I get that this is a a
problem of perception
I think I understand the math part I
prom because I'm going to I am making a
Layman's assumption that math is a
universal language I've heard that
repeated a million times I am so bad at
math I don't even understand that uh but
I accept it out of ignorance uh the
logic part let me Define logic based on
what I think you're saying and you tell
me if I'm getting it correct so Logic
the way that I understand it from the
way that you just use it because I would
have said it's human reasoning so I
would have gotten tripped up
um on like natural selection or
oh God the one you just use it as an
example and you said that that we think
space time a great example right we have
in my Layman's view we have logiced our
way to space-time but that's failed me
so
um tying it back to Fitness payoffs I
think is is your definition of logic
that we have to be able to reason that
one bite of an apple is not as good as
two bites of an apple it's is it really
that basic that it is entirely tied to
Fitness payoffs that's well from an up
from The evolutionary arguments that I'm
giving right so the arguments that but
do you think that logic reaches deeper
than that when you say that it's
Untouched by this um false
interpretation oh God
right so so that gets to the bigger
picture of what I'm up to here right so
and this is how science progresses what
we do
um is we take our current best theories
and we try to push them to their limits
and find out where they break where they
fall apart and when we do that that's
when we break out the champagne because
the whole point in science is to push
our best theories to the limit to find
out where they break down and then get
some clue about a deeper theoretical
framework and the constraint on that
deeper theoretical framework is it
better agree with our current theory
where our current theory is right
but only if you're saying that that
theory is logic this is another one of
those times where I bumped against what
you're saying so and and this may be
that simple is that what you mean that
like where we are using true logic right
as you define it tied to Fitness payoffs
I think
um then it must agree because you've
said if you work backwards I'm not
trying to get rid of evolution I'm not
trying to get rid of the things we know
like we can launch a satellite into
space and geo-target you but that
requires relativity so whatever we get
to whatever answer we come to better be
backwards compatible with the ideas that
essentially work can you give me a
definition of work and is it tied to
logic as you define it and thusly
fitness payoffs
right so so the idea would be that
scientists are doing reasoning right
science is about reasoning is reasoning
a synonym for logic to you pretty much
that's right and if we um
we we can't
logic is in some sense non-negotiable in
the sense that
if I let go of reason and logic then
there's nothing left right is that true
because all we can do is if we if we're
having a conversation we can talk
informally but we can't make very good
progress unless we are absolutely
precise in what we say
but let me tell you how that struck me
so does somebody who's schizophrenic do
they have reason and logic
well
in the sense that if we're trying to
understand our situation in the universe
humans will make stories yes
if the stories are internally
self-contradicting
you can be pretty sure you're going to
be in trouble right so any internal
contradictions are going to destroy your
theory
so the first thing you have to do is
make sure that what you're saying
doesn't contradict what you're saying if
you if because that just means you're
saying nonsense
so one one reason we use math and logic
is to make sure that what we're saying
isn't just flat out nonsense
but once we're past that
Criterion and in much of what we've said
is nonsense but once we get past that
Criterion then it turns out we may have
been using our terms very imprecisely we
might use the word space we might use
the word time and we think we know what
we're talking about but when you
actually push you find out oh no I would
say this in this situation that in that
situation oh and they contradict I've
contradicted myself again so once again
we find that if we're we just use
intuitive Concepts we get trapped in
self-contradiction namely nonsense so
the whole point of being mathematically
precise
one point is to make sure that we're not
doing nonsense the second is to take our
ideas and force us
to put our ideas very very precisely so
we know exactly what we're saying I get
the math part though the part that I'm
really trying to wrap my head around and
maybe we should just move the [ __ ] off
this but I'll take one more swing at it
um math I get if if math truly is a
universal language that just sort of
gets at the substrate of what this
whatever this is it actually gets to
that cool I can see how
um the fact that we that uh chasing
Fitness payoffs manipulates our own belt
I get that it doesn't touch math cool
now what I'm trying to understand is you
said specifically math and logic now if
you just said math we'd be done and we'd
move on but you say math and logic so
then I immediately go to schizophrenics
think they're being logical right what
on Earth makes us think that we are not
just the way that our our reality is
essentially this total abstraction right
in your own Theory and and I would agree
man I I routinely think in myself and
and express other people your brain is
creating a virtual reality now I never
ever ever conceived of it as sort of
radically different as you but
um I get that we're in sort of this this
huge abstraction but what makes us think
that that our the way that we reason the
way that we logic outside of math for
sure the way that we reason and logic
outside of math isn't the same as a
schizophrenic where it is it is so
delusional is it just the internal
consistency or and couldn't that itself
be a delusion that our fear of internal
um contradiction is problematic is is
actually a delusion in and of itself oh
very very good so I see your question
now so yes there are deep issues here in
terms of of logic and there's something
called girdles incompleteness theorem
that basically to me are you familiar
with that no not at all so so girdle is
probably arguably one of the most
profound results ever in human thought
girdle proved it's called girdles in
completeness theorem and he proved that
any axiomatic logical or mathematical
system that's rich enough to do
arithmetic
um there will be
statements that are true but can't be
proven within that system
unprivable truths the notion of truth
goes deeper than the notion of proof in
that system you must say well okay I'll
take that truth and put it into my
axioms then he said well but then
there'll be new truths that you can't
prove and this goes on forever what he
showed was that the exploration of
mathematical structure is in principle
endless it's unbounded and in fact if we
get to it later on my theory of
Consciousness I'll argue that that's
what Consciousness is up to this
unbounded exploration of all the
possibilities of Consciousness that
comes from girdle's theorem but you're
absolutely right we can choose girdle
serum one more time right right as
simply as you can right
the simple bottom line is
there is no end
to the exploration of mathematical
structure for us to be able to dive into
that though give people the like three
minute primer on
why your take is so different than
everybody else who takes a really sort
of physicality-based approach to
consciousness
right so most people who are looking at
how Consciousness is related to the
physical world like our brain
are assuming that somehow the physical
world is primary it's the source of all
cause and effect in reality
and therefore Consciousness is an effect
of physical causes presumably neural
activity in the brain for example but
maybe also computer activity in a
artificial intelligence that's
sufficiently complicated
and my my take is that our best science
today
Quantum field Theory
Einstein's theory of gravity and
evolution by natural selection all three
of our best scientific theories today
are telling us that space time is not
fundamental
and that physical objects in space-time
are not fundamental reality and science
is good enough our best scientific
theories are good enough to tell us
where they stop
but they're not good enough of course to
tell us what's beyond that's up to us as
creative scientists to try to guess what
is a deeper theory of reality that goes
beyond space and time but
when we projected back into space and
time that deeper reality needs to look
like gravity and Quantum field Theory
and evolution by natural selection and
so basically what I'm saying is that my
brilliant colleagues
and these are my friends they're they're
brilliant I'm not they're not putting
them down anyway but when they assume
that physical objects like neurons or
Computing systems cause Consciousness I
think that they're running against what
our best scientific theories are telling
us they're telling us space time is
doomed we need a deeper notion of
reality and and
for most sciences no problem to work in
space-time but when we're dealing with
Consciousness the fiction that physical
objects have genuine causal powers
which is a useful fiction most of the
time for everyday Neuroscience it's a
very useful fiction I use it myself but
for Consciousness that's when the
fiction comes back to bite you and just
just a quick idea if you're playing a
virtual reality game
like Grand Theft Auto but in a VR souped
up multiplayer version It's a perfectly
useful fiction to think that the
steering wheel causes the car to move
around to the left or to the right and
so forth that's perfectly harmless
fiction but if you're a software
engineer looking to upgrade the actual
software that runs the program that
fiction if you were stuck in that
fiction you would not be equipped to do
the upgrade that you needed in other
words if you're trying to look at the
reality outside the headset
you can't just live with the notion of
cause and effect inside the headset you
actually have to expand your horizons to
understand a deeper notion of cause and
effect and that's what I claim we have
to do with Consciousness it's useful
most of the time to talk about physical
objects as though they have causal
Powers perfectly harmless but when it
comes to Consciousness it's the single
big obstacle that's stopping progress in
its tracks okay whoo you did it
perfectly now I want to like really
drill into that quickly so that people
understand where we're going to be going
from here so we spent almost two and a
half hours together last time with me
doing with my P brain doing my best to
Grapple with these topics
and finally I was able to understand a
couple things I'm going to lay out now
that open up what this interview is
going to be about and it's going to be
very interesting we're going to cover
things like Ai and whether that becomes
conscious faster than light travel which
I think your theory predicts all kinds
of very interesting things so to say
that analogy in my own words maybe from
a lay perspective so people get what
you're saying about Grand Theft Auto
because this is the key to understanding
the consequences of your theory so
when you think about what's really going
on as a computer programmer is trying to
make this game called Grand Theft Auto
you're dealing with algorithms and
Mathematics and moving electrical
currents around a Xbox or whatever and
so ultimately your goal is to move
electrons and things like that around
this machine that then creates this
supposed experience right on a TV that I
can interact with okay when you
understand that the re the difference
between the reality that that programmer
has to deal with which looks nothing
like it it's literally numbers it's all
code all math math design to move
electrons around okay that's not exactly
right but that's close enough and that
reality versus what you see which is
that oh look I'm driving with the
steering wheel what you're saying is
what you see when you walk around the
room and interact with stuff and you
think about space time and Einstein
relativity is as divorced from reality
as the computer programmer is from the
gamer who plays this game now it took me
a very long time to understand that's
what you're trying to get people to to
understand
and then it was one thing that was like
a real key in the lock for me was
somebody asked you a question it was so
great and they said Donald this is
wonderful I love it but now predict we
have the same conversation in 10 000
years what are we gonna know then and
you said oh that space time isn't real
and so we can create space-time
ourselves because space-time is space
time is the Grand Theft Auto game it's
not the code underneath so once you
understand Einstein just figured out a
way to describe Grand Theft Auto he did
not figure out a way to describe the
actual underlying code
and so if if the space time is just
Grand Theft Auto and we know we can
manipulate Grand Theft Auto we can now
manipulate space time and you said we'll
have this conversation from Alpha
Centauri and I was like oh my God even
if you just get excited about the chills
even if you just get excited about our
ability to manipulate what's in the
headset
right manipulating space time traveling
faster than light
um changing fundamental physics things
like that then even that would be
interesting let alone the other part
that you're saying which is oh you might
actually be able to figure out what the
underlying code is
that's that's exactly right and and so
one way to think about it as science
for all of its incredible breakthroughs
and wonderful theories
has only been studying our headset
science has not yet been studying
objective reality outside of our
space-time virtual reality that from an
evolutionary point of view was just
evolved as a way for us to play the game
of life and stay alive long enough to
reproduce not to show us the truth so we
have really in the in the last four or
five centuries really gotten to be
wizards of our headset wizards of the
Grand Theft Auto game but just because
you're a wizard of Grand Theft Auto does
not mean that you know anything about
the circuits and software that are
running the game and for someone who
thinks that they know everything when
all they know is Grand Theft Auto means
they they're still stuck in the headset
science I want to claim has the tools we
have learned the right tools as we've
studied our headset we are ready to use
those same tools to venture outside the
headset outside of space and time so
science has the right tools we just have
to open up you know open our minds
to the fact that we're just playing a
game inside Space time it's just a
virtual reality there's an entire world
out now the best physicists are already
there
like Nema or Connie Hamed and many of
his collaborators who are saying space
time is doomed we're looking for the
reality that's beyond space-time in
which in fact the very language of
quantum theory and and relativity Theory
don't hold there's there are no what
they call Hilbert spaces so there's no
Hilbert space there in what they're
finding there's no quantum theory you
need help what is Hilbert's space I've
never heard of that oh it's it's a
mathematical
structure that is used to describe
Quantum states and their evolution it's
called Hilbert space and so so what
they're looking saying they don't exist
that's right so these physicists are
saying look we're finding structures
Beyond space-time and these structures
don't care about Hilbert space and they
don't care about locality in space and
time they don't care about so-called
unitarity which is important for quantum
theory these are deeper structures they
project into space-time and give us
unitary and locality Unitarian local
reality in space-time in other words
they projected the right things in our
headset but they're deeper and they have
symmetries
that you cannot see in space-time and
when physicists find symmetries that are
in the data but can be captured in
space-time they're very very interested
so so
the best and brightest physicists are
boldly stepping outside of the headset
but the question is
where do you look what kinds of ideas I
mean if it's not space and time how do
you come up with an idea about what
reality is so we just have to try ideas
make them rigorous make them precise and
then project them back into our headset
that's the key we know how to test
things within the headset so we're going
to make theories of reality outside of
space and time with mathematically
precise models of how they map into
space and time and then we can test so
so this is not just waving your hands
and blowing steam you know this is not
that this is we want rigorous theories
out outside of space-time that have
mathematical projections in the
space-time that lead to testable
predictions I right now am studying the
physics of scattering amplitudes for the
like colliders They smash protons
together and they have glue on smash
into each other and and gluons go flying
out and you can predict the the
probability of these these particle
events so my goal is to start with the
theory of Consciousness outside of
space-time
mathematically precise show exactly how
it Maps into space-time and then
hopefully predict those scattering
amplitudes to 10 decimal predictions to
10 decimal places of accuracy then it
doesn't mean I'm right but at least now
I'm doing the right thing to be testable
okay I want to ground everybody in why
I've gotten so um hyped on this so do
you read science fiction much
a little bit I'm mostly just very sad
about that right now very saddened to
hear that but
um so one of the things that I find so
enjoyable about science fiction is they
really play with big ideas and I'm
reading a book uh it's the second book
in the three body problem series and in
that they're basically alien evasion is
happening and they're trying to figure
out like what they do and the way that
the
um aliens stop them from making progress
spoiler alert for anybody who plans to
read the series is that they um they
send these photons that can basically
interrupt the large colliders to give
them impossible to interpret data and so
they shoot these things
um to the colliders and they they just
give them completely nonsensical data
and the reason they said that is they're
like if you can't make
the the breakthroughs at the fundamental
layers of science you can't progress So
for anybody who is feeling like okay
these guys are drifting off into the
ether why is this interesting how does
it relate to my life first of all I'll
say that you're a cognitive scientist
that you know is your background so this
starts with hey I'm trying to understand
Consciousness and the hard problem of
Consciousness and it's leading me to
this place it challenges the very
substance of reality and that matters
because by the way we might be able to
manipulate more of this stuff than we
think
but we're still in this
um presentation layer the the headset so
now as I begin to
unwind some of this stuff it's
when we
think about the fact that okay
I'm guessing the scientists the quantum
scientists the reason that they're now
looking elsewhere is they cannot make
what they see mathematically make sense
with the models that they have
of space-time and
for them to make that leap outside is
going to be brutally difficult in terms
of science doesn't progress as the truth
is revealed science progress I think it
was Neil's board we talked about this
last time we're playing that said
basically the old people have to die
because they just they can't update
their model of the world and then the
next Generation grows up just believing
it to be true so how
are we holding out hope for people to
step outside of that and what methods
are they using to discover this stuff is
it going to be in the collider because
that's all headset
right so I can tell you what the
physicists are up to a little bit um on
this and and why I'm interested as you
said
I'm not interested in particle physics
for its own sake I'm a cognitive
scientist
I'm looking for the simplest thing that
I could possibly do to test a theory of
Consciousness in which Consciousness is
fundamental and space-time is just a
headset and I think you have to you you
have to explain that we talked about it
in the last one but it's it's worth it
when you say that
um Consciousness is fundamental what do
you mean
all right so so by Consciousness I just
mean simple things like having a
headache or smelling garlic or hearing
the sound of a trumpet or having an itch
or or feeling a mood like you know love
or hate or something like that so simple
um feelings or sensory experiences that
I could imagine even a mouse might have
like a mouse might smell cheese and it
might enjoy the taste of cheese I think
everybody can get behind that though but
aren't you taking it way farther down to
like there is an entity I don't know
what word to put around it it's entire
experience is either green or nothing
right so so I actually then when I try
to get a model of Consciousness on its
own terms as a scientist I have to write
down the mathematical description of
what I mean by having conscious
experiences and acting on them and and
entertain the possibility of very simple
consciousnesses that might have as you
say just one or two conscious
experiences like green or nothing or
something like that and look at how
these kinds of consciousnesses Might
interact and so forth and so I've been
with my colleagues caitan prakash and
and Chris fields and Manish Singh and
others working on mathematical models of
dynamics of Consciousness it's much like
a vast social network like the
twitterverse we have lots of social
entities that are interacting tweeting
and following and so forth it would be
like that there's not just one
Consciousness there are many What I Call
Conscious agents that are interacting
um and there's so many of them that it's
overwhelming it's too much for any
unconscious agent to talk to all or
interact with all the other conscious
agents and and just like with social
data
if you're you know like with the
twitterverse if you're trying to
understand what's happening there well
there's tens of millions of users
literally billions of tweets you can't
read the tweet all the tweets or
interact with all the users if you want
to understand what's going on you need a
visualization tool maybe a VR headset
where you can sort of see what's
trending in the United States and then
zoom in to what's happening in Moscow
and then zoom out to what's happening in
over in China and then Zoom down to a
particular Street and so what you want
is simple Graphics simple eye candy
little objects that are colored that are
doing different things that somehow lets
you grasp
what's what the billions of tweets and
tens of millions of Twitter users are
doing but in a way that you can so it's
got to dumb things down put it in a
colorful simple eye candy format that
you can understand
and that's the big idea I'm claiming
that that's what space time is
space time
the Sun and the Moon physical objects
everything that we see inside of space
and time is just our visualization tool
the reality we're interacting with is
nothing like the visualization tool
there's nothing like space and time it's
a whole network of interacting conscious
agents outside of space-time a vast
social network and we've made the rookie
mistake
of assuming that our headset VR
our visualization tool is the final
reality it's just a rookie mistake it's
like someone who's played Grand Theft
Auto so long they have no idea there's a
reality besides Grand Theft Auto we're
like that right now all right so let's
go back to this idea of conscious
entities which I find interesting it
took me a while to grasp this one so the
easiest one is inside the human brain
right now there are two hemispheres if
you split the Corpus close and we
discussed this last time you get two
different personalities you've also got
the microbiome which conceivably all the
microbes are conscious and so when you
uh inside of all of our cells there's
hundreds or even thousands of
mitochondria which are living organisms
inside of our cells so it is very
um objectively true to look at a human
and say you're not a single entity you
are a collection of
trillions of entities that we just nah
sum up is like that's Donald right but
in reality it's not and if I go in a
mess with the Consciousness like if I go
into mess with your microbiome it'll
change your personality which is crazy
and I can't believe it's true uh but
nonetheless is true I can affect your
energy output by going and messing with
your mitochondria which again have their
own DNA it's not like it's just a cell
in your body this this is a uh its own
entity that happens to be inside of your
cells and
as we begin to recognize that humans
already are just a collection of these
much smaller Consciousness but they come
together
um
I get where you're going now I don't yet
know the implications of that or what
we're going to take away from it but my
relationship with you has been like hey
this crazy statement that I can't fathom
is true I really want to write you off
as a nut job but I can't because like
all of these things like do make sense
it's just I so can't imagine what life
outside the headset is
um but the more time I have spent with
the ideas the more it's like okay these
are starting to coalesce for me
um so cool I just wanted people to
understand that Consciousness thing I
don't I certainly don't understand it
yet how it exists outside of the headset
but I can't deny that already even in
the headset were a collection of smaller
consciousnesses
right maybe one help for thinking about
your Consciousness outside the headset
is I I might have mentioned this last
time
um if you just look at your face in the
mirror
if you look
what you see directly is just skin hair
and eyes
that's all that's all you see and if you
looked inside and if someone opened your
skull up and look you just see neurons
and and so forth but what you know
firsthand that you cannot see
is your hopes your dreams your
aspirations Your Love Of Music your your
mood all the rich world of your
conscious experiences compared to that
rich world this face is an unbelievably
simple and nothing like
the world of your experiences if I smile
or you smile I can guess that you're
feeling Joy but a smile in no way
resembles Joy a smile is a twitch of a
face a joy of you is that that's where
it's like the things we see happening in
the quantum realm that make no sense
that to you is the thing that tells you
your brain the physical tissues all of
that they are entirely in the VR
experience it's all VR experience that's
right and so strictly speaking
no physical objects including my body is
conscious
strictly speaking my brain isn't
conscious because my brain
in fact doesn't even exist unless I
render it right so if you're playing
Grand Theft Auto I'm playing a VR
version now I got the steering wheel in
front of me I'm holding the steering
wheel if I look to the side I no longer
render the steering wheel and there is
no steering wheel because when I look
here I render it and now there is a
steering wheel the same thing is true
strictly speaking of neurons and brains
they're there when you render them
they're not there when you don't it's a
VR
system that you render objects in space
and time as you need them because
they're part of your visualization tool
and then you garbage collect them you
delete them when you don't need them so
strictly speaking no physical object is
conscious so so not human bodies aren't
conscious rocks aren't conscious so I'm
not a pan psychist a pan psychist is
someone who you know at least one
version of pan psychism is that you know
there are physical objects that obey the
laws of physics and the laws of physics
are in some sense fundamental but
Consciousness is the reality that's
inside the laws and I'm saying something
entirely different I'm saying that the
very laws of physics themselves are
really no restraint to Consciousness
whatsoever they're just a visualization
tool that certain consciousnesses happen
to use but they're no restriction on the
nature of Consciousness it's all itself
at all and so so before we move off that
um I know you don't know but I want you
you must um have flashes of images or
favorite metaphors or whatever so if I
buy that this really is a simulation
true true like it is as simulated as
it's going to get down to the fact that
space time is just a part of that
simulation and it is consciousness that
is fundamental meaning that the
complexity of my brain will never give
birth to consciousness
my Consciousness which is outside of the
the headset it's outside the VR world
that's outside the Grand Theft Auto game
right that thing has a need to
from a evolutionary standpoint based on
the gains it gets from certain behaviors
it needed to create a virtual reality so
that it wasn't overwhelmed with data
so what is that conscious being that was
evolving as it sits outside of this
where where can I scrape through and
find the conscious thing
right so so well the Consciousness won't
be inside Space and Time understood
instead space and time is inside
Consciousness yep I get that but I'm
still imagining a little person outside
of the VR is that just fundamentally
broken uh no I would say that that's
probably given the current state of
human imagination including mine that's
probably the best thing that we can do
of is to think about these entities and
of course as soon as we think about
entities we place them in space and time
we that's how we think so so it's
harmless to do that as long as you
realize that the space that you're
thinking about isn't they're not
embedded in space they're the creators
of space that's that's the interesting
thing so it's hard for outside space and
time I am eating things right
well so so inside space and so I don't
know what we're doing outside of space
and time that's part of what I want to
understand is what are we actually doing
we don't see I don't know what I'm
actually doing I know what I'm doing
under a description like I'm moving my
hand right now and if I grab a steering
wheel in my car I know what I'm doing
under a space-time description but I
don't know the in Ultimate Reality what
I'm really doing is just like the VR
player when they turn the steering wheel
in Grand Theft Auto they know
what they're doing in the language of
the game I'm turning a steering wheel
but what they're really doing in terms
of the super computer right which in
that metaphor would be the deeper
reality they're toggling voltages and
magnetic fields and circuits that they
have no idea there's there's probably
trillions of voltage toggles going on
for one turn of the wheel all they see
is a turn of the wheel that's their
notion of cause and effect it's trivial
the real cause and effect is trillions
of voltages getting toggled in some in
fractions of a second it's much much
more complicated so from an evolutionary
so when I when we talk about Evolution
as you did
we have to be from this point of view
it's very very important to be careful
because
um now we have to talk about in what
part of the framework we're talking
about so when I talk evolution
I'm only going to be talking about
assuming the headset and I'm within the
framework of the headset because
evolutionary theory is only a headset
Theory it's not a theory of
Consciousness beyond space and time I'm
going to ask you a super random question
because I'm so curious you have a
wedding ring so I'm assuming you're
married I'm assuming you love somebody
yes
um that's that's such a headset
experience yes how often are you sort of
in sort of a this really is real and I'm
going to treat it as such and like does
your wife think this is all like does
she find this decidedly unromantic
my wife is an artist she's a very
talented artist her name is Geralyn I
call her Jerry and she's you know she's
um not a scientist and she appreciates
my science
and even though she can't really
understand any of the math and I
appreciate her art even though I'm a
monkey looking at Mozart right you know
because I'm no artist and so we have
mutual respect for the talents the
complementary talents and we sort of
complement each other and do you just
have to turn that part of your brain off
that's like a lot of time with her well
with her yes because
she'll she's happy for me to talk with
her about it
um up to a point and and then we need to
do something different right and that's
healthy for me but yeah
do you want to so one thing that I find
interesting is people that believe that
this is all a simulation and that if we
just find the right equation we could
essentially exit the simulation right
and that's always struck me as
um intuitively false that there would be
no way to exit the simulation again this
goes back to what I was saying earlier
about the person who takes her headset
off that would just be so fundamentally
different the way that you would be
processing data there's no sort of core
you I think like I can't conceptualize
it feels to me unless the I mean God is
this what you're saying
in fact let me ask is this what you're
saying that there is this this uh
conscious agent that I in the headset I
in fact no there was a conscious agent
that is me and the way that I present to
you right now is me with the headset on
but the conscious agent could actually
possibly remain intact when it pulls off
the headset you address this a little
bit earlier but it's now becoming more
Concrete in my mind right it seems to me
quite possible that conscious agents
will continue to exist even when they
step out of so I could take the headset
off effectively exit the simulation be
like what the [ __ ] is all this around me
but still have a sense of emotion and
attachment and love and
whatever I say Vision quite possibly in
the sense that that this isn't the only
headset so maybe by taking this ahead
that would essentially be my brain right
so I'd be I'd be out of this headset and
what I necessarily be putting on another
well this is your brain remember the
headset isn't your brain the brain is
just one of the symbols in your headset
for what I'm using for all the agents
for all the agents that are combining to
form you so I I imagine that it's
possible for an agent to go to a
different headset
could they go to no headset or would
they be then existing in a realm of pure
math
well and that that I don't know so in
the in the following sense so so it's it
so the part that I think I'm confident
about but again
we'll see
agents could get new headsets and a wide
variety of them so we could really
explore and we could and it could be
very the headset we can shorthand to
unveil that's right different way of
perceiving and it may not bat head said
I can jump in exactly a dolphin headset
and maybe let go of space and time and
do something different than space and
time
my notion of self May migrate in the
process right by making some of my
emotions maybe not others who who knows
do you think I'm taking the headset off
as as a an event horizon Beyond which we
just cannot possibly even guess
the
the mathematics that I've got says that
a conscious agent
always can have awareness without
experience
there is the awareness without
experience that's right the math is very
clear about that so when I write down
the set the space of possible conscious
experiences of conscensation I have to
write down what's called a probability
space which is a set of possible
conscious experiences with I think of
awareness as I exist
just awareness without an eye so this
would so and by the way I make no claim
to be you know expert in any like
mystical spiritual Traditions like
Buddhism or Hinduism or so forth but
I've I've been told that they do have
this notion
um and so I'm not speaking as expert but
I've heard that they have this notion of
awareness without content and that
certain meditators claim to to to be
there and you know I I meditate a little
bit and I might get little glimpses of
of a notion of awareness without a self
without any particular content that's
the closest I can get
conceptually to thinking about a
conscious agent without a headset it's a
field of pure awareness but it
transcends in any emotion any notion of
self any specific conscious experience
but you've never done psychedelics
because the number one punchline that
people say is yo you have no sense of
self like you dissolve into Oneness
right yeah I know I I I why don't you I
haven't
um I may at some point
um you know where it's legal and so
forth so far well what stopped me so far
is
well I'll put his way I've been reading
the experiences of people so I'm met
benefiting from their experiences and I
talk with with people extensively
actually some very very extensively
about their experiences and so I've
studied them
um there is a price to pay
I um
but only in the headset but only in the
headset well well and while I'm in the
headset see I really I'm so eager to
pursue these ideas I think I've gotten
I I know people say well you if you
don't do it for yourself you can't know
what it's really like to be without a
self well but I can look at the math and
the math actually says yeah I'm seeing
that in my math so I've gotten the
Insight that I need there did you listen
maybe I will do at some point you know
did you listen to Sam Harris's podcast
about taking five grams of psilocybin I
think I haven't heard him do this it's
very interesting because I know you know
Sam
um you must listen to that podcast okay
it is [ __ ] fascinating and he was
talking about the fact that um and I
haven't done it either by the way uh so
and I have a very clear I am a
physicalist
uh so because of that I'm like I am not
[ __ ] with my brain like I'm super
paranoid I do part of me wants to do it
so if you cut my corpus callosum one
hemisphere wants to do psychedelics
really badly right and the other side is
like get the [ __ ] out of here we're not
doing psychedelics is a very bad idea
absolutely so I'm I'm sort of stuck in
this like go no-go scenario anyway I
agree that's when I said there's a price
to to pay that's exactly what I was
that's that's the I am super paranoid so
Sam said in in the experience he had a
moment where he he forgot that he did
drugs like he had no sense of oh I have
taken a drug to be in the state and I'm
simply in the state and I'm going to be
in the state forever and this is what
life is and he was like it it is a type
of hell where it is just right it's uh
now I'm putting words in his mouth the
feeling I got and he may have actually
said this was that it was like a form of
just never-ending Terror right and so
you sort of passed through that and he
was like there are other moments where
it's it's never ending Bliss and you're
like it's going to be Blissful forever
right and it was just ooh the thought of
where you have no concept I have done
something to myself or I have taken a
drug and this is a consequence of that
and it will ultimately wear off
uh that it's interesting it is
interesting man and I get how that can
really shape people's perception of what
is real and like really shake you loose
because as as I read this stuff and for
anybody that's made it this far first of
all congratulations this [ __ ] is so deep
and so heady but the more time that I've
spent with your ideas the more I
actually I feel like someone is sort of
filing off a callus on the bottom of my
foot and it's like oh whoa we're getting
to like a different sensation here I
never realized that I had uh a
perception in you know when you've got
the calluses that are like half an inch
thick it's like you just forget that
that can actually feel something so the
more time I've spent with your ideas the
more I'm like man there really is
something here and so I the first note I
took on you was so arrogant and so
aggressive and I was like dude does this
guy not realize that he invalidates his
own Theory by saying like this is about
natural selection because I didn't
understand your whole thing about math
and reason right so but then you like
you you start spending more time with me
like [ __ ] I can't just discredit this
then you start exploring it like I
definitely before I started thinking
about your stuff Die Hard physical list
I will probably regression of the mean
right so I'm gonna slide back to that
unless I really spend time on this
because it is such a compelling illusion
absolutely but it it does I can feel
things pushing me at my back to
experiment with psychedelics for reasons
like this where I yes I could meditate
for the next 40 years and maybe get to
the point where I could have one of
those experiences of what it means to be
aware without a sense of I I literally
can't imagine what that is right now I
can imagine blanking out right I can't
imagine having a sense that there is
awareness without
um me being inserted somehow into that
that's right
um so it would be really fascinating to
very quickly be ejected out of you know
my normal State of Consciousness and
into this and part of part of what I
promised myself I would do in this
interview is to really figure out like
why the [ __ ] does this all matter like
you and that's why I'm like I'm dancing
on this idea of like you love your wife
like there there is a realm in which
you're like the headset is pretty rad
and it's given me amazing [ __ ] and I'm
really having a hard time like actually
stepping outside at the headset and so
so much of my life is predicated on the
headset it may not even be possible to
retain myself which I value I'm assuming
right so I value myself I value this
experience I [ __ ] value my wife right
that's the one that really scares me
right right I get so much out of my wife
like I've imagined my wife and I
actually had this conversation one time
like hey a magic Genie shows up what do
you wish for and she was like please
don't wish for super intelligence and I
was like why like that's such a rad
option right to be the smartest human
that ever existed she said if you did
that you'd no longer be in love with me
and I was like [ __ ] you're actually
right because if you're you wouldn't
love any human anymore like I love my
dogs but not like I love my wife because
there's such a gap in in how we can
relate to each other so when I think
about like stepping outside of the
headset man you're giving up everything
that you value and that's like really
really trippy now I admit if you told me
hey Tom here's Like a Pill you can take
and it's going to give you a little peek
outside the headset I'd be like
right I'd have to do it I'd have to take
a peek I'd have to see like what it was
because I don't believe that drugs are
necessarily punching through to some
truth I don't find myself like super
compelled to do it but
the idea of looking Beyond is both
exhilarating and terrifying because of
that loss of the things that I I am so
invested in
yes I I'm on the same page with you and
and it's you know interaction with my
wife
is one of the greatest Pleasures is you
know makes life meaningful and my
daughter and I've got three grandkids
and and you know my son-in-law was and
my students my son-in-law made the list
not bad yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah
Jay is a great guy and
and in this case I'm interacting with
other conscious agents and I'm
benefiting so I'm now going into my
theory this is now it seems impersonal
but I put on going back to the theory
within the framework of the theory
there's a dynamics of conscious agencies
as as conscious agents interact that
they they learn they get new
comprehensions and they create new
agents
so what we're doing in this headset in
terms like we're interacting there's
something new this we're both growing
we're both learning from this experience
we're we come away from it different
and that seems to be part of it if this
kid in the candy store theory of
consciousness
is on the right track then we're
experiencing it right now we're kids in
candy stores we're exploring and we're
wondering what's on the what's what's on
the next shelf of candy right that's
what we're saying here when we say well
I'd love to see you if I take five or
what what happens what's going on there
so that may be you know what it's really
about is that it's exploration and maybe
you know in meditation one thing that
does happen
is that you get less and less
grasping
of things that you used to be grasping
about and you I I find that I'm able to
to let go of things that
fears for example but in pictures of
myself it's it's it's really in some
sense of dismantling
the the best metaphor I can come up with
is I read
sometime that when a caterpillar goes
through metamorphosis right goes into a
cocoon this the immune cells of the
caterpillar
try to kill and they do kill the cells
that are trying to begin the process of
transformation into a butterfly and for
a while the immune cells of the
caterpillar it's a battle and but
eventually the immune cells of the
caterpillar get overwhelmed and
then much of the caterpillar liquefies
now that can't be fun
right I mean I mean liquefaction I mean
that it all the structures that were
everything that you knew as a
caterpillar are turning into goo
and no furniture your immune system is
fighting that tooth and nail until your
immune system gets overwhelmed but
finally the immune system gets
overwhelmed most of the structure of the
caterpillar turns into goo and then the
transformation happens that's what
meditation feels like to man which means
it's it's a double-edged kind of thing
it's it's both extremely painful because
everything that I know and have been
connected to and addicted to is
dissolving but on the other hand I'm
realizing wait wait well that wasn't
absolutely that essential I thought it
was essential but it's not and there's a
new kind of structure that's being built
that I have no idea caterpillar can't
figure out what the butterfly is going
to be presumably
and so maybe that's what it's like to be
starting to change headsets maybe that's
maybe meditation is a way of letting go
of some of the the restrictive trappings
of one headset and upgrading right and
you're getting the 3.0 now you just have
the 2.0 now it's 3.0 I don't know but
but these are the kinds of things I do
want to explore within the mathematics
and that's why I'm sort of it all fits
it doesn't mean it's right but it all
fits the kid in the candy store my own
kid anticipation of seeing what's next
it does fit maybe that's why I like the
kid in the candy store Theory just
that's just me and you know for other
people that's that's not what it's about
but I think all of us
do Wonder
about what's next
and why are we here and what is it about
that's why I mean that's one reason I do
this is it life is very very short
I want to explore and things most of
what I've believed very deeply
has been very deeply wrong
most of what Humanity has believed very
deeply has been very deeply wrong
we have a very good we're almost about
100 percent
consistent in being deeply wrong we've
believed that space-time is fundamental
almost everybody believes that
space-time is fundamental we all believe
the Earth is flat now a few and very
Advanced physicists
Ed Whitton has said space-time is doomed
David Gross has said it's in doomed
Nimar Kani Hamed is saying space-time is
doomed and these guys especially Nema
are now really
being adventurous very very brave and
saying let's go outside of space and
time into a world where we can't think
just imagine what they're trying to do
we're trying to think entirely outside
space and time
like as you said as a kid you're going
what could possible be on the other side
of space and time these guys are saying
not only is there something on their
side I need to think deeply about it and
here's a mathematical structure in which
space and time quantum mechanics and
unitarity don't even appear in the
language
and then I'll show you how our headset
they don't call it headset that's not me
ad living for them but so how space and
time which I'm calling headset how space
and time and quantum mechanics and
general relativity appear
from these deeper structures in which
there's no space and no time
so that fits perfectly with what what
I'm saying now they have no idea what
this deeper structure is about
and
what I'm up to is I'm actually Nema gave
a class
at Harvard last fall
more than 20 lectures on
for graduate students on these deeper
structures outside of space and time I
am taking this class on my own there's
all on YouTube so I'm just studying it
I'm transcribing his lectures studying
them because I believe that I can show
with my team I'm mathematicians so
they'll show that the long-term behavior
of this dynamics of Consciousness that
we're working on what we call the
asymptotic behavior will give rise to
the structures he's seeing like his
amplitudehedron
and so the reason why and then the
amplitude heater and he already shows
how to build up space time from that
that way I'll be able to go all the way
from conscious agents through the
long-term Behavior conscious agents
through the amplitudehedron to
space-time I can show you how the
headset is built
that's my goal and so I'm I'm really
quite excited once I get you know I know
enough to be worth this time I may talk
with him but but I'm not going to waste
his time until I know enough so I'm
trying to figure out how the headset is
built once we if we succeed
we'll be able to reverse engineer that
headset
and the Technologies we'll we'll be able
to play with the parameters of
space-time
so it's like suppose you're you know a
wizard at Grand Theft Auto and you can
play Within the game do all sorts of
things that people find amazing that's
great but imagine someone who actually
knows the source code they can take the
wizard and they can give him a flat tire
they can take all the gas out of his
tank they can make the road infinitely
long they can do whatever they want to
they can play with the very parameters
so the wizard is nothing all of our
science right now has made us Wizards
we're eventually going to get the source
code of the game you know my belief is
is that we all have to recognize that
the pure states are to be avoided
or rather that you have to embrace
multiple pure States because purity of
one particular kind or another is where
Madness comes from we have to not uh we
have to welcome the infection