What is Quantum Reality? Consciousness, Beyond Spacetime & Into Possibility | Ruth Kastner

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Ruth, thanks so much for joining
me.

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It's a pleasure to chat to you.
Your work is deeply fascinating

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and you've managed to intersect
so many different fields

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together with your rich history
within the field.

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To start a thought, maybe we
could start off by sharing how

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your journey within this field
started.

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So within the foundations of
quantum mechanics, what led you

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to your current views within
quantum theory, the possibilist

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transactional interpretation,
and what inspired you to reframe

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quantum theory around this
theory of possibility rather

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than just probabilities?
OK, well, you know, I, I came to

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this, this project, I guess in
kind of a roundabout way.

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I was, I actually got into
physics initially because I was

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fascinated with electromagnetism
and, and light.

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And I just, I really, that was
kind of my, my main motivation

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for studying physics and kind of
light to me was, was kind of

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fascinating and mysterious and I
wanted to learn more about it.

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And also, I do have, you know, a
lot of science in my, in my

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family background.
My father was a solar physicist,

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my mother was a math educator.
So at with an avid interest in

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physics also.
So it was kind of in the family,

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you know, I got the opportunity
to, to be introduced to these

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ideas as a child with looking at
Spectra and, you know, things

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like that with my family, our,
our parents kind of showing us

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these fun things with prisms and
so on.

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So that that was kind of kind
of, you know, what lured me into

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the field when I started to do
graduate work in physics, I came

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across these strange quantum
paradoxes such as the the non

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locality, the entanglement
entangled particles that the

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Einstein Podolski Rosen paradox,
where you have entangled, you

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know, electrons going off to
opposite ends of the Galaxy and

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and being mysteriously
correlated in this non local

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way.
So that kind of really grabbed

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me and I, you know, there's
something here I want to

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understand.
And and it turned out that that

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work was mainly being done in
the philosophy department at the

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University of Maryland.
So at that point, that's why I

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switched to what was then called
the Committee on the History and

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Philosophy of Science, because
they were dealing with, you

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know, both the historical
Stephen Brush was, was there at

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that time in the history of
physics.

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And I took a course with him and
that was that really grabbed me

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too.
So this kind of intertwining of

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the, of the historical
development of physics along

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with the, the ideas that were
being entertained and, and that

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were challenging us, that's what
where I found, you know, this is

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where I belong in this field
that that is then has been also

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called foundations of physics
and it's historically informed.

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So that's why, you know, history
is so important, but that's kind

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of the, you know, the way that I
got intrigued by, by quantum

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theory in terms of the problems
that face the, the, the

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standard, you know, the
conventional way of doing the

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theory, which among which are
the measurement problem.

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So kind of that, that's when I
began to see that, oh, not only

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is there are there some
interesting paradoxes and, and

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issues of that challenge us, but
there's also this theory is, you

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know, really has a problem and,
and in accounting for what is a

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measurement, you know, just
answering that simple question.

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And that is when I, I was kind
of exploring that I came across

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John Kramer's work.
This was back in the late 90s, I

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guess, when I was doing this
work and I, and I realized that,

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you know, it in my mind, his
approach was a way forward.

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So this was what he called the
transactional interpretation.

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And that at that point, you
know, when I saw what he was

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doing with including the entire,
the, the entire solution, if you

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will, to these electromagnetic
wave equations, you, you're not

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neglecting the so-called
advanced solutions, which people

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think of as being backward in
time.

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And you're not, you're not just
kind of ruling them out by Fiat

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by saying no, that that can't be
right, or I don't like it, that

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doesn't agree with my
intuitions, but instead saying,

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let's, let's include them and
see what we get from it.

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And I saw that that actually
gives you a way to understand

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what you mean by the word
measurement.

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So that's that's kind of the
background in how I arrived at

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the transactional approach.
It's, it's fascinating because

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when you look at physics and,
and I, I spoke about this with

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Tim Maudlin where we discussed
the shut up and calculate

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approach where people just tend
to neglect.

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And I know there's certain
aspects of where he disagrees

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with your work and vice versa.
But I asked him this question.

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I mean, does physics or does
science need philosophy?

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I mean, this is a fundamentally,
this is fundamentally A

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philosophical podcast, but I
have to ask this question, is it

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what do you think of the shut up
and calculate method and does

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science need?
Philosophy.

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Well, yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's a cop out.

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You know, I mean that it's sort
of like using the theory as a

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tool and the theory works well
as a tool, but but it is, it's

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not legitimate to then say to
dictate that that a theory

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should be no more than a tool.
So, you know, that's where

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people are overstepping their
authority in a sense as

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scientists.
And in fact, you know, I mean,

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science started out, at least
physical science really started

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out as what they called natural
philosophy.

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And, you know, I really think
that if you look at the history

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of ideas, you look at the
history of the development of

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science, all of the early
brilliant scientists were avid

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philosophers and they understood
that they were doing philosophy

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and they they were trying to do
responsible philosophy.

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So, you know, science isn't, is
never been separate from

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philosophy.
If you can think of science as a

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branch of philosophy, that's
really, I think, the proper way

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to look at it.
Yeah, I completely agree.

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I think that most of the time
when scientists are are doing

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anything within the science,
we're using the scientific

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method.
They forget to think about the

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normative values we place within
that.

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I mean, just merely the act of
doing the study or the

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experiment.
There's so many philosophical

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outcomes to it.
So if you were to give us a

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brief history of quantum theory
and and then sort of expose and

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dissect the parts that really
got to you mentioned the

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measurement problem.
I mean, we often hear things

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like shrouding as cats.
There's all these things in

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quantum mechanics, these
paradoxes that people hear about

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and then tend to take too far.
So for example, someone might

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hear about shrouding as cats and
then come up with their own

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metaphysical views and
consciousness reality.

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How do you sort of draw this
line to to to make a perfect

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theory while simultaneously not
sounding crazy to your physics

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audience out there or your
fellow colleagues?

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Yeah.
I mean, you know, it's

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important.
I guess this is where it gets

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important to really understand
the history a little bit better

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and the ideas a little bit
better.

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And what are behind things such
as Schrodinger's cat, which

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Schrodinger constructed as a
refutation of the theory, a

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basically as what's called a
reductio odd absurdum to

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demonstrate that the theory was
broken in a specific way

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concerning measurement.
And that is actually what the

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Schrodinger's cat paradox.
It's not, it's not supposed to

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be something like, hey, this is
so cool.

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We could use quantum theory to
put a cat in a superposition.

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No, you know, that was
definitely not what he wanted.

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You know, it's the opposite.
He was saying, see how dumb this

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is?
This is how bad this theory is

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literally.
And, and so that's where we get,

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you know, we, we get off in the
in the gutter, you know, we kind

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of get off into a gutter ball,
to use maybe a bowling analogy.

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And he's like, OK, here we go
folks.

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And, and everyone wants to now
let's let me play, play this

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game by bowl bowling gutter
balls.

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No, no, no, we're not.
That's the point, is there?

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There's something that we need
to address.

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It's a weakness in the theory.
And so that's what he was

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highlighting.
And, and that's one of the

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things that I argue is remedied
by this, this alternative

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formulation is that we
understand that in fact you

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don't have to worry about a cat
or something like that being in

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a superposition because you in
fact do get an account of

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measurement at a micro level
that's well quantified.

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So we never get to the point in
a transactional formulation.

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We never get to the point of
having to say that our theories

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predicting a cat in a
superposition of alive and dead.

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Yeah, I think, Ruth, the
Copenhagen interpretation is

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often treated as the default,
despite it's, it's obvious flaws

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in many ways.
Then you've got other theories

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that try and come along to fix
those that don't tend to answer

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many other questions.
So let's maybe, perhaps you

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could walk us through in plain
terms, the story of your version

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of the transactional
interpretation and why we should

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take this seriously.
OK, yeah.

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So, so the transactional, I
mean, and I call it a

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formulation now because it's
it's really more than just an

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interpretation of the existing
theory.

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So I mean, in a nutshell, the
the transactional formulation,

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it is a subtly different theory
in that the physics is actually

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different.
So what goes on and you know,

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there, the background is there.
It all goes back to how do we

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model field behavior in physics.
OK, So there's kind of a default

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way of conceiving of field
behavior that isn't really

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terribly well articulated in in
the conventional approach.

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But it's it's kind of a default
notion that you have some,

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something you call an emitter
like an excited atom or

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something and it it sends out a
photon, which is a, a quantum of

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the electromagnetic field,
right.

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So, and it just does that and
then people assume that's what

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happens and then they model it
in a certain way with certain

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quantity field, you know,
excited field state or whatever.

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And, and the transactional
formulation actually says no,

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something different is going on
when fields are generated.

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And the, this is, it's really an
approach that has been around

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for quite a long time, for more
than a century.

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It's been known by various terms
such as the direct action

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theory.
Wheeler and Feynman were working

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with it back in the 1940s and
they called it the absorber

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theory of radiation.
So it's a different model of the

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way the electromagnetic field
behaves.

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So in a nutshell, I mean, this
it, it gets a little technical,

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but it's sort of the, the
metaphorical way of thinking of

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it is that you, you need both an
emitter and an absorber, at

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least one absorber.
So it's not a, it's not an

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autonomous thing in this direct
action theory.

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It's, it's an, it's a
relationship.

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The fields are always created in
because you have at least two

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charged particles or atoms or
something like that.

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And field generators you have to
have, You can't just have one

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like you can't just have a
single universe with a single

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particle sitting there and have
a have an electromagnetic field

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that, that would that would be
allowed in the conventional

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approach, but not in this
approach.

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So what happens in this direct
action theory is that at the

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very basic level, say you've got
2 electrons, they they are

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always connected by what would
be called a virtual photon,

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except that the virtual photon
in the direct action theory is

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time symmetric.
So this is very weird.

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And you can see when I say time
symmetric, it has it has both a

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so-called a retarded forward
propagating or future directed

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component.
And it also has a advanced or

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past directed component.
And it's literally that it's one

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plus the other and half, half
the amplitude of each and there.

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And that's what it is.
It's called the time symmetric

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propagator.
And that that is that's how you

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describe a virtual photon in the
direct action theory.

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So that's one level of
interaction.

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Now at A at a higher level, if
you have things like atoms that

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have internal energy states that
they can transition between, you

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can have a different
interaction.

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And this is what Kramer called
offers and confirmations, which

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is is a kind of a rough way of
describing that not only do you

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have a direct kind of
connection, but the absorber

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plays an active role in kind of
responding in a sense and

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saying, OK, we can.
We can actually go further than

225
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:38,400
just this kind of force, the
based connection, which is what

226
00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:41,640
a virtual photon is.
We could actually exchange some

227
00:13:41,640 --> 00:13:46,160
real energy, which is to be
distinguished from a force

228
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:50,080
because energy is force acting
over a well defined distance,

229
00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:52,960
right?
So this this is the distinctions

230
00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:55,560
that are not made in the
conventional approach, but in

231
00:13:55,560 --> 00:13:59,000
the direct action theory or this
is what you get and it's called

232
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:02,600
a transaction.
So when you get what what Kramer

233
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:05,520
called absorber response, which
is really it's kind of a mutual

234
00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:09,840
process emitter and absorber,
perhaps more than one absorber

235
00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:13,520
kind of are relationally
connected by this field.

236
00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:18,080
And they go, hey, you know, this
guy's excited we could receive

237
00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:21,760
that.
We're going to send back these

238
00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:26,600
these field responses that
actually help to create this

239
00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:30,160
real quantum of energy.
So the, the role of the absorber

240
00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:34,560
is crucial and it's active that
the absorbers are generating

241
00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:37,440
fields.
They're not just passively

242
00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:39,280
acting like, you know, dead
drops.

243
00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:43,920
You know, the absorbers are not
dead drops in, if you want to

244
00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:46,600
think of it that way, in the
transactional formulation,

245
00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:52,120
absorbers are part of the action
and they help to decide whether

246
00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:55,520
a photon will be transferred.
And, and in the conventional

247
00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:58,040
theory, you know, absorbers are
just dead drops.

248
00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:01,160
They're completely passive.
They're not even modelled.

249
00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:04,600
There's you know, so, so this
is, you know, if I get a little

250
00:15:04,600 --> 00:15:07,720
evangelical here, you know, I
mean, it's, it's just, it's a

251
00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:11,920
different, different way of
conceiving the way fields

252
00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:14,480
operate.
And there are a lot of aspects

253
00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:18,400
to it that kind of offend the
the usual Western scientific

254
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:20,880
mind.
You know, it it's, it's that

255
00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:24,520
it's action at a distance.
Whoa, that's not legit, You

256
00:15:24,520 --> 00:15:29,920
know, so there are certain
metaphysical assumptions that

257
00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:35,000
kind of are in the ground level
of the way we model fields that

258
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,760
are unexamined.
And they are, they are often

259
00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:41,560
kind of used as, you know, this
is the right thinking way to do

260
00:15:41,560 --> 00:15:45,880
things, but they're actually
putting us in a box, you know,

261
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:48,800
so that's what I argue in my
work is that is that we've,

262
00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:52,560
we've inherited this box of this
is the way fields have to, you

263
00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:56,400
know, causality, what we call
this label causality.

264
00:15:56,400 --> 00:16:00,680
It is, is basically our stubborn
insistence that fields better

265
00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:04,240
behave the way we think they
should, you know, and kind of

266
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:07,640
wagging our finger and put
opposing causality, you know,

267
00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:11,560
and you know, you know, you've
just put a box around your

268
00:16:11,560 --> 00:16:15,680
ability to theorize and get
solutions to problems.

269
00:16:15,680 --> 00:16:20,120
So that that's the basic thing
is the transactional formulation

270
00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:24,880
is really a different theory.
The physics is different and,

271
00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:27,280
and I mean the, the confusing
thing is, you know, people will

272
00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:29,400
say, OK, well then tell me, give
me a test.

273
00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:32,080
And how does your, how can we
test your theory?

274
00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:34,680
How does it differ?
You know, and, and the issue is

275
00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:39,880
actually that this formulation
helps you derive a lot of the

276
00:16:40,040 --> 00:16:43,480
apparatus of the standard
theory, like the probability

277
00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:48,280
rule, the Born rule for the
probabilities of outcomes, which

278
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:50,840
is just kind of ad hoc in the
standard approach.

279
00:16:51,160 --> 00:16:54,680
This derives that.
So, So yes, it's going to give

280
00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:58,880
you the same probabilities that
we already observed.

281
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,840
So, you know, so it's not like,
Oh yeah, well, my theory's going

282
00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:04,240
to say no, the probabilities are
different and then you can test

283
00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:06,280
it.
No, I mean, the irony is, no, my

284
00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:09,160
theory's better because it's
going to tell you why those are

285
00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:12,119
the probabilities and it's going
to tell you what you're doing

286
00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:15,680
when you do a measurement.
So, so the, the novel, it

287
00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:18,440
doesn't have that novel
prediction that people kind of

288
00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:21,920
assume you need.
But what it does is it resolves

289
00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:25,839
all these anomalies like the
measurement problem and it it

290
00:17:25,839 --> 00:17:28,280
shows you where the theory comes
from, where a lot of the

291
00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:31,240
theories formal quantities come
from.

292
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:34,880
Yeah, it's, it's one of those.
It's one of those times where

293
00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:38,160
you just kind of think the
unreasonable effectiveness of

294
00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:40,840
quantum mechanics just
overweighs and overshadows

295
00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:44,120
everything else, and it's very
difficult to get out out of that

296
00:17:44,120 --> 00:17:47,160
shadow.
Yeah, I mean, and it's true that

297
00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:51,840
it, you know, the theory works
in terms of the, the, the

298
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:57,080
recipes that were, that were
given to us, you know, by by Max

299
00:17:57,080 --> 00:17:59,720
Bourne in particular.
And and it works.

300
00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:01,920
And so, but I mean, that's not
the whole story.

301
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:05,080
It's just like saying, I mean,
maybe to get a bit esoteric

302
00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:09,160
here, but the a useful analogy
is, you know, back a couple, 100

303
00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:14,600
years ago, we people had some
good thermodynamical laws.

304
00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:17,520
Like they go, oh, look, PV
equals NRT.

305
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,600
Oh, OK, Doing these
measurements, the pressure times

306
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:22,680
the volume is, is personal to
the temperature.

307
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:24,400
Wow.
You know, and it's like

308
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:27,960
empirically, OK, you're right,
but wouldn't you like to know

309
00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:30,320
why that is?
Folks?

310
00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:34,320
That's what science is about.
You know, it's it's explaining

311
00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:37,880
the regularities that we see.
And that is what Boltzmann's

312
00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:40,360
achievement was.
He wasn't satisfied with just

313
00:18:40,360 --> 00:18:42,680
OK, shut up.
What do you guys?

314
00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:45,280
What why do you, you know,
what's philosophy Crap.

315
00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:48,560
You've got what you need.
No, he didn't say that, right.

316
00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:52,280
It's like, well, why, you know,
what is this pressure and why is

317
00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:53,760
it related?
Why should it be related to

318
00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:57,080
temperature?
Now he was a real scientist and

319
00:18:57,080 --> 00:19:00,880
he proposed, hey, maybe there
are these little things called

320
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:04,840
atoms that maybe we can't see
and they're doing stuff.

321
00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:07,480
He was doing real physics.
And of course, Ernst Mock, you

322
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:12,240
know, told him to shut up and
calculate and but it turned out

323
00:19:12,240 --> 00:19:17,280
that Boltzmann was right and he
he was finding the underlying

324
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:21,800
physics that explains why this
little law worked.

325
00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:24,160
And so this is, you know, I
would argue this is what the

326
00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:26,440
transaction formulation is
doing.

327
00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:31,360
It's providing it's it's
bringing forth, disclosing some

328
00:19:31,360 --> 00:19:34,720
fundamental physics that's going
on behind the scenes.

329
00:19:35,120 --> 00:19:37,480
That explains why you use this
born rule.

330
00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:40,560
Because when Max Borne came up
with that, he was just like, you

331
00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:42,680
know, OK, there's a wave
function.

332
00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:46,120
What is that?
Maybe that's the probability of,

333
00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:49,280
of getting an outcome.
Oh, no, no, wait, we have to

334
00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:52,080
square it because then we'll get
the right kind of number.

335
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:54,920
You know, like I think we could
do better.

336
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:59,520
I mean, yes, he was right.
He he was a very, a nice

337
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:03,280
educated guess, you know, but
but there was no physics there.

338
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:06,880
So that that's what we want.
We want to do the physics.

339
00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:09,400
Yeah.
One of my questions was about

340
00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:12,760
how most interpretations just
accept the born rule as a

341
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,840
postulate.
But I wanted to ask you how the

342
00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:19,720
possibilist transactional
interpretation or formulation

343
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:23,320
now, now that you're calling it,
that explains it differently.

344
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:25,800
But before we do that, we
obviously have to discuss the

345
00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:30,400
possibilist aspect of this.
So how did you go from Kramer's

346
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:32,400
work into this new version of
it?

347
00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:34,920
Because then we know it
eventually also expands even

348
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,120
further.
Yeah.

349
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:42,280
You know, the, the possibilist
idea, you know, in a sense it's,

350
00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:46,880
it's my metaphysical proposal
about, well, what would make

351
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:50,760
sense or how, how would it make
sense to understand, you know,

352
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:54,800
the ontology of what's what
really exists?

353
00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:57,880
What is the nature of these
objects that are described by

354
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:00,400
quantum states?
And you know, it's kind of a

355
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:02,040
separate issue.
And I guess, you know, before I

356
00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:05,720
even get into that, I could just
mention that one can use the

357
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:11,080
transactional formulation to, to
suggest this underlying physics

358
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:15,880
without necessarily buying into,
you know, my proposal that these

359
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:18,000
are possibilities.
You don't necessarily have to

360
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:20,920
buy into it.
I but I think that's the natural

361
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:23,800
conclusion.
And the reason I, you know, I

362
00:21:23,800 --> 00:21:27,240
come up with that is simply
because for logical consistency.

363
00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:31,280
And, and the, the issue is that,
you know, even in standard

364
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:34,600
quantum theory and others have,
I mean, Heisenberg, it's not

365
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:36,240
just me.
I mean, many others have talked

366
00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:40,160
about, you know, the quantum
state or the wave function as,

367
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:42,600
as describing some kind of
possibilities.

368
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:46,160
So it's not a new idea, but the
reason I think it's really kind

369
00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:51,840
of required is for logical
consistency in that these states

370
00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:55,040
are, you know, they're, they're
complex valued.

371
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:58,680
So the amplitudes, you know,
like how big a wave, how, how

372
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:03,840
big it is in a sense, the volume
of the wave in a sense it is, is

373
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:07,640
a complex number in general,
it's not real valued.

374
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:12,120
So if space-time, you know, what
we call the space-time world of

375
00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:16,720
actuality, it's real valued,
it's 3 spatial plus one temporal

376
00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:18,760
dimension, real valued
quantities.

377
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:22,840
So just from that consideration
alone, you know the fact that

378
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:25,960
the wave function has as a
complex valued amplitude.

379
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:30,640
It's also can have arbitrarily
many dimensions and and it's a

380
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,800
Hilbert space mathematical
object.

381
00:22:34,120 --> 00:22:37,680
So the Hilbert space is just
basically a vector space with

382
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:41,480
certain mathematical properties,
but it has way more dimensions

383
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:47,480
than 3 + 1, you know, So just to
for mathematical consistency and

384
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:52,080
the fact that, you know, many
particle wave functions just do

385
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:56,360
not fit into the 3 + 1
space-time dimensions, the

386
00:22:56,360 --> 00:22:58,520
complexity of them, the
dimensionality.

387
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:02,880
So, so I think it's a natural
interpretation to just say these

388
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:05,400
objects, you know, I'm realist
about it.

389
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:09,480
I think they're real and I think
what to be consistent.

390
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:12,120
I think what quantum theory is,
is telling us is that our

391
00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:17,240
understanding of reality has to
be enlarged so that so that we

392
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:20,400
we shouldn't think of reality as
restrict, restricted to

393
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:24,600
space-time.
That, that we should take the

394
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:28,280
quantum level as what I call a
quantum substratum.

395
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:33,840
That that is physically a domain
of reality.

396
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:38,360
So that things are really, these
are physically real objects and

397
00:23:38,360 --> 00:23:44,960
processes that that we cannot
think of as living in a, a 3 + 1

398
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:47,120
space-time container.
So.

399
00:23:47,120 --> 00:23:50,520
So that's the basic idea.
When you make this logical

400
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:55,840
shift, it's you then almost
convert from actualities to

401
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:58,240
possibilities.
From a philosophical and

402
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,840
metaphysical perspective, what
does this mean to a non

403
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,200
physicist and to anyone who is a
physicist?

404
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,720
How does this shift everyone's
perspective when it comes to

405
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:13,120
understanding reality?
Well, yeah, it really kind of

406
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:18,800
it's, it throws a monkey wrench
into into our usual sense, you

407
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,040
know, that we, we live in a
space-time container.

408
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:23,880
So, so it's kind of a shocking
idea.

409
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:28,120
And I what I use as a as a
metaphor, I mean, metaphors have

410
00:24:28,120 --> 00:24:31,160
their limitations, but I think
as an introductory 1, the

411
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:36,120
iceberg, you know, thinking of
an iceberg with the the bulk of

412
00:24:36,120 --> 00:24:40,520
it submerged below the water is
a good way to kind of get the

413
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,640
idea that, you know, that that
space-time, it's really just the

414
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,680
tip of the iceberg.
Yes, that's that's what we call

415
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,120
space-time is kind of the world
of phenomena that we can

416
00:24:50,120 --> 00:24:52,080
measure, we can all corroborate
and agree.

417
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:55,360
And it's sort of the empirical
level that science has to be

418
00:24:55,360 --> 00:24:59,880
responsible to definitely.
But but it but it's sort of like

419
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,320
we're kind of like the Titanic
and we're like, wait a minute,

420
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,960
you mean there's more to this
thing than just what's sticking

421
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:09,280
out there.
And it's very consequential, you

422
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,360
know, so we're kind of running
up against this.

423
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:14,000
You know, it's there, it's
really there, but it's

424
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:16,080
challenging us because it is
hidden.

425
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:20,800
It's it's what I call a sub
empirical aspect to reality.

426
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,400
So I think that's a useful way
to think of it, that at the

427
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:27,760
quantum level, it's very real,
physically real, consequential,

428
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,640
but it's sub empirical.
These processes are going on

429
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:36,320
behind the scenes and then it's
actually consistent in terms of

430
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,600
possibilities because we know
that when we're measuring

431
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:43,160
something, you know, some
observables, say momentum or, or

432
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:47,560
spin or something, we have an
observable that has a number of

433
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:51,280
different possible outcomes.
Well, what's going on at the

434
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:55,000
level of possibility is that
those possibilities are all

435
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,000
available at the level of
possibility, but only one of

436
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,960
them can be actualized because
only one can actually kind of

437
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,800
fit into that tip of the iceberg
space-time.

438
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,400
So that's where we get this kind
of collapse, if you will.

439
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:14,040
We get, we get what some people
call objective reduction, and

440
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,680
that definitely happens in the
transactional formulation where

441
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,240
we get a quantified account of
the actualization of these

442
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,040
possibilities.
You, you mentioned objective

443
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,520
reduction and I immediately
thought of Penrose and then and

444
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,400
Orko are eventually because got
a few questions about

445
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,720
consciousness after this.
But we also spoke about Tim

446
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,120
Maudlin earlier.
And I mean, he's a critic of how

447
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,760
well he has concerns about
causal loops in, in the

448
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,480
transactional interpretation.
How does how does your version

449
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,040
of this address the critiques or
the concerns people have about

450
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,320
that?
Yeah, but well, I mean his

451
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:54,880
concern about the causal loops
was that has actually been

452
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,760
multiply refuted and you know,
engaged with and refuted in the

453
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:00,800
literature.
And he has he doesn't seem to be

454
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:05,560
have read those refutations or
be aware of them, but that that

455
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:09,880
actually doesn't happen.
See what happened was Professor

456
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,720
Maudlin provided an interesting
what he thought of as a counter

457
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,400
example that he thought would
cause problems.

458
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,280
But what what he did was he he
tried to apply the transactional

459
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:24,400
picture effectively to emitters
to something like a charged

460
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,280
particle.
And at the relativistic level

461
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:32,080
that doesn't actually happen.
So, so his his basic premise of

462
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:36,640
what he called a slow moving
offer wave, which is what he he

463
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:41,880
needs this offer wave that he
models incorrectly as as being

464
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,560
able to be propagated at sub
light speed.

465
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,760
And if you actually look at the
physics of the relativistic

466
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:50,920
version development of this, I
mean, it wouldn't even there are

467
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,480
reasons why that wouldn't even
happen in the non relativistic

468
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,600
version, which is out in the
literature, But you'd never get

469
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:58,520
that.
So you can actually never

470
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:03,080
produce the, the slow moving
offer wave that that Professor

471
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,200
Maudlin needs to mount his
counterexample so it never gets

472
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,240
off the ground.
So this is, you know, it's it's

473
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,520
kind of a double edged sword
where it was like it got, it

474
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,560
intrigued me.
And when I read about his

475
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:15,240
objection, it was like, oh,
that's interesting.

476
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,640
Because I mean, I always want to
know if, you know, if there's a

477
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,720
legitimate critique where the
model has a problem.

478
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,920
I'm like, OK, you know, if this
model is crap, I don't want to

479
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,960
waste my time with it, you know,
because I mean, I'm not the kind

480
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,720
of person who's like gets my,
you know, identity invested in a

481
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:34,280
model.
I'm like, this is just an idea.

482
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,920
Like I have other hobbies.
I can play piano and, you know,

483
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,400
get more practicing time in and
I, I mean, I'm working on a

484
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,520
Schubert impromptu that's like
way over my head technically,

485
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,240
but I love it.
So anyway, like I'm not wet into

486
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,360
this model and if someone shows
me it's crap, great, you know,

487
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,480
I'm done.
But what happens is people, you

488
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,720
know, that the, like the, the
model and objection it, it

489
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,720
grabbed my attention.
I thought, OK, let's see what's

490
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,200
going on here.
And for one thing that it

491
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:06,680
didn't, his objection violates
the sort of a complete set of

492
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:09,800
absorber condition that you need
in the 1st place to even have a

493
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:12,840
transaction.
But but at the relativistic

494
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:17,320
level, again, you never get the
tools he needs to mount it.

495
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:21,160
So, you know, for some reason he
hasn't noticed the you know

496
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:26,280
that, that and, and you get, you
get kind of an inertia

497
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,480
established in the lore where
people continue to think

498
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,440
something's a problem long after
it's been shown to be.

499
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:36,280
Now that was just a nice tribe,
but no, thank you for playing.

500
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:41,680
And no, it it's not a problem,
you know, So that's that's one

501
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,880
issue that that you know that
that it's it's kind of part of

502
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:50,720
the sociology of doing physics
where it's sometimes hard for

503
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,520
people to judge whether, you
know, what the state of the

504
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,520
debate is.
But but the current state of the

505
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,560
debate is no, the model and
objection doesn't get off the

506
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:01,800
ground.
Yeah, I think that, I mean,

507
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:03,120
that's the beauty behind
physics.

508
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,320
I mean, science and philosophy
in general is that it's great

509
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:08,640
when people interact and engage
because it allows you then to

510
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,480
further unpack your ideas.
So.

511
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:12,560
Absolutely, if it.
Doesn't get off the ground, it

512
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,520
still allows you to to make up
objections that provides you

513
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:18,440
with further backup.
So it's it's only a win.

514
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:20,240
Sure, sure.
Yeah.

515
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,360
And I welcomed that, you know,
and I, I mean, I, I welcome it

516
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,880
when someone says, hey, you
know, I'm not sure how this

517
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:27,360
would work.
And usually when they do that,

518
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,320
I, I go, yeah, that's
interesting.

519
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,560
And I've actually find something
new about the model that that

520
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:37,400
reveals that how fruitful it is.
You know, So I always, I always

521
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,320
appreciate when people engage.
That's the same thing that

522
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,640
happens on this podcast when
when we read through the

523
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,440
comments, sift through it and we
see some of the objections and

524
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:47,400
even the agreements that people
have with the guest.

525
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,760
You sometimes read some of the
most amazing and sometimes

526
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:52,840
essays.
So people type out full length

527
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,200
essays as a comment.
You go through it and at first

528
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:57,080
you're sort of skeptical, but
once you reach the end, you kind

529
00:30:57,080 --> 00:30:59,520
of like, actually this is
something that you've got to

530
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,440
think about and often forward it
to the guest is to see if this

531
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:04,160
helps them further their
knowledge.

532
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:06,920
And more than often it does.
So hopefully that happens in

533
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:11,720
this episode.
Ruth, does your view require us

534
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,320
to accept retro causality, or is
that just a misunderstanding?

535
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:20,600
Well, it, this term retro
causality is so ambiguous, I'm

536
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:25,120
afraid, you know, so, so I think
the problem is that people often

537
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:29,680
the, the first thing we think of
is stuff going backward in time,

538
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,920
like literally in time, because
we, we think that everything

539
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:38,160
happens in space-time.
But, but actually, so retro

540
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,800
causation, you know, you have to
really say what you mean by it.

541
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:48,480
And, and if one's trying to say
that things are literally there

542
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:52,280
are processes going forward in a
space-time container and

543
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:55,240
backward in a space-time
container, that actually turns

544
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,320
out to be inconsistent.
Because if you really think that

545
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:04,080
there are events from, you know,
T = 0 all the way to Omega, then

546
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,120
that's a block world.
It's a static ontology.

547
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,080
All the events are there.
And it, it's meaningless to talk

548
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:13,720
about stuff moving around in it.
You know it.

549
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:17,400
And I have a paper on that that
I can offer to people in the

550
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,840
comments later, But I, I very,
have a very explicit paper where

551
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,760
I say, if that's what you mean
by retro causality, then that

552
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,320
it's meaningless.
There's if if you want to assume

553
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:32,160
that that space-time is complete
as a set of events from t = 0 to

554
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,240
T equals whatever your end of
time is, you know, which is

555
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,720
relativistically suspect anyway
because it picks out a a

556
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,800
preferred reference ring.
But if you want to say that,

557
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:46,960
then you know you're just doing
flip stuff if you want to talk

558
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,200
about things moving because it's
a narrative that it's like icing

559
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,000
on a little cake and you get
this narrative about stuff

560
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,600
moving around when your own
ontology is static.

561
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,760
So that's so that's form of
retrocausation is meaningless.

562
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,800
On the other hand, if you've got
possibilities that you know in

563
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:07,760
the quantum substratum, then
then you have you can have

564
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:12,080
processes that don't have a
determinate temporal direction

565
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,360
because because the notion of
time in terms of a real metrical

566
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,760
quantity, it is not defined at
the quantum level.

567
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:21,680
And this is already kind of
known.

568
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,960
There are people who show that
that the idea of seek time

569
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,080
sequences at the quantum level
turns out to you, you can't have

570
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,040
a well defined sequence of
events if they're all just at

571
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:35,280
the quantum level.
So, so in that sense, and that's

572
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:39,520
where the, the idea of retro
causality becomes more one of,

573
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:45,720
you know, no commitment to
temporal progression in the

574
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,840
sense of any determinate events.
And that's in keeping with the

575
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,920
idea of this, this metaphysical
domain or this domain of

576
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,400
possibility because it what
happens is you have, you can

577
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:00,840
have processes, but they don't
have, again, they don't have

578
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:05,240
well defined temporal direction.
And that emerges, the temporal

579
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:10,320
direction of space-time emerges
by way of actualizations.

580
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,639
And we have together with a
colleague of mine, Andrea

581
00:34:13,639 --> 00:34:17,520
Schlatter, we have quantified
that and we do have a theory of

582
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:22,159
emergent space-time and that
derives the Einstein equations

583
00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:24,280
and so on.
So that's a publication that's

584
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,320
out there.
So for anyone who wants the

585
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:32,120
technical details, you know,
like this retro causality or is

586
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,560
there that it's kind of all
there in that publication where

587
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:37,960
you know, no, I mean there are
just possibilities that are

588
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:42,159
interacting and then we get
temporal symmetry breaking out

589
00:34:42,159 --> 00:34:45,639
when we get the space-time
actualization.

590
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,000
Yeah, I'll put links to that in
in the.

591
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,440
Video.
Well, Ruth and, and, and I was

592
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,000
just about to go there.
I was going to, I was going to

593
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,840
talk about the fact that in your
work you eventually go from

594
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:57,800
quantum events into space-time
being emergent.

595
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,880
And then I wanted to ask, how
can you explain how transactions

596
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,160
could give rise to space-time
and thereafter, what does that

597
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:09,280
mean for how we understand
continuity, causality, and then

598
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:11,640
perhaps even moving on to
consciousness itself?

599
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,400
OK, well, of course there's a
lot of technical content in

600
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,120
there and you know, and people
who want to see all those

601
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,560
technical details can can look
at the publications.

602
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:29,080
I guess the way to think of it
is as again actualization of

603
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,760
when you have a quantum
measurement which is which is

604
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:33,960
well defined in the
transactional picture and it's a

605
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:37,680
non unitary process.
It's basically this process of a

606
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:42,080
mutual emitter absorber
interaction that, that Kramer

607
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:46,520
called absorber response.
OK, but it's, but it's really a

608
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:50,840
mutual interaction and you get,
you get this transition from a

609
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:56,000
quantum pure state to what's
called a mixed state.

610
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,040
And this is for people who want
to, who know the von Neumann

611
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,920
formulation.
This is von Neumann's process 1.

612
00:36:02,720 --> 00:36:04,960
So you get this, we have the
physics behind that.

613
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,240
And when you get this
transition, there's there's a

614
00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:12,200
step at which you have
reduction, you have a form of

615
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:14,240
spontaneous symmetry breaking,
if you will.

616
00:36:14,240 --> 00:36:17,120
So you go from what's called a
mixed state to a particular

617
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,480
outcome.
So this this is the

618
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:23,680
actualization of certain
space-time events.

619
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:27,200
So what it does is it
establishes an emitter event,

620
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:32,600
emission event, which is the
emitting atom, say really emits

621
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,680
A photon.
And this is this is an event.

622
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,000
So we define this as a
space-time event.

623
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:43,600
Then we have the absorber that
receives that photon is a.

624
00:36:43,720 --> 00:36:46,160
We call it the receiving
absorber because you can have

625
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,560
more than one responding and
they don't all receive that

626
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:51,520
photon.
Since it could go to many

627
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,920
different absorbers. 1 absorber
sort of wins this competition.

628
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:59,280
It receives that energy that
constitutes an absorption event.

629
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:04,440
And so the emission event, the
absorption event are space-time

630
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,800
elements.
Those are space-time elements.

631
00:37:07,240 --> 00:37:10,360
And then the connection between
them is that transferred photon

632
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,560
and that constitutes that what
we call a null interval.

633
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,920
It's a, you know, that the space
spatial and temporal

634
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:20,560
displacements are the same
basically.

635
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,000
So that's, so that's what
constitutes space-time.

636
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,640
It's just events, emission
absorption events and their

637
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:29,920
connections.
And, and so it's not a

638
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:33,240
container, you know, and, and
it's really just a set of

639
00:37:33,240 --> 00:37:35,280
invariant events.
And this is actually what

640
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:39,360
Einstein himself said, you know,
he said space-time is just, it's

641
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,160
a set of event, what he called
point coincidences.

642
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:45,560
So, so the transaction
formulation very, you know,

643
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:49,560
quantitatively gives you the
physics behind that behind, you

644
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:53,960
know, the, the quantum processes
and their interactions that

645
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,840
yield these actualized events.
It's sort of a creating, if you

646
00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:00,480
will, that tip of the iceberg.
So we've got this submerged

647
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:04,200
portion and when we have these
actualized transactions, we get

648
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:08,280
kind of another chunk of this
tip of the iceberg with its with

649
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:12,200
its attendance structure.
It's, it's, it's intriguing

650
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,840
because as you know, in
philosophy, when you when people

651
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,120
talk about emergentism, there's,
there's going to be a whole

652
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:19,560
bunch of people in the comments,
viewers, anyone listening or

653
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:21,600
watching who's going to say, OK,
but what about those who say

654
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:25,240
reality is an illusion?
We don't really see things for

655
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,800
what they are.
If you've got people like Donald

656
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,480
Hoffman working on the physics
of reality, there's so much we

657
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:32,800
don't know.
How do you come, how do you

658
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,320
argue your point across to these
people or how do you sort of

659
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,400
navigate to this turf?
Yeah.

660
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,160
I mean, that's getting to the,
you know, the metaphysical level

661
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,480
of kind of realism versus anti
realism.

662
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,680
And you know, I guess I kind of
go, look, I'm just a humble

663
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,800
physicist.
I just got a little physical

664
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,200
model here and here's what it
says, you know.

665
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,120
So you know, and I mean, here's
the model now.

666
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:00,200
Now, when I talk about an event,
you know, we, we can say, you

667
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:02,720
know, the physics is very well
defined and I think it has a

668
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,480
good empirical correspondence.
It it answers a lot of questions

669
00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:09,480
about what do we mean by
measurement?

670
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:14,000
So it's it's, it's a physical
theoretical apparatus.

671
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:19,960
Now, given that people are still
have the option of saying, well,

672
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:21,880
I'm not sure these events are
real.

673
00:39:22,240 --> 00:39:24,960
Are they really observer
independent, you know, and you

674
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,880
can ask those questions.
Now what I would say is like

675
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:33,400
you, one can make a case that
that these events, what I just

676
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,800
defined as space-time events are
observer independent in the

677
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:41,920
sense that you know, the atoms
and molecules that are that are

678
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:44,800
engaged these, these constructs,
you know, the, these, their

679
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,920
theoretical constructs.
What we say we think, I think

680
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:49,920
they're referring to something
in the world.

681
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:54,600
One can, one can question that,
but, but given the efficacy of

682
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:56,560
it, this is kind of the
abductive argument, you know,

683
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,400
that I think that, that, that
it's a fruitful model.

684
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:03,360
So let's say if I'm, you know,
talking about a theoretical

685
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:07,440
object, it maybe it exists
'cause it, the theory seems to

686
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:12,120
work, you know, but, but it's,
it's not the the the theory

687
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:15,920
itself, I think demonstrates
that whether or not that real

688
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,880
photon went from this atom to
the other one doesn't depend on

689
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:24,280
what some other atom knows.
You know, it's just, that's the

690
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:28,040
way the theory works.
It seems to be fruitful, right?

691
00:40:28,240 --> 00:40:30,880
So, so again, I mean, I think
it's another level of

692
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:34,480
interpretation about, you know,
what it means for something to

693
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:38,160
be real in this context.
I kind of, I, I go back to the,

694
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:43,120
the, the blind man and the
elephant, you know, so, OK, the,

695
00:40:43,240 --> 00:40:45,800
the, this, the, this, the
wonderful allegory, the blind

696
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,080
man and the elephant.
OK, well, there's an elephant

697
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:51,320
here and we've got all these
blind men and they're, they're

698
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,760
all, they're all dealing with
their own perspectives.

699
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:57,400
They're very partial.
So they're arguing, you know,

700
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:00,000
No, it no, it's the stringy
thing, the guy at the tail that

701
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,080
no, it's not it's a hard thing,
you know, Tusk and they're all

702
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:04,800
arguing and they all hate each
other, right.

703
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:09,360
They're arguing about, you know,
and in fact, it's it's it's it's

704
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,520
one elephant and it's just
amazingly cooler than you

705
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,720
thought.
So this is what I would say

706
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,160
quantum theory is again, a
quantum theory is the elephant.

707
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:20,720
Now when people want to say, oh,
but it's not real, they're

708
00:41:20,720 --> 00:41:22,800
basically saying there isn't
really an elephant.

709
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:28,680
Now I'm saying, well, you can
deny there's an elephant if you

710
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:33,320
want, but it's not required.
It's a it's, it's nothing about

711
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,280
this, this question demands that
you say there's no elephant.

712
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:39,000
You know, that's, that's an
option.

713
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,040
That's like, well, I'm like, why
are you doing that?

714
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:43,640
You know, why can't there be an
elephant?

715
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:46,200
Yeah.
So the so the claim that

716
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:50,000
reality, well possibilities are
ontologically real, I mean for

717
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,000
some people will be considered
quite bold, but which

718
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,200
philosophical traditions would
you or thinkers would you say

719
00:41:56,200 --> 00:42:01,720
resonate most with this idea?
Well, I mean, I think, you know,

720
00:42:01,720 --> 00:42:05,200
certainly Heisenberg was talking
about that.

721
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,600
Now I know Whitehead, Alfred N
Whitehead.

722
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:14,000
I think I'm discovering more
recently about how his, his

723
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:18,280
metaphysical views, I think are
very much in tune with, with the

724
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:21,320
way I see, you know, the
transactional formulation.

725
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:26,320
He he had very much an idea of,
of becoming, you know, that,

726
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,600
that there's a process of
becoming and conquest.

727
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:34,880
And so so things come from a, a
more possible kind of potential

728
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:39,960
status and, and become more,
more concretized in a real

729
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:43,080
process.
So I guess those are the two I

730
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:44,920
think that would mainly come to
mind.

731
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,760
I mean, one thing I distinguish
my approach from is is the sort

732
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:54,680
of Louisian possible worlds,
because this isn't about saying,

733
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:57,360
you know, well, this could be
true in some possible world, but

734
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,960
it's not, it's not a semantic
notion of, of truth and how to

735
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,560
define truth with respect to,
you know, possible worlds.

736
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:09,960
So there's a strong modal
tradition that that presupposes

737
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,160
that all talk of possibility
always must be translatable to

738
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,520
Louisian possible worlds.
And I reject that.

739
00:43:16,240 --> 00:43:17,960
So, you know, I'm not talking
about possible worlds.

740
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:22,760
I'm talking about a world that
that has an aspect of

741
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:28,680
possibility to it.
Yeah, the we, we spoke about.

742
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,280
So, so this emerges from these
quantum levels.

743
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,640
And thereafter there's another
phenomenon that we all have to

744
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,160
try and explain.
And more often than not, quantum

745
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,520
mechanics and consciousness.
I mean, two things people really

746
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:43,080
don't, they try to understand,
most fall fall down trying to do

747
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,360
so.
And, and, and what many

748
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,440
philosophers believe is that
when you can't explain

749
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,000
consciousness, people have to
bring quantum mechanics into it

750
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:52,320
too, sort of explain it even
less.

751
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:54,240
What's your views on
consciousness?

752
00:43:54,240 --> 00:43:56,840
I love the way you said that.
That's perfect.

753
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:58,840
Explain it even less.
Thank you.

754
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:01,320
What are you?
I'll hold up my cigarette

755
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:02,680
lighter to that.
Yeah.

756
00:44:02,720 --> 00:44:04,120
Yeah.
No, it's just, I mean, this

757
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:08,120
whole thing about consciousness,
I mean, OK.

758
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:10,280
I take consciousness very
seriously.

759
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:12,480
And I, you know, I've argued in
some of my other, you know,

760
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:15,120
presentations that it is
fundamental.

761
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:19,080
I, I had an early conversation
with, with Kurt Gymungal and I

762
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,160
think I said something like
consciousness is more

763
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:23,840
fundamental than any physical
theory.

764
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,840
And somehow it got translated as
more real than, and it's not

765
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,160
really what I said, but, but it
is fundamental.

766
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:32,400
You know, it's a fact of our
existence.

767
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,320
And I, and I think anyone who,
you know, denies that is kind of

768
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,360
like self refuting.
But but the thing about quantum

769
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,160
theory is, is consciousness got
brought in kind of as a Band-Aid

770
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:45,440
for the measurement problem.
So in a nutshell, when when

771
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,400
people started to talk about,
you know, psychophysical

772
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,400
parallelism and which I think
von Neumann did, and because

773
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:54,800
because he couldn't tell you
what a measurement was.

774
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:58,320
So that was a defect of the
conventional physics of the

775
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:01,520
theory that doesn't have the
right field behavior and can't

776
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:04,400
tell you why you get non
unitarity, can't tell you why

777
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,120
you ever get an outcome.
And so people would go, Oh,

778
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:09,000
well, maybe it's my mind doing
it.

779
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:11,880
You know, I mean, to me that's
like, Oh my God, please, you

780
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:16,400
know, oh, you know, so, so
that's like a disservice, as you

781
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,280
said, that's a disservice to
physics, to quantum theory and

782
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,480
to the study of consciousness so
that, you know, I don't, don't

783
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:29,920
not to be too, you know, you
know, not to be too negative and

784
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:31,760
snarky about it.
I did.

785
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:36,280
I do think that was kind of an
unfortunate recourse, desperate

786
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,960
recourse to use consciousness as
a Band-Aid.

787
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:42,240
And, and it's really doesn't
work, you know, so, so

788
00:45:42,240 --> 00:45:44,960
consciousness deserves a much
more serious study.

789
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:49,720
And I mean, I, I just think that
I personally think that that

790
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,600
what we first need to, to take
into account about consciousness

791
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:57,680
is that it is fundamentally
receptive, fundamentally

792
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:00,200
receptive.
Like if you're not receptive,

793
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,240
then you're not conscious.
And I think what, what a

794
00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:06,840
limitation we get into in the
kind of the Western mindset is,

795
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:10,080
is it's all about doing stuff,
you know, it's very, to put in

796
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:15,280
terms of Taoism, it's very much
Yang versus yin, you know, and,

797
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,120
and So what I've argued is, you
know, the basic features of

798
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:21,760
consciousness are yin, like
they're receptive, they are

799
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:27,560
responsive, they are
identifying, taking into

800
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,680
account.
And I think that's where we need

801
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,720
to start.
And I, I guess I kind of feel

802
00:46:32,720 --> 00:46:35,320
like we're not starting from the
right place when we try to study

803
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:39,000
consciousness.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's one

804
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,600
of those topics that people
never seem to agree upon.

805
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:46,000
But when, when you think of the
mind body problem and, and your

806
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:48,200
work and what you've gathered
about the universe, the

807
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:51,160
understanding of the structure
of reality, what, what do you

808
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:52,960
think about the mind body
problem in general?

809
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:57,880
Is there a problem or where,
where does your body lie with

810
00:46:57,880 --> 00:46:58,120
us?
Yeah.

811
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:03,600
I think it comes out of the the
implicit Cartesian dualism that

812
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,880
that we think that we think
there's this dumb dead matter

813
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:10,800
stuff that cart that Descartes
said was pure extension.

814
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,360
And we assume that he that
that's what there is because

815
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:16,320
Descartes said so.
And he's a smart, he was a smart

816
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:18,280
guy.
You know what we Oh well, yeah,

817
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:20,240
matter has to be this dead
stuff.

818
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,480
And then we and then mind, we
obviously know that a mind is

819
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:29,800
very much alive and it's, you
know, OK, so yeah, those things

820
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,840
are not going to interact.
End of story, you know, so, so

821
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:36,800
if you start from Cartesian
dualism, you're at a dead end

822
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,160
and Cartesian, you know, dead
ended there.

823
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:43,560
So I mean, what I would say is,
is we really have to have kind

824
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:47,560
of a more monistic metaphysics
set that that comes into our

825
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:52,880
bones that where we aren't
defaulting into but but there's

826
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:55,960
dead stuff around me, you know,
because, because that that's

827
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,680
really an illusion.
I would say that's illusory.

828
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,240
It, it kind of looks like like
that.

829
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,160
But again, you know, I think at
the quantum level, if we, if we

830
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:08,160
take seriously this idea that
there is this vibrant

831
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:13,320
possibility that's real, then
the physics itself doesn't

832
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:17,080
actually have a mind body
problem, you know, And it, it,

833
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:19,320
it, it's sort of like, well,
where is mind?

834
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:20,920
You know, what do we mean by
mind?

835
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:23,880
Well, I don't pretend to know
and I don't pretend to have a

836
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:26,640
specific theory of that.
But if you do look at the

837
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:30,080
quantum level, and if you take
it seriously as as an existent,

838
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:35,000
as an ontological existent, it,
it does kind of have mind like

839
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:39,600
properties in a sense of seeming
more abstract, seeming like, you

840
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:44,240
know, it's not something that
that is concrete and, and it's,

841
00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:48,280
it's not explicated.
It's not, you know, phenomenal

842
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,200
in the sense of being, you know,
like a hunk of stuff that I can

843
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:54,280
touch.
So, so there are aspects to the

844
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:56,720
quantum level.
I think that if we understand in

845
00:48:56,720 --> 00:49:00,680
terms of possibilities that that
can at least give us a way to

846
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:07,840
enter into, is this a place that
consciousness is or comes from

847
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:10,480
just at the quantum level?
We know we don't need to

848
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:13,640
preclude it in our physics in
the 1st place.

849
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,760
And then we don't have a problem
with, you know, things we have

850
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,200
defined as as completely
different and then saying, well,

851
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:24,520
they can't interact.
If they're not really different,

852
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,760
you know, intrinsically
different in the 1st place, then

853
00:49:28,720 --> 00:49:31,040
maybe there's less of a
challenge that way.

854
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:33,920
Yeah, I mean, we're talking
about consciousness.

855
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:35,640
I can't help but ask about free
will.

856
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:37,440
How?
I mean, you've explored times

857
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:41,480
arrow, so how how does a time
symmetric picture affect our

858
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:44,440
sense of whether the future is
open or fixed?

859
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:47,440
Yeah.
Well it of course the time

860
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:51,120
symmetry is really on this level
of possibility where where there

861
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:55,280
is no defined event, you know
event that there are no defined

862
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:58,360
events.
And so this is really where, you

863
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:02,880
know, the potentiality for free
will, I think comes, comes to us

864
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:09,440
because if there is, you know,
these possibilities that it is,

865
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:13,520
it is not determined which one
is going to occur.

866
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,440
Now we call that random, but
that's kind of a, a misleading

867
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:22,040
word because it implies
meaningless, mindless, it

868
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:24,720
implies that there can be no
reason.

869
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,360
And so it's a tendentious term.
So what I like to say is it's,

870
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:32,680
it's not determined the physics,
if you only look at the physics,

871
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:37,240
the physics does not determine
which outcome occurs, but but

872
00:50:37,240 --> 00:50:42,520
the physics in terms of the, the
mathematically quantifiable

873
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:45,880
aspects need not be the whole
story.

874
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:50,760
So, so in fact, this is an entry
point for, for free will, for

875
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,120
volition to act.
And in fact, even Heisenberg

876
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:57,040
talked about this, you know,
where he said it's almost as if

877
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:00,960
when you have an experiment
that, that the, the, the, the

878
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:04,920
objects in the experiment are
making a decision at some point

879
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:09,440
whether to have to, to express
this outcome or another one.

880
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,680
Because the theory itself, the
quantitative aspects of the

881
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:16,160
theory don't tell you, you know,
what's going to happen.

882
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:18,960
And so there's room for, for
volition there.

883
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,360
And in fact, you can even argue
that volition might be required

884
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:24,280
in order to get anything to
happen.

885
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:27,720
And I have a publication that
addresses this whole issue.

886
00:51:27,720 --> 00:51:30,480
It's called the Born Rule and
free will because some people

887
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,360
like to argue that the board
that we're slaves to the quantum

888
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:36,040
probabilities, you know, and
that that does that argument

889
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:40,000
doesn't really hold.
Yeah, because it's either that

890
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,360
it's fully deterministic or the
fact that it's random.

891
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:44,760
It also just doesn't exist.
So it's an.

892
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:47,240
Either it doesn't exist from
this end, or it doesn't exist

893
00:51:47,240 --> 00:51:49,520
from that end.
Yeah, and that's the case.

894
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:53,040
That's again an example of the
false dichotomy where people

895
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:55,080
kind of bank a lot on this term
random.

896
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,640
And it's an abuse of of, no,
it's mathematically

897
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:00,120
indeterminate.
That's all.

898
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,560
You can't tell me you can't.
You can't go further and say

899
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:05,880
therefore you can't do anything.
So it's a kind of a way of

900
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:09,280
smuggling in one's point without
actually having made it.

901
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,640
You mentioned moving towards
this monist view when we're

902
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:15,200
discussing consciousness and
beyond physics.

903
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:17,040
You're also a certified yoga
instructor.

904
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:22,160
And do practices like yoga and
mindfulness inform how you think

905
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:26,240
about quantum foundations,
embodiment, non duality?

906
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:31,920
How does it affect you?
Yeah, well, I mean, I, I did the

907
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:35,160
the yoga thing fairly recently,
later in life.

908
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:38,760
And, you know, and I guess it's,
I view it as kind of

909
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:44,000
complementary, I guess the
learning more about, about the

910
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:48,240
yogic tradition and the, the
philosophical ideas that

911
00:52:48,240 --> 00:52:52,720
underlie the yogic tradition.
I I was trained by a school that

912
00:52:52,720 --> 00:52:56,800
specializes in bhakti yoga, the
way of love.

913
00:52:56,800 --> 00:53:00,080
And so it was a very different,
you know, exposure.

914
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:03,760
I mean, we also did the, you
know, the stuff with your body

915
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:06,240
where I like destroyed my
shoulder because I didn't have

916
00:53:06,240 --> 00:53:08,440
enough arm strength to handle
it.

917
00:53:08,720 --> 00:53:11,640
But, you know, so we do, we do
the physical aspects, but it's

918
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:16,640
very much grounded in, you know,
what I would say made me more

919
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:21,840
aware of this notion of
consciousness as receptivity as,

920
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,760
as, you know, being open to
possibility.

921
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:29,640
And that that's again, kind of
where I think the idea of

922
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:35,720
possibility is so inevitable in
terms of talking about

923
00:53:35,720 --> 00:53:39,560
consciousness.
Is this, you know, in, in yoga,

924
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:41,760
we have this idea of holding
space.

925
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,040
It's term called holding space.
And now when you're having a

926
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:50,560
class, you're basically giving
per people permission to, to be

927
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:53,840
where they are and not do
anything.

928
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:59,080
And, and it's a way of, of being
present, you know, I guess as

929
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:03,200
Eckhart Tolle would say, and,
and be being aware of the

930
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,960
present moment and, and that,
you know, kind of really

931
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:10,320
harmonizes with really what I
think quantum theory is telling

932
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:12,120
us from a very different
direction.

933
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:17,160
It is that the present moment is
where everything is.

934
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:20,840
The present moment is where all
the quantum possibilities are.

935
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:24,600
And so you know that that very
much harmonized with it.

936
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:27,880
And I think we often get more
into, you know, this kind of

937
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:31,880
space-time way of thinking where
where the the present moment is

938
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,480
nowhere to be found.
And all there is is the past and

939
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:38,640
the future that our mind has
created, you know, as as some

940
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:41,520
idea.
And then we then we live in that

941
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:43,720
idea.
And, you know, where we choose

942
00:54:43,720 --> 00:54:48,240
to live in what we think of as
this little space-time box that

943
00:54:48,240 --> 00:54:50,880
we've invented conceptually for
ourselves, but that doesn't

944
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:53,280
really exist.
And so I think that's what

945
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:57,120
quantum theory is really trying
to tell us, that there's a whole

946
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:00,080
lot more than you know, to
reality than what we call

947
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:05,200
space-time.
It's, it's, it's exciting to to

948
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:08,240
see someone speak about this so
passionately and it's admirable

949
00:55:08,240 --> 00:55:09,920
to watch from my side while
listening to that.

950
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,560
I almost felt like I was in a,
in a bit of a session there.

951
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:13,960
I mean, be present at the
moment.

952
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,000
I could feel it.
I was part of.

953
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:19,560
Oh, I'm glad.
Well, I mean, I had good yoga

954
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:21,600
teachers.
They, they embodied that, you

955
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:25,720
know, they, they embodied, they
taught us well how to hold space

956
00:55:25,720 --> 00:55:29,680
and, you know, just give people.
This is, this is the main thing

957
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:33,080
about yoga and of course,
breathing, you know, being aware

958
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:35,600
of your breath, which is very
fundamental.

959
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:39,560
And it's, it's part of tuning
into where everything is,

960
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:44,320
everything is, is here and now.
The Tell me, Ruth, when when you

961
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:48,400
look back at your life within
the academic journey, physics,

962
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:53,000
philosophy, yoga, whatever it
might be, how do you now

963
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:57,360
approach the foundational
questions of reality when you

964
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:00,960
put all.
Yeah, I, you know, I try to let

965
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,240
all these different areas inform
me.

966
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,120
You know, I mean, I'm, I'm, I, I
guess I'm interdisciplinary.

967
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:09,120
So I really think that's
important.

968
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:12,720
I think that we get that.
That's where we get fruitfulness

969
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:16,920
by by not putting ideas into
separate little boxes, you know,

970
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:20,160
categorized in a certain way
because I think there is a

971
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:24,320
wholeness to reality.
And so I think that we do, we do

972
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:28,040
better if we let you know
different, different areas of,

973
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:34,680
of thought and behavior and
ideas and inspiration guide us.

974
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,920
You know, so I mean, I'm also a
musician, you know, I, I should

975
00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:41,560
have studied piano when I was
little, but I make trying to

976
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:45,680
make up for it later in life.
So I mean, you know, Schubert is

977
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:51,480
my current inspiration.
And so just the emotional

978
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:55,720
turbulence of, of, of this piece
I'm working on is this

979
00:56:55,720 --> 00:56:57,320
impromptu.
I'm like, Oh yeah, you know,

980
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:00,360
there's this, this turbulence,
nature's turbulence, there's all

981
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:03,280
this action going on.
And, and it reminds me, you

982
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:06,560
know, it, it gives me a new
critical way to explore that the

983
00:57:06,560 --> 00:57:09,920
Western approach to science,
which is that know everything

984
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:14,600
better, be static, you know, and
it, it's very much a normative

985
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:18,960
finger wagging, you know, kind
of metaphysics that, that I

986
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:20,880
think we need to, to free
ourselves from.

987
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:23,840
So it, it inspires me to kind
of, you know, shake things up a

988
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:26,680
bit.
And, and I think we all do Well,

989
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:29,880
you know, I mean, it's I guess
Ralph Waldo Emerson has this

990
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:33,120
great quote and I forget which
book it was in, but he says

991
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:37,160
people just desire or strive to
be comfortable.

992
00:57:37,360 --> 00:57:39,920
It is only when they are
uncomfortable that there's any

993
00:57:39,920 --> 00:57:44,320
hope for them.
So, you know, and I think that's

994
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:47,480
also comes out of yoga too, is,
you know, OK, you're feeling a

995
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,720
little during this tree pose and
you're that's a fault, you know,

996
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:53,200
and it's, it's uncomfortable,
but play with it.

997
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:56,280
Play with it and find your
strength.

998
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:58,800
Find it you have more strength
than you thought you did.

999
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:02,480
So, so that that kind of
inspires me too, you know, these

1000
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:06,320
different areas.
What are the most exciting open

1001
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:10,400
questions in the foundations of
quantum theory today, or even in

1002
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:12,680
the transactional
interpretation?

1003
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:20,240
Well, you know, I think we're,
we're getting close to really in

1004
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:22,960
some of the these issues about
you know, cosmology and the

1005
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:25,080
so-called dark energy and dark
matter.

1006
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:28,920
Those are exciting questions.
And you know, together with my

1007
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:32,480
colleague Andreas who, who is
the general relativity expert, I

1008
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:37,360
give him due credit for that.
We, we are, we're pretty excited

1009
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:40,840
that what we're seeing from the
development of our model is

1010
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:43,840
really shedding a lot of light
on these issues where we're

1011
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:49,760
getting some fundamental basis
for, you know, what we call dark

1012
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:53,040
energy and, and the behavior of
galaxies and so on.

1013
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:57,120
And we're excited to pursue, you
know, the further implications

1014
00:58:57,120 --> 00:58:59,600
there.
There was, I, I presented

1015
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:04,640
recently at the Lake Como
conference in, in Italy on these

1016
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:07,760
issues of dark matter and so on.
And there are a lot of young

1017
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:10,960
people there, graduate students
and postdocs who, who are doing

1018
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:14,600
some great work on, you know,
just really good science like

1019
00:59:14,600 --> 00:59:18,920
gravitational lensing that lets
you see, you know, what, what's

1020
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:23,280
really going on with the
gravitational influences on, on

1021
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:27,000
matter, on what we can see and,
and the bending of light around

1022
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:29,320
galaxies.
And they can actually model

1023
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:32,840
different, different
theoretical, you know, proposals

1024
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:37,000
for how, how light is affected
by different gravitational

1025
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:39,240
theories.
So we're going to get some more,

1026
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:42,680
you know, possibly observational
ways of, of looking at the

1027
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:46,120
implications of our theory and
comparing with what we're seeing

1028
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:49,240
out there in the in the
observational realm.

1029
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:51,880
So I'm excited about that.
Well, well, that's super

1030
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:54,400
exciting because when we started
this conversation, that was one

1031
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:57,280
of the fundamental problems you
seem to be encountering right

1032
00:59:57,280 --> 00:59:59,800
now.
Is, is is due to the

1033
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:02,800
unreasonable acceptance
effectiveness of quantum

1034
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:04,680
mechanics?
Yeah, but you don't have enough

1035
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:06,760
data to show people.
And if the more you come up with

1036
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:08,840
at this point, the better it's
going to be.

1037
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:12,080
So it seems like things are all
working out to an actualization

1038
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:16,080
that seems to be headed there.
Yes, yes, I think that if we

1039
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:19,960
can't, you know, our model is
our model needs more, more

1040
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:23,440
refinement at that level because
right now it's it's very, you

1041
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:26,480
know, it's a simple model, it's
a models galaxies that's like a

1042
01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:29,840
giant point mass and so on.
So to get something that's

1043
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:33,680
really more specific, we have to
get get more details and more

1044
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:36,080
refinement.
But but given that we may be

1045
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:40,480
able to really see, you know,
some some clear new predictions

1046
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:45,840
of our model that that will be,
you know, I think more exciting

1047
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:47,920
for people than just saying,
look, I've solved all these

1048
01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:49,400
problems, why aren't you
impressed?

1049
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:54,920
To anyone watching this or
listening and who might want to

1050
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:58,600
take on this, this project and
go along with it, go along with

1051
01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:03,320
it, with you, sorry on it, What,
which authors do you recommend?

1052
01:01:03,320 --> 01:01:04,560
Who are your favorite
scientists?

1053
01:01:04,560 --> 01:01:07,360
Who are those people in terms of
philosophers and scientists who

1054
01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:10,440
have paved the way for you and
you highly recommend to others?

1055
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:16,160
Well, I would have to point to
Alfred N Whitehead, you know, as

1056
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:21,720
as a kind of alternative and I
think really fruitful proposal

1057
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:24,720
that that it was really got
sidelined in physics because it

1058
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:27,800
had this sort of, you know,
organic quality that I think

1059
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:31,120
didn't fit well with that, you
know, that dead matter paradigm.

1060
01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:34,280
And I would definitely, you
know, say he, he, he didn't get

1061
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:36,840
a fair shake.
And I mean, some, you know, some

1062
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:40,880
aspects of of his specific
proposals I think have been

1063
01:01:41,440 --> 01:01:44,440
surpassed in certain ways.
But the basic metaphysics, I

1064
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:47,000
think is very potent.
And he has this concept of

1065
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:51,920
prehension that that that
physical physics needs to take

1066
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:55,160
into account prehension, which
again is a more receptive mode

1067
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:58,240
of being.
So he's, you know, he's kind of

1068
01:01:58,240 --> 01:02:01,680
my hero right now.
And Ludwig Boltzmann is, is

1069
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:06,680
another hero of mine because he
really did the physics at a time

1070
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:10,080
when people were kind of falling
back into their own version of

1071
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:13,040
shut up and calculate, which was
what Mach was doing.

1072
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:16,360
Mach had some great ideas too.
I mean, the Machian idea of, you

1073
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:19,920
know, of, of inertia, I think
has Andreas and I have written

1074
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:24,000
about that.
But but the creativity, the the

1075
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:27,680
physical creativity of saying,
hey, let's imagine, you know,

1076
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:30,480
what might be going on here and
see what physics we get out of

1077
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:34,080
it and what it might imply.
I think Boltzmann really, really

1078
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:39,960
represents that in Heisenberg,
the early Heisenberg before he

1079
01:02:39,960 --> 01:02:43,120
got bore eyes.
Sorry.

1080
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:46,240
I mean, you know, obviously
Niels Bohr was a great

1081
01:02:46,240 --> 01:02:48,920
physicist, but I do have a
critique of how he kind of fell

1082
01:02:48,920 --> 01:02:52,120
off into instrumentalism.
But the early Heisenberg, I

1083
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:55,160
think what again with with
understanding that there's some

1084
01:02:55,160 --> 01:02:58,160
kind of form of potentiality
going on here.

1085
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:00,800
So I think those are my main
heroes.

1086
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:03,960
One of my questions I actually
forgot to ask you was about the

1087
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:05,920
debate between realism and
instrumentalism.

1088
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,520
But yeah, you can see where you
can already see how that sort of

1089
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:12,960
happens.
Yeah, I mean, I think I have to

1090
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:15,400
say, I think instrumentalism is
a bit of a cop out.

1091
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:18,080
I mean, you know, it's, it's
people saying, you know, you

1092
01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:20,960
shouldn't ask the kinds of
questions that Ludwig Boltzmann

1093
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:24,480
did and and resolved so
brilliantly and gave us

1094
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:28,920
statistical mechanics, atomic
physics, you know, everything We

1095
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:32,840
we got most of modern physics
from Boltzmann back when people

1096
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:35,000
were telling him he should be an
instrumentalist.

1097
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:39,240
So to me, that's the key counter
example, you know, whenever

1098
01:03:39,240 --> 01:03:43,760
you're saying, oh, this theory
is simply an instrument to make

1099
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:46,440
predictions with, you're, you're
kind of just not doing science

1100
01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:50,760
anymore in my, in my view.
And then finally, Ruth, when if

1101
01:03:50,760 --> 01:03:54,320
someone's looking to go into
this, into trying to study your

1102
01:03:54,320 --> 01:03:58,480
own work and moving further with
your work, what which scientists

1103
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:01,920
do you recommend them reading or
pioneers in the field?

1104
01:04:04,400 --> 01:04:07,320
Well, I mean, I guess you know,
as an introduction to the

1105
01:04:07,320 --> 01:04:11,560
transactional formulation, I
would say for for the layperson,

1106
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:15,400
the the book I wrote in 2015,
Understanding our Unseen

1107
01:04:15,400 --> 01:04:18,760
reality, solving Quantum Riddles
is kind of the introduction and

1108
01:04:18,760 --> 01:04:20,880
that talks about, you know,
Kramers version.

1109
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:24,360
I mean, Kramer did have the
insight, I think in linking the,

1110
01:04:24,880 --> 01:04:27,800
the Wheeler, Feynman, the
absorber theory to quantum

1111
01:04:27,800 --> 01:04:29,120
theory.
So he definitely is the

1112
01:04:29,120 --> 01:04:32,720
progenitor of that.
But I mean, I, I've departed

1113
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:37,600
from certain aspects of his
approach in, in elaborating it

1114
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:40,560
and in, in the relativistic
domain and so on.

1115
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:43,760
And in the, in my books with
Cambridge University Press, I've

1116
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:46,520
laid that out more the
transactional interpretation of

1117
01:04:46,520 --> 01:04:51,160
quantum theory and then
exploring our unseen reality

1118
01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:55,640
with world scientific is the
follow up, the philosophical

1119
01:04:55,640 --> 01:04:59,640
follow up to understanding our
unseen reality.

1120
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:02,440
So that kind of goes into more
detail about the philosophical

1121
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:04,600
ideas.
So I mean, as far as the

1122
01:05:04,600 --> 01:05:08,800
transactional formulation is, is
concerned, that's those are sort

1123
01:05:08,800 --> 01:05:12,480
of the texts that I would
recommend, yeah.

1124
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:15,840
There's so many different layers
to your work.

1125
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:18,160
And one of the things I actually
forgot to ask about before we

1126
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:22,320
close off was, does does it have
anything to tell us about life?

1127
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:24,800
I mean, we spoke about
consciousness, reality.

1128
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:27,920
What about life?
Yeah.

1129
01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:32,800
You know, life, I mean, I think,
I think it gives us an entry

1130
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:36,800
into, into that, you know, in
the idea of not saying that.

1131
01:05:37,720 --> 01:05:41,760
I think it, my approach would be
that it's a mistake to say that

1132
01:05:41,760 --> 01:05:44,240
life is something that emerges
from dead stuff.

1133
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:46,560
You know, I think that's the
mistake.

1134
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:49,440
So what I'm saying is I think
that, you know, obviously, you

1135
01:05:49,440 --> 01:05:52,320
know, my model is again, it's,
it's a physics model, It's

1136
01:05:52,320 --> 01:05:55,480
physical science.
I don't pretend to have any kind

1137
01:05:55,480 --> 01:05:58,840
of biological insight in the
model itself.

1138
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:01,520
I don't, there's nothing in it
that says here's why you get a

1139
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:05,680
mitochondria, you know, but but
the, the basic metaphysics is,

1140
01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:09,640
is one of possibility.
And I think that that's the key

1141
01:06:09,640 --> 01:06:13,640
is that life ultimately is about
possibility and it's, it's in

1142
01:06:13,640 --> 01:06:17,600
there at the ground floor.
So, so I think the key here is,

1143
01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:20,800
you know, again, that I would
never pretend that I'm giving

1144
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:24,800
you a, a theory of life or, or
that I, you know, that my model

1145
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:28,160
provides a theory of life.
It, it's a starting point that

1146
01:06:28,160 --> 01:06:33,240
that gives us a metaphysics that
opens the door to not preclude

1147
01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:38,880
biology at the basic level.
You know, so this is like Robert

1148
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:44,520
Rosen was a, a, a, a very
accomplished biologist who was

1149
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:47,040
arguing this, you know, that in
some sense we should view

1150
01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:50,280
biology as as a fundamental
science.

1151
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:53,000
And I think that, you know,
that's the idea is, is that

1152
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:57,600
again, we have to question our
usual Cartesian supposition.

1153
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:00,320
It's there's dead matter, you
know, I don't think there's any

1154
01:07:00,320 --> 01:07:02,440
dead matter.
I think that that, you know, an

1155
01:07:02,440 --> 01:07:07,560
electron has the potentiality as
a seed of life, you know, and I

1156
01:07:07,560 --> 01:07:10,800
don't, I don't claim to know
how, but again, that's it's a,

1157
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:13,880
it's a fundamental thing.
And it goes further into that

1158
01:07:13,880 --> 01:07:17,120
philosophical mind, that shift.
And that's why why Ted's

1159
01:07:17,120 --> 01:07:21,240
becoming so catchy for you is
because that process, that that

1160
01:07:21,280 --> 01:07:23,880
process philosophy is very much
ingrained into this thinking,

1161
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:26,080
which you can see why, right,
It's fine.

1162
01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:27,840
So.
Well, yes, right.

1163
01:07:27,840 --> 01:07:29,640
Yes, I think that's very
Whiteheadian.

1164
01:07:29,640 --> 01:07:33,120
You know that we don't, we don't
preclude these kinds of

1165
01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:35,440
processes that that are
lifelike.

1166
01:07:35,920 --> 01:07:38,680
We don't we we allow them at the
very foundation.

1167
01:07:39,960 --> 01:07:44,680
When to to end of a Ruth we
spoke about life now what about

1168
01:07:44,680 --> 01:07:47,280
the meaning of life, how you
view fundamentally can shift and

1169
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:51,280
change someone's life and your
view on the purpose of reality,

1170
01:07:51,280 --> 01:07:52,800
the universe.
If there is some sort of a

1171
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:56,320
Telus?
Oh, Gee, yeah.

1172
01:07:56,360 --> 01:07:58,680
I wouldn't pretend.
I wouldn't pretend to know.

1173
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:01,640
I mean, you know, I think, I
think that's where that's kind

1174
01:08:01,640 --> 01:08:04,160
of an very individual thing.
Yeah.

1175
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:06,640
Let's hear about like I.
Version of it, yeah, yeah.

1176
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:10,240
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think
for me, you know, think things

1177
01:08:10,240 --> 01:08:15,880
just feel meaningful for me, in
my own experience, I find

1178
01:08:15,880 --> 01:08:19,520
certain things meaningful, you
know, like I, I, I OK, I love

1179
01:08:19,520 --> 01:08:23,000
Schubert right now, you know,
and I, you know, I mean it.

1180
01:08:23,000 --> 01:08:25,600
There's a lot of aesthetic, you
know, there's an aesthetic

1181
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:27,160
dementia to it.
It's very personal.

1182
01:08:27,399 --> 01:08:31,200
And that what I would say is, is
meaning is built into life.

1183
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:35,920
I think it's built into it.
I think, I think we, we make it,

1184
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:39,680
but we also receive it.
And again, this is where the,

1185
01:08:39,760 --> 01:08:44,880
the, the yen, the receptivity
is, is so shunned in, in Western

1186
01:08:44,880 --> 01:08:48,600
thinking, meaning only comes
from receptivity.

1187
01:08:49,399 --> 01:08:51,920
So, so this is where we've lost,
I think we've lost meaning.

1188
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:55,560
Is it, you know, it, it, you
know, I think Eastern the Asian

1189
01:08:55,560 --> 01:08:58,120
people are, you know, what's
wrong with you Westerners that

1190
01:08:58,120 --> 01:09:01,160
you can't, you know, account for
a meaning, you know, it, it, you

1191
01:09:01,160 --> 01:09:05,160
know, we because, because the
Asian traditions value

1192
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:10,640
receptiveness and, and when you
are open to possibilities, the

1193
01:09:10,640 --> 01:09:13,319
meaning is there, that the
meaning will find you.

1194
01:09:14,439 --> 01:09:16,960
So, so I think it's there.
I think it's there and I but I

1195
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:20,160
think it's also very individual.
It will find you, you know, if

1196
01:09:20,160 --> 01:09:25,479
you, if you, if you, if you ask
for a meeting, it will find you.

1197
01:09:26,399 --> 01:09:28,040
So that's what I I would claim
that.

1198
01:09:29,279 --> 01:09:30,439
Well, I can't think of a better
way.

1199
01:09:30,439 --> 01:09:33,520
To Andrew, thank you so much.
This was such a pleasure.

1200
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:35,080
Your work is amazing.
It's incredible.

1201
01:09:35,080 --> 01:09:36,439
I'll put links to everything
below.

1202
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:38,240
Thank you so much for joining
me.

1203
01:09:39,240 --> 01:09:41,080
Well, thank you, Tevin.
It's been a pleasure.

1204
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:44,479
It's such a great chat and I
look forward to seeing more of

1205
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:47,160
your work in the future.
Trying to understand dark energy

1206
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:50,040
with dark matter and what else
you guys can figure out.

1207
01:09:50,040 --> 01:09:51,600
And you're welcome back on the
show anytime.

1208
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:54,360
Well, thank you.
I'm really glad we could make

1209
01:09:54,360 --> 01:09:56,800
this happen.
I admire the work you're doing

1210
01:09:56,800 --> 01:09:59,440
in in a medical field and thanks
so much.

1211
01:09:59,520 --> 01:10:01,680
Thank you so much.
It was a pleasure of great

1212
01:10:01,680 --> 01:10:02,440
questions.