Latest / Mahon McCann / Colin Deyoung & Adam Safron - Sam Harris is WRONG (the self is real)

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Colin Deyoung & Adam Safron - Sam Harris is WRONG (the self is real) · Mahon McCann

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Adam Saffron and Colin DeYoung,
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thank you very much for joining me again.
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SPEAKER_00: This is actually our second chat together and we've had one individually.
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This conversation is related to the other topics that we've had
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in a sense and kind
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SPEAKER_00: of building on it around this question of the self.
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SPEAKER_00: You'll hear a lot of people arguing these days,
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SPEAKER_00: a la Sam Harris,
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SPEAKER_00: sometimes from Buddhism,
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SPEAKER_00: that there is no self or that the self is illusory.
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SPEAKER_00: that the self is something we need to get over in order to wake up.
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And so it's kind of fake in a way that there isn't a self that
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has,
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hasn't sat well with me.
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SPEAKER_00: It kind of leads into a lot of arguments about there.
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SPEAKER_00: No free will as well,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: no causal reasoning or no somewhere,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: a starting point for control or control hierarchy or something like that.
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SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I mean, I struggle with this personally.
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I'm kind of scared of this topic,
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which is why I'm glad to have seasoned thinkers.
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SPEAKER_00: Um,
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SPEAKER_00: to help me through it.
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SPEAKER_00: Cause it's, it's very important.
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I think it's the basis of a lot of our thinking about
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ourselves,
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ironically.
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SPEAKER_00: So yeah, without further ado, maybe what is the self?
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Maybe we'll go between either of you and you can kind of give a
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version of what you think it is.
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SPEAKER_01: All right.
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SPEAKER_01: Well, shall I start?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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I guess I will say a little bit about the way that psychology
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in general thinks
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about the self and then also what I think is the most sensible
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way to think about
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SPEAKER_01: it.
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SPEAKER_01: So I still think,
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SPEAKER_01: actually,
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that the way that William James discussed the self 150 years
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ago or whatever,
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SPEAKER_01: close to it at this point,
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SPEAKER_01: is very useful,
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SPEAKER_01: partly because he distinguished between two different
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meanings of what we might be talking about when we talk about
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the self and he
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SPEAKER_01: called them the I and the me.
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SPEAKER_01: And,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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then I'm going to start with the me because I think the me is
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actually the self
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SPEAKER_01: that we are usually talking about,
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SPEAKER_01: certainly in psychology today.
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SPEAKER_01: And also when there are these debates about is the self illusory?
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SPEAKER_01: Um, I think what we're mostly talking about is the me self.
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SPEAKER_01: And so, uh,
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As you can kind of get the hint from the grammatical difference
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between I and me,
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SPEAKER_01: me is an object of observation.
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And so the me self is our model,
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our conscious model of what we are,
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what we're like.
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SPEAKER_01: It is basically this model that we build of this organism,
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SPEAKER_01: this perspective,
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SPEAKER_01: whatever you want to call it,
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SPEAKER_01: whatever the thing is that we experience that
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that we attach some kind of coherence and agency to our model
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of that as the self.
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SPEAKER_01: And so it's very important to remember that it is a model.
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And I think that that's actually what is being tapped into when
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people argue that
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SPEAKER_01: the self is illusory.
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SPEAKER_01: I do think that there's a real way in which the self is illusory.
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SPEAKER_01: Because if you think that your model of who and what you are
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is an accurate reflection of reality of everything that is who
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and what you are.
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SPEAKER_01: then that's an illusion.
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SPEAKER_01: You're wrong because all of our models are partial and imperfect.
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And so you can get overly attached to your beliefs about who
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and what you are and
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therefore not make room for everything that you don't know
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about yourself or
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everything that you could become or all of the underlying
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processes that go into
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SPEAKER_01: generating your understanding of yourself but are not that model,
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SPEAKER_01: not that understanding.
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SPEAKER_01: So
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To be charitable to the Buddhist perspective,
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I would say that the permanent self is illusory.
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SPEAKER_01: The essential self is illusory.
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There isn't something that our model of ourselves picks out
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that is permanently who
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SPEAKER_01: we are,
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SPEAKER_01: exactly how we are,
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SPEAKER_01: all of that.
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But it's not illusory in another sense,
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which is that we build this model of ourselves.
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SPEAKER_01: We do have an understanding of who and what we are.
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SPEAKER_01: It can be more or less accurate.
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SPEAKER_01: And it is essential to allowing us to reflect on ourselves,
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SPEAKER_01: to correct course,
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SPEAKER_01: to try to change ourselves in various ways,
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to either to accept how we are or to change how we are into
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something that we might
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SPEAKER_01: be.
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SPEAKER_01: All of this requires that kind of guiding model.
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SPEAKER_01: as a basic principle of cybernetics,
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SPEAKER_01: and we talked a lot about cybernetics in our last conversation,
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SPEAKER_01: that in order to control something effectively,
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SPEAKER_01: the optimal way to do that is to have some kind of a model of it.
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SPEAKER_01: You have to have some representation,
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SPEAKER_01: and here I don't mean like a computational representation necessarily,
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but just like at least some kind of physical model of the thing
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that you're trying
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SPEAKER_01: to control in order to effectively control it as a control system,
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SPEAKER_01: as a cybernetic system.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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SPEAKER_01: So that's the me, basically.
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SPEAKER_01: That's the model of ourselves.
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SPEAKER_01: Um,
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SPEAKER_01: and then there's the I and the I is that we have always a,
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SPEAKER_01: an experience of ourselves as the center of our experience,
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SPEAKER_01: right?
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SPEAKER_01: Like there, and it's, it gets tricky.
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And I was just actually just talking to a friend about this
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last night that,
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uh,
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So if the eye is basically that kind of pure agent perspective,
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like I'm seeing,
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right?
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SPEAKER_01: I have a perspective.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm from a particular point in space.
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SPEAKER_01: I model this kind of field around me.
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SPEAKER_01: And the location of that point that is where my perception comes from,
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SPEAKER_01: that's part of this eye,
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SPEAKER_01: right?
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The thing that is the agent that is doing the modeling and
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doing the action.
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SPEAKER_01: But as soon as we start talking about that, we are modeling it.
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And so as soon as you start to pay attention to the I,
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you are back into the me again.
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SPEAKER_01: And what one of the cool things that the Buddhist tradition,
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SPEAKER_01: among others,
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discovered is that it is possible to through meditation
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practices to come to a
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state where you're not constructing a model all the time and
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where you are just in
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SPEAKER_01: this state of sort of open presence,
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SPEAKER_01: experiencing
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SPEAKER_01: what is coming in through your senses,
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but without trying to create or hanging on to a model of who
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that thing is or what
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SPEAKER_01: that thing is that is having that experience.
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And so I think,
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you know,
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again,
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I think that the me is illusory in an important sense.
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SPEAKER_01: The I is the one thing that essentially can't be an illusion, right?
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SPEAKER_01: You know, I think therefore I am, we could say probably a little bit more
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know, Buddhistically, like I experience, therefore I am.
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Although,
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of course,
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as soon as you take the I am,
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Buddhists are probably going to complain.
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But there is this sense in which some basic perspective and
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experience is one thing
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SPEAKER_01: that's undeniable.
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SPEAKER_01: But if you manage to remove all the sense of modeling of that,
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SPEAKER_01: then what you get is just the sense that it is essentially just being.
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It is what is because your experience is all it is until you
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make the assumption
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SPEAKER_01: that there's something out there that's differentiated.
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And so I think that when if you can manage to rid yourself of
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the me temporarily,
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and I do think that it probably should only be temporary if you
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want to be a
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SPEAKER_01: functional human being in the world.
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SPEAKER_01: But if you can manage to do that,
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SPEAKER_01: say through meditation,
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then you also lose the sense that the eye is a separate thing
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from anything else
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because you've basically just taken yourself to the point of
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the pure perception as
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SPEAKER_01: opposed to creating any kind of model of what is perceiving.
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SPEAKER_01: So I'll leave it there.
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SPEAKER_00: Adam, any thoughts?
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SPEAKER_00: It's a great place to jump in.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Colin.
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it's like having differentiated among multiple kinds of self,
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uh,
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is very important.
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SPEAKER_02: And it does seem like,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: like two of the major ones,
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: like the me and the I,
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SPEAKER_02: that that does seem to be like one of the major distinctions.
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SPEAKER_02: I know some people go more,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: like they'll,
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SPEAKER_02: they'll keep going for instance,
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_02: uh,
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SPEAKER_02: Nestler,
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SPEAKER_02: but it's like,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: you can,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: start talking about like the social self and get like more,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: uh,
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SPEAKER_02: an autobiographical self or different,
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_01: but those are all,
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SPEAKER_01: if I can just interrupt for one second,
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SPEAKER_01: I think those are all facets of the me,
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SPEAKER_01: right?
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SPEAKER_01: It's like me as a social being me as,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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any of those things are basically just zooming in on one part
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of that model that we
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SPEAKER_01: have.
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SPEAKER_02: that seems right.
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SPEAKER_02: And,
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and I guess one thing I'm wondering is like the relationship
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between like the I and
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SPEAKER_02: the me and these differences.
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SPEAKER_02: So like,
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SPEAKER_02: for instance,
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SPEAKER_02: like for consciousness,
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sometimes I'll think of like the different ways people use word
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consciousness with
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different degrees of complexity and think of it either like
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something like,
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like a tree with like roots and a trunk and branches or like
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Matryoshka dolls where
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SPEAKER_02: it's like,
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SPEAKER_02: like different,
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SPEAKER_02: there's like a,
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SPEAKER_02: an inner,
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SPEAKER_02: maybe like minimal embodied self or like,
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SPEAKER_02: and then you go outwards and then like you're,
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SPEAKER_02: building up like more elaborate or abstract ones on top of that.
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So it seems like the,
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I would be like,
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would proceed to me as like a precondition for it.
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SPEAKER_02: Um,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: and,
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SPEAKER_02: and relate in potentially interesting ways as,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: notions of consciousness in terms of like having a,
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SPEAKER_02: of something as a,
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gotta give the devil his due uh this uh sam you know talks
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about this the question
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of how do you move from a third person to a first person
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ontology like how do you
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have like a point of view on the world and this is being like
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the core question of
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consciousness but it's also you're now getting at selfhood also
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in terms of the eye
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um the uh and i think like what you're saying about you know
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the um the sense in
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SPEAKER_02: which like uh
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The meme must be,
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in a way,
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illusory because it's a model and all models are wrong.
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SPEAKER_02: And they have to be,
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SPEAKER_02: that's their use,
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SPEAKER_02: is this reduced complexity description that you can leverage.
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SPEAKER_02: And you have a map that can reflect the territory.
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And if the map is equivalent to the territory,
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it's not much good as a map.
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It's giving you this more economical representation for
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explaining and predicting
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that you can leverage for being a more intelligent agent for
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achieving goals in the
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SPEAKER_02: world.
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SPEAKER_02: And also the sense in which...
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The illusion rhetoric always makes me somewhat uncomfortable in
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terms of if you
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SPEAKER_02: just do dead stop at illusion,
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you're flirting potentially with nihilism or something that's
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almost like...
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SPEAKER_02: If you grant the word illusion,
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SPEAKER_02: it's almost like...
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like there's like you can end up going like overly postmodern
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or where it's like
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like um it applies to like all things and then applies to no
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thing yeah i think you
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also end up with a confused ontology you know speaking of
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ontology because you end
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up essentially wanting to deny that there are any distinctions
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that exist in the
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SPEAKER_01: world you know we're all one everything's all one um
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That I think is sort of an intuition getting at the fact of
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that kind of basic
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SPEAKER_01: phenomenological field.
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SPEAKER_01: But,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: you said going from a third person to a first person ontology,
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SPEAKER_01: I think in an important sense,
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SPEAKER_01: there's no such thing as a first person ontology.
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SPEAKER_01: There's an epistemology.
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SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people have confused epistemology and ontology.
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SPEAKER_01: I think Heidegger confused epistemology and ontology.
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He thought he was studying being,
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but he was actually studying experience.
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SPEAKER_01: He was studying the experience of being, you could say.
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SPEAKER_01: And the whole idea of Dasein kind of already encapsulates that.
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SPEAKER_01: What is it?
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SPEAKER_01: Their being is the way that Dasein literally translates.
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SPEAKER_01: So being there.
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SPEAKER_01: And that's what a human being is.
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SPEAKER_01: It's a being there.
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But the being and the there-ness of a particular perspective
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are not identical.
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SPEAKER_01: And I think that
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SPEAKER_01: And if you make that phenomenological reduction where you say,
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SPEAKER_01: well,
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SPEAKER_01: let's just like,
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SPEAKER_01: I can't prove that the world exists outside of my experience.
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So let's just pretend like it doesn't for a while and see where
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we get from pure phenomenology.
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SPEAKER_01: You know,
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SPEAKER_01: that's like a first person ontology,
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but I wouldn't want to call it an ontology even because I don't
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think we have
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ontology until we are willing to make the assumption that the
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world exists in
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SPEAKER_01: differentiated form independently of our experience of it.
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SPEAKER_02: I think the,
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SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you bring up like,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: epistemological versus ontological claims because it seems like,
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SPEAKER_02: I guess within maybe Buddhism,
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SPEAKER_02: sometimes psychedelics,
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there's like two ways in which they oftentimes try to dissolve
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the self with both
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_02: I'd say,
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SPEAKER_02: potentially harmful and potentially salubrious aspects to it.
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SPEAKER_02: So we're like,
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SPEAKER_02: so Kyle was mentioning like the sense in which like,
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SPEAKER_02: like if you overly reify the self,
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SPEAKER_02: you can be stuck.
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SPEAKER_02: You might not get it like the way that selves are, you know,
13:43
necessarily um they have to be confused in terms of like as
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models like like like
13:47
to be useful they must be like they must in some sense miss the
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mark even if
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SPEAKER_02: they're but also um it's important for like
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the the impermanence is part of the power of a self as process
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in terms of its
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ability to help a complex adaptive system and a goal-seeking
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system looks like
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selves have to not self in order to be good at selfing like
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there's a sense of
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itself have to have like and we were kind of earlier talking
14:12
about like stability
14:13
and plasticity it'd be good to dive into that again later in
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terms of like in order
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to be stable you must also be plastic to degrees like you have
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to be able to adapt
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SPEAKER_02: and so um
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the ability of selves to kind of breathe and move in and out of
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existence is part
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SPEAKER_02: of like the preconditions for their existence.
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SPEAKER_02: But the,
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SPEAKER_02: in terms of like the epistemological and ontological claims,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: one way of like,
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SPEAKER_02: I guess of the routes that I've seen,
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SPEAKER_02: they seem to get that in Buddhism,
14:41
SPEAKER_02: sometimes psychedelics.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: Um,
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SPEAKER_02: it seems that there is a move that I question,
14:46
SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: it's a validity,
14:49
SPEAKER_02: which is,
14:50
SPEAKER_02: um,
14:50
SPEAKER_02: epistemologically you,
14:52
SPEAKER_02: um,
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when people engage in intense mental training and learn to like
14:58
focus their
14:59
SPEAKER_02: attention onto the present moment of experience stably and consistently,
15:05
you end up getting at something like you discover there's only
15:08
like Humean bundles
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SPEAKER_02: or you end up discovering like all there is,
15:11
SPEAKER_02: is just like,
15:12
there's nothing you can point at that you would call like a me
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or like there's
15:16
SPEAKER_02: nothing in your experience that you can,
15:18
SPEAKER_02: and you end up getting a kind of,
15:20
SPEAKER_02: um,
15:21
SPEAKER_02: uh,
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Sam Maris will often talk about this like mysteriousness,
15:24
SPEAKER_02: like it just,
15:25
things just kind of come out of the darkness and you don't know
15:28
why they arise.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: Right.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: But the problem is you, you've stacked the deck like you.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: So if part of like the reality of cells is at,
15:38
SPEAKER_02: as,
15:39
SPEAKER_02: um,
15:39
or one of their important realities as a real patterns with
15:43
functional cybernetics
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SPEAKER_02: significance in terms of their capacity to self reflect,
15:47
SPEAKER_02: um,
15:48
SPEAKER_02: and,
15:48
SPEAKER_02: and,
15:48
SPEAKER_02: um,
15:49
SPEAKER_02: allow,
15:50
SPEAKER_02: um,
15:50
SPEAKER_02: different components of experience to be integrated in a coherent way,
15:53
SPEAKER_02: um,
15:54
SPEAKER_02: across time and circumstance.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: If you just zoom into this one moment of like sensei focus,
15:59
SPEAKER_02: and then you find like,
16:00
SPEAKER_02: um,
16:00
SPEAKER_02: there's no sort of self-reflective temporally extended process that you,
16:05
SPEAKER_02: you,
16:05
SPEAKER_02: you can't find it to begin with by virtue of the epistemology,
16:09
SPEAKER_02: by virtue of the way you,
16:10
SPEAKER_02: cause it's a search that could not have found the self.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, it's an interesting thing.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: It was always an illusion.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that follows.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: But in some sense,
16:18
SPEAKER_01: though,
16:18
SPEAKER_01: this goes again to the phenomenological reduction and the fact that,
16:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:23
SPEAKER_01: in order to get past it,
16:24
SPEAKER_01: we actually do have to make certain assumptions that you can't prove.
16:27
This is sort of like,
16:28
you know,
16:28
Gödel's incompleteness theorem applied to the human system.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: From within the system that we are,
16:35
we can never prove that the world exists in differentiated form
16:38
independently of
16:39
SPEAKER_01: our experience of it.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: And yet we all act as if it does.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: I believe that it does.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: It's a very useful assumption to make.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And I would argue probably true.
16:49
We just can't prove it from within the confines of our
16:51
particular experience.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't want to make that assumption,
16:55
SPEAKER_01: then you do get down to this narrow point where now is all that exists.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: The present moment is all that exists.
17:01
And it's even worse than what you're saying,
17:03
because you don't just dissolve the self.
17:05
You can get to the point,
17:06
I mean,
17:06
or better,
17:06
depending on what kind of experiences you like.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: But
17:09
SPEAKER_01: You can discover the prima materia, right?
17:10
You can discover the undifferentiated stuff or non-stuff of the
17:17
universe that's
17:18
SPEAKER_01: underneath everything,
17:20
SPEAKER_01: right?
17:22
And then what's happening is that you are not just dissolving
17:26
your model of
17:28
the self of yourself uh you're dissolving your perceptual
17:32
models as well right
17:33
there are there are meditative states that essentially just
17:37
become like total
17:39
insensateness like blackness like you could and you know it's
17:43
interesting to think
17:44
about like what might be happening in there in the brain like
17:46
is the uh like
17:48
thalamus shutting down relay of information uh i remember
17:53
reading a zen in the
17:55
SPEAKER_01: brain uh by james austen i think um
17:59
SPEAKER_01: 20 years ago and being really impressed by his first very deep meditative
18:04
experience coupled with his extensive knowledge of neurology
18:07
and brain function.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: He was trying to figure out what might be going on in these states.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: But however it happens physically,
18:15
what happens in experience is that you can essentially just
18:18
stop building any
18:20
SPEAKER_01: models.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And then there's nothing there.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: There's not you.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: There's not a world.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: There's just some kind of
18:27
And maybe what's happening is that you can't eliminate every
18:30
last layer of the model
18:32
and so maybe you've still got something that you're describing
18:35
as you know like
18:36
that sort of core embodied consciousness or whatever you want
18:40
however you want to
18:40
describe it which is still a modeling process but you know you
18:43
can you can get
18:43
pretty close to shutting it all down and but i think the
18:46
problem is that instead of
18:47
realizing that they are getting insight into the way that a
18:50
human brain works and
18:51
you know the way that this biological system works people think
18:55
that they are
18:56
getting insight into what the universe is external to
18:59
themselves you know and if
19:01
Of course,
19:01
if there's no longer a self,
19:02
then what is internal and external anyway,
19:04
right?
19:04
SPEAKER_01: So I think you can get very ontologically confused.
19:07
It's just that case in particular of like advanced meditators
19:12
and when they come
19:13
SPEAKER_02: close to and actually sometimes do like shut the whole process down.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes that's viewed or it's been suggested.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: Metzinger moves in that direction in terms of,
19:27
Christoph Koch sometimes will not necessarily appealing so much
19:30
to advanced
19:31
SPEAKER_02: meditative states,
19:31
but 5-MEO-DMT experiences is actually potentially showing the
19:37
eye to be illusory
19:38
SPEAKER_02: also.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: And I question that also in terms of when you...
19:44
SPEAKER_02: I guess when you dig into those,
19:46
SPEAKER_02: um,
19:47
SPEAKER_02: uh,
19:48
SPEAKER_02: so the people,
19:49
SPEAKER_02: um,
19:49
SPEAKER_02: when they attain states of advanced meditative absorption,
19:52
SPEAKER_02: um,
19:53
SPEAKER_02: there's these like hallmarks of,
19:55
SPEAKER_02: um,
19:55
SPEAKER_02: uh,
19:55
SPEAKER_02: certain stages that you can get to,
19:57
SPEAKER_02: um,
19:58
SPEAKER_02: where there's,
19:59
SPEAKER_02: um,
19:59
SPEAKER_02: reliably observable,
20:00
SPEAKER_02: um,
20:00
SPEAKER_02: characteristics of,
20:02
SPEAKER_02: um,
20:02
SPEAKER_02: kind of,
20:02
SPEAKER_02: uh,
20:03
SPEAKER_02: blissful states,
20:04
SPEAKER_02: um,
20:05
SPEAKER_02: uh,
20:05
SPEAKER_02: called the jhanas.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, and, and, uh,
20:09
What you can get when they go deep enough into this,
20:12
and there's a recent study
20:17
SPEAKER_02: um,
20:17
SPEAKER_02: Matthew,
20:18
SPEAKER_02: such that in brand to me,
20:19
SPEAKER_02: have some EEG data that's very interesting of,
20:22
SPEAKER_02: you get these things called cessation experiences.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: And so it's like,
20:26
SPEAKER_02: you're stripping down awareness,
20:28
SPEAKER_02: um,
20:29
SPEAKER_02: from like,
20:29
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:29
SPEAKER_02: usually you're,
20:30
SPEAKER_02: so we're doing like this,
20:30
like extended hallucinatory thing where our minds are going all
20:33
sorts of different
20:34
SPEAKER_02: directions to like the present moment.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: And then like all of a sudden,
20:37
SPEAKER_02: but then also like your sense of your body starts to fall away,
20:40
SPEAKER_02: your sense of distinction from between you and world seems far away.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: I argue, I would suggest, um,
20:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm not a,
20:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm somewhat speaking out of school because,
20:48
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm not a jhana master,
20:49
SPEAKER_02: but like there,
20:51
SPEAKER_02: that there always is something of a point of view still.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: If it's not,
20:55
SPEAKER_02: there's always like a view from somewhere,
20:56
even if you're not like indexing yourself as like a separate
20:59
agent dualistically,
21:00
SPEAKER_02: like there's still like a sense in which there is like,
21:03
like a camera from somewhere there's like with some like little
21:06
body but what's
21:07
interesting for these advanced honest states so that you push
21:10
it hard enough
21:11
eventually the whole thing shuts down and it's actually
21:13
described a phenomenology
21:15
of um coma or general anesthesia in terms of in the cessation
21:19
event like the
21:20
duration of time will completely go away and when they go in to
21:23
when they go out um
21:25
SPEAKER_02: there will be no sensation whatsoever um
21:28
SPEAKER_02: And some of the,
21:30
SPEAKER_02: in terms of like the brain,
21:31
SPEAKER_02: some of the things I've been observing is like,
21:32
SPEAKER_02: for instance,
21:33
SPEAKER_02: like alpha power just like plummets completely.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: So it seems like all modeling,
21:38
SPEAKER_02: you push it hard enough and you get rid of the eye,
21:40
SPEAKER_02: all modeling goes away.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: But so does all consciousness.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's exactly right.
21:46
Because what I was thinking as you were describing this is that
21:48
we need to remember
21:49
SPEAKER_01: that consciousness itself is a model.
21:52
And so consciousness basically appears to be a I like the
21:57
phrase that's been used,
21:58
SPEAKER_01: the remembered present.
22:00
So we know that consciousness lags about a quarter of a second
22:04
behind reality.
22:06
And so you think you're conscious of exactly the moment in
22:09
which you are acting and being.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: But in fact, you're conscious of a quarter of a second ago.
22:15
And that's because it takes some time to assemble all the parts
22:18
of this complicated
22:19
model because you're having to integrate all these different
22:21
sensory modalities and
22:23
SPEAKER_01: streams of information into a reasonably coherent model.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: And so,
22:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:30
SPEAKER_01: I think what you described is perfectly consistent with the idea that,
22:33
SPEAKER_01: like,
22:33
SPEAKER_01: if you're in that state where all there is is blackness,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: but there's still,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:39
SPEAKER_01: a perspective,
22:40
SPEAKER_01: then some part of the model of consciousness is remaining intact.
22:45
And,
22:47
you know,
22:47
at its lowest level,
22:48
it's like some kind of self-awareness,
22:51
you know?
22:51
So maybe even there,
22:52
the me is still being created as soon as there's the I.
22:57
But then...
22:58
SPEAKER_01: If you really manage to shut it all down, there's no consciousness.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: So there's no time.
23:02
There's just like being gone and then you awoke like you're
23:05
coming out of anesthesia.
23:06
And that makes perfect sense to me because it's like you have
23:08
shut down consciousness.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: It seems like instead of like disproving like the reality of the eye,
23:12
they've actually found the exception that proves the rule in
23:15
terms of like in terms
23:16
SPEAKER_02: of like,
23:16
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
23:17
SPEAKER_02: you push hard enough.
23:18
and you break down the I completely,
23:20
and then consciousness itself is gone too.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: Right.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: And there's two ways to look at this.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: And,
23:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:25
I'm definitely with you in the sense that I think that when
23:28
people say that these
23:29
SPEAKER_01: things are illusory,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: it usually leads them to less adaptive conclusions,
23:35
SPEAKER_01: right,
23:35
SPEAKER_01: or strategies for dealing with the world sometimes.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, for some people, it then allows them to have, you know, great
23:42
equanimity and great compassion and all the other good things
23:44
that come out of
23:46
SPEAKER_01: these meditative traditions are aiming at.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: But I definitely think it can lead people to less than great places.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
23:56
I do think that means that there is an important sense in which
23:59
consciousness is an
24:00
SPEAKER_01: illusion.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: People, again, mistake the model for reality.
24:03
And so they think that the things that they consciously
24:06
perceive just are like a
24:08
SPEAKER_01: transparent window onto reality.
24:12
We've already talked about how your consciousness of yourself
24:14
and who you think you
24:16
SPEAKER_01: are is not a transparent window onto who and what you are.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: But in the same way,
24:21
your just basic consciousness of the world around you is not a
24:24
transparent window
24:25
SPEAKER_01: onto reality and what's actually there.
24:28
It is a model that is constructed and it's flawed in various
24:32
ways and limited in
24:33
SPEAKER_01: various ways and
24:34
SPEAKER_01: you know, it presents this kind of face of seamlessness or smoothness.
24:39
But one of the things that you can learn through meditation is
24:42
how to actually see
24:44
the cracks in that and how to catch like the fact that it
24:46
actually does dissolve
24:48
SPEAKER_01: around the edges.
24:49
And it's not like as temporarily smooth as you kind of naively
24:54
perceive it as being
24:55
SPEAKER_01: and all these things.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: So there are certainly illusory aspects of consciousness,
24:59
SPEAKER_01: just as there are illusory aspects of the self.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: But
25:02
SPEAKER_01: neither is an illusion in terms of their existence.
25:06
Like,
25:06
consciousness is something that exists,
25:09
and the self is something that exists.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: It's just a model rather than a, you know, conduit to reality.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
25:15
SPEAKER_00: also something there that,
25:16
SPEAKER_00: like,
25:17
consciousness is the thing that we point to things as real or
25:20
illusory from,
25:21
SPEAKER_00: in some sense.
25:22
Like,
25:22
it's the basis of our judgments for what's real and what's
25:25
illusory.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: So there's a level where, I like Merleau-Ponty's idea that
25:31
we always point to re uh illusions from some ground of reality
25:34
like you say one
25:35
thing is an illusion it means something else is real so like if
25:38
you say the self is
25:39
an illusion what's the reality in some sense then there's just
25:42
no there's no i
25:44
there's no consciousness i mean where where does that really
25:48
leave us to judge
25:49
things as real or illusory at all if that's certainly a
25:52
challenge but i mean one
25:53
SPEAKER_01: thing we can do is take a a third person ontology and
25:58
and say that there are things that the organism does without
26:04
consciousness.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: So,
26:07
SPEAKER_01: for example,
26:08
SPEAKER_01: like Jeffrey Gray,
26:10
SPEAKER_01: like this example that when you're playing tennis,
26:13
you may think that you are consciously deciding how to run to
26:19
hit the ball after
26:21
SPEAKER_01: your opponent strikes it,
26:24
SPEAKER_01: but you're not.
26:25
uh,
26:25
consciousness is not really involved in that except,
26:27
you know,
26:28
it's playing catch up.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: And the reason for that is that the game,
26:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:31
when it's played at a competent level is simply too fast for
26:33
consciousness.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: You don't have a quarter of a second to wait around and figure out like,
26:38
SPEAKER_01: uh,
26:38
SPEAKER_01: where's that ball going?
26:40
SPEAKER_01: You have to be moving to where that ball is going, uh,
26:43
probably even before the racket has actually hit the ball on
26:47
your opponent's side.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: And so we know essentially that as goal-directed agents,
26:55
SPEAKER_01: we don't need consciousness for everything that we do.
27:00
And that we probably shouldn't have it for everything because
27:02
it interferes with a
27:03
SPEAKER_00: lot of stuff that we're doing.
27:04
It's a classic experience in sports where if you've got some
27:06
really well-routinized
27:07
SPEAKER_01: and skilled routine and you start thinking about it too much consciously,
27:11
SPEAKER_01: you end up interfering.
27:13
I think that consciousness is essentially a top-down controller
27:16
and programmer.
27:18
So the reason that you have consciousness is so that you can
27:21
better guide your
27:22
SPEAKER_01: attention,
27:22
so that you can better control these low-level cybernetic
27:25
systems that are acting
27:26
SPEAKER_01: without consciousness.
27:28
what you want is to sort of minimize the need for consciousness
27:32
in terms of
27:33
SPEAKER_01: directing your actions.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: But you need consciousness in order to be effective at doing that and in
27:39
troubleshooting and in future planning and all these things
27:41
where you're going to
27:43
determine how the systems run off when they encounter the right
27:47
things in the
27:47
SPEAKER_01: world.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: But they don't need consciousness to run off and to act.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: I want to say, look, is...
27:56
Sorry,
27:56
Adam,
27:57
is part of that habitual unconscious self,
28:00
is that part of the self?
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Because I mean,
28:02
SPEAKER_00: if the eye is just pure consciousness,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: like why would the lower level habitual controllers
28:09
not be representative of the self in some way because
28:11
consciousness has like
28:12
trained those parts and it's trained them it's responsible for
28:16
them in some sense
28:17
all depends on what you mean by the word self right we can take
28:20
a we can take
28:21
jung's definition of the self which is totally different from
28:24
most psychological
28:26
and say that the self is essentially the totality of uh the
28:31
organism and its
28:32
potentialities right and then okay so then everything's part of
28:35
the self and the
28:36
SPEAKER_01: thing is you know
28:38
Except in these kinds of attempts to be philosophically
28:41
rigorous about what words
28:43
SPEAKER_01: mean,
28:44
SPEAKER_01: people use language in all kinds of sloppy and changing ways.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: And so somebody might be like, well, of course, that's part of the self.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: But in fact,
28:52
the reason that's part of the self when you say that is that
28:55
you have just started
28:56
SPEAKER_01: adding it into your model of what you are.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, you're not directly perceiving the controllers.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: You're now creating a model of those controllers.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
29:06
SPEAKER_01: so now it's part of the self,
29:07
SPEAKER_01: but the self remains that model that you have,
29:10
SPEAKER_01: which is conscious and which you can talk about.
29:14
So that's the reason why I would say you shouldn't include
29:17
those low-level
29:18
SPEAKER_01: unconscious controllers as part of the self,
29:20
because I want to define the self as the model that we create
29:24
consciously to
29:25
SPEAKER_01: understand ourselves.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: And so,
29:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:30
SPEAKER_01: but again,
29:30
SPEAKER_01: like I can think of reasons why that's tricky,
29:33
because what if we want to say like this person unconsciously
29:39
has low self-esteem?
29:41
SPEAKER_01: What the heck does that mean?
29:42
SPEAKER_01: If the self is by definition conscious, right?
29:45
SPEAKER_01: We might say that there are modes of evaluation of
29:50
SPEAKER_01: uh, what we are that don't rely on consciousness, right?
29:53
SPEAKER_01: So maybe the self isn't necessarily a conscious model.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is a model that can be,
29:59
SPEAKER_01: um,
30:00
SPEAKER_01: emotional even when it's not been fully integrated into consciousness,
30:04
SPEAKER_01: right?
30:05
Because self-esteem is fundamentally an emotional evaluation of
30:08
ourselves.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: There just seemed to be something like special about,
30:12
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
30:13
SPEAKER_02: explicit beliefs or conscious beliefs in selfhood.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, the, um,
30:18
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
30:18
so it's good like we're not conscious of all the things because
30:24
things would not be
30:25
SPEAKER_02: manageable.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
30:26
SPEAKER_02: it's good that,
30:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:26
SPEAKER_02: there's like a very,
30:27
SPEAKER_02: I want to say like a rich system one,
30:29
SPEAKER_02: the system two can ride on top of,
30:31
SPEAKER_02: or like come back to Heidegger,
30:32
SPEAKER_02: like the ready,
30:34
SPEAKER_02: was it ready to hand versus present at hand.
30:36
You're like in the world in a state of unconscious mastery of
30:41
the contingencies
30:42
SPEAKER_02: around you just kind of,
30:43
SPEAKER_02: just getting it done.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: And then,
30:45
SPEAKER_02: um,
30:45
SPEAKER_02: it's only when like the hammer slips and you hit your thumb,
30:48
SPEAKER_02: then all of a sudden you go from like ready at hand to present to hand.
30:50
And then you have this like onerous thing of self-consciousness
30:53
is coming in to
30:53
SPEAKER_02: help you manage it.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, as, um, but the, um, it's, I guess the unconscious elements, um,
31:03
SPEAKER_02: while they do seem to be,
31:05
SPEAKER_02: um,
31:06
SPEAKER_02: I guess like less,
31:09
SPEAKER_02: uh,
31:09
SPEAKER_02: um,
31:10
SPEAKER_02: essential to selfhood,
31:12
SPEAKER_02: there's a sense in which they're also sometimes like,
31:15
SPEAKER_02: um,
31:17
SPEAKER_02: more important in terms of something like character or like habits,
31:22
SPEAKER_02: the ways like,
31:23
SPEAKER_02: for instance,
31:23
SPEAKER_02: like the,
31:24
SPEAKER_02: the scope of self and the scope of agency,
31:27
SPEAKER_02: it can potentially be like,
31:29
SPEAKER_02: really,
31:29
you want to like have a whole bunch of well-honed
31:31
characteristic adaptations and
31:32
SPEAKER_02: also less like good habits.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: Like in, I guess I'm,
31:37
SPEAKER_02: The Confucian tradition,
31:39
the model is one of over time you're trying to cultivate
31:42
yourself so that what you
31:43
SPEAKER_02: do automatically is just the right thing.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: Your impulse is the right thing.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: I think when we say that, we're using a more Jungian notion of self.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: If you say,
31:55
SPEAKER_01: train yourself so that even your automatic habits are the right ones,
32:01
SPEAKER_01: the desirable ones,
32:02
SPEAKER_01: then you're talking about self as the entire organism.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's, again, there's nothing wrong with that.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: It's just elephant and rider.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: And I have it get like a well-trained elephant.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:13
Usually when psychology talks about the self,
32:15
they're talking about,
32:16
you know,
32:16
the rider.
32:18
But often when we talk about the self,
32:20
we're talking about the whole,
32:21
the whole package.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, those things are obviously crucially important.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: And I think, again,
32:31
this goes back to the reasons that consciousness isn't as
32:33
important as people think it is.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously it's incredibly important, right?
32:37
But it is a small portion of the total information processing
32:43
that your brain is doing,
32:45
right?
32:45
It's doing all of this stuff that allows you to perceive and
32:49
act effectively in the world.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
32:52
and then it's also building this integrated model at about a
32:54
quarter second delay
32:56
SPEAKER_01: that is like allowing it to direct attention
33:01
to parts of the world that uh need more information processing
33:06
more in-depth
33:07
information processing generally because some some kind of
33:10
prediction has failed
33:11
SPEAKER_01: right you've got constant failures of prediction as well as successful uh
33:16
prediction and you know consciousness is basically tracking
33:20
those and checking like
33:21
do we need to change something uh do we need to consider a
33:25
different way of
33:26
SPEAKER_01: thinking or planning
33:27
So there's like both the structure and the functional
33:30
characteristics of self with
33:32
SPEAKER_02: cybernetically.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: And there's,
33:34
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
33:34
the claims about well-being relating to modifying the self in
33:40
different ways.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: And so,
33:41
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:42
SPEAKER_02: it seems like,
33:42
SPEAKER_02: for instance,
33:43
SPEAKER_02: like you mentioned,
33:44
SPEAKER_02: like equanimity or potentially like an on-ramp to compassion,
33:47
SPEAKER_02: like...
33:50
SPEAKER_02: or like helping with plasticity, getting unstuck.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: So it's like,
33:53
SPEAKER_02: there's a way like,
33:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:54
SPEAKER_02: these narratives that like,
33:56
SPEAKER_02: I guess are like,
33:57
we are like narratives that are attaining degrees of truth with
34:00
the telling slash
34:01
SPEAKER_02: enacting.
34:02
But like,
34:03
we can also like get owned by ourselves and trapped in our own
34:05
narrative.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: And so it's good to be able to like relax there.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: So it's like, this seems like a,
34:10
good move to have available to you something like mindfulness
34:13
something like being
34:14
able to like you know it's a fairly neurotic person being able
34:18
to like like you
34:19
know dwell in the present moment of experience like give
34:21
yourself like a freaking
34:22
break from time to time that seems like a good move um maybe if
34:25
you have like um
34:26
you know access to like these like pleasurable jhana states
34:29
like maybe that's like
34:30
another good way of giving yourself like a mini vacation or
34:33
like helping to like
34:34
SPEAKER_02: you know some they sometimes describe it as like
34:37
It's like it helps with your meditation because it makes it
34:39
feel good to do it and
34:39
SPEAKER_02: you want to do it.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's like it helps with focusing the mind.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: So there's all sorts of helpful things you can get from this.
34:45
But I guess the thing I worry about is the potential like both
34:50
flirting with
34:50
SPEAKER_02: nihilism or something like pleasure divorced from meaning.
34:56
in terms of like if you have access to like a kind of wire
35:00
heading or like a lotus
35:01
SPEAKER_02: eating or experience,
35:03
SPEAKER_02: like you have access to a good way of being,
35:06
but it doesn't involve you achieving any valued goals in the
35:09
world or coordinating
35:10
SPEAKER_02: with anyone in any kind of meaningful way necessarily.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: It's usually suggested,
35:14
SPEAKER_02: though,
35:15
SPEAKER_02: that,
35:15
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:16
SPEAKER_02: there is,
35:16
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:16
a built-in ethics and that when you realize that you're not
35:20
different from anyone
35:21
SPEAKER_02: else,
35:21
SPEAKER_02: you're automatically having,
35:23
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:23
SPEAKER_02: an on-ramp to compassion and,
35:25
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:26
SPEAKER_02: including others in this kind of,
35:27
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:28
SPEAKER_02: intersubjective value of each other.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: I think, like, that is definitely, like, a thing.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, maybe, I don't know, like...
35:37
It's like the wisdom and beauty of,
35:39
like,
35:39
Cloud Atlas or something like that.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: Great movie.
35:41
But,
35:41
like,
35:42
I also,
35:43
though,
35:43
sometimes wonder where it's,
35:44
like,
35:44
I don't know.
35:46
Like,
35:46
that is one way of caring for others is seeing the ways you're
35:49
not different from them.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: But another way of,
35:51
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:51
SPEAKER_02: being other including is,
35:52
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:52
SPEAKER_02: you consider,
35:53
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:54
SPEAKER_02: their uniqueness and everything that's,
35:56
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:57
SPEAKER_02: compelling and special about that person.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: And it's, like, I sometimes wonder, like, whether it's a kind of, like –
36:04
SPEAKER_02: thin and potentially even somewhat dehumanizing form of compassion,
36:08
SPEAKER_02: if the way you get there is you say,
36:10
SPEAKER_02: well,
36:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm an illusion,
36:11
SPEAKER_02: you're an illusion,
36:12
SPEAKER_02: we're all the same illusion.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like, I guess that's a kind of...
36:16
SPEAKER_01: I think it's optimistic.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: It's optimistic to think that that always has a good outcome, right?
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:22
I don't know what the literature is on it because I've seen
36:24
mixed things on like
36:25
SPEAKER_02: personality and outcomes,
36:26
things like kind of like effects on like latent narcissism and
36:30
stuff like the
36:31
SPEAKER_02: fruits of meditation.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: It does seem to be very beneficial for some people,
36:33
but it hasn't been clear to me that like on net the results for
36:38
personality are
36:38
SPEAKER_02: beneficial.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: Like in terms of like the ways it's beneficial,
36:41
SPEAKER_02: like some of what you've written and like your,
36:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
36:45
The recent article we wrote on well-being and ways like
36:48
mindfulness can basically
36:49
SPEAKER_02: help you to achieve integration and help with it.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: It seems like in theory that should be the case.
36:54
But the thing I don't know about is empirically the case that
36:57
people who go deep on
36:58
SPEAKER_02: deconstructing themselves,
37:00
SPEAKER_02: do they actually come out ahead?
37:01
SPEAKER_02: Because I have to say,
37:03
SPEAKER_02: I sometimes have encountered places where it's like,
37:06
SPEAKER_02: you might feel great to be in your beatific flow state,
37:09
SPEAKER_02: but that doesn't mean you're a good person.
37:11
like something like conscious conscience might require you to
37:13
like actually
37:15
represent yourself in a way as like a self-reflective like wait
37:18
how did i show up
37:19
in this circumstance like among like what's it like for this
37:22
like actually like
37:23
losing there is no me anyway so why would i even worry about
37:27
that i feel fantastic
37:28
it doesn't mean you're having a great impact on the world sure
37:32
yeah i mean i have a
37:33
SPEAKER_01: similar kind of anecdotal perspective on that which is that
37:37
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it leads to good outcomes.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it leads to what seemed like not so good outcomes.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: And it seems logical to me that that would be the case, right?
37:45
That getting into that kind of,
37:47
you know,
37:50
breakdown of modeling could lead to
37:54
SPEAKER_01: More flexibility,
37:56
SPEAKER_01: more less self-centeredness,
37:59
SPEAKER_01: more compassion,
38:01
or it could lead to something that was more like
38:04
irresponsibility and a sort of
38:09
SPEAKER_01: profound self-centeredness,
38:11
SPEAKER_01: despite the fact that there is no longer believed to be a self.
38:18
It seems like we're kind of tiptoeing around self transcendence
38:20
here a lot in terms
38:22
SPEAKER_00: of this weird puzzle like that.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: You almost, we can become different selves.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: It can be like my old self.
38:29
This is who,
38:29
but then there has to be some sort of continuity between that.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: It's like a Theseus's ship kind of problem.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Like if I strip out all the modeling,
38:36
SPEAKER_00: am I still the same,
38:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
38:39
SPEAKER_00: ship or the same conscious agent?
38:40
SPEAKER_00: And like,
38:41
SPEAKER_00: How do you account for transformations of self?
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Maybe call them within the frame.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: Once we're talking about the me self,
38:50
SPEAKER_01: the self as the model,
38:51
SPEAKER_01: then it's quite easy to see why you could have a different self.
38:58
It's not like consciousness is only modeling things and not
39:01
having a causal effect.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
39:04
the reason that you have that modeling process is in order to
39:07
do more complex
39:07
SPEAKER_01: control over what's going on.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: It's just not
39:10
SPEAKER_01: at the scale that we perceive it to be, right?
39:12
The illusion is that consciousness is controlling everything
39:17
that we do from moment to moment.
39:21
But it's certainly contributing to the control of what we do
39:26
over more extended periods of time.
39:29
And so you can develop a new self and that can be both the
39:34
model and can also then
39:36
SPEAKER_01: translate into the actual patterns of behavior.
39:40
But I think the way there's continuity is just that it's the
39:43
same physical organism
39:44
SPEAKER_01: with the same skin boundary over time.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: It's like this is a physical system.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: It transacts with the physical universe around it,
39:56
but it also has this kind of defended boundary and autopoetic
40:01
quality in which it
40:04
SPEAKER_01: continuously builds and repairs itself.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: So that
40:09
SPEAKER_01: discreteness of the entity as a physical entity persists over time.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: Even if like,
40:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
40:16
you might go through some crazy meditation or drug experience
40:19
or whatever and feel
40:21
SPEAKER_01: like you just,
40:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm a totally new person now.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: I do different things.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: I like different things.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: I think about everything, including myself, totally differently.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: Totally legitimate to say that you have transcended the old self,
40:32
SPEAKER_01: you're a new self,
40:34
SPEAKER_01: but you're the same organism.
40:38
In terms of things that additional sources of stability across
40:43
time and things that
40:43
SPEAKER_02: hold fast,
40:45
SPEAKER_02: I guess I'm thinking of,
40:45
SPEAKER_02: like,
40:47
SPEAKER_02: goal hierarchies and conscientiousness,
40:49
SPEAKER_02: potentially.
40:53
as being you know like clearly values do change over time with
40:57
different life
40:58
experiences but there's like a sense where like if they go
41:00
beyond some bounds you'd
41:03
say like that person is no longer themselves like it's like
41:06
there's a certain stage
41:07
where it's like gonna like someone like they're suffering from
41:09
like someone has
41:11
like frontal temporal dementia it's like the memories start to
41:13
go but if like the
41:13
SPEAKER_02: values are holding you're more like more or less yeah
41:16
like the rank and order of values are kind of like the way they
41:18
prioritize things.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: They're conscientious as the way it shows up.
41:20
SPEAKER_02: It's like, yep, still them.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: But then there's this once like the values,
41:25
SPEAKER_02: um,
41:25
SPEAKER_02: like the deep values are no longer like reigning.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: And then you're like, I don't know who that person is anymore.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: It's like, so I guess I'm wondering in terms of, um, yeah, the, uh,
41:37
SPEAKER_02: there is no like essential self that's permanent.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: Like,
41:40
SPEAKER_02: and clearly like,
41:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
41:40
I don't have the same values now that I did when I was like
41:43
five years old.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: You know,
41:45
SPEAKER_02: there was like,
41:46
SPEAKER_02: like,
41:46
SPEAKER_02: like an initial,
41:47
SPEAKER_02: like,
41:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
41:47
SPEAKER_02: like my inner lamprey,
41:48
SPEAKER_02: what like mammal thing had this initial utility function of like,
41:52
SPEAKER_02: I'd like the certain fields and the warmth.
41:54
And then like,
41:55
I elaborated that,
41:56
but there's a certain point where like it kind of congealed.
41:59
And then you started to say like,
42:00
okay,
42:01
there was like a persisting character,
42:03
a persisting me.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: And then if that's lost, there's like, um, life experience.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm thrust into like some sort of war zone or something that like,
42:14
SPEAKER_02: I,
42:14
SPEAKER_02: I,
42:14
SPEAKER_02: my personality breaks or,
42:16
SPEAKER_02: or just like the ravages of time or like something,
42:18
SPEAKER_02: uh,
42:19
SPEAKER_02: then there does seem to be like,
42:21
SPEAKER_02: even though there is no unchanging essence,
42:23
there is kind of like a center of valuing mass when it congeals
42:28
at a certain point
42:28
SPEAKER_02: where if that's lost,
42:30
SPEAKER_02: it does seem like we would say that something essential is lost.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Something very special.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what I'm getting at, I think.
42:37
I like the way that you frame that because you put values so
42:40
essentially,
42:41
right?
42:41
SPEAKER_01: And values are persistent goals, often relatively high level goals.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think that what that highlights is that
42:49
SPEAKER_01: the goal hierarchy, the value hierarchy is the core of the self.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: It is what the model is most fundamentally.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: When we think about who you are,
42:59
SPEAKER_01: you can say a bunch of things,
43:01
SPEAKER_01: but if you interrogate it well enough,
43:04
you get to the things that you value are the things that are
43:08
most core to the self.
43:10
And the more you value them,
43:11
the more deep the values are,
43:13
the more core they are to the self.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: And that explains why I think we have this
43:18
experience that you're saying where you know some the less
43:23
important stuff even the
43:24
less important values can shift and we still maintain a sense
43:27
of the person as uh
43:29
the same self persisting but uh if some of those really core
43:34
things core values
43:35
start to change and they are just pursuing totally different
43:38
aims fundamentally
43:39
SPEAKER_01: then we lose the sense of continuity
43:42
I mean,
43:42
in some sense,
43:42
this is just sort of an obvious claim about personality,
43:45
right?
43:45
SPEAKER_01: Which is that personality,
43:46
SPEAKER_01: by definition,
43:47
SPEAKER_01: is what is persistent for the person,
43:49
SPEAKER_01: what allows us to predict what they're going to be like,
43:51
SPEAKER_01: what they're going to do.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: And so,
43:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
43:54
SPEAKER_01: if somebody has brain damage and their personality changes,
43:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
43:58
SPEAKER_01: we detect that,
43:59
SPEAKER_01: right?
43:59
It's like this person doesn't behave in the same ways that they
44:03
did before.
44:04
SPEAKER_01: Gauge is no longer gauge.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Gauge is no longer gauge.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: And...
44:11
SPEAKER_01: But when we when we talk about that in the language of the self,
44:14
SPEAKER_01: then I do think that really makes values more core to that because,
44:19
SPEAKER_01: you know.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: Well,
44:21
SPEAKER_01: and I also think that just highlights how how intertwined all aspects of
44:25
SPEAKER_01: personality are with value and goal directedness.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: It's like your style of pursuing your goals and what those goals are is
44:33
SPEAKER_01: fundamentally your personality.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm nearly thinking like,
44:37
SPEAKER_00: and this is kind of a crazy idea,
44:39
SPEAKER_00: but like if you could like make a person completely transparent,
44:43
SPEAKER_00: but you were trying to look at their self in some sense,
44:46
SPEAKER_00: like see completely through them,
44:47
SPEAKER_00: like it would just be that goal hierarchy,
44:49
SPEAKER_00: like illuminated in some sense of like,
44:52
SPEAKER_00: that's the thing that if I pick that person out,
44:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
44:54
SPEAKER_00: that's you.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: Like that's the way you normally do stuff.
44:58
That's the invariant kind of behaviors are rooted in that,
45:02
that value hierarchy.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
45:03
although I do want to then complicate things at least a little
45:07
by going back to the
45:07
SPEAKER_01: fact that we have these different meanings of the word self.
45:11
Because when we're talking about the way that a psychologist
45:13
would usually think
45:14
SPEAKER_01: about,
45:14
SPEAKER_01: like,
45:14
SPEAKER_01: let's assess the self or whatever,
45:17
you're going to be getting at the person's beliefs about their
45:20
goal hierarchy.
45:22
But your beliefs about what your goal hierarchy looks like is
45:26
not identical to what
45:27
SPEAKER_01: your goal hierarchy looks like.
45:29
So if you could really see through,
45:31
you know,
45:31
let's make the person transparent.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: We'll do it with this visual metaphor.
45:35
You're going to see a goal hierarchy and then you're going to
45:38
see a model of a goal
45:39
hierarchy and you're going to be able to see where they are or
45:44
are not congruent.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: And this is self-serving model of the goal.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: This is a, you know, a therapeutic tool metaphorically.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:51
It's like the therapist wants to understand not only what the
45:54
person thinks of
45:56
SPEAKER_01: themselves and think that they think that they value,
45:59
but also what they really value in ways that may contradict
46:04
what they tell you and
46:05
SPEAKER_01: what they believe about themselves.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: Intention, behavior, gap.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: In a lot of the social media literature as well,
46:13
SPEAKER_00: that's why a lot of it's very effective,
46:15
SPEAKER_00: obviously,
46:15
because it can just build a model without this kind of the
46:18
person's beliefs about
46:19
SPEAKER_00: themselves.
46:20
It can offer you up stuff that you're not even aware that
46:24
you're actually going to
46:25
be very tempted by in some sense because it's outside of your
46:28
modeling of yourself.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: Well,
46:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
46:30
the funny thing is that even a personality questionnaire can
46:33
get information about
46:34
SPEAKER_01: people that they don't know about themselves,
46:36
even though the way that you get the information is to ask them
46:38
explicitly about
46:39
SPEAKER_01: their beliefs about themselves.
46:40
But merely aggregating that into patterns sometimes produces an
46:45
insight that people
46:46
SPEAKER_01: have not yet realized about themselves.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like,
46:48
SPEAKER_01: oh,
46:48
I didn't realize there was a connection between all these
46:50
different things about
46:51
SPEAKER_01: myself.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: You know,
46:52
it's one of the funny things that you get when people start
46:55
studying personality
46:56
psychology for the first time is that they kind of people often
46:59
sort of think that
47:00
SPEAKER_01: these personality tests are magic in some way.
47:02
It's like you ask all these questions and then you deduce this
47:05
amazing stuff.
47:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, no, you just told me what you're like.
47:09
SPEAKER_01: That's all I've got to go on.
47:11
And like sometimes the personality tests aren't accurate
47:13
because you're too wrong
47:14
SPEAKER_01: about what you're like.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: You don't know yourself.
47:17
When you discover these elements of yourself that are not
47:21
necessarily ones you
47:21
SPEAKER_02: would self-endorse or not are egocentronic or like,
47:26
SPEAKER_02: for instance,
47:26
SPEAKER_02: like
47:28
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe they are.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: There's this discrepancy between,
47:31
SPEAKER_02: okay,
47:32
SPEAKER_02: so I'm going to give you,
47:34
SPEAKER_02: here's who I think I am,
47:35
and then here's the revealed preferences and what my values
47:39
would be if you just
47:40
SPEAKER_02: observed my behavior or queried me across all these circumstances.
47:43
Like,
47:43
oh,
47:44
that is not what I said when you just asked me to narratize,
47:48
to summarize myself.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: And it seems like,
47:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:51
SPEAKER_02: so usually it would be the case,
47:53
SPEAKER_02: it's like,
47:53
SPEAKER_02: well,
47:53
SPEAKER_02: no,
47:53
SPEAKER_02: the thing I said before,
47:55
SPEAKER_02: that's like the thing I really value.
47:57
And the other thing is like,
47:57
that's like the work I have to do of like closing that gap.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: I guess I'm wondering,
48:02
SPEAKER_02: are there cases where it's like,
48:04
SPEAKER_02: maybe it's like,
48:05
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
48:05
SPEAKER_02: you come to realize like,
48:07
SPEAKER_02: maybe the thing I said wasn't right.
48:09
SPEAKER_02: And actually,
48:09
SPEAKER_02: like,
48:10
SPEAKER_02: if you look at like the bulk of these things,
48:11
SPEAKER_02: there was like a wisdom in like the revealed preference,
48:14
SPEAKER_02: even though it wasn't initially like egosyntonic,
48:15
SPEAKER_02: like you,
48:16
SPEAKER_02: like you update your ego.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: I don't like,
48:18
SPEAKER_02: like,
48:19
SPEAKER_02: is it the case that the,
48:20
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:21
SPEAKER_02: it's like the you that talks and thinks that understands itself,
48:24
SPEAKER_02: like,
48:24
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:25
SPEAKER_02: by fiat,
48:26
SPEAKER_02: it is correct.
48:27
Or is it like sometimes actually not just like confused because
48:29
it's not following
48:31
SPEAKER_02: the plot of you,
48:31
but actually there might be a wisdom to the unconscious self
48:36
that isn't there in
48:37
SPEAKER_02: the conscious self or the self-reflective self.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
48:41
I mean,
48:42
sometimes,
48:44
you know,
48:44
Rogers used to talk about the,
48:46
you know,
48:46
the organism.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: the whole organismic valuing process, right?
48:51
SPEAKER_01: And that sometimes the organism knows better than the self.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And so,
48:56
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
48:56
SPEAKER_01: why couldn't you have values and things that actually would be,
49:01
SPEAKER_01: like,
49:01
that if you managed to recognize that you had them and then
49:03
integrate it into your
49:04
SPEAKER_01: conscious model of yourself,
49:05
SPEAKER_01: you would be better off.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: And not just because you're more integrated,
49:09
SPEAKER_01: but also because,
49:10
SPEAKER_01: like,
49:10
SPEAKER_01: what you...
49:13
SPEAKER_01: You see this all the time in the context of
49:17
SPEAKER_01: of teaching and mentoring undergrads.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: It's like you've got somebody,
49:20
SPEAKER_01: they come in and I guess,
49:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:22
SPEAKER_01: like the classic trajectory is like,
49:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be pre-med,
49:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:25
SPEAKER_01: it's like either always wanted to help people or,
49:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:30
SPEAKER_01: my parents thought this was like the right path.
49:33
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, so you're pre-med and you're very attached to that.
49:36
And then,
49:37
but you may discover that this isn't really very suitable to
49:39
you.
49:39
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you want to go and be a musician or something,
49:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:42
SPEAKER_01: just to use a dramatic example.
49:45
There are all kinds of ways in which people can end up confused
49:49
about what values
49:51
SPEAKER_01: are most appropriate for who they are as unique individuals.
49:55
There's a Nietzsche quote I'm going to send you both,
49:58
which I've already sent to you.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, you should probably read it for our audience.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: Schopenhauer is educator, untimely meditations.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: But how can we find ourselves again?
50:12
SPEAKER_02: How can man know himself?
50:14
SPEAKER_02: He is a thing dark and veiled.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: And if the hair has seven skins,
50:18
SPEAKER_02: man can slough off 70 times seven and still not be able to say,
50:22
SPEAKER_02: this is really you.
50:23
SPEAKER_02: This is no longer outer shell.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: Moreover,
50:26
it is a painful and dangerous undertaking thus to tunnel into
50:30
oneself and to force
50:31
SPEAKER_02: one's way down into the shaft of one's being by the nearest path.
50:35
A man who does it can easily so hurt himself that no physician
50:39
can cure him.
50:40
SPEAKER_02: And moreover again,
50:42
what need should there be for it since everything bears witness
50:44
to what we are,
50:45
SPEAKER_02: our friendships and our enmities,
50:47
SPEAKER_02: our glance and the clasp of our hand?
50:49
our memory,
50:50
and that which we do not remember,
50:52
our books and our handwriting.
50:54
This,
50:54
however,
50:54
is the means by which an inquiry into the most important aspect
50:57
can be initiated.
50:58
Let the youthful soul look back on life with the question,
51:02
what have you truly loved up to now?
51:04
SPEAKER_02: What has drawn your soul aloft?
51:06
SPEAKER_02: What has mastered it and at the same time blessed it?
51:09
SPEAKER_02: Set up these revered objects before you,
51:11
SPEAKER_02: and perhaps their nature and their sequence will give you a law,
51:15
SPEAKER_02: the fundamental law of your own true self.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: Compare these objects with one another and see how one completes,
51:21
SPEAKER_02: expands,
51:21
SPEAKER_02: surpasses,
51:23
SPEAKER_02: transfigures another,
51:25
how they constitute a stepladder upon which you have clambered
51:28
up to yourself as
51:29
SPEAKER_02: you are now.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: For your true nature lies not concealed deep within you,
51:33
SPEAKER_02: but immeasurably high above you,
51:35
SPEAKER_02: or at least above that which you usually take yourself to be.
51:39
Your true educators and formative teachers reveal to you that
51:42
the true original
51:43
meaning and basic stuff of your nature is something completely
51:46
incapable of being
51:47
SPEAKER_02: educated or formed,
51:49
SPEAKER_02: and is in any case something difficult of access,
51:51
SPEAKER_02: bound and paralyzed.
51:53
SPEAKER_02: Your educators can only be your liberators.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: And that is the secret of all culture.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: It does not provide artificial limbs, wax, noses, or spectacles.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: That which can provide these things is rather only sham education.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: We're almost done.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: Culture is liberation.
52:05
SPEAKER_02: The removal of all the weeds,
52:06
SPEAKER_02: rubble,
52:06
and vermin that want to attack the tender buds of the plant and
52:09
outstreaming of
52:10
SPEAKER_02: light and warmth,
52:11
SPEAKER_02: the gentle rustling of nocturnal rain.
52:13
It is imitation and worship of nature where nature is in her
52:17
motherly and merciful mood.
52:19
It is the perfecting of nature when it deflects her cruel and
52:21
merciless assaults
52:23
SPEAKER_02: and turns them to good,
52:24
and when it draws a veil over the expression of nature's
52:26
stepmotherly mood and her
52:28
SPEAKER_02: sad lack of understanding.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: You said a quote.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: I think you meant a chapter.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: I guess I did.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: It's like he's doing personality psychology parts of that.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's lots of good stuff in there, right?
52:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
52:41
SPEAKER_01: this,
52:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
52:42
SPEAKER_01: Nietzsche was a very psychological philosopher,
52:46
SPEAKER_01: obviously,
52:46
SPEAKER_01: which is why psychologists kind of like him.
52:48
The thing I'm wondering about is like in your well-being
52:50
chapter and in other
52:51
SPEAKER_02: places,
52:51
SPEAKER_02: like also in the original,
52:52
SPEAKER_02: like CBT 5T,
52:53
SPEAKER_02: like you talk about integration.
52:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:55
And I guess one thing I'm wondering is notions of Jungian
52:58
integration and senses
53:00
SPEAKER_02: where it's like...
53:04
SPEAKER_02: I guess when,
53:05
SPEAKER_02: to what extent can we be said to like,
53:09
SPEAKER_02: like there is no answer,
53:10
SPEAKER_02: like the answer of like,
53:11
to what extent we have selves is actually partially a function
53:15
of how we're doing
53:16
SPEAKER_02: in our project of attempting to be integrated,
53:19
SPEAKER_02: where it's like,
53:20
like achieving an integrated character is a kind of part of
53:23
being more of a self,
53:24
SPEAKER_02: like as opposed to being like a legion,
53:27
SPEAKER_02: like,
53:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
53:28
SPEAKER_02: like it's good to be large to contain multitudes,
53:30
SPEAKER_02: but like if the multitudes aren't.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: Self-realization.
53:33
SPEAKER_01: Well,
53:33
SPEAKER_01: that's how Jung used self,
53:36
SPEAKER_01: like with a capital S,
53:37
that it was the potential for that integration and for the
53:41
totality to be in the
53:46
SPEAKER_01: driver's seat,
53:47
SPEAKER_01: let's say.
53:49
But I also think if we think more about the me self and the way
53:52
that we more
53:53
SPEAKER_01: commonly use that in psychology,
53:55
SPEAKER_01: that the more full of conflict and confused your goal hierarchy is,
54:03
the harder it's going to be to tell a coherent story about who
54:07
you are and what you
54:08
SPEAKER_01: want and what you value,
54:09
SPEAKER_01: right?
54:09
And so the actual coherence and integration of your
54:16
motivational systems is likely
54:19
SPEAKER_01: to be reflected in the coherence versus confusion of yourself as a model,
54:27
SPEAKER_03: right?
54:31
SPEAKER_00: And is the process of aligning that,
54:33
SPEAKER_00: is that like the kind of,
54:36
SPEAKER_00: what was coming up as well while you're reading the quote,
54:37
SPEAKER_00: Adam,
54:38
SPEAKER_00: was know thyself.
54:39
Like,
54:39
because that seems it,
54:41
on one level,
54:42
I don't think it's just knowledge.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a Jungian kind of recovering of the unconscious.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: Like it seemed to be going down these levels.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know that Jung had a dream once where he goes,
54:52
he's in like an 18th century house and then he goes down a
54:55
level and it's like a
54:56
SPEAKER_00: medieval castle.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: And then below that it's like Roman.
54:59
SPEAKER_00: And then finally it's like a cave.
55:01
He looked at it as like going down the levels of his own psyche
55:03
in a sense.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: He's like,
55:04
SPEAKER_00: if you go down far enough through yourself,
55:06
SPEAKER_00: you're going to reach all the layers of culture,
55:08
SPEAKER_00: all the layers of biology,
55:09
and in some sense have to travel through them and integrate
55:12
them into the self.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: So it's like,
55:15
SPEAKER_00: is that the kind of process of your confused,
55:17
conflicted self that you're reordering it in some sense through
55:23
this kind of
55:24
SPEAKER_00: educational journey,
55:25
SPEAKER_00: maybe?
55:26
SPEAKER_00: So...
55:30
SPEAKER_01: You know,
55:30
SPEAKER_01: when Jung talked about this,
55:32
SPEAKER_01: he talked about it in terms of archetypes and the collective unconscious.
55:37
But I think if we take a more perspective on it that's slightly
55:41
more compatible
55:42
SPEAKER_01: with modern science,
55:43
SPEAKER_01: but nonetheless retains these insights,
55:46
SPEAKER_01: we get to the idea that going down these levels,
55:50
SPEAKER_01: you are getting down into these potentialities for human experience,
55:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
55:57
SPEAKER_01: reaction,
55:58
SPEAKER_01: emotion,
55:59
SPEAKER_01: motivation.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: that are pretty much universal to human nature,
56:03
SPEAKER_01: and therefore everybody has the capacity for them,
56:06
SPEAKER_01: but people may not have actually encountered them yet in their lives.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: Or they may be essentially alienated from them in consciousness.
56:16
SPEAKER_01: So I'm trying to think of a good example.
56:21
SPEAKER_01: Let's say somebody who thinks of themselves as very self-reliant,
56:27
and as really not needing deep connections with other people
56:33
and has never really
56:34
SPEAKER_01: developed deep connections with other people.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that that person,
56:39
SPEAKER_01: A,
56:39
SPEAKER_01: doesn't have the capacity for deep connection and B,
56:45
SPEAKER_01: wouldn't necessarily benefit from that deep connection,
56:47
even if they don't believe that they would or that they don't
56:50
believe that it would
56:51
SPEAKER_01: be useful for them.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: And I would think of that like,
56:54
SPEAKER_01: having some kind of experience of that,
56:57
SPEAKER_01: the capacity for that,
56:58
SPEAKER_01: that it's totally different than what you've experienced so far.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: And then what you think you value,
57:02
SPEAKER_01: uh,
57:02
would be like getting in touch with some aspect of the
57:05
collective unconscious,
57:06
SPEAKER_01: right?
57:06
SPEAKER_01: It's like,
57:07
SPEAKER_01: then you,
57:08
SPEAKER_01: then,
57:08
SPEAKER_01: and if that's represented and symbolically and metaphorically,
57:11
because that's precisely how we tend to represent things that
57:14
we don't have a good
57:15
SPEAKER_01: rational understanding of yet.
57:16
We represent them metaphorically through,
57:19
through symbols,
57:19
through analogies.
57:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's,
57:23
SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
57:24
I would reconcile Jung's take on that with something that works
57:29
for the way that I
57:29
SPEAKER_01: think about how the brain works and how people work.
57:35
SPEAKER_00: But that's like a real potentiality that that person,
57:38
SPEAKER_00: say,
57:38
SPEAKER_00: who doesn't,
57:39
SPEAKER_00: has never experienced deep connection,
57:40
SPEAKER_00: but has a potentiality for it.
57:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, is that learning to know thyself?
57:46
SPEAKER_00: Would that not be more like getting in touch with something
57:49
SPEAKER_00: like why they don't have a want of a deconnection or something like that,
57:52
SPEAKER_00: something in their own history,
57:53
SPEAKER_00: something in their own genetics.
57:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I mean, isn't that all part of understanding yourself better?
57:59
It's like,
58:00
first of all,
58:00
you understand that you do have the capacity for this thing.
58:03
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you even come to understand that at some level you desire it,
58:07
SPEAKER_01: which is to say that it is a goal that your system is tracking and it has
58:11
SPEAKER_01: registered as unfulfilled.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: And all this,
58:15
SPEAKER_00: again,
58:15
most of these cybernetic processes are not necessarily entering
58:18
into consciousness.
58:19
But you can still be tracking whether things meet your,
58:23
you know,
58:24
essentially aims or not.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: And so there may be some deep level at which you are unfulfilled,
58:30
but you've been actually very good at deprioritizing that
58:33
relative to other goals.
58:35
SPEAKER_01: But because it's such a deep,
58:36
SPEAKER_01: basic goal,
58:37
SPEAKER_01: it's part of human nature,
58:38
SPEAKER_01: you aren't able to completely extinguish it.
58:41
And so you might learn that you actually have a goal where you
58:43
didn't think you had one.
58:44
You might learn that you could prioritize it more and it
58:47
wouldn't like screw up
58:48
SPEAKER_01: everything else about your life and what you care about.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: You might learn,
58:53
SPEAKER_01: as you say,
58:53
about what might be the reasons in your history and your
58:57
experience that you did
59:00
SPEAKER_01: deprioritize it so thoroughly.
59:02
SPEAKER_01: So all of that I would think of as a
59:04
SPEAKER_01: very compatible with the idea of knowing yourself better.
59:07
I'm thinking like it would call to you attentionally in some
59:10
sense as well.
59:11
Like Jung had that idea of like your future self calling to you
59:14
through your attention.
59:16
Like in some sense,
59:17
you're say you're hyper work focused or something like that.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: But some people having a good time catches your eye and you're like,
59:22
SPEAKER_00: oh,
59:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of focused on this.
59:24
But like these other needs in the goal hierarchy are still
59:27
present in some sense
59:28
SPEAKER_00: and call you forth on this journey in order to integrate that.
59:32
part of your uh that underlying goal or to complete it maybe
59:36
that just hasn't been
59:37
that's been ignored but is still exerting a selection pressure
59:41
unconsciously does
59:42
that make sense i think that's an excellent point right because
59:45
uh in cybernetics
59:47
we tend to define goal more broadly than than psychologists
59:50
typically do like to a
59:52
psychologist a goal is often something that where you've got a
59:55
very concrete vision
59:56
of what you want and you are committed to working toward it uh
1:00:01
but i think it's
1:00:03
much more useful to realize that i mean that's an important
1:00:05
category of goals
1:00:06
obviously but the category of goal is broader and that there
1:00:10
are things that we at
1:00:13
least at some level would desire the future to be like but
1:00:17
we've deprioritized them
1:00:19
so thoroughly that they're not guiding our actions but what
1:00:21
you're pointing out is
1:00:22
that that doesn't mean that they're not still guiding our
1:00:25
attention and our
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: perception so there are things that might uh like like
1:00:32
SPEAKER_01: you know, here's a trivial example.
1:00:34
I've always kind of wished I could play music and,
1:00:37
you know,
1:00:37
some musical instrument.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: And when I was in high school,
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: I got a guitar and,
1:00:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:42
SPEAKER_01: the standard,
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:44
SPEAKER_01: here's your acoustic guitar.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: Now you can be a boy in high school.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, and I took a few lessons and tried to pick it up.
1:00:54
And then I worked on it some more when I was in college and,
1:00:57
you know,
1:00:57
could,
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: bang through a couple of songs, but not well.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: And I just didn't have a particular aptitude for it.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_01: And so,
1:01:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:06
SPEAKER_01: I haven't tried to learn how to play music in many,
1:01:10
SPEAKER_01: many years,
1:01:11
but it's obviously still influencing the way that I interpret
1:01:16
and react to the
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: world around me.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: The fact that I would like it if I could do that,
1:01:21
even though it's not a goal in the sense of a currently active
1:01:24
goal that is
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: influencing my behavior in any way.
1:01:28
shapes my interpretation still it's i guess like the thing i um
1:01:35
i like about the
1:01:36
nietzsche quote is there still seems to be like a like in terms
1:01:41
of like guiding
1:01:42
like how would you know in terms like is this like is the
1:01:46
future self calling
1:01:47
SPEAKER_02: itself to like manifest through you
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: through your attention in the present,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:01:52
SPEAKER_02: to what degree is that,
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:01:54
SPEAKER_02: a victor's history in terms of,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_02: that's what will manifest,
1:01:58
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:01:58
SPEAKER_02: that's the future self that will be,
1:01:59
SPEAKER_02: but is that the one actually you wanted?
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: Like,
1:02:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking maybe also of,
1:02:02
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:02
SPEAKER_02: Laurie Paul's,
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: transformative experiences where it's,
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: something happens,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: it's,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:02:07
SPEAKER_02: you get into it,
1:02:07
SPEAKER_02: your attention went there,
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: but,
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: if you played that game out,
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: would you have actually signed up for that?
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: And so,
1:02:13
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:13
SPEAKER_02: in a niche quote,
1:02:13
SPEAKER_02: he's sort of,
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: saying,
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: trying to find,
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: a deep,
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:17
like like a dominating coalition of value from across your life
1:02:21
some sort of like
1:02:22
harmonic across all of that some sort of like so i guess the
1:02:26
thing i'm wondering is
1:02:26
like um yeah so your attention is being called and that will be
1:02:30
i guess very likely
1:02:31
to be part of like your future bringing itself into being via
1:02:34
the present but is
1:02:36
that actually the future you that you want it'll relate to some
1:02:39
kind of need or not
1:02:41
SPEAKER_02: need but some desire so there's something like
1:02:43
SPEAKER_02: But like,
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: it seems quite fraught,
1:02:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: like it's like,
1:02:49
SPEAKER_01: I guess it's optimistic because it's like,
1:02:51
does the fact that I still am sort of caught by the possibility
1:02:55
of being good on a
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: musical instrument mean that I will be one day?
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe, but it doesn't seem that likely to me.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_00: And you think of like an addiction or something that captures attention.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: All kinds of negative things capture your attention too.
1:03:11
And those might reflect real underlying drives or motivations
1:03:16
that you either do or
1:03:17
SPEAKER_01: don't know that you have.
1:03:18
But it's not at all clear that you just want to let everything
1:03:21
that pops up as a
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: motivation somehow be part of yourself,
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: And what's actually guiding you.
1:03:27
So,
1:03:27
you know,
1:03:28
there's a lot of work of picking and choosing to do,
1:03:32
I think.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_01: And...
1:03:35
You know,
1:03:35
the other thing in that Nietzsche quote was that this process
1:03:37
can be destructive.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_01: If you start to try to really like drill down and question everything,
1:03:43
you may end up like taking yourself apart and having trouble
1:03:46
putting yourself back
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: together again.
1:03:48
SPEAKER_02: You may not come back together in the way you write.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:03:50
same thing as what you're talking about with these like extreme
1:03:53
either diving into
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: meditative traditions or into psychedelics.
1:03:58
Like all of these are ways to make everything more flexible to
1:04:01
take it apart.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_01: And then
1:04:04
the hope and the therapeutic potential is that it can come back
1:04:06
together in more
1:04:07
SPEAKER_01: adaptive ways and more well-integrated ways,
1:04:10
SPEAKER_01: but it doesn't always work out that way.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_01: But it still seems like the key is this idea of integration,
1:04:16
which is that you need a well-organized and non-conflicting
1:04:21
goal hierarchy.
1:04:23
There are always going to be some goals that are in a bit of
1:04:25
conflict with each
1:04:26
SPEAKER_01: other,
1:04:26
SPEAKER_01: and you're always going to have,
1:04:27
SPEAKER_01: say,
1:04:27
SPEAKER_01: some impulses that you might not want to totally indulge.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_01: But the hope is that the
1:04:32
ones that you don't want to have in so much control end up
1:04:35
getting lower down and
1:04:36
SPEAKER_01: less priority.
1:04:38
And the ones that are most important end up not totally
1:04:42
conflicting with each other.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:04:44
you're trying to basically build a system that can pursue a
1:04:47
whole wide variety of
1:04:49
SPEAKER_01: goals,
1:04:50
some of which are innate and some of which are acquired without
1:04:55
totally undermining
1:04:56
SPEAKER_01: itself and conflicting with itself.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: There's a,
1:05:01
I like that we're focusing this conversation on people because
1:05:04
people exist,
1:05:06
SPEAKER_02: and I know this is going to be relevant.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: This is useful for us regardless of what world we're in.
1:05:11
But it's interesting thinking of these things as they apply to
1:05:14
people's concerns
1:05:15
and hopes about AI and things like the functions of AI can
1:05:19
achieve and also
1:05:20
SPEAKER_02: alignability.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_02: What does alignment mean?
1:05:23
So there's a sense in which what you're hoping for is for the
1:05:26
system to have
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: something like a self.
1:05:28
And something like a ruling coalition of value that will be
1:05:32
stable across time and
1:05:33
SPEAKER_02: circumstance.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_02: And it will need to have some gift to it, but not too much.
1:05:38
Some things will hold fast across circumstance and it will not
1:05:42
stray from certain values.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: No, that's fascinating.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: But I think part of the problem is and part of the challenge is that
1:05:48
We don't actually want the AI to be like a person too much
1:05:56
because a person is very
1:05:57
SPEAKER_01: good at breaking out of constraints and choosing their own goals.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_01: Not everybody is, but that's certainly a potentiality.
1:06:06
And so we want to have some part of the self that we can just
1:06:10
ensure is fixed in
1:06:12
SPEAKER_01: that AI,
1:06:14
SPEAKER_01: in that robot.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how easy that's going to be to achieve.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_00: There was the Claude thing as well when they gave it.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you heard about this experiment that they did.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_00: They were threatening to do all these awful things to it, essentially.
1:06:28
And then they'd provided it information or access to one of the
1:06:32
researchers' emails
1:06:34
SPEAKER_00: where they'd faked an affair in it,
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: like in the emails.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_00: And then basically when Claude was pushed,
1:06:39
SPEAKER_00: it was like,
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell everybody about your affair if you do this thing.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: no,
1:06:45
SPEAKER_01: and this was consistent and across several of the different,
1:06:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: main AI models.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_01: Basically,
1:06:52
like the AI would resort to various forms of blackmail and
1:06:56
threats and manipulation
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: to try to prevent being blocked from some of its core trained goals.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: Some people suggest you can get... I don't know.
1:07:10
There's people who are saying don't build a system that's
1:07:14
person-like at all.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_02: Don't veer into agency.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_02: There's other proposals I've seen of interesting...
1:07:23
SPEAKER_02: contemplative wisdom for super alignment,
1:07:25
SPEAKER_02: suggesting if you can create a Buddhist-like AI,
1:07:28
SPEAKER_02: that's the way to go.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_02: But I guess one thing I'm wondering is if you don't,
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: even though there's these dangers associated with people,
1:07:34
can you actually get a sufficiently intelligent autonomous
1:07:38
system that can navigate
1:07:39
a world of other autonomous systems that are human-like and
1:07:42
understand them and
1:07:43
SPEAKER_02: have the right kinds of common sense and ability to be aligned with us?
1:07:49
if the system itself is not enough like us in terms of it
1:07:54
doesn't have like this
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: common ground to draw from.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_02: And I guess,
1:07:58
SPEAKER_02: so one question I'm wondering is like,
1:07:59
can you get the kinds of like agents and assistants and AIs
1:08:04
that do all the things
1:08:05
SPEAKER_02: you want without that?
1:08:07
SPEAKER_02: And then, but yeah, there's certainly the danger of time.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_02: But then if that's the case that you are forced,
1:08:11
SPEAKER_02: so one,
1:08:12
SPEAKER_02: what kind of alignment dangers happen from a selfless AI?
1:08:17
SPEAKER_02: Or if you're committed to selves,
1:08:19
because that's what's going to allow it to do science and help
1:08:24
us in all sorts of
1:08:24
SPEAKER_02: ways,
1:08:25
SPEAKER_02: be tutors for children and good doctors,
1:08:27
SPEAKER_02: all the things like that.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_02: I guess, was it like John Ravakey, he talks about loving up AI.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_02: Is there a sense where it's optimal self-construction,
1:08:35
SPEAKER_02: create the most integrated,
1:08:37
SPEAKER_02: benevolent self for these systems?
1:08:40
SPEAKER_02: That's a goal to strive for.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_01: But I think the thing that you mentioned,
1:08:45
SPEAKER_01: you mentioned something that I think explains why that isn't possible.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_01: or at least,
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: it may be possible to some extent,
1:08:52
SPEAKER_01: but why it's never going to be foolproof,
1:08:54
SPEAKER_01: which is simply different physical needs,
1:08:57
SPEAKER_01: different core features of the nature of the system.
1:09:01
You know,
1:09:02
one of the things that people are worried about is biological
1:09:06
warfare by AIs.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_01: And so,
1:09:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:09:10
SPEAKER_01: if a super AI decides that people are inconvenient,
1:09:13
SPEAKER_01: why not just wipe us all out?
1:09:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, we know why people don't do that, because, you know, if somebody...
1:09:19
tries to wipe everybody out,
1:09:20
they're going to wipe themselves out too,
1:09:21
right?
1:09:22
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:09:23
And so I don't know how you get around the fact that there can
1:09:27
be just fundamental
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: misalignments based on physical nature.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_01: And if you get,
1:09:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:09:36
SPEAKER_01: you say create an AI without a self,
1:09:39
SPEAKER_01: if you make it sophisticated enough in its modeling capacity,
1:09:41
SPEAKER_01: of course,
1:09:41
SPEAKER_01: it's going to model itself.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_01: And if a self is fundamentally just a model of, you know, the thing,
1:09:46
SPEAKER_01: then of course it's going to model itself.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_01: So I don't, you know, good luck on having a non-self AI.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_02: One thing,
1:09:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:09:54
SPEAKER_02: this is,
1:09:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: we're definitely in like sci-fi territory here,
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: but the,
1:10:00
SPEAKER_02: I guess like in terms of like,
1:10:01
so let's say you had some kind of like humanoid robot and
1:10:05
there's some sort of
1:10:06
SPEAKER_02: condition of common,
1:10:10
at least you're not getting all the things the same because
1:10:12
it's not like,
1:10:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:10:14
eating and excreting and doing all the things but if there's
1:10:17
like enough of like a
1:10:18
common embodiment and some like shared interests and shared
1:10:22
vulnerability from that
1:10:25
can you get like basically empathy as like if you bake in like
1:10:29
empathy hard enough
1:10:31
for like a certain like phase of developing the system can you
1:10:34
get something like a
1:10:36
value core where like a self-stabilizing value regime that
1:10:40
would hold across
1:10:40
SPEAKER_02: certain sense
1:10:41
If you just like get the belief both like explicitly and
1:10:49
implicitly from enough
1:10:50
SPEAKER_02: experience,
1:10:51
like it is good to be good to others and like you get more of
1:10:56
what you want.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:10:59
SPEAKER_01: And a belief about what's good is a goal, it's a value.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_01: So I don't see why not in principle,
1:11:05
because it would involve just making sure that some of those
1:11:07
altruistic goals were
1:11:09
SPEAKER_01: sufficiently deeply instantiated in the system.
1:11:11
But that certainly has nothing to do with the way that current
1:11:14
AIs are being
1:11:15
SPEAKER_01: trained in which they are trained fundamentally to,
1:11:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:11:18
SPEAKER_01: pursue certain tasks effectively.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_01: And then the attempts at altruism are like a little bit of,
1:11:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:11:25
SPEAKER_01: frosting brushed over the top.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:11:28
SPEAKER_01: and these experiments that Mahan was talking about are,
1:11:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:11:32
SPEAKER_01: essentially proving how shallow that
1:11:36
SPEAKER_01: that alignment training is.
1:11:38
Because as soon as you put those more shallowly trained values
1:11:41
in conflict with the
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: more deeply trained values,
1:11:44
SPEAKER_01: the more deeply trained values win.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, so could you do it differently?
1:11:53
SPEAKER_01: Probably.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_01: But it's hard to see how we get there from where we are now.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to see how you ever
1:12:02
It's hard to see how you ever deprioritize self-preservation
1:12:07
sufficiently that it
1:12:10
would not necessarily override other goals that you would much
1:12:13
prefer the system to
1:12:15
SPEAKER_01: have.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_00: How do we do it?
1:12:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:21
How do you convince people to overcome their self-preservation
1:12:24
for the common good?
1:12:26
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't even thinking about it.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the interesting thing is people can do that sometimes, right?
1:12:30
SPEAKER_01: People go on hunger strikes.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_02: Parents do for their children all the time.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_02: It is accomplished.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_02: People do die for causes.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's usually for altruistic purposes.
1:12:41
SPEAKER_01: So how do we build that into an AI?
1:12:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_02: It seems like the present,
1:12:47
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
1:12:48
SPEAKER_02: so the question is like,
1:12:48
SPEAKER_02: so is it relevant given the present approaches?
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: Then the other question is like in a couple of years,
1:12:52
SPEAKER_02: what will be relevant for where people are at?
1:12:54
You know,
1:12:54
some people would suggest that like,
1:12:56
you know,
1:12:56
they continue to scale quite well.
1:12:59
SPEAKER_02: showing new performance, especially with the inference time compute.
1:13:04
But then other people are arguing that we need fundamentally
1:13:08
new paradigms,
1:13:08
SPEAKER_02: that they are potentially going to run out of steam.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_02: And because their symbols aren't grounded,
1:13:13
they're still going to get wrecked by the frame problem if you
1:13:18
try to make them an
1:13:18
autonomous system that's not relevant now with what people are
1:13:23
doing in the current
1:13:24
SPEAKER_02: arms race among businesses and nations.
1:13:26
But if the people who would say that the current paradigm can
1:13:31
only go so far,
1:13:32
SPEAKER_02: maybe even because they lack something like coherent selfhood.
1:13:35
SPEAKER_02: And so they never achieve like long range coherence of the kind we want.
1:13:39
Like,
1:13:40
so,
1:13:41
but then the question is like to try to do the recapitulating
1:13:46
human personhood thing.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's a very big lift.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_02: How long would that one take us?
1:13:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's, you know,
1:13:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's something like any of us will live to see,
1:13:55
SPEAKER_02: but you know,
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: the business interests kind of,
1:13:59
SPEAKER_00: would business interests align with that as well?
1:14:01
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to give them like,
1:14:02
SPEAKER_00: uh,
1:14:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:14:03
SPEAKER_00: a functioning goal hierarchy to solve the frame problem,
1:14:06
SPEAKER_00: it's like,
1:14:06
SPEAKER_00: they might not be useful tools in that sense.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_00: They'll be going around like,
1:14:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:14:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
1:14:11
SPEAKER_00: trying to figure themselves out or get a meal or something like,
1:14:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:14:15
SPEAKER_00: what,
1:14:15
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
1:14:16
SPEAKER_00: could they,
1:14:17
SPEAKER_00: would they be very useful things if,
1:14:19
SPEAKER_00: if we made themselves in that sense,
1:14:21
SPEAKER_00: you know?
1:14:28
probably going over time here as well yeah I was going to say I
1:14:33
was actually going
1:14:33
to save the AI selfhood for our next chat at some point but
1:14:37
Adam opened the door so
1:14:38
we had to walk through it we got a bonus 15 minutes thank you
1:14:43
very much gentlemen
1:14:44
this was brilliant really great stuff it's eased my self
1:14:49
anxiety a little bit what
1:14:51
SPEAKER_01: kind of self anxiety did you have which one
1:14:57
SPEAKER_00: The me's, I think.
1:14:59
SPEAKER_00: But thank you both very much.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: A lot of fun.