According to Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory of Perception, evolution shapes organisms not to perceive objective reality as it is, but to provide a user interface that enables survival and reproduction. Mathematical analysis of evolutionary game theory shows that the probability of any organism ever being shaped to see any aspect of objective reality as it is equals zero. This means our perception is more like a VR headset that renders a simplified, useful representation of reality rather than a true window into the fundamental nature of existence.
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Reaction: Is Reality Really Real? With Donald Hoffman
Added:Good evening everyone. We're just here um we're going to talk about it's me and my co-host Sophia tonight. a little last minute, but I thought we'd just get together and review this uh new video uh from Star Talk, which is Neil Degrasse Tyson in >> Can't hear you, Scott.
Can't hear you. Scott >> check one two. Can you hear me?
>> Yes, I can hear you now.
>> Okay. Yeah. So, we're just going to do a little interview. I mean um [ __ ] reaction to the interview on Star Talk with uh Neil Degrasse Tyson interviewing Donald Hoffman. Um like I said, he's he's an idealist. He's trying to approach it from his interface theory of perception, which is a scientific model, not a philosophical model. And so, it's a pretty interesting video. I haven't seen it um all the way. I've kind of just thumbed through it. So, this is like a reaction. Sophia, you didn't see this video yet either, have you?
>> No, I I haven't.
>> Okay. Awesome. Awesome. So, this will be a real live reaction to this video and um folks in the live chat, you can follow right along. We're not going to really have guests on to panel up unless we have time maybe after the video or something if if time allows for it.
But, um in the meantime, I think we ought to get right into it and see what these guys are talking about. So, here we go. Make sure it's turned up. and I will have to pause it from time to time because I don't want to kill the stream, you know. So, we'll do some commentary um every so often for that reason.
>> Today, we're going to be exploring the nature of reality.
>> Oh, really?
>> Hold on, let me [laughter] >> on screen.
>> Damn. Why you have to laugh like that?
>> Right.
Why can't Man, what is going on, man?
Hold on.
All right, there we go. Now we'll be able to run this back. Here we go.
>> Mathematics. This may not be the only >> We're going to talk about the limits to our perception, the role of consciousness, and the nature of reality itself.
>> You're really buying a car online on Autotrader.
>> Really? And I'm getting it from a local dealer. Can you really be that? Really?
>> Really?
>> We're really getting the car at the dealership now?
>> Really?
>> Buy your car online on Autotrader.
Really?
>> Really?
>> Yes. Neil, time to bring in our guest.
This one's going to go deep, so I'm looking forward to it.
>> All right, let's see see where it takes us. We've got Professor Donald Hoffman.
Donald, welcome to Star Talk.
>> Thank you very much, Neil. Good to be with you all of you.
>> Yeah, you're Professor Emmeritus. You're not that old. Uh, in the department of cognitive sciences, UC Irvine, right there in Irvine, California. You're obviously a cognitive neuroscience scientist and an author. I have most recently here. And if you have another book, let me know. The case against reality. No. Shots fired.
>> Let me tell you, I'm an expert in that.
>> Shots fired. Uh, how evolution hid the truth from our eyes.
>> Love it.
>> Oo, >> I love it.
>> All right. So, what are you saying?
We're not We don't really see the full picture. I mean, I agree with you. Who would disagree with that? But you're you're bringing in evolution >> to blame for this. So, can you could you catch us up on what you mean by that?
>> That's right. So the standard view is that evolution shapes organisms to be fit and surely to be fit we should see the world pretty accurately, right? You want to see a cliff if there's a cliff and not fall off. You want to see what is a mate and so forth. So >> just to be clear when you say fit, you don't mean it like in a fitness center.
>> No, [laughter] right?
>> It's not a crunch gym thing.
>> Crunch, >> right? Please remind us what evolutionarily what the word fit means.
>> That's right. So in in Darwin's theory, fitness really means the chance that you're going to have offspring successfully. So fitness is really one thing. What's the probability that you will survive long enough to raise your offspring successfully? That's what >> Wow. Okay.
>> Uh clearly Darwin had no children [laughter] >> cuz he would know they will kill you.
And I don't mean like murder. I mean, just [laughter] having them will kill you.
>> That dude's funny, man. I like Chuck Nice. He's a comedian and an actor, so he he brings a lot of personality to the show, and I like that. He kind of keeps things really light, you know, and fun cuz a lot of this stuff is about to go really deep and very philosophical and very scientific and, you know, we need a Chuck Nice to kind of break it up.
[laughter] Okay. So, so we we're we're trained to not run off the cliff, to run the opposite direction of lions, right? What else what else are we really good at?
>> Well, avoiding poisons and and things like that and finding right mates. So, we're not we don't try to mate with trees or rocks or things like that. So, we >> speak for yourself there, Don.
[laughter] >> I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry. I had to do that. And so many people have conjured up an image, >> right, >> of a drunken Saturday night. [laughter] >> Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
>> Well, they do have sex dolls and there's a lot of people falling in love with their chat bots, so he might have a point. [laughter] >> Yeah.
>> You know what I mean?
That's funny.
>> Don, continue.
>> Right. So, so the standard view not only among people who are uh you know sort of just partially acquainted with evolutionary theory but for people who are deeply acquainted with the theory is to assume that Darwin's theory entails that um most of the time we see reality as it is. Of course, not all of the time. there are illusions and so forth but the idea would be if you're going to be fit in Darwin's sense of being reproductively um you know successful then you need to see reality as it is and what I have done with some colleagues Chayan Pash Manish Singh and others is to look at the mathematics of evolution it turns out Darwin wasn't the mathematician but a century after he published his theory mathematicians turned it into mathematics and it's called evolution utionary game theory.
John Maynard Smith and others worked on this. So we can now ask specific mathematical questions of Darwin's theory and the the answer when we look at the mathematics uh is that the probability is zero that any organism has ever been shaped at any time to see any aspect of objective reality as it is. It's just precisely zero. I didn't expect that when I went into it. I expected to have the answer be that we saw reality some of the time but uh maybe not as often as we thought we would. Steven Pinker um has published a paper on that idea. He has some good arguments for why you know there are pressures from evolution not to see reality as it is. So, so Pinker has already been there and I know he's talked with you before.
>> And so what I I was surprised though that when we looked at the mathematics, the the answer was the probability is zero.
>> Yeah. So So now I have to we have to back up a bit.
>> Yeah.
>> What do you mean by reality?
>> If you're going to assign a zero to it, I want to know what it is you just zeroed out.
>> Wow.
>> Yeah, that's a good a good question. Um what are we even talking about when we talk about reality? Like because if a [ __ ] lion eats you, I mean that's real to me. Like you can't just say that's not real, right?
Like you got to take it serious enough to be real. Or is he talking about reality in some other way? Like is he talking about fundamental reality or is he talking about just reality?
You know what I mean?
>> Yeah. I guess we'll have to see where he's going.
>> Yeah, we'll see. So, yeah, because I mean mathematically reality would have to have a value if it equals zero.
>> If at some point you're going to give it a zero, right? And it seems to me the teeth on that line is pretty reality looking, >> right? The the the cliff ledge feels pretty real to me.
>> The interesting thing about the mathematics is you don't have to specify what reality is for the mathematics to still give you the theorem. So whatever so I don't have to assume what reality is. I can just look at the structure of evolutionary theory and say suppose there is some reality out there and there are these so-called fitness payoff functions. So Darwin talks about payoffs and the payoffs really are effectively if I have an organism like a lion in a particular state like it's hungry and it is has some actions to take and one of them might be eating a leopard or eating an antelope something like that >> eating you >> or eating you then that for that lion that's a that's a very you know that's a very good payoff right that's but if it's if it's looking um to be you know to eat and it's prized for a is going to have a very poor payoff. And so you can have these abstract payoff functions.
And so we we don't have to know what reality is. We can just look at the property of these payoff functions. And we can ask whatever reality is, what's the probability that a payoff function would tell you about that reality.
>> Okay. I still don't know what you're talking about. So, so I don't mind representing these forces that operate on your evolution, on your fitness, on your survival. I have no problems abstracting those to mathematical elements. Uh, but I need you to tell me that the lion that is chasing me isn't real. And you're not saying that.
>> Oh, I'm going to get there. [laughter] >> Oh, damn.
Let me let me >> This is the line. Get to me before the lion does.
>> Well, well, then let me just u dovetail that real quick. Is it possible then that the probabilities don't mean anything if the fact that they come out to zero but yet the lion can still eat you? And I mean that's pretty real to you. I mean is it very possible that although the prob probability you know equates to zero that maybe that's a particular probability that has no value to us?
>> Right. That's what I'm saying. Like what does he still mean by real here? Like because a lion killing you, that's real enough for me, right?
>> Yeah, I would think so. [laughter] >> I mean, that's that's the question. Like >> I'm pretty sure even Donald Hoffman would avoid would avoid a lion.
>> Right. Right.
And uh Stephen G says, "Well, we recreate we create reality by the qualia by which we perceive things." Okay.
Well, maybe that's what he's talking about. But maybe he's talking about it within his inter within your interface like your interface is limited to how much quality you have or something like that. So it's real to that maybe. I don't know if that makes sense.
But >> I wouldn't say we create reality though either necessarily, >> right?
>> We can only perceive it as far as our interface allows it maybe.
>> Yeah, maybe that's a better way to put it. I guess that's kind of what I was trying to say. Um, okay. Well, let's see what he says here. It's in the nature of scientific theory is just to see what they say, right? All I'm doing is saying this is what Darwin's theory says when we mathematize it. And Darwin's theory says there are these things called payoffs, right? If you you know, you you pick an organism like the lion, its state, hungry or or wanting to mate, and an action like feeding, fighting, fleeing, or mating, and then I'll give you a number for how good that was, how you know that's that's what the payoff functions are. And whether or not you like Darwin's theory, I'm just saying this is what the mathematics of Darwin's theory says. And when you look at that mathematics, then it's then it says um the payoff functions do not have information about reality almost almost surely. When I say almost surely, that means 100% of the time, basically.
>> So maybe I'm going to reword what I think you're actually saying, and you tell me if I'm completely off the point.
What you're saying is uh it doesn't matter whether it's real in any objective sense. All that matters is whether the organism responds in a way that is in the interest of its own survival.
>> Absolutely right, Neil.
>> Okay. Okay. So that's >> I mean I mean I I think that's pretty, you know, reasonable and feasible to accept, >> right? So it doesn't matter to me that it's real, >> right? is a different statement from saying it isn't real.
>> Well, so what I would say is that what Darwin's theory tells us is that we were shaped not to have a window on the world, but to have a VR headset that lets us play the game of life. That's the simple bottom line. So most of us think we were shaped with senses that give us a mostly true depiction, a a true window on reality. And what Darwin says is basically no, you have a VR headset that lets you play the game of life where the winning strategy is offspring. How many offspring you have >> and so that's that. So the idea then is in some sense this is what we're perceiving is is more a VR thing than a true picture of reality. I can believe that because I don't know exactly when it was but we did an episode we were talking about measurements >> and basically we got into this area of >> in science without these tools our measurements would suck because we would have to rely on our senses and our senses are never sufficient to measure things properly. All right. So, pick up from there, Don. There are species here on planet Earth that the reality is a may maybe a mantis shrimp that can see so many different colors. A bat that exists with sonar, >> birds that can register light on a UV spectrum, >> right?
>> Their reality is different to ours surely, but these are all sensory capabilities. Are we We're just not able to process the data. Is that what we're trying to say here?
>> Yeah. So every I guess what he's saying is everybody's quote unquote window is different.
Um it's based on the way that their sense perceptions apparatus works. So like you said, a lobster is going to see the world different than a human would obviously.
And I think we can all agree with that.
Right.
>> Right. I I would agree with that. But I still think that there is an objective reality regardless of how one interface may perceive it. Well, one inter God damn it. Now my cat don't want to shut up.
>> Azie.
>> Wow. She listened.
>> He listened.
>> Oh, he listened.
>> And he not listening.
>> Oh lord. Um, what was I saying? Damn it.
>> You said there is an objective reality.
It's just that the interface does something >> regardless to how one interface um perceives it.
>> You know, >> yeah, >> you know, >> shut up, please.
[laughter] >> I got three cats staring at me, man.
Like I'm going have to ask my son if he fed these cats. Like I don't know what's happening.
>> Okay.
>> I'm sorry I'm ruining the damn stream.
>> No, no problem. I'm gonna keep the video going. I I'll mute out if the cats keep cutting up.
>> I'll mute it myself.
>> Partly there's so much data that we can't process. But it's even deeper than that. We don't see reality because what we've got are tricks and hacks. And I'll give you a concrete funny example.
>> All right. There's a jewel beetle in the outback of Australia. So these beetles are dimpled, glossy, and brown. The males fly, the females are flightless.
And males fly around looking for eligible females. And if a male finds one, he elites and mates. And so, and they've done that for who knows how long, tens of thousands of years. It's been a very successful life for the jewel beetles. But it turns out that there are some beer bottles that guys like to drink from in Australia. They're dimpled, glossy, and just the right shade of brown to tick tickle the fancy of these these male jewel beetles. So, these guys will throw them out into the desert, and jewel beetles flock all over these bottles. They get on them. They crawl all over them trying to mate. And the females aren't getting anything.
It's just all bottle >> cuz the guys are idiots. What's What else is new?
>> I'm going to say that that's more an admonition against beer. [laughter] But those are the truest beer goggles ever. [laughter] >> Okay. So So that that evolutionary element got hijacked right by the beer bottle.
>> That That's right. So the the beetles, the males have full body contact with the bottle. They're crawling all over it and yet they cannot tell that this is not a female. So it's truly stunning.
What What did they learn? You would think that the males actually had been shaped by evolution to know what a female is. No. All they had was a simple hack. A female is anything dimpled, glossy, and brown. The bigger the better. And that was what they were looking for.
>> And they didn't need to know more than that. They need to know basic.
>> All they had to Right. I'm going to go with Neil's assertion that they're idiots [laughter] cuz I'm going to tell you something. We have in uh in our species something called real dolls. And although they called them real, we know they're not real. [laughter] >> Do you really though? Okay.
>> Nope. That's lame.
>> Mhm. [music] >> Ready?
>> Do you harbor a question past that?
Yeah. So I would say that the beetle just has a limited perception, you know, and the beetle is not evolved enough to differentiate between the beer bottle that resembles the color of the female beetle. So I mean we could say you know reality is not as it appears uh in the sense that depending on your own interface and your own subjective experience or qualia you know you're going to see things a certain way. I mean I will agree with it as far as you know that far. I wouldn't >> I wouldn't say though that reality is automatically not what it seems 100%.
It's just based on what you can comprehend and perceive. There may be more to it than what meets the eye or there may be more to it than what your intelligence can um uh comprehend. You know, you know what I'm saying?
>> Yeah. It kind of reminds me of that whole phenomena versus the numina thing like we we perceive we have access to the phenomena but it isn't necessarily the numina if I understand that right like the numina is the objective and the phenomena is the subjective way we interpret that numina.
>> Yeah something like that. Yeah.
All right.
>> I'm not very familiar with that particular, you know, uh, analogy, so I can't really speak on it, but I've heard you speak about that before.
>> Yeah. That's that content um, idealism.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I'll let the good doctor go first, but >> because my my I I've never done psychedelics, nor do I have any intent to do so on the grounds that the human mind barely works at all as a data takingaking device in our environment.
And I highly value objective reality.
So, if I'm going to stir in chemicals into my brain on, I don't know what the objective is, but if it takes me farther away from from reality, I I can't. It's not calling to me.
>> In the words of Ray Manzeric, it's about mind expansion, man.
>> Yeah. I don't want to expinogens are not going to give you an expanded view of reality. They're just kind of making you making it worse. So I guess he would say something like DMT doesn't help you see reality. It's almost crippling you more is Neil deGrasse fear.
>> I would just like to know based on what is he saying that he just said he never gotten psychedelics. So he definitely isn't saying that from his own experience. Secondly, that goes against all the studies that are out there uh concerning psychedelics >> and I would like to know where the hell he's getting that from. That sounds like a personal opinion that is severely mis misguided or something.
>> Yeah. You know, it's like you can say anything from your philosophical [clears throat] armchair. In other words, if I um let's say I've had a particular trauma that I wasn't aware of that was working in the background of my psyche and I did a psychedelic that pointed me to that trauma through a specific uh hallucination, so to speak, right?
>> Um kind of like a dream. uh when you have a dream about something that could be bothering you subconsciously and you have a dream that's very symbolic and suddenly you have this epiphany and you're like oh I know what this is trying to tell me. It's that is much like how psychedelics work. They can expand your mind and um reveal things to you about your own psyche. And so in that sense it is most certainly a mind expander.
>> Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of people feel like, you know, whenever you get high and they think that maybe they they may be confusing things like cocaine and heroin or marijuana even with things like DMT.
Like it's just another way of getting high and confusing your brain.
>> Maybe that's the Science does not support that. And I thought, dude, was a scientist, so I don't know.
>> Yeah. [clears throat] >> Yeah. He ain't trying to hear that.
[laughter] >> I mean, look at his eyes. Him rolling his eyes. I I That's a little bit arrogant as far as I'm concerned. But yeah, moving right along.
>> Yeah. Let's see.
>> And in a a place that is farther away from objective reality. So, okay. All you now Don >> right so I I myself have not taken any psychedelics uh but I'm collaborating with people who who have and who are doing this >> and most of the time I would say >> yeah go ahead >> what the hell music >> you be tripping people see billboards or television commercials that they think are speaking special messages to them now please tell me how is that in any way similar to what I that this is why you get called out because you're having you're making arguments in bad faith and I'm going to tell you straight to your stupid screen name [laughter] X.
>> You hear that X music getting called out. Man, [laughter] >> you can always call in and come on and go at it with me because that had [ __ ] to do with what I said.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
It's about mind expansion, man.
>> Yeah. I don't want to expand in a a place that is farther away from objective reality. So, okay. Well, it's all you now, Don.
>> Right. So, I I myself have not taken any psychedelics. Uh but I'm collaborating with people who who have and who are doing search into this >> and most of the time I would say the best hypothesis is they're just screwing things up, right? The the psy, you know, the psychedelics are just sort of addling your brain. But there are cases where I think it's worth scientific research to just try to figure out if something deeper is going on. Perhaps in the case of DMT, for example, but I I should say that what I just said about evolution gives me a a different view on neuroscience than you would normally hear from a neuroscientist. So I'm a neuroscientist. I love to study the brain and I think that neurons do not exist when they're not perceived. Oh, that's quantum, isn't it?
>> Oh, look at that.
>> Yeah, you went total string theory on us.
>> No, he went total quantum neuro.
>> Go ahead.
>> Sorry, this exam music guy, man. I'm about to come through the street scream.
[laughter] Um, >> exam music, let us know. Have you ever done psychedelics? So you're telling me So you're telling me Exusic music that your dreams which come from your own mind have zero meaning? Okay. Well, that's just a nice way to tell me that you're brainless. Moving right along.
[laughter] >> That's right. So the idea is that if it's a VR headset kind of thing, what you see is what you render on the fly.
So, if you're in like a game like Grand Theft Auto and you see a red Corvette off to your right, well, there is no red Corvette in reality because the supercomput has no red Corvette in it.
So, the red Corvette that I'm seeing is there when I look and render it. And when I look the other direction, it's gone. So, the Corvette only exists as I perceive it. Now, if I'm multiplayer game and someone else is looking at a red Corvette, um, when I'm not, they're seeing their red Corvette. They're not seeing the one that I saw. not seeing yours. You just described a game of adult peekaboo. [laughter] >> That's funny. Uh wait, explain to me cuz I've never played Grand Theft Auto, right? Does it render only the the direction you're looking in to save CPU?
>> That's right. That's a typical games.
>> So, it knows which way you're looking, >> right?
>> Okay. So, >> because it doesn't make sense if you're not looking at it for it to be rendering because you can't see it anyway. This has been the major argument uh in simulation theory >> where >> well it didn't >> why would the programmer waste computer power >> right >> simulating things that no one is conscious of >> right just just make it exist when you get there so for example if you dig into the earth it only has to make the layers of the earth when you get >> digging right too >> it's way cheaper way way more accessible to the programmer than creating everything at all there all at once.
>> That that's my theory on the speed of light. If there's a simulation >> that the reason why you can't go faster than the speed of light is because that is the speed at which they need to create the simulation so that it can be there when you see it.
>> Okay. So I actually had a theory that's your hypothesis. I just want to >> Oh, sorry. You're absolutely right.
[laughter] Yeah.
>> That's my idea.
>> All right.
You you both you both thought I [laughter] thought >> so you both tapped into simulation theory don is is that what's in practice here I mean is are the realities layered and one within another >> or maybe it's because we are light can't go faster than ourselves.
>> Yeah. And so he's I guess he's saying it's like a data structure that renders itself on the fly. um nature is kind of like that according to the interface that you know you're you're rendering rendering it from um I guess is the idea there >> widely regarded as containing the central >> shut up >> simulation theory as is typically put out like Nick Bostonramm and others who are Elon Musk who are interested in it so I'll say at top level yes there very very similar but I'll I'll make two important distinctions between Bostonramm's point of view and what I'm saying. One one point is that Bostonramm says, you know, we're probably a simulation and and there's some geek with a computer at a different level that's programming us and and making us up, but that geek is actually simulated by someone at even lower level and you can go down many many levels until you get to the bottom level. And the bottom level, he assumes, is a physical space-time level, >> a real a real thing. Mhm.
>> And that's where I get off the train because I say uh there's no reason on evolutionary grounds to believe that spacetime is fundamental. In fact, we have good reason to believe on high energy theoretical physics grounds that spacetime is doomed as the as many high energy theoretical physicists say spaceime is. Yeah, I always know that like the plank the the minus 33 um centimeters is where it bottoms out and 10 the 45 cm is where time bottoms out. So you can't really measure in principle. Not just that we don't have the right tools to see it, but if you were to shine too much light plus gravity into one area to get higher and higher resolution, you create like a black hole. So just in principle, you can't go farther than that. And so that's where physicalism kind of falls apart.
>> Yeah.
>> Because a physicalism is saying that the only thing that's real is what can be measured. Well, you can't measure it at that level. And so what happens to fundamental reality? If it's all physical [ __ ] then physicalism doesn't work.
>> Well, I mean, it could still be physical. It's just at a scale where you can no longer measure measure it.
>> Yeah. Well, then and in that case, you just be doing guesswork. That's what I'm saying. It just be like it's just like my belief is that it's just more physical stuff. But the physicalists aren't really saying it's just a belief.
What they're saying is that no no no no everything is physical. Everything you know beyond that is physical. It's just that you know that's the guesswork they put in. It's just like with the idealist their guess work is that it's consciousness or something.
>> Well I mean I'm kind of in the middle because I think that it's physical and mental.
>> Yeah.
>> And conscious you know.
>> Yeah. That's what pans psychist would say too, you know. But pansychism is still a little bit different because pansychism um basically um has no explanation as to why. It's like they say well okay they haven't figured out the mechanism you know because what like how does the uh consciousness get into the physical stuff right >> right >> what what they say like what you just sprinkle a little bit of consciousness on it you know they don't have they have an assumption but they have no mechanism that could properly uh explain it in my opinion my model explains it nicely because it's just an intrinsic um nature of consciousness is physicality.
>> Yeah. And mine is kind of rooted in epistemology just like yours like like I would say that the physical is real like there is a physical reality and I think that that physical reality emerges from deeper structures and I think that deeper structure is only known through through an experience of the void. You know it's all sort of observation.
So you know the consciousness isn't something that's reducible. You can't like we can reduce um the physical to the 10 the minus 33 and all of that but you can't reduce consciousness to any plank scale >> um because the plank scale itself appears inness.
So it seems like consciousness is something separate in that sense in that measurable sense at least but it's all interrelated in a you know it's all sort of connected you know in a non-dual sense. So that's how I kind of see it, >> right?
>> Exusic says, "Arthur Dimsdale saw a red letter ablazing in the sky and thought it was a message from God in Hawthorne Scarlet. Writers have made a joke."
Yeah. And um the the really silly thing about when you start talking about um things in the sky and looking for messages in the sky and you know fundamental reality is up there in the sky or something like that. That's kind of weird because up there is a location.
It's a place and places are not relative to non-locality. Like that's the whole point is that there is no out there in that way that everything is sort of combined in one reality. It's not really, it's just that we perceive, you know, time and space and all these things, but those things are not fundamental like we're just talking about like all that stuff is kind of bottomed out and we know that. We've known that >> or we just think that something comes from out there because of a lack of awareness. It comes all from within your own mind, >> right?
Um because you were not aware of that because you're very unconscious.
Um you think it came from out there or the aliens implanted it into your brain.
>> Yeah, [laughter] there's always some out there.
>> I can't hear you, Scott. Fix your mic.
>> Nope.
Uh >> keep talking. It's still not right.
All right. Is that any better?
>> Yep.
>> Okay. Yeah. It's just um whenever we It's almost like we're assuming worldviews when we start talking about location and causation and stuff like that. We have to remember that that's just how it appears to us within our limited minds. I mean, at least on a non-dual or an idealistic sort of viewpoint, you know, it's just an experience. It's not necessarily how it really is, but you know, that's to be debated. Everybody can disagree, but I'll go ahead and keep playing the video and they're looking for new structures beyond spaceime. So, I don't want to say that I don't want to buy that the bottom level is a space-time level. And the second part of the of the standard simulation theory that I don't buy is that the idea is that you can simulate consciousness, conscious experiences through algorithms on on computers. And I'm good friends and colleagues with most of the players who are trying to do this and it's a remarkable thing. I mean these are brilliant brilliant scientists and but the the hard fact is that to date there's not a single specific conscious experience that any scientific theory has ever been able to show we could program up. For example, there's no theory about how we get the taste of chocolate, the smell of garlic, nothing.
So we are batting exactly zero right now in terms of theory that will explain a specific conscious experience. So I think it's principled a principal failure. These people are are brilliant. Many of them are geniuses. They're good friends of mine. If we could do it, I think we would have done it. And we haven't been able to do it. So >> Well, I mean, it's very possible that we don't have the computing power to do it because >> Go ahead.
>> Wait, wait, wait. Okay. So, all you just said, >> yes, >> if I may summarize, is that we don't understand consciousness yet as we think it exists.
So I don't believe you're saying anything deeper than that. It's just a frontier, a neuroscience, physics frontier. So what point are you making other than saying we don't understand it yet? I can say we don't know happened before the big bang. That's a frontier, >> right?
>> I'm not trying to say anything deeper than that. If we don't understand it, we don't understand it. We have top people working on it. So where are you trying to take us there? So where I'm taking this is that for the last 30 or 40 years there's been concerted effort by many brilliant neuroscientists and computer scientists and a number of theories proposed for for example integrated information theory Penrose and Hamarov's um quantum collapse of microtubules theories various there's lots of specific mathematically precise theories and when you ask them okay the you have a theory of of observation conscious experiences what specific conscious experience is can you explain and the answer is zero and this has been after >> still a frontier and if what I tell people is you know by the way of course there's a book published on consciousness three times a year okay like a number it'll be pretty close >> and and that is evidence we don't yet understand consciousness because if we did all the publications would stop and we'd be on to some other subject >> so the more that's published on something >> it's evidence of how little we understand that's the point I'm trying to make >> makes sense.
>> So, Don, as you know, in biological circles, there's a lot of talk lately about emergence.
>> Like the flocking of birds.
>> Oh, Lord, here we go with that emergence.
This is like one of the most weirdest thing. Like to me, consciousness emerging from matter just I I I don't get it. But, you know, it it's a very popular sentiment. And I don't want to say it's a dumb idea. I I just say that maybe. And that's a cute little puppy.
What's his name, by the way?
>> Folders.
>> Folders. [laughter] >> He's brown like coffee.
>> Folders. That's cute, man. [laughter] >> Next music says, "Elms don't think they're ask questions. They're inactive like being dead in a physicalist worldview." Yeah, I would agree.
You know, if you can analyze every cell of a bird and every molecule within it, it doesn't say >> indicates flocking.
>> Flocking. Yeah. Together they all sort of know what they're doing. So might consciousness be something emergent within our evolutionary tree or is it that is you need these other base ingredients and then consciousness manifests a top them all >> or do you think it's built into our code? So most of my colleagues who are you know scientists who are studying consciousness from a physiological or or computational point of view would think that consciousness somehow emerges uh from either properties of algorithms or properties of neural activity or so forth.
>> So a chat a chat bots conscious has consciousness emerged given they have access to every word we have ever posted on the internet. That's a big slice of anyone's brain uh of of the summation of many brains.
>> Will you deny them consciousness?
>> Because I don't think Turing would.
>> And yeah, um Exusic says biological systems aren't just matter. They're active energy in our brains, electrical and chemical energy. But did you know >> I thought energy was still matter or >> Yeah, matter is energy. It's just a different form of energy. And then also >> change >> those things can be computationally described.
Everything when you keep asking like say why this, why that, you keep asking the why question like a little six-year-old, it always bottoms out to math. It'll they'll send you right to the math department. It'll say, "Well, basically why? It's because the math says this, that the theorem is this." That's where he's talking about I think when it comes to this um algorithm what he's referring to is how on physicalist materialist methodologies it always bottoms out to descriptions that's captured within the mathematics and the equations and what he's saying is there is no equation for even one single experience there's not one theory for any experience for qualia at all that's the problem. That's the hard problem of consciousness, I think.
>> Yeah.
>> Turing when most of my colleagues would say that they're they're conscious and and I I would say that the whole question is framed the wrong way. We're starting with something inside of our headset and we're asking if the headset can generate consciousness. And I think it's the other way around that consciousness looks at itself through infinitely many different headsets and spacetime is just one of them. And the proof of this will will be whether or not one can actually use neural activity or some kind of algorithms to actually give theories not not just claims but a theory of specific conscious experiences. I like the taste of mint.
give me an algorithm and a theory that says this must be the taste of mint. A scientific theory that says this must be the ta taste of mint and here is why. Or for example in the case of integrated information theory a theory of of neural activity or or and more general than neural activity a theory about how the right kind of causal structures could um be conscious experiences. I would again ask them give me a specific integrated information causal structure that must be the taste of mint. Right now there is zero on the table. There are no successes >> well for for humans as well as chat bots. So you can't you can't you know blame chat bots for that.
>> Yeah >> absolutely. So I think my my view is consciousness does not emerge from algorithms. It does not emerge from neurons. It does not emerge from anything inside space and time whatsoever.
>> Right? In fact, it's the other way around. Space and time and everything inside them emerges as a trivial headset from consciousness.
>> Okay. So, are we looking at mathematics as the key >> um Exom music you're saying? So, this guy again just stating the limitations of language. No, I don't think so. I think that the neuroscientists that say that emergence is going to explain consciousness, they're the ones that are um using language to define and explain away consciousness. That's the whole point he's making. Um you know, when you say like um not true neurons are not like computer onoff logic, I don't think any neuroscientist is saying that. I don't think they don't have two states. They change shape, size. Yes, they're dynamic. But all of that stuff can be described mathematically. And in fact, it is. It's called integrated information theory where they do just that. Um that test is called um um uh pi.
That's how they measure um any conscious state or it's an attempt to we use labels to describe sensory exper like red mint or we use metaphor describe things we see here like classical music right and uh yeah and that just deepens the problem. It's you're just relabeling it or shifting it to language but that's still not solving the problem. Just calling it language doesn't solve the problem of consciousness. the hard problem >> because you actually have the experience of tasting and hearing or whatever.
Well, not hearing but tasting or how a song makes you feel when you hear the music, you're still having these experiences.
So whether you describe it with language or symbols, that's not the point actually.
>> Yeah. The experience is not the language that you describe it in. You know, the language is something we made up. It isn't the fundamental of an experience.
You don't just say, "Oh, experience is just this or that." And we use language.
That's not really getting to the point.
The point is that there's something that the language is describing. It's that something that's we're trying to describe.
That's the ontology that we're pointing to. You know, that's the whole problem there.
If their argument inability to describe it. Yeah.
Okay.
>> To a solution. Are we looking here at consciousness being a quantum I want to say thing but that sounds really clumsy and and heavy but >> I mean why couldn't it be a quantum manifestation though?
>> So in which case when does spaceime cease to exist and at what scale what level are you saying that that stops to happen?
Well, well, on the very last question, I can say that it's uh not me saying it, but actually the high energy theoretical physicists tell us precisely where it stops. It stops at 10 - 33 cm and 10 theus 43 seconds.
>> Yeah, it's a plank. That's okay. Yeah.
So, so, so just to be clear here, uh, spacetime as we think of it as a continuum as described by Einstein >> is very successful >> in accounting for what we see in the universe.
>> What we find is that on these >> I can't even call it granular scale because it's way smaller than that. Uh, we there's a breakdown and the general relativity does not play nice in the sand with the quantum, right? But most people are betting on the quantum because of how successful Yeah, they would. Yeah, >> it has been. If I were you, I'd bet I' quantum. Stick with the quantum. But before you even go further on that, Gary, uh, Don, >> I want to just assess layers of reality. Not in a in a not in a programmer sense, but >> there's still the lion, the matter of the lion that has teeth, and I see teeth, and those teeth will eat me. And so I I I cannot embrace your statement that that is some kind of virtual reality that does not correspond with an objective reality because I can as a scientist, this is what we've been doing since Galileo and especially since the 19th century, we can create a machine that can make a measurement that does not use your neurons.
>> Right? See, that gets into stuff like observer problem and stuff like that.
I'm surprised Neil would say that because we still have the observer problem no matter how what tools we use.
Right.
>> Right.
>> Like you still have to depend on your perception. All those observations depends on being conscious to observe it. Right.
>> That's right.
>> So I don't why would he say that? Uh, like that's the whole point. That's why scientists come up with tools. You try to get out of your personal subjective perception, which is kind of [ __ ] because you're still stuck in an inner subjective thing. Like you can you're all kind of stuck. We're all stuck. So I don't understand how the tools are going to make a difference here. You still got the observer problem.
>> Yeah. Can't get around that.
>> You can't get around it.
And I can say I'm looking at a furry thing with a mane and big teeth and it weighs 800 lb and it walks on a scale.
The scale registers 800 lb. A picture gets taken of it. It's got a mane. It's got big teeth.
>> Yeah, but it's still the observer problem. That's man. What is he talking about?
[ __ ] man. a lot of me >> and 10 minutes later I am mauled. So I I have a hard time embracing your statement that evolution prevents me from seeing the objective reality of what's just happened.
>> Well, so couple I'll just say that the evolution says the probability is zero that any measurement gives you a true picture of reality.
But the issue that you raised about observation is really crit a critical one. I I think it's in fact the central issue before science today.
>> What's remarkable is that science does not have a theory of observation.
>> There you go.
>> And that's one of the biggest open problems in science that's widely thank you. That's the observer problem and that's no excuse. He says are talking about the quantum of No, no, it's not just it is the quantum but it's also just everything is >> that's not even taught any longer in physics programs. What are you talking about?
[laughter] >> The observer problem is still a problem.
That's why it's called the observer problemly recognized. I mean John Wheeler in his famous 1989 paper from bit was basically saying we have to reboot our physics with some what he called observer participants and Frank Wilchek has said the same thing we need to have a theory of the observer and what's remarkable is now in the quantum measurement problem so where we're trying to figure out how when we make measurements in quantum theory we have a unit one evolution that's called the unitary evolution when you're not looking and then there's this collapse when you're supposed to be observing and there is no theory yet about that collapse. So where science is right now is we don't have a theory of observation. And what's stunning about that is if you think about what science is, >> it's a bunch of people.
>> See, I like how Donald's breaking this [ __ ] It's like he's teaching them some [ __ ] right now. [laughter] That's awesome, though. And and I I would be really curious to see if they what their push back is going to be because that I know 100% I I've already been reading up on this. This is not a [ __ ] argument. This is for real.
That are looking and talking to each other and saying this is what I saw.
What did you see? Let's compare notes.
Let's try to understand how to understand what are different perspectives and views and observations.
>> I have to correct that. is then they're not saying this is what I saw. What did you see? They're saying this is what I measured. What did you measure? And >> that's what he's saying though. That's all he's saying. [laughter] That's what he means by C. He's just talking about measurement.
>> So, so let me add to your comment that we don't have a theory of observation.
That's definitely true. But as a correlate to that, we don't have an a full theory of measurement.
>> Right.
>> And they're related. They're related because >> because the wave fun the wave function collapse is consistent through all those who measure.
>> Correct.
Right. Except but if you're not measuring it, it's not collapsing. So So they're related. Yes. Right. So I don't want it. So I I'm still trying to take human perception out of this equation because I can build a machine to make the measurement. Now you're a neuroscientist, so perception is everything. But coming to you as a physicist, I I cannot embrace the idea that we are perceiving anything because we work really hard to get our five senses out of the experiment.
>> When you make a measurement with a physical device, it doesn't get into a scientific theory until some person actually perceives the measurement outcome.
>> Correct. But we can all then look at that measurement and agree what it says without having to trust someone's testimony for >> Yeah, but humans have their own space.
That's what he's getting.
>> Scott, your mic's [ __ ] up again.
>> Oh, damn. Okay. Now, >> yeah, I was just going to say that you still rely on perception even through your tools and the just the fact that everybody can agree on what's measured.
Donald Hoffman is saying though that humans share the same kind of interface, the human interface.
So, >> right, >> you know, the the the measuring devices have their own kind of interfaces. even if they can measure more than what humans can see. I mean, there's like probably trillions of different interfaces to reality, you know, that doesn't >> that doesn't I don't understand.
>> I don't know. But Exom music says Sean Carroll, the observer problem is something only taught to freshman as an intro to the history of quantum theory.
He said that many times in interviews.
Know what Sean Carroll is coming at it?
He's coming at it from his own uh many worlds theory interpretation of reality.
He's inferring that there are many worlds that explain what we observe because every time the wave collapses, it takes a different trajectory to a different parallel universe from what I understand. So that's just another theory. I'm not saying it's wrong. He may have precise language on that, but it's just a hypothesis. The many worlds theory should be the many worlds hypothesis because we don't have any empirical tests that proves that there are multiverses and stuff like that.
That's just that's just not even um that parsimmonious anyways. You know, you're just introducing an infinity amount of realities to explain one reality.
what >> what they observed >> or are you saying that the agreement itself is a shared perception?
>> Right.
>> Well, we know from Einstein that if we both are looking at we're both measuring the velocity of an object or the speed or the shape of an object, we're going to get different answers depending on our frame of reference, right? But we actually know how to to translate between, you know, Neil's frame of reference and Chuck's frame of reference to to say even though they got different answers, we can make make understand that they somehow agree.
>> There is no there is no transference into Chuck's frame of reference, >> right?
>> He has his own. [laughter] >> Absolutely. Let me let me tell you something right now. It's a mess up in here.
>> Okay. So we've tal we've talked about how we as humans can perceive and our frameworks etc. What if we now find alien beings who have the sensorial capacity to be able to absorb way more data than we possibly could of the reality? Are we then and I can get carried away now looking at a fourth fifth sixth dimension in which these problems that we've fumbled with are solved? But before you get there, that's an important question, okay, that I address in my recently published book.
Uh >> oh.
>> Take me to your leader. Uh there's a whole chapter on alien powers that they could have. Okay.
>> And there's even >> I'm currently reading that so I haven't got to that.
>> You haven't gotten that. There's a story by Voltater of all people written in the mid- 18th century where he imagines this is one of the earliest total alien fictional stories imagined where there's an alien 26 miles tall and but stay with me >> he's in the NBA >> and I [laughter] very good the Knicks he's joining the Knicks next year [laughter] they're going to win another championship >> I don't know where he got the number is 26 milesi away and he has 7,000 senses and he comes upon other life forms and can't fathom how they can be so tiny and have so few senses and still understand or perceive the world.
>> We would look at an earthworm.
>> Exactly. Exactly. So people have gone there before. But I just want to say that these machines are not only measuring things to replace our senses.
They're measuring things that our senses have no access to. the ultraviolet ultraviolet and the infrared and gravitational pertibations and ionizing radiation. It has nothing to do with our senses, but we have machines that can measure them. And so I'm quite proud of the scientific community for building what are now dozens of senses of the world so that when someone comes to your dinner party and says, "I have a sixth sense."
>> You can say, >> "Give it to them." And then >> what you have is a delusion.
>> No, no, [laughter] let them let them have their six sense, but say I have another dozen. So Oh, nice.
>> Yeah. Why don't you be impressed with mine? So anyhow, I don't think of things that our senses can't detect >> as some magical other reality. They're just things that our machines ultimately were able to bring to our awareness. I >> I don't want to speak for Don, but I think he's saying that somehow our perceptions and those machines are tied together.
>> Yes. in the following sense that we have I'm I'm claiming that our perceptions of the world are just a particular headset.
We have a three-dimensional space, one-dimensional time headset with certain properties. I could imagine other headsets that have four dimensions, five dimensions, 20 dimensions, have senses built into them that we can't, you know, for example, uh, you know, electric sensing in water, things like that. I think sharks can do that kind of thing.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, so this the so your headset >> uh >> metaphor >> metaphor. [laughter] >> So that headset metaphor is quite potent with regard to your aliens who are coming to visit.
>> Yeah, >> it is. And and in fact, I'm I'm collaborating with Andrew Gallamore, who is a world expert on DMT and and the the studies of that. And one thing that we're I have a mathematical model of how this headset, our headset is built and a theory of observation. And we're using that to try to begin to model how we might understand alien intelligences as having different headsets that um are are different from ours in ways that we can actually write down mathematics. For example, our headset may be a subset of theirs. They may have higher dimensions than we have >> love me highdimensional aliens. That'd be the funnest thing ever.
>> Well, believe it or not, I met higher dimensional aliens while I was doing Iawasa. [laughter] >> I'm not even lying, man.
>> By the way, did you know, mate, did you know this? I only knew it researching for my book. Go ahead.
>> There's a subset of DMT users that all agree that they're interacting with aliens.
>> So, >> interesting. I never interacted with aliens.
>> I didn't, but my brother said he did.
And I I talked to a few other people that claimed they did. And apparently I was talking to my buddy Sam and he said he met some chick who had DMT. He was going to try to hook me up with her to uh get a hold of it. He said, but he turned it down, but she kept telling him he would be able to talk to aliens and stuff. But I never talked.
>> I mean, I had like um I guess I had one experience where I kind of saw like geometrical like faces or something that were like protruding out of geometrical shapes or something.
And they did seem sentient, whatever the hell it was, and very welcoming or whatever. But I wouldn't say I felt like I was interacting with aliens.
>> Well, then again, you know, you have to we have to really break down what do we mean by aliens? Because alien doesn't mean you come from Mars. It could just mean that they're just alien, like different or not the same as you. It's alien, you know? That's really what the term really means. So, it doesn't mean they come from Venus or something. It could just mean some sort of different being or something like that or I don't know. It it just depends on your interpretation.
>> When it comes to DMT, I think it is an inward experience, you know, all the way. And I think that anything that you experience on DMT has to do with everything that is a part of your own psyche. Um, and even though a lot of people's experiences are very similar, it's probably because it's according to the h the way that DMT affects the human interface. You know, we all share in the human inter interface. So, I don't think that DMT gives you any type of insight on anything out there. You know what I mean?
>> Right. Right. I always took it as it tells you more about yourself.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> And they have formed a subgroup within DMT user the user user group.
>> I did not know that >> it's an alien sub and they want to get together see if they're actually somehow crossdimensional communicating with aliens and they compare notes. I I I would say that makes perfect sense because in my experience quite frankly I had and maybe I did cuz here's the thing I felt like the entire time first of all you're not high when you do Iaska that that's a misnomer you are not a misconception you're not like you know oh my god I'm tripping my balls off it's no you're it's like your brain has been subsectioned and you're kind of in touch with all of the different >> sections of your brain. But the whole time I was telling myself, this is my perception. This is >> right. Well, this is refreshing. So, he's coming in and talking about this.
This is cool.
>> I'm glad somebody with some sense came in >> for once, man. Wow.
>> Exactly.
It's all coming from my brain and the >> Say that again.
>> Sorry. I I I was I started talking right when you started playing it again. He's actually saying what I what I was saying. It's it's all the parts of your own freaking psyche that you're experiencing. And also you can you can kind of describe it like different rooms and every room is a section of your own psyche.
>> Hello.
>> Yep. I I agree it it's mainly >> Oh, can you hear me now?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. No, I was just saying I can agree with that. I mean, it's telling you about yourself, but I think you are it is tweaking your your um brain so that you can see reality differently. Now I can say that from my experience I did see more dimensions because I kept seeing these inverted cubes like a lot of my visions were of shapes that I've never seen in that way. Like I would open my eyes and look at stuff and I would see them in different dimensions is the best way I could put it. Like you know how you see those four-dimensional cubes and stuff like that?
>> Yeah. Well, I think that >> Oh, go ahead.
>> Yeah, I was just saying that the DMT allowed me to see things in that way rather than just the 3D way, >> right? But I think that DMT is like a death simulator and it basically simulates the death experience, right? the or what happens right before death and you know when you're dying your own brain actually uh makes DMT and then you start the ego starts to dissolve and you no longer pay attention to the waking world right um so I think that's why the perception shifts like it does because the DNT gives you the a simulation of the death experience or the I I won't say like the actual death after you die because we don't know that. We we we could never know that but we know uh what happens during the dying process >> and it kind of simulates that the dying process.
>> Right. Right. I can get with that for real.
Yeah. Anyways, let me keep this going.
>> Wasa was like, "And what difference does that make?" because it doesn't make any of this any less real >> sectioned and you're kind of in touch with all of the different sections of your brain. But the whole time I was telling myself this is my perception.
This is all coming from my brain. And the IASA was like and what difference does that make because it doesn't make any of this any less real. And the more I accepted that, the more expansive the experience became. And I met beings that told me that quite frankly the way it works is we're in a really dimension.
>> So >> why didn't you say it? I didn't hear that.
>> Yeah. He said we we live in a real shitty dimension.
>> Oh >> yeah. Like our interface is just very limited.
>> Why don't we Why do we all come to this uh conclusion when we do uh DMT? Because >> Right. That's the >> he he heard that we're living in a real shitty That's funny. But I I experienced it as we're just a bunch of [ __ ] babies building reality with like Lego blocks and [ __ ] and it's real rigid and horrible. [laughter] >> Yeah. I mean Yeah. And you know what you bring into >> your mic, Scott? your mic.
>> Yeah. Also, what you bring into the experience counts. Like how you set it up, you know? Like if you're real negative or you're real [ __ ] up. Um then it may just like if your ego's on [ __ ] 10 or some [ __ ] >> I don't know. With DMT, I don't think you uh it's either going to [ __ ] snatch you out of there or not. You know what I mean? It's kind of the same for everybody. But when it comes to like shrooms and stuff, I think your own state of mind has, you know, your energy or whatever has a lot to do with what kind of trip you're going to have. But when it comes to DMT, like I said, you don't have no no control over that at all. Like it's if it hits you, it's going to hit you. And it hits most people the same. I've read like hundreds of testimonies of people who did DMT and pretty much everybody who it's affected has virtually the same experience. Like there ain't [ __ ] you can do about it because again I believe it simulates the dying process and just like when you're dying there ain't [ __ ] you can do about it, you know? Um >> you're going to have that experience regardless of your ego.
Yeah, altered states are just the mind tripping out trying to make sense of it and relating it to reality. It's just stupid and not a real view of existence.
Uh, well, that's the that's what's that's the question on the table, though. I mean, that's a good theory, but that's all it is. It's a theory from your philosophical armchair because you can argue that even our normal quote unquote normal experience is um not um a reflection of true existence or reality.
So that's kind of a moot point. I mean it's just experiencing reality differently.
Maybe both of them are [ __ ] up and wrong.
>> What if neither one exists? And I mean, we could say that as well, >> right?
>> That's just I mean, that's an opinion, you know?
>> Yeah. I mean, yeah, we all have opinions and I mean, no one really knows, >> John.
Ah, here we go.
>> It just trips me out how people say things like it's a fact. Like, it's just this or that. I mean how do you know that for a fact you know >> new metaphor if you can actually mathematically model that then it becomes more than a metaphor it becomes a tool to calculate uh what confidence do you have that Chuck actually had access beyond his current dimension >> as a scientist I'm hard-nosed and I'm completely agnostic but I want to do experiments and so I'm actually designing experiments with Andrew Galamar where we would for example Andrew has this technology where you can put people under DMT for extended periods of time. So for more than just three or five minutes you can put them in there for an hour or something like that and and or 20 minutes. So you can actually have extend. So what we would like to do is say are these aliens real in the sense that they're sort of we can what we could have one nuonaut one person who's taking DMT go and give an alien creature in you know the DMT world some piece of information and then have that transmitted to somebody else a different person >> good way to test >> so we're coming up with experiments like that where where I I'm completely hard nose if if if that can be done I I don't know if I believe it. Even then, I would want to do a bunch of experiments, but at least a little >> Yeah, you need I feel the same way about out of body experiences where you if you're on a on the on the in the bed and get someone to write something that's facing upwards, if you have an out-of- body experience looking down on your body, you should be able to read that.
>> Yes.
>> That statement.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, that's kind of a big leap of assumption, too. Like who says that once you go out of your body you'd even care about some [ __ ] that's written down on a piece of paper? You probably >> I just I don't know. It's just the thing about stuff like that. I mean I personally I'm speaking this is anecdotal evidence, right? Yeah. Not any kind of proof.
>> I mean me personally um I I don't even know if it's an out of body experience necessarily. It just seems to be that way because you seem to be experiencing something different simultaneously to also seeing your actual immediate surroundings, but yet you're you don't feel attached to your body, right? And >> um that [ __ ] happens to me involuntarily. So, I'm focused on what the [ __ ] happening to me and I'm not trying to stay focused and read a piece of paper.
>> Oh, no. I've had out of body experience.
I described those to you. The most recent one was terrifying. And you know, and I'm saying that as someone who willingly goes into night terrors. I love sleep paralysis.
>> And that's why sleep paralysis [ __ ] >> man. I love that [ __ ] At first it used to freak the [ __ ] out of me and I hated it. But I it happened to me so much I was like >> okay but my question is why why like how do you love it? Like do you not see like all the negative things that people associate with sleep paralysis or what?
>> I don't know. I I just felt like it gave me a sense of control my emotions like you know it's kind of like look it's >> But are you sure it's sleep paralysis though? Because >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know it is 100% because and I don't have sleep paralysis anymore. Unfortunately, I can't invoke it anymore. What happened?
>> That's a >> unfortunately I try I try so bad and I can't do it. I used to crave that [ __ ] Sophia. And I know that sounds really crazy, but it's kind of like I got that type of attitude from my dad cuz my dad forced me to do [ __ ] I didn't want to do until I liked it. He said, "You going to like it, and if you don't like it, you going to do it until you do like it, motherfucker." That's >> So, what do you what do you experience during your uh what did you experience during your uh sleep paralysis?
>> So, I would be stuck in the bed. I could open my eyes, but I couldn't scream. I couldn't move. And I felt like I was trapped and vulnerable. And then visions would happen. Like I would have visions of like ghosts or demons or what the [ __ ] ever I can imagine would come around me and and and press on me and keep me held down and I would try to scream out >> and I hated it at first. But then after I kept doing it over and over and over and I said, "You know what? All right."
Because I I'm the kind of person I'm like, "You know what? [ __ ] you. If that's how you want to play, I'll go right along with it. you ain't scaring me. And that's the attitude I went into it with. And I think that's why it can't happen to me anymore. I It stopped scaring me. It started to be something I wanted to happen. And ever since I've changed over, it happened less and less until it just went away. And I hate it, man. I want to go back to that. I miss that [ __ ] >> So then what happened? It just ended when you had that attitude. It just >> Yeah, it just ended. Yeah. They just It just left me alone.
I mean, I guess it was similar for me, but I didn't really quite have that attitude. I would It was definitely uh something that made me have to overcome my fear because the more I panic, the worse it got and the the less I was able to wake up. So, I did have to face it and consciously force myself to face it without fear and then it would stop. But I didn't like it still. I still wouldn't welcome it. You know what I mean? Uh that's the part where why where I think your ass is [ __ ] crazy. [laughter] >> Well, this is where Examea has a point.
He says, "If you learn how you transfer sleep paralysis into lucid dreaming and out of body experience, that's what I was getting to is that now I can't really get into the sleep paralysis, but what I can do is I can get somewhere close to a sleep paralysis. But for me, what happens is I just go into a lucid dream. And now I've learned I can go into an out of body. So I'll feel like I'm leaving my body. I'll have that sort of sensation.
But it's hard for me to focus on looking at anything because anytime I look at something, I get vertebra.
>> Your mic?
>> Yeah. Can you hear me better? Uh, not quite.
>> No.
>> No. Keep talking.
can hear you.
>> Hello. Hello. Check one, two.
>> Okay, you're good.
>> Okay, so my sleep paralysis went away, but it did enable me to go out of body a little bit better. And when I go out of body though, I get vertigo. So, I try to look down like I try to look down at stuff. When I go out, like I can tell when my I get this sensation of rising out of my um out of my chest.
And then I what I try to do is turn around and look at the room so I can start exploring it. And once I do that, I get vertigo, like this real dizzy sensation, and I just snap back into my body.
>> But see, that's the thing. I'm not sure about this whole thing about being able to see the room and stuff.
I sometimes >> I sometimes wonder if that's just based on my memory of what I remember the room to be like because I really can't say for certain that I actually ever saw the room because I remember one time I had sleep paralysis and I swore up and down to myself that my eyes were open and that I was awake and that I was seeing the room, but then when I actually came out of the sleep paralysis, I realized my eyes weren't open. So, >> yeah, >> it makes me wonder if I just perceived that I thought that I perceived the room based on my memory of what the room looks like. You know what I'm saying?
>> Right.
So Skywork says, "I think you just love for there to be other dimensions and a spiritical reality."
For me, I'm trying to be a scientist. If you if you're going to go into this stuff with the assumption that it's not real or it's not, then you're not going to learn anything. Skyworks. You can't go into stuff with a predetermined idea. Right now I am agnostic.
That means I don't know. And when you start with I don't know, then you can learn stuff. But you have to be open-minded. You have to open your mind to whatever it brings you. And it's fun.
And it may turn out that it's just some sort of hallucination.
I'm not really sure how that's going to work, but I'm willing to try to find out if it is. And if it's not, then it's not. whatever it is won't really surprise me one way or the other. Like if it turns out that there's a spirit realm, then my whole philosophy goes out the window. Skyworks. My philosophy is there is no other realm. There's only this realm. That's what idealism is all about. There's only this reality.
>> Yeah. I don't I don't necessarily believe in a spirit realm. I just think >> I don't that's dualism. I just think there are uh state changes and I do see it as a different states of consciousness. But I will say just because it's a different state doesn't mean it's not real, you know, >> right? And and again, you got to define real.
Like what do we mean by real? Um you know, right now I'm having an experience right now that I can't explain. I can't explain just a very normal absolutely mundane >> when we when we're saying real I think we would I think we'd be talking about an experience you know because without awareness there is no experience so any experience is real I guess even if it's a hallucination it's still a real experience.
Skywork says, "Of course you are." Well, that's because you're a mind readader.
>> Of course, what is he saying?
>> That I that I want to believe in other realms and spirits and souls and [ __ ] Like, you don't know me, [ __ ] >> You just >> I know. Like, why are you people so sure of everything? Like, you don't know [ __ ] >> You don't know a [ __ ] thing. You just make these [ __ ] accusations despite what I say because you're a [ __ ] troll. That's all you are is a [ __ ] troll, man. Why not just jump off the damn show if you if this so that totally disagrees with you? You know, >> you're very scientific. I'm not a scientist, but I am scientific. Do you know what being scientific means?
It means that you're willing to put away your beliefs. Like for example, the belief that there are no other realms.
I can put those aside to do an experiment. I can put aside my beliefs.
I believe there's only one realm. It's called reality. That's the only realm you need to to believe in because it's the one that I exist in. Um I don't believe in other realms. But hey, if there are other realms, I'll be I can put it aside to explore somehow, but you know, you don't know me. You know, you don't know people to say that. You're just being a troll.
That's all.
I used to have out-of- body lucid dreams and would flat on my window around the neighborhood. Wow. It was always the same neighborhood, but not the one I lived in or had ever seen awake before.
I see. Well, for me, if I experienced that, that would kind of tell me that it was a hallucination more than anything else. But, you know, there's a million other people that would say that they do see things. And I do talk to people who say that they do see reality as it is.
And I'm like, I don't understand how that can be possible, but I'm willing to give it a try for me. You know, if I can experience it, it would mean a whole lot more. I don't really just base things off um, you know, other people's experience. You know, like your experience is not going to be the same as mine.
>> Well, I mean, I can say that has happened to me at at least once what he's describing. But um not only was I out of body in my neighborhood, I was looking in my friend's window who I perceived with her phone in her hand, a white wife beater on in blue shorts.
>> And she was looking down in her phone and it appeared to me that she was either scrolling or texting. And then in reality, I received a text from her and it woke me up and she said, "Could you come over? My dog's sick." And I said, "Well, that's funny because I'm already outside your window." And she said, "Well, come on in." And I was like, "Well, the problem is I'm not really outside your window, but you have on a white shirt and blue shorts, right?" And she's like, "Bitch, come in." And I'm like, I'M NOT RIGHT THERE. [laughter] >> SEE, that's what I'm talking about.
There's people that have those sort of experiences. And to say that you're lying or to say that, oh, you just wanted to believe that or something.
Only a troll would say that. Only somebody who's a [ __ ] know-it-all believer would say that.
They're just stuck in their own personal incredul. You see, because it cuts both ways, you know? It's like you can be skeptical, but to be a true skeptic means to really hold all conclusions and let the evidence lead you to where it goes. You know, it's just that you've been brainwashed by your physicalist atheist um belief system to say, "Oh, these things just >> yeah, these things can't be possible.
They cannot be possible. You've already made your mind up."
>> You know, it doesn't mean anything to me. that that's just what you're saying is just meaningless at that point.
>> The only way you could make that kind of definite statement is you would have to be all knowing and 100% understand the nature of reality, which I don't think anyone that is alive can do. So, because I know that people like that exist, whenever I have my experiences, and it's been since I've been young, I write stuff down that happens to me, and everybody in my immediate environment has been witnesses to these things. So, I know this [ __ ] really happened and the people around me know that it really happened as well. So, when I'm talking about it to you or to a stranger, then yeah, they can choose to believe me or not believe me. But the people around me, they have seen it happen in action and can verify it. By the way, >> yeah, you know, it's no different than people saying that, you know, if you're a trans person, you're just full of [ __ ] because those aren't really your real experience. You don't really feel like you're a woman in a man's body. you know, that's just you trying to get attention or that's just you trying to get some kind of special privilege or to to feel politically correct or some whatever their theory is, you're just saying [ __ ] out of your personal incredul because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it can't happen to anybody, you know? And um you know, it it's just kind of silly the way people operate that way, you I mean, I understand that. I understand that we should be skeptic because, you know, I don't necessarily believe Christians when they say God spoke to them or that there even is a God, you know, but I I believe that they may have that experience and that it's real to them and, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, it could be true, right? Right.
>> I just don't believe it.
>> Right. That that's the point. Like, I don't believe in spirits, souls, and other realms either.
But to say that I do because I'm curious about the experience, because I'm testing it, because I'm willing to listen to other people is just you trying to shut down the conversation.
You know, you just don't It's like thought control. It's like people who want to shame you for even looking at these things. I just think it's funny, you know? I just think it's hilarious because it's so inconsistent. But anyways, we're kind of getting off topic with the trolls. So, let me get back to the vid >> and then come back and say, "What does it say? Roses are red or some simple phrase that would be easy to remember and to read." So, yeah, that's that you're doing exactly the right science-minded testing.
>> And so, I'm I'm actually hard-nosed about it and and disbelieving until I have hard evidence for it. But at least this headset theory says it's possible.
So since it's possible, we should really check it out. But the higher probability is just that it's, you know, your your brain got screwed up somehow. Your your headset got screwed up. But if it's actually if DMT is actually changing a parameter in the headset that says you were stuck with a three dimensions of space, but DMT is now taking you to four or five and it's just a parameter change and we can, you know, we can actually see more dimensions than we had seen before. I certainly want to know that and find that out. So >> what in evolution would have allowed that to even be accessible to us?
Well, what's interesting is when you look at there are high energy theoretical physicists who are studying structures outside of spaceime now as you as you probably well know that they're called positive geometries and the European research council has a 10 million euro initiative and there are you know many many high energy theoretical physicists and mathematicians finding structures outside of spaceime and when you look at these structures they they have a one some of the structures There's something called the amplitude and has a parameter n which when it's four corresponds to our spacetime. One dimension of time, three dimensions of space. But these geometries then say but we're not stuck with four. You can have 10, a billion, a trillion. So your spacetime is just n equals 4, but our our geometries outside of spaceime aren't stuck at four. We can go anywhere you want. So already we're seeing in high energy theoretical physics a point or two this may not be the only reality n equals 4 the mathematics allows us to go to n equals whatever you wish and four we're sort of we got the cheap headset we we got the cheap that's what I was told and I'm telling you right now what you just described is something that the tribes who actually do the rituals where I was in Costa Rica Um, and they're called sacred geometries. That's what they're called, sacred geometries. And in these sacred geometries, there are representations of dimensions that seemingly are infinite, but like I've described before are like a deck of cards. They're like a deck of cards that go in all directions, but they're dimensions. Some of them larger, some of them smaller, some of them where the communication happens downward. But we're in a crappy dimension where we can't go upwards or outwards.
>> So he's saying that the shaman in the mystics are saying the same thing that Donald Hoffman's saying.
>> Yeah.
>> So that's kind of interesting.
That's kind of like a convergence in a way.
>> Well, I mean the West takes forever to figure out [ __ ] that Mystics already knew. So I don't know. It's not surprising.
Exactly. Exactly.
Skyler again. Questioning your assumptions or beliefs and their validity makes a person a troll. Uh what assumption did I make? What beliefs do I talk about? If you >> No, I mean I like come on. Stop being intellectually dishonest. Skype works.
You You came in here being sassy and being uh sarcastic.
Yeah.
>> And you made statements as if you factually knew what someone else's motivation is. So own up to the [ __ ] or just ignore him, Scott, because he's he's either going to own up to it and stop acting that way or all he's doing is distracting us from the show. So I'm not controlling, but like [ __ ] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel you. It's just that I wish these dudes would call in because then you could actually understand instead of going this back and forth because >> if you didn't know what he did >> Yeah. Because if you've been watching this channel, hearing me rant and talk about my [ __ ] you'll understand that part of what I talk about is my unattachment to beliefs, not to make assumptions, to be skeptical, to question everything. That's my whole point even in this. I'll go so far as to even question the science and the other assumptions. So, that's the whole point.
But, you're right. Let's let's just move on. And uh Skyworks, I invite you to call in. But, of course, you never will cuz you know, you're kind of uh on that vaginal thing anyways.
And so, we have to be communicated with from above or beside. Right, Don? Why are we in a crappy dimension? It's all your [laughter] fault.
>> You know, and listen, I was just like this. I thought the whole time I kept saying to myself, you're high. That's all I kept saying. But the the more I talked to people like you, Don, and Brian Green and Jan 11, this stuff that I really didn't have any knowledge of is kind of the basis of the experience. I'm just saying.
>> Okay. So these positive geometrics, are they going to be the solution to what David Chararma's phrased as the hard problem of consciousness?
>> I don't think so.
>> Okay.
>> And and I think that the uh the the high energy theoretical physicists aren't trying to do that. U they are trying to understand observation. So that's a big big problem open problem in in quantum gravity right now is especially the attempts to get quantum gravity that have forced >> mathematicians and and physicists to say you know what we've never understood the observer and it looks like that is the obstacle we need to go back and really understand what an observer is and that may be the key.
>> Yeah. But if you if you're going to take something we don't understand in the quantum realm and then you're going to take consciousness which you don't really understand in the neuroscience realm, staple them together and turn that into an explanation of something that you're going to trust feels like very unstable ground to be standing on >> completely. I I I agree. So I think that we can talk about observers without worrying about consciousness first. We can just ask can we get a mathematical model of observation? And I think I I think we can. I've got >> Yeah, but observers are conscious.
[laughter] That's how they do observation. But anyways, that's just kind of funny.
My own model right now that I'm working on and it's it's a a simple model of observation that doesn't assume consciousness or or non-conciousness to be fundamental. It just is a mathematical model of of observation. I personally think that consciousness is important and fundamental, but this mathematical model doesn't require that.
>> We've said so many times when we've come together, the three of us, that the problems that we're not able to solve right now, and now I'm a scientist, right? Um, [laughter] exactly. Thank you.
>> Requires different thinking.
>> Do you consider yourself now in that realm? And if you are, do what different thinking are you looking at? we now need to take the measures that you need to bring forward that are different that we we haven't yet thought of.
>> Yeah. Yes. So I think that we have to just think very very clearly about what does it mean to observe and we need to get it to its bare essence. No extra bells and whistles. What is the absolute minimum essential for observation? We need to understand that mathematically.
Then we ask we have to ask can we start with that and that alone to build up >> all of modern physics. So a new foundation we don't start with spacetime because we now know that spacetime is doomed. That cannot be fundamental.
>> We it stops at the plank scale. So what what are the new foundations going to be? I think that linenets was right.
Lietnet said we need to start with observation. He called them monads and he said there had to be these monads that were somehow interacting and had had some kind of mathematical pre-established harmony.
>> Just lad was a mathematical philosopher >> all credited with co-inventing calculus.
>> Okay.
>> And there was some dispute between him and of course my boy Isaac [clears throat] Newton. uh but their discoveries are completely independent in the sense that they represent the calculus very with their symbology. Uh in physics we use a lot of Newtonian representation but in it's all Leeance's notations.
>> So the integral sign comes from him.
>> You mentioned the OG's of physics there.
Are we likely through your research to find that there are slightly different laws of physics?
I'm sure the laws of physics would have to be dependent on your observation of them. Um, otherwise you couldn't talk about them. [snorts] XU says not true.
Observers and double slit experiments have also been measuring instruments and not conscious humans which adds to the observer problem.
I've also been measuring have also been measuring instruments and not conscious human. Well, it originates with conscious humans though. All observation does, right? Or do you can you observe things without being conscious?
And riddle me that >> we weren't aware of.
>> Oh, I I I think not just slightly. I think that we will find that uh our headset is one of the more trivial headsets and that other headsets have much more interesting physics.
>> But I want to set it straight here. The history of physics is not where the history of physics since Galileo is not where oh we all believe this and then later on that's all wrong and we believe something else. That's not how it happens. We only believe something is true if it's been experimentally verified. Then we find out there's a deeper truth. Get right in your right in your belly wick here. There's a deeper truth in which that's embedded and that's just a special case.
>> Yeah. You don't throw the baby out with the bath.
>> Not at all. Then there's an even deeper truth. So, I don't have any hesitation thinking that my my lame ass 3D candy ass headset [laughter] >> is is legit in its world, but it's a subset of a much larger truth.
>> Yeah. And that's kind of in a nutshell what Hoffman's talking about is that, you know, the interfaces that we have are all limited in their own way.
Skyward, do you feel that shamans paint a true picture of reality or do they give a story that validates the experience of the psyches, minds of the tribe or group that plates the collective and keeps them >> out of my belt?
>> Um, I don't know. Ultimately, fundamentally, I don't know. Um, I kind of look at it like it's going to be a reflection of a person's internal psyche is my own interpretation for now. I think when you do Iawaska or DMT is giving you a glimpse into your own mind rather than telling you anything about um objective reality but it may that's the whole point is that how can we test it how can we find out that's the question >> well I do think that psychedelics can lead to non nonduality and uh make you have the realization that you're kind of part of the whole. So even though it is a personal subjective experience about your own mind, >> it's almost like uh you know macrocosm and microcosm thing kind of thing. You start to realize that >> you're just a fractal of all that is.
Now that might not be true, but that is kind of the conclusion that most people come to and have been since the beginning of time, >> right? And the nature of consciousness is subjective.
>> Your mic, Scott, your mic.
>> I was going to say, can you hear me better now?
>> Yes.
>> I was going to say the whole nature of consciousness is subjectivity. You know everything you experience is subjective anyway. I don't think >> there Mike >> I don't think you can get out of the idea of real of our reality being subjective as far as the way we perceive it. All perception and that's all we have is perception. So whether you're on DMT or not, you're having subjective experience. That's the [clears throat] whole hard problem. How do you get from uh how do you get to firsterson subjective experience from a third person objective reality? That's the question at hand. Does DMT paint any clues? For me, the only thing DMT sort of shows me is that reality is subjective and in fact you can tweak your brain to um interpret that same reality in different ways.
You know, that's what it tells me.
>> I'm sorry. What did he ask again?
>> He asked, "Do you feel that shaman shamans paint a true picture of reality or do they give a story that validates the experiences of the psyche minds of the tribe or group that plates the collective and keeps them?"
In a way, no. In some ways it doesn't because a lot of these experiences are common despite the tribe.
You know, people from other tribes experience the same thing. Like even people from America go down to South America and experience the snake and the garden and the aliens and all of these things we were just talking about.
They're common experiences despite your culture.
And you froze up again. Um Sophia, do both of you accept that you are separate organisms with se with different accumulative experiences or do you think you are one with each other and there is no separation at all?
No, there's no separation, but there is um a different experience, but that's not the same as um um ontological separation, if that's what you mean.
That's my view.
Brain damage produce all kinds of experience. Ever know anyone going through the DTS? They see weird beings, too. Yep. Just like them UAPs.
you know, those um Air Force pilots could be just hallucinating all that stuff, you know, um what we need is evidence, and that's what we're lacking with the UAP phenomena. Like, I want to believe in aliens and stuff, but you got to have evidence, not just stories and like you can go to Congress and talk about the same antidotes all day long, but it's just stories, man. It's not really real.
You need evidence.
Yeah. None of that proves consciousness is emergent at all.
Yeah. So yeah, I'm still I'm sorry. My internet was tripping >> and I'm trying to keep up with these comments. Um, >> did you go over this one yet?
>> It says, >> "Do both of you expect that you are separate organisms with different accumulative experiences? Do you think you are one with each other and there is no separation at all? So the way that I would say it is what I think is I compare it to a tree with roots and a tree has branches and leaves and uh reality sort of unfolds and we have a certain amount of agency and free will but it's limited.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I think that we're disassociated, but I'm disassociated from this body, you know, when I was um I'm not the same person I was even last year, but it doesn't mean that I'm not one with who I was last year, if that makes sense. Like, I'm still the same person, you know?
>> Just had some state changes.
>> Yeah, state changes. Exactly.
>> And that doesn't mean you separate from the source either. That's why I use the tree analogy, >> right?
>> Like your your your your thumb knows nothing about your other thumb, right?
And both thumbs are part of your one body.
>> Yeah. I stop remembering stuff all the time. I can't always remember my dreams, for example. But ontologically, it comes from the same mind.
>> So it's all oneness. So why just limit it to that? It's the same. I think that's the same thing that's going on with all conscious experience on my view is that we're just disassociated. We're not tightly correlate like there's no correlation that's is tight because you know we're separated in that way.
>> Well, I wouldn't say it's an illusion because like it's kind of like how you're every body part is connected to the same neural network, you know?
Mhm.
>> I would I wouldn't say it's an illusion because he said, "So there's one stuff in your individual experience is an illusion and the appearance of individual items or objects." No, it's not a trick of the mind. It's it's an actual uh state change. Uh and um it's not it's not an illusion. It's it's it's like I mean like we see in nature, right? We have organisms that can replicate themselves, right? Or organisms that can give birth without impregnation, without being impregnated, right?
>> Uhhuh.
>> We have organisms that can multiply themselves, right?
>> Yep.
So in my model uh consciousness uh imposes things upon itself and it has the ability to multiply obviously. I mean I say obviously but it's obvious in according to my model.
So it's not an illusion.
>> Yeah. that it's it's definitely um real, you know. It's it's like even if even if it was an illusion, I'm not even sure how illusion would even change anything even if it was because even an illusion is an experience that you're having. Maybe by illusion you say you're not seeing reality as it really is.
Well, I don't think anybody knows how reality really is. We're just kind of stuck in our subjective interpretation of things. Yeah, I don't think that comprehend >> the totality of uh reality, >> right? And you know even and there's a there's a there's a feedback loop of perception that would say that you know the way that your internal states are like your expectations and things like that get projected on your subjective reality how you perceive reality to be. So if you have an expectation of, you know, seeing certain things, you know, um, seeing people act a certain way, then you're definitely going to be more queued into seeing that. It's like people who see certain numbers all the time. Like if they're just really like the one of these numerology type people that say, you know, every time I look at a clock, I see 1111.
It's like they're only going to count the the hits and never the misses. It's because internally that's what they expect to see. They always expect to see 11-11.
>> Hey. Hey. Now I disagree. [laughter] >> You do? Okay. Go ahead.
>> Yeah. Because I that's not how it happens for me. When I see a specific number sequence over and over, something uh h ends up manifesting in reality.
And it's almost like I already my nervous system already picks up on it before my brain registers it. And because of that, I start noticing numbers which could be representative of a frequency. kind of like tuning into a radio channel >> and my nervous system tunes in before it catches up with my brain and then usually something manifest in reality and a specific person calls me or shows up at my door or >> I have had that experience before though. I have to admit I've had experiences like that and I usually try to explain it away. Oh, that's a coincidence. But like one time maybe it's a coincidence, two times it's maybe a coincidence, but when it keeps happening, it becomes a pattern.
>> Yeah. And so >> and Yeah. And I I've seen those p I'm not even going to lie. And I don't really talk about those patterns cuz I can't really explain why I'm falling it.
But you know, it runs in my family. Like I see my mom like I told you that story how my mom sees things and patterns and stuff and and I do too and I'm just the kind of person I'm so skeptical I gaslight myself to say ah I'm not seeing anything I'm my mind playing tricks on me but honestly yeah it's like over hyp maybe it's hyper skepticism I don't know >> everybody can decide >> we you know I I do that I used to do that to myself. But >> yeah, that's what I try to avoid.
>> Well, okay, I can I can explain that. XC music. He said, "But you don't register the same ones where the person doesn't show up at the door." Confirmation bias.
So, it's not necessarily confirmation bias. I I describe my nervous system the way that my nervous system developed through trauma. I describe it as an alarm system.
And uh the way that I adapt adapted to my environment um I learned early on to detect danger through my nervous system in a way that some other people won't because they didn't have a need to. So it's not that it's confirmation bias. It is an alarm system. And when my nervous system picks up on something, it's like tripping that um alarm system. Kind of like think of a security guard. He's sitting in front of his monitor. The alarm gets tripped and then he gets up and he has to check the perimeter, right? So my nervous system responds to danger.
The person that would pop up was someone that was actually dangerous and had ill will towards me and uh very uh obsessively was stalking me and things like that. So my nervous system picked up on it. Simple as that. It's not mystical. It's it's uh how the nervous system can adapt. kind of like an animal that can instinctively pick on pick up on vibrations in the ground before some major uh storm or something or earthquake uh comes along. I would compare it to that. It's kind of like an instant. It's not necessarily mystical at all.
U he says, "Yes, got that. But do you ever have the alarm and no one is there?
Well, like I said, it doesn't necessarily have to be that someone pops up at my door. It can be that that person ends up calling me or texting me.
They may not even be in my vicinity.
>> Yeah.
Yeah. And you know, that's the thing about the funny thing about experiences. It's just like with sesthetics and like a lot of autistic kids that have that don't they can't speak, they start to register reality a lot different, radically different than most people. And so a lot of people will dismiss them because it's not part of their experience.
Um, but what needs to happen is people need to study stuff like that and really try to figure out what's going on because I don't think people just make stuff up. I mean, they do, but I mean, >> but I mean, there are studies that suggest that uh intuition is a real thing. Um, that people who rely on intuition generally make better choices.
And intuition isn't something that's tangible really, right? But we we know we have it. And I think we all have had intuitive hits and had gut feelings and things like that. But that goes back to the fact that just like the octopus, we have several neural networks, not just the brain. The heart is considered a brain and your gut is too. So um it makes sense. It makes biological sense.
And uh he's asking me again, ever have the alarm? Uh no, no, never. Every single time um that happens uh there is something that manifests in reality that gives me confirmation as to why I had the feeling because I actually have real somatic feelings uh that I experience whenever my um I feel it right now. I wonder why.
Interesting. Uh, >> makes me wonder who the hell is talking to me right here. Uh, that's strange. I never had that happen on camera. Uh, anyway, um, that's how it works.
So, he has another comment. By the way, I have had two premonitions that saved my life and surprised the people around me that witnessed it and heard me relate my premonition before it happened. But I don't try to explain.
Well, you get to the point where you have this happen to you uh enough times and if you explain it, yes, people will dismiss you over and over, but I'm just to the point where I'm just going to be me. I'm not going to lie about who I am and what my experiences are. Not only that, sharing my experiences may help other people who have those experiences and feel ostracized. You know what I mean? So, um I don't shy away from criticism or people who don't believe me cuz I don't care if they do uh or not.
At the end of the day, this is my own protective mechanism that I rely on that has gotten me this far. So, I'm not going to dismiss it for anyone. your your belief or the next person's belief on my nervous system and how I operate is irrelevant.
And that's how you step into your own sovereignty and authenticity. Simple as that. That's just how I see it.
>> Amen. And Skywork says it's a safety mechanism developed so as not to fall into the same trap or to guard against having similar experience.
Yeah, you could see it like that. But >> that's like training.
>> Before I knew what it was, uh, you're going to laugh at that one. It's kind of [ __ ] up though. Before I knew what it was, I thought I had a soul bond with that person and thought that was my soulmate. And the whole time I was dealing with a psychopath who was trying to kill me. So yeah, get a little of that [ __ ] So, it took me a while to realize what this actually was.
>> Yep.
Exteruse says, "I'm coming to your door right now." That's why you had that that feeling.
>> Shut the hell up. [laughter] >> Well, let's get back on to the >> Hold on. Let me go check my door now.
>> Exactly what you're saying is exactly where I'm headed. I want to show that I can start with a theory of observation precise mathematical and get quantum gravity as a special case without handwave. So theorem and proof theorem and proof. So I I decided to take lightnets very very seriously and let's let's get a mathematical model of observation that's as simple as possible and see where this um pre-established harmony might arise. And the simplest idea that I can think of is forget consciousness just I'm just talking observation not consciousness. Okay. So observation you have outcomes. So you have a list of possible outcomes >> and changes. I see this outcome and now I'm seeing that outcome. That's it. I just want to say observation involves outcomes and possible changes of outcomes. And what's the minimum mathematics that we can use to represent that kind of observer? It's it's a a matrix that says here's a list of all your outcomes and here's a list of probabilities. If you see outcome one, what's the probability that you'll see outcome two next or outcome three, outcome four and so forth. You just write down a matrix of all the outcomes and how they might change. And that's called a Markoff chain, a Markov.
>> And what I've discovered is a a new logic that unites all Markoff chains. So I'm I'm saying my notion of observer is a markoff matrix which shows the observation outcomes and how they might change. The set of all possible markup matrices is the set of all possible observers. That's it. It's an infinite class. And I discovered a logic uh in two years ago that has never been seen before. It's it's based on something that is well known that if I have one matrix and I can only see a subset of its states. So I got a big 10x10 matrix for example, but I can only see three states. Um the big matrix will induce an apparent matrix on the 3x3. So it's called the trace. So for example, if you're at a a light and you see red, green, and yellow and you're seeing them change, but and someone else can only see red and green. Well, the red and green transitions are determined by the red, green, and yellow transitions, but you can you can you can't see the yellow. So you're going to get a different matrix for the red and green and that's called the trace. It's a unique thing. If I give you a big matrix and say you can only see this little window, then there's a unique matrix called the trace. And that's been known for a long time. It's a zero surprise matrix. And what I discovered is the property of being a trace gives you a logic on the set of all markoff chains.
It's a non-bullan logic that gives you the pre-established harmony that liveness was looking for. And so what we're doing now, I've got a a team that's working on the mathematics of this. We want to show that with this trace logic and and it's a recursive I can if we if you now this gets technical, it's recursive trace logic.
We can build agency out of it. But then we can show that uh the idea is we can then show how to build exactly spaceime to to get quantum theory, spacetime and and so forth from this.
>> Well, that's quite ambitious, >> man. I got to tell you that's that's first of all I need some weed right now.
[laughter] >> I'm not going to lie because >> you took truck to to the ledge there.
>> Yeah. Yeah. You took me to the place where I'm just like damn. How? But [laughter] >> I'm not going to lie. Like I was like I don't know if it's my attention span or what because I kind of got lost a little bit. I ain't gonna lie.
>> I'm not good at mathematics so he lost me there too. like math is not my thing, but I'm just glad somebody's out there trying to put it together, >> you know, and it seems like apparently it's it seems reasonable to most of these people. So, >> it's a really good panel. I I like how they are open-minded, especially Neil, because, >> you know, Neil can be really like, "Ah, hell no. Nope. Don't want to hear n no."
And I'm also surprised at the other guy, the comedian.
>> Yeah.
>> Because >> uh he actually um it's just refreshing to see >> that they are even willing to uh entertain it.
>> Yeah. It's a big win for idealism, you know? It's like him coming on the show and getting that kind of exposure. It kind of reminds me of Michael Leven work. like somebody's trying to put it in the language of science and math to really, you know, uh, get it understood by the scientific community, which I think is just another way of talking about it, which I think is interesting. I I like stuff like that. I like anything that can turn over the apple cart in either direction.
>> Yeah.
The only thing that really and you know I'm not going to pretend like I really followed everything you said [laughter] except that this larger representation is not necessarily made up but is affected by the smaller representations that you're able to see. The same way when you're looking at a light change on the one side, you see the light change from green to yellow to red, but it's the exact same transaction that's happening to somebody who only sees the light change from red to green, but they are inexurably tied together. Am I following this?
>> They're in the same matrix.
>> In the same matrix. Okay, I got you.
>> That's exactly right. And and I'll I'll just pick up on that because that will give you just a little clue about how this can get get us towards Einstein's theory of of relativity. What we do it's standard numeric markoff chain theory to have a counter every time your experience your your observation changes >> incremental counter right so so I see red okay that's one green okay two yellow oh three so you just keep counting like that now just think about the counter for the guy that can see red green and yellow versus the counter of the guy that only sees red and green the red green guy his counter isn't going to go as fast because it doesn't see >> the place you call home It's important to you. So, it's important to All State.
Home is where you make all your best memories.
>> Come on.
>> I got Can you break this down in layman terms cuz I don't think I fully get it yet.
>> Yeah. Let me get past these dumbass commercials.
Yeah. So, I'm gonna try.
So I think what he's saying is that everybody's seeing the same process from different points of view. Um, some people are going to only be able to register maybe two things in the markoff chain. Like they're going to see either yellow or I mean um red or green, you know, those are two. But there's some people who are going to be able depending on their way of perceiving are going to be able to see more of the process. They'll see like from the green to the yellow to the red. So it's sort of like, have you ever seen that movie Flash?
>> So isn't that like wouldn't that be like what it states in my model that time and space is a focal point of consciousness and each manifestation or physical manifestation is yet another focal point of consciousness. And on each >> uh physical manifestation's level of awareness uh is what or how they will perceive reality.
>> That's exactly right. And it's all part of the same matrix, you know, in the way that he's putting the matrix together.
So in other words, everyone's part of the same matrix, but not everybody's seeing all the numbers in the process.
It's kind of like the way I'm visioning it, like if you ever seen that movie Flash where he's, you know, people are trying to beat up Flash, but Flash is so fast he's able to dodge bullets.
>> Yeah.
>> Know >> like Neo in the Matrix.
>> Yeah. He's able to punch everybody, you know, like he's able to go punch 10 people before they even make one move.
It's because he's able to see so much within his time frame that he's able to move with more control within that space of time. But other people are only able to perceive time in a slower way, >> right? He's ahead of the game.
>> Yeah. So to them, it looks like miracles. It looks like, wow, what a miracle. This guy's able to run so fast.
It's really not a matter of speed and locality. It's just a matter of the kind of interface he's working from, >> right?
>> And that he's able to just count so many steps ahead of everybody else. You know what I'm saying?
>> Right.
>> So, that's kind of the way I understand it, I guess.
>> Exactly.
>> That we claim will lead directly to time dilation in Einstein's relative.
>> I'm going to tell you something else.
You might need some weed.
[laughter] SO, so Don, where else can you point this trace logic? Is it just >> Wait, wait. He just spent 10 minutes talking about the Matrix. We got to go to the movie.
>> Yeah, man. Cuz honestly that Go ahead.
>> Let's Let's just I love it.
>> We can't just sidestep That's right.
>> The Matrix movie, >> ESPECIALLY SINCE HE'S LITERALLY describing >> Especially since it's my favorite movie.
>> Okay. Okay.
>> Well, that's another reason.
>> You got one of those sweaters that's full of holes.
>> Okay. [laughter] So when that movie came out in 1999, >> uh there was no it was new to many people but no one questioned the capability of an intelligent enough system for making you think you're experiencing anything it wants to without regard to what is happening external to your physicality.
>> Mhm.
>> And that's a headset of a sort. That's what's the metaphor again? a a a >> a VR VR headset of a sort except you we're going directly to the neurons.
We're not even using your senses. We're not um and so could you just comment on the foundational theme of humans being alive and living out their lives in their own minds and not >> wow >> in their bodies.
>> And also how dreamy Keano Reeves is.
>> [laughter] >> So, you know, the matrix is >> what's a level of awareness? Is it the depth of one's perception or the scope of ideas and beliefs one takes to be true? That's a kind of a good question.
Um, but I think >> I think what Donald's talking about, Donald Hoffman's talking about a depth of perception.
>> Yeah. But I think there there are other ways you can talk about it like when it comes to ideas and beliefs. I think that's one way you could talk about it.
But I don't think >> you could also say that those two are closely connected because >> yeah more depth there is to your perception >> the broader your scope of ideas and beliefs will be. So, I think they would go hand in hand kind of because think of >> think of someone that's sleepwalking.
I'm highly I I would be highly surprised if they came up with uh a math equation or something while they're sleepwalking uh as opposed to the person that's awake.
like um the example I'm thinking of in my own experience in my own personal life experience um and this was what my master Yamamoto when I was in um Yoshikai martial arts >> um I had a problem that like you know they would like stack all these wooden boards up and part of our training was to advance one of the one of the things with the board breaking challenge so I had to break through like three stacked up boards. And it got to the point where you had to you had to also cut through bricks with your hands or your feet or something like that or your shin >> like the shin or your leg. Like I had to kick through boards with your shin. And but when I remember when I first started learning how to break through the boards, I could never do it. And I would hit it harder. No matter how hard I would hit it, I could never break the board. In fact, I was scratching up my knuckles. I busted my hand one time and I was one of the students who could never get past that hurdle and it was really hard for me to advance from yellow belt to another belt um because I could never figure that out. And then my master Yamamoto told me, "No, it's all in your mind. It's all in your visual.
You you're not you don't break the board by hitting harder. You break the board because you have to visualize punching past the board. You have to visualize a board behind the board. Try to break that one. Don't try to break the one in front of you. Try to break the imaginary one that's sitting behind it. And when I did that visualization, I didn't have to hit the board hard at all. All I had to do is visualize I'm trying to break the board that's 2 in behind the the main one. and all of a sudden I was breaking boards like a [ __ ] And so I was using that same principle when it came to doing all that stuff. You know what I mean? So it was almost like that kind of ties in what you're talking about ideas and beliefs. So I had to believe I was punching through the board to get to some other board, you know, and that was the secret to striking. I mean, that's the only kind of example, >> right? But that to me sounds a little bit fantastical. And I'm not trying to be an [ __ ] No, I hear you. It kind >> physics behind why you're actually being able to bust through that board because it's it's the way that the energy uh goes through the board, I guess, or the the >> Well, it is. It absolutely is. I will say by visualizing that you're going through the board, you removed all of your own um >> blocks.
It's what Master >> that you could do in the first place.
You know what I mean?
>> Yeah. Because I mean, Master Yamamoto would tell me that basically you've got a mental block that's telling you you can't punch through the board, >> right? And even though you think you're punching harder, you're still you're still not letting yourself do it.
>> He wasn't letting yourself go.
>> Yeah. You're not letting yourself go.
So, you have to you have to use visualization to get yourself past that block. You know, that >> I could imagine that you would also feel a certain amount of fear because hell, that [ __ ] hurts. like hell. Like if if someone told me punch through a board, I probably wouldn't hit it as as hard as I could out of fear of breaking my hand.
Right.
>> Exactly. Exact. That's the point. See, that's the thing. So, you have to you have to um not let that fear stop you from going for it. You have to, >> you know.
>> So, your mic. So I guess when you remove that mental block, you actually delivered the necessary force that was needed.
>> That's right. So like that's a good point, Skyworks. You say, can a person's level awareness encompass misunderstandings or false belief?
That's kind of what I'm talking about.
Like I had a belief that I couldn't punch [clears throat] through that board, right? That was a false belief.
But by changing my level awareness of awareness like visualization of another board that I'm trying to get at was that belief helped me to um overcome the belief that was blocking me.
>> But how did you change your level of awareness >> by by just by just visualization?
>> No, by believing.
>> Your teacher exposed you to it.
>> Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yep.
Without him, I would have never thought that up.
>> So, yeah. I mean, you can be stuck in a level of awareness that prevents you from seeing something more. And it's not until someone exposes you to it or you learn from 5,000 mistakes or whatever that you know, something has to happen for you to raise your level of awareness, >> right? Like my son had a really good math teacher. Like my son used to be really horrible at math and he used to cry whenever we did homework together.
He would cry and I'd get so mad at him because he couldn't he wouldn't focus on his [ __ ] work and I'd be like damn it, man. It's so simple.
>> I used to be like that. I haven't >> I lost my patience, you know? I I I was never good at it because I'd lose my patience with him and I just have to give up on him. But then he had a tutor that gave him a trick to doing math. And so he changed his level or approach to his awareness. And so he was aware of doing math in a whole different form format.
And so that changed everything. like that little that little trick.
That math teacher was smart cuz she came up with like just a little trick to help the math make better sense to him. Like all my screaming and yelling and losing my temper wasn't helping him, you know?
But >> yeah, it just makes it worse. That puts >> makes him nervous. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And I could never get through to his hard head how to figure stuff out.
But she figured out a way very simple to make math fun and easy to where he could understand it better.
>> Yeah, I had an experience like that with math because when I was a kid, I was highly afraid of math to the point where I started feeling laded and everything.
All the numbers would get scrambled like they're melting away and [ __ ] It was really bad. I would have like a full-blown anxiety attack. But it's because I had a a math teacher who would always uh put me um in front of the class and then put me on the spot and make me work out the the the problem on the board. And I had a real issue with being in front of an audience and being put on the spot like that. And so I would get all this nervous anxiety and I couldn't do the problem anymore. Even if it was something as simple as five plus five, it just the numbers would start melting and scrambling and I couldn't do it. And so then everyone would start laughing and and I would feel stupid. And that whole experience made me have a serious fear of math. And I want to say all the way up until I was like 18, >> I just I just really couldn't do math without feeling anxiety, you know, and it was not until I got around 18 that my dad, you know, told me, you know, there's no reason to have any kind of fear of math. He said, "You know how to count your money, right? You go to the store and you're counting your money all the time and you're not afraid, right?"
and he just started showing me different perspectives and I lost my fear of math and I started realizing why I even had fear in the first place because it wasn't the math, it was the fact that I was put on the spot.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. And you know, it's almost like when someone's really pressuring me, that's when you get nervous and you freeze up and that's when your stupid brain turns on.
[laughter] >> Yeah. and you can't really do anything.
But if you're relaxed, if you're in a more relaxed state, then you can perform a whole lot better. But you just have to figure out a way to be more relaxed. And sometimes, like I realized me, you know, you know, screaming at my son and really getting mad with him wasn't helping, >> you know, was actually making it worse, you know.
>> Oh, you learned that real quick as a parent. [laughter] >> Yeah.
When I was younger, I mean, I still yell at my kids. I ain't gonna lie. Sometimes I do, but it just goes out of one ear, and out of the other. They're not going to listen to that [ __ ] [laughter] >> Kids are resilient.
>> They just tune your ass out whenever you get too loud. [laughter] >> That's right.
>> My favorite movie at the time as well. I was And I wrote a book. It's >> still my favorite movie.
>> That is It probably still is actually. I wrote a book in 1998, just the year before The Matrix came out, called Visual Intelligence, how we create Create What We See. Exactly this stuff.
So that's why I was so taken with The Matrix, because it was exactly what I was talking about in in visual intelligence. And it gets very, very weird. Neurons. So I'm a neuroscientist and I study neuroscience and I'm all for neuroscience. We have 86 billion neurons, trillions of synapses. And yet I say that neurons do not exist when they're not perceived. So what are neurons? They are a headset representation of how our headset is engineered. So neurons are a headset representation of how our headset is being created. So neuroscience is much harder than we thought.
>> We don't just have to understand the wiring and the physiology. That's just the baby beginning. Now we have to reverse engineer it and ask what is the software outside of spaceime which when you project it into spaceime looks like neurons and synapses and physiology. So so we have a really hard task ahead of us [music] with longlasting battery life on the Dell XPS. You can stay plugged in even when you're unplugged.
>> This is the fake ad you see everywhere, right? But this is Ebony, a real game.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Aren't they exactly the same? No, because Ebony is the real number gate runner game. Got to try it, huh? Nobody ever believes me.
But this really is just like the >> As long as, and this is the challenge to um our credul is to say that things aren't really there when you're not perceiving them. that that comes across sounding um incredible.
Um but I think that if you're trying to investigate a theory that Hoffman has on the table, you try to do an internal um logic to it. So, it's just, you know, you have to kind of like step away from your intuitions or your your normal way of understanding how things work normally.
Um, and that's the challenge, you know, that that's part of the challenge is selling this idea. But, um, you know, that's the issue, I think. But, let me I'm real curious to see what they got to say about that.
>> We're thinking we're stuck inside spaceime. This is the we're actually missing the real science that's ahead of us. The real science is spacetime is a trivial headset. Let's get on with the job of reverse engineering it and understanding the first layer of software that's outside of it. I think the positive geometries that the high energy theoretical physicists are finding are a first step and I'm hoping to show that their positive geometries are actually so-called sub geometries of the of the marov polytope that I'm working with. All I was asking was, do you think as portrayed in the Matrix, you could meddle in someone's head and make them think they're living out their entire lives?
>> Absolutely.
>> Once you understand the software, you can play and and you can do miracles. If you think about it, if you wrote, suppose you're the wizard in Grand Theft Auto, so you can drive the car as fast as anybody. You can play all the game, you know, play all the rules inside the game. But suppose you're a geek who can't really drive, but you wrote the software. You wrote the software of the game. Well, you can turn the the the the expert the you know the wizard's car into a donkey. You can do whatever you want. So once you know the software, you can do magic and and my guess is not just a guess if if this approach is correct. When we start to understand the software outside of our space-time headset, the technologies will be mind-blowing. Everything that we have right now will be trivial compared to the the technologies we will have.
That'll be the next season of Black Mirror where you get inside the brain and it's a whole set of plot lines right there.
>> And you know what I mean? Can we can can we for a second because there's a lot of people we live in a very polarized divisive time.
>> Sure.
>> And so >> unlike the second world war or the first world war >> or the revolutionary war or the civil war or the civil war or the Vietnam war.
Yeah. We're uniquely [laughter] divisive.
>> Yeah.
Why did he say divisive? I could have sworn it was divisive.
>> Yeah, he he I don't know what he's getting that. He just mentioned that.
Let me want me to back it up a little bit.
>> No, I'm just making sure that I've been saying that word, right?
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Divisive. Like divisive.
[snorts] Everybody has a different accent.
>> So, you can say divisive. I've never heard that before.
>> Yeah. Divisive. Divisive. Tomato.
Tomatada.
>> Okay. I guess there's something new to learn in English every day.
>> That's right.
>> I mean, however, I I will say that, you know, the difference is in all those times, we didn't have this constant influence of manipulation called visuals in phones and social media and algorithms.
>> Yeah. And so I'm interested to hear what you think about the power that these things possess, not only individually, but society.
>> I'm going to re ask that with fewer words.
>> In what way has the algorithm hijacked our evolutionary proclivities?
>> Damn, I GOT TO LEAVE NOW.
[laughter] >> I'M SO ASHAMED OF MY QUESTION.
>> DID I capture what you >> captured it all in one phrase? I hope they still play the whole question that I asked though just so that people can see that [laughter] you captured it all in one phrase. Yes.
>> Well, great question and actually quite pertinent. Uh, >> in other words, are we humping humping the beer bar? [laughter] >> Hey man, stop doing my job. [laughter] >> I'm allowed jokes per episode.
[laughter] Okay.
>> All right. Go ahead. The background that I have in neuroscience and evolutionary biology and evolutionary game theory has made me of interest to various companies because I they asked me to help them with their marketing and advertising and product design because I know the rules of the game. And so I I'll give you a concrete there's lots of examples. I'll just say at top level we know how to manipulate your attention to make you want things that you don't even know that we're doing. So once so the answer is yes. Once you know the rules of the game, you can play them. And companies pay me to do that. It's it's it's out there. I >> I'll just give you a a fun one, though.
Um, but there are many uh jeans, denim jeans.
>> Your your visual system has rules for how you create 3D objects. How do you create 3D shapes? So, this is all part of the headset software. And shading gradients and and and lines and so forth are used by the visual system to create 3D shapes. When you have when you put on jeans and they have distress, you know, they're trying to make them look distressed and so forth and they have stitching and you are telling a 3D story about the body of the person who's wearing those jeans. The only question is do you as the clothing manufacturer understand what story you're telling and is it the story of that you want to tell? Are you giving the person pancake butt when you didn't want to do that or are you making them look good?
>> So I went to these jeans companies.
Well, they came to me actually and so I showed them I look I said look here you're creating pancake butt and here but here's how you can change the distress so that all of a sudden you can make any shaped rear end that you want.
>> And I remember the CEO of one company when I was giving the presentation I won't mention the company he jumped out of his chair ran up to the the slide screen that I was showing how I did this and he said our jeans make my butt look terrible and he so they they bought it.
They I showed them how to do it and they then went and made the the stitch jeans different and the distress different and you can make any shape that you want once you know how to do it. So this stuff is >> Wow. So he's hired by um advertisers to use his theory in order to manipulate what people want to buy and stuff like that. those bastards.
[laughter] He's they're using these uh theories to make them money. So, that's kind of interesting. But I can see how it works because yeah, if you know the rules of the game, you can play it to manipulate people and get what you want.
>> That's kind of That's kind of cool.
>> The power of suggestion.
>> Yeah, the power of suggestion, man.
That's wild though. But it makes sense that it's no real different than any other advertising rules and stuff, you know, >> being used. Once you know the rules of the headset, you can play the game and no one knows that you're doing it.
>> It's funny because the same thing happens similarly in nature. The reason why zebras have stripes is because they heard and when they are being hunted and they run all the stripes visually confuse the lion.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Absolutely.
>> Most of the time.
>> Most of the time [laughter] I see a whole lot of zebra legs up.
>> Yeah.
>> I know. I know. It's terrible.
[laughter] >> I should have had more stripes.
>> I knew I needed more stripes. Humans [laughter] think they're really smart. Some of them do anyway. And we can manipulate each other as we've just discussed.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. And we can write code like in Grand Theft Auto, >> right?
>> But ultimately, who is writing and in charge of this holistic this consciousness, this place you're trying to get to through your trace logic.
>> There is no top to the trace logic, which is really quite interesting. These these markoff matrices go off to infinity in any direction that you want and there's no top to it. So there is a pre-established harmony like linenets envisioned. They're all tied together with this trace logic, but there is no top which is is quite stunning.
>> In what ways?
>> Yeah, but that that that that's a slap in the face to God. God's at the top.
You're telling me there's no God at the top? What is he saying?
Saying nature is everything. What?
That's crazy.
>> Maybe it just does.
>> Theologians, >> huh?
>> Maybe it just does what it does.
>> Yeah, it do what it do, man. [laughter] >> Approached you as someone who's opening up a box where they can put their god.
representatives from almost every kind of religion have approached me because I'm I'm saying that in some sense observation is fundamental and it's very very close in spirit to those who want to say consciousness is fundamental. I myself think consciousness is fundamental but I don't have to say that >> to for this mathematics the mathematics can just be observation.
>> You made that point. It's an important point otherwise you're you're intertwined with something else that needs an explanation. Why complicate your account?
>> Exactly. As far as science is concerned, I I'll just call it observation period and we need any scientist would say absolutely we need a theory of observation. Bring it on. Whereas consciousness is is more controversial.
My own view though about the spiritual aspects is uh it comes down to a very fundamental thing about science itself and that is this very very simple point. Every scientific theory starts with assumptions. Period. It says if you grant me these assumptions, then I can explain all this other wonderful stuff.
But no theory explains its own assumptions. Now you can say, well, I'll give you a deeper theory that explains the assumptions of that previous theory.
Yes, you can. And your deeper theory will have its own assumptions.
>> It turtles all the way down, >> right?
>> Turtles all the way down. And so there will never be a theory of everything in principle because we'll never have a theory that explains its own assumptions. So there is no theory of everything.
>> That's that's a girdle's incompleteness theorem right there.
>> It really is. Yeah. It's it's a girdle's incompleteness theorem. So it's a scientific incompleteness theorem as well. So when we we sometimes talk about the god of the gaps. Well, >> I'm a scientist. I love science. I love the rigor of science. We do not assume that our assumptions are true in science. We assume that our assumptions are consistent.
I think that's a really good point to talk about because with a lot of people we talk to that are very scientistic.
They think science is the answer to everything. And if it's not verified and accounted for by science, then it's meaningless.
But that's called the verification principle in science. But even the verification principle can't be verified. How do you how do you verify the verification principle itself?
It always leads to it's always based on an assumption. We're just assuming that stuff. And I think this is important to understand, you know, what we're talking about on these shows because a lot of people just assume science has the answer to everything and that there's no question that needs to be answered, you know.
>> Uh yeah, sorry. I've been distracted by a lot of stuff in here.
>> [laughter] >> But uh [ __ ] I lost my train of thought. Uh cuz my daughter just tripped over the scale.
Um >> verification.
>> Yeah. Like everything like there's he was talking about, you know, how every scientific theory is based on an assumption. The theory itself doesn't explain the assumption.
>> No, I get that. I I just forgot what I was going to say.
child, what are you doing? Um, uh, I was gonna say something.
Never mind.
>> Okay, I'll just keep it rolling.
>> We know that they're never the final truth. We're always going to have some deeper layer to go to. What we have to assume is not that we have the truth, but that we have a consistent set of starting assumptions. If they were not consistent, then we could prove anything. And that's why scientists don't murder one another for their findings >> generally. [laughter] That's correct.
>> Generally.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There no marauding scientist right on the front line. E= MCQ. [laughter] >> And so we're infinitely far from a theory of everything. So there's not I'm I'm not worried about a god of the gaps.
Science is infinitely far from the theory of everything. And so I don't have a theory of God. Um, and I don't want I'm not a God of the gaps kind of guy.
>> Well, God of the gaps has been replaced by aliens. You know, you you don't understand something. It's aliens. And so, Aliens of the Gaps doesn't have the same ring to it. No. So, so in my book, I I I coined the phrase aliens of our ignorance.
>> Nice.
>> Yeah.
>> Don, what's the timeline on this research? Which is ironic seeing as spaceime is doomed. Um, [laughter] >> do you have a watch? No. No. So that's how many dimensions.
>> So do you have a timeline for the work that you're undertaking now?
>> Yes, I have a a a group. We we're starting something called the trace research institute and it's going to be coming out in June. Actually we have being announced in June and there I have some mathematicians and physicists working with me and we have eight specific mathematical conjectures that I'm hoping to prove in the next three years. So that's sort of the goal to have these proven in the next three years. And the the the idea would be we start with this trace logic on observers and show exactly how we get first special relativity then general relativity, quantum field theory, non-locality and so forth. And then so that's the idea is to start to reverse engineer our space-time headset by starting with observers that that could build a space-time headset, but they could build almost anything else. And that's the key point. Observers can build any headset that they want.
Spacetime is one of the more trivial ones. It's only four dimensions.
>> Wow.
>> You just dissed humans right there.
>> Well, you know, we are very disciplined, [laughter] >> I got to say. Have you looked around like we really are disable?
>> Well, [snorts] well, actually, I'll I'll turn that around now. I'll say something about you and me. We are not our our avatars. These bodies in three-dimensional space, one dimension of time. You know, there's a Neil avatar, there's a Chuck, and then Don and all these avatars are just avatars. Um, you you're not your avatar. This is just an avatar in a headset. So, whatever. So this is where it does sound spiritual. Now whoever you are, whatever you are, it's not something inside space and time. Space and time is inside you. That's your creation on the fly. You're rendering your body. So my hand is something I render on the fly when I look at my hand.
>> That's interesting. It kind of reminds me of like the thing about we don't have awareness, you know, we are awareness, you know, that we're just aware of these bodies and these personalities and these selves that we construct, you know, but what's more fundamental to that is the awareness, you know.
>> So, in other words, we are awareness expressing ourselves through an interface.
>> Yep. Pretty much that's exactly what he's saying because he's saying that he's just using the headset as the analogy of the interface and he's just saying that, you know, the interface is being created, you know, by something else, you know, >> not necessarily >> like what?
>> Yeah, like let me back up. Exact. He said it really good. Let me back it up a little bit.
>> You and me, we are not our our avatars.
These bodies in three-dimensional space, one dimension of time, you know, there's a Neil avatar. There's the Chuck and then Don and all these avatars are just avatars. Um you you're not your avatar. This is just an avatar in a headset. So what so this is where it does sound spiritual. Now, whoever you are, whatever you are, it's not something inside space and time. Space and time is inside you. That's your creation on the fly. You're rendering your body. So, my hand is something I render on the fly when I look at my hand >> and with that otherwise there is no hand. The hand is just a headset avatar representation.
>> Is there a way I So, yeah. Does that make sense? Because I guess what he's saying is, you know, there there is a thing about the identity there that can throw you off too though. Because when he say you are creating it, that sounds a little weird because I can't just imagine anything and change my avatar if that's what he's going to call my body and personality or whatever. I guess what he's saying is nature is the you.
>> I just think it's weird. like I'm not sure if I agree with that because he's like, "Oh, I'm rendering my hand," >> right?
>> I turn around and look at my hand, >> but there is no hand. And I'm like, "No, that's not true." Like whether you look at your hand or not, that hand's still there. Right.
>> Right. You know, it's it's kind of a it's definitely not going to play well with our common understanding of stuff.
So Skywork says, "When Donald Hoffman achieves immortality and is able to maintain his existence after death, I might take notice of him if he feels time and space can be overcome." Um, >> yeah. And I I think that he's not speaking about like your individual psyche, >> right? I think he's just saying that what's fundamental uh continues but you as your individual subjective experience does not. So fundamentally you're not this body. That's what he's saying.
>> Right? Because from what I understand Donald Hoffman doesn't believe in immortality. He doesn't believe in existence after death.
From what I've I know about Donald Hoffman, he rejects those sort of things, you know. I think it's just easy to sort of >> That's why that's why I like um I describe it differently like when he says you are not like you're not inside of time and space and time and space is inside of you or however the hell he said that. I just think the way I would describe it again is if consciousness has the intrinsic ability to observe itself just like you can observe yourself like you can think to yourself and be aware of your own thoughts, right? And then you also have the ability to focus in on one particular thought and that thought could be oh I want to make pancakes right and then once you focus on that thought in such a way that it becomes an action now you commit the act and you make the pancakes and you just created that reality. That's that's how I look at it.
So consciousness has the intrinsic ability to observe what it observe itself and each physical manifestation is a focal point and time >> is the axiom in which a time and space is that focal point. Am I saying that right? Right.
>> Yeah. He's saying that Donald Hoffman is never going to be immortal because Donald Hoffman appears inside the um AV is just an avatar. You know, Donald Hoffman as we understand it is that physical body as an avatar and that would all just be sort of a construction.
And what's really fundamental is the observer.
So the observer is what he's talking about. You are and I am, but we're all the same observer just expressed in different ways through different avatars or different interfaces. I think that's what he's saying. So in that case, I wouldn't say that the avatar is immortal.
>> Yeah. No, the avatar. It's like like I said with the pancake >> scenario.
>> If I think of what I want to do and reflect on my own thoughts and then bring these thoughts into action and I start making pancakes, the whole thing about me making pancakes is the manifestation of my thoughts. Uh but that's the only thing that's happening within that like that focal point, right?
>> Yeah.
And it changes all the time. So it it's like >> isn't actually >> me, right?
>> It's it's more like a a creation of my thoughts or a manifestation of my thoughts.
>> Yep. And so yeah, so you know, the avatar is not going to be an immortal um real fundamental thing. It's just the consciousness or the observer is going to be >> I still say it's a real thing though and that that that's where I don't agree with idealists. It's a real thing because once it >> you know once the spin happens and the action it definitely manifests as something real, >> right? I I I I agree 100%. That's why I say it's all integrated.
um you know it's integrated so it's all real because it's all integrated the same >> it may not be fundamental but >> right >> because the pancake can't create itself right so my thoughts >> my thoughts are fundamental that lead to the action of me creating the pancake >> perfect yeah exactly it's a good good analogy >> that sounds stupid as hell though and the only reason I said pancake is because I made German pancakes takes today.
>> But it's a good It still works though.
You know, [laughter] >> whatever works.
>> Whatever works.
>> Can render a few choice bitter parts.
[laughter] >> Well, let me back that up.
>> That's right.
>> Wow.
>> You just dissed humans right there.
>> Well, you know, we are very disciplined, [laughter] >> I got to say. Have you looked around like that?
>> We really are disable. [snorts] >> Well, well, actually, I'll I'll turn that around now. I'll say something about you and me. We are not our our avatars. These bodies in three-dimensional space, one dimension of time. You know, there's a Neil avatar, there's a Chuck and Don, and all these avatars are just avatars. Um, you you're not your avatar.
This is just an avatar in a headset. So whatever. So this is where it does sound spiritual. Now whoever you are, whatever you are, it's not something inside space and time. Space and time is inside you.
That's your creation on the fly. You're rendering your body. So my hand is something I render on the fly when I look at my hand >> and with that otherwise there is no hand. The hand is just a headset avatar representation.
>> Is there a way I can render a few choice bigger parts?
>> [laughter] >> Well, DMT.
>> So, I got to land this plane here. Uh, let me ask you the ultimate >> Scott >> skeptical question.
>> Yep. Sure.
>> Yeah.
>> Now, I think I get what he was saying when he said time and space is inside you. He's saying that. But I still think that's wrong because I think what he's saying is it's all happening within experience. And since we're all >> since we're all the same observer, >> it's time and space happening inside you. I mean, technically that's right because if you if you observe your own thoughts inwardly, right? you turn it and you observe your own thoughts and then you >> find the focal point that you want to focus on then yeah that would happen within your own thoughts like yeah >> I think it's true >> right that's exactly >> say you come out with this account of all that your ambitions hold for you what >> it doesn't sit well with us your hard-earned money sitting in traditional bank accounts collected.
>> Shut up. Shut up.
>> Come on. Let's get to the next commercial.
>> Damn. It's always two now.
>> I know, man.
Prediction can you make from that new formulation that will give confidence that the new formulation is real?
Well, of course, because what you described, it sounds like you in a position, you've constructed this literal matrix to account for everything.
>> And is that any different from the, you know, how the leopard got its spots, the the Kipling just so stories?
>> I'm going to make an explanation. And that's how it got it spots. And here we are. I'm going to make an explanation which is why you don't see this and you make that and we got a spacetime here and it collapses there and we got relativity. Boom. Give me a prediction.
>> So the first thing we'll have to do is to first show that we can get for example all of special and general relativity and quantum fielding. We we have to do that first right but then we can take the next step which is to say you know Einstein had to assume that the speed of light is the same is is the same in all inertial frames and that nothing could go faster than the speed of light. That's an assumption. What if we can prove that? What if we can show from this deeper theory that it must be the case in your headset that the speed of light is the maximum speed? Now, all of a sudden, something that Einstein had to assume we show follows from the theory of the observers.
>> That'd be a good one. By the way, >> that would be that would be one of my first ones that I want to go to. And I can give you a little hint as to where I think it's going to come from. It turns out in a Markoff chain there is something called a commute time. how quickly you can go from one um observation to another and there is a maximum commute time a minimum commute time and therefore a fastest transition and it's something called cyclic marov chains and so the direction I'm going to be going is that because there is a maximum speed of transition in marov chains that's where the speed of light maximum is going to come from so that it'll be a completely new out of >> come out of the construct >> a new construct for it >> but then that will just be the beginning because then I want to once we go into these higher dimensions, I can then start building technologies. Remember I my clock if I have a bigger spaceime than you, my clock is ticking a lot more than you. That means I can do miracles, right? That because for two ticks of your clock, I might have a million ticks of my clock. So I can be doing all sorts of stuff. So this may be how I'll explain UAP kind of phenomena that seem to violate the laws of physics. They do violate our laws if you're stuck in our headset. But they may have a headset in which their clock is ticking a million times to one tick of ours. And so what looks like instantaneous acceleration to us is for them a walk in the park >> or just a fuzzy video artifact of a monochromatic data taking device. But okay, [laughter] >> one or the other.
>> I I got you. So it's the experience.
>> What's that?
Didn't the Bible say that? That one 1,000 years is like one day to God.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Something like that.
>> Something like that.
>> It kind of goes back to my Flash analogy. Like, >> yeah, >> Flash can do all these things and it seems miraculous.
>> So, that makes me wonder, right, about the whole conspiracy theory of the elitists.
How is it that the average person doesn't think of stuff like the technology that's being developed? Why is it always like a select few? They obviously must have some serious [ __ ] expanded minds to be able to come up with all that [ __ ] So wouldn't that prove that we are purposely like kept in this like low awareness state? I mean look at the um [snorts] like they said earlier the the effect that these algorithms have on people and how everyone's kind of socially um engineered >> these algorithms. So, wouldn't that suggest that our intuitive feeling that there's something wrong is possibly true?
Right. And it and it I like what he's saying about the the um these UAPs, you know, everybody's talking about and you know, maybe they're not aliens. Maybe they're just like you said, there's an elite group of people that have access to this technology that are able to pull this stuff off, make it look like aliens, make it look like all it really is is just tech, it's just advanced technology.
>> Yeah. But I think what he's also saying is it's a matter of perception. Like there's a good analogy that I always use that I actually got from a movie. can't remember the movie but basically if you take yourself right and your perception and then let's say take um a grasshopper um you and that grasshopper share the same space but yet you experience two completely different dimensions. While you can see the totality of that grasshopper, the grasshopper sitting next to your shoe may just see a wall, right? Uh and that grasshopper could only intuitively detect that there's something there, but it won't know what it is. Right.
>> Exactly.
>> So, this is how I describe dimensions to myself, right? Um, not saying that's accurate or anything, but that's how I try to explain it to myself. So, what what he's saying, I think, is that there could be aliens, there could be all types of [ __ ] but if it's outside of our perception, we just can't perceive it. And it's not necessarily alien or whatever, it could be right here in the same space, but yet >> Exactly. still wouldn't be able to perceive it.
>> Yeah, that's what I was saying. Like even the grasshopper may be a totally different onlogical thing than we think it is. And you know, to to the grasshopper, we could be maybe just out of his perception altogether, you know, because he's not he's limited.
He's too limited. But I mean, if the grasshopper moves when you come close to it, then I that makes me think it has some type of awareness of me. But because it's so small compared to me, there's no way it could perceive the whole of me. So, what did it actually perceive? My foot that appears like a huge wall or whatever. You know, that's all I was saying. regardless of whether it perceives anything or not.
Uh the point my point was that we share the same space but we have a completely different experience. Two different dimensions. Right.
>> Right.
>> Your mic Scott your mic.
>> Oh [ __ ] I was just saying yeah that's right. I agree with you.
Let me keep on going of something that would be normal in their reference frame that to us looks extraordinary or even miraculous.
>> Right. That's right. And there's another aspect of this that that's really quite interesting. And it if you think about I I look around and I see an ant and I ask myself how much does the ant see about me?
>> My feeling is probably nothing. Almost nothing. It doesn't know anything about me. But then and and if you ask, okay, so how would it represent me? It might not even represent me at all. But if it does represent me, it's something trivial.
>> Well, now turn it around. I see the ant is fairly trivial, right? Remember, this is just a headset. The headset dumbs things down. It's quite possible that what I see is an ant. I'm actually the reality that I'm interacting with is so transcendent, so much bigger than me that if I could actually understand it, I would fall down speechless before it, but my headset turns it down into a tiny little ant.
>> Yeah. See, that's what I was saying about the grasshopper that we could probably be looking at the grasshopper like just a small little candy ass little thing. But who knows? It may be just beyond the beyond. You know, you don't know that. Well, you know, that makes me that makes me think like I had I had my an exfriend of mine >> who is schizophrenic swore up and down that something as small as a fly is staring back at him and has awareness of him.
And he perceives a lot of things like that. And it makes me wonder if being schizophrenic is a certain kind of interface that, you know, kind of like we talked about mind expanders and DMT or whatever. uh if if if they have a different like they we know they have a different kind of perception. But it just makes me wonder now if what they perceive if there's anything to that or if it's just downright hallucinations because he said something uh like that like what we're talking about now like how he said that ad could be something completely different or something way greater than what we think it is. Uh but uh my friend for example swears up and down that that fly he was talking about looked dead at him and perceived him and then there was like a mental um communication between the two and I was like I mean of course it sounds [ __ ] crazy right but I mean you never know. Yeah, that that's the whole point that this is the whole point about you know you know that that's what I mean about approaching things as scientists like let's put away what we assume is crazy and stuff like that just temporarily >> just see where it takes us you know just to see what we can find out >> that's the fun of it that's the fun of life man >> so this gives us a sort of a a different way of looking at everything around us what I'm seeing is my headset dumb come down representation of something that's not inside the headset. So, it changes the whole game of how I look at the world. I see an ant and I have no idea what I'm really dealing with. All I know is my headset is so stupid that it's just showing me an ant. That's what I know.
>> So, just touching on Darwin's theory, >> origins of species, etc. obviously pre- internet, precomputers.
Are you kind of telling us that it is the most amazing theory and it all it needed was mathematics to to show how amazing it was?
>> Well, I think that Darwin's theory is brilliant and evolutionary game theory, the mathematics really brought out all the wonderful power of Darwin's theory.
But now a step back, it's a theory that's sort of tied to our headset, right? Every scientific theory has its scope and also its limits. So I think inside the headset Darwin is the best theory that we have for understanding biology inside of our headset. Once we get outside the headset, I will want to find a deeper theory and show how Darwin's theory is a special case of something far deeper. So but that's the going to be the >> Now you're getting greedy. No, [laughter] >> no, that's that's >> Einstein wasn't good enough. You throw Darwin into the pot, >> right? Science must always get to deeper theories. We We always expect that our theories are just stepping stones, right?
>> I love that.
>> Yeah, good way to put it.
>> Well, Professor Hoffman, this has been delightful conversation. Thanks for giving us a peak into your madness.
[laughter] >> You want to say that again?
>> Okay. Thanks for giving us a peak into your genius. How about that?
>> The same thing.
>> They are the same thing.
>> They're the same thing. There you or rather a peak >> in life. We're all searching for >> that life of his. Godamn.
>> Yeah, [laughter] >> he does have a [ __ ] up laugh.
[laughter] Wow.
>> [laughter] [laughter] >> That's a trip.
>> Shut the [ __ ] up, Scott.
[laughter] >> I can't stop laughing. Please stop.
>> Oh, man.
But cool, man. That was kind of a that was good, man. I I really like that interview though. That That was That was very interesting. I I'm really surprised they it didn't get too cringy.
[laughter] >> Oh my god. [laughter] I really feel like I just hit the blunt and can't stop laughing. [laughter] >> Man, that was funny as [ __ ] Yeah. [laughter] >> Oh god. [laughter] >> Time to log off.
>> Yeah, it's time to go to bed. [laughter] I'm on one right now.
Oh my gosh. [ __ ] Oh my. My head hurts.
My ass hurts.
>> Show.
>> Yep. I enjoyed it a lot.
>> Um, >> and uh, yeah. So, until next time, man.
Well, we're gonna log off and get to bed and figure out another one to do later on. I appreciate everybody for stopping through.
Uh, having some content and some everything.
[snorts] That's what do >> your mic.
>> My mic.
My mic.
I'm logging off. [ __ ] all this [ __ ] Bye.
>> Bye, Mike. We'll talk to you later.
[laughter]
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