John Horgan: Can Science Explain Everything? Scientism & Philosophy's Role In Science

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John, you wrote a wonderful book
called Mind Body Problems and I

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remember when I read it I
thought this is such a creative

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way to approach the infamous
mind body problem.

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So my first question for you is
what is your interpretation of

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the mind Body problem and how
did that inspire you to write

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the book?
Yeah, good question.

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My, my, my way of looking at the
mind body problem has evolved a

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lot over the decades.
I first started writing about it

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when I was writing about
consciousness in the early 90s.

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Consciousness.
The hard problem I was actually

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at.
A talk by David Chalmers in the

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early 1990s at this big
conference in in Tucson, AZ,

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where he used the phrase the
hard problem for the first time.

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And there weren't many people in
the audience.

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Chalmers was just this obscure
long haired philosopher from

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Australia.
But I remember the audience

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there is it was early morning
and people were kind of sleepy,

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but people perked up at that
phrase, the hard consciousness.

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I mean the hard problem.
And I wrote it down in my

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notebook.
I reported on this.

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This talk and other things that
happened at this meeting for

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Scientific American.
So my initial idea of the mind

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body problem was how does the
brain generate conscious states?

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These first person states that I
and you presumably also are

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having right now.
So I saw the mind body problem

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in pretty narrow terms.
And this is the way it had been

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defined by Francis Crick, this
guy named Christophe Koch, who

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is was Crick's collaborator in
trying to solve the the mind

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body problem.
Over time, my my view of the

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mind body problem became much
more expansive, and now I think

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of it as the question of what we
are, what we are as humans, and

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that encompasses.
Personal identity What am I?

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What kind of human being am I?
It it it encompasses the idea of

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collective identity.
What are humans in general?

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What have we always been?
What will we be in the future?

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I think it encompasses moral
questions, because if you're if

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we're talking about what we are,
we also, at least implicitly,

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are always talking about.
What we should be, what

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constitutes a good person?
What constitutes a good life?

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And we're also talking about
what we can be.

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And that's where science comes
in.

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To what extent can we alter what
we are through these different

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technologies?
Brain implants, genetic

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engineering, drugs, those sorts
of things.

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So now the mind body problem is
all these different

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interconnected questions.
They come down to the big

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primordial question.
What are we really?

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Sorry, Jonah, the connection
just stopped for a second there.

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Are you back?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw you.

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You just froze.
You're in South Africa, right?

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No.
So that's my fault because I

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just switched over to my to my
to another Internet connection.

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Oh, OK.
Sorry about that.

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Continue.
Yeah.

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Sorry.
Yes, I am South Africa, by the

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way.
Yeah, so my point was that the

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mind body problem I see now as
including the hard problem of

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consciousness, but all these
other sorts of questions too,

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about personal identity, about
collective collective identity,

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about how we should live our
lives.

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So it includes these sorts of
moral and and even political

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questions.
And it also includes questions

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about what we can be, to what
extent can we alter ourselves

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with technology, with with brain
implants and genetic engineering

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and and these sorts of things.
I remember when I spoke to

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Nicholas Humphrey, he he was the
one who told me about your book

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because I hadn't I I had not
seen it at the time.

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And when I read it, I found this
approach very fascinating

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because essentially what you're
talking about right now, how

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this incorporates so many
different ideas, personal

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identity, moral responsibility.
I mean you you approached it by

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looking at the philosophers or
scientists from their own

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journeys and their personal
journeys moving forward.

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So talk to me about that
process.

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What inspired them?
Well, I gradually began to

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arrive at this idea that I began
questioning the idea that there

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was.
A solution to the mind body

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problem, either as narrowly
defined as the the hard problem

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of consciousness or this more
expansive idea of the mind body

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problem, answering the question
of what we really are.

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How can it possibly be that one
answer can suffice for all of

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us?
Now you can look at human

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history in a way as the struggle
to find one answer.

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To this question of what we
really are, all religions

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purport to answer that question.
You've got non religious

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ideologies like Marxism.
That also is really kind of a

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response to to the mind body
problem.

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Marx is saying this is what we
are.

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We're these economic agents and
we they're we, we inhabit

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different classes and all this
sorts of.

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All this sort of stuff.
And this is how we should live

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our lives.
We should reform ourselves in in

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these various ways that Marx
spelled out.

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Then you've got these other
scientific theories like

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eugenics that also is this
implicit answer to the mind body

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problem.
Lots of theories when you get

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closer to the present, saying
that we're we're a bunch of

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algorithms, we're a collection
of genes.

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Richard Dawkins, the famous
biologist, defined us as just a

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a cluster of selfish genes
trying to get into the next

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generation.
That's an interesting idea.

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We're just a bunch of
neurotransmitters rattling

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around in in our skulls.
So the answers, the potential

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answers to the mind body problem
have have proliferated

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enormously.
And that.

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Especially makes me think that
no answer can suffice,

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especially since science keeps
evolving, philosophy keeps

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evolving and that means that
there will be answers proposed

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to this question 10/20/50 years
from now that nobody even

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anticipated.
Also, each individual is going

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to answer the mind body problem.
At different times in his or her

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life, in different ways, and I
personally, and I assume this

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happens with you too, I keep
changing my mind about what I

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really AM and what I should be
and what I want out of life.

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So to dramatize this idea, which
at first was very kind of blurry

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in my head, I decided to write a
book about.

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Mind body scholars, coming from
very different philosophical or

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scientific perspectives, who
actually had struggled with the

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mind body problem in a really
personal way.

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They had, they had, They weren't
sure about their own sexual

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identity.
They struggled with profound

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depression.
I interviewed this one

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philosopher who had a brain
tumor that dramatically changed

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his.
His personality.

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People struggling with severe
grief and as a result, changing

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their ideas about who they
really are and about what humans

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collectively should be.
So that was my that was my goal

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in writing this, in writing the
book, was to dramatize this

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suddenly pluralistic view I had
of the mind body problem.

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I think you're right, because
not only do I change my mind in

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general, but from starting this
podcast, I mean, obviously I

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call it Mind Body solution,
paying homage to the problem,

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but I don't necessarily believe
we'll find one.

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And my own perspective on the
problem in itself has changed

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dramatically since starting the
podcast.

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I mean, I came in with certain
biases and views and and I've

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noticed it just changed the more
someone's able to provide me a

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coherent counter arguments to
whatever I believe.

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And I find that very fascinating
because it shows just how

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difficult this problem actually
is.

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And it it's.
I mean, I understand why some

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people want to have the answer.
Life is puzzling and it's

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agonizing and it can be very,
very difficult.

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And we want to think that there
is a solution out there.

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We get it and and we and we
realize, ah, this is how I

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should live my life.
This is how we should all live

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our lives.
And there are lots of people out

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there saying that they have
discovered the answer and

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they're telling us we should
accept the same answer as as

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they do.
But that's such a cramped,

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narrow way of looking at life.
It's so much more exhilarating

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to me and also more of a
reflection of what reality

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actually is to to be open minded
and to say, well here's an

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interesting idea.
I'm going to explore this for a

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little while, but oh, look over
there.

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There's an interesting idea too.
This is something that happens

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when a person like you just
talks to other people and you

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read books and and you suddenly
see the whole issue in a in a

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different light.
That's a wonderful thing, but it

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just means you have to give up
this idea of reaching a final

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answer.
You have to give up the idea

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that there can be certainty when
we're trying to figure out who

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we really are.
I spoke to a philosopher named

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Francois.
He's French he's he's a camera.

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I'm not sure if I'm saying that
correctly surname.

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But anyway, he he's a strong
defendant of illusionism and I

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told him how my views shifted
over time.

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And and even though some
sometimes when I do chat to

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certain people, I do disagree
with the view fundamentally.

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But I'm able to sort of now at
this time in my life and this

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point in my life, I'm able to
create these almost virtual

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realities.
And that's what he said I'm

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doing is basically I'm creating
this virtual reality, going with

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the narrative and just having
the conversation.

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And I believe that's been so
vital to making this work

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because that way I'm open minded
to all the possibilities while

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still remaining a while still
maintaining a reasonable amount

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of scepticism.
Do you think that's a good way,

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as you from writing, as a
science journalist, someone who

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very much attacks a lot of
science from a sceptical manner,

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not necessarily anti science?
Well, we'll chat about that in

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more detail, but do you think
that's a great way to maintain

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an open mind?
Yeah, so I have this this old

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friend.
He used to teach history of

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science at my school's name is
Jim McClellan.

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He retired a few years ago but
we're we're still constantly in

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in in touch and he's an honest
to God postmodernist.

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So he thinks whenever you talk
about truth or knowledge you

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should put it in put those terms
in scare quotes.

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He says that all our theories
are best.

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Scientific knowledge is really
just a bunch of stories.

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And the stories.
Some stories are better than

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others, but you should never
mistake your any story for the

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final word on what's out there
or what's in here.

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And I completely reject
postmodernism as it applies to,

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I don't know, mapping out the
universe.

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I think we discover, we have
discovered lots of things.

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That are are true about the
universe from the existence of

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sub atomic particles like
electrons and protons to to

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elements galaxies out there
beyond the the Milky Way.

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Those aren't stories.
Those are real things about

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about the universe.
But when it comes to ourselves,

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when it comes to understanding.
What we are I think

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postmodernism is absolutely
appropriate.

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I think we should see
neuroscientific or evolutionary

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or computer science models of
the human mind as stories that

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can do things for us, that can
help us see ourselves in ways

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that are that are useful, that
might help us come up with

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better treatments for mental
illness that might be consoling

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to us.
That help us deal with death and

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the ephemerality of of life, but
that are always replaceable by

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better stories or just by
different stories in the future.

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It's almost like a useful
analogy.

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The same way religion was useful
to the people at the time and

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and it was it was thought to be
the truth for those people at

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the time.
It was very useful.

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I mean, you can still see a lot
of usage within it, and the same

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way descending applies for
Newtonian physics when when he

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came across telling people this
is how the motion of bodies work

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and then Einstein comes and
changed that along, but you

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realize that it's still very
useful.

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Yeah, and and usefulness can be
defined in lots, lots of

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different ways.
So there are some theories that

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have enormous practical
consequences.

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So.
Plain old Newtonian mechanics is

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enough to land a spaceship on
the moon, which is pretty

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impressive.
Nuclear physics allowed us to

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build hydrogen bombs, which have
altered history in ways that are

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horrible.
But still, that's an impressive

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sign.
That those theories of subatomic

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matter and energy are on to
something, That they're pretty

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close to grasping the actual
truth.

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But there are these less
tangible ways of saying that a

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theory works.
For example, I'm I'm interested

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in theories that say
consciousness is the basis of

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reality instead of matter.
I mean, there's this ancient

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debate about the primacy of
matter versus versus mind, and I

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haven't made-up my mind, which
is right.

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Maybe we can talk about that.
But the idea that everything is

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consciousness and that the
consciousness that you and I

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both possess right now, in some
sense, it's ever.

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It's never ending.
It's just going to merge in in

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00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:04,920
with some kind of.
Greater collective consciousness

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when we're gone, I find that
very consoling.

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I don't necessarily believe it,
but I like to think about it now

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and then when I'm feeling a
little fragile and and mortal.

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So that is another way in which
a theory can be very powerful

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and very effective.
I was, yeah.

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I was going to ask you about
that.

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At this point in your life,
after chatting to all these

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00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:30,920
philosophers and scientists,
where's your header?

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00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:33,600
What is consciousness to you?
What do you believe it really

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00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:35,160
is?
Is there a group you fall into

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00:16:35,160 --> 00:16:36,840
at this point?
Do you consider yourself a pan

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00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:38,520
psychist in that regard?
Or idealist?

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00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:44,600
Or where are you?
No, I am, you said before I I'm,

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I'm a sceptic.
I I love ideas.

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I became a science journalist
because I love.

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00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:56,400
I love watching science do it's
thing and coming up come up with

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00:16:56,400 --> 00:16:58,600
these.
These different ideas about

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00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:05,400
what's going on in the world and
I I've been reporting on mind

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body theories, theories of
consciousness for decades now.

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And I'll be honest the the more
I do it and I I right up to the

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00:17:16,599 --> 00:17:20,880
present I've been, I've been
commenting on some developments

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00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:25,760
in in consciousness studies just
recently just over the last

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00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:30,200
couple of months.
The more I do this, the more I

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think nobody really knows what
they're talking about.

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The more I the more mysterious
the problem becomes, the more

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mysterious.
This experience I'm having right

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now of being this conscious
thing becomes absolutely

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baffling to me.
I think that when we look

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00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:58,400
straight.
At our own existence, including

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00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:05,320
the fact that we're conscious,
if we really saw it clearly, we

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00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:10,440
should be absolutely dumbfounded
all the time.

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00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:14,200
And we should realize that every
single theory, no matter how

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00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:19,240
powerful, no matter how
seemingly effective, no matter

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00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:23,760
the practical consequences that
it has, is absolutely

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00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:28,000
inadequate.
And that includes panpsychism

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00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:31,960
and idealism and materialism.
I don't even think we have the

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00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:36,800
right language yet to solve
these problems, to even talk

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00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:42,480
about them in a coherent way.
I think this is almost like the

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00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:48,480
equivalent of physics in the
14th century, where you look

283
00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:52,520
back at how people were talking
about about matter and things

284
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:55,520
moving around in space and you
think, wow, they were just.

285
00:18:56,720 --> 00:18:58,840
So deluded.
They really didn't know.

286
00:18:58,840 --> 00:19:01,600
I mean, they're making an honest
effort, but they really don't

287
00:19:01,600 --> 00:19:03,440
know what the hell they're
talking about.

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00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:06,320
I think in the future we're
going to look back on this

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00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:09,800
period with integrated
information theory and the

290
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:13,160
global workspace theory and all
these different theories of

291
00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:16,800
mine, and we're going to go, Oh
my God, those those people

292
00:19:16,800 --> 00:19:18,720
actually believed in that shit
that time.

293
00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:24,160
I mean, I saw you wrote the that
paper on the brouhaha of the

294
00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:27,480
whole IIT dilemma.
What are your thoughts on that?

295
00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:30,240
Yeah, do you want to give some
thought?

296
00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:31,960
This is to the to the list of
viewers.

297
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,960
Maybe you you can also do that.
Yeah, so Integrated Information

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Theory is this very serious
attempt to solve the hard

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00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:44,720
problem of consciousness.
It's about 20 years old.

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00:19:45,320 --> 00:19:49,680
It was introduced by this guy
named Giulio Tononi, who's got a

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00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:51,720
fancy.
Pedigree.

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00:19:51,720 --> 00:19:55,000
He was a graduate student under
this guy named Gerald Edelman, a

303
00:19:55,240 --> 00:19:59,480
Nobel Prize winner who also had
very ambitious ideas about

304
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:01,640
solving the hard problem of
consciousness.

305
00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:08,320
So Tononi is a really serious
guy and and he proposed this

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00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:14,560
mathematical theory of and the
and the the fact that it's it's

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00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:18,760
mathematical impresses a lot of
people but it's a mathematical

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00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:23,600
theory of consciousness.
That says consciousness arises

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00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:29,880
out of any system that has parts
that interact in the certain way

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00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:32,600
that you can mathematically
define.

311
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:37,080
The interconnection of the
components is sometimes called

312
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:42,320
the synergy of the system.
The mathematical quantity is

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00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:46,480
called Phi, and there's this
little Greek symbol for for

314
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:50,600
that.
It's really impenetrable.

315
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:54,880
If you read the initial papers,
it's extremely dense.

316
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,440
I went to a workshop in 2015
because I was trying to

317
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:00,760
understand it.
The main reason I took it

318
00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:05,200
seriously was not only because
Tononi had proposed it, but

319
00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:09,400
because Christophe Koch, who I
mentioned before, one of the

320
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:13,000
world's leading neuroscientists,
embraced it about, I don't know,

321
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:16,280
15 years ago or so and said,
yeah, this is it, man.

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00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:19,560
This is, this is the best theory
of consciousness we've got.

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00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:23,160
So these very serious people
were espousing this theory.

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00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:27,880
They got lots of other folks,
graduate students, postdocs,

325
00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:30,240
other theorists to jump on the
bandwagon.

326
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:33,680
And the New York Times wrote big
stories about it.

327
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:36,120
I wrote about it for Scientific
American.

328
00:21:36,120 --> 00:21:39,440
A lot of people were saying I
was skeptical of my sake from

329
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:43,800
the beginning, but a lot of
people were saying, yeah, man,

330
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:46,840
this is it.
Maybe this is at least if it's

331
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:49,840
not the final theory of
consciousness, it's a stepping

332
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:54,280
stone.
But the theory is was ridiculous

333
00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:57,880
from the start.
It it I mean it.

334
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,560
Basically.
It basically says what

335
00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:07,320
Christophe KOK told me was that
the synergy that's defined by

336
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:13,000
the theory can occur in a single
proton, which consists of three

337
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,040
interacting quarks that are, if
you can think of them as

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00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:18,720
exchanging information.
So there's a little spark of

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00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:20,880
consciousness in a single
protein.

340
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,200
That means that consciousness is
everywhere.

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00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:29,360
So that's panpsychism.
I went to this workshop at NYU

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00:22:29,360 --> 00:22:33,000
on on Integrated Information
Theory as I mentioned in 2015,

343
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:36,560
and there was actually a bit a
debate at one point over whether

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00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:44,000
dark energy is conscious.
Whether I integrated information

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00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:49,720
theory implies that there was
this this brilliant computer

346
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:55,720
scientist named Scott Aronson
who is at the meeting and mainly

347
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:57,920
the meeting was sort of
cheerleading for for this

348
00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:01,160
theory.
Scott Aronson just drove a stake

349
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:05,040
through the theory's heart by
pointing out that according to

350
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:13,720
the mathematical definition of
the theory, A ACD player should

351
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:15,680
be more conscious than a human
being.

352
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:21,760
So he was just pointing out all
these absurd conclusions of of

353
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:25,400
the theory.
But it's it's persisted.

354
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:30,760
And because it's exciting and
it's ambitious and it's

355
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:36,080
mathematical and all that.
But there's some people who've

356
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,120
always been skeptical, not just
as science journalists like me,

357
00:23:39,120 --> 00:23:41,920
but some other serious
theorists, scientists and

358
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:47,280
philosophers and and just
recently, I guess it was last

359
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:49,680
month, a bunch of them got
together.

360
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,080
More than 100 people signed this
letter, and this is including

361
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:56,720
some real big shots like Daniel
Dennett and Joe Ledoux was a

362
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:01,920
neuroscientist at NYU.
And they said we're just sick of

363
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,720
basically, I'm paraphrasing,
we're sick of all the attention

364
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:07,360
this theory has been getting
because this theory is

365
00:24:07,360 --> 00:24:12,040
pseudoscience.
And and so I wrote a piece about

366
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:16,920
that for my blog and 'cause I
thought it was really funny.

367
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:21,920
And I, you know, my reaction was
kind of, yeah, of course it's

368
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,920
pseudoscience.
All theories of consciousness at

369
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:28,840
this point are pseudoscience,
and that none of them can

370
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,640
really.
None of them is rigorously

371
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:36,080
enough defined so that they can
be falsified.

372
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:40,280
So that was that was my column.
Basically I'm saying yeah,

373
00:24:40,360 --> 00:24:42,240
integrated information theory,
pseudoscience.

374
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,040
But then here look at some of
these other theories that are

375
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:48,120
also pseudoscience.
And then I went on to say that

376
00:24:48,120 --> 00:24:53,680
their theories in physics and I
just started shooting wildly in

377
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:58,120
all directions, pointing out
that science is is riddled with

378
00:24:58,120 --> 00:25:02,960
pseudoscience if you really want
to be mean about it.

379
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,240
So why single out integrated
information theory?

380
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,840
So anyway, yeah, that's the back
story of that controversy.

381
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:13,400
I think it's it's amazing how
much controversy that's

382
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:17,960
initiated because it was such a
big topic of conversation that

383
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,280
some neuroscientists and
philosophers who came out made a

384
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:23,080
statement, even started
retracting these statements

385
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:26,840
because it was so intense.
I mean, that's probably a great

386
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,640
thing in the sense that finally
consciousness research at least

387
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:33,560
is getting the attention it
deserves.

388
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,960
But then it also reminds people
of the fact that there was a

389
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,000
time where this happened and it
keeps going through these sort

390
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:41,800
of influxes of like, people are
interested, people lose

391
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:44,320
interest, people are interested,
people lose interest.

392
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,280
Do you see that as a pattern
lately or do you think it's

393
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,800
finally the recognition phase in
reality that it deserves?

394
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:58,720
I I think I have the and.
It's not even that important and

395
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:00,840
we should focus on more
important science.

396
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,040
Well, or just more important
things out there in the world.

397
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:11,320
I I think I've got, I've got
sort of a jaded view.

398
00:26:11,360 --> 00:26:14,280
You know, I've been writing
about science for 40 years now

399
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,320
and I've seen seen a lot of fads
come and go.

400
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:22,160
I've seen these boom bust cycles
and and and all sorts of

401
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,320
different fields and it makes
me, I I'm, you know, what I had

402
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:30,120
try to guard against is becoming
so jaded that any new idea that

403
00:26:30,120 --> 00:26:34,200
comes up, I go, that's bullshit.
Come on, nobody's going to

404
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,800
believe that because sometimes
new ideas do come along that are

405
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:42,960
really exciting and and some of
those ideas might be kind of

406
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:44,920
bullshitty.
They might be pseudo scientific

407
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:52,640
in one sense and still really
exciting, still there, they're

408
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:56,200
interesting and they give you a
new way of looking at the world.

409
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:59,920
I think that's true of
integrated information theory.

410
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:04,960
This theory actually has made me
think really hard.

411
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:09,160
Just trying to figure out why
it's wrong why it it's not

412
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:15,320
really a serious theory makes me
think about the hard problem and

413
00:27:15,360 --> 00:27:20,120
and new ways and focus on it
more intently and this happens

414
00:27:20,120 --> 00:27:25,520
throughout science.
So in in the book that my first

415
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,120
book, which is the book that I'm
best known for in the end of

416
00:27:28,120 --> 00:27:34,120
science, I I coined this term
ironic science to describe

417
00:27:34,120 --> 00:27:41,520
science that is so speculative
that it can never be confirmed.

418
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:45,200
You can never really get
evidence that it's true.

419
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:51,720
And I as as an example of that,
I I cited string theory, super

420
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:56,200
string theory, which is this
this unified theory of matter

421
00:27:56,200 --> 00:28:00,000
and energy that's been kicking
around for more than 40 years

422
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,480
now was really popular.
Now it's kind of declining.

423
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:06,600
The problem with it from the
start was that it predicts

424
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,760
things that can't be accessed by
any experiment.

425
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,560
But what an amazing theory it
is.

426
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,240
So from the start I thought,
God, I don't see this going

427
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:22,600
anywhere, but holy cow, little
strings wriggling in 11

428
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:27,400
dimensions give rise to our four
dimensional space-time.

429
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:33,000
That's really cool.
The same way with multiverse

430
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,120
theories, which also are an
implication of string theory and

431
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:41,040
the many worlds interpretation
of of quantum mechanics.

432
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:46,080
Other universes in addition to
our own that never can be

433
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:48,440
accessed experimentally.
Come on.

434
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:55,440
But wow, what an idea.
It's mind blowing at the same

435
00:28:55,440 --> 00:29:00,400
time as I'm like pointing out
all the flaws with it.

436
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:06,560
So I've always had this
ambivalence about about, I don't

437
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,480
know what you might call
pseudoscience and kind of

438
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:13,560
bullshit science, ironic
science, to use the term that I

439
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,880
coined.
But in a way, some of that

440
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:22,560
science is the most fun to write
about because it's wild.

441
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,200
It's ambitious, it's
imaginative, it's scientists

442
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:31,400
going beyond the bounds of
what's respectable and making up

443
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,840
some really crazy shit and
saying maybe the world is this

444
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:39,200
way and you go, yeah, well,
probably not, but yeah, that's

445
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,400
really cool.
Do you think that people often

446
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:47,800
misinterpret your scepticism as
not not anti scientism, but

447
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:52,360
almost a version of wouldn't
even say pseudoscience?

448
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,560
But I'm I'm sure you get what
I'm trying to say, but people do

449
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:58,000
put you in this category that.
Do you think you deserve that?

450
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:04,760
Yeah, I listen, I've, I've taken
a lot of heat and I I don't

451
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:10,160
really, it doesn't bother me
that much because I'm out there.

452
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,640
I'm out there taking shots at
other people's ideas.

453
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:16,600
I've said some really mean
things about different

454
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:21,280
scientists and about different
theories over the years.

455
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:29,280
I could be very mocking and and
dismissive and I'll use all my

456
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:33,040
rhetorical tricks to try to
puncture different theories.

457
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:38,000
And so people accuse me of being
anti science or or pseudo

458
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:43,480
scientific or say you know, a
lot of people just say who

459
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,080
listens to John Oregon, He's
just a science writer.

460
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,960
He only has a degree in
literature and journalism.

461
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,760
He doesn't know what the hell
he's talking about and you know

462
00:30:53,760 --> 00:31:00,240
go yeah I guess that's true.
I mean I you just like I just

463
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,400
look at my track record.
I think I've got a pretty good

464
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,760
track record and and and saying
that certain theories are are

465
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:08,880
dead ends and they're not going
to go anywhere.

466
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,760
Finally people are starting to
accept that when it comes to

467
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:16,160
string theory and multiverse
theories and and things like

468
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:19,840
that.
So I'm pretty thick skinned.

469
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:25,560
I what what I'm what makes me
happy is that people still

470
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:28,840
serious philosophers and
scientists still want to talk to

471
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,000
me.
They still want to persuade me

472
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:36,000
that their theory is yeah.
Morgan you've like been trashing

473
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,080
and everything in this field for
decades now.

474
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,400
But I've got a theory that I
think you're really going to

475
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:41,320
like.
It's really cool.

476
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,280
And I'm like OK bring it on man.
Let me let me check this out.

477
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:46,240
Let me see what you got.
And.

478
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:48,400
In that sense, you're almost
like the girl who's playing hard

479
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,680
to get for them.
They're still trying to win you

480
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,400
over there.
They've got this deepest and

481
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,160
psychological urge to please you
at this point.

482
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:03,520
I think that's part of it.
And but the fact is I the best

483
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:07,400
part of this job is feeling like
I'm part of this conversation

484
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:13,920
that goes back actually
thousands of years about what is

485
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,040
this like?
What's going on here?

486
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:18,480
What am I?
What are you?

487
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,040
What is existence?
And there are all these smart

488
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,160
people out there trying to
figure it out, people who know a

489
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,120
lot more than I do.
And and then I'm, I'm listening

490
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,880
to what they have to say and I
have reactions to it.

491
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,720
And some of them say, oh, shut
up, nobody cares what you think.

492
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:40,160
And others say, oh, OK, yeah, I
think you might have a point

493
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:42,440
there.
But the But what's cool for me

494
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,880
is that I am part of this
conversation and that I picked

495
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,280
the right job.
Science journalism turned out to

496
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:52,600
be the I'm I'm kind of a misfit,
but science journalism turned

497
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,160
out to be the perfect career for
me.

498
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,520
I mean, in that regard, I
completely empathize with you

499
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,600
because starting this podcast,
I've been able to chat to some

500
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:03,640
of my heroes.
I mean, it's been it's been such

501
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:08,000
an amazing journey for me and
even though I feel like I'm not

502
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,560
bringing much to the table, it's
still so great to be.

503
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:13,960
In in such great company, I mean
you guys have done so much,

504
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:15,080
you've written so much about
this.

505
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:17,440
So even just chatting to you
guys, it's it's quite surreal

506
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,520
sometimes.
Yeah, it's.

507
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:26,560
And to me, you know, I described
before how I think if you see

508
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:30,400
things, if you see reality
clearly you're like, what the

509
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,040
hell.
Your eyes are bugging out, your

510
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:37,160
mouth is dropping open.
You're just in a state of of awe

511
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:42,760
and wonderment and confusion,
and it's kind of a mystical

512
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:44,040
state.
This happens to me when I'm

513
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:49,200
tripping too, and talking to
other people about their

514
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:53,200
theories often puts me in that
state, swapping ideas with

515
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:58,720
Christophe Koch about about
integrated information theory

516
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,080
and the hard problem and his
dark energy conscious.

517
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:09,440
And I'm like, yeah, man, it's
everything is is so God damn

518
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:14,120
weird.
That's that's one of the joys of

519
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:18,239
of, of this whole process of
science journalism.

520
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,840
Yeah, I mean the universe in
itself, The story of the

521
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,320
universe is quite trippy.
When when you actually try and

522
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,400
understand it, it is.
It's one of those things where I

523
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,400
often tell people you don't need
religion to have a a truly awe

524
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:34,560
inspiring religious experience.
With science you can just trying

525
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:36,639
to understand the well, not even
just with science, but I mean

526
00:34:36,639 --> 00:34:40,880
with understanding the universe.
It's a yeah, it's quite trippy.

527
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:49,320
I So one thing that's a little
distressing to me is so I I

528
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,080
teach college.
I I teach at an engineering

529
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:55,440
school, I live in Hoboken, and I
teach at a school called Stevens

530
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:59,440
Institute of Technology.
I teach freshman humanities

531
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,160
classes.
I teach a seminar in science

532
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,280
writing.
I teach a class on on science

533
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:07,160
and war.
I wrote I'm interested in war,

534
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,840
and I wrote a book about that.
And I sometimes try to get my

535
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,280
students to care about the
things I care about.

536
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:20,240
And so I I might say, you know
maybe I saw some images from the

537
00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:24,160
James Webb telescope and I'm
like yeah wow those those

538
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:29,200
pictures of those galaxies way
back in time or or messing up

539
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,200
the cosmologists, they they the
they don't know what to make of

540
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:36,680
these galaxies.
It seems to have formed before

541
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:39,320
The Big Bang theory says they
should have formed.

542
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,920
And I kind of looking at my
students and some look

543
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,640
interested and most of them are
just kind of gone.

544
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:49,000
And I say, I did this just like
within the last couple weeks.

545
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,240
I say who cares about where the
universe came from.

546
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,960
And they're all kind of looking
at each other and maybe a couple

547
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,200
of hands go go up.
They don't really care about

548
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,400
this stuff where the I'm like,
are you crazy?

549
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:04,840
How could you not care about
that?

550
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:15,280
And I and then I try to tell
them about what we know about

551
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,480
the universe and how one of the
most amazing discoveries of all

552
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:25,680
time, because it's
comprehensible is the idea that

553
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,760
the universe is expanding and
probably had this beginning

554
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:34,280
about when we've calculated it
to be about 14 billion years

555
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:36,320
ago.
Why do we believe that?

556
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,360
So I go through the redshift
data and the abundances of

557
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:46,640
elements and the the the cosmic
afterglow, microwave afterglow

558
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:50,080
of the universe and I tell them
all that and some of them are

559
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,200
like, yeah, that is kind of
cool.

560
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:59,480
And so that's another thing I
try to do in my own writing, not

561
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:05,520
only to just kind of dump on
theories that I think are a

562
00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:09,360
little overly ambitious, aren't
that well supported, but to to

563
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,720
talk about what we do know and
what is really well supported,

564
00:37:13,720 --> 00:37:17,640
like the basic Big Bang Theory.
And I present the evidence.

565
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:22,080
I just remind people of how well
supported that is and try to get

566
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,560
them to realize how incredible
that is.

567
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:30,400
The universe had a beginning.
Wow, think of the implications

568
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,760
of that.
The Big Bang theory was rejected

569
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,320
for a long time by a lot of
physicists, astronomers,

570
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:40,120
scientists in general because it
was seen as being too religious.

571
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:44,160
It had too much in common with
creation stories coming from the

572
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:46,920
Bible and and other sacred
texts.

573
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,000
But hey, guess what?
The Big Bang theory seems real.

574
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:55,320
This is 1 area where I don't my
old friend Jim McClellan, the

575
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:57,960
postmodernist.
He thinks that The Big Bang

576
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,000
theory is just another story.
I just wrote a piece recently

577
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,040
saying The Big Bang theory is
true.

578
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,080
Deal with it, because the
evidence for it is overwhelming.

579
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:10,600
I think, well, that's also one
of my favorite stories.

580
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,240
I remember the first time going
through that figuring out, I

581
00:38:13,240 --> 00:38:16,240
mean the guys I I think there
was it was birds.

582
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:18,800
They thought it was, they
thought birds were making a

583
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:20,880
noise and they're trying to
eliminate the sound.

584
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,360
And and then slowly Hubble comes
in and shows you that the

585
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:25,360
universe it was.
It's one of those awe inspiring

586
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:26,640
stories.
It's kind of like this.

587
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,080
It's such a logical jump to
think, OK, if it's moving this

588
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,920
way, let's just go backward.
And sort of figure out what

589
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:35,040
would happen.
I mean, that's such a good thing

590
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:38,200
to think about.
Do you think it's like, yeah,

591
00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:40,240
well, things where it's just
it's incredible.

592
00:38:40,240 --> 00:38:43,040
It's one of those things.
It's so obvious and yet it's so

593
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,720
epic at the same time.
Yeah.

594
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,800
And well, another thing that's
amazing about the whole story of

595
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:54,600
The Big Bang is that if you go
back just like 100 years ago, I

596
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:56,240
mean that's a blink of the an
eye.

597
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,880
Most astronomers, physicists,
people who thought about the

598
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,560
structure of the universe at
all, just assume that the

599
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:08,440
universe consists of the Milky
Way.

600
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,040
All these stars that that we can
see at night.

601
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,640
We're in this big.
Our sun is in this big swirl of

602
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:16,800
stars.
There were these little fuzzy

603
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:21,520
patches in the sky that some
people going back to Immanuel

604
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:26,800
Kant, the great Austrian
philosopher thought might be

605
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:29,560
other island universes like the
Milky Way.

606
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:33,760
But we couldn't be sure until
then.

607
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:37,840
Telescopes in the 1920s got big
enough so they could look at

608
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,640
those little tiny fuzzy patches
and see individual stars in

609
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:44,400
them.
And they realized those are

610
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:50,400
other galaxies like the Milky
Way, really far away.

611
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:54,680
So even before we discovered the
redshift which indicated the

612
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:58,880
expansion, all of a sudden the
universe became exponentially

613
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:04,480
bigger.
The boundaries of our world just

614
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,240
flew out.
So that and that just just 100

615
00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:10,240
years ago, it's.
It's.

616
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:15,360
It's and the story I remember,
it was, I think Hubble just

617
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,160
decided to leave the telescope
placed in that spot.

618
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,880
It wasn't really an active
decision, it was more one of

619
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:22,320
those things.
That's where the ultra deep feel

620
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,400
comes from.
It was more just one of those

621
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,120
random things where you're like,
let's just leave it, then

622
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,560
collect as much photons as
possible and then you get blown

623
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,480
away with this information that
literally changes everything,

624
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,000
you know.
Yeah, the Redshift data.

625
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:41,640
And then another very
serendipitous discovery that

626
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:46,640
really helped.
It convinced most people that

627
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:49,720
The Big Bang is real.
Happened right here in northern

628
00:40:49,720 --> 00:40:54,120
New Jersey, just down the road
from my school at Bell

629
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,040
Laboratories.
You had a bunch of guys, radio

630
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:01,520
engineers who were working on a
microwave communication system

631
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:05,120
for the the telephone network
and kept getting this weird

632
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:09,960
buzzing.
And in their transmissions and

633
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:15,040
they thought that it might be
that, you know, birds had pooped

634
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:16,040
up.
Yeah, that was, that was what I

635
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:17,920
was mentioning earlier.
The birds, they thought it was

636
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,480
birds pooping and stuff.
Yeah, epic story.

637
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:26,080
So they and then they realized.
Then one of them remembered,

638
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:32,440
Hey, I read this paper that said
that the The Big Bang should

639
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,920
have left A.
A residual afterglow in the form

640
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:40,560
of microwaves that are almost
exactly what we're observing

641
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:41,840
here.
Could it be that?

642
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,640
And of course it was that and
these guys who weren't even

643
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,480
looking for it won a Nobel Prize
for discovering the afterglow of

644
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,120
The Big Bang, just trying to
eliminate a sound.

645
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:57,040
Can you imagine the the
scientific and philosophical

646
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:00,360
implications that from the IT?
It's such a shift in thought

647
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,160
because I often tell people, Can
you imagine living in a universe

648
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:08,120
where, well, in what was a
Galaxy, where suddenly it's just

649
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,960
open up to almost an infinite
reality?

650
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:12,760
That's such a weird thing to go
through.

651
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:15,120
Do you think that's currently
happening, 'cause I saw a tweet

652
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:16,520
today, I think it was Brian
Keating.

653
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,120
He could have just been
clickbait, but he 'cause now, as

654
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:23,000
you mentioned, they are starting
to question whether this is

655
00:42:23,240 --> 00:42:26,360
whether it does expand further
than 13.8 billion watches.

656
00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:28,680
Do you think this is?
I haven't followed the data

657
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:29,120
enough?
What?

658
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:34,040
What are your thoughts there?
So I've been tracking cosmology,

659
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:38,440
this, the study of the whole
universe, for decades now and

660
00:42:40,240 --> 00:42:44,520
and it's the field is in a funny
situation because in a sense,

661
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,480
they're really proud of having a
basic framework for

662
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:54,040
understanding the universe.
It's the the basic Big Bang

663
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,320
expanding universe model which
we just been.

664
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,120
Talking about But The Big Bang
is kind of like the theory of

665
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:02,760
evolution by a natural
selection.

666
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,440
It's it's always, there are
always these outstanding

667
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,240
questions.
So for evolution, well, how

668
00:43:10,240 --> 00:43:14,280
exactly do species form and how
do they diverge from each other?

669
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:19,320
For The Big Bang cosmology, it's
how do galaxies form.

670
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,960
Well, how did they form?
When did they form?

671
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:26,680
After the initial Big Bang?
And there are lots of other

672
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,760
questions, like that sort of
detailed questions about how we

673
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:33,120
got from this supposed creation
event to where we are today.

674
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:38,160
And there are all these
additions to The Big Bang theory

675
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:44,600
to try to solve some of these
questions involving dark matter,

676
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:51,080
dark energy, something called
inflation, which is a a theory

677
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:55,400
of enormous cosmic expansion.
That happened right after the

678
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:57,480
initial Big Bang.
That would solve some of the

679
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:03,120
observational problems we have.
So, and a lot of these theories

680
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:07,200
sort of come and go.
I've seen them come and go and

681
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:12,080
and then when there are problems
with some of these additional

682
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,800
theories, people say, oh, The
Big Bang is in trouble in the

683
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:18,440
same way that sometimes.
I don't know.

684
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:23,000
Epigenetics or something in
biology leads people to say, oh,

685
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:26,280
Darwin was wrong.
No, Darwin wasn't wrong.

686
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:30,200
The theory of evolution by
natural selection is rock solid

687
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:36,040
and The Big Bang that the idea
that the universe had a

688
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:40,280
beginning and is still expanding
to this day, that is rock solid.

689
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:44,600
But there are all these other
questions that that we've tried

690
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:46,280
to solve with additional
theories.

691
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:51,040
And those come and go and lead
cosmologists to say, oh, we need

692
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,920
a new paradigm, everything is in
peril now and we're going to

693
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,880
have a revolution.
And they want that to happen

694
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,040
because it's getting a little
boring in cosmology nowadays.

695
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:03,840
Yeah, no, for sure.
I spoke to Lawrence Krauss.

696
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:07,880
It was about a week or two ago,
and we were discussing whether

697
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,160
science needs philosophy.
And I know you've addressed this

698
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:14,080
quite a lot, including the topic
of him discussing it.

699
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:17,120
What are your thoughts about?
Because he firmly believes

700
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:21,360
science is the ultimate truth,
so the anything beyond

701
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:25,680
scientific truth or empirical
evidence is not possible from

702
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:29,360
his perspective.
Yeah, it's, I don't know, I'm,

703
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:34,600
I'm got I I have sort of.
Let me see what can I say about

704
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:39,640
old Lawrence Krauss?
I'm chatting to you and maybe I

705
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:45,280
can ask a question for you.
Yeah, he's he's he's a funny

706
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:50,400
person because he does a lot of
philosophy in his writing.

707
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,120
He's just not very good at it.
He's what I'd call a naive

708
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,200
philosopher.
So he wrote a book, I can't

709
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,840
remember the title, that's
basically saying we've solved

710
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:01,640
this.
The the mystery of why the

711
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:06,040
universe exists at all.
Yeah, Universe from nothing.

712
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,960
And and and he made disparaging
comments about philosophy.

713
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:15,720
In in that book, even though
there are lots of philosophical

714
00:46:15,720 --> 00:46:18,560
assumptions in the book.
So he's basically saying that

715
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,160
and this is an old idea, it
wasn't, it certainly wasn't

716
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,120
something that he came up with
that the universe might have

717
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:29,720
started with some kind of
quantum fluctuation in a cosmic

718
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:34,360
void.
And this is the inflation theory

719
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,960
which I mentioned earlier is
kind of that.

720
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:43,080
General idea that quantum
mechanics says that there's no

721
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:45,520
such thing as a true vacuum.
You always get these particles

722
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,680
blinking in and out of existence
and one of those might have

723
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,480
suddenly expanded and become a a
whole universe.

724
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:56,440
Well then the question is, well,
where did that quantum field

725
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,240
come from?
That's not nothing, that's

726
00:46:59,240 --> 00:47:02,040
something.
And this is what some critics

727
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:07,560
pointed out about Kraus.
So I think another area where

728
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:11,960
physics needs philosophy or
philosophy has certainly been

729
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:15,520
helpful is in interpreting
theories like quantum mechanics.

730
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:20,840
Is this incredibly powerful
mathematical model of that

731
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:25,680
explains why light and why
electrons and protons and

732
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:29,600
neutrons do what they do, why
they behave in certain ways in

733
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:33,160
in experiments?
But nobody knows what it means.

734
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,600
It doesn't make any sense.
And so you've got all these

735
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,360
philosophers who are trying to
explain it.

736
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:43,000
But even more importantly,
they're pointing out all the

737
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:48,480
ways in which quantum mechanics
on its face is incoherent and

738
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:51,680
actually poses all these
fundamental philosophical

739
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:57,520
problems about the universe so,
and about the nature of reality

740
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:01,120
so.
You know, I take a lot of shots

741
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:05,240
at philosophers too.
I think philosophy makes a

742
00:48:05,240 --> 00:48:08,840
mistake when it thinks it's
solving problems.

743
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:11,640
Some philosophers actually think
that they're going to come up

744
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:15,600
with a solution to the meaning
of quantum mechanics.

745
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,960
Here it is, it's the pilot wave
theory, or it's many worlds, or

746
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:22,720
something like that.
What I think philosophers are

747
00:48:22,720 --> 00:48:26,160
best at, even though this is not
something they would necessarily

748
00:48:26,240 --> 00:48:30,120
agree with, is.
Pointing all out, all the

749
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:34,440
inadequacies of our knowledge,
all the ways in which our

750
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:39,360
theories, as powerful as they
might be, don't really tell us

751
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:43,080
what we want to know about how
the world works.

752
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:46,760
So yeah, I maybe I say this
about philosophy because I

753
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:50,240
consider myself a kind of
amateur philosopher.

754
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,680
I think I was guilty of the same
thing as Lawrence from coming

755
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:58,640
into studying medicine, going
through pretty much a phase of

756
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,200
life where hard science was the
only answer for me.

757
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,080
And I thought that is the only
way to gain truth.

758
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:07,480
But often doing a philosophy
degree, I realized how blindly

759
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:09,840
ignorant I was.
I'm not speaking for Lawrence

760
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,960
because this is not this podcast
isn't a platform for people to

761
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:15,040
get into debates, it's more
about understanding everyone's

762
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:17,960
perspective, getting the ideas.
But I did realize that I had

763
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:22,040
fundamental flaws in assuming
everything could be answered in

764
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:24,920
science or or the scientific
method as a body of knowledge

765
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:29,360
used to gain truth.
I I mean that postmodernist

766
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:31,760
belief it kind of.
I mean I empathize with that

767
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:33,400
too.
It's very difficult I feel

768
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:38,240
sometimes to gain access to the
ultimate truth and and I think

769
00:49:38,240 --> 00:49:41,800
that's probably that probably
opens the door to philosophers

770
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,480
then going against science in
many ways where a scientist

771
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:48,200
cannot really defend themselves.
So if someone does claim, OK,

772
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:50,720
well we don't understand
Augment, do you think that sort

773
00:49:50,720 --> 00:49:53,640
of puts them in a position out
to then argue for anything is

774
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:56,680
possible?
They're relativist argument.

775
00:49:57,800 --> 00:50:00,040
That's the problem.
This is why I'm not a

776
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:06,720
postmodernist, not a true
postmodernist who thinks that

777
00:50:06,720 --> 00:50:11,600
everything is relative, that one
story is is as good as another,

778
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:15,360
and that we never really settle
any scientific questions for

779
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:17,080
once and for all.
I just think that that is

780
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,520
obviously untrue.
There are lots of scientific

781
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:22,960
questions that we have settled
once and for all of, like like

782
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,600
the one I mentioned earlier, one
of those fuzzy patches.

783
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:29,000
In the sky or the Are those
clouds of gas here in the Milky

784
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:33,400
Way, or are those other galaxies
far beyond our own?

785
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:36,480
We solved that There are other
galaxies out there.

786
00:50:38,240 --> 00:50:42,680
But in terms of I've become more
I became a science journalist

787
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:46,720
because I thought in the 1980s,
because I thought science is the

788
00:50:46,720 --> 00:50:50,040
most exciting.
Human endeavor.

789
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:53,480
It's the human endeavor that
most makes progress.

790
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:56,080
It gets somewhere.
It's transformed our world

791
00:50:56,080 --> 00:51:01,320
intellectually and materially,
in just countless ways.

792
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:05,960
And I also thought that science
was our best hope of telling us

793
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:08,920
what we are and explaining where
the universe came from, solving

794
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:13,800
all these profound mysteries
that once religion tried to

795
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:16,160
solve.
The older I get, the more I

796
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:22,280
realize how limited science is.
And and how much we need

797
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:32,440
philosophy and the arts and
mysticism.

798
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:35,360
Certain kinds of religion,
especially if it's not dogmatic

799
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:39,960
religion.
To try to understand what the

800
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:45,240
hell is going on.
I just posted this morning a

801
00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:51,320
little column on.
The Golden Bowl, which is the

802
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:57,840
last novel written by Henry
James, it's It came out in 1904.

803
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:01,960
It's one of James's most
famously obscure difficult

804
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:03,880
works.
Hardly anybody reads it because

805
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:08,920
it's just it's just nasty.
It's interminable and but James

806
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,720
thought it was his best book.
So I thought, OK, I've got to

807
00:52:12,720 --> 00:52:16,600
read this and.
I read it.

808
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:19,360
I finished the damn thing.
I don't recommend it to anybody

809
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:23,120
else, but in the course of
reading it, I think I figured

810
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:28,120
out what James was up to.
It's, you know, it's got a

811
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:30,200
really simple plot.
It's just four people.

812
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:34,560
It's kind of a love quadrangle 2
two of the characters or having

813
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:37,880
an affair that can hurt the
other two to whom they're

814
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:40,120
married.
And it's so it's like really

815
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,080
simple.
But then James just goes on and

816
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:45,600
on about it.
What he's trying to do is.

817
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:52,840
Show that each of us has what's
called what cognitive scientists

818
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:58,800
call a theory of mind, meaning a
a kind of model of other people.

819
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:03,400
So you and I both have a little
theory of mind for each other

820
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:06,000
now just because of this
conversation we're having and

821
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:09,560
we're constantly updating it and
changing and you know it's it's

822
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:13,240
based on very limited data.
And we're we're constantly

823
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:15,400
updating it as we talk to each
other.

824
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:21,720
You also have a theory of mind
of other people around you that

825
00:53:21,720 --> 00:53:26,200
you're close to, that you love
and your theories of mind of

826
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:31,040
those other people, those are
also always changing and and

827
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:35,040
when you have a theory of a mind
of someone else, you also have

828
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:38,920
to have an idea of what their
theory of mind is for you.

829
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:43,240
So, James.
I realized this is what James is

830
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:46,000
up to.
He's showing that you have just

831
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:53,080
4 characters, and there is this
what could be called what

832
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:59,040
complexity theorists would call
a combinatorial explosion of

833
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:04,840
theories of mind, which are all
sort of feeding back to each

834
00:54:04,840 --> 00:54:08,960
other in these endless loops.
This is theory of mind.

835
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:13,320
Is one of the deepest questions
in cognitive science and

836
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:18,720
philosophy right now.
And here is Henry James in this

837
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:23,160
bizarre novel about a bunch of
rich assholes Who cares about

838
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,160
them?
But there's this theme at the

839
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:29,960
bottom of it that is absolutely
profound and applies to all of

840
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:32,840
us.
It's it's like a punch in the

841
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:37,320
face that's telling us.
No one really knows what's going

842
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:43,480
on in anybody else's head.
We all we do is guess and that's

843
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:46,920
that is something that
supplements through this work of

844
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:50,520
brilliant literature.
Although brilliant but really

845
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:52,920
hard to read.
You know I'm I'm looking at it

846
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:55,680
now so it's your tweets.
To distract myself from

847
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:57,240
everything.
I just wrote a review on Henry

848
00:54:57,240 --> 00:55:01,240
James so it's called Paulo.
So I'm I'm looking at your

849
00:55:01,240 --> 00:55:03,600
Twitter Bible.
It says know nothing know it all

850
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:08,000
science lovers science basher.
I mean I like that it's a it's a

851
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:10,880
good way to sort of maintain
that humility among while

852
00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:13,200
performing this search for
truth.

853
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:15,880
Well, I I know you don't like
the postmodern version of that.

854
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:21,040
That a quote.
Yeah, the, the, the know nothing

855
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:23,320
know it all because who the hell
am I?

856
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:26,920
I'm I'm like passing judgement
on string theory and.

857
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:34,960
Interpretations of of quantum
mechanics and you know theories

858
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:38,760
all across integrated
information theory at with and

859
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:41,600
all I do is I sort of look into
these things and talk to people

860
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:46,320
about them and then I I dare to
have opinions on them.

861
00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:51,040
So that makes me a big know it
all you know and an arrogant

862
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,760
bastard.
And at the same time, as I told

863
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:57,080
you, the the older I get, the
more I realize that.

864
00:55:57,680 --> 00:55:59,200
I don't know anything.
I'm.

865
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:08,600
I feel appallingly ignorant and
confused by by reality, and I I

866
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:12,960
feel as though and I I don't.
I've given up hope that I'll

867
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:18,320
have some huge revelation that
will suddenly make everything

868
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:23,600
sensible to me.
In fact it's it's pretty it's

869
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:26,440
pretty consistently going the
other way and I've just tried to

870
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:28,480
embrace it.
So it might seem like a paradox.

871
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:34,080
The know it all know nothing
thing, but from where I am it,

872
00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:38,520
it actually works really well.
Tell me throughout the years

873
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:41,400
when writing on these topics,
particularly let's get back to

874
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:43,120
the mind body problem.
When you wrote about these

875
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:46,720
topics, which philosophers and
scientists do you think had the

876
00:56:46,720 --> 00:56:47,520
best?
Sort of.

877
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:51,320
Well, the closest approach to
the to the solution.

878
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:53,840
That's it.
Yeah.

879
00:56:56,240 --> 00:57:00,760
In terms of so there's there's
when it comes to philosophers,

880
00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:03,480
see I think of philosophy as
being kind of a branch of

881
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:10,440
literature almost like a kind of
really weird poetry and that has

882
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:14,400
very various aesthetic effects.
So I'm I'm.

883
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:20,280
I look at the I I respond to the
style of philosophers as well as

884
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:22,520
to the substance of what they're
actually saying.

885
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,520
And one of my all time favorite
philosophers and I and I've been

886
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:28,360
fortunate enough to interview a
lot of the greatest philosophers

887
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:32,240
of the 20th century, especially
philosophers of science.

888
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:36,720
And one of my favourites was
this guy named Paul Feyerabend

889
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:41,120
was an Austrian philosopher.
He was old enough to actually

890
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:45,080
have served.
In the German army at the toward

891
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:49,480
the tail end of of World War Two
he was shot in the back.

892
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:53,160
So he was permanent, permanently
crippled.

893
00:57:53,640 --> 00:58:00,240
He had difficulty walking and
and he had trained in physics

894
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:04,240
and then decided to go into
philosophy because he just loved

895
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:10,600
arguing with people and and he
turned into he called himself a

896
00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:16,520
philosophical anarchist.
Meaning that he didn't believe

897
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:20,120
in philosophical systems, he was
kind of destructive, he liked to

898
00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:28,080
tear things down and and he had
the the style of doing it that

899
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:31,200
was really flamboyant.
He's kind of like a performance

900
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:33,680
artist.
So he's he's basically a

901
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:37,360
philosopher who's saying that
philosophy is impossible.

902
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:42,160
And so he's like a walking
contradiction and he kind of

903
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:45,600
embraced that.
He was he he savagely mocked

904
00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:51,400
other people, but he also
savagely mocked himself and and

905
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:58,560
he especially mocked the whole
idea of understanding reality.

906
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:02,560
I I interviewed him in the 1990s
at a period when a lot of people

907
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:06,280
were still taken seriously.
The idea of A of a Theory of

908
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:09,200
everything.
This is a term that Stephen

909
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:12,760
Hawking helped to popularize a A
theory of physics.

910
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:15,960
But it could also be coming from
other fields that would tell us

911
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:20,200
why we're here, that could tell
us why there's something rather

912
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:24,480
than nothing and Fire.
Rob and I still kind of believe

913
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:28,800
that when I talked to Firebin
and Fire, Robin said to me, are

914
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:32,720
you kidding me?
A theory that's going to tell

915
00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:36,840
us.
What really is out there?

916
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:39,680
We're nothing.
Human beings are nothing.

917
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:44,600
We're we're just like like flies
that are here for a second and

918
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:47,560
then we're gone.
We think and we keep saying we

919
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:52,560
found the truth about reality.
Meanwhile the truth is behind is

920
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:55,480
is still out there laughing at
us.

921
00:59:55,760 --> 01:00:01,640
So he had this this really
dramatic way of of of talking

922
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:03,040
that I.
That I loved.

923
01:00:03,040 --> 01:00:06,480
And at the time when I
interviewed him, I thought he

924
01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:10,200
goes too far.
He was just denigrating science

925
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:15,600
and the whole Western
intellectual tradition so much

926
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:22,640
and even saying that we have to
have more consideration for the

927
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:28,920
the beliefs of indigenous people
and religious ideas of creation.

928
01:00:29,400 --> 01:00:31,640
And I I was, I didn't want to
hear that.

929
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:35,440
And as time goes on, I've I've
become more sympathetic toward

930
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:40,080
him, especially because I
realized what he was telling me

931
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:45,400
was that knowledge can become
oppressive knowledge when you

932
01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:48,720
know the scientists are saying
this is what's happening and you

933
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:50,520
must accept it because it's
true.

934
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:54,680
And fire Robin was saying, and
this is radical at the time.

935
01:00:54,680 --> 01:00:58,840
Now it doesn't seem so radical
fire, Robin was saying, saying

936
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:04,160
why do we have to accept it?
Maybe we prefer to see the the

937
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:09,560
earth is being born out of some
like primordial earth goddess.

938
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:15,720
And if that gives us comfort, if
and if that connects us to our

939
01:01:16,680 --> 01:01:20,520
our ancestors, then who are the
scientists to take that away

940
01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:24,400
from us?
So it was he was showing that

941
01:01:24,400 --> 01:01:27,520
there's this kind of dichotomy
between truth and freedom.

942
01:01:28,160 --> 01:01:29,600
Fire.
Robin believed in truth.

943
01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:31,160
People didn't understand that
about him.

944
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:34,480
He believed in truth.
And that's one reason why he

945
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:40,000
thought science was dangerous,
because it actually does figure

946
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:43,480
out the world and it and imposes
ideas on people.

947
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:46,680
But he didn't necessarily.
He thought that that might be

948
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:51,320
lead to some kind of
totalitarian system where people

949
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:53,040
all have to believe the same
thing.

950
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:59,440
And I'm, you know, I still have
problems at that point of view,

951
01:01:59,440 --> 01:02:02,560
but I really.
But I see what he is after and

952
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:07,360
more and more freedom of
thought, which is what mattered

953
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:09,920
to fire Rob and also matters to
me.

954
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:12,680
That's I'm I'm definitely going
to check him out and it sounds

955
01:02:12,960 --> 01:02:17,760
it sounds very intriguing.
Have you noticed the the IT

956
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:21,880
seems that a lot of people
online today when they approach

957
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:25,400
this topic of consciousness and
the mind body problem.

958
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:29,240
It seems that there seems to be
an increase of illusionist

959
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:32,000
thinkers now, I think
particularly within the last,

960
01:02:32,000 --> 01:02:35,640
let's say 10 years.
I think Dennis and then wrote a

961
01:02:35,640 --> 01:02:38,080
paper around 2016 Keith
Frankish.

962
01:02:38,080 --> 01:02:40,200
They wrote on illusionism as a
theory of consciousness.

963
01:02:40,400 --> 01:02:42,400
Something I noticed recently is
that all of them seem to be

964
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:46,560
quitting Twitter one by one.
I think Dennis recently posted a

965
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:48,640
tweet that he's leaving.
Keith seems to be doing the same

966
01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:49,800
thing.
What are your thoughts on

967
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:51,480
illusionism as a theory of
consciousness?

968
01:02:53,160 --> 01:03:01,960
Yeah, all right, so I actually
just post reposted something on

969
01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:08,800
related to Illusionism.
I'm an old acid head, OK?

970
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:13,280
I started taking LSD
psychedelics when I was just a

971
01:03:13,280 --> 01:03:16,560
boy.
I was like 15 or 16 years old

972
01:03:17,080 --> 01:03:24,040
and and that has that has
altered my thinking or it's

973
01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:27,440
something that always is there
in the background when I'm

974
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:31,400
thinking about questions like
what is reality really?

975
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:34,760
What's the relation of mind and
and matter and which is the

976
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:38,320
primary?
Does matter come out of mind or

977
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:41,680
does mind come out of matter?
What is it?

978
01:03:42,120 --> 01:03:49,280
I'm also really interested in in
mysticism, by which I mean these

979
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:52,080
extraordinary experiences that
people have had throughout

980
01:03:52,080 --> 01:03:56,720
history and still have from all
different cultures and

981
01:03:56,880 --> 01:04:02,760
traditions that seem to point
toward the existence of

982
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:09,960
something beyond this where we
are right now and different

983
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:14,360
mystical traditions in different
ways, Buddhism, Hinduism and

984
01:04:14,360 --> 01:04:18,800
even Christianity.
Some of the the western

985
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:25,080
religions all suggest they imply
and or some state very

986
01:04:25,080 --> 01:04:28,320
explicitly that this is an
illusion.

987
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:35,200
This is like a dream state and
the actual reality is something

988
01:04:35,200 --> 01:04:41,720
entirely different.
So I had enough LSD that I take

989
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:46,840
that idea very seriously.
I've been, I'd been tripping and

990
01:04:46,840 --> 01:04:49,880
suddenly thought yeah this is
this is like a dream.

991
01:04:50,320 --> 01:04:56,560
And I've even felt like I sort
of went beyond the veil and and

992
01:04:56,560 --> 01:05:00,720
saw what was what was behind it.
I I wrote a whole book on this

993
01:05:00,720 --> 01:05:03,480
called Rational Mysticism where
I tried to make sense of some of

994
01:05:03,480 --> 01:05:10,480
these experiences that I'd had
the problem and then you know

995
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,640
their modern scientific versions
of illusionism.

996
01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:16,880
Donald Hoffman is 1 purveyor of
this.

997
01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:20,280
I also have become sort of
unlikely friends over the last

998
01:05:20,280 --> 01:05:23,760
few years with Deepak Chopra
who's who's kind of an

999
01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:26,800
illusionist.
It's somebody who basically says

1000
01:05:26,800 --> 01:05:33,880
that mind is the basis of of
everything and not and and not

1001
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:35,520
matter.
So I'm sympathetic toward these

1002
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:42,280
ideas, but at the same time I'm,
I'm really skeptical of them and

1003
01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:48,400
I even have a moral objection to
them in this world.

1004
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:50,440
They're bad things happening.
They're suffering and

1005
01:05:50,440 --> 01:05:55,880
oppression.
I mean, like right now of just

1006
01:05:56,440 --> 01:05:59,560
they're suffering.
That is unimaginable.

1007
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:06,640
And and what bothers me about
illusionism, or even the idea

1008
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:10,440
that everything is consciousness
and and this is true of

1009
01:06:10,440 --> 01:06:16,120
multiverse theories too, they
sort of get us to discount this

1010
01:06:16,120 --> 01:06:19,920
world we're living in where
there are people in pain like

1011
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:27,880
right now and and people who are
being treated unfairly, who are

1012
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:32,240
being brutalized.
And I don't.

1013
01:06:32,240 --> 01:06:36,320
Apart from whether Illusionism
is right or wrong, or whether

1014
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:39,720
idealism or pan psychism or
they're right or wrong.

1015
01:06:40,640 --> 01:06:44,720
They're the practical moral
consequences of ideas like this.

1016
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:54,880
And I don't like any theory or
world view that gets us off the

1017
01:06:54,880 --> 01:07:00,160
hook to an extent about doing
something, about the terrible

1018
01:07:00,160 --> 01:07:04,720
things happening in this world
that are not illusions that are

1019
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:07,360
real.
There's nothing more real than

1020
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:11,840
human pain.
So I'm, I'm kind of I, you know

1021
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:17,400
I've written about it a lot also
I it bothers me that so humans

1022
01:07:17,400 --> 01:07:20,440
are sort of narcissists.
We're all natural narcissists.

1023
01:07:20,760 --> 01:07:24,880
Every person is the center of of
his or her cosmos.

1024
01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:28,680
Right.
And we humans collectively think

1025
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:30,880
we're really great.
We think we're better than all

1026
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:34,680
the other organisms on Earth.
So from the beginning, and we've

1027
01:07:34,680 --> 01:07:38,400
always thought that the all of
existence was about us, it was

1028
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:42,400
created for us for some kind of
spiritual project that we're

1029
01:07:42,400 --> 01:07:47,200
engaged in.
And we started seriously

1030
01:07:47,200 --> 01:07:49,360
questioning that about 500 years
ago.

1031
01:07:49,560 --> 01:07:53,880
And I see that as one of
humanity's triumphs is to

1032
01:07:53,880 --> 01:07:58,080
overcome its innate narcissism
and realize that no, we're just

1033
01:07:58,080 --> 01:08:03,640
like 1 little type of Organism
on a little speck of dust going

1034
01:08:03,640 --> 01:08:08,800
around one little star in this
unimaginably big universe.

1035
01:08:09,400 --> 01:08:15,440
So we should get over ourselves.
And now I see this trend, I call

1036
01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:18,439
it Neo geocentrism.
It's like a return of

1037
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:25,000
geocentrism.
I see this as theories like

1038
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:28,720
integrated information theory
and Donald Hoffman's theory, and

1039
01:08:28,720 --> 01:08:33,160
all these theories that give
primacy to consciousness as as a

1040
01:08:33,160 --> 01:08:38,279
return to to a kind of
geocentric thinking.

1041
01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:42,600
So yeah, I guess it's what what
I'm trying to say is, I'm

1042
01:08:42,600 --> 01:08:46,600
ambivalent about all that stuff.
And you're touching on something

1043
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:49,240
very important because this
podcast, I mean it, touches on

1044
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:54,000
the nature of consciousness,
reality, free will and morality.

1045
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:56,279
So you're you're on that
morality spectrum at the moment.

1046
01:08:56,279 --> 01:08:57,520
What are your thoughts on free
will?

1047
01:08:58,120 --> 01:09:04,399
What role does that?
Yeah, I've really gone back and

1048
01:09:04,399 --> 01:09:07,760
forth.
I I think free will is a

1049
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:11,800
philosophical rather than
scientific question.

1050
01:09:12,160 --> 01:09:16,840
And by that I mean that I don't
think free will is solvable.

1051
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:22,800
I I don't think there are will
ever be a slam dunk argument

1052
01:09:22,800 --> 01:09:25,319
that proves yes, free will
exists.

1053
01:09:25,920 --> 01:09:30,600
No, it does not exist.
I can think about.

1054
01:09:30,840 --> 01:09:38,240
I can trace my own life back to,
you know, through my parents,

1055
01:09:38,359 --> 01:09:41,080
all the way back to the
beginning of life on Earth and

1056
01:09:41,080 --> 01:09:43,640
back to the beginning of the
universe.

1057
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:45,279
I didn't ask for any of that to
happen.

1058
01:09:45,399 --> 01:09:51,920
How free can I be there?
Where was the choice in my life?

1059
01:09:51,920 --> 01:09:58,400
At the same time, I am aware of
myself as this creature who can

1060
01:09:58,400 --> 01:10:03,560
look into the future and discern
different trajectories I could

1061
01:10:03,560 --> 01:10:06,360
take from this point where I I
am now.

1062
01:10:07,040 --> 01:10:10,880
I know I have choices.
I make them all the time.

1063
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:14,000
So therefore of course I have
free will.

1064
01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:19,760
So I so I can see it in both
these two ways.

1065
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:24,960
I I call myself a free will
believer because I think it's

1066
01:10:24,960 --> 01:10:29,360
really important for us not to
feel as though we're victims of

1067
01:10:29,360 --> 01:10:33,120
forces beyond our control, in
part so we can take care of

1068
01:10:33,120 --> 01:10:36,320
these problems that I was
describing that lead to human

1069
01:10:36,320 --> 01:10:39,040
suffering.
All the various forms of

1070
01:10:39,040 --> 01:10:43,800
injustice and oppression,
oppression that 'cause people to

1071
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:48,000
have horrible, painful lives.
We need to think we can do

1072
01:10:48,000 --> 01:10:52,400
something about sexism and
racism and and war and

1073
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:57,280
inequality.
And to the extent we think we

1074
01:10:57,280 --> 01:11:03,080
believe the determinists, I
think we're less likely even to

1075
01:11:03,080 --> 01:11:06,000
try to really change things.
That's what worries me.

1076
01:11:07,600 --> 01:11:09,480
As you said, I mean it's deeply
entwined with the mind body

1077
01:11:09,480 --> 01:11:11,760
problem as well.
These these questions are

1078
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:14,320
fundamentally going to affect
how we approach moral

1079
01:11:14,320 --> 01:11:17,680
responsibility, how we engage
with people, what we do.

1080
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:20,640
So it's important that if we do
sort of come up with any sort of

1081
01:11:20,640 --> 01:11:23,560
theory.
That we remember that this does

1082
01:11:23,560 --> 01:11:27,080
have practical implications.
Absolutely.

1083
01:11:27,120 --> 01:11:31,600
So I have somewhere here.
I have AI.

1084
01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:35,040
Haven't read it yet, but I have
the new book by Robert Sapolsky,

1085
01:11:35,120 --> 01:11:38,600
the Stanford biologist.
And let me see, where is it?

1086
01:11:40,200 --> 01:11:44,600
Oh, yeah, here it is.
I've got to read this soon

1087
01:11:44,600 --> 01:11:49,440
because he agreed to have a
conversation with me about the

1088
01:11:49,440 --> 01:11:54,800
book by Zoom in just a few
weeks.

1089
01:11:55,440 --> 01:11:59,720
And so in this book he
apparently he argues against

1090
01:11:59,720 --> 01:12:01,080
free will.
Yes, he does.

1091
01:12:02,280 --> 01:12:04,640
OK, so you've read it.
I haven't, but I've spoken to

1092
01:12:04,640 --> 01:12:08,360
quite a few people who've read
it already and who've I've had

1093
01:12:08,360 --> 01:12:11,080
on the show and they they said
he makes quite a strong case for

1094
01:12:11,080 --> 01:12:13,360
it as well.
And I think Greg Caruso as well,

1095
01:12:13,760 --> 01:12:17,040
who he he quotes a lot of Greg
and Dirk Pierboom's work in it.

1096
01:12:17,600 --> 01:12:21,320
On rejecting retributivism and
and it's about hard

1097
01:12:21,320 --> 01:12:23,920
incompatibilism.
Yeah.

1098
01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:28,560
So I I really like Sapolsky as
I've met him a couple of times.

1099
01:12:29,480 --> 01:12:33,200
I've read several of his books.
I'm a huge fan.

1100
01:12:33,680 --> 01:12:39,080
And so I I wrote a book called
The End of War, which argues for

1101
01:12:39,080 --> 01:12:42,440
free will and choice and that we
can overcome war.

1102
01:12:42,440 --> 01:12:45,280
Shouldn't think of it as
something that is imposed on us

1103
01:12:45,280 --> 01:12:49,840
by our nature, by circumstance.
And I cited Sapolsky's work,

1104
01:12:49,840 --> 01:12:55,200
which I thought supported that.
And and so to know that he's

1105
01:12:55,200 --> 01:12:56,880
written a book against free
will.

1106
01:12:56,880 --> 01:13:03,800
Now it really it upsets me, so
I'm sort of bracing myself to

1107
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:06,360
read it.
Maybe there's a way of looking

1108
01:13:06,360 --> 01:13:11,360
at free will because he's a very
humane, kind, compassionate

1109
01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:13,000
person.
Maybe there's a way to look at

1110
01:13:13,000 --> 01:13:17,240
free will that's consistent with
a program of social justice and

1111
01:13:17,400 --> 01:13:20,920
progressive values.
I assume that makes that case in

1112
01:13:20,920 --> 01:13:25,600
his book.
But I'm I'm at this point, I'm

1113
01:13:25,600 --> 01:13:28,040
skeptical, but we're going to
talk about it in a few weeks.

1114
01:13:28,040 --> 01:13:29,800
No, John, I can, I can
completely agree with that

1115
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:32,520
because when I.
When I think of Robert Sapolsky,

1116
01:13:32,560 --> 01:13:36,520
I almost never expected him to
write a book where he would

1117
01:13:36,760 --> 01:13:39,360
defend determinism.
It was something that I also, it

1118
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:42,280
took me by surprise as well.
But when I saw Greg Caruso talk

1119
01:13:42,280 --> 01:13:44,720
about the fact that he's quoted
him a couple times at Dirk

1120
01:13:44,720 --> 01:13:47,360
Pierbun, I realized how he's
going to approach it because

1121
01:13:47,560 --> 01:13:51,560
they make very good cases for
social justice within an

1122
01:13:51,560 --> 01:13:53,800
illusionist framework of free
will.

1123
01:13:54,040 --> 01:13:56,000
So I think you're going to find
it quite fascinating when you

1124
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:57,320
read it.
And I think you might enjoy it.

1125
01:13:57,320 --> 01:14:02,640
Yeah, I, you know, I've, I've
got so I've got some Buddhist

1126
01:14:02,640 --> 01:14:07,640
friends.
I, I'm, I, I once interviewed a

1127
01:14:07,640 --> 01:14:10,000
great length, a British
psychologist named Susan

1128
01:14:10,000 --> 01:14:11,800
Blackmore.
Have you heard of her?

1129
01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:16,640
Yeah, she's yeah, she's a great
she's really an interesting

1130
01:14:16,640 --> 01:14:21,760
person, a really lively mind.
And she is.

1131
01:14:21,760 --> 01:14:24,720
I don't think she likes being
called a Zen Buddhist, but she

1132
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:29,040
practices Zen Buddhism, She
practices mindfulness, she

1133
01:14:29,040 --> 01:14:36,440
meditates a lot and she was an
an adamant denier of free will,

1134
01:14:36,680 --> 01:14:41,720
and she tried to convince me
that to give up free will means

1135
01:14:41,720 --> 01:14:47,120
kind of being liberated.
She saw it as as a kind of

1136
01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:54,040
enlightenment and where you're
totally living in the moment and

1137
01:14:55,160 --> 01:14:59,440
and you realize that you really
have no control of your life,

1138
01:14:59,440 --> 01:15:04,320
you don't have any true choices,
so just go along with things.

1139
01:15:04,960 --> 01:15:09,840
And she, she said all this very
eloquently.

1140
01:15:09,840 --> 01:15:12,040
I never bought it.
I never, I just can't.

1141
01:15:12,040 --> 01:15:16,000
It's just one of those.
I never understood it, seeing

1142
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:22,400
the lack of free will as
liberating, although I sometimes

1143
01:15:22,400 --> 01:15:24,840
I find my own choices
oppressive.

1144
01:15:24,840 --> 01:15:28,440
If I'm trying to decide between
doing two things, one of which

1145
01:15:28,440 --> 01:15:31,160
might be the right thing to do,
but it's very difficult, another

1146
01:15:31,160 --> 01:15:35,520
is easier, but not such the
right thing to do.

1147
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:42,160
That can be.
That can be hard, and freedom is

1148
01:15:42,160 --> 01:15:44,320
hard.
It can be.

1149
01:15:44,880 --> 01:15:47,320
I can see you might think it's
liberating to live in a

1150
01:15:47,320 --> 01:15:51,200
totalitarian or fundamentalist
religious state that tells you

1151
01:15:51,200 --> 01:15:53,120
exactly what to think and do all
the time.

1152
01:15:53,160 --> 01:15:56,000
OK, sure, fine.
But I don't want to live there.

1153
01:15:57,800 --> 01:16:02,880
I'd rather have these choices,
even if they're illusory.

1154
01:16:02,880 --> 01:16:05,520
I'd.
So I sometimes say I I don't.

1155
01:16:06,200 --> 01:16:11,440
I don't.
I don't believe in God, At least

1156
01:16:11,440 --> 01:16:14,760
not any kind of God that I've
encountered yet.

1157
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:20,480
But I do believe in free will,
or I have faith in free will.

1158
01:16:20,480 --> 01:16:23,160
That's that's like a crucial
part of my world view.

1159
01:16:23,600 --> 01:16:27,280
It's interesting 'cause, I mean,
while Sapolsky does a complete

1160
01:16:28,200 --> 01:16:31,680
take me like a 180 from what
you'd expect him to believe,

1161
01:16:31,920 --> 01:16:34,800
someone who does that for me as
well is Daniel Dennett.

1162
01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:37,520
Because I would.
I would assume Dennett would be

1163
01:16:37,840 --> 01:16:41,080
a A Free Will Illusionist.
But some reason is not and I'm

1164
01:16:41,080 --> 01:16:44,440
always surprised by that.
Yeah, he wrote.

1165
01:16:44,440 --> 01:16:46,160
Let me see.
He wrote a book called Freedom

1166
01:16:46,160 --> 01:16:51,840
Evolves that I I thought was
really profound.

1167
01:16:51,880 --> 01:16:57,840
I I, I then it annoys me often
just because he's such a smarty

1168
01:16:57,840 --> 01:16:59,200
pants.
He's so smug.

1169
01:16:59,200 --> 01:17:02,040
He's a brilliant writer, but
he's always so pleased with

1170
01:17:02,040 --> 01:17:05,960
himself and and he's always so
sure that he's right about

1171
01:17:06,320 --> 01:17:09,960
absolutely everything and he's
got this idea that consciousness

1172
01:17:09,960 --> 01:17:14,600
is an illusion, which he's he's
criticized for that in some ways

1173
01:17:14,600 --> 01:17:18,080
that are unfair, but in other
ways that I think are absolutely

1174
01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:20,200
justified.
So you're right, I would have

1175
01:17:20,200 --> 01:17:23,760
expected him to be a hardcore
determinist because he's a

1176
01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:28,520
hardcore materialist, but he
almost talks, he talks about

1177
01:17:28,520 --> 01:17:35,000
free will as being a kind of an
invention like like money or

1178
01:17:35,000 --> 01:17:37,840
marriage.
So it's not part of the nature

1179
01:17:37,840 --> 01:17:41,640
of reality, but it's an
invention that has proved to be

1180
01:17:42,960 --> 01:17:50,000
extremely useful and meaningful.
And once, like money, once it's

1181
01:17:50,000 --> 01:17:54,200
there, it is real.
Once you start believing it free

1182
01:17:54,200 --> 01:17:59,320
will, you start believing that
you have all these choices, then

1183
01:17:59,880 --> 01:18:01,800
you can't deny it.
It's it's there.

1184
01:18:01,800 --> 01:18:05,280
It's it's part of our lives.
And what I like about Dennett

1185
01:18:05,280 --> 01:18:10,440
made me realize that free will
is it is not something that is

1186
01:18:10,440 --> 01:18:16,080
just on the level of
individuals, it's it's political

1187
01:18:16,080 --> 01:18:18,840
as well.
So I think you can even look at

1188
01:18:18,840 --> 01:18:22,480
different societies, judge them,
rank them according to how much

1189
01:18:23,160 --> 01:18:27,280
free will citizens have, which
means how many choices they

1190
01:18:27,280 --> 01:18:29,360
have.
There's some societies in which

1191
01:18:29,360 --> 01:18:33,680
people have very few choices,
and especially if you go back in

1192
01:18:33,680 --> 01:18:36,960
history, most people had very
few choices in how to live their

1193
01:18:36,960 --> 01:18:41,040
lives.
But nowadays, lots of people,

1194
01:18:41,040 --> 01:18:43,920
I'm assuming you and I are part
of this category.

1195
01:18:44,320 --> 01:18:46,880
There are all sorts of crazy
things we can do with our lives.

1196
01:18:47,520 --> 01:18:51,440
And that is one of the great
triumphs of of human evolution

1197
01:18:51,440 --> 01:18:55,920
and the evolution of of culture
to give us more and more

1198
01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:58,440
choices, to give us more and
more free will.

1199
01:19:00,080 --> 01:19:03,840
And so that's another reason why
I don't like denying free will,

1200
01:19:03,840 --> 01:19:07,320
because it seems to me that
you're denying this really

1201
01:19:07,320 --> 01:19:10,320
amazing, fundamental part of
human progress.

1202
01:19:11,080 --> 01:19:13,920
Have you Seen Dennis wrote a new
book called I've Been Thinking.

1203
01:19:14,200 --> 01:19:15,560
I think it's called I've Been
Thinking.

1204
01:19:16,080 --> 01:19:20,920
It's a memoir.
I started reading it because I I

1205
01:19:20,920 --> 01:19:24,080
get people send me galleys.
They're they're they they keep

1206
01:19:24,080 --> 01:19:27,080
hoping I'm going to write
something positive about these

1207
01:19:27,080 --> 01:19:29,040
books, even though evidence
suggests otherwise.

1208
01:19:29,040 --> 01:19:33,040
And I got it.
And it this is probably unfair.

1209
01:19:33,040 --> 01:19:39,400
It just I I it was so self
congratulatory from the start

1210
01:19:39,840 --> 01:19:42,040
that it kind of turned me off.
So I set it aside.

1211
01:19:42,040 --> 01:19:44,040
I should probably try it again.
Have you read it?

1212
01:19:44,280 --> 01:19:46,840
No, not yet.
But I have seen similar reviews

1213
01:19:46,880 --> 01:19:49,920
online.
I saw someone defended it by

1214
01:19:49,920 --> 01:19:51,880
saying I mean if you're a
philosopher.

1215
01:19:53,760 --> 01:19:56,480
Yeah, your job is to actually
talk, to counter argue and talk

1216
01:19:56,480 --> 01:19:58,040
to people and have that sort of
smugness.

1217
01:19:58,040 --> 01:19:59,480
You need to almost have that
confidence.

1218
01:19:59,480 --> 01:20:01,920
So I I saw a lot of people
defending him as well saying,

1219
01:20:01,920 --> 01:20:04,560
look you should actually be this
confident when you're trying to

1220
01:20:04,560 --> 01:20:07,080
make such profound counter
arguments to things.

1221
01:20:07,440 --> 01:20:10,360
But I mean, but it seems to me
everyone's everyone is

1222
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:14,560
commenting on that.
And and for a for a philosopher,

1223
01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:17,640
he's really a good writer.
He constantly is coining all

1224
01:20:17,640 --> 01:20:21,160
these all these phrases.
And by the way we're talking

1225
01:20:21,160 --> 01:20:27,960
about Dennett, I I want to, I'd
like to mention this famous idea

1226
01:20:28,800 --> 01:20:33,040
that he's had and I mentioned it
a little bit earlier and he's

1227
01:20:33,040 --> 01:20:35,920
been really criticized for IT.
People sometimes say that he

1228
01:20:35,920 --> 01:20:39,480
claims consciousness is an
illusion and that means

1229
01:20:39,480 --> 01:20:43,920
consciousness doesn't exist.
And how could a such a smart

1230
01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:46,440
person have such a stupid idea,
is what a lot of people have

1231
01:20:46,440 --> 01:20:51,000
said.
And so he went on and on about

1232
01:20:51,000 --> 01:20:52,880
this idea in his book
Consciousness.

1233
01:20:53,920 --> 01:20:59,480
Explained no, yes, but in a more
recent book, From Bacteria to

1234
01:20:59,480 --> 01:21:08,280
Bach and and so and I finally
realized what he was up, what he

1235
01:21:08,280 --> 01:21:10,720
meant by this idea that
consciousness is an illusion.

1236
01:21:11,120 --> 01:21:16,120
In that book, he had this
wonderful phrase, competence

1237
01:21:16,120 --> 01:21:19,200
without comprehension.
And he's just making the point

1238
01:21:19,200 --> 01:21:23,840
that much of what we do that
gets us through a typical day

1239
01:21:24,360 --> 01:21:28,520
involves unconscious information
processing.

1240
01:21:28,920 --> 01:21:34,480
We're sort of like zombies.
We're like automatons performing

1241
01:21:34,520 --> 01:21:37,440
various chores.
Then it might say, even this

1242
01:21:37,440 --> 01:21:40,760
conversation that you and I are
having right now, we've got

1243
01:21:40,760 --> 01:21:44,160
these programs kind of stored up
and we're sort of switching them

1244
01:21:44,160 --> 01:21:46,600
on and and off.
I don't buy that.

1245
01:21:46,600 --> 01:21:51,080
But I understand what he means.
And the more I've thought about

1246
01:21:51,080 --> 01:21:58,760
it, the more I have to recognize
this disturbing truth that I am

1247
01:21:58,760 --> 01:22:02,960
kind of like an automaton and I
and I am kind of like a zombie.

1248
01:22:03,160 --> 01:22:06,360
And I think most humans are.
So Dennett isn't saying that

1249
01:22:06,360 --> 01:22:10,760
consciousness doesn't exist.
He's basically saying it's it's

1250
01:22:10,760 --> 01:22:15,120
just not very important.
It's so unimportant that it

1251
01:22:15,120 --> 01:22:19,600
might as well not exist.
I think that's that's his point.

1252
01:22:19,960 --> 01:22:24,920
And I've done a lot of
reflection on this in part

1253
01:22:24,920 --> 01:22:28,800
'cause I just wrote this book
about quantum mechanics and I

1254
01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:31,760
and A lot of physicists, as you
probably know, they learn

1255
01:22:31,760 --> 01:22:35,640
quantum mechanics and they're
told to shut up and calculate.

1256
01:22:35,640 --> 01:22:38,320
They're told not to think about
what quantum mechanics means.

1257
01:22:38,560 --> 01:22:41,720
So in other words, they're
they're taught in a way that

1258
01:22:41,720 --> 01:22:49,080
promotes competence over
comprehension and and trying to

1259
01:22:49,080 --> 01:22:52,960
learn quantum mechanics and
learning all the math and doing

1260
01:22:52,960 --> 01:22:57,920
all these math exercises just
made me aware of myself as this

1261
01:22:57,920 --> 01:23:02,560
gigantic collection of
algorithms that are all

1262
01:23:02,560 --> 01:23:08,560
constantly chugging along and
and propelling me through life.

1263
01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:11,920
And I don't, I don't really
understand any of them.

1264
01:23:13,040 --> 01:23:21,040
So I give, I give, I give
Dennett more credit for that now

1265
01:23:21,280 --> 01:23:23,880
than I used to.
And in fact it it's a very

1266
01:23:23,880 --> 01:23:31,800
disturbing but profound insight
into the human condition.

1267
01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:34,760
And by the way, it's kind of the
same thing with that, with that

1268
01:23:34,760 --> 01:23:37,240
Henry James was saying in the
Golden Bowl.

1269
01:23:37,720 --> 01:23:41,520
Nobody really knows anything.
You know, it's it's Dennis

1270
01:23:41,520 --> 01:23:44,360
Dennis's a very good writer.
I mean, when I wrote my own

1271
01:23:44,360 --> 01:23:47,000
dissertation, I actually helped
defend some of his own, his

1272
01:23:47,000 --> 01:23:49,200
views, because he made such an
impact on me.

1273
01:23:49,200 --> 01:23:51,600
And I wrote on Illusionism as a
theory of consciousness.

1274
01:23:52,000 --> 01:23:55,680
And I mean to quote him,
consciousness is an illusion of

1275
01:23:55,680 --> 01:23:57,520
the brain for the brain by the
brain.

1276
01:23:58,520 --> 01:24:01,400
There is no central homunculus.
He he he's just trying to say

1277
01:24:01,400 --> 01:24:05,720
that that phenomenal essence
like ethereal entity that we all

1278
01:24:05,720 --> 01:24:08,320
think so mystical.
Is just not there.

1279
01:24:08,320 --> 01:24:12,160
There's no such thing as that.
It's it's a misinterpretation

1280
01:24:12,160 --> 01:24:15,480
because of our algorithms
telling us that something is is

1281
01:24:15,480 --> 01:24:18,120
sort of there and it takes us
out of that pedestal that you

1282
01:24:18,120 --> 01:24:21,160
were talking about earlier.
He he's basically trying to tell

1283
01:24:21,160 --> 01:24:23,880
us that we're not as important
as we think we're.

1284
01:24:24,840 --> 01:24:28,160
We pretty much like to believe
we are but there is no sort of

1285
01:24:28,520 --> 01:24:30,360
on switch that kind of just
switches.

1286
01:24:30,480 --> 01:24:33,880
Switches hold zombie on, but
basically we are on that

1287
01:24:33,880 --> 01:24:35,440
autopilot state most of the
time.

1288
01:24:36,960 --> 01:24:41,160
Yeah I you know and and this
whole idea that we're we're

1289
01:24:41,160 --> 01:24:49,160
zombies or automatons.
I think it's I think it's a

1290
01:24:49,160 --> 01:24:57,600
really important point to make
and to accept because it gets us

1291
01:24:57,600 --> 01:25:01,920
to try to oppose it to counter
it.

1292
01:25:02,200 --> 01:25:08,440
So I've become aware of I think
Dennett one of the implications

1293
01:25:08,440 --> 01:25:11,640
of his writing or maybe he's
even spelled that this out is

1294
01:25:11,640 --> 01:25:17,720
that we're we're machines that
are designed to do various

1295
01:25:17,720 --> 01:25:23,880
things mainly to live long
enough to reproduce and and send

1296
01:25:23,880 --> 01:25:29,440
our offspring off into the next
generation without us.

1297
01:25:29,440 --> 01:25:31,400
That's our that's our basic
purpose here.

1298
01:25:31,400 --> 01:25:34,760
Then we can accomplish various
other things that are kind of

1299
01:25:34,760 --> 01:25:37,360
related to that and we don't
really need a lot of

1300
01:25:37,360 --> 01:25:41,800
consciousness and our brains are
designed to detect novelty and

1301
01:25:41,800 --> 01:25:44,880
to sort of overlook things that
aren't necessary for adjusting

1302
01:25:44,880 --> 01:25:49,560
our worldview and and trying to
solve problems in a different

1303
01:25:49,560 --> 01:25:54,400
way.
So as a result we're we're

1304
01:25:54,400 --> 01:25:56,760
constantly being habituated to
life.

1305
01:25:57,640 --> 01:26:02,800
We're, we're, we take it for
granted and we don't really see

1306
01:26:02,800 --> 01:26:08,320
anything.
And this is how I I see myself.

1307
01:26:08,320 --> 01:26:13,600
I'm constantly sort of trying to
remind myself, just wake up,

1308
01:26:13,600 --> 01:26:17,440
quit sleepwalking through this
day, just stop and look around

1309
01:26:17,440 --> 01:26:20,400
you and notice things for a
change.

1310
01:26:21,160 --> 01:26:26,480
And it seems to me that that's.
We haven't really talked that

1311
01:26:26,480 --> 01:26:29,600
much about spirituality in this
conversation yet.

1312
01:26:29,600 --> 01:26:34,520
But for me, spirituality just
means waking up and overcoming

1313
01:26:34,520 --> 01:26:38,880
your habituation, stepping
outside of your zombie robot

1314
01:26:38,880 --> 01:26:44,120
self and saying, holy shit, look
at look at this.

1315
01:26:45,000 --> 01:26:48,640
Look at where we are.
What?

1316
01:26:48,640 --> 01:26:53,920
How infinitely improbable this
situation right here is.

1317
01:26:53,920 --> 01:26:59,680
How infinitely improbable I am
and you are, and this whole

1318
01:26:59,680 --> 01:27:02,480
thing.
And unfortunately, our brains

1319
01:27:02,480 --> 01:27:09,120
are designed to get us to forget
about that, the improbability of

1320
01:27:09,120 --> 01:27:13,480
things.
And so I'm grateful for to

1321
01:27:13,760 --> 01:27:18,000
Dennett for having pointed out
this tendency that we have to

1322
01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:23,200
become unconscious and to have
just competence without

1323
01:27:23,200 --> 01:27:25,600
comprehension, and to become
zombies.

1324
01:27:25,960 --> 01:27:28,560
Because it makes me think, no, I
don't want to be that way.

1325
01:27:28,560 --> 01:27:32,200
I want to try to wake up at
least for a couple of seconds

1326
01:27:32,240 --> 01:27:35,360
every day.
Someone who adds to Dennett's

1327
01:27:35,360 --> 01:27:38,400
work and Frankish's work on what
you're talking about right now

1328
01:27:38,600 --> 01:27:41,920
is actually Susan Blackmore.
She she writes on delusionism

1329
01:27:41,920 --> 01:27:45,240
and she she asks this, she she
forces the reader to ask this

1330
01:27:45,240 --> 01:27:47,280
question.
Am I conscious now?

1331
01:27:47,720 --> 01:27:50,720
Because we'd never walk through
life really asking that

1332
01:27:50,720 --> 01:27:52,600
question.
And that's why it's a delusion.

1333
01:27:52,880 --> 01:27:55,480
It's almost a delusional thought
to assume you're conscious when

1334
01:27:55,480 --> 01:27:57,520
you walk through most of your
life, not even asking that

1335
01:27:57,520 --> 01:27:58,120
question.
What?

1336
01:27:59,120 --> 01:28:00,720
Because not many people ask that
question.

1337
01:28:00,720 --> 01:28:03,960
Am I conscious right now?
Like, what am I really in this

1338
01:28:03,960 --> 01:28:06,720
moment?
Am I present completely aware?

1339
01:28:07,080 --> 01:28:10,040
It's it's very, it's most people
have to train a skill to do

1340
01:28:10,040 --> 01:28:11,360
that.
You have to meditate for years.

1341
01:28:11,360 --> 01:28:14,800
You have to go through sort of a
trip, some sort of an experience

1342
01:28:14,800 --> 01:28:17,480
because for the most part most
people are actually in that

1343
01:28:17,480 --> 01:28:22,920
state.
Yeah, I so I'm I'm again because

1344
01:28:22,920 --> 01:28:25,360
I'm I'm an old hippie.
I'm really interested in the

1345
01:28:25,360 --> 01:28:29,680
whole spirituality scene and the
possibility of enlightenment and

1346
01:28:29,680 --> 01:28:34,360
gurus and and all that nonsense.
And you know, there's so much

1347
01:28:34,360 --> 01:28:38,880
bullshit in the realm of
spirituality and what I call the

1348
01:28:38,880 --> 01:28:44,840
Enlightenment racket, but but
there's something at the core of

1349
01:28:44,840 --> 01:28:51,120
it that's real.
I think a lot of spirituality is

1350
01:28:51,400 --> 01:28:57,840
is aimed at just making people
happy and at overcoming bad

1351
01:28:57,840 --> 01:29:01,360
habits of thought or just bad
habits, period.

1352
01:29:01,360 --> 01:29:05,640
And I see it in some cases as a
form of brainwashing.

1353
01:29:05,680 --> 01:29:07,520
Just don't have those negative
thoughts.

1354
01:29:07,520 --> 01:29:09,640
Just be happy, you know, That
kind of thing.

1355
01:29:10,000 --> 01:29:14,800
I'm actually not interested in
spirituality as a as a route to

1356
01:29:15,480 --> 01:29:17,680
happiness.
I'm I'm fortunate and I'm like

1357
01:29:18,680 --> 01:29:22,560
more or less a pretty happy
person.

1358
01:29:23,320 --> 01:29:26,360
I'm prone to anxiety.
I have been depressed in my

1359
01:29:26,360 --> 01:29:27,760
life.
But I'm OK.

1360
01:29:27,760 --> 01:29:32,000
I think I got good genes.
So I'm more interested in

1361
01:29:32,000 --> 01:29:36,240
spirituality and mysticism as a
root to truth.

1362
01:29:36,920 --> 01:29:40,960
And that means being conscious.
That means waking up.

1363
01:29:41,000 --> 01:29:44,000
And then you know what is the
truth?

1364
01:29:44,080 --> 01:29:44,640
What?
What?

1365
01:29:44,640 --> 01:29:49,360
What are you supposed to see
when you when you're conscious

1366
01:29:49,360 --> 01:29:51,160
when you stop and wake up And
it's.

1367
01:29:51,160 --> 01:29:54,720
And for me and I've talked about
this with a lot of people who

1368
01:29:55,560 --> 01:30:02,680
claim to be enlightened and and
some of them agree with this,

1369
01:30:02,800 --> 01:30:05,720
but many of them don't.
Many of them see enlightenment

1370
01:30:05,720 --> 01:30:09,600
as a kind of like state of
terminal chilling out.

1371
01:30:09,680 --> 01:30:12,720
You're just like, yeah, man,
everything is copacetic.

1372
01:30:12,720 --> 01:30:18,680
That's fine.
I see it more as what I was

1373
01:30:18,680 --> 01:30:25,040
talking about before,
recognizing that the odds that

1374
01:30:25,040 --> 01:30:32,640
we existed all are infinite if
we if we see things accurately.

1375
01:30:32,640 --> 01:30:34,760
And I think science points to
this too.

1376
01:30:35,960 --> 01:30:40,320
Physics and complexity theory
and even attempts to understand

1377
01:30:40,320 --> 01:30:44,280
the origin of life, all points
to our existence here.

1378
01:30:45,320 --> 01:30:48,320
The existence of humanity, let
alone each of us as individuals,

1379
01:30:48,640 --> 01:30:55,680
as infinitely improbable.
And And therefore when you see

1380
01:30:55,680 --> 01:31:01,000
things that way, you're not
saying, well, yeah, they're

1381
01:31:01,000 --> 01:31:04,040
infinitely improbable because
there was the fluctuation and

1382
01:31:04,040 --> 01:31:07,800
the primordial void and that it
led to inflation.

1383
01:31:07,800 --> 01:31:11,840
But it's not.
You're not seeing how things

1384
01:31:11,840 --> 01:31:13,480
are, you're just seeing that
things are.

1385
01:31:13,920 --> 01:31:19,880
So actually Wittgenstein, who's
also, you know, a philosopher,

1386
01:31:19,880 --> 01:31:23,680
has had an an effect on me.
But I read him as a poet and his

1387
01:31:23,800 --> 01:31:29,200
book Tractatus, which is just
like a crazy prose poem.

1388
01:31:29,600 --> 01:31:35,680
He's got a phrase at the end
that says this is translated

1389
01:31:35,680 --> 01:31:40,200
from the German.
The gist of it is not how the

1390
01:31:40,200 --> 01:31:45,160
world is is the mystical, but
that it is.

1391
01:31:46,800 --> 01:31:49,080
So you're not saying.
You're not looking at the world

1392
01:31:49,080 --> 01:31:51,360
and saying, Oh yeah, it's 'cause
it.

1393
01:31:51,360 --> 01:31:54,440
The world is here because it was
created by God.

1394
01:31:54,440 --> 01:31:57,160
Oh, isn't that far out?
You're just seeing the stark

1395
01:31:58,160 --> 01:32:03,240
fact of existence and it blows
you away and you realize the

1396
01:32:03,240 --> 01:32:08,520
total inadequacy of any theory
or theology of any language for

1397
01:32:09,200 --> 01:32:11,760
or explanation for doing it
justice.

1398
01:32:11,760 --> 01:32:20,680
He just are overwhelmed by it.
And that's to me that's that is

1399
01:32:20,680 --> 01:32:24,080
what enlightenment would be,
being like that all the time.

1400
01:32:24,200 --> 01:32:28,320
The problem is if you're in,
you're going like, oh fuck, Oh

1401
01:32:28,320 --> 01:32:30,240
my God, I can't believe I'm
alive.

1402
01:32:31,360 --> 01:32:33,720
You still gotta, you know, I I
gotta go teach a bunch of

1403
01:32:33,720 --> 01:32:37,440
freshmen tomorrow.
I got to pay my bills, I have to

1404
01:32:37,440 --> 01:32:40,080
hang out with my girlfriend, and
she doesn't want me to be

1405
01:32:40,080 --> 01:32:43,880
totally nuts and babbling about
the mystery of existence all the

1406
01:32:43,880 --> 01:32:46,360
time.
So you still got to live your

1407
01:32:46,360 --> 01:32:51,040
life.
But I try to have some of those

1408
01:32:51,040 --> 01:32:54,520
moments as often as I can.
It's about trying to find that

1409
01:32:54,520 --> 01:32:56,680
balance of not merely staying
alive, but living.

1410
01:32:57,600 --> 01:33:04,040
Yes, and some people pull it off
better than others.

1411
01:33:04,040 --> 01:33:06,360
I mean, you can go and live in a
cave in the woods, but I don't

1412
01:33:06,360 --> 01:33:09,560
want to.
I don't want to do that, you

1413
01:33:09,560 --> 01:33:12,920
know?
I like, I like the practical

1414
01:33:13,800 --> 01:33:16,120
aspects of life too.
I like being a good teacher.

1415
01:33:16,120 --> 01:33:19,600
I like writing, talking to
people like you and and I like

1416
01:33:19,600 --> 01:33:22,240
having friends.
I like having a girlfriend.

1417
01:33:22,240 --> 01:33:25,200
I've got two kids that I love
all that stuff.

1418
01:33:26,560 --> 01:33:30,560
It keeps me rooted in the world
and that's that's fine.

1419
01:33:31,120 --> 01:33:33,240
And I think that's that's
absolutely beautiful and it's a

1420
01:33:33,240 --> 01:33:35,960
great way to sort of round this
conversation up.

1421
01:33:35,960 --> 01:33:38,960
John, what do you think from
from your years of experience

1422
01:33:38,960 --> 01:33:43,560
and as a as a very well known
science writer, how how else do

1423
01:33:43,560 --> 01:33:46,600
you believe we should pursue
truth and how should we approach

1424
01:33:46,600 --> 01:33:50,840
science moving forward?
Oh wow.

1425
01:33:52,800 --> 01:33:56,280
I think it's doing OK.
I the one of the problems with

1426
01:33:56,280 --> 01:34:00,960
science right now that a lot of
people are commenting on is the

1427
01:34:01,440 --> 01:34:09,840
the careerism, the ambition.
The constant pressure to publish

1428
01:34:10,320 --> 01:34:16,360
and to publicize your results is
leading to a lot of crappy

1429
01:34:16,360 --> 01:34:21,480
science and including I mean, if
it's string theory, who cares?

1430
01:34:22,040 --> 01:34:24,720
But it's leading to crappy
science in areas that matter.

1431
01:34:24,720 --> 01:34:28,600
In biomedicine, you know, drugs
for cancer are being promoted

1432
01:34:28,600 --> 01:34:31,680
that actually aren't very
effective or might even be

1433
01:34:31,680 --> 01:34:34,200
harmful.
Same with drugs for mental

1434
01:34:34,200 --> 01:34:39,840
illness.
I I still think science is this

1435
01:34:39,840 --> 01:34:45,440
incredible cultural invention,
and I'm so happy to be kind of

1436
01:34:45,880 --> 01:34:50,800
along for the ride, watching
what the scientists do and

1437
01:34:50,800 --> 01:34:57,120
watching new ideas emerge
related to consciousness or the

1438
01:34:57,120 --> 01:35:00,080
origin of the universe or
whatever.

1439
01:35:01,840 --> 01:35:06,160
I don't really, I don't really
have any big ideas for reform

1440
01:35:06,160 --> 01:35:09,560
except just to tell people.
And this is it's hard.

1441
01:35:09,560 --> 01:35:11,360
If you're out there, you're
ambitious, you're trying to get

1442
01:35:11,360 --> 01:35:14,040
a name for yourself.
But I think scientists just need

1443
01:35:14,040 --> 01:35:18,080
to be a little more modest and
humble in their claims and to

1444
01:35:18,080 --> 01:35:21,400
recognize that there are, and
this is weird coming from a guy

1445
01:35:21,400 --> 01:35:23,640
named The Who wrote a book
called The End of Science.

1446
01:35:23,840 --> 01:35:26,640
But to realize that they're part
of an infinite conversation,

1447
01:35:27,120 --> 01:35:31,960
it's it's going to keep going
forever.

1448
01:35:32,680 --> 01:35:37,920
And not to make the claim that
they've got final answers ever,

1449
01:35:37,920 --> 01:35:39,760
because there are no final
answers.

1450
01:35:40,880 --> 01:35:43,240
John, thank you so much.
Any final words from your side?

1451
01:35:43,240 --> 01:35:44,680
It's been such a pleasure, man.
Thanks.

1452
01:35:44,680 --> 01:35:48,480
Thanks so much for joining me.
Hey, I, you know, as I said,

1453
01:35:48,560 --> 01:35:52,320
this is, this is the best part
of the job for me is talking

1454
01:35:52,320 --> 01:35:56,720
about this stuff with somebody
else who who cares about these

1455
01:35:56,720 --> 01:35:58,560
issues as well.
So it's been an enormous

1456
01:35:58,560 --> 01:35:59,640
pleasure for me.