Is Science Blind to Human Experience? Rethinking Life, Mind, the Universe and Meaning | Adam Frank

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Adam, thank you so much for
joining me.

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It's such a pleasure to finally
host you.

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I'm a big fan of The Blind Spot.
It's one of my favorite books,

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so firstly, thank you for that.
Oh, Devin, thank you very much.

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I've, you know, also watch some
of your stuff.

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I'm, I'm happy to be on.
I'm sure we're going to have a

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good conversation.
Yeah, no, it's, it's going to be

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fun, man.
There's so much to discuss.

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I think let's start off by
exploring the very essence of

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the blind spot.
I mean, you fell in love with

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astronomy at the age of five, I
think it was.

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And, and then we're very similar
in that regard because it's the

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one field I always loved, always
enjoyed for you.

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When you look back, what part of
that early experience do you

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think was actually planting a
seed for the blind spot?

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Yeah, that's interesting
because, you know, as I like to

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say, I'm a, I'm a lapsed
Platonist, right?

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When I first started, you know,
learning about astronomy and

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astrophysics there there was
that idea, the Platonic ideal.

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I was also, you know, learning
about philosophy obviously a

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little bit later.
But still, the idea of like that

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kind of, you know, perfect
knowledge of the universe was so

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compelling as a kid that you
could, you know, that you could

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have, there were, that there was
something in the world that you

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could know that was solid and
enduring and eternal, right?

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Because, you know, growing up, I
had, you know, my, my

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circumstances growing up, my
family was quite poor.

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I was, I grew up in a
neighborhood where like, you

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know, I was getting my butt
kicked every day for a variety

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of reasons.
We don't need to go into, but

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you know, your standard sort of
like, you know, American story

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circa 19, you know, 65 or
whatever with, you know, the

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various ethnicities and such.
So, you know, life was kind of

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hard in some sense.
And so, you know, this, this

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dream of a perfect knowledge,
you know, something to hold on

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to really held, you know, it was
kind of, you know, it had as I

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still, I still think it does.
There's a quasi religious kind

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of, you know, appeal to it.
But even then I just, you know,

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experienced I was having
experienced, you know, that just

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sort of kind of made me feel
like this purely rational story

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wasn't enough.
So, you know, I wouldn't have

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admitted it to myself then, but
and he actually, you know, how

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it expressed itself was comic
books.

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Like I was a huge Marvel fan and
the idea of like, you know,

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these superheroes, you know,
channeling cosmic forces.

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I think there was, you know, I
mean, I wouldn't be the first

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person to say that Marvel has
this mythology in it that is,

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you know, that sort of co-ops or
does its own version of of those

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kinds of impulses.
You know what, you might say

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spiritual impulses or whatever.
So yeah.

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Anyway, so that was that.
That somehow buried in there

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while I was, you know, Mr.
Rationalist, science can explain

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everything.
There was a hint that there's

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just always more.
I was having experiences.

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I have this one really early
experience of just being like a

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kid in front of a tree.
There was like a tree in my

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yard.
And I just remember having the

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tree sort of appear to me in its
vividness in a way that was

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really startling.
And then I had another

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experience when I was a kid, I
was build, I used to build

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airplane models and then, you
know, set fire to them and blow

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them up and everything.
But, you know, I was building an

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airplane model and I jumped from
my, I was really excited.

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I just finished it and I went
from my desk to my kind of

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jumped towards my bed.
And I remember in the middle of

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the while I was sailing onto the
bed, this moment of just like

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where everything just made sense
in some sense.

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That was just so I was just
having, I was always having

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these experiences that pointed
to the idea that, you know, just

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these rational descriptions
don't exhaust, you know,

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experience.
When you write that experience,

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when you're talking about that
you write that experience is not

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an afterthought, but it's a
constitutive part of reality.

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How does it change the
fundamental question of this

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entire podcast, the mind body
problem?

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How does this impact it?
Yeah, there is no mind body

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problem in the sense that that
division, that division is

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indicative of the problem that
starts when you think, when you

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you know what, what Herschel
would have called the

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surreptitious substitution.
When you think you can

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substitute a bunch of ideas that
are abstracted from derived from

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require experience as a
precondition that those

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substitute or experienced right.
So that that the mind body

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problem comes when you imagine
that there's a third person

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God's eye view of the universe,
a perspective less perspective

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from which we can view what's
happening.

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Or as you know, the experience
first view takes experience as a

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given.
It's just given.

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It's not derivable from
anything.

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It's not reducible to anything.
It is the raw precondition.

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It is it is the condition which
must exist for you to begin

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asking questions about minds and
bodies, to have the concept of

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body, to have the concept of
mind.

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So yeah, I think experience is
trying to experience.

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To me, this experience first
view is very much, as you well

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know, there is within
philosophy, there's realists and

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anti realists, right?
So realists supposedly are

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people who are like, there's no
such thing as a there's,

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there's, there's, there.
Reality is independent of mind,

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right?
You know, And So what they want

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is like, you know, there's a
reality out there.

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It has nothing to do with us.
And they're the realists and

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anti realists are like, no mind
matters 1st.

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But what I would always say is
that I, I have problems with

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both of those that, that
spectrum because you know,

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what's really real is my
experience.

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That's the only thing I get my
experience, your experience, you

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know, the only thing that you
actually, the only entry you get

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to reality is through
experience.

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So to be a realist is to start
with that kind of empirical, you

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know, given this of our of our
experience and then work your

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way from there to start asking
questions about what you know,

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reality, its structure,
etcetera.

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Yeah, I think Hustler called it
the the crisis in the sciences

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at this point.
Yeah, yeah.

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You do you feel that we still
suffer from that crisis?

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And where is it?
Absolutely.

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Yeah, absolutely.
And actually, it's really

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manifesting in very dangerous
ways now with AI, right.

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So when what Herschel wrote,
Herschel's story is so sad, you

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know, the crisis of European
sciences in like 1938, watching

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fascism rise.
And what his claim was that

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this, this wedge that had been
driven between sort of like the,

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what he called the, the life
world, the, you know, the our,

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our, our day-to-day experience
what is actually given to us.

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And then these these layered
abstractions of science, by

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taking these layered
abstractions of science as being

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more real than, you know, the,
the, the givenness of experience

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that allows all kinds of
insanity to sort of step in.

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And what he was seeing with
fascism and the sort of

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irreality, you know, I mean,
just like we see today with

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what, you know, the, the
conspiracy theories and

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everything he felt those were
really a, they were a

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consequence of the surreptitious
substitution.

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It, you know, when, when you,
when you become untethered.

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He loved science, right?
He was a mathematician.

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He loved science.
He loved mathematics, but he was

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pointing at what he was pointing
to was a problem with the not

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with science, but with the
metaphysics that claims to speak

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for science.
And he said it's because of that

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that you can drive yourself into
a a kind of craziness, right.

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And we see this with AI now
where people are like, oh, AI is

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about to wake up and it's going
to eat out, you know, and when

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the kind of it and maybe
consciousness in AI is possible,

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but the kind of AI we have now
is not even, you know, it's not

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even possible with that kind of
the generative AI.

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Yeah.
I.

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Think one of the biggest things
is that the modern science hides

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the biggest assumption, which
you, you call the God's eye

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view.
And, and this fact that we can

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see it from this view.
Where do you think we're, we

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experience this the most in
terms of do you think scientists

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do this more?
Do you think philosophers do

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this more?
I think there's I do.

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Well, it depends on which I
think scientists do it more in

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the sense because, you know,
there's lots of different kinds

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of philosophy.
And one of the greatest

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problems, I think with the
discussion of science is that

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when you get science and
philosophy, there's only one

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kind of philosophy that's
represented, even though there's

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many philosophies, right?
So let's talk about that, right.

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So when in general, you know,
when you see these discussions

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in public at these world science
festivals and everything, it's

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what and you get bring
philosophy into it.

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It's Daniel Dennett.
It's, you know, it's a, it's a

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particular range of philosophers
that generally are what is what

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is known as the analytic school,
the analytic school of

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philosophy.
I'm not sure if Danny would have

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called himself analytic, but
it's still in that sort of, and

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this is where what you're
interested in is the, you know,

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the logic of science, the truth
value of the representations of

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science.
And that's what the discussion

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will all be about.
And yet, like there's this whole

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other branch of of philosophy,
what is called continental

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philosophy, often what emerged
with Herserl and then, you know,

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Heidegger and Merlu Ponte, which
was hugely influential

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throughout the 20th century.
And it's as if that doesn't even

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exist.
Nobody mentions it, right?

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And here that, you know,
phenomenology was really aiming

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to try and understand the
structure of experience, right?

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Not consciousness as a another
object in the world.

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And it's logical constituent
relations, they were trying to

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climb into the circle, the self
referential circle of of being

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an experiencer and just
understand the structures that

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are there.
And yet that it's as if that

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philosophy never even existed,
right.

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And so you never hear this.
And then also let's go even

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further.
You know, there were these other

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civilizations that thought a
lot, you know, all of the, you

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know, people call it Eastern
philosophy.

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That's really the wrong word.
It's the classical philosophies

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of India and Asia, you know, And
these were, you know,

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philosophical systems that tend
to emerge, you know, sort of in

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the, you know, in the Vedanta,
Vedantic or Buddhist frameworks,

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just like most of what was
happening in the West was in a

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Abrahamic tradition.
And they were very interested in

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the experience, like they had
already, you know, gone far

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beyond sort of what was
happening in the West and

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understanding the primacy of
experience.

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And of course, there's lots of
debates going on there, But you

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never see that get disgusted.
Like you discussed Nargajuna.

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I'm always pronouncing that
wrong.

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Nagarjuna, Nagarjuna, Vasu bandu
Dharmakurdi.

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You know, these were like doing
hardcore logic, just like Aris.

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These were these were the
Aristotle and Plato of, you

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know, of, of Indian Asia.
And it's as if they don't never

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exist.
So, you know, there's just a

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real impoverishment of the
philosophical languages that we

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use to to answer this question.
And it's so narrow that it's

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almost like there's only a
certain range of possible

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answers and everybody's beating
each other up and creating, you

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know, Spectra of, you know,
realism versus idealism.

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And it's like, hey man, there's
actually places you can go

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completely orthogonal to that
realism idealism debate where,

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you know, those questions don't
even occur.

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Yeah, I completely agree with
you.

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I think that even with this
podcast, when you tried to find,

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when I tried to find guests to
speak on the show, to be on the

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show, even finding guests who
think orthogonally is quite

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difficult.
It's it's hard to even find

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these people and then search for
these people.

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And something similar that that
I've experienced is even in

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psychiatry, when I used to work
in psychiatry, there's a

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complete field called
phenomenological

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00:11:50,800 --> 00:11:53,040
psychopathology.
Paul Yasper is one of the

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00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:54,440
founders of that.
Miller, Ponte, All of these

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people were fundamental key
figures in this.

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And no, no psychiatrist I know
talks about it.

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So my friends speak about it,
Nobody knows about it.

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And when you do speak about it,
it sounds so anti medicine or it

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sounds so anti scientific, but
they don't really understand the

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philosophy behind it.
What do you think this is?

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00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:14,960
Well, I think there's a
dismissal, right.

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00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:16,960
So I think there's, there's been
this way in which we've been

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taught like this is science.
Science is hardcore sober, no

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00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:26,080
mysticism, you know, but you
know, what has happened is it

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becomes a kind of dogma and that
you end up with absurdities,

238
00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:31,080
right?
You.

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00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:34,640
So, for example, in my field in,
in, you know, physics thinking

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00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:36,960
about, say, quantum mechanics,
right, quantum mechanics poses

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these profound philosophical
questions.

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00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:44,160
And yeah, the, you know, the,
the, the, the thing that the

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00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:48,320
interpretation that is seen as
the most sober interpretation of

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00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:51,720
quant of quantum mechanics is
the one that has an infinite

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00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:54,840
number of parallel ghost
universes, right?

246
00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:58,280
That's the one that's sober.
You know, we're not, we're not

247
00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:00,680
going to have any, you know,
shaky mysticism in our

248
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interpretation.
We're of like things like newer

249
00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:05,400
ones like, well, the Copenhagen
interpretation or newer ones

250
00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:10,080
like quantum Bayesianism, which
take the subject, take the

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00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:13,320
measurer, you know, seriously.
That's crazy.

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00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,720
We can't have that.
So I think it's just there's

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just, you know, this self
limiting factor that has

254
00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:20,320
happened.
There's been this self

255
00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:23,720
censorship or whatever that
like, you know, students learn

256
00:13:23,720 --> 00:13:26,360
from their teachers who learn
from their teachers about what

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00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:29,480
can and cannot be spoken about.
And one thing I want to note how

258
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much this is a relatively
modern, you know, like the

259
00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:36,600
founders of quantum mechanics,
you know, we're we're, you know,

260
00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:39,880
generally European, we're very
well schooled in philosophy and

261
00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:41,960
they were very much up for these
conversations.

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And then when I think when the
the center of gravity shifted

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00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:48,600
over, particularly to my
country, to the United States,

264
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the United States is very much
like, we're just going to build

265
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:51,560
stuff.
Don't give me any of those.

266
00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:53,360
I don't want to do philosophical
questions.

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00:13:53,680 --> 00:13:56,920
That thing sort of became much
more sort of behaviorist.

268
00:13:57,120 --> 00:13:59,880
You know, there's just just just
neurons.

269
00:13:59,880 --> 00:14:02,960
It was just very sort of a
mechanistic that, you know, a

270
00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:05,800
kind of mess mechanistic view
became the only view.

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00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:09,800
Whereas like if you talk to
people in 1900 bit scientists,

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00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:12,640
you would have actually found
quite a range of, you know,

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00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:14,080
philosophy.
I mean, the most important

274
00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:18,280
philosopher in 1900 was Berkson,
Henri Berkson, who took

275
00:14:18,280 --> 00:14:22,120
experience very seriously.
So I think it's a very much a,

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00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:26,880
it's a more recent last century
phenomena of this narrowing,

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00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:28,240
this narrowing that has
happened.

278
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:30,840
Would you, I feel like there
there is a slight shift

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00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:34,240
occurring when you see people
now reading books and Whitehead,

280
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:37,080
people are starting to get
intrigued by this, this, this

281
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:39,520
interconnectedness of reality
and the fact that it's not so

282
00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:41,960
black and white, which is which
is really cool to watch.

283
00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:44,720
But in your field, as you just
mentioned, I mean from a

284
00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:49,920
cosmology physicist side of it
all, when you study this, when

285
00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:52,760
you study things like evolution,
stellar evolution, cosmology,

286
00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:57,240
The Big Bang, whatever, how has
the blind spot distorted the way

287
00:14:57,240 --> 00:14:59,320
you think about all these
subjects?

288
00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:02,600
Yeah, well, there's people that
it's funny, I just gave a talk

289
00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:05,160
to the to the quantum businesses
here.

290
00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:07,400
And it's very important to
distinguish that, you know, as

291
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:09,960
we say in the blind spot, right?
There's I wrote this part where

292
00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:12,400
it was like when we were talking
about the history of it and it

293
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,280
and that there's a one of the
title, the subtitles is well, it

294
00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:17,960
made sense at the time, right?
And it did right.

295
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:22,120
There's a way in which the
evolution of science, you know,

296
00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:27,280
15 hundreds 1600s required
pushing experience aside, like,

297
00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:29,600
you know, trying to find what
Michelle, the great philosopher

298
00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:33,360
Michelle Bitbowl calls the
structural and variant of

299
00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:37,080
experience, the things that you
could try and build an A, you

300
00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:42,120
know, a objective, you know,
intra or interpersonal science

301
00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:43,960
from.
So like, you know, hot and cold

302
00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:46,160
is very subjective, but we came
up with this thing called

303
00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:48,880
temperature, which, you know,
seemed we could standardize and

304
00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:50,280
such.
So that was a very important

305
00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:52,000
part of the story and very
necessary.

306
00:15:53,120 --> 00:15:56,560
It's just that it's, it's
exhausted now, right?

307
00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:59,920
And so, so, you know, when I do
so, you know, much of my career

308
00:15:59,920 --> 00:16:02,520
was spent as a computational
astrophysicist studying how

309
00:16:02,520 --> 00:16:06,160
stars form, how they die.
I don't need philosophy there.

310
00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:08,440
And I don't need to worry about
the blind spot there because,

311
00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:12,960
you know, I'm the stuff that I'm
studying the, you know, I, I

312
00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:15,080
don't need to ask about
experience under those.

313
00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:17,760
So the science works just fine.
It's not pushing me up against

314
00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:21,200
what we might call the
boundaries or the horizon where

315
00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:24,400
experience starts to, you know,
not taking the experience into

316
00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:26,520
account starts to become
problematic.

317
00:16:26,760 --> 00:16:29,280
So, you know, in that way, I
think, you know, it's, and we

318
00:16:29,280 --> 00:16:31,600
should recognize there's places
where you don't need to worry

319
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:35,360
about the blind spot at all.
In science, where it starts to

320
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:39,720
show up is places like, well,
quantum mechanics certainly.

321
00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:43,320
I mean quantum mechanics as it
was born in the 19 first couple

322
00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:46,680
of or the decades of the 20th
century was just yelling at us.

323
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:51,320
It was just telling us clearly
need to take into account an

324
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,040
experience, you know, measure,
measurement is central to the

325
00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:59,320
theory, you know, and who does
measurements, measurers, you

326
00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:01,360
know, and an electron is not a
measurer.

327
00:17:01,400 --> 00:17:03,360
You know, it's just like, you
know, you have to go through all

328
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,400
kinds of mental shenanigans to
sort of like say like, oh, no,

329
00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:09,640
no, no, measurements are made
by, you know, electrons are made

330
00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:10,680
by rocks.
No, they're not.

331
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:12,960
They're made by measurers in a
laboratory, Right.

332
00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:16,359
So, so I think like that is one
of the places where it was

333
00:17:16,359 --> 00:17:20,720
really announced to us that you
had reached the limits of this.

334
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:24,400
The other thing I think you've
seen is that, you know, part of

335
00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:27,400
the blind, you know, the blind
spot is this sort of, it's a

336
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:29,280
laundry list.
It's a, as I call it, a

337
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:34,640
constellation of metaphysical
ideas, which are are, are with

338
00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:37,160
the claim is that these are what
science says.

339
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:39,000
And what we're saying is that's
not what science says.

340
00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:41,240
Those are a bunch of
philosophical positions.

341
00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:43,680
Science is a way of
interrogating the world and

342
00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:46,160
getting answers back.
And as you know, these things

343
00:17:46,600 --> 00:17:49,080
are, you know, our our
philosophical assumptions.

344
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:51,440
So what are they?
Reductionism, right, That

345
00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:54,560
everything in the world can be
reduced to its basal structures

346
00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:58,200
like atoms, quarks, or whatever.
And once you know the properties

347
00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:01,000
of the basal structures and
their interrelationships, you're

348
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:02,120
done.
You can predict everything,

349
00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:03,880
right?
This is the Laplacian dream.

350
00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:06,840
So that's one part.
Reductionism, physicalism,

351
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,400
everything in the world is
what's described by physics,

352
00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:10,160
right?
That's it.

353
00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:11,880
You're done.
You've exhausted the, you know,

354
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:15,720
the list this the objective
frame, you know, their science

355
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:19,320
gives us this third person,
God's eye view from which to

356
00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:22,280
view the universe, the we call
it.

357
00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:25,480
What would the reification of
mass, you know, that's the

358
00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:28,080
Platonism that math,
mathematical physics, or somehow

359
00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:31,040
those laws exist in and of
themselves.

360
00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:35,080
They're inscribed on the walls
of God's living room, you know,

361
00:18:35,800 --> 00:18:38,120
and then finally epiphenomena
that you know, it all comes down

362
00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:39,720
to that experience is an
epiphenomena.

363
00:18:39,720 --> 00:18:42,160
It's really, it's not, you know,
it's an illusion.

364
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:46,680
It's not really important.
So the blind spot, you see.

365
00:18:46,840 --> 00:18:52,520
So all those ideas were the most
concretely embodied by the

366
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:54,680
program of a theory of
everything, right?

367
00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,280
There was this dream of we were
going to have one equation and

368
00:18:57,280 --> 00:18:59,480
it would describe everything and
that would be it.

369
00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:03,520
And you know, evolution, you
know, cells, Kangaroos would all

370
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:05,520
be there in this one beautiful
equation.

371
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:08,120
And you know, you see that with
string theory and such, and that

372
00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:10,280
program has just failed.
It is just failed.

373
00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:12,560
It is just, you know, there's
still string theory and people

374
00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:15,600
still trying to say like, you
know, oh, it's, you know, coming

375
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:17,360
real soon.
My whole career, people are like

376
00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:20,240
string theory, it's coming real
soon and it just didn't work.

377
00:19:21,120 --> 00:19:23,680
And you know, there's a lot of
reasons why maybe it didn't

378
00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:26,600
work.
But but I think that that I

379
00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:30,120
think the, I think the failure
of that program, that ultimate

380
00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:34,360
dream of blind spot metaphysics,
I think it's contributed to

381
00:19:34,360 --> 00:19:37,240
people sort of being like,
that's why, you know, the sense

382
00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:40,280
like, you know what, maybe this
is not the way to go.

383
00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:42,840
And the, you know, the most
important part of this is as you

384
00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:46,640
were bringing up when we wrote
the book The Blind Spot, we

385
00:19:46,640 --> 00:19:49,240
thought we were being heretics.
Like we were ready for people to

386
00:19:49,240 --> 00:19:52,000
come after us, you know, with
pitchforks and torches.

387
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:56,160
And in general, we've had very
positive reviews.

388
00:19:56,400 --> 00:19:58,800
And as I like to say, you can't
be heretic if no one wants to

389
00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:01,520
set you on fire.
So I think what's what we're

390
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:04,120
really finding just like I
think, you know, your

391
00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:06,160
perspective is that actually
people are ready.

392
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:09,360
There's an understanding that
that blind spot view is just

393
00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:12,840
exhausted and it just leads to
like, you know, it leads to

394
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:16,000
paradoxes and puzzles and
problems that you're just

395
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:19,440
wasting your time, you know,
with the solutions, trying to

396
00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:21,760
come up with these solutions.
And there is science to be done.

397
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:25,400
There is new science and new
philosophy to be done by

398
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:28,240
changing the view and taking
experience seriously.

399
00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:30,320
And it will still be science.
It'll still be rigorous.

400
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:32,840
It just won't have those
assumptions.

401
00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:35,480
And that is the work in front of
us.

402
00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:37,600
And it's not only
philosophically and

403
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:40,560
scientifically important are we
argue in the book that it's

404
00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:43,080
important.
It's a civilization project.

405
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:45,080
Like, you know, with climate
change and AI and everything,

406
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:50,640
we, we face a lot of threats,
you know, the, the, the, our,

407
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:53,880
the project of civilization and
we kind of need a new vision of

408
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:55,320
nature.
We need a new way of

409
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:57,000
understanding, new enlightenment
in some sense.

410
00:20:57,240 --> 00:20:59,040
And I think it's the, I think
that you can see the

411
00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:02,560
groundswell, the our book was
just one of a bunch of people

412
00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:05,960
starting to reconsider those
assumptions.

413
00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:08,240
Yeah, and, and look, it's a,
it's a wonderful book.

414
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:10,400
I've read it twice.
I wish I read it just before

415
00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:15,400
this interview, but a little too
little time, but it's so much,

416
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,160
there's so much in the book that
you guys cover, but there's it

417
00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:21,600
reminds me of something Noam
Chomsky told me when we spoke

418
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:25,200
about science and science's
quest to understand reality.

419
00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:28,440
And, and then he told me about
how when Einstein, when Newton,

420
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:31,240
sorry, when Newton came along,
there was a time before that

421
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:34,360
when we tried to understand the
fundamental nature of reality.

422
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:38,680
And after Newton comes along, we
started to find out what's the

423
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:40,960
easiest explanation for our
theories.

424
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:42,920
And that's become the biggest
problem.

425
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:46,240
How do we explain the theory
that we have in front of us?

426
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:48,720
And that's fundamentally what's
kind of happened at science.

427
00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:50,880
I mean, you find, you come up
with an idea and then you just

428
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:53,240
try and find proofs for this
idea rather than question the

429
00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:55,520
fundamental nature of the idea
itself.

430
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:58,440
So we've almost lost
intellectual curiosity there.

431
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:00,600
And I find that that's quite
true.

432
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:03,880
Yeah, I think that's because of,
you know, science.

433
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:07,040
Science as opposed to philosophy
is very much about getting

434
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:09,000
results, right?
I mean, there's a certain way in

435
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:12,240
which you you can do science and
never think philosophically.

436
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:13,880
And that in some sense is OK,
right?

437
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:17,360
You can do neurophysics or, you
know, neurology experiments.

438
00:22:17,360 --> 00:22:19,920
Were you just interested in
like, how does this, how does

439
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,800
these, this collection of
neurons behave when subjected to

440
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:24,840
this?
You know, and depending on what

441
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:28,160
you want to do, that's fine.
Like science, you know, many of

442
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,280
my colleagues just want to write
papers and like make predictions

443
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:34,160
and do an experiment and see if
that those predictions are

444
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:35,560
valid.
And like I said, I have no

445
00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:37,280
problem with that.
That's often in science.

446
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:39,520
That is a, a totally valid way
of doing science.

447
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:43,320
It's only when it butts up
against these deeper questions,

448
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:48,000
you know, or questions that
have, you know, great social

449
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:53,640
import like AI is AI.
How should we treat AI relative

450
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:57,640
to people's experience?
How does AI affect the structure

451
00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:00,720
of, you know, kind of the
democratic, you know,

452
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,920
interactions, you know, how, you
know, how should we view the

453
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:07,440
biosphere?
What's our role in the biosphere

454
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,040
as like, what is life?
How should we value life?

455
00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:14,160
Right?
So, so, yeah, I think that that

456
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:19,200
it's because science so often is
just results oriented that it

457
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:23,120
can lose that connection.
And then what happens is the

458
00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:26,120
success that science can have in
answering these specific

459
00:23:26,120 --> 00:23:29,040
questions.
You know, how long will a star

460
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:31,960
last, right?
When a star explodes, what's the

461
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:34,200
velocity of the ejecta?
It's good at answering those

462
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,160
questions.
Somehow you get this idea that

463
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:39,120
like, oh, now it can roll on and
answer these much more

464
00:23:39,120 --> 00:23:42,480
provocative questions about what
is what is the nature of

465
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,320
reality, right?
What is the nature of mind?

466
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:47,400
What is, you know, what is, what
is life?

467
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,160
And then because it's made so
much progress it thinks it has,

468
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,520
it's easy to sort of answer
those questions.

469
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:55,920
And then you.
That's where you run into

470
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,440
trouble.
So at this point, Adam, when you

471
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:03,440
think about experience
consciousness, how do you define

472
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:05,320
it?
Do you have a definition for it?

473
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:07,360
Do you define experience in a
particular way?

474
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:09,760
Has it changed since writing The
Barn Spot?

475
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,040
Experience is very far.
I mean, I'm going to be very

476
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:16,440
clear about it.
I don't think you can get an, A

477
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,760
definition of experience because
experience really fundamentally

478
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:27,520
is that which overflows
descriptive, discursive, you

479
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:29,880
know, interactions.
It's not, you know, whatever

480
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,360
words you have.
That's why this is like a very

481
00:24:32,360 --> 00:24:33,640
important point about this,
right?

482
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,200
So one of the, one of the
aspects of the blind spot is to

483
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,640
say all knowledge is ultimately
scientific knowledge, right?

484
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,720
Anything that's known ultimately
can be reduced to scientific

485
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,000
knowledge.
So you go see Shakespeare.

486
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:50,000
You are deeply moved by, you
know, what Shakespeare revealed

487
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:52,640
in King Lear.
And it's like, yeah, but that's

488
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:56,080
really just neurons, you know,
And in fact, it's neurons and

489
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,040
it's evolutionary psychology.
And the, you know, our view is

490
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,240
like, no, it's not.
You just learned something, you

491
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,120
know, by art via art.
Art just taught you something

492
00:25:05,120 --> 00:25:07,080
about, you know, being human in
the world.

493
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:10,320
And it doesn't, it's not
reducible to the connections in

494
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:14,840
your, you know, in your brain,
poetry, music, you know,

495
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:17,680
contemplative practice,
spiritual practice, They all

496
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,720
reveal real aspects of the world
that are true in their way.

497
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,280
So that's why I would say like,
you know, there's no definition

498
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,360
of experience.
The experience is, you know, is,

499
00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:29,680
is, you know, so I'm a Zen
Buddhist.

500
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:30,960
I've been a Buddhist for a long
time.

501
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,080
And one of the reasons I came to
Buddhism was exactly this

502
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:38,720
problem was the recognition that
there there are, you know, ways

503
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:42,480
of encountering the world, ways
of knowing about the world that

504
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,400
are not about descriptions of
the world.

505
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:49,600
So, so that's why so, so along
these lines, let me something

506
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,320
I've been doing over the last
learning about over the last few

507
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:54,880
months.
So Wittgenstein, right.

508
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:56,880
I don't really, I never really
read a lot of Wittgenstein

509
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:58,360
'cause I was like, whoa, he's
really hard.

510
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,880
But recently I was drawn to
Wittgenstein because, you know,

511
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,120
in the first, there's the young
Wittgenstein, the early

512
00:26:05,120 --> 00:26:06,560
Wittgenstein, the late
Wittgenstein.

513
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,000
And the early Wittgenstein was
like Mr. Logic and he wrote, you

514
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,040
know, the track, I can't
pronounce it, the track, Track

515
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:14,680
Atticus Logisticus.
But, you know, it was like these

516
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,600
propositions about, you know,
the relationship between world

517
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,440
and logic and language.
But what's amazing because

518
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:24,040
really in the end, the, the, you
know, in some sense, he was a

519
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,560
Mystic in some sense.
And in the last line, the last

520
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:30,080
proposition #7 I think it is,
which has no other sub

521
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:35,360
propositions, is that which we
cannot speak of must be passed

522
00:26:35,360 --> 00:26:38,840
over in silence.
Whoa, right.

523
00:26:39,360 --> 00:26:41,480
And, you know, people have taken
this and been like, oh, well,

524
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,040
it's just nonsense.
You can't do anything.

525
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,120
You can't, you know, talk about.
It's just nonsense.

526
00:26:45,120 --> 00:26:47,280
So don't even bother.
But I think that's not what was

527
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:49,840
going on.
That there's, there is silence.

528
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:52,360
There is, you know, there's you
can go beyond words and you must

529
00:26:52,360 --> 00:26:56,560
encounter what is in silence in
different ways, like

530
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,400
contemplative practice, like
poetry, like music, like.

531
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:00,720
So.
Yeah.

532
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,000
So that's why there's no
definition of experience.

533
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:09,080
Experience is that from which we
begin, that's that where all

534
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:13,560
questions, you know, it's the
precondition it what it must, it

535
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,560
is that which must already be
happening for you to ask the

536
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:19,520
question about definitions
etcetera.

537
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,760
Yeah, it's like taking a asking
a fish what it's like to be in

538
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:25,800
water.
I mean, it's about it's one of

539
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:27,800
those experiences.
It's just fundamentally there.

540
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,640
It's just like, right, right.
And I think, you know, one of

541
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:33,480
the things I'm interested in,
I'm sorry, if I can just go on,

542
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:35,520
is so people are like, oh, what?
So there's nothing to do.

543
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:38,080
It's like, no, you just have to
change what you're doing, right?

544
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:42,680
So rather than ask for an
explanation of, of experience,

545
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:44,640
which I don't think you're ever
going to do because that's not

546
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,320
what it, you know, explanations
are a very particular kind of

547
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,560
description.
You can have accounts, right?

548
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,640
What's the difference between an
explanation and an account?

549
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:57,960
Like by doing, looking at, you
know, you know, neurobiology

550
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,560
looking, you know, there's
biology, looking at complex

551
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:02,720
systems.
That's what I'm really, as a

552
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,400
physicist, complex systems.
You may be able to come up with

553
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,880
really interesting accounts of
what happens in life, agency

554
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,360
sentience, right?
But you know, it's not going to

555
00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:15,640
be an explanation.
They will always be incomplete.

556
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,920
There will always be silence, so
to speak, in between the cracks.

557
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:23,200
You know, 'cause experience is
just more experience overflows

558
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:27,240
your descriptions of it.
You have a blog.

559
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,200
It's it's, it's the everyman's
world.

560
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:30,040
What is it again?
Just.

561
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:33,360
To every man's universe, yeah.
Universe yes yes yes and I I

562
00:28:33,360 --> 00:28:34,600
enjoy it.
I read some of your pieces

563
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:35,280
sometimes.
That's good.

564
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,840
Your, your love for cosmology,
consciousness, this whole taking

565
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:41,280
this entire experience into
account is, is it, It's

566
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:43,720
admirable from afar.
When when you think about this

567
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:47,200
field that you love so much, do
you feel that?

568
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:52,280
How do you feel we could bring
back this, remove this blind

569
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,320
spot, let's say, and just bring
back this totally immersed

570
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,800
experience within these fields
that we love so much?

571
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,280
How do we get a generation to do
this?

572
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:02,400
Well, I think it is
generational.

573
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,440
I think that this next
generation, you know, I, I think

574
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,320
already that's what we're
seeing, is much more willing to

575
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:11,840
try and encounter the world
through their science, through

576
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,640
their science and philosophy in
a way that is there's much more

577
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:18,800
interest in these sort of
experiential experience first

578
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,760
perspectives.
So, you know, one of the things

579
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:25,240
that we're trying to do, I, me
and my collaborators and the

580
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,680
collaborators collaborators is a
network of, you know, people

581
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,880
working are just trying to
develop the, the, the

582
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:36,080
methodologies, the framing, the
questions in a way that points

583
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,520
in this direction.
So for example, we a few years

584
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,160
ago, we got a three-year
Templeton grant to study what's

585
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:43,960
called semantic information,
right?

586
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,880
And so like, you know, there's
Shannon information, the

587
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,040
information that, you know, we
all are used to from the

588
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,880
computers.
But you know, when Shannon did

589
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,440
that, when he developed this
powerful theory of information

590
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,200
in the first paragraph of that
paper, he says I'm not dealing

591
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,080
with meaning.
He says, like, I can't I, I have

592
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:01,320
an engineering problem I'm
trying to solve, which is how to

593
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:05,240
get a message through a noisy
channel, you know, but I'm, I'm

594
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,120
purposely pushing the question
of meaning aside, right?

595
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,120
And that's great, but it also
was a huge gap, right?

596
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:14,640
I mean, in some sense, it
doesn't make sense to talk about

597
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:16,200
information without meaning,
right?

598
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:19,440
Information is only, you know,
rocks don't care about

599
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,880
information.
We, you know, information only

600
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,120
really exists for us, for, you
know, for its sentient

601
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:29,480
experiential creatures.
And so, you know, we working off

602
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:34,840
a paper by Artemi.
Oh my God, Now my brain's

603
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,480
Kolchinsky, Artemi Kolchinsky
and David Wolpert, they

604
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:42,200
developed like this really
interesting theory of semantic

605
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:43,960
information.
It was kind of a manifesto.

606
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,640
And Artemi and I and, and Goreb
Gulsha, we put in a grant to try

607
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:49,680
and explore this more.
And that's what we did.

608
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,960
We started exploring the idea of
what does it mean to have an

609
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,440
agent who has information that's
meaningful to them?

610
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,360
And I'm bringing this up as like
this is an example of a, of a

611
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:03,480
whole hardcore information
theoretic complex system

612
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,000
theoretic, you know, way of
approaching this problem of

613
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:12,240
agents and meaning and sentience
and all, you know, and so it's

614
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:15,640
just this will go on.
So I think it's, I think it's,

615
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,200
it's coming, but also want to
say like, you know, the world,

616
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,720
the next 100 years are going to
be a hard period for humanity.

617
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:23,520
That's what I've, you know,
after years of working, you

618
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,440
know, I've done a lot of work
with climate change and trying

619
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:29,280
to get people to understand, see
climate change in its full

620
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,480
planetary perspective.
And, you know, we failed like,

621
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:34,800
you know, basically we're
headed, we're going to blow past

622
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,840
1.5°.
It is a failure as a species

623
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:40,960
that we couldn't get our act
together.

624
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:43,480
I mean, obviously there's some
villains in this, but you know,

625
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,480
it's the project of civilization
as a whole which went down this

626
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:50,440
rabbit hole.
And so the next, you know, but

627
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,960
the next couple generations is
really going to face a hard

628
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:53,880
time.
It's not going to be an

629
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:55,680
apocalypse.
It's not going to be Mad Max,

630
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,200
but it's going to be hard.
And I think that will actually

631
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:03,880
drive people towards needing a
new, you know, people will start

632
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:05,480
searching for meaning in
different ways.

633
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,400
They'll start searching for
different ways to structure

634
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,520
society and structure, you know,
the, the, the sort of antic, not

635
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:16,960
antic, the, the epistemological
foundations and, and conceptual

636
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:18,760
foundations of society.
It always happened.

637
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,640
Like, you know, the, the there
is a book called Through a

638
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:24,120
Distant Mirror by Barbara
Tuchman.

639
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,840
It was, she was a great
historian and it was about the

640
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,840
13th century and somewhere in
that I've never forgot this in

641
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,320
the opening she says it was a
bad time for humanity.

642
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:35,640
She just, you know, there was a
plague.

643
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,240
There was 100 years war, but out
of it, that's where the

644
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:40,680
Enlightenment came from.
Like that was the pre you needed

645
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:43,920
the Black Death and all that to
happen to actually open up the

646
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,800
doors for capitalism, for the
Enlightenment, for, you know,

647
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,760
and then, you know, I think we
sort of those things clearly you

648
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:52,880
look around the world, the
global order at those things,

649
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:54,880
they've kind of run their
course.

650
00:32:55,560 --> 00:33:00,240
And now a different kind of, you
know, political economic systems

651
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,480
may be possible, you know, not
socialism because that's also an

652
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,840
extractive industrial kind of
vision, but some other kind of

653
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,480
arrangement that just were the
old, all the old categories,

654
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:11,400
they don't make sense anymore.
And I think that's what, you

655
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:13,280
know, what science as well.
The old categories just aren't

656
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,920
useful anymore and people start
searching for new ways to

657
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,360
organize themselves.
You know, I'm, I'm, I was just

658
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,200
just before this, I was watching
the I think it's the 7th episode

659
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:25,880
of Fallout season 3.
I think it's season 2, season 2,

660
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:27,840
but.
Season 2, I haven't gotten to

661
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:29,120
season 2 yet.
Yeah, yeah, I.

662
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,280
Think, and it just reminds me of
that this, this what's going to

663
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,520
be the fallout of all of this?
I mean, there's so much going

664
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:38,480
on, so much information.
It's so much happening.

665
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,160
It's crazy.
It's so much happening.

666
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,520
It's a possibility.
I mean, at some point things are

667
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,280
going to reach a point where, I
mean, you just said not Mad Max,

668
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:47,560
like, but I mean, there's a part
of me that thinks it could reach

669
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:51,480
levels of of that type of
fallout.

670
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:54,440
Well, I.
Think because I mean, if there's

671
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,280
a full out nuclear war, right, I
mean, you know, that would be

672
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,680
that would be pretty bad.
But even then, there'll be

673
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:03,360
places that will, you know, that
will survive.

674
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,000
I I think in general, I think,
you know, climate change is

675
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:08,280
going to push.
I mean, there's going to,

676
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:09,639
there's going to be a lot of
suffering.

677
00:34:09,679 --> 00:34:13,239
I mean, that is we screwed up.
Like whatever was wrong with us

678
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,679
that as a culture, you know,
that we allowed the, you know,

679
00:34:16,679 --> 00:34:19,239
the oil companies to like,
continue doing what they wanted

680
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:20,320
to do.
You know, like I said, there's

681
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,800
villains in this story, people
we knew about climate change.

682
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:25,000
You know, the first, the first
time climate change was

683
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:29,440
mentioned by a by AUS president
was 1964.

684
00:34:30,159 --> 00:34:34,560
In an address to Congress,
Johnson talks about climate

685
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:36,320
change and CO2.
It's unbelievable.

686
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,719
So we've known for a long time.
And you know, I mean, so

687
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:42,320
certainly, like I said, there's
villains who didn't, you know

688
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,679
who because a prophet didn't
want to make these changes, but

689
00:34:45,679 --> 00:34:48,280
also everybody in the developed
quote, UN quote, developed world

690
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,239
really want to call it the
North.

691
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:54,880
You know, we're also driving our
cars and flying airplanes,

692
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:55,920
right?
I mean, so, you know, there's a

693
00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:58,400
certain way in which every human
being, well, not every human

694
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,920
being there's like I said,
there's been, but you know, the

695
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,040
lots of lots of people in
society were part of it.

696
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:06,680
Even if they want, even if they
would have been willing to like

697
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:09,760
switch energy, we were all just
kind of part of it.

698
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:15,000
So it's, it's a failure of this
modality of civilization, of the

699
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,920
project of this, this version of
a global civilization.

700
00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:20,920
And so, but I don't think, yeah,
no, I, I'm a little bit, I'm

701
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:22,400
more hopeful.
I think, you know, I think

702
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:23,960
things will be pushed to the
edge.

703
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:27,240
Things will get difficult.
But human beings are incredibly

704
00:35:27,240 --> 00:35:30,520
resilient and incredibly
creative.

705
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,760
And so, you know, we've been the
human beings have been in.

706
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,120
This is not the first time
things have fallen apart.

707
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:38,720
Do you think that, I mean that's
that's very true.

708
00:35:38,720 --> 00:35:42,400
Do you think that how is
ignoring lived experience helped

709
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:44,720
create this entroposene for
example?

710
00:35:44,720 --> 00:35:48,160
Like what would it mean to see
climate change not just as a

711
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,160
physical phenomenon, cause a lot
of people have a problem with

712
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,840
that, but rather as a crisis of
perception and meaning?

713
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:56,600
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So I think, you know, This is

714
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:59,800
why, you know, to one of my day
jobs is an astrobiologist,

715
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:01,680
right?
I'm involved in searching for

716
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:05,200
life, including intelligent life
in the universe.

717
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,600
And, you know, one of the great
problems, you know, that was my

718
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:09,360
book, the The Light of the
Stars.

719
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,840
The whole thing was that the
problem is that we don't really

720
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,600
understand what a planet is,
right?

721
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,400
What an inhabited planet is.
It's like, it's just such a new

722
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:22,040
idea to us, you know, the
biosphere, that's a new idea.

723
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,760
And we didn't really understand
that biosphere, which is life.

724
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:30,800
It's the sum total of life.
It's a planetary force.

725
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,680
You know, as I like to say the
Earth is a God or a goddess.

726
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,840
You should really view it that
way because it literally

727
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:40,560
channels cosmic power, right?
That the amount of energy

728
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,160
falling from sunlight is truly a
cosmic God like amount of

729
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,200
energy.
And we've had this view that

730
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,920
like, oh, we can do anything to
the biosphere.

731
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:51,240
We'll just throw our garbage
out.

732
00:36:51,240 --> 00:36:53,600
You know, it doesn't matter.
We're more powerful because

733
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:55,600
we're used to like flying our
planes, you know, oh, it's a

734
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,920
terrible story, but our planes
still take off and land.

735
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,880
That's because, you know, we've
been living in this weird little

736
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,320
moment called the Holocene the
last 10,000 years where the

737
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:08,160
climate has been relatively mild
and relatively moist and we've

738
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,320
pushed the Earth out of, we
don't understand the amount of

739
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:15,000
power that the biosphere or the
earth or the Earth as a whole

740
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,240
has at its disposal.
So our job, that's how we say

741
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,200
our job is not to, to save the
earth as if it was a furry

742
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:24,080
little Bunny.
Our job is to not piss it off.

743
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,160
So again, this, you know, once
you get past the blind spot and

744
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:31,880
you start to really think about
life, what life really is as a

745
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:35,680
force, then, you know, you start
to have a different

746
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:37,600
understanding of like that
mountain right now.

747
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,080
You know, you look at a mountain
covered in trees and the only

748
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:44,080
way our sort of inception of it
can be is the number of board

749
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:46,360
feet of lumber.
Like that's what the mountain is

750
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:48,720
or whatever, you know, that's
the only we've that literally

751
00:37:48,720 --> 00:37:52,680
what how we value it.
But once I think part of the

752
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,960
shift is like, no, that's
actually, that's an ecosystem.

753
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,640
You don't want to mess with that
ecosystem because eventually if

754
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:02,440
you do, it'll come back on you,
you know, in ways that you are

755
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,120
hourless to.
So I think that's part of it,

756
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,960
the the way it's a different way
of conceiving of nature and our

757
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,120
place in it.
In in the little book of aliens,

758
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:16,760
you explore Techno's signatures.
Has the blind spot shaped how we

759
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:18,880
search, or how you search at
least?

760
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:24,600
Do you think that our search for
techno signatures, any sort of

761
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:29,000
alien extraterrestrial life
force, is hindered by the blind

762
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,480
spots we have?
Well, I don't know.

763
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:32,760
I mean, again, this is, you
know, the.

764
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,520
Not one of those.
Well, it, it is and it isn't.

765
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,840
So it's interesting in
particular because first of all,

766
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,200
I do think you have to ask what
is life on a much more

767
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,080
fundamental level.
And So what you see happening

768
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:49,040
in, in biosignature and
technosignature studies, right

769
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,200
where we're trying to come up
with what, what signatures can

770
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:56,080
we find from a distant, you
know, from 100 light years of a

771
00:38:56,080 --> 00:39:01,120
biosphere or a technosphere.
And there's been this move over

772
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:05,240
the last 10 years, 20 years of
agnostic biosignatures.

773
00:39:05,240 --> 00:39:07,160
And we're just now beginning to
think about agnostic

774
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:10,440
technosignatures.
And that means not using us, not

775
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:14,800
using our history, our
biochemistry as the, you know,

776
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:17,600
as the template like, oh, let's
just imagine that, you know, you

777
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:21,960
got oxygen group breathing
microbes on, you know, Delta

778
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:25,800
Arsenus 7 or whatever, you know,
no, it's actually asking what is

779
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,720
life?
What is life as a general

780
00:39:27,720 --> 00:39:31,240
phenom?
And how might that be imprinted

781
00:39:31,240 --> 00:39:33,720
on a planet even it has totally
different biochemistry.

782
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:37,240
So in that way you have to think
more generally about life as

783
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:39,320
from a complex systems point of
view.

784
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,760
And then when it comes to techno
signatures, this is where I

785
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,840
think it really might have an
effect minds, right?

786
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:50,200
When we think about, you know,
finding evidence of intelligent,

787
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:52,200
you know, what does intelligence
even mean?

788
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,240
What do we mean by intelligence
by us, you know, or can we

789
00:39:55,240 --> 00:39:57,120
broaden that?
Can we what?

790
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:00,240
What might?
How might evolution sculpt

791
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,200
experience?
You know, for a completely

792
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,760
different lineage, completely
different evolutionary lineage.

793
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:09,080
So there's a place where I mean,
when I'm, I think the most

794
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,240
exciting thing about both
biosignatures and

795
00:40:11,240 --> 00:40:15,240
technosignatures is it forces
you out of you need to imagine

796
00:40:15,240 --> 00:40:18,400
the unimaginable, right?
You need to really push past

797
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:21,560
your to see where your bias is.
And a lot in science, a lot of

798
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,440
those biases are absolutely
blind spot biases.

799
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:29,440
You.
You once turned and experienced

800
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,480
a story I think your father told
you about thunderstorms into an

801
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,960
awe inspiring experience.
How would you take this dismal

802
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:41,880
story of what's happening to us,
turn it around and give us

803
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:46,320
something better to deal with?
Yeah, I mean, listen, things are

804
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:49,920
crazy right now, right?
I mean, you know, and so, you

805
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:54,160
know, as a dad, as a person
living through it, I'm scared

806
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,000
and I'm horrified and I'm.
But then I got I have two things

807
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:00,880
that I, I draw.
One is my Buddhist practice and

808
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,600
the other is my being an
astronomer, you know, and both

809
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:08,640
of those tell me like, dude, you
like I said, you're not the

810
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:12,800
first person to go through this.
I mean, generation after

811
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:18,600
generation suffering a you know,
but that's I'm using suffering

812
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,400
in the Buddhist context of just
like things don't the world is

813
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,600
not the way you want it to be.
It's different than you want it

814
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:29,880
to be.
And, you know, anxiety, you

815
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,680
know, the fear, these are all,
this is what it means to be

816
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:34,360
human.
There's no way out of them.

817
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:39,000
You know, certainly for my
generation, we lived in this,

818
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,760
you know, peak humanity like it
was in this perfect time, you

819
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:43,760
know, depending on where you
lived, it obviously depended on

820
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:46,240
where you lived.
You know, what your socio

821
00:41:46,240 --> 00:41:49,240
economic status were, you know,
what the color of your skin was.

822
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:50,920
You know, everybody was having a
different experience.

823
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,400
But you know, for many people
there certainly was like, oh,

824
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:56,560
there's a lot of freedom and
freedom from, you know,

825
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:00,320
political stripe and that seems
to be dissolving now.

826
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,480
It's really what it feels like
is that in general, these

827
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:04,560
systems that have been in place
for quite a while.

828
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,640
And I think you can trace them
back to the, the Enlightenment,

829
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,360
you know, or even, you know,
the, the, the, the Renaissance,

830
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:11,840
they're just kind of falling
apart.

831
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:13,840
You know, the nation state,
like, are there really going to

832
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:18,160
be nation states in 100 years?
And it's bigger than any of us,

833
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:19,520
right?
There's a certain sense here.

834
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:21,480
You sort of have this feeling
like, what am I going to do?

835
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:23,960
And there's like, you have to
recognize that, you know, this

836
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:27,760
is these are much larger forces
than any of us as individuals.

837
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:32,520
So you do what you can, right,
you do what you can and you live

838
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:33,840
your life.
You just have to, you know,

839
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:37,520
everyday try to be kind to
people, because that may be the

840
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:41,680
best you can do.
And and recognize that history

841
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:43,720
is law.
I think that's one problem is

842
00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:45,920
where, and this is where the
experience first comes from.

843
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:48,440
Like, you know, we then just
focus on myself, Oh, what's

844
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:50,480
happening to my life?
Me, I'm scared.

845
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:53,000
Oh, you know, but actually
broaden out, understand that

846
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:57,720
like the, you know, the, the,
the currents of, of evolution,

847
00:42:57,720 --> 00:43:02,080
of history, of the universe move
on long time scales, you know,

848
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:03,640
and I'm talking even trillions
of years.

849
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:05,840
I'm talking about century,
decades and centuries.

850
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:10,960
And just, you know, to recognize
that that, you know, it's hard

851
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,480
to what's happening now may
actually be the important thing

852
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,080
that leads to something
unbelievable for our

853
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,400
grandchildren.
You know, again, the Black

854
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,880
Death, what could have been
worse than the Black Death, But

855
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,640
without the Black Death, then
that's what broke feudalism,

856
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:25,960
right?
100 years later, there's no more

857
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,360
feudalism because there were so
few workers that, you know,

858
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:30,320
there were no serfs anymore.
And the serfs could be like, no,

859
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:34,640
you need to pay me.
So it's just like, I think

860
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:38,640
having that sort of sense, you
know, stay present, stay present

861
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,360
for what is actually happening
right in front of you.

862
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:44,040
Where can you be kind?
Where can you help?

863
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:50,000
And then sort of also have some
curiosity and even delight about

864
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:53,720
like, whoa, you know, well, look
what's playing out.

865
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,160
You know, look what's playing
out because really, you have no

866
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:56,960
other choice, right?
Yeah.

867
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,680
What, You know, freaking out
24/7, which is possible with our

868
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:03,280
cell phones, right?
I mean, that's the problem with

869
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:06,160
these machines.
I like this talk about the idea

870
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,600
that like in 1500, you know, you
weren't, you didn't know what

871
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:13,640
was going on in, you know, 300
miles away every, you know,

872
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:16,480
every year or two, somebody rode
by and said, the King's dead.

873
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,720
And you were like, thanks.
You know, this idea that like

874
00:44:19,720 --> 00:44:22,560
24/7, I'm learning everything
that's happening in every place

875
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,120
in the world.
That's a new development.

876
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:26,840
And it's also driven by
capitalism, right?

877
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:30,280
They want you to keep scrolling.
Literally just to that today I

878
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:34,880
just downloaded a a very
minimalist 0 no scrolling

879
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:37,320
detoxing.
Yeah, yeah.

880
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:40,680
Old just because I'm sick of it.
You know, you're tired of this,

881
00:44:40,720 --> 00:44:44,400
of just everything on your mind
all the time, all at once.

882
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:46,320
But when you look forward, sorry
I cut you off the Adam.

883
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:50,120
But when you look forward, which
forthcoming discoveries, whether

884
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:52,760
it's exoplanets, techno
signatures, cosmology,

885
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:57,040
consciousness, do you believe
will force us for science and

886
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,120
culture to confront the blind
spot?

887
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,760
Yeah, well, certainly, you know
techno state if we find evidence

888
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,320
of another any life anywhere
else, I think that's just going

889
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:11,680
to be one of the most
revolutionary that will change

890
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,080
quite a bit our.
Understanding that is.

891
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:16,240
Who we are.
What's your?

892
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,760
Well, no, I can't say that.
I, you know, I, I certainly

893
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:24,400
believe that life is quite
common.

894
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,040
I'm sure about intelligent life.
I mean, there's reasons to think

895
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:28,040
that.
I, I, you know, I think it's

896
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,240
happened before for sure.
I just don't know how common it

897
00:45:31,240 --> 00:45:32,280
is.
It could be that right now

898
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:35,440
locally the, you know, you know,
the Galaxy is somewhat sterile.

899
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,640
And I mean locally now out to
1010 thousand light years, which

900
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,560
is still pretty freaking local.
So I, you know, I don't know,

901
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,040
but if we were to find it, I
think that would absolutely be

902
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,560
revolutionary.
I think AI will continue to

903
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:53,320
force us to think more deeply
about what we are.

904
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:56,720
And I think the failures of AI
is also going to like this

905
00:45:56,720 --> 00:46:00,040
version of AI.
Now I you know, it's, it is not

906
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,000
what they say it is.
It's you know, it's, it's, it is

907
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,800
there's a lot of hype around it.
And when that comes crashing

908
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,360
down, I think we're, you know,
then they'll be, I mean, there's

909
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:09,920
a place for that technology and
it's a mirror.

910
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:13,440
It's incredible technology, but
it's just being oversold so

911
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:15,560
profoundly.
And economically, I think that

912
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:17,720
will also drive us.
And then also, I think it's

913
00:46:17,720 --> 00:46:21,160
climate change starts to hit.
You know, I'd like to say, you

914
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,880
know, I, my first job out of
college was that I had a year

915
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:27,000
and a half off and I ended up
working in 1986.

916
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:30,160
I worked in this, you know, in
New York City, this climate

917
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:31,760
facility.
Nobody even knew what climate

918
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:32,760
change was.
They'd never heard of it.

919
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:34,400
My bosses were like, oh, this is
what we're doing.

920
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:38,520
So I've been following it for a
long time and, you know, and

921
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,720
even now we're only seeing as I
like, say, the teaser trailer,

922
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:44,480
you know, not even the trailer
for climate change, it's the

923
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:47,400
teaser trailer.
So over the next, you know, 345

924
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,160
decades, is that really
unspools?

925
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,840
I think that's what's really
going to drive a, a, a, a, a

926
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:57,360
fundamentally humanity is going
to have to respond in its

927
00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:59,600
understanding of its place on
the planet.

928
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:01,720
So I think more than anything,
that's what's going to drive it.

929
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:05,440
I'm I'm glad you brought up
teaser trailer because you're

930
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,200
one of those few people online
who you you work at this

931
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:11,480
intersection of science and
culture where you're constantly

932
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,040
going back and forth having fun
debates online.

933
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:16,480
I love to watch it.
How do you communicate the

934
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:19,240
blindspot without triggering
defensiveness in in a lot of

935
00:47:19,240 --> 00:47:22,960
materialist culture?
Oh, my God, yeah.

936
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,520
I don't know.
You know, I think, I think 2

937
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,240
things.
You know, I, I'm, I'm OK with

938
00:47:27,240 --> 00:47:29,320
triggering defensiveness.
I mean, you know, I mean, like,

939
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,440
you know, the debates are fun as
long as they're friendly, right?

940
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:34,360
You know, as long as, like, you
know, people take this too

941
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:36,320
seriously.
What we say when I see one

942
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,080
thing, I notice, you know, so
I'm a physicist.

943
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:40,640
And when I go to philosophy
meetings, philosophers can be

944
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,440
really mean to each other.
I'm always like, really like

945
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,160
horrified.
Like they're just nasty to each

946
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:47,640
other.
Like you couldn't you couldn't

947
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:49,920
think your way out of a wet
paper bag.

948
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:53,000
And I'm always like, dude, come
on, like this is philosophy.

949
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,120
There's no, you know, we don't,
we don't know, you know, I mean,

950
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,920
take positions, but you don't,
you know, oh, come on, I'll have

951
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,440
some humility.
But I think, you know, poking

952
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,000
each other can be, I'm not
really worried about triggering,

953
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:09,400
you know, reactions, you know,
because that's, that's what it's

954
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:10,880
about.
So, you know, my, I'm, I'm from

955
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:12,320
New Jersey.
I'm naturally snore.

956
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:14,840
I mean, you know, I'm I'm
tri-state ethnic, as we call New

957
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:18,640
Jersey New York.
So I'm just naturally snarky and

958
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:20,040
that's just the way I think
about things.

959
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:22,840
So you so I don't mind sort of
poking people, but you know,

960
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:25,600
always in good-natured.
But I think we have to have the

961
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,600
debates.
We have to sort of really, you

962
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,200
know, sort of have these
discussions and point out

963
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:32,880
because it's been sort of like
nobody.

964
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,160
You know, again, you look at
like the world Science Festival,

965
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,320
there's nobody from these other
you know, there are other

966
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,240
fields, there's the whole what's
called the an active approach.

967
00:48:40,240 --> 00:48:41,960
I'm sure you're aware of like,
you know, there's this whole

968
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:47,280
field of, you know, of
neuroscience that is not sort of

969
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,520
like you're just your brain,
you're just a brain.

970
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,320
That's all you are.
And it's like that they those

971
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:53,720
people never show up at these
meetings.

972
00:48:53,720 --> 00:48:56,720
So it's time sort of like start
broadening the dialogue and that

973
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:59,960
will just be, I think, you know,
if it's good done good-natured

974
00:48:59,960 --> 00:49:02,640
in a good-natured way, I think
people will start to see people

975
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,360
who aren't like, you know,
directly involved will start to

976
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:08,960
see like, oh, there's an
alternative.

977
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:11,720
You know, that's the love
science, totally scientific,

978
00:49:11,720 --> 00:49:15,360
totally empirical, you know, no
mysticism about the actual what

979
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:18,200
happens in the science, you
know, and it's like, and there's

980
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:19,680
an alternative.
There's a different way to sort

981
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:23,480
of describe us in the world that
doesn't have this hyper

982
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:28,960
reductionistic, you know, fake
God's eye view, perspective,

983
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:30,240
perspective, as I like to call
it.

984
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:35,000
Well, Adam, if you've if, let's
say experience is part of

985
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:38,120
nature, it is nature, it's it's
within its essence of, of

986
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:40,480
nature, not something added
later.

987
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:43,840
Does this make consciousness
fundamental, relational or

988
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,280
something else do?
Where do you stand on that?

989
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:49,840
Yeah, so I'm not a pan psychist,
you know, because what I'm

990
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,800
again, and what I'm saying is
like the way that question can

991
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:55,400
be framed is again, from the
outside, you know, you've

992
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:59,040
stepped outside from that
perspective, that unexperienced,

993
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:03,920
unexperientable perspectiveless
perspective, which is a fiction,

994
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:08,440
It's a story.
So when you look right, you're

995
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:09,840
right.
When we all do see that's but

996
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,400
that's really the interesting
thing is that learning how to

997
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,040
not step into the blind spot,
right.

998
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:19,040
So The thing is like to even ask
the question, you already have

999
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:21,800
to be experienced and that's
what we mean and Whitehead was

1000
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,400
already there with this.
You need a new description

1001
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:26,320
nature.
When we think of nature now,

1002
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:29,200
it's always like, Oh yeah,
they're I'm floating out in the

1003
00:50:29,240 --> 00:50:32,760
universe with my God's eye
perspective list perspective

1004
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:36,280
looking down on it to realize
like, oh, oh, when I do that,

1005
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:39,400
actually I just stopped the
TuneIn an invisible head, right,

1006
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:41,760
You know, just floating out
there in space.

1007
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:45,280
So oh, there is no perspective.
There's no there is no non

1008
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:48,720
experiencing perspective.
Once you realize that, then

1009
00:50:48,720 --> 00:50:52,760
everything gets to be reframed
like, OK, how do I describe the

1010
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:56,280
world where I can't take myself
out of like there's there's no

1011
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:58,840
description I can take of the
world where I'm about already

1012
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:00,600
there.
And then not just me.

1013
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:02,720
Like the important thing about
this is because people are like,

1014
00:51:02,720 --> 00:51:06,600
oh, that's soliphism.
Like no, life never appears

1015
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:08,760
alone.
Life always appears as

1016
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:11,400
communities of life.
So to even begin to have this

1017
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,560
discussion, that means I'm
already part of a community of

1018
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:18,240
language users like you.
So there's no I without you,

1019
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:20,000
right?
So it's there's, there's,

1020
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,880
there's first person perspective
that's essential.

1021
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:25,240
But first person perspective is
not possible without second,

1022
00:51:25,240 --> 00:51:26,880
without there being second
person perspective.

1023
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,600
But there absolutely is no third
person perspective unless you

1024
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:31,480
want to be religious and say you
know, there's God.

1025
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:35,080
But if you're not going to do
that, then you know, so how do

1026
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:37,640
we talk about that's what's so
awesome and exciting?

1027
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:41,360
How do we talk about these
things without falling into that

1028
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,280
perspective?
Perspectiveless perspective?

1029
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:47,480
It is a difficult one, but you
once asked whether life and

1030
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:51,520
complexity imply that the
universe is biased towards

1031
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:54,120
creativity.
Does acknowledging experience

1032
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,040
strengthen that view?
Yes, I think it does.

1033
00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:58,880
I think it's that's the cool
thing about life, right?

1034
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:02,840
So so to me, what happens about,
you know, because now what we

1035
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:05,040
want to ask about is not just
the world by itself.

1036
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:08,520
We always have to ask about the
world and us like that's that's

1037
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:10,440
the new thing.
You can't talk about 1 without

1038
00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:11,880
the other.
But it doesn't mean the world

1039
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:13,680
went away.
You know, it does.

1040
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,280
So, as I like to say, you know,
we're not saying that there is

1041
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:21,360
there's no world without us.
It's just not our world, right?

1042
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:23,520
There's nothing I can say.
It's like comps and it's, you

1043
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:25,280
know, thing in itself.
I don't there's nothing I can

1044
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,440
say about the world without us.
But clearly there's a world, you

1045
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:30,800
know, there's something without
us, but it's just that's not

1046
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:34,560
what we get access to.
What we get access to is the Co

1047
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:40,360
constituted right self and
world, you know, agent and

1048
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,040
environment.
Those things arise together and

1049
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:46,040
there's this is some of the
stuff both philosophically and

1050
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:48,600
scientifically, you can really
start to think deeply about

1051
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:53,520
this, about how, because it
within AI, within like cognitive

1052
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,680
science, there's the problem,
what they call relevance, the

1053
00:52:55,680 --> 00:53:00,840
problem of relevance, because
you know, every life already

1054
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:03,440
knows what's important.
Life already has parsed the

1055
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:07,040
world into what's relevant and
what's not relevant, which in

1056
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:10,400
some sense means the parts that
aren't relevant aren't there for

1057
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:11,840
you, right?
You know, they're they're

1058
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:14,680
they're they're you know, you've
already to be alive is to

1059
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:17,160
already have parsed the world
into the parts that are

1060
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:20,160
meaningful for you, which means
the other parts kind of aren't

1061
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:22,880
there at all.
So the real question is how this

1062
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:26,840
Co arising has happened, how
this structured world of the

1063
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:31,120
self arises.
You know, no self, no world, no

1064
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:34,320
world, no self, right?
That's the interesting question.

1065
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:36,920
Yeah, I mean, your your work is
absolutely fascinating.

1066
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:38,320
I know you have a hard stop
soon, Adam.

1067
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:42,320
So I just just before we close,
what would you if you had to

1068
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:45,720
give a summary and outline of
the blind spot, exactly what

1069
00:53:45,720 --> 00:53:48,240
this book's meant to do, what
it's for, and why you think

1070
00:53:48,240 --> 00:53:49,880
someone should read it, what
would you say?

1071
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:57,000
I would say that the the the the
metaphysical biases of science,

1072
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:01,080
the things that we're told
science said like you are

1073
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:03,640
nothing but a computer made out
of meat.

1074
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:08,040
You know that those are simply
metaphysical assumptions.

1075
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:10,920
They are failing.
They are they are not up to the

1076
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:13,520
task of the questions that are
in front of us now.

1077
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:18,040
And the purpose of the book is
to go through that in detail and

1078
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:22,000
show what where that fails like,
you know, so the book is about

1079
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:27,920
matter, time, cosmology, life,
cognition, consciousness.

1080
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:29,720
We're not saying what comes
next.

1081
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:32,160
We don't That's the good work of
what's happening now.

1082
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:36,480
But we're offering what we hope
is a is a a compelling argument

1083
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:40,200
that it's time to let that go
and begin to explore a different

1084
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:42,520
way.
Yeah, I think that's beautiful,

1085
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:44,120
Adam.
And regarding your entire body

1086
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:47,280
of work as a whole from
consciousness, everything you

1087
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:50,560
just mentioned, time, physics,
cosmology, etcetera, what's

1088
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,640
what's your final words for the
listeners and viewers out there?

1089
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:57,080
You should have fun, right?
The only reason I'm doing it

1090
00:54:57,080 --> 00:54:59,560
because it's fun, right?
I mean because life is weird.

1091
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:02,480
Life is very difficult.
There is a lot of suffering and

1092
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:05,800
you know, this just sort of
gives you, it points to the fact

1093
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:09,880
that like this is all this is a
trip and it should be enjoyed to

1094
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,640
the extent that you can because
you don't know what's coming

1095
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:13,760
next.
You don't really know.

1096
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,240
It's just life is a giant
question mark.

1097
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:21,040
And the, the joy and beauty
that's in it is real, you know,

1098
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:24,080
and, and asking these questions,
encountering the world this way

1099
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:30,320
is one aspect of, you know, of,
of engaging with the beauty and

1100
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:31,560
the joy and the awe.