Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / What if REALITY is an elaborate COSMIC PLAY? A mind-bending conversation with James Glattfelder

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What if REALITY is an elaborate COSMIC PLAY? A mind-bending conversation with James Glattfelder · The Smart Cookies podcast

• 0:04
  Dr. James Glattfelder is a theoretical physicist
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  turned complexity scientist who's interested
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  in the do's and don'ts when it comes to the really
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  big picture, you know, little questions such
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  as the nature of consciousness, the universe
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  and reality itself. So not exactly fluff that
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  we're going to be discussing here today. He's
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  also the author of the book that just came out,
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  The Sapient Cosmos, what a modern day synthesis
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  of science and philosophy teaches us about the
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  emergence of information consciousness and meeting
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  James. welcome to the program thank you for having
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  me absolute pleasure and i'm really excited about
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  this conversation first question what's going
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  on and by what's going on i mean why does everything
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  exist what a question oh no i'm sorry yeah no
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  i was i was kind of walking around today before
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  the interview it's a perfectly nice day but i
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  suddenly had one of these like strange feelings
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  probably because i knew that we're going to be
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  having a conversation that it's It's also bizarre
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  that everything exists and all, and I didn't
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  know what to do with it because I never do. Maybe
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  to be a bit more specific, it just feels so odd
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  and overwhelming sometimes. The story as it stands
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  now, you know, like the Big Bang, the laws of
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  physics and time appearing in this little planet
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  in the corner of the universe, struck with life,
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  followed by millions of years of evolution, countless
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  catastrophes, so that you and I now are here.
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  experiencing these feelings and having zero ideas
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  about what to do with them at least in my case
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  but i guess that's what we're going to be talking
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  about today i mean what you're addressing is
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  is it it's interesting that most of us get up
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  in the morning and are totally like nonchalant
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  about the craziness of existence and like all
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  the like uh coincidences and everything that
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  had to happen Because as Leibniz asked, like,
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  why is there something and not nothing? Because
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  nothing seems so much easier. And it depends
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  like sort of from which cultural context you're
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  looking at it, because from the Western scientific
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  physicalist context, it's like, yeah, it just
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  happened. So deal with it. There is no purpose.
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  It's random. It's just you're here. And like,
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  just stop asking these stupid questions. But
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  from many other cultures who were like deeper
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  into sort of experiencing their own consciousness,
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  I like to like call the shamans, the mystics,
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  the meditators and the psychonauts who like really
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  go inside and try and figure out what's happening
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  inside, which apparently gives you insights to
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  what's happening around. And yeah, they have
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  a very different. perception of what's going
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  on so there seems to be this intelligence behind
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  the things we see in the physical universe and
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  this intelligence has a purpose and again depending
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  on what cultural context the Hindus have this
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  concept of Leela where if you're so there's only
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  the self that exists this is the cosmic consciousness
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  which is great because that's all there is and
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  it's unified it's perfect But it's also really
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  boring because there's no context. There's nothing
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  to be experienced. So what the self does, it
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  hides itself so it can find itself. And this
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  is kind of the grand play we're in. So we're
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  kind of enacting this illusion of being separate.
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  But all of us and everything is part of this
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  self, this unified consciousness. But just to
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  have something happen, you need to have duality.
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  So you need good and bad and light and shadow.
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  tears and laughter but it's not as in in kind
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  of this lila context it's not to be taken too
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  seriously because you're an actor and i think
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  that's kind of very sort of re reframing for
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  for a lot of things that we in the west kind
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  of worry about and and and yeah and and suffering
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  and all these things like why did this happen
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  well yeah it's it could be that this is just
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  sort of the the thing that created everything
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  trying to experience all the experiences that
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  can be made so i don't know but i do feel that
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  there's more that there's more purpose out there
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  than we are kind of led to believe in in in this
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  physicalist metaphysical doctrine or dogma that
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  we grew up in as sort of scientifically thinking
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  people and only now we're kind of discovering
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  that this is more of a dogma than something science
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  tells us and it's very scientific to say hey
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  perhaps it's not material the universe but it's
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  based on consciousness and this is kind of the
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  the renaissance we're seeing in the philosophy
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  of mind well yeah today i was just i had enough
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  of it so i was just like it would be much easier
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  to just be a medieval peasant you know yes life
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  was brutal but you didn't know that it's brutal
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  also things were really straightforward there
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  you just knew that there's a god that created
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  everything and If you're a good person, you're
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  going to go to heaven. And if you're a bit of
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  a piece of shit, you're going to go to hell.
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  No crisis of meaning whatsoever. But I already
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  have like a million questions. But I suppose
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  one strain of scientific thought right now that
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  I hear a lot is that this question that we're
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  asking as humans, why, is just because we're
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  a storytelling animal, as they say. And that
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  the universe is just indifferent to this question.
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  We need to know because evolution kind of embedded
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  this necessity to ask why in order for us to
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  survive. It was a smart strategy. But now it's
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  kind of redundant and irrelevant to the universe.
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  So it has nothing to do with the objective truth.
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  But is it though? Because maybe... the universe
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  unfolding is a huge narrative and there's a teleology
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  so the universe has a purpose and it's going
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  to some place which apparently is more complexity
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  and more structure and more creativity so depending
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  on how you look at it i i'm not i mean this is
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  the the the disenchanted view that i find science
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  and dogmatic religion brings to life where you
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  just look around and it's either random has no
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  purpose it's sad you just die or or you have
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  this external authority which is outside of space
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  and time but which tells you like what is correct
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  or or what how you have to live and i find these
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  are both very disenchanted ways of looking at
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  life and it's also a western thing that we are
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  not kind of taught to sort of be mindful and
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  more spiritual in the sense of working with our
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  own consciousness because this only came to the
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  western mind like 200 years ago with Schopenhauer
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  was the first western person to sort of look
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  at the Upanishads and the Vedas and Hinduism
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  and Buddhism and bring it to the west and there
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  it's very clear that you find the purpose by
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  looking inside. So it's very much the Western
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  world looking outside, finding answers, which
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  gets you really far. We have math, which is the
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  machine code of reality, and we can do alien
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  technology, crazy technology. But then apparently,
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  because we missed some part of like what's going
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  on, we end up being this. terrible collective
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  consciousness which destroys the the planet that
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  keeps us alive which seems very paradoxical like
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  why are humans individually so super smart but
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  collectively we're like dumb as fuck sorry like
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  we're just i mean we're instigating the sixth
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  mass extinction the the ecocide And then you
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  look at termites who are like super stupid, each
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  one individually, but as a collective, they start
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  to build ventilation shafts and cultivate fungus
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  gardens and behave super intelligently. So the
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  question becomes like, first of all, what's intelligence?
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  Where does it come from individually and collectively?
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  And why are we so smart individually but so weird
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  as a collective that we have set up a world which
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  seems to be so cruel? So many people are struggling.
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  It's getting worse every year. Everyone feels
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  the edge. How can that be? And I would claim
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  it's exactly that. This Western template of looking
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  at reality has just taken over the world, which
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  is fine, but we should... just remember that
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  this is one way of looking at things so exactly
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  saying that there's an objective reality out
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  here that's already a metaphysical statement
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  which we don't really know because we're all
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  locked in consciousness the only thing i know
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  is my consciousness everything else is derived
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  so everything i see appears on this screen of
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  consciousness but it's a step further out so
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  i don't know anything about the external world
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  because i i can't i can only see it filtered
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  through my consciousness which then, yeah, if
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  you're open for more philosophical ideas, how
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  do I know anything exists? Is this a dream? Do
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  you exist? Solipsism, is everything just happening
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  in my mind? Is this a simulation? There's no
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  way we can prove or disprove any of this. And
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  that's where the Western mind seemed to have
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  drifted off, that it started to be bad in metaphysics,
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  or very naive, because it was like, hey the universe
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  it's 400 years ago it made sense like newton
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  and leibniz they were like hey it's a clockwork
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  universe if you look at the little parts you
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  can understand the big parts it's all deterministic
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  it's predictable we understood we we yeah we
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  found the code of the universe and even with
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  quantum mechanics coming in in like 1905 and
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  just blatantly telling us there is no fundamental
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  physical reality. If you go to the fundamental
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  level of reality, it makes no sense. It's incoherent.
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  It's illogical. But that never got integrated
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  into the philosophy or kind of the metaphysical
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  assumptions because most scientists at the time
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  were like, shut up and calculate this, just this
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  weirdness. Don't, don't even bother about it.
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  We don't understand, but we have the math and
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  it works. And without the math, we can do quantum
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  computing and all crazy stuff. So why bother
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  with these metaphysical crazy question of what
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  it means? But it appears that we've kind of reached
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  a phase also in theoretical physics where. Not
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  much has happened in terms of progress. So we
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  had string theory, which was the attempt of like,
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  hey, gravity and quantum forces, like how do
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  you bring them together? Quantum gravity doesn't
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  work. But string theory was like this attempt
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  of, wow, 11 dimensions, M -theory, these membranes,
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  whatever, which was nice. It gave us a lot of
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  math, like in topology and stuff, but it didn't
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  give us anything tangible. about what the universe
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  is. And that's kind of the point that science
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  tells us what reality, no, how it works. Science
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  is the how, but the what is not in the purview
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  of science. This is, by definition, metaphysics,
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  which belongs to philosophy. What is the nature
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  of reality? This is not a scientific question.
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  The scientific question is, How does reality
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  unfold according to whatever laws you have or
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  whatever is the initial conditions and the dynamics?
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  That's science, but it's what it is. And we're
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  slowly realizing that this is kind of a big deal,
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  which in 1994, David Chalmers, when he kind of
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  shocked or rocked the boat of the philosophy
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  of science, where he came up with the higher
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  problem of consciousness. Which actually, I mean,
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  he wasn't the first to say this, but he kind
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  of really sort of placed it in the spotlight
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  saying, how do you get non -conscious stuff to
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  become conscious? Like, how does that work? How
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  do you get something which is inherently not
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  conscious and you put it together and suddenly
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  this inner perspective, your window into reality
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  emerges? How is this possible? Yeah, there's
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  two answers on a huge spectrum. One answer is
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  from these more materialistic thinking philosophers
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  of mind who are like, yeah, consciousness isn't
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  such a big deal. It's kind of an illusion. There's
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  no free will. You're making a big deal out of
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  it. It's probably like stage magic. Once you
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  understand how the trick's done, you'll be very
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  disappointed. So don't worry. The heart problem
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  isn't really a problem. And then you have the
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  other guy saying. well one solution to the heart
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  problem is that maybe everything comes out of
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  consciousness and consciousness is the ontological
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  primitive the foundation you can't go any deeper
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  and in between you like have 200 other different
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  theories of mind of of consciousness in the philosophy
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  of mind showing us how bad our academic understanding
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  of consciousness is we still even don't have
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  a definition we like have thomas nagel's what
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  it feels like to be a bat where What is consciousness?
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  Well, consciousness is if it feels like to be
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  something, which is a terrible definition, but
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  kind of the most universally used because there's
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  no one kind of came up with a definition that
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  everyone liked or could work with. So, yeah,
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  the question is, but that doesn't make any sense.
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  How can everything be consciousness? That's kind
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  of stupid. But then you realize, actually, that
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  was the lived reality of most people, most cultures
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  always, except the West. Are you talking about
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  a form of panpsychism? So, yes. Because I just
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  recently had Philip Goff on the podcast and we
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  did talk about that. So panpsychism is like the
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  first attempt to be more radical in the metaphysics
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  where it's like, okay. It's not possible that
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  consciousness is just this emergent phenomenon
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  which happens in brains. It must be something
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  more fundamental. So panpsychism says, well,
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  consciousness is kind of everywhere. It's like
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  the magic dust. It's distributed. Yeah, he called
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  it the building block of the universe. Yep. And
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  it's like an additional. So if you have an electron,
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  it has mass, it has spin, it has electric charge,
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  and it has a bit of consciousness. already there
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  built in so that's the idea of panpsychism that
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  consciousness is like distributed and you find
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  little degrees of it and If you put stuff together
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  then it becomes like more conscious but this
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  is actually one of the the tricky parts of panpsychism
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  and there's like very technical ways of Explaining
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  it the unification problem. So if every electron
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  has a bit of consciousness or every atom How
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  do you bring these all together that they have
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  one unified experience of consciousness? And
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  I'm not sure what Philip Goff, what his current
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  answer to this would be. But there's like very
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  technical ways of understanding this. But I find
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  like if you're starting to go down the rabbit
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  hole, why not go just to the very end? And that
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  would be idealism, which says it's not you have
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  physical stuff with. mental properties there's
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  only mental properties that's it so everything
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  physical is derived and emerges from this fundamental
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  field of consciousness which again many people
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  have written about forever the shamans the mystics
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  meditators and the psychonauts if you read like
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  um i don't know michael pollan or or um David,
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  I think, Pinchbeck breaking open the head where
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  they describe their DMT experiences. And then
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  you realize that this is something that shamans
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  have been like accessing for 30, 50 ,000 years.
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  And yeah, the mystics, some people just spontaneously
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  sit by a river and it just hits them and they
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  understand how the universe works. And the claim
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  is always that there is this. obviously like
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  for the mystics it was god the divine but more
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  in contemplative traditions like in hinduism
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  and buddhism it's it's more about this cosmic
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  consciousness it isn't it isn't framed as as
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  it like a divine thing a god it's it's more something
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  which is just the substrate of things that exist
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  and you can access it by in by meditation so
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  if you go to the very end like this one monk
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  was saying, yeah, in science, you like zoom in
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  and try and find like the tiniest building block.
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  Well, in meditation, you try and do the same
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  inwards. And kind of when you reach the end of
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  your introspection, that's where you start to
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  come into contact with this unified consciousness,
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  apparently. So now the question is, should we
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  take this seriously? Or are these just like deluded
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  hallucinations and that's where we're slowly
• 17:38
  progressing with the psychedelic renaissance
• 17:41
  where we now have the philosophy of psychedelics
• 17:44
  where people are like what if these are not deluded
• 17:48
  hallucinations what if this like this these reality
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  layers we can access through our consciousness
• 17:56
  which are outside of time and space what if this
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  is somehow telling us something about the structure
• 18:03
  of reality And yeah, slowly we're open in the
• 18:07
  West to discussing these things and being more
• 18:09
  radical. Back to consciousness, just for a second
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  there. You did say that we don't even have a
• 18:18
  definition of consciousness yet. But I did have...
• 18:22
  Again, my reference here is a guest, Anil Seth,
• 18:25
  the renowned consciousness researcher who I'm
• 18:28
  sure you're familiar with. So his theory is that
• 18:30
  consciousness is a sort of an illusion and actually
• 18:32
  a consequence of our brains being what he calls
• 18:35
  prediction machines. He writes about it in the
• 18:37
  book called Being You. So he argues that the
• 18:39
  mind has been conditioned by evolution to always
• 18:41
  try to predict what's going to happen next in
• 18:43
  the very next moment. And this gives rise to
• 18:46
  the sort of illusion, he calls it, of a coherent
• 18:48
  experience that we describe as being conscious.
• 18:52
  The physicalist point of view. Yeah, exactly.
• 18:54
  Yeah, totally. And all of this to say, like you
• 18:57
  said, that he and many others think that physicalism
• 19:00
  is the way to go forward and will give eventually
• 19:03
  the key to unlock the heart problem of consciousness.
• 19:07
  We really don't need anything else. Which makes
• 19:09
  a lot of sense because that's the paradigm we
• 19:11
  were brought up in. So kind of seeing beyond
• 19:14
  this is really hard for many people because it's
• 19:16
  like, yeah, you invest. I'm not like suggesting
• 19:20
  that necessarily he is, but for a lot of like
• 19:22
  scientifically minded people, it is a bit dogmatic
• 19:24
  that you kind of invested a lot in a belief and
• 19:26
  you're not kind of very happy if people challenge
• 19:29
  it. But the problem now with, okay, Anil Seth,
• 19:32
  he's like a very famous, visible neuroscientist.
• 19:38
  So he brings a theory which makes sense. And
• 19:45
  then you have Carhart Harris, who started with
• 19:50
  David Nutt to do neuroimaging from people under
• 19:57
  psychedelics. And they come up with this hypothesis.
• 20:00
  No, it's actually entropy, the entropic brain
• 20:04
  theory. And again, this is a clever person. And
• 20:07
  the problem is that last year, I think David
• 20:11
  Kuhn, he wrote a paper. sketching the landscape
• 20:16
  of all these theories, and he listed at least
• 20:20
  200 different theories of what consciousness
• 20:24
  could be, from the materialists, from Anil Seth,
• 20:27
  from Carhart -Harris, the entropic brain, to
• 20:31
  all the way to idealism. So it's kind of a weird
• 20:36
  situation where if you think, but somehow every
• 20:40
  clever person has their own like pet theory they
• 20:43
  like somehow we're still far off the mark of
• 20:47
  understanding what's going on here because you
• 20:50
  would think if if there's like a truth emerging
• 20:54
  that more people would gravitate around that
• 20:56
  and sort of be drawn into that but it doesn't
• 20:59
  seem to be happening it's still like totally
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  fragmented and like every clever person has their
• 21:04
  theory of what consciousness is it is it that
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  is it yeah the the entropy or, or is it kind
• 21:12
  of the, whatever the, the, the micro Jubilee
• 21:16
  and, and like these quantum effects or so. And
• 21:20
  that's kind of the reason why I believe that
• 21:23
  people have, have gotten a bit sort of tired
• 21:28
  of like, yeah, we're going to understand it one
• 21:32
  day because we know how the universe works. There's
• 21:35
  four forces. We know them. So we have to understand
• 21:38
  it just. Be cool. It'll work out. We'll one day
• 21:41
  let David Dennett. It's a bag of tricks. It's
• 21:44
  stage magic. One day we'll understand and it'll
• 21:46
  be like totally underwhelming and everyone would
• 21:48
  be like, oh, wow. OK, that's consciousness. Huh?
• 21:52
  Yeah. Wasn't a big deal. But I doubt this is
• 21:56
  happening. And I. also tied together to what's
• 21:58
  happening in fundamental physics that there's
• 22:00
  no progress in 30 years we have made no progress
• 22:04
  in like expanding our understanding and my claim
• 22:07
  is that we are not mine i mean this is a claim
• 22:10
  i've kind of taken over from other people who
• 22:13
  i think are going in the right direction and
• 22:15
  it's we are limited by a metaphysical belief
• 22:20
  system which we until very recently didn't even
• 22:25
  realize was a metaphysical belief system because
• 22:28
  we thought that's like science. If you're against
• 22:33
  physicalism, you're anti -science. You're being
• 22:35
  irrational and being silly. And only slowly we're
• 22:38
  realizing actually no, because these are metaphysical
• 22:42
  questions. What is consciousness? This is again
• 22:45
  like the thing what it is and not how it works.
• 22:48
  Like how does consciousness work? the easy problem,
• 22:52
  which is also hard, but the thing, what it is,
• 22:56
  and we need to have philosophical discussions.
• 22:59
  And this is the problem that started like the
• 23:02
  second generation of quantum physicists with
• 23:04
  the shut up and calculate where they were really
• 23:06
  like, Hey, philosophy is a huge waste of time
• 23:11
  because there's like, you can discuss forever.
• 23:15
  There's no correct answer. And, I think this
• 23:19
  is a blind spot that we are slowly discovering
• 23:23
  that we really need to evaluate our own metaphysical
• 23:26
  beliefs because this shapes how we interact and
• 23:28
  see reality. And this is really important and
• 23:31
  realizing maybe it was, maybe it's correct. Maybe
• 23:33
  physicalism is correct and everything else is
• 23:36
  like just whatever wishful thinking and silly,
• 23:39
  but it's still important to know that this is
• 23:44
  a belief I hold, which is not rational. Physicalism
• 23:48
  is, as irrational as it is to be panpsychist
• 23:52
  or idealist because none of these positions can
• 23:55
  be proven or disproven they are metaphysical
• 23:57
  intuitions but the physicalists say no ours is
• 24:02
  clear ours is the right one because of the objective
• 24:04
  reality and stuff but then again like hey quantum
• 24:08
  physics is telling us there is the reality is
• 24:12
  not rational common sense is not there and it's
• 24:15
  it's totally illogical you have so many quantum
• 24:20
  phenomena that are so weird and getting weirder
• 24:23
  you like i mean nowadays people who are working
• 24:27
  like with quantum information they're saying
• 24:28
  actually to have the idea that an elementary
• 24:34
  particle has some objective property because
• 24:36
  before you measure it makes no sense i mean come
• 24:40
  on people saying that it's like How can you still
• 24:44
  be so confident in your physicalism when reality
• 24:46
  at the fundamental level is telling you it's
• 24:49
  wave particle depends how you measure it. It's
• 24:52
  tunneling. It can be there or there. It's all
• 24:53
  probabilities. And now people are like saying
• 24:56
  maybe space time is emergent as well, emerging
• 25:00
  from quantum entangled quantum information. So
• 25:04
  if someone tells me space time is not fundamental.
• 25:07
  I find this idea of this objective, physical,
• 25:12
  common sense reality, it seems to be very naive
• 25:15
  and something that seems wishful thinking. And
• 25:19
  confronted with all these issues we're seeing
• 25:22
  in fundamental physics, we're not understanding
• 25:24
  consciousness from a scientific perspective.
• 25:28
  Maybe we need to open up and think of more radical
• 25:32
  stuff and test these ideas. And this is slowly...
• 25:35
  beginning to happen and that we realize that
• 25:38
  actually the things that we're now open to is
• 25:41
  a wisdom that other cultures most cultures spanning
• 25:45
  the world have always had access to always except
• 25:49
  the western rational mind which is funny that
• 25:52
  we're only kind of remembering just an example
• 25:54
  like this this hostility towards altered states
• 25:58
  of consciousness the war on drugs and all of
• 26:02
  these things the vedas they they had this god
• 26:08
  soma which they which was very prominent in in
• 26:11
  the vedas which was also a psychedelic drink
• 26:15
  plato in in greece around the same time they
• 26:20
  had these eleusinian mysteries which were these
• 26:22
  mystical traditions which lasted for thousand
• 26:24
  years which everyone who was anyone went there
• 26:27
  once a year and these were they were drinking
• 26:31
  to a high probability of people who are studying
• 26:34
  it, like Hoffman, the LSD guy, or Stanislav Grof,
• 26:38
  who are into this psychedelics kind of research,
• 26:43
  are like, this was psychedelic. And Plato partook
• 26:48
  in these rituals. So Western philosophy, more
• 26:52
  or less, was heavily influenced by psychedelics,
• 26:57
  which I... Don't hear anyone tell anyone ever
• 27:00
  in any philosophy class. So there's, I think,
• 27:05
  a lot of things. So the Western mind was awesome,
• 27:07
  like with the rational looking outwards. And
• 27:09
  we got really, really far. But I think now we
• 27:12
  kind of reached this crisis of like meaning.
• 27:15
  What do we do now? We have rovers on Mars. We
• 27:19
  have, I mean. AI. We have crazy clever AI. What
• 27:25
  do we do now? And now it seems to be we have
• 27:28
  this global psychosis where people are just like
• 27:31
  not knowing what the point of... anything is
• 27:36
  and i blame like religion and and this physicalism
• 27:39
  for this sentiment this this enchanted way of
• 27:42
  as you said not waking up in the morning like
• 27:45
  oh my god this is crazy this is crazy look at
• 27:49
  look at all the structures the clouds this is
• 27:51
  amazing no really i mean we should all be like
• 27:56
  in i'm laughing because it's so familiar to me
• 27:58
  that i'm like why am i not why is everybody not
• 28:01
  screaming at the top of their lungs late my job
• 28:06
  sucks my kids are annoying yeah we're kind of
• 28:11
  so caught up in I don't know kind of this rat
• 28:17
  race of having to pay rent and stuff that we
• 28:20
  just often do not take the time to like reflect
• 28:22
  on what the hell is going on here it's crazy
• 28:26
  insane By the way, I did ask Daniel Seth about
• 28:31
  psychedelics and he's pretty much said that,
• 28:33
  yeah, we looked at, you know, brain scans of
• 28:36
  people under various psychedelic drugs. And we
• 28:41
  found pretty much what we would expect to find,
• 28:43
  which is like different regions of the brain
• 28:46
  firing and thus producing. I probably butchered
• 28:50
  it, but that's that's what I understood. And
• 28:53
  that's producing like wildly different experiences
• 28:56
  than in normal waking state. So it was just like
• 29:00
  you still have a brain that's producing these
• 29:02
  experiences and the brain is still a material
• 29:05
  thing. Bernardo Kastrup, he's a computer scientist
• 29:08
  turned philosopher of mind. And he's like super
• 29:12
  hardcore idealist. And he really challenges these
• 29:15
  studies because there's quotes from like the
• 29:19
  early studies from like this Carhartt Harris
• 29:22
  and these people who are like. Oh, wow. This
• 29:25
  is actually strange because we expected like
• 29:27
  the firework. We expected like because it's clear
• 29:31
  when you take psychedelics, your phenomenal experience
• 29:34
  is just amplified like crazy. You are making
• 29:38
  so you're just experiencing so much more. You're
• 29:41
  in this transcendental tunnel of like craziness.
• 29:45
  But if you look at the brain, many regions are
• 29:48
  actually. um have less metabolic activity going
• 29:54
  on which seems to be very weird and then they
• 29:59
  like come up with ah yes it's like the entropy
• 30:01
  the noise and then at the end of the day it's
• 30:04
  like really tiny differences they're measuring
• 30:07
  and the claim still is but if it's consciousness
• 30:11
  if the brain creates consciousness and your consciousness
• 30:14
  enhances why don't you like Overall, see more
• 30:18
  crazy activity, which you don't. Or like this
• 30:21
  one guy who went to the doctor in France. He
• 30:24
  was 42. He had a pain in his leg, which then
• 30:29
  was published in The Lancet, one of the most
• 30:32
  famous or the most prestigious medical journals.
• 30:35
  Exactly. And they analyzed him and they found
• 30:39
  that he had like 80 or 90 percent of his brain
• 30:41
  missing. It was just fluid. He had kids. I mean,
• 30:44
  he wasn't like. The brightest guy. But he functioned.
• 30:48
  He had a family. He had his job. And the question
• 30:53
  there is. How does that work? How is the thing.
• 30:59
  That should be producing consciousness. Which
• 31:02
  he didn't have. Because it was literally just
• 31:04
  a small part. That was actually kind of developed
• 31:06
  as a brain. And the rest was like fluid. How
• 31:08
  can he still work like that? Or accidental savants.
• 31:14
  Like. you jump into a pool and it's too shallow
• 31:18
  and you hit your head. You have head trauma and
• 31:20
  afterwards you're a prodigy piano player or you
• 31:26
  start to have crazy creative artistic kind of
• 31:30
  capabilities where you think, how does making
• 31:34
  the brain worse by destroying parts of it make
• 31:38
  the consciousness better? So there is a lot of
• 31:41
  stuff which is in conflict to... kind of a very
• 31:45
  sort of narrow materialistic of like neurons
• 31:49
  firing consciousness so there does seem to be
• 31:52
  or like near -death experiences which which are
• 31:54
  being like more and more um studied and they
• 32:00
  seem to be cross -cultural the same stuff happening
• 32:03
  but again you can explain it away by saying yeah
• 32:06
  of course it's like the brain is doing these
• 32:09
  last sort of computations or whatever, which
• 32:11
  then lead to these experiences. But this is not
• 32:14
  what people experience. People experience very
• 32:17
  deeply, deep, profound, often mystical experiences,
• 32:24
  which changes their life afterwards. And they're
• 32:28
  not afraid of death anymore, which seems kind
• 32:32
  of weird. And again, like, so for me, it's, it's,
• 32:37
  I find psychedelics really interesting. I mean,
• 32:39
  first of all, they're like super dangerous. Not
• 32:41
  everyone should take them. They're crazy. A necessary
• 32:44
  disclaimer here. Yes. Very, very important. But
• 32:47
  if you come in and tell me, look, there's only
• 32:51
  physical stuff. There's no way that anything
• 32:55
  non -physical can exist. There's no free will
• 32:59
  because we know there's four forces in the universe.
• 33:01
  So your consciousness isn't one of them. So if
• 33:05
  you think you are, Having free will, this is
• 33:08
  an illusion. It's not happening. There's only
• 33:10
  physical stuff. I would really like to challenge
• 33:13
  such a person to smoke DMT, to take ayahuasca,
• 33:18
  to take a high dose of LSD and then have the
• 33:21
  discussion afterwards. Like, did you have an
• 33:23
  experience in your consciousness which happened
• 33:26
  outside of space and time? I would claim everyone
• 33:29
  is like, yes, that happened. What does this tell
• 33:33
  you? How real did it feel? What do many psychonauts
• 33:36
  say? The experience there, although it's so crazy
• 33:39
  and it's like so, I don't know how to call it.
• 33:44
  It defies anything, any category of experience
• 33:47
  you ever had. But they say that feels more like
• 33:51
  home. That feels more real than this reality,
• 33:55
  which I find the most craziest statement you
• 33:58
  can make. And again, it's like, depending on
• 34:02
  who you are, from a physicalist or not perspective,
• 34:05
  so the philosophy of psychedelics. Leatherby,
• 34:09
  I forget his first name, he's a philosopher of
• 34:12
  psychedelics, and he wrote one of the first books
• 34:16
  actually called The Philosophy of Psychedelics
• 34:18
  before it became more of a thing. And he was
• 34:23
  saying that, yes, we know that psychedelics have
• 34:27
  benefits for mental health. There's efficacy
• 34:30
  there. We know that. But this comes at a high
• 34:34
  price because it instills a very silly metaphysical
• 34:38
  belief in these people. Idealism. They start
• 34:41
  to think that consciousness is behind everything.
• 34:43
  Oh, this is so bad. I mean, it heals them, but
• 34:45
  then they have these crazy ideas about reality,
• 34:48
  which are wrong. I'm like, how can you be so
• 34:52
  certain? How can anyone be certain about anything?
• 34:56
  as long as I can like deny reality with solipsism,
• 34:59
  which cannot be theoretically or empirically
• 35:02
  challenged. If I can say it's only my mind and
• 35:06
  that's it, there's nothing no one can ever do
• 35:09
  to change my mind. So how can you have certainty
• 35:11
  in such, like if you're really being intellectually
• 35:14
  honest, you would have some degree of like, I
• 35:19
  don't know, maybe, maybe this isn't. all of it
• 35:23
  maybe there's more layers to it maybe there's
• 35:26
  different dimensions to it but then if as a kid
• 35:30
  you've been like i don't want to say indoctrinated
• 35:34
  that sounds a bit harsh but just been exposed
• 35:36
  to like no this is how the universe works we
• 35:39
  know it from science then of course that's how
• 35:43
  you grow up i mean if you grow up in a in a very
• 35:45
  strict religious family you most probably for
• 35:50
  a while will be very entrenched in that one religion
• 35:55
  and be very certain that that's the correct way
• 35:59
  of looking at reality and that's the correct
• 36:01
  God. You were trained as a scientist and you
• 36:06
  went that route. When did it start kind of like
• 36:08
  cracking for you all of this stuff? So at 15,
• 36:13
  I met a teacher who introduced me to chemistry.
• 36:18
  Okay. I was afraid you were going to say who
• 36:20
  introduced me to psychedelics. That would be
• 36:24
  kind of rough. No, that happened a couple of
• 36:27
  years later. At 16. That messed with me as well.
• 36:32
  So yeah, that's why disclaimers. We've all been
• 36:35
  there. Yeah. And that was like, wow, this is
• 36:37
  amazing. Like we can know so much. And then it
• 36:43
  was like, but actually chemistry is explained
• 36:45
  by quantum physics. The bonding stuff the the
• 36:49
  angles these this is all electron orbitals and
• 36:52
  I was like, oh my god, this is insane I need
• 36:54
  to study physics at 15 Because if I study physics
• 36:58
  i'll know how everything works and this was like
• 37:00
  something I was really invested in I wanted to
• 37:04
  know how does this universe work? So I went to
• 37:07
  study theoretical physics. I finished studying
• 37:09
  theoretical physics and I was like damn that
• 37:12
  didn't help because No answers, more questions.
• 37:15
  This is really weird. We like, oh, wow. And then
• 37:20
  during my PhD, I started to, well, complexity
• 37:28
  theory, it's also a bit of a challenge to the
• 37:31
  materialist, physicalist ideology, if I can call
• 37:38
  it that, because this emergence, how, why does
• 37:42
  this? It's more holistic. The sum of the parts
• 37:48
  are literally more, and you really have these
• 37:51
  weird phenomena, which opens up to, yeah, you're
• 37:57
  a bit more open. Okay, just a second, if I can
• 38:00
  interrupt just for a little bit. Can you just
• 38:04
  give me like a rundown of complexity theory,
• 38:06
  like for dummies? Okay, so. Science works really
• 38:11
  well for things you can put into equations. I
• 38:15
  mean, equations are the machine code of reality
• 38:18
  and it works super well from the subatomic to
• 38:23
  cosmology. Where it doesn't work so well is when
• 38:27
  there's complexity. So when there's a lot of
• 38:29
  stuff happening. So if you have a swarm of birds,
• 38:33
  how do you model that? How does that work? work
• 38:39
  or if you if you have termites or traders in
• 38:42
  a market the stock market how can you understand
• 38:44
  this and then you realize that equations aren't
• 38:48
  really helping there because you can't sort of
• 38:51
  yeah they're just too many or or you can't solve
• 38:55
  them so kind of again instead of zooming in you're
• 38:58
  zooming out a little bit is that what we're saying
• 39:00
  um Well, in the sense, you're kind of changing
• 39:06
  the lens you're looking through. So instead of
• 39:09
  looking through it through math, you realize,
• 39:11
  hey, algorithms. You try and model the system.
• 39:14
  You're saying, okay, what's next? And you're
• 39:18
  taking your complex system and you're throwing
• 39:20
  it on a network. So suddenly you have a structure,
• 39:24
  the network structure, the topology, which gives
• 39:26
  you information of the system. And you don't
• 39:29
  care if the node is a neuron, a bird in a swarm
• 39:32
  or a trader in a market. What you're now looking
• 39:35
  at is the interaction structure. And this is
• 39:38
  where you can start to see patterns and understand
• 39:41
  more. And one nice thing in complexity theory,
• 39:46
  simple rules lead to complex behavior, which
• 39:49
  is great because otherwise we wouldn't understand
• 39:51
  stuff so well. So studying complexity theory
• 39:58
  kind of opens you up a bit to being more open
• 40:03
  to, yeah, sort of holistic stuff that it's not
• 40:07
  just, you don't just reduce it. Somehow it's
• 40:10
  more connected. And that's where I sort of started
• 40:16
  to write about this stuff. My first book that
• 40:19
  came out in 19, which I started in 13, which
• 40:22
  it began as an appendix of my thesis and kind
• 40:28
  of grew. And then it was like, OK, like, what
• 40:31
  do we know here? And realizing that consciousness,
• 40:35
  the thing you would think is the first thing
• 40:39
  you would want to study. is something which is
• 40:42
  really badly understood. And then going just
• 40:46
  deeper down the rabbit hole, realizing that there's,
• 40:50
  it seems to be that you have these two, there's
• 40:53
  different ways you can access knowledge, which
• 40:55
  already is like challenging the physicalist view,
• 40:59
  which says, no, there's only one way, rational
• 41:01
  logic. But there seems to be next to rational
• 41:05
  knowledge, experiential knowledge, where you,
• 41:10
  Yeah, you take DMT, you go to this place, you
• 41:14
  come back or drink ayahuasca, which is like very
• 41:18
  deeply trauma releasing and people like have
• 41:22
  the most craziest like experiences which which
• 41:27
  help them. kind of deal with the traumas they
• 41:31
  were working with. So this is a very different
• 41:35
  kind of knowledge than you would have if you
• 41:38
  sit together with a psychiatrist or a psychologist.
• 41:41
  So these two things, and I kind of realized that
• 41:45
  experiential knowledge is very important as well.
• 41:49
  And experiential knowledge is wider because it
• 41:53
  can deal with You can understand things which
• 41:57
  you cannot understand rationally, like this idea
• 42:00
  of non -duality, which is also from the Vedas,
• 42:03
  Advaita, which rationally makes no sense. Come
• 42:06
  on, it's silly. You have the object and the subject.
• 42:08
  You can't tell me that they fuse and become one
• 42:10
  thing. This is really silly. That's not rational.
• 42:13
  But you can experience this in meditation or
• 42:16
  ego death in psychedelics when suddenly your
• 42:19
  sense of identity dissolves and you become everything.
• 42:24
  Which sounds very silly and you cannot know what
• 42:28
  this means unless you've had the experience.
• 42:31
  And my claim here would be that idealism is something
• 42:36
  which we cannot understand rationally. What does
• 42:38
  it mean that everything is consciousness? Come
• 42:40
  on, that's just like some maybe whatever new
• 42:42
  agey stuff. But this is something which you can
• 42:45
  experience and experience from very different
• 42:49
  perspectives and methods you can get there. These
• 42:54
  things have been written about for many, many,
• 42:57
  many millennia. And there's maybe the idea that
• 43:04
  we need to be more plural and diverse in our
• 43:08
  way, how we access knowledge, that it's not just
• 43:12
  one narrow thing. And also, it's not just...
• 43:16
  Sober waking consciousness, which is just one
• 43:19
  tiny slice in this apparently huge multiverse
• 43:22
  of pure experience, which you can go and visit
• 43:25
  and discover stuff in. And it's there to be explored.
• 43:29
  But we only say, hey, sober waking consciousness,
• 43:32
  everything else is deluded hallucination. And
• 43:35
  again, these are cultural things which shape
• 43:40
  our worldview and which shape. our whole world
• 43:44
  and i believe that many of these things are dysfunctional
• 43:47
  don't function anymore and lead to the terrible
• 43:50
  terrible situation we're in today where just
• 43:52
  i think most people would say that this is crazy
• 43:56
  the world we have created this my brain is full
• 43:59
  of microplastics because yay we have huge garbage
• 44:03
  pack patches in the pacific in the atlantic i
• 44:07
  mean this is just like an insanity We're like
• 44:11
  insane as a collective, but as individuals, we're
• 44:15
  all like, no, you know, and we're rational and
• 44:17
  we're clever. And we know we're just sort of
• 44:21
  looking at the world and trying to understand
• 44:23
  it. So I find there's like a lot of improvement
• 44:27
  that we can that are like accessible to us. Just
• 44:32
  devil's advocate, just a little bit. I did hear
• 44:36
  a lot of these like Silicon Valley type say,
• 44:38
  you know, that they. love psychedelics and stuff
• 44:41
  but they don't strike me as the most moral people
• 44:43
  out there you know like steve jobs famously said
• 44:46
  yeah he he was into lsd and and so forth i just
• 44:50
  wonder does you know taking a bunch of psychedelics
• 44:53
  and then feeling one necessarily precipitate
• 44:57
  that you're gonna come back and have a more moral
• 45:01
  if that's the right word i'm looking for kind
• 45:05
  of sense of the world because it seems like a
• 45:08
  lot of These guys don't, you know, it's exactly
• 45:11
  what you said. Let's just invent more stuff that
• 45:14
  we can sell to more people. I fully agree with
• 45:16
  you. And that's the problem with integration.
• 45:19
  So just like having this one experience of like,
• 45:22
  oh, wow, I'm everything. That's not enough. You
• 45:26
  really have to integrate that into your life
• 45:30
  and continue maybe with more mindfulness. So
• 45:33
  I know like two people who. who had these epiphanies,
• 45:37
  like this, this, this sense of unification. And
• 45:40
  they were like, Oh my God, you cannot even imagine
• 45:43
  what I experienced the love behind everything.
• 45:46
  I was just love everything. It's amazing. And
• 45:50
  they continue to live their life very selfishly,
• 45:53
  which I'm like, I know a couple of people like
• 45:55
  that too. They did Ayahuasca and then they went
• 45:57
  on and being complete toads to everybody else
• 46:00
  in their life. How, how does that work? But I
• 46:02
  believe this is just. Kind of the whole context
• 46:06
  is messed up, like why you did it, how you did
• 46:09
  it, how you integrate. And again, it's like not
• 46:12
  easy. But if you do it the right way, I believe
• 46:15
  there is potential for transformation. But again,
• 46:20
  you can have this transformation, this spirituality
• 46:22
  any other way. You can meditate, for instance,
• 46:26
  which just takes really long. And but it I don't
• 46:30
  know, neuroscience of meditators. I think like
• 46:33
  if you meditate. 30 minutes a day for three months
• 46:37
  you can start to see structures changing in your
• 46:40
  brain which you can functionally which you can
• 46:42
  MRI whatever and see or like these 60 ,000 hour
• 46:48
  meditators who have totally different response
• 46:51
  to startling to pain to so you you literally
• 46:56
  can rewire your brain just by contemplation by
• 47:02
  by So it's your consciousness which is rewiring
• 47:05
  your brain, which would seem to be like free
• 47:09
  will, no? When you talk about integration, what
• 47:13
  exactly do you mean here? Do you mean that you
• 47:16
  have to kind of follow a certain spiritual tradition?
• 47:19
  What do you mean by integration? So I think it's
• 47:23
  what these psychedelic -assisted therapies are
• 47:26
  all about, where they really... The psychedelic
• 47:31
  part is just about resetting your brain in a
• 47:34
  sense, because I believe that's what people are
• 47:37
  talking about when they, or the mental health
• 47:40
  benefits. You're stuck in your thinking. You
• 47:43
  cannot move by a millimeter because you're just
• 47:46
  in this tight space in your thinking. When you
• 47:50
  take psychedelics, it's like a reboot. And suddenly
• 47:53
  there's more flexibility in your thinking. You
• 47:56
  have more possibilities of how you look at reality.
• 47:59
  And this seems to be some of the, like one of
• 48:03
  the benefits, but that's the start. It's like
• 48:05
  loosening, opening up. And then the therapy starts
• 48:09
  from there. And again, that can be a long journey.
• 48:12
  So that seems to be sort of just having like
• 48:17
  this one, like breaking open the head experience
• 48:22
  is the start to a longer journey. And if you
• 48:26
  don't go on that journey. It was just like, yeah,
• 48:30
  some carnival you went to and had a great experience.
• 48:34
  And that was it. And it's not meaningful in any
• 48:37
  way. What was your experience with psychedelics?
• 48:41
  So when I was 17, my friend started discovering
• 48:44
  LSD. And I was like, oh, amazing. Sounds so cool.
• 48:47
  I had read Aldous Huxley, super psyched. Went
• 48:51
  with a friend as a sitter to the forest. A friend
• 48:56
  of mine gave me a tab. of LSD with a Buddha on
• 48:59
  it. Like, Ooh, it's very strong. I was like,
• 49:01
  Ooh, respect. So I took half of it after 45,
• 49:05
  50 minutes, I didn't feel any effects. So being
• 49:08
  a stupid teenager with my friend, the only solution
• 49:12
  we came up with is you need to take the second
• 49:14
  part of the LSD tab as well, which I did. And
• 49:19
  then the first part kicked in and then the second
• 49:21
  part kicked in. And I don't really know. It was
• 49:24
  just too much. I took too much. So it was very
• 49:27
  incoherent. It was very, yeah, but nothing. I
• 49:31
  mean, it was very disappointing. The next day
• 49:33
  I was like, well, that was a bummer. I totally
• 49:36
  expected something different. So no like tripping,
• 49:38
  no swimming in space. No, I mean, I was just
• 49:40
  more or less, I don't know, unconscious. I mean,
• 49:43
  I didn't really have that many sort of memories
• 49:47
  coming back. But what did happen after a month,
• 49:52
  I started to have panic attacks for two years.
• 49:55
  So my rationale was like I was too young and
• 49:59
  this psychedelic experience was too violent that
• 50:02
  it messed me up in a way that kind of panic attacks
• 50:05
  were some valve to get rid of this. So psychedelics
• 50:12
  are very potent and dangerous. And then later
• 50:17
  on, you didn't revisit. Just like, I don't know,
• 50:22
  with psilocybin or microdosing a bit or THC.
• 50:27
  So that's kind of the thing I find very therapeutic
• 50:30
  and it helps. And actually, I'm in a study in
• 50:33
  Switzerland where I can now legally buy weed
• 50:36
  in the pharmacy because they have a three year
• 50:39
  trial to figure out what happens if weed is legalized.
• 50:43
  How do we deal with it? And so, yeah, that seems
• 50:47
  to be happening. And I find that I've had like
• 50:50
  semi -mystical experiences with THC. Yeah, so.
• 50:58
  Yeah, I've dabbled a little bit as well, but
• 51:01
  I definitely want to do some more. I did some
• 51:04
  psilocybin. It was pretty crazy. Also, once therapeutic.
• 51:11
  I always hate it when people are like, oh, yeah,
• 51:12
  it helped me deal with this and that. And I was
• 51:14
  just like, oh, that's some hippie bullshit. You
• 51:16
  know, like, just do psychotherapy. What are you
• 51:18
  doing? And then it happened to me and it really
• 51:20
  helped me deal with. But it was really strong.
• 51:23
  I couldn't say that it was a pleasant trip at
• 51:25
  all. It was really concentrated and a lot of
• 51:28
  stuff came to the surface. And yeah, it's a bit
• 51:33
  of a violent, a bit of a violent experience,
• 51:36
  but. I definitely felt better after it was all
• 51:40
  said and done. Did you then, was it a one -off
• 51:45
  or did you like continue a bit for like in a
• 51:49
  more sort of exploratory or? No, then I was just
• 51:54
  like you said, like a Luna Park, you know, I
• 51:56
  just did it a couple of more times with friends
• 51:57
  and had an amazing time and still have lots of
• 52:02
  fond memories. but never in a more like serious
• 52:06
  sort of way. Also, I don't think I ever did it
• 52:09
  alone. It always scared me. I just remembered
• 52:12
  to finish the story, how I got into the more
• 52:15
  like open -minded stuff. So during the PhD, I
• 52:20
  had to take a course outside of the field of
• 52:23
  study I was doing. So you always had to like
• 52:26
  do courses every semester. And I took an introductory
• 52:29
  course into the philosophy of science. And that
• 52:32
  just, blew my mind because i'd never really sort
• 52:36
  of thought about these things very seriously
• 52:39
  and i found that quite shocking that only now
• 52:44
  at the end of my phd i get exposed to these ideas
• 52:49
  like how is how how is it not a thing that every
• 52:52
  scientist or at least physicist has a little
• 52:56
  course on the philosophy of science what is the
• 52:59
  law of nature how do you know that Like, what
• 53:02
  is induction? And why did Hume say that induction
• 53:05
  doesn't work at all? What is reality? What is
• 53:09
  metaphysics? What is ontology? What are these
• 53:13
  things talking about? How do I know stuff, epistemology?
• 53:17
  And that was when I realized, wow, this is really
• 53:20
  bad, that this is so kind of segregated. And
• 53:25
  then I found a lot of quotes from very big...
• 53:30
  or famous influential physicists like Stephen
• 53:36
  Hawking or Freeman Dyson Feynman who like spoke
• 53:42
  really really badly of philosophers like really
• 53:46
  deriding them and like you're a silly bunch of
• 53:49
  dwarves compared to like the philosophers back
• 53:51
  and I was like that's I don't know that seems
• 53:54
  very weird that you wouldn't think this is important
• 53:58
  You're a physicist. You want to know how reality
• 54:01
  works. How can you totally exclude these philosophical
• 54:06
  questions of like, yeah, but what even is reality?
• 54:09
  Let's start there before we then jump into the
• 54:11
  equations. And that's when I realized that there's
• 54:14
  these huge blind spots in our Western view on
• 54:20
  reality, which appear to be hindering the process.
• 54:25
  So we got really far. And now we're kind of stuck
• 54:28
  with our understanding of consciousness and fundamental
• 54:31
  physics. And that's why people are realizing
• 54:35
  we need to try new stuff. And that's why we see
• 54:38
  the renaissance of idealism in the philosophy
• 54:40
  of mind. Who would have guessed? I mean, the
• 54:43
  German idealists, they were told they should
• 54:45
  stop being silly and stop doing this stupid philosophy
• 54:48
  by the American analytical philosophers. Bertrand
• 54:52
  Russell, who were very like... You have to be
• 54:55
  very clear with your philosophy and don't be
• 54:58
  silly. And idealism is very silly, you Germans.
• 55:01
  And now we have a renaissance of where they're
• 55:05
  very serious, sober, clever people, like laying
• 55:10
  out what idealism could mean. Miri Albahari,
• 55:13
  she's an Australian professor of philosophy,
• 55:17
  and she wrote her version of idealism which builds
• 55:22
  on the knowledge of the mystics and it's really
• 55:26
  really hard to read because it's a super hardcore
• 55:28
  philosophy text i'm not trained as a philosopher
• 55:31
  so like every page takes like five minutes to
• 55:34
  understand because she really goes into what
• 55:36
  could this mean like witness consciousness what
• 55:43
  does it mean if you have a field of consciousness
• 55:45
  that doesn't have a perspective, an aperspectiful,
• 55:49
  unified, like all these very highly rational
• 55:55
  concepts she's using to try and describe what
• 55:58
  this could be about. Again, I find it's pretty
• 56:02
  hard to access and it's probably easier if you
• 56:04
  just dive into transcendence by whatever means
• 56:09
  you like best. You can do drumming or do holotropic
• 56:14
  breathing, whatever. then you probably understand
• 56:18
  more of what idealism could be than reading these
• 56:21
  texts. But just to show they're very clever scholars
• 56:24
  who are very serious and they're not new age
• 56:27
  hippies or trying to push some spiritual agenda
• 56:30
  who are like, look at this. This seems to be
• 56:34
  answering a lot of questions or answering a lot
• 56:37
  of the problems that we currently are experiencing.
• 56:40
  You seem to be drawn to mysticism and to a lot
• 56:45
  of these. eastern religious traditions what's
• 56:49
  wrong with like the mainstream western religions
• 56:52
  the big three monotheistic religions for example
• 56:55
  they seem to have answers no yeah i mean just
• 56:57
  historically the the vedas were the first place
• 57:02
  where these ideas of consciousness and and and
• 57:07
  spirituality started So that's kind of interesting
• 57:11
  that you had these rishis, these mystics in the
• 57:15
  forest who no one really knows who they were,
• 57:17
  who started to channel or talk about these crazy
• 57:20
  concepts which still today are valid, like cosmic
• 57:24
  consciousness, all these things where you started
• 57:27
  there. And it's interesting that the Abrahamic
• 57:32
  religions all had their mystical traditions.
• 57:35
  You have Gnostics. In Christianity, you have
• 57:39
  the Sufis in Islam and you have Kabbalah in Judaism.
• 57:42
  And all of these mystical traditions were very
• 57:45
  clear. It's about experiencing the divine in
• 57:50
  your consciousness. And this is what it was about.
• 57:55
  You try and find this connection, this personal
• 57:58
  experience of God. But this is not something
• 58:03
  you can use if you want to institutionalize and
• 58:06
  have a power structure, because then you need
• 58:08
  the external authority telling you what is right
• 58:10
  and wrong. So I think that's where it went wrong.
• 58:13
  If they would be more open or have more visible
• 58:16
  mystical traditions in the Abrahamic religions,
• 58:19
  I think that would help our spirituality a lot.
• 58:24
  And I feel that's what many people who are...
• 58:27
  maybe semi -atheistic are like wow this yeah
• 58:34
  this personal experiential dimension that could
• 58:38
  be something I could relate to but just having
• 58:41
  this dogmatic static worldview which was written
• 58:45
  whenever years ago and it can't move a millimeter
• 58:48
  because it can't evolve by the definition this
• 58:50
  seems to be something which is very bad for a
• 58:53
  knowledge system if it can't change so that's
• 58:56
  And again, the mystical part is your experiences,
• 58:59
  which can change over time, which are more dynamic.
• 59:04
  Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, I'm from
• 59:06
  Slovenia, he calls himself an atheist Christian
• 59:09
  these days. No, a Christian atheist. It's the
• 59:12
  other way around. And part of it is because...
• 59:14
  He thinks that revelation of the monotheistic
• 59:17
  religions was given to everyone. So it establishes
• 59:21
  a sort of a baseline morality that applies to
• 59:23
  everyone equally. It's not one person's individual
• 59:26
  experience or enlightenment versus another person's
• 59:29
  individual experience or enlightenment. Because
• 59:32
  that can be tricky to structure a society around
• 59:36
  or on. So in essence, he claims the Abrahamic
• 59:39
  religions make it fair. What do you think of
• 59:42
  this? No, I think that sounds great. And also
• 59:45
  this idea of, I don't know, spiritual atheism.
• 59:52
  You have all of these things about morality or
• 59:56
  about working with your consciousness or trying
• 1:00:00
  to become a better person, a happier person,
• 1:00:03
  whatever. And whatever means that bring you there
• 1:00:08
  are great. But the problem with monotheistic...
• 1:00:13
  religions by definition is that there's three
• 1:00:16
  of them and everyone claims to be the right one
• 1:00:18
  although it's kind of the same god but this is
• 1:00:21
  something which historically led to a lot of
• 1:00:24
  violence which seems to be very problematic if
• 1:00:27
  you're trying to use that as a as a moral a universal
• 1:00:32
  moral matrix for the whole world because either
• 1:00:35
  you're like actually my god is like everyone's
• 1:00:40
  god and you are more open to other religions
• 1:00:45
  and say, oh, that's probably also my god. Or
• 1:00:48
  otherwise you run into a problem that at one
• 1:00:50
  point it's like, no, but they're the heathens.
• 1:00:53
  They have the wrong religion. That's why they
• 1:00:55
  have the wrong spirituality. And that's why we
• 1:00:58
  need to go to war. I mean, a bit simplistic,
• 1:01:02
  but you get what... That seems for me to be like...
• 1:01:09
  The biggest problem, if you have these categorical
• 1:01:11
  claims, these dogmatic claims, because I've very
• 1:01:15
  much believe, and this is also from studying
• 1:01:17
  science, that reality is postmodern in the sense
• 1:01:20
  there is no one objective reality. Reality is
• 1:01:24
  this crazy transcendental thing and you can access
• 1:01:27
  it from very different parts and they all look
• 1:01:30
  different and many of them are valid. It's not
• 1:01:33
  just one single way that gets you there. So every
• 1:01:37
  claim that says all knowledge is here in this
• 1:01:39
  book. is futile and it's it's going to be doomed
• 1:01:42
  it has to be more open more plural it has to
• 1:01:45
  be oh maybe like these crazy people over there
• 1:01:48
  who are like totally wacko and have like this
• 1:01:52
  crazy worldview, maybe they have something interesting
• 1:01:55
  as well to say. And that's why I kind of like
• 1:01:57
  this concept of the mystics, meditators, psychonauts
• 1:02:02
  and shamans, because these are such atypical
• 1:02:05
  sources of what you would think where knowledge
• 1:02:07
  could come from for Western. But now, like how
• 1:02:11
  many Westerners go to Peru and seek some shame
• 1:02:15
  and to like, heal me, I have mental health issues.
• 1:02:18
  I heard a lot of these stories and usually they're
• 1:02:21
  not very spiritual. Also, people get scammed
• 1:02:25
  a lot. I used to live in Berlin for 10 years
• 1:02:29
  and there was a trend where they would just organize
• 1:02:31
  ayahuasca parties in somebody's basement. And
• 1:02:35
  then some guy would come over that was supposed
• 1:02:37
  to have done it for real in Peru or in South
• 1:02:41
  America. And he would just distribute some sort
• 1:02:44
  of brew to people and they would just vomit all
• 1:02:46
  over the place. And a lot of people, from what
• 1:02:47
  I gather, probably had a pretty bad time and
• 1:02:50
  came back in worse shape than when they went
• 1:02:53
  in. I mean, that's just so reckless and stupid
• 1:02:56
  because, I mean, that's what the shaman does,
• 1:02:59
  kind of hold the space. And like a friend of
• 1:03:02
  mine, she's like super psychonaut and always
• 1:03:05
  goes to Peru, where she was saying that the person
• 1:03:07
  who does the ayahuasca brew. So they also have
• 1:03:12
  to like fast and like have no sex and whatever
• 1:03:15
  for three days before, because otherwise somehow
• 1:03:18
  the whole energy mix goes in there and you like
• 1:03:21
  kind of feel it. So this is like super high energy
• 1:03:25
  stuff where you really need people who understand
• 1:03:27
  energy is like. I don't know, like it's more
• 1:03:31
  than just holding an incense stick. So this is
• 1:03:34
  the wisdom of the shaman to kind of create this
• 1:03:37
  energy field where you can have this experience,
• 1:03:40
  have your traumas come up without messing you
• 1:03:42
  up even more. And just, yeah, having these neo
• 1:03:46
  shamans like, hey, I've been to Peru. I'm like
• 1:03:50
  certified. I can like do this. So please take
• 1:03:52
  this, drink this and give me money or, yeah.
• 1:03:58
  Would you say there is like a unifying kind of
• 1:04:01
  thread binding most of these experiences, psychedelic
• 1:04:05
  experiences that people have together? You know,
• 1:04:08
  it's not like one guy's on acid saying I'm a
• 1:04:10
  blue balloon floating into the sky. Another person
• 1:04:13
  feels like they're Jesus or whatever. I don't
• 1:04:16
  know. But the stories that I hear are wildly
• 1:04:18
  different. Would you say there is some sort of
• 1:04:21
  undercurrent of, I don't know? being one with
• 1:04:25
  everything or just experiencing that your consciousness
• 1:04:28
  can access realms of existence which are not
• 1:04:31
  bound by space and time so a lot of these things
• 1:04:35
  seem to be happening like i mean at least strong
• 1:04:40
  psychedelics or or yeah or kind of the main ones
• 1:04:43
  yeah if you take enough it's you i mean your
• 1:04:46
  body is there closed eyes and your consciousness
• 1:04:49
  is like in some wild other dimension And the
• 1:04:53
  question is, is this now just something your
• 1:04:55
  brain is conjuring up? Although if you measure
• 1:04:58
  it, it's not doing much more. It's actually a
• 1:05:00
  bit reduced in metabolic activity. Or are you
• 1:05:04
  actually accessing a different plane of existence,
• 1:05:07
  which has been there and which people have said
• 1:05:09
  has been there for ages? So what is it? And people
• 1:05:14
  experience as more real as coming home, which
• 1:05:18
  seems weird. So we're not home. And I find that
• 1:05:25
  is what is also therapeutic. So when they did
• 1:05:30
  LSD trials with terminally ill people, where
• 1:05:35
  they have success and people lose a bit of the
• 1:05:39
  fear of death because they suddenly realize,
• 1:05:42
  hey, what I just experienced now just blew everything
• 1:05:46
  I ever believed out of the water. This was just
• 1:05:49
  like... I have no context or no language to even
• 1:05:55
  describe what has happened. So maybe actually
• 1:05:59
  all the things I thought aren't conclusive and
• 1:06:02
  there is more to existence than I believe, which
• 1:06:06
  then would imply that consciousness maybe isn't
• 1:06:10
  something that gets eradicated when your brain
• 1:06:13
  stops firing. You did say that science did figure
• 1:06:17
  out. you know, a couple of three things, you
• 1:06:20
  know, for 200 years or whatever. So we were making
• 1:06:23
  progress. Now we seem to be a bit stuck. How
• 1:06:27
  can we bridge? Yeah, science is, of course, we're
• 1:06:30
  not going down that route, you know, that's prevalent
• 1:06:33
  now in the United States where it's just like
• 1:06:36
  people don't believe in, you know, that the sky
• 1:06:39
  is blue anymore. But how can we bridge now the
• 1:06:43
  two if science is indeed a bit stuck right now?
• 1:06:46
  And there's this whole other thing that's going
• 1:06:48
  on here when it comes to philosophy of psychedelics
• 1:06:51
  and other philosophies and scenarios we could
• 1:06:55
  be looking at. How can we connect the two or
• 1:06:58
  bridge the two? What do you think is a way out
• 1:07:00
  of this? Scientific spirituality. Wow. Okay,
• 1:07:05
  that's not two words you hear combined very often.
• 1:07:09
  Yeah, they seem to be wrong, but actually I...
• 1:07:11
  Maybe they go well together because on the one
• 1:07:13
  hand, you have the rational part, you have the
• 1:07:15
  scientific part, you have the technology, you
• 1:07:18
  have the understanding of the universe, you know
• 1:07:20
  how to cure illnesses, develop vaccines, make
• 1:07:25
  the world better. But on the other hand, the
• 1:07:28
  thing that seems to be missing in our mass psychosis,
• 1:07:31
  apparently on Earth, is that... We lack the meaning
• 1:07:35
  and the meaning you can only find through introspection.
• 1:07:38
  Meaning is something you find within. Happiness
• 1:07:42
  is something you cultivate within. We know this.
• 1:07:46
  Happiness doesn't happen if you have a bigger
• 1:07:47
  flat, bigger car. It works for a short while
• 1:07:51
  and then it sucks and you need more because it's
• 1:07:53
  an endless cycle. The spirituality part is about
• 1:07:57
  you being open to working with your consciousness
• 1:08:00
  in whatever mean, shape or form and trying to
• 1:08:03
  transform yourself. And I would claim the aim
• 1:08:06
  is just to become a happier person, which makes
• 1:08:09
  you a better person in society and would make
• 1:08:11
  society better if people would be more happy
• 1:08:14
  and less outraged, frustrated. People, I mean,
• 1:08:19
  it seems so sad how many people are just suffering
• 1:08:22
  on so many levels and suffering is something
• 1:08:25
  which you can work against. I mean, like this
• 1:08:31
  one Tibetan monk when he was rescued from like
• 1:08:37
  20 years of imprisonment in China. And he was
• 1:08:42
  like, ah, the most challenging thing was not
• 1:08:45
  to hate. the people who were captivating and
• 1:08:50
  torturing him. So not to have suffering come
• 1:08:55
  up. Or like another example I love, this guy,
• 1:08:58
  he went to school with my sister who's older,
• 1:09:01
  where I came from. And then there was an earthquake
• 1:09:03
  in Ecuador and he was like, oh, I'm going to
• 1:09:05
  Ecuador to help. And everyone was like, yeah,
• 1:09:08
  sure. Well, he stayed there for 20 years. started
• 1:09:13
  building bridges for indigenous communities,
• 1:09:16
  like way in the rainforest. He was sponsored
• 1:09:19
  by IBM. He got a laptop. He got like plastic
• 1:09:23
  contraptions from oil building, whatever corporations
• 1:09:28
  that allowed him to build these bridges with
• 1:09:31
  the indigenous population. So he was doing this
• 1:09:34
  for 20 years in South America. And he gave up
• 1:09:37
  his life. He like came back to Switzerland, gave
• 1:09:40
  talks, took money, went back. So that was his
• 1:09:42
  whole life. Then he was like, hey, there's also
• 1:09:45
  people in Asia who probably need help. So he
• 1:09:48
  goes to Asia. And what happens? He gets Guillain
• 1:09:52
  -Barre syndrome, which is when all your nerves
• 1:09:55
  just die. And I'm reading an article from, hey,
• 1:09:59
  Tony El Suizo. How cool. He's in Bangkok. Oh,
• 1:10:01
  fuck. He's in hospital. He's writing this article
• 1:10:05
  with a. pencil in his mouth because he's paralyzed
• 1:10:08
  from here. You don't know if it comes back or
• 1:10:12
  not. This is Guillain -Barre syndrome. And the
• 1:10:14
  guy was writing like, oh, wow. I mean, I lived
• 1:10:18
  with poor people for 20 years and I experienced
• 1:10:23
  what poverty means. And now every day I'm waking
• 1:10:26
  up in a body that's not functioning. What an
• 1:10:29
  interesting, interesting experience this is.
• 1:10:32
  And this, my body not functioning. has zero influence
• 1:10:36
  on the freedom of my mind. And I'm like reading
• 1:10:39
  this like, wow, this is possible. I mean, obviously
• 1:10:44
  he's like an insane person to be at that level
• 1:10:48
  of Zen, but he's not Jesus or whatever. He's
• 1:10:53
  a person who you can cultivate, even if you experience
• 1:10:56
  suffering, that you react with suffering in your
• 1:11:01
  consciousness is something which... is potentially
• 1:11:03
  optional and you can hold against. And I think
• 1:11:07
  that's the spirituality part that, yeah, that
• 1:11:10
  you deal with, with suffering and that you, and
• 1:11:14
  a big part of spirituality I find is understanding
• 1:11:17
  the connectedness of everything, because obviously
• 1:11:20
  with your spouse, you're going to be nice to
• 1:11:23
  them because they're close to you and your family.
• 1:11:26
  But why does it stop there? Why isn't it like
• 1:11:29
  all humans? Why isn't it animals? Why isn't it?
• 1:11:32
  everything that lives that you would totally
• 1:11:35
  view with respect and and revere i mean again
• 1:11:42
  this is cultural like in buddhism it's like every
• 1:11:44
  living being has the same like relevance and
• 1:11:48
  it's not because it's an insect you just kill
• 1:11:50
  it because it's irrelevant no every aspect of
• 1:11:54
  existence or every living being is is part of
• 1:11:57
  the same matrix and if it's idealism it literally
• 1:12:00
  is it's like say part of this ground field of
• 1:12:05
  cosmic consciousness and i find this would help
• 1:12:08
  a lot if people would recognize that it's not
• 1:12:12
  like the other is my enemy or the animal is the
• 1:12:17
  thing i use or plants or whatever and but that's
• 1:12:21
  this I find that spiritual connection you have
• 1:12:24
  to like nurture and realize. And even the people
• 1:12:27
  you think that suck, you cultivate empathy to
• 1:12:31
  understand their perspective and maybe think,
• 1:12:33
  if I had those experiences of that person, I
• 1:12:37
  would probably be the same, which is kind of
• 1:12:40
  humbling because you think, no, I'm so much better.
• 1:12:42
  That's such a horrible person. I would never
• 1:12:43
  do that. So these are all. But again, in a context
• 1:12:47
  of science, so all this misinformation, all these
• 1:12:51
  conspiracy theories, all this lying, it's become
• 1:12:54
  so normalized to lie. It's crazy. Just any politician
• 1:12:59
  can say anything and has no consequences, whatever.
• 1:13:03
  All these things should not be possible because
• 1:13:06
  truth is such. An important. Fragile thing. Which
• 1:13:11
  in a spiritual context. You would never want
• 1:13:14
  to not say the truth. At least 99 .9 % of the
• 1:13:18
  time. But if. The reality is indeed like you
• 1:13:23
  said. Postmodern. How can we structure society.
• 1:13:27
  Because we're not just by ourselves. So it's
• 1:13:29
  kind of equal and fair. For everyone. I have
• 1:13:33
  my own truth. You have your own truth. They have
• 1:13:35
  their own truth. And some people maybe. view
• 1:13:38
  it differently. Some people in this instance
• 1:13:41
  can immediately be like, I deserve a little bit
• 1:13:43
  more than you and stuff like this. I just feel
• 1:13:47
  like we stumble immediately onto this problem.
• 1:13:52
  Yeah. Should we just spike all of the world's
• 1:13:56
  leaders next NATO summit's drinks with a bunch
• 1:14:00
  of chemicals and stuff? Maybe we could try. Yeah,
• 1:14:06
  it couldn't be worse. But just like the respect
• 1:14:09
  we have for other people. I mean, this should
• 1:14:13
  be something which is also open to more plural
• 1:14:17
  thing. And again, it's like, look, my God says
• 1:14:21
  this and this, and I believe this and this. And
• 1:14:25
  if I'm not saying, but that means that you now
• 1:14:27
  have to do this as well. If I cut that part out,
• 1:14:31
  I think it becomes a lot easier that everyone
• 1:14:33
  does their thing, but they don't impose it on
• 1:14:35
  others saying you have to do that because this
• 1:14:38
  is the correct thing. If everyone's like, look,
• 1:14:40
  this is my thing. It's good for me. I know it's
• 1:14:42
  not for everyone. I think that would be already
• 1:14:44
  a good start for this more sort of plural experience
• 1:14:48
  of this. of being human or like all these cultural
• 1:14:53
  contexts so random where you grew up and what
• 1:14:56
  you were told and what to believe and yeah just
• 1:14:59
  being kind of self -aware and trying to be aware
• 1:15:04
  of your biases and and like the things that and
• 1:15:08
  again this is for me spirituality that you're
• 1:15:10
  working with yourself why why did this annoy
• 1:15:13
  me what's with this person like what's on my
• 1:15:16
  side that I can learn or do with this. And these
• 1:15:19
  are all like little mindfulness things you can
• 1:15:22
  do the whole time and not get annoyed and not
• 1:15:25
  take it personally. That's, again, the Leela
• 1:15:28
  thing. It's, hey, it's a grand play. Let's have
• 1:15:30
  fun. It's not personal. It's, you know, it's
• 1:15:34
  you having all experiences ever. How does suffering
• 1:15:38
  feature in all this? In an Asian context, yeah,
• 1:15:41
  this Leela recontextualizes suffering because
• 1:15:45
  it doesn't exist. It's something that wants to
• 1:15:48
  be experienced. There's this one guy called Neil
• 1:15:54
  Donald Walsh. Back in the day, he wrote three
• 1:15:57
  books, Conversations with God, where he was homeless
• 1:16:01
  and claimed that one day he sort of said, God,
• 1:16:05
  terrible, this is your terrible God, and then
• 1:16:08
  had... these conversations in his head where
• 1:16:11
  then this God and not a Christian or any God
• 1:16:14
  started to like lay out this most optimistic
• 1:16:18
  way of looking at things. And there's like one
• 1:16:22
  children's book. So there's God in heaven and
• 1:16:26
  you have all the little souls and they're like,
• 1:16:27
  yeah, we're going back to earth to have experiences
• 1:16:30
  because that's this experiential matrix here.
• 1:16:33
  That's why we do it to have these experiences.
• 1:16:35
  Like a video game almost. Exactly. Yeah. And
• 1:16:39
  one soul is like, I would like to experience
• 1:16:43
  forgiveness. I want to do that. Like, how does
• 1:16:48
  it feel to forgive someone? And then God's like,
• 1:16:51
  yeah, no, I can't do that. Why can't you do that?
• 1:16:54
  And then another soul comes and says, I'll help
• 1:16:55
  you. I'll help you. But don't forget in the next
• 1:16:58
  life when I'm torturing you to harm you so you
• 1:17:03
  can afterwards forgive me. I'm doing it for you.
• 1:17:07
  And I mean, just like these little recontextualizations
• 1:17:09
  of the things that happen, like if there's a
• 1:17:12
  bigger picture, if there is more to what's happening,
• 1:17:15
  if it isn't all just random and purposeless,
• 1:17:18
  then maybe these are things that have a deeper
• 1:17:21
  meaning. Or Christopher Bache, the philosopher
• 1:17:25
  of religion who took 73 high -dose LSD sessions
• 1:17:29
  for 20 years, wrote the book LSD and the Mind
• 1:17:34
  of the Universe. the most mind -blowing book
• 1:17:36
  ever like deep for me that's like the deepest
• 1:17:39
  metaphysical like information we have about this
• 1:17:43
  sort of transcendental universe and he has this
• 1:17:46
  idea that suffering is like the most noble thing
• 1:17:50
  you can do on earth if you want to help the progression
• 1:17:54
  of the divine coming into the physical which
• 1:18:00
  half was like Whoa, that's wild. That's a wild
• 1:18:04
  idea. That's like sort of the tribute that the
• 1:18:06
  suffering is something you offer for making,
• 1:18:09
  like for accelerating the evolution that's happening
• 1:18:14
  with this structure forming universe, which apparently
• 1:18:16
  has a teleology. It wants to become more complex
• 1:18:20
  and like. maybe in this idealism perspective,
• 1:18:24
  incarnate more consciousness from the base layer
• 1:18:27
  into the physical. And somehow suffering is something
• 1:18:30
  that helps this progress. So again, there's like
• 1:18:35
  many ways you can spin this. And again, the suffering
• 1:18:41
  and the self, which from an Eastern perspective,
• 1:18:45
  the self was always looked a bit like, yeah,
• 1:18:47
  that's not something you should get caught up
• 1:18:49
  in. If you meditate, you kind of have your mind
• 1:18:52
  and thinking and you zoom out and it's not you.
• 1:18:57
  And again, like the self is the thing that's
• 1:18:59
  suffering, but that's not you because you are
• 1:19:01
  like, you're the consciousness and the suffering
• 1:19:05
  is happening to the self, which is a construct.
• 1:19:10
  So are we saying in this sort of instance that
• 1:19:13
  the brain is more like a receiver? kind of a
• 1:19:16
  radio it tunes into like the base consciousness
• 1:19:18
  that would be the idea but then when when people
• 1:19:21
  damage their brain or have like a neurologic
• 1:19:24
  neurological disease you know sometimes they
• 1:19:27
  completely change their person ah but then if
• 1:19:28
  you damage the receiver then of course you would
• 1:19:31
  get a different signal one thing is from which
• 1:19:33
  i find interesting um david bergson the he was
• 1:19:36
  a philosopher and he um gave the idea to aldous
• 1:19:40
  huxley when he took mescaline in the 50s where
• 1:19:43
  they claimed that So consciousness is a valve.
• 1:19:48
  It kind of reduces sort of our brain is a valve
• 1:19:52
  that reduces consciousness that flows through
• 1:19:54
  it. When you take psychedelics, the valve opens
• 1:19:58
  and you get the full flux of transcendental reality,
• 1:20:02
  which is bad if you want to survive as a species
• 1:20:05
  because you just, yeah, that's not going to work.
• 1:20:08
  You're not going to run away from the cyber tooth
• 1:20:10
  tiger. So kind of reducing. And that's why if
• 1:20:15
  you damage the brain, you're damaging this reduction
• 1:20:18
  valve thing. That's why kind of savants make
• 1:20:21
  sense there because you're kind of taking away
• 1:20:23
  part of the restriction and suddenly there's
• 1:20:25
  more creativity and more kind of consciousness
• 1:20:30
  flowing through. And it's interesting, Stephen
• 1:20:33
  Wolfram, the computer science physicist, entrepreneur
• 1:20:39
  guy who made millions writing the best. mathematical
• 1:20:44
  software ever he wrote a book 20 years ago saying
• 1:20:49
  science is wrong with equations we need algorithms
• 1:20:52
  it's all about algorithms now he's back with
• 1:20:55
  and he's like super clever genius guy and he's
• 1:20:59
  now back with a fundamental project or the project
• 1:21:03
  to understand the fundamental theory of physics
• 1:21:06
  or something And where he was saying, look, life,
• 1:21:10
  like the whole universe evolving is computational
• 1:21:13
  process. Life is computational. It's literally
• 1:21:18
  you can you can compute it. But consciousness
• 1:21:21
  isn't. Consciousness is something you have to
• 1:21:24
  reduce and compute down again, which sounds really
• 1:21:28
  like. the reducing valve theory thing. And he
• 1:21:31
  comes from it from like a totally different,
• 1:21:33
  like whatever with hypergraphs updating and then
• 1:21:37
  claiming that these structures he's seeing explain
• 1:21:39
  physics and stuff. And that's kind of what, what
• 1:21:43
  I was doing with the book, like sort of collecting
• 1:21:45
  viewpoints of different people that seem to be
• 1:21:49
  pointing in the same direction and trying to
• 1:21:51
  make a case for that. And so, I mean, It can
• 1:21:56
  all be wrong. That's like the uncertainty part
• 1:22:00
  where, I mean, I have to be able to know that
• 1:22:03
  I'm wrong. I have to be able to fail. It can't
• 1:22:05
  be that my whole identity and self -worth is
• 1:22:08
  like fixed in this idea that I have to be right
• 1:22:11
  all the time. And if I'm wrong, I don't know.
• 1:22:14
  I have to be right all the time. That's literally
• 1:22:16
  me. You're describing me. That's tough. That's
• 1:22:19
  a tough mindset. I know what you mean, but that's
• 1:22:24
  what a lot of us have subconsciously because
• 1:22:26
  we don't want to be wrong and we want to be right
• 1:22:29
  because it feels good. And that's why we fight
• 1:22:32
  and become so irrational in defending our beliefs,
• 1:22:35
  which are often most of the time wrong. Again,
• 1:22:40
  referencing another guest, Philip Goff, I mentioned
• 1:22:42
  him in the beginning when we spoke about suffering.
• 1:22:44
  His idea is a bit different. He says that he
• 1:22:48
  just can't get around the problem of suffering
• 1:22:50
  in the universe because it's so bad and so pervasive.
• 1:22:53
  So his idea is that there must be, he also believes
• 1:22:57
  the universe has a purpose. So he comes at it
• 1:23:01
  with the idea that there must be a God, but since
• 1:23:04
  there's so much suffering, he thinks the God
• 1:23:07
  has limited abilities. It's a God that can't
• 1:23:10
  prevent or alleviate suffering necessarily. This
• 1:23:14
  sounds very much, embedded in a in in sort of
• 1:23:18
  a western christian yeah he says he's like a
• 1:23:22
  heretic christian i think that's what he calls
• 1:23:23
  it that he came to this conclusion now after
• 1:23:27
  just being a panpsychist for for a while because
• 1:23:30
  a lot of like um of these whatever mystics shamans
• 1:23:38
  meditators psychonauts it's like no there's like
• 1:23:41
  love like love is the ultimate thing behind everything
• 1:23:45
  it's like love so it's not so consciousness it's
• 1:23:48
  yeah the universal consciousness but that's the
• 1:23:50
  wrong definition it's love that's what i like
• 1:23:54
  many people have been saying so um maybe yeah
• 1:23:58
  you have to be able to be open to like look deeper
• 1:24:02
  into the structure to discover that at the end
• 1:24:05
  it's love and it kind of i don't know maybe this
• 1:24:09
  is just sort of romantic wishful thinking but
• 1:24:12
  it's interesting that there will be like many
• 1:24:17
  people having these non -ordinary state of consciousness
• 1:24:22
  experiences and like having this very very profound
• 1:24:26
  feeling of love so yeah again having um suffering
• 1:24:33
  as part of of the duality if you want to have
• 1:24:36
  something happen you need the good and the bad
• 1:24:39
  otherwise there's nothing going to happen left
• 1:24:42
  and right you to have the love you need the suffering
• 1:24:47
  so in in this contextual field and the question
• 1:24:53
  again is like how like how personal do you take
• 1:24:56
  it suffering although it's like super bad and
• 1:25:01
  and seems to be like yeah something that life
• 1:25:04
  on earth has always been struggling with so yeah
• 1:25:09
  um i don't know i i kind of like just sort of
• 1:25:12
  recontextualizing just that there's possibilities
• 1:25:15
  of recontextualizing suffering in very very different
• 1:25:18
  ways if they're right or wrong who knows but
• 1:25:20
  just it's possible um suffering isn't something
• 1:25:24
  absolute either so Again, there's like multiple
• 1:25:28
  ways of addressing the problem of suffering.
• 1:25:32
  And especially like, yeah, if there's this divinity
• 1:25:36
  and this love, why the hell suffering? But yeah,
• 1:25:39
  maybe that's just part of this game that we're
• 1:25:42
  in. What about death then? So yeah, that isn't
• 1:25:48
  a thing in the sense that your consciousness,
• 1:25:51
  then if your brain is channeling it. It just
• 1:25:54
  goes back into the base consciousness. And then
• 1:25:57
  the question is like, how much identity stays
• 1:26:01
  or how much is it like a drop going back into
• 1:26:03
  the ocean? I mean, sometimes I'm terrified of
• 1:26:07
  this idea that then it's just like one, if it's
• 1:26:10
  the case, one big blob of consciousness and we're
• 1:26:14
  all one. I don't want to be one with Elon Musk
• 1:26:16
  or, you know, somebody shitty like that. You
• 1:26:20
  know what I mean? I like being me. Not to be
• 1:26:23
  too egoistical, but you know what I mean. I got
• 1:26:27
  a thing going here. Elon Musk was just this puppet,
• 1:26:30
  this Muppet, like you were this Muppet. You were
• 1:26:33
  playing these roles here. That was not you. But
• 1:26:37
  some Muppets are really cool. but again you need
• 1:26:41
  to have the cool ones to have the not cool ones
• 1:26:43
  and but but the other thing is like um okay you
• 1:26:47
  die in it that was it and it goes black and nothing
• 1:26:49
  was like yeah that's also grim as well and from
• 1:26:54
  kind of a i don't know a physics informational
• 1:26:56
  perspective that all this consciousness gets
• 1:27:00
  created and destroys seems very much not like
• 1:27:03
  how stuff in the universe seems to be conserved
• 1:27:07
  all the time okay that's reassuring but again
• 1:27:11
  like who knows and that's probably where sort
• 1:27:17
  of yeah your intuition um but intuition only
• 1:27:21
  works if you kind of are healthy if you're a
• 1:27:23
  narcissist it's not going to work. Your intuition
• 1:27:27
  is going to suck and you're going to come up
• 1:27:28
  with very bad conclusions. But if you try and
• 1:27:31
  like really sort of get through your own ego
• 1:27:34
  and all your issues and try and find out what
• 1:27:37
  feels right, what's, what do I believe? I think
• 1:27:39
  you probably get a good answer that makes sense
• 1:27:42
  to you. And yeah. Well, I guess we come to the
• 1:27:46
  beginning now that my intuition right now is
• 1:27:48
  just to scream all the time. But maybe my intuition,
• 1:27:52
  you know, because what is all this? Molecules,
• 1:27:55
  the chair I'm sitting on is made out of molecules
• 1:27:58
  and I'm made out of molecules and there's weird
• 1:28:01
  stuff happening in the universe. And what the
• 1:28:04
  hell am I to make of all this? But maybe that
• 1:28:06
  means my pollution is just, my intuition, sorry,
• 1:28:10
  is just polluted and I'm confused by all of this
• 1:28:14
  information that I'm randomly picking off of
• 1:28:16
  Wikipedia articles. Have you tried meditation?
• 1:28:21
  yeah but i'm really bored i yeah i can't really
• 1:28:25
  access that either but that's probably like the
• 1:28:27
  the easiest thing in the sense if you make that
• 1:28:32
  a habit yeah for like a couple of months i'm
• 1:28:36
  sure there's like yeah there's differences that
• 1:28:39
  are felt i think there's like a million ways
• 1:28:42
  to meditate yeah i am tempted to go on that There's
• 1:28:48
  a specific strain of meditation where you have
• 1:28:50
  to go on a retreat for a while. And they just
• 1:28:52
  take all of your devices and stuff. What is it?
• 1:28:55
  I forgot the name. It's quite famous, I think.
• 1:28:59
  Vipassana? Yeah, exactly. That's the one. I was
• 1:29:03
  tempted by that. But then I get scared. And I
• 1:29:05
  heard you have to sit. And I'm really stiff.
• 1:29:08
  I'm the anti -yoga person. I wanted to go...
• 1:29:12
  do yoga once and one of my female friends was
• 1:29:14
  just like, you're just going to be standing there
• 1:29:15
  like a rock, like a piece of piece of rock, you
• 1:29:19
  know, you're not going to be able to like stretch
• 1:29:21
  out even. So I don't know. I heard you have to
• 1:29:23
  sit in, in like a specific position for like
• 1:29:25
  hours and that just going to kill me. Challenging.
• 1:29:28
  Yeah. Yeah. Very challenging. As you can see,
• 1:29:31
  I don't like challenges that much. Well, you're
• 1:29:35
  challenged every day by waking up. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:29:39
  That is. All right. With all that's been said
• 1:29:43
  today during this conversation, what's the best
• 1:29:47
  way to live one's life then? I find just try
• 1:29:52
  to become the happy person, a happy person, regardless
• 1:29:55
  of like all the bullshit that's going on around
• 1:29:58
  you and in the world. Just, yeah, not lose your
• 1:30:02
  sense of humor. I find that helps a lot. And
• 1:30:07
  that's where I find THC really helps just not
• 1:30:09
  losing my sense of humor. In a world I find increasingly
• 1:30:14
  insane and like just what the fuck. But if you
• 1:30:18
  want to pursue this path of self -discovery while
• 1:30:21
  not abandoning trusting in science and stuff,
• 1:30:25
  how would you begin this path? I never really
• 1:30:29
  thought about that question. Yeah. But I think
• 1:30:33
  it's about putting your attention more towards
• 1:30:37
  you, not running after something outside, be
• 1:30:41
  it some fad or some guru or some technology or
• 1:30:46
  some whatever, but just trying to deal more with...
• 1:30:52
  with your own consciousness like this is the
• 1:30:55
  crazy thing this is the thing that gives you
• 1:30:57
  access to everything that's your being that's
• 1:30:59
  the the thing that's the only thing you can work
• 1:31:02
  with like directly everything else is then an
• 1:31:05
  extension of your consciousness so uh and yeah
• 1:31:10
  depending on on like what you like or not there's
• 1:31:14
  many traditions old traditions new traditions
• 1:31:17
  which which give you ways to this and again the
• 1:31:20
  plurality there's probably one way which you
• 1:31:24
  maybe resonate with james thank you so much for
• 1:31:30
  taking the time this was a mind -blowing mind
• 1:31:32
  -bending conversation but there was so much stuff
• 1:31:37
  but i feel like we could you know we just scratched
• 1:31:39
  the surface um So we have to do this again. I
• 1:31:42
  hope you're up for it. Where can people find
• 1:31:44
  your book? So I've been having problems there,
• 1:31:47
  unfortunately. Amazon .com. But Amazon EU stopped
• 1:31:55
  shipping it for some reason. Hopefully because
• 1:31:59
  so many copies were sold. No, they just took
• 1:32:03
  it out of the catalog. And I talked to the publisher
• 1:32:06
  and they were like, hey. We have no influence
• 1:32:09
  over Amazon. They don't even answer our emails.
• 1:32:11
  And it was like, again, yeah, the universe just
• 1:32:17
  did its thing. So I had a book launch. And until
• 1:32:20
  the day of the book launch, I could order the
• 1:32:23
  book from Amazon EU, be it DE or .co .uk. The
• 1:32:27
  day after the book launch, you couldn't order
• 1:32:30
  it anymore. So all of my friends were like, where
• 1:32:32
  do I get the book? I'm like, they're online.
• 1:32:34
  They're like, no. I'm like, sure. And they're
• 1:32:35
  like, what? But probably some seller will stock
• 1:32:41
  it up and it should become available. So if you're,
• 1:32:45
  I don't know, can you get it to Japan? I'll check
• 1:32:51
  because you did send me the copy. So I didn't
• 1:32:56
  try to order it. But yeah, I think I could last
• 1:32:59
  time I checked. I think it should be okay. It's
• 1:33:02
  so wild that now you're just dependent on some
• 1:33:05
  corporations, which... Just you cannot talk to.
• 1:33:10
  Yeah, it's like if Jeff Bezos is going to space
• 1:33:13
  that week, maybe your book is going to be shipped.
• 1:33:15
  And they're like, the algorithm says, no, this
• 1:33:18
  book will take it out. Then like your whole career
• 1:33:22
  dies. By the way, where do you think this whole
• 1:33:27
  AI craze is going to go? Because it's getting
• 1:33:29
  a tiny bit frightening. I mean, that's like the
• 1:33:34
  thing. Do you believe that consciousness is done
• 1:33:37
  by the brain? Because then it's like, ah, AI,
• 1:33:39
  it's come on. It's just like, it's just pattern
• 1:33:42
  recognition. It's just software. Or you're like,
• 1:33:45
  does the universe build stuff that can channel
• 1:33:48
  consciousness like our brains? And now our brain
• 1:33:50
  builds stuff that's also super complex that maybe
• 1:33:54
  starts to channel consciousness. And then we
• 1:33:56
  have conscious AI. That would seem to be, if
• 1:34:00
  idealism is correct, that seems to be an option
• 1:34:04
  there that this stuff suddenly develops an inner
• 1:34:07
  perspective, maybe. So you think with increasing
• 1:34:12
  complexity, that's how consciousness might appear?
• 1:34:16
  I mean, you need the receiver, the radio. This
• 1:34:20
  has to be complex enough to tune in. So our brains
• 1:34:24
  do that. And maybe at one point our software
• 1:34:28
  is doing the same thing. The complexity does
• 1:34:33
  not have to be organic. I see. Yeah. But I'm
• 1:34:41
  really hopeful because of, at least until now,
• 1:34:45
  it seemed to be that AI is pretty much just taking
• 1:34:50
  in all the information. stealing all the information
• 1:34:54
  you know a lot of times stealing all the information
• 1:34:56
  yeah but at least it's giving you a view which
• 1:34:59
  isn't hyper like idea like this this ideology
• 1:35:05
  warfare we're in like these ideology ideological
• 1:35:08
  trench wars this this my team your team left
• 1:35:13
  right oh you're talking about twitter everything
• 1:35:16
  everywhere is just like It's so bad, this division
• 1:35:20
  in society. And like, literally, each part lives
• 1:35:26
  in a different universe, they perceive. And I
• 1:35:29
  believe AI at the moment still can like bridge
• 1:35:32
  this sort of, it can give you a more neutral
• 1:35:35
  and unbiased view on stuff. But again, I'm sure
• 1:35:40
  the people with ideological interests will soon
• 1:35:43
  give us IA that's highly ideological, and then
• 1:35:45
  that's... done as well but just like now if if
• 1:35:49
  i have conversations with ai about um idealism
• 1:35:52
  it gives me like it's crazily nuanced and and
• 1:35:57
  and like open if you start to like challenge
• 1:36:02
  and discuss with it which is interesting because
• 1:36:05
  idealism must be such a tiny tiny subset of all
• 1:36:08
  the data which is basically framed in a physicalist
• 1:36:11
  materialist metaphysical perspective context
• 1:36:15
  yeah so i find it really interesting that it's
• 1:36:17
  still like ah okay that's true and these are
• 1:36:20
  the problems and and and this here doesn't fit
• 1:36:24
  in so well and i I really like that because such
• 1:36:28
  conversations are not possible with humans who
• 1:36:30
  have invested in some idea and they're going
• 1:36:33
  to defend their idea, whatever. Yeah, I'm just
• 1:36:36
  more worried again on this sort of societal level
• 1:36:39
  that AI is going to take all the cool jobs, all
• 1:36:41
  the creative jobs that we actually really want
• 1:36:44
  and we're going to be left to sweep the streets
• 1:36:46
  and do everything that we hoped AI would actually
• 1:36:51
  do. But it goes back further, like in the 30s.
• 1:36:56
  Keynes, the economist, he wrote that his grandchildren,
• 1:37:01
  would be about now, will be living in a world
• 1:37:05
  where we work like five hours a week or something
• 1:37:08
  because everything is automatized and you can
• 1:37:12
  just do the things you want to. It's not going
• 1:37:15
  quite like that. And we automatize everything.
• 1:37:19
  And now we have even AI doing that, but we all
• 1:37:22
  have to work more and have like two jobs to sustain.
• 1:37:25
  So something went terribly wrong. So the idea
• 1:37:28
  that we have technology that takes away the edge
• 1:37:31
  and this kind of survival stuff, and we could
• 1:37:35
  start to just be more dealing with the things
• 1:37:39
  that drive us and be more creative. And I think.
• 1:37:42
  So there's like the horrible worldview that,
• 1:37:44
  oh, people are lazy. And if you just give them
• 1:37:47
  like universal basic income, if you just give
• 1:37:49
  them money, they'll just be lazy and take drugs,
• 1:37:51
  which is actually not true. That sounds pretty
• 1:37:53
  good, actually. Yeah, no, but most people are
• 1:37:56
  purpose driven. They want to do something with
• 1:37:59
  their life. They don't want to just hang around
• 1:38:01
  and take drugs or not work. They want to be creative
• 1:38:05
  in their own unique way. And I find if we allow
• 1:38:08
  technology to take away the mundane stuff. which
• 1:38:11
  should also be sweeping the streets and open
• 1:38:14
  up for people to somehow survive on doing the
• 1:38:19
  thing that they are passionate about. I think
• 1:38:23
  that would be transformative as well, but I don't
• 1:38:25
  know how you like pay rent. I mean, like with
• 1:38:28
  the book, this is a hobby. There's no way I could
• 1:38:31
  live from writing books. It's like music. 1 %
• 1:38:36
  has all the income and everyone else, yeah. No,
• 1:38:40
  I agree. But I also think that if people just
• 1:38:42
  want to have interesting thoughts and hang out,
• 1:38:46
  that's also not a problem. I think we can accommodate
• 1:38:49
  everybody. We have so much stuff. But it was
• 1:38:52
  more sort of the idea that if you give people
• 1:38:55
  money, then the worst comes out in them. And
• 1:38:58
  that's just not true. I mean, that happens to
• 1:39:01
  a small percentage, obviously. psychology shows
• 1:39:04
  us for most people, it's like, no, I want to
• 1:39:06
  do something. And now we're doing the opposite.
• 1:39:08
  Let's try to make the most horrible possible
• 1:39:10
  thing and see if people are suddenly going to
• 1:39:13
  become good and compassionate towards each other.
• 1:39:17
  Anyway, James, I took up a lot of your time.
• 1:39:20
  Thank you so much. Thanks again. That was awesome.
• 1:39:22
  Thank you so much. Absolute pleasure. Likewise.
• 1:39:27
  By the way, do you have any social media that
• 1:39:29
  you want to shout out? I mean, I have like everything.
• 1:39:34
  Okay. Social media is part of the problem. I
• 1:39:37
  know, I know, I know. We have to play this dirty,
• 1:39:40
  dirty game. Thanks again, James. For listening,
• 1:39:44
  please subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, follow
• 1:39:46
  on Spotify and Apple. Podcasts have been told
• 1:39:49
  on countless YouTube tutorials that I have to
• 1:39:51
  say this, otherwise nothing happens, which is
• 1:39:54
  strange. Also, if you feel like it, support me
• 1:39:56
  on Patreon. I'm playing the world's smallest
• 1:39:58
  violin here. But this is a one -person pod. I
• 1:40:02
  have no production team, no nothing. So feel
• 1:40:04
  free to hop on Patreon and find Smart Cookies
• 1:40:07
  on there. And then last but certainly not least,
• 1:40:10
  I have to thank my existing patrons. Without
• 1:40:12
  you, this podcast simply would not exist. So
• 1:40:15
  thank you so much. That makes you actual producers
• 1:40:18
  of this show. So eternal thanks to Dare. You
• 1:40:37
  guys rock. Thank you so much.