Daniel McShea: What is Field Theory? Unseen Fields Guide All Goal-Directed Things in the Universe

1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:04,360
The study of gold erectedness
got warped in some ways by its

2
00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:06,760
Aristotelian and Platonic
origins.

3
00:00:06,760 --> 00:00:10,600
Plato had this notion of a
demiurge, a God like creature

4
00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:13,960
designing the universe for a
purpose and with its entities

5
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,680
inside of it having purposes.
Aristotle saw purposes within

6
00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:20,880
things.
Those two views leave no options

7
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:24,440
either purposes within as
Aristotle says, or purposes

8
00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:28,400
outside as Plato says.
But but Plato has a theistic

9
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:31,200
interpretation these days and
therefore it's out of favor and

10
00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:33,040
nobody thinks there's a demiurge
out there.

11
00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:37,000
So the whole externalist point
of view got ditched in favor of

12
00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:39,880
an upgraded Aristotelianism.
I would call it that.

13
00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:42,360
Nobody likes Aristotle anymore
in biology.

14
00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:45,560
So it's internalism with a
different name, it's mechanism,

15
00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:47,280
and seemingly there's nowhere
else to go.

16
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:50,200
Well, essentially we came along,
said, look, Plato was right,

17
00:00:50,280 --> 00:00:52,840
there is an external 'cause it's
just not a demiurge.

18
00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,720
It's something purely physical
that we can investigate in

19
00:00:55,720 --> 00:01:04,480
empirical terms.
Daniel, in in your paper Elusive

20
00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:07,920
But Everywhere, you introduce
this fascinating idea of field

21
00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:11,200
theory as a sort of middle
ground between teleology and

22
00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:14,080
mechanism.
Could you explain for us perhaps

23
00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:15,840
in simple terms, and then we can
dive deeper?

24
00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:18,600
What do you mean by field
theory?

25
00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:24,880
Field theory is the notion that
all the goal directed things we

26
00:01:24,880 --> 00:01:27,400
know in the universe.
This is an hypothesis.

27
00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:30,400
This is not a conclusion
hypothesis that all the goal

28
00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:33,360
directed things we know in the
universe have a common

29
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:37,240
hierarchical structure, a common
architecture, and that

30
00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:41,160
architecture consists of a
little thing inside a big thing.

31
00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:44,040
So let me cash that out with it
with an example.

32
00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:47,680
I'll pick the sea turtle example
from the the paper that you

33
00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:51,160
read, but out first, before I do
that, I want to just list for

34
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:54,840
you a bunch of goal directed
systems so you and our listeners

35
00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:56,920
will know something about what
we're talking about.

36
00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:01,840
So there's goal directed systems
in biology that consist of say,

37
00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:04,600
birds flying S.
That's what they do up here in

38
00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:07,560
the Northern hemisphere flying S
for the winter.

39
00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:12,040
There's a snail crawling up a
beach in order to escape the the

40
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:16,520
high tide.
There's bacteria swimming up

41
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:19,720
food gradients so that they can
get greater concentrations of

42
00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:23,080
food in their environment.
All that's goal directed.

43
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:29,520
Those are tropisms.
Those are they're movements by

44
00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:33,080
organisms that accomplish
something for the Organism, but

45
00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:36,080
they're also, they have this
peculiar quality of being

46
00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:40,040
persistent and plastic.
So the bird that's flying S for

47
00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:43,080
the winter can get interrupted
by all manner of things.

48
00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:45,640
It can be distracted by
something it sees on the ground.

49
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:48,240
It can find a place to rest for
the night.

50
00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:53,280
It can it can see another bird
of the same species that it

51
00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:54,760
wants to interact with in some
way.

52
00:02:55,160 --> 00:02:58,080
But after it's distracted, it
comes back to its original

53
00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:00,360
trajectory.
That's persistence.

54
00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:05,480
The Organism goes, goes on a
mission, adopts a direction, is

55
00:03:05,480 --> 00:03:08,480
deflected somehow, and then
comes back to the original path.

56
00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:11,200
And that has a lot to do with
how we recognize goal directed

57
00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:16,200
systems.
Then there's the notion that in

58
00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:18,800
Physiology we are homeostatic
systems.

59
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,040
Your temperature is regulated,
your hormone concentrations are

60
00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:24,720
regulated.
All these are complex systems

61
00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:29,440
for driving your Physiology back
to some set point with

62
00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:32,920
deflections along the way.
It's a very persistent system.

63
00:03:33,440 --> 00:03:36,760
If your hormone concentration
deviates because of something

64
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:40,160
you ate, well, the system is
designed to bring it back to a

65
00:03:40,160 --> 00:03:43,040
trajectory toward toward where
it's supposed to be.

66
00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:45,480
So that's another goal directed
system.

67
00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:51,600
Then there's mechanical human in
human design goal directed

68
00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:56,280
systems like self driving cars
and homing torpedoes, where the

69
00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:59,240
homing torpedo, let's say is
tracking a target ship using the

70
00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:01,240
sound field coming off the
target ship.

71
00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:05,640
A current comes along deflecting
the homing torpedo off its path

72
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,800
and the homing torpedo corrects.
It uses the sound field for

73
00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:12,640
coming off the target ship to
find a trajectory back to where

74
00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,000
it was headed originally toward
the target ship.

75
00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:18,399
So all these systems have this
persistent quality to it.

76
00:04:18,399 --> 00:04:22,440
And this is not original with me
and Gunnar Babcock, my

77
00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:27,640
collaborator on this, it's sort
of the not the defining quality.

78
00:04:27,640 --> 00:04:30,600
It's a hallmark of goal directed
systems.

79
00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:33,880
So how to account for these
weird behaviors?

80
00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:36,440
By the way, I haven't mentioned
human intentionality yet,

81
00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:38,440
because that's a longer story
and I'll get to it.

82
00:04:38,760 --> 00:04:41,320
How do we account for all these
goal directed behaviors?

83
00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:47,000
Field theory says that all of
them consist of a small entity

84
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:51,440
like the homing torpedo, nested
within a larger field of some

85
00:04:51,440 --> 00:04:52,880
kind.
In the case of the homing

86
00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:55,800
torpedo, it's the sound field
coming off the target ship.

87
00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:59,040
I said I'd get back to the sea
turtle example.

88
00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:02,240
Let me do that one now.
Sea turtles.

89
00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:05,240
Studies have been done on these
things in Florida, but probably

90
00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:09,520
all over the world as well.
Leave their Natal beach, they

91
00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:13,240
crawl down as youngsters into
the out of their egg, across the

92
00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:17,040
sand, into the water, and they
swim out far out hundreds of

93
00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:21,520
miles out to sea where they feed
and grow and mate and so on.

94
00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:25,520
And then eventually, the females
want to build nests.

95
00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:27,200
They want to lay more eggs.
What do they do?

96
00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:29,800
They come back to shore, but not
just to any shore.

97
00:05:30,120 --> 00:05:32,480
They come back to the shore
where they were born, to the

98
00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,000
Natal beach.
How do they find it?

99
00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:38,960
Well, recent studies have shown
that they use the Earth's

100
00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:40,640
magnetic field.
It's just amazing.

101
00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:42,960
Some little magnetic field
detector in their heads.

102
00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:47,520
We don't know what it is is able
to give them the signature it

103
00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:50,680
recorded the signature of their
home beach and wherever they are

104
00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:53,760
in the world that can record the
signature of where they are and

105
00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:56,720
that gives them the directedness
they need to go back and find

106
00:05:56,720 --> 00:06:00,960
the Natal beach again.
The entity is the sea turtle.

107
00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:04,520
The field is the Earth's
magnetic field, and it's on

108
00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:08,840
account of the animal's
immersion being within this

109
00:06:08,840 --> 00:06:12,240
larger field that it's able to
find the Natal beach.

110
00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:17,320
So I've given you 2 examples
now, the homing torpedo and and

111
00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:19,320
the sea turtle.
They both have the same

112
00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:21,480
architecture.
Again, the claim of field theory

113
00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:24,200
is that all goal directed
systems have this architecture.

114
00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:29,000
When you talk about goal
directedness in in nature, you

115
00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:32,600
you just spoke about the sea
turtles navigating across both

116
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:34,000
oceans.
You also talk about in the

117
00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:37,840
paper, you talk about oak trees.
What do these diverse examples

118
00:06:37,840 --> 00:06:41,920
have in common, and and and how
does field theory help us

119
00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:43,680
understand?
Right.

120
00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:47,200
So I can't believe I left out
one of the most important goal

121
00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:50,320
directed systems of all, which
is not Physiology and animal

122
00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:55,720
tropisms, but development embryo
to to adult is clearly it's,

123
00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:58,120
it's the original.
It's one of the things that

124
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:01,320
drove Aristotle to talk
thousands of years ago, to talk

125
00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,760
about goal directed systems.
You start out with an acorn.

126
00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:08,080
It sprouts, it grows into an oak
tree.

127
00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:11,320
And if something happens along
the way, which it inevitably

128
00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:14,240
does, you know, a dry spell or
something like that, or an

129
00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:18,280
animal stomps on it or whatever
it is, it resumes its trajectory

130
00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:20,440
toward becoming an oak tree
again.

131
00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:22,640
That's the hallmark of gold
directedness.

132
00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:27,600
So what's going on within an
acorn that resembles in any way

133
00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:30,880
the sea turtle or resembles in
any way the homing torpedo?

134
00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:35,960
Developmental biology tells us
that those little cells inside

135
00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:41,400
of an acorn are directed.
They're directed by fields, what

136
00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:45,440
are called morphogenetic fields,
that are really just chemical

137
00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:48,640
gradients.
So somewhere within that, within

138
00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,400
that acorn, there's a gradient
that's telling it.

139
00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:54,640
These cells do this, those cells
do that.

140
00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:57,000
It's giving cells a series of
instructions.

141
00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:00,840
It's something larger than the
cells, right?

142
00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:04,480
And acting downwardly on them,
just like the magnetic field is

143
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,240
acting downwardly on the sea
turtle, telling it we're it to

144
00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:09,920
go all this within the acorn.
I'm not saying they're

145
00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:12,520
environmental signals.
The environment matters for

146
00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:14,440
sure.
But the directedness that's

147
00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:17,880
turning the acorn into the oak
tree, that's chemical fields

148
00:08:17,880 --> 00:08:21,720
inside the acorn directing cells
that are smaller than that field

149
00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:27,400
within it.
Ghana, when you spoke of it, I

150
00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:31,520
mean Ghana and I spoke about,
yeah, your work, we were

151
00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:34,080
touching on the fact that you,
Mike Levin, Mark Solmes are

152
00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:36,600
having these fascinating
conversation and I've been

153
00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:38,799
enjoying listening to them and
watching them.

154
00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:41,960
I'm about to speak to Mike Levin
and Terence Deakin, so I'm going

155
00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:44,520
to have them both on the show
together too, to discuss their

156
00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:47,920
similarities and differences.
I asked some of this and I'm

157
00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:49,240
curious to know your thoughts on
this.

158
00:08:50,160 --> 00:08:53,360
What are your views on on both
their work and how do they align

159
00:08:53,360 --> 00:09:00,200
with yours or differ in any way?
So I have to say, it's going to

160
00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:03,600
sounds odd coming from somebody
in my in my position in this

161
00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:07,520
field that I don't fully
understand either of their work

162
00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:10,560
enough to comment on it.
There's certainly areas of

163
00:09:10,560 --> 00:09:13,520
overlap.
It's clear that Terence Deakin

164
00:09:13,840 --> 00:09:16,400
and Gunner and I are talking
about the same thing.

165
00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:20,720
We're both interested in agency,
purpose, goal, directedness, and

166
00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:25,680
even at a larger scale of
abstraction in meaning.

167
00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:30,440
Mike Levin is interested in
these things too, but there's

168
00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,040
something with with Terence
Deacon.

169
00:09:33,040 --> 00:09:35,640
I feel like we're operating at
cross purposes to each other

170
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:37,760
without disagreeing, if that
makes any sense.

171
00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:41,360
I think he is orthogonal.
In the case of Levin though,

172
00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:44,720
he's contributed something
that's been just invaluable for

173
00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:48,360
Gunner and me, which is a
formalization of the field

174
00:09:48,360 --> 00:09:51,560
concept.
He talks in various papers about

175
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,680
regions of non local influence,
right?

176
00:09:55,680 --> 00:09:58,480
Which is a nice formal way of
talking about things that are

177
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:02,520
big, non local, acting
downwardly on things that are

178
00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:06,200
little inside them.
So we had we had an ocean of

179
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:08,080
fields before we read any of
Levin.

180
00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:11,920
He's come along and we're very
grateful he's formalized it.

181
00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:15,480
How do you feel when you see
this happening, when you're

182
00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:17,520
watching, I mean, almost, it's
live.

183
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:18,880
It's literally in front of our
faces.

184
00:10:18,880 --> 00:10:21,320
You're watching these great
breakthroughs come together and

185
00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:23,520
then you come up with these,
this field theory, and you

186
00:10:23,520 --> 00:10:26,600
notice that people are coming in
with evidence that helps support

187
00:10:26,600 --> 00:10:28,240
this.
How does that feel for someone

188
00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:30,760
who's been a part of this field
for such a long time?

189
00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:33,560
Mahinda Pandey.
Feels a little scary.

190
00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:39,200
And I say that because anybody
who comes up with an idea that

191
00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:42,600
claims to be both comprehensive
and true, right?

192
00:10:42,600 --> 00:10:46,520
Which is what field theory
claims to be, that's pretty

193
00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:49,520
broad, that's pretty sweeping.
And it takes a special kind of

194
00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:52,520
arrogance to come up with
something like that.

195
00:10:52,520 --> 00:10:56,120
And I have moments like that,
but I also have moments where I

196
00:10:56,120 --> 00:10:59,080
realized that just about every
broad sweeping theory that's

197
00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:01,720
been come up with in the history
of science and philosophy is

198
00:11:01,720 --> 00:11:05,000
wrong.
So the odds are, I should say

199
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,160
ahead of time, Gunner and I are
probably wrong.

200
00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:12,960
It can't be this simple.
Yeah, OK, that's that, said the

201
00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:16,320
arrogant side, at least of me
and perhaps of Gunner as well,

202
00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:20,000
says that all these lines of
evidence converging, there has

203
00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:23,120
to be something there if we're
wrong, or at least interestingly

204
00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:27,920
wrong, right.
So yes, it's wonderful to hear

205
00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:32,240
most Mark Psalms is the most
recent contributor to this frame

206
00:11:32,240 --> 00:11:35,920
of mind that I've got, where he
comes up with this notion of

207
00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:39,120
consciousness as affective.
And in my language,

208
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:44,040
consciousness is a field acting
downwardly on cognitive

209
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:47,480
processes.
That's just terrific.

210
00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:51,280
It's field theory beautifully.
Yeah, I spoke when I spoke to

211
00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:54,560
Guna, he was saying that when I
brought up the fact that Mark is

212
00:11:54,560 --> 00:11:57,080
so close to me in Cape Town,
it's so great to see a South

213
00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:00,360
African doing such great work.
And then he did mention the fact

214
00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:04,560
that his work aligns more with
yours than it is, and he loves

215
00:12:04,560 --> 00:12:06,480
that concept and that idea
behind it.

216
00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:08,880
How, how did you guys come to
interact?

217
00:12:08,880 --> 00:12:11,320
What was, what is that like?
What is that conversation like

218
00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:14,360
for you?
Historically you mean or how?

219
00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:17,560
How does our interaction get?
Historically and when you guys

220
00:12:17,560 --> 00:12:20,240
have these group discussions,
I'll put a link to that as well

221
00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:23,240
for all of those curious.
Yeah.

222
00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:28,800
So historically I've been
working on, I had been working

223
00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:34,440
on field theory from 2012
through about 2018, you know, at

224
00:12:34,440 --> 00:12:38,320
a low key kind of way.
I got some money to hire a

225
00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:41,080
postdoc.
I found Gunner, thank God I did.

226
00:12:42,080 --> 00:12:46,600
And he has taken those ideas
that were percolating along and

227
00:12:46,600 --> 00:12:49,280
run with them and taken them in
directions I would never have

228
00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:53,000
dreamed of taking them.
He also, he has a background in

229
00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,560
philosophy that's from my
perspective quite enviable.

230
00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:01,160
And he's just contributed so
much to this that it feels like

231
00:13:01,160 --> 00:13:06,120
the the story is is ours jointly
at this point.

232
00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:09,920
When, when, when you look at
that and, and when you people

233
00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:12,120
think of post docs, I mean they
don't really see it, but it's,

234
00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:15,440
it's literally like having a, a
philosophical or scientific

235
00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:16,800
child within the field.
And this is it.

236
00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:19,400
It leaves legacies and steps
going beyond you.

237
00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:23,480
That must be pretty cool to to
watch ideas that propagate from

238
00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:26,480
you and then embody someone else
and then go on it's own journey

239
00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:29,880
creating new things.
Yes, it's everything you just

240
00:13:29,880 --> 00:13:31,920
said.
Except when he's wrong, by the

241
00:13:31,920 --> 00:13:33,800
way.
I did.

242
00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:35,800
I actually did ask him where,
where, where do you guys

243
00:13:35,800 --> 00:13:39,320
disagree?
Do you want to touch on where

244
00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:40,960
you guys actually disagree
fundamentally?

245
00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:43,120
And then I'll move on to the
next question about goal

246
00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:44,920
directedness.
Yeah, sure.

247
00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:48,480
You have to look, you have to
scrape and dig pretty deep to

248
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:51,040
find areas of disagreement
between us.

249
00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:54,400
The the latest one that's
actually kind of interesting and

250
00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:58,080
that we're going to explore has
to do with internal versus

251
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:04,320
external causes of feelings, of
affect, of motivations and so

252
00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:07,400
on.
My position is that a lot of it

253
00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:10,680
is completely internally
produced, that an Organism just

254
00:14:10,680 --> 00:14:14,680
sitting there bored out of its
mind will do something.

255
00:14:14,680 --> 00:14:17,840
Especially a fancy Organism like
us will do something that looks

256
00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:22,760
to the outside, spontaneous,
without external 'cause, right,

257
00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:26,560
Sunny summer afternoon, nothing
going on.

258
00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:29,480
I got to get out of this place,
I got to go for a walk.

259
00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:31,960
Well, where did I got to go for
a walk come from?

260
00:14:32,120 --> 00:14:36,160
It feels internally generated.
Gunner wants to come along and

261
00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:39,400
say look for all this stuff that
feels internally generated.

262
00:14:39,640 --> 00:14:43,480
You're going to find external
causes of some kind, external

263
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:46,080
triggers of some kind, perhaps
historically.

264
00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:49,680
In the end, I don't think we're
going to disagree on much, but

265
00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:52,720
there is a difference of
emphasis here with me on the

266
00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:54,600
internal and him on the
external.

267
00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:57,360
I I think that's exactly what he
touched on when when I asked him

268
00:14:57,360 --> 00:14:59,960
this question.
So oh, OK, sorry to sorry to

269
00:14:59,960 --> 00:15:02,440
boringly.
Repeat that a percolating idea

270
00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:04,760
between the two of you.
But but back to the paper.

271
00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:09,560
One of the concepts you
introduce that is that goal

272
00:15:09,560 --> 00:15:13,600
directed systems exhibit both
persistence and plasticity.

273
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:15,800
Yes.
Can you unpack these two

274
00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:18,880
qualities and what they mean,
and how do they fit into a

275
00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:20,680
broader theory of call directed?
Yeah.

276
00:15:21,840 --> 00:15:25,840
So persistence is just returning
to a trajectory after deviation.

277
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:27,320
That's the formal statement of
it.

278
00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:30,960
The example that we use as the
sea turtle one typically, but

279
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:34,520
there are a gazillion other
examples like body temperature

280
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,960
can deviate because it's very
hot outside.

281
00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:39,520
Let's say your temperature goes
up.

282
00:15:40,160 --> 00:15:43,040
The result is all these cooling
systems kick in and you cool

283
00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:46,240
down again.
Or some you turn on the AC as

284
00:15:46,240 --> 00:15:48,880
the case may be and you cool
down again.

285
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:53,960
And the system is persistent in
the sense that it returns to its

286
00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:58,680
stable intended state and the
sea turtle returns to a

287
00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:01,320
trajectory towards its towards
its Natal beach.

288
00:16:02,320 --> 00:16:06,680
Plasticity is related to
persistence, and it has to do do

289
00:16:06,680 --> 00:16:08,720
with flexibility of starting
point.

290
00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,800
So the homing torpedo can start
pretty much anywhere within the

291
00:16:12,800 --> 00:16:16,200
sound field of the target ship
and still find a trajectory

292
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:20,400
toward the target ship.
And your temperature can start

293
00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:23,760
too low or too high and still
find a trajectory toward the

294
00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:28,160
target temperature.
So plasticity is indifference to

295
00:16:28,160 --> 00:16:31,600
starting point, and persistence
is returning to a trajectory.

296
00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:35,040
Footnote to add to both of
those, nothing is infinitely

297
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:37,040
plastic.
You can't just drop the homing

298
00:16:37,040 --> 00:16:39,840
torpedo anywhere in the ocean
and expect it to find the target

299
00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:40,880
ship.
It has limits.

300
00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:44,520
And same with persistence.
These goal directed systems

301
00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:46,640
don't recover from all
perturbations.

302
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:49,840
You know the sea turtle, carried
off course by an enormous

303
00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:52,240
current may never find its way
to the Natal beach.

304
00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:55,080
Even though the Earth's magnetic
field is anywhere, everywhere,

305
00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:58,600
it could end up in the wrong
hemisphere and misinterpret the

306
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:01,720
magnetic field.
So there's no guarantees built

307
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,680
into any of this.
Important last thing to add in

308
00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:08,760
answer to your question,
persistence and plasticity have,

309
00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:14,400
for certain philosophers in the
20th century, been used as part

310
00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:16,760
of the definition of gold
directedness.

311
00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:19,440
Gunner and I are not defining
anything.

312
00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:22,240
We are not defining gold
directedness, certainly not in

313
00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:24,160
terms of persistence and
plasticity.

314
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:27,480
We're saying these are signature
qualities of gold direct.

315
00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:32,200
It's how we recognize them.
And what is our definition of

316
00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:34,440
gold directedness?
Well, we're going to stall off

317
00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:37,560
coming up with one until gold
directed systems are better

318
00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:39,880
understood.
I don't think we should rush to

319
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:42,680
definition when we don't fully
understand what it is we're

320
00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:46,760
talking about.
You critique the dominant

321
00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:48,920
mechanistic models of gold
direct behavior.

322
00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:52,400
How do these models fall short?
And how does field theory

323
00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:53,520
operate?
Malcolm.

324
00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:55,760
Yeah.
This is a tricky question

325
00:17:55,760 --> 00:17:58,200
because everything hinges on
what you mean by mechanism.

326
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:02,280
So there's a definition of
mechanism out there that's

327
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:05,160
normally attributed to the
philosopher Craver.

328
00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:09,640
I've forgotten his first name,
which says that mechanism is the

329
00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:12,800
activity of the parts within
something that account for its

330
00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:15,960
behavior with within being the
operative word.

331
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:20,480
From our perspective, mechanism
is always inside the thing in

332
00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:23,400
question.
So our approach is non

333
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:27,000
mechanistic in the sense that we
say yes, sure, mechanisms

334
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:29,360
matter.
What's going on inside the head

335
00:18:29,360 --> 00:18:33,600
of the sea turtle matters a lot,
but it's not enough.

336
00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:36,000
It doesn't give direction.
It doesn't tell the sea turtle

337
00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:38,080
which way to go.
You need the Earth's magnetic

338
00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:39,880
field or that mechanism will do
nothing.

339
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:43,720
So mechanism is not enough.
You need the external field as

340
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:47,520
well, is what we're saying.
There are others who come along

341
00:18:47,520 --> 00:18:51,360
and say, well, this magnetic
field acting on head of sea

342
00:18:51,360 --> 00:18:54,480
turtle or on brain of sea
turtle, That's mechanistic.

343
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:57,920
And there is an understanding of
mechanism which puts pretty much

344
00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:00,920
everything that's within the
realm of science in the category

345
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:04,080
of mechanism.
We are not invoking any spook,

346
00:19:04,120 --> 00:19:06,160
any spookiness here.
There are no ghosts in the

347
00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:09,880
machine or anything like that.
We're hardcore empiricists, both

348
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:12,880
of us.
And in that sense, yes, our

349
00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:17,240
theory is mechanistic, but not
in the narrow sense of appealing

350
00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:20,600
only to the workings of parts
inside.

351
00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:26,120
The some of the questions I have
might overlap a little, but I

352
00:19:26,120 --> 00:19:28,840
think it's still a good way to
explore this concept a little

353
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:31,680
further.
Field theory seems to offer a

354
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:34,880
unifying framework that could
tie together everything, let's

355
00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:38,680
say from physics to biology.
Could you maybe give us some

356
00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:42,680
insight into how your theory
might help connect the life

357
00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:44,240
sciences with the physical
sciences?

358
00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:49,280
In a very straightforward way
that many biologists don't like.

359
00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:55,520
So in our view, this
architecture I've described of

360
00:19:55,520 --> 00:19:58,600
little thing guided by a big
thing outside, outside of it

361
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:01,760
applies to physical systems as
well.

362
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:06,320
If you take a ball of steel ball
bearing and put it at the lip of

363
00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:10,640
a bowl and release it, it'll
roll around inside the ball,

364
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,440
back and forth, eventually
finding a spot in the middle at

365
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:15,680
the bottom.
Guided by what?

366
00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:18,800
The field of gravity.
All right, there's no mystery

367
00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:22,400
what's going on here.
Is that goal directed or not?

368
00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:26,600
Well, most of biology and most
philosophers of biology say no.

369
00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:28,480
That isn't what we mean by goal
directed.

370
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:32,200
It's too boring, too simple, too
uninteresting a system.

371
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:34,680
It doesn't have the signature
qualities of goal directed.

372
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:39,840
Systems like sea turtles and
bacteria finding food and so on

373
00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:45,320
have our answer to that is yes.
The ball in the bowl, on account

374
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:48,800
of having an external field
guiding a small entity within

375
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:52,800
it, will probably count in the
end as goal directed.

376
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,800
Important footnote.
Boringly so.

377
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:59,760
It's the most boring goal
directed system you can imagine,

378
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:02,480
with no internal structure to
the ball bearing.

379
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:06,240
At least I didn't specify any.
The field is completely

380
00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:09,640
understood since Isaac Newton.
It's the gravity field, the

381
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:11,120
bowl.
We think anyway.

382
00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:13,520
We completely understand.
There's no mystery here.

383
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:17,240
So yeah, it's goal directed
because it has persistence in

384
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,600
plasticity.
If you reach in and nudge the

385
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,680
ball while it's rolling around,
it'll resume, of course, toward

386
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:26,560
the bottom of the bowl.
Think about this.

387
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:30,200
By the way, I invite your
listeners to really think about

388
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:34,280
this for a moment, how this must
have looked pre Newton back in

389
00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:37,600
Aristotle's day.
The ball in the bowl, what the

390
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:40,480
hell is going on?
It keeps going for the bottom.

391
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:45,480
You know nothing about gravity
or you weren't raised on on

392
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:47,880
physics.
You know, you don't have even a

393
00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:50,680
2 year old's appreciation of
modern physics.

394
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:53,680
Back then it must have looked
pretty mysterious.

395
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,760
It's not mysterious to us at all
that Aristotle would have

396
00:21:56,760 --> 00:21:59,920
considered something like that
to have an element of goal

397
00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:04,440
directedness of purpose to it.
And therefore it makes it sound

398
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:09,040
less absurd when we go ahead and
say, yes, this is a boringly

399
00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:11,880
goal directed system, a very
simple one.

400
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,720
Within that example, do you, I
mean, we often bold.

401
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:17,680
I mean, as Newton says, I mean,
we're on the shoulders of

402
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:19,000
giants.
We're we're building upon

403
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,920
knowledge of everyone else.
Do you ever think that this

404
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:25,840
you'll that field theory is so
obvious and yet hasn't been

405
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:27,200
thought of?
And like, why hasn't this

406
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,600
happened?
Yeah.

407
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,040
Based on all the information we
currently have, I mean it makes

408
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:35,080
a lot of sense.
Yeah, I'm glad to hear you say

409
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:40,040
that.
So I'm going to be weaning it

410
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:42,600
here because we've thought about
this and don't have a great

411
00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:45,120
answer.
We thought about it a little bit

412
00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:47,160
and don't have a great answer.
Maybe if we thought about it

413
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:49,920
more we'd have a better one.
The field got.

414
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:52,760
The field the study of gold
erectedness got.

415
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:54,720
And this is my language, not
Gunners.

416
00:22:55,120 --> 00:22:59,360
Warped in some ways by its
Aristotelian and Platonic

417
00:22:59,360 --> 00:23:02,640
origins.
Plato had this notion of a

418
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:07,120
demiurge, a God like creature
designing the universe for a

419
00:23:07,120 --> 00:23:10,840
purpose and with its entities
inside of it having purposes.

420
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,960
Aristotle saw purposes within
things.

421
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,800
Those two views leave no
options.

422
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,360
Either purpose is within, as
Aristotle says, or purposes

423
00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:26,560
outside, as Plato says.
But but Plato has a has a

424
00:23:27,360 --> 00:23:31,640
atheistic interpretation these
days, and therefore it's out of

425
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:32,920
favor.
And nobody thinks there's a

426
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:36,000
demiurge out there.
So the whole externalist point

427
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:42,080
of view got ditched in favor of
an upgraded Aristotelianism.

428
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:45,040
I would call it that.
Nobody likes Aristotel anymore

429
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,960
in biology.
So it's it's internalism with a

430
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:51,640
different name, it's mechanism,
and seemingly there's nowhere

431
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:53,400
else to go.
Well, essentially we came along

432
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:57,720
and said, look, Plato was right,
there is an external 'cause it's

433
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:00,760
just not a demiurge.
It's something purely physical

434
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,680
that we can investigate in
empirical terms.

435
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,000
How did Gonna feel about that?
Because I know he's a huge fan

436
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,360
of Aristotle.
Yeah, I think he would agree

437
00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:17,320
that Aristotle was doing
something very sensible, trying

438
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:21,680
to account for purpose, and that
he looked in the wrong place

439
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,600
inside.
And then we wrote a paper.

440
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,160
Our first paper together
actually, was on externalism

441
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:32,080
versus internalism.
If you read, as Gunnar has, the

442
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,400
details of Aristotle's argument,
you'll see that he was puzzled

443
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,840
by certain cases of apparent
external purpose,

444
00:24:39,120 --> 00:24:42,280
purposefulness.
And I think it was, I'm going to

445
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:43,880
get this wrong.
Apologies, Gunner.

446
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:49,360
I think it was in eels.
In aquatic eels, they seemed to

447
00:24:49,360 --> 00:24:52,440
form fully, if they seemed
Aristotle at his day to form

448
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,440
fully formed out of nowhere,
they just appeared in the mud,

449
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,960
right, With no 'cause what's no
internal cause internal to the

450
00:24:59,960 --> 00:25:02,800
mud really, they just pop into
existence out of the mud.

451
00:25:03,120 --> 00:25:06,960
Aristotle inferred they and a
bunch of other things, including

452
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,640
all of human artifacts by the
way, may may be an exception to

453
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,200
his internalism rule.
There may be some things with

454
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,320
external causes.
So Aristotle was enough of a

455
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,680
scientist to recognize where his
theory was inadequate.

456
00:25:20,120 --> 00:25:23,920
We're picking up on his
recognition and saying yes.

457
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,240
And those other cases, most of
the case you're talking about,

458
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:30,120
they fit the the eel case as
well, and the human artifact

459
00:25:30,120 --> 00:25:34,200
case as well.
In keeping with this historical

460
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:38,120
theme, you argue that historical
and contemporary views on

461
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,240
teleology often treated as
binary.

462
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,680
And why is it important for us
to see teleology as a spectrum

463
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,520
rather than a yes or no concept?
And what kind of implications

464
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:50,200
does this shift have on our
understanding of natural

465
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,120
systems?
Yeah.

466
00:25:52,120 --> 00:25:55,680
So I'm going to get
philosophical beyond my training

467
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:59,480
and beyond what I have any
license to be and say.

468
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,560
Everything in the universe is
continuous.

469
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:07,560
Everything, everything you think
is discrete except for numbers.

470
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:10,880
Sorry, have to put in math in a
separate category, and possibly

471
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,640
geometry and possibly logic.
But all all the things we can

472
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:18,360
talk about in empirical terms
and do empirical research on,

473
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,760
they're all continuous,
including number of heads in

474
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,760
people, right?
There's Siamese twins that make

475
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,400
the idea of having one head
problematic.

476
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:32,240
All right, so everything varies.
The real question to raise is

477
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,440
why did anybody ever think the
opposite?

478
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:40,120
For about 2000 years after
Aristotle, biological thinking

479
00:26:40,120 --> 00:26:44,600
was dominated by essentialism,
the notion that everything has

480
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:48,640
an essence out there and A2
headed person is in essence A1

481
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,120
headed person.
The reality out there is

482
00:26:51,120 --> 00:26:53,760
discreet, right?
It comes in units.

483
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:55,960
It comes in categories of
things.

484
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,520
Well, along came Darwin.
Actually, Lamarck gets some

485
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,880
credit for this, too.
Recognizing variation, seeing

486
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,960
that everything in biology
varies, and essentially ditching

487
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,120
the whole notion that anything
has an essence if everything's

488
00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:14,440
on a spectrum.
Now, of course, it's easy to

489
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,680
admit in biology.
Let's turn to the rest of the

490
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:20,360
universe, right?
Is, are are there degrees of

491
00:27:20,360 --> 00:27:23,080
planetness when we're talking
about planets going around?

492
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,280
Yes, it turns out there are.
And we have different names for

493
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,600
the different degrees of
planetness from, you know, comet

494
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:34,280
to asteroid to moon and so on.
All these are things in orbit

495
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:36,800
around something bigger, and we
have different names for them.

496
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,360
And everybody knows, everybody
in astrophysics knows these

497
00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:44,000
categories are continuous with
each other and they it's a

498
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,160
variation in orbit and size and
so on.

499
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,000
So when you turn to the physical
world, at least at the gross

500
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,640
scale, physicists too will sign
on to the notion that everything

501
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:56,880
is continuous.
Why should goal directedness be

502
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,880
any different?
That said, I have to throw in a

503
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:03,520
little anecdote that they amuse
you and our and our listeners.

504
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,960
Whenever I meet a particle
physicists, one of my first

505
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:12,320
questions is, is the charge on
the electron exactly known and

506
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:17,080
invariant among electrons?
And they, I usually get answers,

507
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,840
well, yes, out to 17 decimal
places or whatever, whatever

508
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,640
we've measured, yes, it is.
But that wasn't my question.

509
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,040
My question is, is it exactly
the same?

510
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,840
And according to the physical
theory it is, but that's

511
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,080
physical theory, not according
to measurement.

512
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:35,480
So this point of view, this, I
was going to say global, it's

513
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,080
bigger than that, this
universalist point of view that

514
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,800
everything varies should extend
to electrons.

515
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:43,400
And if it doesn't then I'm
wrong.

516
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,360
Yeah, I think I wrote a comment
saying everything comes in

517
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:51,080
degrees if I'm not mistaken,
according to your work and.

518
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,280
Yeah, everything.
Everything physical comes in

519
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:57,400
degrees.
It well it it seems like field

520
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,960
theory can bridges this gap
between life sciences and

521
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,080
physical sciences.
But I'm curious, do you think

522
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:07,240
field theory suggests a
different way about thinking

523
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:08,840
about the fundamental nature of
life?

524
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,840
Depends on different from what?
So in one way what Gunner and I

525
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,640
have come up with is not
original at all.

526
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,760
It's derivative of what was
called in the mid 20th century

527
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:26,120
hierarchy theory, but it goes
back before the mid 20th century

528
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,280
and it sounds so straightforward
that it's not worth dignifying

529
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:32,600
it.
In some ways with the word

530
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:37,680
theory, it's the study of
nestedness of things within

531
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,120
things and how they influence
each other.

532
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,680
It's been a sub theme in all of
biology as well as all of

533
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,240
physics for a long time.
But only in the mid 20th century

534
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,080
did people start to focus on it
and drill down on it.

535
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:53,400
It was called systems theory
back then.

536
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,280
Systems theory means something
different in molecular biology

537
00:29:56,280 --> 00:30:01,320
today, but that's it was the
science of nested things back

538
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:04,640
then.
So we're just taking their

539
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:08,600
hierarchy theory notions and
applying them in this new

540
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,840
context.
Gold directedness and saying,

541
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:13,680
look, we've got an easy answer
here.

542
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,000
So you asked what do we change?
What changes as a result of our

543
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,960
view?
Some hierarchical thinking, an

544
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,000
acknowledgement of what's
conventionally called downward

545
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,120
causation.
Big things acting on little

546
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,640
things within them.
Very few people, even in

547
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:35,000
philosophy of biology these
days, don't believe in downward

548
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,800
causation.
I could name a few, but most are

549
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:40,880
happy with it.
What they don't see is it's

550
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:45,440
broad application across biology
to all biological systems.

551
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:49,520
And there's still this reflex
tendency to when you want to

552
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:53,200
explain, look down, look to
mechanism, look to genes, look

553
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:55,520
inside.
And then you ask them about

554
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:57,800
hierarchy theory and they'll
say, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's

555
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:00,640
doundary causation works too,
right.

556
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,120
So we're trying to bring, we're
trying to make hierarchy theory

557
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:05,760
blossom.
That's the bigger picture.

558
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:08,680
And what we, what we would like
to be one of our big

559
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,320
contributions.
Earlier you mentioned touching

560
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:14,600
on this later on, but I think we
can get to it now.

561
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,720
In discussing human culture and
psychology, you suggest that our

562
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,320
wants and intentions might be
directed by larger fields.

563
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,320
Could you elaborate on how this
works on a human scale?

564
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:30,760
Yeah.
So two kinds of influence going

565
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:35,520
on here. 1 is the influence of
things outside us on our wants

566
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,040
and intentions.
So you smell the bakery down the

567
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:43,760
street and you want that, that
pastry, right?

568
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:48,120
Something outside with a causal
field acting on your brain

569
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:51,560
causing you to want something.
There's another level, and this

570
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:55,240
is the one where we get it our
most, at our most speculative.

571
00:31:56,080 --> 00:32:00,600
The want for that pastry is
itself a field that's acting

572
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:04,880
downwardly on your motor
systems, on your speech center,

573
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:08,400
on your cognition, your thought
processes and so on.

574
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:13,160
It's a big global field, we
hypothesize, and these other

575
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,920
things like motor centers and
speech centers are smaller

576
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:19,680
things nested within it.
So that very simple case I just

577
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:23,320
described of a the bakery making
you want a pastry is actually 2

578
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:25,440
levels of of downward causation
there.

579
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,000
And the outer part, the smell
of, of the bakery causing you to

580
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:32,040
to want something is not
controversial.

581
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:36,360
The inner part is controversial.
Neuroscience will have something

582
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:38,760
to say about whether we're right
or wrong about this.

583
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:43,640
The the concept of free will
often seems at odds with the

584
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,720
determinism.
In your view, does I'll theory

585
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,800
opera way of reconciling these
seemingly opposing ideas?

586
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:55,120
Can can can we be free while
still being deterministic?

587
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,880
So I'm going to try to explain a
point of view that Gunner would

588
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,560
be better off explaining this,
but I'm going to try and fake my

589
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,080
way through it.
A point of view that field

590
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,320
theory is consistent with.
But we're not.

591
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,400
It's not unique to us.
And that's called compatibilism.

592
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:16,520
It's the notion that everything
we do and say and think is fully

593
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,800
determined by causes at some
level of organization, whether

594
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:26,800
it's within or outside of us.
Our view of free will says we

595
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,880
can be full determinist.
We can believe that everything

596
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:33,840
is fully determined and at the
same time have a kind of free

597
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,120
will, the only kind of free will
that matters.

598
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,120
And what does free will mean in
this context?

599
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:44,520
It means thoughts and speech and
action that originate inside of

600
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,800
you.
They can be fully deterministic,

601
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:48,640
but if they originate inside of
you.

602
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,400
Like me deciding to go for a
walk this afternoon because I'm

603
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,120
bored.
That originates inside of me,

604
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,560
and therefore my fully
determined action to go for a

605
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,000
walk this afternoon is me
expressing my freedom.

606
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,400
If something outside of me
determines, if somebody puts a

607
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:07,920
gun to my head, said you're
going for a walk this afternoon,

608
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,480
right?
That's an external influence

609
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:14,880
acting downwardly on me, forcing
me to go for via my wants and

610
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,120
intentions, of course, forcing
me to go for a walk.

611
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:21,400
And that's not free.
So for free will purposes, the

612
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,760
boundary is at the edge of your
skin.

613
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:27,199
Causes that are outside make you
unfree.

614
00:34:27,199 --> 00:34:29,600
Causes that are inside make you
free.

615
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,520
Some people will complain then.
Well, that isn't what I wanted

616
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:35,520
out of free will.
I didn't want to be determined

617
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:39,159
by my wants and intentions or by
my biochemistry or anything like

618
00:34:39,159 --> 00:34:42,080
that.
I want to be really free.

619
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:46,360
To which our response is the
only alternative to determinism

620
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:48,800
is randomness.
Are you saying you want your

621
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:52,400
speech, behaviors and thoughts
to be random?

622
00:34:53,199 --> 00:34:56,080
Because that's the only other
place you've got to go.

623
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:58,600
And of course nobody says yes to
that.

624
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:03,480
So our summary statement is the
kind of freedom that you think

625
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:09,480
you want either is meaningless,
non random, non caused right, or

626
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,440
it's random and you don't want
that, leaving you with

627
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,160
compatibilism.
It's fully determined and just

628
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,200
be satisfied with doing what you
want.

629
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:20,400
Parentheses.
Isn't that all you wanted out of

630
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:22,400
free will is to be able to do
what you want?

631
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,920
Yeah, you introduced the idea
that we're not merely pawns of

632
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,280
external fields.
Instead, we're our own desires

633
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:36,000
and intentions of fields and.
Yes, exactly.

634
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,000
That's that's thank you for
bringing it up.

635
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,280
That that's the key here.
Our wants and intentions acting

636
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,200
downward on our own mental
components.

637
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:47,080
That's free will in action.
That's it.

638
00:35:47,240 --> 00:35:50,040
That's you getting your way, so
to speak, which is what

639
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:51,640
everybody wants at our free
will.

640
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,640
The if we without when talking
about free will life, it's and

641
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:58,880
this is my favorite topic, of
course, since the name of the

642
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,360
broadcast is mind body solution.
What is consciousness to you,

643
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,480
Dan?
Well, up until my recent

644
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:09,000
conversations with Mark Solms, I
would have said I have no idea

645
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:13,320
what consciousness is.
And I had put the whole thing

646
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,920
aside because all I want to talk
about is affect, which is a

647
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:21,240
field, and cognition and motor
stuff, which is within within

648
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,160
affective fields and
consciousness.

649
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:26,200
And I don't know, it's the
blackboard on which cognition

650
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:28,320
writes or something, something
like that.

651
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,040
Now that I've talked to him
about it and read some of his

652
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:36,720
work, I really like the idea
that consciousness is itself

653
00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:40,000
affective.
It's an it's a feeling response

654
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:44,480
to what's going on in cognition.
So I'm thinking about an apple.

655
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:46,480
What's my feeling about the
apple?

656
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,760
That's my consciousness of it.
Whatever my feeling about that

657
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,000
apple is, that's my
consciousness of it.

658
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:54,640
So now I at least have an
answer.

659
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:58,480
Thank you, Mark, to the what is
consciousness?

660
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,800
It's a field.
I, I still remember when Mark

661
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:06,240
first started bringing out this,
his hidden spring and looking

662
00:37:06,240 --> 00:37:09,280
at, looking at the cortical
fallacy and focusing effect

663
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,760
valence, etcetera.
And at first, this wasn't taken

664
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,360
very well.
A lot of people really, it shut

665
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,240
down this idea of this ancient
brain.

666
00:37:17,240 --> 00:37:20,000
And and they really did treat
his work quite poorly initially.

667
00:37:20,240 --> 00:37:22,640
But there's been a huge rise
since then since he's been

668
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,360
working with Carl Friston for
showing people how there's many

669
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,600
ways that might live.
And all you guys, there's so

670
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,200
many different ways that his
theory actually does work and

671
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:31,520
it's grown in popularity since
then.

672
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:34,240
And we actually discussed that
and he said it's, it's been

673
00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:37,120
pretty cool to see this change
from from like complete

674
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,840
dismissal to almost complete
acceptance.

675
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,000
Well, obviously with with the
outliers here and there.

676
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:45,240
I didn't know that he was
bragging.

677
00:37:45,240 --> 00:37:46,760
Complete acceptance.
I love that.

678
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:49,560
Oh I love complete acceptance.
I know what you meant.

679
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:52,520
Yeah.
But it, it, it, it has been

680
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,440
quite strange to see how, how
quickly this has happened.

681
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:57,800
I would say in the last maybe 10
years or so, it's been, it's

682
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,800
been quite abrupt.
You know, it's, it's a very

683
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,880
fascinating theory.
Perhaps a sign that he's right.

684
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:08,400
I think he mentioned it was, I
can't remember who, but might

685
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,400
have been Nagel who, who said
this, this young man Mark might

686
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:16,600
be on to something and he was
very pleased, the high praise.

687
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,560
Yeah, one of the nice things it
does, by the way, is it takes

688
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:25,320
intentionality out of the
unique, uniquely human realm and

689
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:30,800
puts it not just in great apes,
not just in mammals, it puts it

690
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:35,480
perhaps back in plants where
affective fields know they don't

691
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:37,520
have feelings.
Plants, I'm not in that school

692
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,800
that says they have anything I'd
want to call feelings, but they

693
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,400
do have that oomph that goes
with feelings.

694
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,880
That what larger fields do to
smaller things is give them

695
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:51,680
oomph and everything alive and a
bunch of not alive things have

696
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:55,360
that oomph as well.
So it it primitivizes

697
00:38:55,720 --> 00:39:00,680
consciousness, which is just
lovely, which is good.

698
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:02,720
It's a continuationist view of
biology.

699
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,240
Yeah, it takes off that pedestal
we we love to put ourselves on.

700
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:08,160
Yeah.
Yeah, no, no.

701
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:12,280
So field theory suggests that
large scale neural networks or

702
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,880
wanting fields direct our
cognitive and motor functions.

703
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,280
Yes.
What evidence, if any, do we

704
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,480
have to support the existence of
these large scale neural fields

705
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,880
in brains?
Yeah, the first answer is none.

706
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,160
And that's why I say we're out
on a limb here, Gunnar.

707
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:31,400
And I say the claim being if
field theory is right, if it's

708
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,040
universal and explaining goal
directed behavior, if human

709
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:37,560
behavior can be considered goal
directed, that part is

710
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,960
uncontroversial.
Here's what brain structure

711
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,080
might look like.
It's got to consist of something

712
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,080
big with something small nested
within it.

713
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:49,680
Now, you quoted us as saying
accurately large scale neural

714
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,720
fields, but that's just one
possibility.

715
00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:54,280
These could be electrical
fields.

716
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:57,640
Mike Levin is a big fan of
electrical fields of some kind.

717
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,320
Fields can consist of solid
objects.

718
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,680
The bowl is a field that's
helping gravity direct the ball

719
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:06,600
toward the bottom.
It's a solid object.

720
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:10,160
There may be physical
constraints at the level of

721
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:14,800
solidity and liquidity and so
on, concentration gradients of

722
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,560
various kinds that are involved
here as well.

723
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,640
Large scale neural fields is
just one way to talk about it.

724
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:26,880
That said, we're inviting
neurobiology to take a look to

725
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:28,640
see if they can find these
things.

726
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:31,040
One other thing to say about it
is.

727
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,680
I've.
Delved a little bit into the

728
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,440
neuro literature.
It's not my field, so anything I

729
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:40,760
say is quite suspect, but I've
never read anything about

730
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:46,280
intentionality, wanting, caring,
etcetera that contradicts what

731
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,160
we have to say.
If they found a little organ

732
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,200
somewhere that was the wanting
organ, and it was small and

733
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,720
didn't broadcast a large field
of any kind, then Gunner and I

734
00:40:56,720 --> 00:41:00,120
are in trouble.
But they haven't so far, so far

735
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,720
as I know, I should say.
There's an interesting tension

736
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,080
in the paper around conflicting
ones, like wanting to eat a

737
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:10,120
piece of cheesecake, but also
knowing is not healthy.

738
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,000
So how does field theory help us
understand these intense

739
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:19,920
internal conflicts?
Yeah, internal.

740
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,120
And here I'm going to have to
take you back to a philosopher,

741
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:30,160
David Hume, who argued that
affect is my terminology, not

742
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:35,000
his wanting, caring, preferring
and so on, is the cause of all

743
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:38,200
conscious behavior.
And there's no other possible

744
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,840
'cause he's an 18th century
philosopher.

745
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:42,520
What did he know about
neurobiology?

746
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,120
This is an in principle
argument.

747
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:48,480
There's no other possible 'cause
for willful, deliberate

748
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,400
behavior.
So what does a decision look

749
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,560
like in Hume's world?
A decision is going to be a

750
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:00,120
conflict between wants warring
passions.

751
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,160
In his his term, he recognized
passions, not wants.

752
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:08,240
Passions, by the way, for him
included calm passions.

753
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:11,240
So am I wanting to go for a walk
this afternoon?

754
00:42:11,240 --> 00:42:13,320
It's not a violent emotion of
any kind.

755
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:14,720
Would you really call it a
passion?

756
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:18,280
He called it a calm passion.
And it's one of the motivators

757
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:20,080
that operates within us.
There's lots of them.

758
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:23,880
When I'm faced with a piece of
cheesecake or 10 pieces of

759
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:26,720
cheesecake and consider that I'd
like to eat all of them because

760
00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:28,280
it's good, why wouldn't I want
more?

761
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:30,360
Why wouldn't I wolf them all
down now?

762
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:34,240
Immediately what happens is a
bunch of passions come into

763
00:42:34,240 --> 00:42:37,360
play. 1 is just outright desire
for the cheesecake.

764
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,800
More, more, more of it.
And then if I stop and think

765
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,720
before I guzzle all the
cheesecake, other passions come

766
00:42:44,720 --> 00:42:48,040
into play Because my big
forebrain kicks in and starts

767
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:52,520
painting pictures of me lying in
the emergency room after a heart

768
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,080
attack from clogged arteries
from having eaten too much

769
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,120
cheesecake in the course of a
lifetime.

770
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:02,160
And some affective part of me
goes, no, don't do that.

771
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:06,280
And immediately we have a
tension set up between one

772
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,480
constellation of passions
associated with eating the

773
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,200
cheesecake and another
constellation of passions

774
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,480
associated with not eating the
cheesecake.

775
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:17,840
And whoever wins, that's what I
decide to do.

776
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:21,200
That's that's my will is
whichever one wins.

777
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,800
And we, as we all all know, many
of our most important decisions

778
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:29,680
sit on a knife edge, constantly
going back and forth between one

779
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:34,080
set of passions and another with
the big forebrain, the

780
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,640
calculator cognition operating
in the background all the time,

781
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:42,960
painting pictures of alternative
futures for our affect to react

782
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:47,520
to positively, negatively adding
weight to one decision, taking

783
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:53,480
weight away from another.
So this human point of view,

784
00:43:53,720 --> 00:43:56,320
which is fully consistent with
field theory because it puts the

785
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:58,960
passions in the center of the
causal picture.

786
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:03,640
This human point of view
accounts for the most boring

787
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,080
decisions of all, including my
decision to scratch this slight

788
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:11,000
itch on my face right now to
going for a walk this afternoon.

789
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,360
From when do I want to retire or
do I want to retire at all?

790
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,600
Or who shall I marry?
And all these very important

791
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,120
questions of great weight, great
weight that we it's just

792
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:25,040
conflicting passions.
And it gets very complicated in

793
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:28,080
people.
It's less complicated in simpler

794
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:31,760
animals.
We can consider field theory as

795
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:34,880
an emerging idea, relatively
new, but but you've been working

796
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,080
for quite some time.
What are some of the next steps

797
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:43,400
for research in this theory?
Next steps is to watch over the

798
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,040
neurobiology literature to see
what they come up, see if

799
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,280
anybody takes our challenge and
comes up with something either

800
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:54,280
deliberately to test our theory
or in pursuit of some other

801
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,760
agenda, comes up with something
that we find of interest.

802
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:07,280
Another is just to it's to it's
to do battle field theory is

803
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:09,680
doesn't have a lot of adherence
at the moment.

804
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,360
We have a lot of people like you
and many of our reader, the

805
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:17,920
readers of our Aeon piece that
you're quoting from who listen

806
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:19,760
to it and go, yeah, that sounds
right to me.

807
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,200
But within academia, people,
including us, operate from

808
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:27,000
entrenched positions and most
people are are dug into

809
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:29,400
entrenched positions that are at
odds with field theory.

810
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:34,000
And our job as as academics is
to go to go to not war.

811
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:40,320
That makes it sound too, too
desperate to to argue with them

812
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:42,760
and try and convince them and
convince the next generation

813
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,600
that we're on to something.
If not that we're right, at

814
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:47,080
least that we're on to
something.

815
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:51,440
Also to stress.
And I want one thing I want to

816
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,560
add to this.
There's an empirical component

817
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:57,960
to this, which there isn't too
much theorizing about, about

818
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:01,480
goal directedness and purpose.
We want to go out there and

819
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:05,400
explore and have students
explore all these goal directed

820
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:09,480
systems to see first if we're
right, but not just in a

821
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:13,040
confirmatory kind of way.
Mcshea and Babcock, you've got

822
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,040
it sort of right.
Here's where you're wrong.

823
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,800
Here's where the theory needs to
be tweaked.

824
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,560
We really want that to happen.
So the way forward is to try to

825
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:26,280
bring in empiricists to actually
do the And that was true the

826
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,200
neurobiologists I mentioned as
well to do the hard empirical

827
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:32,920
work to find out more than we
know about how goal directedness

828
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:36,200
works and.
That's, that's something I love

829
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:39,280
about having this podcast and,
and this channel in general,

830
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,440
because I have a series where I
have lectures as well.

831
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,840
And and then I have the podcast
and I, and I call this this,

832
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,280
this show mind body solution,
sort of a bridge between

833
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:49,880
mainstream academia and popular
media.

834
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:52,560
I call it Echomedia.
Just a, a nice play on

835
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:54,680
Wednesday.
But for the most part, I've

836
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,080
found that since having this, a
lot of the professors that have

837
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,640
been in the show, people in the
past have have looked at the

838
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:02,560
comment section and gotten some
ideas from it.

839
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:05,440
So you have a lot of armchair
philosophers, some real

840
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,040
professors in the comment
section who who criticize or

841
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:12,480
critique the work.
But in such a a this, I would

842
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:16,280
say accurate and precise manner
that it's actually informative

843
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,760
to the person on the show.
So this is becoming quite a

844
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:23,040
great way for people to interact
with the content, engage with it

845
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:25,920
and people you'd never expect,
which has been pretty cool.

846
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,360
Yeah, yeah.
Can't wait for comments to come

847
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:31,960
in.
I love interacting with larger

848
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,360
audiences.
Just last week I gave a talk to

849
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:39,120
a retirement group near here in
Chapel Hill, NC and got some of

850
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:41,080
the best questions out of that
group.

851
00:47:41,720 --> 00:47:44,320
Better than most of the
questions I get from academics.

852
00:47:44,720 --> 00:47:46,520
Yeah, exactly.
And I think that's that's the

853
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:48,760
best part is that you just
diversify this audience to a

854
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:51,240
point where you you get some
creative thinkers out there.

855
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:56,280
Are there any kind of
experiments or that you think

856
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:03,360
might help this theory?
Let's say there's a future

857
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:06,560
undergrad looking to come into a
postgraduate situation.

858
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:08,800
What do you think they should
focus some of this work on?

859
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:11,680
Well, it depends on whether
you're talking about biology and

860
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:13,360
philosophy.
And that's going to turn out to

861
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:17,600
be a problem for our purposes,
because in philosophy this is a

862
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:20,200
natural topic, goal
directedness, generally for a

863
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:23,440
student to take up, but not to
take up the empirical side of

864
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:25,200
that.
They don't really do that much

865
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:28,240
of that in philosophy.
And somebody coming into it from

866
00:48:28,240 --> 00:48:31,240
biology is going to get weird
looks from their graduate

867
00:48:31,240 --> 00:48:34,880
committee when they take up goal
directedness as their, as their

868
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:38,680
topic of interest.
So it's it's tricky to find the

869
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:40,320
right group of students to do
that.

870
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:44,520
Still, I think coming from the
biology side, which is the side

871
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:48,840
I would know best if I could
interest a bunch of undergrads

872
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:52,160
in research projects.
And we've had a couple who've

873
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:56,360
been really interested, one of
whom I have a paper with out in

874
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,840
the past few years.
If we could get them and also

875
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:04,000
graduate students to do theses
on how do gold erected systems

876
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,160
work from a scientific point of
view.

877
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:08,960
Forget all our abstruse
philosophizing here.

878
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:13,040
Just tell us empirically how
they work and do it not just by

879
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:14,880
investigating how sea turtles do
it.

880
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,880
You could spend a whole graduate
dissertation on sea turtles, and

881
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:19,640
people have, and some of them
are brilliant.

882
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:24,280
But TI pick two disparate
systems, sea turtles and

883
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,600
bacteria swimming up a food
gradient, and investigate

884
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:32,720
empirically what they share and
what they don't share as a kind

885
00:49:32,720 --> 00:49:35,600
of test case for the larger
theory.

886
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:37,920
And if you can do three systems,
that's even better.

887
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:43,720
When when you started out in
this field, were there any

888
00:49:43,720 --> 00:49:46,720
particular thinkers that come to
mind who inspired you and

889
00:49:46,720 --> 00:49:51,480
motivated you to to branch off
in this philosophy and biology?

890
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:56,920
Yeah, so first David Hume, whose
influence goes back to my

891
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,240
undergraduate days, and then I'd
have to say a bunch of hierarchy

892
00:50:01,240 --> 00:50:05,320
theorists from the late 20th
century, starting with Bill

893
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:10,080
Wimzat and Stan Salty and
Herbert Simon.

894
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:15,560
And I'll give some credit to Dan
Brooks as well.

895
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,960
Feibelman, I've forgotten his,
his first name escapes me at the

896
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,000
moment, was a, a philosopher and
I think a literary critic back

897
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,640
in the back in the 60s.
All these people are hierarchy

898
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:32,600
theorists and Stuart Kaufman to
some degree as well.

899
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,280
And I think their critical
insight was in seeing that this

900
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:42,360
kind of causation is different.
And Hume too saw that this kind

901
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:47,320
of causation, feelings acting on
behavior, is different than the

902
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:51,480
way a clock works.
So I give lots of credit to them

903
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:55,040
and a couple others that I can't
pull to mind right now.

904
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:57,920
But they really are the
foundation of all this.

905
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:05,200
Well, well, anyone trying to to
understand this work, Do you

906
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:09,840
find that there are specific
types of aside from hierarchical

907
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:11,120
theory?
Do you think there are any types

908
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,920
of books or content people
should absorb in order to

909
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:17,560
understand this better?
Would be a nice bridging a gap

910
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:20,200
between this and your work.
Yeah.

911
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:28,040
So yeah, Herbert Simon has a
nice paper on the architecture

912
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:33,000
of complex systems that's very
readable and it dates back to

913
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:39,840
the 60s sometime.
I think Ernest Nagle has a paper

914
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:43,880
on purpose and function.
Name escapes me at the moment

915
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:51,200
from the 70s.
And other than that, everything

916
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:58,160
Bill Wimsatt ever wrote and most
of what Stan Salty ever wrote.

917
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:03,040
Problem is, a lot of this, a lot
of what those two have written,

918
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:06,040
is not all that accessible to a
general audience, and that's

919
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,840
what makes me nervous about
about recommending it.

920
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:12,480
That's good.
That's understandable.

921
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,200
Yeah, when when you think about
academia and a lot of the

922
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:20,960
thinkers that come and go, many
of them are very afraid of

923
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:23,280
teleology and even discussing
this concept.

924
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:26,240
What, what gave you the bravery
to go down this route?

925
00:52:26,240 --> 00:52:29,440
Because it is, it is they.
There's a quite a fear when it

926
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:33,200
comes to this in academia.
The fear is justified.

927
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:37,760
It's it's a field that's
associated with ghosts in the

928
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:40,040
machine with spookiness of some
kind.

929
00:52:42,720 --> 00:52:46,760
There's a great quote I could be
from JBS Hall Dane, mid 20th

930
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,320
century.
His purpose is the mistress that

931
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:54,280
all biologists need but can
never fess up to in public.

932
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:59,800
It's there in biology.
Everybody knows it's there.

933
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:03,240
And people who talk about
purging that kind of thinking

934
00:53:03,240 --> 00:53:07,120
and that kind of reasoning from
our biological vocabulary are

935
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:11,680
covering up all right.
Most of them are because they

936
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:15,120
know that there are these
bizarrely behaving systems and

937
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:18,680
we need to account for them.
So what gives me the nerve?

938
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,720
What gives me the nerve is what
gives everybody the nerve to to

939
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:25,040
talk about these things.
You just talk about what's on

940
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:30,000
the table in front of you.
So I understand the the

941
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,400
reluctance to go there because
of the checkered history, the

942
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,040
spooky history of goal
directedness.

943
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:39,880
But you know, enough is enough.
Let's account for this behavior.

944
00:53:41,240 --> 00:53:43,160
Yeah.
Is there anything about field

945
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:46,520
theory and purpose teleology
called directedness in general

946
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:49,320
that you feel we haven't touched
on, but you'd like to expand on

947
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,040
a bit and and perhaps clarify,
rectify?

948
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:57,880
Yeah, the big sticking point is
going to be human

949
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:00,640
intentionality, wanting, caring,
preferring.

950
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:05,040
There are as many understandings
out there both in the in the

951
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:06,920
minds of professional
psychologists and

952
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:09,840
neurobiologists and so on about
what those things are.

953
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:13,120
There are as many of those as
there are among the general

954
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:16,400
public.
No consistency of vocabulary, no

955
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:20,200
consistency of usage, no
consistency of underlying model.

956
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:23,920
People talking past each other
left and right, appearing to

957
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,760
disagree like crazy when in fact
they're talking about different

958
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:29,960
things.
We need to straighten this, this

959
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,360
part of it out.
And I don't know how to do that.

960
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:36,440
I don't command the language.
I don't command people's usage.

961
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:41,960
So this Gunner and Mai's work
is, is an attempt to come up

962
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:46,160
with a model, a take home model
that will help organize people's

963
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,520
thinking.
The trouble is going to be come

964
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:52,760
when we start to talk about
human intentionality and caring

965
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:56,400
and so forth because we can't
look at a magnetic field in a

966
00:54:56,400 --> 00:54:58,760
turtle or a sound field in a
homing torpedo.

967
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,040
All this is going on inside our
heads and it's a mush there.

968
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:07,320
I want people to try and think
in hierarchical terms as Hume

969
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:11,320
did, and to take affect
seriously, take passion

970
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,040
seriously, take wanting, caring,
preferring seriously.

971
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:17,920
These are not nice add-ons to
cognition, they're what make you

972
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,360
do every single deliberate thing
you do.

973
00:55:20,720 --> 00:55:22,960
And my tone of voice is now
getting.

974
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:24,720
I'm turning turning this into a
rant.

975
00:55:24,720 --> 00:55:28,960
I apologize, but I think fuzzy
thinking about human

976
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:31,520
intentionality is the root of a
lot of our problems.

977
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:33,280
Gunner and I are working to fix
that.

978
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:38,000
I don't have a lot of optimism
about about our ability to do

979
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:39,200
it.
We're just two people in the

980
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:42,160
maelstrom.
I, I had two questions that I

981
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:44,280
didn't ask because you could,
you sort of touched on it, but

982
00:55:44,400 --> 00:55:46,480
and not, but now that you're
bringing this up, one of them

983
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,360
was you, you touched on the idea
that our desires and intentions

984
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:52,280
direct our thoughts, speech, and
actions.

985
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:55,720
But I wanted to ask if you could
expand on this idea of wanting

986
00:55:55,720 --> 00:55:58,920
fields in the brain and how they
might be related to larger

987
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,200
cognitive processes like
decision making and problem

988
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:03,360
solving, because I think this
will also expand on this a

989
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:04,680
little more.
Good.

990
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:08,280
So let's take a a logic problem
like we did this in 10th grade

991
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:13,880
geometry in in my past.
How do you prove the sum of the

992
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:16,800
interior angles of a triangle is
180°?

993
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:20,720
It's a problem in logic.
Well, if I just start speaking

994
00:56:20,720 --> 00:56:24,680
to my laptop right now, which is
a supremely logical machine, and

995
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:27,960
say prove to me right that the
sum of the interior angles of a

996
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:32,680
triangle is 180°, it will do it,
but it won't care to do it.

997
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:36,920
It doesn't want to do it.
It doesn't want anything.

998
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:39,760
It's pure mechanism.
It's pure cognition, if you

999
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:42,040
will.
Let's do a little thought

1000
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:45,320
experiment.
Let's take my laptop and put it

1001
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:49,160
out on the street in front of my
office where buses and cars go

1002
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:53,040
by all the time with the with
the top open so the camera can

1003
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:56,920
see the buses and cars coming.
And let's gauge it's perfectly

1004
00:56:56,920 --> 00:57:01,640
logical reaction to this
oncoming and certain death, All

1005
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:03,160
right?
When the car runs over it, when

1006
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:06,400
the bus runs over it, it has no
reaction because it doesn't

1007
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:07,360
care.
It doesn't.

1008
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:12,200
It doesn't want anything.
Pure mechanism doesn't have the

1009
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:14,760
right hierarchical structure to
want anything.

1010
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:19,520
Cognition is pure mechanism.
Reasoning is pure mechanism.

1011
00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:22,720
Logic is pure.
And that's why my laptop is so

1012
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:26,240
good at it or my phone, if you
will, is so good at it because

1013
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:30,000
these are logic machines, right?
These are language manipulation

1014
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:31,520
machines.
They're not wanting, carrying,

1015
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:35,240
preferring machines.
This is the big defect in modern

1016
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:38,800
artificial intelligence research
is they're going to figure out

1017
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:43,840
how intelligence works one day.
They've sort of simulated it up

1018
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:45,160
till now.
One day they're going to figure

1019
00:57:45,160 --> 00:57:46,880
out how it works.
And it's not going to solve the

1020
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,600
problem of human decision
making, right?

1021
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,560
You need to solve the problem of
caring first, of wanting to

1022
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:56,760
solve the problem of caring that
the sum of the interior angles

1023
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:00,160
of a triangle is 180, if only to
get an A on the test upcoming,

1024
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:02,200
right?
Because otherwise I'll sit there

1025
00:58:02,200 --> 00:58:05,480
passively and do nothing do.
You think that's possible?

1026
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:10,040
Do you think that we could do
that with some silicone system?

1027
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:14,160
Sure, hierarchical.
Hierarchical structure is not

1028
00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:17,440
complicated.
Thermostats inside a house do it

1029
00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:19,920
right.
You want fancier ones if you're

1030
00:58:19,920 --> 00:58:22,040
going to simulate cognition or
if you're going to have real

1031
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:23,560
cognition.
If you're going to have real

1032
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:26,680
organisms wanting, caring,
preferring and behaving as a

1033
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:29,960
result of those wants, cares and
preferences and so on, you're

1034
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:33,840
going to need complicated fields
with complicated mechanisms

1035
00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:37,040
inside the fields and so on.
But yeah, it should all be

1036
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:39,360
doable in principle.
I have no problem with that.

1037
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:42,280
There's nothing unique to
biology or unique to people

1038
00:58:42,560 --> 00:58:45,600
about that and think, I think I
said earlier on, plants do it

1039
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:48,960
and bacteria do it, so there's
no reason we couldn't make

1040
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:51,400
machines that do it.
Just the current approach to

1041
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:54,520
thinking about cognition is
mostly as I understand it.

1042
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:57,200
I'm outside my field here, non
hierarchical.

1043
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:02,840
One of the most speculative
parts of your theory involves

1044
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:06,400
the interplay between different
scales of wanting, both internal

1045
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:08,560
and external.
Can you give us a concrete

1046
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:11,680
example of how these various
fields, from personal desires to

1047
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,040
social influences, societal
influences, sorry, might

1048
00:59:15,040 --> 00:59:18,520
intersect and influence a major
life decision?

1049
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:26,320
Yeah, so I'm going to imagine
myself, an 18 year old deciding

1050
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:30,280
which college to go to.
And we can pretty clearly

1051
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:34,360
identify the external
influences, one's parents, your

1052
00:59:34,360 --> 00:59:38,600
peer group, the state of the
economy, what sort of jobs are

1053
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:41,400
out there.
All these things, the the market

1054
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,320
for this, that, that and the
other skill set, right.

1055
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:47,720
All these things are external
fields acting downwardly on your

1056
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:51,600
brain via your senses and
language and so on, and

1057
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:55,280
affecting your brain, causing it
to behave in a goal directed

1058
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,040
way.
Now comes the question of which

1059
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:01,480
college you're going to go to,
and it's not the sum total of

1060
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:04,480
those external fields.
You contribute something and the

1061
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,800
you is going to be the set of
affective fields that's native

1062
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:10,520
to you.
The feet, the bit of it that's

1063
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:13,680
both influenced from above and
the bits of it that are not so

1064
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:17,800
influenced from above.
And you discover that, by golly,

1065
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:20,880
there's only one thing I love in
this world, and it's drawing.

1066
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:22,720
Drawing, drawing.
I love drawing.

1067
01:00:23,280 --> 01:00:25,360
And I know there's no jobs for
it out there.

1068
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:28,600
And I know my parents don't want
me to be an artist and my

1069
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:31,000
friends think it's the stupidest
thing in the world and I'll

1070
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:33,120
never make a living.
But you know what?

1071
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:36,400
I'm going to do it.
It may be a mistake, I should

1072
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:39,520
say to all potential drawing
students out there.

1073
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:41,320
That may be a mistake to do
that.

1074
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:44,760
Maybe you should do drawing in
your spare time and be an IT

1075
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:47,600
engineer for for a living.
But I'm just saying there is

1076
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:50,600
something to oppose those
external fields, and it's you,

1077
01:00:51,600 --> 01:00:53,600
right?
And it's to give one of the

1078
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:56,560
practical sides of this, if
there is a practical size, to

1079
01:00:56,560 --> 01:01:00,600
give people at key decision
moments in their lives some

1080
01:01:01,160 --> 01:01:04,520
backbone, something to stand up
for.

1081
01:01:04,520 --> 01:01:07,680
You are not just your external
influences, you are your

1082
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:11,600
internal fields.
You gonna it?

1083
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:16,400
When Gunness spoke, we spoke
about this and I asked him that

1084
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:19,960
first question to round off, I
also asked him who who are the

1085
01:01:19,960 --> 01:01:22,720
major influences in the field?
I've asked you the same question

1086
01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:26,040
if you guys and field theory.
If you had to summarize your

1087
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:30,360
work now and apply this to the
meaning of life, the universe,

1088
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:33,680
and the purpose of the universe,
how would it explain this?

1089
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:37,880
So there's purpose in the
universe and purpose of the

1090
01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:40,720
universe and purpose of the
universe.

1091
01:01:40,720 --> 01:01:42,920
Well, from field theory
perspective, you have to have a

1092
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:47,080
field outside the universe
directing the universe in order

1093
01:01:47,080 --> 01:01:50,320
for the universe to have a
purposeful behavior or existence

1094
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:52,800
of some kind.
And I can't talk about nobody

1095
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:55,080
can talk about things outside
the universe.

1096
01:01:55,360 --> 01:01:58,480
So let's put aside the question
of purpose of the universe.

1097
01:01:59,240 --> 01:02:03,240
Purpose in the universe, if
field theory is right, arises

1098
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:05,480
from these hierarchical
relationships.

1099
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:08,680
How does that affect meaning,
The meaning of life?

1100
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:12,520
Well, the meaning of life is, is
the degree to which you are

1101
01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,400
doing what you're commanding
fields tell you to do.

1102
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:19,480
That's what what meaning is.
So the degree, since my

1103
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:22,960
commanding fields are my
internal fields, mostly doing

1104
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:25,160
what they tell me to do, that's
where I'm going to find a

1105
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:27,200
meaningful life.
But it's not entirely my

1106
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:30,400
internal fields.
There's external ones too, like

1107
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:34,360
my family and loved ones and my
society and so on, right?

1108
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:36,400
They have a part.
There's meaning to be derived

1109
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:39,480
from that too.
Now comes the question, is there

1110
01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:43,080
anything bigger than that?
Well, there's all of humanity,

1111
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:48,000
which is a kind of weak field
operating way up here on

1112
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:52,040
societies, which are acting on
families, which are acting on

1113
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:54,960
individuals, right?
It's nested fields within

1114
01:02:54,960 --> 01:02:58,280
fields, and they become more
attenuated and weaker as you go

1115
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:01,320
further out.
The Milky Way Galaxy is a field

1116
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:06,360
too, but it doesn't much affect
the meaning in my life all

1117
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:07,880
right.
And I shouldn't really take it

1118
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:11,520
into account much when deciding
what how to how to live my life.

1119
01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:15,000
The closer the field is to you,
the more it matters to you.

1120
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:19,440
So purpose in the universe comes
from this nested hierarchical

1121
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:22,800
relate relationships.
They matter to to the extent

1122
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:25,280
that they are close to you
immediate affecting you

1123
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:28,200
directly.
I don't care about purposes at

1124
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:31,240
higher levels much.
I'd care about the ones that are

1125
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:33,520
close to me.
Maybe at the level of humanity,

1126
01:03:33,520 --> 01:03:36,560
maybe at the level of all life
on earth, and not much beyond

1127
01:03:36,560 --> 01:03:39,440
that.
Well, until the aliens show up.

1128
01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:42,560
So I was just going to say,
well, what happens if something

1129
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:47,200
changes within this within our
but, but I guess you sort of

1130
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:50,960
touched on that, but what if
that had to happen and and we

1131
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:54,240
had to expand this in a little
bit, what would change?

1132
01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:58,320
I'm sorry if what?
If, if aliens did come, let's

1133
01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:00,800
say if we had some sort of an
interaction with some sort of

1134
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:05,640
microorganism, yeah, of this, of
this planet, what would happen

1135
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:07,960
to our nestedness?
Would we slowly branch this out

1136
01:04:07,960 --> 01:04:09,360
slightly?
Would we change this?

1137
01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:13,640
Do we reconstruct the narrative?
Depends, because if some

1138
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:18,040
creature, let's say on Mars,
let's say it gets into conflict

1139
01:04:18,040 --> 01:04:21,000
with us or wants to cooperate
with us or something like that,

1140
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:23,840
that's not quite a hierarchical
relationship yet.

1141
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:27,040
That's two things of about the
same scale interacting with each

1142
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:28,800
other.
That's two billiard balls

1143
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:32,880
bumping into each other.
If we go to the next scale and

1144
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:36,680
say, look, humans, unbeknownst
to you, there's a whole galactic

1145
01:04:36,680 --> 01:04:39,480
network out there of societies
and you're part of it whether

1146
01:04:39,480 --> 01:04:43,120
you like it or not, because the
United Federation of Planets or

1147
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:47,160
a Klingon Empire or whatever it
is out there now, we've got a

1148
01:04:47,160 --> 01:04:50,240
higher level that's going to be
acting downwardly on us and we

1149
01:04:50,240 --> 01:04:52,600
have to start thinking
differently about where our

1150
01:04:52,600 --> 01:04:56,600
purposes fit into it.
That said, my decision to go for

1151
01:04:56,600 --> 01:04:59,480
a walk this afternoon is still
not going to be influenced much

1152
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:01,280
by the United Federation of
Planets.

1153
01:05:01,920 --> 01:05:04,960
It's too far removed.
On the other hand, at a bigger

1154
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:08,880
scale of my life or by lineage
or something like that, I'm

1155
01:05:08,880 --> 01:05:12,000
going to have to be thinking
about where that fits in to that

1156
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:14,080
bigger scale.
Yeah, there's the theory,

1157
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:15,960
doesn't say there's no bigger
scales.

1158
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:18,920
They could come.
They could drop onto our

1159
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:22,280
doorstep at any time.
Well, then it's it's it's

1160
01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:25,800
amazing work and and I look
forward to what comes next.

1161
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:29,480
Any final words about field
theory or this topic in general

1162
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:32,840
that you'd like to add?
I'll just add that the EON piece

1163
01:05:32,840 --> 01:05:37,040
is our best and latest attempt.
What can you just read the title

1164
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:39,720
of that?
It's elusive, but everywhere.

1165
01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:43,560
Yes, OK.
And it's in the online magazine

1166
01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:48,640
Eon AEON, and it's our best and
latest attempt to explain all

1167
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:52,520
this to a larger audience.
We welcome feedback on it.

1168
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:55,600
I think the comment period for
EON is closed, but please send

1169
01:05:55,600 --> 01:05:58,800
us emails.
I love to explain this stuff,

1170
01:05:58,800 --> 01:06:01,720
defend this stuff, and discover
problems with this stuff.

1171
01:06:02,440 --> 01:06:05,120
So I encourage all listeners to
do that.

1172
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:06,920
Yeah, I'll definitely put a link
to that.

1173
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:11,280
It's elusive, but everywhere.
A new theory argues that unseen

1174
01:06:11,280 --> 01:06:14,400
fields guide all goal directed
things in the universe, from

1175
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:16,840
falling rocks to voyaging
turtles.

1176
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:18,880
By Daniel McShane and Cano
Babcock.

1177
01:06:21,120 --> 01:06:23,120
Thanks, this was a lot of fun.
Thank you Tevin.

1178
01:06:23,120 --> 01:06:24,680
This was terrific.
I enjoyed this.

1179
01:06:25,000 --> 01:06:27,440
Thank you very much.
This is I enjoy this all the

1180
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:29,320
time and I think you've been a
terrific guest.

1181
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:31,960
I can't wait to see what you
guys come up with and it was a

1182
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:34,640
pleasure chat to you Dan.
Likewise.