What we discovered is the probability
that any sensory system has ever been
shaped to see any true feature of
objective reality. When you do the math,
the answer is zero. Exactly zero.
Well, you realize you're making a very
bold claim. Embodied consciousness.
Consciousness existing inside bodies is
the exception to the rule. Detachment
from the five senses actually allows you
greater knowledge. A good example being
near-death experiences. [music]
the amount of things that we don't see
in reality. We don't see electric
fields. The 8 million species are just
the 8 million species that it's adaptive
for our survival to see. How do we then
try to triangulate and figure out what
true reality actually is? To date,
[music] science cannot answer that
question.
There are an infinite number of alien
intelligences.
Our headset gives us a very, very, very
tiny peak at this. And the recursive
trace logic gives us a mathematical
framework to begin to understand exactly
how our space-time headset is built, how
it can be hacked.
>> Wow.
So, it's an infinite scale of
consciousness. [music]
>> That's right. Not in just one direction,
in an infinite number of different
directions. So, this is where we get to
the UAP kind of stuff. The craft seems
to be here and then it goes Mach 40. To
me, it's like
when you're poking at the boundaries
with your consciousness or with high
energy physics, you see these entities
and you see these UFOs.
>> Do you think we're on the verge of a
scientific revolution?
>> If we prove those conjectures are true,
then I think it's the game changer.
>> Ignition sequence.
>> Now, is this possible? [music]
Nothing too unusual about that.
Their existence [music] cannot longer be
denied.
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All right, Don Hoffman, thank you so
much for being here. It's an honor.
Thank you for having me, Jess. It's
great.
>> I've seen a lot of your podcasts and
I've now read your book and uh you have
this incredible theory where it's not
adaptive for us to see reality and it's
this idea of fitness beating perception.
For the people who are unfamiliar, can
you give a little bit of a summary of
what you mean by that? What that is and
then I want to delve off into way
crazier territory than any other podcast
has taken you.
>> Okay. The standard idea that we have
about evolution and our perceptions of
the world is that evolution has shaped
us to be fit. And to be fit, we should
probably see the truth, right? If I see
a train, I should really know that there
really is a train and I won't step in
front of it. If I see a cliff, I
shouldn't jump off. So it would be fit,
we think, to have evolution shape our
sensory systems to see reality as it is.
Maybe not all of reality, but but most
of reality that that we need. That would
be a standard intuition.
And there are
mathematical tools now. So when when
Darwin wrote his theory, he did it based
on his fieldwork and his own brilliance
and came up with this
evolution by natural selection idea
which is brilliant. But it took another
century before we turned it into
mathematics. John Maynard Smith u turned
it into mathematics, evolutionary game
theory. So we could actually now ask
technical questions. We don't have to
sort of speculate. We can actually run
games or prove theorems. and and so I
and my graduate students and and
collaborators have done both and testing
this question on Darwin's theory um what
is the probability that evolution would
shape any sensory system of any organism
to see truths about the world
>> and I went into it expecting that we
would maybe not see all the truth but we
would see some of it and and so forth
but what we discovered was that
evolution
does shape us to see whatever will make
us fit. And that does not mean at all
that we're going to see the truth. In in
fact, what we discovered is the
probability is zero that any sensory
system has ever been shaped to see any
true feature of objective reality.
Precisely zero. Can you give us a super
concrete example of an organism uh
actually not seeing reality and that
somehow being adaptive for its survival?
>> Yes. So there's plenty almost all of our
sensory experiences are of this type as
it turns out. So when you see colors for
example um you're not seeing the
electromagnetic spectrum the actual
wavelengths of of photons and so forth.
You're just
>> collapsing that into something that we
call colors. red, green, blue, yellow,
and and and so forth. Um, when you taste
various kinds of foods, you're not
getting a chemical, you know, this is
C2, H3, whatever. You you are getting
what we would call an experience of
taste. And so, the way I think about it
is that it's what you've got is not a
window on reality.
It's more like a like a desktop on your
computer for example. So
in in a desk in a desktop you'll see
that there are icons on your screen.
There might be a a a blue folder in the
middle of your screen for some file that
you're working on some paper.
But that doesn't mean that inside your
computer there's something that's really
blue and rectangular in the middle of
the computer. Right? Just because it
looks like that on your screen doesn't
mean that that's reality. Inside the
computer, there's nothing blue. There's
no folder. There are just bits. There
are, you know, voltages that are being
toggled millions of times a second in a
particular pattern. And that is hidden
from you. That is way too complicated
for you to deal with. If you had to
toggle bits, you could never write your
your paper, for example, or edit your
photo. So, you don't want to toggle
bits. You need to have eye candy that
dumbs things down. And so, that's what
evolution has has done for us. It's
given us, you could think of it as like
a desktop interface. So there's whatever
reality is is quite complicated. You
just need to know how to interact with
reality in a useful way to do what you
need to do. Like in the case of the
desktop analogy to edit a photo, to
write a paper, whatever it is that that
you're doing. And so it would actually
not be fit in the computer analogy to
have to toggle the voltages to write a
paper. If you had to toggle voltages to
write a paper, uh someone who didn't
have to do that will beat you to the to
the deadline, for example, and getting
the paper done. So, so that's what
evolution has done for us. It is
basically hidden
all of reality that we don't need to
know about. Well, the implications of
what you're saying go even deeper
because a desktop interface is built for
us, right? And so we as the agents sort
of using the desktop interface, you
know, the person who built it, you know,
maybe Steve Dwazniaak originally or
something would say it's not adaptive
for a person to know how, you know,
logic gates and and bits work and
semiconductors work. So we're going to
iconize all of this. We're going to
compress these things and abstract all
of this into symbolic logic that a
person can understand. And in reality,
it would work the exact same way. we
wouldn't be able to manipulate root
reality in many cases. For example, like
you said, you know, seeing the
electromagnetic, you know, wave
spectrum, uh, of, you know, photons that
that's not super helpful. You'd want to
iconize the thing. Say say, "Oh, that's
red. I'm bleeding." You know, [laughter]
and then you you can instantly react.
>> Exactly. And the same thing with like
temperature. You don't need to know the
absolute temperature. You just need to
know if it's too hot for me, too cold
for me, or just right for me. That's all
you really need to know. So you it's so
it's really evolution shaped us to have
just the parameters we need, the sensory
inputs we need to make the actions that
will keep us alive long enough to
reproduce. So that's the key thing is
just reproductive fitness. And then
there's one key difference in this
analogy. Uh in the case of you know
desktop computers, you have supply
chains where you have to scale like a
repeatable process and sort of you know
sell the same thing to everybody maybe
with a few variations. In our case there
are infinite numbers of variations when
it comes to our genetics and our
phenotypes. And so we're all sort of
seeing a very different local reality
based on our own kind of idiosyncratic
perceptive apparatus.
>> Absolutely. There are remarkable cases
of that. So, so for example, there are
some men who are diromats. So, they only
have two color photo receptors instead
of the normal three. But even more
interesting are women who are
tetchromats. So, they have four color
receptors, not just the three that would
norm. So, these women actually see
colors that no man could even imagine.
>> No man has ever seen them. No man can
even imagine what these women are are
experiencing. And and so yeah, there are
there's lots of variations in the
headset or in the um you know in the
interface that evolution and and from an
evolutionary point of view, you want to
sort of tinker with the interface. You
you do try things. Um there are you know
people who are sinistites um who
actually blend colors and shapes in ways
that we don't normally do that. And and
so there so this one guy everything that
he tasted uh Wat a guy name Watson I
think everything he tasted with his
mouth he also uh saw things
>> and and he could feel things so he could
he would have a sensory thing with his
hands and so he actually was a great
cook because he had this extra way of
you know relating to the cooking and the
tasting. He didn't just taste it. He
could say, you know, although this thing
has too many dents and bumps in it or
something like that. And and and you
know, maybe that one will that
adaptation will will carry on or maybe
maybe not. But each you it tries a lot
of different things. But but the big
idea is that evolution shapes you to be
successful at reproducing. Period.
And seeing the truth gets in the way.
Having an interface that guides adaptive
behavior is exactly what you need. Now,
I I should say I am by no means the
first to say this kind of thing. I would
tip my hat to a good friend of mine,
Steven Pinker, who wrote a paper um so
how does the mind work in which he makes
this very same kind of point. Um I think
the place where where Steven and I may
differ is I I'm taking it and saying
even what we call physical objects in
space and time, everyday physical
objects there. I think he would disagree
with me. So that would be a fun
conversation. But I'm saying even this
cup is just an icon. It's not there's
nothing about objective reality that
corresponds
directly to a cup. This is this is the
cup to reality is just like the blue
folder on my desktop
>> to the bits in the computer that that
I'm dealing with. So it's that abstract
a relationship. Don't a lot of babies
have synthesia up until six months as
well. Sort of association of colors and
sounds there. There may be some evidence
for that. That's not my areas, but but
yeah, I think there there is some
evidence. Senesthesia does of course
carry on later on for a lot of people.
So, but it it's yeah, it's um I actually
don't know the case for the for for
babies.
>> I don't know if you know about this
phenomena, but um the CIA also studied
psychic spies for 30 years or a little
bit. Yes. officially for 23 years. They
probably are still studying this stuff,
but there was a program called Stargate.
It went under a couple of different
names.
>> Apparently, a lot of the remote viewers
are sinthets as well.
>> Interesting.
>> Yeah. So, I don't know what that means,
but [laughter]
>> that is [clears throat] the mixing of
the senses. Yeah. You have to ask what
what is the evolutionary, for example,
adaptation
good for if you're having sesthesia and
so forth. Also, there are autistic kids
who seem to have all sorts of unusual
abilities as as well, which is again,
you could ask about an evolutionary
account of that, but I haven't actually
looked at that. But they do seem to have
sensory systems that are very different
than than normal people.
>> Yeah, it seems like, yeah, they're these
non-verbal autistic children. seems like
they have different epistemic circuitry
or something or in certain cases maybe
where one sense goes another gets
heightened or something right because
they're non-verbal maybe you know what
we call intuition in the rest of us is
heightened but in fact it doesn't even
it it seems like more than intuition it
seems like a way to gather knowledge
that works around the five senses
>> right
>> you'll put a mother in you know another
room of one of these children, they'll
be blindfolded and in, you know, totally
separate room. You'll have random images
generate on an iPad for the mother. And,
you know, 19 out of 20 times they're
like describing what the mother is
seeing. And from my understanding, I
think some of this stuff has to be done
a little more rigorously if you want to
apply the real, you know, true
scientific method to it.
>> But I also think there's like an
overwhelming amount of anecdotal data
and and there probably is something
there. And it's it's fascinating.
>> It is. I've seen those studies in which
the autistic child who can hardly even
control their body
>> is able to read what's in their mother's
mind. And I've looked at the design of
the experiments and they seemed in
certain cases to be pretty rigorous. And
these kids were not just sort of
guessing the numbers, they were pounding
them out as fast as they could and
getting it exactly right in dozens and
dozens of trials. And so that's the kind
of thing that you that's the kind of
data you have to take quite seriously.
And and you're going to need a pretty
serious theory
outside of the normal space-time physics
kinds of theories, I think, to try to
explain that kind of of non-physical
connection. Well, it seems like a
pattern being disembodied and actually
gaining greater knowledge because of
your disembodiment. So your detachment
from the five senses actually allows you
greater knowledge. A good example being
near-death experiences where people say
that they floated around the room or
like learned certain things that they
couldn't know
>> if they were housed in their body. So,
it's almost like the body
>> is a collapsing function on a greater
state of default higher knowledge.
>> Absolutely. And I'm working on a
mathematical model that predicts
precisely that. So, I've got a a model
we can talk about that I call the
recursive trace logic.
>> Wow. And I just discovered in the last
two or three weeks that it does this
model does predict that embodiment is a
special case that the normal case for
consciousness in this framework is not
to be embodied. So we're we're sort of
stuck in one of the um more rickety
kinds of um interfaces [laughter] the
the more more limit limiting kind of
interface and but the mathematics makes
it very very clear that embodiment is
not at all required for this. In fact
it's it in this mathematics it's measure
zero probability zero. So there the idea
would be that of all the kinds of
consciousnesses that are out there the
ones that have to be embodied are
probability of zero which is which blew
me away and that's just been two or
three weeks ago that I found it in the
mathematics.
>> That's fascinating and it dovetales with
a lot of religious stories around the
quote unquote fall of man. Um
>> yes. [laughter]
Yeah. It's it's it's blown me away. So,
I've only had this this mathematics
for about 3 weeks and it made me rethink
this this whole the whole thing because
why it's very very if you think about it
when you're embodied
>> uh you can't just I mean if I want this
cup
>> to be over there I can't just sort of
sit here and go and make it do that. I
just can't do that. I have to what do I
have to do? There are certain things
that I can control.
Fingers, toes, leg. There's I mean very
very little. If you think about it,
there's very little that I control. My
mouth, my head, my all the things we
call our body. That's it. If I want that
cup to go somewhere, I have to do things
with my hands intelligently
to make that other thing happen.
>> Yeah. And then
so but that's one of the restrictions of
embodiment is that to get things we we
can go to the moon.
>> We can send probes to Mars.
>> But to do that we have to be exceedingly
clever because all to get to the moon
all I can do is move my fingers, my
toes, my arms. That's all I can do. I
have to play with the rest of reality in
such a way that eventually I go to the
moon. I can't just sort of So that's
>> it's low it's low bandwidth and high
latency.
>> That's right.
>> Takes a long time to there's sort of
like an intention and um you know action
translation delay and function
>> and then it's sort of low bandwidth too
because you just have a certain amount
of neurons and you know even the ability
to develop a sophisticated intention.
You know we're seeing LLMs beat us all
the time with things like this. Yeah. So
it's it's very much like giving an
athlete a real handicap.
>> So
So you know, maybe everybody's running a
marathon, but you you you make them run
it with terrible shoes and and uh you
know, back, you know, pack on their back
and so forth. And that's sort of what
embodiment is. It's sort of like you can
play the game of consciousness and and
and and move things around, but you're
so restricted. You have to do it in
these specific ways. So you have to be
very creative. you have to be very very
clever. So it may be you we this is one
of the more restrictive kinds of
interfaces but on the other hand it may
be that that it's a bigger challenge for
consciousness in some sense if I just
want this thing to move and it moves not
much of a challenge if I have to
actually I mean as a baby you have to
actually go through the whole process of
learning that you know I I don't have to
slap my hand in my face with this thing
I can I actually can control this thing
and I can actually move things you have
to learn all this stuff and then learn
that that's all you can do if If I want
that carrot, I actually the carrot just
won't come to me. I have to get the
carrot. I have to figure that all out.
So it's in in some sense our even though
our our kind of interface that requires
embodiment is probability zero in the
set of all possible interfaces. It's one
that really forces a certain kind of
intelligence and a certain kind of
problem solving. So that's an
interesting
look on things that you wouldn't get for
a purely physicist framework. Well, you
realize you're making a very bold claim,
which is you're saying that uh embodied
consciousness, consciousness existing
inside bodies is the exception to the
rule.
>> That's that's what the the mathematics
that I'm working on and I should mention
my my colleagues, you know, Chayan Pash
and Robert Prrenner and Manish Singh and
and uh Manifa Hermanson and others that
that I'm working with. It's this the
work that we're doing. So, it's not just
me. uh is a is a whole group of us that
it and this new trace logic that that
we're working on really it it just when
you look at it and ask okay what what
are bodies how do they appear in this
logic of of experiences
um body embodiment is is very very small
but of course there's a lot to explain
about this whole trace logic because
it's it's a mathematical foundation
that's entirely non-physical it's all
about consciousness so we'll probably
need to go into the notion consciousness
and observation and why we need to start
science there and so forth.
>> I want to get into the trace logic and
sort of flesh that out,
>> but
>> yep,
>> you would also have to say that you'd
expect predictions and and observations
of nonhuman disembodied intelligence
that's disembodied in a way that's
adaptive beyond humans all over the
universe. the universe would be teeming
with life that is more advanced than
humans and also doesn't have you know
traditional bodies. Is that correct?
Yeah. The mathematics seems to indicate
that um again embodiment is the
exception not the rule.
>> Mhm.
>> And that our particular kind of view of
the world the kind of I'll call it a
headset the the the the virtual reality
headset that we're using in for our
embodiment is one of the more trivial
kinds of headsets. So we're we have the
often the opinion of ourselves that
we're pretty much near the top of the
>> food chain
>> food chain here on Earth anyway. It
certainly looks like it for for most of
us and and that we're the most
intelligent things around and so forth.
But when I look at the mathematics of
this trace logic,
it it indicates that our headset is one
of the cheapest Yeah. most restrictive
possible and that there are all sorts of
variations that are far more interesting
and complicated than what we've got.
>> Well, it's interesting. There are 8
million species on Earth and a wild
thought experiment would be how many of
those species think that they're at the
top of the food chain. Some subset must
not think that they are. They have, I'm
sure, predators that seem far more
sophisticated that they see at certain
points in their life and freak out and,
you know, try to avoid all the time. And
others must live in this kind of
solopscistic, you know, thing and they
think they're the most sophisticated.
And so, who are we to say that we're not
just an example of that and that there
are things, you know, going on above our
head in the sort of the dark forest
teaming teeming with life. I completely
agree. If you think about what I see of
an ant, the ant has its life, but it
seems fairly simple to me. And if I
think about
what do I think an ant knows about me?
Almost nothing. Nothing about my
intellectual life, my my friends,
politics, religion, science. I mean,
doesn't know what? No. So, and in in
fact, if I recruit, I could come over,
go like that, and kill it, and it
wouldn't even know that I was about to
do it.
>> So, how much does the ant know about me?
Almost nothing.
>> Yeah. And so, but then I have to ask
myself, well,
what what what would I look like 29?
Maybe I'd look like something
insignificant if I looked at but
something insificant
>> or something cosmological or weather
phenomena or something
>> or just nothing at all. Right.
>> Or nothing. Yeah. Yeah.
>> But now turnabout is fair play. All I
see in my perception is something that
seems fairly trivial to me. It's just an
ant. But that is not necessarily an
insight into reality. That's just a
limitation of my headset.
>> From my headset point of view,
I see something that seems trivial. It's
just an ant. What I could be interacting
with, if I could actually take the
headset off, I might fall down in
amazement before it. Right. So, so it
goes both ways. I the idea that we're
the the biggest thing in town is I out
the window. At least in the mathematics
that I'm doing, not at all. At least our
headset is nowhere near the top. It's
it's it's in fact almost as trivial as
you can be and still have a headset. So
we have one of the more trivial
headsets.
So So I think that
I think all around us the things that
look trivial to us, even inanimate,
>> that's just because the headset is
dumbing things down. on the other side
of the headset. It's it's it's
mind-blowing what's out there.
>> It's compressing the thing in a way
that's adaptive for your own survival.
And that's sort of all you can say about
it.
>> That That's right. That's right. And and
by the way, that aspect, the the
evolutionary argument, I should say
that's not just a handwave, it's a
theorem. In evolutionary game theory,
there are things called fitness payoff
functions. And you can think of them
simply as, you know, maybe there I'm I'm
an organism in a particular state. Maybe
I'm hungry and I'm thinking about
different actions like eating, feeding,
flying, whatever. So a fitness payoff
function says for a given organism, a
state and an action, I'll give you a
number which is your payoff for taking
that action. So maybe it goes from zero
to 100. Zero you didn't you lose 100 is
the most points and effectively these
points are saying how likely it is that
you're going to survive long enough to
reproduce. Okay? So for you to be shaped
by evolution, by natural selection, to
see true structures in the world, the
payoff functions that are guiding your
evolution have to contain information
about the structure of the world. For
example, if there's some kind of metric
structure that you want to know about
the world, if that metric structure is
completely unknown to your payoff
function, there is no way for the payoff
function to tune you to that metric
structure in the world. Or if there's a
topology or if there's, you know, any
kind of structure that you want to think
about, a partial order, if the payoff
function does not know about that
structure, then it can't tune you to the
structure. So there's a nice clean
question that we can ask here for any
particular structures in the world that
you might want to know truthfully have
evolution shape you'd have true
perceptions of those um what is the
probability that your pay you'll have a
payoff function available to you that
would actually be able to do that right
>> so this is a clean mathematical question
the payoff function has to be when I say
has to know the structure technically
means has to be a homorphism of the
structure. So there's a technical way
for but informally it just has to know
about that structure. And so you can ask
what what fraction of the possible
payoff functions
know what you need to know to tune you
to the world are homorphisms of the
structures of the world. And
evolutionary theory evolutionary game
theory does not a priori restrict the
class of payoff functions. It doesn't
say this is the only class of acceptable
payoff function. It just says pick a
payoff function. So we have to say okay
we need to put all payoff functions on
the table. If some genius comes along
and says for principled reasons no we
can we need to restrict only these
payoff functions are the legitimate ones
for evolution we'll deal with that. But
right now the current state of the
scientific theory is any payoff function
is fair game. So you have to if when
you're asking the question in current
evolutionary theory with mathematical
precision what is the probability that
natural selection will shape any sensory
system of any organism to
see some true structure of the world
when you do the math the answer is zero
>> precisely zero exactly zero
>> by the way when we say something that is
probability zero it can happen
infinitely often
So something that's so this is this is a
little technical but it's important.
Something that is probability zero can
happen infinitely often
>> but it's still probability zero. And one
way to think about that very simply is
if you think about just a a unit square.
>> Mhm.
>> And think about the probability of a
region of the square as the area.
>> Right? So if it's a unit square the
whole area is just one. So the the
probability of being in the square is
just one. If I cut it in half and say
left half or right half. Well, now it's
half, right? Because it's only half the
area. But if I draw a little curve
inside the square,
>> well, that curve has zero area, right?
>> Mhm.
>> So, it has zero probability.
>> Mhm.
>> But it has an infinite number of points.
>> So, here's a case of something that
could happen infinitely often, but it
has probability zero. And so it's in
that sense that I'm saying the
probability that evolution has shaped
sensory systems to see any aspect of the
true structure of reality is precisely
zero. No handwave. It's a theorem. So do
we see reality as it is? According to
current evolutionary theory, absolutely
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>> According to current evolutionary
theory, absolutely not. Probability
zero.
>> It's a it's a wild assertion, but it's
also an intuitive one that kind of makes
sense. I think a lot of people listening
might have the question, okay, I'm so
I'm not seeing reality. Like, I'll I'll
take that at face value. That kind of
makes sense. How do we then try to
triangulate and figure out what true
reality actually is? And what do what do
we do with this theory that doesn't just
instill this radical cartisian doubt?
Obviously Decart saying that, you know,
there might be this sort of demon who's
able to control our perception in this
totally 360 way and create the theater
that we see every day. It's a thought
experiment that kind of seems like it
lines up with what you're saying where
in in your case the demon is just, you
know, evolutionary game theory and and
Darwin in his case it was like something
with intent, but it's still it's a it's
a scary thought kind of, you know, one
is this dog eat dog world thing and then
the other is like this maybe scarier
demon thing, but they're both kind of
scary. And so how do we how do we
triangulate what truth is and what the
what you know the actual so this chair
I'm seeing isn't a chair that you're
sitting on um
>> what is it? How do I figure out what it
actually is?
>> Well, I I think we can do it. We have to
be very very careful. Uh this is now
where tools of mathematics are going to
be very important and and very powerful.
But it's it's really important, I think,
first to really understand
the limitations of our own headset
>> and to understand how we don't see
reality as it is. And I'll give you a a
a fun example. It's it's um the jewel
beetle. Um it's it's a beetle out in the
outback of Australia. Um it's dimpled,
glossy, and brown, and the males fly.
The females are flightless.
The males go fly around looking for
females. So this is now, you know,
evolution and reproduction and the whole
thing. So
when a male finds an eligible female, he
elites and mates and that's worked for
who knows, you know, tens of thousands,
who know hundreds of thousands of years.
But so evolution, you might think, has
shaped the male beetles to know what a a
true female is. They know what a female
beetle is. Well, the funny thing is
there are these um beer bottles called
stubbies that are dimpled, glossy, and
brown and apparently just the right
color. So they they some guys, you know,
in Australia drink them, throw them out
into outback and drive off. And the male
jewel beetles flock to these bottles.
They're dimpled, glossy, and just the
right color of brown to grab their
fancy. And they crawl all over these
bottles. So they have full body contact
and they have no idea that this is not a
female. And a lot of women might have
something to say about this, but but
yeah, it's just like so here and the the
real females are of no interest. The
bottle they're they're just so it's the
male attached to the bottle and
forsaking the female for the bottle. And
so you might think, well, what's going
on here? You know, they successfully
made it for thousands of years. What
what's going on? Well, what happened was
evolution gave them a little hack. Not
not the truth. A little hack. A female
is anything dimpled, glossing brown.
Apparently, the bigger the better. And
that's it. That so all you have is a
simple little hack, not the truth. And
that's the kind of thing that we see
over and over again. I' I've consulted
for a lot of clothing companies and and
advertising companies because once you
know the hacks,
>> you can use them in advertising
uh how to grab attention. So I so I know
a lot of the tricks that the visual
system uses the shortcuts.
>> What's an example?
>> So So one one example is work that I've
done with clothing companies um for
jeans.
>> Mhm.
>> Now it turns out the visual system looks
at shading gradients from light to dark
to create a three-dimensional shape.
And certain body shapes are obviously
going to be more attractive than others.
You know, you know, pancake butt
probably not as good as certain other
kinds of shapes. And so when a gene
manufacturer is putting stitching and
distress shading on their genes, they
are telling a three-dimensional story.
The only question is, do you know what
story you're telling? and is it the
story you want to tell? Because the
visual system just is programmed, the
headset is programmed to interpret these
cues as a 3D shape. So once you know how
the headset program works, you can play
with it and and so what happened I
talked with these jeans companies
actually they came to me I didn't come
to them and
because they wanted help and so I told
them you're you are creating a body
shape when a when a person puts on those
jeans and you've put distress on them
you've put stitching on them and so
forth you are telling a story the
question is do you know the story you're
telling and is it the story you want to
tell And and so I remember when I showed
them their jeans, I took a picture of
their jeans and then just changed the
the the shading gradient and changed the
stitching a little bit to give a little
bit more attractive rear end for the
same person wearing it. Right. I
remember the the the CEO, I won't
mention the company, but the CEO of the
company jumping out of his chair, going
up to the screen and and and going, "Our
jeans make my butt look bad." Basically,
and and he looked like he realized
We don't have to do that. We can
actually. So I I we have a little patent
about how to do um the distressing the
right way and to get the stitching
because the stitching the curves in the
stitching just slight variations in it
tell a big big story to the visual
system about the the the the
construction of your body. And that's a
huge cue for that males and females use
in measuring attractiveness, right? a a
man that looks a little bit more buff
looks man with pancake butt not not so
good and and and similarly for you know
for women. So and if you're if you're
bigger than you want to be you can make
yourself smaller. If you're smaller than
you want to be you can you in other
words you can make any story you want
given whatever your body is you can any
story you want.
>> Doesn't this freak you out for the
future? I mean that's it's just this
going to end up in total dystopia
because you have like AI's ability to
synthetically spin up whatever image you
want like a deep fake image that looks
like a person and then you have the you
know hips to waist ratio is exactly this
to make you know the male demographic
you're going after more attracted to the
thing or the you know the butt
flattening thing that [laughter] you're
talking about. You feed all that into AI
and whatever, you know, dystopian
thoughts we had about Edward Bernay's,
you know, Freud's nephew who, you know,
helped create Madison Avenue in modern
advertising. I mean, this is that on
steroids. That's that's right. We we
have the power to do that. And the nice
thing is that of course you can go past
the normal to the supernormal to the
clown,
>> right? So So you have to be at some
point then it gets too much and then all
of a sudden you go, "No, no, no. that
no, this is this is it's no longer
attractive. It's it's it's too supern
normal, but you could get the AI to take
you right up to the max and and and put
it right there. So So yes, that's scary
because again, in a in a world where,
you know, corporations are trying to
already hack your, you know, your
perceptions, your biases that are, you
know, evolutionarily baked in over
thousands of years and you can't really
control. uh you know if if we're like
the the beetle that sees a shiny object
and we're like we need it or whatever.
>> How many times do you think I mean
that's got to be coming, right? Like as
as soon as we we
>> I'm already doing it with with
companies.
>> Well, I think you should spend more time
on your kind of nature of reality stuff,
[laughter]
>> right? Right. No, it's it's um it turns
out that when you study human visual
attention as well, so that we've talked
about human shape and attractiveness. So
there are rules for attractiveness. Once
you understand the rules and then you
can play with them. But there's also
rules for grabbing visual attention.
>> And once you know those rules, I help
companies to have their product on
shelves with all the other products and
you can put certain patterns on your
product such that um there are
>> what's I'll give you an example. Yeah.
Some unconscious unconscious
mechanisms, attention mechanisms that
you can grab people's attention and they
don't even know what's going on. So it
turns out that there
for for natural reasons evolutionarily
we're we have special circuitry to try
to detect animate objects
and for good reason, right? Those are
the one animate objects are the things
that could hurt you.
>> They could kill us.
>> Yeah, they could kill us, right? Or
they're also things you may want to eat.
for example, you might maybe it's a
rabbit or something like that, you know,
not today, but in our past, [laughter]
>> some people today.
>> Some people today. That's right. So, so
it turns out that we have circuitry that
directs attention
to animate objects over other things.
>> If there if you have a big field, the
animate objects will will pop out. And
eyes in particular grab attention.
>> They're a particular feature. And so
what you can do and one what I have done
with companies is you can make something
that's I like.
But not obviously I like. So the the
competition doesn't know that you're
doing it. You put it on your packaging
and as you your eye just goes to that
package. You don't know why. The reason
why is because there's we've tapped into
sub subcortical hardware that's looking
for animate objects like eyes. We we
grabbed that grabbed your attention and
there's not a literal eye there, but we
know how to grab your attention anyway
with it with that eye program. And so
you see you see that kind. So that's
that's the kind of level that that you
can take the understanding of evolution
once you understand the evolutionary
mechanisms, how they're wired into your
brain, your attention system, your
attractiveness system, then you can play
the system. Have you ever seen CBS's
logo?
>> Not recently.
>> It's big eye.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Big eye. Well, yeah. Right.
Right. Right.
>> It's adaptive for you to know that
you're being watched. There's even a
term called scopesthesia where
statistically it feels like people do
know that they're being watched. We were
talking about Rupert Sheldrake before we
started rolling.
>> Yes. Right.
>> And so that's fascinating.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Seen from behind. Yeah. That's now
that's a very different thing than what
I'm talking about. Right. This is this
is literally an image an abstract image
of an eye whereas Rert's talking about
being having the sense of being stared
at. Um
>> yeah and that in his case it could be
through like you know video camera or
like you know it doesn't necessarily
need to be an eye but it would make
conventional prosaic sense in
evolutionary biology that if you see an
eye you're going to take notice because
if you're if you're being watched
obviously that has all sorts of
implications if you're predator or prey.
>> That's right. And it extends to bodies.
So fingers and bodily shapes. So all of
these things can be used cleverly and
and subtly to move attention around.
It's it's quite quite remarkable.
Fascinating. So So like you're inserting
animate objects basically in the
advertising and then if you're a person
walking around, you're like, "Oh my
god." And you but but if you do it
subtly, then you you'll still grab their
attention and they won't know why they
look there. But you and it probably
won't even if you if you're really good
at it, it won't even grab make them
think twice. Oh, I'm just looking at
that because I chose to. No, you didn't
choose to. We we we chose to make you
look there.
>> That's wild. Yeah.
>> Let's move into more aspirational
territory. [laughter]
So uh you're saying that you have
mathematically proven that we are
actually like a lowgrade interface when
it comes to consciousness and it would
probably be adaptive to have to be
disembodied and that most of the
universe is probably teeming with
disembodied disincarnate life. Is that
roughly right?
>> Yes. But there's a long way to go to
explain that because that that as you
the claim is true but there's a lot to
to go to explain what's what's going on
there. So
first we have to think about the current
state of science
>> right now our best scientific theories
are physicalist theories. We assume that
space and time are fundamental.
uh you know Einstein's general theory of
relativity [clears throat] and that um
objects inside space and time are
fundamental particles quantum fields
and
in in that framework
um
what I just you what you said wouldn't
wouldn't hold right but what's what what
we have to do then is look at the
current scientific framework and there's
a problem with it the problem is the
nature of observation
So one of the biggest problems in
quantum theory is is the so-called
measurement problem. And the problem
there is um
evolution of states of systems seems to
follow one rule the Schroinger
revolution when you're not looking and a
different rule when you look the
so-called collapse. The the act of
observing a system somehow seems to be
important in in the evolution that you
see. So shorting revolution when you're
not looking collapse when you look
there's no that that idea has been
around for literally a century a century
>> yeah literally I think it was literally
1927 or something
>> yeah 1926 was Schroinger so 1926
Schroinger revolution I think 25 for
Heisenberg's but but
>> right
>> so it's been about a century and there
is no satisfactory solution
to this so-called measurement problem in
quantum. There are proposals but none
universally
accepted and all of them have serious
problems and I'm happy to talk about
them and and their problems but
>> well even the Copenhagen interpretation
is so it's just saying that the
measurement like collapses the you know
the wave function into an ien state or
whatever. What does that mean? And and
it I I always find it so interesting
that you have these like pop quantum
physics people now like you know Sean
Carroll who by the way I'm you know big
fan of his books. I think he's amazing.
But um these you know Neil deGrasse
Tyson some of these people will like
definitively say things like oh when
particles collide they collapse into an
ien state or the you know uh the quantum
detector is what's collapsing the wave
function into an igen state. And I I
think it's totally unfalsifiable. What
if the superp position of the
observation exists in the quantum
detector and then your interface, your
conscious interface is collapsing that?
Like we can't say that definitively.
There's no way to to to know exactly
what's collapsing the wave function. So
it's it's all faith-based assertions.
Well, and and the the key problem at the
core of this whole issue is that we
don't have a notion of an observer and
the process of observation.
>> That's what's missing. And if you think
about it, that's not a minor point.
>> What is science? Science is
the systematic
gathering of data through observations.
We call them experiments. We
systematically observe the world and
then based on our observations, we write
down mathematical theories about what we
think are the structures of the world.
And we hope that somehow it's legitimate
to think that our observations
give us the kind of information that we
would need to write down
useful, perhaps accurate theories about
the structure of the world. But for this
whole thing to work,
observation has to somehow genuinely
inform our theories of the world. So the
question is how what is observation? Why
should we believe that human
observations will genuinely give us the
kind of data we need to come up with
legitimate theories about the world?
That's a non-trivial question. And to
date, science cannot answer that
question. So what we have is this really
interesting situation where we know that
observers are not unimportant. They're
central and we don't have a theory.
>> They're unreovable.
>> They're unremovable. Without observers,
there is no science and there's no
reason to believe our theories. and our
theories.
>> But but that's not the current the
current paradigm is that we live in this
materialist reductionist world where our
consciousness and we are happy accidents
of atoms that happen stance bounced off
of one another and coalesed into like
these conscious agents or whatever this
emergence is this popular term today,
right? And so what what we'd have to do
then for in that story, what you have to
do is to show how that account could
still lead to some notion of an observer
that could give you data that would
legitimately constrain theories about
the nature of reality. And no one has
done that yet. That's just there's no
accepted theory. So there's the
measurement problem in quantum
mechanics. And then there's also the the
the the problem in you know studying
just human observations, right? where
we're trying to say, okay, human
observations like I'm I'm observing that
I'm tasting water or something like
that. So that that's an observation. I'm
tasting water. And we're trying to come
up with okay, a physiological
description of the brain and brain
activity that would be um that would
give me the necessary and sufficient
conditions to say that was an
observation of Hoffman drinking water.
That was Hoffman observing drinking
water. that we've been at this for for
decades. actually longer than that, but
seriously for several decades trying to
understand how we could explain human
observations like colors,
>> tastes, smells, human observations uh in
terms of either um functional properties
of of some kind of network, you know,
computer network or or whatever or or
neural network properties of the human
brain or something like that or or
microtubules, you know, collapsing of
microtubules or or you know, integrated
information patterns and so forth. We've
been trying to give a theory about
observation. And I know the the people
who are doing that, they're brilliant.
They're my friends. We're buddies. Um,
and there's not a single specific
observation that they can account for
like the taste of mint or the smell of,
you know, chocolate or something like
that.
>> So, you're trying to apply math to
literal human experience.
>> That's right. Because that's the
foundation of science. If if we do not
have a a human observation, we have no
data for scientific theories.
>> Not only that, but you have collapse of
the quantum wave function. There's no
way to even know which iigen state,
which particular state gets picked.
That's all based on probabilities,
>> right?
>> And so that there's no way to predict,
you know, let alone like some subjective
experience of water or like a, you know,
seeing a color or an animal or whatever
like that feels like way above our pay
grade. We don't even know about like the
position and momentum of an atom or a
subatomic particle, an electron or
something that I I completely agree and
and I should point out that what I'm
saying here is prior to the issue of
consciousness.
>> So there are colleagues of mine who say
that you conscious experiences are an
illusion. It's you know they're they're
a construct of the brain. Um,
and that's perfectly fine if you want to
say that. That's perfectly fine with me.
Um, there's the, um, attention schema
theory, for example, that that says
this. [clears throat]
But then the question is, okay, we're
interested in science, not just hand
waves. So I want a specific
mathematically precise attention schema
for the illusion
>> of the taste of chocolate or the
illusion of um the smell of chocolate or
whatever it might be. So so I I'm I'm
I'm a hard no scientist. I want to
understand the foundations of
observation because it's the foundation
of science and call it call the forget
consciousness just call them you know
consciousness is an illusion fine I
still need to understand how
observations work. So how exactly does
the illusion get done? And the answer is
there is zero on the table. There is not
a single scientific theory about the
illusion of of mint or the taste of
chocolate.
>> So how so we're nowhere on this is
really it's stunning. Here it is 2026
>> and we have no theory
>> of observation and observation is the
foundation of everything that we can do
in science. And what we need is a theory
of observation that's not only precise
but that gives us that will lead to
theories that say that our understanding
of observation g does the right thing
because we need coherence right whatever
our story about observation is it has to
be coherent and say that oh yeah this
theory does allow that that observation
gave you legitimate data to build the
theory.
>> So how do you think observation works?
So I I think that if we start inside a
physicalist framework, we're not going
to we're not going to close that loop.
>> I think for a couple reasons, but I
think there's logical problems, but but
also I I know the players in the field,
they're brilliant.
>> I mean, they're they're really
brilliant. These are smart smart people.
>> Um they're coming up empty.
>> I when I try to do it, I come up
completely empty. I I just think it's
it's not going going to work.
Someone can easily prove me wrong
>> by giving one, but right now there's
nothing on the table.
>> I I think we're in the stone age on it.
I don't see how [clears throat] with
math which is so primitive how you could
ever come to encapsulate something so
kind of visceral and I'm not using
multi-dimensional in a scientific way
but multi-dimensional as like just
experience everyday experience
seems to you know it's even like think
about neuroscience you know which
obviously you're well verssed in you
have these disperate pathways of you
know speech and reading comprehension
and you know uh auditory listening and
then you have this binding problem and
so that that's even like that's even you
can barely explain the pathways with
math. You can't [laughter]
>> right.
>> So then then why can then we can't we
have the binding problem where we can't
explain the seamless perception of
experience. So you know at an even lower
level like you know how can we explain
everyday experience with math? I just
think we're you know going to be in the
dark for a long time there
>> right? And so there there are two
problems I think you're pointing to
here. One is that the math could be very
very complicated. The neuroscience is
very very complicated. So so maybe you
know that complexity itself is just
standing in the way.
>> But and I agree. But I think in addition
there there is a principled problem. I
think that that you if you don't start
with observation
you're not going to get it out of your
theory. Now this is something that
Livinets suggested back in 1700.
He had this monodology and and
Linus proposed that the fundamental
furniture of the universe are these
monads which were were observing
entities.
>> And so there were a bunch of these
different kinds of observers and they
were all linked together with what he
called a pre-established harmony.
>> So so there was observation and then
there was some structure binding all
these observers together. Um but we
didn't really have the math. I mean we
had Newton's math we could do you know
time evolution theories you and
differential equations and so forth so
we we did what we could linen had this
idea but he didn't have he had the math
that could do the I'm sorry the Newton
kind of thing but he couldn't you know
they didn't have the math the
probabilistic math that we really needed
to do his his thing and more recently
you know John Wheeler uh very very
famous physicist
worked on gravity black he invented the
term black hole he was you know
fineman's is Richard Feman's adviser. He
was, you know, in the who's who of of of
physics. He came to the realization
later in his career that somehow we had
to start with what he called observer
participants
>> that somehow the observer was really a
critical notion that we were missing.
And he felt that once we got that notion
down, got it really rigorous, that we
could then build up our our our physics
from that. And so, and I agree with
Wheeler. I I think that so he had this
very famous paper in 1989. It's called
the it from bit paper in formerly the it
from bit that somehow it it's
information of some kind that you get
from observation that's going to be used
to construct what we call the physical
world and I think that he's on to
something and I've been pursuing the
very very same thing. So I've been
looking for 40 years for a mathematical
model of the observer as foundational.
Actually know Wheeler cited my work in
his his it from bit paper
>> really.
>> So I've got a book called so I've been
after this. So this is not a new gig for
me. I've been I published a book in 1989
called observer mechanics with uh Bruce
Bennett and Chaitan Posh two
mathematicians. And so I, you know, I've
been after this observer thing, not just
this last week or two. It's been 45
years I've been after it. And so Wheeler
cited that book as an example of the
kind of thing to to start to pursue. And
then I've I've been I've continued to
pursue it because it's it's a a deep
problem.
>> And now I just in the last two years,
you know, so it's not like we've just
started, but in the last two years,
we've really had a breakthrough that I
can tell you about where we start with
the notion of observer. we can make it
rigorous and then we can start to ask
how do we build spacetime as a headset
and then start to explain all these
other weird phenomena that we were
talking about earlier.
>> Well, I want to get into that [laughter]
to tell me about it.
>> Right. So, so the basic idea is very
very simple.
What's the what's the simplest idea that
you could possibly have about an
observer? Well, an observer has certain
outcomes, experiences that he could have
like maybe red, green, and blue. Just to
be very, very simple. I'm at a traffic
light. So, red, green, and yellow. Say
red, green, and yellow. That's those are
my experiences. And then, so there's a
list of the experiences. For humans,
it's in the trillions. We have trillions
of experiences that we could have, but
but we don't we can think about simple
observers that have, you know, three.
And then the other thing is to say they
change. I'm seeing red now. I'm at the
traffic light. I I might see green a
second from now. And then after that I
might see yellow in a in a in a minute
or something. So there are experiences
and then they change. Those are my
that's it. That's all I want to assume.
And the question is what is the most
sort of simple general mathematical
thing that you could write down to just
say there are experiences that change is
something called a marov matrix. And
it's just literally um you write down a
matrix of numbers. If I see red now,
what's the probability that I'll see red
at the next instant
>> or green or yellow?
>> So three numbers and they have to add up
to one because it's a probability. Then
the next row is if I'm seeing
red now, sorry, yellow, yellow now,
what's the probability of seeing, you
know, red, green, and yellow and so
forth. You just know 3x3 matrix of of
numbers. That's it.
And that's going to be our theory of
observation that there are so there are
millions of different matrices countless
matrices each one I'm thinking about the
states of the matrix as as observer
outcomes or experiences you can think
about as conscious experiences if you
wish or if you don't believe in
consciousness you can just say observer
outcomes whichever you know the
mathematics doesn't care what what
you're going to say on that I personally
think about them as conscious
experiences and we can talk about why
but someone who doesn't want to do that
the math is just the math. And then the
idea is that you can just do one little
addition to the matrix that's standard
in mathematics has been done for many
many decades which is to just add an
encounter. So every time my experience
updates my counter increments
not one experience two experiences three
just that drop deadad simple just I'm
counting the number of experiences that
I have one after the other. That's we'll
call those enhanced markoff chains. So
now suppose I have a big
well I'll keep it simple my little 3x3
markoff chain red green and yellow. I'm
at the traffic light.
What is but suppose that um for some
reason I'm I put on glasses that don't
let me see yellow. I can only see red
and green.
>> That's all I can see. Well so I'm still
sitting at the same traffic light but I
can only see red and green. I can't see
the yellow anymore.
um I'm going to get a certain pattern of
red and green transitions that that is
induced by the red, green and yellow
trans transition. Right? So it won't be
the probability of going from red to
green now with just you know with these
glasses on is going to be slightly
different than red to green when I had
because yellow could have happened in
there between as well. Right? So now the
the the probabilities are going to be a
little bit different but they're going
to be determined by the bigger matrix.
Right? So the 3x3 matrix has the numbers
that tell you what's happening. If I can
only see the red and green subset, I
will get a new matrix and it'll be
slightly different um because I can't
see the yellow one, but it will be a
unique matrix. Okay, that's called the
trace. So this is just a standard idea
in marov chain theory that you goes back
many many decades. It's not me. It's a a
beautiful formula that's been known um
and I can if we want to get into the
weeds we can actually do the formula.
It's a really interesting formula but
there's a mathematical formula called
the trace
that's been known. So that's no not
news. It's the zero surprise description
of what you will see.
So I have if I if this big matrix is
what's governing the the reality so to
speak and I can only see this sub window
then the trace is the zero surprise
correct answer of what you're going to
see you will not be surprised that is
the frequency those are the frequencies
that you will see what I discovered two
years ago was that the relationship of
being a trace
gives a logic on the set of all markoff
chains that was that was the
mind-blowing
discovery and it was what was stunning
to me is it was so simple and no one had
ever done it before and I I so I took it
I'm not a mathematician I know enough
math to get into trouble and not enough
to get out but I'm working with
mathematicians like Jayton Posash and
and and others that can get me out of
trouble so I took it to Jayton I said
look Jayton I think this thing is a
logic technically a partial order and he
said Don it's too pretty to be true and
he had to fly somewhere So he got to
Heathrow and decided to check it and he
proved it. It it's a partial order. So
what what we have is that this operation
of minimal surprise windows. So I have a
big I have all these marov windows and I
can ask what are the the no surprise sub
windows
that turns into a logic. You can talk
about the and the or the negation the
the meet and the join and so forth. Um,
[gasps]
it turns out the logic is not boolean.
It's a non it's a very non-trivial
non-bullan logic, but it's locally
boolean. If I pick any matrix and look
at all it of its sub matrices
in the trace,
they form a boolean logic. So it's
>> to the non-computer scientists boolean,
>> right? Right. So for computer scientists
boolean is is you know very very obvious
but a boolean logic is in some sense the
simplest logic. You can take two
elements and take if you if I have two
elements I can take their union. So I
can take an element which is their
union.
>> Mhm.
>> Um and I can also take their
intersection. I can find an element
which is you know you know in both in
both of them
>> and I can take the negation. I could say
what's not you know what's the the
outside of this this element. So boolean
logic is at the foundation of a lot of
of classical computing um stuff. So the
thing this logic is locally boolean um
is globally non-bullan
and it so the idea then I'll connect it
with livveness first a little bit. The
idea here is that each matrix
>> is an observer window.
>> It's a way of seeing.
>> And so it's a monad in livveness's
terminology. And the trace logic is the
pre-established harmony.
>> That's that ties them all together. That
show the logic of the whole set of
observer windows. Now these matrices can
get as big as you want. They can go to a
trillion
off to infinity in any direction and so
there's there's no top to this. There's
so it's it's an incredibly complicated
logic. So if you just make allow the
matrix get as big as as you want. The
entries can change anyway. Every
possible arrangement of entries as long
as the each row sums to one it counts.
So this is a huge huge space of
observers and the and the single logic
that ties them all together that says
this is the no surprise logic of all
observation. So these this gives you all
possible observations and the no
surprise logic and we're still we still
don't understand all the details of this
logic. It's we don't have a general
formula for the the union the join. We
can we've chon has a um formula in
special cases where we can compute the
join. We don't have a general formula
for the joint. We don't actually have a
theorem yet that you can actually write
down the general formula for the joint.
So it's going to be really so there's
some interesting open mathematical
problems here. Now that's so that's but
now we can take it one more step. Those
are just observer windows. There's no
notion of agency yet
for agency. We can step back and say
what would it mean? What would an agent
want to do? Well, it would one thing an
agent would want to do is if I'm looking
through this observer window, maybe I
want to look through a bigger one or a
smaller one or just a different one, I
want to change my observer windows. So,
how would I do that? Well, I would want
to write down uh another matrix where it
says if I'm looking at this observer
window, what's the probability that I'll
go to that one or that one or that one?
Or if I'm looking at this observer
window, what? So, what am I going to do?
I'm going to write down another markoff
matrix. So I'll have another. So I've
got this trace logic of observer
windows. It's infinite. It's huge. Now
I'm stepping outside of it and I'm
putting a new kind of markov chain on
top of the whole trace logic. Right? I'm
now walking around on the trace logic of
observer windows. So there's a trace
trace logic of observer windows. I can
now step I'm going to go meta now. I'm
stepping outside of that. I'm walking
around on those windows,
>> right? And I'm and I'm how do I do it? I
use Markoff chains to walk around on
those windows. Each way that I could
walk around is a what I'll call a
policy. It's it's an agent policy. A
very simple one, but a policy. I can
look now at the collection of all
policies. They're all of and they have a
logic that ties them all together. What
is that logic? It's the trace logic
again. Recursion. So now I have the
trace logic of policies and now I can
say I I I want to go meta again. I can
now crawl around. I had this policy. Now
I want to change this policy. I'm going
to crawl around the windows this way. So
I can have meta policies. So what I can
do and and the meta policies will then
have their own trace logic and this goes
off. So the notion of agency can be
built out recursively as complicated as
you want. So and the whole thing comes
down to there are observer there are
observers with with things that they can
see
they change
that means there's a logic if you write
it down markup chain means there's there
is a logic we just discovered there is a
logic you then crawl around on the logic
that means you now have agency it has
its own trace logic so the whole thing
comes down to markoff chains and the
trace logic recursion that's itmm It
couldn't be simpler. It's it's
unbelievably simple. And you you
recursively build out this notion of
agency. And now the magic starts
happening because when you take a trace,
if I have a big window and you're only
looking at a sub window, there is in in
terms of the little window, there's
stuff going on outside that the little
window doesn't see,
>> but it's all coordinated because of this
trace logic. And so magic can happen
outside there. So
notice what happens with the time
counters. If I've got a bigger window,
say the go back to our red, green, and
yellow. Every time red, green, or yellow
changes, my counter goes. If I only see
red and green, my counter isn't going to
change as fast because I'm not seeing
the yellow. So all the yellow counts
that the bigger guy has, I'm not getting
with my red green guy. He only sees red
and green. So his counter is going
slower. That will lead to time dilation
in special relativity. Really?
>> And general relativity. Exactly. It
leads right to that. It predicts that.
So, so the idea and we're working on
this. So, this is where my team is
working on
>> observer dependent time dilation
>> completely. So, that's where it comes
from. It comes that's what that's the
claim.
>> Wow. And when you when you look at how
do you get distance
>> the distance comes from how roughly if I
start at red what's you know how quickly
do I get to green how quickly do I get
to yellow it's sort of a diffusion how
you know if I'm at red do I get to green
really quickly do I get to yellow very
quickly especially you have a bigger
matrix when you have thousands and
thousands of states you maybe there's
lots of places to go how quickly do I
get to do I diffuse is there's something
called dirishlay forms that come out of
this. You can but but the basic idea is
the speed at which you get from one
state to another or the way the the way
you diffuse gives you a distance and
when you when you have a bigger matrix
and then you take a smaller trace the
distances get smaller.
>> So you get you get not only time deation
you get length contraction from this. So
you get so the idea is and this is we're
working on on on proving that we can
actually get special and general
relativity exactly as um headset
representations of this trace logic. M
so that that's that's going to be but
then we have this whole notion of that
there's going to be hidden stuff right
you I'm not the top observer right none
of us are you know my headset is just a
headset there are bigger matrices out
there that means that if someone is
working with a bigger matrix and I'm
just a submatrix of what they're doing
they can do magic they can do things
that look like magic to me yes
>> it's completely legitimate in in in
their framework work. But in my
framework, um, for example, something
that in my framework looks instantaneous
could be a million years in their
framework. So this is when we get to the
UAP kind of stuff where, right, you
know, the
the craft seems to be here and then it
goes Mach 40 instantly and gets over
there. And to me, it's like it happened
like who knows in their headset. It may
have been a very leisurely movement
because I'm only seeing a trace. My
counter is only going very, very slow.
compared to their counters. So, I mean,
I'm a play thing perhaps to them because
it's sort of like the the me and the
ant. Me the I I can take my time. If I
if I want to, you know, smash the ant,
no rush. I got plenty of time. The ant
doesn't know I'm coming, I can do it.
So, as soon as you have a bigger matrix
and someone's just a trace,
>> you can play with them. That's the
interesting thing here that So, all of a
sudden, this opens up all sorts of
windows for exploration. Well, it makes
me think that maybe, you know, on some
local level, it might be adaptive not to
see the truth because, you know, fitness
beats perception and all these sort of
local evolutionary game theory kind of,
you know, dynamics. But if you're
talking about observer windows as
basically your ability to see reality,
if like the you know the larger your
matrix, the larger the bigger reality
you're seeing on some meta level, it is
adaptive to see as much truth as
possible, especially if you know you're
the aliens and you can just like play
with us little humans. That that's that
that's right. So yeah, there is so you
you might want to have a policy in which
you go are going to bigger and bigger
windows. The the problem is there's
never a top here. That's the the there
is no top to this trace logic. There is
no such thing as the biggest window.
>> So it's an infinitely kind of scale of
consciousness. That's right. This is
saying consciousness goes off to
infinity not in just one direction in an
infinite number of different directions.
>> So you can't even think big enough about
this. Consciousness is far more from the
trace logic is saying
consciousness is incredibly complicated
and no matter how big you think you are,
there's no way that you're the top.
>> Yeah.
>> Any headset that you're wearing is
trivial compared to literally trivial.
Any headset that you're wearing is
trivial compared to what's available.
>> Yeah. It's interesting. Um Sam Alman of
Open AI I think he had a tweet and it
was like uh physics is a product or he
said it was something like intelligence
is a product of physics and I wanted to
flip it and say physics is a product of
intelligence and I think you would agree
with me.
>> Well absolutely. So physics, our our
current space-time physics is one of the
more trivial headsets that you can build
out of the trace logic.
>> And a lot in physics points to this idea
that we are computationally sort of uh
processing it and uh Wheeler would talk
about this. So he was big on the
enthropic principle. Not only it from
bit, which is basically if you take that
one logical step further. It's sort of
like we're computing reality. I mean
that's if you're using computer science
as an analogy, you don't have to go all
the way to like wolf physics to say that
like you know he might have some
information theory adjacent ideas about
physics itself. But he would also talk
about the enthropic principle of which
there are you know variations the weak
and the strong. But why is you know why
is the plank length and plank scale the
way it is? Why um you know uh uh does
hydrogen and oxygen bond in this perfect
way where normally you know solids are
more dense than the liquid form of you
know any sort of substance and in our
case and you know and the earth would
flood a million times over if if that
were the case with us. But in ice with
water with H2O you know it it forms
these perfect crystal lattice
structures. So the ice floats above the
water. Uh, you know, if gravity were
slightly different, you know, we
wouldn't have our, you know, our Earth
the way it is. So it it feels like you
could you could have two different, you
know, sort of conclusions based on that.
One is we like rolled the dice a million
different times and we got this really
lucky with Earth. Like it's this
Goldilocks principle. Or you could say
that physics itself is just our
interface. And you know, the reason
these constants, these physics constants
are so perfect is because they're
actually derivative of our own
consciousness, right?
>> Which that that makes way more sense to
me. And it make it's the AAM's razor
explanation. There are other things in
physics like Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle which point to this as well
where you know if you can't measure
position and momentum at the same time
simultaneously that almost looks like a
computational caching function like you
can only store so much information in
local memory. You also have the Shell
Drake observations which we both agreed
before we were rolling we might have
problems with the Shell Drake theory but
as an empirical you know experimentalist
I think he's very strong and all of his
stuff points you know you'll grow a
crystal lattice structure in a petri
dish and it takes a long time to grow
the first time and then it grows much
much faster after you've grown it that
first time which to me points to sort of
it you know in computer science again
you have a central Onad in in this case
it would be the server and then you'd
have different observational nodes and
so it would take a long a long time to
upload information longer than it would
to download it thereafter. Upload times
are always longer than download times.
So you can go on and on. You talk about
golden ratios and Fibonacci sequences.
what if that those are sort of the code
chunks of you know our reality so to
speak and the simulation theory thing
just gets more and more charismatic and
it's impossible to argue with and I you
know I'm not a huge fan of Nick Boston
to be honest but his arguments around
the simulation theory are impossible to
argue you can't really say for certain
that this is base reality so so this is
really interesting because it's an
update that actually discusses
uh heristic
that will allow you to predict human
observation observations. I think a lot
of people, you know, listening to what
you just said about the red, green,
blue, you know, example with the traffic
lights might be thinking, okay, Don,
that's a very narrow rule set. How do we
get to, you know, like I'm tasting a
hamburger. It's like this 360 sensory
experience. How do you get how do you
build a Markoff matrix that really
encapsulates that?
>> Right. So yeah, you've raised a lot of
interesting points there. I I'll one of
them about the computational aspect of
this.
Markoff chains are computationally
universal. Anything that you can do with
a universal touring machine, you can do
with Markoff chains. So there's no
restriction on with Markoff chains. So
and and in fact, I think that they're
beyond just computational.
One interesting thing to explore here is
that the trace logic
on markoff chains
um therefore induces a logic on
algorithms
right and it's a new logic on algorithms
I'm starting to explore it so this may
be a new contribution to the theory of
computation that there is a logic and
it's a very interesting logic um so the
trace logic on markoff chains when you
think about markoff chains as algorithms
it induces a logic on algorithms
that gives us a new aspect of of the
theory of computation that's going to be
very very interesting. So so Wolfram's
computational approach is subsumed
within the marov chain approach. Um
in fact any any computational approach
is is subsumed in it also when you get
one objection to this Markov thing you
said it's too simple and we need to go
more complicated. Absolutely a lot of
people will say it's too simple. So for
example one one objection has been
uh look qualia or or conscious
experiences are private
uh I can't you can't know my experience
of green and I can't know your
experience of green directly I can guess
but I can't know and and so people some
people say well in quantum theory we
have um the no cloning theorem so that
the if you have a quantum state it can't
be cloned and lot of people say well we
need that right you to to to get this
privacy of qualia kind of thing going on
here, we need to have the notion we need
to at least go to the quantum level
because we have this no cloning theorem,
right? To to to to model that. Well, it
turns out if you look more closely at
the no cloning theorem and quantum
theory, um it doesn't determine it's not
it does not depend on the unitarity of
the Schroing or evolution. It's only
linearity. That's all you need is
linearity. Markov operators are linear.
And it turns out the Markov if you're if
you're interested in the no cloning
theorem and have you think that has
something to do with consciousness
markoff chains have the no cloning
theorem too. So that's that's not that's
not nothing to dismiss. Now
another thing in quantum theory is
people will say well still Markoff
chains aren't unitary. I mean some of
them are but most of them aren't. And so
you have all this weird behavior in
quantum theory that you don't have in
markoff chains. So what are you talking
about here is
>> when you say not unitary
>> so so unitary effectively the in quantum
theory shinger's equation it runs the
same forward and backwards in time
basically so it's it's it's it's time
reversible so to speak whereas for
example the problem with measurement is
that that's not time reversible once you
collapse you know going from the short
revolution to I got this particular
experience that you that's not
reversible that's That's an irreversible
collapse. So that's been the problem
that you in in in quantum theory.
If you
say that every physical system
is governed by the Schroinger revolution
and mo most
um most would say that right that every
physical system is governed by the
Schroinger revolution.
Now I want a physical system that
collapses the wave function and namely a
physical system that observes that makes
a measurement. Well, there's no physical
system governed by the shortinger
equation that can do that. So that's the
problem. The observation problem is we
have no way of saying a physical system
can do this.
>> Right? That's the that's the real
serious problem that we've got there.
And
when you go then to
attempts to deal with this.
>> So when you say there is no physical
system that
>> because every physical system is
governed by the Schroinger revolution.
Therefore it can't collapse the wave
function. Now someone will say well you
know Don [clears throat] you you've let
go of decoherence. I mean you've
forgotten about decoherence right? If
you you can decoare decohare things and
and and go go classical and
[clears throat] decoherence does not
actually lead to the collapse. So
decoherence will lead you it will get
rid of the interference
>> but it will not give you a single
outcome. It will give you um a paniply
of outcomes but not a single outcome. So
decoherence does not actually solve the
measurement problem.
>> It does get rid of the interference but
that's but not doesn't give you the
outcome. So right now that's been the
the big problem.
>> So what you're saying is it's it's
fundamentally observation.
>> The observation cannot be captured by
any system that's governed by the
shorter equation and it cannot be
captured by decoherence.
And that means
>> yeah the only person who would try to
really attempt to solve this is the
Penrose Hamarov the idea that
decoherence occurs in the brain at the
sort of one graviton limit and this
there's a space-time superp position
buildup and then you get the collapse or
whatever like the brain is some physical
quantum you know system or whatever.
Well, yeah, I'm good friends with
Hamarof and and the I think it's a
really interesting idea. Of course, you
know, Penrose's physics is unassalable.
I mean, he's he's he's a genius, but in
terms of his application here,
>> uh
I don't think it's going to work because
what you have is still they're not
proposing a theory of the collapse. They
don't know how the collapse happens.
That they're just going to say that the
collapse happens. That's that's a
miracle. the and
>> things like the tubulin are vibrating
you know a lot and then in the
microtubules and then there's some sort
of you know
>> that that's right the the tubulant
molecule has c certain properties that
allow collapse to happen but but but
they still don't you know have any
>> physical system to do the collapse it's
it's just
>> a raw plane that it collapses
>> it's just some refractory period of
space-time superp position buildup which
allows for free will and then somehow
collapse yeah Basically from my my view
is that you know um there's two miracles
here. There's you know the collapse is a
miracle and consciousness is a miracle.
Let's call them the same thing.
>> Right.
>> That's that's but fair enough. Yeah.
>> And and and I'm good friends with Stuart
and when I ask him you Stuart okay you
know quantum states of microtubules and
their collapse gives us conscious
experiences. Okay. Well give me one.
What's the orchestrated collapse of
quantum states that must be the taste of
chocolate or the illusion of the taste
of chocolate. If someone wants to say, I
I'm not interested in the hard problem
of consciousness. Fine,
>> forget the hard problem of
consciousness. I want the illusion of
the taste of chocolate or the illusion
and there's nothing on the table.
>> So, so again, [clears throat] if they
put something on the table,
>> that's a different story. But there's
nothing on the table.
>> You with your Markoff matrixes, you can
predict subjective experience as radical
as tasting chocolate. Well, so so I'm
changing the game. Okay.
>> So, so what I'm doing is is I'm saying
instead of assuming that the fundamental
reality is non-concious,
>> non perceptual, it's a physical world.
Let's start with a different set of
assumptions. Let's just take the taste
of mint, the smell of garlic, the
feeling of a headache as the primitives.
See, every scientific theory starts with
assumptions.
>> This is really important point. This is
basic, but it's really important.
A lot of scientists miss a key point
here. Every scientific theory says
please grant me these assumptions like
Einstein. Grant me that
the speed of light is the same in all
reference frames
>> and the laws of physics are the same in
all inertial frames.
>> If you grant me that then I can give you
special relativity and and with other
assumptions I can give you general
relativity.
So every theory starts with assumptions
and then if you grant those assumptions
it says I can explain all this other
wonderful stuff.
What a theory never does is explain its
own assumptions. It assumes them.
>> Mhm.
>> So there that theory if you give me a
theory I can tell you that theory isn't
a theory of everything because it's not
a theory of its own assumptions. It it's
assuming its assumptions. You say oh
that's no problem. I'll give you a
deeper theory eventually
>> that explains those assumptions.
Absolutely. That's that's what science
is about. I'm all for it. and your new
theory will have its own assumptions.
>> And so this goes on at infinitum
forever. There is no such thing as a
theory of everything in science. And in
fact, we are going to be always 0% of
the way to a theory of everything. So
I'm a scientist. I love science. And
science by its very nature will get 0%
of reality
>> because every scientific theory starts
with assumptions. So humility is
absolutely essential when we do science.
Now when we have a scientific theory,
when we write down our assumptions,
we do not need to assume that our
assumptions are true. If we did,
we'd be we stuck. All we need to do is
assume that our assumptions are
consistent.
And given that then we can look at all
the things that follow consistently from
our assumptions. So that's what science
assumes. Says grant me these
assumptions. Uh I believe they're
consistent. You can check me but I think
these assumptions are consistent. Given
that they're consistent there's this
realm of explanation. Not it's not
universal. It's 0% of reality. But it
had there is a scope of explanation if
it's a good theory. And so you can then
say let's explore the scope of this
theory. A good theory will give you the
mathematical tools you need to explore
its scope.
A great scientific theory will give you
the tools to discover its limits,
>> to be precise about its limits. And
that's a key point that
many scientists and philosophers miss.
So I'm I'm making the clean point that a
scientific theory starts with
assumptions that are not necessarily
assumed to be true. They're just assumed
to be consistent.
They will necessarily have a limit to
scope, not universal scope. And they
will have hard limits to explanation.
It is not self-contradictory to say that
that scientific theory could also tell
you what its own limits are with some
precision. So in the case of
Einstein's theory of spacetime together
with quantum mechanics quantum field
theory and Einstein's gravity it's a
great theory great scope all the
technology around is because of it so
incredible scope
clean limits and the theory itself tells
you the limits of its fundamental
assumptions the assumption that
spacetime so it takes spaceime is
fundamental Einstein's theory together
with quantum field theory tells us that
that assumption that spacetime is
fundamental falls apart precisely at 10
theus 33 centimeters and 10 theus 43
seconds game over for spacetime
>> is that the plank scale
>> it's plank scale so it's the the notion
of spacetime has no operational meaning
at the plank scale
>> it's over and it's a theory of gravity
and gravity breaks down at subatomic
scale
>> that's right it falls apart so so it
it's clear that spaceime isn't the story
it's a beautiful story. It's not the
final story and science has to move
beyond spaceime. Now, by the way, so
you're saying you have a theory that is
upstream of encapsulates spaceime and
Einstein and one example of that is the
prediction of time dilation
>> and length contraction
>> and length contraction. Does anything
else in general relativity get predicted
by your theory? It looks like the
quantum wave functions come out of this
as the asmtoic behavior of the markoff
chains. So with I've talked about marov
chain as sort of stepby-step thing you
know now I see red now I see green and
now I see yellow and so forth. That's
just to make it clear. But now suppose
think about that as frames of a movie
and you've been looking I've been
looking with you at one frame at a time.
Say look at that frame. Look at that.
Now I play the movie. Now of course
that's a different different perception.
Now I'm playing the movie. The frames
are going by real fast. That's what I
sort of mean intuitively by the asmtoic
behavior. And um what what u my
collaborator Shaon Pash has shown in in
in certain cases and we think it's I
think it's quite general is that the
quantum wave functions for free
particles are precisely the same thing
as the asmtoic behavior of these marov
these enhanced marov chains. Technically
they're they're um
certain um functions. So the harmonic
functions the so harmonic functions of
the enhanced markoff chains have exactly
the same mathematical format as the wave
functions in quantum mechanics for for
for free particles. So the idea will be
that quantum theory is coming out of
this more more general theory of trace
logic and and markup chains as an
asmtoic description. The trace logic is
giving you in some sense a hidden
variables theory. Okay. But it's a so
it's a hidden variables theory
>> like a like a David Bow. Uh
>> well it's different from bone because
bomb has a single physical particle be
riding the waves right of quantum theory
>> like a de brogley wave.
>> That's right. The that's right. So we're
completely I mean I have great respect
for boom. who was brilliant uh drop dead
brilliant but but and he did some really
out of the box thinking but but the
pilot wave theory is still tied to
spaceime it's it later Bulma thought
outside of spacetime deeply outside of
spaceime but his his pilot wave thing is
is really still stuck in in in spaceime
>> so when you say hidden variable what do
you mean
>> a hidden variable theory of quantum
mechanics is just any theory that g that
says there's something that quantum
mechanics is not telling telling you
about reality. There's some a deeper
level of reality, okay, that that we
need to go to to and and there are
limits. I mean there there are theorems
about what you can put outside of that
reality, outside of quantum mechanics in
in your reality. So there are certain
things you can't do.
>> Um so we have to we have a bunch of
theorems to prove um based on on this.
So this is all new stuff. So I'll I'll
say what we have to do. We have to prove
that we can get special relativity out
of this.
>> Prove that we can get curved space time
Einstein's theory of gravity. prove that
we can get the Borne rule um of of
quantum theory out of this. Prove that
we can start that we can model the big
bang and I can prove that we can get
Heisenberg uncertainty relationship uh
and and and a number of other things.
Prove that is we get non-locality and so
forth. So there are so we're assembling
a team right now of of mathematicians.
We have all these conjectures that we've
put out publicly conjectures that and
we're we're getting a team to work on
them one by one. So that's that's that's
where we're are we are right now. It's
it's quite fun.
>> That's fascinating. Wow. Very cool.
>> Right. So, it's not a hand wave. They're
mathematicians working this put up or
shut up time.
>> So, you are trying to create establish
essentially a new theory of everything
while acknowledging the limits of
theories of everything. But that exists
kind of upstream of both general
relativity, special relativity and
quantum mechanics.
>> Exactly. Right. And as of now you can
predict in general relativity uh length
contraction and time dilation. And then
if you speed up the frames you can
predict
>> quantum wave function
>> quantum wave function. Shreers
shreddingers something like
shreddinger's equation.
>> That's right.
>> That's remarkable. That's really cool.
>> But we now need theorems and proofs on
all that stuff. But it it's looking
quite promising to me and to a bunch of
people who are who are willing to spend
their time to to work on on this. No.
>> Would you be able to devise an
experiment that the hidden marov chain
could predict the result for and then
you do the experiment in real life and
you know only this sort of theory is the
proper huristic to predict it. It I uh
general relativity in quantum mechanics
are too limited to predict this outcome.
That would be the um direction we'd want
to go. We first want to show first that
we can get exactly the predictions of
special all the current observe events
that we observe and then
>> what what's next what what goes beyond
that so we're absolutely working on
doing exactly that
>> fascinating
>> there's lots of directions
>> the direction I'm interested in is um I
think of hidden marov chains as you know
being developed at the inception or
origin or being at least playing a big
part in the birth of artificial
intelligence and you were at MIT
like right when you know all of this
stuff was starting you were studying
under Marvin Minsky which is amazing and
you were you were you know having
debates with him and Nam Chomsky about
this stuff so
there seems like you know my intuition
would tell me that there's something
significant about the fact that your new
theory dovetales with how AI started in
some way like like if we're trying to
birth a new kind of lower level
similacura reality
with AI and it started with, you know,
hidden markoff models, hidden marov
chains, and then you're trying to
explain physics through this, you know,
that that seems somehow important,
especially as you talk about uh context
windows in your hidden markoff chains
because like you could theoretically
create a smaller hidden markoff chain
for like a lower level species, you
know, you get back into the UFO
discussion where it's like are there
beings like higher on the consciousness
food chain than us? You're saying that
that the AAM's razor explanation is
there there we're you know teeming with
life in the universe you know that are
you know way way above uh uh humanity as
far as their perceptive abilities. Could
they then create context windows for
humanity to operate in?
>> That's right. that with the trace logic
now you you get this very interesting
structure on observations if I've got
this big matrix
and take a trace on a small submatrix
say in the upper left hand corner of it
right so that's my my submatrix
the guy that can only see in the little
submatrix has a certain set of states
that he can move around in but the
bigger matrix will notice when he when
the state there are exit states so there
all this guy can see is his visible
states. But there are corridors out,
there's a whole world outside of it and
then there are re there are corridors
back in. So there exits the world
outside and then there are re-entrances.
So the person who has the bigger matrix
knows and can play with you. They can
they have access to when you when the
state leaves what they're doing with it
outside and what comes back in. So you
can start what what what comes out of
this is
all sorts of games that you can play and
also a notion of multi-cale
collective intelligence.
>> So I'm very interested in the work of
Mike Leaven.
>> Oh yeah, me too.
>> Very very and and um
>> I'm a huge fan.
>> Actually we're just now starting up a
collaboration. we're going to get a
postto together because of the trace
logic um this recursive trace logic
because it's a a way of modeling the
multi-
um scale collective intelligence at
least it's it's promising the the idea
so Mike Leven has this wonderful
set of work for example with pleneria
the pleneria reproduce by cutting
themselves in half like grab one end
grabs something and they tear themselves
apart and then they grow a new tail and
a new head This was bizarre, but they've
been doing that for hundreds of millions
of years. They don't die. There are
cells around that have been around for
who knows how many millions of years.
Anytime there's a mutation, if it
doesn't kill the cell, that mutation
stays. So, the genome is a mess. They
have different numbers of chromosomes in
different cells. It's a it's a complete
mess
genetically.
And their reproduction, their their
physiology is rock stable. They don't
get cancer. Most, you know, they're
almost cancer-free. They reproduce.
Their body morphology is is great. And
they be they live forever. And the genes
are are just all over the place from
cell to cell within a living organism.
>> How do you explain that? I
>> mean, you can see that's so it's a
stunning stunning observation.
>> Totally stunning, especially in a world
where people think genes, you know, kind
of predetermine all physiological
phenotypic outcomes.
>> Absolutely. I mean, I
I'll just mention briefly. I I spent a
lot of time with Francis Crick, the the
guy who discovered the structure of DNA.
He he and a a small group of us at UC
Irvine called the Helm's Club met for
almost 20 years secretly studying
consciousness. So, we were we were after
this. Francis was trying to demystify
consciousness like he demystified life
with with DNA. Um so so this is a real
blow to the DNA centric point of view.
It's not the DNA is irrelevant. DNA is
clearly an important part of the story.
But when the DNA can be different from
cell to cell in a given organism even
the number of chromosomes they're
they're for what they multiply multi
some not have there's some kind of name
they give for these things where you
have different number of chromosomes in
cell to cells. So the question is the
one you raised which is so what then is
responsible for
guiding this morphology? We thought it
was the genes. The genes are all over
the place and and Mike is finding
experimental evidence for some kind of
you know electric field like kind of
manipulations. he can cut a plenarian in
half and apply the right kind of
potential to the halves and either grow
another head. So he can have a
two-headed plenarian or two tails or
something like that. So So there are
these all of a sudden there are these
electric field connections, electrical
connections between cells that seem to
be having some kind of intelligence that
that we don't we don't understand at
all. We're just learning that that they
exist. So there's this level, but but
the way Mike talks about it is sort of
like almost like a higher level
programming language, right? So maybe
the DNA is more like just like the
simpler kind of code, but there's a
higher level language that can
manipulate that code somehow or or even
just little, you know, raw statements in
in in a language.
>> Yeah. And I I think you can take
Levven's work even further because yeah,
we know we know that voltage gated ion
channels are responsible for you know
cell communication.
>> Uh we know that electromagnetic fields
affect and dictate body morphology
sometimes in an even more fundamental
way to DNA. And so I love the analogy of
like hardware software. The software are
these like you know electromagnetic
fields. But then you get into really
trippy territory because you can put a,
you know, frog embryo in a Faraday cage
and it won't grow properly.
>> That's right.
>> And then you could put, you know, a
plant or you just use the same example.
So it's a perfect experiment. You put a
frog embryo next to a super powerful
Wi-Fi router or, you know, maybe a
better example, Chernobyl, where you
have extremely, you know, excessive
radiation and you end up with too many
mutations. So there's this efficient
frontier of mutations and then you get
into again anthropic principle stuff
where you have the human resonance and
magneettosphere of the earth which
clearly feels essential to dictating the
right you know animal morphology because
if you put you know a thing in a Faraday
cage or even put somebody out into space
they literally bring often human
resonance machines up with them in space
because it's familiar. And so the
magneettosphere of the earth perfectly
shields us from enough cosmic radiation
where we're not going to like incinerate
but then lets in enough to allow, you
know, just enough uh, you know, UV
radiation based mutations in our genome
to like evolve, you know, pretty
perfectly. And it's you get it's very
strange. It's it's
>> and then you get into the simulated
reality stuff where is Earth in a
context window itself right
>> that is you know more compressed than
one of these larger context windows and
you know are the UFOs that we're seeing
you mentioned they would monitor the
exit paths that fascinates me because
>> I think about when people have mystical
experiences at the boundary you know
another thing you've brought up is the
holographic principle
>> which Hawking talks about where you know
all 3D information can be encoded on,
you know, its 2D surface and that's
really what you're seeing.
>> And so we if we are in some sort of
hologram and we're we're we're
interacting with these things that are
higher like the the novel flatland, you
know, the 19th century, you know, we're
we're in 3D space and we're seeing
something in from higher dimensional
space. They'd be looking at where we're
poking at the the the exits,
>> you know, and then they they'd be they'd
understand, you know, BF Skinner style
intermittent reinforcement and they'd
understand cellular automata style stuff
as far as sort of managing the petri
dish. And then when when would they show
up? They'd show up around nuclear
because they don't want us to destroy
ourselves or or maybe they're mining us
for resources. cuz I don't want to, you
know, impugn any sort of, you know,
benevolence or intent, but they show up
around UFOs show up around nuclear sites
all over the world. So that's
fascinating. And they'd probably show up
at the frontier of human ingenuity
because if you talk about the Archimedes
lever, point of most leverage for like
future timelines, you know, the quantum
stuff is like a third of our economy
now. It's like semiconductors,
information technology. And so you'd
show up, you know, high voltage
experimentation, particle accelerators,
and they seem to again anecdotally show
up around some of these things as well.
And then the final thing they show up in
is uh uh conscious weird consciousness
experiences. And if you look at all
mystery rituals across all these
traditions, it's to liberate the soul
from the body. And the soul is, you
know, it sounds like this inexplicable
thing that we're kind of smuggling in.
It's a placeholder name, you know, but
call it some tesseract like, you know,
higher dimensional thing that's like
tethered to the body. Our body is a
compressed sort of prism,
>> you know, and then that would explain
near-death experiences where we're we're
able to perceive more when you cut off
that biological sort of collapsing
function. Then in these mystery rituals,
if you again all these mystery rituals,
whether you're putting your hand in a
glove of bullet ants or you're taking
some, you know, crazy psychedelic kekon
in the Greek Elusinian mystery rituals
back in the day,
>> it temporarily kills the physical body
and then you perceive much more and then
you see often these beings, you know,
and I know you're working with Andrew
Gallammore who does, you know, these DMT
experiments,
>> which again, you know, DMT comes often,
you know, at the time of death or you
know REM sleep. Um so almost when you're
most disembodied and then you see these
entities that have
>> consistent taxonomies across the people
that see them. So if we're in this sort
of like lower like literal matrix like
actual matrix you know hidden thing um
then uh uh
>> when you're poking at the boundaries
with your consciousness or with high
energy physics you see these entities
and you see these UFOs. So I think the
UFO thing is totally consistent with
your work. Right. Right. So the big
picture that you're painting here is
that there is some need to understand
this multiscale collective intelligence.
Right. Because there seems to be all
sorts of pointers to things that cannot
be explained within our current
physicalist space-time framework. I
completely agree. And here's at top
level how the marov trace logic the the
recursive trace logic deals with this.
It turns out if you have a markup chain,
you can have a bunch of states that form
what's called a community. So that once
you are in these states, you tend to
stay in those states. Your your your
experiences tend to stay in that little
group. But then there might be another
community over here and another
community over there. And there there's
a small chance that you might move from
this community to another community.
Now, within each community, there's
going to be a long-term behavior. You
know, that you can write down a
probability of being in each state.
Maybe I'll be in this state one half the
time and state two a third of the time
and so forth. So, these are sort of what
are called the stationary measures.
There'd be approximate stationary
measures. Not there's a stationary
measure for the whole thing. But now, so
this community structure gives you
different wells of intelligence. Here's
one way of living. But if I push you
into the other community, this then all
of a sudden you gravity pulls you the
mark of matrix dynamics. Think of it
like gravity pulls you into this other
well. And now this is a different
solution space. Then I can have another
solution space over there. So all you
need are little prods to go from one
solution space to the other. And that
could be the community structure. Now
with if I look at one of these
communities a little bit more closely I
might see oh well well within it there
are some subcommunities like this
there's this one community but now there
are like five subcommunities in it. So
there are these five subwells and then
with each one of those subwells I can
look at oh well that's got another 10
subwells within it and you can begin to
see that a single matrix on trillions
and trillions of states could have
literally multiscale collective
intelligence by all these little
community structures built throughout of
it. So what we So what we could be doing
with our own headset is so our
space-time headset is really only
capturing a small bit of this huge
multiscale collective intelligence of
the matrix that that that we happen to
be projected into. And so that's why you
know we can only see certain aspects of
it and all of a sudden they just they
transcend our space-time description.
But but they don't they don't transcend
science. We can build with the trace
logic, the recursive trace logic, we can
actually build a model of these things
and begin to understand things that
perhaps we can't see inside of spaceime.
>> Now, I I I should step back immediately
and say, look, someone might say, look,
here's a cognitive scientist talking
about doing science outside of spaceime.
He's he's way outside of his pay grade,
right? is that that's the realm for real
phys high energy theoretical physicists
and and and mathematicians to be doing
that kind of stuff. So surely if it can
be done someone else is doing it and you
know cognitive scientist isn't going to
be the first one to do it and I'm not.
It turns out that um there are many high
energy theoretical physicists who have
now firmly stepped outside of spacetime.
They will say spacetime is doomed.
Neimar Arani Hamemed, David Gross and
others.
>> Yeah. Neimar Arni Hamemed Institute for
Advanced Study.
>> Yeah. At Princeton, right?
>> As impressive as it gets when it comes
to theoretical physicists.
>> David Gross, Nobel Prize winner.
>> There you go.
>> I mean, so and what what they've what
they're saying is that spaceime is
doomed. It by that they mean it's not
fundamental. and
they're saying we need to step outside
of spaceime to do physics at the next
level of physics and they're finding
structures. So, so it's but it might
sound impossible. What in the world
could you possibly mean to step outside
of spaceime, right? For most of us, I I
talk about to my colleagues about we
need to get outside of spaceime and and
they just look at me like what could you
possibly be talking about? Where is
outside of spacetime? Because and where
is any where means inside spacetime.
Where is outside of spacetime and but
the where is entirely outside the
conceptual framework of spacetime
>> and what they're finding so Nemo was one
of the first pioneers in this era um is
structures that they call positive
geometries outside of spaceime. So
amplitude, associ cosmological polytopes
and and and other other structures.
These are structures um that are not
inside spacetime. They don't care about
locality, which is a key property of
space time. They they couldn't care less
about locality and they don't care about
unitarity. So they they couldn't care
less about the fundamental property of
uh quantum mechanics, unitarity. They
don't care about it. They're completely
outside of spacetime. They they their
geometry, their volumes and edges and
vertices and so forth as it turns out
code
beautifully and compactly for scattering
probabilities, scattering amplitudes of
particle interactions inside spaceime.
That's the remarkable thing. So here's
this object
outside of spacetime doesn't care about
locality, doesn't care about unitarity
at all
that is accurately describing
gluon interactions inside spacetime.
interactions that when you use fineman
diagrams inside spacetime to compute
them you for a simple interaction of
just a few particles you could get
millions of terms millions of terms
outside of spacetime it boils down to a
handful of terms
>> truly and you get the you get the right
answer now there's a lot of work to be
done I mean they haven't got the whole
paniply of what you can do with thyman
diagrams but they're working on it it's
quite
>> quite promising I mean the fact that's
fascinating it's quite So you have
theoretical physicists at the highest
level saying you have to move outside of
our conventional idiom of physics of
spaceime in order to solve problems that
are prosaic and conventional in
spaceime. And they're also moving
outside of quantum mechanics. So it's
not just like oh we're going to give a
quantum foundation for spaceime. No,
they're saying we're going to go
entirely outside of of spaceime,
entirely beyond quantum theory, and we
will have spacetime and quantum theory
joined at the hip, as as Nemo likes to
say, joined at the hip, coming out of
something deeper. And and this is not
just a one-off. It's so big now that the
European Research Council has a 10
million euro initiative. And there are
many many high energy theoretical
physicists and mathematicians now on
this 10 million euro initiative studying
these positive geometries. So I'm I'm by
no means the first by any means there.
There's much more brilliant people out
there already looking for stuff outside
of spaceime and finding it. Well, this
is an age-old debate actually. I mean
the modern instantiation of it goes back
to the birth of quantum mechanics where
you had these debates between Neil's
Boore and Einstein. Einstein saying, you
know, God doesn't play dice. This can't
just be probabilities. You know, we need
to understand some sort of onlogical
truth that, you know, the quantum
mechanics stuff is pointing to. Einstein
himself is obviously a big contributor
to quantum mechanics and and Bor was
saying, you know, no, you know, if you
think you understand this stuff, you
don't. That sort of turned into this
Copenhagen interpretation which mutated
then into this sort of shut up and
calculate. it's just, you know, this
mathematical formalism. You know, don't
think about it as some onlogical
descriptor.
>> Um, and I sort of agree with you. I
don't think that, uh, I think science is
a map. It's not the territory. So, I
think it's it would take a lot of hubris
to say that, you know, quantum mechanics
or general relativity reflects true, you
know, reality itself.
But I do think it's a really interesting
exercise to look at the spookiness in
quantum mechanics. as a pointer to uh
deeper truth and to a deeper ontological
reality. So
>> when you tell me things like oh you can
run a double slit experiment you know
today not observe it and then you know
you run it in 3 days with a you know a
paired electron and then they have
inverse behaviors if you measure it you
know in 3 days and then you know you go
it's like there's there's temporal
non-locality in in um uh uh quantum
mechanics and when you when you when you
go into those sorts of you know uh
things that that seems to point to like
almost like a time agnostic reality or
something. I mean, you even mentioned
Schroinger's equation going the same way
forwards as it does backwards. That's
same with electromagnetism and general
relativity. You know, the unitarity
thing, right?
>> So, yeah. Is there something weird about
like time seems like this very weird
thing that we just don't understand like
time could I mean in and maybe in your
model
you know which might be more kind of
computational or something it's like uh
saved game states instead of time or I
don't know what what do you think so so
a lot of interesting points so I would
say what quantum theory does do is put
front and center the observer
>> it says is
we can't ignore the observer. In Ein in
Newton, the observer could be ignored.
The observer didn't interfere, so you
could just ignore the observer. In
Einstein's gravity and in special
relativity, you you have an observer,
but it's just clocks and and pointers.
But in quantum mechanics, all of a
sudden, the observer is right there in
your face. When you do an observation,
the wave function is no longer the the
thing. You have a collapse of the wave
function. There in your face is
the observer is doing something. We have
to understand this is no longer uh you
know something that we can dismiss. The
very coherence of science is at stake.
That's the key point. The coherence of
science is at stake. If we cannot give
an account of observation that makes it
possible for us to have true theories
that accommodate an observer.
If we cannot get that whole story to
work, then what are we doing? We we are
way off in fairy tale land until we can
ground this whole thing. We have a
theory of the observer that's coherent
that leads to that explains why our
scientific theories have data that's
believable, right? Our our observations
are giving us the data. Our observations
need to be related to the external world
in some rational way so that we can
actually get theories of the structure
and that structure better come back and
say that our theories that our
observations are good data and that we
don't have in quantum theory and and the
attempts to solve the measurement
problem don't work. So the collapse of
so for example the the ever
interpretation the many worlds
what ever says is um every time there's
an observation uh there is no collapse
there's I mean there are if there are
trillion branches to the wave function
all trillion take off
so Hoffman is making this measurement
and there are now a million Hoffmans in
a million branches or a trillion or
whatever it might be problem solved
right there's um there there is no
collapse. So we don't have to worry
about the role of the observer and not
quite doesn't doesn't quite work. So the
the problem is why do I believe in the
shortinger equation and quantum theory?
Well, it's because the statistics in my
experiments that I do in my lab agree
with the statistics I get when I look at
the shortinger equation and take its
amplitude squared.
So, it's the frequencies that I've
observed in my lab matching the
frequencies predicted by the amplitude
squared of the Schroinger
equation
Schroinger wave function.
um that that convince me of its now now
in the effort interpretation I am in
every branch that means every possible
sequence of outcomes that could have
happened if I'm doing you know I'm doing
like a million measurements then there
is a Hoffman that saw
one sequence of a million there's a
Hoffman that saw the different sequence
the every possible sequence is out there
>> so where is the connection between my
Hoffman observing my my sequence es and
saying, "Aha, this sequence confirms
because it's the amplitude square." No,
there's going to be a sequence when I
get the exact same output every time.
There is no variation. That's that's one
possibility, right? And and so there
every so so there's so the raises the
question if the if the
ever interpretation the many the many
many worlds interpretation is what we
take then I have no reason to believe
that the frequencies that I observe in
my experiments are related to reality
>> because I could be in a branch where I
get this really anomalous
set of frequencies because that happens.
I mean, ever says anything that can
possibly happen will happen. So, every
crazy outcome, not just the And if you
then say, "Oh, well, but we can fix that
because I, you know, you're more likely,
Don, you're more likely to be in the the
high
probability, high amplitude, you know,
things." And that's no longer then just
quantum mechanics because in the ever
interpretation
dawn there is a dawn already in all the
trillions of so who is this new dawn
that you're saying is going to be
dropped into one of the more high
probability quote unquote um buckets and
what is that mechanism of dropping in
why should I believe that this is no
longer quantum mechanics this is a huge
addition to quantum mechanics never been
worked out. So under the So I don't
believe the multiverse right now because
it it leads to the claim the the
conclusion that our science is
incoherent. It's incoherent because well
our our observations do not
support the theory. Isn't there some
because I agree I'm not a big multiverse
fan and you can't infinitely split, you
know, dons into, you know, different,
you know, and it's also it's
unfalsifiable, right? You end up in
these sort of never- ending
conversations where it's like, well,
that happened even though it was low
probability and it's, you know,
somewhere else and it's continuously
forking and it's like I don't I don't
really know what you do with that.
Having said that, if you take things
like the delayed choice experiment,
double slit experiment, some of these
things at face value, even Dawn's
decision to measure, you know, the
collapse of the wave function, you know,
and and and look and see and then you
see this state, you see a state with
where the, you know, photon hit the the
cardboard backing. You don't see this
interference pattern that took place,
you know, out of your your free will.
And so, you are affecting physics on the
most fundamental level. like what we
take as fundamental physics you are
affecting by even choosing to make that
measurement and and I think that's kind
of undeniable and so at that point you
don't have to get into parasychology and
say that we are affecting random quantum
mechanical processes if you just take
that at face value then your physics is
already different than my physics and
then don't you get into territory where
yeah maybe spacetime is this kind of
consensus collapsing function construct
But you have different local collapsing
functions. You have different local air
pockets of consensus reality and
consensus physics.
>> A clean notion of the observer and its
relationship to our our physical
theories is not optional. We have to
have a clean notion of the observer. And
in quantum theory, there is none.
>> Quantum theory says we have absolutely
have to have one. But if you look at the
different kinds of theories that are out
there, so for example the the multiverse
one, but then there are the um ones like
the bombian thing where you stick a
particle in on on the wave function. It
turns out when you look at those, they
they don't work when you go to to gra to
>> relativity theory. So quantum field
theory, they just don't they don't work
there. There's a problem of of you know
scaling as you you know re
reormalization problems and so forth.
They they don't work. And when you go to
things like um
uh Chris Fuks
really wonderful man we're friends and
and brilliant brilliant guy he's he's
got his cubist theory which which
basically is a subjective basin. It says
the the wave function um and the
amplitude squared is just the subjective
degrees of belief.
>> And if you if you keep it purely
subjective
um then you can solve the so-called
Vner's friend problem, right? So you
know there's it's a standard problem in
quantum mechanics where there's someone
you know watching let's say a Schroinger
cat inside a room, a friend of yours and
and they're waiting to see if the cat's
going to be alive or dead. But you're
outside. You're in a separate room. And
so you're you're waiting and you you
have a a wave function yourself for your
friend and the and the cat whether
they're the cat is alive and the friend
says they're alive or the cat is dead
and the friend says so you have your own
wave function and and it turns out that
um under some interpretations um the
person inside could see the cat's dead
and you don't know. You're still in a
superp position. You don't know. So you
have different statements about reality.
So the the um someone like
Chris Fuches and and the quantum basin
with a subjective basian approach would
would say no problem because um these
are just degrees of belief. So the
experimentter outside the lab room and
the experimentter inside the lab room
are each interpret you know are allowed
their own uh their own interpretation
right their their own their own um
probabilities.
>> Yeah. But but then if you do that
there's a problem because then how do
you get the connection between the wave
function and the objective world? What
is the data that makes you want to say
that this is the right wave function to
have or if if your ideas are just purely
subjective then it's not tethered to the
objective data that needs to tether it.
It's just your and if you try to tether
it then all of a sudden you're going to
get back to the Wner's fan problem. So,
so the bottom line is I see right now
that what quantum mechanics has done is
is said what you were just talking about
we have to understand how the observer
gives us the data in our scientific
theories or we're incoherent
>> and there is no theory in quantum
mechanics that does that right now. It's
so science is at this unbelievable
place. Unbelievable. We're this far
advanced. We do not have a theory of the
observer that will be that will make
science itself coherent. And so what I'm
proposing with this recursive trace
logic is
what lives proposed
300 years ago. We have to start and what
Wheeler proposed in 1989 if from bed. We
have to go back and start where we the
thing we ignored. We in Newton we
ignored the observer in Einstein. We
talked about it, but we ignored it. In
quantum mechanics, we can't ignore it
and we don't know what to do with it.
>> So, so I'm saying that's where science
has to go next. Science now, we have to
start over, nail down exactly what we
mean by an observer, get it
mathematically precise, and then go
back, show that once we have this like
if the recursive trace logic works.
We'll see. I mean, hopefully I'll know
within two or three years if it works.
The idea would be we will then show how
spacetime curve spacetime and and
quantum field theory arise as one of the
more trivial headsets that comes out of
a general theory of observation. So the
idea is we have this recursive trace
logic. It's completely general notion of
of observation and then policies and
metapolicies and so forth completely
general notion of agency. So the agents
now can choose different experiments
that they want to do. Can does that give
us the framework to give us all of our
current scientific theories? Quantum
field theory, general relativity, black
holes, the whole bit. Um, big bang, the
whole bit. Nothing left out. And then
then show, but this is just a trivial
example of what we can do. That's that's
your fourdimensional
headset. One of time, three of space.
But why not? So, so for example in the
amplitude with with with Neimar Connie
Hamemed there is a parameter in the
amplitude which is the the the the
dimension of the spaceime in which
you're going to project this positive
geometry into that and in our case it's
four but his mathematics allows bigger
numbers. four is is one of the smaller
and less interesting numbers. is what
the perhaps the smallest non-trivial
number but as you go up that you can so
already the the the serious physicists
working outside of space time by well I
should say high energy theoretical
physicist it's not all physic high
energy theoretical physicists who this
is their baywick they're already saying
we're finding these geometries that
characterize scattering amplitudes in a
way that the spaceime that we perceive
is just one of many many possible
spaceimes in which we could talk about
this stuff and I'm saying that's right.
We're going to now have to just go and
look at the set of all possible headsets
of all kinds that observers could come
up with and the and it's going to be
infinite numbers. So ours is one of the
more trivial ones and now with the
policies. So remember a policy was a way
of crawling around on the observer
windows and what would it mean to be
embodied? Because we talked about
embodiment and I said it was one of the
smaller you know
what does it mean to be embodied? Well,
what does it mean for me to move my hand
from here
to grab that cup?
It's going to be a policy in which I
have a bunch of observer windows. The
observer window in which there's another
observer. There's that's another frame,
another frame, another frame, another
frame. Right? Notice that
that's a particular subset of windows in
this huge trace logic. There's lots of
but that that is one frame in it. and
I'm being forced to use frames of this
type to make the cup move from there to
there. But if I think about it, there
are lots of other policies in which my
hand stays here and the cup just moves.
There are all sorts of policies and
there are a lot more of those than there
are in which my hand has to move in this
particular way to do it. So that's why
you see immediately that the embodiment
is a measure zero set of the whole
thing. But but we're forced to right now
to have these policies in which only we
can only directly so to speak change
certain things. My fingers, my toes, my
those are the we we're stuck to those
observer window
>> that have that kind of thing in them and
we can only move them in certain
sequences. So we have to be really
really clever. I want this cup to go
from here to there. There's a million
ways to do it but not if I'm forced to
use my hand now. there's like one just a
smaller set of ways that I can do it to
get it to to move over there. So, so
that's why I said earlier on that once
you get to this recursive trace logic
and have the notion of policies that um
then you see embodiment is not necessary
and in fact it's probability zero. It's
just stunning. So if if embodiment is
actually maladaptive for life, are there
any observable things in our current
spaceime that you think might actually
be alive? Well, well, it's an
interesting question you raised there.
Is it maladaptive for our current so
embodiment? Is it maladaptive? And
>> well clearly not for us in some way
shape or form like it's the best form
for us but
>> well it's it's it's it raises a big
question and that is what is this whole
game about
>> right well you know there all these
windows and all these infinite number of
policies and so I now I'm thinking about
consciousness itself and and what is
consciousness up to and all I can think
of is that consciousness must be in
knowing itself by exploring itself from
an infinite number of perspectives
>> and from an infinite number of policies,
an infinite number of metapolicies. And
that's in some sense what an infinite
unbounded consciousness
>> does to
explore and know itself. You take you
take a perspective and maybe you lose
yourself in the perspective so
completely that you don't even know that
you're the infinite consciousness.
Right.
>> Oh, that's beautiful. Well, that
comports with a bunch of religious. It
it really does. And it it really does,
but now there's math behind it.
>> Yeah. And [clears throat] John Wheeler,
you know, wrote his U on that piece of
paper of the the universe observing
itself.
>> You have Alan Watts and other mystics
talking about, you know, we're the
universe trying to observe itself or or
piece itself past back together. I think
that's sort of a common thread. But I
was sort of going like, you know, in a
slightly different direction, which is,
you know, obviously you have these sort
of context windows. You have these
different matrices. You know, we see a
specific matrix. Maybe we're teaming
with alien life and they see larger
matrices and they can kind of pop into
ours and mess with us.
>> But are there things in our spaceime,
things like, I don't know, plasma might
be an example. There's a great book
called uh the new science of heaven by a
guy named Robert Temple and he talks
about plasma being the substrate of the
universe and alive and atomic matter
actually being the exception to the rule
and charged ions you know uh stripped of
most of we what we think of as atoms
actually just permeating the entire
universe and there all these strange
experiments of like humans walking up to
plasma and it cohering to the human's
heartbeat um a a lot of the UFO stuff
looks like kind of plasma balls that
seem to be sort of synchronized with our
own intent or something. So, in this
model,
are there things that we see that we we
attribute to kind of, you know, just
like the ant would see us and they'd be
like, I don't that might be like natural
phenomena or like they have no idea what
we what we are. We see these things and
we put these natural placeholders on
them. But now assuming that the
likelihood is life is disembodied. It's
not the opposite. We're the exception to
the rule. Right? Then some of these
natural phenomena, things like plasma
might be alive.
>> Right? Now the the one periso is that
plasma's whatever this thing is seen
through our headsets. So already
whatever we see and and call plasma is
already been dumbed down to fit into our
little headsets. So the trace logic
would force us to say whatever plasma
whatever is really causing me to see
plasma could be infinitely more
interesting than what what I call
plasma. But it it still gets I think to
the point that you want to make which is
once we have this ability to see others
as subtraces of us. Can we start to play
games?
>> Can we start to do stuff? And
absolutely. And and so that's where for
example I think I I'm no expert in the
UAP kind of stuff or or the DMT stuff.
I'm collaborating with Gallamore on on
DMT, but it seems to me that there are
tools here to to allow you to do
whatever you want. um ba basically
because you have a different time
counter than the subtrace. So you have
all the time in the world to do whatever
you want to compared to to them. They
they may see it as instantaneous
um what's happening like moving from
stationary to Mach 40, you know, some
some craft immediately.
>> [clears throat]
>> But from the UIP point of view, it's
not. It could be very very leisurely in
their headset because their clock is
going at a different pace than than our
clock and their their space could be
very very different than our space.
>> You you you would also end up w
[clears throat] with your model if you
have these different perceptive windows
and you have a higher perceptive window.
if you wanted to keep uh a lower, you
know, system organism with a with a
smaller perceptive window out, but you
also wanted to initiate the right
people. Like you get back to stories of
Plato where you have a cave, you have
people kept in the cave by this sort of
guardian class and
the weird thing about the UFO thing is
like very few people can say anything
sort of coherent about it, but there's
an overwhelming amount of circumstantial
evidence around it. [laughter] So, it's
like those two things simultaneously is
the weirdest thing about it. And it it
almost implies that there's like an
intent on the other end that are like
dangling bizarre anomalies that like are
are meant to not be collapsed into any
coherent theory. And it's almost like
you're and this is if you get into like
the deeper kind of, you know, substrates
of Jacqu Valet and some of the hardcore
UFO researchers, this is what they're
getting at. You almost end up with this
model that is similar to Plato where
like this these guardians which
literally I'm not even talking about
like elites in society
socioeconomically. I'm talking about
like guardians of reality itself are
dangling things in front of us and
getting us to you know showing us the
light. We're glimpsing the light and
then we're we're moving outwards and
ascending through the cave. Uh but it's
also adaptive to kind of keep most of us
in a cave or something.
>> And and and if you think about
technology, it is this forcing function
whether it's AI or nuclear or you know
the ability for the human genome to be
sort of messed with. It's this forcing
function of like like if you had this
technology the the the the latency and
the bandwidth limitations of humans to
like do really amazing things and do
really destructive things all goes out
the window
>> and so
>> completely. So, it's almost like your
stuff plus the Nick Bostonramm
simulation stuff, you end up with this
theory of reality where like some higher
uh living organisms that are disembodied
are probably managing us. [laughter]
Well, yeah. There's a couple another way
to think about it that makes your point,
I think, and that is one way that we
could think about what's what's going on
with like the recursive trace logic is
it's giving us a layer of software
outside of our headset. So, this is just
a VR game
and by stepping out of space-time
headset and getting a first layer of
software description of how the headset
is built, um, we get some interesting
new power. If if if you're the Grand
Theft Auto example, right? If if you're
a wizard at Grand Theft Auto, you can
race your car faster than anybody, get
from here to there, steal stuff,
whatever. But if I'm the geek that can't
drive a car, but I wrote the software,
then I can do magic. I mean, I can
literally take the air out of the tires
of the of the of the wizard. I can make
his car disappear. I can make it turn
into a turtle. I can do anything I want
to because I know the software. So we
have when you when you look at the
recursive trace logic you realize that
those with the bigger trace the bigger
matrices have the ability they have the
they have software they they have the
software if they have enough if they're
enough bigger than you they have the
software to know how your headset is is
working and they can just play with you
like uh like someone who knows the
software of brand they can just play and
and do complete math. So you can't think
big enough. you absolutely can't think
big enough when you when you realize the
possibilities that the recursive trace
logic brings up. But I would point out
in spirit it's very similar to Nick
Bostonramm. But there is a key
difference between what I'm saying and
what Boston is is saying. And it's an
it's an important difference. Um,
Bostonramm is
saying that yes, what we're we're doing
here is just a simulation and there's
some geek with their little computer and
writing software and and we're just, you
know, characters in their in their
software and then this world is just and
that person by the way is also just a
character in some deeper level of
software and this and there goes all the
way down but at the bottom he puts a
physical world. There's some physical
place and there's some and I'm saying
there is no physical bottom to this
whole thing. So that's one difference.
There is no physical bottom. So that's
one difference between what I'm saying
and what Boston says. And there's
another thing I'm saying that's
different. Boston is saying that somehow
you could program a computer to create
the conscious experience. If you if you
if you believe that there's conscious
experience, then it has to be. So I
won't say what Nostrom Boston believes.
I will say this. If you are doing this
computer simulation thing and you
believe that there's consciousness, then
you're going to be forced to say that
somehow a computer program done right
will give you consciousness. And I deny
that.
>> I I I I think that that's in principle
not possible. Um there is no way to
start with algorithms and get
consciousness. integrated information
theory, all these other approaches have
not been able to give us a single
concrete example of a of a specific
conscious experience. And I predict they
never will. They'll never get close.
>> I would predict that too because we're
not working with the tools of whatever,
you know, elements created us. And so it
it's it's interesting, you know, when
when simulation theory gets talked
about, I feel like there are two
connotations. There's the Grand Theft
Auto nihilistic connotation of like you
know or conclusion rather where it's
like uh anything goes we're in a simul
we're in a video game uh and then the
second thing is more aspirational which
is like there are realities and windows
above us and so another question I would
ask is
>> uh you're talking about between species
you know some theoretical alien species
and us and then down the food chain to
to lower animals as far as our
perceptive apparatuses, you know, being
going from, you know, somewhat limited
to very unlimited. Um, within a single
lifetime, do you think a human can widen
their perceptive apparatus in a way
where they see more?
I I do. And and this is sort of gets
spiritual now. I think that that's
partly partly what's going on here and
what it's about. So I think I mean I
don't know what consciousness is up to
but I can guess I mean I'm a scientist
but I can throw out hypotheses. One
thing I think is consciousness trying to
understand itself by taking an infinite
number of perspectives and getting lost
in the perspective. So in some sense to
really take a perspective means to lose
yourself in it. So to really believe
that I am this body and to really be
tied to it and be afraid of its death
and and and and so forth. So, so I'm
really and then to slowly wake up and
now to the aspirational part as as I
wake up and and as I get to the point
where I I get better and better
technologies
and I realize that I can
use this power but I'm also waking up to
who I am. So I'm So this is the
aspirational part where consciousness
lost itself in the game identified with
an avatar.
It's getting a better better
understanding of that part of the
matrix. It's getting more power. And now
it comes to the point where it's going
to choose how it's going to use that
power. Do I want to use it to hurt
people, to dominate them, or or am I
going to use it in some other way? To
the extent that consciousness wakes up
to, oh, wait a minute, that's just me.
That person there is me in a different
avatar. See, it's all one one
consciousness through an infinite number
of windows and an infinite number of
policies and an infinite number of
metapolicies.
It gets lost, thinks it's just the
avatar, but as it w as it gets more
power and it wakes up to its identity as
the one consciousness that transcends
this whole set of games, then
you realize that now that I've I've got
this new weapon or I've got this this
gun, I I would be a fool to shoot that
person because it's like shooting myself
in the foot. Why would I take a weapon
and shoot myself in the foot? Because
that person is not my enemy. That person
is me. And so that's the aspirational
part of this that and it it leads to a
whole interesting you know religious
kind of thing a moral kind of thing.
What are we here for and and what what
do we learn in the process?
>> How do you logically conclude that other
people around you are also yourself?
>> Well so so there is a leap there. So the
leap is to say that um I do think that
if you look at the trace logic it's
saying that as you go up and up all
these windows are connected right there
is a pre leness says there's a
pre-established harmony and there is a
there's a unifying structure that ties
the whole thing into one
and so but as I said earlier this is
just a mathematical theory it's a
scientific theory and no theory is ever
the final theory. What it points to
though, what this theory points to is a
fundamental unity of consciousness.
Despite all this beautiful structure,
it's there's a fundamental unity. So I
have the the feeling that there is this
one deep consciousness that we all are
each of us is but just seeing through a
particular avatar through a particular
window policy metapolicy and so forth
and waking up to the fact that oh
that's Jesse is just on
>> and we're having this conversation but
the way I treat Jesse is exactly the way
I'm treating myself and if I I don't
want to shoot myself in the foot.
wouldn't want to shoot Jesse in the foot
either because that's that's that's me.
And so that's the aspirational part. The
when it's interesting because evolution
in in physicalist framework doesn't tell
me that you and I are one. It tells me
that we're competitors and I need to
beat you to get whatever resources I
need. But this theory of the observers
says a very very different story. It
says no that that evolutionary story is
um works inside the headset. It's it's
if you if you stick inside the headset,
it's a good theory. It works.
>> That's fascinating. And your father was
a priest. Is that right?
>> No, he was a um a fundamentalist
Christian um Protestant minister, right?
>> So, this has to dawn on you. You've gone
through your own arc like this where you
started religious.
>> Then you got into this sort of dog eat
dog Darwinian model which you know it's
actually adaptive for us not to see
reality because of evolutionary game
theory. And then you figured out this
sort of matrix model which if you go all
the way up the chain of consciousness
you end up with this unified field of
consciousness. So you moved from God and
then you moved away from God and then
you moved back to God.
Right? And part of the journey for me
was
what I loved about science was the
mathematical rigor.
Precise
theories with precise assumptions and
mathematical precision and testing.
You knew the theories were consistent.
They may not be true, but they're
consistent. [gasps]
But it was physicist and that didn't I
mean ultimately it felt like
there was something missing in the
physical. And it turns out there is we
we can't get a theory of the observer
yet in a in a physicalist framework. We
just can't and we can't get a theory of
conscious experience and we can't get a
theory of the illusion of conscious
experience. There's nothing that gives
us uh any specific illusion of a
conscious experience. So that that would
the plus of science was rigor
nonsense
consistency. The the downside was the
physicalism assumption seemed to be too
restrictive. On the religious side, the
downside was complete lack of rigor and
no consistency
and
no tests, no empirical tests. It was and
and as a result, a lot of the stuff you
hear, a lot of stuff I heard is just
utter nonsense. That that was the
downside. The the upside was
The idea that consciousness is
fundamental and somehow love and unity
is is I mean like with with a lot of the
religions the fundamental thing is love
your neighbor as yourself because your
neighbor is yourself. If you stick to
that fundamental idea in the in the
religions and cut away everything else,
I'm on board. That seems really right.
most of the other stuff is all this
inconsistent nonsense and you know all
the snake oil and so forth. So you can
see the the problem that you've got as a
as a human being in in this kind of
situation. There's snake oil and so
forth and yet the fundamental thing is
love your neighbor as yourself. Science
has got the rigor they got the
mathematics that that seems really good
but but there's no reason to love your
neighbor as yourself. I mean in the
sense that I mean it's doggy dog
Darwinian kind of thing. I love my
neighbor myself as long as it's
convenient for me and you know and so
forth. But there's no deep sense in in
which I'm one with my neighbor. And so
for me the synthesis is to pull the to
take the rigor
of of science, the mathematical
precision and the the absolute
insistence on data, careful observations
and to take from the the spiritual
traditions, get rid of all the nonsense,
get rid of all the handwave and and
dogma and keep the essence which is
there is a fundamental unity. Love your
neighbor as yourself because your
neighbor is. Take that from the
spiritual tradition. Bring those two
things together and then I think we have
a new thing going forward that could
really be the aspirational science meets
spirituality that you were talking
about.
>> Do you believe in God?
>> I believe that
there that I would say this as best as
words can do it. Right? So I so I'll say
this. I think to answer the question I
have to be very very careful.
Words are just words.
I said then you know science starts with
assumptions. There is no scientific
theory of everything. And so so we
whatever reality is
infinitely transcends what science could
do. Right? And yet I'm a scientist. I
think science is a fantastic tool. I
want to use it. But reality, whatever it
is, infinitely, not just a little bit,
infinitely transcends anything that we
could come up with in science.
But to answer your question, so I'm not
dodging your question. I'm going to get
to your question, but it's it's so deep
that I have to say a couple things.
There are most of the stuff that we
know,
we don't know through science or through
study.
um the color green. At some point in
your life when you were two, someone
said, "Jesse, that's green." And you
looked and you go, "Oh, okay. That's
green." Someone pointed to a rabbit and
said, "That's a rabbit." And you you got
it. And if you think about what went on
there, it's a miracle, right? Your mom
sitting with you and points and says
rabbit and you look once or twice and
you get it.
There were a thousand h a million
hypotheses that you could have what
maybe it was the ear and the rug. Maybe
it was the color of the fur. Maybe it
was the left eye. Maybe it was the, you
know, the left paw and the cup over
there. What what could you possibly mean
by rabbit? And yet at the right age,
someone points says rabbit
just once or twice is all you need
typically and you get it. This is called
um learning by ostensive definition. And
almost everything you know is not
because of a scientific theory. It's
because of ostensive definition. Every
everything of everyday life that you
know colors, shapes, someone pointed and
said and you got it. That's ostensive
definition. So now
what do I mean by God? Because God is
just a word, right? So I'm getting
so I want to get escape from the trap of
of using words and getting trapped and
just so I'm going to use a stensive
definition. Here's what I think God is.
I'm I'm going to say um what I'd like
you to do is um
ask yourself the question, I wonder what
my next thought will be. And then just
wait.
What happened?
>> Thought about God because [laughter] but
it was it was sort of silent for a
little bit and then
>> did you have a a point there when when I
said um I wonder what my next thought
will be and then you just were waiting
for a minute to see what your first
thought will be. Was there a little gap
there? There's a gap there and I was
waiting for what my next thought would
be which is I'm assuming what you
generally are pointing to. That's right.
>> But my thinking is also very weird and I
don't think in words. So it wasn't like
I wasn't saying that in my head. I was
just sort of waiting about God. So that
that that's the best pointer I can give
for what I mean by God
>> is that awareness that you can have and
and you can do this anytime you want to
actually is to just say I I'll just not
think for a while
and just be aware
without thought that that awareness is
what I think is God and I believe in
that
>> and it it um cannot be described.
>> Yeah. And you almost you got me thinking
about this when you said, you know what,
how did I learn about the color green
and probably all sorts of concepts that
I take for granted in everyday life. And
it's almost like we have meme libraries
in our head and we attribute like what
we see is an interplay between what's
adaptive for us to see as you describe
so well in your book. But there's also
some superimposition of what we have in
our head. Some like Beijian priors of
like what we think the concept is that
we're like imposing on reality at all
times.
>> Yes.
>> And so when you say God is the
suspension of thought, I think it's
almost impossible like in waking life
everything has that all these
connotations that I've placed on all
these things. There's nothing like going
to like an entirely new context like
going on a trip and like you're in some
vast new landscape and you can't detach
any of that sort of baggage to like all
the concepts that you're like taking in.
>> Right. So that's a very good point and I
would just say that what I'm trying to
point to then with that little thing I
did, you know, I wonder what what my
next thought will be. What I'm pointing
to is just the raw awareness
>> in which all these things arise. The
colors, the sounds, the emotions, the
thoughts. That raw
that raw awareness that doesn't require
any of these things. That is what I'm
trying to point to. But I'm still I'm
looking at your shirt and I'm looking at
the chair and there are all these things
that I have superimposed ideas about
that might not you know be at the
forefront of my mind in my sort of
waking consciousness reality but it's
impossible for me to like strip my
preconceptions about those things while
I'm processing them. Whereas someone
like the Daly Lama might be able to,
right? Someone who has been spending
years in meditation would be able to say
yes I I can just be the presence the
awareness and no content and that's what
I mean by God is that awareness without
any content I I think it's accessible to
all of us
>> but um
>> it's something that requires practice to
let go. Why do you think there's a a
bliss in that? Does that speak to this
sort of again meta level like not not
the Darwinian but the meta level if you
have all these matrices the adaptiveness
of seeing more uh does the the fact that
meditation you end up in these sort of
city states or whatever you know that
different traditions call it different
things but you end up in these states of
of of joy
>> right
>> just about reality itself is there
something adaptive about that
>> I don't know if I would put it in like
the evolutionary very adaptive kind of
context because I think it transcends
that
>> in in some sense evolutionarily it's not
adaptive to not be thinking about stuff
and planning and and watching out for
things that could kill you and and and
but it is if consciousness is best not
embodied and then if your consciousness
persists past life and if you're going
to dissolve and or self-nullify into
into you know sort of this greater
harmonic consciousness which is not at
all a prescription or something I
propose but on some theoretical level.
>> Yes. I think and and by the way now I'm
speaking beyond my spiritual attainment
but I
>> me too. [laughter]
So just with that proviso I'm no saint
but I would I would say that
the
point of going into silence and letting
go of all thoughts is and the reason it
leads to to bliss is is that is the
fundamental nature of reality. None of
this really does matter in a sense. This
is just
a headset
>> and you you
put it on. You let yourself get lost in
the game for a while.
>> You let yourself get upset for a while
and then you woke up and go, "Oh, you
take the headset off." Oh, okay. I Well,
so I learned something about myself from
from that that that that perspective.
Now, let me try on this other headset.
>> And and but but
you were never in any danger. M
>> you'd let yourself feel like you were in
in danger. But the bliss is there there
is in some sense only you
>> the the the one um and there is no
danger. There's only the love the unity
but the it's in the headset that you get
all these emotions but you and you let
yourself have them. You you that's part
of experiencing all the possibilities.
You let yourself experience that and
then you transcend it. That's the And
again, I'm speaking way over my pay
grade, but but yeah,
>> how do we triangulate or figure out what
true reality actually is? So, I'll take
at face value your theory that,
>> you know, the reason I see your face, I
see your shirt, and it looks a certain
way to me is because of that's somehow
adaptive from some evolutionary game
theory perspective. Um,
but what about like, yeah, what do what
do you actually look like? What is what
does the chair you're sitting on
actually look like? What does this table
actually in some like platonic higher
sense or in your case this higher
context window matrix? Is there some way
to get at that with your theory? Oh, I I
think that all that all these things
that you're talking about only exist as
icons in the headset. They have no
deeper reality than that. So the these
these so I'll
>> but it is still some unique binary code
sequence ultimately
>> um
>> or maybe not a completely unique
>> yeah go for it. So yeah. So I I would So
I'll put it this way because it's it's
very stark.
>> Mhm.
>> Right now I have no neurons.
>> I have no brain. If you looked, you
would see a brain.
>> If you and I'm a cognitive
neuroscientist. I like neuroscience.
>> But I think that neurons do not exist
when they're not perceived. And this
table does not exist when it's not
perceived. There is there is nothing
more to the table than the raw
perceptions I'm having right now. There
is literally nothing more to it than
that really because there are you know
people who are
>> yeah sort of solopcistic holographic
universe types and then there's like the
neutral monists where you know there's
some interplay between conscious and
then consciousness and there is but
there is something objective and then
there's like the materialist
reductionist you know this is all very
separate mind matter are very separate
and so what you're saying it sounds like
you're more in the like it's all it's
all like a product of your perception
and this isn't real.
>> Well, it's it's a real experience and
and it's it the experience is there only
for for so long as I choose to look and
make that experience and as soon as I go
away my table is gone. Jesse may still
see this table but but it's your table
is not mine because that that's your
experience. There's no such thing as the
table. There's only your experience and
my experience. We coordinate such that
we think that there is the table. But
what if the monad were perceiving the
table? Wouldn't it see something
discreet? It might be more complex than
what we see because it's like way more
involved than us. But [laughter] well,
but I would say you are the ultimate
consciousness through a Jesse avatar
talking with the Hoffman avatar. And
through the Jesse avatar, you're
creating a table. Through the Hoffman
avatar, the same you is creating a
table. My my table is now gone. Whereas
your avatars table is still there. Where
do you get that the idea that we are
sort of fractal almost pinched nodes of
a larger
>> the the recursive trace logic itself.
>> That is the mathematical. So when Linus
was saying that he wanted a theory of
observers being fundamental with a with
a pre-established harmony, what I'm
proposing is that this recursive trace
logic is that pre-established harmony.
And it shows how you can talk about
separate monads, separate observers,
and yet the pre-established harmony
shows that they're all one. So there is
it's like um almost like a stylus on an
LP player or something like we're uh the
measurement instrument.
>> Right. Right. Right. of something that
is uh fundamentally there but there's
it's I'm seeing this unique perception
based on my own measurement instrument
of my body and and what's adaptive for
me who are seeing that as well.
>> That's right.
>> The monad would see something different,
but there's no objective. It's it's
always going to be unique. The only
objective thing is you. You, the
awareness, staring through a Jesse
avatar and staring through that's the
only thing that that that is the
objective reality. All this other stuff
literally
comes and goes. This it's very much like
again a VR headset. When I'm playing
Grand Theft Auto, I look over there and
I see a red Ferrari and you you're
you're you're also playing with your
Grand Theft Auto. And I say, "Jesse,
look at that red Ferrari." You say, "Oh,
yeah. I see it." And then I look away.
My red Ferrari is literally gone.
There's no red Ferrari anywhere for me.
And you might still see it. So Jesse has
his own red Ferrari. And there's no red
Ferrari in the supercomputer that's
running this thing. There's just bits
running on the computer in this example.
So my red Ferrari is gone completely.
And if I go back, I'll render a red
Ferrari. And then I've got one. So I'm
really saying I render a table when I
look and it's no, it doesn't exist
because I'm not rendering it. So I'm
rendering and that is actually
impressive if you think about this is a
really complicated world and I render it
effortlessly. I just look and it
happens. That's how good you are. That's
fascinating. So it's almost like
conscious agents or perceivers
>> are the fundamental units of the real
ultimate reality.
>> It's kind of empowering in some sense.
>> It is. I would just make one pro and
that is I think there's the there is
only the one awareness.
>> Sure.
>> And but all these conscious agents that
that I talk about and are a scientific
tool to to talk about it but but I would
want to say the the awareness transcends
my theory. It transcends any theory. But
given that then I agree with you. I just
want to always make sure that we're
we're humble about our scientific. Well,
you could say we're we're windows and
the sunlight peering through the windows
is what's ultimately, you know, binding
all of us or something. And so
>> that's right.
>> We're or we're like pinched nodes on a
circuit or something and we have unique
signatures of what we see that's all of
the same thing.
>> I agree with those metaphors. It's it's
really the one looking at itself through
different pinches or different windows
or um or it's almost like one light
shining through different films. It's
like a movie projector and um there's a
you know it's one light but you can
block the light. So Jesse is a way of
blocking that light. Hoffman's a way of
blocking that light
>> um in different ways. That's that's
another these are all metaphors. Um
>> yeah I mean the analogies will always
fall short we can try. Um do you believe
in in in UFOs? Do you think they comport
with your you know theory in any way?
We're at an unprecedented time in UFO
history where the president is actively
contemplating releasing documents, which
they clearly have, on on these
unidentified flying objects. Well, well,
I'll say I hadn't even really given them
any serious thought until there was the
sworn testimony before Congress
>> where
credible
highranking
military and other officials said, "I
have seen non-human biologics and
non-human
technology." Mhm.
>> And um at that point I said I have no
reason to disbelieve these people and I
have no scientific or theoretical
reasons to disbelieve them. And actually
since that time I've then been looking
at the possibilities of the trace logic
to model some of this stuff and I think
it's quite feasible. Well, it sounds
like again the embodiment of
consciousness, if that's the exception
to the rule,
then you're probably going to end up not
only with all sorts of disembodied
consciousnesses,
but you could have also just with your
theory itself, uh, if it's adaptive for
us to not see base reality, we only see
between 400 and 700 nanometers of the
electromagnet magnetic wave spectrum. A
dog whistle is a dog whistle because it
eludes you know uh especially older
people who are hard of hearing you know
so it's like the amount of things that
we don't see in reality we don't see
electric fields you know you ask
somebody do they believe in an electron
they say yes you say why well it's you
know it's in our textbooks and they say
they can detect it with electron
microscopes
>> so these are just belvelts these are
sort of ways to like you know perceive
things
>> and then you could say the same with
UFOs you have all these signatures being
picked up forward looking infrared, you
know, you have them on radar, you have
eyewitnesses. In certain cases, you have
all three of those things. And there's
nothing really like if you're actually
an earnest scientist, you can say, "Oh,
it's impossible." Or you can like take
that in as data that's very, you know,
valid and interesting. And it's almost
like with your theory, it's AAM's razor
there. We'd be swimming in life. the the
sort of dark dark forest analogy from
this threebody problem Chinese six
Chinese science fiction novel would be
the base case that we'd be swimming in
in a lot more like the 8 million species
are just the 8 million species that it's
adaptive for our survival to see I
completely agree I think that there are
an infinite number of alien
intelligences
in the that that just follows from
recursive trace logic it's infinite
>> so our headset gives us a very very very
tiny a peak at this and I I mentioned
earlier I think our headset is is one of
the more trivial ones. Um so I I think
that we're not near the top of the food
chain. We're near the bottom of the food
chain as far as I can tell in terms of
the headset and its accessibility. So I
think that there's
the chance of
alien alien intelligence intelligences
that are greater than ours is is one.
And I I think that um there's an
infinite an infinite variety of them.
And I think that the the recursive trace
logic gives us a mathematical framework
to begin to understand exactly how our
space-time headset is built, how it can
be hacked, how a higher headset. Now
that we have the mathematics, even
though we're stuck in a headset, a 3D
headset, we're not stuck conceptually.
We can with mathematics design our we
can actually show how the recursive
trace logic can build our um three space
one time dimension headset. We can then
build higher and higher dimensional ones
and we can ask how someone who had those
headsets could play with our headset.
We're in the position to actually
understand how higher intelligences
could play with us and we could then try
to if we wanted to to try to see if
there were ways to counter it if we
wanted to. But but I think that we're
now in a position now if if you're a
physicist and you say spacetime is
fundamental and nothing can go faster
than the speed of light period that's
the game that's the name then you don't
have the tools I don't think to to deal
with the UAP phenomena but I think
you've mistaken a some limitations of a
little headset for a fundamental nature
of reality problem or a limitation. So,
I think the limitations of our headset
are just limitations of our headset. And
there are other headsets that include
ours as a little special case that do
not have the space-time limitations that
we have that don't care about our speed
of light. Their clocks are going at
different rates than ours could ever go,
for example. So, so and and that's
that's not even thinking big enough.
There's all sorts of ways in which they
could exceed our headset. So we have the
mathematical tools
to
examine this to understand how our
headset could be engineered and reverse
engineered and played with by other
alien technologies that are hard. We we
can we can actually understand that now.
But if we but we have to let go of the
physicalist framework.
>> We have to put the observer framework
first.
>> Do you think we're on the verge of a
scientific revolution?
I'll I'll say this if we can I I
mentioned those we have nine conjectures
about building special and general
relativity quantum field theory and so
forth.
If we prove those conjectures are true
then I think it's the game changer. So
we should know within a few years. I
mean if if if we prove that all those
conjectures are true then there's no
reason to be stuck inside spaceime
anymore. our science can go beyond it.
And as soon as soon as we do that and
and and then start to get new
technologies,
um it'll be over for the physicist the
space-time framework.
>> Yeah, I'm very excited for that. And I
think you you put it well that it feels
like uh science is moving inwards. So uh
>> to the observer
>> to the observer
>> and Newton the observer is not taken
into account with things like time
dilation different inertial reference
frames all sorts of things general
relativity does take the observer into
account but not fully and then it's
impossible to ignore but they've
attempted to ignore it in quantum
mechanics
>> quantum mechanics right
>> and it's interesting that this there's a
confluence of these sort of scientific
paradigms where you can't ignore the
observer
And uh you know there's there's a
Austrian philosopher I like named
Rudolph Steiner and he's you know it's
called anthroposophy and it's a the
scientific study of spiritual phenomena.
Mhm.
>> And so I wonder more observerbased
science where you can't separate the
observer from the observed which
classically you would in enlightenment
thought
>> if we start to get a scientific
explanation for spiritual phenomena that
seem very n of one mystical phenomena
that you [clears throat] know seem like
they'll always exist outside of the
realm of science and that was really
Steiner's aspiration and he was actually
you know himself self uh you know one of
the fathers of like organic farming and
you know he he he he made real he wasn't
like a total mushy brain thinker
>> so I I wonder if if you know these your
your stuff does get worked out and we do
we do we are able to predict more than
just length contraction time dilation
and shreddinger's equation which is
remarkable that you can just do that uh
if you get all nine of these things then
I wonder if you can explain a lot of you
know spiritual phenomena. We could
remerge the science and the spirit which
have really been bifurcated since the
enlightenment.
>> Well, I I agree with you and I think
that what would come out of this would
be the realization that what we thought
was the physical world is just
experiences that are spiritual. That
this is the table. We have thought of
the table as something that exists
independent of me that that would be
there even after I'm dead and so forth.
And I'm the table Hoffman's table that
he's seeing right now will not be there.
Not only when Hoffman's dead, but when
he just looks away, that table's gone.
So, so, so the whole physical framework
disappears. And this really putting the
observer first is really in some sense
already moving us into like a spiritual
kind of framework, but one that where we
have all the mathematical guard rails of
science and all the experimental guard
rails of science. It's it's no longer
the wild west. Anything goes any
preacher can say whatever he wants to
and and and rip people off if he wants
to and and so forth. It's going to be a
spirituality with really clean guard
rails on it. Um
>> that'll be fascinating. I I do find it
so interesting how much your work
converges on and comports with ancient
traditions. Yeah. like Plato where you
have an amnesis you know in sort of
Greek traditions for forgetting of your
soul self and then occasionally you'll
glimpse that soul self through noises or
in the Hindu tradition you have maya you
have you know very pervasive are these
concepts of this joyous illusion where
you're playing out some sort of karmic
you know path
>> um and you're slowly maybe seeing beyond
the veil but that's that's this kind
incremental process, but life itself is
is is ultimately sort of elucory. Yeah.
And this recursive trace logic sort of
says that that's that's the essential
thing is that each window is just a
window. It's it's
a way that the one consciousness is
looking through itself. And what I don't
understand is why
the infinite consciousness chooses to
let itself get lost. That's very
interesting that it would from this
framework it it chooses to go in with
both feet
>> completely identify with the avatar. Be
afraid. Be afraid of death. Be selfish.
Learn to not be selfish. Learn to not be
afraid.
Have death be there as the beckoning,
the the wakeup call to who you really
are to the have the experience of that
fear. So all the spiritual stuff but but
why you why consciousness does this as
it as it clearly does in my case I can
say for first person my experience has
been complete identification with the
avatar fear of death the whole nine
yards a slow waking up disbelief holy
could I really be that you know it's
truly a stunning idea to me to I still
remember the first time I realized that
consciousness might be fundamental like
that the science was saying
consciousness could be fundamental. I
had to sit down. It was so I was so tied
to the physicist framework.
>> I was only maybe 29 30 years old when
when the math hit me in the face.
>> I've been working on this and hit me in
the face that that was what it meant and
I just had to sit down. I was so
stunned. This also has implications for
AI where we're sort of progressively
outsourcing our thinking more and more
to these sort of you know transformers
and thinking machines. I think the more
that we do that the less we probably
work on our own perceptive apparatus. I
mean studies show that like Gen Z will
literally like their decision their
decision-m will sort of atrophy and it
becomes sort of vestigial because you're
literally using this sort of fake pen
pal which isn't always giving you right
advice
>> constantly to like make life dec you
know it's like which person you should
you know date and you know it's sort of
crazy you know uh uh uh you know there
you know who you should uh um you know
what you should write for some paper
that you know should be your own should
be your own thinking you know or you
know you try to write a book and you do
it through this you know there are all
these things that AI is sort of you know
we're outsourcing our agency to uh uh it
and um that seems really bad in your
theory because in in your theory there's
something extremely adaptive about going
through reality to grow your own
perceptive abilities.
Well, it you rais an interesting point
and I think it I've been in AI since 79.
Um, so I've been very interested in
artificial intelligence and
you're right that AI is being used by
many people today. Um,
gives them false stuff. It gives them
some, of course, not all false. There
are useful bits of information that you
get and useful direction, but enough
false that that it can be problematic.
the the current large language models
don't really know anything. They they
compute correlations and they're at some
sense they're dumber than cucumbers,
right? They're they but they can read
everything and they can do correlations
that we can't because of they have the
computational resources and so they take
up tons of tons of energy to do them. I
think that we will have completely new
architectures. I actually think the
recursive trace logic is an AI
architecture. It's a completely
different kind of than LLM. It's a a
complete new architecture.
>> Um I'll just say one reason why I think
it's it's that one aspect of
intelligence, we're looking at
artificial intelligence. One aspect of
intelligence is surprise. To the extent
that I'm surprised, I'm not intelligent.
If every time I try to do something like
pick up this cup, the cup breaks or I
try to button my shirt and my shirt rips
or I try to wash the dishes and you know
kill myself or something like that, hurt
myself. If every time I do something I'm
surprised at the outcome, well then I'm
not very smart. Minimizing surprise is
not all of intelligence, but it's
certainly a big part of intelligence.
And the trace logic is the logic of zero
surprise.
>> So in that sense the trace logic is the
logic of intelligence. And I see going
forward that it would be very beneficial
to move away from the correlation
architectures of large language models
>> to the trace logic architecture. Have
you worked with I don't know Demisabis
or like any of these sort of like super
Ilia Sut I always don't know how to
pronounce his last name but some of
these like really frontier AI
researchers who are trying to look
beyond transformer technology I I've I
won't mention their names I've talked
with some people who are are are
interested in the possibility of using
the trace logic for for this kind of
thing but but that stuff I I I shouldn't
go into anybody I put my name on the
table and I can just say this is what
what what I I see going forward. I know
that there are other companies out there
that are trying to you like minimize um
free energy as a way of approximating
minimizing surprise and they're trying
to build AIs based on minimizing free
energy.
>> But the trace logic,
>> you don't have to minimize anything. The
trace logic is logic not only of minimum
surprise, zero surprise.
>> That's fascinating.
>> You can't do better. It's very
ambitious. Yeah. [laughter]
>> So, so in that I think the AI going
forward
>> I just don't know how you because I
think of the Carl Fristen free energy
stuff
>> and like if you're minimizing entropy,
you know, if you get so you randomize
signals, it's like this Pavlovian
conditioning thing with your neurons and
you like you try to, you know, go for as
low entropy as possible or whatever. But
there's the thing you're interfacing
with as a conscious agent is just this
like infinitely complex world. I just
don't know how I feel like you'd have to
model the infinitely complex world in
your trace logic system and that feels
like impossible or sisophian to me.
>> Well, you'd have to build
[clears throat]
just like we have to do with large
language models. You you have to put in
tons and tons of data, use tons and tons
of energy and so forth and you you can
never get to the top. So you'll always
right the trace logic has no top. So the
all you could do is is program up a
subset of the trace logic
>> but it'd be a different data
architecture completely different
architecture and and search processes.
>> It wouldn't just be like tokens and
vector space connected with one another.
It would be these sort of what might
happen in these different little rule
sets.
>> That's right. and and they'll be um if
you think about this as the different
mark matrices are different
ways of looking at things
>> you can ask what should I talk about in
terms of the beliefs that I get what are
the so I'm looking but what what beliefs
do I have
>> and the beliefs would be the stationary
measures of the markoff chains the
long-term probabilities
I'm talking erotic markoff chains but
you can generalize it to non-argotic as
well but the the
I have a bunch of states and in some
sense for this observer window what's
the long-term probability that I'll see
state 1 2 3 4 5 that's that's a kind of
pro a belief system
>> and it it turns out
so probability so they're all
probability measures these beliefs then
would be probability measures which are
the stationary measures and
probabilities of course um are beliefs
so they have a logic
>> so there is also a logic of probability
measures
and and it I discovered it. It was in
1992
we were looking at basian models of
perception with I was working with a
team and they're mathematicians. As I
said, you know, we're talking about
basian belief, probability mod. So
there's clearly a logic here because we
have to talk about propositions here.
We're using probability measures as
propositions. We can take their and
their or their negation implication.
What is it? So I just said you guys are
the mathematicians. What what is it? I'm
not a mathematician. And
we looked we had a graduate student look
for a few weeks. They he told us what
they had and it was obviously trivial.
And we we couldn't believe it. The
professor of mathematics there, Bruce
Bennett, couldn't believe it. He's a
he's a genius mathematician. So we sat
down and we did it. We um we wrote a
paper. It came out in '92 or '93. It's
called we called it the lebeg logic of
um probability measures. So there there
is a just like there's a logic on the
trace logic on marov chains.
>> There is a logic on the set of all
probability measures. It's called the
lebeg logic. not very well known
actually but it gives you the notion of
conjunction, disjunction, negation.
>> It's a non-bullan logic. It has
>> boolean sublogics
>> and um we found out just in the last
couple years that the map that takes a
marov matrix
>> to its stationary measure is a
homorphism
from the trace logic to the league
logic. M so there is a
beautiful
intermeshing of observation and belief.
They're homorphic. So the the trace
theory the trace logic on marov chains
and the league logic on probability
measures mesh perfectly and they give
you a theory of observation and belief
that meshes perfectly.
>> Wow. If you take though for granted the
idea that your perception of reality is
changing reality itself with like you
know delayed choice experiment and
double slit experiment things like that
then and then we obviously don't have
some understanding of what iigen state
gets picked in shroinger's equation
how would you in this trace logic system
be able to know exactly what state gets
picked and and and then does free will
you know exist Because if I'm choosing
to make a measurement to begin with,
that's a choice I made. I don't see how
you could sort of determin
deterministically predict that, you
know. Well,
it's funny that you mentioned this
because just yesterday I spent an hour
with my collaborator Chayan Pash who's a
mathematician on exactly how we're going
to try to get contextuality, quantum
contextuality out of the trace logic.
And we think we're be able to do it with
these policies. Um so we we think that
we'll be able to get the the right kind
of contextuality the the quantum
contextuality by the right choice of
policies on the recurs on the trace
logic itself. So that's so it's a in
other words this is taken these things
out of handwave into we know that there
is either a theorem in our favor or a
theorem against us and it's just a
matter of us writing down the theorem.
The trace logic mathematics is
absolutely clean.
>> We have no wiggle room. We can either do
it or we can't. It's just a matter of
doing the theorem and the proof. And I
think we'll get contextuality and we'll
get that thing from but that's that's
what I love about this theory. There's
literally you can see I have no wiggle
room. There is once I have markup chains
and I notice that there is this logic on
them. I can't fool with the logic. That
logic is what it is.
>> Yeah.
>> I can then build a metal logic. I can do
the policies on it. That's all the
freedom I've got. Then it has its own.
There's no So this thing either works.
Yeah, I can build it. So there's no
tweaking.
>> Yeah. Go big or go home. You're rather
>> predict general relativity and quantum
field theory or it's going to break.
[laughter]
>> And and so I I Yes. It's it's it's it's
I can't play with it. It And it's also
in a in a
a vein that I think is really
interesting. There are a lot of people
who are trying to think about trying to
build up spaceime in an everything
everywhere all at once kind of
framework,
>> right? Instead of having um you know the
time at time zero, you know, the state
at time zero and then some kind of
differential equation evolving there
there are more like Emily Adlam at
Chapman University who was a brilliant
um philosopher of physics, absolutely
brilliant philosopher of physics. I've
learned a lot from from reading her her
work on on quantum theory and and and so
she's she will she's talking about how
she's also thinking about um the notion
of of getting constraints that are
global constraints. They're not time
evolution constraints. It's more she
calls it more like sudoku where it's not
like you move from left to right she
would say in in trying to solve the
puzzle. You can do any direction you
want to. It's there's a global
constraint on what is a a a correct
solution. And that's the interesting
thing about the trace logic. It is more
the sudoku kind of thing. Once you have
a big matrix, all the traces are
pre-established.
>> They're set. It's a it's a and it's al
even the matrix itself is not a time
evolution from here to here. It's it's a
global statement of all the
probabilistic relationships among these
states. So ultimately this matrix that
you're trying to create is literally a
matrix to our reality. [laughter]
That's right.
>> It's literally in the metaphorical sense
too.
>> Yeah. It's a compression of reality
itself.
>> That That's right.
>> Yeah.
>> And Yeah. And it happens to use Marov
matrices as well.
>> That's fascinating.
>> It it is it's really quite fun. There's
a whole other level.
>> Was Marov interested in doing was he was
this an aspiration of his at all? I
think he he did this in the early 1900s.
>> And the the story I've heard is that he
did it because he was irritated with
some other mathematician or statistician
that was claiming something that he
thought was wrong. And so he just wanted
to get a proof that this guy was wrong
and he came up with a theory of Markov
chains to to prove this guy that he was
wrong. But I don't know that
>> petty motivation for what might become
new theory of everything. [laughter]
>> I wouldn't put it on him. I might put it
on my lack of understanding of the full
situation. Right. Right. Yeah.
[laughter] So, so I'm not going to put
that,
>> but it's also how how these things would
happen. You know, it's like it's funny
kind of happen stance accidents like
that is how science often progress is.
So, markup chains were then picked up to
help us understand nuclear reactions
>> when they realized that it really became
a thing when when uh we started to
realize that it could explain how a
nuclear reaction happens. All there all
these conditional probabilities. Markup
chains are conditioned on you know what
what will happen conditioned on your
current state. Well well that I feel
like makes it bode well for predicting
stuff in quantum mechanics and quantum
field theory. If it's you know useful in
the context of nuclear chain reactions
it's probably well it's computationally
universal.
>> Yeah. Um some one objection that people
might have against markup chains is to
say look um um they're special because
you have only a finite memory. you can
only have a finite memory in it. And I
would say I I agree it's a finite
memory, but it's
they're computationally universal
in the same sense that a touring machine
is computationally universal. The
touring machine has as much tape as you
need, but it's it's always finite amount
of symbols that you're writing down, but
you have as much tape as you need. And
it's the same thing with Markoff chains.
You you effectively have as much tape as
you need. And so the fact that it's um
you know the the next state depends on
the current state is not a problem
because I can make the current state as
complex as I want.
>> That's is effectively making the tape as
as have as many symbols on it as I want.
So so there's effectively no practical
limitation to the markoff framework at
all.
>> So when someone says, "Oh, but it's only
conditional on the current state."
>> Easy to fix. e easy to show that you can
just make the state as big as you want.
>> So, so it seems to be a universal um and
powerful framework. But again, I I
should then now it's humble pie time
again to say every scientific theory
starts with assumptions including my
theory and so it's infinitely far from
the truth.
>> Right.
>> Well, it's it's fascinating nonetheless.
Are you familiar with Jonathan Gerard by
any chance? And he's doing some stuff
with Wolf Ram.
>> Wolf. Right. Right. Yeah. He's Yeah.
Right.
>> Yeah. They're fascinating, too. He He's
I brought this up in the past and I've
just found it to be very interesting at
high level. I I don't understand half of
his stuff, but he he'll say, you know,
that like Limnitz and Newton, we had
kind of a vector calculus understanding
of reality. And you know, with the Wolf
Ram stuff and kind of with your stuff,
it feels like this too. we'll move to a
computational understanding of the of
the universe. And it does feel like if
we're just these perceptive nodes, you
know, and then there's maybe some some
high infinitely more complex, you know,
states of perception that feels more
computational than it does like we have
3D uh space and then we have
fourthdimensional time and we're just
kind of inexurably moving forward and we
can observe things within that scope.
Right. So I think I have done a podcast
with Wolfrram so we've talked okay
together with each other and and his
stuff is of course computationally
universal. The Marov approach is
computationally universal. So it's it's
it's it's yeah you can talk about it as
as as computation. Um it's a matter of
the way that you're the concepts that
you're you're putting forward and the
and the structures that you're that
you're exploiting. So I'm I'm exploiting
this
zero surprise structure
>> of markoff chains and therefore of
computations. There's this zero surprise
structure that no one has ever seen
before
>> and that I think is going to be really
critical going forward for intelligence.
I think actually I'm I'm working right
now on understanding what it means for
algorithms like because I think it as I
mentioned it has something to do with
computational complexity and and it's
going to be really interesting to to see
that. So there will be some kind of
translation ultimately between Wilm's
language and and what I'm doing because
they're all computationally universal.
The the question is just which language
is useful for what kinds of problems
that we want to solve. M and I think
both I mean I I think that they're doing
brilliant work and Jonathan Gerard is
doing brilliant work as well.
>> Well, I think I speak for everybody in
saying that I I am so excited to see
what you find over the next few years
and uh you're not for lacking in
ambition. I think you're really, you
know, it's kind of go home. You are
going for it.
>> Uh it's super cool and it's a very uh
kind of polymathic theory as well.
takes, you know, kind of evolutionary
biology and then you're taking
computational principles, you're taking
physics, and, you know, I love that
you're able to entertain, you know, an
exploration of UFOs and alien life with
me. And, uh, this has been fascinating,
and I hope we can do it again.
>> Thank you very much. Great pleasure,
Jesse.
>> Thank you, Don.
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