Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Richard Dawkins an evolutionary
biologist and author of The Selfish Gene
the blind watchmaker The God Delusion
the magic of reality and the greatest
show of Earth and his latest Al growing
God he is the originator and popularizer
of a lot of fascinating ideas in
evolutionary biology and Science in
general including funny enough the
introduction of the word meme in his
1976 book The Selfish Gene which in the
context of a gene centered view of
evolution is an exceptionally powerful
idea he's outspoken bold and often
Fearless in the defense of science and
reason and in this way is one of the
most influential thinkers of our
time this conversation was recorded
before the outbreak of the pandemic for
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world and now here's my conversation
with Richard Dawkins
do you think there's intelligent life
out there in the
universe well if we accept there's
intelligent life here and re accept that
the number of planets in the universe is
gigantic I mean 10 to 22 Stars has been
estimated it seems to me highly likely
that there is not only life in the
universe elsewhere but also intelligent
life If you deny that then you're
committed to the view that the things
that happened on this planet are
staggeringly improbable I mean
ludicrously off the charts improbable
and I don't think it's that improbable
certainly the origin of life itself
there really two steps the origin of
life which is probably fairly improbable
and then the subsequent Evolution to
intelligent life which is also fairly
improbable so the Jos of those two you
could say it's pretty improbable but not
10 to the 20 to improbable it's an
interesting question maybe you're coming
on to it how we would recognize
intelligence from Outer Space if we if
we encountered it the most likely way we
would come across them would be by radio
it's highly unlikely they'd ever visit
us but um it's not it's not that
unlikely that we would pick up radio
signals and then we would have to have
some means of deciding that it was
intelligent um people have with people
involved in the seti program discuss how
they would do it and things like prime
numbers would be an obvious thing to an
obvious an obvious way for them to
broadcast to say we are in intelligent
we are here um I suspected probably
would be obvious actually that's
interesting prime numbers so the
mathematical patterns it's an open
question whether mathematics is the same
for us and as it would be for aliens I
suppose we could assume that ultimately
if if we're governed by the same laws of
physics then we should be governed by
the same laws of mathematics I think so
I suspect that they will have Pythagoras
Theorem Etc I mean I don't think their
mathematics will be that different do
you think Evolution would also be a
force on the AL I planets as well I
stuck my neck out and said that if we do
if ever that we do discover life
elsewhere it will be darwinian life in
the sense that it will it will work by
some kind of natural selection the
non-random survival of non of randomly
generated codes uh it doesn't mean it
that the genetic would have to have some
kind of genetics but it doesn't have to
be DNA genetics probably wouldn't be
actually but it would I think it would
have to be darwinian yes so some kind of
selection process
yes in the general sense it would be
darwinian so let me ask kind of uh an
artificial intelligence engineering
question so you've been an outspoken
critic of I guess what could be called
intelligent design which is an attempt
to describe the creation of a human Mind
and Body by some religious folks
religious folks used to describe so
broadly speaking evolution is as far as
I know again you can correct me is the
only scientific theory we have for the
development of intelligent life like
there's no alternative Theory as far as
as far as I understand none has ever
been suggested and I suspect it never
will
be well of course whenever somebody says
that 100 years later I know it's a it's
a risk it's a risk but um want to bet I
mean I I I but it would look sorry yes
it would probably look very similar but
it' be it's almost like uh Einstein
general relativity versus Newtonian
physics it'll be maybe um an alteration
of the Theory something like that but it
won't be fundamentally different but
okay it so uh so now for the past 70
years even before the AI Community has
been trying to engineer intelligence in
a sense to do what intelligent design
says you know uh was done here on Earth
what's your intuition do you think it's
possible to build
intelligence to build computers that are
intelligent or do we need to do
something like the evolution process
like there's there's no shortcuts here
that's an interesting question I I'm
committed to the belief that is
ultimately possible because I think
there's nothing non-physical in our
brains I think our brains work by by the
laws of physics and so it must in
principle be possible to replicate that
in practice though it might be very
difficult and as you suggest it might it
may be the only way to do it is by
something like an evolutionary process
I'd be surprised I I suspect that it
will come but it's certainly been slower
incoming than some of the early Pioneers
thought thought it would be yeah but in
your sense is the evolutionary process
efficient so you can see it as
exceptionally wasteful in one
perspective but at the same time maybe
that is the only path to it's a paradox
isn't it I mean on the one side it is
deplorably wasteful yeah uh it's
fundamentally based on waste on the
other hand it does produce magnificent
results um I mean the the the design
design of a
soaring bird an
albatross a vulture an eagle um is is
superb an engineer would be proud to
have done it on the other hand an
engineer would not be proud to have done
some of the other things that Evolution
has served up um some of the sort of
botch jobs that you can easily
understand because of their historical
Origins but they don't look welld
designed you have examples of bad bad
design my favorite example is the
recurrent lingal nerve I've used this
many times this is a nerve it's one of
the cranial nerves which goes from the
brain and the end organ that it supplies
is the voice box the the larynx but it
doesn't go straight to the larynx it
goes right in down into the chest and
then loops around an artery in the chest
and then come straight back up again to
the
larynx uh and I've assisted in the
dissection of a giraffe's neck which
happened to have died in a zoo and we
watched the we saw the recurrent lenal
nerve going whizzing straight past the
larynx within an inch of the larynx down
into the chest and then back up again um
which is a a detour of many
feet um very very inefficient the reason
is historical the ancestors our fish
ancestors the ancestors of all mammals
and fish um the most direct pathway of
that of the equivalent of that nerve
there wasn't a larynx in those days but
it innovated part of the gills the most
direct pathway was behind that artery
and then when the mammal when the
tetrapods when the land vertebrae
started evolving and then the neck
started to stretch the marginal cost of
changing the embryological design to
jump that nerve over the artery was too
great or rather was was each step of the
way was a was a very small cost but the
marginal but the cost of actually
jumping it over would have been very
large as the neck
lengthened it was a negligable change to
just increase the Len the length of the
detour a tiny bit a tiny bit a tiny bit
each millimeter at a time didn't make
any difference and so but finally when
you get to a giraff it's a huge detour
and no doubt is very inefficient now
that's bad design any engineer would
reject that piece of design it's
ridiculous and there are quite number of
examples as you'd expect it's not
surprising that we find examples of that
sort in a way what's surprising is there
aren't more of them in a way what's
surprising is that the design of living
things is so good so natural selection
manages to achieve excellent
results um partly by tinkering partly by
coming along and cleaning up initial
mistakes and and as it were making the
best of a bad job that's really
interesting I mean it it is surprising
and and beautiful and it's a it's a
mystery from an engineering perspective
that so many things are welld designed I
suppose the thing we're forgetting is
how many
generations have to die oh yeah that's
the inefficiency of it yes that's the
horrible wastefulness of it so yeah we
we Marvel at the final product but uh
yeah the process is
painful Elon mus describes human beings
as potentially the what he calls the
biological Bootloader for artificial
intelligence or artificial general
intelligence is used as the term it's
kind of like super intelligence do you
see superhuman level intelligence is
potentially The Next Step In The
evolutionary process yes I think that if
if superhuman intelligence is to be
found it will be artificial I I I don't
have any hope that we ourselves our
brains will go on uh go and getting
larger in ordinary biological evolution
um I think that's probably come to an
end it it is the dominant Trend or one
of the dominant Trends in our fossil
history for the last 2 or three million
years brain size brain size yes so it's
been it's been swelling rather
dramatically over the last 3 million
years that is unlikely to continue the
the only way that that's that happens is
because natural selection favors those
individuals with the with the biggest
brains um and that's not happening
anymore right so in general in humans
the the selection pressures are not act
I mean are they active in any form any
well in order for them to be active it
would be necessary that the most int
let's let's call it
intelligence not that intelligence is is
simply correlated with brain size but
let's let's talk about
intelligence in order for that to evolve
it's necessary that the most intelligent
beings have the most individuals have
the most
children um and um uh so intelligence
may buy you money it may buy you um
worldly success it may buy you a nice
house and and a nice car and things like
that if you're successful career uh it
may buy you the admiration of your
fellow people but it doesn't
increase the number of offspring that
you have it doesn't increase your
genetic uh Legacy to the next Generation
on the other hand artificial
intelligence um I mean computers and
Technology generally is evolving by a
non- gentic means by Leaps and Bounds of
course and so what do you think uh I
don't know if you're familiar there's a
company called neuralink but there's a
general effort of brain computer
interfaces which is to try to build a
connection between the computer and the
Brain to send signals both directions
and the long-term dream there is to do
exactly that which is
expand I guess expand the size of the
brain expand the capabilities of the
brain do you uh do you see this as
interesting do you see this is a
promising possible technology or is the
interface between the computer and the
brain like the brain is this wet messy
thing that's just impossible to
interface with well of course it's
interesting whether it's promising I'm
really not qualified to say what I do
find puzzling is that the brain being as
small as it is compared to computer and
the and the individual components being
as slow as they are compared to our
electronic components it is astonishing
what it can do I mean imagine building a
computer that that fits into the size of
a human skull um and with the equivalent
of transistors or integrated circuits
which work as slowly as neurons do uh
it's there's something mysterious about
that something something must be going
on that we don't understand so I I've uh
I've just talked to Roger penos I'm not
sure if you're familiar with with his
work and he he he also describes this
kind of um mystery in in the mind in the
brain that he's a materialist so there's
not there's no sort of mystical thing
going on but there's so much about the
material of the that we don't understand
the that that might be quantum
mechanical nature and so on so there are
the ideas about Consciousness do you
have any have you ever thought about do
you ever think about ideas of
Consciousness or a little bit more about
the mystery of intelligence and
Consciousness that seems to pop up just
like you're saying from our brain I
agree with Roger Penrose that there is a
mystery there um I I I mean he's one of
the world's greatest physicists I I I
can't possibly argue with with with with
his but nobody knows anything about
Consciousness and in fact you know if if
we talk about religion and so on some
the mystery of Consciousness is so on
inspiring and we know so little about it
that the leap to sort of religious or
mystical explanations is too easy to
make I I think that it's just an act of
cowardice to LEAP to religious
explanations water doesn't do that of
course um but I I I accept that there
may be something we don't understand
about it so correct me if I'm wrong but
in your book selfish Gene the the gene
centered view of evolution of allows us
to think of the physical organisms as
just the medium through which the
software of our genetics and the the
ideas sort of propagate uh so maybe can
we start just with with the basics what
in this context does the word meme mean
it would mean the cultural equalent of a
gene cultural equivalent in the sense of
that which plays the same role as the
gene in the transmission of culture and
the transmission of ideas in the
broadest sense and it's only a useful
word if there's something darwinian
going on obviously culture is
transmitted but is there anything
darwinian going on and if there is that
means there has to be something like a
gene which is which becomes more
numerous or less numerous in the
population so it can replic at it can
replicate well it clearly does replicate
there's no question about that uh the
question is does it replicate in a sort
of differential way in a darwinian
fashion could you say that certain ideas
propagate because they're successful in
the meme pool um in a sort of trivial
sense you can um would you wish to say
though that in the same way as a animal
body is modified adapted to serve as a
machine for propagating genes is it also
machine for propagating memes Could you
actually say that something about the
way a human is is is modified
adapted um for the function of meme
propagation that's such a fascinating
possibility if that's true if that that
it's not just about the genes which seem
somehow more com comprehensible like
these things of biology the the the the
idea that culture or maybe ideas you can
really broadly Define it yes operates
under these mechanisms even morphology
even an
anatomy does does evolve by mimetic
means I mean things like
hairstyles um uh styles of makeup um
circumcision the these things are actual
changes in the body form yes which are
non- gentic and which get passed on from
generation to generation or sideways
like a virus um in in in a quasi genetic
way
but the moment you start drifting away
from the physical it becomes interesting
cuz the space of ideas ideologies
political systems of course yes so
what's what in your what's your sense is
um are memes or metaphor more or are
they really is there something
fundamental almost physical presence of
memes well I think they're a bit more
than a metaphor and and I think that um
I I mentioned the
physical bodily characteristics which
are a bit trivial in a way but when
things like the propagation of religious
ideas um both longitudinally down
generations and transversely as in a
sort of epidemiology of of ideas when a
charismatic
preacher converts
people um that that's that resembles
viral
transmission um whereas the the
longitudinal trans from grandparent to
parent to child Etc is is is um more
more like conventional genetic
transmission that's such a beautiful
especially especially in the modern day
idea uh do you think about this
implication in social networks where the
propagation of ideas the viral
propagation of ideas and hence the the
new use of the word meme to describe the
the internet of course provides
extremely rapid method of tra adiss and
before when when I first coined the word
the internet didn't exist and so that I
was thinking then in terms of books
newspapers um broad radio television
that kind of thing now an idea can just
leap around the world in in all
directions instantly and so the internet
provides a a step change in uh the
facility of propagation of memes how
does that make you feel isn't it
fascinating that sort of ideas it's like
uh you have galpagos islandss or
something is the 70s and the internet
allowed all these species to just like
globalize and and in in a matter of
seconds you can spread a message to
millions of people and these uh ideas
these memes can breed can evolve can
mutate can there's a selection and
there's like different I guess groups
that of all like there's a Dynamics
that's fascinating here do you think yes
basically do you think your work in this
direction while fundamentally was
focused on life on Earth do you think it
should continue like to be Tak I mean I
do think it would probably be a good
idea to think in a darwinian way about
this sort of thing we conventionally
think of um the transmission of ideas
from an evolutionary context as being
limited
to in our ancestors um people living in
villages living in small bands where
everybody knew each other and ideas
could propagate within the village and
they might hop to a neighboring
Village occasionally and maybe even to a
neighboring continent eventually and
that was a slow process nowadays
Villages are international I mean you
you you have people um it's been called
um Echo Chambers where where people are
in a a sort of Internet Village um where
the other members of The Village may be
geographically distributed all over the
world but they just happen to be
interested in the same things use the
same terminology the same jargon um have
the same enthusiasms that people like
the Flat Earth
Society they don't all live in one place
they find each other and they talk the
same language to each other they talk
the same nonsense to each other um and
they but so this is a kind of
distributed version of the Primitive
idea of of people living in in villages
and propagating their ideas in a local
way is there uh is there darwinist paral
parallel here so is there um
evolutionary purpose of villages or is
that just a uh I wouldn't use a word
like evolutionary purpose in that that
case but V Villages or Villages would be
something that just emerged that's the
way people happen to live and uh and it
just the same kind of way the Flat Earth
Society societies of ideas emerge in the
same kind of way in this digital
space yes yes is there something
interesting to say about the I guess
from a perspective of Darwin could we
fully interpret the Dynamics of social
interaction in these uh social networks
or is there or some much more
complicated thing need to be developed
like what's your sense well a darwinian
selection idea would involve
investigating which ideas spread and
which which don't um so I mean some
ideas don't have the ability to spread I
mean the flat earth flat Earth ism is is
there are few people believe in it but
it's not going to spread because it's
obvious nonsense but other ideas even if
they are wrong can spread because they
are um attractive in some sense so the
the spreading in the
selection in the
darwinian context is uh it just has to
be attractive in some sense like we
don't have to Define like it doesn't
have to be attractive in the way that
animals attract each other it could be
attractive in some other way yes it's
it's all that matters is all it's needed
is it to spread and it doesn't have to
be true to spread me truth is one
Criterion which might help an idea to
spread but there are other criteria
which might help you to spread as you
say attraction in animals is not
necessarily valuable for survival cele
the famous peacock's tale yeah doesn't
help the peacock to survive it helps it
to pass on it jeans similarly um an idea
which is actually rubbish but which
people don't know is rubbish and think
is very attractive will spread um in the
same way as a peacock's Gene spread it's
a small side step I remember reading
somewhere uh I think recently that in
some species of birds sort of the idea
that beauty may have its own purpose and
the idea that
some some birds um I'm I'm being in
eloquent here but there is some aspects
of their feathers and so on that serve
no evolutionary purpose whatsoever there
was somebody making an argument that
there are some things about beauty that
animals do that may be its own purpose
that does that ring a bell for you does
that sound ridiculous I think it's a
rather distorted Bell um um Darwin when
he coined the phrase sexual selection
yes uh didn't feel the need to
suggest that what was attractive to
females usually is males attracting
females that what females found
attractive had to be useful he said it
didn't have to be useful it was enough
that females found it attractive and so
it could be completely useless probably
was completely useless in the
conventional sense but was not at all
useless in the sense of passing on D
Darin didn't call them G but in sense of
reproducing um
others starting with Wallace the
co-discoverer of
natural selection didn't like that idea
and they
wanted um sexually selected
characteristics like peacock's Tales to
be in some sense useful it's a bit of a
stretch to think of a peacock's tale as
being useful but in in the sense of
survival but others have run with that
idea and have brought it up to date and
so there's a kind of there are two
schools of thought on sexual selection
which are still active and about equally
supported now those who follow Darwin in
thinking that it's just enough to say
it's attractive and those who follow um
Wallace and say that um it has to be in
some sense
useful do you fall into one category or
the other no I'm open minded I I think
they both could be correct in different
cases oh I mean they've both been made
sophisticated in a mathematical sense
more so than when Darwin and Wallace
first started talking about it I'm
Russian I ra romanticize things so I I
prefer the former yes or the
where the beauty in itself is a powerful
uh
so attraction is a powerful force in
evolution on
religion do you think there will ever be
a time in our future where almost nobody
believes in God or um God is not a part
of the moral fabric of our
society yes I do I think it may happen
after a very long time I think it may
take a long time for that to happen so
do you think ultimately for everybody on
Earth earth
religion other forms of doctrines ideas
could do better job than what religion
does yes um I mean following
truth reason well truth truth is a funny
funny word uh and reason
to there's yeah it's a it's a difficult
idea now with um truth on the internet
right and fake news and so on I suppose
when you say reason you mean the very
basic sort
of inarguable conclusions of science
versus which political system is better
yes yes uh I I mean uh truth about the
real world which is ascertainable um by
not just by the more rigorous methods of
science but by um just ordinary sensory
observation so do you think there will
ever be a time when
we move past it like I guess another way
to ask it are we
hopelessly
fundamentally tied to religion in the
way our society
functions well clearly all individuals
are not hopelessly tied to it because
many individuals don't believe um you
could mean something like Society needs
religion in order to function properly
something like that and some people have
suggested that some what's your
intuition on that well I've read books
on it um and they're persuasive I I
don't think they're that persuasive
though I mean I some people suggested
that
Society needs a sort of figurehead which
can be a non-existent figurehead in
order to function properly I think
there's something rather patronizing
about the idea that well you and I are
intelligent enough not to believe in God
but the plebs need it sort of thing and
I think that's patronizing and uh I'd
like to think that that that was not the
right way to
proceed but at the individual level do
you think there's some
value of
spirituality sort of uh if if I think
sort of as a scientist the amount of
things we actually know about our
universe is a tiny tiny tiny percentage
of what we could possibly know so just
from everything even the certainty we
have about the laws of physics it seems
to be that there's yet a huge amount to
discover and therefore we're sitting
where the
99.999% of things is just still shrouded
in mystery do you think there's a role
in a kind of spiritual view of that sort
of a humbled spiritual I think it's
right to be humble I think it's right to
admit that there's a lot we don't know a
lot that we don't understand a lot that
we still need to work on and we are
working on it what I don't think is that
it helps to invoke
Supernatural explanations what we if our
if our current scientific explanations
aren't adequate to do the job then we
need better ones we need to work more
and of course the history of science
shows just that that as science goes on
uh problems get solved one after another
and the science advances the science
gets better uh but to invoke an a
non-scientific
non-physical explanation is simply to
lie down in a cly way and say we can't
solve it so we're going to invoke magic
don't let's do that let's say we need
better science we need more science uh
it may be that the science will never do
it it may be that we will never actually
understand everything and that's okay
but let's keep working on
it a challenging question there is do
you think science can lead us astray in
terms of the humbleness so there's some
aspect of
science maybe it's the aspect of
scientist and not science but uh of sort
of um a mix of ego and
confidence that can lead us astray in
terms of discovering the you know some
of the big open questions about yes
about the Universe I think that's right
I mean there are there are arrogant
people in any Walk of Life And
scientists are no exception to that and
so there are arrogant scientists who
think we've sold everything of course we
haven't so humility is a proper stance
for a scientist I mean it's a proper
working stance because it
encourages further work um but in a way
to resort to a supernatural EXP
explanation is a kind of arrogance
because it's saying well we don't
understand it scientifically therefore
the uh non-scientific
religious Supernatural explanation must
be the right one that's arrogant what is
what is humble is to say we don't know
and we need to work further on it so
maybe if I could psychoanalyze you for a
second you have at times been just
slightly frustrated with people who have
super you know have a supernatural
um has that changed over the years have
you become like how do people that kind
of have like seek Supernatural
explanations how do you see those
people as human beings as like do you
see them as dishonest do you see them as
um sort of um ignorant do you see them
as I don't know it like how do you think
of certainly not not not dishonest and
and and I mean obviously many of them
are perfect nice people so I don't I
don't sort of despise them in that sense
um I think it's often a misunderstanding
that that um people will jump from the
admission that we don't understand
something they will jump straight to
what they think of as an alternative
explanation which is the supernatural
one which is not an alternative it's a
non-explanation um instead of jumping to
the conclusion that science needs more
work that we need to actually get do
some better better science so um I I I
don't have I
mean personal antipathy towards such
people I just think they're they're
misguided so what about this really
interesting space that I have trouble
with so religion I have a better grasp
on but um there's a large communities
like you said Flat Earth Community uh
that I've recently because I've made a
few jokes about it I saw that there's I
I've noticed that there's people that
take it quite
seriously so there's this bigger world
of conspiracy
theorists which is a kind
of I mean there's elements of it that
are religious as well but I think
they're also scientific so the the basic
uh Credo of a conspiracy theorist is to
question everything which is also The
Credo of a good scientist I would say so
what do you make of this I mean I think
it's probably too easy to say that by
labeling something conspiracy you you
therefore dismiss it I mean occasionally
conspiracies are right and so we
shouldn't dismiss conspiracy theories
out of hand we should examine them on
their own merits flat eism is obvious
nonsense we don't have to examine that
much further um but um I there may be
other conspiracy theories which are
actually right so I've you know grew up
in the Soviet Union so I you know the
space race was very influential for me
on both sides of the coin uh you know
there's uh conspiracy theory that we
never went to the moon right
and it's uh it's like I can understand
it and it's very difficult to rigorously
scientifically show one way or the other
it's just you have to use some of the
human intuition about who would have to
lie who would have to work together and
it's clear that very unlikely
uh good PE behind that is my general
intuition that most people in this world
are good you know in order to really put
together some conspiracy theories there
has to be a large number of people
working together and essentially being
dishonest yes which is improbable sh the
share number who would have to be in on
this conspiracy and uh the share detail
the attention to detail they have had to
have had and so on I'd also cons worry
about the motive and why would anyone
want to suest that it that it didn't
happen what's the what's the why is it
so hard to believe I mean the the
physics of it the mathematics of it the
the idea of computing orbits and and and
trajectories and things it it all works
mathematically well why wouldn't you
believe it it's a psychology question
because there's something really
Pleasant about um you know pointing out
that the emperor has no clothes when
everybody like uh you know thinking
outside the box and coming up with the
true answer where everybody else is
diluted there's something I mean I have
that for science right you want to prove
the entire scientific Community wrong
that's the whole no that that's that's
right and and of course
historically lone Geniuses have come out
right sometimes yes but often people
with who think they're a lone genius
much more often turn out not to um so
you have to judge each case on its
merits the the mere fact that you're a
Maverick the mere fact that you you
you're going against the current tide
doesn't make you right you got to show
you're right by looking at the evidence
so because you focused so much on on
religion and disassembled a lot of ideas
there and I just I was wondering if if
you have ideas about
conspiracy theory groups because it's
such a prevalent even reaching into uh
presidential politics and so on it seems
like it's a very large communities that
believe different kinds of conspiracy
theorists is there some connection there
to your thinking on religion and is
curious it's a matter it's an obvious
difficult thing I I don't understand why
people believe things that are clearly
nonsense like well Flat Earth and also
the conspiracy about not landing on the
moon or um that um the that the United
States engineer 911 that that kind of
thing um so it's not clearly nonsense
it's extremely unlikely okay it's
extremely unlikely um that religion is a
bit different because it's passed down
from generation to generation and so
many of the people who are
religious uh got it from their parents
who got it from their parents who got it
from their parents and childhood
indoctrination is a very powerful
force but these things like the 9/11
conspiracy theory the um Kennedy
assassination conspiracy theory the man
on the moon conspiracy theory these are
not childhood indoctrination these are
um presumably dreamed up by somebody who
then tells somebody else who then wants
to believe it and I don't know why
people are so eager to fall in line with
some just some person that they happen
to read or meet who spins some yarn I
can kind of understand why they believe
what their parents and teachers told
them when they were very tiny and not
capable of critical thinking for
themselves so I sort of get why the
great religions of the world like
Catholicism and Islam Go on p persisting
it's because of childhood indoctrination
but that's not true of Flat Earth ISM
and sure enough Flat Earth ism is a a
very minority cult way larger than I
ever realized well yes I know but but so
that's a really clean idea and you've
articulate that in your new book and and
I'll grow God and in God Delusion is the
early indoctrination that's really
interesting you can get away with a lot
of out there ideas in terms of religious
texts if um the age at which you convey
those ideas at first is a young age so
indoctrination is sort of an essential
element of propagation of
religion so let me ask on the morality
side in the books that I mentioned God
Delusion all growing God you described
that human beings don't need religion to
be moral so from an engineering
perspective we want to engineer morality
into AI systems so so in general
where do you think morals come from in
humans a very complicated and
interesting
question it's clear to me that the moral
standards the moral values of our
civilization
changes as
the decades go by certainly as the
centuries go by even as the decades go
by
and we in the 21st century are quite
clearly labeled 21st century people in
terms of our moral
values we there's a spread I mean some
of us are a little bit more ruthless
some of us more conservative some of us
more more liberal and so on um but we
all subscribe to pretty much the same
views when you compare us with say 18th
century 17th century people even 19th
century 20th century people um
so we're much less racist were much less
sexist and so on than we used to be some
some people are still racist and some
are still sexist but the the the spread
has shifted that the gaan distribution
has moved and moves steadily as the
centuries go by and that is the most
powerful uh influence I can see on our
moral values and that doesn't have
anything to do with religion I mean the
the the religion of the the sorry the
morals of the Old Testament
are Bronze Age models models they're
deplorable um and um they are to be
understood in terms of the people in in
the desert who made them up at the time
and so Human Sacrifice um uh an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth um Petty
Revenge killing people for breaking the
Sabbath all that kind of thing um
inconceivable now so at some point
religious texts may have in part
reflected Ed that Gan distribution at
that time sure they did I'm sure they
always reflect that yes and then now but
the the the sort of almost like the meme
as you describe it of uh ideas moves
much faster than religious text do than
you religion yes so basing your morals
on on religious texts which were written
Millennia ago yeah um is not a great way
to proceed I think that's pretty clear
so um not only should we not get our
morals from such text but we don't we
quite clearly don't um if we did then we
we'd be discriminating against women and
we'd be we'd be um racist we'd be
killing homosexuals and so on um so so
we we we don't and we shouldn't now of
course it's possible to by the to to use
your 21st century standards of morality
and you can look at the Bible and you
can cherry-pick uh particular verses
which conform to our modern morality and
you'll find that Jesus said some pretty
nice things which is great
but you're using your 21st centur
morality to decide which verses to pick
which verses to reject and so why not
cut out the middleman of the Bible and
go straight to the 21st century morality
which
is where that comes from is a much more
complicated question why is it that
morality moral values change as the
centuries go by they undoubtedly do and
it's a very interesting question to ask
why it's a it's another example of
cultural Evolution just as technology
progresses so moral values progress for
probably very different reasons but it's
it's interesting if the direction in
which that progress is happening has
some evolutionary value or if it's
merely a drift that can go into any
direction I'm not sure it's any
direction and I'm not sure it's
evolutionarily valuable what it is is um
Progressive in the sense that each step
is a step in the same direction as the
previous step so it becomes uh more
gentle more decent as by modern
standards more liberal um less violent
see but more decent I think you're using
terms and interpreting everything in the
context of the 2st century because genas
Khan would probably say that this is not
more decent because we're now you know
there's a lot of weak members of society
they were not murdering yes and I was
careful to say by by the standard of the
21st century by by our standards if we
with hindsight look back at at history
what we see is a trend in the direction
towards us towards our present right our
our present value system for us we see
progress but it's it's an open question
whether that won't you know I don't see
necessarily why we can never return to
genas cont well we could um I suspect we
won't uh but um it but if you look at
the history of moral values over the
centuries it is in a progressive
I use the word Progressive not in a
value judgment sense in the sense of of
a transitive sense each step is the same
is the same direction as the previous
step so things like we don't um derive
entertainment from torturing cats um we
don't derive entertainment from from
like the Romans did in the Coliseum from
from that state or rather or or rather
we
suppress uh the desire to get I mean to
have PL it's probably in us somewhere so
there's a bunch of parts of our brain
one that probably you know limic system
that wants certain pleasures and that's
uh I I don't I mean I I wouldn't have
said that but um you're limited to think
that you like well no there's a there's
a Dan Carlin of Hardcore History that's
a really nice explanation of how we've
enjoyed watching the torture of people
the fighting of people just the torture
the suffering of people throughout
history as entertainment uh until quite
recently and now everything we do with
sports we're kind of channeling that
feeling into something else so I mean
there there is some dark aspects of
human nature there are underneath
everything and I do hope this like
higher level software we've built will
keep us at Bay I'm also Jewish and have
history with the uh the Soviet Union and
the Holocaust and I clearly remember
that uh some of the darker aspects of
human nature creeped up there they do
there have been uh there have been steps
backwards admittedly and the Holocaust
is obvious one but if you take a broad
view of History it's it's the same
direction so Pamela
mordic in machines who think has written
that AI began with an ancient wish to
forge the gods do you see it's it's a
poetic description I suppose but uh do
you see a connection between our
civilizations
historic desire to create Gods to create
religions and our modern desire to
create technology and intelligent
technology I suppose there's a link
between an ancient desire
to explain away mystery and um and
science but um intelligence artificial
intelligence creating Gods creating new
Gods um and I forget I read somewhere a
somewhat factious um
paper which said that we have a new God
is called Google and yeah and and we we
we pray to it and we worship it and we
and we ask its advice like an Oracle and
so on um that's fun and and but you
don't see that you see that as a fun
statement a fous statement you don't see
that as a kind of truth of us creating
things that are more powerful than
ourselves a natural sort of it has a
kind of poetic resonance to it which I
get I wouldn't I wouldn't but not I
would I wouldn't have bothered to make
the Point myself it that way all
right so you don't think AI will become
our new go a new religion a new Gods
like Google well yes I mean I I can see
that
um the future of intelligent machines or
indeed intelligent aliens from outer
space might yield beings that we would
regard as gods in the sense that they
are so Superior to us that we might as
well worship them that's highly
plausible I think but
I see a very fundamental distinction
between a God who is simply defined as
something very very powerful and
intelligent on the one hand and a God
who doesn't need explaining by a
progressive step-by-step process like
Evolution or like or like engineering
design so um the different suppose we
did meet an alien from outer space who
was marvelously magnificently more int
ENT than us and we would sort of worship
it and for that reason nevertheless it
would not be a God in the very important
sense that it did not just happen by to
be to be there like God is supposed to
it must have come about by a gradual
stepbystep incremental Progressive
process presumably like darwinian
Evolution there all the difference in
the world between those two
intelligence design comes into the
universe late as a product of a
progressive evolutionary process or
Progressive engineering design process
so most of the work is done through this
slow moving exactly progress
exactly
yeah the yeah it's but there's still
this desire to get answers to the why
question that if if we're if the world
is a simulation if we're living in a
simulation that there's a program
like creature that we can ask questions
of this okay well let's let's pursue the
idea that we're living in a simulation
which is not not totally Ridiculous by
the way um there we go um then you still
need to explain the programmer the
programmer had to come into existence by
some even if we're in a in a simulation
the the programmer must have evolved or
if if he's in a in a sort of or she if
she's in if she's in a meta simulation
then the The Meta Meta programmer must
have evolved by by by a gradual process
you can't escape that fundamentally
you've got to come back to a a a a
gradual incremental process of
explanation to start
with there's no shortcuts in this world
uh exactly but maybe to linger on that
point uh about the simulation do you
think it's an interesting basically talk
to uh board the the heck out of
everybody asking this question but uh
whether you live in a simulation do you
think first do you think we live in a
simulation second do you think it's a
interesting thought experiment it's
certainly an interesting thought
experiment I first met it in a science
fiction novel by Daniel galloy called um
counterfeit
world uh in which
um it's all about I mean our heroes are
running a gigantic computer which which
simulates the world
and um and something goes wrong and so
one of them has to go down into the
simulated World in order to fix it and
then the the the Deno of the thing the
climax to the novel is that they
discover that they themselves are in
another simulation at a at a high level
so I was intrigued by this and I love
others of Daniel Gallo's science fiction
novels then um it was revived seriously
by Nick Bostrom Bostrom talking to him
in an hour okay
um and um he goes further not just treat
it as a science fiction speculation he
actually thinks it's positively
likely I mean I think it's very likely
actually well he's he makes like a
probabilistic argument which you can use
to come up with very interesting
conclusions about this the nature of
this universe I mean he think he thinks
that that that that we're we're in a
simulation done by so to speak our
descendence of the future that the
products but it's still a product of
evolution it's still ultimately going to
be a product of Evolution even though
the super intelligent people of the
future um uh have created our world and
you and I are just a simulation and this
table is is a simulation and so
on I don't actually in my heart of
hearts believe it but but I I like his
argument well so the interesting thing
is um I agree with you but the
interesting thing to me if I would say
if we're living in a simulation that in
that simulation to make it work you
still have to do everything gradually
just like you said that even though it's
programmed I don't think there can be
Miracles otherwise well no I mean the
the programmer the the higher up the
upper ones have to have evolved
gradually however the simulation they
create could be instantaneous I mean
they could be switched on and we and we
come into the world with fabricated
memories true but what I'm what I'm
trying to convey so you're saying uh the
the broader statement but I'm saying
from an engineering perspective both the
programmer has to be slowly evolved and
the simulation because it's like I from
an engineering perspective oh yeah it
takes a long time to write a program uh
no like Ju Just I don't think you can
create the universe in a snap I think
you have to grow it okay well uh that's
that's a good point that's an arguable
Point by the way um I I I have thought
about using the Nick Bostrom um I idea
to Solve the Riddle of how we talking we
were talking earlier about why the human
brain can achieve so much MH um I
thought of this when my then
100-year-old mother was marveling at
what I could do with a with a smartphone
and and I could you know call look up
anything in the encyclopedia I could
play her music that she liked and so
said is it all in that in that tiny
little phone no it's it's out there it's
it's in the cloud it's and maybe what
most of what we do is in a cloud so
maybe if if we're if we are a simulation
yeah then then um all the power that we
think is in our skull it actually may be
like the power that we think is in the
iPhone um but is that actually out there
in it's an interface to something else I
mean that's
what um including Roger Penrose with
pism that Consciousness is somehow a
fundamental part of physics that it
doesn't have to actually all reside
inside our brain but Roger thinks it
does reside in in in the skull whereas
I'm I'm suggesting that that it doesn't
that it that that it's that that there's
a cloud that'd be a fascinating uh a
fascinating notion on a small tangent
have you um familiar with the work of
Donald uh Hoffman I
guess maybe not saying his name
correctly but just forget the name the
idea that there's a difference in
reality and perception so like we
biological organisms perceive the world
in order for the natural selection
process to be able to survive and so on
but that doesn't mean that our
perception actually reflects the
fundamental reality the physical reality
underneath well I do think that um
although it reflects the fundamental
reality I do believe there is a
fundamental reality um I do think that
what that our perception is
constructive in the sense that we um
construct in our minds a model of what
we're seeing and so this is really the
view of people who work on visual
Illusions Like Richard Gregory who point
out that things like a NECA Cube um
which flip from this a two-dimensional
picture of a cube on on on sheet of
paper but we see it as a
three-dimensional Cube and it flips from
one orientation to
another uh at regular intervals what's
going on is that the brain is is
constructing a cube but the sense data
are compatible with two alternative
cubes
and so rather than stick with one of
them it alternates between them I think
that's just a uh a model for what we do
all the time when we see a table when we
see a person when we see a when we see
anything we're um using the sense data
to construct or or make use of a preps
previously constructed model um I
noticed this when when I meet somebody
who actually is say a friend of mine but
I until I kind I realize that that it is
him he he looks different and then when
I finally clock that that it's him his
features switch like a NE Cube interes
into the familiar form is as it were
I've taken his face out of the fil