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Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Robert Breedlove someone who caught my
attention and was recommended highly as
a rigorous scholar and thinker in the
space of decentralized finance and
Bitcoin his podcast titled what is money
is a good representation of the way his
mind works he's willing to talk through
ideas for many hours willing to listen
willing to think which makes him a great
companion in conversation to explore the
history philosophy and Future of money
quick mention of our sponsors fundrise
element monk pack and better help check
them out in the description to support
this podcast as a side note let me say
that I'll have a number of conversations
in the coming months on bitcoin and
other cryptocurrencies none of these
conversations are Financial advice
that's not a legal warning that's a
genuine description of my goals and
approach with these chats at least for a
while I personally won't act invest in
Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies
except to learn about the technology
itself I don't think this should be a
journalistic standard like the New York
Times trying to establish which I very
much disagree with in my humble opinion
I think journalists should be free to
invest in Bitcoin if they want to
luckily I'm not a journalist I just know
my own psychology and I feel that my
thinking will be muddled by excitement
if I invest before I understand I feel
the same way about Tesla for example I
still don't own any Tesla stock and I am
still indeed fascinated by Tesla
autopilot as an artificial intelligence
system I work hard to be cognizant of
the biases that arise in my mind and
always try to choose the path that
maximizes or maintains a freedom of
thought as much as possible also let me
say that I try to be very careful in
selecting guests based not only on the
contents of their IDE IDE as but the
richness complexity music style of their
mind and character yes I will talk with
people with whom you and I may disagree
people who some may call bad or even
evil human beings I want to understand
them because I believe that as soldier
nson said the battle line between good
and evil runs through the heart of every
man I think if you always run From Evil
you become blind to the truth of human
nature
this is the Lex Freedman podcast and
here is my conversation with Robert
breed love rouso opens his 1762 book the
social contract with the following
statement man is Born Free and
everywhere he's in Chains so you talk
about freedom and sovereignty quite a
bit what do these ideas mean to you the
idea of sovereignty freedom and
sovereignty um I think they're very
closely
related we start just focusing on
sovereignty which is a word I don't
think we talk about enough um and the
general definition of that I would give
is the authority to act as you see
fit um and it's a word that's
ethologically associated with words like
monarchy money Reign so historically
it's referred to whatever the Locust of
supreme power is in the sphere Of Human
Action so whether if you go like back
into ancient Egypt the Pharaoh had
absolute sovereignty and everyone else
was pretty much operating according to
his interest you fast forward to today
modern Western democracy we have um more
decentralized sovereignty and that we
all get to go vote and elect officials
that make decisions on our behalf so the
the theme of sovereignty across history
is that it's been gradually
decentralizing across our different
models of socio
economics and um it's largely you say
it's rooted heavily in the money I would
argue which is something we'll get a lot
into here where if you have money you
have the authority to act as you see fit
in the world um and even in our current
political sphere if you have enough
money you can actually shape reshape the
rules right you can reshape laws you can
Lobby
Congress um if you're in you know a
certain situation like many billionaires
you can negotiate your own tax treaty
such that you can get favorable tax
treatment with certain jurisdictions in
the world world so this concept of of
sovereignty um which today we call
it's common to call States or nation
states or governments Sovereign meaning
that they have power over people um but
as I argue in a lot of my writing
actually think that sovereignty inheres
within the individual and that we each
have our
own interiorized space of choice which
is something like Victor Frankle called
the final human freedom and that we no
matter what our circumstances are no
matter what uh exogenous situation we
Face we always have this endogenous
power to choose how we respond to it
that's one of my favorite books is U man
for
meeting maybe we can break that apart a
little
bit so you kind of spoken about
sovereignty as uh closely linked to
power but is there something about your
own mind being able to uh achieve
sovereignty no matter what the monetary
system is no matter what who has the
control over Central power the money or
whatever the mechanisms of uh
sovereignty at the societal level you as
an
individual isn't ultimately all boil
down to what you can do with your own
mind how you see the world you interpret
it yeah I agree and as we get a little
bit deeper into this so you I think
we'll come to see money as an extension
of your mind so there's a feedback
between money and mind for instance you
think in Dollars Today almost guarantee
it most of us do here in the US yes um
and it's it's a tool right it's a tool
we're using to DEC complexify the world
around us to deal with it
to understand the sacrifices and
successes across an entire history of
economic transactions we can boil that
all down to the price so it's data
compression and if you
can change if there's a central body or
Central governance mechanism that can
manipulate that money it can have an
impact on your mind um for instance
today so I agree with you on the
firsthand say that I do believe uh in
free will I do believe in individual
autonomy but I also think that um there
are certain devices and powers in the
world around us that can actually
influence how we think and it's
fascinating to think about the fact that
money might be actually deeply
integrated into the way we think and
into our mind like this is uh you think
about what are the core aspects of the
human mind what influences cognition
abil the way you reason about the world
you have the chsky like language is at
the core of everything mhm but you're
kind of placing
money as pretty close to the core of
what it means to be an intelligent
reasoning human MH I think money is a
direct derivation of action and speech
actually it's another expression of the
logos um if we even think of what it
means to think is that we are generating
two different courses of action
potential courses of action and we're
populating them with avatars right maybe
ourselves or others and then we're
comparing how we may act in each
situation and what we think the result
would be so actually it's comparison
basically it's comparison and
contrasting of possible courses of
action and that's the same thing with
words themselves like you know most
words the uh the vast majority of words
only have meaning in relationship to
other words right it's all contextual
definitions of a word are more words now
people have argued with me about this
because there is a first word right
where you pick up Rock and say rock but
most other words and much uh in in
higher abstraction tend to be
relative
and what's funny about action and speech
and this gets I got into a bit of this
in our our paper here is it it's linked
to evolutionary biology and that once
human beings adopted upright stance we
freed our hands we no longer needed our
hands for locomotion mhm so we started
to evolve more
dexterity um and notably we have OPP
posable thumb so this gives us an
ability to manipulate and particularize
the environment in a way that most other
animals cannot and what's interesting
about this is that as we gain this
ability to um manipulate natural
resources and you know count Point
pointing was a big deal and that we
could indicate uh prey or or items at a
far off distance and we could organize
ourselves um we at the same time we
co-evolved this fine musculature in the
face and tongue so it's as if speech
developed co-evolved really with our
dexterity and as a natural extension of
that came us making tools right we
started to create things to better
satisfy our wants over time and the most
tradable tool in any society or the most
tradable thing is money so I really I
argue that action and speech are
quintessential modes of self- sovereign
expression and that money is just sort
of a tech layer we put right on top of
that and that it's a natural derivation
of action and speech okay that's
fascinating to think about sovereignty
from The evolutionary perspective and
then ultimately money is the technology
layer that enables sovereignty so you
know it's really fascinating to think
about our modern Human Society as deeply
rooted in in these like evolutionary
roots from the very origins of life on
Earth so what you know some of the ideas
you just mentioned what do you see are
some interesting characteristics of just
life on Earth that propagated to us
humans like what ideas propagated
through uh have roots in the evolution
yeah I think one of the
deepest impulsions in life is the
territorial imper
erative so all life is seeking to expand
its dominion over space and time and we
think about you know again physically
with space uh it's advantageous to an to
an animal or an organism to have more
territory under its control to ra to
raise Offspring so it's all about
reproductive Fitness at the end of the
day and then we could also think of
reproduction itself as the genetic
impulse to have more to replicate
oneself across time so it's
territoriality across time in a way and
this is very common in most animals not
all animals are territorial but many are
um and you see very interesting
behaviors resulting from territoriality
this is like uh animal combat you know
the reason birds sing is
territoriality um a number of other
things and it's my hypothesis and others
have shared this hypothesis as well that
mankind is clearly I think would argue a
ter iial species and that he expresses
this territoriality in property
rights so property when that word we
hear that word we typically think of an
asset we think of oh this house or this
stock or whatever but property is
actually the socially acknowledged
relationship between a human and an
asset such that you have exclusive
rights and responsibilities to a
particular asset um it is not the asset
itself so property it's it's information
it's a relationship by the way my mind
was just blown property's information
it's not the actual asset that's really
important very important that's really
interesting yeah and then it comes down
to how do we organiz organize ourselves
such that um property that that the
contributions people are making are
commensurate with the consideration
they're receiving so if you're adding
value to a piece of property you're
developing a piece of land for use in
theory like to fair you should have the
rights um to that fruit right if you go
out and plant a garden or whatever it
may be um and and this is very uh this
is rooted in in natural law where we
have rights to life liberty and property
those are kind of just the base the
fundamental layer of of morality and
capitalism frankly um and you could
think
of to get really primordial with it the
the first capitalist in the world just
to kind of get some definition out here
I'll say capitalism versus communism or
socialism as the Spectrum I I'll speak
on the first capitalist in the world
would be the guy the caveman that maybe
dug a little hole for himself to Shield
himself from the elements right maybe
there was a rainstorm or snowstorm and
he dug a little enclave and he protected
himself I thought you were going to go
CU you said primordial I thought you
going to go back to like earlier
biological systems guess I guess
primordial for human
hum okay and then the first communist or
socialist would be someone that decided
the fruits of his labor belonged to him
so he would have violently encroached on
that individual and taken his plot for
himself for his own
use and that's
um that's the Spectrum across which
capitalism in the pure sense and
communism in the pure sense operate in
that capitalism each individual has the
exclusive rights to the fruits of their
labor so anything they spend their time
effort energy creating in the world they
own the rights to that and they can
trade those rights with others other
self-owned people that have done similar
things communism or socialism would
imply that other people typically the
state have the rights at least some
rights to your to the value you've
created so there's this interesting
moment when that first caveman that
first capitalist drew a line Circle in
this cave and said you know this is mine
you could say it was free to be claimed
at the time he claimed it yeah but it's
an interesting
moment when uh asset becomes an asset
when space time as you referring to it
becomes something that's now can be
possessed by a human being mhm is there
something special about this moment
because it feels like first of all in
terms of space and
time it feels like there's a lot of
available
space time yet to be claimed so if we
just look at like the universe right
we're talking about there's a funny
thing with uh with Elon Musk and Mars I
think they sneaked in there for SpaceX
that uh nobody on Earth has any
Authority on mars or any this is a very
interesting question it seems almost
like humorous at this time but perhaps
not perhaps there'll be sections of
space not just on planets that are going
to be even fought over so is there
something special about this moment
because in discussing sort of violence
and respect for property it feels like
this is a special
moment because uh ultimately conflict
arises when you make claims on a
particular territory it's you know it's
not always in Conflict where people say
when you look at Hitler or something for
example his claim would be in many of
the lands that he attacked and invaded
that this is all ultimately this has
always belonged to Germany mhm so is
there something you could say as to like
what it means to own an asset or a
property yeah so in the ancient days of
hunters and gatherers we could say
that property was mostly a loal title
which meant it's just whatever you can
defend right so if you've got knives and
daggers and satchels and you know maybe
some pelts you've you've hunted whatever
whatever you can hold and defend is
yours that's and and there's not like
there's a government to appeal to you
know you're just sort of uh free agent
operating in the wild defending the
assets you can protect on you more or
less um
and what really changed the nature of
property is when we get into the
agricultural age so there there's a big
flip where we went from just foraging
and hunting all the time constantly
moving trying to stay alive to deciding
we're going to settle here we figured
out how to cultivate crops we can create
uh you know we can increase the
population because we can Harvest more
energy from the Sun and we can establish
a longer term civilization what happens
in that transition is that we begin
creating economic surplus so for the
first time in history we have you know
grain uh uh stock houses of grain to
defend or maybe meat or cattle or
whatever it is we're creating we now
have savings MH and
it's at that time when government
emerges as well because once you have
savings or you have an economic surplus
you have something that other people
want to steal right this this one thing
we'll touch on a lot today is people
always want something for nothing
there's all people are always seeking
the path to get something for nothing
and I think that drives a lot of our
decision-making and it actually
encourages us to be Innovative in a lot
of ways right we're trying to um it's
you could say it's our laziness it's
helping us be in ventive in a way we
trying to accomplish greater results
with less efforts over time but they we
can cross that line in seeking something
for nothing where we start to violate
the life liberty and property of others
and that's where we shift from kind of
capitalistic Society to to something
more
communistic
and so that's what government is it's a
protection producing Enterprise for the
economic surplus generated by a trading
Society so when people begin to trade uh
they create What's called the division
of labor which is a very common
economics term basically means you're
better at making hats I'm better at
making boots if you and I you specialize
in hats I specialize in Boots and we
trade we've created a positive sum game
where you and I both benefit so we
become collectively more than the sum of
our parts through trade and that's why
human beings do trade because we become
more energy efficient as a result we
create more outputs per unit of input
and you could think of government in
that respect
if we're looking at it maybe in a tech
sense that the economy is the Trade
Network that generates wealth generates
Innovation generates all this whole lap
of luxury we live in today that we've
inherited from our forbears is from the
market it's not from a government the
government is the network security if
you will so we're we're we're paying
expenses to a vendor to protect peace to
preserve life liberty and property in
that Network so that we can have you
know when there's inevitably disputes
over private property we can have non
violent dispute resolution uh in the
rule of law um and we can have a
reasonable expectation of of being able
to conduct Commerce without violence the
problem has been that the protector
tends to you know they're in a
monopolistic position we' say they tend
to start abusing that position to
obtain uh property for themselves again
trying to get that something for nothing
when you control you know you are the
security guard for the economy the first
thing they tend to monopolize is money
because if you can control the money
you're effectively controlling people
their energy their
perceptions um and that becomes a you
know particularly through inflation
becomes an Avenue to get something for
nothing and that you can just print more
money that everyone else is forced to
sacrifice their time and energy to
obtain what what are your thoughts about
anarchism so um I talk quite a bit he'll
be here in a few days actually Michael
malice about ideas of Anarchy and his
idea or the idea of anarchists is that
any amount of government will eventually
become the very kind of thing that
you're referring to so there's almost no
way to have a government that doesn't
then try to um monopolize power money
and all those kinds of things do you
think it's possible to have a government
sort of on that spectrum of like Anarchy
maybe
libertarianism I'm not sure how exactly
the Spectrum goes but where you have a
small government that protects the
liberty and property rights and those
kinds of things and doesn't expand to
then also control the the monetary
system and all those other uh things AG
agreed completely it was not possible
until Satoshi
Nakamoto so for the first time in
history we have a money that cannot be
monopolized
cannot be corrupted cannot be
changed um cannot be weaponized frankly
our current monetary system is
weaponized by those who can print money
against those who
cannot um and I think when you have you
know at the heart of every modern
economy which even we could say the us
we pride ourselves as free market
capitalist you know we outc competed
communism in the 20th century we think
that this is the superior model um most
business people will tell you that the
free market is the best allocator of
resources all of these things but what
we have at the heart of every modern
economy including the US is an anti-c
capitalistic institution which is the
Central Bank um the temptation to
monopolized money throughout all of
history has been too strong for anyone
to resist so any even Ben benevolent
quote unquote dictators that have taken
over many dictators have inherited say
an inflationary regime or society's
coming apart because some someone was
clipping the coins or someone was
printing too much money and they'll
commit to going back to a hard money
standard so they'll keep Society on a
gold standard for instance such that
they cannot violate um the money to
benefit themselves but inevitably over
time because it is a political
institution there's an incentive there
right for for again to get something for
nothing to spend more than you're making
through tax
revenues and with that in of people
typically ultimately end up pursuing
that inflationary path so we can we get
deeper into that about inflation is a
term that we've been conditioned to
think today is just something normal the
prices just go up and then uh it's
pertinent to a healthy economy but it's
actually if you look at it from real
Force principles it is just theft
integrated into the money it's a
technology backd door is another way to
think about it you wouldn't buy a cell
phone knowing that someone siphon your
data off your private calls and sell it
into the market now I know we do that
with a lot of Social Media stuff today
and that's something else we can get
into but you wouldn't do it willingly
right you would you would prefer that
your cell phone and your data was
monetized by you or if you're going to
sell it you would be able to selectively
sell it inflation is that it's similar
it's a tech backdoor
so it's a money that only a few people
can siphon value off of syruptitious
uh typically slowly but but eventually
as we've seen throughout history that
slowly builds up into a rapidly and then
um causes the monetary system to
collapse do you think there's a benefit
to inflation possibly
so so when you have perfect information
but perhaps you you don't need inflation
Perhaps it is purely theft but I think
of inflation as like the snooze button
on the alarm like you just so if you
have a hard standard you better wake up
when the alarm rings but you know all of
us kind of like probably shouldn't but
use the snooze button he's like okay
well five more minutes or 10 more
minutes and then you're saying there's
naturally a slippery slope or you you uh
becomes a drug that you fall in love
with and you
abuse but nevertheless the usefulness of
this snooze button is that you don't
know how you'll be actually feeling when
the alarm rings you might be able to
radio to pop up you might be like you
really need those few more minutes like
to psychologically get yourself out of
bed this an this metaphor is just not
working at all but but do you think
there's a
use to uh to inflation sometimes from
like economics perspective I think the
drug metaphor is a little more apt in
that inflation does provide an
immediately stimulative effect um when
used early on
so but what it's doing is it's again we
talk about the balance between
incentives and disincentives right that
being NE necessary for a system to to
function properly if with inflation
you're essentially giving uh the people
that can print money a way to dampen the
disincentives they face
so it it it destroys feedback loops I
guess you might say and another way to
look at this is when you so using
inflation using mon quantitative easing
you can decrease short-term volatility
in the marketplace so the market is
basically this idea this form of free
exchange that's trying to zero in on the
best ideas and the ideas are those that
are most fit to reality to satisfying
the most wants it's going to overshoot
it's going to undershoot you have these
little business Cycles but when it's UND
shooting and you and you're experiencing
uh business
recession in a capitalist environment
the market needs to clear that
malinvestment that misallocation of
capital that means someone made a bet on
a certain idea that it would satisfy
wants in a particular way and that bet
did not pan out if you then paper over
the losses that business is creating
you're now delaying and exacerbating the
volatility that that idea created so
this is kind of a tban concept
where um you can dampen short run
volatility but volatility is truth
volatility is us matching our ideas to
reality right we're constantly again
overshooting and undershooting so if you
delay volatility you're just amp
amplifying it and exacerbating it in the
long run and that's what central bank is
doing the Central Bank mandate is low
unemployment and uh low unexpected
inflation
basically uh and so they're trying to
achieve economic growth in a stable way
quote unquote stable way this is their
ostensible purpose um and that's just
not possible growth is an inherently
instable
process can you can you elaborate a
little bit about the nature of
volatility why is it communicating
truth that's something that a lot of
people are afraid of is the volatility
almost like it's a it's a sign of chaos
and so they want to escape
chaos but you're saying that that's
actually whether it's chaos or not I
don't know but it's getting us closer to
the fundamental like reality that we
should not be trying to
escape yeah so if we consider that the
universe is praded by entropy right this
is the second law of Thermodynamics is
that every closed system tends towards
greater disorder over time and that life
itself again I would argue expressed
through the
logos we life is the anti-entropic
principle it's the only thing that's
converting entropy into order chaos into
order and that's what entrepreneurs are
doing right we're living at the edges of
the known and we're trying to we're
we're testing oursel against the entropy
of nature trying to figure out new and
better ways of saying doing or making
things and then if we do crack a code or
figure something out we then have a big
incentive the incentive is to get rich
right because then you have a new idea
that you could then sell back into the
marketplace so it's
this sequence of courageously
confronting the entropy of nature and
converting it into good and useful order
which by the way is like the ancient
idea of God in Genesis which I think is
interesting um that actually enables us
to construct civilization in these
layers of anti-entropy or order you
might say so today we live in a bubble
of of anti-entropy or order you know
like the coastlines are guarded by the
nation and the city has a certain uh
police force that keeps it in order um
um even the way we we talk like there
clearly the words matter but also the
non-verbal cues all these things are
like order that has been established
over many many many thousands of years
of of human
evolution
and I think that when I say volatility
is truth what I'm saying is that the
experience of uncertainty is something
that's ineradicable from from life right
uncertainty like it's kind of a paradox
because it's we're fighting against it
right we're trying to innovate our way
away from uncertainty to give us to
create more Capital which capital is
very simply uh a way of mitigating
uncertainty so this is why you might
have like a stash of food in case you
know the power goes out or a generator
like it helps you overcome uncertainty
over time but uncertainty is also where
all the sweetness of life is so there's
got to be this balance with one foot in
one foot out and so Human Society is
this kind of bubble of order that we've
distracted and slowly expanding but at
the edges you're always going to have
that chaos that volatility and that the
entrepreneurs uh are kind of like
jumping into that uh chaos and some of
them die uh and some of them succeed and
so like if you want to grow this bubble
of order you you have to be
embracing the volatility at the
edges that that and reverence for
entrepreneurship because these are the
people putting their neck out so to
speak risking themselves and they're
going to contribute to society by the
way whether they go up in Flames or not
if they go up in Flames Society has
witnessed their experience as something
not to do or something that doesn't work
in a particular time and place so that
you could say they're them going up in
Flames as a way of enlightening the rest
of us or if they figure something out
you know Steve Jobs creates the iPhone
changes the world
forever enlightening the rest of
us and TB would say with the fire of
their failure okay yeah exactly to would
say um individual fragility is
inseparable from Ensemble anti-
fragility so this means that again every
time that entrepreneur Goes Up in Flames
or say a restaurant goes out a business
when a restaurant goes out a business
that particular Cuisine strategy they
were implementing in that particular
time and place that's a signal to all
the other restaurants in the area that
that doesn't work so restaurant food
improves from bankruptcy to bankruptcy
so it's this this death of the
individual components that contributes
to the growth of The Ensemble as a small
side maybe you can guide me through it I
don't know if you're paying attention
but there was some chaos around TB and
the Bitcoin Community I wasn't quite
paying attention uh but from my
Outsiders perspective I thought uh theim
TB was a supporter of Bitcoin and then a
lot of people were very upset about
something I'm sorry if I don't know the
details but can you can you uh pull out
some profound philosophical ideas from
the disagreement of the chaos I
admittedly don't know too much about it
either I I've a big fan of his writing
um he's
always been a little different in person
like I actually he signed one of my
books I met him in person he's just he's
got a very abrasive personality he's
kind of known for it it's not I don't
think I'm passing any judgment here he
sort of Embraces it yeah but he had
written um the forward to a really
important book in Bitcoin called the
Bitcoin standard for safety in a moose
and then I think they had a little
Twitter beef because safe was is very
much against covid mask and state
intervention whereas tb's on the other
side of the fence right and so and then
after that beef TB came out against
bitcoiners saying oh bitcoiners are
crazy and wrong I think the great mask
debate of the 2020 will probably be the
thing that ultimately leased the World
War II
I've been very surprised how tense how
much like division this one little
arguably silly thing has led to I think
a lot of people sort of project their
like it's almost like not wearing a mask
is a statement of sovereignty of freedom
of like saying you to the man the
government that centralized power or the
dishonesty or the in the scientific
Community all those kinds of things and
then wearing a mask is a sort of kind of
signaling of of various kind of uh
social aspect I don't know I'm not
paying attention to it I actually tuned
out I was part of a group of scientists
that were looking into like do mask work
this very interesting question to me it
was an interesting question I sort of
roll in to ask that very interesting
question because I think it is an
interesting scientific question but then
I quickly realized that just as I was
doing this like scientific exploration
of this very interesting question about
about Von particles like what kind of
things like from a scientific
perspective how do we prevent the spread
of a pandemic forget covid any pandemic
super deadly or not deadly like there's
tools there's testing there's masks
there's all these tools how well do they
work and then I realized you know in
April or so it became a tool of politics
a tool of philosophy and that's when I
sort of pulled out so it's fascinating I
I I think it's a it's a it's a canvas on
which people project their emotions and
I guess until I'm got caught up in that
kind of so there's nothing fundamental I
suppose to their disagreement not that
I'm aware of but he is you know he's
written some about in his books the
problem with centralization I mean a lot
of his writing um addresses that he
actually points to I think Switzerland
is the best government in the world
because it's
decentralized um
so there's that I I don't think he has
any I'm not to speak for him but I don't
think he's voiced any specific critiques
on bitcoin per se could be wrong about
that it's it's just maybe his flavorful
language and the way he likes to
communicate and the other theory is that
maybe he's playing 4D chess and having a
a Twitter boating accident you know so I
don't believe in Bitcoin I've sold all
my Bitcoin and oh I see yeah what uh
sorry the boting accident in Bitcoin is
this um I guess it's proverbial by this
point where it's the way you lose your
Bitcoin so if someone comes after you
and says hey you know whether it's a
government or an individual is coming
after you saying give me all your
Bitcoin or pay these taxes in Bitcoin
you go oh I had a boating accident and
lost them all lost them all so
yeah uh but back to the fundamental
nature of SpaceTime let me ask you CU
we're kind of left it I'd like to go
back to this idea of um that you said
that everything we think say or do
occurs Within the bounds of
SpaceTime uh so first of all maybe you
can comment on what do you mean in this
context about space time but also about
the nature of uh truth like how much of
all of this is knowable how much of this
is accessible to us humans how much
uncertainty like what we're talking
about is there in the world are you do
you fall in a place where we can reason
deeply about this world and it's
knowable or is it mostly chaos and we're
just holding on for de
life yeah I think I said that all action
occurs within the bounds of SpaceTime
the other thing everything we say do or
make the other thing is that everything
we say do or make starts out as an idea
so there's this concept of universal
Darwinism which basically um applies
darwinian principles but outside of the
biological sphere so we could say that
this kind of gets into Richard Dawkins
memetics that even ideas are competing
reproduc producing recombining um that
idea is so powerful by the way I I don't
think it's been understood fully uh I
think in the digital in the in the 21st
century in the digital world from my
perspective in artificial
intelligence there's yet to be some
profound things to be discovered about
this whole construct agreed completely
it's been called an acid actually and
that it just it strips away all of the
non-informational components of
something just strips it down to its
bones um I have a quote in here
somewhere about that but sorry which is
called an asset the ideas the universal
Darwinism Darwin is implied broadly
outside of the broadly and um I I I
condition all of this with saying that a
lot most of my thinking is shaped by a
book I read recently called the case
against
reality um which introduced me to this
concept but it tied into Darwinism that
I've used more broadly in the past
looking at things like money and and
economics so the book the Case against
Reality by Donald Hoffman um he has a
quote in the book that describes un
Universal Darwinism it says quote
Universal Darwinism can without risk of
refuting itself address our key question
does natural selection favor true
perceptions if the answer happens to be
no then it hasn't shot itself in the
foot The Uncanny power of universal
Darwinism has been likened by the
philosopher Dan Dennett to a universal
acid and Dan Dennett says say quote
there is no denying at this point that
Darwin's idea is a universal solvent
capable of cutting right to the heart of
everything in sight the question is what
does it leave behind I have tried to
show that once it passes through
everything we are left with stronger
Sounder versions of our most important
ideas some of the traditional details
perish and some of these are losses to
be regretted but good riddens to the
rest of them what remains is more than
enough to build on
unquote so the the way I would interpret
that is that life itself I've come to
view life as information propagating
through
flesh um and that we are I I guess um
DNA is a a quadratic code I think it's
four letters maybe versus a binary zeros
and ones and we are ideas we are
strategies competing with each other and
nature is that which selects it's what
selects the the winning ideas the ones
that are most f
um to to environmental conditions
frankly you know talking about
sovereignty and
individualism there might need to be
some rethinking here about what is
actually the basic individual entity
that is to be Sovereign like maybe our
biological
meat Vehicles were like way overly
attached to
them like may maybe uh espe with
genetics and all those kinds of things
or artificial intelligence or living
more and more in Virtual Worlds will
become detached from that kind of idea
so for example if I can clone you you
know make make 1 million robbers and you
know but you'll all have the same idea
what is real your real value as the like
I could just shoot you and there'll
still be 9999 of you but the idea is the
important thing yeah the the things you
believe so
I would argue that I don't know even if
you clone someone perfectly I don't
think you can reproduce the individual
themselves because they're we're all a
product of Nature and nurture right so
my particular Concourse of experiences
the path dependence that I represent
cannot be replicated as nor can anyone's
for that matter well that's that's a
hypothesis so we that's that's a
course a human meat bag would say
so
so like desperately trying to preserve
himself uh you know it's I think it
reduces to some fundamental questions
about what is consciousness and whether
that can be cloned all those kind you
know it gets to the core of what it is
to be human what are what are the things
that make you particularly you yeah I
think it would assume kind of a
materialist viewpoint on reality and
that if you could reproduce every atom
of an individual that you would have
their experience encapsulated in that
and you know Hoffman's which is book is
very radical he argues that space and
time is not an objective reality it's a
biological interface so we are scanning
our environment for Fitness payoffs and
this space and time is the rendering
specific to human beings that allows us
to navigate reality um effectively so
the further argument would be that we
all have pretty similar interfaces but
they're all slightly different too
because we're all you know adapting in
different ways and different animals
have their own unique interfaces so we
have a certain amount of photo receptors
in our eye whereas I think the number is
three might be five where something like
the mantis shrimp has like seven or nine
so they can see and we only see one 10
trillionth of the light
spectrum so talk about a tiny fraction I
mean one 10 trillionth is a very
minuscal number and that makes up all of
the light that we can interpret with our
eyes but it's something like a mantis
shrimp could see you know much more of
that
so I think there's
this we're very conditioned to have a
fully materialist viewpoint on reality
today where we
think uh you know the atomic Clockwork
kind of universe but I think there's I
don't think that's true exactly and um
another school that goes into that is
actually Austrian
economics where we could say that you
know we mentioned earlier that an asset
is not proper it's actually based on the
relationship between the individual and
the property um there's this whole realm
of relevance associated with
uh we're all moving through life in the
course of a goal directed action so when
we walk across a room I go from A to B
it's because I valued B more than a so
value is inseparable from Human Action
we have a rank ordered value system in
our mind each of us and we're constantly
taking action in accordance with those
rank
values anything that accelerates us on
the course of our go directed action
towards our goal is
useful anything that impedes us or we
could say is valuable anything that
impedes us is actually uh obstructing to
value and anything that's irrelevant is
just
valueless
so this table that we're using right now
like this is a it's an accessory to you
and I because it's holding this paper
that's holding the information that's
guiding our conversation MH but we could
pay someone $100 to jump over this table
and this table could simultaneously be
an accessory to you and I and an
obstacle to someone else so it's this
domain this silent contention of
willpower and agendas occurring across
the face of the Earth that um is what
Austrian economics really looks at it's
um the The Realm Of Human Action as they
call it it's called praxiology so it's a
non-materialist viewpoint on reality and
that things we think in terms of matter
being reality but it's often more so in
the sphere Of Human Action what matters
that is reality it's the relevance of a
thing to the course of of one's go
directed action and that's ultimately I
exists in the space of ideas yes not in
the space of physical matter and just to
jump back to this line here I think his
fundamental line here is the question is
talking about Universal Darwinism as an
asset what does it leave behind I've
tried to show that once it passes
through everything we're left with
stronger Sounder versions of our most
useful ideas that's the key point to me
and that ideas and information so far as
we can tell are the most fundamental
substrate of
reality um and information itself back
to entropy information is the resolution
of entropy that's what the bit is right
it's a one or zero whatever reduces your
entropy by half is a bit and we measure
information in bits
so and you're right people don't have
ideas ideas have people I honestly I
it's it's a really profound idea uh or
uh a statement about reality a reframing
of reality it's it's a if we're actually
being deeply honest about it it's quite
painful I I I do appreciate that you
defended your biological Meb earlier but
it seems like ideas are the things that
have power that um me me Lex for example
is
worthless and uh relative to the ideas
that used my brain for a bit of a time
but so far as we know only human beings
can generate and share ideas so you
can't say Lux is worthless like you are
the node of the idea sphere the newest
sphere so I'm I'm uh I'm what is it uh
from the Bitcoin perspective I'm like
I'm mining I'm solving the cryptographic
pro problem and gener uh I'm I'm I'm a
use in that sense I'm a useful node uh
yeah you're competing to solve the the
puzzle of entropy right and when you do
solve it it benefits the entire network
but I guess um from my perspective just
because just working in AI I'm looking
at the long-term Vision I I see us
humans and AI systems as is really the
same and AI systems ultimately as
something that supersedes humans so what
is
intelligence so in the context of our
current discussion I think um
intelligence is very closely linked to
this notion of
ideas it's the ability to generate ideas
to mold ideas
to uh compress seeming chaos into some
model into some theory that efficiently
compresses the chaos in in a way where
you can then integrate it with other
ideas and they can play and all those
kinds of things so in that sense it's
the Turning chaos into order it's the
molding of ideas such that our human
brains uh can work with it and it just
from my perspective I don't see any
reason why that cannot be algorith
matized converted into Compu
computational systems I would agree uh
which is
scary scary or potentially really
promising right it's kind of the case
with all novelty it's terrifying as much
as it is promising that's why you're
pursuing it so heavily I would maybe
take it a step further and say the
intelligence and maybe it's most
simplistic form is error
correction so
we humans have wants again we're
constantly expressing our value through
action there there's no way to express
it by the way it's whatever you choose
to do in any moment you are expressing
the values you hold in your mind and
your
heart as we move from a from less valued
a to more valued B uh we we entropy
happens uncertainty happens we we fall
off course and it is intelligence that
enables us to render information from
that experience and error correct right
so that we can move we can move slightly
change shift our trajectory slightly
more towards uh B that we're trying to
move towards so I think
that there's something there that I
don't know that we
can make synthetically and that when we
if we if we if we Define intelligence as
error correction it's like error
correction to what it's Error correction
towards what we find is valuable right
so we're trying to satisfy human wants
might not just be our own could be
others as well if I'm an entrepreneur
I'm trying to solve the wants of others
not just myself myself M and I'm trying
to eror correct myself towards that goal
um using intelligence and processing
environmental feedback through
intelligence to error correct so I don't
know how If you
eliminate the human ele element
completely who's doing the wanting right
where does value come from I know
machine learning people who are
listening are saying that's exactly what
machine learning is which is error
correction because you have a lost
function objective function that
measures how wrong your thing is and you
want to make it less wrong next time
that's the whole process of machine
learning but you're saying what humans
are able to do is in a world where
there's there's
no maybe objective values absolute
values you're generating that very loss
function that objective function that
you're that function that measures the
error comes from the the human
mind uh some aliens might disagree with
with you cuz they might have a different
objective function obiously purpose
comes from Consciousness I think and
without purpose there's not error
correction yeah I mean this is again a
hypothesis like where does purpose come
from it seems to come from Consciousness
you're
right that's where suffering comes from
and you want to lessen
suffering that's where pleasure comes
from it seems like it's Consciousness
maybe there is something to this
biological meat meat bag so to take it
one layer the on this and the reason I
like this book so much again the case
against
reality so he's making the case that
space and time are not fundamental yes
which I I started my intellectual
Explorations in physics actually
astrophysics so for the longest time
even the way I describ money as I talk
about space and time so that that blew
my mind but this dovetailed nicely with
another book called Leela um the the
author is Robert perig so he wrote Zen
In The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
which is a very popular book book 20
years later he wrote Leela which no
one's heard of which is crazy and he
basically says he was wrong about his
first book and he lays out this entire
other uh metaphysics of of quality he
calls it so it's it's the metaphysics I
think it's metaphysics of quality but
his supposition is that it's not
physical reality that's fundamental it's
not informational information that's
fundamental it's
value so he actually and it's a
beautiful book book I highly recommend
it he essentially is refuting causality
itself we think a causes
B this book makes the case that b values
precondition a so that we are actually
creating our future through our value
systems and this goes back to um
something I think Soulja niton said this
that the the line between good and evil
runs down the heart of every man so it's
as if our moral decisions are actually
what's creating the outcomes in reality
over time and then that gets into all
the wisdom Traditions related to
religion where it's always talking about
you know loving thy neighbor and loving
God and all of these other things that
are good morally to create the best
outcomes so values are fundamental value
yes value yeah is
fundamental oh boy yeah that's
interesting I mean the
it does feel like physics is not
capturing
something you know there's some people
uh pan
psychist argue that Consciousness might
be one of the fundamental properties of
nature like from which emerges
everything we see so that could be just
other words for this same notion of
value and then the the basic laws of
physics are not capturing that currently
yeah so maybe humans in order to
understand from where humans came from
we have to understand these other
properties of nature which are yet to be
discovered right at the physics level
and it's we contend with that underlying
nature whatever it is with the logos
right so we are we're looking at
uncategorized nature and then we're
assigning a word to it so we're we're
slicing up chaos into little boxes of
order and then we're establishing this
social consensus as to those labels
which we' call words and we're using
that to communicate and when we
communicate um we can start to build
these other things this is like uh the
uvall Harari imagined orders so we can
create these useful fictions right
whether it's the nation state or human
rights or money and that allows us to
cooperate flexibly in large numbers so
that we can better contend with reality
we can produce more complicated things
um we can we can enlarge that bubble of
civilization against
entropy and that's what capitalism is
all about it's
about further specializing knowledge
further enriching Mankind's treasury of
knowledge um and doing it but but to do
that the the communication media that
we're using the words have to have
stable meaning the the money needs to
have um value that's dependable right it
needs to be something
that's it's not dictated by any one
group group it's reached by consensus of
the entire group that's how um so you
could think it it's like optimizing for
error correction again where a free
market would be harnessing the
intelligence of all Market
actors and a c