Speaker 1: Welcome to the Gods I View podcast. I'm your host, Trevor.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on with my intro music
Speaker 1: website I use. Probably they made it so you can't
Speaker 1: screen record their sample sounds that you're supposed to pay for.
Speaker 1: I don't know, or something's wrong with my computer. So anyway,
Speaker 1: sad day, sad day in the podcast world the potosphere.
Speaker 1: John C. Devorak passed away. I think yesterday, perhaps I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure. If you don't know who that is JCD.
Speaker 1: I started listening to him about in twenty twelve, so
Speaker 1: that would have been what fourteen years ago. I remember
Speaker 1: it was my first job out of grad school. I
Speaker 1: was a physical therapist, and I already kind of knew
Speaker 1: I was unhappy, you know. So I found a job
Speaker 1: where I only had to treat patients like two days
Speaker 1: a week, and then I would work in the office
Speaker 1: like auditing charts, charts and stuff three days a week.
Speaker 1: It was fine. I mean, I didn't like it, but
Speaker 1: but it was it was home health, you know, and
Speaker 1: so like Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'd be in the car
Speaker 1: all day. And I had already I already loved podcasts. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I am gonna tell a little bit of a tale,
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry. You know, if this is your first
Speaker 1: time listening to the show, probably not a good episode
Speaker 1: to start with. It's gonna be a lot of personal anecdotes.
Speaker 1: We will We're gonna play a clip later that I
Speaker 1: think should be interesting. But but you know, if this
Speaker 1: is your first time, jump to another episode. Check out
Speaker 1: the last episode. I thought that was great about the
Speaker 1: double slit experiment. Anyway, So I I had developed a
Speaker 1: real love for audio podcasts because you're in the car,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be watching YouTube, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think I was. This was at the time I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, I was like really obsessed with trying not
Speaker 1: to work, so I was into entrepreneurial stuff. I was
Speaker 1: listening to a podcast called Bigger Pockets, which was like
Speaker 1: about real estate. All the Motley Fool podcasts. There was
Speaker 1: a there was a podcast with the host was named
Speaker 1: Frank Curzio and it was on the Stansbury Research whatever,
Speaker 1: and he was fine, but he interviewed this guy named
Speaker 1: Andrew Horowitz. He had a podcast named The Discipline Investor.
Speaker 1: All these podcasts, man, it's so funny. Even back then,
Speaker 1: there's a million of them, and he Andrew Horowitz, discipline investor.
Speaker 1: I listened to him for like a year, and he
Speaker 1: kept mentioning the show he had called dh Unblugged dh Unblogged,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, let me check this out.
Speaker 1: And it was him Andrew Horowitz with a co host
Speaker 1: named John C. Devoak and Andrew Horowitz. His show was fine,
Speaker 1: you know, he had like a lot of good information,
Speaker 1: but dh Umblugged was funny, you know. And humor is like,
Speaker 1: that's everything to me. If you're funny, like I will
Speaker 1: forgive a lot of sins, you know, like you can
Speaker 1: have a lot of problems if you're funny. It's like, ah,
Speaker 1: it's fine, you know, oh yeah, you stole my credit card,
Speaker 1: but come on, you're hilarious anyway, nothing worse since stealing
Speaker 1: my credit card at not being funny, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Anyway, So I really liked I liked him.
Speaker 1: He's kind of cranky. He's like a crotchety old man,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, he kept plugging this show. It's
Speaker 1: just the cycle of podcast recommendations is so funny. But
Speaker 1: he kept plugging his show called No Agenda, And so finally,
Speaker 1: like I'm going through all my podcast one day and nothing,
Speaker 1: there's nothing I want to listen to Man Springspack Memories,
Speaker 1: just sitting in the car, like I know all the
Speaker 1: shows I liked, you know, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll check it out. And it was like nothing I
Speaker 1: had ever listened to before. It was just so so
Speaker 1: unbelievably different. Like these two guys are funny, have a
Speaker 1: lot of chemistry. They're like breaking down news stories, very
Speaker 1: like alternative, you know, like their takes were always very unique,
Speaker 1: very different, and they had clips, they had audio clips
Speaker 1: that they played all the time, and they were funny
Speaker 1: and lots of inside jokes. It took me like a
Speaker 1: year of listening to really like grasp what was going on.
Speaker 1: And then I find out the co host, Adam Curry,
Speaker 1: he's the inventor of podcasting. He basically gave podcasting to
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs for free. And I think probably from two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve to twenty twenty three, I didn't miss
Speaker 1: a single episode. And it was two episodes a week
Speaker 1: and they're over three hours long. Usually now at the
Speaker 1: time every week, like Monday or Tuesday, I'd leave for
Speaker 1: a work trip and maybe I'd drive to San Diego,
Speaker 1: which was a couple hours, or this town called El Centro,
Speaker 1: which was like four hours. It's on the Arizona California
Speaker 1: Mexico border, or San Francisco, Napa Valley area, like Snoma County,
Speaker 1: reading southern Oregon, Medford, and I would drive. At first,
Speaker 1: I flew, but then I realized my work, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: really notice if I just rented a car because the
Speaker 1: company we used during cars you had unlimited miles, so
Speaker 1: like they just never really noticed. Again'm trying to tell
Speaker 1: if my son just woke up or if that's my dog. Sorry,
Speaker 1: they would never really notice if I put like fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred miles on the car in a week, you know.
Speaker 2: And uh.
Speaker 1: Anyway, so I was just always in the car always,
Speaker 1: So it was such a blessing to have like six
Speaker 1: hours of podcasts at my fingertips. I listened to a
Speaker 1: lot of books that way too. Anyway, So he was
Speaker 1: just a really funny guy. He wrote, he did a
Speaker 1: blurb on the front of my book. My book is
Speaker 1: God's I View. If you're interested, you can see it
Speaker 1: on there. I asked Adam Curry, the inventor of podcasting,
Speaker 1: John's co host to do the book cover blurb, and
Speaker 1: I think he just kind of ignored. I don't remember
Speaker 1: if he ignored the email or what happened. So then
Speaker 1: I sent him the physical book and he's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he asked me to do the blurb, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: And John was like, why wouldn't you do the blurb?
Speaker 1: And Adam was like, well, I haven't read the book.
Speaker 1: And he was like, so what, which I thought was
Speaker 1: funny because personally, I think it's a good book and
Speaker 1: I thought Adam probably would have enjoyed it, you know.
Speaker 1: But Adam's like, so what, So what if you haven't
Speaker 1: read the book, Like, what does it cost you to
Speaker 1: just say, you know, read this book, Adam Curry? And
Speaker 1: so I was like, you know what, screw Adam. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. But I sent an email to John.
Speaker 1: I said, hey, what do you think about this blurb?
Speaker 1: Read this book all caps, exclamation mark, John C. Devorik
Speaker 1: the No Agenda Show. He said, perfect, do it, and
Speaker 1: we had a couple of email conversations. I just I
Speaker 1: just thought he was a cool guy. So anyway, he
Speaker 1: was doing pretty good on Sunday. I think he had
Speaker 1: a show and he seemed fine. But now I haven't
Speaker 1: really been listening as much lately, just been super busy,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, politics have taken on like a
Speaker 1: weird edge. I don't really enjoy it anymore. It used
Speaker 1: to be more fun, you know? Is that just me?
Speaker 1: It seems like politics used to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more fun. Now it's kind of I don't know anyway,
Speaker 1: So rip JCD. There's something else I was going to
Speaker 1: bring up, but I can't remember. I guess what was
Speaker 1: gett into the clip. This will be a short episode.
Speaker 1: My wife is starting a new jobs, so she's out
Speaker 1: of town. I'm beat, so I've got you know, I'm
Speaker 1: watching my kids, but I mean I'm always watching my kids.
Speaker 1: I'm not like a DeBie dad. I'm always helping. But
Speaker 1: it's more than usual, you know, because my wife's not here.
Speaker 1: It's not like there's more. It's not the taking care
Speaker 1: of them on my own that's difficult. Like I got
Speaker 1: the meals thing down, that's all fine. It's not like
Speaker 1: that I'm doing all the chores because I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: just letting stuff accumulate. It's a disaster. It's it's like
Speaker 1: a hazard. In my house. It's just like having another
Speaker 1: adult around to like triangulate, you know, like good cop,
Speaker 1: bad cop. You kind of take turns being the bad cop.
Speaker 1: You kind of take turns losing your shit. You know.
Speaker 1: Sorry for the language, Like when it's just you, you don't
Speaker 1: have that. I total like amazing, huge respect for single parents.
Speaker 1: It's it's no joke. It's not for the week. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I've got really good kids. But still, you know something
Speaker 1: that just don't always listen. It's like, hey, get your
Speaker 1: shoes on. No, it's like like, just please God, just
Speaker 1: please do what I say. Uh, I'm when the ver
Speaker 1: you're breaking down anyway, let's uh, enough of my issues,
Speaker 1: let's get let's get into the clips. So this is
Speaker 1: again our friend Sabine. Now, this is a paper that
Speaker 1: I'm sort of kind of familiar with, but to be frank,
Speaker 1: I don't know the ins and outs, like I know
Speaker 1: some of the highlights, and I have not listened to
Speaker 1: this clip. And I usually try to listen to the clip.
Speaker 1: And here's why. Because you'll hear something, you'll criticize it,
Speaker 1: and then the next word out of the person's mouth
Speaker 1: is addressing why your criticism is stupid. So then in
Speaker 1: real time you're made to look like an idiot. But uh,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm tired, so I haven't had to
Speaker 1: I haven't watched this, but the title leads me to
Speaker 1: believe that we will enjoy it. And the title is
Speaker 1: physicists prove that the universe is not a simulation. Dun't,
Speaker 1: dun't dun Here's the thing, this is important. Let me
Speaker 1: give you all some advice that I rarely take. It's
Speaker 1: important to not decide what you think about something if
Speaker 1: you're not. Here's what we do. We kind of search,
Speaker 1: almost like an AI algorithm. I think. I think our
Speaker 1: language center does sort of work like an AI algorithm.
Speaker 1: It must. People sort of confuse my take on consciousness.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, the brain is a computer of sorts.
Speaker 1: You know, there is computation going on in your mind,
Speaker 1: in your brain at least, but that doesn't mean subjective
Speaker 1: experience is explained by computation, right, I can even like
Speaker 1: some emotions. Certainly memory perhapsble aspects of memory at least,
Speaker 1: not like experiential memory, like the memories of how you
Speaker 1: know something felt or looked, but you know, like declarative
Speaker 1: memory or procedural memory. I would think would be computational language.
Speaker 1: All these I mean, basically, the underlying hardware is computational, right,
Speaker 1: but then there's something on top of that, more deeper
Speaker 1: than that, that is like a passenger in your mind
Speaker 1: experiencing all of these things. And we've talked about this
Speaker 1: at length. You don't need to get into it, but
Speaker 1: I do just sort of think it's a category err
Speaker 1: to assume that the computational engine that helps you do math,
Speaker 1: let's say, or navigator room is the same thing as
Speaker 1: the experience of doing math or navigating a room. Right.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's to me very different, and so that's
Speaker 1: why I've always kind of appealed to these ideas like
Speaker 1: orchestrated objective or or even stuff that's way more out there,
Speaker 1: like transmission theory or transduction theory. So so that's kind
Speaker 1: of my natural bent. That's what I'm attracted to. So
Speaker 1: when I read a title like Sabine's, which is physicists
Speaker 1: prove that she actually spelled it all wrong, Physicists prove
Speaker 1: that universe is not a simulation, now my instinct is
Speaker 1: to say, I disagree with that. That doesn't sound right.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to fathom that that's true. But
Speaker 1: you gotta take a beat. I mean, do we do
Speaker 1: I think that the universe is a simulation? Well, I've
Speaker 1: said things like that before, but but you gotta think
Speaker 1: a little bit more deeply. What do I mean? Do
Speaker 1: I mean there is something like a computer somewhere generating
Speaker 1: a a virtual world. Now, and we'll clarify as I've
Speaker 1: also said, it's like a virtual world too, a virtual
Speaker 1: world that we exist in, and that things are algorithmically
Speaker 1: computed and presented to me. No, that's no, it's not okay, listen,
Speaker 1: this is tough stuff. These are deep waters. But no,
Speaker 1: of course that's not what I what I think. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's more like this universe has the virtue of a
Speaker 1: created world. You know. I think the double slits experiment
Speaker 1: supports that idea. I think just basic like logic supports
Speaker 1: that idea, Like the calomn cosmological argument. I think entanglement
Speaker 1: supports that idea. We talked about that last episode. I
Speaker 1: think really all of physics kind of supports this idea.
Speaker 1: The existence of a rule set a beginning. Things that
Speaker 1: have a beginning have a cause. What is the first cause?
Speaker 1: You know, some sort of creator that made this virtual world.
Speaker 1: And again I'm not using the word virtue like technological.
Speaker 1: I mean it has the virtue of being truly real
Speaker 1: at its base level, but in fact it's not, and
Speaker 1: we know it's not because we can zoom all the
Speaker 1: way in and there's just nothing that past the ground level.
Speaker 1: There's just nothing more like there is no smallest building block.
Speaker 1: This is essentially information at the bottom. And we have
Speaker 1: a smallest unit of space, which is basically a pixel,
Speaker 1: and we have a smallest unit of time. And when
Speaker 1: you multiply those two things together, is it multiply No,
Speaker 1: that's not right when you multiply or when you divide anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But from those two values you can
Speaker 1: calculate the speed of light, which is exactly how a
Speaker 1: virtual world would work if it were generated by a computer. Granted,
Speaker 1: but I'm not taking the metaphor that far, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that would be like a fallacy to equate
Speaker 1: whatever creation is with whatever our current most useful metaphor is.
Speaker 1: And I would say, like a computer simulation probably is
Speaker 1: our current best metaphor, but that's just because it's our
Speaker 1: current best technology. Like in the Enlightenment, people compare the
Speaker 1: universe two a clock because it rotates and there's like
Speaker 1: constellations which are sort of like the you know, the
Speaker 1: numbers on the dial, and so they kind of conceived
Speaker 1: of it as being wound up, you know, which you
Speaker 1: kind of could you can imagine it being like wow,
Speaker 1: all the way back to the Big Bang, like spiraling
Speaker 1: back together, right, You could kind of conceive of it
Speaker 1: as that way. Like our meta as an analogies get
Speaker 1: better as time goes on. But I don't think we're
Speaker 1: anywhere close to really understanding what this is. But the
Speaker 1: fact that things like particles don't really seem to have
Speaker 1: definite states. They when you observe them, you pull them
Speaker 1: from a probabilistic distribution of potentialities. To me, that does
Speaker 1: sound like a simulation, granted a much more complicated simulation
Speaker 1: that we're than we're currently able to produce. And so
Speaker 1: I have a feeling I haven't watched the video, so
Speaker 1: this whole preample could be totally stupid, but I have
Speaker 1: a feeling what they're going to disprove is that this
Speaker 1: is not a computer simulation, and I would agree with that.
Speaker 2: So let's see, well, best current knowledge all matter in
Speaker 2: the universe is made of the particles in the standard model,
Speaker 2: plus potentially some more for dark matter. They are held
Speaker 2: together by full fundamental interactions, the electromagnetic, the strong and
Speaker 2: weak nuclear force, gravity, and the strange attraction among people
Speaker 2: who can't count to four. But maybe this isn't all
Speaker 2: there is. Maybe we need a theory of quantum gravity,
Speaker 2: or a unified theory, or more things named dark to
Speaker 2: make the maths work out. But either way, we expect
Speaker 2: the theory of everything in the universe to ultimately be
Speaker 2: a bunch of equations and equations you can put on
Speaker 2: a computer and use an algorithm to calculate what the
Speaker 2: equations do. This naturally brings up the question of whether
Speaker 2: the entire universe with us in it, may be a
Speaker 2: computation run by some advanced species and we're just part
Speaker 2: of the algorithm.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm already feeling good about my prediction because yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely not what I think, and I actually think
Speaker 1: it's kind of asinine to think this, and I think
Speaker 1: I've made this case before, Like, okay, so you're looking around,
Speaker 1: you see your rules, You see this strange behavior of
Speaker 1: particles at the you know, sub atomic level, and maybe bigger,
Speaker 1: maybe even at the macroscopic level. Entanglement doesn't really make
Speaker 1: sense unless it's like, you know, the best of the
Speaker 1: best metaphor, the best way I could imagine producing entanglement
Speaker 1: would be with a computer with code. That's the only
Speaker 1: way I can imagine information, you know, two systems that
Speaker 1: are separated by some huge distance being able to interact immediately.
Speaker 1: You know. It's that they are not two systems or
Speaker 1: one system described by one you know, piece of computer
Speaker 1: code that applies to both things regardless of where they
Speaker 1: are in those in the virtual world. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: certainly see, you know, yeah, it's making sense. I'm with you, computer, computer, computer,
Speaker 1: But then to take the step and say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it could be then it advanced a and civilization is
Speaker 1: simulating our reality, and it's like a bag your pardon,
Speaker 1: you know, like now listen, sure we can, we can
Speaker 1: leave it on the table. Fine, But to me, that's
Speaker 1: not like the most intuitive first guess, like when you
Speaker 1: observe this kind of seems like a simulated world, which
Speaker 1: again just means created, Like this just seems like a
Speaker 1: created world. Well, we've already kind of got stories for that.
Speaker 1: They're pretty old. They've been around for a while, you know,
Speaker 1: and that is sort of that sort of fits the
Speaker 1: way we interact with the world, Like things with the
Speaker 1: beginning have a cause, and that's you know, if they
Speaker 1: if they appear to be designed for a purpose, they
Speaker 1: usually have a designer. And then of course, like all
Speaker 1: the other examples I've made already, there's all these other
Speaker 1: parallels between this and like a virtual world. Why would
Speaker 1: the simulators, like why would we assume that they're in
Speaker 1: here with us, you know, and why would they assume
Speaker 1: they're like alien? And people say, well, there's parts of
Speaker 1: the universe that are a billion years older. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: but but that, but that means they're in the simulation
Speaker 1: with that like that, they've been in the simulation with
Speaker 1: us longer. So how how do they make the civil
Speaker 1: you get what I'm saying, Like that the billion years
Speaker 1: older thing is irrelevant because if they're in here with us,
Speaker 1: then they didn't make it. It's totally bad. I don't
Speaker 1: even get it, Like I am I missing something? To me,
Speaker 1: this seems like too ridiculous to be real. And so
Speaker 1: I'm relieved that this is a direction she's going because
Speaker 1: I thought they were going to be like, we know
Speaker 1: for sure that that you know, I don't know, there's
Speaker 1: no of course, I'm kind of joking because there's no
Speaker 1: way that could really disprove this, because I think it's
Speaker 1: true and I think are The evidence sort of points
Speaker 1: to that and will continue to point to that, but
Speaker 1: let's listen.
Speaker 2: The idea is called the simulation hypothesis. The philosopher Nick
Speaker 2: boster Me in particular, has argued that since one real
Speaker 2: conscious being can simulate potentially trillions of artificial consciousnesses, we
Speaker 2: are much more likely to be simulated than not. The
Speaker 2: big problem with the simulation hypothesis is the question of, well,
Speaker 2: how could you possibly ever falsify it? And if not,
Speaker 2: isn't it just empty pseudo scientific blather. This is where
Speaker 2: the new paper comes in. The authors say that we
Speaker 2: can't live in a computer simulation because of Goodle's theorem.
Speaker 2: Their argument goes like this, we already know that anything.
Speaker 1: I hate Goddle's theorem. Roger Penrose talks about it all
Speaker 1: the time in my mind's like, okay, I guess, so
Speaker 1: hopefully we can.
Speaker 2: Heng theory, which can describe everything in our universe is
Speaker 2: sufficiently complex to fulfill the assumptions of Girdle's theorem. This
Speaker 2: then means that there are two statements in the theory
Speaker 2: for our universe that we can't prove to be true
Speaker 2: within the theory itself. This is what Goirdle's theorem says,
Speaker 2: that there are two statements that can't be proved too
Speaker 2: within a given theory. So far, that's just maths. The
Speaker 2: authors then argue that such true but unprovable statements can
Speaker 2: be settled by observations. An example they name are the
Speaker 2: detailed properties of what goes on inside of black holes.
Speaker 2: We know that whatever goes on there has very high,
Speaker 2: possibly unbounded complexity, and maybe even quantum gravity can't tell
Speaker 2: us just what happens, but we could, in principle go
Speaker 2: and measure it, hopefully not by jumping into a black hole,
Speaker 2: but by measuring what comes out when it evaporates. And
Speaker 2: there are other examples which physicists have explored where an
Speaker 2: observable quantity is uncomputable, such as the properties of certain
Speaker 2: materials when temperature changes. They are uncomputable not just because
Speaker 2: we don't know how to compute them, but because one
Speaker 2: can prove that any computation would take an infinite amount
Speaker 2: of time. I talked about this in an earlier video.
Speaker 1: This is something like this with you know quantum systems,
Speaker 1: that you can achieve true randomness with the quantum system
Speaker 1: it is just truly indeterministic. There is no math formula
Speaker 1: to determine the way a nucleus will decay, for example.
Speaker 1: I think that would be a good example. You know,
Speaker 1: the direct the particle would be ejected, or the rate,
Speaker 1: and I think the rate is predictable, but maybe not
Speaker 1: the direction. I don't know. But the point is you
Speaker 1: do have something like true randomness in quantum systems, so
Speaker 1: you could not compute them. That is true. I think
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I don't personally think it's related to just
Speaker 1: a general idea that I kind of like to put
Speaker 1: out there on the show. But let's keep listening. Now.
Speaker 2: The authors of the new paper say, so, Goodle's theorem
Speaker 2: tells us that there are some truths about physical properties
Speaker 2: which we can't prove to be true, but we could
Speaker 2: go and measure them. Therefore, humans can do something which
Speaker 2: the mouths alone can't predict. Consequently, we ourselves can't be
Speaker 2: computed by an algorithm, and the universe can't be a
Speaker 2: computer simulation.
Speaker 1: It's just funny because I would never suggest that, you know,
Speaker 1: actually I think, I actually think I'm to be one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of of be inside here. I'm looking for
Speaker 1: like a position to take against her, and I keep
Speaker 1: trying to put up arguments, and I'm realizing, no, it's
Speaker 1: because she's not arguing against me like she's She's arguing
Speaker 1: against something else which I agree with, which is that
Speaker 1: you know reality thing you know, certainly not certainly not
Speaker 1: the fundamental aspects of reality, like at the sub atomic level,
Speaker 1: or certainly not like at the conscious level. They can't
Speaker 1: be computed because they're not algorithmic. That that's like, that's
Speaker 1: actually kind of like a core, a core tenant of
Speaker 1: sort of like what I believe about the universe. So
Speaker 1: so far, so far, so good. Let's see.
Speaker 2: This is very similar to the argument that Penrouse has
Speaker 2: for why human thought can't be a computation not process.
Speaker 1: His argument it's like I'm psychic, dude, I swear I
Speaker 1: didn't watch this.
Speaker 2: It is that, since we can understand Girdle's theorem, human
Speaker 2: cognition must be something else than computation, they say, is
Speaker 2: why Penros thinks there is something special about the collapse
Speaker 2: of the wave function which creates consciousness, because that uncomputable
Speaker 2: element must come from somewhere.
Speaker 1: Now, talking with Mike Weist, who's a big time that people,
Speaker 1: more people need to listen to that episode because he's
Speaker 1: he's the real deal. So I feel like he deserves
Speaker 1: more than one hundred downloads or whatever it is now.
Speaker 1: But if you listen to that episode, you know he's
Speaker 1: obviously very familiar with Penrose and Hamerroff's theory orchestrated objective reduction.
Speaker 1: He's done work with them. He the way he described
Speaker 1: it to me, and he was trying to speak on
Speaker 1: behalf of PENROS, but of course, you know, we'd can't
Speaker 1: know for sure what Penros thinks. But he was saying,
Speaker 1: it's not so much that the conscious subjective experience comes
Speaker 1: from the collapse of the wave function, is that the
Speaker 1: wave function is constantly collapsing. It's an objective property of
Speaker 1: a wave function due to the interactions between the particles
Speaker 1: and stuff. So this is a whole new perspective for
Speaker 1: me that I do like, I have to admit, it's
Speaker 1: pretty makes a lot of sense. And so these these
Speaker 1: systems that have quantum properties. I think it's like it's
Speaker 1: called the aromatic rings on the microtubules. They're charged and
Speaker 1: the tubulin unit sort of can like oscillate. It's cool.
Speaker 1: It looks like this giant network dabacus when you look
Speaker 1: at diagrams of it. And because their position is constantly
Speaker 1: being rendered in in a specific state, that this waveform
Speaker 1: collapse is constantly happening all over the place. That's the
Speaker 1: objective part, and then the orchestrated part is that it
Speaker 1: is somehow it is interacting with the external world. And
Speaker 1: we know that's true because membrane potentials on neurons do
Speaker 1: affect microtubul resonance, and so this sort of provides this
Speaker 1: mechanism for which how stimuli can affect the waveform collapse
Speaker 1: of these structures, these tubuln structures. Why is that important? Well,
Speaker 1: it solves something called the binding problem, because we have
Speaker 1: this weird thing in the brain where it's like, not
Speaker 1: all neurons are conscious, not all networks are conscious, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be related to complexity, because there's
Speaker 1: very complex networks that we have no conscious awareness of.
Speaker 1: And so why is that? Why you know, we have
Speaker 1: a visual stream coming in goes to the back of
Speaker 1: her head. We have an auditory stream that goes to
Speaker 1: the temporal lobes, a smout of sensory stream that goes
Speaker 1: to the bridal lobes. We have cognition and self referential
Speaker 1: thinking in the frontal lobes. But we don't experience these
Speaker 1: things as separate things. Despite the facts that the neurons
Speaker 1: are not physically touching one another. We experience it as
Speaker 1: one subjective experience. And it is just really childish to
Speaker 1: say that, well, it's just an emergent property. I agree
Speaker 1: with him, that's magical thinking. Nothing wrong with magical thinking necessarily,
Speaker 1: but you need to admit it, like you need to say, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know I'm a neuroscientist, but I've decided, you know,
Speaker 1: it's basically witchcraft. You know, consciousness is basically magic. And
Speaker 1: I'd be like, bro hi five, like I'm with you,
Speaker 1: you know, I get it. It's pretty amazing. And then
Speaker 1: then we could try to have the conversation about emergence,
Speaker 1: but they go, no, no, no. The only rational conclusion
Speaker 1: you can possibly come to is that consciousness is just
Speaker 1: an epiphenomenon. It's a byproduct of complexity and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: then AI models are conscious and like, well, yes they are.
Speaker 1: And it's like oh okay, And so like networks that
Speaker 1: are slightly less complex, like my computer, it has some
Speaker 1: degree of consciousness and like, well, no, that'd be panpsychism.
Speaker 1: That's not what we're saying. There's some degree of complexity
Speaker 1: that consciousness emerges or arises. It's like, bro, you're casting spells.
Speaker 1: At this point, you're waving your hands in the air
Speaker 1: and you're like, you're you know, you're you're doing you're
Speaker 1: doing witchcraft. Like this is not empirical anymore. This is
Speaker 1: just something else anyway. Objective orchestrated objective reduction, what is it?
Speaker 1: Orchestrated objective reduction solves this problem because well, it might
Speaker 1: solve this problem because we're pretty sure that the tubulum
Speaker 1: subunits can be come entangled with one another. So subunits
Speaker 1: in one neuron tubulin and one neuron can be entangled
Speaker 1: with tubulin in another neuron, and so there's a sort
Speaker 1: of orchestrated production or collapse in the waveform. Now, how
Speaker 1: do we get subjective experience out of this? I don't personally,
Speaker 1: I don't think it solves that problem. I don't think
Speaker 1: it solves the hard problem, but I do think it
Speaker 1: solves the binding problem. And so I just feel like
Speaker 1: she didn't really describe that correctly. But hey, she's doing
Speaker 1: a six minute clip and I'm doing a two hour ramble,
Speaker 1: so it's not her fault.
Speaker 2: Well, so we two make of this. It sounds like
Speaker 2: a clever argument. Unfortunately, it assumes its major premise, we
Speaker 2: have never measured any quantity that is provably uncomputable. To
Speaker 2: assume that we can do this is logically equivalent to
Speaker 2: assuming that we don't live in a simulation. Do you
Speaker 2: see what I mean? Let me turn their argument around.
Speaker 1: Maybe I didn't get that, did you get it? Hopefully
Speaker 1: this makes sense now.
Speaker 2: The fact that we've never measured any quantity that we
Speaker 2: can't also compute is proved that we are part of
Speaker 2: an algorithm that does simulate the universe. We don't know
Speaker 2: any counter example. The cases which I mentioned that have
Speaker 2: been discussed in the literature always take some limit to infinity.
Speaker 2: For example, they might use infinitely many atoms, or a
Speaker 2: lettice with an infinitely small spacing, or similar. In these
Speaker 2: mathematical idealizations, Yes, there are quantities that provably can't be
Speaker 2: computed in finite time. But we don't know any real
Speaker 2: world example, not a single one. Isn't this where it's
Speaker 2: like we actually can't measure anything that an algorithm could
Speaker 2: not also compute, So maybe we are algorithms. I give
Speaker 2: this paper a nine out of ten on the book
Speaker 2: Shit Meet It because I think it's just logically wrong.
Speaker 2: It's not a ten because maybe their statement is too
Speaker 2: but unprovably.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, we're on the same run, the same boat here.
Speaker 2: Well, but if they're right, then we have finally found
Speaker 2: the perfect are you human capture? You just need to
Speaker 2: enter the value of an uncomputable number. Christmas is coming up,
Speaker 2: and I have the perfect gift for my mom. It's
Speaker 2: a starma accuracy by annoyments and under lucky.
Speaker 1: Let's say that's the whole thing as a four minute
Speaker 1: and oh okay, well this is kind of a lame episode. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: It's okay. Mainly, the main reason I wanted to come
Speaker 1: on here is just say rip JCD to introduce you guys.
Speaker 1: I mean, I assume obviously the show is huge, so
Speaker 1: I assume if you're here, you've probably heard of heard
Speaker 1: of them. John C. Devorak and Adam Curry. I'm very
Speaker 1: curious what's going to happen with the show. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I haven't been listening in a while, but I can't
Speaker 1: imagine in the show going on. But anyway, you know,
Speaker 1: these guys basically showed that you can do it. You
Speaker 1: can do the impossible, which is you can now. Granted,
Speaker 1: one of them actually invented podcasting, so it's not like
Speaker 1: it's not like they're nobody's but you can't just grab
Speaker 1: a microphone, have a zoom with your friend, don't record
Speaker 1: the video, just record the audio, post it for free,
Speaker 1: no ads, and people will just give you money. You know.
Speaker 1: They make thousands and thousands of dollars a show, it
Speaker 1: seems like. And so I think they were very inspirational
Speaker 1: for a lot of like independent podcast style people. Now
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone else actually really pulled it off
Speaker 1: like that, but they could be wrong anyway. So I
Speaker 1: don't think John was particularly religious, but it could be wrong.
Speaker 1: But I I hope he's in a better place, you know,
Speaker 1: if such a place exists. He seemed like a good guy,
Speaker 1: so I think he'll be there. Just to wrap up,
Speaker 1: I think we might go into maybe a couple of
Speaker 1: little slightly more theological direction. I had my first ever
Speaker 1: theological debate today with my friend who's a Seventh Day Adventist. Now,
Speaker 1: my dad was, as a kid a Seventh Day Adventist,
Speaker 1: so I'm not completely unfamiliar with, you know, the things
Speaker 1: that they think and stuff. I know they hate Catholics
Speaker 1: like a lot of Protestant denominations, but I've been really
Speaker 1: like the Catholic and Orthodox perspective. It really resonates with me,
Speaker 1: it really does. I mean, because I don't know, they're
Speaker 1: just they seem to take history seriously. They don't like
Speaker 1: hide or run from anything they don't like get to.
Speaker 1: And of course I'm over generalizing. I'm talking about like
Speaker 1: the official teachings, right, They don't like appeal to magic
Speaker 1: for everything. Like, they try to be pretty serious except
Speaker 1: for the parts where like our foundational tenets of their religion,
Speaker 1: you know, like the Resurrection, the Eucharist, like the aspects
Speaker 1: of the worldview that are truly supernatural. They honor and
Speaker 1: treat as truly supernatural. But they don't appeal to like
Speaker 1: magic at the drop of the hat, you know. Like
Speaker 1: I was talking to my friend about just the creation
Speaker 1: of the Bible, and he was like, well, it's basically
Speaker 1: all you know, God just did it. It's like magic, basically,
Speaker 1: like he he worked through the writers, which I believe,
Speaker 1: don't hold on. I will clarify in a second, but
Speaker 1: he worked through the authors and the book came together early,
Speaker 1: you know, super early, and then everything else flowed outward
Speaker 1: from that. But I don't know. The thing is like
Speaker 1: if you do try to take a serious look at
Speaker 1: history like it, it doesn't it doesn't really seem like
Speaker 1: that's true. And then so as like a Protestant, I
Speaker 1: feel like you constantly have to be on the defensive
Speaker 1: and like you use a lot of poor arguments and
Speaker 1: like you appeal to a lot of like it's true
Speaker 1: because I think it's true kind of stuff. And ultimately
Speaker 1: you are going to have some of that, Like no
Speaker 1: matter what you believe, you know, if you believe in
Speaker 1: a religion, like you are gonna at some point you're
Speaker 1: just gonna have to say, well, this is just what
Speaker 1: I believe to be true. But hopefully there's very few
Speaker 1: things like you want to you want that to be
Speaker 1: the very last you know, like something you just there's
Speaker 1: no possible way to know. Then you appeal to like, well, hey,
Speaker 1: for all these other reasons, I trust this tradition, this
Speaker 1: God made man named Jesus, and the historical accounts, like
Speaker 1: the biographical accounts of his followers and so like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a few places where I just have to say, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I just think it's true, but
Speaker 1: just say that for like every I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. So we got into it. We got me.
Speaker 1: We got to do like a two hour long Instagram
Speaker 1: typing conversation. It ended, it ended fine. But we talked
Speaker 1: about the Sabbath, like what day of the week it
Speaker 1: is Saturday or Sunday. You know, I think I hold
Speaker 1: my own I don't know. We could we could almost
Speaker 1: do an episode just about this conversation. You know, we
Speaker 1: talked to what else do we talk about? Mary? Of course?
Speaker 1: And I don't I'm not again, I'm not a Catholic,
Speaker 1: So I don't have like super strong convictions about this stuff.
Speaker 1: But I do have to say some of the arguments
Speaker 1: are pretty good. But the coolest argument is just the history.
Speaker 1: I love getting into the history. It's amazing, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I knew nothing and then so like now that I'm learning,
Speaker 1: I'll talk to someone who's like die Hard, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe who I kind of used to look at, like,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, Bible thumper, you know, and so I'll like
Speaker 1: want to I'm learning all this stuff, so like I'll
Speaker 1: want to talk to them and they're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: have no idea what you're talking about. You know who
Speaker 1: who's Constantine, you know, Jesus handed us a Bible in
Speaker 1: thirty three AD. You know, I'm like, oh, wow, Like
Speaker 1: I'm being a little dramatic. But anyway, so maybe I
Speaker 1: think I might want to get into that a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's tough, you know, because if I want to keep
Speaker 1: interviewing scientists and stuff, you know, I don't know. I don't,
Speaker 1: but at some point it's like, dude, who cares? You know,
Speaker 1: life short. If I think this stuff is true, then
Speaker 1: like who cares? But anyway, I think we'll wrap up there,
Speaker 1: and that's enough of my rambling. Hopefully I can get
Speaker 1: the introm music figured out next time. Please email me
Speaker 1: at God's iView book at gmail dot com. I'll be
Speaker 1: getting some great emails. Thank you, guys. I really I
Speaker 1: have to say, I really appreciate them, even just like
Speaker 1: the short little things like hey, here's what I think
Speaker 1: about this, Here's what I think about that. You know,
Speaker 1: I will generally say like where where are you? Like
Speaker 1: where in the world are you? And it's just it's
Speaker 1: always so cool. It's like I'm in South Carolina. It's like, Wow,
Speaker 1: you know, some guy driving home or gal. A lot
Speaker 1: of gals too, which I like because I've always kind
Speaker 1: of thought of podcasting as like a very male dominated thing.
Speaker 1: But a lot of gals, which I think is fantastic.
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you ladies. But I get the
Speaker 1: emails and it's like some guy or gal is just
Speaker 1: driving home from work and they go, what is this?
Speaker 1: What is this lunatic? What is this science and religion? Lunatic?
Speaker 1: Trevor think today and boom, I'm in your ears and
Speaker 1: uh and yeah, I guess I guess. We have Adam
Speaker 1: Curry to thank for that, to bring it all back
Speaker 1: to podcasting, and so rest in peace to his co
Speaker 1: host John C. De Burek. Everybody until next time, stay
Speaker 1: safe out there. God bless